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Yet Caroline refused tamely to succumb. She had native strength in her girl's heart, and she used it. Men and women never struggle so hard as when they struggle alone, without witness, counsellor, or confidant, unencouraged, unadvised, and unpitied. Miss Helstone was in this position. Her sufferings were her only spur, and being very real and sharp, they roused her spirit keenly. Bent on victory over a mortal pain, she did her best to quell it. Never had she been seen so busy, so studious, and, above all, so active. She took walks in all weathers, long walks in solitary directions. Day by day she came back in the evening, pale and wearied-looking, yet seemingly not fatigued; for still, as soon as she had thrown off her bonnet and shawl, she would, instead of resting, begin to pace her apartment. Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint. She said she did this to tire herself well, that she might sleep soundly at night. But if that was her aim it was unattained; for at night, when others slumbered, she was tossing on her pillow, or sitting at the foot of her couch in the darkness, forgetful, apparently, of the necessity of seeking repose. Often, unhappy girl! she was crying--crying in a sort of intolerable despair, which, when it rushed over her, smote down her strength, and reduced her to childlike helplessness. When thus prostrate, temptations besieged her. Weak suggestions whispered in her weary heart to write to Robert, and say that she was unhappy because she was forbidden to see him and Hortense, and that she feared he would withdraw his friendship (not love) from her, and forget her entirely, and begging him to remember her, and sometimes to write to her. One or two such letters she actually indited, but she never sent them: shame and good sense forbade. At last the life she led reached the point when it seemed she could bear it no longer, that she must seek and find a change somehow, or her heart and head would fail under the pressure which strained them. She longed to leave Briarfield, to go to some very distant place. She longed for something else--the deep, secret, anxious yearning to discover and know her mother strengthened daily; but with the desire was coupled a doubt, a dread--if she knew her, could she love her? There was cause for hesitation, for apprehension on this point. Never in her life had she heard that mother praised; whoever mentioned her mentioned her coolly. Her uncle seemed to regard his sister-in-law with a sort of tacit antipathy; an old servant, who had lived with Mrs. James Helstone for a short time after her marriage, whenever she referred to her former mistress, spoke with chilling reserve--sometimes she called her "queer," sometimes she said she did not understand her. These expressions were ice to the daughter's heart; they suggested the conclusion that it was perhaps better never to know her parent than to know her and not like her. But one project could she frame whose execution seemed likely to bring her a hope of relief: it was to take a situation, to be a governess; she could do nothing else. A little incident brought her to the point, when she found courage to break her design to her uncle. Her long and late walks lay always, as has been said, on lonely roads; but in whatever direction she had rambled--whether along the drear skirts of Stilbro' Moor or over the sunny stretch of Nunnely Common--her homeward path was still so contrived as to lead her near the Hollow. She rarely descended the den, but she visited its brink at twilight almost as regularly as the stars rose over the hillcrests. Her resting-place was at a certain stile under a certain old thorn. Thence she could look down on the cottage, the mill, the dewy garden-ground, the still, deep dam; thence was visible the well-known counting-house window, from whose panes at a fixed hour shot, suddenly bright, the ray of the well-known lamp. Her errand was to watch for this ray, her reward to catch it, sometimes sparkling bright in clear air, sometimes shimmering dim through mist, and anon flashing broken between slant lines of rain--for she came in all weathers. There were nights when it failed to appear. She knew then that Robert was from home, and went away doubly sad; whereas its kindling rendered her elate, as though she saw in it the promise of some indefinite hope. If, while she gazed, a shadow bent between the light and lattice, her heart leaped. That eclipse was Robert; she had seen him. She would return home comforted, carrying in her mind a clearer vision of his aspect, a distincter recollection of his voice, his smile, his bearing; and blent with these impressions was often a sweet persuasion that, if she could get near him, his heart might welcome her presence yet, that at this moment he might be willing to extend his hand and draw her to him, and shelter her at his side as he used to do. That night, though she might weep as usual, she would fancy her tears less scalding; the pillow they watered seemed a little softer; the temples pressed to that pillow ached less. The shortest path from the Hollow to the rectory wound near a certain mansion, the same under whose lone walls Malone passed on that night-journey mentioned in an early chapter of this work--the old and tenantless dwelling yclept Fieldhead. Tenantless by the proprietor it had been for ten years, but it was no ruin. Mr. Yorke had seen it kept in good repair, and an old gardener and his wife had lived in it, cultivated the grounds, and maintained the house in habitable condition. If Fieldhead had few other merits as a building, it might at least be termed picturesque. Its regular architecture, and the gray and mossy colouring communicated by time, gave it a just claim to this epithet. The old latticed windows, the stone porch, the walls, the roof, the chimney-stacks, were rich in crayon touches and sepia lights and shades. The trees behind were fine, bold, and spreading; the cedar on the lawn in front was grand; and the granite urns on the garden wall, the fretted arch of the gateway, were, for an artist, as the very desire of the eye. One mild May evening Caroline, passing near about moonrise, and feeling, though weary, unwilling yet to go home, where there was only the bed of thorns and the night of grief to anticipate, sat down on the mossy ground near the gate, and gazed through towards cedar and mansion. It was a still night--calm, dewy, cloudless; the gables, turned to the west, reflected the clear amber of the horizon they faced; the oaks behind were black; the cedar was blacker. Under its dense, raven boughs a glimpse of sky opened gravely blue. It was full of the moon, which looked solemnly and mildly down on Caroline from beneath that sombre canopy. She felt this night and prospect mournfully lovely. She wished she could be happy; she wished she could know inward peace; she wondered Providence had no pity on her, and would not help or console her. Recollections of happy trysts of lovers, commemorated in old ballads, returned on her mind; she thought such tryst in such scene would be blissful. Where now was Robert? she asked. Not at the Hollow; she had watched for his lamp long, and had not seen it. She questioned within herself whether she and Moore were ever destined to meet and speak again. Suddenly the door within the stone porch of the hall opened, and two men came out--one elderly and white-headed, the other young, dark-haired, and tall. They passed across the lawn, out through a portal in the garden wall. Caroline saw them cross the road, pass the stile, descend the fields; she saw them disappear. Robert Moore had passed before her with his friend Mr. Yorke. Neither had seen her. The apparition had been transient--scarce seen ere gone; but its electric passage left her veins kindled, her soul insurgent. It found her despairing, it left her desperate--two different states. "Oh, had he but been alone! had he but seen me!" was her cry. "He would have said something. He would have given me his hand. He _does_, he _must_, love me a little. He would have shown some token of affection. In his eye, on his lips, I should have read comfort; but the chance is lost. The wind, the cloud's shadow, does not pass more silently, more emptily than he. I have been mocked, and Heaven is cruel!" Thus, in the utter sickness of longing and disappointment, she went home. The next morning at breakfast, where she appeared white-cheeked and miserable-looking as one who had seen a ghost, she inquired of Mr. Helstone, "Have you any objection, uncle, to my inquiring for a situation in a family?" Her uncle, ignorant as the table supporting his coffee-cup of all his niece had undergone and was undergoing, scarcely believed his ears. "What whim now?" he asked. "Are you bewitched? What can you mean?" "I am not well, and need a change," she said. He examined her. He discovered she had _experienced_ a change, at any rate. Without his being aware of it, the rose had dwindled and faded to a mere snowdrop; bloom had vanished, flesh wasted; she sat before him drooping, colourless, and thin. But for the soft expression of her brown eyes, the delicate lines of her features, and the flowing abundance of her hair, she would no longer have possessed a claim to the epithet pretty. "What on earth is the matter with you?" he asked. "What is wrong? How are you ailing?" No answer; only the brown eyes filled, the faintly-tinted lips trembled. "Look out for a situation, indeed! For what situation are you fit? What have you been doing with yourself? You are not well." "I should be well if I went from home." "These women are incomprehensible. They have the strangest knack of startling you with unpleasant surprises. To-day you see them bouncing, buxom, red as cherries, and round as apples; to-morrow they exhibit themselves effete as dead weeds, blanched and broken down. And the reason of it all? That's the puzzle. She has her meals, her liberty, a good house to live in, and good clothes to wear, as usual. A while since that sufficed to keep her handsome and cheery, and there she sits now a poor, little, pale, puling chit enough. Provoking! Then comes the question, What is to be done? I suppose I must send for advice. Will you have a doctor, child?" "No, uncle, I don't want one. A doctor could do me no good. I merely want change of air and scene." "Well, if that be the caprice, it shall be gratified. You shall go to a watering-place. I don't mind the expense. Fanny shall accompany you." "But, uncle, some day I must do something for myself; I have no fortune. I had better begin now." "While I live, you shall not turn out as a governess, Caroline. I will not have it said that my niece is a governess." "But the later in life one makes a change of that sort, uncle, the more difficult and painful it is. I should wish to get accustomed to the yoke before any habits of ease and independence are formed." "I beg you will not harass me, Caroline. I mean to provide for you. I have always meant to provide for you. I will purchase an annuity. Bless me! I am but fifty-five; my health and constitution are excellent. There is plenty of time to save and take measures. Don't make yourself anxious respecting the future. Is that what frets you?" "No, uncle; but I long for a change." He laughed. "There speaks the woman!" cried he, "the very woman! A change! a change! Always fantastical and whimsical! Well, it's in her sex." "But it is not fantasy and whim, uncle." "What is it then?" "Necessity, I think. I feel weaker than formerly. I believe I should have more to do." "Admirable! She feels weak, and _therefore_ she should be set to hard labour--'clair comme le jour,' as Moore--confound Moore! You shall go to Cliff Bridge; and there are two guineas to buy a new frock. Come, Cary, never fear. We'll find balm in Gilead." "Uncle, I wish you were less generous and more----" "More what?" Sympathizing was the word on Caroline's lips, but it was not uttered. She checked herself in time. Her uncle would indeed have laughed if that namby-pamby word had escaped her. Finding her silent, he said, "The fact is, you don't know precisely what you want." "Only to be a governess." "Pooh! mere nonsense! I'll not hear of governessing. Don't mention it again. It is rather too feminine a fancy. I have finished breakfast. Ring the bell. Put all crotchets out of your head, and run away and amuse yourself." "What with? My doll?" asked Caroline to herself as she quitted the room. A week or two passed; her bodily and mental health neither grew worse nor better. She was now precisely in that state when, if her constitution had contained the seeds of consumption, decline, or slow fever, those diseases would have been rapidly developed, and would soon have carried her quietly from the world. People never die of love or grief alone, though some die of inherent maladies which the tortures of those passions prematurely force into destructive action. The sound by nature undergo these tortures, and are racked, shaken, shattered; their beauty and bloom perish, but life remains untouched. They are brought to a certain point of dilapidation; they are reduced to pallor, debility, and emaciation. People think, as they see them gliding languidly about, that they will soon withdraw to sick-beds, perish there, and cease from among the healthy and happy. This does not happen. They live on; and though they cannot regain youth and gaiety, they may regain strength and serenity. The blossom which the March wind nips, but fails to sweep away, may survive to hang a withered apple on the tree late into autumn: having braved the last frosts of spring, it may also brave the first of winter. Every one noticed the change in Miss Helstone's appearance, and most people said she was going to die. She never thought so herself. She felt in no dying case; she had neither pain nor sickness. Her appetite was diminished; she knew the reason. It was because she wept so much at night. Her strength was lessened; she could account for it. Sleep was coy and hard to be won; dreams were distressing and baleful. In the far future she still seemed to anticipate a time when this passage of misery should be got over, and when she should once more be calm, though perhaps never again happy. Meanwhile her uncle urged her to visit, to comply with the frequent invitations of their acquaintance. This she evaded doing. She could not be cheerful in company; she felt she was observed there with more curiosity than sympathy. Old ladies were always offering her their advice, recommending this or that nostrum; young ladies looked at her in a way she understood, and from which she shrank. Their eyes said they knew she had been "disappointed," as custom phrases it; by whom, they were not certain. Commonplace young ladies can be quite as hard as commonplace young gentlemen--quite as worldly and selfish. Those who suffer should always avoid them. Grief and calamity they despise; they seem to regard them as the judgments of God on the lowly. With them, to "love" is merely to contrive a scheme for achieving a good match; to be "disappointed" is to have their scheme seen through and frustrated. They think the feelings and projects of others on the subject of love similar to their own, and judge them accordingly. All this Caroline knew, partly by instinct, partly by observation. She regulated her conduct by her knowledge, keeping her pale face and wasted figure as much out of sight as she could. Living thus in complete seclusion, she ceased to receive intelligence of the little transactions of the neighbourhood. One morning her uncle came into the parlour, where she sat endeavouring to find some pleasure in painting a little group of wild flowers, gathered under a hedge at the top of the Hollow fields, and said to her in his abrupt manner, "Come, child, you are always stooping over palette, or book, or sampler; leave that tinting work. By-the-bye, do you put your pencil to your lips when you paint?" "Sometimes, uncle, when I forget." "Then it is that which is poisoning you. The paints are deleterious, child. There is white lead and red lead, and verdigris, and gamboge, and twenty other poisons in those colour cakes. Lock them up! lock them up! Get your bonnet on. I want you to make a call with me." "With _you_, uncle?" This question was asked in a tone of surprise. She was not accustomed to make calls with her uncle. She never rode or walked out with him on any occasion. "Quick! quick! I am always busy, you know. I have no time to lose." She hurriedly gathered up her materials, asking, meantime, where they were going. "To Fieldhead." "Fieldhead! What! to see old James Booth, the gardener? Is he ill?" "We are going to see Miss Shirley Keeldar." "Miss Keeldar! Is she coming to Yorkshire? Is she at Fieldhead?" "She is. She has been there a week. I met her at a party last night--that party to which you would not go. I was pleased with her. I choose that you shall make her acquaintance. It will do you good." "She is now come of age, I suppose?" "She is come of age, and will reside for a time on her property. I lectured her on the subject; I showed her her duty. She is not intractable. She is rather a fine girl; she will teach you what it is to have a sprightly spirit. Nothing lackadaisical about _her_." "I don't think she will want to see me, or to have me introduced to her. What good can I do her? How can I amuse her?" "Pshaw! Put your bonnet on." "Is she proud, uncle?" "Don't know. You hardly imagine she would show her pride to me, I suppose? A chit like that would scarcely presume to give herself airs with the rector of her parish, however rich she might be." "No. But how did she behave to other people?" "Didn't observe. She holds her head high, and probably can be saucy enough where she dare. She wouldn't be a woman otherwise. There! Away now for your bonnet at once!" Not naturally very confident, a failure of physical strength and a depression of spirits had not tended to increase Caroline's presence of mind and ease of manner, or to give her additional courage to face strangers, and she quailed, in spite of self-remonstrance, as she and her uncle walked up the broad, paved approach leading from the gateway of Fieldhead to its porch. She followed Mr. Helstone reluctantly through that porch into the sombre old vestibule beyond. Very sombre it was--long, vast, and dark; one latticed window lit it but dimly. The wide old chimney contained now no fire, for the present warm weather needed it not; it was filled instead with willow-boughs. The gallery on high, opposite the entrance, was seen but in outline, so shadowy became this hall towards its ceiling. Carved stags' heads, with real antlers, looked down grotesquely from the walls. This was neither a grand nor a comfortable house; within as without it was antique, rambling, and incommodious. A property of a thousand a year belonged to it, which property had descended, for lack of male heirs, on a female. There were mercantile families in the district boasting twice the income, but the Keeldars, by virtue of their antiquity, and their distinction of lords of the manor, took the precedence of all. Mr. and Miss Helstone were ushered into a parlour. Of course, as was to be expected in such a Gothic old barrack, this parlour was lined with oak: fine, dark, glossy panels compassed the walls gloomily and grandly. Very handsome, reader, these shining brown panels are, very mellow in colouring and tasteful in effect, but--if you know what a "spring clean" is--very execrable and inhuman. Whoever, having the bowels of humanity, has seen servants scrubbing at these polished wooden walls with beeswaxed cloths on a warm May day must allow that they are "intolerable and not to be endured;" and I cannot but secretly applaud the benevolent barbarian who had painted another and larger apartment of Fieldhead--the drawing-room, to wit, formerly also an oak-room--of a delicate pinky white, thereby earning for himself the character of a Hun, but mightily enhancing the cheerfulness of that portion of his abode, and saving future housemaids a world of toil. The brown-panelled parlour was furnished all in old style, and with real old furniture. On each side of the high mantelpiece stood two antique chairs of oak, solid as silvan thrones, and in one of these sat a lady. But if this were Miss Keeldar, she must have come of age at least some twenty years ago. She was of matronly form, and though she wore no cap, and possessed hair of quite an undimmed auburn, shading small and naturally young-looking features, she had no youthful aspect, nor apparently the wish to assume it. You could have wished her attire of a newer fashion. In a well-cut, well-made gown hers would have been no uncomely presence. It puzzled you to guess why a garment of handsome materials should be arranged in such scanty folds, and devised after such an obsolete mode. You felt disposed to set down the wearer as somewhat eccentric at once. This lady received the visitors with a mixture of ceremony and diffidence quite English. No middle-aged matron who was not an Englishwoman _could_ evince precisely the same manner--a manner so uncertain of herself, of her own merits, of her power to please, and yet so anxious to be proper, and, if possible, rather agreeable than otherwise. In the present instance, however, more embarrassment was shown than is usual even with diffident Englishwomen. Miss Helstone felt this, sympathized with the stranger, and knowing by experience what was good for the timid, took a seat quietly near her, and began to talk to her with a gentle ease, communicated for the moment by the presence of one less self-possessed than herself. She and this lady would, if alone, have at once got on extremely well together. The lady had the clearest voice imaginable--infinitely softer and more tuneful than could have been reasonably expected from forty years--and a form decidedly inclined to _embonpoint_. This voice Caroline liked; it atoned for the formal, if correct, accent and language. The lady would soon have discovered she liked it and her, and in ten minutes they would have been friends. But Mr. Helstone stood on the rug looking at them both, looking especially at the strange lady with his sarcastic, keen eye, that clearly expressed impatience of her chilly ceremony, and annoyance at her want of _aplomb_. His hard gaze and rasping voice discomfited the lady more and more. She tried, however, to get up little speeches about the weather, the aspect of the country, etc.; but the impracticable Mr. Helstone presently found himself somewhat deaf. Whatever she said he affected not to hear distinctly, and she was obliged to go over each elaborately-constructed nothing twice. The effort soon became too much for her. She was just rising in a perplexed flutter, nervously murmuring that she knew not what detained Miss Keeldar, that she would go and look for her, when Miss Keeldar saved her the trouble by appearing. It was to be presumed at least that she who now came in through a glass door from the garden owned that name. There is real grace in ease of manner, and so old Helstone felt when an erect, slight girl walked up to him, retaining with her left hand her little silk apron full of flowers, and, giving him her right hand, said pleasantly, "I knew you would come to see me, though you _do_ think Mr. Yorke has made me a Jacobin. Good-morning." "But we'll not have you a Jacobin," returned he. "No, Miss Shirley; they shall not steal the flower of my parish from me. Now that you are amongst us, you shall be my pupil in politics and religion; I'll teach you sound doctrine on both points." "Mrs. Pryor has anticipated you," she replied, turning to the elder lady. "Mrs. Pryor, you know, was my governess, and is still my friend; and of all the high and rigid Tories she is queen; of all the stanch churchwomen she is chief. I have been well drilled both in theology and history, I assure you, Mr. Helstone." The rector immediately bowed very low to Mrs. Pryor, and expressed himself obliged to her. The ex-governess disclaimed skill either in political or religious controversy, explained that she thought such matters little adapted for female minds, but avowed herself in general terms the advocate of order and loyalty, and, of course, truly attached to the Establishment. She added she was ever averse to change under any circumstances, and something scarcely audible about the extreme danger of being too ready to take up new ideas closed her sentence. "Miss Keeldar thinks as you think, I hope, madam." "Difference of age and difference of temperament occasion difference of sentiment," was the reply. "It can scarcely be expected that the eager and young should hold the opinions of the cool and middle-aged." "Oh! oh! we are independent; we think for ourselves!" cried Mr. Helstone. "We are a little Jacobin, for anything I know--a little freethinker, in good earnest. Let us have a confession of faith on the spot." And he took the heiress's two hands--causing her to let fall her whole cargo of flowers--and seated her by him on the sofa. "Say your creed," he ordered. "The Apostles' Creed?" "Yes." She said it like a child. "Now for St. Athanasius's. That's the test!" "Let me gather up my flowers. Here is Tartar coming; he will tread upon them." Tartar was a rather large, strong, and fierce-looking dog, very ugly, being of a breed between mastiff and bulldog, who at this moment entered through the glass door, and posting directly to the rug, snuffed the fresh flowers scattered there. He seemed to scorn them as food; but probably thinking their velvety petals might be convenient as litter, he was turning round preparatory to depositing his tawny bulk upon them, when Miss Helstone and Miss Keeldar simultaneously stooped to the rescue. "Thank you," said the heiress, as she again held out her little apron for Caroline to heap the blossoms into it. "Is this your daughter, Mr. Helstone?" she asked. "My niece Caroline." Miss Keeldar shook hands with her, and then looked at her. Caroline also looked at her hostess. Shirley Keeldar (she had no Christian name but Shirley: her parents, who had wished to have a son, finding that, after eight years of marriage, Providence had granted them only a daughter, bestowed on her the same masculine family cognomen they would have bestowed on a boy, if with a boy they had been blessed)--Shirley Keeldar was no ugly heiress. She was agreeable to the eye. Her height and shape were not unlike Miss Helstone's; perhaps in stature she might have the advantage by an inch or two. She was gracefully made, and her face, too, possessed a charm as well described by the word grace as any other. It was pale naturally, but intelligent, and of varied expression. She was not a blonde, like Caroline. Clear and dark were the characteristics of her aspect as to colour. Her face and brow were clear, her eyes of the darkest gray (no green lights in them--transparent, pure, neutral gray), and her hair of the darkest brown. Her features were distinguished--by which I do not mean that they were high, bony, and Roman, being indeed rather small and slightly marked than otherwise, but only that they were, to use a few French words, "fins, gracieux, spirituels"--mobile they were and speaking; but their changes were not to be understood nor their language interpreted all at once. She examined Caroline seriously, inclining her head a little to one side, with a thoughtful air. "You see she is only a feeble chick," observed Mr. Helstone. "She looks young--younger than I.--How old are you?" she inquired in a manner that would have been patronizing if it had not been extremely solemn and simple. "Eighteen years and six months." "And I am twenty-one." She said no more. She had now placed her flowers on the table, and was busied in arranging them. "And St. Athanasius's Creed?" urged the rector. "You believe it all, don't you?" "I can't remember it quite all. I will give you a nosegay, Mr. Helstone, when I have given your niece one." She had selected a little bouquet of one brilliant and two or three delicate flowers, relieved by a spray of dark verdure. She tied it with silk from her work-box, and placed it on Caroline's lap; and then she put her hands behind her, and stood bending slightly towards her guest, still regarding her, in the attitude and with something of the aspect of a grave but gallant little cavalier. This temporary expression of face was aided by the style in which she wore her hair, parted on one temple, and brushed in a glossy sweep above the forehead, whence it fell in curls that looked natural, so free were their wavy undulations. "Are you tired with your walk?" she inquired. "No--not in the least. It is but a short distance--but a mile." "You look pale.--Is she always so pale?" she asked, turning to the rector. "She used to be as rosy as the reddest of your flowers." "Why is she altered? What has made her pale? Has she been ill?" "She tells me she wants a change." "She ought to have one. You ought to give her one. You should send her to the sea-coast." "I will, ere summer is over. Meantime, I intend her to make acquaintance with you, if you have no objection." "I am sure Miss Keeldar will have no objection," here observed Mrs. Pryor. "I think I may take it upon me to say that Miss Helstone's frequent presence at Fieldhead will be esteemed a favour." "You speak my sentiments precisely, ma'am," said Shirley, "and I thank you for anticipating me.--Let me tell you," she continued, turning again to Caroline, "that you also ought to thank my governess. It is not every one she would welcome as she has welcomed you. You are distinguished more than you think. This morning, as soon as you are gone, I shall ask Mrs. Pryor's opinion of you. I am apt to rely on her judgment of character, for hitherto I have found it wondrous accurate. Already I foresee a favourable answer to my inquiries.--Do I not guess rightly, Mrs. Pryor?" "My dear, you said but now you would ask my opinion when Miss Helstone was gone. I am scarcely likely to give it in her presence." "No; and perhaps it will be long enough before I obtain it.--I am sometimes sadly tantalized, Mr. Helstone, by Mrs. Pryor's extreme caution. Her judgments ought to be correct when they come, for they are often as tardy of delivery as a Lord Chancellor's. On some people's characters I cannot get her to pronounce a sentence, entreat as I may." Mrs. Pryor here smiled. "Yes," said her pupil, "I know what that smile means. You are thinking of my gentleman-tenant.--Do you know Mr. Moore of the Hollow?" she asked Mr. Helstone. "Ay! ay! Your tenant--so he is. You have seen a good deal of him, no doubt, since you came?" "I have been obliged to see him. There was business to transact. Business! Really the word makes me conscious I am indeed no longer a girl, but quite a woman and something more. I am an esquire! Shirley Keeldar, Esquire, ought to be my style and title. They gave me a man's name; I hold a man's position. It is enough to inspire me with a touch of manhood; and when I see such people as that stately Anglo-Belgian--that Grard Moore--before me, gravely talking to me of business, really I feel quite gentlemanlike. You must choose me for your churchwarden, Mr. Helstone, the next time you elect new ones. They ought to make me a magistrate and a captain of yeomanry. Tony Lumpkin's mother was a colonel, and his aunt a justice of the peace. Why shouldn't I be?" "With all my heart. If you choose to get up a requisition on the subject, I promise to head the list of signatures with my name. But you were speaking of Moore?" "Ah! yes. I find it a little difficult to understand Mr. Moore, to know what to think of him, whether to like him or not. He seems a tenant of whom any proprietor might be proud--and proud of him I am, in that sense; but as a neighbour, what is he? Again and again I have entreated Mrs. Pryor to say what she thinks of him, but she still evades returning a direct answer. I hope you will be less oracular, Mr. Helstone, and pronounce at once. Do you like him?" "Not at all, just now. His name is entirely blotted from my good books." "What is the matter? What has he done?" "My uncle and he disagree on politics," interposed the low voice of Caroline. She had better not have spoken just then. Having scarcely joined in the conversation before, it was not apropos to do it now. She felt this with nervous acuteness as soon as she had spoken, and coloured to the eyes. "What are Moore's politics?" inquired Shirley. "Those of a tradesman," returned the rector--"narrow, selfish, and unpatriotic. The man is eternally writing and speaking against the continuance of the war. I have no patience with him." "The war hurts his trade. I remember he remarked that only yesterday. But what other objection have you to him?" "That is enough." "He looks the gentleman, in my sense of the term," pursued Shirley, "and it pleases me to think he is such." Caroline rent the Tyrian petals of the one brilliant flower in her bouquet, and answered in distinct tones, "Decidedly he is." Shirley, hearing this courageous affirmation, flashed an arch, searching glance at the speaker from her deep, expressive eyes. "_You_ are his friend, at any rate," she said. "You defend him in his absence." "I am both his friend and his relative," was the prompt reply. "Robert Moore is my cousin." "Oh, then, you can tell me all about him. Just give me a sketch of his character." Insuperable embarrassment seized Caroline when this demand was made. She could not, and did not, attempt to comply with it. Her silence was immediately covered by Mrs. Pryor, who proceeded to address sundry questions to Mr. Helstone regarding a family or two in the neighbourhood, with whose connections in the south she said she was acquainted. Shirley soon withdrew her gaze from Miss Helstone's face. She did not renew her interrogations, but returning to her flowers, proceeded to choose a nosegay for the rector. She presented it to him as he took leave, and received the homage of a salute on the hand in return. "Be sure you wear it for my sake," said she. "Next my heart, of course," responded Helstone.--"Mrs. Pryor, take care of this future magistrate, this churchwarden in perspective, this captain of yeomanry, this young squire of Briarfield, in a word. Don't let him exert himself too much; don't let him break his neck in hunting; especially, let him mind how he rides down that dangerous hill near the Hollow." "I like a descent," said Shirley; "I like to clear it rapidly; and especially I like that romantic Hollow with all my heart." "Romantic, with a mill in it?" "Romantic with a mill in it. The old mill and the white cottage are each admirable in its way." "And the counting-house, Mr. Keeldar?" "The counting-house is better than my bloom-coloured drawing-room. I adore the counting-house." "And the trade? The cloth, the greasy wool, the polluting dyeing-vats?" "The trade is to be thoroughly respected." "And the tradesman is a hero? Good!" "I am glad to hear you say so. I thought the tradesman looked heroic." Mischief, spirit, and glee sparkled all over her face as she thus bandied words with the old Cossack, who almost equally enjoyed the tilt. "Captain Keeldar, you have no mercantile blood in your veins. Why are you so fond of trade?" "Because I am a mill-owner, of course. Half my income comes from the works in that Hollow." "Don't enter into partnership--that's all." "You've put it into my head! you've put it into my head!" she exclaimed, with a joyous laugh. "It will never get out. Thank you." And waving her hand, white as a lily and fine as a fairy's, she vanished within the porch, while the rector and his niece passed out through the arched gateway.

Yet Caroline refused tamely to succumb. She had strength in her girl's heart; and men and women never struggle so hard as when they struggle alone, unadvised and unpitied. Caroline's sufferings were her only spur, and being very real and sharp, they roused her spirit keenly. Bent on victory over a mortal pain, she did her best to quell it. Never had she been so busy, so studious, and, above all, so active. She took long walks in all weathers. Day by day she came back in the evening, pale and weary-looking, yet seemingly not fatigued; for as soon as she had thrown off her bonnet and shawl, she would, instead of resting, begin to pace her apartment. Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint. She said she did this to tire herself well, so that she might sleep soundly at night. But if that was her aim it was unattained; for at night, when others slumbered, she was tossing on her pillow, or sitting at the foot of her bed in the darkness. Often, unhappy girl! she was crying in a sort of intolerable despair, which smote down her strength, and reduced her to childlike helplessness. When thus prostrate, temptations besieged her. Weak suggestions whispered in her weary heart to write to Robert, and say that she was unhappy because she was forbidden to see him and Hortense, and beg him to remember her. One or two such letters she actually wrote, but she never sent them: shame and good sense stopped her. At last she reached the point when it seemed she could bear her life no longer, that she must find a change somehow, or her heart and head would fail under the pressure. She longed to leave Briarfield, to go to some very distant place. She longed for something else too: the deep, secret, anxious yearning to find and know her mother strengthened daily; but with the desire came doubt - if she knew her mother, would she love her? She had never heard that mother praised. Her uncle seemed to regard her with antipathy; an old servant, who had lived with Mrs. James Helstone for a short time after her marriage, spoke of her with chilling reserve, and said she did not understand her. These expressions were ice to the daughter's heart. But one plan seemed likely to bring her hope of relief. It was to take a situation as a governess; she could do nothing else. Eventually she found courage to speak of it to her uncle. Her long walks lay on lonely roads; but in whatever direction she had rambled, her homeward path always led her near the Hollow. She regularly visited its brink at twilight, and rested at a certain stile. From there she could look down on the cottage, the mill, the dewy garden: from there was visible the counting-house window, from whose panes at a fixed hour shone the ray of the lamp. Her errand was to watch for this ray, her reward to catch it. There were nights when it failed to appear. She knew then that Robert was from home, and went away doubly sad; whereas its kindling elated her, like the promise of some indefinite hope. If, while she gazed, a shadow appeared before the light, her heart leaped. That was Robert; she had seen him. She would return home comforted, and persuaded that, if she could get near him, he might welcome her yet, he might extend his hand and draw her to him, as he used to do. That night, though she might weep, she would fancy her tears less scalding; her head ached less. The shortest path from the Hollow to the rectory passed a certain mansion: the old and tenantless dwelling called Fieldhead. Tenantless it had been for ten years, but it was no ruin. Mr. Yorke had kept it in good repair, and an old gardener and his wife had lived in it, cultivated the grounds, and maintained the house. Fieldhead was picturesque, grey and mossy: the old latticed windows, the stone porch, the walls, the chimney-stacks, were rich in sepia lights and shades. The trees behind were fine and spreading; the cedar on the front lawn was grand; and the granite urns over the arch of the gateway were pleasing to the eye. One mild May evening Caroline, passing near about moonrise, and unwilling yet to go home, sat down on the mossy ground near the gate of Fieldhead, and gazed through it towards the cedar and the mansion. It was a still, cloudless night; the gables, facing west, reflected the clear amber of the horizon; the cedar was black. Under its dense, raven boughs a glimpse of sky opened gravely blue. It was full of the moon, which looked solemnly down on Caroline. She felt the view was mournfully lovely. She wished she could be happy and have peace. Where now was Robert? she asked. Not at the Hollow; she had watched for his lamp, and had not seen it. Suddenly the door within the stone porch of the hall opened, and two men came out - one elderly and white-headed, the other young, dark-haired, and tall. They walked across the lawn and through a gate in the garden wall. Caroline saw them pass the stile, descend the fields and disappear. Robert Moore had passed before her with his friend Mr. Yorke. Neither had seen her. The apparition was fleeting; but at its electric passage her veins kindled, her soul surged. It left her desperate. "Oh, had he only been alone! had he only seen me!" was her cry. "He would have said something. He would have given me his hand. He does, he must, love me a little. Oh, Heaven is cruel!" Thus, in the utter sickness of longing and disappointment, she went home. The next morning at breakfast, where she appeared white-faced and miserable-looking, she asked Mr. Helstone: "Have you any objection, uncle, to my inquiring for a situation in a family?" Her uncle, ignorant of all his niece was undergoing, scarcely believed his ears. "What whim now? Are you bewitched? What can you mean?" "I am not well, and need a change," she said. He examined her. He saw that the rose had faded to a snowdrop; her bloom had vanished, her flesh wasted; she sat before him drooping, colourless, and thin. But for the soft expression of her brown eyes, the delicate lines of her features, and the flowing abundance of her hair, she would no longer have any claim to be called pretty. "What on earth is the matter with you?" he asked. "How are you ailing?" No answer; only the brown eyes filled, the pale lips trembled. "Look out for a situation, indeed! For what situation are you fit? What have you been doing with yourself? You are not well." "I should be well if I left home." "These women are incomprehensible. They are full of unpleasant surprises. Today you see them bouncing, red as cherries, and round as apples; tomorrow they look as feeble as dead weeds. And why? That's the puzzle. She has her meals, her liberty, a good house to live in, and good clothes to wear. Yet there she sits a poor, little, pale, puling chit. Provoking! I suppose I must send for advice. Will you have a doctor, child?" "No, uncle. A doctor could do me no good. I merely want change of air and scene." "Well, that you can have. You shall go to a watering-place. I don't mind the expense. Fanny shall accompany you." "But, uncle, some day I must do something for myself; I have no fortune. I had better begin now." "While I live, you shall not be a governess, Caroline. I will not have it said that my niece is a governess." "But the later in life one makes a change of that sort, uncle, the more difficult and painful it is. I should wish to get accustomed to the work." "I beg you will not harass me, Caroline. I mean to provide for you. Bless me! I am only fifty-five; my health is excellent. There is plenty of time to take measures. Don't make yourself anxious about the future. Is that what frets you?" "No, uncle; but I long for a change." He laughed. "There speaks the very woman!" cried he. "A change! Always fantastical and whimsical! Well, it's in her sex." "But it is not fantasy and whim, uncle. It is necessity, I think. I feel weaker than formerly. I believe I should have more to do." "Admirable! She feels weak, and therefore she should be set to hard labour. There are two guineas to buy a new frock. Come, Cary, never fear." "Uncle, I wish you were less generous and more-" "More what?" Sympathizing was the word on Caroline's lips, but she checked herself. Her uncle would have laughed at that namby-pamby word. Finding her silent, he said, "The fact is, you don't know precisely what you want." "Only to be a governess." "Pooh! mere nonsense! Don't mention it again. I have finished breakfast. Ring the bell, and then run away and amuse yourself." "What with? My doll?" asked Caroline to herself as she quitted the room. A week or two passed; her bodily and mental health neither grew worse nor better. She was now precisely in that state when, if her constitution had contained the seeds of consumption or slow fever, those diseases would have rapidly developed, and would soon have carried her quietly from the world. People never die of love or grief alone. If they have no other malady, they may become pale and thin, but they live on; and though they cannot regain youth and gaiety, they may regain strength and serenity. Everyone noticed the change in Miss Helstone's appearance, and most people said she was going to die. She never thought so herself. Her appetite was diminished; she knew it was because she wept so much at night. Her strength was lessened; she could account for it. Sleep was hard, and her dreams were distressing. But she felt that in the far future this time of misery should be got over, and she should once more be calm, though perhaps never again happy. Meanwhile her uncle urged her to visit their acquaintance. This she evaded doing. She could not be cheerful in company; she felt she was observed with more curiosity than sympathy. Old ladies were always offering her their advice, recommending remedies; young ladies looked at her in a way from which she shrank. Their eyes said they knew she had been "disappointed"; by whom, they were not certain. Commonplace young ladies can be quite as worldly and hard as commonplace young gentlemen. Grief and calamity they despise; they regard them as the judgments of God on the lowly. With them, to "love" is merely to contrive a scheme for achieving a good match; to be "disappointed" is to have their scheme frustrated. All this Caroline knew, and she kept her pale face and wasted figure as much out of sight as she could. Living thus in seclusion, she ceased to hear news of the little events of the neighbourhood. One morning her uncle came into the parlour, where she sat trying to find some pleasure in painting wild flowers, and said to her in his abrupt manner, "Come, child, leave that work. Get your bonnet on. I want you to make a call with me." "With you, uncle?" She was surprised; she was not accustomed to make calls with her uncle. "Quick! I have no time to lose. I am going to Fieldhead." "Fieldhead! Why?" "We are going to see Miss Shirley Keeldar. She has been at Fieldhead a week. I met her at a party last night - that party to which you would not go. I was pleased with her. I choose that you shall make her acquaintance. It will do you good." "She is now twenty-one and come of age, I suppose?" "Yes, and will reside for a time on her property. I lectured her on the subject; I showed her her duty. She is not intractable. She is rather a fine girl; nothing lackadaisical about her." "I don't think she will want to see me. What good can I do her?" "Pshaw! Put your bonnet on." "Is she proud, uncle?" "Don't know. She holds her head high, and probably can be saucy enough. She wouldn't be a woman otherwise. Away now for your bonnet at once!" Caroline was not naturally very confident, and her depression of spirits had not increased her courage to face strangers. She quailed as she and her uncle walked up the broad approach to Fieldhead. She followed Mr. Helstone reluctantly into the sombre old hallway. Very sombre it was - long, vast, and dark; one window lit it dimly. The wide old chimney contained no fire; it was filled instead with willow-boughs. The high gallery, opposite the entrance, was in shadow. Carved stags' heads, with real antlers, looked down grotesquely from the walls. This was neither a grand nor a comfortable house; it was antique, rambling, and inconvenient. A property of a thousand a year belonged to it, which had descended, for lack of male heirs, on a female. There were richer families in the district, but the Keeldars were the oldest family, and as lords of the manor, took precedence. Mr. and Miss Helstone were ushered into a gloomy, oak-lined parlour, furnished in old style. On each side of the high mantelpiece stood two antique chairs of oak, solid as thrones, and in one of these sat a lady. But if this were Miss Keeldar, she must have come of age at least twenty years ago. She was matronly, and her attire was plain and old-fashioned to the point of eccentricity. This lady received the visitors with a mixture of ceremony and diffidence. She seemed anxious to be proper, yet uncertain and embarrassed. Miss Helstone felt this, sympathized with the stranger, and knowing by experience what was good for the timid, took a seat quietly and began to talk to her with a gentle ease, made confident for the moment by the presence of one less self-possessed than herself. She and this lady would, if alone, have got on extremely well together. The lady had a soft and tuneful voice, which Caroline liked; it atoned for the formal manner. In ten minutes they would have been friends. But Mr. Helstone stood on the rug looking at the strange lady with his keen, sarcastic eye, impatient at her lack of aplomb. His hard gaze discomfited the lady. She tried to make little speeches about the weather, etc.; but Mr. Helstone found himself somewhat deaf. Whatever she said he pretended not to hear distinctly, and she was obliged to go over each elaborately-constructed nothing twice. The effort soon became too much for her. She was just rising in a perplexed flutter, nervously murmuring that she would go and look for Miss Keeldar, when Miss Keeldar saved her the trouble by appearing. It was to be presumed at least that this was she who now came in from the garden. There is real grace in ease of manner, and so old Helstone felt when an erect, slight girl walked up to him, holding with her left hand her little silk apron full of flowers; and, giving him her right hand, said pleasantly, "I knew you would come to see me, though you do think Mr. Yorke has made me a Jacobin. Good-morning." "But we'll not have you a Jacobin," returned he. "No, Miss Shirley; now that you are amongst us, I'll teach you sound doctrine." "Mrs. Pryor has anticipated you," she replied, turning to the elder lady. "Mrs. Pryor, you know, was my governess, and is still my friend. She has drilled me well in both theology and history, I assure you, Mr. Helstone." The rector immediately bowed very low to Mrs. Pryor. The ex-governess disclaimed skill either in political or religious controversy, explained that she thought such matters little adapted for female minds, but assured him she was truly attached to the Establishment. She added that she was averse to change, and said something scarcely audible about the danger of new ideas. "Miss Keeldar thinks as you think, I hope, madam." "It can scarcely be expected that the eager and young should hold the opinions of the cool and middle-aged." "Oh! oh! we are independent; we think for ourselves!" cried Mr. Helstone. "We are a little Jacobin, for anything I know - a little freethinker. Let us have a confession of faith on the spot." And he took the heiress's two hands - causing her to let fall her cargo of flowers - and seated her by him on the sofa. "Say your creed," he ordered. "The Apostles' Creed?" "Yes." She said it like a child. "Now for St. Athanasius's." "Let me gather up my flowers. Here is Tartar coming; he will tread upon them." Tartar was a rather large, strong, ugly and fierce-looking dog, of a breed between mastiff and bulldog, who at this moment entered through the glass door, and snuffed the fresh flowers scattered on the rug. As he was turning round preparatory to lying down upon them, Miss Helstone and Miss Keeldar simultaneously stooped to the rescue. "Thank you," said the heiress. "Is this your daughter, Mr. Helstone?" "My niece Caroline." Miss Keeldar shook hands with her, and they looked at each other. Shirley Keeldar (she had no Christian name but Shirley: her parents, who had wished to have a son, bestowed on her the family name they would have bestowed on a boy) - Shirley Keeldar was no ugly heiress. She was agreeable to the eye. She was perhaps an inch or two taller than Miss Helstone, and gracefully made. Her face, too, possessed a graceful charm. It was intelligent and expressive. Her eyes were of the darkest grey, and her hair of the darkest brown. Her features were distinguished - by which I do not mean that they were high, bony, and Roman, being indeed rather small and slight; but only that they were spirited and mobile. She examined Caroline seriously, her head a little on one side, with a thoughtful air. "You see she is only a feeble chick," observed Mr. Helstone. "She looks younger than I. How old are you?" she inquired in a manner that would have been patronizing if it had not been solemn and simple. "Eighteen years and six months." "And I am twenty-one." She said no more, but busied herself in arranging her flowers. "And St. Athanasius's Creed?" urged the rector. "You believe it all, don't you?" "I can't remember it quite all. I will give you a nosegay, Mr. Helstone, when I have given your niece one." She selected a little bouquet of delicate flowers, relieved by a spray of dark greenery. Tying it with silk from her work-box, she placed it on Caroline's lap; and then she put her hands behind her, and stood bending slightly towards her guest, in the attitude of a grave but gallant little cavalier. This effect was aided by the style in which she wore her hair, parted on one temple, and brushed in a glossy sweep above the forehead, whence it fell freely in natural-looking curls. "Are you tired with your walk?" she inquired. "No; it is only a mile." "You look pale. Is she always so pale?" she asked, turning to the rector. "She used to be as rosy as the reddest of your flowers." "Why is she altered? Has she been ill?" "She tells me she wants a change." "She ought to have one. You ought to give her one. You should send her to the coast." "I will, before summer is over. Meantime, I intend her to make acquaintance with you, if you have no objection." "I am sure Miss Keeldar will have no objection," here observed Mrs. Pryor. "I think I may say that Miss Helstone's frequent presence at Fieldhead will be esteemed a favour." "You speak my sentiments precisely, ma'am," said Shirley, "and I thank you. Let me tell you," she continued, turning again to Caroline, "that my governess does not welcome everyone as she has welcomed you. You are distinguished more than you think. As soon as you are gone, I shall ask Mrs. Pryor's opinion of you, for I have found her judgment of character wondrous accurate. Already I foresee a favourable answer. Do I not guess rightly, Mrs. Pryor?" "My dear, you said you would ask my opinion when Miss Helstone was gone, not in her presence." "No; and perhaps it will be long before I obtain it. - I am sometimes sadly tantalized, Mr. Helstone, by Mrs. Pryor's extreme caution. On some people's characters I cannot get her to pronounce a sentence, entreat as I may." Mrs. Pryor smiled. "Yes," said her pupil, "I know what that smile means. You are thinking of Mr. Moore of the Hollow. Do you know him?" she asked Mr. Helstone. "Ay! ay! Your tenant. You have seen a good deal of him, no doubt, since you came?" "I have been obliged to see him. There was business to transact. Business! Really the word makes me conscious I am indeed no longer a girl. I am an esquire! Shirley Keeldar, Esquire, ought to be my title. They gave me a man's name; I hold a man's position. And when I see such people as that stately Anglo-Belgian - that Grard Moore - before me, gravely talking to me of business, really I feel quite gentlemanlike. But I find it a little difficult to understand Mr. Moore, whether to like him or not. I have entreated Mrs. Pryor to say what she thinks of him, but she still avoids returning a direct answer. Do you like him, Mr. Helstone?" "Not at all, just now. His name is entirely blotted from my good books." "What is the matter? What has he done?" "My uncle and he disagree on politics," interposed the low voice of Caroline. At once she felt with nervous acuteness that she had better not have spoken, and coloured to the eyes. "What are Moore's politics?" inquired Shirley. "Those of a tradesman," returned the rector; "narrow, selfish, and unpatriotic. The man is eternally speaking against the continuance of the war. I have no patience with him." "The war hurts his trade. He said that yesterday. What other objection have you to him?" "That is enough." "He looks the gentleman," pursued Shirley, "and it pleases me to think he is such." Caroline, shredding a flower, answered in distinct tones, "Decidedly he is." Shirley flashed an arch, searching glance at her. "You are his friend, at any rate," she said. "I am both his friend and his relative," was the prompt reply. "Robert Moore is my cousin." "Oh, then you can tell me all about him. Give me a sketch of his character." Embarrassment seized Caroline. She could not, and did not, attempt to comply. Her silence was immediately covered by Mrs. Pryor, who asked Mr. Helstone about various families in the neighbourhood, with whose connections she was acquainted. Shirley soon withdrew her gaze from Miss Helstone. She did not renew her interrogations, but proceeded to make a nosegay of flowers for the rector. She presented it to him as he left. "Be sure you wear it for my sake," said she. "Next my heart, of course," responded Helstone. "Mrs. Pryor, take care of this young squire of Briarfield. Don't let him exert himself too much; don't let him break his neck in hunting; especially, let him mind how he rides down that dangerous hill near the Hollow." "I like a descent," said Shirley; "and I like that romantic Hollow with all my heart." "Romantic, with a mill in it?" "Romantic with a mill in it. The old mill and the white cottage are each admirable in their way." "And the counting-house, Mr. Keeldar?" "I adore the counting-house." "And the trade? The greasy wool, the polluting dyeing-vats?" "The trade is to be thoroughly respected." "And the tradesman is a hero? Good!" "I am glad to hear you say so. I thought the tradesman looked heroic." Mischief and glee sparkled all over her face as she bandied words with the old Cossack, who almost equally enjoyed the contest. "Captain Keeldar, why are you so fond of trade?" "Because I am a mill-owner, of course. Half my income comes from the works in that Hollow." "Don't enter into partnership - that's all." "You've put it into my head!" she exclaimed, with a joyous laugh. "It will never get out. Thank you." And waving her white hand, she vanished within the porch, while the rector and his niece passed out through the arched gateway.

Shirley

Chapter 11: FIELDHEAD

The evening was pitch dark: star and moon were quenched in gray rain-clouds--gray they would have been by day; by night they looked sable. Malone was not a man given to close observation of nature; her changes passed, for the most part, unnoticed by him. He could walk miles on the most varying April day and never see the beautiful dallying of earth and heaven--never mark when a sunbeam kissed the hill-tops, making them smile clear in green light, or when a shower wept over them, hiding their crests with the low-hanging, dishevelled tresses of a cloud. He did not, therefore, care to contrast the sky as it now appeared--a muffled, streaming vault, all black, save where, towards the east, the furnaces of Stilbro' ironworks threw a tremulous lurid shimmer on the horizon--with the same sky on an unclouded frosty night. He did not trouble himself to ask where the constellations and the planets were gone, or to regret the "black-blue" serenity of the air-ocean which those white islets stud, and which another ocean, of heavier and denser element, now rolled below and concealed. He just doggedly pursued his way, leaning a little forward as he walked, and wearing his hat on the back of his head, as his Irish manner was. "Tramp, tramp," he went along the causeway, where the road boasted the privilege of such an accommodation; "splash, splash," through the mire-filled cart ruts, where the flags were exchanged for soft mud. He looked but for certain landmarks--the spire of Briarfield Church; farther on, the lights of Redhouse. This was an inn; and when he reached it, the glow of a fire through a half-curtained window, a vision of glasses on a round table, and of revellers on an oaken settle, had nearly drawn aside the curate from his course. He thought longingly of a tumbler of whisky-and-water. In a strange place he would instantly have realized the dream; but the company assembled in that kitchen were Mr. Helstone's own parishioners; they all knew him. He sighed, and passed on. The highroad was now to be quitted, as the remaining distance to Hollow's Mill might be considerably reduced by a short cut across fields. These fields were level and monotonous. Malone took a direct course through them, jumping hedge and wall. He passed but one building here, and that seemed large and hall-like, though irregular. You could see a high gable, then a long front, then a low gable, then a thick, lofty stack of chimneys. There were some trees behind it. It was dark; not a candle shone from any window. It was absolutely still; the rain running from the eaves, and the rather wild but very low whistle of the wind round the chimneys and through the boughs were the sole sounds in its neighbourhood. This building passed, the fields, hitherto flat, declined in a rapid descent. Evidently a vale lay below, through which you could hear the water run. One light glimmered in the depth. For that beacon Malone steered. He came to a little white house--you could see it was white even through this dense darkness--and knocked at the door. A fresh-faced servant opened it. By the candle she held was revealed a narrow passage, terminating in a narrow stair. Two doors covered with crimson baize, a strip of crimson carpet down the steps, contrasted with light-coloured walls and white floor, made the little interior look clean and fresh. "Mr. Moore is at home, I suppose?" "Yes, sir, but he is not in." "Not in! Where is he then?" "At the mill--in the counting-house." Here one of the crimson doors opened. "Are the wagons come, Sarah?" asked a female voice, and a female head at the same time was apparent. It might not be the head of a goddess--indeed a screw of curl-paper on each side the temples quite forbade that supposition--but neither was it the head of a Gorgon; yet Malone seemed to take it in the latter light. Big as he was, he shrank bashfully back into the rain at the view thereof, and saying, "I'll go to him," hurried in seeming trepidation down a short lane, across an obscure yard, towards a huge black mill. The work-hours were over; the "hands" were gone. The machinery was at rest, the mill shut up. Malone walked round it. Somewhere in its great sooty flank he found another chink of light; he knocked at another door, using for the purpose the thick end of his shillelah, with which he beat a rousing tattoo. A key turned; the door unclosed. "Is it Joe Scott? What news of the wagons, Joe?" "No; it's myself. Mr. Helstone would send me." "Oh! Mr. Malone." The voice in uttering this name had the slightest possible cadence of disappointment. After a moment's pause it continued, politely but a little formally,-- "I beg you will come in, Mr. Malone. I regret extremely Mr. Helstone should have thought it necessary to trouble you so far. There was no necessity--I told him so--and on such a night; but walk forwards." Through a dark apartment, of aspect undistinguishable, Malone followed the speaker into a light and bright room within--very light and bright indeed it seemed to eyes which, for the last hour, had been striving to penetrate the double darkness of night and fog; but except for its excellent fire, and for a lamp of elegant design and vivid lustre burning on a table, it was a very plain place. The boarded floor was carpetless; the three or four stiff-backed, green-painted chairs seemed once to have furnished the kitchen of some farm-house; a desk of strong, solid formation, the table aforesaid, and some framed sheets on the stone-coloured walls, bearing plans for building, for gardening, designs of machinery, etc., completed the furniture of the place. Plain as it was, it seemed to satisfy Malone, who, when he had removed and hung up his wet surtout and hat, drew one of the rheumatic-looking chairs to the hearth, and set his knees almost within the bars of the red grate. "Comfortable quarters you have here, Mr. Moore; and all snug to yourself." "Yes, but my sister would be glad to see you, if you would prefer stepping into the house." "Oh no! The ladies are best alone, I never was a lady's man. You don't mistake me for my friend Sweeting, do you, Mr. Moore?" "Sweeting! Which of them is that? The gentleman in the chocolate overcoat, or the little gentleman?" "The little one--he of Nunnely; the cavalier of the Misses Sykes, with the whole six of whom he is in love, ha! ha!" "Better be generally in love with all than specially with one, I should think, in that quarter." "But he is specially in love with one besides, for when I and Donne urged him to make a choice amongst the fair bevy, he named--which do you think?" With a queer, quiet smile Mr. Moore replied, "Dora, of course, or Harriet." "Ha! ha! you've an excellent guess. But what made you hit on those two?" "Because they are the tallest, the handsomest, and Dora, at least, is the stoutest; and as your friend Mr. Sweeting is but a little slight figure, I concluded that, according to a frequent rule in such cases, he preferred his contrast." "You are right; Dora it is. But he has no chance, has he, Moore?" "What has Mr. Sweeting besides his curacy?" This question seemed to tickle Malone amazingly. He laughed for full three minutes before he answered it. "What has Sweeting? Why, David has his harp, or flute, which comes to the same thing. He has a sort of pinchbeck watch; ditto, ring; ditto, eyeglass. That's what he has." "How would he propose to keep Miss Sykes in gowns only?" "Ha! ha! Excellent! I'll ask him that next time I see him. I'll roast him for his presumption. But no doubt he expects old Christopher Sykes would do something handsome. He is rich, is he not? They live in a large house." "Sykes carries on an extensive concern." "Therefore he must be wealthy, eh?" "Therefore he must have plenty to do with his wealth, and in these times would be about as likely to think of drawing money from the business to give dowries to his daughters as I should be to dream of pulling down the cottage there, and constructing on its ruins a house as large as Fieldhead." "Do you know what I heard, Moore, the other day?" "No. Perhaps that I _was_ about to effect some such change. Your Briarfield gossips are capable of saying that or sillier things." "That you were going to take Fieldhead on a lease (I thought it looked a dismal place, by-the-bye, to-night, as I passed it), and that it was your intention to settle a Miss Sykes there as mistress--to be married, in short, ha! ha! Now, which is it? Dora, I am sure. You said she was the handsomest." "I wonder how often it has been settled that I was to be married since I came to Briarfield. They have assigned me every marriageable single woman by turns in the district. Now it was the two Misses Wynns--first the dark, then the light one; now the red-haired Miss Armitage; then the mature Ann Pearson. At present you throw on my shoulders all the tribe of the Misses Sykes. On what grounds this gossip rests God knows. I visit nowhere; I seek female society about as assiduously as you do, Mr. Malone. If ever I go to Whinbury, it is only to give Sykes or Pearson a call in their counting-house, where our discussions run on other topics than matrimony, and our thoughts are occupied with other things than courtships, establishments, dowries. The cloth we can't sell, the hands we can't employ, the mills we can't run, the perverse course of events generally, which we cannot alter, fill our hearts, I take it, pretty well at present, to the tolerably complete exclusion of such figments as love-making, etc." "I go along with you completely, Moore. If there is one notion I hate more than another, it is that of marriage--I mean marriage in the vulgar weak sense, as a mere matter of sentiment--two beggarly fools agreeing to unite their indigence by some fantastic tie of feeling. Humbug! But an advantageous connection, such as can be formed in consonance with dignity of views and permanency of solid interests, is not so bad--eh?" "No," responded Moore, in an absent manner. The subject seemed to have no interest for him; he did not pursue it. After sitting for some time gazing at the fire with a preoccupied air, he suddenly turned his head. "Hark!" said he. "Did you hear wheels?" Rising, he went to the window, opened it, and listened. He soon closed it. "It is only the sound of the wind rising," he remarked, "and the rivulet a little swollen, rushing down the hollow. I expected those wagons at six; it is near nine now." "Seriously, do you suppose that the putting up of this new machinery will bring you into danger?" inquired Malone. "Helstone seems to think it will." "I only wish the machines--the frames--were safe here, and lodged within the walls of this mill. Once put up, I defy the frame-breakers. Let them only pay me a visit and take the consequences. My mill is my castle." "One despises such low scoundrels," observed Malone, in a profound vein of reflection. "I almost wish a party would call upon you to-night; but the road seemed extremely quiet as I came along. I saw nothing astir." "You came by the Redhouse?" "Yes." "There would be nothing on that road. It is in the direction of Stilbro' the risk lies." "And you think there is risk?" "What these fellows have done to others they may do to me. There is only this difference: most of the manufacturers seem paralyzed when they are attacked. Sykes, for instance, when his dressing-shop was set on fire and burned to the ground, when the cloth was torn from his tenters and left in shreds in the field, took no steps to discover or punish the miscreants: he gave up as tamely as a rabbit under the jaws of a ferret. Now I, if I know myself, should stand by my trade, my mill, and my machinery." "Helstone says these three are your gods; that the 'Orders in Council' are with you another name for the seven deadly sins; that Castlereagh is your Antichrist, and the war-party his legions." "Yes; I abhor all these things because they ruin me. They stand in my way. I cannot get on. I cannot execute my plans because of them. I see myself baffled at every turn by their untoward effects." "But you are rich and thriving, Moore?" "I am very rich in cloth I cannot sell. You should step into my warehouse yonder, and observe how it is piled to the roof with pieces. Roakes and Pearson are in the same condition. America used to be their market, but the Orders in Council have cut that off." Malone did not seem prepared to carry on briskly a conversation of this sort. He began to knock the heels of his boots together, and to yawn. "And then to think," continued Mr. Moore who seemed too much taken up with the current of his own thoughts to note the symptoms of his guest's _ennui_--"to think that these ridiculous gossips of Whinbury and Briarfield will keep pestering one about being married! As if there was nothing to be done in life but to 'pay attention,' as they say, to some young lady, and then to go to church with her, and then to start on a bridal tour, and then to run through a round of visits, and then, I suppose, to be 'having a family.' Oh, que le diable emporte!" He broke off the aspiration into which he was launching with a certain energy, and added, more calmly, "I believe women talk and think only of these things, and they naturally fancy men's minds similarly occupied." "Of course--of course," assented Malone; "but never mind them." And he whistled, looked impatiently round, and seemed to feel a great want of something. This time Moore caught and, it appeared, comprehended his demonstrations. "Mr. Malone," said he, "you must require refreshment after your wet walk. I forget hospitality." "Not at all," rejoined Malone; but he looked as if the right nail was at last hit on the head, nevertheless. Moore rose and opened a cupboard. "It is my fancy," said he, "to have every convenience within myself, and not to be dependent on the feminity in the cottage yonder for every mouthful I eat or every drop I drink. I often spend the evening and sup here alone, and sleep with Joe Scott in the mill. Sometimes I am my own watchman. I require little sleep, and it pleases me on a fine night to wander for an hour or two with my musket about the hollow. Mr. Malone, can you cook a mutton chop?" "Try me. I've done it hundreds of times at college." "There's a dishful, then, and there's the gridiron. Turn them quickly. You know the secret of keeping the juices in?" "Never fear me; you shall see. Hand a knife and fork, please." The curate turned up his coat-cuffs, and applied himself to the cookery with vigour. The manufacturer placed on the table plates, a loaf of bread, a black bottle, and two tumblers. He then produced a small copper kettle--still from the same well-stored recess, his cupboard--filled it with water from a large stone jar in a corner, set it on the fire beside the hissing gridiron, got lemons, sugar, and a small china punch-bowl; but while he was brewing the punch a tap at the door called him away. "Is it you, Sarah?" "Yes, sir. Will you come to supper, please, sir?" "No; I shall not be in to-night; I shall sleep in the mill. So lock the doors, and tell your mistress to go to bed." He returned. "You have your household in proper order," observed Malone approvingly, as, with his fine face ruddy as the embers over which he bent, he assiduously turned the mutton chops. "You are not under petticoat government, like poor Sweeting, a man--whew! how the fat spits! it has burnt my hand--destined to be ruled by women. Now you and I, Moore--there's a fine brown one for you, and full of gravy--you and I will have no gray mares in our stables when we marry." "I don't know; I never think about it. If the gray mare is handsome and tractable, why not?" "The chops are done. Is the punch brewed?" "There is a glassful. Taste it. When Joe Scott and his minions return they shall have a share of this, provided they bring home the frames intact." Malone waxed very exultant over the supper. He laughed aloud at trifles, made bad jokes and applauded them himself, and, in short, grew unmeaningly noisy. His host, on the contrary, remained quiet as before. It is time, reader, that you should have some idea of the appearance of this same host. I must endeavour to sketch him as he sits at table. He is what you would probably call, at first view, rather a strange-looking man; for he is thin, dark, sallow, very foreign of aspect, with shadowy hair carelessly streaking his forehead. It appears that he spends but little time at his toilet, or he would arrange it with more taste. He seems unconscious that his features are fine, that they have a southern symmetry, clearness, regularity in their chiselling; nor does a spectator become aware of this advantage till he has examined him well, for an anxious countenance and a hollow, somewhat haggard, outline of face disturb the idea of beauty with one of care. His eyes are large, and grave, and gray; their expression is intent and meditative, rather searching than soft, rather thoughtful than genial. When he parts his lips in a smile, his physiognomy is agreeable--not that it is frank or cheerful even then, but you feel the influence of a certain sedate charm, suggestive, whether truly or delusively, of a considerate, perhaps a kind nature, of feelings that may wear well at home--patient, forbearing, possibly faithful feelings. He is still young--not more than thirty; his stature is tall, his figure slender. His manner of speaking displeases. He has an outlandish accent, which, notwithstanding a studied carelessness of pronunciation and diction, grates on a British, and especially on a Yorkshire, ear. Mr. Moore, indeed, was but half a Briton, and scarcely that. He came of a foreign ancestry by the mother's side, and was himself born and partly reared on a foreign soil. A hybrid in nature, it is probable he had a hybrid's feeling on many points--patriotism for one; it is likely that he was unapt to attach himself to parties, to sects, even to climes and customs; it is not impossible that he had a tendency to isolate his individual person from any community amidst which his lot might temporarily happen to be thrown, and that he felt it to be his best wisdom to push the interests of Robert Grard Moore, to the exclusion of philanthropic consideration for general interests, with which he regarded the said Grard Moore as in a great measure disconnected. Trade was Mr. Moore's hereditary calling: the Grards of Antwerp had been merchants for two centuries back. Once they had been wealthy merchants; but the uncertainties, the involvements, of business had come upon them; disastrous speculations had loosened by degrees the foundations of their credit. The house had stood on a tottering base for a dozen years; and at last, in the shock of the French Revolution, it had rushed down a total ruin. In its fall was involved the English and Yorkshire firm of Moore, closely connected with the Antwerp house, and of which one of the partners, resident in Antwerp, Robert Moore, had married Hortense Grard, with the prospect of his bride inheriting her father Constantine Grard's share in the business. She inherited, as we have seen, but his share in the liabilities of the firm; and these liabilities, though duly set aside by a composition with creditors, some said her son Robert accepted, in his turn, as a legacy, and that he aspired one day to discharge them, and to rebuild the fallen house of Grard and Moore on a scale at least equal to its former greatness. It was even supposed that he took by-past circumstances much to heart; and if a childhood passed at the side of a saturnine mother, under foreboding of coming evil, and a manhood drenched and blighted by the pitiless descent of the storm, could painfully impress the mind, _his_ probably was impressed in no golden characters. If, however, he had a great end of restoration in view, it was not in his power to employ great means for its attainment. He was obliged to be content with the day of small things. When he came to Yorkshire, he--whose ancestors had owned warehouses in this seaport, and factories in that inland town, had possessed their town-house and their country-seat--saw no way open to him but to rent a cloth-mill in an out-of-the-way nook of an out-of-the-way district; to take a cottage adjoining it for his residence, and to add to his possessions, as pasture for his horse, and space for his cloth-tenters, a few acres of the steep, rugged land that lined the hollow through which his mill-stream brawled. All this he held at a somewhat high rent (for these war times were hard, and everything was dear) of the trustees of the Fieldhead estate, then the property of a minor. At the time this history commences, Robert Moore had lived but two years in the district, during which period he had at least proved himself possessed of the quality of activity. The dingy cottage was converted into a neat, tasteful residence. Of part of the rough land he had made garden-ground, which he cultivated with singular, even with Flemish, exactness and care. As to the mill, which was an old structure, and fitted up with old machinery, now become inefficient and out of date, he had from the first evinced the strongest contempt for all its arrangements and appointments. His aim had been to effect a radical reform, which he had executed as fast as his very limited capital would allow; and the narrowness of that capital, and consequent check on his progress, was a restraint which galled his spirit sorely. Moore ever wanted to push on. "Forward" was the device stamped upon his soul; but poverty curbed him. Sometimes (figuratively) he foamed at the mouth when the reins were drawn very tight. In this state of feeling, it is not to be expected that he would deliberate much as to whether his advance was or was not prejudicial to others. Not being a native, nor for any length of time a resident of the neighbourhood, he did not sufficiently care when the new inventions threw the old workpeople out of employ. He never asked himself where those to whom he no longer paid weekly wages found daily bread; and in this negligence he only resembled thousands besides, on whom the starving poor of Yorkshire seemed to have a closer claim. The period of which I write was an overshadowed one in British history, and especially in the history of the northern provinces. War was then at its height. Europe was all involved therein. England, if not weary, was worn with long resistance--yes, and half her people were weary too, and cried out for peace on any terms. National honour was become a mere empty name, of no value in the eyes of many, because their sight was dim with famine; and for a morsel of meat they would have sold their birthright. The "Orders in Council," provoked by Napoleon's Milan and Berlin decrees, and forbidding neutral powers to trade with France, had, by offending America, cut off the principal market of the Yorkshire woollen trade, and brought it consequently to the verge of ruin. Minor foreign markets were glutted, and would receive no more. The Brazils, Portugal, Sicily, were all overstocked by nearly two years' consumption. At this crisis certain inventions in machinery were introduced into the staple manufactures of the north, which, greatly reducing the number of hands necessary to be employed, threw thousands out of work, and left them without legitimate means of sustaining life. A bad harvest supervened. Distress reached its climax. Endurance, overgoaded, stretched the hand of fraternity to sedition. The throes of a sort of moral earthquake were felt heaving under the hills of the northern counties. But, as is usual in such cases, nobody took much notice. When a food-riot broke out in a manufacturing town, when a gig-mill was burnt to the ground, or a manufacturer's house was attacked, the furniture thrown into the streets, and the family forced to flee for their lives, some local measures were or were not taken by the local magistracy. A ringleader was detected, or more frequently suffered to elude detection; newspaper paragraphs were written on the subject, and there the thing stopped. As to the sufferers, whose sole inheritance was labour, and who had lost that inheritance--who could not get work, and consequently could not get wages, and consequently could not get bread--they were left to suffer on, perhaps inevitably left. It would not do to stop the progress of invention, to damage science by discouraging its improvements; the war could not be terminated; efficient relief could not be raised. There was no help then; so the unemployed underwent their destiny--ate the bread and drank the waters of affliction. Misery generates hate. These sufferers hated the machines which they believed took their bread from them; they hated the buildings which contained those machines; they hated the manufacturers who owned those buildings. In the parish of Briarfield, with which we have at present to do, Hollow's Mill was the place held most abominable; Grard Moore, in his double character of semi-foreigner and thorough-going progressist, the man most abominated. And it perhaps rather agreed with Moore's temperament than otherwise to be generally hated, especially when he believed the thing for which he was hated a right and an expedient thing; and it was with a sense of warlike excitement he, on this night, sat in his counting-house waiting the arrival of his frame-laden wagons. Malone's coming and company were, it may be, most unwelcome to him. He would have preferred sitting alone; for he liked a silent, sombre, unsafe solitude. His watchman's musket would have been company enough for him; the full-flowing beck in the den would have delivered continuously the discourse most genial to his ear. * * * * * With the queerest look in the world had the manufacturer for some ten minutes been watching the Irish curate, as the latter made free with the punch, when suddenly that steady gray eye changed, as if another vision came between it and Malone. Moore raised his hand. "Chut!" he said in his French fashion, as Malone made a noise with his glass. He listened a moment, then rose, put his hat on, and went out at the counting-house door. The night was still, dark, and stagnant: the water yet rushed on full and fast; its flow almost seemed a flood in the utter silence. Moore's ear, however, caught another sound, very distant but yet dissimilar, broken and rugged--in short, a sound of heavy wheels crunching a stony road. He returned to the counting-house and lit a lantern, with which he walked down the mill-yard, and proceeded to open the gates. The big wagons were coming on; the dray-horses' huge hoofs were heard splashing in the mud and water. Moore hailed them. "Hey, Joe Scott! Is all right?" Probably Joe Scott was yet at too great a distance to hear the inquiry. He did not answer it. "Is all right, I say?" again asked Moore, when the elephant-like leader's nose almost touched his. Some one jumped out from the foremost wagon into the road; a voice cried aloud, "Ay, ay, divil; all's raight! We've smashed 'em." And there was a run. The wagons stood still; they were now deserted. "Joe Scott!" No Joe Scott answered. "Murgatroyd! Pighills! Sykes!" No reply. Mr. Moore lifted his lantern and looked into the vehicles. There was neither man nor machinery; they were empty and abandoned. Now Mr. Moore loved his machinery. He had risked the last of his capital on the purchase of these frames and shears which to-night had been expected. Speculations most important to his interests depended on the results to be wrought by them. Where were they? The words "we've smashed 'em" rang in his ears. How did the catastrophe affect him? By the light of the lantern he held were his features visible, relaxing to a singular smile--the smile the man of determined spirit wears when he reaches a juncture in his life where this determined spirit is to feel a demand on its strength, when the strain is to be made, and the faculty must bear or break. Yet he remained silent, and even motionless; for at the instant he neither knew what to say nor what to do. He placed the lantern on the ground, and stood with his arms folded, gazing down and reflecting. An impatient trampling of one of the horses made him presently look up. His eye in the moment caught the gleam of something white attached to a part of the harness. Examined by the light of the lantern this proved to be a folded paper--a billet. It bore no address without; within was the superscription:-- "To the Divil of Hollow's Miln." We will not copy the rest of the orthography, which was very peculiar, but translate it into legible English. It ran thus:-- "Your hellish machinery is shivered to smash on Stilbro' Moor, and your men are lying bound hand and foot in a ditch by the roadside. Take this as a warning from men that are starving, and have starving wives and children to go home to when they have done this deed. If you get new machines, or if you otherwise go on as you have done, you shall hear from us again. Beware!" "Hear from you again? Yes, I'll hear from you again, and you shall hear from me. I'll speak to you directly. On Stilbro' Moor you shall hear from me in a moment." Having led the wagons within the gates, he hastened towards the cottage. Opening the door, he spoke a few words quickly but quietly to two females who ran to meet him in the passage. He calmed the seeming alarm of one by a brief palliative account of what had taken place; to the other he said, "Go into the mill, Sarah--there is the key--and ring the mill-bell as loud as you can. Afterwards you will get another lantern and help me to light up the front." Returning to his horses, he unharnessed, fed, and stabled them with equal speed and care, pausing occasionally, while so occupied, as if to listen for the mill-bell. It clanged out presently, with irregular but loud and alarming din. The hurried, agitated peal seemed more urgent than if the summons had been steadily given by a practised hand. On that still night, at that unusual hour, it was heard a long way round. The guests in the kitchen of the Redhouse were startled by the clamour, and declaring that "there must be summat more nor common to do at Hollow's Miln," they called for lanterns, and hurried to the spot in a body. And scarcely had they thronged into the yard with their gleaming lights, when the tramp of horses was heard, and a little man in a shovel hat, sitting erect on the back of a shaggy pony, "rode lightly in," followed by an aide-de-camp mounted on a larger steed. Mr. Moore, meantime, after stabling his dray-horses, had saddled his hackney, and with the aid of Sarah, the servant, lit up his mill, whose wide and long front now glared one great illumination, throwing a sufficient light on the yard to obviate all fear of confusion arising from obscurity. Already a deep hum of voices became audible. Mr. Malone had at length issued from the counting-house, previously taking the precaution to dip his head and face in the stone water-jug; and this precaution, together with the sudden alarm, had nearly restored to him the possession of those senses which the punch had partially scattered. He stood with his hat on the back of his head, and his shillelah grasped in his dexter fist, answering much at random the questions of the newly-arrived party from the Redhouse. Mr. Moore now appeared, and was immediately confronted by the shovel hat and the shaggy pony. "Well, Moore, what is your business with us? I thought you would want us to-night--me and the hetman here (patting his pony's neck), and Tom and his charger. When I heard your mill-bell I could sit still no longer, so I left Boultby to finish his supper alone. But where is the enemy? I do not see a mask or a smutted face present; and there is not a pane of glass broken in your windows. Have you had an attack, or do you expect one?" "Oh, not at all! I have neither had one nor expect one," answered Moore coolly. "I only ordered the bell to be rung because I want two or three neighbours to stay here in the Hollow while I and a couple or so more go over to Stilbro' Moor." "To Stilbro' Moor! What to do? To meet the wagons?" "The wagons are come home an hour ago." "Then all's right. What more would you have?" "They came home empty; and Joe Scott and company are left on the moor, and so are the frames. Read that scrawl." Mr. Helstone received and perused the document of which the contents have before been given. "Hum! They've only served you as they serve others. But, however, the poor fellows in the ditch will be expecting help with some impatience. This is a wet night for such a berth. I and Tom will go with you. Malone may stay behind and take care of the mill. What is the matter with him? His eyes seem starting out of his head." "He has been eating a mutton chop." "Indeed!--Peter Augustus, be on your guard. Eat no more mutton chops to-night. You are left here in command of these premises--an honourable post!" "Is anybody to stay with me?" "As many of the present assemblage as choose.--My lads, how many of you will remain here, and how many will go a little way with me and Mr. Moore on the Stilbro' road, to meet some men who have been waylaid and assaulted by frame-breakers?" The small number of three volunteered to go; the rest preferred staying behind. As Mr. Moore mounted his horse, the rector asked him in a low voice whether he had locked up the mutton chops, so that Peter Augustus could not get at them? The manufacturer nodded an affirmative, and the rescue-party set out.

The evening was pitch dark: star and moon were quenched in black rain-clouds. Malone was not an observer of nature; he could walk miles and never notice when a sunbeam kissed the hill-tops, or when a shower wept over them. He did not, therefore, observe the black vault of the sky, with the furnaces of Stilbro' ironworks throwing a lurid shimmer on the eastern horizon. He just tramped doggedly along the causeway, splashing through the mire-filled cart ruts. He looked only for certain landmarks - the spire of Briarfield Church, and the lights of Redhouse Inn. When he reached the inn, the glow of a fire through a half-curtained window, a vision of glasses on a round table, and of revellers on an oak settle, nearly drew the curate from his course. He thought longingly of whisky-and-water; but the company in the inn were Mr. Helstone's parishioners; they all knew him. He sighed, and passed on. He now left the high road to take a short cut to Hollow's Mill across level fields, jumping hedge and wall. He passed only one building here; large and hall-like, though irregular. You could see a high gable, then a long front, and a lofty stack of chimneys. It was dark; not a candle shone from any window. It was absolutely still. The rain and the low whistle of the wind were the sole sounds in its neighbourhood. Beyond this building, the fields descended rapidly. You could hear the water run in a vale below: one light glimmered in the depth. Malone steered towards it. He came to a little white house - white even through this dense darkness - and knocked at the door. A servant opened it. By her candle he saw a passage, leading to two doors and a narrow stair with a strip of crimson carpet. The little interior looked clean and fresh. "Is Mr. Moore in?" "No, sir, he is at the mill - in the counting-house." Here one of the doors opened. "Are the wagons come, Sarah?" asked a female voice, and a female head appeared. It might not be the head of a goddess - indeed, screws of curl-paper quite forbade that idea - but neither was it the head of a Gorgon, as Malone seemed to think. He shrank bashfully back into the rain, and saying, "I'll go to him," hurried down a short lane towards a huge black mill. The work-hours were over; the "hands", or workers, were gone. The machinery was at rest, the mill shut up. Malone walked round it. Somewhere in its great sooty flank he found a chink of light; he knocked at another door, using his shillelagh to beat a rousing tattoo. A key turned. "Is it Joe Scott? What news of the wagons, Joe?" "No; it's myself. Mr. Helstone sent me." "Oh! Mr. Malone." The voice had the slightest possible tone of disappointment. After a moment's pause it continued, politely but formally: "I beg you will come in, Mr. Malone. I regret Mr. Helstone should have troubled you. There was no need - I told him so." Malone followed the speaker into a light room - very bright indeed it seemed, after the darkness; but except for its excellent fire, and an elegant lamp on a table, it was a very plain place. The boarded floor was carpetless; the stiff-backed chairs might have come from some farm-house. The only other furnishings were a desk, the table, and some framed plans for buildings and machinery. Malone hung up his wet coat and hat, drew one of the rheumatic-looking chairs to the hearth, and set his knees almost against the grate. "Comfortable quarters you have here, Mr. Moore; all snug to yourself." "Yes, but my sister would be glad to see you, if you would prefer stepping into the house." "Oh, no! I never was a lady's man, not like my friend Sweeting." "Sweeting! Which one is that?" asked Moore. "The one with the chocolate overcoat, or the little gentleman?" "The little one - the cavalier of the Misses Sykes, with the whole six of whom he is in love, ha! ha!" "Better be in love with all than specially with one, I should think, in that family." "But he is specially in love with one - which one do you think?" With a quiet smile Mr. Moore replied, "Dora, of course." "You are right; Dora it is. But he has no chance, has he, Moore?" "What has Mr. Sweeting besides his curacy?" This question seemed to tickle Malone amazingly. He laughed for full three minutes before he answered it. "What has Sweeting? Why, David has his harp, or rather, his flute. He has a watch, ring, and eyeglass. That's what he has." "How would he propose to keep Miss Sykes in gowns?" "Ha! ha! Excellent! I'll ask him that next time I see him. But old Christopher Sykes is rich, is he not?" "Sykes has an extensive business. But he would be about as likely to take money from the business to give dowries to his daughters as I should be to pull down the cottage there, and build a house as large as Fieldhead." "Do you know what I heard, Moore, the other day? That you were going to rent Fieldhead (I thought it looked dismal tonight, as I passed it), and that you intended to settle a Miss Sykes there as your wife, ha! ha! Now, which is it?" "I wonder how often it has been settled that I was to be married since I came to Briarfield. They have assigned me every single woman in the district by turns. First it was the two Misses Wynne; then Miss Armitage; then Ann Pearson. At present you throw on my shoulders all the tribe of the Misses Sykes - why, God knows. I visit nowhere; I do not seek female company. If ever I go to Whinbury, it is only to call on Sykes or Pearson in their counting-houses, where we discuss not courtship, but the cloth we can't sell, the hands we can't employ, and the mills we can't run." "I go along with you completely, Moore. If there is one notion I hate, it is that of a sentimental marriage - two beggarly fools agreeing to unite their poverty by some fantastic tie of feeling. Humbug! But an advantageous connection is not so bad - eh?" "No," responded Moore absently. The subject seemed to have no interest for him. After gazing at the fire with a preoccupied air, he suddenly turned his head. "Hark!" said he. "Did you hear wheels?" He went to open the window, and listened. "It is only the wind rising, and the stream rushing. I expected those wagons at six; it is near nine now." "Seriously, do you suppose that putting in this new machinery will bring you into danger?" inquired Malone. "Helstone seems to think it will." "I only wish the machines - the frames - were safe here, within the walls of this mill. Once in place, I defy the frame-breakers. My mill is my castle." "One despises such low scoundrels," observed Malone. "I almost wish some would call upon you tonight; but the road seemed extremely quiet. I saw nothing astir." "You came by the Redhouse?" "Yes." "There would be nothing on that road. It is in the direction of Stilbro' the risk lies." "And you think there is risk?" "What these fellows have done to others they may do to me. But most of the manufacturers seem paralysed when they are attacked. Sykes, for instance, when his place was burned to the ground, took no steps to discover or punish the miscreants: he gave up as tamely as a rabbit to a ferret. Now I should stand by my trade, my mill, and my machinery." "You are rich, Moore?" "I am very rich in cloth I cannot sell. My warehouse is piled to the roof, since the Orders in Council cut off the American market. And to think that these ridiculous gossips will keep pestering one about being married! As if there was nothing to be done in life but to court some young lady, and go visiting. Oh, que le diable emporte!" He broke off and added, more calmly, "I believe women think only of these things, and they naturally fancy men's minds similarly occupied." "Of course," assented Malone; "but never mind them." He looked impatiently round, as if something was lacking. "Mr. Malone," said Moore, "you must require refreshment after your wet walk." "Not at all," rejoined Malone; but he looked as if the right nail was hit on the head, nevertheless. Moore opened a cupboard. "I keep food and drink here, for I often spend the evening here alone, and sleep in the mill. Sometimes I am my own watchman. I require little sleep, and it pleases me on a fine night to wander for an hour or two with my musket about the hollow. Mr. Malone, can you cook a mutton chop?" "Try me." "There's a dishful, then, and there's the gridiron. Turn them quickly." "Never fear. Hand me a knife and fork, please." The curate turned up his coat-cuffs, and applied himself to the cookery with vigour. On the table Moore placed plates, a loaf of bread, a black bottle, and two tumblers. He filled a small copper kettle from a large stone jar in a corner, set it on the fire beside the hissing gridiron, got lemons, sugar, and a small china punch-bowl; but while he was brewing the punch a tap at the door called him away. "Is it you, Sarah?" "Yes, sir. Will you come to supper, please, sir?" "No; I shall sleep in the mill. So lock the doors, and tell your mistress to go to bed." "You have your household in proper order," observed Malone approvingly, as he turned the mutton chops. "You are not under petticoat government, like poor Sweeting. Now you and I, Moore - there's a fine chop for you, full of gravy - you and I will have no grey mares in our stables when we marry." "I never think about it. If the grey mare is handsome and tractable, why not?" "The chops are done. Is the punch brewed?" "There is a glassful. When Joe Scott and his assistants return they shall have a share, provided they bring the frames intact." Malone waxed very exultant over the supper. He laughed at trifles, made bad jokes and applauded them himself, and, in short, grew unmeaningly noisy. His host, on the contrary, remained quiet as before. I shall try to sketch him as he sits at table. You would probably call him, at first view, a strange-looking man; for he is thin, dark, and foreign-looking, with shadowy hair carelessly streaking his forehead. He seems unconscious that his features are fine, clear and regular; but they hold an anxious expression and have a somewhat haggard appearance. His eyes are large, and grave, and grey; they are searching and thoughtful rather than genial. When he smiles, his face is agreeable - not that it is frank or cheerful even then, but it suggests a considerate nature, patient and forbearing. He is not more than thirty; his figure is tall and slender. He has an outlandish accent, which grates on a British, and especially on a Yorkshire, ear. Mr. Moore, indeed, was scarcely half a Briton. He came of foreign ancestry by the mother's side, and had grown up on foreign soil. He cared little for patriotism; he did not attach himself to political parties, to sects, or even to customs. He had a tendency to withdraw from any community he happened to be living in, and considered the interests of Robert Grard Moore to be more relevant to him than any general philanthropy. Trade was Mr. Moore's calling: the Grards of Antwerp had been merchants for two centuries back. Once they had been wealthy, but the uncertainties of business had loosened the foundations of their credit. The house had stood on a tottering base for a dozen years; and at last, in the shock of the French Revolution, it had fallen, a total ruin. In its fall was involved the Yorkshire firm of Moore, closely connected with the Antwerp house: one of the Antwerp partners, Robert Moore, had married Hortense Grard, who was to inherit her father's share in the business. She inherited only debts - which her son Robert accepted, in his turn, as a legacy, saying that one day he would discharge them, and rebuild the fallen house of Grard and Moore. If, however, he had a great aim of restoration, he had no money to attain it. When he came to Yorkshire, he - whose ancestors had owned warehouses and factories, a town-house and a country-seat - saw no way open to him but to rent a cloth-mill in an out-of-the-way district; and to take an adjoining cottage to live in, along with a few acres of the steep, rugged land that lined the hollow through which his mill-stream brawled. All this he held at a somewhat high rent (for times were hard, and everything was dear) from the Fieldhead estate. At the time this history commences, Robert Moore had lived two years in the district. The dingy cottage had been converted into a neat, tasteful residence: part of the rough land had been made into a garden, which he cultivated with singular care. As to the mill, which was an old structure, and fitted up with old machinery, inefficient and out of date, he had from the first held its arrangements in contempt. He aimed for a radical reform, which he had carried out as fast as his limited funds would allow; and the shortage of those funds, and of progress, was a restraint which galled him sorely. Moore ever wanted to push on. Not being a native, he did not sufficiently care when the new inventions threw the old workpeople out of employ. He never asked himself where the jobless found daily bread; and in this negligence he only resembled thousands of others. The period of which I write was an overshadowed one in British history. War with Napoleon was at its height: all Europe was involved. England was worn with long resistance, and her weary people cried out for peace on any terms. National honour was become a mere empty name, of no value in the eyes of many, because their sight was dim with famine; and for a morsel of meat they would have sold their birthright. The "Orders in Council," forbidding neutral powers to trade with France, had offended America, the principal market of the Yorkshire woollen trade, and brought it consequently to the verge of ruin. Minor foreign markets were glutted, and would receive no more wool. At this crisis, inventions in machinery were introduced into the northern factories, which, greatly reducing the number of hands needed, threw thousands out of work, and left them penniless. A bad harvest supervened. Distress reached its climax. The throes of a sort of moral earthquake were felt heaving under the hills of the northern counties. But, as is usual in such cases, nobody took much notice. When a food-riot broke out, when a mill was burnt down, or a manufacturer's house was attacked, and the family forced to flee, few measures were taken. A ringleader was detected, or more frequently escaped detection; newspaper paragraphs were written, and there the thing stopped. As to the sufferers, who could not get work, and consequently could not buy food - they were left to suffer on. It would not do to stop the progress of invention. There was no help; so the unemployed ate the bread and drank the waters of affliction. Misery generates hate. These sufferers hated the machines; they hated the buildings which contained those machines; they hated the manufacturers who owned those buildings. In the parish of Briarfield, Hollow's Mill was the place held most abominable; Grard Moore, as a semi-foreigner and progressive mill-owner, was the man most abominated. And it perhaps rather agreed with Moore's temperament to be hated, especially when he believed the thing for which he was hated to be right. It was with a sense of warlike excitement that he sat in his counting-house on this night, awaiting the arrival of his frame-laden wagons. Malone's presence was unwelcome to him. He would have preferred sitting alone, with his musket for company. For some ten minutes, Moore had been watching the Irish curate make free with the punch, when suddenly his steady grey eye changed. He raised his hand. "Chut!" he said in his French fashion. He listened a moment, then rose and went out. The night was still, dark, and stagnant: the water rushed on full and fast, sounding like a flood in the silence. Moore's ear, however, caught another sound, very distant, broken and rugged - a sound of heavy wheels crunching a stony road. He lit a lantern, walked down the mill-yard, and opened the gates. The wagons were coming; the dray-horses' huge hoofs were heard splashing in the mud and water. Moore hailed them. "Hey, Joe Scott! Is all right?" Probably Joe Scott was still too distant to hear. He did not answer. "Is all right, I say?" again asked Moore. Some one jumped out from the first wagon into the road; a voice cried aloud, "Ay, ay, divil; all's raight! We've smashed 'em." And there was a run. The wagons stood deserted. "Joe Scott!" No Joe Scott answered. "Murgatroyd! Sykes!" No reply. Mr. Moore lifted his lantern and looked into the vehicles. They held neither man nor machinery; they were empty and abandoned. Now Mr. Moore loved his machinery. He had risked the last of his money on the purchase of these frames. Where were they? The words "we've smashed 'em" rang in his ears. His features relaxed into a singular smile - the smile a determined man wears when his spirit feels a demand on its strength, which it must bear or break. Yet he remained silent, and motionless; for he knew not what to say nor do. He placed the lantern on the ground, and stood with his arms folded, reflecting. An impatient trampling of one of the horses made him look up. His eye caught the gleam of something white attached to the harness. This proved to be a folded note. It read: "To the Divil of Hollow's Miln. "Your hellish machinery is shivered to smash on Stilbro' Moor, and your men are lying bound hand and foot in a ditch by the roadside. Take this as a warning from men that are starving, and have starving wives and children. If you get new machines, you shall hear from us again. Beware!" "Hear from you again? Yes, I'll hear from you again, and you shall hear from me. On Stilbro' Moor you shall hear from me in a moment." Having led the wagons within the gates, he hastened towards the cottage. Opening the door, he spoke a few words quickly but quietly to the two females who ran to meet him in the passage. He calmed the alarm of one; to the other, the maid-servant, he said, "Go into the mill, Sarah, and ring the mill-bell as loud as you can. Then get another lantern and help me to light up the front." Returning to his horses, he unharnessed and stabled them with speed and care. Presently the mill-bell clanged out, with an irregular but loud and alarming din. On that still night, it was heard a long way away. The guests in the Redhouse Inn were startled by the clamour, and declaring that "there must be summat to do at Hollow's Miln," they called for lanterns, and hurried there. Scarcely had they thronged into the yard, when the tramp of horses was heard, and a little man in a shovel hat, sitting erect on a shaggy pony, rode in, followed by another rider on a larger steed. Mr. Moore, meantime, had saddled his own horse, and had lit up his mill, whose long front was now illuminated. A deep hum of voices was heard. Mr. Malone had at last emerged from the counting-house, and stood with his shillelagh grasped in his fist. Mr. Moore appeared, and was immediately confronted by Mr. Helstone of the shovel hat and shaggy pony. "Well, Moore, what is your business with us? I thought you would want us tonight - me and Tom here. When I heard your mill-bell I could sit still no longer, so I left Boultby to finish his supper alone. But where is the enemy? There is not a pane of glass broken in your windows. Have you had an attack, or do you expect one?" "I have neither had one nor expect one," answered Moore coolly. "I only ordered the bell to be rung because I want two or three neighbours to stay here in the Hollow while I and a few others go over to Stilbro' Moor." "To Stilbro' Moor! What to do? To meet the wagons?" "The wagons are come home an hour ago." "Then all's right." "They came home empty; and Joe Scott and company are left on the moor, and so are the frames. Read that scrawl." Mr. Helstone read the note. "Hum! Poor fellows in the ditch. This is a wet night for such a bed. Tom and I will go with you. Malone may stay behind and take care of the mill. What is the matter with him? His eyes seem starting out of his head." "He has been eating a mutton chop." "Indeed! - Peter Augustus Malone, be on your guard. Eat no more mutton chops tonight. You are left in command of these premises!" "Is anybody to stay with me?" "As many of those present as choose. - My lads, how many of you will remain here, and how many will go with me and Mr. Moore on the Stilbro' road, to meet some men who have been assaulted by frame-breakers?" Three volunteered to go; the rest preferred staying behind. As Mr. Moore mounted his horse, the rector asked him in a low voice whether he had locked up the mutton chops, so that Peter Augustus could not get at them? Moore nodded, and the rescue-party set out.

Shirley

Chapter 2: THE WAGONS

Mademoiselle Moore had that morning a somewhat absent-minded pupil. Caroline forgot, again and again, the explanations which were given to her. However, she still bore with unclouded mood the chidings her inattention brought upon her. Sitting in the sunshine near the window, she seemed to receive with its warmth a kind influence, which made her both happy and good. Thus disposed, she looked her best, and her best was a pleasing vision. To her had not been denied the gift of beauty. It was not absolutely necessary to know her in order to like her; she was fair enough to please, even at the first view. Her shape suited her age: it was girlish, light, and pliant; every curve was neat, every limb proportionate; her face was expressive and gentle; her eyes were handsome, and gifted at times with a winning beam that stole into the heart, with a language that spoke softly to the affections. Her mouth was very pretty; she had a delicate skin, and a fine flow of brown hair, which she knew how to arrange with taste; curls became her, and she possessed them in picturesque profusion. Her style of dress announced taste in the wearer--very unobtrusive in fashion, far from costly in material, but suitable in colour to the fair complexion with which it contrasted, and in make to the slight form which it draped. Her present winter garb was of merino--the same soft shade of brown as her hair; the little collar round her neck lay over a pink ribbon, and was fastened with a pink knot. She wore no other decoration. So much for Caroline Helstone's appearance. As to her character or intellect, if she had any, they must speak for themselves in due time. Her connections are soon explained. She was the child of parents separated soon after her birth, in consequence of disagreement of disposition. Her mother was the half-sister of Mr. Moore's father; thus, though there was no mixture of blood, she was, in a distant sense, the cousin of Robert, Louis, and Hortense. Her father was the brother of Mr. Helstone--a man of the character friends desire not to recall, after death has once settled all earthly accounts. He had rendered his wife unhappy. The reports which were known to be true concerning him had given an air of probability to those which were falsely circulated respecting his better-principled brother. Caroline had never known her mother, as she was taken from her in infancy, and had not since seen her; her father died comparatively young, and her uncle, the rector, had for some years been her sole guardian. He was not, as we are aware, much adapted, either by nature or habits, to have the charge of a young girl. He had taken little trouble about her education; probably he would have taken none if she, finding herself neglected, had not grown anxious on her own account, and asked, every now and then, for a little attention, and for the means of acquiring such amount of knowledge as could not be dispensed with. Still, she had a depressing feeling that she was inferior, that her attainments were fewer than were usually possessed by girls of her age and station; and very glad was she to avail herself of the kind offer made by her cousin Hortense, soon after the arrival of the latter at Hollow's Mill, to teach her French and fine needle-work. Mdlle. Moore, for her part, delighted in the task, because it gave her importance; she liked to lord it a little over a docile yet quick pupil. She took Caroline precisely at her own estimate, as an irregularly-taught, even ignorant girl; and when she found that she made rapid and eager progress, it was to no talent, no application, in the scholar she ascribed the improvement, but entirely to her own superior method of teaching. When she found that Caroline, unskilled in routine, had a knowledge of her own, desultory but varied, the discovery caused her no surprise, for she still imagined that from her conversation had the girl unawares gleaned these treasures. She thought it even when forced to feel that her pupil knew much on subjects whereof she knew little. The idea was not logical, but Hortense had perfect faith in it. Mademoiselle, who prided herself on possessing "un esprit positif," and on entertaining a decided preference for dry studies, kept her young cousin to the same as closely as she could. She worked her unrelentingly at the grammar of the French language, assigning her, as the most improving exercise she could devise, interminable "analyses logiques." These "analyses" were by no means a source of particular pleasure to Caroline; she thought she could have learned French just as well without them, and grudged excessively the time spent in pondering over "propositions, principales, et incidents;" in deciding the "incidente determinative," and the "incidente applicative;" in examining whether the proposition was "pleine," "elliptique," or "implicite." Sometimes she lost herself in the maze, and when so lost she would, now and then (while Hortense was rummaging her drawers upstairs--an unaccountable occupation in which she spent a large portion of each day, arranging, disarranging, rearranging, and counter-arranging), carry her book to Robert in the counting-house, and get the rough place made smooth by his aid. Mr. Moore possessed a clear, tranquil brain of his own. Almost as soon as he looked at Caroline's little difficulties they seemed to dissolve beneath his eye. In two minutes he would explain all, in two words give the key to the puzzle. She thought if Hortense could only teach like him, how much faster she might learn! Repaying him by an admiring and grateful smile, rather shed at his feet than lifted to his face, she would leave the mill reluctantly to go back to the cottage, and then, while she completed the exercise, or worked out the sum (for Mdlle. Moore taught her arithmetic too), she would wish nature had made her a boy instead of a girl, that she might ask Robert to let her be his clerk, and sit with him in the counting-house, instead of sitting with Hortense in the parlour. Occasionally--but this happened very rarely--she spent the evening at Hollow's Cottage. Sometimes during these visits Moore was away attending a market; sometimes he was gone to Mr. Yorke's; often he was engaged with a male visitor in another room; but sometimes, too, he was at home, disengaged, free to talk with Caroline. When this was the case, the evening hours passed on wings of light; they were gone before they were counted. There was no room in England so pleasant as that small parlour when the three cousins occupied it. Hortense, when she was not teaching, or scolding, or cooking, was far from ill-humoured; it was her custom to relax towards evening, and to be kind to her young English kinswoman. There was a means, too, of rendering her delightful, by inducing her to take her guitar and sing and play. She then became quite good-natured. And as she played with skill, and had a well-toned voice, it was not disagreeable to listen to her. It would have been absolutely agreeable, except that her formal and self-important character modulated her strains, as it impressed her manners and moulded her countenance. Mr. Moore, released from the business yoke, was, if not lively himself, a willing spectator of Caroline's liveliness, a complacent listener to her talk, a ready respondent to her questions. He was something agreeable to sit near, to hover round, to address and look at. Sometimes he was better than this--almost animated, quite gentle and friendly. The drawback was that by the next morning he was sure to be frozen up again; and however much he seemed, in his quiet way, to enjoy these social evenings, he rarely contrived their recurrence. This circumstance puzzled the inexperienced head of his cousin. "If I had a means of happiness at my command," she thought, "I would employ that means often. I would keep it bright with use, and not let it lie for weeks aside, till it gets rusty." Yet she was careful not to put in practice her own theory. Much as she liked an evening visit to the cottage, she never paid one unasked. Often, indeed, when pressed by Hortense to come, she would refuse, because Robert did not second, or but slightly seconded the request. This morning was the first time he had ever, of his own unprompted will, given her an invitation; and then he had spoken so kindly that in hearing him she had received a sense of happiness sufficient to keep her glad for the whole day. The morning passed as usual. Mademoiselle, ever breathlessly busy, spent it in bustling from kitchen to parlour, now scolding Sarah, now looking over Caroline's exercise or hearing her repetition-lesson. However faultlessly these tasks were achieved, she never commended: it was a maxim with her that praise is inconsistent with a teacher's dignity, and that blame, in more or less unqualified measure, is indispensable to it. She thought incessant reprimand, severe or slight, quite necessary to the maintenance of her authority; and if no possible error was to be found in the lesson, it was the pupil's carriage, or air, or dress, or mien, which required correction. The usual affray took place about the dinner, which meal, when Sarah at last brought it into the room, she almost flung upon the table, with a look that expressed quite plainly, "I never dished such stuff i' my life afore; it's not fit for dogs." Notwithstanding Sarah's scorn, it was a savoury repast enough. The soup was a sort of pure of dried peas, which mademoiselle had prepared amidst bitter lamentations that in this desolate country of England no haricot beans were to be had. Then came a dish of meat--nature unknown, but supposed to be miscellaneous--singularly chopped up with crumbs of bread, seasoned uniquely though not unpleasantly, and baked in a mould--a queer but by no means unpalatable dish. Greens, oddly bruised, formed the accompanying vegetable; and a pt of fruit, conserved after a recipe devised by Madame Grard Moore's "grand'mre," and from the taste of which it appeared probable that "mlasse" had been substituted for sugar, completed the dinner. Caroline had no objection to this Belgian cookery--indeed she rather liked it for a change; and it was well she did so, for had she evinced any disrelish thereof, such manifestation would have injured her in mademoiselle's good graces for ever; a positive crime might have been more easily pardoned than a symptom of distaste for the foreign comestibles. Soon after dinner Caroline coaxed her governess-cousin upstairs to dress. This manuvre required management. To have hinted that the jupon, camisole, and curl-papers were odious objects, or indeed other than quite meritorious points, would have been a felony. Any premature attempt to urge their disappearance was therefore unwise, and would be likely to issue in the persevering wear of them during the whole day. Carefully avoiding rocks and quicksands, however, the pupil, on pretence of requiring a change of scene, contrived to get the teacher aloft; and, once in the bedroom, she persuaded her that it was not worth while returning thither, and that she might as well make her toilet now; and while mademoiselle delivered a solemn homily on her own surpassing merit in disregarding all frivolities of fashion, Caroline denuded her of the camisole, invested her with a decent gown, arranged her collar, hair, etc., and made her quite presentable. But Hortense would put the finishing touches herself, and these finishing touches consisted in a thick handkerchief tied round the throat, and a large, servant-like black apron, which spoiled everything. On no account would mademoiselle have appeared in her own house without the thick handkerchief and the voluminous apron. The first was a positive matter of morality--it was quite improper not to wear a fichu; the second was the ensign of a good housewife--she appeared to think that by means of it she somehow effected a large saving in her brother's income. She had, with her own hands, made and presented to Caroline similar equipments; and the only serious quarrel they had ever had, and which still left a soreness in the elder cousin's soul, had arisen from the refusal of the younger one to accept of and profit by these elegant presents. "I wear a high dress and a collar," said Caroline, "and I should feel suffocated with a handkerchief in addition; and my short aprons do quite as well as that very long one. I would rather make no change." Yet Hortense, by dint of perseverance, would probably have compelled her to make a change, had not Mr. Moore chanced to overhear a dispute on the subject, and decided that Caroline's little aprons would suffice, and that, in his opinion, as she was still but a child, she might for the present dispense with the fichu, especially as her curls were long, and almost touched her shoulders. There was no appeal against Robert's opinion, therefore his sister was compelled to yield; but she disapproved entirely of the piquant neatness of Caroline's costume, and the ladylike grace of her appearance. Something more solid and homely she would have considered "beaucoup plus convenable." The afternoon was devoted to sewing. Mademoiselle, like most Belgian ladies, was specially skilful with her needle. She by no means thought it waste of time to devote unnumbered hours to fine embroidery, sight-destroying lace-work, marvellous netting and knitting, and, above all, to most elaborate stocking-mending. She would give a day to the mending of two holes in a stocking any time, and think her "mission" nobly fulfilled when she had accomplished it. It was another of Caroline's troubles to be condemned to learn this foreign style of darning, which was done stitch by stitch, so as exactly to imitate the fabric of the stocking itself--a wearifu' process, but considered by Hortense Grard, and by her ancestresses before her for long generations back, as one of the first "duties of a woman." She herself had had a needle, cotton, and a fearfully torn stocking put into her hand while she yet wore a child's coif on her little black head; her "hauts faits" in the darning line had been exhibited to company ere she was six years old; and when she first discovered that Caroline was profoundly ignorant of this most essential of attainments, she could have wept with pity over her miserably-neglected youth. No time did she lose in seeking up a hopeless pair of hose, of which the heels were entirely gone, and in setting the ignorant English girl to repair the deficiency. This task had been commenced two years ago, and Caroline had the stockings in her work-bag yet. She did a few rows every day, by way of penance for the expiation of her sins. They were a grievous burden to her; she would much have liked to put them in the fire; and once Mr. Moore, who had observed her sitting and sighing over them, had proposed a private incremation in the counting-house; but to this proposal Caroline knew it would have been impolitic to accede--the result could only be a fresh pair of hose, probably in worse condition. She adhered, therefore, to the ills she knew. All the afternoon the two ladies sat and sewed, till the eyes and fingers, and even the spirits of one of them, were weary. The sky since dinner had darkened; it had begun to rain again, to pour fast. Secret fears began to steal on Caroline that Robert would be persuaded by Mr. Sykes or Mr. Yorke to remain at Whinbury till it cleared, and of that there appeared no present chance. Five o'clock struck, and time stole on; still the clouds streamed. A sighing wind whispered in the roof-trees of the cottage; day seemed already closing; the parlour fire shed on the clear hearth a glow ruddy as at twilight. "It will not be fair till the moon rises," pronounced Mademoiselle Moore, "consequently I feel assured that my brother will not return till then. Indeed I should be sorry if he did. We will have coffee. It would be vain to wait for him." "I am tired. May I leave my work now, cousin?" "You may, since it grows too dark to see to do it well. Fold it up; put it carefully in your bag; then step into the kitchen and desire Sarah to bring in the goter, or tea, as you call it." "But it has not yet struck six. He may still come." "He will not, I tell you. I can calculate his movements. I understand my brother." Suspense is irksome, disappointment bitter. All the world has, some time or other, felt that. Caroline, obedient to orders, passed into the kitchen. Sarah was making a dress for herself at the table. "You are to bring in coffee," said the young lady in a spiritless tone; and then she leaned her arm and head against the kitchen mantelpiece, and hung listlessly over the fire. "How low you seem, miss! But it's all because your cousin keeps you so close to work. It's a shame!" "Nothing of the kind, Sarah," was the brief reply. "Oh! but I know it is. You're fit to cry just this minute, for nothing else but because you've sat still the whole day. It would make a kitten dull to be mewed up so." "Sarah, does your master often come home early from market when it is wet?" "Never, hardly; but just to-day, for some reason, he has made a difference." "What do you mean?" "He is come. I am certain I saw Murgatroyd lead his horse into the yard by the back-way, when I went to get some water at the pump five minutes since. He was in the counting-house with Joe Scott, I believe." "You are mistaken." "What should I be mistaken for? I know his horse surely?" "But you did not see himself?" "I heard him speak, though. He was saying something to Joe Scott about having settled all concerning ways and means, and that there would be a new set of frames in the mill before another week passed, and that this time he would get four soldiers from Stilbro' barracks to guard the wagon." "Sarah, are you making a gown?" "Yes. Is it a handsome one?" "Beautiful! Get the coffee ready. I'll finish cutting out that sleeve for you, and I'll give you some trimming for it. I have some narrow satin ribbon of a colour that will just match it." "You're very kind, miss." "Be quick; there's a good girl. But first put your master's shoes on the hearth: he will take his boots off when he comes in. I hear him; he is coming." "Miss, you are cutting the stuff wrong." "So I am; but it is only a snip. There is no harm done." The kitchen door opened; Mr. Moore entered, very wet and cold. Caroline half turned from her dressmaking occupation, but renewed it for a moment, as if to gain a minute's time for some purpose. Bent over the dress, her face was hidden; there was an attempt to settle her features and veil their expression, which failed. When she at last met Mr. Moore, her countenance beamed. "We had ceased to expect you. They asserted you would not come," she said. "But I promised to return soon. _You_ expected me, I suppose?" "No, Robert; I dared not when it rained so fast. And you are wet and chilled. Change everything. If you took cold, I should--we should blame ourselves in some measure." "I am not wet through: my riding-coat is waterproof. Dry shoes are all I require. There--the fire is pleasant after facing the cold wind and rain for a few miles." He stood on the kitchen hearth; Caroline stood beside him. Mr. Moore, while enjoying the genial glow, kept his eyes directed towards the glittering brasses on the shelf above. Chancing for an instant to look down, his glance rested on an uplifted face, flushed, smiling, happy, shaded with silky curls, lit with fine eyes. Sarah was gone into the parlour with the tray; a lecture from her mistress detained her there. Moore placed his hand a moment on his young cousin's shoulder, stooped, and left a kiss on her forehead. "Oh!" said she, as if the action had unsealed her lips, "I was miserable when I thought you would not come. I am almost too happy now. Are you happy, Robert? Do you like to come home?" "I think I do--to-night, at least." "Are you certain you are not fretting about your frames, and your business, and the war?" "Not just now." "Are you positive you don't feel Hollow's Cottage too small for you, and narrow, and dismal?" "At this moment, no." "Can you affirm that you are not bitter at heart because rich and great people forget you?" "No more questions. You are mistaken if you think I am anxious to curry favour with rich and great people. I only want means--a position--a career." "Which your own talent and goodness shall win you. You were made to be great; you _shall_ be great." "I wonder now, if you spoke honestly out of your heart, what recipe you would give me for acquiring this same greatness; but I know it--better than you know it yourself. Would it be efficacious? Would it work? Yes--poverty, misery, bankruptcy. Oh, life is not what you think it, Lina!" "But you are what I think you." "I am not." "You are better, then?" "Far worse." "No; far better. I know you are good." "How do you know it?" "You look so, and I feel you _are_ so." "Where do you feel it?" "In my heart." "Ah! You judge me with your heart, Lina: you should judge me with your head." "I do; and then I am quite proud of you. Robert, you cannot tell all my thoughts about you." Mr. Moore's dark face mustered colour; his lips smiled, and yet were compressed; his eyes laughed, and yet he resolutely knit his brow. "Think meanly of me, Lina," said he. "Men, in general, are a sort of scum, very different to anything of which you have an idea. I make no pretension to be better than my fellows." "If you did, I should not esteem you so much. It is because you are modest that I have such confidence in your merit." "Are you flattering me?" he demanded, turning sharply upon her, and searching her face with an eye of acute penetration. "No," she said softly, laughing at his sudden quickness. She seemed to think it unnecessary to proffer any eager disavowal of the charge. "You don't care whether I think you flatter me or not?" "No." "You are so secure of your own intentions?" "I suppose so." "What are they, Caroline?" "Only to ease my mind by expressing for once part of what I think, and then to make you better satisfied with yourself." "By assuring me that my kinswoman is my sincere friend?" "Just so. I am your sincere friend, Robert." "And I am--what chance and change shall make me, Lina." "Not my enemy, however?" The answer was cut short by Sarah and her mistress entering the kitchen together in some commotion. They had been improving the time which Mr. Moore and Miss Helstone had spent in dialogue by a short dispute on the subject of "caf au lait," which Sarah said was the queerest mess she ever saw, and a waste of God's good gifts, as it was "the nature of coffee to be boiled in water," and which mademoiselle affirmed to be "un breuvage royal," a thousand times too good for the mean person who objected to it. The former occupants of the kitchen now withdrew into the parlour. Before Hortense followed them thither, Caroline had only time again to question, "Not my enemy, Robert?" And Moore, Quaker-like, had replied with another query, "Could I be?" And then, seating himself at the table, had settled Caroline at his side. Caroline scarcely heard mademoiselle's explosion of wrath when she rejoined them; the long declamation about the "conduite indigne de cette mchante crature" sounded in her ear as confusedly as the agitated rattling of the china. Robert laughed a little at it, in very subdued sort, and then, politely and calmly entreating his sister to be tranquil, assured her that if it would yield her any satisfaction, she should have her choice of an attendant amongst all the girls in his mill. Only he feared they would scarcely suit her, as they were most of them, he was informed, completely ignorant of household work; and pert and self-willed as Sarah was, she was, perhaps, no worse than the majority of the women of her class. Mademoiselle admitted the truth of this conjecture: according to her, "ces paysannes anglaises taient tout insupportables." What would she not give for some "bonne cuisinire anversoise," with the high cap, short petticoat, and decent sabots proper to her class--something better, indeed, than an insolent coquette in a flounced gown, and absolutely without cap! (For Sarah, it appears, did not partake the opinion of St. Paul that "it is a shame for a woman to go with her head uncovered;" but, holding rather a contrary doctrine, resolutely refused to imprison in linen or muslin the plentiful tresses of her yellow hair, which it was her wont to fasten up smartly with a comb behind, and on Sundays to wear curled in front.) "Shall I try and get you an Antwerp girl?" asked Mr. Moore, who, stern in public, was on the whole very kind in private. "Merci du cadeau!" was the answer. "An Antwerp girl would not stay here ten days, sneered at as she would be by all the young coquines in your factory;" then softening, "You are very good, dear brother--excuse my petulance--but truly my domestic trials are severe, yet they are probably my destiny; for I recollect that our revered mother experienced similar sufferings, though she had the choice of all the best servants in Antwerp. Domestics are in all countries a spoiled and unruly set." Mr. Moore had also certain reminiscences about the trials of his revered mother. A good mother she had been to him, and he honoured her memory; but he recollected that she kept a hot kitchen of it in Antwerp, just as his faithful sister did here in England. Thus, therefore, he let the subject drop, and when the coffee-service was removed, proceeded to console Hortense by fetching her music-book and guitar; and having arranged the ribbon of the instrument round her neck with a quiet fraternal kindness he knew to be all-powerful in soothing her most ruffled moods, he asked her to give him some of their mother's favourite songs. Nothing refines like affection. Family jarring vulgarizes; family union elevates. Hortense, pleased with her brother, and grateful to him, looked, as she touched her guitar, almost graceful, almost handsome; her everyday fretful look was gone for a moment, and was replaced by a "sourire plein de bont." She sang the songs he asked for, with feeling; they reminded her of a parent to whom she had been truly attached; they reminded her of her young days. She observed, too, that Caroline listened with nave interest; this augmented her good-humour; and the exclamation at the close of the song, "I wish I could sing and play like Hortense!" achieved the business, and rendered her charming for the evening. It is true a little lecture to Caroline followed, on the vanity of _wishing_ and the duty of _trying_. "As Rome," it was suggested, "had not been built in a day, so neither had Mademoiselle Grard Moore's education been completed in a week, or by merely _wishing_ to be clever. It was effort that had accomplished that great work. She was ever remarkable for her perseverance, for her industry. Her masters had remarked that it was as delightful as it was uncommon to find so much talent united with so much solidity, and so on." Once on the theme of her own merits, mademoiselle was fluent. Cradled at last in blissful self-complacency, she took her knitting, and sat down tranquil. Drawn curtains, a clear fire, a softly-shining lamp, gave now to the little parlour its best, its evening charm. It is probable that the three there present felt this charm. They all looked happy. "What shall we do now, Caroline?" asked Mr. Moore, returning to his seat beside his cousin. "What shall we do, Robert?" repeated she playfully. "You decide." "Not play at chess?" "No." "Nor draughts, nor backgammon?" "No, no; we both hate silent games that only keep one's hands employed, don't we?" "I believe we do. Then shall we talk scandal?" "About whom? Are we sufficiently interested in anybody to take a pleasure in pulling their character to pieces?" "A question that comes to the point. For my part, unamiable as it sounds, I must say no." "And I too. But it is strange, though we want no third--fourth, I mean (she hastily and with contrition glanced at Hortense), living person among us--so selfish we are in our happiness--though we don't want to think of the present existing world, it would be pleasant to go back to the past, to hear people that have slept for generations in graves that are perhaps no longer graves now, but gardens and fields, speak to us and tell us their thoughts, and impart their ideas." "Who shall be the speaker? What language shall he utter? French?" "Your French forefathers don't speak so sweetly, nor so solemnly, nor so impressively as your English ancestors, Robert. To-night you shall be entirely English. You shall read an English book." "An old English book?" "Yes, an old English book--one that you like; and I will choose a part of it that is toned quite in harmony with something in you. It shall waken your nature, fill your mind with music; it shall pass like a skilful hand over your heart, and make its strings sound. Your heart is a lyre, Robert; but the lot of your life has not been a minstrel to sweep it, and it is often silent. Let glorious William come near and touch it. You will see how he will draw the English power and melody out of its chords." "I must read Shakespeare?" "You must have his spirit before you; you must hear his voice with your mind's ear; you must take some of his soul into yours." "With a view to making me better? Is it to operate like a sermon?" "It is to stir you, to give you new sensations. It is to make you feel your life strongly--not only your virtues, but your vicious, perverse points." "Dieu! que dit-elle?" cried Hortense, who hitherto had been counting stitches in her knitting, and had not much attended to what was said, but whose ear these two strong words caught with a tweak. "Never mind her, sister; let her talk. Now just let her say anything she pleases to-night. She likes to come down hard upon your brother sometimes. It amuses me, so let her alone." Caroline, who, mounted on a chair, had been rummaging the bookcase, returned with a book. "Here's Shakespeare," she said, "and there's 'Coriolanus.' Now, read, and discover by the feelings the reading will give you at once how low and how high you are." "Come, then, sit near me, and correct when I mispronounce." "I am to be the teacher then, and you my pupil?" "Ainsi, soit-il!" "And Shakespeare is our science, since we are going to study?" "It appears so." "And you are not going to be French, and sceptical, and sneering? You are not going to think it a sign of wisdom to refuse to admire?" "I don't know." "If you do, Robert, I'll take Shakespeare away; and I'll shrivel up within myself, and put on my bonnet and go home." "Sit down. Here I begin." "One minute, if you please, brother," interrupted mademoiselle. "When the gentleman of a family reads, the ladies should always sew.--Caroline, dear child, take your embroidery. You may get three sprigs done to-night." Caroline looked dismayed. "I can't see by lamp-light; my eyes are tired, and I can't do two things well at once. If I sew, I cannot listen; if I listen, I cannot sew." "Fi, donc! Quel enfantillage!" began Hortense. Mr. Moore, as usual, suavely interposed. "Permit her to neglect the embroidery for this evening. I wish her whole attention to be fixed on my accent; and to ensure this, she must follow the reading with her eyes--she must look at the book." He placed it between them, reposed his arm on the back of Caroline's chair, and thus began to read. The very first scene in "Coriolanus" came with smart relish to his intellectual palate, and still as he read he warmed. He delivered the haughty speech of Caius Marcius to the starving citizens with unction; he did not say he thought his irrational pride right, but he seemed to feel it so. Caroline looked up at him with a singular smile. "There's a vicious point hit already," she said. "You sympathize with that proud patrician who does not sympathize with his famished fellow-men, and insults them. There, go on." He proceeded. The warlike portions did not rouse him much; he said all that was out of date, or should be; the spirit displayed was barbarous; yet the encounter single-handed between Marcius and Tullus Aufidius he delighted in. As he advanced, he forgot to criticise; it was evident he appreciated the power, the truth of each portion; and, stepping out of the narrow line of private prejudices, began to revel in the large picture of human nature, to feel the reality stamped upon the characters who were speaking from that page before him. He did not read the comic scenes well; and Caroline, taking the book out of his hand, read these parts for him. From her he seemed to enjoy them, and indeed she gave them with a spirit no one could have expected of her, with a pithy expression with which she seemed gifted on the spot, and for that brief moment only. It may be remarked, in passing, that the general character of her conversation that evening, whether serious or sprightly, grave or gay, was as of something untaught, unstudied, intuitive, fitful--when once gone, no more to be reproduced as it had been than the glancing ray of the meteor, than the tints of the dew-gem, than the colour or form of the sunset cloud, than the fleeting and glittering ripple varying the flow of a rivulet. Coriolanus in glory, Coriolanus in disaster, Coriolanus banished, followed like giant shades one after the other. Before the vision of the banished man Moore's spirit seemed to pause. He stood on the hearth of Aufidius's hall, facing the image of greatness fallen, but greater than ever in that low estate. He saw "the grim appearance," the dark face "bearing command in it," "the noble vessel with its tackle torn." With the revenge of Caius Marcius, Moore perfectly sympathized; he was not scandalized by it; and again Caroline whispered, "There I see another glimpse of brotherhood in error." The march on Rome, the mother's supplication, the long resistance, the final yielding of bad passions to good, which ever must be the case in a nature worthy the epithet of noble, the rage of Aufidius at what he considered his ally's weakness, the death of Coriolanus, the final sorrow of his great enemy--all scenes made of condensed truth and strength--came on in succession and carried with them in their deep, fast flow the heart and mind of reader and listener. "Now, have you felt Shakespeare?" asked Caroline, some ten minutes after her cousin had closed the book. "I think so." "And have you felt anything in Coriolanus like you?" "Perhaps I have." "Was he not faulty as well as great?" Moore nodded. "And what was his fault? What made him hated by the citizens? What caused him to be banished by his countrymen?" "What do you think it was?" "I ask again-- 'Whether was it pride, Which out of daily fortune ever taints The happy man? whether defect of judgment, To fail in the disposing of those chances Which he was lord of? or whether nature, Not to be other than one thing, not moving From the casque to the cushion, but commanding peace Even with the same austerity and garb As he controlled the war?'" "Well, answer yourself, Sphinx." "It was a spice of all; and you must not be proud to your workpeople; you must not neglect chances of soothing them; and you must not be of an inflexible nature, uttering a request as austerely as if it were a command." "That is the moral you tack to the play. What puts such notions into your head?" "A wish for your good, a care for your safety, dear Robert, and a fear, caused by many things which I have heard lately, that you will come to harm." "Who tells you these things?" "I hear my uncle talk about you. He praises your hard spirit, your determined cast of mind, your scorn of low enemies, your resolution not 'to truckle to the mob,' as he says." "And would you have me truckle to them?" "No, not for the world. I never wish you to lower yourself; but somehow I cannot help thinking it unjust to include all poor working-people under the general and insulting name of 'the mob,' and continually to think of them and treat them haughtily." "You are a little democrat, Caroline. If your uncle knew, what would he say?" "I rarely talk to my uncle, as you know, and never about such things. He thinks everything but sewing and cooking above women's comprehension, and out of their line." "And do you fancy you comprehend the subjects on which you advise me?" "As far as they concern you, I comprehend them. I know it would be better for you to be loved by your workpeople than to be hated by them, and I am sure that kindness is more likely to win their regard than pride. If you were proud and cold to me and Hortense, should we love you? When you are cold to me, as you _are_ sometimes, can I venture to be affectionate in return?" "Now, Lina, I've had my lesson both in languages and ethics, with a touch on politics; it is your turn. Hortense tells me you were much taken by a little piece of poetry you learned the other day, a piece by poor Andr Chnier--'La Jeune Captive.' Do you remember it still?" "I think so." "Repeat it, then. Take your time and mind your accent; especially let us have no English _u_'s." Caroline, beginning in a low, rather tremulous voice, but gaining courage as she proceeded, repeated the sweet verses of Chnier. The last three stanzas she rehearsed well. "Mon beau voyage encore est si loin de sa fin! Je pars, et des ormeaux qui bordent le chemin J'ai pass le premiers peine. Au banquet de la vie peine commenc, Un instant seulement mes lvres ont press La coupe en mes mains encore pleine. "Je ne suis qu'au printemps--je veux voir la moisson; Et comme le soleil, de saison en saison, Je veux achever mon anne, Brillante sur ma tige, et l'honneur du jardin Je n'ai vu luire encore que les feux du matin, Je veux achever ma journe!" Moore listened at first with his eyes cast down, but soon he furtively raised them. Leaning back in his chair he could watch Caroline without her perceiving where his gaze was fixed. Her cheek had a colour, her eyes a light, her countenance an expression this evening which would have made even plain features striking; but there was not the grievous defect of plainness to pardon in her case. The sunshine was not shed on rough barrenness; it fell on soft bloom. Each lineament was turned with grace; the whole aspect was pleasing. At the present moment--animated, interested, touched--she might be called beautiful. Such a face was calculated to awaken not only the calm sentiment of esteem, the distant one of admiration, but some feeling more tender, genial, intimate--friendship, perhaps, affection, interest. When she had finished, she turned to Moore, and met his eye. "Is that pretty well repeated?" she inquired, smiling like any happy, docile child. "I really don't know." "Why don't you know? Have you not listened?" "Yes--and looked. You are fond of poetry, Lina?" "When I meet with _real_ poetry, I cannot rest till I have learned it by heart, and so made it partly mine." Mr. Moore now sat silent for several minutes. It struck nine o'clock. Sarah entered, and said that Mr. Helstone's servant was come for Miss Caroline. "Then the evening is gone already," she observed, "and it will be long, I suppose, before I pass another here." Hortense had been for some time nodding over her knitting; fallen into a doze now, she made no response to the remark. "You would have no objection to come here oftener of an evening?" inquired Robert, as he took her folded mantle from the side-table, where it still lay, and carefully wrapped it round her. "I like to come here; but I have no desire to be intrusive. I am not hinting to be asked; you must understand that." "Oh! I understand thee, child. You sometimes lecture me for wishing to be rich, Lina; but if I _were_ rich, you should live here always--at any rate, you should live with me wherever my habitation might be." "That would be pleasant; and if you were poor--ever so poor--it would still be pleasant. Good-night, Robert." "I promised to walk with you up to the rectory." "I know you did; but I thought you had forgotten, and I hardly knew how to remind you, though I wished to do it. But would you like to go? It is a cold night, and as Fanny is come, there is no necessity----" "Here is your muff; don't wake Hortense--come." The half mile to the rectory was soon traversed. They parted in the garden without kiss, scarcely with a pressure of hands; yet Robert sent his cousin in excited and joyously troubled. He had been singularly kind to her that day--not in phrase, compliment, profession, but in manner, in look, and in soft and friendly tones. For himself, he came home grave, almost morose. As he stood leaning on his own yard-gate, musing in the watery moonlight all alone, the hushed, dark mill before him, the hill-environed hollow round, he exclaimed, abruptly,-- "This won't do! There's weakness--there's downright ruin in all this. However," he added, dropping his voice, "the frenzy is quite temporary. I know it very well; I have had it before. It will be gone to-morrow."

Mademoiselle Moore had that morning a somewhat absent-minded pupil. Caroline forgot, again and again, the explanations which were given to her. However, she bore her teacher's chidings cheerfully. Sitting in the sunshine near the window, she felt both happy and good; and looked at her best. She was fair to look upon. Her figure was light and neat; her face was expressive and gentle; her eyes were handsome, with a winning beam that stole into the heart. Her mouth was very pretty; she had delicate skin, and a fine flow of curling brown hair, arranged with taste. Her style of dress was unobtrusive and inexpensive, but suited her fair complexion. Her present winter dress was of merino wool - the same soft shade of brown as her hair, with a pink ribbon at the collar. She wore no other decoration. So much for Caroline Helstone's appearance. As to her family, she was the child of parents separated soon after her birth. Her mother was the half-sister of Mr. Moore's father; thus, though there was no shared blood, she was, in a distant sense, the cousin of Robert, Louis, and Hortense. Her father was Mr. Helstone's brother, and was a man whose character friends preferred not to recall after his death. He had made his wife unhappy. The truthful reports about his behaviour had made more credible those rumours which were falsely circulated about his better-principled brother. Caroline had never known her mother, as she was taken from her in infancy. She had not seen her since. Her father died comparatively young, and her uncle, the rector, had for some years been her sole guardian. He was not much suited to have the charge of a young girl. He had taken little trouble about her education; probably he would have taken none if she had not grown anxious about it, and asked to acquire some knowledge. Still, she had a depressing feeling that she was inferior, with fewer attainments than those of other girls of her age; and she was very glad of the kind offer made by her cousin Hortense to teach her French and fine needle-work. Mlle. Moore, for her part, delighted in the task, because it gave her importance; she liked to lord it a little over a docile yet quick pupil. When she found that Caroline made rapid and eager progress, she ascribed the improvement entirely to her own superior teaching. She imagined that everything Caroline knew, she had learned from her, even on subjects of which she knew little herself. The idea was not logical, but Hortense had perfect faith in it. Mademoiselle kept her young cousin to dry studies as closely as she could. She worked her unrelentingly at French grammar, giving her endless "analyses logiques." These were not pleasant to Caroline; she thought she could have learned French just as well without them, and grudged the time spent in pondering over "propositions, principales, et incidents;" and examining whether the proposition was "pleine," "elliptique," or "implicite." Sometimes she lost herself in the maze, and while Hortense was busy upstairs, would carry her book to Robert in the counting-house, and get the rough place made smooth by his aid. Mr. Moore possessed a clear, tranquil brain. Caroline's little difficulties seemed to dissolve beneath his eye. In two minutes he would explain all. Repaying him by an admiring and grateful smile, she would leave the mill reluctantly to go back to the cottage, wishing nature had made her a boy instead of a girl, so that she might be Robert's clerk, and sit with him in the counting-house. Very occasionally she spent the evening at Hollow's Cottage. Sometimes during these visits Moore was away; but sometimes he was at home, and free to talk. When this was the case, the evening hours passed on wings of light. There was no room in England so pleasant as that small parlour when the three cousins occupied it. Hortense, when she was not teaching, or scolding, was good-humoured; she relaxed, and was kind to her young English kinswoman. Sometimes Caroline would ask her to play her guitar and sing; she played with skill, and had a well-toned voice. Her performance would have been completely agreeable, but for her self-important manner. Mr. Moore, released from business, was, if not lively himself, a willing spectator of Caroline's liveliness, agreeable and ready to respond to her questions. Sometimes he was almost animated, quite gentle and friendly. The drawback was that by the next morning he was sure to be frozen up again; and however much he seemed, in his quiet way, to enjoy these social evenings, he rarely asked for their recurrence. This puzzled his inexperienced cousin. "If I had a means of happiness at my command," she thought, "I would employ it often, and not let it lie for weeks aside." Yet she was careful not to visit unasked, much though she enjoyed her evenings there. Often, indeed, when pressed by Hortense to come, she would refuse, because Robert did not second the request. This morning was the first time he had ever given her an invitation unprompted; and he had spoken so kindly that she was glad for the whole day. The morning passed as usual. Mademoiselle spent it in bustling from kitchen to parlour, now scolding Sarah, now looking over Caroline's exercise or hearing her lesson. However faultlessly these tasks were achieved, Hortense never praised her, believing that praise was inconsistent with a teacher's dignity. She thought reprimand, however, necessary to maintain authority; and if no error was to be found in the lesson, she would correct the pupil's deportment or dress. The usual affray took place about the dinner, which Sarah almost flung upon the table, with a look that said quite plainly, "I never dished such stuff i' my life afore; it's not fit for dogs." It was a savoury repast enough. The soup was a pure of dried peas, followed by a dish of miscellaneous meat - chopped up with breadcrumbs, seasoned uniquely though not unpleasantly, and baked in a mould - a strange but tasty dish. Caroline had no objection to this Belgian cookery - indeed, she rather liked it; and it was just as well, for showing any distaste would have injured her in mademoiselle's good graces for ever. Soon after dinner Caroline coaxed her governess to dress. This manuvre required management. To have hinted that the jupon - the stiff petticoat - camisole and curl-papers were odious objects would have been unwise, and would be likely to result in Hortense wearing them all day. However, the pupil managed to get the teacher upstairs; and, once in the bedroom, she persuaded her that she might as well get changed now; and while mademoiselle delivered a solemn homily on her own merit in disregarding all frivolities of fashion, Caroline denuded her of the camisole, invested her with a decent gown, arranged her collar and hair, and made her quite presentable. But Hortense would put on the finishing touches herself - a thick handkerchief tied round the throat, and a large, servant-like black apron, which spoiled everything. The handkerchief was a fichu, worn for propriety; the apron was the sign of a good housewife - she appeared to think that it somehow caused a large saving in her brother's income. She had given Caroline similar items; and Caroline's refusal to accept them had caused the only serious quarrel they had ever had. "I wear a high collar," said Caroline, "and I should feel suffocated with a handkerchief in addition; and my short aprons do quite as well as that long one." Yet Hortense would have insisted, had not Mr. Moore chanced to overhear, and decided that Caroline's little aprons would suffice, and that as she was still a child, she might for the present dispense with the fichu. His sister was compelled to yield; but she disapproved of the piquant and ladylike neatness of Caroline's costume. Something more solid and homely she would have considered much more fitting. The afternoon was devoted to sewing. Mademoiselle, like most Belgian ladies, was skilful with her needle, and devoted countless hours to fine embroidery, sight-destroying lace-work, netting, knitting, and, above all, elaborate stocking-mending. She would give a day to mending two holes in a stocking, and think it a mission nobly fulfilled. Caroline was condemned to learn this style of darning, which had to imitate exactly the fabric of the stocking - a wearisome process, but considered by Hortense as one of the first duties of a woman. She herself had been expert at darning since she was six; and when she first discovered that Caroline was ignorant of this essential skill, she could have wept with pity. She found a hopeless pair of stockings, and set the ignorant English girl to work. This task had begun two years ago, and Caroline had the stockings in her work-bag still. They were a grievous burden to her; she would have liked to put them in the fire; and once Mr. Moore, who had observed her sighing over them, had proposed a private cremation in the counting-house; but Caroline knew it would have been unwise. All this afternoon the two ladies sat and sewed. The sky had darkened; it had begun to rain again. Secret fears began to steal on Caroline that Robert would stay at Whinbury till it cleared. Five o'clock struck, and still the clouds streamed. A sighing wind whispered in the trees; day seemed already closing. "It will not be fine till the moon rises," pronounced Mlle Moore, "and I am sure that my brother will not return till then. We will have coffee. It would be vain to wait for him." "I am tired. May I leave my work now, cousin?" "You may, since it grows too dark to do it well. Fold it up; put it away carefully; then step into the kitchen and desire Sarah to bring in the tray." "But it has not yet struck six. He may still come." "He will not, I tell you. I understand my brother." Caroline went obediently into the kitchen, where Sarah was sewing herself a dress. "You are to bring in coffee," she said in a spiritless tone; and then she leaned her arm and head against the kitchen mantelpiece, and hung listlessly over the fire. "How low you seem, miss! It's because your cousin keeps you so close at work. It's a shame!" "Nothing of the kind, Sarah," was the reply. "Oh! but I know it is. You're fit to cry, just because you've sat still the whole day. It would make a kitten dull to be mewed up so." "Sarah, does your master often come home early from market when it is wet?" "Hardly ever; but just today he has. I saw Murgatroyd lead his horse into the yard five minutes since. He was in the counting-house with Joe Scott, I believe. I heard him saying something to Joe about having a new set of frames in the mill next week, and that this time he would get four soldiers from Stilbro' barracks to guard the wagon." "Sarah, are you making a gown?" "Yes. Is it handsome?" "Beautiful! Get the coffee. I'll finish cutting out that sleeve for you, and I'll give you some trimming for it. I have some satin ribbon that will just match it." "You're very kind, miss." "Be quick; there's a good girl. But first put your master's shoes on the hearth for him. I hear him coming." The kitchen door opened; Mr. Moore entered, very wet and cold. Caroline half turned, but then bent over the dress again, her face hidden. There was an attempt to settle her features, which failed. When she at last looked up, she beamed. "They said you would not come," she said. "But I promised to return. You expected me, I suppose?" "No, Robert; it rained so fast. And you are wet and chilled. Change your clothes. If you took cold, I should - we should blame ourselves." "I am not wet through: my riding-coat is waterproof. Dry shoes are all I require. There - the fire is pleasant." He stood on the hearth and glanced down for an instant on an uplifted face, flushed and smiling, shaded with silky curls. Sarah was gone into the parlour with the tray; Moore placed his hand a moment on his young cousin's shoulder, stooped, and left a kiss on her forehead. "Oh!" said she, "I was miserable when I thought you would not come. I am almost too happy now. Are you happy, Robert? Do you like to come home?" "I think I do - tonight, at least." "You are not fretting about your frames, and your business, and the war?" "Not just now." "Are you positive you don't feel Hollow's Cottage too small and dismal for you?" "At this moment, no." "And you are not bitter at heart because rich and great people forget you?" "No more questions. You are mistaken if you think I am anxious to curry favour with the rich. I only want a career." "Which your own talent and goodness shall win you. You were made to be great." "And how would that happen? Oh, life is not what you think it, Lina!" "But you are what I think you." "I am not. I am far worse," said Moore. "No; far better. I know you are good. I feel in my heart you are so." "Ah! You should judge me with your head, Lina." "I do; and then I am quite proud of you." Mr. Moore's face coloured; his lips smiled, and yet were compressed; his eyes laughed, and yet he knit his brow. "Think meanly of me, Lina," said he. "Men, in general, are a sort of scum, and I am no better than my fellows." "It is because you are modest that I have such confidence in your merit." "Then why do you say this, Caroline?" he demanded sharply. "Only to ease my mind by expressing what I think for once; and to make you better satisfied with yourself." "By assuring me that you are my sincere friend?" "Just so, Robert. You are not my enemy, are you?" The answer was cut short by Sarah and her mistress entering the kitchen in some commotion. They had been disputing about "caf au lait," which Sarah said was the queerest mess she ever saw, and a waste of God's good gifts, as coffee should be boiled in water; and which mademoiselle affirmed to be a royal beverage, a thousand times too good for Sarah. As they all withdrew into the parlour, Caroline had only time again to question, "Not my enemy, Robert?" And Moore had replied: "Could I be?" before he sat down at the table. Caroline scarcely heard mademoiselle's explosion of wrath about Sarah; Robert laughed a little, and then, entreating his sister to be tranquil, assured her that she should have her choice of maid from all the girls in his mill. Only he feared they would scarcely suit her, as they were ignorant of household work; and just as pert and self-willed as Sarah was. Mademoiselle admitted the truth of this. "Shall I try and get you an Antwerp girl?" asked Mr. Moore, who, stern in public, was kind in private. "An Antwerp girl would not stay, sneered at as she would be by all the young coquines in your factory;" then softening, "You are very good, dear brother - excuse my petulance - but my domestic trials are severe. Yet I recollect that our revered mother experienced similar sufferings, though she had the choice of all the best servants in Antwerp." Mr. Moore recalled his good mother's kitchen in Antwerp, and let the subject drop. He consoled Hortense by fetching her guitar, and asking her to play some of their mother's favourite songs. Hortense, pleased, looked almost graceful, almost handsome; as she played, her everyday fretful look was gone. She sang with feeling. Seeing that Caroline listened with interest, this increased her good-humour. Caroline's exclamation at the close of the song, "I wish I could sing and play like Hortense!" rendered her charming for the evening. Cradled in blissful self-complacency, Hortense took up her knitting. Drawn curtains, a clear fire, a softly-shining lamp, gave the little parlour its best charm. "What shall we do now, Caroline?" asked Mr. Moore. "What shall we do, Robert?" repeated she playfully. "You decide." "Not play at chess?" "No." "Nor draughts, nor backgammon?" "No, no; we both hate silent games that only keep one's hands employed, don't we?" "I believe we do. Then shall we talk scandal?" "About whom? Are we sufficiently interested in anybody to take a pleasure in pulling their character to pieces?" "For my part, I must say no." "And I too. But it is strange, though we want no third - fourth, I mean (she hastily glanced at Hortense), living person here - it would be pleasant to go back to the past, to hear people of long gone generations speak to us and tell us their thoughts." "Who shall be the speaker? Is he French?" "No, Robert. Tonight you shall be entirely English. You shall read an English book. An old book - that shall waken your nature, fill your mind with music; it shall pass like a skilful hand over your heart, and make its strings sound like a lyre. Let glorious William touch your heart." "I must read Shakespeare? - with a view to making me better? Is it to operate like a sermon?" "It is to stir you, to give you new sensations. It is to make you feel your life strongly - not only your virtues, but your vices." "What is she saying?" cried Hortense, who had been counting stitches. "Never mind, sister; let her talk. Let her say anything she pleases tonight. It amuses me." Caroline, who had been rummaging at the bookcase, returned with a book. "Here's Coriolanus," she said. "Now, read, and discover at once how low and how high you are." "Come, then, sit near me, and correct when I mispronounce." "I am to be the teacher then? If you are all French, and sceptical and sneering, I'll put on my bonnet and go home." "Sit down. Here I begin." He placed the book between them, reposed his arm on the back of Caroline's chair, and began to read. He relished the very first scene in Coriolanus; as he read he warmed. He delivered the haughty speech of Caius Marcius to the starving citizens suavely, as if he thought his irrational pride was right. Caroline looked up at him with a singular smile. "There's a vicious point already," she said. "You sympathize with that proud patrician who insults his famished fellow-men. Go on." He proceeded. The warlike parts did not rouse him much; yet the single-handed fight between Marcius and Tullus Aufidius he delighted in. As he went on, he began to revel in the picture of human nature, to feel the reality stamped upon the characters on the page. He did not read the comic scenes well; so Caroline read these parts for him, with unexpected spirit and expression. Indeed, her conversation that evening, whether grave or gay, was intuitive - glittering like the fleeting ripple on a stream. Coriolanus in glory, Coriolanus in disaster, Coriolanus banished, followed one after the other. Before the vision of the banished man Moore's spirit seemed to pause. He stood on the hearth of Aufidius's hall, seeing greatness fallen, but greater than ever in that low estate. With the revenge of Caius Marcius, Moore perfectly sympathized; and again Caroline whispered, "There I see another glimpse of brotherhood in error." The march on Rome, the mother's supplication, the long resistance, the final yielding of bad passions to good, the death of Coriolanus and his enemy's final sorrow - all flowed on deep and fast, carrying with them the heart and mind of the reader. "Now, have you felt anything in Coriolanus like you?" asked Caroline, after her cousin had closed the book. "Perhaps I have." "Was he not faulty as well as great?" Moore nodded. "And what was his fault? What made him hated by the citizens? What caused him to be banished by his countrymen?" "What do you think it was?" "It was pride," said Caroline. "You must not be proud to your workpeople; you must soothe them; you must not be inflexible and austere." "What puts such notions into your head?" "A care for your safety, dear Robert, and a fear that you will come to harm. I hear my uncle talk about you. He praises your hard and determined spirit, your scorn of low enemies, and your resolution not 'to truckle to the mob.' Yet I cannot help thinking it unjust to include all poor working-people under the insulting name of 'the mob,' and to treat them haughtily." "You are a little democrat, Caroline. If your uncle knew, what would he say?" "I rarely talk to my uncle, and never about such things. He thinks everything but sewing and cooking above women's comprehension." "And do you fancy you comprehend the subjects on which you advise me?" "I know it would be better for you to be loved by your workpeople than to be hated by them, and I am sure that kindness is more likely to win their regard than pride. If you were proud and cold to me and Hortense, should we love you? When you are cold to me, as you are sometimes, how can I venture to be affectionate in return?" "Now, Lina, I've had my lesson; it is your turn. Hortense tells me you were much taken by a little piece of poetry you learned the other day, by Chnier - 'La Jeune Captive.' Do you remember it still?" "I think so." "Repeat it, then. Take your time and mind your accent; let us have no English u's." Caroline, beginning in a low, rather tremulous voice, but gaining courage as she proceeded, repeated the sweet verses of Chnier. Moore listened at first with his eyes cast down, but soon he raised them. Leaning back in his chair he could watch Caroline without her noticing. Her eyes had an animating light this evening: at the present moment, she might be called beautiful. When she had finished, she turned to Moore. "Is that pretty well repeated?" she inquired, smiling like a happy child. "I really don't know." "Have you not listened?" "Yes - and looked. You are fond of poetry, Lina?" "When I meet with real poetry, I cannot rest till I have learned it by heart, and so made it partly mine." It struck nine o'clock. Sarah entered, and said that Mr. Helstone's servant was come for Miss Caroline. "Then the evening is gone already," Caroline observed, "and it will be long, I suppose, before I pass another here." Hortense had been for some time dozing over her knitting, and made no response. "You would not mind coming here oftener of an evening?" inquired Robert, as he carefully wrapped her mantle round her. "I like to come; but I have no desire to be intrusive. I am not hinting to be asked; you must understand that." "Oh! I understand thee, child. You sometimes lecture me for wishing to be rich, Lina; but if I were rich, you should live here always." "That would be pleasant, even if you were poor. Good-night, Robert." "I promised to walk with you up to the rectory." "I know you did; but I thought you had forgotten. It is a cold night, and as Fanny is come, there is no need-" "Here is your muff; don't wake Hortense. Come." The half mile to the rectory was soon traversed. They parted in the garden without a kiss, scarcely with a pressure of hands; yet Robert sent his cousin in excited and joyously troubled. He had been singularly kind to her that day. For himself, he came home grave, almost morose. As he stood leaning on his yard-gate, musing in the moonlight, he exclaimed abruptly: "This won't do! There's weakness and downright ruin in all this. However," he added, dropping his voice, "the frenzy is quite temporary. I know it very well; I have had it before. It will be gone tomorrow."

Shirley

Chapter 6: CORIOLANUS

Yes, reader, we must settle accounts now. I have only briefly to narrate the final fates of some of the personages whose acquaintance we have made in this narrative, and then you and I must shake hands, and for the present separate. Let us turn to the curates--to the much-loved, though long-neglected. Come forward, modest merit! Malone, I see, promptly answers the invocation. He knows his own description when he hears it. No, Peter Augustus; we can have nothing to say to you. It won't do. Impossible to trust ourselves with the touching tale of your deeds and destinies. Are you not aware, Peter, that a discriminating public has its crotchets; that the unvarnished truth does not answer; that plain facts will not digest? Do you not know that the squeak of the real pig is no more relished now than it was in days of yore? Were I to give the catastrophe of your life and conversation, the public would sweep off in shrieking hysterics, and there would be a wild cry for sal-volatile and burnt feathers. "Impossible!" would be pronounced here; "untrue!" would be responded there; "inartistic!" would be solemnly decided. Note well. Whenever you present the actual, simple truth, it is, somehow, always denounced as a lie--they disown it, cast it off, throw it on the parish; whereas the product of your own imagination, the mere figment, the sheer fiction, is adopted, petted, termed pretty, proper, sweetly natural--the little, spurious wretch gets all the comfits, the honest, lawful bantling all the cuffs. Such is the way of the world, Peter; and as you are the legitimate urchin, rude, unwashed, and naughty, you must stand down. Make way for Mr. Sweeting. Here he comes, with his lady on his arm--the most splendid and the weightiest woman in Yorkshire--Mrs. Sweeting, formerly Miss Dora Sykes. They were married under the happiest auspices, Mr. Sweeting having been just inducted to a comfortable living, and Mr. Sykes being in circumstances to give Dora a handsome portion. They lived long and happily together, beloved by their parishioners and by a numerous circle of friends. There! I think the varnish has been put on very nicely. Advance, Mr. Donne. This gentleman turned out admirably--far better than either you or I could possibly have expected, reader. He, too, married a most sensible, quiet, lady-like little woman. The match was the making of him. He became an exemplary domestic character, and a truly active parish priest (as a pastor he, to his dying day, conscientiously refused to act). The outside of the cup and platter he burnished up with the best polishing-powder; the furniture of the altar and temple he looked after with the zeal of an upholsterer, the care of a cabinet-maker. His little school, his little church, his little parsonage, all owed their erection to him; and they did him credit. Each was a model in its way. If uniformity and taste in architecture had been the same thing as consistency and earnestness in religion, what a shepherd of a Christian flock Mr. Donne would have made! There was one art in the mastery of which nothing mortal ever surpassed Mr. Donne: it was that of begging. By his own unassisted efforts he begged all the money for all his erections. In this matter he had a grasp of plan, a scope of action quite unique. He begged of high and low--of the shoeless cottage brat and the coroneted duke. He sent out begging-letters far and wide--to old Queen Charlotte, to the princesses her daughters, to her sons the royal dukes, to the Prince Regent, to Lord Castlereagh, to every member of the ministry then in office; and, what is more remarkable, he screwed something out of every one of these personages. It is on record that he got five pounds from the close-fisted old lady Queen Charlotte, and two guineas from the royal profligate her eldest son. When Mr. Donne set out on begging expeditions, he armed himself in a complete suit of brazen mail. That you had given a hundred pounds yesterday was with him no reason why you should not give two hundred to-day. He would tell you so to your face, and, ten to one, get the money out of you. People gave to get rid of him. After all, he did some good with the cash. He was useful in his day and generation. Perhaps I ought to remark that on the premature and sudden vanishing of Mr. Malone from the stage of Briarfield parish (you cannot know how it happened, reader; your curiosity must be robbed to pay your elegant love of the pretty and pleasing), there came as his successor another Irish curate, Mr. Macarthey. I am happy to be able to inform you, _with truth_, that this gentleman did as much credit to his country as Malone had done it discredit. He proved himself as decent, decorous, and conscientious as Peter was rampant, boisterous, and---- This last epithet I choose to suppress, because it would let the cat out of the bag. He laboured faithfully in the parish. The schools, both Sunday and day schools, flourished under his sway like green bay trees. Being human, of course he had his faults. These, however, were proper, steady-going, clerical faults--what many would call virtues. The circumstance of finding himself invited to tea with a Dissenter would unhinge him for a week. The spectacle of a Quaker wearing his hat in the church, the thought of an unbaptized fellow-creature being interred with Christian rites--these things could make strange havoc in Mr. Macarthey's physical and mental economy. Otherwise he was sane and rational, diligent and charitable. I doubt not a justice-loving public will have remarked, ere this, that I have thus far shown a criminal remissness in pursuing, catching, and bringing to condign punishment the would-be assassin of Mr. Robert Moore. Here was a fine opening to lead my willing readers a dance, at once decorous and exciting--a dance of law and gospel, of the dungeon, the dock, and the "dead-thraw." You might have liked it, reader, but _I_ should not. I and my subject would presently have quarrelled, and then I should have broken down. I was happy to find that facts perfectly exonerated me from the attempt. The murderer was never punished, for the good reason that he was never caught--the result of the further circumstance that he was never pursued. The magistrates made a shuffling, as if they were going to rise and do valiant things; but since Moore himself, instead of urging and leading them as heretofore, lay still on his little cottage-couch, laughing in his sleeve, and sneering with every feature of his pale, foreign face, they considered better of it, and after fulfilling certain indispensable forms, prudently resolved to let the matter quietly drop, which they did. Mr. Moore knew who had shot him, and all Briarfield knew. It was no other than Michael Hartley, the half-crazed weaver once before alluded to, a frantic Antinomian in religion, and a mad leveller in politics. The poor soul died of delirium tremens a year after the attempt on Moore, and Robert gave his wretched widow a guinea to bury him. * * * * * The winter is over and gone; spring has followed with beamy and shadowy, with flowery and showery flight. We are now in the heart of summer--in mid-June--the June of 1812. It is burning weather. The air is deep azure and red gold. It fits the time; it fits the age; it fits the present spirit of the nations. The nineteenth century wantons in its giant adolescence; the Titan boy uproots mountains in his game, and hurls rocks in his wild sport. This summer Bonaparte is in the saddle; he and his host scour Russian deserts. He has with him Frenchmen and Poles, Italians and children of the Rhine, six hundred thousand strong. He marches on old Moscow. Under old Moscow's walls the rude Cossack waits him. Barbarian stoic! he waits without fear of the boundless ruin rolling on. He puts his trust in a snow-cloud; the wilderness, the wind, and the hail-storm are his refuge; his allies are the elements--air, fire, water. And what are these? Three terrible archangels ever stationed before the throne of Jehovah. They stand clothed in white, girdled with golden girdles; they uplift vials, brimming with the wrath of God. Their time is the day of vengeance; their signal, the word of the Lord of hosts, "thundering with the voice of His excellency." "Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war? "Go your ways. Pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth." It is done. The earth is scorched with fire; the sea becomes "as the blood of a dead man;" the islands flee away; the mountains are not found. In this year, Lord Wellington assumed the reins in Spain. They made him generalissimo, for their own salvation's sake. In this year he took Badajos, he fought the field of Vittoria, he captured Pampeluna, he stormed San Sebastian; in this year he won Salamanca. Men of Manchester, I beg your pardon for this slight _rsum_ of warlike facts, but it is of no consequence. Lord Wellington is, for you, only a decayed old gentleman now. I rather think some of you have called him a "dotard;" you have taunted him with his age and the loss of his physical vigour. What fine heroes you are yourselves! Men like you have a right to trample on what is mortal in a demigod. Scoff at your ease; your scorn can never break his grand old heart. But come, friends, whether Quakers or cotton-printers, let us hold a peace-congress, and let out our venom quietly. We have been talking with unseemly zeal about bloody battles and butchering generals; we arrive now at a triumph in your line. On the 18th of June 1812 the Orders in Council were repealed, and the blockaded ports thrown open. You know very well--such of you as are old enough to remember--you made Yorkshire and Lancashire shake with your shout on that occasion. The ringers cracked a bell in Briarfield belfry; it is dissonant to this day. The Association of Merchants and Manufacturers dined together at Stilbro', and one and all went home in such a plight as their wives would never wish to witness more. Liverpool started and snorted like a river-horse roused amongst his reeds by thunder. Some of the American merchants felt threatenings of apoplexy, and had themselves bled--all, like wise men, at this first moment of prosperity, prepared to rush into the bowels of speculation, and to delve new difficulties, in whose depths they might lose themselves at some future day. Stocks which had been accumulating for years now went off in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. Warehouses were lightened, ships were laden; work abounded, wages rose; the good time seemed come. These prospects might be delusive, but they were brilliant--to some they were even true. At that epoch, in that single month of June, many a solid fortune was realized. * * * * * When a whole province rejoices, the humblest of its inhabitants tastes a festal feeling; the sound of public bells rouses the most secluded abode, as if with a call to be gay. And so Caroline Helstone thought, when she dressed herself more carefully than usual on the day of this trading triumph, and went, attired in her neatest muslin, to spend the afternoon at Fieldhead, there to superintend certain millinery preparations for a great event, the last appeal in these matters being reserved for her unimpeachable taste. She decided on the wreath, the veil, the dress to be worn at the altar. She chose various robes and fashions for more ordinary occasions, without much reference to the bride's opinion--that lady, indeed, being in a somewhat impracticable mood. Louis had presaged difficulties, and he had found them--in fact, his mistress had shown herself exquisitely provoking, putting off her marriage day by day, week by week, month by month, at first coaxing him with soft pretences of procrastination, and in the end rousing his whole deliberate but determined nature to revolt against her tyranny, at once so sweet and so intolerable. It had needed a sort of tempest-shock to bring her to the point; but there she was at last, fettered to a fixed day. There she lay, conquered by love, and bound with a vow. Thus vanquished and restricted, she pined, like any other chained denizen of deserts. Her captor alone could cheer her; his society only could make amends for the lost privilege of liberty. In his absence she sat or wandered alone, spoke little, and ate less. She furthered no preparations for her nuptials; Louis was himself obliged to direct all arrangements. He was virtually master of Fieldhead weeks before he became so nominally--the least presumptuous, the kindest master that ever was, but with his lady absolute. She abdicated without a word or a struggle. "Go to Mr. Moore, ask Mr. Moore," was her answer when applied to for orders. Never was wooer of wealthy bride so thoroughly absolved from the subaltern part, so inevitably compelled to assume a paramount character. In all this Miss Keeldar partly yielded to her disposition; but a remark she made a year afterwards proved that she partly also acted on system. "Louis," she said, "would never have learned to rule if she had not ceased to govern. The incapacity of the sovereign had developed the powers of the premier." It had been intended that Miss Helstone should act as bridesmaid at the approaching nuptials, but Fortune had destined her another part. She came home in time to water her plants. She had performed this little task. The last flower attended to was a rose-tree, which bloomed in a quiet green nook at the back of the house. This plant had received the refreshing shower; she was now resting a minute. Near the wall stood a fragment of sculptured stone--a monkish relic--once, perhaps, the base of a cross. She mounted it, that she might better command the view. She had still the watering pot in one hand; with the other her pretty dress was held lightly aside, to avoid trickling drops. She gazed over the wall, along some lonely fields; beyond three dusk trees, rising side by side against the sky; beyond a solitary thorn at the head of a solitary lane far off. She surveyed the dusk moors, where bonfires were kindling. The summer evening was warm; the bell-music was joyous; the blue smoke of the fires looked soft, their red flame bright. Above them, in the sky whence the sun had vanished, twinkled a silver point--the star of love. Caroline was not unhappy that evening--far otherwise; but as she gazed she sighed, and as she sighed a hand circled her, and rested quietly on her waist. Caroline thought she knew who had drawn near; she received the touch unstartled. "I am looking at Venus, mamma. See, she is beautiful. How white her lustre is, compared with the deep red of the bonfires!" The answer was a closer caress; and Caroline turned, and looked, not into Mrs. Pryor's matron face, but up at a dark manly visage. She dropped her watering-pot and stepped down from the pedestal. "I have been sitting with 'mamma' an hour," said the intruder. "I have had a long conversation with her. Where, meantime, have you been?" "To Fieldhead. Shirley is as naughty as ever, Robert. She will neither say Yes nor No to any question put. She sits alone. I cannot tell whether she is melancholy or nonchalant. If you rouse her or scold her, she gives you a look, half wistful, half reckless, which sends you away as queer and crazed as herself. What Louis will make of her, I cannot tell. For my part, if I were a gentleman, I think I would not dare undertake her." "Never mind them. They were cut out for each other. Louis, strange to say, likes her all the better for these freaks. He will manage her, if any one can. She tries him, however. He has had a stormy courtship for such a calm character; but you see it all ends in victory for him. Caroline, I have sought you to ask an audience. Why are those bells ringing?" "For the repeal of your terrible law--the Orders you hate so much. You are pleased, are you not?" "Yesterday evening at this time I was packing some books for a sea-voyage. They were the only possessions, except some clothes, seeds, roots, and tools, which I felt free to take with me to Canada. I was going to leave you." "To leave me? To leave _me_?" Her little fingers fastened on his arm; she spoke and looked affrighted. "Not now--not now. Examine my face--yes, look at me well. Is the despair of parting legible thereon?" She looked into an illuminated countenance, whose characters were all beaming, though the page itself was dusk. This face, potent in the majesty of its traits, shed down on her hope, fondness, delight. "Will the repeal do you good--_much_ good, _immediate_ good?" she inquired. "The repeal of the Orders in Council saves me. Now I shall not turn bankrupt; now I shall not give up business; now I shall not leave England; now I shall be no longer poor; now I can pay my debts; now all the cloth I have in my warehouses will be taken off my hands, and commissions given me for much more. This day lays for my fortunes a broad, firm foundation, on which, for the first time in my life, I can securely build." Caroline devoured his words; she held his hand in hers; she drew a long breath. "You are saved? Your heavy difficulties are lifted?" "They are lifted. I breathe. I can act." "At last! Oh, Providence is kind! Thank Him, Robert." "I do thank Providence." "And I also, for your sake!" She looked up devoutly. "Now I can take more workmen, give better wages, lay wiser and more liberal plans, do some good, be less selfish. _Now_, Caroline, I can have a house--a home which I can truly call mine--and _now_----" He paused, for his deep voice was checked. "And _now_," he resumed--"now I can think of marriage, _now_ I can seek a wife." This was no moment for her to speak. She did not speak. "Will Caroline, who meekly hopes to be forgiven as she forgives--will she pardon all I have made her suffer, all that long pain I have wickedly caused her, all that sickness of body and mind she owed to me? Will she forget what she knows of my poor ambition, my sordid schemes? Will she let me expiate these things? Will she suffer me to prove that, as I once deserted cruelly, trifled wantonly, injured basely, I can now love faithfully, cherish fondly, treasure tenderly?" His hand was in Caroline's still; a gentle pressure answered him. "Is Caroline mine?" "Caroline is yours." "I will prize her. The sense of her value is here, in my heart; the necessity for her society is blended with my life. Not more jealous shall I be of the blood whose flow moves my pulses than of her happiness and well-being." "I love you, too, Robert, and will take faithful care of you." "Will you take faithful care of me? Faithful care! As if that rose should promise to shelter from tempest this hard gray stone! But she _will_ care for me, in her way. These hands will be the gentle ministrants of every comfort I can taste. I know the being I seek to entwine with my own will bring me a solace, a charity, a purity, to which, of myself, I am a stranger." Suddenly Caroline was troubled; her lip quivered. "What flutters my dove?" asked Moore, as she nestled to and then uneasily shrank from him. "Poor mamma! I am all mamma has. Must I leave her?" "Do you know, I thought of that difficulty. I and 'mamma' have discussed it." "Tell me what you wish, what you would like, and I will consider if it is possible to consent. But I cannot desert her, even for you. I cannot break her heart, even for your sake." "She was faithful when I was false--was she not? I never came near your sick-bed, and she watched it ceaselessly." "What must I do? Anything but leave her." "At my wish you never shall leave her." "She may live very near us?" "With us--only she will have her own rooms and servant. For this she stipulates herself." "You know she has an income, that, with her habits, makes her quite independent?" "She told me that, with a gentle pride that reminded me of somebody else." "She is not at all interfering, and incapable of gossip." "I know her, Cary. But if, instead of being the personification of reserve and discretion, she were something quite opposite, I should not fear her." "Yet she will be your mother-in-law?" The speaker gave an arch little nod. Moore smiled. "Louis and I are not of the order of men who fear their mothers-in-law, Cary. Our foes never have been, nor will be, those of our own household. I doubt not my mother-in-law will make much of me." "That she will--in her quiet way, you know. She is not demonstrative; and when you see her silent, or even cool, you must not fancy her displeased; it is only a manner she has. Be sure to let me interpret for her whenever she puzzles you; always believe my account of the matter, Robert." "Oh, implicitly! Jesting apart, I feel that she and I will suit--_on ne peut mieux_. Hortense, you know, is exquisitely susceptible--in our French sense of the word--and not, perhaps, always reasonable in her requirements; yet, dear, honest girl, I never painfully wounded her feelings or had a serious quarrel with her in my life." "No; you are most generously considerate, indeed, most tenderly indulgent to her; and you will be considerate with mamma. You are a gentleman all through, Robert, to the bone, and nowhere so perfect a gentleman as at your own fireside." "A eulogium I like; it is very sweet. I am well pleased my Caroline should view me in this light." "Mamma just thinks of you as I do." "Not quite, I hope?" "She does not want to marry you--don't be vain; but she said to me the other day, 'My dear, Mr. Moore has pleasing manners; he is one of the few gentlemen I have seen who combine politeness with an air of sincerity.'" "'Mamma' is rather a misanthropist, is she not? Not the best opinion of the sterner sex?" "She forbears to judge them as a whole, but she has her exceptions whom she admires--Louis and Mr. Hall, and, of late, yourself. She did not like you once; I knew that, because she would never speak of you. But, Robert----" "Well, what now? What is the new thought?" "You have not seen my uncle yet?" "I have. 'Mamma' called him into the room. He consents conditionally. If I prove that I can keep a wife, I may have her; and I _can_ keep her better than he thinks--better than I choose to boast." "If you get rich you will do good with your money, Robert?" "I _will_ do good; you shall tell me how. Indeed, I have some schemes of my own, which you and I will talk about on our own hearth one day. I have seen the necessity of doing good; I have learned the downright folly of being selfish. Caroline, I foresee what I will now foretell. This war _must_ ere long draw to a close. Trade is likely to prosper for some years to come. There may be a brief misunderstanding between England and America, but that will not last. What would you think if, one day--perhaps ere another ten years elapse--Louis and I divide Briarfield parish betwixt us? Louis, at any rate, is certain of power and property. He will not bury his talents. He is a benevolent fellow, and has, besides, an intellect of his own of no trifling calibre. His mind is slow but strong. It must work. It may work deliberately, but it will work well. He will be made magistrate of the district--Shirley says he shall. She would proceed impetuously and prematurely to obtain for him this dignity, if he would let her, but he will not. As usual, he will be in no haste. Ere he has been master of Fieldhead a year all the district will feel his quiet influence, and acknowledge his unassuming superiority. A magistrate is wanted; they will, in time, invest him with the office voluntarily and unreluctantly. Everybody admires his future wife, and everybody will, in time, like him. He is of the _pte_ generally approved, _bon comme le pain_--daily bread for the most fastidious, good for the infant and the aged, nourishing for the poor, wholesome for the rich. Shirley, in spite of her whims and oddities, her dodges and delays, has an infatuated fondness for him. She will one day see him as universally beloved as even _she_ could wish. He will also be universally esteemed, considered, consulted, depended on--too much so. His advice will be always judicious, his help always good-natured. Ere long both will be in inconvenient request. He will have to impose restrictions. As for me, if I succeed as I intend to do, my success will add to his and Shirley's income. I can double the value of their mill property. I can line yonder barren Hollow with lines of cottages and rows of cottage-gardens----" "Robert! And root up the copse?" "The copse shall be firewood ere five years elapse. The beautiful wild ravine shall be a smooth descent; the green natural terrace shall be a paved street. There shall be cottages in the dark ravine, and cottages on the lonely slopes. The rough pebbled track shall be an even, firm, broad, black, sooty road, bedded with the cinders from my mill; and my mill, Caroline--my mill shall fill its present yard." "Horrible! You will change our blue hill-country air into the Stilbro' smoke atmosphere." "I will pour the waters of Pactolus through the valley of Briarfield." "I like the beck a thousand times better." "I will get an Act for enclosing Nunnely Common, and parcelling it out into farms." "Stilbro' Moor, however, defies you, thank Heaven! What can you grow in Bilberry Moss? What will flourish on Rushedge?" "Caroline, the houseless, the starving, the unemployed shall come to Hollow's Mill from far and near; and Joe Scott shall give them work, and Louis Moore, Esq., shall let them a tenement, and Mrs. Gill shall mete them a portion till the first pay-day." She smiled up in his face. "Such a Sunday school as you will have, Cary! such collections as you will get! such a day school as you and Shirley and Miss Ainley will have to manage between you! The mill shall find salaries for a master and mistress, and the squire or the clothier shall give a treat once a quarter." She mutely offered a kiss--an offer taken unfair advantage of, to the extortion of about a hundred kisses. "Extravagant day-dreams," said Moore, with a sigh and smile, "yet perhaps we may realize some of them. Meantime, the dew is falling. Mrs. Moore, I shall take you in." * * * * * It is August. The bells clash out again, not only through Yorkshire, but through England. From Spain the voice of a trumpet has sounded long; it now waxes louder and louder; it proclaims Salamanca won. This night is Briarfield to be illuminated. On this day the Fieldhead tenantry dine together; the Hollow's Mill workpeople will be assembled for a like festal purpose; the schools have a grand treat. This morning there were two marriages solemnized in Briarfield church--Louis Grard Moore, Esq., late of Antwerp, to Shirley, daughter of the late Charles Cave Keeldar, Esq., of Fieldhead; Robert Grard Moore, Esq., of Hollow's Mill, to Caroline, niece of the Rev. Matthewson Helstone, M.A., rector of Briarfield. The ceremony, in the first instance, was performed by Mr. Helstone, Hiram Yorke, Esq., of Briarmains, giving the bride away. In the second instance, Mr. Hall, vicar of Nunnely, officiated. Amongst the bridal train the two most noticeable personages were the youthful bridesmen, Henry Sympson and Martin Yorke. I suppose Robert Moore's prophecies were, partially at least, fulfilled. The other day I passed up the Hollow, which tradition says was once green, and lone, and wild; and there I saw the manufacturer's day-dreams embodied in substantial stone and brick and ashes--the cinder-black highway, the cottages, and the cottage gardens; there I saw a mighty mill, and a chimney ambitious as the tower of Babel. I told my old housekeeper when I came home where I had been. "Ay," said she, "this world has queer changes. I can remember the old mill being built--the very first it was in all the district; and then I can remember it being pulled down, and going with my lake-lasses [companions] to see the foundation-stone of the new one laid. The two Mr. Moores made a great stir about it. They were there, and a deal of fine folk besides, and both their ladies; very bonny and grand they looked. But Mrs. Louis was the grandest; she always wore such handsome dresses. Mrs. Robert was quieter like. Mrs. Louis smiled when she talked. She had a real, happy, glad, good-natured look; but she had een that pierced a body through. There is no such ladies nowadays." "What was the Hollow like then, Martha?" "Different to what it is now; but I can tell of it clean different again, when there was neither mill, nor cot, nor hall, except Fieldhead, within two miles of it. I can tell, one summer evening, fifty years syne, my mother coming running in just at the edge of dark, almost fleyed out of her wits, saying she had seen a fairish [fairy] in Fieldhead Hollow; and that was the last fairish that ever was seen on this countryside (though they've been heard within these forty years). A lonesome spot it was, and a bonny spot, full of oak trees and nut trees. It is altered now." The story is told. I think I now see the judicious reader putting on his spectacles to look for the moral. It would be an insult to his sagacity to offer directions. I only say, God speed him in the quest!

Yes, reader, we must settle accounts now. I have only briefly to narrate the final fates of some of the people we have met, and then you and I must shake hands, and for the present separate. Let us turn to the curates - much-loved, though long-neglected. Come forward, modest merit! Malone, I see, promptly answers. No, Peter Augustus; we can have nothing to say to you. It won't do. Are you not aware, Peter, that a discriminating public does not care for the unvarnished truth? Do you not know that the squeak of the real pig is no more relished now than it was in days of yore? Were I to give the catastrophe of your life and conversation, the public would sweep off in shrieking hysterics, and there would be wild cries of "Impossible!" "Untrue!" Note well. Whenever you present the actual truth, it is, somehow, always denounced as a lie; whereas the product of your own imagination, the fiction, is adopted, petted, called sweetly natural. Such is the way of the world, Peter; and as you are the legitimate urchin, you must stand down. Make way for Mr. Sweeting. Here he comes, with his lady on his arm - the splendid Mrs. Sweeting, formerly Miss Dora Sykes. They were married under the happiest auspices, Mr. Sweeting having been just offered a comfortable living. They lived long and happily together, beloved by their parishioners and by a numerous circle of friends. There! I think the varnish has been put on very nicely. Advance, Mr. Donne. This gentleman turned out admirably - far better than either you or I could possibly have expected, reader. He, too, married a most sensible, quiet, lady-like woman. The match was the making of him. He became an exemplary domestic character, and a truly active parish priest. His little school, his little church, his little parsonage, all owed their erection to him; and they did him credit. Each was a model of uniformity and taste. By his own unassisted efforts he begged all the money for these. He begged from high and low - the shoeless cottage brat and the coroneted duke. He sent out begging-letters far and wide - to old Queen Charlotte, her sons and daughters, the Prince Regent, Lord Castlereagh, and every minister then in office; and, what is more remarkable, he got something out of every one of them. Even the Prince Regent donated him two guineas. People gave to get rid of him. After all, he did some good. He was useful in his day. Perhaps I ought to remark that on the premature and sudden vanishing of Mr. Malone from the stage of Briarfield parish (you cannot know how it happened, reader, because of your love of the pretty and pleasing), there came as his successor another Irish curate, Mr. Macarthey. I am happy to inform you that this gentleman did as much credit to his country as Malone had done it discredit. He proved himself as decent, decorous, and conscientious as Peter was rampant, boisterous, and- This last epithet I suppress, because it would let the cat out of the bag. Mr. Macarthey laboured faithfully in the parish. The schools flourished under his sway. His faults were proper, steady-going, clerical faults: an invitation to tea with a Dissenter would unhinge him for a week; the sight of a Quaker wearing his hat in church played havoc with his mental wellbeing. Otherwise he was rational and diligent. The justice-loving public will have remarked that I have been remiss in pursuing, catching, and bringing to punishment the would-be assassin of Mr. Robert Moore. Here was a fine opening to lead my willing readers a dance of law and gospel, of the dungeon and the dock. You might have liked it, reader, but I should not. I was happy to find that facts exonerated me from the attempt. The murderer was never punished, because he was never caught. The magistrates made a shuffling, as if they were going do valiant things; but since Moore did not urge them on, they prudently resolved to let the matter quietly drop. Mr. Moore knew who had shot him, and all Briarfield knew. It was no other than Michael Hartley, the half-crazed weaver. The poor soul died of delirium tremens a year after the attempt on Moore, and Robert gave his wretched widow a guinea to bury him. * The winter is over and gone; spring has followed, with flowery and showery flight. We are now in the heart of summer - the June of 1812. It is burning weather. The air is deep azure and red gold. It fits the time; it fits the age; it fits the present spirit of the nations. This summer Bonaparte is in the saddle, with his army behind him, six hundred thousand strong. He marches on old Moscow, where the Cossack awaits him. Barbarian stoic! he waits without fear of the boundless ruin rolling on. It is the day of vengeance. The earth is scorched with fire; the sea becomes "as the blood of a dead man." In this year, Lord Wellington assumed the reins in Spain. He took Badajos, he fought the field of Vittoria, he captured Pampeluna, he stormed San Sebastian; he won Salamanca. Men of Manchester, I beg your pardon for this slight rsum of warlike facts. Lord Wellington is, for you, only a decayed old gentleman now. I think some of you have called him a "dotard;" you have taunted him with his age and loss of vigour. What fine heroes you are yourselves! Scoff at your ease; your scorn can never break his grand old heart. But come, friends, whether Quakers or cotton-printers, let us hold a peace-congress. We arrive now at a triumph. On the 18th of June 1812 the Orders in Council were repealed, and the blockaded ports thrown open. Yorkshire and Lancashire shook with your shouts on that occasion. The ringers cracked a bell in Briarfield belfry; the Association of Merchants and Manufacturers dined together at Stilbro', and all went home in such a plight as their wives would never wish to witness more. Stocks which had been accumulating for years now went off in the twinkling of an eye. Warehouses were lightened, ships were laden; work abounded, wages rose; the good time seemed come. These prospects might be delusive, but they were brilliant. In that single month of June, many a solid fortune was realized. When a whole province rejoices, the humblest and most secluded of its inhabitants feels festive. So Caroline Helstone thought, when she dressed herself more carefully than usual on the day of this trading triumph, and went, attired in her neatest muslin, to spend the afternoon at Fieldhead, to superintend certain preparations for a great event. She decided on the wreath, the veil, and the dress to be worn at the altar. She chose various robes and fashions for more ordinary occasions, without much reference to the bride's opinion - Shirley, indeed, being in a somewhat impracticable mood. Louis had foreseen difficulties, and he had found them. In fact, his mistress had shown herself exquisitely provoking, putting off her marriage day by day, week by week, month by month, rousing his whole deliberate but determined nature to revolt against her tyranny, at once so sweet and so intolerable. It had needed a sort of tempest-shock to bring her to the point; but at last she was fettered to a fixed day. There she lay, conquered by love, and bound with a vow. Thus vanquished and chained, she pined. Her captor alone could cheer her; in his absence she sat or wandered alone, spoke little, and ate less. She furthered no preparations for her nuptials; Louis was himself obliged to direct all arrangements. He was virtually master of Fieldhead weeks before he actually became so - the least presumptuous master that ever was, but with his lady absolute. She abdicated without a struggle. "Go to Mr. Moore, ask Mr. Moore," was her answer when applied to for orders. In all this Miss Keeldar partly yielded to her disposition; but a remark she made a year afterwards showed another motive. "Louis," she said, "would never have learned to rule if she had not ceased to govern." It had been intended that Miss Helstone should be bridesmaid, but Fortune had destined her another part. She came home in time to water her plants. The last flower attended to was a rose-tree, which bloomed in a quiet green nook at the back of the house. She gazed over the wall, the watering pot still in one hand, surveying the dusky moors, where bonfires were kindling. The summer evening was warm; the bell-music was joyous; the blue smoke of the fires looked soft, their red flame bright. Above them, in the sky, twinkled a silver point - Venus. Caroline was not unhappy that evening; but as she gazed she sighed, and as she sighed a hand circled her, and rested quietly on her waist. Caroline thought she knew who had drawn near, and was not startled. "I am looking at Venus, mamma. See, she is beautiful. How white her lustre is!" The answer was a closer caress; and Caroline turned, and looked, not into Mrs. Pryor's matron face, but up at a dark manly visage. She dropped her watering-pot. "I have been sitting talking with 'mamma' an hour," said the intruder. "Where, meantime, have you been?" "To Fieldhead. Shirley is as naughty as ever, Robert. She will neither say Yes nor No to any question. She sits alone. I cannot tell whether she is melancholy or nonchalant. If you rouse her or scold her, she gives you a look, half wistful, half reckless, which sends you away as queer and crazed as herself. What Louis will make of her, I cannot tell. For my part, if I were a gentleman, I think I would not dare undertake her." "Never mind them. They were cut out for each other. Louis, strange to say, likes her all the better for these freaks. He will manage her, if anyone can. He has had a stormy courtship for such a calm character; but it ends in victory for him. Caroline, I have sought you to ask an audience. Why are those bells ringing?" "For the repeal of your terrible law - the Orders you hate so much. You are pleased, are you not?" "Yesterday evening at this time I was packing some books for a sea-voyage; along with clothes, seeds and tools, to take with me to Canada. I was going to leave you." "To leave me?" Her fingers fastened on his arm; she looked frightened. "Not now. Look at me. Do you see the despair of parting?" She looked into a bright face, beaming down on her with hope, fondness and delight. "Will the repeal do you much good?" she inquired. "The repeal of the Orders in Council saves me. Now I shall not turn bankrupt; I shall not give up business; I shall not leave England. Now I shall be no longer poor; I can pay my debts; all the cloth I have in my warehouses will be taken off my hands. This day lays for my fortunes a broad, firm foundation, on which, for the first time in my life, I can securely build." Caroline held his hand, and drew a long breath. "You are saved? Your difficulties are lifted?" "They are lifted. I can act." "At last! Oh, Providence is kind! Thank Him, Robert." "I do thank Providence. Now I can take more workmen, give better wages, lay wiser plans, do some good, be less selfish. Now, Caroline, I can have a house - a home - and now-" He paused. "And now I can think of marriage; now I can seek a wife." She did not speak. "Will Caroline pardon all I have made her suffer, all that long pain I have wickedly caused her, all that sickness she owed to me? Will she forget what she knows of my poor ambition, my sordid schemes? Will she let me prove that, as I once deserted cruelly, trifled wantonly, I can now love faithfully, cherish tenderly?" His hand was in Caroline's still; a gentle pressure answered him. "Is Caroline mine?" "Caroline is yours. I love you too, Robert, and will take faithful care of you." "Faithful care! As if that rose should promise to shelter from tempest this hard grey stone! But she will care for me, in her way. These hands will gently offer every comfort I can taste. I know she will bring me a solace, a charity, a purity, to which, of myself, I am a stranger." Suddenly Caroline was troubled; her lip quivered. "Poor mamma! I am all she has. Must I leave her?" "Do you know, I thought of that difficulty, and have discussed it with 'mamma'." "I cannot desert her, even for you. I cannot break her heart, even for your sake." "She was faithful when I was false - was she not? I never came near your sick-bed, and she watched it ceaselessly. You shall never leave her." "She may live very near us?" "With us - only she will have her own rooms and servant. This she stipulates herself." "You know she has an income, that makes her quite independent?" "She told me that, with a gentle pride that reminded me of somebody else." "She is not at all interfering, and incapable of gossip." "I know, Cary. But in any case, Louis and I are not the type of men who fear their mothers-in-law. I suppose she will make much of me." "That she will - in her quiet way, you know. She is not demonstrative; and when you see her silent, or even cool, you must not fancy her displeased; it is only her manner." "I feel that she and I will suit. Hortense, you know, is exquisitely sensitive, and not, perhaps, always reasonable; yet, dear, honest girl, I never had a serious quarrel with her in my life." "No; you are most tenderly indulgent to her; and you will be considerate with mamma. You are a gentleman all through, Robert, and nowhere so perfect a gentleman as at your own fireside. And Mamma thinks of you as I do." "Not quite, I hope?" "She does not want to marry you - don't be vain; but she said to me the other day, 'My dear, Mr. Moore has pleasing manners; he is one of the few gentlemen I have seen who combine politeness with sincerity.'" "'Mamma' is rather a misanthropist, is she not? Not the best opinion of the sterner sex?" "There are exceptions whom she admires - Louis and Mr. Hall, and, lately, yourself. But, Robert - have you seen my uncle yet?" "I have. 'Mamma' called him into the room. He consents if I can prove that I can keep a wife; and I can keep her better than he thinks." "If you get rich will you do good with your money, Robert?" "I will; and you shall tell me how. Indeed, I have some schemes of my own. I have learned the folly of being selfish. Caroline, this war must soon draw to a close. Trade is likely to prosper for some years to come. What would you think if, one day - perhaps ten years hence - Louis and I divide Briarfield parish between us? Louis is certain of power and property. His mind is slow but strong. He will be made magistrate of the district. Shirley would obtain this dignity for him prematurely, if he would let her, but he will not. However, once he has been master of Fieldhead a year, the district will feel his quiet influence, acknowledge his superiority, and make him magistrate voluntarily. Everybody admires his future wife, and everybody will, in time, like him. He will be esteemed, consulted and depended on. His advice will be always judicious, his help always good-natured. As for me, if I succeed as I intend to do, my success will add to his and Shirley's income. I can double the value of their mill property. I can line yonder barren Hollow with lines of cottages and rows of cottage-gardens-" "Robert! And root up the copse?" "The copse shall be firewood within five years. The beautiful wild ravine shall be a smooth descent; the green natural terrace shall be a paved street. There shall be cottages in the dark ravine, and on the lonely slopes. The rough pebbled track shall be a firm, broad road, bedded with the cinders from my mill; and my mill, Caroline, shall fill its present yard." "Horrible! You will change our blue hill-country air into Stilbro' smoke." "I will get an Act for enclosing Nunnely Common, and parcelling it out into farms." "Stilbro' Moor, however, defies you, thank Heaven! What can you grow in Bilberry Moss? What will flourish on Rushedge?" "Caroline, the houseless, the starving, the unemployed shall come to Hollow's Mill from far and near; and Joe Scott shall give them work, and Louis Moore, Esq., shall let them a house, and Mrs. Gill shall feed them till the first pay-day." She smiled. "Such a Sunday school as you will have, Cary! such a day school as you and Shirley and Miss Ainley will have to manage between you! The mill shall find salaries for a master and mistress, and the squire shall give a treat once a quarter." She mutely offered a kiss - an offer taken unfair advantage of. "Extravagant day-dreams," said Moore, with a sigh and smile, "yet perhaps we may realize some of them. Meantime, the dew is falling. Mrs. Moore, I shall take you in." * It is August. The bells clash out again, not only through Yorkshire, but through England. From Spain the voice of a trumpet has sounded long; it proclaims Salamanca is won. This night is Briarfield to be illuminated. On this day the Fieldhead tenantry dine together; the Hollow's Mill workpeople will be assembled; the schools have a grand treat. This morning there were two marriages solemnized in Briarfield church - Louis Grard Moore, Esq., to Shirley, daughter of the late Charles Keeldar, Esq., of Fieldhead; and Robert Grard Moore, Esq., to Caroline, niece of the Rev. Helstone, rector of Briarfield. The first ceremony was performed by Mr. Helstone, with Mr. Yorke giving the bride away. In the second ceremony, Mr. Hall officiated. Amongst the bridal train were two youthful bridesmen, Henry Sympson and Martin Yorke. I suppose Robert Moore's prophecies were, partially at least, fulfilled. The other day I passed up the Hollow, which tradition says was once green, and lone, and wild; and there I saw the manufacturer's day-dreams embodied in substantial stone and brick - the cinder highway, the cottages, and the cottage gardens; there I saw a mighty mill, and a chimney ambitious as the tower of Babel. When I came home I told my old housekeeper where I had been. "Ay," said she, "I can remember the old mill being built - the very first in all the district; and I can remember it being pulled down, and going to see the foundation-stone of the new one laid. The two Mr. Moores made a great stir about it. They were there, and both their ladies; very bonny and grand they looked. But Mrs. Louis was the grandest; she always wore such handsome dresses. Mrs. Robert was quieter like. Mrs. Louis smiled when she talked. She had a real, happy, glad, good-natured look; but she had eyes that pierced a body through." "What was the Hollow like then, Martha?" "Different to now; but I could tell of when there was neither mill, nor cottage, nor hall, except Fieldhead, within two miles of it. I can tell, one summer evening, fifty years since, of my mother coming running in just at the edge of dark, almost fleyed out of her wits, saying she had seen a fairy in Fieldhead Hollow; and that was the last fairy that ever was seen in this area. A lonesome spot it was, and a bonny spot, full of oaks and nut trees. It is altered now." The story is told. I think I now see the judicious reader putting on his spectacles to look for the moral. It would be an insult to his wisdom to offer directions. I only say, God speed him in the quest!

Shirley

Chapter 37: THE WINDING-UP

Not on combat bent, nor of foemen in search, was this priest-led and woman-officered company; yet their music played martial tunes, and, to judge by the eyes and carriage of some--Miss Keeldar, for instance--these sounds awoke, if not a martial, yet a longing spirit. Old Helstone, turning by chance, looked into her face; and he laughed, and she laughed at him. "There is no battle in prospect," he said; "our country does not want us to fight for it. No foe or tyrant is questioning or threatening our liberty. There is nothing to be done. We are only taking a walk. Keep your hand on the reins, captain, and slack the fire of that spirit. It is not wanted, the more's the pity." "Take your own advice, doctor," was Shirley's response. To Caroline she murmured, "I'll borrow of imagination what reality will not give me. We are not soldiers--bloodshed is not my desire--or if we are, we are soldiers of the Cross. Time has rolled back some hundreds of years, and we are bound on a pilgrimage to Palestine. But no; that is too visionary. I need a sterner dream. We are Lowlanders of Scotland, following a Covenanting captain up into the hills to hold a meeting out of the reach of persecuting troopers. We know that battle may follow prayer; and as we believe that in the worst issue of battle heaven must be our reward, we are ready and willing to redden the peat-moss with our blood. That music stirs my soul; it wakens all my life; it makes my heart beat--not with its temperate daily pulse, but with a new, thrilling vigour. I almost long for danger--for a faith, a land, or at least a lover to defend." "Look, Shirley!" interrupted Caroline. "What is that red speck above Stilbro' Brow? You have keener sight than I. Just turn your eagle eye to it." Miss Keeldar looked. "I see," she said; then added presently, "there is a line of red. They are soldiers--cavalry soldiers," she subjoined quickly. "They ride fast. There are six of them. They will pass us. No; they have turned off to the right. They saw our procession, and avoid it by making a circuit. Where are they going?" "Perhaps they are only exercising their horses." "Perhaps so. We see them no more now." Mr. Helstone here spoke. "We shall pass through Royd Lane, to reach Nunnely Common by a short cut," said he. And into the straits of Royd Lane they accordingly defiled. It was very narrow--so narrow that only two could walk abreast without falling into the ditch which ran along each side. They had gained the middle of it, when excitement became obvious in the clerical commanders. Boultby's spectacles and Helstone's Rehoboam were agitated; the curates nudged each other; Mr. Hall turned to the ladies and smiled. "What is the matter?" was the demand. He pointed with his staff to the end of the lane before them. Lo and behold! another, an opposition, procession was there entering, headed also by men in black, and followed also, as they could now hear, by music. "Is it our double?" asked Shirley, "our manifold wraith? Here is a card turned up." "If you wanted a battle, you are likely to get one--at least of looks," whispered Caroline, laughing. "They shall not pass us!" cried the curates unanimously; "we'll not give way!" "Give way!" retorted Helstone sternly, turning round; "who talks of giving way? You, boys, mind what you are about. The ladies, I know, will be firm. I can trust them. There is not a churchwoman here but will stand her ground against these folks, for the honour of the Establishment.--What does Miss Keeldar say?" "She asks what is it." "The Dissenting and Methodist schools, the Baptists, Independents, and Wesleyans, joined in unholy alliance, and turning purposely into this lane with the intention of obstructing our march and driving us back." "Bad manners!" said Shirley, "and I hate bad manners. Of course, they must have a lesson." "A lesson in politeness," suggested Mr. Hall, who was ever for peace; "not an example of rudeness." Old Helstone moved on. Quickening his step, he marched some yards in advance of his company. He had nearly reached the other sable leaders, when he who appeared to act as the hostile commander-in-chief--a large, greasy man, with black hair combed flat on his forehead--called a halt. The procession paused. He drew forth a hymn book, gave out a verse, set a tune, and they all struck up the most dolorous of canticles. Helstone signed to his bands. They clashed out with all the power of brass. He desired them to play "Rule, Britannia!" and ordered the children to join in vocally, which they did with enthusiastic spirit. The enemy was sung and stormed down, his psalm quelled. As far as noise went, he was conquered. "Now, follow me!" exclaimed Helstone; "not at a run, but at a firm, smart pace. Be steady, every child and woman of you. Keep together. Hold on by each other's skirts, if necessary." And he strode on with such a determined and deliberate gait, and was, besides, so well seconded by his scholars and teachers, who did exactly as he told them, neither running nor faltering, but marching with cool, solid impetus--the curates, too, being compelled to do the same, as they were between two fires, Helstone and Miss Keeldar, both of whom watched any deviation with lynx-eyed vigilance, and were ready, the one with his cane, the other with her parasol, to rebuke the slightest breach of orders, the least independent or irregular demonstration--that the body of Dissenters were first amazed, then alarmed, then borne down and pressed back, and at last forced to turn tail and leave the outlet from Royd Lane free. Boultby suffered in the onslaught, but Helstone and Malone, between them, held him up, and brought him through the business, whole in limb, though sorely tried in wind. The fat Dissenter who had given out the hymn was left sitting in the ditch. He was a spirit merchant by trade, a leader of the Nonconformists, and, it was said, drank more water in that one afternoon than he had swallowed for a twelvemonth before. Mr. Hall had taken care of Caroline, and Caroline of him. He and Miss Ainley made their own quiet comments to each other afterwards on the incident. Miss Keeldar and Mr. Helstone shook hands heartily when they had fairly got the whole party through the lane. The curates began to exult, but Mr. Helstone presently put the curb on their innocent spirits. He remarked that they never had sense to know what to say, and had better hold their tongues; and he reminded them that the business was none of their managing. About half-past three the procession turned back, and at four once more regained the starting-place. Long lines of benches were arranged in the close-shorn fields round the school. There the children were seated, and huge baskets, covered up with white cloths, and great smoking tin vessels were brought out. Ere the distribution of good things commenced, a brief grace was pronounced by Mr. Hall and sung by the children. Their young voices sounded melodious, even touching, in the open air. Large currant buns and hot, well-sweetened tea were then administered in the proper spirit of liberality. No stinting was permitted on this day, at least; the rule for each child's allowance being that it was to have about twice as much as it could possibly eat, thus leaving a reserve to be carried home for such as age, sickness, or other impediment prevented from coming to the feast. Buns and beer circulated, meantime, amongst the musicians and church-singers; afterwards the benches were removed, and they were left to unbend their spirits in licensed play. A bell summoned the teachers, patrons, and patronesses to the schoolroom. Miss Keeldar, Miss Helstone, and many other ladies were already there, glancing over the arrangement of their separate trays and tables. Most of the female servants of the neighbourhood, together with the clerks', the singers', and the musicians' wives, had been pressed into the service of the day as waiters. Each vied with the other in smartness and daintiness of dress, and many handsome forms were seen amongst the younger ones. About half a score were cutting bread and butter, another half-score supplying hot water, brought from the coppers of the rector's kitchen. The profusion of flowers and evergreens decorating the white walls, the show of silver teapots and bright porcelain on the tables, the active figures, blithe faces, gay dresses flitting about everywhere, formed altogether a refreshing and lively spectacle. Everybody talked, not very loudly, but merrily, and the canary birds sang shrill in their high-hung cages. Caroline, as the rector's niece, took her place at one of the three first tables; Mrs. Boultby and Margaret Hall officiated at the others. At these tables the _lite_ of the company were to be entertained, strict rules of equality not being more in fashion at Briarfield than elsewhere. Miss Helstone removed her bonnet and scarf, that she might be less oppressed with the heat. Her long curls, falling on her neck, served almost in place of a veil; and for the rest, her muslin dress was fashioned modestly as a nun's robe, enabling her thus to dispense with the encumbrance of a shawl. The room was filling. Mr. Hall had taken his post beside Caroline, who now, as she rearranged the cups and spoons before her, whispered to him in a low voice remarks on the events of the day. He looked a little grave about what had taken place in Royd Lane, and she tried to smile him out of his seriousness. Miss Keeldar sat near--for a wonder, neither laughing nor talking; on the contrary, very still, and gazing round her vigilantly. She seemed afraid lest some intruder should take a seat she apparently wished to reserve next her own. Ever and anon she spread her satin dress over an undue portion of the bench, or laid her gloves or her embroidered handkerchief upon it. Caroline noticed this _mange_ at last, and asked her what friend she expected. Shirley bent towards her, almost touched her ear with her rosy lips, and whispered with a musical softness that often characterized her tones when what she said tended even remotely to stir some sweet secret source of feeling in her heart, "I expect Mr. Moore. I saw him last night, and I made him promise to come with his sister, and to sit at our table. He won't fail me, I feel certain; but I apprehend his coming too late, and being separated from us. Here is a fresh batch arriving; every place will be taken. Provoking!" In fact, Mr. Wynne the magistrate, his wife, his son, and his two daughters now entered in high state. They were Briarfield gentry. Of course their place was at the first table, and being conducted thither, they filled up the whole remaining space. For Miss Keeldar's comfort, Mr. Sam Wynne inducted himself into the very vacancy she had kept for Moore, planting himself solidly on her gown, her gloves, and her handkerchief. Mr. Sam was one of the objects of her aversion, and the more so because he showed serious symptoms of an aim at her hand. The old gentleman, too, had publicly declared that the Fieldhead estate and the De Walden estate were delightfully _contagious_--a malapropism which rumour had not failed to repeat to Shirley. Caroline's ears yet rung with that thrilling whisper, "I expect Mr. Moore," her heart yet beat and her cheek yet glowed with it, when a note from the organ pealed above the confused hum of the place. Dr. Boultby, Mr. Helstone, and Mr. Hall rose, so did all present, and grace was sung to the accompaniment of the music; and then tea began. She was kept too busy with her office for a while to have leisure for looking round, but the last cup being filled, she threw a restless glance over the room. There were some ladies and several gentlemen standing about yet unaccommodated with seats. Amidst a group she recognized her spinster friend, Miss Mann, whom the fine weather had tempted, or some urgent friend had persuaded, to leave her drear solitude for one hour of social enjoyment. Miss Mann looked tired of standing; a lady in a yellow bonnet brought her a chair. Caroline knew well that _chapeau en satin jaune_; she knew the black hair, and the kindly though rather opinionated and froward-looking face under it; she knew that _robe de soie noire_, she knew even that _schall gris de lin_; she knew, in short, Hortense Moore, and she wanted to jump up and run to her and kiss her--to give her one embrace for her own sake and two for her brother's. She half rose, indeed, with a smothered exclamation, and perhaps--for the impulse was very strong--she would have run across the room and actually saluted her; but a hand replaced her in her seat, and a voice behind her whispered, "Wait till after tea, Lina, and then I'll bring her to you." And when she _could_ look up she did, and there was Robert himself close behind, smiling at her eagerness, looking better than she had ever seen him look--looking, indeed, to her partial eyes, so very handsome that she dared not trust herself to hazard a second glance; for his image struck on her vision with painful brightness, and pictured itself on her memory as vividly as if there daguerreotyped by a pencil of keen lightning. He moved on, and spoke to Miss Keeldar. Shirley, irritated by some unwelcome attentions from Sam Wynne, and by the fact of that gentleman being still seated on her gloves and handkerchief--and probably, also, by Moore's want of punctuality--was by no means in good humour. She first shrugged her shoulders at him, and then she said a bitter word or two about his "insupportable tardiness." Moore neither apologized nor retorted. He stood near her quietly, as if waiting to see whether she would recover her temper; which she did in little more than three minutes, indicating the change by offering him her hand. Moore took it with a smile, half-corrective, half-grateful. The slightest possible shake of the head delicately marked the former quality; it is probable a gentle pressure indicated the latter. "You may sit where you can now, Mr. Moore," said Shirley, also smiling. "You see there is not an inch of room for you here; but I discern plenty of space at Mrs. Boultby's table, between Miss Armitage and Miss Birtwhistle. Go! John Sykes will be your _vis--vis_, and you will sit with your back towards us." Moore, however, preferred lingering about where he was. He now and then took a turn down the long room, pausing in his walk to interchange greetings with other gentlemen in his own placeless predicament; but still he came back to the magnet, Shirley, bringing with him, each time he returned, observations it was necessary to whisper in her ear. Meantime poor Sam Wynne looked far from comfortable. His fair neighbour, judging from her movements, appeared in a mood the most unquiet and unaccommodating. She would not sit still two seconds. She was hot; she fanned herself; complained of want of air and space. She remarked that, in her opinion, when people had finished their tea they ought to leave the tables, and announced distinctly that she expected to faint if the present state of things continued. Mr. Sam offered to accompany her into the open air; just the way to give her her death of cold, she alleged. In short, his post became untenable; and having swallowed his quantum of tea, he judged it expedient to evacuate. Moore should have been at hand, whereas he was quite at the other extremity of the room, deep in conference with Christopher Sykes. A large corn-factor, Timothy Ramsden, Esq., happened to be nearer; and feeling himself tired of standing, he advanced to fill the vacant seat. Shirley's expedients did not fail her. A sweep of her scarf upset her teacup: its contents were shared between the bench and her own satin dress. Of course, it became necessary to call a waiter to remedy the mischief. Mr. Ramsden, a stout, puffy gentleman, as large in person as he was in property, held aloof from the consequent commotion. Shirley, usually almost culpably indifferent to slight accidents affecting dress, etc., now made a commotion that might have become the most delicate and nervous of her sex. Mr. Ramsden opened his mouth, withdrew slowly, and, as Miss Keeldar again intimated her intention to "give way" and swoon on the spot, he turned on his heel, and beat a heavy retreat. Moore at last returned. Calmly surveying the bustle, and somewhat quizzically scanning Shirley's enigmatical-looking countenance, he remarked that in truth this was the hottest end of the room, that he found a climate there calculated to agree with none but cool temperaments like his own; and putting the waiters, the napkins, the satin robe--the whole turmoil, in short--to one side, he installed himself where destiny evidently decreed he should sit. Shirley subsided; her features altered their lines; the raised knit brow and inexplicable curve of the mouth became straight again; wilfulness and roguery gave place to other expressions; and all the angular movements with which she had vexed the soul of Sam Wynne were conjured to rest as by a charm. Still no gracious glance was cast on Moore. On the contrary, he was accused of giving her a world of trouble, and roundly charged with being the cause of depriving her of the esteem of Mr. Ramsden and the invaluable friendship of Mr. Samuel Wynne. "Wouldn't have offended either gentleman for the world," she averred. "I have always been accustomed to treat both with the most respectful consideration, and there, owing to you, how they have been used! I shall not be happy till I have made it up. I never am happy till I am friends with my neighbours. So to-morrow I must make a pilgrimage to Royd corn-mill, soothe the miller, and praise the grain; and next day I must call at De Walden--where I hate to go--and carry in my reticule half an oatcake to give to Mr. Sam's favourite pointers." "You know the surest path to the heart of each swain, I doubt not," said Moore quietly. He looked very content to have at last secured his present place; but he made no fine speech expressive of gratification, and offered no apology for the trouble he had given. His phlegm became him wonderfully. It made him look handsomer, he was so composed; it made his vicinage pleasant, it was so peace-restoring. You would not have thought, to look at him, that he was a poor, struggling man seated beside a rich woman; the calm of equality stilled his aspect; perhaps that calm, too, reigned in his soul. Now and then, from the way in which he looked down on Miss Keeldar as he addressed her, you would have fancied his station towered above hers as much as his stature did. Almost stern lights sometimes crossed his brow and gleamed in his eyes. Their conversation had become animated, though it was confined to a low key; she was urging him with questions--evidently he refused to her curiosity all the gratification it demanded. She sought his eye once with hers. You read, in its soft yet eager expression, that it solicited clearer replies. Moore smiled pleasantly, but his lips continued sealed. Then she was piqued, and turned away; but he recalled her attention in two minutes. He seemed making promises, which he soothed her into accepting in lieu of information. It appeared that the heat of the room did not suit Miss Helstone. She grew paler and paler as the process of tea-making was protracted. The moment thanks were returned she quitted the table, and hastened to follow her cousin Hortense, who, with Miss Mann, had already sought the open air. Robert Moore had risen when she did--perhaps he meant to speak to her; but there was yet a parting word to exchange with Miss Keeldar, and while it was being uttered Caroline had vanished. Hortense received her former pupil with a demeanour of more dignity than warmth. She had been seriously offended by Mr. Helstone's proceedings, and had all along considered Caroline to blame in obeying her uncle too literally. "You are a very great stranger," she said austerely, as her pupil held and pressed her hand. The pupil knew her too well to remonstrate or complain of coldness. She let the punctilious whim pass, sure that her natural _bont_ (I use this French word because it expresses just what I mean--neither goodness nor good-nature, but something between the two) would presently get the upper hand. It did. Hortense had no sooner examined her face well, and observed the change its somewhat wasted features betrayed, than her mien softened. Kissing her on both cheeks, she asked anxiously after her health. Caroline answered gaily. It would, however, have been her lot to undergo a long cross-examination, followed by an endless lecture on this head, had not Miss Mann called off the attention of the questioner by requesting to be conducted home. The poor invalid was already fatigued. Her weariness made her cross--too cross almost to speak to Caroline; and besides, that young person's white dress and lively look were displeasing in the eyes of Miss Mann. The everyday garb of brown stuff or gray gingham, and the everyday air of melancholy, suited the solitary spinster better; she would hardly know her young friend to-night, and quitted her with a cool nod. Hortense having promised to accompany her home, they departed together. Caroline now looked round for Shirley. She saw the rainbow scarf and purple dress in the centre of a throng of ladies, all well known to herself, but all of the order whom she systematically avoided whenever avoidance was possible. Shyer at some moments than at others, she felt just now no courage at all to join this company. She could not, however, stand alone where all others went in pairs or parties; so she approached a group of her own scholars, great girls, or rather young women, who were standing watching some hundreds of the younger children playing at blind-man's buff. Miss Helstone knew these girls liked her, yet she was shy even with them out of school. They were not more in awe of her than she of them. She drew near them now, rather to find protection in their company than to patronize them with her presence. By some instinct they knew her weakness, and with natural politeness they respected it. Her knowledge commanded their esteem when she taught them; her gentleness attracted their regard; and because she was what they considered wise and good when _on_ duty, they kindly overlooked her evident timidity when off. They did not take advantage of it. Peasant girls as they were, they had too much of our own English sensibility to be guilty of the coarse error. They stood round her still, civil, friendly, receiving her slight smiles and rather hurried efforts to converse with a good feeling and good breeding--the last quality being the result of the first--which soon set her at her ease. Mr. Sam Wynne coming up with great haste, to insist on the elder girls joining in the game as well as the younger ones, Caroline was again left alone. She was meditating a quiet retreat to the house, when Shirley, perceiving from afar her isolation, hastened to her side. "Let us go to the top of the fields," she said. "I know you don't like crowds, Caroline." "But it will be depriving you of a pleasure, Shirley, to take you from all these fine people, who court your society so assiduously, and to whom you can, without art or effort, make yourself so pleasant." "Not quite without effort; I am already tired of the exertion. It is but insipid, barren work, talking and laughing with the good gentlefolks of Briarfield. I have been looking out for your white dress for the last ten minutes. I like to watch those I love in a crowd, and to compare them with others. I have thus compared you. You resemble none of the rest, Lina. There are some prettier faces than yours here. You are not a model beauty like Harriet Sykes, for instance--beside her your person appears almost insignificant--but you look agreeable, you look reflective, you look what I call interesting." "Hush, Shirley! you flatter me." "I don't wonder that your scholars like you." "Nonsense, Shirley! Talk of something else." "We will talk of Moore, then, and we will watch him. I see him even now." "Where?" And as Caroline asked the question she looked not over the fields, but into Miss Keeldar's eyes, as was her wont whenever Shirley mentioned any object she descried afar. Her friend had quicker vision than herself, and Caroline seemed to think that the secret of her eagle acuteness might be read in her dark gray irides, or rather, perhaps, she only sought guidance by the direction of those discriminating and brilliant spheres. "There is Moore," said Shirley, pointing right across the wide field where a thousand children were playing, and now nearly a thousand adult spectators walking about. "There--can you miss the tall stature and straight port? He looks amidst the set that surround him like Eliab amongst humbler shepherds--like Saul in a war-council; and a war-council it is, if I am not mistaken." "Why so, Shirley?" asked Caroline, whose eye had at last caught the object it sought. "Robert is just now speaking to my uncle, and they are shaking hands. They are then reconciled." "Reconciled not without good reason, depend on it--making common cause against some common foe. And why, think you, are Messrs. Wynne and Sykes, and Armitage and Ramsden, gathered in such a close circle round them? And why is Malone beckoned to join them? Where _he_ is summoned, be sure a strong arm is needed." Shirley, as she watched, grew restless; her eyes flashed. "They won't trust me," she said. "That is always the way when it comes to the point." "What about?" "Cannot you feel? There is some mystery afloat; some event is expected; some preparation is to be made, I am certain. I saw it all in Mr. Moore's manner this evening. He was excited, yet hard." "Hard to _you_, Shirley?" "Yes, to _me_. He often is hard to me. We seldom converse _tte--tte_ but I am made to feel that the basis of his character is not of eider down." "Yet he seemed to talk to you softly." "Did he not? Very gentle tones and quiet manner. Yet the man is peremptory and secret: his secrecy vexes me." "Yes, Robert is secret." "Which he has scarcely a right to be with me, especially as he commenced by giving me his confidence. Having done nothing to forfeit that confidence, it ought not to be withdrawn; but I suppose I am not considered iron-souled enough to be trusted in a crisis." "He fears, probably, to occasion you uneasiness." "An unnecessary precaution. I am of elastic materials, not soon crushed. He ought to know that. But the man is proud. He has his faults, say what you will, Lina. Observe how engaged that group appear. They do not know we are watching them." "If we keep on the alert, Shirley, we shall perhaps find the clue to their secret." "There will be some unusual movements ere long--perhaps to-morrow, possibly to-night. But my eyes and ears are wide open. Mr. Moore, you shall be under surveillance. Be you vigilant also, Lina." "I will. Robert is going; I saw him turn. I believe he noticed us. They are shaking hands." "Shaking hands, with emphasis," added Shirley, "as if they were ratifying some solemn league and covenant." They saw Robert quit the group, pass through a gate, and disappear. "And he has not bid us good-bye," murmured Caroline. Scarcely had the words escaped her lips when she tried by a smile to deny the confession of disappointment they seemed to imply. An unbidden suffusion for one moment both softened and brightened her eyes. "Oh, that is soon remedied!" exclaimed Shirley: "we'll _make_ him bid us good-bye." "_Make_ him! That is not the same thing," was the answer. "It _shall_ be the same thing." "But he is gone; you can't overtake him." "I know a shorter way than that he has taken. We will intercept him." "But, Shirley, I would rather not go." Caroline said this as Miss Keeldar seized her arm and hurried her down the fields. It was vain to contend. Nothing was so wilful as Shirley when she took a whim into her head. Caroline found herself out of sight of the crowd almost before she was aware, and ushered into a narrow shady spot, embowered above with hawthorns, and enamelled under foot with daisies. She took no notice of the evening sun chequering the turf, nor was she sensible of the pure incense exhaling at this hour from tree and plant; she only heard the wicket opening at one end, and knew Robert was approaching. The long sprays of the hawthorns, shooting out before them, served as a screen. They saw him before he observed them. At a glance Caroline perceived that his social hilarity was gone; he had left it behind him in the joy-echoing fields round the school. What remained now was his dark, quiet, business countenance. As Shirley had said, a certain hardness characterized his air, while his eye was excited, but austere. So much the worse timed was the present freak of Shirley's. If he had looked disposed for holiday mirth, it would not have mattered much; but now---- "I told you not to come," said Caroline, somewhat bitterly, to her friend. She seemed truly perturbed. To be intruded on Robert thus, against her will and his expectation, and when he evidently would rather not be delayed, keenly annoyed her. It did not annoy Miss Keeldar in the least. She stepped forward and faced her tenant, barring his way. "You omitted to bid us good-bye," she said. "Omitted to bid you good-bye! Where did you come from? Are you fairies? I left two like you, one in purple and one in white, standing at the top of a bank, four fields off, but a minute ago." "You left us there and find us here. We have been watching you, and shall watch you still. You must be questioned one day, but not now. At present all you have to do is to say good-night, and then pass." Moore glanced from one to the other without unbending his aspect. "Days of fte have their privileges, and so have days of hazard," observed he gravely. "Come, don't moralize. Say good-night, and pass," urged Shirley. "Must I say good-night to you, Miss Keeldar?" "Yes, and to Caroline likewise. It is nothing new, I hope. You have bid us both good-night before." He took her hand, held it in one of his, and covered it with the other. He looked down at her gravely, kindly, yet commandingly. The heiress could not make this man her subject. In his gaze on her bright face there was no servility, hardly homage; but there were interest and affection, heightened by another feeling. Something in his tone when he spoke, as well as in his words, marked that last sentiment to be gratitude. "Your debtor bids you good-night! May you rest safely and serenely till morning." "And you, Mr. Moore--what are you going to do? What have you been saying to Mr. Helstone, with whom I saw you shake hands? Why did all those gentlemen gather round you? Put away reserve for once. Be frank with me." "Who can resist you? I will be frank. To-morrow, if there is anything to relate, you shall hear it." "Just now," pleaded Shirley; "don't procrastinate." "But I could only tell half a tale. And my time is limited; I have not a moment to spare. Hereafter I will make amends for delay by candour." "But are you going home?" "Yes." "Not to leave it any more to-night?" "Certainly not. At present, farewell to both of you." He would have taken Caroline's hand and joined it in the same clasp in which he held Shirley's, but somehow it was not ready for him. She had withdrawn a few steps apart. Her answer to Moore's adieu was only a slight bend of the head and a gentle, serious smile. He sought no more cordial token. Again he said "Farewell," and quitted them both. "There! it is over," said Shirley when he was gone. "We have made him bid us good-night, and yet not lost ground in his esteem, I think, Cary." "I hope not," was the brief reply. "I consider you very timid and undemonstrative," remarked Miss Keeldar. "Why did you not give Moore your hand when he offered you his? He is your cousin; you like him. Are you ashamed to let him perceive your affection?" "He perceives all of it that interests him. No need to make a display of feeling." "You are laconic; you would be stoical if you could. Is love, in your eyes, a crime, Caroline?" "Love a crime! No, Shirley; love is a divine virtue. But why drag that word into the conversation? It is singularly irrelevant." "Good!" pronounced Shirley. The two girls paced the green lane in silence. Caroline first resumed. "Obtrusiveness is a crime, forwardness is a crime, and both disgust; but love! no purest angel need blush to love. And when I see or hear either man or woman couple shame with love, I know their minds are coarse, their associations debased. Many who think themselves refined ladies and gentlemen, and on whose lips the word 'vulgarity' is for ever hovering, cannot mention 'love' without betraying their own innate and imbecile degradation. It is a low feeling in their estimation, connected only with low ideas for them." "You describe three-fourths of the world, Caroline." "They are cold--they are cowardly--they are stupid on the subject, Shirley! They never loved--they never were loved!" "Thou art right, Lina. And in their dense ignorance they blaspheme living fire, seraph-brought from a divine altar." "They confound it with sparks mounting from Tophet." The sudden and joyous clash of bells here stopped the dialogue by summoning all to the church.

The bands played martial tunes, and in some - Miss Keeldar, for instance - these sounds awoke, if not a martial, yet a longing spirit. Old Helstone, turning, looked at her; and they both laughed. "There is no battle in prospect," he said; "No foe is threatening our liberty. We are only taking a walk. Keep your hand on the reins, captain, and slack the fire of that spirit." "Take your own advice, doctor," was Shirley's response. To Caroline she murmured, "I'll borrow of imagination what reality will not give me. We are not soldiers - or if we are, we are soldiers of the Cross, bound on a pilgrimage to Palestine. But no; that is too visionary. I need a sterner dream. We are Lowlanders of Scotland, following a Covenanting captain up into the hills to pray. We know that battle may follow; and we are ready and willing to redden the peat-moss with our blood. That music stirs my soul; it makes my heart beat with a new, thrilling vigour. I almost long for danger - for a faith, a land, or at least a lover to defend." "Look, Shirley!" interrupted Caroline. "What is that red speck above Stilbro' Brow? You have keener sight than I." Miss Keeldar looked. "They are soldiers - cavalry soldiers," she said. "They ride fast. There are six of them. They will pass us. No; they have turned off to the right to avoid our procession." "Perhaps they are only exercising their horses." Mr. Helstone here spoke. "We shall pass through Royd Lane, to reach Nunnely Common by a short cut." And into Royd Lane they accordingly filed. It was so narrow that only two could walk abreast. They had reached the middle of it, when excitement became obvious in the clerical commanders. The curates nudged each other; Mr. Hall turned to the ladies and smiled. "What is the matter?" they asked. He pointed to the end of the lane before them. Another procession was entering there, headed also by men in black, and followed also, as they could now hear, by music. "Is it our double?" asked Shirley. "If you wanted a battle, you are likely to get one - at least of looks," whispered Caroline, laughing. "They shall not pass us!" cried the curates; "we'll not give way!" "Give way!" retorted Helstone sternly; "who talks of giving way? You, boys, mind what you are about. The ladies, I know, will be firm. Every churchwoman here will stand her ground against these folks, for the honour of the Establishment." "Who is it?" asked Shirley. "The Dissenting and Methodist schools, the Baptists, Independents, and Wesleyans, joined in unholy alliance, and turning purposely into this lane with the intention of obstructing our march and driving us back." "Bad manners!" said Shirley. "Of course, they must have a lesson." "A lesson in politeness," suggested Mr. Hall; "not an example of rudeness." Old Helstone marched on ahead of his company, quickening his step. He had nearly reached the other group, when its leader - a large, greasy man, with black hair combed flat - called a halt. He drew forth a hymn book, gave out a verse, and his group struck up the most dolorous of songs. Helstone signed to his bands. They clashed out with all the power of brass. He desired them to play "Rule, Britannia!" and ordered the children to join in, which they did enthusiastically. As far as noise went, the enemy was conquered. "Now, follow me!" exclaimed Helstone; "not running, but at a firm, smart pace. Keep together." And he strode on with such a determined gait, and was so well obeyed by his scholars and teachers, who marched with cool, solid impetus - even the curates - that the Dissenters were pressed back, and were at last forced to turn tail and leave the exit from Royd Lane free. Boultby suffered in the onslaught, but Helstone and Malone held him up, and brought him through the business, whole in limb, though breathless. The fat Dissenter who had given out the hymn was left sitting in the ditch. He was a spirit merchant by trade, and, it was said, drank more water in that one afternoon than he had swallowed for a twelvemonth before. Mr. Hall had taken care of Caroline, and Caroline of him. Miss Keeldar and Mr. Helstone shook hands heartily when they had got the whole party through the lane. The curates began to exult, but Mr. Helstone curbed them, saying that they had better hold their tongues; and that the business was none of their managing. About half-past three the procession turned back, and at four once more regained the starting-place. Long lines of benches were arranged in the fields round the school. There the children were seated, and huge baskets of food were brought out. A brief grace was pronounced by Mr. Hall. Large currant buns and hot, sweet tea were then handed out liberally; each child being allowed to have about twice as much as it could possibly eat, thus leaving some to be carried home. Afterwards the benches were removed, and they were left to play. A bell summoned the teachers and patrons to the schoolroom. Miss Keeldar, Miss Helstone, and other ladies were already there, checking the arrangement of the tables. Most of the female servants of the neighbourhood were busy cutting bread and butter and bringing hot water from the rector's kitchen. The profusion of flowers decorating the white walls, the show of silver teapots and bright porcelain on the tables, the blithe faces and gay dresses, formed altogether a refreshing and lively spectacle. Everybody talked merrily, and the canary birds sang shrill in their high-hung cages. Caroline, as the rector's niece, took her place at one of the three first tables; Mrs. Boultby and Margaret Hall officiated at the others. Here the lite of the company were to be entertained. Miss Helstone removed her bonnet and scarf; her long curls fell on her neck, almost like a veil; and her muslin dress was as modest as a nun's robe. The room was filling. Mr. Hall took his post beside Caroline. He looked a little grave about what had taken place in Royd Lane, and she tried to smile him out of his seriousness. Miss Keeldar sat very still, gazing round her vigilantly. She seemed afraid lest some intruder should take a seat she apparently wished to reserve next to her own, for she spread her satin dress over a portion of the bench, or laid her gloves or handkerchief upon it. When Caroline asked her who she expected, Shirley whispered softly: "I expect Mr. Moore. I saw him last night, and I made him promise to come with his sister, and to sit at our table. He won't fail me, I feel certain; but I fear he will come too late, and be separated from us. Here is a fresh batch arriving; every place will be taken. Provoking!" Mr. Wynne the magistrate and his family now entered in high state. They were Briarfield gentry. Of course their place was at the first table; the magistrate's son, Mr. Sam Wynne, sat in the very vacancy Shirley had kept for Moore, planting himself solidly on her gown, gloves, and handkerchief. She was averse to Mr. Sam, especially because he showed serious symptoms of aiming at her hand. His father, too, had publicly declared that the Fieldhead estate and the Wynne estate were delightfully contagious - a malapropism which rumour had not failed to repeat to Shirley. Caroline's ears still rung with that thrilling whisper, "I expect Mr. Moore," her heart yet beat with it, when a note from the organ pealed out. The clergymen rose, so did everyone else, and grace was sung; then tea began. She was kept too busy to have leisure for looking round, but when the last cup was filled, she glanced over the room. There were some ladies and gentlemen standing about. She recognized her spinster friend, Miss Mann, who looked tired; a lady in a yellow bonnet brought her a chair. Caroline knew well that yellow hat; she knew the black hair, and the kindly though rather opinionated face under it; she knew, in short, Hortense Moore, and she wanted to jump up and run to her and kiss her, for her own sake and her brother's. She half rose, indeed, with a smothered exclamation; but a hand replaced her in her seat, and a voice behind her murmured, "Wait till after tea, Lina, and then I'll bring her to you." There was Robert himself close behind, smiling at her eagerness, looking better than she had ever seen him look - looking, indeed, to her partial eyes, so very handsome that she dared not take a second glance; for his image struck on her vision with painful brightness. He moved on, and spoke to Miss Keeldar. Shirley, irritated by Sam Wynne's attentions, and by the fact of that gentleman being still seated on her gloves and handkerchief - and probably, also, by Moore's lateness - was by no means in good humour. She shrugged her shoulders, and said a bitter word or two about his "insupportable tardiness." Moore neither apologized nor retorted. He stood near her quietly, as if waiting to see whether she would recover her temper; which she did in three minutes, and offered him her hand. Moore took it with a smile. "You may sit where you can, Mr. Moore," said Shirley, also smiling. "There is not an inch of room for you here; but I see plenty of space at Mrs. Boultby's table, between Miss Armitage and Miss Birtwhistle. Go!" Moore, however, preferred lingering where he was. He now and then took a turn down the long room, pausing to exchange greetings with other gentlemen; but he came back to the magnet, Shirley, bringing with him observations it was necessary to whisper in her ear. Meantime poor Sam Wynne looked far from comfortable. His fair neighbour would not sit still for two seconds. She was hot; she fanned herself; she complained of lack of air and space. She remarked that, in her opinion, when people had finished their tea they ought to leave the tables, and announced distinctly that she expected to faint. Mr. Sam offered to accompany her into the open air; just the way to give her her death of cold, she alleged. In short, his place became untenable, and he judged it best to quit. Moore was at the other end of the room. A large corn-factor, Timothy Ramsden, Esq., was nearer, and advanced to fill the vacant seat. Shirley's expedients did not fail her. A sweep of her scarf upset her teacup over the bench and her own satin dress. A waiter had to be called. Shirley, usually indifferent to accidents affecting dress, made a commotion befitting the most delicate and nervous of her sex. Mr. Ramsden, a large, puffy gentleman, opened his mouth, and withdrew, beating a heavy retreat. Moore at last returned. Calmly surveying the bustle, and somewhat quizzically scanning Shirley's enigmatic face, he remarked that in truth this was the hottest end of the room, which would agree with none but cool temperaments like his own; and putting aside the waiters, the napkins, and the satin robe, he sat next to Shirley. She subsided. The wilfulness and roguery left her face; but no gracious glance was cast on Moore. On the contrary, he was accused of giving her a world of trouble, and roundly charged with depriving her of the company of Mr. Ramsden and Mr. Samuel Wynne. "I wouldn't have offended either gentleman for the world," she said. "Owing to you, how ill they have been used! I shall not be happy till I have made it up. I never am happy till I am friends with my neighbours." "You know the surest path to the heart of each, I doubt not," said Moore quietly. He looked very content to have at last secured his place; but he offered no apology for the trouble he had given. His composure made him look handsomer. Now and then, from the way in which he addressed Miss Keeldar, you would have fancied his station towered above hers as much as his stature did. Stern lights sometimes gleamed in his eyes. Their conversation had become animated, though it was in a low voice; she was urging him with questions which he evidently refused to answer. At her soft yet eager enquiry, Moore smiled, but his lips continued sealed. Then she was piqued, and turned away; but he recalled her attention. He seemed to be making promises which soothed her. It appeared that the heat of the room did not suit Miss Helstone. She grew paler and paler during the process of tea-making. The moment she could, she left the table, and hastened to follow her cousin Hortense and Miss Mann, who had already sought the open air. Robert Moore rose when she did - perhaps he meant to speak to her; but there was still a word to exchange with Miss Keeldar, and while it was being uttered Caroline had vanished. Hortense received her former pupil with more dignity than warmth. She had been seriously offended by Mr. Helstone's ban, and considered Caroline to blame in obeying her uncle too literally. "You are a very great stranger," she said austerely. The pupil did not remonstrate, sure that Hortense's natural good-nature would soon prevail. It did: when Hortense had examined her face, and observed the change in it, her manner softened. Kissing her on both cheeks, she asked anxiously after her health. Caroline answered gaily; but was spared a long cross-examination when Miss Mann asked to be taken home. The poor invalid was already fatigued. Her weariness made her almost too cross to speak to Caroline; she gave her a cool nod, and departed with Hortense. Caroline looked round for Shirley. She saw the rainbow scarf and purple dress in the centre of a throng of ladies, all ones whom she herself avoided whenever possible. She felt no courage at all to join this company. She could not stand alone, however; so she approached a group of her own scholars, great girls, or rather young women, who were standing watching the younger children playing blind-man's buff. Miss Helstone knew these girls liked her, yet she was shy even with them. She drew near them rather to find protection in their company than to patronize them with her presence. By some instinct they knew her weakness, and with natural politeness they respected it. Her knowledge commanded their esteem when she taught them; her gentleness made them like her, and so they kindly overlooked her timidity when off duty. They did not take advantage of it, but were civil and friendly, receiving her hurried efforts to converse with a good feeling and good breeding, which soon set her at her ease. On Mr. Sam Wynne hurrying over to insist on the elder girls joining in the game, Caroline was again left alone. She was meditating a quiet retreat to the house, when Shirley came to her side. "Let us go to the top of the fields," she said. "I know you don't like crowds, Caroline." "But it will be depriving you of a pleasure, Shirley, to take you away from all these fine people, who court your society, and to whom you can, without effort, make yourself so pleasant." "Not quite without effort; I am already tired of the exertion. It is insipid work, talking and laughing with the good gentlefolks of Briarfield. I have been looking for your white dress for the last ten minutes. You resemble none of the rest, Lina. There are some prettier faces than yours here; Harriet Sykes, for instance; but you look agreeable, you look reflective, you look what I call interesting." "Hush, Shirley! you flatter me." "I don't wonder that your scholars like you." "Nonsense, Shirley! Talk of something else." "We will talk of Moore, then, and we will watch him. I see him even now." "Where?" "There is Moore," said Shirley, pointing right across the wide field where a thousand children were playing, and a thousand adult spectators walking about. "There - can you miss the tall stature and straight figure? He looks like Saul in a war-council; and a war-council it is, if I am not mistaken." "Why so, Shirley?" asked Caroline, whose eye had at last found him. "Robert is shaking hands with my uncle. They are then reconciled." "Not without good reason, depend on it - making common cause against some foe. And why, think you, are Messrs. Wynne and Sykes, and Armitage and Ramsden, gathered in such a close circle round them? And why is Malone beckoned to join them? Where he is summoned, be sure a strong arm is needed." Shirley grew restless; her eyes flashed. "They won't trust me," she said. "That is always the way. There is some mystery afloat; some event is expected; some preparation is to be made, I am certain. I saw it in Mr. Moore's manner this evening. He was excited, yet hard." "Hard to you, Shirley?" "Yes. He often is hard to me. I am made to feel that the basis of his character is not of eiderdown." "Yet he seemed to talk to you softly." "Did he not? Very gentle tones and quiet manner. Yet the man is peremptory and secret: his secrecy vexes me. He scarcely has a right to be secret with me, as he commenced by giving me his confidence. It ought not to be withdrawn; but I suppose I am not considered iron-souled enough to be trusted in a crisis." "He fears, probably, to make you uneasy." "I am not soon crushed. He ought to know that. But the man is proud. He has his faults, say what you will, Lina. Observe how engaged that group appear. There will be some unusual movements before long. But my eyes and ears are open. Mr. Moore, you shall be watched." "Robert is going; I believe he noticed us. They are shaking hands." They saw Robert quit the group, pass through a gate, and disappear. "And he has not bid us good-bye," murmured Caroline. At once she tried to smile to hide her disappointment. "Oh, that is soon remedied!" exclaimed Shirley: "we'll make him bid us good-bye. I know a short cut. We will intercept him." "But, Shirley, I would rather not go." Miss Keeldar seized her arm and hurried her down the fields. It was vain to argue. Nothing was so wilful as Shirley when she took a whim into her head. Caroline found herself ushered into a narrow shady spot, embowered above with hawthorns, and enamelled underfoot with daisies. She heard the wicket-gate opening, and knew Robert was approaching. The long sprays of the hawthorns screened them. They saw him before he observed them. At a glance Caroline perceived that his social gaiety was gone; he wore his dark, quiet, business face. As Shirley had said, there was a certain hardness in his air. So much the worse timed was the present freak of Shirley's. "I told you not to come," said Caroline, somewhat bitterly, to her friend. To intrude on Robert thus, when he evidently would rather not be delayed, keenly annoyed her. It did not annoy Miss Keeldar in the least. She stepped forward and faced her tenant, barring his way. "You omitted to bid us good-bye," she said. "Where did you come from? Are you fairies? I left two like you standing at the top of a bank, four fields off, only a minute ago." "You left us there and find us here. We have been watching you, and shall watch you still. You must be questioned one day, but not now. At present all you have to do is to say good-night, and then pass." "Must I say good-night to you, Miss Keeldar?" "Yes, and to Caroline likewise." He took her hand, held it in one of his, and covered it with the other. He looked down at her gravely, kindly, yet commandingly. The heiress could not make this man her subject. In his gaze there was no servility; but there were interest and affection; and there was gratitude. "Your debtor bids you good-night! May you rest safely and serenely till morning." "And you, Mr. Moore - what are you going to do? What were you saying to Mr. Helstone, with whom I saw you shake hands? Why did all those gentlemen gather round you? Be frank." "Who can resist you? I will be frank. Tomorrow, if there is anything to relate, you shall hear it. Right now I could only tell half a tale. And I have not a moment to spare." "You are going home?" "Yes. Farewell to both of you." He would have taken Caroline's hand and clasped it as he had Shirley's, but somehow her hand was not ready for him. She had withdrawn, and gave him only a slight bend of the head and a gentle, serious smile. Again he said "Farewell," and left them both. "There!" said Shirley. "We have not lost ground in his esteem, I think, Cary." "I hope not," was the brief reply. "Why did you not give Moore your hand? He is your cousin; you like him. Are you ashamed to let him perceive your affection?" "He perceives all of it that interests him. No need to make a display of feeling." "You are laconic. Is love, in your eyes, a crime, Caroline?" "Love a crime! No, Shirley; love is a divine virtue. But why drag that word into the conversation? It is singularly irrelevant." "Good!" The two girls paced the green lane in silence. Caroline first resumed. "Forwardness is a crime; but love! No-one need blush to love. When I hear anyone couple shame with love, I know their minds are coarse and debased. Many who think themselves refined ladies and gentlemen cannot mention 'love' without betraying their own innate degradation. It is connected only with low ideas for them." "You describe three-fourths of the world, Caroline." "They are cold - they are stupid, Shirley! They never loved - they never were loved!" "Thou art right, Lina." The sudden joyous clash of bells here stopped the dialogue by summoning all to the church.

Shirley

Chapter 17: THE SCHOOL FEAST

Briarmains being nearer than the Hollow, Mr. Yorke had conveyed his young comrade there. He had seen him laid in the best bed of the house, as carefully as if he had been one of his own sons. The sight of his blood, welling from the treacherously inflicted wound, made him indeed the son of the Yorkshire gentleman's heart. The spectacle of the sudden event, of the tall, straight shape prostrated in its pride across the road, of the fine southern head laid low in the dust, of that youth in prime flung at once before him pallid, lifeless, helpless--this was the very combination of circumstances to win for the victim Mr. Yorke's liveliest interest. No other hand was there to raise--to aid, no other voice to question kindly, no other brain to concert measures; he had to do it all himself. This utter dependence of the speechless, bleeding youth (as a youth he regarded him) on his benevolence secured that benevolence most effectually. Well did Mr. Yorke like to have power, and to use it. He had now between his hands power over a fellow-creature's life. It suited him. No less perfectly did it suit his saturnine better half. The incident was quite in her way and to her taste. Some women would have been terror-struck to see a gory man brought in over their threshold, and laid down in their hall in the "howe of the night." There, you would suppose, was subject-matter for hysterics. No. Mrs. Yorke went into hysterics when Jessie would not leave the garden to come to her knitting, or when Martin proposed starting for Australia, with a view to realize freedom and escape the tyranny of Matthew; but an attempted murder near her door--a half-murdered man in her best bed--set her straight, cheered her spirits, gave her cap the dash of a turban. Mrs. Yorke was just the woman who, while rendering miserable the drudging life of a simple maid-servant, would nurse like a heroine a hospital full of plague patients. She almost loved Moore. Her tough heart almost yearned towards him when she found him committed to her charge--left in her arms, as dependent on her as her youngest-born in the cradle. Had she seen a domestic or one of her daughters give him a draught of water or smooth his pillow, she would have boxed the intruder's ears. She chased Jessie and Rose from the upper realm of the house; she forbade the housemaids to set their foot in it. Now, if the accident had happened at the rectory gates, and old Helstone had taken in the martyr, neither Yorke nor his wife would have pitied him. They would have adjudged him right served for his tyranny and meddling. As it was, he became, for the present, the apple of their eye. Strange! Louis Moore was permitted to come--to sit down on the edge of the bed and lean over the pillow; to hold his brother's hand, and press his pale forehead with his fraternal lips; and Mrs. Yorke bore it well. She suffered him to stay half the day there; she once suffered him to sit up all night in the chamber; she rose herself at five o'clock of a wet November morning, and with her own hands lit the kitchen fire, and made the brothers a breakfast, and served it to them herself. Majestically arrayed in a boundless flannel wrapper, a shawl, and her nightcap, she sat and watched them eat, as complacently as a hen beholds her chickens feed. Yet she gave the cook warning that day for venturing to make and carry up to Mr. Moore a basin of sago-gruel; and the housemaid lost her favour because, when Mr. Louis was departing, she brought him his surtout aired from the kitchen, and, like a "forward piece" as she was, helped him on with it, and accepted in return a smile, a "Thank you, my girl," and a shilling. Two ladies called one day, pale and anxious, and begged earnestly, humbly, to be allowed to see Mr. Moore one instant. Mrs. Yorke hardened her heart, and sent them packing--not without opprobrium. But how was it when Hortense Moore came? Not so bad as might have been expected. The whole family of the Moores really seemed to suit Mrs. Yorke so as no other family had ever suited her. Hortense and she possessed an exhaustless mutual theme of conversation in the corrupt propensities of servants. Their views of this class were similar; they watched them with the same suspicion, and judged them with the same severity. Hortense, too, from the very first showed no manner of jealousy of Mrs. Yorke's attentions to Robert--she let her keep the post of nurse with little interference; and, for herself, found ceaseless occupation in fidgeting about the house, holding the kitchen under surveillance, reporting what passed there, and, in short, making herself generally useful. Visitors they both of them agreed in excluding sedulously from the sickroom. They held the young mill-owner captive, and hardly let the air breathe or the sun shine on him. Mr. MacTurk, the surgeon to whom Moore's case had been committed, pronounced his wound of a dangerous, but, he trusted, not of a hopeless character. At first he wished to place with him a nurse of his own selection; but this neither Mrs. Yorke nor Hortense would hear of. They promised faithful observance of directions. He was left, therefore, for the present in their hands. Doubtless they executed the trust to the best of their ability; but something got wrong. The bandages were displaced or tampered with; great loss of blood followed. MacTurk, being summoned, came with steed afoam. He was one of those surgeons whom it is dangerous to vex--abrupt in his best moods, in his worst savage. On seeing Moore's state he relieved his feelings by a little flowery language, with which it is not necessary to strew the present page. A bouquet or two of the choicest blossoms fell on the unperturbed head of one Mr. Graves, a stony young assistant he usually carried about with him; with a second nosegay he gifted another young gentleman in his train--an interesting fac-simile of himself, being indeed his own son; but the full _corbeille_ of blushing bloom fell to the lot of meddling womankind, _en masse_. For the best part of one winter night himself and satellites were busied about Moore. There at his bedside, shut up alone with him in his chamber, they wrought and wrangled over his exhausted frame. They three were on one side of the bed, and Death on the other. The conflict was sharp; it lasted till day broke, when the balance between the belligerents seemed so equal that both parties might have claimed the victory. At dawn Graves and young MacTurk were left in charge of the patient, while the senior went himself in search of additional strength, and secured it in the person of Mrs. Horsfall, the best nurse on his staff. To this woman he gave Moore in charge, with the sternest injunctions respecting the responsibility laid on her shoulders. She took this responsibility stolidly, as she did also the easy-chair at the bedhead. That moment she began her reign. Mrs. Horsfall had one virtue--orders received from MacTurk she obeyed to the letter. The ten commandments were less binding in her eyes than her surgeon's dictum. In other respects she was no woman, but a dragon. Hortense Moore fell effaced before her; Mrs. Yorke withdrew--crushed; yet both these women were personages of some dignity in their own estimation, and of some bulk in the estimation of others. Perfectly cowed by the breadth, the height, the bone, and the brawn of Mrs. Horsfall, they retreated to the back parlour. She, for her part, sat upstairs when she liked, and downstairs when she preferred it. She took her dram three times a day, and her pipe of tobacco four times. As to Moore, no one now ventured to inquire about him. Mrs. Horsfall had him at dry-nurse. It was she who was to do for him, and the general conjecture now ran that she did for him accordingly. Morning and evening MacTurk came to see him. His case, thus complicated by a new mischance, was become one of interest in the surgeon's eyes. He regarded him as a damaged piece of clockwork, which it would be creditable to his skill to set agoing again. Graves and young MacTurk--Moore's sole other visitors--contemplated him in the light in which they were wont to contemplate the occupant for the time being of the dissecting-room at Stilbro' Infirmary. Robert Moore had a pleasant time of it--in pain, in danger, too weak to move, almost too weak to speak, a sort of giantess his keeper, the three surgeons his sole society. Thus he lay through the diminishing days and lengthening nights of the whole drear month of November. In the commencement of his captivity Moore used feebly to resist Mrs. Horsfall. He hated the sight of her rough bulk, and dreaded the contact of her hard hands; but she taught him docility in a trice. She made no account whatever of his six feet, his manly thews and sinews; she turned him in his bed as another woman would have turned a babe in its cradle. When he was good she addressed him as "my dear" and "honey," and when he was bad she sometimes shook him. Did he attempt to speak when MacTurk was there, she lifted her hand and bade him "Hush!" like a nurse checking a forward child. If she had not smoked, if she had not taken gin, it would have been better, he thought; but she did both. Once, in her absence, he intimated to MacTurk that "that woman was a dram-drinker." "Pooh! my dear sir, they are all so," was the reply he got for his pains. "But Horsfall has this virtue," added the surgeon--"drunk or sober, she always remembers to obey _me_." * * * * * At length the latter autumn passed; its fogs, its rains withdrew from England their mourning and their tears; its winds swept on to sigh over lands far away. Behind November came deep winter--clearness, stillness, frost accompanying. A calm day had settled into a crystalline evening. The world wore a North Pole colouring; all its lights and tints looked like the _reflets_[A] of white, or violet, or pale green gems. The hills wore a lilac blue; the setting sun had purple in its red; the sky was ice, all silvered azure; when the stars rose, they were of white crystal, not gold; gray, or cerulean, or faint emerald hues--cool, pure, and transparent--tinged the mass of the landscape. [A] Find me an English word as good, reader, and I will gladly dispense with the French word. "Reflections" won't do. What is this by itself in a wood no longer green, no longer even russet, a wood neutral tint--this dark blue moving object? Why, it is a schoolboy--a Briarfield grammar-school boy--who has left his companions, now trudging home by the highroad, and is seeking a certain tree, with a certain mossy mound at its root, convenient as a seat. Why is he lingering here? The air is cold and the time wears late. He sits down. What is he thinking about? Does he feel the chaste charm Nature wears to-night? A pearl-white moon smiles through the gray trees; does he care for her smile? Impossible to say; for he is silent, and his countenance does not speak. As yet it is no mirror to reflect sensation, but rather a mask to conceal it. This boy is a stripling of fifteen--slight, and tall of his years. In his face there is as little of amenity as of servility, his eye seems prepared to note any incipient attempt to control or overreach him, and the rest of his features indicate faculties alert for resistance. Wise ushers avoid unnecessary interference with that lad. To break him in by severity would be a useless attempt; to win him by flattery would be an effort worse than useless. He is best let alone. Time will educate and experience train him. Professedly Martin Yorke (it is a young Yorke, of course) tramples on the name of poetry. Talk sentiment to him, and you would be answered by sarcasm. Here he is, wandering alone, waiting duteously on Nature, while she unfolds a page of stern, of silent, and of solemn poetry beneath his attentive gaze. Being seated, he takes from his satchel a book--not the Latin grammar, but a contraband volume of fairy tales. There will be light enough yet for an hour to serve his keen young vision. Besides, the moon waits on him; her beam, dim and vague as yet, fills the glade where he sits. He reads. He is led into a solitary mountain region; all round him is rude and desolate, shapeless, and almost colourless. He hears bells tinkle on the wind. Forth-riding from the formless folds of the mist dawns on him the brightest vision--a green-robed lady, on a snow-white palfrey. He sees her dress, her gems, and her steed. She arrests him with some mysterious question. He is spell-bound, and must follow her into fairyland. A second legend bears him to the sea-shore. There tumbles in a strong tide, boiling at the base of dizzy cliffs. It rains and blows. A reef of rocks, black and rough, stretches far into the sea. All along, and among, and above these crags dash and flash, sweep and leap, swells, wreaths, drifts of snowy spray. Some lone wanderer is out on these rocks, treading with cautious step the wet, wild seaweed; glancing down into hollows where the brine lies fathoms deep and emerald clear, and seeing there wilder and stranger and huger vegetation than is found on land, with treasure of shells--some green, some purple, some pearly--clustered in the curls of the snaky plants. He hears a cry. Looking up and forward, he sees, at the bleak point of the reef, a tall, pale thing--shaped like man, but made of spray--transparent, tremulous, awful. It stands not alone. They are all human figures that wanton in the rocks--a crowd of foam-women--a band of white, evanescent Nereids. Hush! Shut the book; hide it in the satchel. Martin hears a tread. He listens. No--yes. Once more the dead leaves, lightly crushed, rustle on the wood path. Martin watches; the trees part, and a woman issues forth. She is a lady dressed in dark silk, a veil covering her face. Martin never met a lady in this wood before--nor any female, save, now and then, a village girl come to gather nuts. To-night the apparition does not displease him. He observes, as she approaches, that she is neither old nor plain, but, on the contrary, very youthful; and, but that he now recognizes her for one whom he has often wilfully pronounced ugly, he would deem that he discovered traits of beauty behind the thin gauze of that veil. She passes him and says nothing. He knew she would. All women are proud monkeys, and he knows no more conceited doll than that Caroline Helstone. The thought is hardly hatched in his mind when the lady retraces those two steps she had got beyond him, and raising her veil, reposes her glance on his face, while she softly asks, "Are you one of Mr. Yorke's sons?" No human evidence would ever have been able to persuade Martin Yorke that he blushed when thus addressed; yet blush he did, to the ears. "I am," he said bluntly, and encouraged himself to wonder, superciliously, what would come next. "You are Martin, I think?" was the observation that followed. It could not have been more felicitous. It was a simple sentence--very artlessly, a little timidly, pronounced; but it chimed in harmony to the youth's nature. It stilled him like a note of music. Martin had a keen sense of his personality; he felt it right and sensible that the girl should discriminate him from his brothers. Like his father, he hated ceremony. It was acceptable to hear a lady address him as "Martin," and not Mr. Martin or Master Martin, which form would have lost her his good graces for ever. Worse, if possible, than ceremony was the other extreme of slipshod familiarity. The slight tone of bashfulness, the scarcely perceptible hesitation, was considered perfectly in place. "I am Martin," he said. "Are your father and mother well?" (it was lucky she did not say _papa_ and _mamma_; that would have undone all); "and Rose and Jessie?" "I suppose so." "My cousin Hortense is still at Briarmains?" "Oh yes." Martin gave a comic half-smile and demi-groan. The half-smile was responded to by the lady, who could guess in what sort of odour Hortense was likely to be held by the young Yorkes. "Does your mother like her?" "They suit so well about the servants they can't help liking each other." "It is cold to-night." "Why are you out so late?" "I lost my way in this wood." Now, indeed, Martin allowed himself a refreshing laugh of scorn. "Lost your way in the mighty forest of Briarmains! You deserve never more to find it." "I never was here before, and I believe I am trespassing now. You might inform against me if you chose, Martin, and have me fined. It is your father's wood." "I should think I knew that. But since you are so simple as to lose your way, I will guide you out." "You need not. I have got into the track now. I shall be right. Martin" (a little quickly), "how is Mr. Moore?" Martin had heard certain rumours; it struck him that it might be amusing to make an experiment. "Going to die. Nothing can save him. All hope flung overboard!" She put her veil aside. She looked into his eyes, and said, "To die!" "To die. All along of the women, my mother and the rest. They did something about his bandages that finished everything. He would have got better but for them. I am sure they should be arrested, cribbed, tried, and brought in for Botany Bay, at the very least." The questioner, perhaps, did nor hear this judgment. She stood motionless. In two minutes, without another word, she moved forwards; no good-night, no further inquiry. This was not amusing, nor what Martin had calculated on. He expected something dramatic and demonstrative. It was hardly worth while to frighten the girl if she would not entertain him in return. He called, "Miss Helstone!" She did not hear or turn. He hastened after and overtook her. "Come; are you uneasy about what I said?" "You know nothing about death, Martin; you are too young for me to talk to concerning such a thing." "Did you believe me? It's all flummery! Moore eats like three men. They are always making sago or tapioca or something good for him. I never go into the kitchen but there is a saucepan on the fire, cooking him some dainty. I think I will play the old soldier, and be fed on the fat of the land like him." "Martin! Martin!" Here her voice trembled, and she stopped. "It is exceedingly wrong of you, Martin. You have almost killed me." Again she stopped. She leaned against a tree, trembling, shuddering, and as pale as death. Martin contemplated her with inexpressible curiosity. In one sense it was, as he would have expressed it, "nuts" to him to see this. It told him so much, and he was beginning to have a great relish for discovering secrets. In another sense it reminded him of what he had once felt when he had heard a blackbird lamenting for her nestlings, which Matthew had crushed with a stone, and that was not a pleasant feeling. Unable to find anything very appropriate to _say_ in order to comfort her, he began to cast about in his mind what he could _do_. He smiled. The lad's smile gave wondrous transparency to his physiognomy. "Eureka!" he cried. "I'll set all straight by-and-by. You are better now, Miss Caroline. Walk forward," he urged. Not reflecting that it would be more difficult for Miss Helstone than for himself to climb a wall or penetrate a hedge, he piloted her by a short cut which led to no gate. The consequence was he had to help her over some formidable obstacles, and while he railed at her for helplessness, he perfectly liked to feel himself of use. "Martin, before we separate, assure me seriously, and on your word of honour, that Mr. Moore is better." "How very much you think of that Moore!" "No--but--many of his friends may ask me, and I wish to be able to give an authentic answer." "You may tell them he is well enough, only idle. You may tell them that he takes mutton chops for dinner, and the best of arrowroot for supper. I intercepted a basin myself one night on its way upstairs, and ate half of it." "And who waits on him, Martin? who nurses him?" "Nurses him? The great baby! Why, a woman as round and big as our largest water-butt--a rough, hard-favoured old girl. I make no doubt she leads him a rich life. Nobody else is let near him. He is chiefly in the dark. It is my belief she knocks him about terribly in that chamber. I listen at the wall sometimes when I am in bed, and I think I hear her thumping him. You should see her fist. She could hold half a dozen hands like yours in her one palm. After all, notwithstanding the chops and jellies he gets, I would not be in his shoes. In fact, it is my private opinion that she eats most of what goes up on the tray to Mr. Moore. I wish she may not be starving him." Profound silence and meditation on Caroline's part, and a sly watchfulness on Martin's. "You never see him, I suppose, Martin?" "I? No. I don't care to see him, for my own part." Silence again. "Did not you come to our house once with Mrs. Pryor, about five weeks since, to ask after him?" again inquired Martin. "Yes." "I dare say you wished to be shown upstairs?" "We _did_ wish it. We entreated it; but your mother declined." "Ay! she declined. I heard it all. She treated you as it is her pleasure to treat visitors now and then. She behaved to you rudely and harshly." "She was not kind; for you know, Martin, we are relations, and it is natural we should take an interest in Mr. Moore. But here we must part; we are at your father's gate." "Very well, what of that? I shall walk home with you." "They will miss you, and wonder where you are." "Let them. I can take care of myself, I suppose." Martin knew that he had already incurred the penalty of a lecture, and dry bread for his tea. No matter; the evening had furnished him with an adventure. It was better than muffins and toast. He walked home with Caroline. On the way he promised to see Mr. Moore, in spite of the dragon who guarded his chamber, and appointed an hour on the next day when Caroline was to come to Briarmains Wood and get tidings of him. He would meet her at a certain tree. The scheme led to nothing; still he liked it. Having reached home, the dry bread and the lecture were duly administered to him, and he was dismissed to bed at an early hour. He accepted his punishment with the toughest stoicism. Ere ascending to his chamber he paid a secret visit to the dining-room, a still, cold, stately apartment, seldom used, for the family customarily dined in the back parlour. He stood before the mantelpiece, and lifted his candle to two pictures hung above--female heads: one, a type of serene beauty, happy and innocent; the other, more lovely, but forlorn and desperate. "She looked like _that_," he said, gazing on the latter sketch, "when she sobbed, turned white, and leaned against the tree." "I suppose," he pursued, when he was in his room, and seated on the edge of his pallet-bed--"I suppose she is what they call '_in love_'--yes, _in love_ with that long thing in the next chamber. Whisht! is that Horsfall clattering him? I wonder he does not yell out. It really sounds as if she had fallen on him tooth and nail; but I suppose she is making the bed. I saw her at it once. She hit into the mattresses as if she was boxing. It is queer, Zillah (they call her Zillah)--Zillah Horsfall is a woman, and Caroline Helstone is a woman; they are two individuals of the same species--not much alike though. Is she a pretty girl, that Caroline? I suspect she is; very nice to look at--something so clear in her face, so soft in her eyes. I approve of her looking at me; it does me good. She has long eyelashes. Their shadow seems to rest where she gazes, and to instil peace and thought. If she behaves well, and continues to suit me as she has suited me to-day, I may do her a good turn. I rather relish the notion of circumventing my mother and that ogress old Horsfall. Not that I like humouring Moore; but whatever I do I'll be paid for, and in coin of my own choosing. I know what reward I will claim--one displeasing to Moore, and agreeable to myself." He turned into bed.

His own house, Briarmains, being nearer than the Hollow, Mr. Yorke had conveyed Robert Moore there. He had seen him laid in the best bed, as carefully as if he had been one of his own sons. The sight of Moore's welling blood, the spectacle of the fine head suddenly laid low in the dust, made him indeed the son of the Yorkshire gentleman's heart. There was nobody else to help him; he had to do it all himself. This utter dependence of the speechless, bleeding young man brought out his benevolence. Mr. Yorke liked to have power; and he now had power over a fellow-creature's life. It suited him. No less did it suit his wife. Some women would have been terror-struck to see a gory man brought in over their threshold. You would have supposed it a cause for hysterics. No. Mrs. Yorke went into hysterics when Jessie would not leave the garden to come to her knitting; but an attempted murder nearby - a half-murdered man in her best bed - cheered her spirits. Mrs. Yorke was a woman who, while making her maid-servant miserable, would nurse a hospital full of plague patients like a heroine. She almost loved Moore with her tough heart. She chased Jessie and Rose from his room, and forbade the housemaids to enter it. Moore became the apple of her eye. Strange! Louis Moore was permitted to sit on the edge of the bed and hold his brother's hand; and Mrs. Yorke bore it well. She allowed him to stay half the day there; she once allowed him to sit up all night in the chamber; she herself rose at five o'clock of a wet November morning, and with her own hands lit the kitchen fire, and made the brothers' breakfast, and served it to them. Majestically arrayed in a boundless flannel wrapper, a shawl and nightcap, she sat and watched them eat, as complacently as a hen beholds her chickens feed. Yet she would not let the cook or the housemaid so much as carry up a basin of gruel. Two ladies called one day, pale and anxious, and begged earnestly, humbly, to be allowed to see Mr. Moore one instant. Mrs. Yorke hardened her heart, and sent them packing. But when Hortense Moore came, it was not so bad. Hortense and Mrs. Yorke possessed an exhaustless mutual theme of conversation, in the corrupt tendencies of servants. Their views of this class were similar; they were both suspicious and severe. Hortense, too, showed no jealousy of Mrs. Yorke's attentions to Robert; she did not interfere, but fidgeted about the house and kitchen, making herself generally useful. They both agreed in excluding visitors from the sickroom, and held the young mill-owner captive. Mr. MacTurk, the surgeon, pronounced his wound to be dangerous, but not hopeless. Mrs. Yorke and Hortense promised to observe his directions faithfully, so Moore was left in their hands. Doubtless they nursed him to the best of their ability; but something went wrong. The bandages were displaced; great loss of blood followed. MacTurk, being summoned, came in haste. He was one of those surgeons whom it is dangerous to vex - abrupt in his best moods, in his worst savage. On seeing Moore's state he relieved his feelings by a little flowery language about meddling womankind. For the best part of one winter night he and two male assistants were busied about Moore. Shut up alone with him in his chamber, they wrangled with Death over his exhausted frame. The conflict was sharp; it lasted till dawn. Then the two assistants were left with the patient, while the senior went himself in search of additional strength, in the person of Mrs. Horsfall, the best nurse on his staff. To this woman he gave Moore in charge. She took the responsibility stolidly, as she did also the easy-chair by the bed. That moment she began her reign. Mrs. Horsfall had one virtue - she obeyed MacTurk's orders to the letter. In other respects she was no woman, but a dragon. Hortense Moore fell before her; Mrs. Yorke withdrew, crushed; yet both these women were personages of some dignity. Cowed by the breadth, the height, and the brawn of Mrs. Horsfall, they retreated to the back parlour. She, for her part, sat upstairs when she liked, and downstairs when she preferred it. She took her dram of gin three times a day, and her pipe of tobacco. Morning and evening MacTurk came to see Moore. His case became interesting in the surgeon's eyes. MacTurk regarded him as a damaged piece of clockwork, which it would be a credit to his skill to set going again. Robert Moore had a pleasant time of it - in pain, in danger, too weak to move, almost too weak to speak, a sort of giantess as his keeper, the three surgeons his sole society. Thus he lay through the whole drear month of November. At first Moore used feebly to resist Mrs. Horsfall. He hated the sight of her rough bulk, and dreaded the contact of her hard hands; but she taught him docility. She turned him in his bed as another woman would have turned a babe in its cradle. When he was good she addressed him as "my dear", and when he was bad she sometimes shook him. If he tried to speak when MacTurk was there, she lifted her hand and bade him "Hush!" like a nurse checking a forward child. If she had not smoked and taken gin, it would have been better, he thought; and once, in her absence, he hinted to MacTurk that "that woman was a dram-drinker." "Pooh! my dear sir, they are all so," was the reply. "But drunk or sober, she always remembers to obey me." At length the fogs and rains withdrew. Behind November came deep winter - clearness, stillness, frost. A calm day had settled into a crystalline evening. The world wore a North Pole colouring; the hills were lilac blue; the sky was ice; when the stars rose, they were of white crystal; faint emerald hues tinged the landscape. What is this, moving in a wood no longer green, no longer even russet, this dark blue object? Why, it is a schoolboy who is trudging home alone, and seeking a certain tree where he can sit. Why is he lingering here? The air is cold and the time grows late. He sits down. What is he thinking about? Impossible to say; for he is silent, and his face shows nothing. This boy is a stripling of fifteen - slight, and tall for his years. His eye seems prepared to note any attempt to control him; he looks as if he is alert for resistance. Wise teachers avoid unnecessary interference with that lad. He is best let alone. Time will educate and experience train him. Martin Yorke (for it is a young Yorke) tramples on the name of poetry. Talk sentiment to him, and you would be answered by sarcasm. Yet here he is, wandering alone, waiting on Nature, while she unfolds a page of stern and solemn poetry beneath his attentive gaze. Being seated, he takes from his satchel a book - a volume of fairy tales. There will be light enough to read by for an hour. He reads. He is led into a solitary mountain region; he hears bells tinkle on the wind. From the formless folds of the mist there rides a bright vision - a green-robed lady, on a snow-white palfrey. She asks him some mysterious question. He is spell-bound, and must follow her into fairyland. A second legend bears him to the sea-shore. There tumbles in a strong tide, boiling at the base of dizzy cliffs. Black rocks stretch far into the sea, wreathed in spray. Some lone wanderer is out on these rocks, treading cautiously. He hears a cry. Looking up he sees, at the point of the reef, a tall, pale thing - human-shaped but made of spray - transparent, tremulous, awful. Hush! Shut the book; hide it in the satchel. Martin hears a tread. The dead leaves rustle on the wood path. Martin watches; the trees part, and a woman emerges. She is dressed in dark silk, a veil covering her face. Martin never met a lady in this wood before. He observes that she is young; and, if not for the fact that he now recognizes her as one whom he has often pronounced ugly, he would think her beautiful behind the thin gauze of that veil. She passes him and says nothing. He knew she would. All women are proud monkeys, and he knows no more conceited doll than that Caroline Helstone. The thought is hardly hatched in his mind when the lady retraces her steps to him, raises her veil, and softly asks, "Are you one of Mr. Yorke's sons?" No evidence would ever have persuaded Martin Yorke that he blushed when thus addressed; yet blush he did, to the ears. "I am," he said bluntly, and encouraged himself to wonder, superciliously, what would come next. "You are Martin, I think?" It was a simple sentence, a little timid; but it stilled him like a note of music. Martin had a keen sense of his personality; he felt it right that the girl should know him from his brothers. It was acceptable to hear a lady address him as "Martin," and not Mr. Martin or Master Martin, which would have lost her his good graces for ever. But so would slipshod familiarity. The slight tone of bashfulness was considered perfectly in place. "I am Martin," he said. "Are your father and mother well?" (it was lucky she did not say papa and mamma; that would have undone all); "and Rose and Jessie?" "I suppose so." "My cousin Hortense is still at Briarmains?" "Oh yes." Martin gave a comic half-smile and groan, which the lady responded to. She could guess what the young Yorkes thought of Hortense. "Does your mother like her?" "They agree so well about the servants that they can't help liking each other." "It is cold tonight." "Why are you out so late?" "I lost my way in this wood." Martin allowed himself a refreshing laugh of scorn. "Lost your way in the mighty forest of Briarmains!" "I never was here before, and I believe I am trespassing now. You might inform against me if you chose, Martin, and have me fined. It is your father's wood." "I should think I knew that. But I will guide you out." "You need not. I have found the track now. Martin," (a little quickly), "how is Mr. Moore?" Martin had heard certain rumours; it struck him that it might be amusing to make an experiment. "Going to die. Nothing can save him. All hope flung overboard!" She put her veil aside, looked into his eyes, and said, "To die!" "The women did something about his bandages that finished everything. He would have got better otherwise. I am sure they should be arrested, tried, and brought in for Botany Bay, at the very least." The questioner, perhaps, did not hear this judgment. She stood motionless. In two minutes, without another word, she moved forwards; no good-night, no further inquiry. This was not amusing, nor what Martin had calculated on. He expected something dramatic. It was hardly worth while to frighten the girl if she would not entertain him in return. He called, "Miss Helstone!" She did not turn. He hastened after and overtook her. "Come; are you uneasy about what I said?" "You know nothing about death, Martin; you are too young for me to talk to about it." "Did you believe me? It's all flummery! Moore eats like three men. They are always making something tasty for him - cooking some dainty in the kitchen. I think I will play the old soldier, and be fed on the fat of the land like him." "Martin!" Her voice trembled. "It is exceedingly wrong of you, Martin. You have almost killed me." She stopped and leaned against a tree, shuddering, and as pale as death. Martin contemplated her with curiosity. In one sense it was intensely interesting; he was beginning to have a relish for discovering secrets. In another sense, it reminded him of what he had once felt when he had heard a blackbird lamenting for her nestlings, which Matthew had crushed with a stone, and that was not a pleasant feeling. He began to cast about in his mind what he could do. He smiled. "Eureka!" he cried. "I'll set all straight. You are better now, Miss Caroline. Walk forward." Not reflecting that it would be difficult for Miss Helstone to climb a wall or penetrate a hedge, he led her out by a short cut, which meant helping her over some formidable obstacles. While he railed at her for helplessness, he liked to feel himself of use. "Martin, before we separate, assure me seriously, on your word of honour, that Mr. Moore is better." "How much you think of that Moore!" "No - but - his friends may ask me." "You may tell them he is well enough, only idle. You may tell them that he takes mutton chops for dinner, and the best arrowroot for supper." "Who nurses him, Martin?" "Why, a woman as round and big as our water-butt - a rough old girl. It is my belief she knocks him about terribly in that room. I listen at the wall sometimes, and I think I hear her thumping him. You should see her fist. I would not be in his shoes. In fact, it is my private opinion that she eats most of what goes up on the tray to Mr. Moore." Profound silence and meditation on Caroline's part, and a sly watchfulness on Martin's. "You never see him, I suppose, Martin?" "No. I don't care to. Did not you come to our house with Mrs. Pryor, about five weeks ago, to ask after him?" inquired Martin. "Yes." "I dare say you wished to be shown upstairs?" "We did wish it; but your mother declined." "Ay! I heard it all. She behaved rudely and harshly." "She was not kind; for you know, Martin, we are relations, and it is natural we should take an interest in Mr. Moore. But here we must part; we are at your father's gate." "I shall walk home with you." "They will miss you, and wonder where you are." "Let them. I can take care of myself." Martin knew that he had already incurred the penalty of a lecture, and dry bread for his tea. No matter; the evening had provided him with an adventure. As he walked home with Caroline, he promised to see Mr. Moore, in spite of the dragon who guarded his chamber, and fixed an hour on the next day when Caroline was to come to Briarmains Wood for news. He would meet her at a certain tree. Having reached home, the dry bread and the lecture were duly administered to him, and he was sent to bed early. He accepted his punishment stoically. Before going to his chamber he paid a secret visit to the dining-room: a still, cold apartment, seldom used. He stood before the mantelpiece, and lifted his candle to two pictures hung above - two female heads: one, a type of serene beauty, happy and innocent; the other, more lovely, but forlorn and desperate. "She looked like that," he said, gazing on the latter sketch, "when she turned white, and leaned against the tree." "I suppose," he pursued, when he was sitting on his bed - "I suppose she is what they call 'in love' with that long thing in the next room. Whisht! is that Horsfall clattering him? I wonder he does not yell out; but I suppose she is making the bed. It is queer. Zillah Horsfall is a woman, and Caroline Helstone is a woman; they are not much alike though. Is she a pretty girl, that Caroline? I suspect she is. Very nice to look at - something so clear in her face, so soft in her eyes. I approve of her looking at me. She has long eyelashes. If she behaves well, and continues to suit me, I may do her a good turn. I rather like the idea of dodging my mother and old Horsfall. And I know what reward I will claim - one displeasing to Moore, and agreeable to myself." He turned into bed.

Shirley

Chapter 32: THE SCHOOLBOY AND THE WOOD-NYMPH

Miss Keeldar and her uncle had characters that would not harmonize, that never had harmonized. He was irritable, and she was spirited. He was despotic, and she liked freedom. He was worldly, and she, perhaps, romantic. Not without purpose had he come down to Yorkshire. His mission was clear, and he intended to discharge it conscientiously. He anxiously desired to have his niece married, to make for her a suitable match, give her in charge to a proper husband, and wash his hands of her for ever. The misfortune was, from infancy upwards, Shirley and he had disagreed on the meaning of the words "suitable" and "proper." She never yet had accepted his definition; and it was doubtful whether, in the most important step of her life, she would consent to accept it. The trial soon came. Mr. Wynne proposed in form for his son, Samuel Fawthrop Wynne. "Decidedly suitable! most proper!" pronounced Mr. Sympson. "A fine unencumbered estate, real substance, good connections. _It must be done!_" He sent for his niece to the oak parlour; he shut himself up there with her alone; he communicated the offer; he gave his opinion; he claimed her consent. It was withheld. "No; I shall not marry Samuel Fawthrop Wynne." "I ask why. I must have a reason. In all respects he is more than worthy of you." She stood on the hearth. She was pale as the white marble slab and cornice behind her; her eyes flashed large, dilated, unsmiling. "And _I_ ask in what sense that young man is worthy of _me_?" "He has twice your money, twice your common sense, equal connections, equal respectability." "Had he my money counted fivescore times I would take no vow to love him." "Please to state your objections." "He has run a course of despicable, commonplace profligacy. Accept that as the first reason why I spurn him." "Miss Keeldar, you shock me!" "That conduct alone sinks him in a gulf of immeasurable inferiority. His intellect reaches no standard I can esteem: there is a second stumbling-block. His views are narrow, his feelings are blunt, his tastes are coarse, his manners vulgar." "The man is a respectable, wealthy man! To refuse him is presumption on your part." "I refuse point-blank! Cease to annoy me with the subject; I forbid it!" "Is it your intention ever to marry; or do you prefer celibacy?" "I deny your right to claim an answer to that question." "May I ask if you expect some man of title--some peer of the realm--to demand your hand?" "I doubt if the peer breathes on whom I would confer it." "Were there insanity in the family, I should believe you mad. Your eccentricity and conceit touch the verge of frenzy." "Perhaps, ere I have finished, you will see me over-leap it." "I anticipate no less. Frantic and impracticable girl! Take warning! I dare you to sully our name by a _msalliance_!" "_Our_ name! Am _I_ called Sympson?" "God be thanked that you are not! But be on your guard; I will not be trifled with!" "What, in the name of common law and common sense, would you or could you do if my pleasure led me to a choice you disapproved?" "Take care! take care!" warning her with voice and hand that trembled alike. "Why? What shadow of power have _you_ over me? Why should I fear you?" "Take care, madam!" "Scrupulous care I will take, Mr. Sympson. Before I marry I am resolved to esteem--to admire--to _love_." "Preposterous stuff! indecorous, unwomanly!" "To love with my whole heart. I know I speak in an unknown tongue; but I feel indifferent whether I am comprehended or not." "And if this love of yours should fall on a beggar?" "On a beggar it will never fall. Mendicancy is not estimable." "On a low clerk, a play-actor, a play-writer, or--or----" "Take courage, Mr. Sympson! Or what?" "Any literary scrub, or shabby, whining artist." "For the scrubby, shabby, whining I have no taste; for literature and the arts I have. And there I wonder how your Fawthrop Wynne would suit me. He cannot write a note without orthographical errors; he reads only a sporting paper; he was the booby of Stilbro' grammar school!" "Unladylike language! Great God! to what will she come?" He lifted hands and eyes. "Never to the altar of Hymen with Sam Wynne." "To what will she come? Why are not the laws more stringent, that I might compel her to hear reason?" "Console yourself, uncle. Were Britain a serfdom and you the Czar, you could not _compel_ me to this step. _I_ will write to Mr. Wynne. Give yourself no further trouble on the subject." * * * * * Fortune is proverbially called changeful, yet her caprice often takes the form of repeating again and again a similar stroke of luck in the same quarter. It appeared that Miss Keeldar--or her fortune--had by this time made a sensation in the district, and produced an impression in quarters by her unthought of. No less than three offers followed Mr. Wynne's, all more or less eligible. All were in succession pressed on her by her uncle, and all in succession she refused. Yet amongst them was more than one gentleman of unexceptionable character as well as ample wealth. Many besides her uncle asked what she meant, and whom she expected to entrap, that she was so insolently fastidious. At last the gossips thought they had found the key to her conduct, and her uncle was sure of it; and what is more, the discovery showed his niece to him in quite a new light, and he changed his whole deportment to her accordingly. Fieldhead had of late been fast growing too hot to hold them both. The suave aunt could not reconcile them; the daughters froze at the view of their quarrels. Gertrude and Isabella whispered by the hour together in their dressing-room, and became chilled with decorous dread if they chanced to be left alone with their audacious cousin. But, as I have said, a change supervened. Mr. Sympson was appeased and his family tranquillized. The village of Nunnely has been alluded to--its old church, its forest, its monastic ruins. It had also its hall, called the priory--an older, a larger, a more lordly abode than any Briarfield or Whinbury owned; and what is more, it had its man of title--its baronet, which neither Briarfield nor Whinbury could boast. This possession--its proudest and most prized--had for years been nominal only. The present baronet, a young man hitherto resident in a distant province, was unknown on his Yorkshire estate. During Miss Keeldar's stay at the fashionable watering-place of Cliffbridge, she and her friends had met with and been introduced to Sir Philip Nunnely. They encountered him again and again on the sands, the cliffs, in the various walks, sometimes at the public balls of the place. He seemed solitary. His manner was very unpretending--too simple to be termed affable; rather timid than proud. He did not _condescend_ to their society; he seemed _glad_ of it. With any unaffected individual Shirley could easily and quickly cement an acquaintance. She walked and talked with Sir Philip; she, her aunt, and cousins sometimes took a sail in his yacht. She liked him because she found him kind and modest, and was charmed to feel she had the power to amuse him. One slight drawback there was--where is the friendship without it?--Sir Philip had a literary turn. He wrote poetry--sonnets, stanzas, ballads. Perhaps Miss Keeldar thought him a little too fond of reading and reciting these compositions; perhaps she wished the rhyme had possessed more accuracy, the measure more music, the tropes more freshness, the inspiration more fire. At any rate, she always winced when he recurred to the subject of his poems, and usually did her best to divert the conversation into another channel. He would beguile her to take moonlight walks with him on the bridge, for the sole purpose, as it seemed, of pouring into her ear the longest of his ballads. He would lead her away to sequestered rustic seats, whence the rush of the surf to the sands was heard soft and soothing; and when he had her all to himself, and the sea lay before them, and the scented shade of gardens spread round, and the tall shelter of cliffs rose behind them, he would pull out his last batch of sonnets, and read them in a voice tremulous with emotion. He did not seem to know that though they might be rhyme they were not poetry. It appeared, by Shirley's downcast eye and disturbed face, that she knew it, and felt heartily mortified by the single foible of this good and amiable gentleman. Often she tried, as gently as might be, to wean him from this fanatic worship of the Muses. It was his monomania; on all ordinary subjects he was sensible enough, and fain was she to engage him in ordinary topics. He questioned her sometimes about his place at Nunnely; she was but too happy to answer his interrogatories at length. She never wearied of describing the antique priory, the wild silvan park, the hoary church and hamlet; nor did she fail to counsel him to come down and gather his tenantry about him in his ancestral halls. Somewhat to her surprise, Sir Philip followed her advice to the letter, and actually, towards the close of September, arrived at the priory. He soon made a call at Fieldhead, and his first visit was not his last. He said--when he had achieved the round of the neighbourhood--that under no roof had he found such pleasant shelter as beneath the massive oak beams of the gray manor-house of Briarfield; a cramped, modest dwelling enough compared with his own, but he liked it. Presently it did not suffice to sit with Shirley in her panelled parlour, where others came and went, and where he could rarely find a quiet moment to show her the latest production of his fertile muse; he must have her out amongst the pleasant pastures, and lead her by the still waters. _Tte--tte_ ramblings she shunned, so he made parties for her to his own grounds, his glorious forest; to remoter scenes--woods severed by the Wharfe, vales watered by the Aire. Such assiduity covered Miss Keeldar with distinction. Her uncle's prophetic soul anticipated a splendid future. He already scented the time afar off when, with nonchalant air, and left foot nursed on his right knee, he should be able to make dashingly-familiar allusion to his "nephew the baronet." Now his niece dawned upon him no longer "a mad girl," but a "most sensible woman." He termed her, in confidential dialogues with Mrs. Sympson, "a truly superior person; peculiar, but very clever." He treated her with exceeding deference; rose reverently to open and shut doors for her; reddened his face and gave himself headaches with stooping to pick up gloves, handkerchiefs, and other loose property, whereof Shirley usually held but insecure tenure. He would cut mysterious jokes about the superiority of woman's wit over man's wisdom; commence obscure apologies for the blundering mistake he had committed respecting the generalship, the tactics, of "a personage not a hundred miles from Fieldhead." In short, he seemed elate as any "midden-cock on pattens." His niece viewed his manuvres and received his innuendoes with phlegm; apparently she did not above half comprehend to what aim they tended. When plainly charged with being the preferred of the baronet, she said she believed he did like her, and for her part she liked him. She had never thought a man of rank--the only son of a proud, fond mother, the only brother of doting sisters--could have so much goodness, and, on the whole, so much sense. Time proved, indeed, that Sir Philip liked her. Perhaps he had found in her that "curious charm" noticed by Mr. Hall. He sought her presence more and more, and at last with a frequency that attested it had become to him an indispensable stimulus. About this time strange feelings hovered round Fieldhead; restless hopes and haggard anxieties haunted some of its rooms. There was an unquiet wandering of some of the inmates among the still fields round the mansion; there was a sense of expectancy that kept the nerves strained. One thing seemed clear: Sir Philip was not a man to be despised. He was amiable; if not highly intellectual, he was intelligent. Miss Keeldar could not affirm of him, what she had so bitterly affirmed of Sam Wynne, that his feelings were blunt, his tastes coarse, and his manners vulgar. There was sensibility in his nature; there was a very real, if not a very discriminating, love of the arts; there was the English gentleman in all his deportment. As to his lineage and wealth, both were, of course, far beyond her claims. His appearance had at first elicited some laughing though not ill-natured remarks from the merry Shirley. It was boyish. His features were plain and slight, his hair sandy, his stature insignificant. But she soon checked her sarcasm on this point; she would even fire up if any one else made uncomplimentary allusion thereto. He had "a pleasing countenance," she affirmed; "and there was that in his heart which was better than three Roman noses, than the locks of Absalom or the proportions of Saul." A spare and rare shaft she still reserved for his unfortunate poetic propensity; but even here she would tolerate no irony save her own. In short, matters had reached a point which seemed fully to warrant an observation made about this time by Mr. Yorke to the tutor, Louis. "Yond' brother Robert of yours seems to me to be either a fool or a madman. Two months ago I could have sworn he had the game all in his own hands; and there he runs the country, and quarters himself up in London for weeks together, and by the time he comes back he'll find himself checkmated. Louis, 'there is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune, but, once let slip, never returns again.' I'd write to Robert, if I were you, and remind him of that." "Robert had views on Miss Keeldar?" inquired Louis, as if the idea was new to him. "Views I suggested to him myself, and views he might have realized, for she liked him." "As a neighbour?" "As more than that. I have seen her change countenance and colour at the mere mention of his name. Write to the lad, I say, and tell him to come home. He is a finer gentleman than this bit of a baronet, after all." "Does it not strike you, Mr. Yorke, that for a mere penniless adventurer to aspire to a rich woman's hand is presumptuous--contemptible?" "Oh, if you are for high notions and double-refined sentiment, I've naught to say. I'm a plain, practical man myself, and if Robert is willing to give up that royal prize to a lad-rival--a puling slip of aristocracy--I am quite agreeable. At _his_ age, in _his_ place, with _his_ inducements, I would have acted differently. Neither baronet, nor duke, nor prince should have snatched my sweetheart from me without a struggle. But you tutors are such solemn chaps; it is almost like speaking to a parson to consult with you." * * * * * Flattered and fawned upon as Shirley was just now, it appeared she was not absolutely spoiled--that her better nature did not quite leave her. Universal report had indeed ceased to couple her name with that of Moore, and this silence seemed sanctioned by her own apparent oblivion of the absentee; but that she had not _quite_ forgotten him--that she still regarded him, if not with love, yet with interest--seemed proved by the increased attention which at this juncture of affairs a sudden attack of illness induced her to show that tutor-brother of Robert's, to whom she habitually bore herself with strange alternations of cool reserve and docile respect--now sweeping past him in all the dignity of the moneyed heiress and prospective Lady Nunnely, and anon accosting him as abashed school-girls are wont to accost their stern professors; bridling her neck of ivory and curling her lip of carmine, if he encountered her glance, one minute, and the next submitting to the grave rebuke of his eye with as much contrition as if he had the power to inflict penalties in case of contumacy. Louis Moore had perhaps caught the fever, which for a few days laid him low, in one of the poor cottages of the district, which he, his lame pupil, and Mr. Hall were in the habit of visiting together. At any rate he sickened, and after opposing to the malady a taciturn resistance for a day or two, was obliged to keep his chamber. He lay tossing on his thorny bed one evening, Henry, who would not quit him, watching faithfully beside him, when a tap--too light to be that of Mrs. Gill or the housemaid--summoned young Sympson to the door. "How is Mr. Moore to-night?" asked a low voice from the dark gallery. "Come in and see him yourself." "Is he asleep?" "I wish he could sleep. Come and speak to him, Shirley." "He would not like it." But the speaker stepped in, and Henry, seeing her hesitate on the threshold, took her hand and drew her to the couch. The shaded light showed Miss Keeldar's form but imperfectly; yet it revealed her in elegant attire. There was a party assembled below, including Sir Philip Nunnely; the ladies were now in the drawing-room, and their hostess had stolen from them to visit Henry's tutor. Her pure white dress, her fair arms and neck, the trembling chainlet of gold circling her throat and quivering on her breast, glistened strangely amid the obscurity of the sickroom. Her mien was chastened and pensive. She spoke gently. "Mr. Moore, how are you to-night?" "I have not been very ill, and am now better." "I heard that you complained of thirst. I have brought you some grapes; can you taste one?" "No; but I thank you for remembering me." "Just one." From the rich cluster that filled a small basket held in her hand she severed a berry and offered it to his lips. He shook his head, and turned aside his flushed face. "But what, then, can I bring you instead? You have no wish for fruit; yet I see that your lips are parched. What beverage do you prefer?" "Mrs. Gill supplies me with toast-and-water. I like it best." Silence fell for some minutes. "Do you suffer?--have you pain?" "Very little." "What made you ill?" Silence. "I wonder what caused this fever? To what do you attribute it?" "Miasma, perhaps--malaria. This is autumn, a season fertile in fevers." "I hear you often visit the sick in Briarfield, and Nunnely too, with Mr. Hall. You should be on your guard; temerity is not wise." "That reminds me, Miss Keeldar, that perhaps you had better not enter this chamber or come near this couch. I do not believe my illness is infectious. I scarcely fear"--with a sort of smile--"_you_ will take it; but why should you run even the shadow of a risk? Leave me." "Patience, I will go soon; but I should like to do something for you before I depart--any little service----" "They will miss you below." "No; the gentlemen are still at table." "They will not linger long. Sir Philip Nunnely is no wine-bibber, and I hear him just now pass from the dining-room to the drawing-room." "It is a servant." "It is Sir Philip; I know his step." "Your hearing is acute." "It is never dull, and the sense seems sharpened at present. Sir Philip was here to tea last night. I heard you sing to him some song which he had brought you. I heard him, when he took his departure at eleven o'clock, call you out on to the pavement, to look at the evening star." "You must be nervously sensitive." "I heard him kiss your hand." "Impossible!" "No: my chamber is over the hall, the window just above the front door; the sash was a little raised, for I felt feverish. You stood ten minutes with him on the steps. I heard your discourse, every word, and I heard the salute.--Henry, give me some water." "Let me give it him." But he half rose to take the glass from young Sympson, and declined her attendance. "And can I do nothing?" "Nothing; for you cannot guarantee me a night's peaceful rest, and it is all I at present want." "You do not sleep well?" "Sleep has left me." "Yet you said you were not very ill?" "I am often sleepless when in high health." "If I had power, I would lap you in the most placid slumber--quite deep and hushed, without a dream." "Blank annihilation! I do not ask that." "With dreams of all you most desire." "Monstrous delusions! The sleep would be delirium, the waking death." "Your wishes are not so chimerical; you are no visionary." "Miss Keeldar, I suppose you think so; but my character is not, perhaps, quite as legible to you as a page of the last new novel might be." "That is possible. But this sleep--I _should_ like to woo it to your pillow, to win for you its favour. If I took a book and sat down and read some pages? I can well spare half an hour." "Thank you, but I will not detain you." "I would read softly." "It would not do. I am too feverish and excitable to bear a soft, cooing, vibrating voice close at my ear. You had better leave me." "Well, I will go." "And no good-night?" "Yes, sir, yes. Mr. Moore, good-night." (Exit Shirley.) "Henry, my boy, go to bed now; it is time you had some repose." "Sir, it would please me to watch at your bedside all night." "Nothing less called for. I am getting better. There, go." "Give me your blessing, sir." "God bless you, my best pupil!" "You never call me your dearest pupil!" "No, nor ever shall." * * * * * Possibly Miss Keeldar resented her former teacher's rejection of her courtesy. It is certain she did not repeat the offer of it. Often as her light step traversed the gallery in the course of a day, it did not again pause at his door; nor did her "cooing, vibrating voice" disturb a second time the hush of the sickroom. A sickroom, indeed, it soon ceased to be; Mr. Moore's good constitution quickly triumphed over his indisposition. In a few days he shook it off, and resumed his duties as tutor. That "auld lang syne" had still its authority both with preceptor and scholar was proved by the manner in which he sometimes promptly passed the distance she usually maintained between them, and put down her high reserve with a firm, quiet hand. One afternoon the Sympson family were gone out to take a carriage airing. Shirley, never sorry to snatch a reprieve from their society, had remained behind, detained by business, as she said. The business--a little letter-writing--was soon dispatched after the yard gates had closed on the carriage; Miss Keeldar betook herself to the garden. It was a peaceful autumn day. The gilding of the Indian summer mellowed the pastures far and wide. The russet woods stood ripe to be stripped, but were yet full of leaf. The purple of heath-bloom, faded but not withered, tinged the hills. The beck wandered down to the Hollow, through a silent district; no wind followed its course or haunted its woody borders. Fieldhead gardens bore the seal of gentle decay. On the walks, swept that morning, yellow leaves had fluttered down again. Its time of flowers, and even of fruits, was over; but a scantling of apples enriched the trees. Only a blossom here and there expanded pale and delicate amidst a knot of faded leaves. These single flowers--the last of their race--Shirley culled as she wandered thoughtfully amongst the beds. She was fastening into her girdle a hueless and scentless nosegay, when Henry Sympson called to her as he came limping from the house. "Shirley, Mr. Moore would be glad to see you in the schoolroom and to hear you read a little French, if you have no more urgent occupation." The messenger delivered his commission very simply, as if it were a mere matter of course. "Did Mr. Moore tell you to say that?" "Certainly; why not? And now, do come, and let us once more be as we were at Sympson Grove. We used to have pleasant school-hours in those days." Miss Keeldar perhaps thought that circumstances were changed since then; however, she made no remark, but after a little reflection quietly followed Henry. Entering the schoolroom, she inclined her head with a decent obeisance, as had been her wont in former times. She removed her bonnet, and hung it up beside Henry's cap. Louis Moore sat at his desk, turning the leaves of a book, open before him, and marking passages with his pencil. He just moved, in acknowledgment of her curtsy, but did not rise. "You proposed to read to me a few nights ago," said he. "I could not hear you then. My attention is now at your service. A little renewed practice in French may not be unprofitable. Your accent, I have observed, begins to rust." "What book shall I take?" "Here are the posthumous works of St. Pierre. Read a few pages of the 'Fragments de l'Amazone.'" She accepted the chair which he had placed in readiness near his own; the volume lay on his desk--there was but one between them; her sweeping curls dropped so low as to hide the page from him. "Put back your hair," he said. For one moment Shirley looked not quite certain whether she would obey the request or disregard it. A flicker of her eye beamed furtive on the professor's face. Perhaps if he had been looking at her harshly or timidly, or if one undecided line had marked his countenance, she would have rebelled, and the lesson had ended there and then; but he was only awaiting her compliance--as calm as marble, and as cool. She threw the veil of tresses behind her ear. It was well her face owned an agreeable outline, and that her cheek possessed the polish and the roundness of early youth, or, thus robbed of a softening shade, the contours might have lost their grace. But what mattered that in the present society? Neither Calypso nor Eucharis cared to fascinate Mentor. She began to read. The language had become strange to her tongue; it faltered; the lecture flowed unevenly, impeded by hurried breath, broken by Anglicized tones. She stopped. "I can't do it. Read me a paragraph, if you please, Mr. Moore." What _he_ read _she_ repeated. She caught his accent in three minutes. "Trs bien," was the approving comment at the close of the piece. "C'est presque le Franais rattrap, n'est-ce pas?" "You could not write French as you once could, I dare say?" "Oh no! I should make strange work of my concords now." "You could not compose the _devoir_ of 'La Premire Femme Savante'?" "Do you still remember that rubbish?" "Every line." "I doubt you." "I will engage to repeat it word for word." "You would stop short at the first line." "Challenge me to the experiment." "I challenge you." He proceeded to recite the following. He gave it in French, but we must translate, on pain of being unintelligible to some readers. * * * * * "And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose." This was in the dawn of time, before the morning stars were set, and while they yet sang together. The epoch is so remote, the mists and dewy gray of matin twilight veil it with so vague an obscurity, that all distinct feature of custom, all clear line of locality, evade perception and baffle research. It must suffice to know that the world then existed; that men peopled it; that man's nature, with its passions, sympathies, pains, and pleasures, informed the planet and gave it soul. A certain tribe colonized a certain spot on the globe; of what race this tribe--unknown; in what region that spot--untold. We usually think of the East when we refer to transactions of that date; but who shall declare that there was no life in the West, the South, the North? What is to disprove that this tribe, instead of camping under palm groves in Asia, wandered beneath island oak woods rooted in our own seas of Europe? It is no sandy plain, nor any circumscribed and scant oasis I seem to realize. A forest valley, with rocky sides and brown profundity of shade, formed by tree crowding on tree, descends deep before me. Here, indeed, dwell human beings, but so few, and in alleys so thick branched and overarched, they are neither heard nor seen. Are they savage? Doubtless. They live by the crook and the bow; half shepherds, half hunters, their flocks wander wild as their prey. Are they happy? No, not more happy than we are at this day. Are they good? No, not better than ourselves. Their nature is our nature--human both. There is one in this tribe too often miserable--a child bereaved of both parents. None cares for this child. She is fed sometimes, but oftener forgotten. A hut rarely receives her; the hollow tree and chill cavern are her home. Forsaken, lost, and wandering, she lives more with the wild beast and bird than with her own kind. Hunger and cold are her comrades; sadness hovers over, and solitude besets her round. Unheeded and unvalued, she should die; but she both lives and grows. The green wilderness nurses her, and becomes to her a mother; feeds her on juicy berry, on saccharine root and nut. There is something in the air of this clime which fosters life kindly. There must be something, too, in its dews which heals with sovereign balm. Its gentle seasons exaggerate no passion, no sense; its temperature tends to harmony; its breezes, you would say, bring down from heaven the germ of pure thought and purer feeling. Not grotesquely fantastic are the forms of cliff and foliage, not violently vivid the colouring of flower and bird. In all the grandeur of these forests there is repose; in all their freshness there is tenderness. The gentle charm vouchsafed to flower and tree, bestowed on deer and dove, has not been denied to the human nursling. All solitary, she has sprung up straight and graceful. Nature cast her features in a fine mould; they have matured in their pure, accurate first lines, unaltered by the shocks of disease. No fierce dry blast has dealt rudely with the surface of her frame; no burning sun has crisped or withered her tresses. Her form gleams ivory-white through the trees; her hair flows plenteous, long, and glossy; her eyes, not dazzled by vertical fires, beam in the shade large and open, and full and dewy. Above those eyes, when the breeze bares her forehead, shines an expanse fair and ample--a clear, candid page, whereon knowledge, should knowledge ever come, might write a golden record. You see in the desolate young savage nothing vicious or vacant. She haunts the wood harmless and thoughtful, though of what one so untaught can think it is not easy to divine. On the evening of one summer day, before the Flood, being utterly alone--for she had lost all trace of her tribe, who had wandered leagues away, she knew not where--she went up from the vale, to watch Day take leave and Night arrive. A crag overspread by a tree was her station. The oak roots, turfed and mossed, gave a seat; the oak boughs, thick-leaved, wove a canopy. Slow and grand the Day withdrew, passing in purple fire, and parting to the farewell of a wild, low chorus from the woodlands. Then Night entered, quiet as death. The wind fell, the birds ceased singing. Now every nest held happy mates, and hart and hind slumbered blissfully safe in their lair. The girl sat, her body still, her soul astir; occupied, however, rather in feeling than in thinking, in wishing than hoping, in imagining than projecting. She felt the world, the sky, the night, boundlessly mighty. Of all things herself seemed to herself the centre--a small, forgotten atom of life, a spark of soul, emitted inadvertent from the great creative source, and now burning unmarked to waste in the heart of a black hollow. She asked, was she thus to burn out and perish, her living light doing no good, never seen, never needed--a star in an else starless firmament, which nor shepherd, nor wanderer, nor sage, nor priest tracked as a guide or read as a prophecy? Could this be, she demanded, when the flame of her intelligence burned so vivid; when her life beat so true, and real, and potent; when something within her stirred disquieted, and restlessly asserted a God-given strength, for which it insisted she should find exercise? She gazed abroad on Heaven and Evening. Heaven and Evening gazed back on her. She bent down, searching bank, hill, river, spread dim below. All she questioned responded by oracles. She heard--she was impressed; but she could not understand. Above her head she raised her hands joined together. "Guidance--help--comfort--come!" was her cry. There was no voice, nor any that answered. She waited, kneeling, steadfastly looking up. Yonder sky was sealed; the solemn stars shone alien and remote. At last one overstretched chord of her agony slacked; she thought Something above relented; she felt as if Something far round drew nigher; she heard as if Silence spoke. There was no language, no word, only a tone. Again--a fine, full, lofty tone, a deep, soft sound, like a storm whispering, made twilight undulate. Once more, profounder, nearer, clearer, it rolled harmonious. Yet again--a distinct voice passed between Heaven and Earth. "Eva!" If Eva were not this woman's name, she had none. She rose. "Here am I." "Eva!" "O Night (it can be but Night that speaks), I am here!" The voice, descending, reached Earth. "Eva!" "Lord," she cried, "behold thine handmaid!" She had her religion--all tribes held some creed. "I come--a Comforter!" "Lord, come quickly!" The Evening flushed full of hope; the Air panted; the Moon--rising before--ascended large, but her light showed no shape. "Lean towards me, Eva. Enter my arms; repose thus." "Thus I lean, O Invisible but felt! And what art thou?" "Eva, I have brought a living draught from heaven. Daughter of Man, drink of my cup!" "I drink: it is as if sweetest dew visited my lips in a full current. My arid heart revives; my affliction is lightened; my strait and struggle are gone. And the night changes! the wood, the hill, the moon, the wide sky--all change!" "All change, and for ever. I take from thy vision darkness; I loosen from thy faculties fetters! I level in thy path obstacles; I with my presence fill vacancy. I claim as mine the lost atom of life. I take to myself the spark of soul--burning heretofore forgotten!" "O take me! O claim me! This is a god." "This is a son of God--one who feels himself in the portion of life that stirs you. He is suffered to reclaim his own, and so to foster and aid that it shall not perish hopeless." "A son of God! Am I indeed chosen?" "Thou only in this land. I saw thee that thou wert fair; I knew thee that thou wert mine. To me it is given to rescue, to sustain, to cherish mine own. Acknowledge in me that Seraph on earth named Genius." "My glorious Bridegroom! true Dayspring from on high! All I would have at last I possess. I receive a revelation. The dark hint, the obscure whisper, which have haunted me from childhood, are interpreted. Thou art He I sought. Godborn, take me, thy bride!" "Unhumbled, I can take what is mine. Did I not give from the altar the very flame which lit Eva's being? Come again into the heaven whence thou wert sent." That Presence, invisible but mighty, gathered her in like a lamb to the fold; that voice, soft but all-pervading, vibrated through her heart like music. Her eye received no image; and yet a sense visited her vision and her brain as of the serenity of stainless air, the power of sovereign seas, the majesty of marching stars, the energy of colliding elements, the rooted endurance of hills wide based, and, above all, as of the lustre of heroic beauty rushing victorious on the Night, vanquishing its shadows like a diviner sun. Such was the bridal hour of Genius and Humanity. Who shall rehearse the tale of their after-union? Who shall depict its bliss and bale? Who shall tell how He between whom and the Woman God put enmity forged deadly plots to break the bond or defile its purity? Who shall record the long strife between Serpent and Seraph:--How still the Father of Lies insinuated evil into good, pride into wisdom, grossness into glory, pain into bliss, poison into passion? How the "dreadless Angel" defied, resisted, and repelled? How again and again he refined the polluted cup, exalted the debased emotion, rectified the perverted impulse, detected the lurking venom, baffled the frontless temptation--purified, justified, watched, and withstood? How, by his patience, by his strength, by that unutterable excellence he held from God--his Origin--this faithful Seraph fought for Humanity a good fight through time; and, when Time's course closed, and Death was encountered at the end, barring with fleshless arm the portals of Eternity, how Genius still held close his dying bride, sustained her through the agony of the passage, bore her triumphant into his own home, Heaven; restored her, redeemed, to Jehovah, her Maker; and at last, before Angel and Archangel, crowned her with the crown of Immortality? Who shall of these things write the chronicle? * * * * * "I never could correct that composition," observed Shirley, as Moore concluded. "Your censor-pencil scored it with condemnatory lines, whose signification I strove vainly to fathom." She had taken a crayon from the tutor's desk, and was drawing little leaves, fragments of pillars, broken crosses, on the margin of the book. "French may be half forgotten, but the habits of the French lesson are retained, I see," said Louis. "My books would now, as erst, be unsafe with you. My newly-bound St. Pierre would soon be like my Racine--Miss Keeldar, her mark, traced on every page." Shirley dropped her crayon as if it burned her fingers. "Tell me what were the faults of that _devoir_?" she asked. "Were they grammatical errors, or did you object to the substance?" "I never said that the lines I drew were indications of faults at all. You would have it that such was the case, and I refrained from contradiction." "What else did they denote?" "No matter now." "Mr. Moore," cried Henry, "make Shirley repeat some of the pieces she used to say so well by heart." "If I ask for any, it will be 'Le Cheval Dompt,'" said Moore, trimming with his penknife the pencil Miss Keeldar had worn to a stump. She turned aside her head; the neck, the clear cheek, forsaken by their natural veil, were seen to flush warm. "Ah! she has not forgotten, you see, sir," said Henry, exultant. "She knows how naughty she was." A smile, which Shirley would not permit to expand, made her lip tremble; she bent her face, and hid it half with her arms, half in her curls, which, as she stooped, fell loose again. "Certainly I was a rebel," she answered. "A rebel!" repeated Henry. "Yes; you and papa had quarrelled terribly, and you set both him and mamma, and Mrs. Pryor, and everybody, at defiance. You said he had insulted you----" "He _had_ insulted me," interposed Shirley. "And you wanted to leave Sympson Grove directly. You packed your things up, and papa threw them out of your trunk; mamma cried, Mrs. Pryor cried; they both stood wringing their hands begging you to be patient; and you knelt on the floor with your things and your up-turned box before you, looking, Shirley, looking--why, in one of _your_ passions. Your features, in such passions, are not distorted; they are fixed, but quite beautiful. You scarcely look angry, only resolute, and in a certain haste; yet one feels that at such times an obstacle cast across your path would be split as with lightning. Papa lost heart, and called Mr. Moore." "Enough, Henry." "No, it is not enough. I hardly know how Mr. Moore managed, except that I recollect he suggested to papa that agitation would bring on his gout; and then he spoke quietly to the ladies, and got them away; and afterwards he said to you, Miss Shirley, that it was of no use talking or lecturing now, but that the tea-things were just brought into the schoolroom, and he was very thirsty, and he would be glad if you would leave your packing for the present and come and make a cup of tea for him and me. You came; you would not talk at first, but soon you softened and grew cheerful. Mr. Moore began to tell us about the Continent, the war, and Bonaparte--subjects we were both fond of listening to. After tea he said we should neither of us leave him that evening; he would not let us stray out of his sight, lest we should again get into mischief. We sat one on each side of him. We were so happy. I never passed so pleasant an evening. The next day he gave you, missy, a lecture of an hour, and wound it up by marking you a piece to learn in Bossuet as a punishment-lesson--'Le Cheval Dompt.' You learned it instead of packing up, Shirley. We heard no more of your running away. Mr. Moore used to tease you on the subject for a year afterwards." "She never said a lesson with greater spirit," subjoined Moore. "She then, for the first time, gave me the treat of hearing my native tongue spoken without accent by an English girl." "She was as sweet as summer cherries for a month afterwards," struck in Henry: "a good hearty quarrel always left Shirley's temper better than it found it." "You talk of me as if I were not present," observed Miss Keeldar, who had not yet lifted her face. "Are you sure you _are_ present?" asked Moore. "There have been moments since my arrival here when I have been tempted to inquire of the lady of Fieldhead if she knew what had become of my former pupil." "She is here now." "I see her, and humble enough; but I would neither advise Harry nor others to believe too implicitly in the humility which one moment can hide its blushing face like a modest little child, and the next lift it pale and lofty as a marble Juno." "One man in times of old, it is said, imparted vitality to the statue he had chiselled; others may have the contrary gift of turning life to stone." Moore paused on this observation before he replied to it. His look, at once struck and meditative, said, "A strange phrase; what may it mean?" He turned it over in his mind, with thought deep and slow, as some German pondering metaphysics. "You mean," he said at last, "that some men inspire repugnance, and so chill the kind heart." "Ingenious!" responded Shirley. "If the interpretation pleases you, you are welcome to hold it valid. _I_ don't care." And with that she raised her head, lofty in look and statue-like in hue, as Louis had described it. "Behold the metamorphosis!" he said; "scarce imagined ere it is realized: a lowly nymph develops to an inaccessible goddess. But Henry must not be disappointed of his recitation, and Olympia will deign to oblige him. Let us begin." "I have forgotten the very first line." "Which I have not. _My_ memory, if a slow, is a retentive one. I acquire deliberately both knowledge and liking. The acquisition grows into my brain, and the sentiment into my breast; and it is not as the rapid-springing produce which, having no root in itself, flourishes verdurous enough for a time, but too soon falls withered away. Attention, Henry! Miss Keeldar consents to favour you. 'Voyez ce cheval ardent et imptueux,' so it commences." Miss Keeldar did consent to make the effort; but she soon stopped. "Unless I heard the whole repeated I cannot continue it," she said. "Yet it was quickly learned--'soon gained, soon gone,'" moralized the tutor. He recited the passage deliberately, accurately, with slow, impressive emphasis. Shirley, by degrees, inclined her ear as he went on. Her face, before turned from him, _re_turned towards him. When he ceased, she took the word up as if from his lips; she took his very tone; she seized his very accent; she delivered the periods as he had delivered them; she reproduced his manner, his pronunciation, his expression. It was now her turn to petition. "Recall 'Le Songe d'Athalie,'" she entreated, "and say it." He said it for her. She took it from him; she found lively excitement in the pleasure of making his language her own. She asked for further indulgence; all the old school pieces were revived, and with them Shirley's old school days. He had gone through some of the best passages of Racine and Corneille, and then had heard the echo of his own deep tones in the girl's voice, that modulated itself faithfully on his. "Le chne et le Roseau," that most beautiful of La Fontaine's fables, had been recited, well recited, by the tutor, and the pupil had animatedly availed herself of the lesson. Perhaps a simultaneous feeling seized them now, that their enthusiasm had kindled to a glow, which the slight fuel of French poetry no longer sufficed to feed; perhaps they longed for a trunk of English oak to be thrown as a Yule log to the devouring flame. Moore observed, "And these are our best pieces! And we have nothing more dramatic, nervous, natural!" And then he smiled and was silent. His whole nature seemed serenely alight. He stood on the hearth, leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece, musing not unblissfully. Twilight was closing on the diminished autumn day. The schoolroom windows--darkened with creeping plants, from which no high October winds had as yet swept the sere foliage--admitted scarce a gleam of sky; but the fire gave light enough to talk by. And now Louis Moore addressed his pupil in French, and she answered at first with laughing hesitation and in broken phrase. Moore encouraged while he corrected her. Henry joined in the lesson; the two scholars stood opposite the master, their arms round each other's waists. Tartar, who long since had craved and obtained admission, sat sagely in the centre of the rug, staring at the blaze which burst fitful from morsels of coal among the red cinders. The group were happy enough, but-- "Pleasures are like poppies spread; You seize the flower--its bloom is shed." The dull, rumbling sound of wheels was heard on the pavement in the yard. "It is the carriage returned," said Shirley; "and dinner must be just ready, and I am not dressed." A servant came in with Mr. Moore's candle and tea; for the tutor and his pupil usually dined at luncheon time. "Mr. Sympson and the ladies are returned," she said, "and Sir Philip Nunnely is with them." "How you did start, and how your hand trembled, Shirley!" said Henry, when the maid had closed the shutter and was gone. "But I know why--don't you, Mr. Moore? I know what papa intends. He is a little ugly man, that Sir Philip. I wish he had not come. I wish sisters and all of them had stayed at De Walden Hall to dine.--Shirley should once more have made tea for you and me, Mr. Moore, and we would have had a happy evening of it." Moore was locking up his desk and putting away his St. Pierre. "That was _your_ plan, was it, my boy?" "Don't you approve it, sir?" "I approve nothing utopian. Look Life in its iron face; stare Reality out of its brassy countenance. Make the tea, Henry; I shall be back in a minute." He left the room; so did Shirley, by another door.

Miss Keeldar and her uncle had characters that would not harmonize. He was irritable, and she was spirited. He was despotic, and she liked freedom. He was worldly, and she, perhaps, romantic. He had come down to Yorkshire with a purpose. He anxiously desired to have his niece married, to match her with a suitable husband, and wash his hands of her for ever. Unfortunately, Shirley and he had always disagreed on the meaning of the word "suitable." She had never yet accepted his definition; and it was doubtful whether she would now. The trial soon came. Mr. Wynne proposed on behalf of his son, Samuel Wynne. "Decidedly suitable!" pronounced Mr. Sympson. "A fine estate, real substance, good connections. It must be done!" He sent for his niece to the oak parlour; he communicated the offer; he gave his opinion; he claimed her consent. It was withheld. "No; I shall not marry Samuel Wynne." "I ask why. I must have a reason. He is more than worthy of you." She stood on the hearth, pale as the white marble slab behind her; her eyes flashed large, unsmiling. "May I ask in what sense that young man is worthy of me?" "He has twice your money, twice your common sense, and equal respectability." "Had he a hundred times my money I would take no vow to love him." "Please state your objections." "He has been despicably profligate. Accept that as the first reason why I spurn him." "Miss Keeldar, you shock me!" "That conduct alone sinks him in a gulf of immeasurable inferiority. I cannot esteem his intellect: there is a second stumbling-block. His views are narrow, his feelings are blunt, his tastes are coarse, his manners vulgar." "He is a respectable, wealthy man! To refuse him is presumptuous." "I refuse point-blank! Cease to annoy me with the subject; I forbid it!" "Is it your intention ever to marry; or do you prefer celibacy?" "I deny your right to claim an answer to that question." "May I ask if you expect some peer of the realm to demand your hand?" "I doubt if the peer breathes to whom I would give it." "I almost believe you are mad. Frantic and impractical girl! Take warning! I dare you to sully our name by a msalliance!" "Our name! Am I called Sympson?" "God be thanked that you are not! But be on your guard; I will not be trifled with! Take care!" "Why? What shadow of power have you over me? Why should I fear you?" "Take care, madam!" His voice and hand trembled alike. "Scrupulous care I will take, Mr. Sympson. Before I marry I am resolved to esteem - to admire - to love." "Preposterous stuff! Unwomanly!" "To love with my whole heart. I know I speak in an unknown tongue; but I feel indifferent whether you understand or not." "And if this love of yours should fall on a beggar?" "I do not esteem begging." "On a low clerk, a play-actor, a play-writer, or - or a shabby, whining artist?" "For the shabby and whining I have no taste; for literature and the arts I have. And Samuel Wynne cannot write a note without errors; he reads only a sporting paper; he was the booby of Stilbro' grammar school!" "Unladylike language! Great God! to what will she come?" He lifted his hands and eyes. "Why are not the laws more stringent, that I might compel her to hear reason?" "Console yourself, uncle. Were you the Czar, you could not compel me to this step. I will write to Mr. Wynne. Give yourself no further trouble on the subject." However, Mr. Wynne was not the only suitor. Miss Keeldar - or her fortune - had by this time made a sensation in the district. No less than three offers followed Mr. Wynne's, all more or less eligible. All were in turn pressed on her by her uncle, and all were refused. Yet amongst them was more than one gentleman of respectable character as well as wealth. Many besides her uncle asked whom she expected to entrap, so make her so insolently fastidious. At last the gossips thought they had found the key to her conduct, and her uncle was sure of it. The discovery altered his whole behaviour to his niece. They had lately been at loggerheads. The aunt could not reconcile them; the daughters froze at their quarrels, and became chilled with decorous dread if they chanced to be alone with their audacious cousin. But then a change came. Mr. Sympson was appeased and his family tranquillized. The village of Nunnely had a hall, called the priory - an older, more lordly house than any in Briarfield or Whinbury; and what is more, it had a baronet, which neither Briarfield nor Whinbury could boast. The present baronet, a young man who had hitherto lived in a distant province, was unknown on his Yorkshire estate. During Miss Keeldar's stay at the fashionable watering-place of Cliffbridge, she and her friends had been introduced to Sir Philip Nunnely. They met him again on the sands, the cliffs, on walks, and sometimes at public balls. He seemed unpretending; rather timid than proud, and glad of their society. With any unaffected person Shirley could easily make friends. She walked and talked with Sir Philip; she and her aunt and cousins sometimes took a sail in his yacht. She liked him because she found him kind and modest, and was charmed that she had the power to amuse him. One slight drawback there was: Sir Philip had a literary turn. He wrote poetry - sonnets and ballads. Perhaps Miss Keeldar thought him a little too fond of reciting these works; perhaps she wished them a little better written, a little more original. At any rate, she always winced when he referred to his poems, and tried to divert the conversation into another channel. He would beguile her to take moonlight walks with him for the sole purpose, it seemed, of pouring into her ear his longest ballads. He would lead her away to lonely spots by the sea, and in the scented shade of gardens, with tall cliffs rising behind them, he would pull out his latest batch of sonnets, and read them in a voice tremulous with emotion. He did not seem to know that though they might be rhyme, they were not poetry. It appeared, by Shirley's face, that she knew it, and felt heartily mortified by the single foible of this good and amiable gentleman. Often she tried gently to wean him from his fanatical worship of the Muses. On all ordinary subjects he was sensible enough. He questioned her sometimes about his place at Nunnely; she was happy to describe the area, and advised him to visit his ancestral halls. Somewhat to her surprise, Sir Philip followed her advice, and in late September, arrived at the priory. He soon called at Fieldhead, and his first visit was not his last. He said that under no roof had he found such pleasant shelter as beneath Fieldhead's massive oak beams; a cramped, modest dwelling compared with his own, but he liked it. Presently it was not enough to sit with Shirley in her panelled parlour; he made parties for her to his own grounds, his glorious forest; and to remoter scenes by the rivers Wharfe and Aire. Shirley's uncle foresaw the splendid time when he should be able to allude nonchalantly to his "nephew the baronet." Now his niece appeared to him no longer "a mad girl," but a "most sensible woman: peculiar, but very clever." He treated her with deference; he made mysterious jokes about the superiority of woman's wit over man's wisdom; and remarked on the generalship, the tactics, of "a person not a hundred miles from Fieldhead." In short, he was elated. His niece received his innuendoes with composure, apparently not understanding them. When charged with being preferred by the baronet, she said she believed he did like her, and for her part she liked him. She had never thought a man of rank could have so much goodness, and, on the whole, so much sense. Time proved, indeed, that Sir Philip liked her. He sought her presence more and more. About this time strange feelings hovered round Fieldhead; restless hopes and haggard anxieties haunted its rooms. There was a sense of expectancy that kept the nerves strained. One thing seemed clear: Sir Philip was not a man to be despised. If not highly intellectual, he was intelligent. He was no Sam Wynne. As to his lineage and wealth, both were, of course, far beyond Shirley's. His appearance, it is true, was boyish. His features were plain and slight, his stature insignificant. But Shirley soon checked her merriment on this point; she would even fire up if anyone was uncomplimentary about him. He had "a pleasing countenance," she affirmed; "and a good heart." She still reserved a rare shaft of sarcasm for his unfortunate poetry; but even here she would tolerate no irony except her own. In short, matters had reached a point which seemed fully to warrant an observation made by Mr. Yorke to the tutor, Louis. "That brother Robert of yours seems to me to be either a fool or a madman. Two months ago I could have sworn he had the game all in his own hands; and then he leaves the area and stays in London for weeks together, and by the time he comes back he'll find himself checkmated. Louis, I'd write to Robert, if I were you, and tell him not to let his chances slip." "Robert had views on Miss Keeldar?" inquired Louis, as if the idea was new to him. "Views I suggested to him myself, for she liked him." "As a neighbour?" "As more than that. I have seen her change colour at the mere mention of his name. Write to the lad, I say, and tell him to come home. He is a finer gentleman than this bit of a baronet." "Does it not strike you, Mr. Yorke, that for a penniless adventurer to aspire to a rich woman's hand is presumptuous - contemptible?" "Oh, if you are for high notions, I've naught to say. I'm a plain, practical man myself, and if Robert is willing to give up that royal prize to a puling slip of aristocracy, I am quite agreeable. In his place I would have acted differently. But you tutors are such solemn chaps; it is almost like speaking to a parson." Rumour had indeed ceased to couple Shirley's name with that of Moore; but it appeared that she had not forgotten him. That seemed proved by the attention which a sudden attack of illness led her to show Robert's tutor-brother, to whom she habitually behaved with strange alternations of cool reserve and docile respect - now sweeping past him in all the dignity of the moneyed heiress, and then accosting him as abashed school-girls accost their stern professors. Louis Moore had perhaps caught the fever in one of the poor cottages of the district, which he and Mr. Hall had visited together. At any rate he sickened, and was obliged to keep to his chamber. He lay tossing on his bed one evening, with Henry by him, when there was a light tap on the door. "How is Mr. Moore tonight?" asked a low voice. "Come in and see him yourself," said Henry. "Is he asleep?" "I wish he could sleep. Come and speak to him, Shirley." "He would not like it." But she stepped in, and Henry led her to the couch. The shaded light showed Miss Keeldar elegantly dressed. There was a party assembled below, including Sir Philip Nunnely; the ladies were now in the drawing-room, and their hostess had stolen from them to visit Henry's tutor. Her white dress glistened strangely amid the obscurity of the sickroom. She looked chastened and pensive, and spoke gently. "Mr. Moore, how are you tonight?" "I have not been very ill, and am now better." "I heard that you complained of thirst. I have brought you some grapes; can you taste one?" "No; but I thank you for remembering me." "Just one." She offered a grape to his lips. He shook his head, and turned aside his flushed face. "But what can I bring you instead? What do you like to drink?" "Mrs. Gill supplies me with toast-and-water." "I wonder what caused this fever? I hear you often visit the sick with Mr. Hall. You should be on your guard." "That reminds me, Miss Keeldar, that perhaps you had better not enter this chamber or come near this bed. I do not believe my illness is infectious, but you should not run the risk. Leave me." "I will go soon; but I should like to do something for you before I depart - any little service-" "They will miss you below." "No; the gentlemen are still at table." "They will not linger long. Sir Philip Nunnely is no wine-drinker, and I hear him walking to the drawing-room." "Your hearing is acute." "It seems sharpened at present. Sir Philip was here to tea last night. I heard you sing to him. When he left, I heard him call you outside, to look at the evening star. I heard him kiss your hand." "Impossible!" "No: my chamber is just above the front door; the window was open. You stood ten minutes with him on the steps. I heard your discourse, every word. Henry, give me some water." "Can I do nothing?" asked Shirley. "Nothing; for you cannot guarantee me a night's peaceful rest, and it is all I want. Sleep has left me." "Yet you said you were not very ill?" "I am often sleepless when well." "If I could, I would give you the most placid slumber - quite deep and dreamless." "Blank annihilation! I do not ask that." "With dreams of all you most desire," she added. "Monstrous delusions! The sleep would be delirium, the waking death." "Your wishes are not so delusional." "Miss Keeldar, my character is not, perhaps, quite as legible to you as you think." "Possibly. But I should like to help you sleep. If I took a book and read to you? I can well spare half an hour. I would read softly." "It would not do. I am too feverish and excitable to bear a soft voice close at my ear. You had better leave me." "Well, I will go." "And no good-night?" "Yes, sir, yes. Mr. Moore, good-night." (Exit Shirley.) "Henry, my boy, go to bed now." "Give me your blessing, sir." "God bless you, my best pupil!" "You never call me your dearest pupil!" "No, nor ever shall." Miss Keeldar did not repeat the visit, nor again disturb the sickroom. A sickroom, indeed, it soon ceased to be. In a few days Mr. Moore shook off his illness, and resumed his duties as tutor. He still had his old teacher's authority over Shirley, as proved by the manner in which he sometimes put down her high reserve with a firm, quiet hand. One afternoon the Sympson family were gone out to take a carriage airing. Shirley, never sorry to snatch a reprieve from their society, had remained behind, detained by business, as she said. The business - a little letter-writing - was soon done; and Miss Keeldar betook herself to the garden. It was a peaceful autumn day; the russet woods were still full of leaf. The purple heath-bloom, faded but not withered, tinged the hills. Fieldhead's gardens bore the seal of gentle decay. Yellow leaves had fluttered down on to the walks; a few apples still enriched the trees. A blossom here and there expanded pale and delicate amidst a knot of faded leaves. These single flowers - the last of their race - Shirley culled as she wandered thoughtfully amongst the beds. Henry Sympson called to her as he came limping from the house. "Shirley, Mr. Moore would be glad to see you in the schoolroom and to hear you read a little French, if you have no more urgent occupation." "Did Mr. Moore tell you to say that?" "Certainly; why not? Do come, and let us once more be as we were at Sympson Grove. We used to have pleasant school-hours." Miss Keeldar perhaps thought that circumstances were changed since then; however, she made no remark, but quietly followed Henry. Entering the schoolroom, she inclined her head, as in former times, and hung her bonnet beside Henry's cap. Louis Moore sat at his desk, turning the leaves of a book and marking passages with his pencil. "You proposed to read to me a few nights ago," said he. "I could not hear you then, but I can now. A little renewed practice in French may profit you. Your accent, I have observed, begins to rust." "What book shall I take?" "Here are the posthumous works of St. Pierre. Read a few pages of the 'Fragments de l'Amazone.'" She accepted the chair which he had placed near his own; the volume lay on his desk between them, but her sweeping curls dropped and hid the page from him. "Put back your hair," he said. For one moment Shirley looked not quite certain whether she would obey. She glanced at the professor's face. Perhaps if he had been looking at her harshly or undecidedly she would have rebelled, and the lesson have ended; but he was as calm and cool as marble. She threw the veil of hair behind her ear, and began to read. The language had become strange to her tongue; it faltered and stopped. "I can't do it. Read me a paragraph, if you please, Mr. Moore." What he read she repeated. She caught his accent in three minutes. "Trs bien," was the approving comment. "You could not write French as you once could, I dare say?" "Oh no! I should make strange work of it now." "You could not compose the essay 'La Premire Femme Savante'?" "Do you still remember that rubbish?" "Every line." "I doubt you." "I will engage to repeat it word for word," said he. "You would stop short at the first line." "Challenge me." "I challenge you." He proceeded to recite the following. He gave it in French, but we must translate, and also shorten it a little. And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair; and they took them wives of them. This was in the dawn of time, an epoch so remote, so veiled in obscurity that it evades perception and baffles research. It must suffice to know that the world then existed; that men peopled it; that man's nature, with its passions, sympathies, pains, and pleasures, informed the planet and gave it soul. A certain tribe colonized a certain spot on the globe; no sandy plain, nor scant oasis, but a forest valley, with rocky sides and deep shade, formed by tree crowding on tree. Here dwell human beings, but so few, and so hidden that they are neither heard nor seen. Are they savage? Doubtless. They live by the crook and the bow; half shepherds, half hunters. Are they happy? No, not more happy than we are. Are they good? No, not better than ourselves. Their nature is our nature. There is one in this tribe too often miserable - an orphaned child. No-one cares for her. She is fed sometimes, but oftener forgotten. The hollow tree and chill cavern are her home. Forsaken and wandering, she lives more with the wild beast and bird than with her own kind. Hunger and cold are her comrades, and solitude besets her. Unheeded and unvalued, she should die; but she both lives and grows. The gentle charm vouchsafed to flower and tree, bestowed on deer and dove, nurtures the human child. All solitary, she has sprung up straight and graceful. Nature cast her features finely, in pure lines. Her form gleams ivory-white through the trees; her hair flows long, and glossy; her eyes are full and dewy. Her forehead is a clear, candid page, whereon knowledge might write a golden record. You see in the desolate young savage nothing vicious or vacant. She haunts the wood harmless and thoughtful, though of what one so untaught can think it is not easy to guess. On the evening of one summer day, before the Flood, being utterly alone, she went up from the vale to watch Day take leave and Night arrive. A crag overspread by a tree was her station. The oak roots, turfed and mossed, gave a seat; the oak boughs, thick-leaved, wove a canopy. Slow and grand the Day withdrew, passing in purple fire. Then Night entered, quiet as death. The wind fell, the birds ceased singing. Now every nest held happy mates, and hart and hind slumbered blissfully safe in their lair. The girl sat, her body still, her soul astir; she felt the world, the sky, the night, boundlessly mighty. Of all things herself seemed the centre - a small, forgotten atom of life, a spark of soul, burning unmarked to waste in the heart of a black hollow. She asked, was she thus to burn out and perish, her living light doing no good, never seen, never needed? How could this be, she demanded, when her life beat so true, and real, and potent; when something within her stirred and restlessly asserted a God-given strength? She gazed abroad on Heaven and Evening. Heaven and Evening gazed back on her. She bent down, searching bank, hill, river, spread dim below. Above her head she raised her hands. "Guidance - help - comfort - come!" was her cry. There was no answer. She waited, kneeling, steadfastly looking up. Yonder sky was sealed; the solemn stars shone alien and remote. At last she thought Something above relented; she felt as if Something far round drew nigher; she heard as if Silence spoke. There was no language, no word, only a tone. A deep, soft sound, like a storm whispering, made twilight undulate. Once more, profounder, nearer, clearer, it rolled harmonious. A voice passed between Heaven and Earth. "Eva!" "Here am I." "Eva!" "O Night, I am here!" The voice, descending, reached Earth. "Eva!" "Lord," she cried, "behold thine handmaid!" "I come - a Comforter!" "Lord, come quickly!" The Evening flushed full of hope; the Moon ascended large, but her light showed no shape. "Lean towards me, Eva. Enter my arms." "Thus I lean, O Invisible but felt! And what art thou?" "Eva, I have brought a living draught from heaven. Daughter of Man, drink of my cup!" "I drink: it is as if sweetest dew visited my lips. My arid heart revives; my affliction is lightened. And the night changes! the wood, the hill, the moon, the wide sky - all change!" "All change, and for ever. I take from thy vision darkness; I loosen thy fetters! I take to myself the spark of soul until now forgotten!" "O take me! O claim me! This is a god." "This is a son of God - one who feels himself in the life that stirs you. He is suffered to reclaim his own and to aid it." "A son of God! Am I indeed chosen?" "Thou only in this land. To me it is given to rescue, to sustain, to cherish mine own. Acknowledge in me that Seraph on earth named Genius." "My glorious Bridegroom! All I would have at last I possess. I receive a revelation. The dark hint, the obscure whisper, which have haunted me from childhood, are interpreted. Thou art He I sought. Godborn, take me, thy bride!" "Come again into the heaven whence thou wert sent." That Presence, invisible but mighty, gathered her in like a lamb to the fold; that voice, soft but all-pervading, vibrated through her heart like music. Her eye received no image; and yet she saw a vision of the majesty of marching stars, the energy of colliding elements, the rooted endurance of hills; the lustre of heroic beauty rushing victorious on the Night, vanquishing its shadows. Such was the bridal hour of Genius and Humanity. Who shall rehearse the tale of their after-union? Who shall depict its bliss and bale? Who shall record the long strife between Serpent and Seraph: how the Father of Lies insinuated evil into good, pride into wisdom, poison into passion? How the "dreadless Angel" defied him, and refined the polluted cup, exalted the debased emotion - purified, justified, watched, and withstood? How, by his patience, by his strength, this faithful Seraph fought for Humanity a good fight through time; and, when Time's course closed, and Death was encountered at the end, how Genius still held close his dying bride, sustained her through the agony of the passage, bore her triumphant into his own home, Heaven; restored her to Jehovah, her Maker; and at last crowned her with the crown of Immortality? Who shall of these things write the chronicle? "I never could correct that composition," observed Shirley, as Moore concluded. "Your censor-pencil scored it with condemnatory lines, which I could not understand." She had taken a crayon from the tutor's desk, and was drawing little leaves on the margin of the book. "French may be half forgotten, but the habits of your French lesson are retained, I see," said Louis. "Miss Keeldar, her mark on every page." Shirley dropped her crayon as if it burned her fingers. "Tell me, what were the faults of that essay?" she asked. "Were they grammatical errors, or did you object to the substance?" "I never said that the lines I drew were indications of faults at all. You assumed it." "What else did they mean?" "No matter now." "Mr. Moore," cried Henry, "make Shirley repeat some of the pieces she used to say so well by heart." "If I ask for any, it will be 'Le Cheval Dompt,'" said Moore. She turned aside her head; the neck and cheek flushed warm. "Ah! she has not forgotten, you see, sir," said Henry, exultant. "She knows how naughty she was." A smile made Shirley's lip tremble; she bent her face, and hid it half in her curls, which fell loose again. "Certainly I was a rebel," she answered. "A rebel!" repeated Henry. "Yes; you and papa had quarrelled terribly, and you defied both him and mamma. You said he had insulted you-" "He had insulted me," interposed Shirley. "And you wanted to leave Sympson Grove directly. You packed your things, and papa threw them out of your trunk; mamma and Mrs. Pryor cried, and begged you to be patient; and you knelt on the floor with your things in one of your passions. Your features, in such passions, are quite beautiful. You scarcely look angry, only resolute, and in haste; yet one feels that at such times an obstacle cast across your path would be split with lightning. Papa lost heart, and called Mr. Moore." "Enough, Henry." "No, it is not enough. I hardly know how Mr. Moore managed, except that I recollect he spoke quietly to papa and the ladies, and got them away; and afterwards he said to you, Miss Shirley, that it was of no use lecturing now, but that the tea-things were just brought into the schoolroom, and he was very thirsty, and he would be glad if you would leave your packing for the present and come and make a cup of tea for him and me. You came; you would not talk at first, but soon you softened. Mr. Moore began to tell us about the Continent, the war, and Bonaparte - subjects we were both fond of listening to. After tea he said we should neither of us leave him that evening, lest we should again get into mischief. I never passed so pleasant an evening. The next day he gave you, missy, a lecture of an hour, and wound it up by telling you to learn 'Le Cheval Dompt.' You learned it instead of packing, Shirley. We heard no more of your running away." "She never said a lesson with greater spirit," added Moore. "She for the first time gave me the treat of hearing my native tongue spoken without accent by an English girl." "She was as sweet as summer cherries for a month afterwards," struck in Henry: "a good hearty quarrel always improved Shirley's temper." "You talk of me as if I were not present," observed Miss Keeldar. "Are you sure you are present?" asked Moore. "At times since my arrival here, I have been tempted to ask the lady of Fieldhead if she knew what had become of my former pupil." "She is here now." "I see her, and humble enough; but I would advise neither Harry nor others to believe too much in the humility which one moment can hide its blushing face like a modest little child, and the next lift it pale and lofty as a marble Juno." "One man in times of old, it is said, gave life to the statue he had chiselled," answered Shirley; "others may have the contrary gift of turning flesh to marble." Moore paused to turn this observation over in his mind. "You mean," he said at last, "that some men inspire repugnance, and so chill the kind heart." "Ingenious!" responded Shirley. "If the interpretation pleases you, you are welcome to hold it valid. I don't care." And with that she raised her head, lofty and statue-like, as Louis had described it. "Behold the metamorphosis!" he said. "But Henry must not be disappointed of his recitation. Let us begin." "I have forgotten the first line." "I have not. My memory, if slow, is retentive. I acquire only gradually both knowledge and liking, but both prove lasting. Attention, Henry! Miss Keeldar consents to favour you. It begins, 'Voyez ce cheval ardent et imptueux.'" Miss Keeldar began; but she soon stopped. "Unless I hear it I cannot continue it," she said. "Yet it was quickly learned - soon gained, soon gone," said the tutor. He recited the passage with slow, impressive emphasis. Shirley listened. When he ceased, she took the word up as if from his lips; she took his very tone; she reproduced his manner, his pronunciation, his expression. "Now say 'Le Songe d'Athalie,'" she entreated. He said it for her. She took it from him, finding lively excitement in making his language her own. She asked for more; the old school pieces were revived. He went through some of the best passages of Racine and Corneille, and heard the echo of his own deep tones in the girl's voice, that modulated itself faithfully on his. Their enthusiasm had kindled to a glow, which the slight fuel of French poetry no longer sufficed to feed; perhaps they longed for a trunk of English oak to be thrown on the flame. Moore observed, "And these are our best pieces! We have nothing more dramatic or natural." And then he smiled and was silent. He stood on the hearth, leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece, serenely alight. Twilight was closing on the autumn day. The schoolroom windows admitted scarce a gleam of sky; but the fire gave light enough to talk by. And now Louis Moore addressed his pupil in French, and she answered at first with laughing hesitation and in broken phrase. Moore encouraged and corrected her. Henry joined in the lesson, his arm round Shirley's waist. The group was happy, until the dull, rumbling sound of wheels was heard outside in the yard. "It is the carriage," said Shirley; "and I am not dressed for dinner." A servant came in with Mr. Moore's candle and tea. "Mr. Sympson and the ladies are returned," she said, "and Sir Philip Nunnely is with them." "How you did start, Shirley!" said Henry, when the maid had gone. "But I know why - don't you, Mr. Moore? I know what papa intends. He is a little ugly man, that Sir Philip. I wish he had not come. Shirley should have made tea for you and me, Mr. Moore, and we would have had a happy evening." Moore was locking up his desk. "That was your plan, was it, my boy?" "Don't you approve it, sir?" "I approve nothing utopian. Look Life in its iron face; stare Reality out of its brassy countenance. Make the tea, Henry; I shall be back in a minute." He left the room; so did Shirley, by another door.

Shirley

Chapter 27: THE FIRST BLUESTOCKING

Shirley probably got on pleasantly with Sir Philip that evening, for the next morning she came down in one of her best moods. "Who will take a walk with me?" she asked, after breakfast. "Isabella and Gertrude, will you?" So rare was such an invitation from Miss Keeldar to her female cousins that they hesitated before they accepted it. Their mamma, however, signifying acquiescence in the project, they fetched their bonnets, and the trio set out. It did not suit these three young persons to be thrown much together. Miss Keeldar liked the society of few ladies; indeed, she had a cordial pleasure in that of none except Mrs. Pryor and Caroline Helstone. She was civil, kind, attentive even to her cousins; but still she usually had little to say to them. In the sunny mood of this particular morning, she contrived to entertain even the Misses Sympson. Without deviating from her wonted rule of discussing with them only ordinary themes, she imparted to these themes an extraordinary interest; the sparkle of her spirit glanced along her phrases. What made her so joyous? All the cause must have been in herself. The day was not bright. It was dim--a pale, waning autumn day. The walks through the dun woods were damp; the atmosphere was heavy, the sky overcast; and yet it seemed that in Shirley's heart lived all the light and azure of Italy, as all its fervour laughed in her gray English eye. Some directions necessary to be given to her foreman, John, delayed her behind her cousins as they neared Fieldhead on their return. Perhaps an interval of twenty minutes elapsed between her separation from them and her re-entrance into the house. In the meantime she had spoken to John, and then she had lingered in the lane at the gate. A summons to luncheon called her in. She excused herself from the meal, and went upstairs. "Is not Shirley coming to luncheon?" asked Isabella. "She said she was hungry." An hour after, as she did not quit her chamber, one of her cousins went to seek her there. She was found sitting at the foot of the bed, her head resting on her hand; she looked quite pale, very thoughtful, almost sad. "You are not ill?" was the question put. "A little sick," replied Miss Keeldar. Certainly she was not a little changed from what she had been two hours before. This change, accounted for only by those three words, explained no otherwise; this change--whencesoever springing, effected in a brief ten minutes--passed like no light summer cloud. She talked when she joined her friends at dinner, talked as usual. She remained with them during the evening. When again questioned respecting her health, she declared herself perfectly recovered. It had been a mere passing faintness, a momentary sensation, not worth a thought; yet it was felt there was a difference in Shirley. The next day--the day, the week, the fortnight after--this new and peculiar shadow lingered on the countenance, in the manner of Miss Keeldar. A strange quietude settled over her look, her movements, her very voice. The alteration was not so marked as to court or permit frequent questioning, yet it _was_ there, and it would not pass away. It hung over her like a cloud which no breeze could stir or disperse. Soon it became evident that to notice this change was to annoy her. First she shrank from remark; and, if persisted in, she, with her own peculiar _hauteur_, repelled it. "Was she ill?" The reply came with decision. "I _am not_." "Did anything weigh on her mind? Had anything happened to affect her spirits?" She scornfully ridiculed the idea. "What did they mean by spirits? She had no spirits, black or white, blue or gray, to affect." "Something must be the matter--she was so altered." "She supposed she had a right to alter at her ease. She knew she was plainer. If it suited her to grow ugly, why need others fret themselves on the subject?" "There must be a cause for the change. What was it?" She peremptorily requested to be let alone. Then she would make every effort to appear quite gay, and she seemed indignant at herself that she could not perfectly succeed. Brief self-spurning epithets burst from her lips when alone. "Fool! coward!" she would term herself. "Poltroon!" she would say, "if you must tremble, tremble in secret! Quail where no eye sees you!" "How dare you," she would ask herself--"how dare you show your weakness and betray your imbecile anxieties? Shake them off; rise above them. If you cannot do this, hide them." And to hide them she did her best. She once more became resolutely lively in company. When weary of effort and forced to relax, she sought solitude--not the solitude of her chamber (she refused to mope, shut up between four walls), but that wilder solitude which lies out of doors, and which she could chase, mounted on Zo, her mare. She took long rides of half a day. Her uncle disapproved, but he dared not remonstrate. It was never pleasant to face Shirley's anger, even when she was healthy and gay; but now that her face showed thin, and her large eye looked hollow, there was something in the darkening of that face and kindling of that eye which touched as well as alarmed. To all comparative strangers who, unconscious of the alterations in her spirits, commented on the alteration in her looks, she had one reply,-- "I am perfectly well; I have not an ailment." And health, indeed, she must have had, to be able to bear the exposure to the weather she now encountered. Wet or fair, calm or storm, she took her daily ride over Stilbro' Moor, Tartar keeping up at her side, with his wolf-like gallop, long and untiring. Twice, three times, the eyes of gossips--those eyes which are everywhere, in the closet and on the hill-top--noticed that instead of turning on Rushedge, the top ridge of Stilbro' Moor, she rode forwards all the way to the town. Scouts were not wanting to mark her destination there. It was ascertained that she alighted at the door of one Mr. Pearson Hall, a solicitor, related to the vicar of Nunnely. This gentleman and his ancestors had been the agents of the Keeldar family for generations back. Some people affirmed that Miss Keeldar was become involved in business speculations connected with Hollow's Mill--that she had lost money, and was constrained to mortgage her land. Others conjectured that she was going to be married, and that the settlements were preparing. * * * * * Mr. Moore and Henry Sympson were together in the schoolroom. The tutor was waiting for a lesson which the pupil seemed busy in preparing. "Henry, make haste. The afternoon is getting on." "Is it, sir?" "Certainly. Are you nearly ready with that lesson?" "No." "Not _nearly_ ready?" "I have not construed a line." Mr. Moore looked up. The boy's tone was rather peculiar. "The task presents no difficulties, Henry; or, if it does, bring them to me. We will work together." "Mr. Moore, I can do no work." "My boy, you are ill." "Sir, I am not worse in bodily health than usual, but my heart is full." "Shut the book. Come hither, Harry. Come to the fireside." Harry limped forward. His tutor placed him in a chair; his lips were quivering, his eyes brimming. He laid his crutch on the floor, bent down his head, and wept. "This distress is not occasioned by physical pain, you say, Harry? You have a grief; tell it me." "Sir, I have such a grief as I never had before. I wish it could be relieved in some way; I can hardly bear it." "Who knows but, if we talk it over, we may relieve it? What is the cause? Whom does it concern?" "The cause, sir, is Shirley; it concerns Shirley." "Does it? You think her changed?" "All who know her think her changed--you too, Mr. Moore." "Not seriously--no. I see no alteration but such as a favourable turn might repair in a few weeks; besides, her own word must go for something: she says she is well." "There it is, sir. As long as she maintained she was well, I believed her. When I was sad out of her sight, I soon recovered spirits in her presence. Now----" "Well, Harry, now. Has she said anything to you? You and she were together in the garden two hours this morning. I saw her talking, and you listening. Now, my dear Harry, if Miss Keeldar has said she is ill, and enjoined you to keep her secret, do not obey her. For her life's sake, avow everything. Speak, my boy." "_She_ say she is ill! I believe, sir, if she were dying, she would smile, and aver, 'Nothing ails me.'" "What have you learned then? What new circumstance?" "I have learned that she has just made her will." "Made her will?" The tutor and pupil were silent. "She told you that?" asked Moore, when some minutes had elapsed. "She told me quite cheerfully, not as an ominous circumstance, which I felt it to be. She said I was the only person besides her solicitor, Pearson Hall, and Mr. Helstone and Mr. Yorke, who knew anything about it; and to me, she intimated, she wished specially to explain its provisions." "Go on, Harry." "'Because,' she said, looking down on me with her beautiful eyes--oh! they _are_ beautiful, Mr. Moore! I love them! I love her! She is my star! Heaven must not claim her! She is lovely in this world, and fitted for this world. Shirley is not an angel; she is a woman, and she shall live with men. Seraphs shall not have her! Mr. Moore, if one of the 'sons of God,' with wings wide and bright as the sky, blue and sounding as the sea, having seen that she was fair, descended to claim her, his claim should be withstood--withstood by me--boy and cripple as I am." "Henry Sympson, go on, when I tell you." "'Because,' she said, 'if I made no will, and died before you, Harry, all my property would go to you; and I do not intend that it should be so, though your father would like it. But you,' she said, 'will have his whole estate, which is large--larger than Fieldhead. Your sisters will have nothing; so I have left them some money, though I do not love them, both together, half so much as I love one lock of your fair hair.' She said these words, and she called me her 'darling,' and let me kiss her. She went on to tell me that she had left Caroline Helstone some money too; that this manor house, with its furniture and books, she had bequeathed to me, as she did not choose to take the old family place from her own blood; and that all the rest of her property, amounting to about twelve thousand pounds, exclusive of the legacies to my sisters and Miss Helstone, she had willed, not to me, seeing I was already rich, but to a good man, who would make the best use of it that any human being could do--a man, she said, that was both gentle and brave, strong and merciful--a man that might not profess to be pious, but she knew he had the secret of religion pure and undefiled before God. The spirit of love and peace was with him. He visited the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and kept himself unspotted from the world. Then she asked, 'Do you approve what I have done, Harry?' I could not answer. My tears choked me, as they do now." Mr. Moore allowed his pupil a moment to contend with and master his emotion. He then demanded, "What else did she say?" "When I had signified my full consent to the conditions of her will, she told me I was a generous boy, and she was proud of me. 'And now,' she added, 'in case anything should happen, you will know what to say to Malice when she comes whispering hard things in your ear, insinuating that Shirley has wronged you, that she did not love you. You will know that I _did_ love you, Harry; that no sister could have loved you better--my own treasure.' Mr. Moore, sir, when I remember her voice, and recall her look, my heart beats as if it would break its strings. She _may_ go to heaven before me--if God commands it, she _must_; but the rest of my life--and my life will not be long, I am glad of that now--shall be a straight, quick, thoughtful journey in the path her step has pressed. I thought to enter the vault of the Keeldars before her. Should it be otherwise, lay my coffin by Shirley's side." Moore answered him with a weighty calm, that offered a strange contrast to the boy's perturbed enthusiasm. "You are wrong, both of you--you harm each other. If youth once falls under the influence of a shadowy terror, it imagines there will never be full sunlight again; its first calamity it fancies will last a lifetime. What more did she say? Anything more?" "We settled one or two family points between ourselves." "I should rather like to know what----" "But, Mr. Moore, you smile. _I_ could not smile to see Shirley in such a mood." "My boy, I am neither nervous, nor poetic, nor inexperienced. I see things as they are; you don't as yet. Tell me these family points." "Only, sir, she asked me whether I considered myself most of a Keeldar or a Sympson; and I answered I was Keeldar to the core of the heart and to the marrow of the bones. She said she was glad of it; for, besides her, I was the only Keeldar left in England. And then we agreed on some matters." "Well?" "Well, sir, that if I lived to inherit my father's estate, and her house, I was to take the name of Keeldar, and to make Fieldhead my residence. Henry Shirley Keeldar I said I would be called; and I will. Her name and her manor house are ages old, and Sympson and Sympson Grove are of yesterday." "Come, you are neither of you going to heaven yet. I have the best hopes of you both, with your proud distinctions--a pair of half-fledged eaglets. Now, what is your inference from all you have told me? Put it into words." "That Shirley thinks she is going to die." "She referred to her health?" "Not once; but I assure you she is wasting. Her hands are grown quite thin, and so is her cheek." "Does she ever complain to your mother or sisters?" "Never. She laughs at them when they question her. Mr. Moore, she is a strange being, so fair and girlish--not a man-like woman at all, not an Amazon, and yet lifting her head above both help and sympathy." "Do you know where she is now, Henry? Is she in the house, or riding out?" "Surely not out, sir. It rains fast." "True; which, however, is no guarantee that she is not at this moment cantering over Rushedge. Of late she has never permitted weather to be a hindrance to her rides." "You remember, Mr. Moore, how wet and stormy it was last Wednesday--so wild, indeed, that she would not permit Zo to be saddled? Yet the blast she thought too tempestuous for her mare she herself faced on foot; that afternoon she walked nearly as far as Nunnely. I asked her, when she came in, if she was not afraid of taking cold. 'Not I,' she said. 'It would be too much good luck for me. I don't know, Harry, but the best thing that could happen to me would be to take a good cold and fever, and so pass off like other Christians.' She is reckless, you see, sir." "Reckless indeed! Go and find out where she is, and if you can get an opportunity of speaking to her without attracting attention, request her to come here a minute." "Yes, sir." He snatched his crutch, and started up to go. "Harry!" He returned. "Do not deliver the message formally. Word it as, in former days, you would have worded an ordinary summons to the schoolroom." "I see, sir. She will be more likely to obey." "And, Harry----" "Sir?" "I will call you when I want you. Till then, you are dispensed from lessons." He departed. Mr. Moore, left alone, rose from his desk. "I can be very cool and very supercilious with Henry," he said. "I can seem to make light of his apprehensions, and look down _du haut de ma grandeur_ on his youthful ardour. To _him_ I can speak as if, in my eyes, they were both children. Let me see if I can keep up the same rle with her. I have known the moment when I seemed about to forget it, when Confusion and Submission seemed about to crush me with their soft tyranny, when my tongue faltered, and I have almost let the mantle drop, and stood in her presence, not master--no--but something else. I trust I shall never so play the fool. It is well for a Sir Philip Nunnely to redden when he meets her eye. He may permit himself the indulgence of submission. He may even, without disgrace, suffer his hand to tremble when it touches hers; but if one of her farmers were to show himself susceptible and sentimental, he would merely prove his need of a strait waistcoat. So far I have always done very well. She has sat near me, and I have not shaken--more than my desk. I have encountered her looks and smiles like--why, like a tutor, as I am. Her hand I never yet touched--never underwent that test. Her farmer or her footman I am not--no serf nor servant of hers have I ever been; but I am poor, and it behoves me to look to my self-respect--not to compromise an inch of it. What did she mean by that allusion to the cold people who petrify flesh to marble? It pleased me--I hardly know why; I would not permit myself to inquire. I never do indulge in scrutiny either of her language or countenance; for if I did, I should sometimes forget common sense and believe in romance. A strange, secret ecstasy steals through my veins at moments. I'll not encourage--I'll not remember it. I am resolved, as long as may be, to retain the right to say with Paul, 'I am not mad, but speak forth the words of truth and soberness.'" He paused, listening. "Will she come, or will she not come?" he inquired. "How will she take the message? Navely or disdainfully? Like a child or like a queen? Both characters are in her nature. "If she comes, what shall I say to her? How account, firstly, for the freedom of the request? Shall I apologize to her? I could in all humility; but would an apology tend to place us in the positions we ought relatively to occupy in this matter? I _must_ keep up the professor, otherwise---- I hear a door." He waited. Many minutes passed. "She will refuse me. Henry is entreating her to come; she declines. My petition is presumption in her eyes. Let her _only_ come, I can teach her to the contrary. I would rather she were a little perverse; it will steel me. I prefer her cuirassed in pride, armed with a taunt. Her scorn startles me from my dreams; I stand up myself. A sarcasm from her eyes or lips puts strength into every nerve and sinew I have. Some step approaches, and not Henry's." The door unclosed; Miss Keeldar came in. The message, it appeared, had found her at her needle; she brought her work in her hand. That day she had not been riding out; she had evidently passed it quietly. She wore her neat indoor dress and silk apron. This was no Thalestris from the fields, but a quiet domestic character from the fireside. Mr. Moore had her at advantage. He should have addressed her at once in solemn accents, and with rigid mien. Perhaps he would, had she looked saucy; but her air never showed less of _crnerie_. A soft kind of youthful shyness depressed her eyelid and mantled on her cheek. The tutor stood silent. She made a full stop between the door and his desk. "Did you want me, sir?" she asked. "I ventured, Miss Keeldar, to send for you--that is, to ask an interview of a few minutes." She waited; she plied her needle. "Well, sir" (not lifting her eyes), "what about?" "Be seated first. The subject I would broach is one of some moment. Perhaps I have hardly a right to approach it. It is possible I ought to frame an apology; it is possible no apology can excuse me. The liberty I have taken arises from a conversation with Henry. The boy is unhappy about your health; all your friends are unhappy on that subject. It is of your health I would speak." "I am quite well," she said briefly. "Yet changed." "That matters to none but myself. We all change." "Will you sit down? Formerly, Miss Keeldar, I had some influence with you: have I any now? May I feel that what I am saying is not accounted positive presumption?" "Let me read some French, Mr. Moore, or I will even take a spell at the Latin grammar, and let us proclaim a truce to all sanitary discussions." "No, no. It is time there were discussions." "Discuss away, then, but do not choose me for your text. I am a healthy subject." "Do you not think it wrong to affirm and reaffirm what is substantially untrue?" "I say I am well. I have neither cough, pain, nor fever." "Is there no equivocation in that assertion? Is it the direct truth?" "The direct truth." Louis Moore looked at her earnestly. "I can myself," he said, "trace no indications of actual disease. But why, then, are you altered?" "_Am_ I altered?" "We will try. We will seek a proof." "How?" "I ask, in the first place, do you sleep as you used to?" "I do not; but it is not because I am ill." "Have you the appetite you once had?" "No; but it is not because I am ill." "You remember this little ring fastened to my watch-chain? It was my mother's, and is too small to pass the joint of my little finger. You have many a time sportively purloined it. It fitted your fore-finger. Try now." She permitted the test. The ring dropped from the wasted little hand. Louis picked it up, and reattached it to the chain. An uneasy flush coloured his brow. Shirley again said, "It is not because I am ill." "Not only have you lost sleep, appetite, and flesh," proceeded Moore, "but your spirits are always at ebb. Besides, there is a nervous alarm in your eye, a nervous disquiet in your manner. These peculiarities were not formerly yours." "Mr. Moore, we will pause here. You have exactly hit it. I am nervous. Now, talk of something else. What wet weather we have--steady, pouring rain!" "_You_ nervous? Yes; and if Miss Keeldar is nervous, it is not without a cause. Let me reach it. Let me look nearer. The ailment is not physical. I have suspected that. It came in one moment. I know the day. I noticed the change. Your pain is mental." "Not at all. It is nothing so dignified--merely nervous. Oh! dismiss the topic." "When it is exhausted; not till then. Nervous alarms should always be communicated, that they may be dissipated. I wish I had the gift of persuasion, and could incline you to speak willingly. I believe confession, in your case, would be half equivalent to cure." "No," said Shirley abruptly. "I wish that were at all probable; but I am afraid it is not." She suspended her work a moment. She was now seated. Resting her elbow on the table, she leaned her head on her hand. Mr. Moore looked as if he felt he had at last gained some footing in this difficult path. She was serious, and in her wish was implied an important admission; after that she could no longer affirm that _nothing_ ailed her. The tutor allowed her some minutes for repose and reflection ere he returned to the charge. Once his lips moved to speak, but he thought better of it, and prolonged the pause. Shirley lifted her eye to his. Had he betrayed injudicious emotion, perhaps obstinate persistence in silence would have been the result; but he looked calm, strong, trustworthy. "I had better tell _you_ than my aunt," she said, "or than my cousins, or my uncle. They would all make such a bustle, and it is that very bustle I dread--the alarm, the flurry, the _clat_. In short, I never liked to be the centre of a small domestic whirlpool. You can bear a little shock--eh?" "A great one, if necessary." Not a muscle of the man's frame moved, and yet his large heart beat fast in his deep chest. What was she going to tell him? Was irremediable mischief done? "Had I thought it right to go to you, I would never have made a secret of the matter one moment," she continued. "I would have told you at once, and asked advice." "Why was it not right to come to me?" "It might be _right_--I do not mean that; but I could not do it. I seemed to have no title to trouble you. The mishap concerned me only. I wanted to keep it to myself, and people will not let me. I tell you, I hate to be an object of worrying attention, or a theme for village gossip. Besides, it may pass away without result--God knows!" Moore, though tortured with suspense, did not demand a quick explanation. He suffered neither gesture, glance, nor word to betray impatience. His tranquillity tranquillized Shirley; his confidence reassured her. "Great effects may spring from trivial causes," she remarked, as she loosened a bracelet from her wrist. Then, unfastening her sleeve, and partially turning it up, "Look here, Mr. Moore." She showed a mark in her white arm--rather a deep though healed-up indentation--something between a burn and a cut. "I would not show that to any one in Briarfield but you, because you can take it quietly." "Certainly there is nothing in the little mark to shock. Its history will explain." "Small as it is, it has taken my sleep away, and made me nervous, thin, and foolish; because, on account of that little mark, I am obliged to look forward to a possibility that has its terrors." The sleeve was readjusted, the bracelet replaced. "Do you know that you try me?" he said, smiling. "I am a patient sort of man, but my pulse is quickening." "Whatever happens, you will befriend me, Mr. Moore? You will give me the benefit of your self-possession, and not leave me at the mercy of agitated cowards?" "I make no promise now. Tell me the tale, and then exact what pledge you will." "It is a very short tale. I took a walk with Isabella and Gertrude one day, about three weeks ago. They reached home before me; I stayed behind to speak to John. After leaving him, I pleased myself with lingering in the lane, where all was very still and shady. I was tired of chattering to the girls, and in no hurry to rejoin them. As I stood leaning against the gate-pillar, thinking some very happy thoughts about my future life--for that morning I imagined that events were beginning to turn as I had long wished them to turn----" "Ah! Nunnely had been with her the evening before!" thought Moore parenthetically. "I heard a panting sound; a dog came running up the lane. I know most of the dogs in this neighbourhood. It was Phbe, one of Mr. Sam Wynne's pointers. The poor creature ran with her head down, her tongue hanging out; she looked as if bruised and beaten all over. I called her. I meant to coax her into the house and give her some water and dinner. I felt sure she had been ill-used. Mr. Sam often flogs his pointers cruelly. She was too flurried to know me; and when I attempted to pat her head, she turned and snatched at my arm. She bit it so as to draw blood, then ran panting on. Directly after, Mr. Wynne's keeper came up, carrying a gun. He asked if I had seen a dog. I told him I had seen Phbe. "'You had better chain up Tartar, ma'am,' he said, 'and tell your people to keep within the house. I am after Phbe to shoot her, and the groom is gone another way. She is raging mad.'" Mr. Moore leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. Miss Keeldar resumed her square of silk canvas, and continued the creation of a wreath of Parmese violets. "And you told no one, sought no help, no cure? You would not come to me?" "I got as far as the schoolroom door; there my courage failed. I preferred to cushion the matter." "Why? What can I demand better in this world than to be of use to you?" "I had no claim." "Monstrous! And you did nothing?" "Yes. I walked straight into the laundry, where they are ironing most of the week, now that I have so many guests in the house. While the maid was busy crimping or starching, I took an Italian iron from the fire, and applied the light scarlet glowing tip to my arm. I bored it well in. It cauterized the little wound. Then I went upstairs." "I dare say you never once groaned?" "I am sure I don't know. I was very miserable--not firm or tranquil at all, I think. There was no calm in my mind." "There was calm in your person. I remember listening the whole time we sat at luncheon, to hear if you moved in the room above. All was quiet." "I was sitting at the foot of the bed, wishing Phbe had not bitten me." "And alone. You like solitude." "Pardon me." "You disdain sympathy." "Do I, Mr. Moore?" "With your powerful mind you must feel independent of help, of advice, of society." "So be it, since it pleases you." She smiled. She pursued her embroidery carefully and quickly, but her eyelash twinkled, and then it glittered, and then a drop fell. Mr. Moore leaned forward on his desk, moved his chair, altered his attitude. "If it is not so," he asked, with a peculiar, mellow change in his voice, "how is it, then?" "I don't know." "You do know, but you won't speak. All must be locked up in yourself." "Because it is not worth sharing." "Because nobody can give the high price you require for your confidence. Nobody is rich enough to purchase it. Nobody has the honour, the intellect, the power you demand in your adviser. There is not a shoulder in England on which you would rest your hand for support, far less a bosom which you would permit to pillow your head. Of course you must live alone." "I _can_ live alone, if need be. But the question is not how to live, but how to die alone. That strikes me in a more grisly light." "You apprehend the effects of the virus? You anticipate an indefinitely threatening, dreadful doom?" She bowed. "You are very nervous and womanish." "You complimented me two minutes since on my powerful mind." "You are very womanish. If the whole affair were coolly examined and discussed, I feel assured it would turn out that there is no danger of your dying at all." "Amen! I am very willing to live, if it please God. I have felt life sweet." "How can it be otherwise than sweet with your endowments and nature? Do you truly expect that you will be seized with hydrophobia, and die raving mad?" "I _expect_ it, and have _feared_ it. Just now I fear nothing." "Nor do I, on your account. I doubt whether the smallest particle of virus mingled with your blood; and if it did, let me assure you that, young, healthy, faultlessly sound as you are, no harm will ensue. For the rest, I shall inquire whether the dog was really mad. I hold she was not mad." "Tell nobody that she bit me." "Why should I, when I believe the bite innocuous as a cut of this penknife? Make yourself easy. _I_ am easy, though I value your life as much as I do my own chance of happiness in eternity. Look up." "Why, Mr. Moore?" "I wish to see if you are cheered. Put your work down; raise your head." "There----" "Look at me. Thank you. And is the cloud broken?" "I fear nothing." "Is your mind restored to its own natural sunny clime?" "I am very content; but I want your promise." "Dictate." "You know, in case the worst I _have_ feared should happen, they will smother me. You need not smile. They will; they always do. My uncle will be full of horror, weakness, precipitation; and that is the only expedient which will suggest itself to him. Nobody in the house will be self-possessed but you. Now promise to befriend me--to keep Mr. Sympson away from me, not to let Henry come near, lest I should hurt him. Mind--_mind_ that you take care of yourself too. But I shall not injure you; I know I shall not. Lock the chamber door against the surgeons; turn them out if they get in. Let neither the young nor the old MacTurk lay a finger on me; nor Mr. Greaves, their colleague; and lastly, if I give trouble, with your own hand administer to me a strong narcotic--such a sure dose of laudanum as shall leave no mistake. _Promise to do this._" Moore left his desk, and permitted himself the recreation of one or two turns through the room. Stopping behind Shirley's chair, he bent over her, and said, in a low, emphatic voice, "I promise all you ask--without comment, without reservation." "If female help is needed, call in my housekeeper, Mrs. Gill. Let her lay me out if I die. She is attached to me. She wronged me again and again, and again and again I forgave her. She now loves me, and would not defraud me of a pin. Confidence has made her honest; forbearance has made her kind-hearted. At this day I can trust both her integrity, her courage, and her affection. Call her; but keep my good aunt and my timid cousins away. Once more, promise." "I promise." "That is good in you," she said, looking up at him as he bent over her, and smiling. "Is it good? Does it comfort?" "Very much." "I will be with you--I and Mrs. Gill only--in any, in every extremity where calm and fidelity are needed. No rash or coward hand shall meddle." "Yet you think me childish?" "I do." "Ah! you despise me." "Do we despise children?" "In fact, I am neither so strong, nor have I such pride in my strength, as people think, Mr. Moore; nor am I so regardless of sympathy. But when I have any grief, I fear to impart it to those I love, lest it should pain them; and to those whom I view with indifference I cannot condescend to complain. After all, you should not taunt me with being childish, for if you were as unhappy as I have been for the last three weeks, you too would want some friend." "We all want a friend, do we not?" "All of us that have anything good in our natures." "Well, you have Caroline Helstone." "Yes. And you have Mr. Hall." "Yes. Mrs. Pryor is a wise, good woman. She can counsel you when you need counsel." "For your part, you have your brother Robert." "For any right-hand defections, there is the Rev. Matthewson Helstone, M.A., to lean upon; for any left-hand fallings-off there is Hiram Yorke, Esq. Both elders pay you homage." "I never saw Mrs. Yorke so motherly to any young man as she is to you. I don't know how you have won her heart, but she is more tender to you than she is to her own sons. You have, besides, your sister Hortense." "It appears we are both well provided." "It appears so." "How thankful we ought to be!" "Yes." "How contented!" "Yes." "For my part, I am almost contented just now, and very thankful. Gratitude is a divine emotion. It fills the heart, but not to bursting; it warms it, but not to fever. I like to taste leisurely of bliss. Devoured in haste, I do not know its flavour." Still leaning on the back of Miss Keeldar's chair, Moore watched the rapid motion of her fingers, as the green and purple garland grew beneath them. After a prolonged pause, he again asked, "Is the shadow _quite_ gone?" "Wholly. As I _was_ two hours since, and as I _am_ now, are two different states of existence. I believe, Mr. Moore, griefs and fears nursed in silence grow like Titan infants." "You will cherish such feelings no more in silence?" "Not if I dare speak." "In using the word '_dare_,' to whom do you allude?" "To you." "How is it applicable to me?" "On account of your austerity and shyness." "Why am I austere and shy?" "Because you are proud." "Why am I proud?" "I should like to know. Will you be good enough to tell me?" "Perhaps, because I am poor, for one reason. Poverty and pride often go together." "That is such a nice reason. I should be charmed to discover another that would pair with it. Mate that turtle, Mr. Moore." "Immediately. What do you think of marrying to sober Poverty many-tinted Caprice?" "Are you capricious?" "_You_ are." "A libel. I am steady as a rock, fixed as the polar star." "I look out at some early hour of the day, and see a fine, perfect rainbow, bright with promise, gloriously spanning the beclouded welkin of life. An hour afterwards I look again: half the arch is gone, and the rest is faded. Still later, the stern sky denies that it ever wore so benign a symbol of hope." "Well, Mr. Moore, you should contend against these changeful humours. They are your besetting sin. One never knows where to have you." "Miss Keeldar, I had once, for two years, a pupil who grew very dear to me. Henry is dear, but she was dearer. Henry never gives me trouble; she--well, she did. I think she vexed me twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four----" "She was never with you above three hours, or at the most six at a time." "She sometimes spilled the draught from my cup, and stole the food from my plate; and when she had kept me unfed for a day (and that did not suit me, for I am a man accustomed to take my meals with reasonable relish, and to ascribe due importance to the rational enjoyment of creature comforts)----" "I know you do. I can tell what sort of dinners you like best--perfectly well. I know precisely the dishes you prefer----" "She robbed these dishes of flavour, and made a fool of me besides. I like to sleep well. In my quiet days, when I was my own man, I never quarrelled with the night for being long, nor cursed my bed for its thorns. She changed all this." "Mr. Moore----" "And having taken from me peace of mind and ease of life, she took from me herself--quite coolly, just as if, when she was gone, the world would be all the same to me. I knew I should see her again at some time. At the end of two years, it fell out that we encountered again under her own roof, where she was mistress. How do you think she bore herself towards me, Miss Keeldar?" "Like one who had profited well by lessons learned from yourself." "She received me haughtily. She meted out a wide space between us, and kept me aloof by the reserved gesture, the rare and alienated glance, the word calmly civil." "She was an excellent pupil! Having seen you distant, she at once learned to withdraw. Pray, sir, admire in her _hauteur_ a careful improvement on your own coolness." "Conscience, and honour, and the most despotic necessity dragged me apart from her, and kept me sundered with ponderous fetters. She was free: she might have been clement." "Never free to compromise her self-respect, to seek where she had been shunned." "Then she was inconsistent; she tantalized as before. When I thought I had made up my mind to seeing in her only a lofty stranger, she would suddenly show me such a glimpse of loving simplicity--she would warm me with such a beam of reviving sympathy, she would gladden an hour with converse so gentle, gay, and kindly--that I could no more shut my heart on her image than I could close that door against her presence. Explain why she distressed me so." "She could not bear to be quite outcast; and then she would sometimes get a notion into her head, on a cold, wet day, that the schoolroom was no cheerful place, and feel it incumbent on her to go and see if you and Henry kept up a good fire; and once there, she liked to stay." "But she should not be changeful. If she came at all, she should come oftener." "There is such a thing as intrusion." "To-morrow you will not be as you are to-day." "I don't know. Will you?" "I am not mad, most noble Berenice! We may give one day to dreaming, but the next we must awake; and I shall awake to purpose the morning you are married to Sir Philip Nunnely. The fire shines on you and me, and shows us very clearly in the glass, Miss Keeldar; and I have been gazing on the picture all the time I have been talking. Look up! What a difference between your head and mine! I look old for thirty!" "You are so grave; you have such a square brow; and your face is sallow. I never regard you as a young man, nor as Robert's junior." "Don't you? I thought not. Imagine Robert's clear-cut, handsome face looking over my shoulder. Does not the apparition make vividly manifest the obtuse mould of my heavy traits? There!" (he started), "I have been expecting that wire to vibrate this last half-hour." The dinner-bell rang, and Shirley rose. "Mr. Moore," she said, as she gathered up her silks, "have you heard from your brother lately? Do you know what he means by staying in town so long? Does he talk of returning?" "He talks of returning; but what has caused his long absence I cannot tell. To speak the truth, I thought none in Yorkshire knew better than yourself why he was reluctant to come home." A crimson shadow passed across Miss Keeldar's cheek. "Write to him and urge him to come," she said. "I know there has been no impolicy in protracting his absence thus far. It is good to let the mill stand, while trade is so bad; but he must not abandon the county." "I am aware," said Louis, "that he had an interview with you the evening before he left, and I saw him quit Fieldhead afterwards. I read his countenance, or _tried_ to read it. He turned from me. I divined that he would be long away. Some fine, slight fingers have a wondrous knack at pulverizing a man's brittle pride. I suppose Robert put too much trust in his manly beauty and native gentlemanhood. Those are better off who, being destitute of advantage, cannot cherish delusion. But I will write, and say you advise his return." "Do not say _I_ advise his return, but that his return is advisable." The second bell rang, and Miss Keeldar obeyed its call.

Shirley probably got on pleasantly with Sir Philip that evening, for the next morning she came down in one of her best moods. "Isabella and Gertrude, will you take a walk with me?" she asked after breakfast. So rare was such an invitation from Miss Keeldar that the cousins hesitated before they fetched their bonnets. It did not suit these three young persons to be thrown much together. Miss Keeldar liked the society of few ladies, apart from Mrs. Pryor and Caroline. She was civil and kind to her cousins; but she usually had little to say to them. In her sunny mood this morning, she contrived to entertain even the Misses Sympson with the sparkle of her spirit. What made her so joyous? The day was dim and waning. The walks through the woods were damp; the sky was overcast; and yet Shirley's heart seemed light and sunny. As they neared Fieldhead on their return, she delayed behind her cousins to give some directions to her foreman, John,. She re-entered the house perhaps twenty minutes after them. She excused herself from luncheon, and went upstairs. "Is not Shirley coming to luncheon?" asked Isabella. "She said she was hungry." An hour after, one of her cousins went to seek her in her chamber. She was sitting at the foot of the bed, her head resting on her hand; she looked quite pale, very thoughtful, almost sad. "You are not ill?" "A little sick," replied Miss Keeldar. Certainly she was changed from what she had been two hours before. But this change soon seemed to pass like a light summer cloud. When she joined her friends at dinner, she talked as usual. She remained with them during the evening, and declared herself perfectly recovered. It had been a mere passing faintness, not worth a thought; yet it was felt there was a difference in Shirley. The next day - the day, the week, the fortnight after - this new peculiar shadow lingered on her face. A strange quietude settled over her look and voice. The alteration was not marked; yet it was there, and it would not pass away. It hung over her like a cloud - but to mention it annoyed her. She declared with hauteur that she was not ill. "Had anything happened to affect her spirits?" She scornfully ridiculed the idea. "What did they mean? She had no spirits to affect." "Something must be the matter - she was so altered." "She supposed she had a right to alter." And she peremptorily requested to be let alone. Then she would make every effort to appear gay, and she seemed indignant at herself if she could not perfectly succeed. Brief self-spurning epithets burst from her lips when alone. "Fool! Coward!" she would say, "if you must tremble, tremble in secret! How dare you betray your imbecile anxieties? Shake them off; rise above them - or else hide them." And to hide them she did her best. She became resolutely lively in company. When weary of effort, she sought the wild solitude on Zo, her mare. She took long rides of half a day. Her uncle disapproved, but he dared not remonstrate, for her anger alarmed him. Yet she still maintained, "I am perfectly well; I have no ailment." And health, indeed, she must have had, to withstand the weather she now encountered. Wet or fair, calm or storm, she took her daily ride over Stilbro' Moor, Tartar untiring at her side. The eyes of gossips - those eyes which are everywhere - noticed two or three times that instead of turning back from the top of Stilbro' Moor, she rode forwards all the way to the town. She was seen to alight at the door of a solicitor. Some people affirmed that Miss Keeldar was involved in business speculations connected with Hollow's Mill - that she had lost money, and was forced to mortgage her land. Others guessed that she was going to be married, and that settlements were being prepared. Mr. Moore and Henry Sympson were together in the schoolroom. "Henry, make haste. Are you nearly ready with that lesson?" "No. I have not construed a line." Mr. Moore looked up. The boy's tone was rather peculiar. "If the task presents difficulties, Henry, bring them to me. We will work together." "Mr. Moore, I can do no work." "My boy, you are ill." "No, sir, but my heart is full." "Shut the book. Come here, Harry, to the fireside." Harry limped forward. His tutor placed him in a chair; his lips were quivering, his eyes brimming. He bent down his head, and wept. "Harry? You have a grief; tell it me." "Sir, I have such a grief as I never had before: I can hardly bear it." "Well, let us talk it over. What is the cause?" "The cause, sir, is Shirley. Everyone thinks her changed - you too, Mr. Moore." "Not seriously, no. Besides, she says she is well." "There it is, sir. As long as she said she was well, I believed her. But now-" "Has she said anything to you? You and she were together in the garden for two hours this morning. My dear Harry, if Miss Keeldar has said she is ill, and enjoined you to keep her secret, do not obey her. For her life's sake, speak, my boy. What have you learned?" "I have learned that she has just made her will." "Made her will?" The tutor and pupil were silent. "She told you that?" asked Moore, after some minutes. "She told me quite cheerfully. She said I was the only person besides her solicitor, and Mr. Helstone and Mr. Yorke, who knew anything about it; and she wished specially to explain its provisions to me." "Go on, Harry." "'Because,' she said, looking down on me with her beautiful eyes - oh! they are beautiful, Mr. Moore! I love them! I love her! She is my star! Heaven must not claim her!" "Henry Sympson, go on when I tell you." "'Because,' she said, 'if I made no will, and died before you, Harry, all my property would go to you; and I do not intend that it should be so. You,' she said, 'will have your father's whole estate, which is larger than Fieldhead. Your sisters will have nothing; so I have left them some money, though I do not love them half so much as I love one lock of your fair hair.' She called me her 'darling,' and let me kiss her. She went on to tell me that she had left Caroline Helstone some money too; that this manor house she had bequeathed to me; and that all the rest of her property, amounting to about twelve thousand pounds, she had willed to a good man, who would make the best use of it - a man, she said, that was both gentle and brave, strong and merciful - a man that might not claim to be pious, but who had the spirit of love and peace with him. He visited the fatherless and widows, and kept himself unspotted from the world. Then she asked, 'Do you approve, Harry?' I could not answer. My tears choked me, as they do now." Mr. Moore allowed his pupil a moment to master his emotion. He then demanded, "What else did she say?" "When I approved her will, she told me I was a generous boy, and she was proud of me. 'And now,' she added, 'in case anything should happen, you will know what to say to Malice when it insinuates that Shirley has wronged you, that she did not love you. You will know that I did love you, Harry; no sister could have loved you better.' Mr. Moore, sir, when I remember her voice, my heart beats as if it would break. She may go to heaven before me; but the rest of my life - and my life will not be long, I am glad of that now - shall be a straight journey in her footsteps. I thought to enter the vault of the Keeldars before her. Otherwise, lay my coffin by her side." Moore answered him with a weighty calm. "You are wrong, both of you - you harm each other in imagining calamity." "But, Mr. Moore, you smile." "My boy, I am neither nervous, nor poetic, nor inexperienced. I see things as they are. Come, you are neither of you going to heaven yet. I have the best hopes of you both - a pair of half-fledged eaglets. Now, what is your inference from all you have told me?" "That Shirley thinks she is going to die." "She referred to her health?" "Not once; she never complains to anyone; but she is grown quite thin." "Do you know where she is now, Henry? Is she riding out?" "Surely not, sir. It rains fast." "That is no guarantee that she is not cantering over Rushedge. Lately she has never permitted the weather to stop her rides." "You remember, Mr. Moore, how wet and stormy it was last Wednesday - so wild, indeed, that she would not permit Zo to be saddled? Yet she herself faced the blast on foot; that afternoon she walked nearly as far as Nunnely. I asked her, when she came in, if she was not afraid of taking cold. 'Not I,' she said. 'It would be too much good luck for me. The best thing that could happen to me would be to take a good cold and fever, and so pass away like other Christians.' She is reckless, you see, sir." "Reckless indeed! Go and find out where she is, and request her to come here." "Yes, sir." He started up. "Harry! Do not deliver the message formally. Make it sound like an ordinary summons to the schoolroom. And, Harry-" "Sir?" "Till I call you, you are excused from lessons." Henry departed. Mr. Moore, left alone, rose from his desk. "I can be very cool with Henry," he said. "I can seem to make light of his apprehensions, and speak as if, in my eyes, they were both children. Let me see if I can keep up the same role with her. At times I have seemed about to forget it, when my tongue faltered, and I stood in her presence, not master - no - but something else. I trust I shall never so play the fool. A Philip Nunnely may redden when he meets her eye, and let his hand tremble when it touches hers; but I will not. So far I have done very well. She has sat near me, and I have not shaken. I have encountered her looks and smiles like a tutor. I am poor, and must not compromise an inch of my self-respect. What did she mean by that allusion to cold people who turn flesh to marble? It pleased me - I hardly know why. A strange, secret ecstasy steals through my veins at moments, but I'll not encourage it. I shall stay sober." He paused, listening. "Will she come, or not? If she comes, what shall I say to her? How shall I explain the request? Shall I apologize to her? I must keep up the role of professor, otherwise - I hear a door." He waited. Many minutes passed. "Henry is entreating her to come; she declines. My request is presumptuous in her eyes. I would prefer her proud; it will steel me. Her scorn startles me from my dreams; her sarcastic look puts strength into every nerve I have. A step approaches." The door unclosed; Miss Keeldar came in. She carried her needlework and wore her neat indoor dress and silk apron, a quiet domestic character from the fireside. Mr. Moore had the advantage. He should have addressed her at once in solemn accents. Perhaps he would have, had she been saucy; but she looked down with youthful shyness. The tutor stood silent. "Did you want me, sir?" she asked. "I ventured, Miss Keeldar, to ask an interview of a few minutes." "Well, sir" (not lifting her eyes), "what about?" "Be seated. The subject I would broach is one of some moment. Perhaps I have hardly a right to approach it. The liberty I have taken arises from a conversation with Henry. The boy is unhappy about your health. It is of your health I would speak." "I am quite well," she said briefly. "Yet changed." "That matters to none but myself. We all change." "Will you sit down? Formerly, Miss Keeldar, I had some influence with you: have I any now?" "Let me read some French, Mr. Moore, and proclaim a truce to all discussions of health." "No, no. It is time there were discussions." "Discuss away, then, but do not choose me for your text. I am healthy. I have neither cough, pain, nor fever." "Is that the truth?" Louis Moore looked at her earnestly. "Why, then, are you altered?" "Am I altered?" "Let us see. In the first place, do you sleep as you used to?" "I do not; but not because I am ill." "Have you the appetite you once had?" "No; but not because I am ill." "You remember this little ring fastened to my watch-chain? It was my mother's, and you have many a time playfully tried it on. It fitted your fore-finger. Try now." She tried. The ring dropped from the wasted little hand. Louis picked it up; an uneasy flush coloured his brow. Shirley again said, "It is not because I am ill." "Not only have you lost sleep, appetite, and flesh," proceeded Moore, "but your spirits are low. There is a nervous disquiet in your manner, which was not there before." "Mr. Moore, you have exactly hit it. I am nervous. Now, talk of something else. What wet weather we have!" "If you are nervous, it is not without a cause. But the ailment is not physical. It came in one moment. I noticed the change. Your pain is mental. I wish you would speak willingly. I believe confession would be half a cure." "No," said Shirley abruptly. "I am afraid it would not." She was now seated. Resting her elbow on the table, she leaned her head on her hand. Mr. Moore felt he had at last gained some footing in this difficult path. She was serious, and could no longer affirm that nothing ailed her. He allowed her some minutes for reflection. Once his lips moved to speak, but he thought better of it. Shirley lifted her eye to his; he looked calm, strong, trustworthy. "I had better tell you than my aunt," she said, "or my cousins, or my uncle. They would all make such a bustle, and I dread that. You can bear a little shock?" "A great one, if necessary." Not a muscle of the man's frame moved, and yet his large heart beat fast in his deep chest. What was she going to tell him? "Had I thought it right to go to you," she said, "I would have told you at once, and asked advice." "Why was it not right to come to me?" "It might be right; but I could not do it. The mishap concerned me only. I wanted to keep it to myself. I tell you, I hate to be an object of worrying attention. Besides, it may pass away without result - God knows!" Moore, though tortured with suspense, betrayed no impatience. His tranquillity tranquillized Shirley; his confidence reassured her. "Great effects may spring from trivial causes," she remarked, as she loosened a bracelet from her wrist, unfastened her sleeve, and turned it up. "Look here, Mr. Moore." She showed a mark in her white arm - a deep though healed indentation - something between a burn and a cut. "Small as that mark is, it has taken my sleep away, and made me nervous, thin, and foolish; because of it, I am obliged to look forward to a terrifying possibility." The sleeve was readjusted, the bracelet replaced. "I am a patient man," he said, smiling, "but my pulse is quickening. Tell me the tale." "It is a very short tale. I took a walk with Isabella and Gertrude, about three weeks ago. They reached home before me; I stayed behind to speak to John. Then I lingered in the lane, for I was in no hurry to rejoin the girls. As I stood leaning against the gate-pillar, thinking some very happy thoughts about my future - for that morning I imagined that events were beginning to turn as I had long wished them to turn-" "Ah! Nunnely had been with her the evening before!" thought Moore. "I heard a panting sound; a dog came running up the lane. It was Phbe, one of Mr. Sam Wynne's pointers. The poor creature ran with her head down, her tongue hanging out; she looked as if bruised and beaten. Mr. Sam often flogs his pointers cruelly. I called her. I meant to coax her into the house and give her some dinner. But when I attempted to pat her head, she turned and snatched at my arm, and bit it so as to draw blood, then ran panting on. Directly after, Mr. Wynne's keeper came up, carrying a gun. He asked if I had seen a dog. I told him I had seen Phbe. "'You had better chain up Tartar, ma'am,' he said, 'and keep within the house. I am after Phbe to shoot her. She is raging mad with rabies.'" Mr. Moore leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. "And you told no one, sought no help? You would not come to me?" "I got as far as the schoolroom door; there my courage failed." "Why? What can I demand better in this world than to be of use to you?" "I had no claim." "Monstrous! And you did nothing?" "Yes. I walked straight into the laundry, where they were ironing. While the maid was busy, I took an iron from the fire, and applied the glowing tip to my arm. I bored it well in. It cauterized the little wound. Then I went upstairs." "I dare say you never once groaned?" "I am sure I don't know. I was very miserable. There was no calm in my mind." "There was calm in your person. I remember listening the whole time we sat at luncheon, to hear if you moved in the room above. All was quiet." "I was sitting at the foot of the bed, wishing Phbe had not bitten me." "And alone. You like solitude, and disdain sympathy. You must feel independent of help, of advice." "So be it, since it pleases you." She smiled and bent to her embroidery, but her eyelash glittered, and a drop fell. Mr. Moore leaned forward on his desk. "If it is not so," he asked, with a peculiar, mellow change in his voice, "how is it, then?" "I don't know." "You do know, but you won't speak. All must be locked up in yourself, because nobody can give the high price you require for your confidence. Nobody has the honour, the intellect, the power you demand in your adviser. There is not a shoulder in England on which you would rest your hand for support. Of course you must live alone." "I can live alone, if need be. But the question is not how to live, but how to die alone. That strikes me in a more grisly light." "You fear the effects of the virus? You anticipate a dreadful doom? You are very nervous and womanish." "You complimented me two minutes since on my powerful mind." "If the affair were coolly examined, I feel sure it would turn out that there is no danger at all. Do you truly expect that you will be seized with hydrophobia, and die raving mad?" "I expect it, and have feared it. Just now I fear nothing." "Nor do I. I doubt whether the smallest particle of virus mingled with your blood; and if it did, let me assure you that, young and healthy as you are, no harm will ensue. For the rest, I shall inquire whether the dog was really mad. I expect she was not." "Tell nobody that she bit me," Shirley begged. "Make yourself easy. I am easy, though I value your life as much as I do my own soul. Look up - I wish to see if you are cheered. Put your work down; raise your head. Thank you. Is the cloud broken?" "I fear nothing." "Is your mind restored to its natural sunniness?" "Yes; but I want your promise," she said. "If the worst should happen, my uncle will be full of horror and weakness. Nobody in the house will be self-possessed but you. Now promise to befriend me - to keep Mr. Sympson away from me, not to let Henry come near, lest I should hurt him. Mind - mind that you take care of yourself too. But I shall not injure you; I know I shall not. Lock the chamber door against the surgeons; let them not lay a finger on me; and lastly, if I give trouble, with your own hand administer to me such a sure dose of laudanum as shall leave no mistake. Promise to do this." Moore left his desk, and walked around the room. Stopping behind Shirley's chair, he bent over her, and said, in a low, emphatic voice, "I promise all you ask, without reservation." "If female help is needed, call in my housekeeper, Mrs. Gill. Let her lay me out if I die. She is attached to me, and I can trust her integrity and courage. But keep my good aunt and my timid cousins away. Once more, promise." "I promise." "That is good in you," she said, looking up at him, and smiling. "Does it comfort you?" "Very much. Do you think me childish?" "I do." "Ah! I am not so strong as people think, Mr. Moore; nor am I so regardless of sympathy. But when I have any grief, I fear to impart it to those I love. You should not taunt me with being childish, for if you were as unhappy as I have been for the last three weeks, you too would want some friend." "We all want a friend, do we not? You have Caroline Helstone." "And you have Mr. Hall." "Yes. Mrs. Pryor is a wise, good woman. She can counsel you when you need counsel." "For your part, you have your brother Robert, and your sister Hortense." "It appears we are both well provided." "It appears so." "How thankful and contented we ought to be!" commented Moore. "Yes." "For my part, I am almost contented just now, and very thankful." Still leaning on the back of Miss Keeldar's chair, Moore watched her sewing. After a pause, he asked, "Is the shadow quite gone?" "Wholly. I believe, Mr. Moore, griefs and fears nursed in silence grow like Titan infants." "You will cherish such feelings no more in silence?" "Not if I dare speak to you. But you are austere and shy, because you are proud. Why are you proud?" "Perhaps because I am poor, for one reason," said he. "Poverty and pride often go together." "That is such a nice reason. I should be charmed to discover another that would pair with it." "What do you think of marrying sober Poverty to Caprice?" "Are you capricious?" "You are." "A libel," responded she. "I am steady as a rock, fixed as the polar star." "In the morning I look out and see a fine, perfect rainbow, bright with promise. Yet it is broken and faded within an hour. Later still, the stern sky denies that it ever wore so benign a symbol of hope." "Well, Mr. Moore, you should contend against these changeful moods. They are your besetting sin." "Miss Keeldar, I had once, for two years, a pupil who grew very dear to me. Henry is dear, but she was dearer, although she vexed me twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four-" "She was never with you more than three hours at a time." "She sometimes stole the food from my plate; and when she had kept me unfed for a day, she robbed these dishes of flavour, and made a fool of me besides. I used to sleep well. She changed all this." "Mr. Moore-" "And having taken from me peace of mind, she took from me herself - quite coolly, just as if the world would be all the same to me without her. After two years, we met again under her own roof. How do you think she behaved towards me, Miss Keeldar?" "Like one who had learned well from you." "She received me haughtily. She kept me aloof by the reserved gesture, the rare and alienated glance, the word calmly civil." "She was an excellent pupil! Having seen you distant, she at once learned to withdraw." "Conscience and honour dragged me apart from her with ponderous fetters. She was free: she might have been merciful." "Never free to seek where she had been shunned." "Then she was inconsistent; she tantalized. She would suddenly show me such a glimpse of loving simplicity - she would speak so gently, so kindly - that I could not shut her image out of my heart. Explain why she distressed me so." "She could not bear to be quite outcast," said Shirley; "and on a cold day she would sometimes feel she ought to go and see if you and Henry had a good fire in the schoolroom; and once there, she liked to stay." "Tomorrow you will not be as you are today. We may give one day to dreaming, but the next we must awake; and I shall awake to purpose the morning you are married to Sir Philip Nunnely. I see us very clearly in the mirror, Miss Keeldar; and I have been gazing on the picture all the time I have been talking. What a difference between your head and mine! I look old for thirty!" "You are so grave, I never regard you as a young man, nor as Robert's junior." "I thought not." He started as the dinner-bell rang; and Shirley rose. "Mr. Moore," she said, as she gathered up her silks, "have you heard from your brother lately? Do you know why he stays in town so long? Does he talk of returning?" "He talks of returning; but what has caused his long absence I cannot tell. To speak the truth, I thought none knew better than yourself why he was reluctant to come home." A crimson shadow passed across Miss Keeldar's cheek. "Write to him and urge him to come," she said. "He must not abandon the county." "I am aware," said Louis, "that he had an interview with you the evening before he left. He turned from me afterwards, and I guessed that he would be long away. I suppose Robert put too much trust in his manly beauty and gentlemanhood. But I will write, and say you advise his return." "Do not say I advise his return, but that his return is advisable." The bell rang again, and Miss Keeldar obeyed its call.

Shirley

Chapter 28: PHOEBE

Cheerfulness, it would appear, is a matter which depends fully as much on the state of things within as on the state of things without and around us. I make this trite remark, because I happen to know that Messrs. Helstone and Moore trotted forth from the mill-yard gates, at the head of their very small company, in the best possible spirits. When a ray from a lantern (the three pedestrians of the party carried each one) fell on Mr. Moore's face, you could see an unusual, because a lively, spark dancing in his eyes, and a new-found vivacity mantling on his dark physiognomy; and when the rector's visage was illuminated, his hard features were revealed all agrin and ashine with glee. Yet a drizzling night, a somewhat perilous expedition, you would think were not circumstances calculated to enliven those exposed to the wet and engaged in the adventure. If any member or members of the crew who had been at work on Stilbro' Moor had caught a view of this party, they would have had great pleasure in shooting either of the leaders from behind a wall: and the leaders knew this; and the fact is, being both men of steely nerves and steady-beating hearts, were elate with the knowledge. I am aware, reader, and you need not remind me, that it is a dreadful thing for a parson to be warlike; I am aware that he should be a man of peace. I have some faint outline of an idea of what a clergyman's mission is amongst mankind, and I remember distinctly whose servant he is, whose message he delivers, whose example he should follow; yet, with all this, if you are a parson-hater, you need not expect me to go along with you every step of your dismal, downward-tending, unchristian road; you need not expect me to join in your deep anathemas, at once so narrow and so sweeping, in your poisonous rancour, so intense and so absurd, against "the cloth;" to lift up my eyes and hands with a Supplehough, or to inflate my lungs with a Barraclough, in horror and denunciation of the diabolical rector of Briarfield. He was not diabolical at all. The evil simply was--he had missed his vocation. He should have been a soldier, and circumstances had made him a priest. For the rest, he was a conscientious, hard-headed, hard-handed, brave, stern, implacable, faithful little man; a man almost without sympathy, ungentle, prejudiced, and rigid, but a man true to principle, honourable, sagacious, and sincere. It seems to me, reader, that you cannot always cut out men to fit their profession, and that you ought not to curse them because their profession sometimes hangs on them ungracefully. Nor will I curse Helstone, clerical Cossack as he was. Yet he _was_ cursed, and by many of his own parishioners, as by others he was adored--which is the frequent fate of men who show partiality in friendship and bitterness in enmity, who are equally attached to principles and adherent to prejudices. Helstone and Moore being both in excellent spirits, and united for the present in one cause, you would expect that, as they rode side by side, they would converse amicably. Oh no! These two men, of hard, bilious natures both, rarely came into contact but they chafed each other's moods. Their frequent bone of contention was the war. Helstone was a high Tory (there were Tories in those days), and Moore was a bitter Whig--a Whig, at least, as far as opposition to the war-party was concerned, that being the question which affected his own interest; and only on that question did he profess any British politics at all. He liked to infuriate Helstone by declaring his belief in the invincibility of Bonaparte, by taunting England and Europe with the impotence of their efforts to withstand him, and by coolly advancing the opinion that it was as well to yield to him soon as late, since he must in the end crush every antagonist, and reign supreme. Helstone could not bear these sentiments. It was only on the consideration of Moore being a sort of outcast and alien, and having but half measure of British blood to temper the foreign gall which corroded his veins, that he brought himself to listen to them without indulging the wish he felt to cane the speaker. Another thing, too, somewhat allayed his disgust--namely, a fellow-feeling for the dogged tone with which these opinions were asserted, and a respect for the consistency of Moore's crabbed contumacy. As the party turned into the Stilbro' road, they met what little wind there was; the rain dashed in their faces. Moore had been fretting his companion previously, and now, braced up by the raw breeze, and perhaps irritated by the sharp drizzle, he began to goad him. "Does your Peninsular news please you still?" he asked. "What do you mean?" was the surly demand of the rector. "I mean, have you still faith in that Baal of a Lord Wellington?" "And what do you mean now?" "Do you still believe that this wooden-faced and pebble-hearted idol of England has power to send fire down from heaven to consume the French holocaust you want to offer up?" "I believe Wellington will flog Bonaparte's marshals into the sea the day it pleases him to lift his arm." "But, my dear sir, you can't be serious in what you say. Bonaparte's marshals are great men, who act under the guidance of an omnipotent master-spirit. Your Wellington is the most humdrum of commonplace martinets, whose slow, mechanical movements are further cramped by an ignorant home government." "Wellington is the soul of England. Wellington is the right champion of a good cause, the fit representative of a powerful, a resolute, a sensible, and an honest nation." "Your good cause, as far as I understand it, is simply the restoration of that filthy, feeble Ferdinand to a throne which he disgraced. Your fit representative of an honest people is a dull-witted drover, acting for a duller-witted farmer; and against these are arrayed victorious supremacy and invincible genius." "Against legitimacy is arrayed usurpation; against modest, single-minded, righteous, and brave resistance to encroachment is arrayed boastful, double-tongued, selfish, and treacherous ambition to possess. God defend the right!" "God often defends the powerful." "What! I suppose the handful of Israelites standing dryshod on the Asiatic side of the Red Sea was more powerful than the host of the Egyptians drawn up on the African side? Were they more numerous? Were they better appointed? Were they more mighty, in a word--eh? Don't speak, or you'll tell a lie, Moore; you know you will. They were a poor, overwrought band of bondsmen. Tyrants had oppressed them through four hundred years; a feeble mixture of women and children diluted their thin ranks; their masters, who roared to follow them through the divided flood, were a set of pampered Ethiops, about as strong and brutal as the lions of Libya. They were armed, horsed, and charioted; the poor Hebrew wanderers were afoot. Few of them, it is likely, had better weapons than their shepherds' crooks or their masons' building-tools; their meek and mighty leader himself had only his rod. But bethink you, Robert Moore, right was with them; the God of battles was on their side. Crime and the lost archangel generalled the ranks of Pharaoh, and which triumphed? We know that well. 'The Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea-shore'--yea, 'the depths covered them, they sank to the bottom as a stone.' The right hand of the Lord became glorious in power; the right hand of the Lord dashed in pieces the enemy!" "You are all right; only you forget the true parallel. France is Israel, and Napoleon is Moses. Europe, with her old overgorged empires and rotten dynasties, is corrupt Egypt; gallant France is the Twelve Tribes, and her fresh and vigorous Usurper the Shepherd of Horeb." "I scorn to answer you." Moore accordingly answered himself--at least, he subjoined to what he had just said an additional observation in a lower voice. "Oh, in Italy he was as great as any Moses! He was the right thing there, fit to head and organize measures for the regeneration of nations. It puzzles me to this day how the conqueror of Lodi should have condescended to become an emperor, a vulgar, a stupid humbug; and still more how a people who had once called themselves republicans should have sunk again to the grade of mere slaves. I despise France! If England had gone as far on the march of civilization as France did, she would hardly have retreated so shamelessly." "You don't mean to say that besotted imperial France is any worse than bloody republican France?" demanded Helstone fiercely. "I mean to say nothing, but I can think what I please, you know, Mr. Helstone, both about France and England; and about revolutions, and regicides, and restorations in general; and about the divine right of kings, which you often stickle for in your sermons, and the duty of non-resistance, and the sanity of war, and----" Mr. Moore's sentence was here cut short by the rapid rolling up of a gig, and its sudden stoppage in the middle of the road. Both he and the rector had been too much occupied with their discourse to notice its approach till it was close upon them. "Nah, maister; did th' wagons hit home?" demanded a voice from the vehicle. "Can that be Joe Scott?" "Ay, ay!" returned another voice; for the gig contained two persons, as was seen by the glimmer of its lamp. The men with the lanterns had now fallen into the rear, or rather, the equestrians of the rescue-party had outridden the pedestrians. "Ay, Mr. Moore, it's Joe Scott. I'm bringing him back to you in a bonny pickle. I fand him on the top of the moor yonder, him and three others. What will you give me for restoring him to you?" "Why, my thanks, I believe; for I could better have afforded to lose a better man. That is you, I suppose, Mr. Yorke, by your voice?" "Ay, lad, it's me. I was coming home from Stilbro' market, and just as I got to the middle of the moor, and was whipping on as swift as the wind (for these, they say, are not safe times, thanks to a bad government!), I heard a groan. I pulled up. Some would have whipt on faster; but I've naught to fear that I know of. I don't believe there's a lad in these parts would harm me--at least, I'd give them as good as I got if they offered to do it. I said, 'Is there aught wrong anywhere?' ''Deed is there,' somebody says, speaking out of the ground, like. 'What's to do? Be sharp and tell me,' I ordered. 'Nobbut four on us ligging in a ditch,' says Joe, as quiet as could be. I telled 'em more shame to 'em, and bid them get up and move on, or I'd lend them a lick of the gig-whip; for my notion was they were all fresh. 'We'd ha' done that an hour sin', but we're teed wi' a bit o' band,' says Joe. So in a while I got down and loosed 'em wi' my penknife; and Scott would ride wi' me, to tell me all how it happened; and t' others are coming on as fast as their feet will bring them." "Well, I am greatly obliged to you, Mr. Yorke." "Are you, my lad? You know you're not. However, here are the rest approaching. And here, by the Lord, is another set with lights in their pitchers, like the army of Gideon; and as we've th' parson wi', us--good-evening, Mr. Helstone--we'se do." Mr. Helstone returned the salutation of the individual in the gig very stiffly indeed. That individual proceeded,-- "We're eleven strong men, and there's both horses and chariots amang us. If we could only fall in wi' some of these starved ragamuffins of frame-breakers we could win a grand victory. We could iv'ry one be a Wellington--that would please ye, Mr. Helstone--and sich paragraphs as we could contrive for t' papers! Briarfield suld be famous. But we'se hev a column and a half i' th' _Stilbro' Courier_ ower this job, as it is, I dare say. I'se expect no less." "And I'll promise you no less, Mr. Yorke, for I'll write the article myself," returned the rector. "To be sure--sartainly! And mind ye recommend weel that them 'at brake t' bits o' frames, and teed Joe Scott's legs wi' band, suld be hung without benefit o' clergy. It's a hanging matter, or suld be. No doubt o' that." "If I judged them I'd give them short shrift!" cried Moore. "But I mean to let them quite alone this bout, to give them rope enough, certain that in the end they will hang themselves." "Let them alone, will ye, Moore? Do you promise that?" "Promise! No. All I mean to say is, I shall give myself no particular trouble to catch them; but if one falls in my way----" "You'll snap him up, of course. Only you would rather they would do something worse than merely stop a wagon before you reckon with them. Well, we'll say no more on the subject at present. Here we are at my door, gentlemen, and I hope you and the men will step in. You will none of you be the worse of a little refreshment." Moore and Helstone opposed this proposition as unnecessary. It was, however, pressed on them so courteously, and the night, besides, was so inclement, and the gleam from the muslin-curtained windows of the house before which they had halted looked so inviting, that at length they yielded. Mr. Yorke, after having alighted from his gig, which he left in charge of a man who issued from an outbuilding on his arrival, led the way in. It will have been remarked that Mr. Yorke varied a little in his phraseology. Now he spoke broad Yorkshire, and anon he expressed himself in very pure English. His manner seemed liable to equal alternations. He could be polite and affable, and he could be blunt and rough. His station then you could not easily determine by his speech and demeanour. Perhaps the appearance of his residence may decide it. The men he recommended to take the kitchen way, saying that he would "see them served wi' summat to taste presently." The gentlemen were ushered in at the front entrance. They found themselves in a matted hall, lined almost to the ceiling with pictures. Through this they were conducted to a large parlour, with a magnificent fire in the grate--the most cheerful of rooms it appeared as a whole, and when you came to examine details, the enlivening effect was not diminished. There was no splendour, but there was taste everywhere, unusual taste--the taste, you would have said, of a travelled man, a scholar, and a gentleman. A series of Italian views decked the walls. Each of these was a specimen of true art. A connoisseur had selected them; they were genuine and valuable. Even by candle-light the bright clear skies, the soft distances, with blue air quivering between the eye and the hills, the fresh tints, and well-massed lights and shadows, charmed the view. The subjects were all pastoral, the scenes were all sunny. There was a guitar and some music on a sofa; there were cameos, beautiful miniatures; a set of Grecian-looking vases on the mantelpiece; there were books well arranged in two elegant bookcases. Mr. Yorke bade his guests be seated. He then rang for wine. To the servant who brought it he gave hospitable orders for the refreshment of the men in the kitchen. The rector remained standing; he seemed not to like his quarters; he would not touch the wine his host offered him. "E'en as you will," remarked Mr. Yorke. "I reckon you're thinking of Eastern customs, Mr. Helstone, and you'll not eat nor drink under my roof, feared we suld be forced to be friends; but I am not so particular or superstitious. You might sup the contents of that decanter, and you might give me a bottle of the best in your own cellar, and I'd hold myself free to oppose you at every turn still--in every vestry-meeting and justice-meeting where we encountered one another." "It is just what I should expect of you, Mr. Yorke." "Does it agree wi' ye now, Mr. Helstone, to be riding out after rioters, of a wet night, at your age?" "It always agrees with me to be doing my duty; and in this case my duty is a thorough pleasure. To hunt down vermin is a noble occupation, fit for an archbishop." "Fit for ye, at ony rate. But where's t' curate? He's happen gone to visit some poor body in a sick gird, or he's happen hunting down vermin in another direction." "He is doing garrison-duty at Hollow's Mill." "You left him a sup o' wine, I hope, Bob" (turning to Mr. Moore), "to keep his courage up?" He did not pause for an answer, but continued, quickly, still addressing Moore, who had thrown himself into an old-fashioned chair by the fireside--"Move it, Robert! Get up, my lad! That place is mine. Take the sofa, or three other chairs, if you will, but not this. It belangs to me, and nob'dy else." "Why are you so particular to that chair, Mr. Yorke?" asked Moore, lazily vacating the place in obedience to orders. "My father war afore me, and that's all t' answer I sall gie thee; and it's as good a reason as Mr. Helstone can give for the main feck o' his notions." "Moore, are you ready to go?" inquired the rector. "Nay; Robert's not ready, or rather, I'm not ready to part wi' him. He's an ill lad, and wants correcting." "Why, sir? What have I done?" "Made thyself enemies on every hand." "What do I care for that? What difference does it make to me whether your Yorkshire louts hate me or like me?" "Ay, there it is. The lad is a mak' of an alien amang us. His father would never have talked i' that way.--Go back to Antwerp, where you were born and bred, mauvaise tte!" "Mauvaise tte vous-mme; je ne fais que mon devoir; quant vos lourdauds de paysans, je m'en moque!" "En ravanche, mon garon, nos lourdauds de paysans se moqueront de toi; sois en certain," replied Yorke, speaking with nearly as pure a French accent as Grard Moore. "C'est bon! c'est bon! Et puisque cela m'est gal, que mes amis ne s'en inquitent pas." "Tes amis! O sont-ils, tes amis?" "Je fais cho, o sont-ils? et je suis fort aise que l'cho seul y rpond. Au diable les amis! Je me souviens encore du moment o mon pre et mes oncles Grard appellrent autour d'eux leurs amis, et Dieu sait si les amis se sont empresss d'accourir leur secours! Tenez, M. Yorke, ce mot, ami, m'irrite trop; ne m'en parlez plus." "Comme tu voudras." And here Mr. Yorke held his peace; and while he sits leaning back in his three-cornered carved oak chair, I will snatch my opportunity to sketch the portrait of this French-speaking Yorkshire gentleman.

Messrs. Helstone and Moore trotted forth from the mill-yard gates, at the head of their small company, in the best possible spirits. The lantern showed a lively spark dancing in Moore's eyes; while the rector's face was shining with glee. If any the crew who had been at work on Stilbro' Moor had seen them, they would have had great pleasure in shooting either of them from behind a wall. The leaders knew this; and being men of steely nerves and steady hearts, were elated with the knowledge. I am aware, reader, that it is a dreadful thing for a parson to be warlike; I am aware that he should be a man of peace: yet I cannot lift up my eyes and hands in horror to denounce the diabolical rector of Briarfield. He was not diabolical at all. He had simply missed his vocation. He should have been a soldier, and circumstances had made him a priest. He was a conscientious, hard-headed, brave, stern, implacable, faithful little man; almost without sympathy, prejudiced, and rigid, but a man true to principle, intelligent, and sincere. I will not curse Helstone, clerical Cossack as he was. You would expect that Helstone and Moore, as they rode side by side in the same cause, would converse amicably. Oh no! These two hard-natured men always chafed each other. They argued frequently about the war. Helstone was a high Tory, and Moore was a bitter Whig - a Whig, at least, in opposing the war-party: that was the question which affected his business, and only on that question did he hold any political views at all. He liked to infuriate Helstone by declaring that Bonaparte was invincible, and by coolly suggesting that Britain might as well yield to him, since he must in the end crush every enemy, and reign supreme. Helstone could not bear these opinions. It was only because Moore was a sort of half-British alien that he could listen to them without indulging his wish to cane the speaker. Another thing, too, allayed his disgust - a fellow-feeling and respect for Moore's stubbornness. As the party turned into the Stilbro' road, the rain dashed in their faces. Moore, braced up by the raw breeze and sharp drizzle, began to goad his companion. "Does your Peninsular news please you still?" he asked. "Have you still faith in that false god of a Lord Wellington?" "What do you mean?" "Do you still believe that this wooden-faced, pebble-hearted idol has power to send fire down from heaven to consume the French?" "I believe Wellington will flog Bonaparte's marshals into the sea whenever he likes." "My dear sir, you can't be serious. Bonaparte's marshals are great men, under the guidance of a master-spirit. Your Wellington is the most commonplace of leaders, whose slow movements are further cramped by an ignorant government." "Wellington is the soul of England. He is the right champion of a powerful, resolute, and honest nation." "He is a dull-witted drover, acting for a duller-witted farmer; and arrayed against him is an invincible genius." "A usurper. Against righteous, brave resistance is arrayed boastful, selfish, and treacherous ambition. God defend the right!" said Mr. Helstone. "God often defends the powerful." "What! was the handful of Israelites standing beside the Red Sea more powerful than the host of Egyptians drawn up on the other side? Were they more numerous and mighty, eh? They were a poor band, with few better weapons than shepherds' crooks. But right was with them, Robert Moore; the God of battles was on their side. 'The Lord saved Israel that day, and left the Egyptians dead upon the sea-shore.' The hand of the Lord dashed the enemy in pieces!" "You are right; only you forget the true parallel. France is Israel, and Napoleon is Moses. Europe, with her old overgorged empires and rotten dynasties, is corrupt Egypt." "I scorn to answer you." Moore accordingly answered himself. At least, he added in a lower voice: "It puzzles me how Napoleon should have condescended to become an emperor, a vulgar humbug; and still more how a people who had once called themselves republicans should have sunk again to the level of mere slaves. I despise France! I can think what I please, Mr. Helstone, both about France and England; and about revolutions, and regicides, and-" His sentence was cut short by the rapid rolling up of a gig that stopped in the middle of the road. "Nah, maister; did th' wagons hit home?" demanded a voice. "Is that Joe Scott?" "Ay, ay!" returned another voice; for the gig contained two people. "Ay, Mr. Moore, it's Joe Scott. I'm bringing him back to you in a bonny pickle. I fand him on the top of the moor yonder, him and three others. What will you give me for restoring him to you?" "Why, my thanks. That is you, I suppose, Mr. Yorke, by your voice?" "Ay, lad, it's me. I was coming home from Stilbro' market, and just as I got to the middle of the moor, I heard a groan. Some would have whipt on faster; but I pulled up and said, 'Is there aught wrong anywhere?' ''Deed is there,' somebody says, speaking out of the ground, like. 'Nobbut four on us ligging in a ditch.' I bid them get up and move on, for I'd a notion they were all drunk. 'We'd ha' done that an hour sin', but we're tied,' says Joe. So I got down and loosed 'em wi' my penknife; and he rode wi' me, and t' others are coming as fast as their feet will bring them." "I am greatly obliged to you, Mr. Yorke." "Are you, my lad? You know you're not. However, here are the rest now. We're eleven strong men, and if we could only meet some of these starved ragamuffins of frame-breakers we'd win a grand victory. We could every one be a Wellington - that would please ye, Mr. Helstone - and sich paragraphs as we could contrive for t' papers! We'll hev a column and a half i' th' Stilbro' Courier ower this job, as it is, I dare say. I'd expect no less." "And I'll promise you no less, Mr. Yorke, for I'll write the article myself," returned the rector. "To be sure! And mind ye recommend that them as broke t' frames, and tied Joe Scott up, should be hung. No doubt o' that." "I'd give them short shrift!" cried Moore. "But I mean to let them alone this time, to give them rope enough to hang themselves." "Well, we'll say no more on the subject at present," said Mr. Yorke. "Here we are at my door, gentlemen, and I hope you and the men will step in for a little refreshment." Moore and Helstone at first declined. It was, however, pressed on them so courteously, and the night, besides, was so inclement, and the house looked so inviting, that at last they yielded. Mr. Yorke led the way in. It will have been remarked that Mr. Yorke varied a little in his speech, alternating between broad Yorkshire and very pure English. His manner was equally variable. He could be polite and affable, and he could be blunt and rough. He sent the workmen round by the kitchen, saying that he would see them served presently. The gentlemen were ushered in at the front entrance, and found themselves in a hall lined with pictures. Through this they were conducted to a large, cheerful parlour, with a magnificent fire in the grate. There was no splendour, but there was unusual taste - the taste, you would have said, of a travelled man, and a scholar. A series of Italian views of high quality decked the walls. The subjects were all pastoral, the scenes all sunny. There was a guitar and some music on a sofa; there were cameos, beautiful miniatures; a set of Grecian-looking vases on the mantelpiece; and books arranged in two elegant bookcases. Mr. Yorke rang for wine, and gave orders to the servant for the refreshment of the men in the kitchen. The rector remained standing; he would not touch any wine. "E'en as you will," remarked Mr. Yorke. "I reckon you'll not eat nor drink under my roof, Mr. Helstone, lest we should be forced to be friends; but I am not so particular. You might sup the contents of that decanter, and I'd still feel free to oppose you at every vestry-meeting." "It is just what I should expect of you, Mr. Yorke." Mr. Yorke addressed Moore, who had thrown himself into an old-fashioned chair by the fireside. "Get up, my lad! That place is mine. Take the sofa, if you will." "Why are you so particular to that chair, Mr. Yorke?" asked Moore, lazily vacating it. "My father were afore me, and that's all t' answer I shall gie thee; and it's as good a reason as Mr. Helstone can give for his notions." "Moore, are you ready to go?" inquired the rector. "Nay; Robert's not ready, or rather, I'm not ready to part wi' him. He's an ill lad, and wants correcting." "Why, sir?" asked Moore. "What have I done?" "Made thyself enemies on every hand." "What do I care for that? What difference does it make to me whether your Yorkshire louts hate me or like me?" "Ay, there it is. The lad is an alien among us. His father would never have talked i' that way. Go back to Antwerp, mauvaise tte!" "Mauvaise tte vous-mme; blockhead yourself," retorted Moore, continuing in the French tongue, "I'm only doing my duty; I don't care about your peasant thugs!" "On the contrary, my boy, the peasant thugs will laugh at you," replied Yorke in perfect French. "C'est bon! It's all the same to me. Monsieur Yorke, let us talk no more of it." "As you wish." And Mr. Yorke held his peace. While he sits leaning back in his carved oak chair, I will sketch the portrait of this Yorkshire gentleman.

Shirley

Chapter 3: MR. YORKE

By the time the Fieldhead party returned to Briarfield Caroline was nearly well. Miss Keeldar, who had received news by post of her friend's convalescence, hardly suffered an hour to elapse between her arrival at home and her first call at the rectory. A shower of rain was falling gently, yet fast, on the late flowers and russet autumn shrubs, when the garden wicket was heard to swing open, and Shirley's well-known form passed the window. On her entrance her feelings were evinced in her own peculiar fashion. When deeply moved by serious fears or joys she was not garrulous. The strong emotion was rarely suffered to influence her tongue, and even her eye refused it more than a furtive and fitful conquest. She took Caroline in her arms, gave her one look, one kiss, then said, "You are better." And a minute after, "I see you are safe now; but take care. God grant your health may be called on to sustain no more shocks!" She proceeded to talk fluently about the journey. In the midst of vivacious discourse her eye still wandered to Caroline. There spoke in its light a deep solicitude, some trouble, and some amaze. "She may be better," it said, "but how weak she still is! What peril she has come through!" Suddenly her glance reverted to Mrs. Pryor. It pierced her through. "When will my governess return to me?" she asked. "May I tell her all?" demanded Caroline of her mother. Leave being signified by a gesture, Shirley was presently enlightened on what had happened in her absence. "Very good," was the cool comment--"very good! But it is no news to me." "What! did you know?" "I guessed long since the whole business. I have heard somewhat of Mrs. Pryor's history--not from herself, but from others. With every detail of Mr. James Helstone's career and character I was acquainted. An afternoon's sitting and conversation with Miss Mann had rendered me familiar therewith; also he is one of Mrs. Yorke's warning examples--one of the blood-red lights she hangs out to scare young ladies from matrimony. I believe I should have been sceptical about the truth of the portrait traced by such fingers--both these ladies take a dark pleasure in offering to view the dark side of life--but I questioned Mr. Yorke on the subject, and he said, 'Shirley, my woman, if you want to know aught about yond' James Helstone, I can only say he was a man-tiger. He was handsome, dissolute, soft, treacherous, courteous, cruel----' Don't cry, Cary; we'll say no more about it." "I am not crying, Shirley; or if I am, it is nothing. Go on; you are no friend if you withhold from me the truth. I hate that false plan of disguising, mutilating the truth." "Fortunately I have said pretty nearly all that I have to say, except that your uncle himself confirmed Mr. Yorke's words; for he too scorns a lie, and deals in none of those conventional subterfuges that are shabbier than lies." "But papa is dead; they should let him alone now." "They should; and we _will_ let him alone. Cry away, Cary; it will do you good. It is wrong to check natural tears. Besides, I choose to please myself by sharing an idea that at this moment beams in your mother's eye while she looks at you. Every drop blots out a sin. Weep! your tears have the virtue which the rivers of Damascus lacked. Like Jordan, they can cleanse a leprous memory." "Madam," she continued, addressing Mrs. Pryor, "did you think I could be daily in the habit of seeing you and your daughter together--marking your marvellous similarity in many points, observing (pardon me) your irrepressible emotions in the presence and still more in the absence of your child--and not form my own conjectures? I formed them, and they are literally correct. I shall begin to think myself shrewd." "And you said nothing?" observed Caroline, who soon regained the quiet control of her feelings. "Nothing. I had no warrant to breathe a word on the subject. _My_ business it was not; I abstained from making it such." "You guessed so deep a secret, and did not hint that you guessed it?" "Is that so difficult?" "It is not like you." "How do you know?" "You are not reserved; you are frankly communicative." "I may be communicative, yet know where to stop. In showing my treasure I may withhold a gem or two--a curious, unbought graven stone--an amulet of whose mystic glitter I rarely permit even myself a glimpse. Good-day." Caroline thus seemed to get a view of Shirley's character under a novel aspect. Ere long the prospect was renewed; it opened upon her. No sooner had she regained sufficient strength to bear a change of scene--the excitement of a little society--than Miss Keeldar sued daily for her presence at Fieldhead. Whether Shirley had become wearied of her honoured relatives is not known. She did not say she was; but she claimed and retained Caroline with an eagerness which proved that an addition to that worshipful company was not unwelcome. The Sympsons were church people. Of course the rector's niece was received by them with courtesy. Mr. Sympson proved to be a man of spotless respectability, worrying temper, pious principles, and worldly views; his lady was a very good woman--patient, kind, well-bred. She had been brought up on a narrow system of views, starved on a few prejudices--a mere handful of bitter herbs; a few preferences, soaked till their natural flavour was extracted, and with no seasoning added in the cooking; some excellent principles, made up in a stiff raised crust of bigotry difficult to digest. Far too submissive was she to complain of this diet or to ask for a crumb beyond it. The daughters were an example to their sex. They were tall, with a Roman nose apiece. They had been educated faultlessly. All they did was well done. History and the most solid books had cultivated their minds. Principles and opinions they possessed which could not be mended. More exactly-regulated lives, feelings, manners, habits, it would have been difficult to find anywhere. They knew by heart a certain young-ladies'-schoolroom code of laws on language, demeanour, etc.; themselves never deviated from its curious little pragmatical provisions, and they regarded with secret whispered horror all deviations in others. The Abomination of Desolation was no mystery to them; they had discovered that unutterable Thing in the characteristic others call Originality. Quick were they to recognize the signs of this evil; and wherever they saw its trace--whether in look, word, or deed; whether they read it in the fresh, vigorous style of a book, or listened to it in interesting, unhackneyed, pure, expressive language--they shuddered, they recoiled. Danger was above their heads, peril about their steps. What was this strange thing? Being unintelligible it must be bad. Let it be denounced and chained up. Henry Sympson, the only son and youngest child of the family, was a boy of fifteen. He generally kept with his tutor. When he left him, he sought his cousin Shirley. This boy differed from his sisters. He was little, lame, and pale; his large eyes shone somewhat languidly in a wan orbit. They were, indeed, usually rather dim, but they were capable of illumination. At times they could not only shine, but blaze. Inward emotion could likewise give colour to his cheek and decision to his crippled movements. Henry's mother loved him; she thought his peculiarities were a mark of election. He was not like other children, she allowed. She believed him regenerate--a new Samuel--called of God from his birth. He was to be a clergyman. Mr. and the Misses Sympson, not understanding the youth, let him much alone. Shirley made him her pet, and he made Shirley his playmate. In the midst of this family circle, or rather outside it, moved the tutor--the satellite. Yes, Louis Moore was a satellite of the house of Sympson--connected, yet apart; ever attendant, ever distant. Each member of that correct family treated him with proper dignity. The father was austerely civil, sometimes irritable; the mother, being a kind woman, was attentive, but formal; the daughters saw in him an abstraction, not a man. It seemed, by their manner, that their brother's tutor did not live for them. They were learned; so was he--but not for them. They were accomplished; he had talents too, imperceptible to their senses. The most spirited sketch from his fingers was a blank to their eyes; the most original observation from his lips fell unheard on their ears. Nothing could exceed the propriety of their behaviour. I should have said nothing could have equalled it; but I remember a fact which strangely astonished Caroline Helstone. It was--to discover that her cousin had absolutely _no_ sympathizing friend at Fieldhead; that to Miss Keeldar he was as much a mere teacher, as little a gentleman, as little a man, as to the estimable Misses Sympson. What had befallen the kind-hearted Shirley that she should be so indifferent to the dreary position of a fellow-creature thus isolated under her roof? She was not, perhaps, haughty to him, but she never noticed him--she let him alone. He came and went, spoke or was silent, and she rarely recognized his existence. As to Louis Moore himself, he had the air of a man used to this life, and who had made up his mind to bear it for a time. His faculties seemed walled up in him, and were unmurmuring in their captivity. He never laughed; he seldom smiled; he was uncomplaining. He fulfilled the round of his duties scrupulously. His pupil loved him; he asked nothing more than civility from the rest of the world. It even appeared that he would accept nothing more--in that abode at least; for when his cousin Caroline made gentle overtures of friendship, he did not encourage them--he rather avoided than sought her. One living thing alone, besides his pale, crippled scholar, he fondled in the house, and that was the ruffianly Tartar, who, sullen and impracticable to others, acquired a singular partiality for him--a partiality so marked that sometimes, when Moore, summoned to a meal, entered the room and sat down unwelcomed, Tartar would rise from his lair at Shirley's feet and betake himself to the taciturn tutor. Once--but once--she noticed the desertion, and holding out her white hand, and speaking softly, tried to coax him back. Tartar looked, slavered, and sighed, as his manner was, but yet disregarded the invitation, and coolly settled himself on his haunches at Louis Moore's side. That gentleman drew the dog's big, black-muzzled head on to his knee, patted him, and smiled one little smile to himself. An acute observer might have remarked, in the course of the same evening, that after Tartar had resumed his allegiance to Shirley, and was once more couched near her footstool, the audacious tutor by one word and gesture fascinated him again. He pricked up his ears at the word; he started erect at the gesture, and came, with head lovingly depressed, to receive the expected caress. As it was given, the significant smile again rippled across Moore's quiet face. * * * * * "Shirley," said Caroline one day, as they two were sitting alone in the summer-house, "did you know that my cousin Louis was tutor in your uncle's family before the Sympsons came down here?" Shirley's reply was not so prompt as her responses usually were, but at last she answered, "Yes--of course; I knew it well." "I thought you must have been aware of the circumstance." "Well! what then?" "It puzzles me to guess how it chanced that you never mentioned it to me." "Why should it puzzle you?" "It seems odd. I cannot account for it. You talk a great deal--you talk freely. How was that circumstance never touched on?" "Because it never was," and Shirley laughed. "You are a singular being!" observed her friend. "I thought I knew you quite well; I begin to find myself mistaken. You were silent as the grave about Mrs. Pryor, and now again here is another secret. But why you made it a secret is the mystery to me." "I never made it a secret; I had no reason for so doing. If you had asked me who Henry's tutor was, I would have told you. Besides, I thought you knew." "I am puzzled about more things than one in this matter. You don't like poor Louis. Why? Are you impatient at what you perhaps consider his _servile_ position? Do you wish that Robert's brother were more highly placed?" "Robert's brother, indeed!" was the exclamation, uttered in a tone like the accents of scorn; and with a movement of proud impatience Shirley snatched a rose from a branch peeping through the open lattice. "Yes," repeated Caroline, with mild firmness, "Robert's brother. He _is_ thus closely related to Grard Moore of the Hollow, though nature has not given him features so handsome or an air so noble as his kinsman; but his blood is as good, and he is as much a gentleman were he free." "Wise, humble, pious Caroline!" exclaimed Shirley ironically. "Men and angels, hear her! We should not despise plain features, nor a laborious yet honest occupation, should we? Look at the subject of your panegyric. He is there in the garden," she continued, pointing through an aperture in the clustering creepers; and by that aperture Louis Moore was visible, coming slowly down the walk. "He is not ugly, Shirley," pleaded Caroline; "he is not ignoble. He is sad; silence seals his mind. But I believe him to be intelligent; and be certain, if he had not something very commendable in his disposition, Mr. Hall would never seek his society as he does." Shirley laughed; she laughed again, each time with a slightly sarcastic sound. "Well, well," was her comment. "On the plea of the man being Cyril Hall's friend and Robert Moore's brother, we'll just tolerate his existence; won't we, Cary? You believe him to be intelligent, do you? Not quite an idiot--eh? Something commendable in his disposition!--_id est_, not an absolute ruffian. Good! Your representations have weight with me; and to prove that they have, should he come this way I will speak to him." He approached the summer-house. Unconscious that it was tenanted, he sat down on the step. Tartar, now his customary companion, had followed him, and he couched across his feet. "Old boy!" said Louis, pulling his tawny ear, or rather the mutilated remains of that organ, torn and chewed in a hundred battles, "the autumn sun shines as pleasantly on us as on the fairest and richest. This garden is none of ours, but we enjoy its greenness and perfume, don't we?" He sat silent, still caressing Tartar, who slobbered with exceeding affection. A faint twittering commenced among the trees round. Something fluttered down as light as leaves. They were little birds, which, lighting on the sward at shy distance, hopped as if expectant. "The small brown elves actually remember that I fed them the other day," again soliloquized Louis. "They want some more biscuit. To-day I forgot to save a fragment. Eager little sprites, I have not a crumb for you." He put his hand in his pocket and drew it out empty. "A want easily supplied," whispered the listening Miss Keeldar. She took from her reticule a morsel of sweet-cake; for that repository was never destitute of something available to throw to the chickens, young ducks, or sparrows. She crumbled it, and bending over his shoulder, put the crumbs into his hand. "There," said she--"there is a providence for the improvident." "This September afternoon is pleasant," observed Louis Moore, as, not at all discomposed, he calmly cast the crumbs on to the grass. "Even for you?" "As pleasant for me as for any monarch." "You take a sort of harsh, solitary triumph in drawing pleasure out of the elements and the inanimate and lower animate creation." "Solitary, but not harsh. With animals I feel I am Adam's son, the heir of him to whom dominion was given over 'every living thing that moveth upon the earth.' Your dog likes and follows me. When I go into that yard, the pigeons from your dovecot flutter at my feet. Your mare in the stable knows me as well as it knows you, and obeys me better." "And my roses smell sweet to you, and my trees give you shade." "And," continued Louis, "no caprice can withdraw these pleasures from me; they are _mine_." He walked off. Tartar followed him, as if in duty and affection bound, and Shirley remained standing on the summer-house step. Caroline saw her face as she looked after the rude tutor. It was pale, as if her pride bled inwardly. "You see," remarked Caroline apologetically, "his feelings are so often hurt it makes him morose." "You see," retorted Shirley, with ire, "he is a topic on which you and I shall quarrel if we discuss it often; so drop it henceforward and for ever." "I suppose he has more than once behaved in this way," thought Caroline to herself, "and that renders Shirley so distant to him. Yet I wonder she cannot make allowance for character and circumstances. I wonder the general modesty, manliness, sincerity of his nature do not plead with her in his behalf. She is not often so inconsiderate, so irritable." * * * * * The verbal testimony of two friends of Caroline's to her cousin's character augmented her favourable opinion of him. William Farren, whose cottage he had visited in company with Mr. Hall, pronounced him a "real gentleman;" there was not such another in Briarfield. He--William--"could do aught for that man. And then to see how t' bairns liked him, and how t' wife took to him first minute she saw him. He never went into a house but t' childer wor about him directly. Them little things wor like as if they'd a keener sense nor grown-up folks i' finding our folk's natures." Mr. Hall, in answer to a question of Miss Helstone's as to what he thought of Louis Moore, replied promptly that he was the best fellow he had met with since he left Cambridge. "But he is so grave," objected Caroline. "Grave! the finest company in the world! Full of odd, quiet, out-of-the-way humour. Never enjoyed an excursion so much in my life as the one I took with him to the Lakes. His understanding and tastes are so superior, it does a man good to be within their influence; and as to his temper and nature, I call them fine." "At Fieldhead he looks gloomy, and, I believe, has the character of being misanthropical." "Oh! I fancy he is rather out of place there--in a false position. The Sympsons are most estimable people, but not the folks to comprehend him. They think a great deal about form and ceremony, which are quite out of Louis's way." "I don't think Miss Keeldar likes him." "She doesn't know him--she doesn't know him; otherwise she has sense enough to do justice to his merits." "Well, I suppose she doesn't know him," mused Caroline to herself, and by this hypothesis she endeavoured to account for what seemed else unaccountable. But such simple solution of the difficulty was not left her long. She was obliged to refuse Miss Keeldar even this negative excuse for her prejudice. One day she chanced to be in the schoolroom with Henry Sympson, whose amiable and affectionate disposition had quickly recommended him to her regard. The boy was busied about some mechanical contrivance; his lameness made him fond of sedentary occupation. He began to ransack his tutor's desk for a piece of wax or twine necessary to his work. Moore happened to be absent. Mr. Hall, indeed, had called for him to take a long walk. Henry could not immediately find the object of his search. He rummaged compartment after compartment; and at last, opening an inner drawer, he came upon--not a ball of cord or a lump of beeswax, but a little bundle of small marble-coloured cahiers, tied with tape. Henry looked at them. "What rubbish Mr. Moore stores up in his desk!" he said. "I hope he won't keep my old exercises so carefully." "What is it?" "Old copy-books." He threw the bundle to Caroline. The packet looked so neat externally her curiosity was excited to see its contents. "If they are only copy-books, I suppose I may open them?" "Oh yes, quite freely. Mr. Moore's desk is half mine--for he lets me keep all sorts of things in it--and I give you leave." On scrutiny they proved to be French compositions, written in a hand peculiar but compact, and exquisitely clean and clear. The writing was recognizable. She scarcely needed the further evidence of the name signed at the close of each theme to tell her whose they were. Yet that name astonished her--"Shirley Keeldar, Sympson Grove, ----shire" (a southern county), and a date four years back. She tied up the packet, and held it in her hand, meditating over it. She half felt as if, in opening it, she had violated a confidence. "They are Shirley's, you see," said Henry carelessly. "Did _you_ give them to Mr. Moore? She wrote them with Mrs. Pryor, I suppose?" "She wrote them in my schoolroom at Sympson Grove, when she lived with us there. Mr. Moore taught her French; it is his native language." "I know. Was she a good pupil, Henry?" "She was a wild, laughing thing, but pleasant to have in the room. She made lesson-time charming. She learned fast--you could hardly tell when or how. French was nothing to her. She spoke it quick, quick--as quick as Mr. Moore himself." "Was she obedient? Did she give trouble?" "She gave plenty of trouble, in a way. She was giddy, but I liked her. I'm desperately fond of Shirley." "_Desperately_ fond--you small simpleton! You don't know what you say." "I _am desperately_ fond of her. She is the light of my eyes. I said so to Mr. Moore last night." "He would reprove you for speaking with exaggeration." "He didn't. He never reproves and reproves, as girls' governesses do. He was reading, and he only smiled into his book, and said that if Miss Keeldar was no more than that, she was less than he took her to be; for I was but a dim-eyed, short-sighted little chap. I'm afraid I am a poor unfortunate, Miss Caroline Helstone. I am a cripple, you know." "Never mind, Henry, you are a very nice little fellow; and if God has not given you health and strength, He has given you a good disposition and an excellent heart and brain." "I shall be despised. I sometimes think both Shirley and you despise me." "Listen, Henry. Generally, I don't like schoolboys. I have a great horror of them. They seem to me little ruffians, who take an unnatural delight in killing and tormenting birds, and insects, and kittens, and whatever is weaker than themselves. But you are so different I am quite fond of you. You have almost as much sense as a man (far more, God wot," she muttered to herself, "than many men); you are fond of reading, and you can talk sensibly about what you read." "I _am_ fond of reading. I know I have sense, and I know I have feeling." Miss Keeldar here entered. "Henry," she said, "I have brought your lunch here. I shall prepare it for you myself." She placed on the table a glass of new milk, a plate of something which looked not unlike leather, and a utensil which resembled a toasting-fork. "What are you two about," she continued, "ransacking Mr. Moore's desk?" "Looking at your old copy-books," returned Caroline. "My old copy-books?" "French exercise-books. Look here! They must be held precious; they are kept carefully." She showed the bundle. Shirley snatched it up. "Did not know one was in existence," she said. "I thought the whole lot had long since lit the kitchen fire, or curled the maid's hair at Sympson Grove.--What made you keep them, Henry?" "It is not my doing. I should not have thought of it. It never entered my head to suppose copy-books of value. Mr. Moore put them by in the inner drawer of his desk. Perhaps he forgot them." "C'est cela. He forgot them, no doubt," echoed Shirley. "They are extremely well written," she observed complacently. "What a giddy girl you were, Shirley, in those days! I remember you so well. A slim, light creature whom, though you were so tall, I could lift off the floor. I see you with your long, countless curls on your shoulders, and your streaming sash. You used to make Mr. Moore lively--that is, at first. I believe you grieved him after a while." Shirley turned the closely-written pages and said nothing. Presently she observed, "That was written one winter afternoon. It was a description of a snow scene." "I remember," said Henry. "Mr. Moore, when he read it, cried, 'Voil le Franais gagn!' He said it was well done. Afterwards you made him draw, in sepia, the landscape you described." "You have not forgotten, then, Hal?" "Not at all. We were all scolded that day for not coming down to tea when called. I can remember my tutor sitting at his easel, and you standing behind him, holding the candle, and watching him draw the snowy cliff, the pine, the deer couched under it, and the half-moon hung above." "Where are his drawings, Harry? Caroline should see them." "In his portfolio. But it is padlocked; he has the key." "Ask him for it when he comes in." "You should ask him, Shirley. You are shy of him now. You are grown a proud lady to him; I notice that." "Shirley, you are a real enigma," whispered Caroline in her ear. "What queer discoveries I make day by day now!--I who thought I had your confidence. Inexplicable creature! even this boy reproves you." "I have forgotten 'auld lang syne,' you see, Harry," said Miss Keeldar, answering young Sympson, and not heeding Caroline. "Which you never should have done. You don't deserve to be a man's morning star if you have so short a memory." "A man's morning star, indeed! and by 'a man' is meant your worshipful self, I suppose? Come, drink your new milk while it is warm." The young cripple rose and limped towards the fire; he had left his crutch near the mantelpiece. "My poor lame darling!" murmured Shirley, in her softest voice, aiding him. "Whether do you like me or Mr. Sam Wynne best, Shirley?" inquired the boy, as she settled him in an arm-chair. "O Harry, Sam Wynne is my aversion; you are my pet." "Me or Mr. Malone?" "You again, a thousand times." "Yet they are great whiskered fellows, six feet high each." "Whereas, as long as you live, Harry, you will never be anything more than a little pale lameter." "Yes, I know." "You need not be sorrowful. Have I not often told you who was almost as little, as pale, as suffering as you, and yet potent as a giant and brave as a lion?" "Admiral Horatio?" "Admiral Horatio, Viscount Nelson, and Duke of Bronte; great at heart as a Titan; gallant and heroic as all the world and age of chivalry; leader of the might of England; commander of her strength on the deep; hurler of her thunder over the flood." "A great man. But I am not warlike, Shirley; and yet my mind is so restless I burn day and night--for what I can hardly tell--to be--to do--to suffer, I think." "Harry, it is your mind, which is stronger and older than your frame, that troubles you. It is a captive; it lies in physical bondage. But it will work its own redemption yet. Study carefully not only books but the world. You love nature; love her without fear. Be patient--wait the course of time. You will not be a soldier or a sailor, Henry; but if you live you will be--listen to my prophecy--you will be an author, perhaps a poet." "An author! It is a flash--a flash of light to me! I will--I _will_! I'll write a book that I may dedicate it to you." "You will write it that you may give your soul its natural release. Bless me! what am I saying? more than I understand, I believe, or can make good. Here, Hal--here is your toasted oatcake; eat and live!" "Willingly!" here cried a voice outside the open window. "I know that fragrance of meal bread. Miss Keeldar, may I come in and partake?" "Mr. Hall"--it was Mr. Hall, and with him was Louis Moore, returned from their walk--"there is a proper luncheon laid out in the dining-room and there are proper people seated round it. You may join that society and share that fare if you please; but if your ill-regulated tastes lead you to prefer ill-regulated proceedings, step in here, and do as we do." "I approve the perfume, and therefore shall suffer myself to be led by the nose," returned Mr. Hall, who presently entered, accompanied by Louis Moore. That gentleman's eye fell on his desk, pillaged. "Burglars!" said he.--"Henry, you merit the ferule." "Give it to Shirley and Caroline; they did it," was alleged, with more attention to effect than truth. "Traitor and false witness!" cried both the girls. "We never laid hands on a thing, except in the spirit of laudable inquiry!" "Exactly so," said Moore, with his rare smile. "And what have you ferreted out, in your 'spirit of laudable inquiry'?" He perceived the inner drawer open. "This is empty," said he. "Who has taken----" "Here, here!" Caroline hastened to say, and she restored the little packet to its place. He shut it up; he locked it in with a small key attached to his watch-guard; he restored the other papers to order, closed the repository, and sat down without further remark. "I thought you would have scolded much more, sir," said Henry. "The girls deserve reprimand." "I leave them to their own consciences." "It accuses them of crimes intended as well as perpetrated, sir. If I had not been here, they would have treated your portfolio as they have done your desk; but I told them it was padlocked." "And will you have lunch with us?" here interposed Shirley, addressing Moore, and desirous, as it seemed, to turn the conversation. "Certainly, if I may." "You will be restricted to new milk and Yorkshire oatcake." "Va--pour le lait frais!" said Louis. "But for your oatcake!" and he made a grimace. "He cannot eat it," said Henry. "He thinks it is like bran, raised with sour yeast." "Come, then; by special dispensation we will allow him a few cracknels, but nothing less homely." The hostess rang the bell and gave her frugal orders, which were presently executed. She herself measured out the milk, and distributed the bread round the cosy circle now enclosing the bright little schoolroom fire. She then took the post of toaster-general; and kneeling on the rug, fork in hand, fulfilled her office with dexterity. Mr. Hall, who relished any homely innovation on ordinary usages, and to whom the husky oatcake was from custom suave as manna, seemed in his best spirits. He talked and laughed gleefully--now with Caroline, whom he had fixed by his side, now with Shirley, and again with Louis Moore. And Louis met him in congenial spirit. He did not laugh much, but he uttered in the quietest tone the wittiest things. Gravely spoken sentences, marked by unexpected turns and a quite fresh flavour and poignancy, fell easily from his lips. He proved himself to be--what Mr. Hall had said he was--excellent company. Caroline marvelled at his humour, but still more at his entire self-possession. Nobody there present seemed to impose on him a sensation of unpleasant restraint. Nobody seemed a bore--a check--a chill to him; and yet there was the cool and lofty Miss Keeldar kneeling before the fire, almost at his feet. But Shirley was cool and lofty no longer, at least not at this moment. She appeared unconscious of the humility of her present position; or if conscious, it was only to taste a charm in its lowliness. It did not revolt her pride that the group to whom she voluntarily officiated as handmaid should include her cousin's tutor. It did not scare her that while she handed the bread and milk to the rest, she had to offer it to him also; and Moore took his portion from her hand as calmly as if he had been her equal. "You are overheated now," he said, when she had retained the fork for some time; "let me relieve you." And he took it from her with a sort of quiet authority, to which she submitted passively, neither resisting him nor thanking him. "I should like to see your pictures, Louis," said Caroline, when the sumptuous luncheon was discussed.--"Would not you, Mr. Hall?" "To please you, I should; but, for my own part, I have cut him as an artist. I had enough of him in that capacity in Cumberland and Westmoreland. Many a wetting we got amongst the mountains because he would persist in sitting on a camp-stool, catching effects of rain-clouds, gathering mists, fitful sunbeams, and what not." "Here is the portfolio," said Henry, bringing it in one hand and leaning on his crutch with the other. Louis took it, but he still sat as if he wanted another to speak. It seemed as if he would not open it unless the proud Shirley deigned to show herself interested in the exhibition. "He makes us wait to whet our curiosity," she said. "You understand opening it," observed Louis, giving her the key. "You spoiled the lock for me once; try now." He held it. She opened it, and, monopolizing the contents, had the first view of every sketch herself. She enjoyed the treat--if treat it were--in silence, without a single comment. Moore stood behind her chair and looked over her shoulder, and when she had done and the others were still gazing, he left his post and paced through the room. A carriage was heard in the lane--the gate-bell rang. Shirley started. "There are callers," she said, "and I shall be summoned to the room. A pretty figure--as they say--I am to receive company. I and Henry have been in the garden gathering fruit half the morning. Oh for rest under my own vine and my own fig-tree! Happy is the slave-wife of the Indian chief, in that she has no drawing-room duty to perform, but can sit at ease weaving mats, and stringing beads, and peacefully flattening her pickaninny's head in an unmolested corner of her wigwam. I'll emigrate to the western woods." Louis Moore laughed. "To marry a White Cloud or a Big Buffalo, and after wedlock to devote yourself to the tender task of digging your lord's maize-field while he smokes his pipe or drinks fire-water." Shirley seemed about to reply, but here the schoolroom door unclosed, admitting Mr. Sympson. That personage stood aghast when he saw the group around the fire. "I thought you alone, Miss Keeldar," he said. "I find quite a party." And evidently from his shocked, scandalized air, had he not recognized in one of the party a clergyman, he would have delivered an extempore philippic on the extraordinary habits of his niece: respect for the cloth arrested him. "I merely wished to announce," he proceeded coldly, "that the family from De Walden Hall, Mr., Mrs., the Misses, and Mr. Sam Wynne, are in the drawing-room." And he bowed and withdrew. "The family from De Walden Hall! Couldn't be a worse set," murmured Shirley. She sat still, looking a little contumacious, and very much indisposed to stir. She was flushed with the fire. Her dark hair had been more than once dishevelled by the morning wind that day. Her attire was a light, neatly fitting, but amply flowing dress of muslin; the shawl she had worn in the garden was still draped in a careless fold round her. Indolent, wilful, picturesque, and singularly pretty was her aspect--prettier than usual, as if some soft inward emotion, stirred who knows how, had given new bloom and expression to her features. "Shirley, Shirley, you ought to go," whispered Caroline. "I wonder why?" She lifted her eyes, and saw in the glass over the fireplace both Mr. Hall and Louis Moore gazing at her gravely. "If," she said, with a yielding smile--"if a majority of the present company maintain that the De Walden Hall people have claims on my civility, I will subdue my inclinations to my duty. Let those who think I ought to go hold up their hands." Again consulting the mirror, it reflected an unanimous vote against her. "You must go," said Mr. Hall, "and behave courteously too. You owe many duties to society. It is not permitted you to please only yourself." Louis Moore assented with a low "Hear, hear!" Caroline, approaching her, smoothed her wavy curls, gave to her attire a less artistic and more domestic grace, and Shirley was put out of the room, protesting still, by a pouting lip, against her dismissal. "There is a curious charm about her," observed Mr. Hall, when she was gone. "And now," he added, "I must away; for Sweeting is off to see his mother, and there are two funerals." "Henry, get your books; it is lesson-time," said Moore, sitting down to his desk. "A curious charm!" repeated the pupil, when he and his master were left alone. "True. Is she not a kind of white witch?" he asked. "Of whom are you speaking, sir?" "Of my cousin Shirley." "No irrelevant questions; study in silence." Mr. Moore looked and spoke sternly--sourly. Henry knew this mood. It was a rare one with his tutor; but when it came he had an awe of it. He obeyed.

By the time the Fieldhead party returned to Briarfield, Caroline was nearly well. As soon as Miss Keeldar arrived home she called at the rectory. A shower of rain was falling on the late flowers when the garden wicket was heard to swing open, and Shirley passed the window. On her entrance she showed her feelings in her own peculiar fashion. When deeply moved, she was not garrulous. She took Caroline in her arms, gave her one look, one kiss, then said, "You are better. God keep you in good health!" She began to talk about the journey; but her eye still wandered to Caroline with some trouble and amazement. Suddenly her piercing glance turned to Mrs. Pryor. "When will my governess return to me?" she asked. "May I tell her all?" demanded Caroline of her mother. Shirley was soon enlightened. "Very good," was the cool comment. "But it is no news to me." "What! did you know?" "I guessed long since. I have heard somewhat of Mrs. Pryor's history and of Mr. James Helstone's career and character, from talking to Miss Mann; also he is one of Mrs. Yorke's warning examples, that she hangs out to scare young ladies away from matrimony. I was sceptical, but when I asked Mr. Yorke about it, he said, 'James Helstone was a man-tiger. He was handsome, dissolute, soft, treacherous, courteous, cruel-' Don't cry, Cary; we'll say no more about it." "I am not crying, Shirley; go on." "Fortunately I have said all that I have to say." "But papa is dead; they should let him alone now." "They should; and we will let him alone. Cry away, Cary; it will do you good. Beside, maybe every drop blots out a sin. - Madam," she continued, addressing Mrs. Pryor, "did you think I could see you and your daughter together without noticing your similarity in many points, and observing your emotions in the presence of your child? I made guesses, and they are correct. But I said nothing; it was not my business." "That is not like you," said Caroline; "you are not reserved; you talk frankly." "I may be frank, yet know where to stop. In showing my treasure I may withhold a gem or two." Caroline thus got a new view of Shirley. Before long, the prospect was renewed. As soon as she had sufficient strength, Miss Keeldar invited her daily to Fieldhead. Perhaps Shirley had become weary of her honoured relatives the Sympsons. She did not say so; but she claimed Caroline eagerly. The Sympsons were church people, so they received the rector's niece with courtesy. Mr. Sympson proved to be a man of spotless respectability, pious principles, and worldly views; his lady was a very good woman - patient, kind, well-bred. She had been brought up on a narrow system of views, starved on a few prejudices - a mere handful of bitter herbs; a few preferences, soaked till they had no flavour; and some excellent principles, made up in a stiff raised crust of bigotry difficult to digest. Far too submissive was she to complain of this diet. The daughters were an example to their sex. They were tall, with Roman noses. and had been educated faultlessly. All they did was well done. History and the most solid books had cultivated their minds. They knew by heart a certain young ladies' schoolroom code of behaviour, and never deviated from it; they regarded with whispered horror all deviations in others. Originality - whether in a book, speech, or person - was to them an evil, and they were quick to recognize its signs, and to shudder and recoil. Henry Sympson, the only son and youngest child, was a boy of fifteen, who generally stayed with his tutor. When he left him, he sought out Shirley. This boy differed from his sisters. He was little, lame, and pale; but emotion could give colour to his cheek and decision to his crippled movements. He was to be a clergyman. His mother loved him, but Mr. and the Misses Sympson, not understanding him, let him much alone. Shirley made him her pet, and he made Shirley his playmate. In the midst of this family circle, or rather outside it, moved the tutor - the satellite. Yes, Louis Moore was a satellite of the house of Sympson, connected, yet apart. They treated him with dignity. The father was austerely civil, sometimes irritable; the mother was attentive, but formal; the daughters saw in him an abstraction, not a man. It seemed, by their manner, that their brother's tutor did not live for them. They were learned; so was he - but not for them. They were accomplished; he had talents too, imperceptible to their senses. The most original observation from his lips fell unheard on their ears. Nothing could exceed the propriety of their behaviour. One fact strangely astonished Caroline. It was to discover that her cousin Louis had absolutely no sympathizing friend at Fieldhead; that to Miss Keeldar he was as much a mere teacher, as little a man, as to the Misses Sympson. Why was the kind-hearted Shirley so indifferent to the dreary position of a fellow-creature isolated under her roof? She was not, perhaps, haughty to him, but she never noticed him - she let him alone. He came and went, spoke or was silent, and she rarely recognized his existence. As to Louis Moore himself, he had the air of a man used to this life. His faculties seemed walled up in him. He never laughed; he seldom smiled; he was uncomplaining. His pupil Henry loved him; he asked nothing more than civility from the rest of the world. It even appeared that he would accept nothing more; for when Caroline made gentle overtures of friendship, he did not encourage them. In the house one living thing alone was his friend, besides Henry: and that was the ruffianly Tartar, who had a singular partiality for him - a partiality so marked that sometimes, when Moore entered the room, Tartar would rise from Shirley's feet and take himself to the taciturn tutor. Once she noticed this desertion, and softly tried to coax him back. Tartar looked, slavered, and sighed, but remained at Louis Moore's side. That gentleman patted him, and smiled to himself. An acute observer might have remarked, that same evening, that after Tartar had returned to Shirley, and was once more lying near her footstool, the audacious tutor by one word and gesture fascinated him again. Tartar pricked up his ears and came to receive the expected caress. As it was given, the significant smile again rippled across Moore's quiet face. "Shirley," said Caroline one day, as they two were sitting alone in the summer-house, "did you know that my cousin Louis was tutor in your uncle's family before the Sympsons came down here?" Shirley's reply was not so prompt as usual, but at last she answered, "Yes, of course." "It puzzles me that you never spoke of it, although you talk a great deal. How was it never mentioned?" "Because it never was," and Shirley laughed. "You are a singular being! You were silent as the grave about Mrs. Pryor, and now here is another secret. But why you made it a secret is the mystery." "I never made it a secret. If you had asked me who Henry's tutor was, I would have told you. Besides, I thought you knew." "I am puzzled about something else. You don't like poor Louis. Why? Is it his position? Do you wish that Robert's brother were more highly placed?" "Robert's brother, indeed!" was the exclamation, uttered in a tone close to scorn; and with an impatient movement Shirley snatched a rose peeping through the open window. "Yes," repeated Caroline, "Robert's brother. Louis is not so handsome as Robert; but he is as much a gentleman." "Wise, humble, pious Caroline!" exclaimed Shirley ironically. "We should not despise plain features, nor an honest occupation, should we? There is your subject in the garden," she continued, pointing through the clustering creepers; Louis Moore was visible, coming slowly down the walk. "He is not ugly, Shirley," pleaded Caroline; "he is not ignoble. He is sad; silence seals his mind. But I believe him to be intelligent; and if he had not something good about him, Mr. Hall would never seek his society." Shirley laughed sarcastically. "Well, well. Since he's Cyril Hall's friend and Robert Moore's brother, we'll just tolerate his existence, eh, Cary? You believe him to be not quite an idiot, do you? Something good about him - not an absolute ruffian! Your opinion has weight with me; and I will speak to him." He approached the summer-house. Unaware that it was occupied, he sat down on the step; Tartar, who had followed him, lay across his feet. "Old boy!" said Louis, pulling his ear, which had been torn and chewed in a hundred battles, "This garden is not ours, but we enjoy its greenness and perfume, don't we?" He sat silent, caressing Tartar, who slobbered affectionately. A faint twittering commenced among the trees; little birds fluttered down, as light as leaves, and hopped expectantly on the grass. "The small brown elves actually remember that I fed them the other day," said Louis. "They want some more biscuit. Today I have none - not a crumb, little sprites." He put his hand in his pocket and drew it out empty. "A want easily supplied," whispered Miss Keeldar. She took from her reticule some sweet-cake; for she always carried something to throw to the chickens or sparrows. She crumbled it, and bending over his shoulder, put the crumbs into his hand. "There," said she; "there is a providence for the improvident." "This September afternoon is pleasant," observed Louis Moore, as, not at all discomposed, he calmly cast the crumbs on to the grass. "You take a sort of harsh solitary triumph in drawing pleasure from the lower creation." "Solitary, but not harsh. With animals I feel I am Adam's son, the heir of him to whom dominion was given over every living thing. Your dog likes and follows me. The pigeons from your dovecot flutter at my feet. Your mare in the stable knows me as well as it knows you, and obeys me better." "And my roses smell sweet to you, and my trees give you shade." "And," continued Louis, "no caprice can withdraw these pleasures from me; they are mine." He walked off. Tartar followed him, and Shirley remained standing on the summer-house step. Caroline saw that her face was pale, as if her pride bled inwardly. "You see," remarked Caroline apologetically, "his feelings are so often hurt it makes him morose." "You see," retorted Shirley, with ire, "he is a topic on which you and I shall quarrel; so drop it." "I suppose he has more than once behaved in this way," thought Caroline to herself, "and that makes Shirley distant to him. Yet I wonder she cannot make allowances. She is not often so inconsiderate, so irritable." Two friends of Caroline increased her favourable opinion of Louis Moore. William Farren, whose cottage he had visited with Mr. Hall, pronounced him a "real gentleman; to see how t' bairns liked him, and how t' wife took to him first minute she saw him. Them childer ha' a keen sense i' finding out folk's natures." And Mr. Hall stated that Louis Moore was the best fellow he had met with since he left Cambridge. "But he is so grave," objected Caroline. "Grave! the finest company in the world!" said Mr. Hall. "Full of odd, quiet, out-of-the-way humour. Never enjoyed an excursion so much in my life as the one I took with him to the Lakes. His understanding and tastes are so superior, it does a man good to be with him; and his temper and nature are fine." "At Fieldhead he looks gloomy." "Oh! I fancy he is rather out of place there. The Sympsons are good people, but not the folks to comprehend him." "I don't think Miss Keeldar likes him." "She doesn't know him. She has sense enough to do justice to his merits." "Well, I suppose she doesn't know him," mused Caroline; but before long she had to refuse Miss Keeldar even this excuse for her prejudice. One day she chanced to be in the schoolroom with Henry Sympson, an amiable and affectionate boy whom she liked. The boy was busied about some mechanical contrivance, and began to ransack his tutor's desk for a piece of twine he needed for his work. Moore was absent, out walking with Mr. Hall. Henry could not find what he wanted, though he rummaged in every compartment; and at last, opening an inner drawer, he came upon a little bundle of exercise-books, tied with tape. Henry looked at them. "What rubbish Mr. Moore stores in his desk!" he said. "I hope he won't keep my old exercises so carefully." "What is it?" "Old copy-books." He threw the bundle to Caroline. "If they are only copy-books, I suppose I may open them?" "Oh, yes. Mr. Moore's desk is half mine - he lets me keep all sorts of things in it - and I give you leave." On scrutiny they proved to be French compositions, written in a peculiar but exquisitely clear hand. Caroline recognized the writing without needing to see the name signed at the end of every essay. Yet that name astonished her - "Shirley Keeldar, Sympson Grove", and a date four years back. She tied up the packet, and held it, meditating. She half felt as if, in opening it, she had violated a confidence. "They are Shirley's, you see," said Henry carelessly. "Did you give them to Mr. Moore? She wrote them with Mrs. Pryor, I suppose?" "She wrote them in my schoolroom at Sympson Grove, when she lived with us there. Mr. Moore taught her French; it is his native language." "I know. Was she a good pupil, Henry?" "She was a wild, laughing thing; she made lesson-time charming. She learned fast. French was nothing to her. She spoke it as quick as Mr. Moore himself." "Was she obedient? Did she give trouble?" "She gave plenty of trouble, in a way. She was giddy, but I liked her. I'm desperately fond of Shirley. She is the light of my eyes. I said so to Mr. Moore last night." Caroline laughed. "He would reprove you for exaggerating." "He didn't. He only smiled, and said that if Miss Keeldar was no more than that, she was less than he took her to be; for I was but a short-sighted little chap. I'm afraid I am a poor cripple, Miss Helstone, you know." "Never mind, Henry, you are a very nice little fellow; and God has given you a good disposition and an excellent heart and brain." "I shall be despised. I sometimes think both Shirley and you despise me." "Listen, Henry. Generally, I don't like schoolboys. They seem to me little ruffians, who take an unnatural delight in killing and tormenting birds, and whatever is weaker than themselves. But I like you. You have almost as much sense as a man; you are fond of reading, and you can talk sensibly about what you read." Miss Keeldar here entered. "Henry," she said, "I have brought your lunch. I shall prepare it myself." She placed on the table a glass of milk, a plate of something which looked not unlike leather, and a toasting-fork. "What are you two doing, ransacking Mr. Moore's desk?" she asked. "Looking at your old French copy-books," returned Caroline. "Look here! They must be considered precious; they are kept carefully." She showed the bundle. Shirley snatched it up. "Did not know one was in existence," she said. "I thought the whole lot had long since lit the kitchen fire. What made you keep them, Henry?" "I didn't. It never entered my head. Mr. Moore put them in the inner drawer of his desk. Perhaps he forgot them." "He forgot them, no doubt," echoed Shirley. "They are extremely well written," she added complacently. "What a giddy girl you were, Shirley, in those days! A slim, light creature whom, though you were so tall, I could lift off the floor. I see you with your long curls on your shoulders, and your streaming sash. You used to make Mr. Moore lively - that is, at first. I believe you grieved him after a while." Shirley turned the closely-written pages and said nothing. Presently she observed, "That was written one winter afternoon. It was a description of a snow scene." "I remember," said Henry. "Mr. Moore said it was well done. Afterwards you made him draw the landscape you described. I can remember him sitting at his easel, and you standing behind him, watching him draw the snowy cliff, the pine, the deer lying under it, and the half-moon hung above." "Where are his drawings, Harry? Caroline should see them." "In his portfolio. But it is padlocked; he has the key." "Ask him for it when he comes in." "You should ask him, Shirley. You are shy of him now. You are grown a proud lady to him; I notice that." "Shirley, you are a real enigma," whispered Caroline in her ear. "What queer discoveries I make day by day now! Even this boy reproves you." "I have forgotten old times, you see, Harry," said Miss Keeldar, answering young Sympson, and not heeding Caroline. "Which you never should have done. You don't deserve to be a man's morning star if you have so short a memory." "A man's morning star, indeed! and by 'a man' is meant your worshipful self, I suppose? Come, drink your milk." He rose and limped towards the fire. "My poor lame darling!" murmured Shirley, in her softest voice. "Do you like me or Mr. Sam Wynne best, Shirley?" inquired the boy, as she settled him in an arm-chair. "O Harry, Sam Wynne is my aversion; you are my pet." "Me or Mr. Malone?" "You again, a thousand times." "Yet they are great whiskered fellows, six feet tall." "Have I not often told you who was almost as little, as pale, as suffering as you, and yet as powerful as a giant and brave as a lion?" "Admiral Horatio?" "Admiral Horatio, Viscount Nelson; great at heart as a Titan; gallant and heroic; commander of England's navy, and hurler of her thunder over the flood." "A great man. But I am not warlike, Shirley; and yet my mind is so restless." "Harry, your mind is a captive. It is stronger and older than your frame. But be patient. Study carefully not only books but the world. You love nature; love her without fear. You will not be a soldier or a sailor, Henry; but - listen to my prophecy - you will be an author, perhaps a poet." "An author! It is a flash of light to me! I will! I'll write a book so that I may dedicate it to you." "You will write it so that you may give your soul its natural release. Bless me! what am I saying? more than I understand. Here is your toasted oatcake, Hal; eat and live!" "Willingly!" here cried a voice outside the open window. "Miss Keeldar, may I come in and partake?" It was Mr. Hall, and with him was Louis Moore, returned from their walk. "There is a proper luncheon laid out in the dining-room," said Shirley, "with proper people seated round it. You may join them if you please; but if your ill-regulated tastes lead you to prefer ill-regulated proceedings, step in here." "I shall allow myself to be led by the nose," returned Mr. Hall, who entered along with Louis Moore. The latter's eye fell on his desk. "Burglars!" said he. "Henry, you deserve the cane." "Shirley and Caroline did it." "False!" cried both the girls. "We never laid hands on a thing, except in the spirit of laudable inquiry!" "Exactly so," said Moore, with his rare smile. "And what have you ferreted out?" He perceived the inner drawer was open. "This is empty," said he. "Who has taken-" "Here!" Caroline hastened to say, and she restored the little packet to its place. He shut it up and locked it with a small key; he put the other papers in order, closed the desk, and sat down without further remark. "I thought you would have scolded much more, sir," said Henry. "The girls deserve reprimand." "I leave them to their own consciences." "If I had not been here, they would have ransacked your portfolio too; but I told them it was padlocked." "And will you have lunch with us?" here interposed Shirley, wishing, it seemed, to turn the conversation. "Certainly, if I may." "You will be restricted to milk and Yorkshire oatcake." "Your oatcake!" He made a grimace. "He cannot eat it," said Henry. "He thinks it is like bran." "Come, then; we will allow him a few crackers." The hostess measured out the milk, and distributed the bread round the cosy circle. She then took the post of toaster-general, kneeling on the rug, fork in hand. Mr. Hall seemed in his best spirits: he talked and laughed gleefully. Louis met him in congenial spirit. He did not laugh much, but he uttered in a quiet tone the wittiest things. He proved to be excellent company. Caroline marvelled at his self-possession, when the cool and lofty Miss Keeldar was kneeling before the fire, almost at his feet. But Shirley was not cool and lofty at this moment. She appeared not to mind that she was waiting on her cousin's tutor. When she offered him his portion, Moore took it from her hand as calmly as if he had been her equal. "You are overheated now," he said; "let me relieve you." And he took the toasting-fork from her with a quiet authority, to which she submitted passively. "I should like to see your pictures, Louis," said Caroline. "Would not you, Mr. Hall?" "To please you, I should; but, for my own part, I had enough of him painting in Cumberland and Westmoreland. Many a wetting we got amongst the mountains because he would persist in sitting on a camp-stool, catching effects of rain-clouds, gathering mists, and what not." "Here is the portfolio," said Henry. Louis took it, and gave Shirley the key. "You spoiled the lock for me once; try now." She opened it, and had the first view of every sketch herself. She enjoyed the treat - if treat it were - in silence, without comment. Moore stood behind her chair and looked over her shoulder, and when she had done and the others were still gazing, he left his post and paced through the room. A carriage was heard in the lane - the gate-bell rang. Shirley started. "There are callers," she said, "and I shall be summoned. A pretty figure to receive company! Henry and I have been gathering fruit half the morning. Oh for rest under my own vine and my own fig-tree! Happy is the slave-wife of the Indian chief, who has no drawing-room duty to perform, but can sit at ease weaving mats, and stringing beads, and peacefully flattening her pickaninny's head in an unmolested corner of her wigwam. I'll emigrate." Louis Moore laughed. "To marry a White Cloud or a Big Buffalo, and to devote yourself to the tender task of digging your lord's maize-field while he smokes his pipe." Shirley seemed about to reply, but here the schoolroom door opened to admit Mr. Sympson. He looked aghast when he saw the group around the fire. "I thought you were alone, Miss Keeldar," he said, with a scandalized air. "I find quite a party. The family from De Walden Hall are in the drawing-room." And he bowed and withdrew. "The Wynnes! Couldn't be a worse set," murmured Shirley. She sat still, looking unwilling to stir, and flushed with the fire. Her dark hair was dishevelled; wilful she looked, and singularly pretty - prettier than usual, as if some soft inward emotion had given new bloom to her features. "Shirley, Shirley, you ought to go," whispered Caroline. "If most of those present tell me to go, I will do my duty. Let those who think I ought to go hold up their hands." The vote against her was unanimous. "You must go," said Mr. Hall, "and behave courteously too." Louis Moore added a low "Hear, hear!" Caroline smoothed Shirley's curls and tidied her clothing; she was sent out of the room, pouting at her dismissal. "There is a curious charm about her. And now I must away," said Mr. Hall. Caroline left too. "Henry, get your books; it is lesson-time," said Moore, sitting down to his desk. "A curious charm!" repeated the pupil. "True. Is Shirley not a kind of white witch?" "No irrelevant questions; study in silence." Mr. Moore looked and spoke sternly - sourly. Henry knew this mood. It was rare; but when it came he was in awe of it. He obeyed.

Shirley

Chapter 26: OLD COPY-BOOKS

Martin had planned well. He had laid out a dexterously concerted scheme for his private amusement. But older and wiser schemers than he are often doomed to see their finest-spun projects swept to annihilation by the sudden broom of Fate, that fell housewife whose red arm none can control. In the present instance this broom was manufactured out of the tough fibres of Moore's own stubborn purpose, bound tight with his will. He was now resuming his strength, and making strange head against Mrs. Horsfall. Each morning he amazed that matron with a fresh astonishment. First he discharged her from her valet duties; he would dress himself. Then he refused the coffee she brought him; he would breakfast with the family. Lastly, he forbade her his chamber. On the same day, amidst the outcries of all the women in the place, he put his head out of doors. The morning after, he followed Mr. Yorke to his counting-house, and requested an envoy to fetch a chaise from the Red House Inn. He was resolved, he said, to return home to the Hollow that very afternoon. Mr. Yorke, instead of opposing, aided and abetted him. The chaise was sent for, though Mrs. Yorke declared the step would be his death. It came. Moore, little disposed to speak, made his purse do duty for his tongue. He expressed his gratitude to the servants and to Mrs. Horsfall by the chink of his coin. The latter personage approved and understood this language perfectly; it made amends for all previous contumacy. She and her patient parted the best friends in the world. The kitchen visited and soothed, Moore betook himself to the parlour. He had Mrs. Yorke to appease; not quite so easy a task as the pacification of her housemaids. There she sat plunged in sullen dudgeon, the gloomiest speculations on the depths of man's ingratitude absorbing her thoughts. He drew near and bent over her; she was obliged to look up, if it were only to bid him "avaunt." There was beauty still in his pale, wasted features; there was earnestness and a sort of sweetness--for he was smiling--in his hollow eyes. "Good-bye!" he said, and as he spoke the smile glittered and melted. He had no iron mastery of his sensations now; a trifling emotion made itself apparent in his present weak state. "And what are you going to leave us for?" she asked. "We will keep you, and do anything in the world for you, if you will only stay till you are stronger." "Good-bye!" he again said; and added, "You have been a mother to me; give your wilful son one embrace." Like a foreigner, as he was, he offered her first one cheek, then the other. She kissed him. "What a trouble--what a burden I have been to you!" he muttered. "You are the worst trouble now, headstrong youth!" was the answer. "I wonder who is to nurse you at Hollow's Cottage? Your sister Hortense knows no more about such matters than a child." "Thank God! for I have had nursing enough to last me my life." Here the little girls came in--Jessie crying, Rose quiet but grave. Moore took them out into the hall to soothe, pet, and kiss them. He knew it was not in their mother's nature to bear to see any living thing caressed but herself. She would have felt annoyed had he fondled a kitten in her presence. The boys were standing about the chaise as Moore entered it; but for them he had no farewell. To Mr. Yorke he only said, "You have a good riddance of me. That was an unlucky shot for you, Yorke; it turned Briarmains into an hospital. Come and see me at the cottage soon." He drew up the glass; the chaise rolled away. In half an hour he alighted at his own garden wicket. Having paid the driver and dismissed the vehicle, he leaned on that wicket an instant, at once to rest and to muse. "Six months ago I passed out at this gate," said he, "a proud, angry, disappointed man. I come back sadder and wiser; weakly enough, but not worried. A cold, gray, yet quiet world lies round--a world where, if I hope little, I fear nothing. All slavish terrors of embarrassment have left me. Let the worst come, I can work, as Joe Scott does, for an honourable living; in such doom I yet see some hardship but no degradation. Formerly, pecuniary ruin was equivalent in my eyes to personal dishonour. It is not so now; I know the difference. Ruin _is_ an evil, but one for which I am prepared; the day of whose coming I know, for I have calculated. I can yet put it off six months--not an hour longer. If things by that time alter, which is not probable; if fetters, which now seem indissoluble, should be loosened from our trade (of all things the most unlikely to happen), I might conquer in this long struggle yet--I might--good God! what might I not do? But the thought is a brief madness; let me see things with sane eyes. Ruin will come, lay her axe to my fortune's roots, and hew them down. I shall snatch a sapling, I shall cross the sea, and plant it in American woods. Louis will go with me. Will none but Louis go? I cannot tell--I have no right to ask." He entered the house. It was afternoon, twilight yet out of doors--starless and moonless twilight; for though keenly freezing with a dry, black frost, heaven wore a mask of clouds congealed and fast locked. The mill-dam too was frozen. The Hollow was very still. Indoors it was already dark. Sarah had lit a good fire in the parlour; she was preparing tea in the kitchen. "Hortense," said Moore, as his sister bustled up to help him off with his cloak, "I am pleased to come home." Hortense did not feel the peculiar novelty of this expression coming from her brother, who had never before called the cottage his home, and to whom its narrow limits had always heretofore seemed rather restrictive than protective. Still, whatever contributed to his happiness pleased her, and she expressed herself to that effect. He sat down, but soon rose again. He went to the window; he came back to the fire. "Hortense!" "Mon frre?" "This little parlour looks very clean and pleasant--unusually bright, somehow." "It is true, brother; I have had the whole house thoroughly and scrupulously cleaned in your absence." "Sister, I think on this first day of your return home you ought to have a friend or so to tea, if it were only to see how fresh and spruce you have made the little place." "True, brother. If it were not late I might send for Miss Mann." "So you might; but it really is too late to disturb that good lady, and the evening is much too cold for her to come out." "How thoughtful in you, dear Grard! We must put it off till another day." "I want some one to-day, dear sister--some quiet guest, who would tire neither of us." "Miss Ainley?" "An excellent person, they say; but she lives too far off. Tell Harry Scott to step up to the rectory with a request from you that Caroline Helstone should come and spend the evening with you." "Would it not be better to-morrow, dear brother?" "I should like her to see the place as it is just now; its brilliant cleanliness and perfect neatness are so much to your credit." "It might benefit her in the way of example." "It might and must; she ought to come." He went into the kitchen. "Sarah, delay tea half an hour." He then commissioned her to dispatch Harry Scott to the rectory, giving her a twisted note hastily scribbled in pencil by himself, and addressed "Miss Helstone." Scarcely had Sarah time to get impatient under the fear of damage to her toast already prepared when the messenger returned, and with him the invited guest. She entered through the kitchen, quietly tripped up Sarah's stairs to take off her bonnet and furs, and came down as quietly, with her beautiful curls nicely smoothed, her graceful merino dress and delicate collar all trim and spotless, her gay little work-bag in her hand. She lingered to exchange a few kindly words with Sarah, and to look at the new tortoise-shell kitten basking on the kitchen hearth, and to speak to the canary-bird, which a sudden blaze from the fire had startled on its perch; and then she betook herself to the parlour. The gentle salutation, the friendly welcome, were interchanged in such tranquil sort as befitted cousins meeting; a sense of pleasure, subtle and quiet as a perfume, diffused itself through the room; the newly-kindled lamp burnt up bright; the tray and the singing urn were brought in. "I am pleased to come home," repeated Mr. Moore. They assembled round the table. Hortense chiefly talked. She congratulated Caroline on the evident improvement in her health. Her colour and her plump cheeks were returning, she remarked. It was true. There was an obvious change in Miss Helstone. All about her seemed elastic; depression, fear, forlornness, were withdrawn. No longer crushed, and saddened, and slow, and drooping, she looked like one who had tasted the cordial of heart's ease, and been lifted on the wing of hope. After tea Hortense went upstairs. She had not rummaged her drawers for a month past, and the impulse to perform that operation was now become resistless. During her absence the talk passed into Caroline's hands. She took it up with ease; she fell into her best tone of conversation. A pleasing facility and elegance of language gave fresh charm to familiar topics; a new music in the always soft voice gently surprised and pleasingly captivated the listener; unwonted shades and lights of expression elevated the young countenance with character, and kindled it with animation. "Caroline, you look as if you had heard good tidings," said Moore, after earnestly gazing at her for some minutes. "Do I?" "I sent for you this evening that I might be cheered; but you cheer me more than I had calculated." "I am glad of that. And I _really_ cheer you?" "You look brightly, move buoyantly, speak musically." "It is pleasant to be here again." "Truly it is pleasant; I feel it so. And to see health on your cheek and hope in your eye is pleasant, Cary; but what is this hope, and what is the source of this sunshine I perceive about you?" "For one thing, I am happy in mamma. I love her so much, and she loves me. Long and tenderly she nursed me. Now, when her care has made me well, I can occupy myself for and with her all the day. I say it is my turn to attend to her; and I _do_ attend to her. I am her waiting-woman as well as her child. I like--you would laugh if you knew what pleasure I have in making dresses and sewing for her. She looks so nice now, Robert; I will not let her be old-fashioned. And then, she is charming to talk to--full of wisdom, ripe in judgment, rich in information, exhaustless in stores her observant faculties have quietly amassed. Every day that I live with her I like her better, I esteem her more highly, I love her more tenderly." "_That_ for one thing, then, Cary. You talk in such a way about 'mamma' it is enough to make one jealous of the old lady." "She is not old, Robert." "Of the young lady, then." "She does not pretend to be young." "Well, of the matron. But you said 'mamma's' affection was _one_ thing that made you happy; now for the other thing." "I am glad you are better." "What besides?" "I am glad we are friends." "You and I?" "Yes. I once thought we never should be." "Cary, some day I mean to tell you a thing about myself that is not to my credit, and consequently will not please you." "Ah, don't! I cannot bear to think ill of you." "And I cannot bear that you should think better of me than I deserve." "Well, but I half know your 'thing;' indeed, I believe I know all about it." "You do not." "I believe I do." "Whom does it concern besides me?" She coloured; she hesitated; she was silent. "Speak, Cary! Whom does it concern?" She tried to utter a name, and could not. "Tell me; there is none present but ourselves. Be frank." "But if I guess wrong?" "I will forgive. Whisper, Cary." He bent his ear to her lips. Still she would not, or could not, speak clearly to the point. Seeing that Moore waited and was resolved to hear something, she at last said, "Miss Keeldar spent a day at the rectory about a week since. The evening came on very wintry, and we persuaded her to stay all night." "And you and she curled your hair together?" "How do you know that?" "And then you chattered, and she told you----" "It was not at curling-hair time, so you are not as wise as you think; and, besides, she didn't tell me." "You slept together afterwards?" "We occupied the same room and bed. We did not sleep much; we talked the whole night through." "I'll be sworn you did! And then it all came out--_tant pis_. I would rather you had heard it from myself." "You are quite wrong. She did not tell me what you suspect--she is not the person to proclaim such things; but yet I inferred something from parts of her discourse. I gathered more from rumour, and I made out the rest by instinct." "But if she did not tell you that I wanted to marry her for the sake of her money, and that she refused me indignantly and scornfully (you need neither start nor blush; nor yet need you prick your trembling fingers with your needle. That is the plain truth, whether you like it or not)--if such was not the subject of her august confidences, on what point did they turn? You say you talked the whole night through; what about?" "About things we never thoroughly discussed before, intimate friends as we have been; but you hardly expect I should tell you?" "Yes, yes, Cary; you will tell me. You said we were friends, and friends should always confide in each other." "But you are sure you won't repeat it?" "Quite sure." "Not to Louis?" "Not even to Louis. What does Louis care for young ladies' secrets?" "Robert, Shirley is a curious, magnanimous being." "I dare say. I can imagine there are both odd points and grand points about her." "I have found her chary in showing her feelings; but when they rush out, river-like, and pass full and powerful before you--almost without leave from her--you gaze, wonder; you admire, and--I think--love her." "You saw this spectacle?" "Yes; at dead of night, when all the house was silent, and starlight and the cold reflection from the snow glimmered in our chamber, then I saw Shirley's heart." "Her heart's core? Do you think she showed you that?" "Her heart's core." "And how was it?" "Like a shrine, for it was holy; like snow, for it was pure; like flame, for it was warm; like death, for it was strong." "Can she love? tell me that." "What think you?" "She has loved none that have loved her yet." "Who are those that have loved her?" He named a list of gentlemen, closing with Sir Philip Nunnely. "She has loved none of these." "Yet some of them were worthy of a woman's affection." "Of some women's, but not of Shirley's." "Is she better than others of her sex?" "She is peculiar, and more dangerous to take as a wife--rashly." "I can imagine that." "She spoke of you----" "Oh, she did! I thought you denied it." "She did not speak in the way you fancy; but I asked her, and I would make her tell me what she thought of you, or rather how she felt towards you. I wanted to know; I had long wanted to know." "So had I; but let us hear. She thinks meanly, she feels contemptuously, doubtless?" "She thinks of you almost as highly as a woman can think of a man. You know she can be eloquent. I yet feel in fancy the glow of the language in which her opinion was conveyed." "But how does she feel?" "Till you shocked her (she said you had shocked her, but she would not tell me how) she felt as a sister feels towards a brother of whom she is at once fond and proud." "I'll shock her no more, Cary, for the shock rebounded on myself till I staggered again. But that comparison about sister and brother is all nonsense. She is too rich and proud to entertain fraternal sentiments for me." "You don't know her, Robert; and, somehow, I fancy now (I had other ideas formerly) that you cannot know her. You and she are not so constructed as to be able thoroughly to understand each other." "It may be so. I esteem her, I admire her; and yet my impressions concerning her are harsh--perhaps uncharitable. I believe, for instance, that she is incapable of love----" "Shirley incapable of love!" "That she will never marry. I imagine her jealous of compromising her pride, of relinquishing her power, of sharing her property." "Shirley has hurt your _amour propre_." "She did hurt it; though I had not an emotion of tenderness, nor a spark of passion for her." "Then, Robert, it was very wicked in you to want to marry her." "And very mean, my little pastor, my pretty priestess. I never wanted to kiss Miss Keeldar in my life, though she has fine lips, scarlet and round as ripe cherries; or, if I did wish it, it was the mere desire of the eye." "I doubt, now, whether you are speaking the truth. The grapes or the cherries are sour--'hung too high.'" "She has a pretty figure, a pretty face, beautiful hair. I acknowledge all her charms and feel none of them, or only feel them in a way she would disdain. I suppose I was truly tempted by the mere gilding of the bait. Caroline, what a noble fellow your Robert is--great, good, disinterested, and then so pure!" "But not perfect. He made a great blunder once, and we will hear no more about it." "And shall we think no more about it, Cary? Shall we not despise him in our heart--gentle but just, compassionate but upright?" "Never! We will remember that with what measure we mete it shall be measured unto us, and so we will give no scorn, only affection." "Which won't satisfy, I warn you of that. Something besides affection--something far stronger, sweeter, warmer--will be demanded one day. Is it there to give?" Caroline was moved, much moved. "Be calm, Lina," said Moore soothingly. "I have no intention, because I have no right, to perturb your mind now, nor for months to come. Don't look as if you would leave me. We will make no more agitating allusions; we will resume our gossip. Do not tremble; look me in the face. See what a poor, pale, grim phantom I am--more pitiable than formidable." She looked shyly. "There is something formidable still, pale as you are," she said, as her eye fell under his. "To return to Shirley," pursued Moore: "is it your opinion that she is ever likely to marry?" "She loves." "Platonically--theoretically--all humbug!" "She loves what I call sincerely." "Did she say so?" "I cannot affirm that she said so. No such confession as 'I love this man or that' passed her lips." "I thought not." "But the feeling made its way in spite of her, and I saw it. She spoke of one man in a strain not to be misunderstood. Her voice alone was sufficient testimony. Having wrung from her an opinion on your character, I demanded a second opinion of--another person about whom I had my conjectures, though they were the most tangled and puzzled conjectures in the world. I would _make_ her speak. I shook her, I chid her, I pinched her fingers when she tried to put me off with gibes and jests in her queer provoking way, and at last out it came. The voice, I say, was enough; hardly raised above a whisper, and yet such a soft vehemence in its tones. There was no confession, no confidence, in the matter. To these things she cannot condescend; but I am sure that man's happiness is dear to her as her own life." "Who is it?" "I charged her with the fact. She did not deny, she did not avow, but looked at me. I saw her eyes by the snow-gleam. It was quite enough. I triumphed over her mercilessly." "What right had _you_ to triumph? Do you mean to say _you_ are fancy free?" "Whatever _I_ am, Shirley is a bondswoman. Lioness, she has found her captor. Mistress she may be of all round her, but her own mistress she is not." "So you exulted at recognizing a fellow-slave in one so fair and imperial?" "I did; Robert, you say right, in one so fair and imperial." "You confess it--a _fellow_-slave?" "I confess nothing; but I say that haughty Shirley is no more free than was Hagar." "And who, pray, is the Abraham, the hero of a patriarch who has achieved such a conquest?" "You still speak scornfully, and cynically, and sorely; but I will make you change your note before I have done with you." "We will see that. Can she marry this Cupidon?" "Cupidon! he is just about as much a Cupidon as you are a Cyclops." "Can she marry him?" "You will see." "I want to know his name, Cary." "Guess it." "Is it any one in this neighbourhood?" "Yes, in Briarfield parish." "Then it is some person unworthy of her. I don't know a soul in Briarfield parish her equal." "Guess." "Impossible. I suppose she is under a delusion, and will plunge into some absurdity, after all." Caroline smiled. "Do _you_ approve the choice?" asked Moore. "Quite, _quite_." "Then I _am_ puzzled; for the head which owns this bounteous fall of hazel curls is an excellent little thinking machine, most accurate in its working. It boasts a correct, steady judgment, inherited from 'mamma,' I suppose." "And I _quite_ approve, and mamma was charmed." "'Mamma' charmed--Mrs. Pryor! It can't be romantic, then?" "It _is_ romantic, but it is also right." "Tell me, Cary--tell me out of pity; I am too weak to be tantalized." "You shall be tantalized--it will do you no harm; you are not so weak as you pretend." "I have twice this evening had some thoughts of falling on the floor at your feet." "You had better not. I shall decline to help you up." "And worshipping you downright. My mother was a Roman Catholic. You look like the loveliest of her pictures of the Virgin. I think I will embrace her faith and kneel and adore." "Robert, Robert, sit still; don't be absurd. I will go to Hortense if you commit extravagances." "You have stolen my senses. Just now nothing will come into my mind but _les litanies de la sainte Virge. Rose cleste, reine des anges_!" "_Tour d'ivoire, maison d'or_--is not that the jargon? Well, sit down quietly, and guess your riddle." "But 'mamma' charmed--there's the puzzle." "I'll tell you what mamma said when I told her. 'Depend upon it, my dear, such a choice will make the happiness of Miss Keeldar's life.'" "I'll guess once, and no more. It is old Helstone. She is going to be your aunt." "I'll tell my uncle; I'll tell Shirley!" cried Caroline, laughing gleefully. "Guess again, Robert; your blunders are charming." "It is the parson--Hall." "Indeed, no; he is mine, if you please." "Yours! Ay, the whole generation of women in Briarfield seem to have made an idol of that priest. I wonder why; he is bald, sand-blind, gray-haired." "Fanny will be here to fetch me before you have solved the riddle, if you don't make haste." "I'll guess no more--I am tired; and then I don't care. Miss Keeldar may marry _le grand Turc_ for me." "Must I whisper?" "That you must, and quickly. Here comes Hortense; come near, a little nearer, my own Lina. I care for the whisper more than the words." She whispered. Robert gave a start, a flash of the eye, a brief laugh. Miss Moore entered, and Sarah followed behind, with information that Fanny was come. The hour of converse was over. Robert found a moment to exchange a few more whispered sentences. He was waiting at the foot of the staircase as Caroline descended after putting on her shawl. "Must I call Shirley a noble creature now?" he asked. "If you wish to speak the truth, certainly." "Must I forgive her?" "Forgive her? Naughty Robert! Was she in the wrong, or were you?" "Must I at length love her downright, Cary?" Caroline looked keenly up, and made a movement towards him, something between the loving and the petulant. "Only give the word, and I'll try to obey you." "Indeed, you must not love her; the bare idea is perverse." "But then she is handsome, peculiarly handsome. Hers is a beauty that grows on you. You think her but graceful when you first see her; you discover her to be beautiful when you have known her for a year." "It is not you who are to say these things. Now, Robert, be good." "O Cary, I have no love to give. Were the goddess of beauty to woo me, I could not meet her advances. There is no heart which I can call mine in this breast." "So much the better; you are a great deal safer without. Good-night." "Why must you always go, Lina, at the very instant when I most want you to stay?" "Because you most wish to retain when you are most certain to lose." "Listen; one other word. Take care of your own heart--do you hear me?" "There is no danger." "I am not convinced of that. The Platonic parson, for instance." "Who--Malone?" "Cyril Hall. I owe more than one twinge of jealousy to that quarter." "As to you, you have been flirting with Miss Mann. She showed me the other day a plant you had given her.--Fanny, I am ready."

Martin had planned well. But older and wiser schemers than he are often doomed to see their finest-spun projects swept to annihilation by the sudden broom of Fate. In this instance, the broom was made out of the tough fibres of Moore's own stubborn purpose. Moore was now resuming his strength, and making strange headway against Mrs. Horsfall. Each morning he amazed that matron with fresh astonishment. First he told her he would dress himself. Then he refused the coffee she brought him; he would breakfast with the family. Lastly, he forbade her his chamber. The morning after, he followed Mr. Yorke to his counting-house, and requested a chaise be fetched from the Red House Inn. He was resolved, he said, to return home to the Hollow that very afternoon. Mr. Yorke, instead of opposing, aided him. The chaise was sent for, though Mrs. Yorke declared the step would be his death. Moore, little disposed to speak, expressed his gratitude to the servants and to Mrs. Horsfall by the chink of his coin. At this, the latter and her patient parted the best friends in the world. Next Moore betook himself to the parlour. He had Mrs. Yorke to appease; she sat plunged in sullen dudgeon, speculating gloomily on the depths of man's ingratitude. He bent over her; she was obliged to look up. There was beauty still in his pale, wasted features; there was earnestness and a sort of sweetness in his hollow eyes. "Good-bye!" he said, smiling. "You have been a mother to me; give your wilful son one embrace." She kissed him. "Who is to nurse you at Hollow's Cottage? Your sister Hortense knows no more about such matters than a child." "Thank God! I have had nursing enough to last me my life." Here the little girls came in - Jessie crying, Rose quiet but grave. Moore took them into the hall, out of their mother's sight, to soothe them; for their mother could not bear to see any living thing caressed but herself. The boys were standing about the chaise as Moore entered it; but for them he had no farewell. To Mr. Yorke he only said, "That was an unlucky shot for you, Yorke; it turned Briarmains into a hospital. Come and see me at the cottage soon." The chaise rolled away. In half an hour he alighted at his own garden gate. Having dismissed the vehicle, he leaned on that gate an instant, to rest and muse. "Six months ago I left here," said he, "a proud, angry, disappointed man. I come back sadder and wiser. A cold, grey world lies round - a world where, if I hope little, I fear nothing. If the worst comes, I can work, as Joe Scott does, for an honourable living. Formerly, financial ruin was dishonour in my eyes. It is not so now. Ruin is an evil, but one for which I am prepared. I have calculated that I can put it off six months - not an hour longer. If things by that time alter, I might conquer yet. But that thought is madness; let me see matters with sane eyes. Ruin will come, lay her axe to my fortune's roots, and hew them down. I shall snatch a sapling, cross the sea, and plant it in American woods. Louis will go with me. None but Louis? I cannot tell - I have no right to ask." He entered the house. It was twilight out of doors; indoors it was already dark. Sarah had lit a good fire in the parlour, and was preparing tea in the kitchen. "Hortense," said Moore, as his sister bustled over to help him off with his cloak, "I am pleased to come home." Although he had never before called the cottage his home, Hortense did not feel the novelty of this. Still, she was pleased that he was pleased. He sat down, but soon rose again. He went to the window; he came back to the fire. "Hortense! This little parlour looks very clean and pleasant." "I have had the whole house thoroughly cleaned in your absence, brother." "Sister, I think you ought to have a friend or so to tea, if only to see how fresh and spruce you have made the little place." "True, brother. If it were not late I might send for Miss Mann." "So you might; but it is too late to disturb that good lady, and too cold for her to come out. I want some quiet guest today, who would tire neither of us." "Miss Ainley?" "An excellent person; but she lives too far off. Tell Harry Scott to step up to the rectory with a request from you that Caroline Helstone should come and spend the evening." "Would it not be better tomorrow, dear brother?" "I should like her to see the place as it is just now; its brilliant cleanliness and perfect neatness are so much to your credit." "It might benefit her in the way of example." The note was duly written and addressed to Miss Helstone. Very soon the messenger returned, and with him the guest. She entered through the kitchen, quietly tripped upstairs to take off her bonnet and furs, and came down as quietly, with her beautiful curls smoothed, her graceful merino dress trim and spotless, her gay little work-bag in her hand. She lingered to exchange a few kindly words with Sarah, and to look at the new kitten basking on the kitchen hearth, and then she went into the parlour. The friendly welcome was of the tranquil sort that befitted cousins meeting; a quiet pleasure diffused itself through the room; the tray and the singing urn were brought in. "I am pleased to come home," repeated Mr. Moore. They assembled round the table. Hortense chiefly talked. She congratulated Caroline on the improvement in her health. Her colour and her plump cheeks were returning, she remarked. It was true. There was an obvious change in Miss Helstone: no longer crushed and saddened, she looked like one who had been lifted on the wing of hope. After tea Hortense went upstairs. She had not rummaged her drawers for a month, and the impulse to perform that operation was now irresistible. During her absence Caroline took up the conversation with ease; her elegance of language gave fresh charm to familiar topics; a new music in the soft voice gently surprised the listener; her face was kindled with animation. "Caroline, you look as if you had heard good tidings," said Moore, after gazing at her for some minutes. "Do I?" "I sent for you this evening that I might be cheered; but you cheer me more than I had calculated." "I am glad of that. It is pleasant to be here again." "Truly it is. And to see health on your cheek and hope in your eye is pleasant, Cary; but what is the source of this sunshine I perceive about you?" "For one thing, I am happy in mamma. I love her so much, and she loves me. Long and tenderly she nursed me. Now I say it is my turn to attend to her. You would laugh if you knew what pleasure I have in making dresses and sewing for her. She looks so nice now, Robert; I will not let her be old-fashioned. And she is charming to talk to - full of wisdom, observant, rich in information. Every day I like her better, I love her more tenderly." "You talk in such a way about 'mamma' it is enough to make one jealous of the old lady." "She is not old, Robert." "Well, of the matron. But you said mamma's affection was one thing that made you happy; now for the other thing." "I am glad you are better." "What besides?" "I am glad we are friends. I once thought we never should be." "Cary, some day I mean to tell you a thing about myself that is not to my credit." "Ah, don't! I cannot bear to think ill of you." "And I cannot bear that you should think better of me than I deserve." "Well, I half know your 'thing;' indeed, I believe I know all about it." "Whom does it concern besides me?" She coloured; she hesitated. "Speak, Cary! There is none present but ourselves. Whisper, Cary." Still she would not speak. Seeing that Moore waited, she at last said, "Miss Keeldar spent a day at the rectory about a week ago. The evening came on very wintry, and we persuaded her to stay all night." "And you and she curled your hair together?" "How do you know that?" "And then you chattered, and she told you-" "It was not at curling-hair time, so you are not as wise as you think; and, besides, she didn't tell me. We slept in the same bed, although we did not sleep much; we talked the whole night through." "I'll be sworn you did! And then it all came out." "You are quite wrong. She did not tell me; but I inferred something, and I gathered more from rumour, and I made out the rest by instinct." "But if she did not tell you that I wanted to marry her for the sake of her money, and that she refused me indignantly and scornfully (you need not blush; that is the plain truth) - if such was not the subject of her confidences, what was? You say you talked the whole night through; what about?" "About things we never thoroughly discussed before; but you hardly expect I should tell you?" "Yes, Cary; you said we were friends, and friends should always confide in each other." "But you are sure you won't repeat it? Not even to Louis?" "Not even to Louis. What does Louis care for young ladies' secrets?" "Robert, Shirley is a curious being. She does not often show her feelings; but when they rush out, river-like, full and powerful, you gaze, you wonder; you admire, and - I think - love her. At dead of night, when all the house was silent, and starlight and the cold reflection from the snow glimmered in our chamber, then I saw Shirley's heart - her heart's core. It was like a shrine, for it was holy and pure; like flame, for it was warm, and strong." "Can she love? She has loved none that have loved her yet." And Moore named a list of gentlemen, closing with Sir Philip Nunnely. "She has loved none of these." "Yet some of them were worthy of a woman's affection," argued Moore. "Of some women's, but not of Shirley's." "Is she better than others of her sex?" "She is peculiar, and more dangerous to take rashly as a wife." "I can imagine that." "She spoke of you - not in the way you imagined; but I made her tell me what she felt towards you. I wanted to know." "She thinks of me contemptuously, no doubt?" "She thinks of you almost as highly as a woman can think of a man. Till you shocked her (she said you had shocked her, but she would not tell me how) she felt as a sister fondly feels towards a brother." "That is nonsense. She is too rich and proud to see me as a brother." "You don't know her, Robert; and, somehow, I fancy that you cannot know her. You and she will never thoroughly understand each other." "Maybe. I admire her; but I believe she is incapable of love-" "Shirley incapable of love!" "And that she will never marry. She will not relinquish her power or her pride." "She hurt your feelings." "She did; though I had not a spark of tenderness or passion for her." "Then, Robert, it was very wicked in you to want to marry her." "She is very pretty. I acknowledge all her charms and feel none of them, or only in a way she would disdain. I suppose I was tempted by the gilding of the bait. Caroline, what a noble fellow your Robert is!" "He made a great blunder once, and we will hear no more about it. We will remember that we too shall be judged, and so we will give no scorn, only affection." "Which won't satisfy me, I warn you. Something besides affection - something far stronger, sweeter, warmer - will be demanded one day. Is it there to give?" Caroline was much moved. "Be calm, Lina," said Moore soothingly. "I have no right or intention to perturb your mind for months to come. Do not tremble; look me in the face. See what a poor, pale, grim phantom I am - more pitiable than formidable." She looked shyly. "There is something formidable still, pale as you are," she said. "To return to Shirley," pursued Moore: "is it your opinion that she is ever likely to marry?" "She loves." "Platonically - theoretically - all humbug!" "She loves sincerely. No confession of love passed her lips; but the feeling showed itself in spite of her. She spoke of one man in a way that could not be misunderstood. Having asked her opinion of you, I demanded a second opinion of - another person about whom I had made puzzled conjectures. I was determined to make her speak, and at last out it came, in a whisper, and yet with such soft vehemence. I am sure that man's happiness is as dear to her as her own life." "Who is it?" "I charged her with being in love. She just looked at me. It was quite enough. The lioness has found her captor." "And who, pray, is the hero who has achieved such a conquest?" "You still speak cynically; but I will make you change your note before I have done." "We will see. What is his name, Cary?" "Guess it." "Is it any one in this neighbourhood?" "Yes, in Briarfield parish." "I don't know a soul in Briarfield parish her equal. I suppose she is under a delusion, and will plunge into some absurdity, after all." Caroline smiled. "Do you approve the choice?" asked Moore. "Quite." "Then I am puzzled; for you have a correct, steady judgment, inherited from 'mamma,' I suppose." "I quite approve, and mamma was charmed." "Mrs. Pryor charmed! It can't be romantic, then?" "It is romantic, but it is also right." "Tell me, Cary; I am too weak to be tantalized." "You shall be tantalized - it will do you no harm; you are not so weak as you pretend." "I have twice this evening had some thoughts of falling on the floor at your feet and worshipping you downright. My mother was a Roman Catholic. You look like the loveliest of her pictures of the Virgin. I think I will embrace her faith and kneel and adore." "Robert, sit still; don't be absurd, or I will go to Hortense." "You have stolen my senses. Heavenly rose, queen of angels!" "Sit quietly, and guess your riddle. I'll tell you what mamma said: 'Depend upon it, my dear, such a choice will make the happiness of Miss Keeldar's life.'" "I'll guess once, and no more. It is old Helstone. Shirley is going to be your aunt." "I'll tell my uncle!" cried Caroline, laughing gleefully. "Guess again, Robert." "It is the parson - Hall." "Indeed, no; he is mine, if you please." "Yours! Ay, all the women in Briarfield seem to idolise that priest. I wonder why; he is bald and grey-haired. I'll guess no more - I am tired. Miss Keeldar may marry the Grand Turk for all I care." "Must I whisper?" "Quickly. Here comes Hortense." She whispered. Robert gave a start, and a brief laugh. Miss Moore entered, and Sarah followed behind. The hour of converse was over. Robert found a moment to exchange a few more whispered sentences as Caroline put on her shawl before departing. "Must I forgive Shirley now?" he asked. "Forgive her? Naughty Robert! Was she in the wrong, or were you?" "Must I at length love her, Cary?" Caroline looked up keenly. "Indeed, you must not; the idea is perverse." "But she is handsome. Hers is a beauty that grows on you. You think her but graceful when you first see her; you discover her to be beautiful when you have known her for a year." "Now, Robert, be good." "O Cary, I have no love to give. Were the goddess of beauty to woo me, I could not meet her advances. I have no heart which I can call mine." "So much the better; you are a great deal safer without. Good-night." "Why must you always go, Lina, at the very instant when I most want you to stay? One more word. Take care of your own heart - do you hear me?" "There is no danger." "I am not convinced of that. The parson, for one: Cyril Hall." "As to you, you have been flirting with Miss Mann. She showed me the other day a plant you had given her. Goodbye, Robert."

Shirley

Chapter 35: WHEREIN MATTERS MAKE SOME PROGRESS, BUT NOT MUCH

Time wore on, and spring matured. The surface of England began to look pleasant: her fields grew green, her hills fresh, her gardens blooming; but at heart she was no better. Still her poor were wretched, still their employers were harassed. Commerce, in some of its branches, seemed threatened with paralysis, for the war continued; England's blood was shed and her wealth lavished--all, it seemed, to attain most inadequate ends. Some tidings there were indeed occasionally of successes in the Peninsula, but these came in slowly; long intervals occurred between, in which no note was heard but the insolent self-felicitations of Bonaparte on his continued triumphs. Those who suffered from the results of the war felt this tedious, and, as they thought, hopeless struggle against what their fears or their interests taught them to regard as an invincible power, most insufferable. They demanded peace on any terms. Men like Yorke and Moore--and there were thousands whom the war placed where it placed them, shuddering on the verge of bankruptcy--insisted on peace with the energy of desperation. They held meetings, they made speeches, they got up petitions to extort this boon; on what terms it was made they cared not. All men, taken singly, are more or less selfish; and taken in bodies, they are intensely so. The British merchant is no exception to this rule: the mercantile classes illustrate it strikingly. These classes certainly think too exclusively of making money; they are too oblivious of every national consideration but that of extending England's--that is, their own--commerce. Chivalrous feeling, disinterestedness, pride in honour, is too dead in their hearts. A land ruled by them alone would too often make ignominious submission--not at all from the motives Christ teaches, but rather from those Mammon instils. During the late war, the tradesmen of England would have endured buffets from the French on the right cheek and on the left; their cloak they would have given to Napoleon, and then have politely offered him their coat also, nor would they have withheld their waistcoat if urged; they would have prayed permission only to retain their one other garment, for the sake of the purse in its pocket. Not one spark of spirit, not one symptom of resistance, would they have shown till the hand of the Corsican bandit had grasped that beloved purse; _then_, perhaps, transfigured at once into British bulldogs, they would have sprung at the robber's throat, and there they would have fastened, and there hung, inveterate, insatiable, till the treasure had been restored. Tradesmen, when they speak against war, always profess to hate it because it is a bloody and barbarous proceeding. You would think, to hear them talk, that they are peculiarly civilized--especially gentle and kindly of disposition to their fellow-men. This is not the case. Many of them are extremely narrow and cold-hearted; have no good feeling for any class but their own; are distant, even hostile, to all others; call them useless; seem to question their right to exist; seem to grudge them the very air they breathe, and to think the circumstance of their eating, drinking, and living in decent houses quite unjustifiable. They do not know what others do in the way of helping, pleasing, or teaching their race; they will not trouble themselves to inquire. Whoever is not in trade is accused of eating the bread of idleness, of passing a useless existence. Long may it be ere England really becomes a nation of shop-keepers! We have already said that Moore was no self-sacrificing patriot, and we have also explained what circumstances rendered him specially prone to confine his attention and efforts to the furtherance of his individual interest; accordingly, when he felt himself urged a second time to the brink of ruin, none struggled harder than he against the influences which would have thrust him over. What he _could_ do towards stirring agitation in the north against the war he did, and he instigated others whose money and connections gave them more power than he possessed. Sometimes, by flashes, he felt there was little reason in the demands his party made on Government. When he heard of all Europe threatened by Bonaparte, and of all Europe arming to resist him; when he saw Russia menaced, and beheld Russia rising, incensed and stern, to defend her frozen soil, her wild provinces of serfs, her dark native despotism, from the tread, the yoke, the tyranny of a foreign victor--he knew that England, a free realm, could not _then_ depute her sons to make concessions and propose terms to the unjust, grasping French leader. When news came from time to time of the movements of that MAN then representing England in the Peninsula, of his advance from success to success--that advance so deliberate but so unswerving, so circumspect but so certain, so "unhasting" but so "unresting;" when he read Lord Wellington's own dispatches in the columns of the newspapers, documents written by modesty to the dictation of truth--Moore confessed at heart that a power was with the troops of Britain, of that vigilant, enduring, genuine, unostentatious sort, which must win victory to the side it led, in the end. In the end! But that end, he thought, was yet far off; and meantime he, Moore, as an individual, would be crushed, his hopes ground to dust. It was himself he had to care for, his hopes he had to pursue; and he would fulfil his destiny. He fulfilled it so vigorously that ere long he came to a decisive rupture with his old Tory friend the rector. They quarrelled at a public meeting, and afterwards exchanged some pungent letters in the newspapers. Mr. Helstone denounced Moore as a Jacobin, ceased to see him, would not even speak to him when they met. He intimated also to his niece, very distinctly, that her communications with Hollow's Cottage must for the present cease; she must give up taking French lessons. The language, he observed, was a bad and frivolous one at the best, and most of the works it boasted were bad and frivolous, highly injurious in their tendency to weak female minds. He wondered (he remarked parenthetically) what noodle first made it the fashion to teach women French. Nothing was more improper for them. It was like feeding a rickety child on chalk and water gruel. Caroline must give it up, and give up her cousins too. They were dangerous people. Mr. Helstone quite expected opposition to this order; he expected tears. Seldom did he trouble himself about Caroline's movements, but a vague idea possessed him that she was fond of going to Hollow's Cottage; also he suspected that she liked Robert Moore's occasional presence at the rectory. The Cossack had perceived that whereas if Malone stepped in of an evening to make himself sociable and charming, by pinching the ears of an aged black cat, which usually shared with Miss Helstone's feet the accommodation of her footstool, or by borrowing a fowling-piece, and banging away at a tool shed door in the garden while enough of daylight remained to show that conspicuous mark, keeping the passage and sitting-room doors meantime uncomfortably open for the convenience of running in and out to announce his failures and successes with noisy _brusquerie_--he had observed that under such entertaining circumstances Caroline had a trick of disappearing, tripping noiselessly upstairs, and remaining invisible till called down to supper. On the other hand, when Robert Moore was the guest, though he elicited no vivacities from the cat, did nothing to it, indeed, beyond occasionally coaxing it from the stool to his knee, and there letting it purr, climb to his shoulder, and rub its head against his cheek; though there was no ear-splitting cracking off of firearms, no diffusion of sulphurous gunpowder perfume, no noise, no boasting during his stay--that still Caroline sat in the room, and seemed to find wondrous content in the stitching of Jew-basket pin-cushions and the knitting of missionary-basket socks. She was very quiet, and Robert paid her little attention, scarcely ever addressing his discourse to her; but Mr. Helstone, not being one of those elderly gentlemen who are easily blinded--on the contrary, finding himself on all occasions extremely wide-awake--had watched them when they bade each other good-night. He had just seen their eyes meet once--only once. Some natures would have taken pleasure in the glance then surprised, because there was no harm and some delight in it. It was by no means a glance of mutual intelligence, for mutual love secrets existed not between them. There was nothing then of craft and concealment to offend: only Mr. Moore's eyes, looking into Caroline's, felt they were clear and gentle; and Caroline's eyes, encountering Mr. Moore's, confessed they were manly and searching. Each acknowledged the charm in his or her own way. Moore smiled slightly, and Caroline coloured as slightly. Mr. Helstone could, on the spot, have rated them both. They annoyed him. Why? Impossible to say. If you had asked him what Moore merited at that moment, he would have said a "horsewhip;" if you had inquired into Caroline's deserts, he would have adjudged her a box on the ear; if you had further demanded the reason of such chastisements, he would have stormed against flirtation and love-making, and vowed he would have no such folly going on under his roof. These private considerations, combined with political reasons, fixed his resolution of separating the cousins. He announced his will to Caroline one evening as she was sitting at work near the drawing-room window. Her face was turned towards him, and the light fell full upon it. It had struck him a few minutes before that she was looking paler and quieter than she used to look. It had not escaped him either that Robert Moore's name had never, for some three weeks past, dropped from her lips; nor during the same space of time had that personage made his appearance at the rectory. Some suspicion of clandestine meetings haunted his mind. Having but an indifferent opinion of women, he always suspected them. He thought they needed constant watching. It was in a tone dryly significant he desired her to cease her daily visits to the Hollow. He expected a start, a look of depreciation. The start he saw, but it was a very slight one; no look whatever was directed to him. "Do you hear me?" he asked. "Yes, uncle." "Of course you mean to attend to what I say?" "Yes, certainly." "And there must be no letter-scribbling to your cousin Hortense--no intercourse whatever. I do not approve of the principles of the family. They are Jacobinical." "Very well," said Caroline quietly. She acquiesced then. There was no vexed flushing of the face, no gathering tears; the shadowy thoughtfulness which had covered her features ere Mr. Helstone spoke remained undisturbed; she was obedient. Yes, perfectly; because the mandate coincided with her own previous judgment; because it was now become pain to her to go to Hollow's Cottage; nothing met her there but disappointment. Hope and love had quitted that little tenement, for Robert seemed to have deserted its precincts. Whenever she asked after him--which she very seldom did, since the mere utterance of his name made her face grow hot--the answer was, he was from home, or he was quite taken up with business. Hortense feared he was killing himself by application. He scarcely ever took a meal in the house; he lived in the counting-house. At church only Caroline had the chance of seeing him, and there she rarely looked at him. It was both too much pain and too much pleasure to look--it excited too much emotion; and that it was all wasted emotion she had learned well to comprehend. Once, on a dark, wet Sunday, when there were few people at church, and when especially certain ladies were absent, of whose observant faculties and tomahawk tongues Caroline stood in awe, she had allowed her eye to seek Robert's pew, and to rest awhile on its occupant. He was there alone. Hortense had been kept at home by prudent considerations relative to the rain and a new spring _chapeau_. During the sermon he sat with folded arms and eyes cast down, looking very sad and abstracted. When depressed, the very hue of his face seemed more dusk than when he smiled, and to-day cheek and forehead wore their most tintless and sober olive. By instinct Caroline knew, as she examined that clouded countenance, that his thoughts were running in no familiar or kindly channel; that they were far away, not merely from her, but from all which she could comprehend, or in which she could sympathize. Nothing that they had ever talked of together was now in his mind: he was wrapt from her by interests and responsibilities in which it was deemed such as she could have no part. Caroline meditated in her own way on the subject; speculated on his feelings, on his life, on his fears, on his fate; mused over the mystery of "business," tried to comprehend more about it than had ever been told her--to understand its perplexities, liabilities, duties, exactions; endeavoured to realize the state of mind of a "man of business," to enter into it, feel what he would feel, aspire to what he would aspire. Her earnest wish was to see things as they were, and not to be romantic. By dint of effort she contrived to get a glimpse of the light of truth here and there, and hoped that scant ray might suffice to guide her. "Different, indeed," she concluded, "is Robert's mental condition to mine. I think only of him; he has no room, no leisure, to think of me. The feeling called love is and has been for two years the predominant emotion of my heart--always there, always awake, always astir. Quite other feelings absorb his reflections and govern his faculties. He is rising now, going to leave the church, for service is over. Will he turn his head towards this pew? No, not once. He has not one look for me. That is hard. A kind glance would have made me happy till to-morrow. I have not got it; he would not give it; he is gone. Strange that grief should now almost choke me, because another human being's eye has failed to greet mine." That Sunday evening, Mr. Malone coming, as usual, to pass it with his rector, Caroline withdrew after tea to her chamber. Fanny, knowing her habits, had lit her a cheerful little fire, as the weather was so gusty and chill. Closeted there, silent and solitary, what could she do but think? She noiselessly paced to and fro the carpeted floor, her head drooped, her hands folded. It was irksome to sit; the current of reflection ran rapidly through her mind; to-night she was mutely excited. Mute was the room, mute the house. The double door of the study muffled the voices of the gentlemen. The servants were quiet in the kitchen, engaged with books their young mistress had lent them--books which she had told them were "fit for Sunday reading." And she herself had another of the same sort open on the table, but she could not read it. Its theology was incomprehensible to her, and her own mind was too busy, teeming, wandering, to listen to the language of another mind. Then, too, her imagination was full of pictures--images of Moore, scenes where he and she had been together; winter fireside sketches; a glowing landscape of a hot summer afternoon passed with him in the bosom of Nunnely Wood; divine vignettes of mild spring or mellow autumn moments, when she had sat at his side in Hollow's Copse, listening to the call of the May cuckoo, or sharing the September treasure of nuts and ripe blackberries--a wild dessert which it was her morning's pleasure to collect in a little basket, and cover with green leaves and fresh blossoms, and her afternoon's delight to administer to Moore, berry by berry, and nut by nut, like a bird feeding its fledgling. Robert's features and form were with her; the sound of his voice was quite distinct in her ear; his few caresses seemed renewed. But these joys, being hollow, were, ere long, crushed in. The pictures faded, the voice failed, the visionary clasp melted chill from her hand, and where the warm seal of lips had made impress on her forehead, it felt now as if a sleety rain-drop had fallen. She returned from an enchanted region to the real world: for Nunnely Wood in June she saw her narrow chamber; for the songs of birds in alleys she heard the rain on her casement; for the sigh of the south wind came the sob of the mournful east; and for Moore's manly companionship she had the thin illusion of her own dim shadow on the wall. Turning from the pale phantom which reflected herself in its outline, and her reverie in the drooped attitude of its dim head and colourless tresses, she sat down--inaction would suit the frame of mind into which she was now declining--she said to herself, "I have to live, perhaps, till seventy years. As far as I know, I have good health; half a century of existence may lie before me. How am I to occupy it? What am I to do to fill the interval of time which spreads between me and the grave?" She reflected. "I shall not be married, it appears," she continued. "I suppose, as Robert does not care for me, I shall never have a husband to love, nor little children to take care of. Till lately I had reckoned securely on the duties and affections of wife and mother to occupy my existence. I considered, somehow, as a matter of course, that I was growing up to the ordinary destiny, and never troubled myself to seek any other; but now I perceive plainly I may have been mistaken. Probably I shall be an old maid. I shall live to see Robert married to some one else, some rich lady. I shall never marry. What was I created for, I wonder? Where is my place in the world?" She mused again. "Ah! I see," she pursued presently; "that is the question which most old maids are puzzled to solve. Other people solve it for them by saying, 'Your place is to do good to others, to be helpful whenever help is wanted.' That is right in some measure, and a very convenient doctrine for the people who hold it; but I perceive that certain sets of human beings are very apt to maintain that other sets should give up their lives to them and their service, and then they requite them by praise; they call them devoted and virtuous. Is this enough? Is it to live? Is there not a terrible hollowness, mockery, want, craving, in that existence which is given away to others, for want of something of your own to bestow it on? I suspect there is. Does virtue lie in abnegation of self? I do not believe it. Undue humility makes tyranny; weak concession creates selfishness. The Romish religion especially teaches renunciation of self, submission to others, and nowhere are found so many grasping tyrants as in the ranks of the Romish priesthood. Each human being has his share of rights. I suspect it would conduce to the happiness and welfare of all if each knew his allotment, and held to it as tenaciously as the martyr to his creed. Queer thoughts these that surge in my mind. Are they right thoughts? I am not certain. "Well, life is short at the best. Seventy years, they say, pass like a vapour, like a dream when one awaketh; and every path trod by human feet terminates in one bourne--the grave, the little chink in the surface of this great globe, the furrow where the mighty husbandman with the scythe deposits the seed he has shaken from the ripe stem; and there it falls, decays, and thence it springs again, when the world has rolled round a few times more. So much for the body. The soul meantime wings its long flight upward, folds its wings on the brink of the sea of fire and glass, and gazing down through the burning clearness, finds there mirrored the vision of the Christian's triple Godhead--the sovereign Father, the mediating Son, the Creator Spirit. Such words, at least, have been chosen to express what is inexpressible, to describe what baffles description. The soul's real hereafter who shall guess?" Her fire was decayed to its last cinder; Malone had departed; and now the study bell rang for prayers. The next day Caroline had to spend altogether alone, her uncle being gone to dine with his friend Dr. Boultby, vicar of Whinbury. The whole time she was talking inwardly in the same strain--looking forwards, asking what she was to do with life. Fanny, as she passed in and out of the room occasionally, intent on housemaid errands, perceived that her young mistress sat very still. She was always in the same place, always bent industriously over a piece of work. She did not lift her head to speak to Fanny, as her custom was; and when the latter remarked that the day was fine, and she ought to take a walk, she only said, "It is cold." "You are very diligent at that sewing, Miss Caroline," continued the girl, approaching her little table. "I am tired of it, Fanny." "Then why do you go on with it? Put it down. Read, or do something to amuse you." "It is solitary in this house, Fanny. Don't you think so?" "I don't find it so, miss. Me and Eliza are company for one another; but you are quite too still. You should visit more. Now, be persuaded: go upstairs and dress yourself smart, and go and take tea, in a friendly way, with Miss Mann or Miss Ainley. I am certain either of those ladies would be delighted to see you." "But their houses are dismal: they are both old maids. I am certain old maids are a very unhappy race." "Not they, miss. They can't be unhappy; they take such care of themselves. They are all selfish." "Miss Ainley is not selfish, Fanny. She is always doing good. How devotedly kind she was to her step-mother as long as the old lady lived; and now when she is quite alone in the world, without brother or sister, or any one to care for her, how charitable she is to the poor, as far as her means permit! Still nobody thinks much of her, or has pleasure in going to see her; and how gentlemen always sneer at her!" "They shouldn't, miss. I believe she is a good woman. But gentlemen think only of ladies' looks." "I'll go and see her," exclaimed Caroline, starting up; "and if she asks me to stay to tea, I'll stay. How wrong it is to neglect people because they are not pretty, and young, and merry! And I will certainly call to see Miss Mann too. She may not be amiable, but what has made her unamiable? What has life been to her?" Fanny helped Miss Helstone to put away her work, and afterwards assisted her to dress. "_You_'ll not be an old maid, Miss Caroline," she said, as she tied the sash of her brown silk frock, having previously smoothed her soft, full, and shining curls; "there are no signs of an old maid about you." Caroline looked at the little mirror before her, and she thought there were some signs. She could see that she was altered within the last month; that the hues of her complexion were paler, her eyes changed--a wan shade seemed to circle them; her countenance was dejected--she was not, in short, so pretty or so fresh as she used to be. She distantly hinted this to Fanny, from whom she got no direct answer, only a remark that people did vary in their looks, but that at her age a little falling away signified nothing; she would soon come round again, and be plumper and rosier than ever. Having given this assurance, Fanny showed singular zeal in wrapping her up in warm shawls and handkerchiefs, till Caroline, nearly smothered with the weight, was fain to resist further additions. She paid her visits--first to Miss Mann, for this was the most difficult point. Miss Mann was certainly not quite a lovable person. Till now, Caroline had always unhesitatingly declared she disliked her, and more than once she had joined her cousin Robert in laughing at some of her peculiarities. Moore was not habitually given to sarcasm, especially on anything humbler or weaker than himself; but he had once or twice happened to be in the room when Miss Mann had made a call on his sister, and after listening to her conversation and viewing her features for a time, he had gone out into the garden where his little cousin was tending some of his favourite flowers, and while standing near and watching her he had amused himself with comparing fair youth, delicate and attractive, with shrivelled eld, livid and loveless, and in jestingly repeating to a smiling girl the vinegar discourse of a cankered old maid. Once on such an occasion Caroline had said to him, looking up from the luxuriant creeper she was binding to its frame, "Ah! Robert, you do not like old maids. I, too, should come under the lash of your sarcasm if I were an old maid." "You an old maid!" he had replied. "A piquant notion suggested by lips of that tint and form. I can fancy you, though, at forty, quietly dressed, pale and sunk, but still with that straight nose, white forehead, and those soft eyes. I suppose, too, you will keep your voice, which has another 'timbre' than that hard, deep organ of Miss Mann's. Courage, Cary! Even at fifty you will not be repulsive." "Miss Mann did not make herself, or tune her voice, Robert." "Nature made her in the mood in which she makes her briars and thorns; whereas for the creation of some women she reserves the May morning hours, when with light and dew she wooes the primrose from the turf and the lily from the wood-moss." * * * * * Ushered into Miss Mann's little parlour, Caroline found her, as she always found her, surrounded by perfect neatness, cleanliness, and comfort (after all, is it not a virtue in old maids that solitude rarely makes them negligent or disorderly?)--no dust on her polished furniture, none on her carpet, fresh flowers in the vase on her table, a bright fire in the grate. She herself sat primly and somewhat grimly-tidy in a cushioned rocking-chair, her hands busied with some knitting. This was her favourite work, as it required the least exertion. She scarcely rose as Caroline entered. To avoid excitement was one of Miss Mann's aims in life. She had been composing herself ever since she came down in the morning, and had just attained a certain lethargic state of tranquillity when the visitor's knock at the door startled her, and undid her day's work. She was scarcely pleased, therefore, to see Miss Helstone. She received her with reserve, bade her be seated with austerity, and when she got her placed opposite, she fixed her with her eye. This was no ordinary doom--to be fixed with Miss Mann's eye. Robert Moore had undergone it once, and had never forgotten the circumstance. He considered it quite equal to anything Medusa could do. He professed to doubt whether, since that infliction, his flesh had been quite what it was before--whether there was not something stony in its texture. The gaze had had such an effect on him as to drive him promptly from the apartment and house; it had even sent him straightway up to the rectory, where he had appeared in Caroline's presence with a very queer face, and amazed her by demanding a cousinly salute on the spot, to rectify a damage that had been done him. Certainly Miss Mann had a formidable eye for one of the softer sex. It was prominent, and showed a great deal of the white, and looked as steadily, as unwinkingly, at you as if it were a steel ball soldered in her head; and when, while looking, she began to talk in an indescribably dry, monotonous tone--a tone without vibration or inflection--you felt as if a graven image of some bad spirit were addressing you. But it was all a figment of fancy, a matter of surface. Miss Mann's goblin grimness scarcely went deeper than the angel sweetness of hundreds of beauties. She was a perfectly honest, conscientious woman, who had performed duties in her day from whose severe anguish many a human Peri, gazelle-eyed, silken-tressed, and silver-tongued, would have shrunk appalled. She had passed alone through protracted scenes of suffering, exercised rigid self-denial, made large sacrifices of time, money, health for those who had repaid her only by ingratitude, and now her main--almost her sole--fault was that she was censorious. Censorious she certainly was. Caroline had not sat five minutes ere her hostess, still keeping her under the spell of that dread and Gorgon gaze, began flaying alive certain of the families in the neighbourhood. She went to work at this business in a singularly cool, deliberate manner, like some surgeon practising with his scalpel on a lifeless subject. She made few distinctions; she allowed scarcely any one to be good; she dissected impartially almost all her acquaintance. If her auditress ventured now and then to put in a palliative word she set it aside with a certain disdain. Still, though thus pitiless in moral anatomy, she was no scandal-monger. She never disseminated really malignant or dangerous reports. It was not her heart so much as her temper that was wrong. Caroline made this discovery for the first time to-day, and moved thereby to regret divers unjust judgments she had more than once passed on the crabbed old maid, she began to talk to her softly, not in sympathizing words, but with a sympathizing voice. The loneliness of her condition struck her visitor in a new light, as did also the character of her ugliness--a bloodless pallor of complexion, and deeply worn lines of feature. The girl pitied the solitary and afflicted woman; her looks told what she felt. A sweet countenance is never so sweet as when the moved heart animates it with compassionate tenderness. Miss Mann, seeing such a countenance raised to her, was touched in her turn. She acknowledged her sense of the interest thus unexpectedly shown in her, who usually met with only coldness and ridicule, by replying to her candidly. Communicative on her own affairs she usually was not, because no one cared to listen to her; but to-day she became so, and her confidante shed tears as she heard her speak, for she told of cruel, slow-wasting, obstinate sufferings. Well might she be corpse-like; well might she look grim, and never smile; well might she wish to avoid excitement, to gain and retain composure! Caroline, when she knew all, acknowledged that Miss Mann was rather to be admired for fortitude than blamed for moroseness. Reader! when you behold an aspect for whose constant gloom and frown you cannot account, whose unvarying cloud exasperates you by its apparent causelessness, be sure that there is a canker somewhere, and a canker not the less deeply corroding because concealed. Miss Mann felt that she was understood partly, and wished to be understood further; for, however old, plain, humble, desolate, afflicted we may be, so long as our hearts preserve the feeblest spark of life, they preserve also, shivering near that pale ember, a starved, ghostly longing for appreciation and affection. To this extenuated spectre, perhaps, a crumb is not thrown once a year, but when ahungered and athirst to famine--when all humanity has forgotten the dying tenant of a decaying house--Divine mercy remembers the mourner, and a shower of manna falls for lips that earthly nutriment is to pass no more. Biblical promises, heard first in health, but then unheeded, come whispering to the couch of sickness; it is felt that a pitying God watches what all mankind have forsaken. The tender compassion of Jesus is recalled and relied on; the faded eye, gazing beyond time, sees a home, a friend, a refuge in eternity. Miss Mann, drawn on by the still attention of her listener, proceeded to allude to circumstances in her past life. She spoke like one who tells the truth--simply, and with a certain reserve; she did not boast, nor did she exaggerate. Caroline found that the old maid had been a most devoted daughter and sister, an unwearied watcher by lingering deathbeds; that to prolonged and unrelaxing attendance on the sick the malady that now poisoned her own life owed its origin; that to one wretched relative she had been a support and succour in the depths of self-earned degradation, and that it was still her hand which kept him from utter destitution. Miss Helstone stayed the whole evening, omitting to pay her other intended visit; and when she left Miss Mann it was with the determination to try in future to excuse her faults; never again to make light of her peculiarities or to laugh at her plainness; and, above all things, not to neglect her, but to come once a week, and to offer her, from one human heart at least, the homage of affection and respect. She felt she could now sincerely give her a small tribute of each feeling. Caroline, on her return, told Fanny she was very glad she had gone out, as she felt much better for the visit. The next day she failed not to seek Miss Ainley. This lady was in narrower circumstances than Miss Mann, and her dwelling was more humble. It was, however, if possible, yet more exquisitely clean, though the decayed gentlewoman could not afford to keep a servant, but waited on herself, and had only the occasional assistance of a little girl who lived in a cottage near. Not only was Miss Ainley poorer, but she was even plainer than the other old maid. In her first youth she must have been ugly; now, at the age of fifty, she was _very_ ugly. At first sight, all but peculiarly well-disciplined minds were apt to turn from her with annoyance, to conceive against her a prejudice, simply on the ground of her unattractive look. Then she was prim in dress and manner; she looked, spoke, and moved the complete old maid. Her welcome to Caroline was formal, even in its kindness--for it was kind; but Miss Helstone excused this. She knew something of the benevolence of the heart which beat under that starched kerchief; all the neighbourhood--at least all the female neighbourhood--knew something of it. No one spoke against Miss Ainley except lively young gentlemen and inconsiderate old ones, who declared her hideous. Caroline was soon at home in that tiny parlour. A kind hand took from her her shawl and bonnet, and installed her in the most comfortable seat near the fire. The young and the antiquated woman were presently deep in kindly conversation, and soon Caroline became aware of the power a most serene, unselfish, and benignant mind could exercise over those to whom it was developed. She talked never of herself, always of others. Their faults she passed over. Her theme was their wants, which she sought to supply; their sufferings, which she longed to alleviate. She was religious, a professor of religion--what some would call "a saint;" and she referred to religion often in sanctioned phrase--in phrase which those who possess a perception of the ridiculous, without owning the power of exactly testing and truly judging character, would certainly have esteemed a proper subject for satire, a matter for mimicry and laughter. They would have been hugely mistaken for their pains. Sincerity is never ludicrous; it is always respectable. Whether truth--be it religious or moral truth--speak eloquently and in well-chosen language or not, its voice should be heard with reverence. Let those who cannot nicely, and with certainty, discern the difference between the tones of hypocrisy and those of sincerity, never presume to laugh at all, lest they should have the miserable misfortune to laugh in the wrong place, and commit impiety when they think they are achieving wit. Not from Miss Ainley's own lips did Caroline hear of her good works, but she knew much of them nevertheless. Her beneficence was the familiar topic of the poor in Briarfield. They were not works of almsgiving. The old maid was too poor to give much, though she straitened herself to privation that she might contribute her mite when needful. They were the works of a Sister of Charity--far more difficult to perform than those of a Lady Bountiful. She would watch by any sick-bed; she seemed to fear no disease. She would nurse the poorest whom none else would nurse. She was serene, humble, kind, and equable through everything. For this goodness she got but little reward in this life. Many of the poor became so accustomed to her services that they hardly thanked her for them. The rich heard them mentioned with wonder, but were silent, from a sense of shame at the difference between her sacrifices and their own. Many ladies, however, respected her deeply. They could not help it. One gentleman--one only--gave her his friendship and perfect confidence. This was Mr. Hall, the vicar of Nunnely. He said, and said truly, that her life came nearer the life of Christ than that of any other human being he had ever met with. You must not think, reader, that in sketching Miss Ainley's character I depict a figment of imagination. No. We seek the originals of such portraits in real life only. Miss Helstone studied well the mind and heart now revealed to her. She found no high intellect to admire--the old maid was merely sensible--but she discovered so much goodness, so much usefulness, so much mildness, patience, truth, that she bent her own mind before Miss Ainley's in reverence. What was her love of nature, what was her sense of beauty, what were her more varied and fervent emotions, what was her deeper power of thought, what her wider capacity to comprehend, compared to the practical excellence of this good woman? Momently, they seemed only beautiful forms of selfish delight; mentally, she trod them under foot. It is true she still felt with pain that the life which made Miss Ainley happy could not make her happy. Pure and active as it was, in her heart she deemed it deeply dreary, because it was so loveless--to her ideas, so forlorn. Yet, doubtless, she reflected, it needed only habit to make it practicable and agreeable to any one. It was despicable, she felt, to pine sentimentally, to cherish secret griefs, vain memories, to be inert, to waste youth in aching languor, to grow old doing nothing. "I will bestir myself," was her resolution, "and try to be wise if I cannot be good." She proceeded to make inquiry of Miss Ainley if she could help her in anything. Miss Ainley, glad of an assistant, told her that she could, and indicated some poor families in Briarfield that it was desirable she should visit, giving her likewise, at her further request, some work to do for certain poor women who had many children, and who were unskilled in using the needle for themselves. Caroline went home, laid her plans, and took a resolve not to swerve from them. She allotted a certain portion of her time for her various studies, and a certain portion for doing anything Miss Ainley might direct her to do. The remainder was to be spent in exercise; not a moment was to be left for the indulgence of such fevered thoughts as had poisoned last Sunday evening. To do her justice, she executed her plans conscientiously, perseveringly. It was very hard work at first--it was even hard work to the end--but it helped her to stem and keep down anguish; it forced her to be employed; it forbade her to brood; and gleams of satisfaction chequered her gray life here and there when she found she had done good, imparted pleasure, or allayed suffering. Yet I must speak truth. These efforts brought her neither health of body nor continued peace of mind. With them all she wasted, grew more joyless and more wan; with them all her memory kept harping on the name of Robert Moore; an elegy over the past still rung constantly in her ear; a funereal inward cry haunted and harassed her; the heaviness of a broken spirit, and of pining and palsying faculties, settled slow on her buoyant youth. Winter seemed conquering her spring; the mind's soil and its treasures were freezing gradually to barren stagnation.

Spring matured, and the surface of England began to look pleasant: her fields grew green, her gardens bloomed; but at heart she was no better. Still her poor were wretched, still their employers were harassed. Commerce seemed threatened with paralysis, for the war continued; England's blood was shed and her wealth lavished, it seemed, in vain. There were occasionally tidings of successes in the Peninsula, but these came in slowly. Men like Yorke and Moore, shuddering on the verge of bankruptcy, insisted on peace with the energy of desperation. The British merchant classes are intensely selfish. They think exclusively of making money; they are oblivious of every national consideration but that of extending England's commerce. Chivalry is dead in their hearts. Tradesmen profess to hate war because it is bloody and barbarous; you would think, to hear them talk, that they are gentle and kindly to their fellow-men. This is not the case. Many of them are extremely narrow and cold-hearted; distant, even hostile, to all classes but their own, questioning their very right to exist. Long may it be ere England really becomes a nation of shop-keepers! Moore was no self-sacrificing patriot, and spoke out against the war. Sometimes, by flashes, he felt there was little reason in his demands. When he heard of all Europe threatened by Bonaparte, and arming to resist him; when he saw Russia menaced, and Russia rising, incensed and stern, to defend her frozen soil, he knew that England could not make concessions to the grasping French leader. When he read Lord Wellington's dispatches in the newspapers, Moore felt that vigilant commander must win victory in the end. But the end, he thought, was still far off; and meantime he, Moore, would be crushed, his hopes ground to dust. It was himself he had to care for. He soon came to a decisive rupture with his old Tory friend the rector. They quarrelled at a public meeting, and afterwards exchanged some pungent letters in the newspapers. Mr. Helstone denounced Moore as a Jacobin, and would not speak to him when they met. He told his niece that her communications with Hollow's Cottage must cease; she must give up taking French lessons. The language, he observed, was a bad and frivolous one, and most works in French were highly injurious to weak female minds. Caroline must give up French, and give up her cousins too. They were dangerous people. Mr. Helstone quite expected tears. He had a vague idea that she was fond of going to Hollow's Cottage; also he suspected that she liked Robert Moore's occasional presence at the rectory. He had perceived that when the Irish curate Malone visited, Caroline would disappear upstairs, and remain invisible till called down to supper. On the other hand, when Robert Moore was the guest, she stayed in the room, quietly stitching pin-cushions. Robert paid her little attention; but Mr. Helstone had watched them when they bade each other good-night. He had seen their eyes meet only once. There was nothing in that glance to offend: only Moore smiled slightly, and Caroline coloured as slightly. Mr. Helstone was annoyed. Why? Impossible to say. If you had asked him, he would have stormed against flirtation and love-making, and vowed he would have no such folly going on under his roof. For this reason, as well as political ones, he resolved to separate the cousins. He announced his will to Caroline one evening as she was sitting at work near the drawing-room window. The light fell on her face, and it struck him that she was looking paler and quieter than she used to. He had noticed that Robert Moore's name had never, for some three weeks, dropped from her lips; nor had Moore during that time visited the rectory. Some suspicion of secret meetings haunted Mr. Helstone. He thought women needed constant watching. In a dryly significant tone he desired Caroline to cease her daily visits to the Hollow. He expected a start; but saw only a very slight one. "Do you hear me?" he asked. "Yes, uncle." "Of course you mean to attend to what I say?" "Yes, certainly." "And there must be no letter-scribbling to your cousin Hortense - no communication whatever. I do not approve of the principles of the family. They are Jacobinical." "Very well," said Caroline quietly. There was no vexed flushing of the face, no gathering tears; she was thoughtful and obedient. Yes, perfectly; because the order coincided with her own decision. It was now painful to her to go to Hollow's Cottage; nothing met her there but disappointment. Hope and love had left that little house, for Robert seemed to have deserted it. Whenever she asked after him, he was away from home, or taken up with business. Only at church had Caroline the chance of seeing him, and there she rarely looked at him. It was both too much pain and too much pleasure to look - it brought too much emotion; and that it was all wasted emotion she had learned to comprehend. Once, on a dark, wet Sunday, when there were few people at church, Caroline had allowed her eye to seek Robert's pew. He was there alone. Hortense had been kept at home by the rain. He sat with folded arms and eyes cast down, looking very sad and abstracted. By instinct Caroline knew that his thoughts were far away, not merely from her, but from all in which she could sympathize. He was wrapped up in responsibilities in which she could have no part. She speculated on his feelings, on his life, on his fears, on his fate; mused over the mystery of "business," tried to understand its perplexities and duties, and to enter into his state of mind, to feel what he would feel. She wished earnestly to see things as they were, and not to be romantic. By dint of effort she contrived to get a glimpse of the truth here and there. "Different, indeed," she concluded, "is Robert's mental condition to mine. I think only of him; he has no leisure to think of me. Love is the chief emotion of my heart - always there, always awake. Quite other feelings absorb him. He is rising now to leave the church, for service is over. Will he turn his head towards me? No. That is hard. A kind glance would have made me happy till tomorrow. He would not give it; he is gone. Strange that grief should now almost choke me, because another human's eye has failed to greet mine." That Sunday evening, when Mr. Malone came as usual to visit his rector, Caroline withdrew to her chamber, where Fanny had lit her a fire. Closeted there, silent and solitary, what could she do but think? She noiselessly paced to and fro, her head drooped, her hands folded. Mute was the room, mute the house. The double door of the study muffled the voices of the gentlemen. She had a religious book open on the table, but she could not read it. Its theology was incomprehensible to her, and her own mind was too busy to listen to the language of another mind. Her imagination was full of pictures - images of Moore, scenes where he and she had been together; winter fireside sketches; a hot summer afternoon in Nunnely Wood; mild spring or mellow autumn moments, when she had sat at his side in Hollow's Copse, listening to the call of the May cuckoo, or sharing the September treasure of nuts and blackberries. Robert's face was with her; his voice was quite distinct in her ear; his few caresses seemed renewed. But the pictures faded, the voice failed, and where the warm lips had made impress on her forehead, it felt now as if a cold raindrop had fallen. She returned to the real world: she saw her narrow chamber, and heard the rain on the window; for companionship she had own dim shadow on the wall. Sitting down, she said to herself, "I have to live, perhaps, till I am seventy. Half a century of existence may lie before me. How am I to occupy it? What am I to do to fill the time which spreads between me and the grave?" She reflected. "I shall not be married, it appears," she continued. "I suppose, as Robert does not care for me, I shall never have a husband to love, nor little children to take care of. Till lately I had reckoned securely on the duties and affections of wife and mother to occupy my existence; but now I perceive plainly I may have been mistaken. Probably I shall be an old maid. I shall live to see Robert married to some rich lady. I shall never marry. What was I created for, I wonder? Where is my place in the world?" She mused again. "Ah! that is the question which most old maids are puzzled to solve. Other people solve it for them by saying, 'Your place is to do good and help others.' That is right in some measure, and a very convenient doctrine for the people who hold it; but I perceive that certain sets of human beings are very apt to say that other sets should give up their lives to them, and then they reward them by calling them devoted and virtuous. Is this enough? Is there not a terrible hollowness, mockery, want, in that existence which is given away to others? I suspect there is. Does virtue lie in denial of self? I do not believe it. Undue humility creates tyranny in others; weak concession creates selfishness. Each human being has his share of rights. Queer thoughts these that surge in my mind. Are they right thoughts? I am not certain. "Well, life is short at the best. Seventy years, they say, pass like a dream; and every path trod by human feet ends in the grave, the furrow where the mighty husbandman with the scythe sets the seed he has shaken from the ripe stem; there it falls, decays, and thence it springs again, when the world has rolled round a few times more. So much for the body. The soul meantime wings its long flight upward, folds its wings on the brink of the sea of fire and glass, and gazing through the burning clearness, finds there mirrored the vision of the sovereign Father, the mediating Son, the Creator Spirit. Such words, at least, have been chosen to express what is inexpressible. The soul's real hereafter who shall guess?" Her fire was out; the study bell rang for prayers. The next day Caroline had to spend alone, since her uncle was dining with Dr. Boultby, vicar of Whinbury. The whole time she talked inwardly in the same way, asking what she was to do with life. Fanny, passing in and out of the room on housemaid errands, perceived that her young mistress sat very still, always in the same place, always bent over a piece of work. She did not lift her head to speak to Fanny as usual, and when Fanny remarked that the day was fine, and that she ought to take a walk, she only said, "It is cold." "You are very diligent at that sewing, Miss Caroline." "I am tired of it, Fanny." "Then why do you go on with it? Put it down. Read, or do something to amuse you." "It is lonely in this house, Fanny. Don't you think so?" "I don't find it so, miss. Me and Eliza are company for one another; but you are too still. You should visit more. Go upstairs and dress yourself smart, and go and take tea with Miss Mann or Miss Ainley. I am certain either of those ladies would be delighted to see you." "But their houses are dismal: they are both old maids. I am certain old maids are a very unhappy race." "Not they, miss. They can't be unhappy; they take such care of themselves. They are all selfish." "Miss Ainley is not selfish, Fanny. She is always doing good. How devotedly kind she was to her step-mother while the old lady lived; and now when she is quite alone in the world, how charitable she is to the poor, as far as her means permit! Still nobody thinks much of her; and gentlemen always sneer at her!" "They shouldn't, miss. I believe she is a good woman. But gentlemen think only of ladies' looks." "I'll go and see her," exclaimed Caroline, starting up; "and if she asks me to stay to tea, I'll stay. How wrong it is to neglect people because they are not pretty and young! And I will call to see Miss Mann too. She may not be amiable, but what has made her unamiable? What has life been to her?" Fanny helped her dress. "You'll not be an old maid, Miss Caroline," she said, as she tied the sash of her brown silk frock, and smoothed her shining curls; "there are no signs of an old maid about you." Caroline looked at the mirror. She could see that she had altered within the last month; her complexion was paler, her eyes were circled with shadow; she was not so pretty or so fresh as she used to be. She hinted this to Fanny, who answered that at her age a little falling away signified nothing; she would soon come round again, and be rosier than ever. Fanny then showed singular zeal in wrapping her up in warm shawls, till Caroline was smothered with the weight. She paid her visits - first to Miss Mann, for this was the most difficult point. Miss Mann was certainly not quite a lovable person. Caroline had always declared she disliked her, and more than once she had joined her cousin Robert in laughing at her. Moore was not usually sarcastic, especially about people weaker than himself; but he had once or twice been present when Miss Mann had visited his sister, and after a while he had gone out into the garden where Caroline was tending flowers. While watching her he had amused himself with comparing fair, delicate youth with shrivelled age, livid and loveless, and had repeated to the smiling girl the vinegar discourse of the sour old maid. Caroline had said to him: "Ah! Robert, you do not like old maids. I, too, should come under the lash of your sarcasm if I were an old maid." "You an old maid!" he had replied. "A strange idea coming from those lips. I can imagine you, though, at forty, quietly dressed, pale and sunk, but still with those soft eyes. I suppose, too, you will keep your voice, unlike that hard, deep voice of Miss Mann's. Courage, Cary! Even at fifty you will not be repulsive." "Miss Mann did not make herself, or her voice, Robert." "Nature made her in the mood in which she makes briars and thorns; whereas for the creation of some women she reserves the May morning hours, when she makes the primrose and the lily." Today, ushered into Miss Mann's little parlour, Caroline found her surrounded by perfect neatness, cleanliness, and comfort, with fresh flowers in the vase on the table, and a bright fire in the grate. Miss Mann herself sat primly and somewhat grimly in a rocking-chair, knitting. She scarcely rose as Caroline entered. To avoid excitement was one of Miss Mann's aims in life. She had been composing herself ever since she came down in the morning, and had just attained a state of tranquillity when the visitor's knock at the door startled her. She was not pleased, therefore, to see Miss Helstone. She received her with reserve, bade her be seated with austerity, and then fixed her with her eye. This was no ordinary doom - to be fixed with Miss Mann's eye. Robert Moore had undergone it once, and had never forgotten it. He considered it quite equal to anything Medusa could do. Certainly Miss Mann had a formidable eye. It was prominent, and showed a great deal of the white, and looked as unwinkingly at you as if it were a steel ball soldered in her head; and when she began to talk in her dry, monotonous tone, you felt as if a graven image of some bad spirit were addressing you. But it was all on the surface. Miss Mann's goblin grimness scarcely went deeper than the angel sweetness of hundreds of beauties. She was a perfectly honest, conscientious woman, who had performed duties in her day from whose severe anguish many a gazelle-eyed enchantress would have shrunk appalled. She had passed alone through long scenes of suffering, exercised rigid self-denial, sacrificed her time, money and health for those who had repaid her by ingratitude; and now her main - almost her sole - fault was that she was censorious. Censorious she certainly was. Caroline had not sat five minutes before her hostess, still keeping her under the spell of that Gorgon gaze, began flaying alive certain families in the neighbourhood. She went about this in a cool, deliberate manner. If Caroline ventured to put in a softening word she set it aside with disdain. Still, though pitiless, she was no scandal-monger. She never spread malignant or dangerous reports. It was not her heart so much as her temper that was wrong. Caroline made this discovery for the first time today, and began to talk to her softly, not in sympathizing words, but with a sympathizing voice. Miss Mann's loneliness struck her in a new light, as did the character of her ugliness - a bloodless pallor, and deeply lined face. The girl pitied her; and her tenderness touched Miss Mann in her turn. She did not usually talk about her own affairs, because no one cared to listen; but today she did, and Caroline shed tears as she heard her speak of cruel, slow-wasting sufferings. Well might she be corpse-like, and never smile; well might she wish to avoid excitement! Caroline, when she knew all, acknowledged that Miss Mann was rather to be admired for fortitude than blamed for moroseness. Miss Mann felt that she was partly understood, and wished to be understood further; for however old, plain and desolate we may be, our hearts preserve still a starved, ghostly longing for appreciation and affection. Miss Mann, drawn on by her listener's attention, spoke of her past life simply; she did not boast, nor exaggerate. Caroline found that the old maid had been a devoted daughter and sister, an unwearied watcher by lingering deathbeds; her malady owed its origin to that long attendance on the sick. To one wretched relative she had been a support in the depths of degradation, and she still kept him from utter destitution. Miss Helstone stayed the whole evening; and when she left Miss Mann it was with the determination to try in future to excuse her faults; never again to laugh at her; and, above all, not to neglect her, but to come once a week, and offer her sincere affection and respect. Caroline, on her return, told Fanny she was very glad she had gone out, as she felt much better for the visit. The next day she sought out Miss Ainley. This lady was poorer than Miss Mann, and her dwelling was more humble. It was, however, if possible, yet more exquisitely clean, though Miss Ainley could not afford to keep a servant. Miss Ainley was very ugly. At first sight, all but very well-disciplined minds were apt to be prejudiced against her, simply on the ground of her unattractiveness. Then she was prim in dress and manner; she looked the complete old maid. Her welcome to Caroline was formal, though kind; but Miss Helstone knew something of the benevolence of Miss Ainley's heart; all the female neighbourhood knew something of it. No one spoke against Miss Ainley, except lively young gentlemen and inconsiderate old ones, who declared her hideous. Caroline was soon at home in that tiny parlour, installed in the most comfortable seat near the fire. The young and the old woman were presently deep in kindly conversation, and Caroline became aware of the power of an unselfish and benign mind. Miss Ainley talked never of herself, always of others: and not of their faults, but their wants and sufferings, which she longed to alleviate. She was religious, and spoke of religion often in a way which some people would have enjoyed ridiculing. They would have been hugely mistaken. Sincerity is never ludicrous; it is always to be respected. Not from Miss Ainley's own lips did Caroline hear of her good works, but she knew much of them nevertheless, from the poor in Briarfield. They were not works of almsgiving. The old maid was too poor to give much. They were the works of a Sister of Charity - far more difficult to perform than those of a Lady Bountiful. She would watch by any sick-bed; she seemed to fear no disease. She would nurse the poorest whom no one else would nurse. She was serene, humble, kind, and equable through everything. For this goodness she got little reward. Many of the poor became so accustomed to her services that they hardly thanked her. The rich heard of them with wonder, but were silent, from a sense of shame at the difference between her sacrifices and their own. Many ladies, however, respected her deeply. One gentleman - one only - gave her his friendship and perfect confidence. This was Mr. Hall, the vicar of Nunnely, who said that her life came nearer the life of Christ than that of any other human being he had ever met. You must not think, reader, that Miss Ainley's character is a figment of imagination. No. We seek the originals of such portraits in real life only. Miss Helstone studied well the mind and heart now revealed to her. She found no high intellect - the old maid was merely sensible - but she discovered so much goodness, usefulness, mildness, patience, truth, that she revered Miss Ainley. What was her own love of nature, her sense of beauty, her fervent emotions, compared to the practical excellence of this good woman? It is true she still felt with pain that the life which made Miss Ainley happy could not make her happy. Active as it was, it seemed deeply dreary, because it was so loveless. Yet, doubtless, it needed only habit to make it practicable. Caroline felt it was despicable to pine sentimentally, to waste youth in aching languor, to grow old doing nothing. "I will bestir myself," was her resolution, "and try to be wise if I cannot be good." She proceeded to ask Miss Ainley if she could help her in anything. Miss Ainley told her of some poor families in Briarfield that she could visit, and gave her some needlework to do for certain poor women who had many children, and who were unskilled with the needle. Caroline went home, and laid her plans. She allotted a portion of her time for her studies, and a portion for doing anything Miss Ainley might direct her to do. The remainder was to be spent in exercise; not a moment was to be left for the indulgence of such fevered thoughts as had poisoned last Sunday evening. To do her justice, she carried out her plans perseveringly. It was very hard work at first, but it helped her to keep down anguish; it forced her to be busy; it forbade her to brood; and gleams of satisfaction chequered her grey life here and there when she found she had done some good. Yet I must speak truth. These efforts brought her neither health of body nor peace of mind. She grew more joyless and more wan; her memory kept harping on the name of Robert Moore; an elegy over the past still rung constantly in her ear; the heaviness of a broken spirit settled slow on her buoyant youth. Winter seemed conquering her spring; the mind's soil and its treasures were freezing gradually to barren stagnation.

Shirley

Chapter 10: OLD MAIDS

Martin, having known the taste of excitement, wanted a second draught; having felt the dignity of power, he loathed to relinquish it. Miss Helstone--that girl he had always called ugly, and whose face was now perpetually before his eyes, by day and by night, in dark and in sunshine--had once come within his sphere. It fretted him to think the visit might never be repeated. Though a schoolboy he was no ordinary schoolboy; he was destined to grow up an original. At a few years' later date he took great pains to pare and polish himself down to the pattern of the rest of the world, but he never succeeded; an unique stamp marked him always. He now sat idle at his desk in the grammar school, casting about in his mind for the means of adding another chapter to his commenced romance. He did not yet know how many commenced life-romances are doomed never to get beyond the first, or at most the second chapter. His Saturday half-holiday he spent in the wood with his book of fairy legends, and that other unwritten book of his imagination. Martin harboured an irreligious reluctance to see the approach of Sunday. His father and mother, while disclaiming community with the Establishment, failed not duly, once on the sacred day, to fill their large pew in Briarfield Church with the whole of their blooming family. Theoretically, Mr. Yorke placed all sects and churches on a level. Mrs. Yorke awarded the palm to Moravians and Quakers, on account of that crown of humility by these worthies worn. Neither of them were ever known, however, to set foot in a conventicle. Martin, I say, disliked Sunday, because the morning service was long, and the sermon usually little to his taste. This Saturday afternoon, however, his woodland musings disclosed to him a new-found charm in the coming day. It proved a day of deep snow--so deep that Mrs. Yorke during breakfast announced her conviction that the children, both boys and girls, would be better at home; and her decision that, instead of going to church, they should sit silent for two hours in the back parlour, while Rose and Martin alternately read a succession of sermons--John Wesley's "Sermons." John Wesley, being a reformer and an agitator, had a place both in her own and her husband's favour. "Rose will do as she pleases," said Martin, not looking up from the book which, according to his custom then and in after-life, he was studying over his bread and milk. "Rose will do as she is told, and Martin too," observed the mother. "I am going to church." So her son replied, with the ineffable quietude of a true Yorke, who knows his will and means to have it, and who, if pushed to the wall, will let himself be crushed to death, provided no way of escape can be found, but will never capitulate. "It is not fit weather," said the father. No answer. The youth read studiously; he slowly broke his bread and sipped his milk. "Martin hates to go to church, but he hates still more to obey," said Mrs. Yorke. "I suppose I am influenced by pure perverseness?" "Yes, you are." "Mother, _I am not_." "By what, then, are you influenced?" "By a complication of motives, the intricacies of which I should as soon think of explaining to you as I should of turning myself inside out to exhibit the internal machinery of my frame." "Hear Martin! hear him!" cried Mr. Yorke. "I must see and have this lad of mine brought up to the bar. Nature meant him to live by his tongue. Hesther, your third son must certainly be a lawyer; he has the stock-in-trade--brass, self-conceit, and words--words--words." "Some bread, Rose, if you please," requested Martin, with intense gravity, serenity, phlegm. The boy had naturally a low, plaintive voice, which in his "dour moods" rose scarcely above a lady's whisper. The more inflexibly stubborn the humour, the softer, the sadder the tone. He rang the bell, and gently asked for his walking-shoes. "But, Martin," urged his sire, "there is drift all the way; a man could hardly wade through it. However, lad," he continued, seeing that the boy rose as the church bell began to toll, "this is a case wherein I would by no means balk the obdurate chap of his will. Go to church by all means. There is a pitiless wind, and a sharp, frozen sleet, besides the depth under foot. Go out into it, since thou prefers it to a warm fireside." Martin quietly assumed his cloak, comforter, and cap, and deliberately went out. "My father has more sense than my mother," he pronounced. "How women miss it! They drive the nail into the flesh, thinking they are hammering away at insensate stone." He reached church early. "Now, if the weather frightens her (and it is a real December tempest), or if that Mrs. Pryor objects to her going out, and I should miss her after all, it will vex me; but, tempest or tornado, hail or ice, she _ought_ to come, and if she has a mind worthy of her eyes and features she _will_ come. She will be here for the chance of seeing me, as I am here for the chance of seeing her. She will want to get a word respecting her confounded sweetheart, as I want to get another flavour of what I think the essence of life--a taste of existence, with the spirit preserved in it, and not evaporated. Adventure is to stagnation what champagne is to flat porter." He looked round. The church was cold, silent, empty, but for one old woman. As the chimes subsided and the single bell tolled slowly, another and another elderly parishioner came dropping in, and took a humble station in the free sittings. It is always the frailest, the oldest, and the poorest that brave the worst weather, to prove and maintain their constancy to dear old mother church. This wild morning not one affluent family attended, not one carriage party appeared--all the lined and cushioned pews were empty; only on the bare oaken seats sat ranged the gray-haired elders and feeble paupers. "I'll scorn her if she doesn't come," muttered Martin, shortly and savagely, to himself. The rector's shovel-hat had passed the porch. Mr. Helstone and his clerk were in the vestry. The bells ceased--the reading-desk was filled--the doors were closed--the service commenced. Void stood the rectory pew--she was not there. Martin scorned her. "Worthless thing! vapid thing! commonplace humbug! Like all other girls--weakly, selfish, shallow!" Such was Martin's liturgy. "She is not like our picture. Her eyes are not large and expressive; her nose is not straight, delicate, Hellenic; her mouth has not that charm I thought it had, which I imagined could beguile me of sullenness in my worst moods. What is she? A thread-paper, a doll, a toy, a _girl_, in short." So absorbed was the young cynic he forgot to rise from his knees at the proper place, and was still in an exemplary attitude of devotion when, the litany over, the first hymn was given out. To be so caught did not contribute to soothe him. He started up red (for he was as sensitive to ridicule as any girl). To make the matter worse, the church door had reopened, and the aisles were filling: patter, patter, patter, a hundred little feet trotted in. It was the Sunday scholars. According to Briarfield winter custom, these children had till now been kept where there was a warm stove, and only led into church just before the communion and sermon. The little ones were settled first, and at last, when the boys and the younger girls were all arranged--when the organ was swelling high, and the choir and congregation were rising to uplift a spiritual song--a tall class of young women came quietly in, closing the procession. Their teacher, having seen them seated, passed into the rectory pew. The French-gray cloak and small beaver bonnet were known to Martin; it was the very costume his eyes had ached to catch. Miss Helstone had not suffered the storm to prove an impediment. After all, she was come to church. Martin probably whispered his satisfaction to his hymn book; at any rate, he therewith hid his face two minutes. Satisfied or not, he had time to get very angry with her again before the sermon was over. She had never once looked his way; at least he had not been so lucky as to encounter a glance. "If," he said--"if she takes no notice of me, if she shows I am not in her thoughts, I shall have a worse, a meaner opinion of her than ever. Most despicable would it be to come for the sake of those sheep-faced Sunday scholars, and not for my sake or that long skeleton Moore's." The sermon found an end; the benediction was pronounced; the congregation dispersed. She had not been near him. Now, indeed, as Martin set his face homeward, he felt that the sleet was sharp and the east wind cold. His nearest way lay through some fields. It was a dangerous, because an untrodden way. He did not care; he would take it. Near the second stile rose a clump of trees. Was that an umbrella waiting there? Yes, an umbrella, held with evident difficulty against the blast; behind it fluttered a French-gray cloak. Martin grinned as he toiled up the steep, encumbered field, difficult to the foot as a slope in the upper realms of Etna. There was an inimitable look in his face when, having gained the stile, he seated himself coolly thereupon, and thus opened a conference which, for his own part, he was willing to prolong indefinitely. "I think you had better strike a bargain. Exchange me for Mrs. Pryor." "I was not sure whether you would come this way, Martin, but I thought I would run the chance. There is no such thing as getting a quiet word spoken in the church or churchyard." "Will you agree?--make over Mrs. Pryor to my mother, and put me in her skirts?" "As if I could understand you! What puts Mrs. Pryor into your head?" "You call her 'mamma,' don't you?" "She _is_ my mamma." "Not possible--or so inefficient, so careless a mamma; I should make a five times better one. You _may_ laugh. I have no objection to see you laugh. Your teeth--I hate ugly teeth; but yours are as pretty as a pearl necklace, and a necklace of which the pearls are very fair, even, and well matched too." "Martin, what now? I thought the Yorkes never paid compliments?" "They have not done till this generation; but I feel as if it were my vocation to turn out a new variety of the Yorke species. I am rather tired of my own ancestors. We have traditions going back for four ages--tales of Hiram, which was the son of Hiram, which was the son of Samuel, which was the son of John, which was the son of Zerubbabel Yorke. All, from Zerubbabel down to the last Hiram, were such as you see my father. Before that there was a Godfrey. We have his picture; it hangs in Moore's bedroom; it is like me. Of his character we know nothing; but I am sure it was different to his descendants. He has long, curling dark hair; he is carefully and cavalierly dressed. Having said that he is like me, I need not add that he is handsome." "You are not handsome, Martin." "No; but wait awhile--just let me take my time. I mean to begin from this day to cultivate, to polish, and we shall see." "You are a very strange, a very unaccountable boy, Martin. But don't imagine you ever will be handsome; you cannot." "I mean to try. But we were talking about Mrs. Pryor. She must be the most unnatural mamma in existence, coolly to let her daughter come out in this weather. Mine was in such a rage because I would go to church; she was fit to fling the kitchen brush after me." "Mamma was very much concerned about me; but I am afraid I was obstinate. I _would_ go." "To see me?" "Exactly; I thought of nothing else. I greatly feared the snow would hinder you from coming. You don't know how pleased I was to see you all by yourself in the pew." "_I_ came to fulfil my duty, and set the parish a good example. And so you were obstinate, were you? I should like to see you obstinate, I should. Wouldn't I have you in good discipline if I owned you? Let me take the umbrella." "I can't stay two minutes; our dinner will be ready." "And so will ours; and we have always a hot dinner on Sundays. Roast goose to-day, with apple-pie and rice-pudding. I always contrive to know the bill of fare. Well, I like these things uncommonly; but I'll make the sacrifice, if you will." "We have a cold dinner. My uncle will allow no unnecessary cooking on the Sabbath. But I must return; the house would be in commotion if I failed to appear." "So will Briarmains, bless you! I think I hear my father sending out the overlooker and five of the dyers, to look in six directions for the body of his prodigal son in the snow; and my mother repenting her of her many misdeeds towards me, now I am gone." "Martin, how is Mr. Moore?" "_That_ is what you came for, just to say that word." "Come, tell me quickly." "Hang him! he is no worse; but as ill-used as ever--mewed up, kept in solitary confinement. They mean to make either an idiot or a maniac of him, and take out a commission of lunacy. Horsfall starves him; you saw how thin he was." "You were very good the other day, Martin." "What day? I am always good--a model." "When will you be so good again?" "I see what you are after; but you'll not wheedle me--I am no cat's-paw." "But it must be done. It is quite a right thing, and a necessary thing." "How you encroach! Remember, I managed the matter of my own free will before." "And you will again." "I won't. The business gave me far too much trouble. I like my ease." "Mr. Moore wishes to see me, Martin, and I wish to see him." "I dare say" (coolly). "It is too bad of your mother to exclude his friends." "Tell her so." "His own relations." "Come and blow her up." "You know that would advance nothing. Well, I shall stick to my point. See him I will. If you won't help me, I'll manage without help." "Do; there is nothing like self-reliance, self-dependence." "I have no time to reason with you now; but I consider you provoking. Good-morning." Away she went, the umbrella shut, for she could not carry it against the wind. "She is not vapid; she is not shallow," said Martin. "I shall like to watch, and mark how she will work her way without help. If the storm were not of snow, but of fire--such as came refreshingly down on the cities of the plain--she would go through it to procure five minutes' speech of that Moore. Now, I consider I have had a pleasant morning. The disappointments got time on; the fears and fits of anger only made that short discourse pleasanter, when it came at last. She expected to coax me at once. She'll not manage that in one effort. She shall come again, again, and yet again. It would please me to put her in a passion--to make her cry. I want to discover how far she will go--what she will do and dare--to get her will. It seems strange and new to find one human being thinking so much about another as she thinks about Moore. But it is time to go home; my appetite tells me the hour. Won't I walk into that goose? and we'll try whether Matthew or I shall get the largest cut of the apple-pie to-day."

Martin, having tasted excitement and power, wanted more. Miss Helstone - that girl he had always called ugly, and whose face was now perpetually before him - had come within his sphere. It fretted him to think the visit might never be repeated. Martin was no ordinary schoolboy; he was destined to grow up an original. A few years later he took great pains to pare and polish himself down to the pattern of the rest of the world, but he never succeeded. He now cast about in his mind for the means of adding another chapter to his romance. He did not yet know how many life-romances are doomed never to get beyond the first or second chapter. He had an irreligious dislike of Sunday. His father and mother never failed to fill their large pew in Briarfield Church with their whole family. The morning service was long, and the sermon usually little to Martin's taste. This Saturday afternoon, however, his woodland musings disclosed to him a new-found charm in the coming day. It proved a day of deep snow - so deep that during breakfast Mrs. Yorke announced that the children, instead of going to church, should sit silent for two hours in the parlour, while Rose and Martin read John Wesley's "Sermons". "Rose will do as she pleases," said Martin, not looking up from his book. "Rose will do as she is told, and Martin too," said the mother. "I am going to church." So her son replied quietly, like a true Yorke, who knows his will and means to have it. "It is not fit weather," said the father. No answer. The youth read studiously; he slowly broke his bread and sipped his milk. "Martin hates to go to church, but he hates still more to obey," said Mrs. Yorke. "I am not influenced by pure perverseness, but by a complication of motives, the intricacies of which I should as soon think of explaining to you as I should of turning myself inside out to exhibit the internal machinery of my frame." "Hear Martin! hear him!" cried Mr. Yorke. "I must have this lad of mine brought up to be a lawyer. He has the self-conceit, and words - words - words." "Some bread, Rose, if you please," requested Martin with intense gravity. He rang the bell, and gently asked for his walking-shoes. "But, Martin," urged his father, "there are snowdrifts all the way; a man could hardly wade through. However, lad, go to church by all means. There is a pitiless wind, and a sharp, frozen sleet. Go out into it, since thou prefers it to a warm fireside." Martin quietly put on his cloak, scarf and cap, and went out. "My father has more sense than my mother," he pronounced. "How women miss their aim!" He reached church early. "Now, if the weather frightens her, or if that Mrs. Pryor objects to her going out, it will vex me; but, hail or ice, she ought to come. She will be here for the chance of seeing me, as I am here for the chance of seeing her. She will want to get a word about her confounded sweetheart, as I want to get another taste of adventure." He looked round at the cold, empty church. As the bell tolled slowly, elderly parishioners came in, and took the humblest seats. It is always the frailest, the oldest, and poorest that brave the worst weather to attend church. This wild morning not one affluent family appeared: all the cushioned pews were empty; only on the bare oak seats sat the grey-haired elders and paupers. "I'll scorn her if she doesn't come," muttered Martin savagely to himself. The rector's shovel-hat had passed the porch. Mr. Helstone and his clerk were in the vestry. The bells ceased - the doors were closed - the service began. She was not there. Martin scorned her. "Worthless, vapid thing! Like all girls - weakly, selfish, shallow! She is not like our picture at all. Her eyes are not large and expressive; her mouth has not that charm I thought it had. What is she? A thread-paper, a doll, a toy; a girl, in short." So absorbed was the young cynic he forgot to rise from his knees at the proper place. He started up red (for he was sensitive to ridicule). To make the matter worse, the church door had reopened, and the aisles were filling: patter, patter, patter, a hundred little feet trotted in. It was the Sunday scholars. According to Briarfield winter custom, these children had till now been kept where there was a warm stove, and only led into church just before the communion and sermon. The little ones were settled first, and at last a tall class of young women came quietly in, closing the procession. Their teacher, having seen them seated, passed into the rectory pew. The French-grey cloak was known to Martin. Miss Helstone had come to church in the storm after all. Martin probably whispered his satisfaction to his hymn book; at any rate, he hid his face there for two minutes. Satisfied or not, he had time to get angry with her again before the sermon was over. She had never once looked his way. "If she takes no notice of me, I shall have a worse opinion of her than ever. It would be despicable of her just to come for the sake of those sheep-faced Sunday scholars." The sermon ended; the congregation dispersed. She had not been near him. Now, indeed, as Martin set his face homeward, he felt that the sleet was sharp and the east wind cold. His nearest way lay through some untrodden fields. Near the second stile rose a clump of trees. Was that an umbrella waiting there? Yes, an umbrella, held with difficulty against the blast; behind it fluttered a French-grey cloak. Martin grinned as he toiled up the steep field. He seated himself coolly upon the stile, and said: "I think you had better strike a bargain. Exchange me for Mrs. Pryor." "I hoped you would come this way, Martin. There is no chance of getting a quiet word spoken in the church or churchyard." "Will you agree? Exchange me for Mrs. Pryor?" "As if I could understand you! What puts Mrs. Pryor into your head?" "You call her 'mamma,' don't you? She is so careless a mamma, I should be five times better. You may laugh. You have pretty teeth, as pretty as a pearl necklace." "Martin, what now? I thought the Yorkes never paid compliments?" "They have not done till now; but I feel I should start a new variety of the Yorke species. I am rather tired of my own ancestors." "You are a very strange, unaccountable boy, Martin." "But Mrs. Pryor must be the most unnatural mamma in existence, to let her daughter come out in this weather." "Mamma was very much concerned about me; but I was obstinate. I would go. I thought of nothing else but seeing you. I thought the snow would stop you. You don't know how pleased I was to see you by yourself in the pew." "I came to set the parish a good example. And so you were obstinate, were you? I should like to see you obstinate. Let me take the umbrella." "I can't stay two minutes; our dinner will be ready." "And so will ours; and we have always a hot dinner on Sundays. Roast goose today, with apple-pie and rice-pudding; but I'll make the sacrifice, if you will." "We have a cold dinner on the Sabbath. But I must return; the house would be in commotion if I failed to appear. Martin, how is Mr. Moore? Come, tell me quickly." "Hang him! he is no worse; but as ill-used as ever - kept in solitary confinement. Horsfall starves him; you saw how thin he was." "You were very good the other day, Martin. When will you be so good again?" "I see what you are after; but you'll not wheedle me. The business gave me far too much trouble." "But Mr. Moore wishes to see me, Martin, and I wish to see him." "I dare say" (coolly). "Well, if you won't help me, I'll manage without help." "Do; there is nothing like self-reliance." "I have no time to reason with you now; but I consider you provoking. Good-morning." Away she went, the umbrella shut, for she could not carry it against the wind. "She is not vapid; she is not shallow," said Martin. "I shall like to see how she will work her way without help. I have had a pleasant morning. She expected to coax me at once, but she'll not manage it. She shall come again, and yet again. It would please me to put her in a passion - to make her cry. I want to discover how far she will go - what she will dare to get her will. It seems strange and new to find one human being thinking so much about another as she thinks about Moore. But it is time to go home; I am hungry. We'll see whether Matthew or I shall get the largest slice of apple-pie today."

Shirley

Chapter 34: CASE OF DOMESTIC PERSECUTION - REMARKABLE INSTANCE OF PIOUS PERSEVERANCE IN THE DISCHARGE OF RELIGIOUS DUTIES

Shirley showed she had been sincere in saying she should be glad of Caroline's society, by frequently seeking it; and, indeed, if she had not sought it, she would not have had it, for Miss Helstone was slow to make fresh acquaintance. She was always held back by the idea that people could not want her, that she could not amuse them; and a brilliant, happy, youthful creature like the heiress of Fieldhead seemed to her too completely independent of society so uninteresting as hers ever to find it really welcome. Shirley might be brilliant, and probably happy likewise, but no one is independent of genial society; and though in about a month she had made the acquaintance of most of the families round, and was on quite free and easy terms with all the Misses Sykes, and all the Misses Pearson, and the two superlative Misses Wynne of Walden Hall, yet, it appeared, she found none amongst them very genial: she fraternized with none of them, to use her own words. If she had had the bliss to be really Shirley Keeldar, Esq., lord of the manor of Briarfield, there was not a single fair one in this and the two neighbouring parishes whom she should have felt disposed to request to become Mrs. Keeldar, lady of the manor. This declaration she made to Mrs. Pryor, who received it very quietly, as she did most of her pupil's off-hand speeches, responding, "My dear, do not allow that habit of alluding to yourself as a gentleman to be confirmed. It is a strange one. Those who do not know you, hearing you speak thus, would think you affected masculine manners." Shirley never laughed at her former governess; even the little formalities and harmless peculiarities of that lady were respectable in her eyes. Had it been otherwise, she would have proved herself a weak character at once; for it is only the weak who make a butt of quiet worth. Therefore she took her remonstrance in silence. She stood quietly near the window, looking at the grand cedar on her lawn watching a bird on one of its lower boughs. Presently she began to chirrup to the bird; soon her chirrup grew clearer; ere long she was whistling; the whistle struck into a tune, and very sweetly and deftly it was executed. "My dear!" expostulated Mrs. Pryor. "Was I whistling?" said Shirley. "I forgot. I beg your pardon, ma'am. I had resolved to take care not to whistle before you." "But, Miss Keeldar, where did you learn to whistle? You must have got the habit since you came down into Yorkshire. I never knew you guilty of it before." "Oh! I learned to whistle a long while ago." "Who taught you?" "No one. I took it up by listening, and I had laid it down again. But lately, yesterday evening, as I was coming up our lane, I heard a gentleman whistling that very tune in the field on the other side of the hedge, and that reminded me." "What gentleman was it?" "We have only one gentleman in this region, ma'am, and that is Mr. Moore--at least he is the only gentleman who is not gray-haired. My two venerable favourites, Mr. Helstone and Mr. Yorke, it is true, are fine old beaus, infinitely better than any of the stupid young ones." Mrs. Pryor was silent. "You do not like Mr. Helstone, ma'am?" "My dear, Mr. Helstone's office secures him from criticism." "You generally contrive to leave the room when he is announced." "Do you walk out this morning, my dear?" "Yes, I shall go to the rectory, and seek and find Caroline Helstone, and make her take some exercise. She shall have a breezy walk over Nunnely Common." "If you go in that direction, my dear, have the goodness to remind Miss Helstone to wrap up well, as there is a fresh wind, and she appears to me to require care." "You shall be minutely obeyed, Mrs. Pryor. Meantime, will you not accompany us yourself?" "No, my love; I should be a restraint upon you. I am stout, and cannot walk so quickly as you would wish to do." Shirley easily persuaded Caroline to go with her, and when they were fairly out on the quiet road, traversing the extensive and solitary sweep of Nunnely Common, she as easily drew her into conversation. The first feelings of diffidence overcome, Caroline soon felt glad to talk with Miss Keeldar. The very first interchange of slight observations sufficed to give each an idea of what the other was. Shirley said she liked the green sweep of the common turf, and, better still, the heath on its ridges, for the heath reminded her of moors. She had seen moors when she was travelling on the borders near Scotland. She remembered particularly a district traversed one long afternoon, on a sultry but sunless day in summer. They journeyed from noon till sunset, over what seemed a boundless waste of deep heath, and nothing had they seen but wild sheep, nothing heard but the cries of wild birds. "I know how the heath would look on such a day," said Caroline; "purple-black--a deeper shade of the sky-tint, and that would be livid." "Yes, quite livid, with brassy edges to the clouds, and here and there a white gleam, more ghastly than the lurid tinge, which, as you looked at it, you momentarily expected would kindle into blinding lightning." "Did it thunder?" "It muttered distant peals, but the storm did not break till evening, after we had reached our inn--that inn being an isolated house at the foot of a range of mountains." "Did you watch the clouds come down over the mountains?" "I did. I stood at the window an hour watching them. The hills seemed rolled in a sullen mist, and when the rain fell in whitening sheets, suddenly they were blotted from the prospect; they were washed from the world." "I have seen such storms in hilly districts in Yorkshire; and at their riotous climax, while the sky was all cataract, the earth all flood, I have remembered the Deluge." "It is singularly reviving after such hurricanes to feel calm return, and from the opening clouds to receive a consolatory gleam, softly testifying that the sun is not quenched." "Miss Keeldar, just stand still now, and look down at Nunnely dale and wood." They both halted on the green brow of the common. They looked down on the deep valley robed in May raiment; on varied meads, some pearled with daisies, and some golden with king-cups. To-day all this young verdure smiled clear in sunlight; transparent emerald and amber gleams played over it. On Nunnwood--the sole remnant of antique British forest in a region whose lowlands were once all silvan chase, as its highlands were breast-deep heather--slept the shadow of a cloud; the distant hills were dappled, the horizon was shaded and tinted like mother-of-pearl; silvery blues, soft purples, evanescent greens and rose-shades, all melting into fleeces of white cloud, pure as azury snow, allured the eye as with a remote glimpse of heaven's foundations. The air blowing on the brow was fresh, and sweet, and bracing. "Our England is a bonny island," said Shirley, "and Yorkshire is one of her bonniest nooks." "You are a Yorkshire girl too?" "I am--Yorkshire in blood and birth. Five generations of my race sleep under the aisles of Briarfield Church. I drew my first breath in the old black hall behind us." Hereupon Caroline presented her hand, which was accordingly taken and shaken. "We are compatriots," said she. "Yes," agreed Shirley, with a grave nod. "And that," asked Miss Keeldar, pointing to the forest--"that is Nunnwood?" "It is." "Were you ever there?" "Many a time." "In the heart of it?" "Yes." "What is it like?" "It is like an encampment of forest sons of Anak. The trees are huge and old. When you stand at their roots, the summits seem in another region. The trunks remain still and firm as pillars, while the boughs sway to every breeze. In the deepest calm their leaves are never quite hushed, and in high wind a flood rushes, a sea thunders above you." "Was it not one of Robin Hood's haunts?" "Yes, and there are mementos of him still existing. To penetrate into Nunnwood, Miss Keeldar, is to go far back into the dim days of old. Can you see a break in the forest, about the centre?" "Yes, distinctly." "That break is a dell--a deep, hollow cup, lined with turf as green and short as the sod of this common. The very oldest of the trees, gnarled mighty oaks, crowd about the brink of this dell. In the bottom lie the ruins of a nunnery." "We will go--you and I alone, Caroline--to that wood, early some fine summer morning, and spend a long day there. We can take pencils and sketch-books, and any interesting reading book we like; and of course we shall take something to eat. I have two little baskets, in which Mrs. Gill, my housekeeper, might pack our provisions, and we could each carry our own. It would not tire you too much to walk so far?" "Oh no; especially if we rested the whole day in the wood. And I know all the pleasantest spots. I know where we could get nuts in nutting time; I know where wild strawberries abound; I know certain lonely, quite untrodden glades, carpeted with strange mosses, some yellow as if gilded, some a sober gray, some gem-green. I know groups of trees that ravish the eye with their perfect, picture-like effects--rude oak, delicate birch, glossy beech, clustered in contrast; and ash trees stately as Saul, standing isolated; and superannuated wood-giants clad in bright shrouds of ivy. Miss Keeldar, I could guide you." "You would be dull with me alone?" "I should not. I think we should suit; and what third person is there whose presence would not spoil our pleasure?" "Indeed, I know of none about our own ages--no lady at least; and as to gentlemen----" "An excursion becomes quite a different thing when there are gentlemen of the party," interrupted Caroline. "I agree with you--quite a different thing to what we were proposing." "We were going simply to see the old trees, the old ruins; to pass a day in old times, surrounded by olden silence, and above all by quietude." "You are right; and the presence of gentlemen dispels the last charm, I think. If they are of the wrong sort, like your Malones, and your young Sykes, and Wynnes, irritation takes the place of serenity. If they are of the right sort, there is still a change; I can hardly tell what change--one easy to feel, difficult to describe." "We forget Nature, _imprimis_." "And then Nature forgets us, covers her vast calm brow with a dim veil, conceals her face, and withdraws the peaceful joy with which, if we had been content to worship her only, she would have filled our hearts." "What does she give us instead?" "More elation and more anxiety; an excitement that steals the hours away fast, and a trouble that ruffles their course." "Our power of being happy lies a good deal in ourselves, I believe," remarked Caroline sagely. "I have gone to Nunnwood with a large party--all the curates and some other gentry of these parts, together with sundry ladies--and I found the affair insufferably tedious and absurd; and I have gone quite alone, or accompanied but by Fanny, who sat in the woodman's hut and sewed, or talked to the goodwife, while I roamed about and made sketches, or read; and I have enjoyed much happiness of a quiet kind all day long. But that was when I was young--two years ago." "Did you ever go with your cousin, Robert Moore?" "Yes; once." "What sort of a companion is he on these occasions?" "A cousin, you know, is different to a stranger." "I am aware of that; but cousins, if they are stupid, are still more insupportable than strangers, because you cannot so easily keep them at a distance. But your cousin is not stupid?" "No; but----" "Well?" "If the company of fools irritates, as you say, the society of clever men leaves its own peculiar pain also. Where the goodness or talent of your friend is beyond and above all doubt, your own worthiness to be his associate often becomes a matter of question." "Oh! there I cannot follow you. That crotchet is not one I should choose to entertain for an instant. I consider myself not unworthy to be the associate of the best of them--of gentlemen, I mean--though that is saying a great deal. Where they are good, they are very good, I believe. Your uncle, by-the-bye, is not a bad specimen of the elderly gentleman. I am always glad to see his brown, keen, sensible old face, either in my own house or any other. Are you fond of him? Is he kind to you? Now, speak the truth." "He has brought me up from childhood, I doubt not, precisely as he would have brought up his own daughter, if he had had one; and that is kindness. But I am not fond of him. I would rather be out of his presence than in it." "Strange, when he has the art of making himself so agreeable." "Yes, in company; but he is stern and silent at home. As he puts away his cane and shovel-hat in the rectory hall, so he locks his liveliness in his book-case and study-desk: the knitted brow and brief word for the fireside; the smile, the jest, the witty sally for society." "Is he tyrannical?" "Not in the least. He is neither tyrannical nor hypocritical. He is simply a man who is rather liberal than good-natured, rather brilliant than genial, rather scrupulously equitable than truly just--if you can understand such superfine distinctions." "Oh yes! Good-nature implies indulgence, which he has not; geniality, warmth of heart, which he does not own; and genuine justice is the offspring of sympathy and considerateness, of which, I can well conceive, my bronzed old friend is quite innocent." "I often wonder, Shirley, whether most men resemble my uncle in their domestic relations; whether it is necessary to be new and unfamiliar to them in order to seem agreeable or estimable in their eyes; and whether it is impossible to their natures to retain a constant interest and affection for those they see every day." "I don't know. I can't clear up your doubts. I ponder over similar ones myself sometimes. But, to tell you a secret, if I were convinced that they are necessarily and universally different from us--fickle, soon petrifying, unsympathizing--I would never marry. I should not like to find out that what I loved did not love me, that it was weary of me, and that whatever effort I might make to please would hereafter be worse than useless, since it was inevitably in its nature to change and become indifferent. That discovery once made, what should I long for? To go away, to remove from a presence where my society gave no pleasure." "But you could not if you were married." "No, I could not. There it is. I could never be my own mistress more. A terrible thought! It suffocates me! Nothing irks me like the idea of being a burden and a bore--an inevitable burden, a ceaseless bore! Now, when I feel my company superfluous, I can comfortably fold my independence round me like a mantle, and drop my pride like a veil, and withdraw to solitude. If married, that could not be." "I wonder we don't all make up our minds to remain single," said Caroline. "We should if we listened to the wisdom of experience. My uncle always speaks of marriage as a burden; and I believe whenever he hears of a man being married he invariably regards him as a fool, or, at any rate, as doing a foolish thing." "But, Caroline, men are not all like your uncle. Surely not. I hope not." She paused and mused. "I suppose we each find an exception in the one we love, till we _are_ married," suggested Caroline. "I suppose so. And this exception we believe to be of sterling materials. We fancy it like ourselves; we imagine a sense of harmony. We think his voice gives the softest, truest promise of a heart that will never harden against us; we read in his eyes that faithful feeling--affection. I don't think we should trust to what they call passion at all, Caroline. I believe it is a mere fire of dry sticks, blazing up and vanishing. But we watch him, and see him kind to animals, to little children, to poor people. He is kind to us likewise, good, considerate. He does not flatter women, but he is patient with them, and he seems to be easy in their presence, and to find their company genial. He likes them not only for vain and selfish reasons, but as _we_ like him--because we like him. Then we observe that he is just, that he always speaks the truth, that he is conscientious. We feel joy and peace when he comes into a room; we feel sadness and trouble when he leaves it. We know that this man has been a kind son, that he is a kind brother. Will any one dare to tell me that he will not be a kind husband?" "My uncle would affirm it unhesitatingly. 'He will be sick of you in a month,' he would say." "Mrs. Pryor would seriously intimate the same." "Mrs. Yorke and Miss Mann would darkly suggest ditto." "If they are true oracles, it is good never to fall in love." "Very good, if you can avoid it." "I choose to doubt their truth." "I am afraid that proves you are already caught." "Not I. But if I were, do you know what soothsayers I would consult?" "Let me hear." "Neither man nor woman, elderly nor young: the little Irish beggar that comes barefoot to my door; the mouse that steals out of the cranny in the wainscot; the bird that in frost and snow pecks at my window for a crumb; the dog that licks my hand and sits beside my knee." "Did you ever see any one who was kind to such things?" "Did you ever see any one whom such things seemed instinctively to follow, like, rely on?" "We have a black cat and an old dog at the rectory. I know somebody to whose knee that black cat loves to climb, against whose shoulder and cheek it likes to purr. The old dog always comes out of his kennel and wags his tail, and whines affectionately when somebody passes." "And what does that somebody do?" "He quietly strokes the cat, and lets her sit while he conveniently can; and when he must disturb her by rising, he puts her softly down, and never flings her from him roughly. He always whistles to the dog and gives him a caress." "Does he? It is not Robert?" "But it is Robert." "Handsome fellow!" said Shirley, with enthusiasm. Her eyes sparkled. "Is he not handsome? Has he not fine eyes and well-cut features, and a clear, princely forehead?" "He has all that, Caroline. Bless him! he is both graceful and good." "I was sure you would see that he was. When I first looked at your face I knew you would." "I was well inclined to him before I saw him. I liked him when I did see him. I admire him now. There is charm in beauty for itself, Caroline; when it is blent with goodness, there is a powerful charm." "When mind is added, Shirley?" "Who can resist it?" "Remember my uncle, Mesdames Pryor, Yorke, and Mann." "Remember the croaking of the frogs of Egypt. He is a noble being. I tell you when they _are_ good they are the lords of the creation--they are the sons of God. Moulded in their Maker's image, the minutest spark of His spirit lifts them almost above mortality. Indisputably, a great, good, handsome man is the first of created things." "Above us?" "I would scorn to contend for empire with him--I would scorn it. Shall my left hand dispute for precedence with my right? Shall my heart quarrel with my pulse? Shall my veins be jealous of the blood which fills them?" "Men and women, husbands and wives, quarrel horribly, Shirley." "Poor things! Poor, fallen, degenerate things! God made them for another lot, for other feelings." "But are we men's equals, or are we not?" "Nothing ever charms me more than when I meet my superior--one who makes me sincerely feel that he is my superior." "Did you ever meet him?" "I should be glad to see him any day. The higher above me, so much the better. It degrades to stoop; it is glorious to look up. What frets me is, that when I try to esteem, I am baffled; when religiously inclined, there are but false gods to adore. I disdain to be a pagan." "Miss Keeldar, will you come in? We are here at the rectory gates." "Not to-day, but to-morrow I shall fetch you to spend the evening with me. Caroline Helstone, if you really are what at present to me you seem, you and I will suit. I have never in my whole life been able to talk to a young lady as I have talked to you this morning. Kiss me--and good-bye." * * * * * Mrs. Pryor seemed as well disposed to cultivate Caroline's acquaintance as Shirley. She, who went nowhere else, called on an early day at the rectory. She came in the afternoon, when the rector happened to be out. It was rather a close day; the heat of the weather had flushed her, and she seemed fluttered too by the circumstance of entering a strange house, for it appeared her habits were most retiring and secluded. When Miss Helstone went to her in the dining-room she found her seated on the sofa, trembling, fanning herself with her handkerchief, and seeming to contend with a nervous discomposure that threatened to become hysterical. Caroline marvelled somewhat at this unusual want of self-command in a lady of her years, and also at the lack of real strength in one who appeared almost robust--for Mrs. Pryor hastened to allege the fatigue of her walk, the heat of the sun, etc., as reasons for her temporary indisposition; and still as, with more hurry than coherence, she again and again enumerated these causes of exhaustion, Caroline gently sought to relieve her by opening her shawl and removing her bonnet. Attentions of this sort Mrs. Pryor would not have accepted from every one. In general she recoiled from touch or close approach with a mixture of embarrassment and coldness far from flattering to those who offered her aid. To Miss Helstone's little light hand, however, she yielded tractably, and seemed soothed by its contact. In a few minutes she ceased to tremble, and grew quiet and tranquil. Her usual manner being resumed, she proceeded to talk of ordinary topics. In a miscellaneous company Mrs. Pryor rarely opened her lips, or, if obliged to speak, she spoke under restraint, and consequently not well; in dialogue she was a good converser. Her language, always a little formal, was well chosen; her sentiments were just; her information was varied and correct. Caroline felt it pleasant to listen to her, more pleasant than she could have anticipated. On the wall opposite the sofa where they sat hung three pictures--the centre one, above the mantelpiece, that of a lady; the two others, male portraits. "That is a beautiful face," said Mrs. Pryor, interrupting a brief pause which had followed half an hour's animated conversation. "The features may be termed perfect; no statuary's chisel could improve them. It is a portrait from the life, I presume?" "It is a portrait of Mrs. Helstone." "Of Mrs. Matthewson Helstone? Of your uncle's wife?" "It is, and is said to be a good likeness. Before her marriage she was accounted the beauty of the district." "I should say she merited the distinction. What accuracy in all the lineaments! It is, however, a passive face. The original could not have been what is generally termed 'a woman of spirit.'" "I believe she was a remarkably still, silent person." "One would scarcely have expected, my dear, that your uncle's choice should have fallen on a partner of that description. Is he not fond of being amused by lively chat?" "In company he is. But he always says he could never do with a talking wife. He must have quiet at home. You go out to gossip, he affirms; you come home to read and reflect." "Mrs. Matthewson lived but a few years after her marriage, I think I have heard?" "About five years." "Well, my dear," pursued Mrs. Pryor, rising to go, "I trust it is understood that you will frequently come to Fieldhead. I hope you will. You must feel lonely here, having no female relative in the house; you must necessarily pass much of your time in solitude." "I am inured to it. I have grown up by myself. May I arrange your shawl for you?" Mrs. Pryor submitted to be assisted. "Should you chance to require help in your studies," she said, "you may command me." Caroline expressed her sense of such kindness. "I hope to have frequent conversations with you. I should wish to be of use to you." Again Miss Helstone returned thanks. She thought what a kind heart was hidden under her visitor's seeming chilliness. Observing that Mrs. Pryor again glanced with an air of interest towards the portraits, as she walked down the room, Caroline casually explained: "The likeness that hangs near the window, you will see, is my uncle, taken twenty years ago; the other, to the left of the mantelpiece, is his brother James, my father." "They resemble each other in some measure," said Mrs. Pryor; "yet a difference of character may be traced in the different mould of the brow and mouth." "What difference?" inquired Caroline, accompanying her to the door. "James Helstone--that is, my father--is generally considered the best-looking of the two. Strangers, I remark, always exclaim, 'What a handsome man!' Do you think his picture handsome, Mrs. Pryor?" "It is much softer or finer featured than that of your uncle." "But where or what is the difference of character to which you alluded? Tell me. I wish to see if you guess right." "My dear, your uncle is a man of principle. His forehead and his lips are firm, and his eye is steady." "Well, and the other? Do not be afraid of offending me. I always like the truth." "Do you like the truth? It is well for you. Adhere to that preference--never swerve thence. The other, my dear, if he had been living now, would probably have furnished little support to his daughter. It is, however, a graceful head--taken in youth, I should think. My dear" (turning abruptly), "you acknowledge an inestimable value in principle?" "I am sure no character can have true worth without it." "You feel what you say? You have considered the subject?" "Often. Circumstances early forced it upon my attention." "The lesson was not lost, then, though it came so prematurely. I suppose the soil is not light nor stony, otherwise seed falling in that season never would have borne fruit. My dear, do not stand in the air of the door; you will take cold. Good-afternoon." Miss Helstone's new acquaintance soon became of value to her: their society was acknowledged a privilege. She found she would have been in error indeed to have let slip this chance of relief, to have neglected to avail herself of this happy change. A turn was thereby given to her thoughts; a new channel was opened for them, which, diverting a few of them at least from the one direction in which all had hitherto tended, abated the impetuosity of their rush, and lessened the force of their pressure on one worn-down point. Soon she was content to spend whole days at Fieldhead, doing by turns whatever Shirley or Mrs. Pryor wished her to do; and now one would claim her, now the other. Nothing could be less demonstrative than the friendship of the elder lady, but also nothing could be more vigilant, assiduous, untiring. I have intimated that she was a peculiar personage, and in nothing was her peculiarity more shown than in the nature of the interest she evinced for Caroline. She watched all her movements; she seemed as if she would have guarded all her steps. It gave her pleasure to be applied to by Miss Helstone for advice and assistance. She yielded her aid, when asked, with such quiet yet obvious enjoyment that Caroline ere long took delight in depending on her. Shirley Keeldar's complete docility with Mrs. Pryor had at first surprised Miss Helstone, and not less the fact of the reserved ex-governess being so much at home and at ease in the residence of her young pupil, where she filled with such quiet independency a very dependent post; but she soon found that it needed but to know both ladies to comprehend fully the enigma. Every one, it seemed to her, must like, must love, must prize Mrs. Pryor when they knew her. No matter that she perseveringly wore old-fashioned gowns; that her speech was formal and her manner cool; that she had twenty little ways such as nobody else had: she was still such a stay, such a counsellor, so truthful, so kind in her way, that, in Caroline's idea, none once accustomed to her presence could easily afford to dispense with it. As to dependency or humiliation, Caroline did not feel it in her intercourse with Shirley, and why should Mrs. Pryor? The heiress was rich--very rich--compared with her new friend: one possessed a clear thousand a year, the other not a penny; and yet there was a safe sense of equality experienced in her society, never known in that of the ordinary Briarfield and Whinbury gentry. The reason was, Shirley's head ran on other things than money and position. She was glad to be independent as to property; by fits she was even elated at the notion of being lady of the manor, and having tenants and an estate. She was especially tickled with an agreeable complacency when reminded of "all that property" down in the Hollow, "comprising an excellent cloth-mill, dyehouse, warehouse, together with the messuage, gardens, and outbuildings, termed Hollow's Cottage;" but her exultation being quite undisguised was singularly inoffensive; and, for her serious thoughts, they tended elsewhere. To admire the great, reverence the good, and be joyous with the genial, was very much the bent of Shirley's soul: she mused, therefore, on the means of following this bent far oftener than she pondered on her social superiority. In Caroline Miss Keeldar had first taken an interest because she was quiet, retiring, looked delicate, and seemed as if she needed some one to take care of her. Her predilection increased greatly when she discovered that her own way of thinking and talking was understood and responded to by this new acquaintance. She had hardly expected it. Miss Helstone, she fancied, had too pretty a face, manners and voice too soft, to be anything out of the common way in mind and attainments; and she very much wondered to see the gentle features light up archly to the reveille of a dry sally or two risked by herself; and more did she wonder to discover the self-won knowledge treasured, and the untaught speculations working in that girlish, curl-veiled head. Caroline's instinct of taste, too, was like her own. Such books as Miss Keeldar had read with the most pleasure were Miss Helstone's delight also. They held many aversions too in common, and could have the comfort of laughing together over works of false sentimentality and pompous pretension. Few, Shirley conceived, men or women have the right taste in poetry, the right sense for discriminating between what is real and what is false. She had again and again heard very clever people pronounce this or that passage, in this or that versifier, altogether admirable, which, when she read, her soul refused to acknowledge as anything but cant, flourish, and tinsel, or at the best elaborate wordiness, curious, clever, learned, perhaps, haply even tinged with the fascinating hues of fancy, but, God knows, as different from real poetry as the gorgeous and massy vase of mosaic is from the little cup of pure metal; or, to give the reader a choice of similes, as the milliner's artificial wreath is from the fresh-gathered lily of the field. Caroline, she found, felt the value of the true ore, and knew the deception of the flashy dross. The minds of the two girls being toned in harmony often chimed very sweetly together. One evening they chanced to be alone in the oak-parlour. They had passed a long wet day together without _ennui_. It was now on the edge of dark; candles were not yet brought in; both, as twilight deepened, grew meditative and silent. A western wind roared high round the hall, driving wild clouds and stormy rain up from the far-remote ocean; all was tempest outside the antique lattices, all deep peace within. Shirley sat at the window, watching the rack in heaven, the mist on earth, listening to certain notes of the gale that plained like restless spirits--notes which, had she not been so young, gay, and healthy, would have swept her trembling nerves like some omen, some anticipatory dirge. In this her prime of existence and bloom of beauty they but subdued vivacity to pensiveness. Snatches of sweet ballads haunted her ear; now and then she sang a stanza. Her accents obeyed the fitful impulse of the wind; they swelled as its gusts rushed on, and died as they wandered away. Caroline, withdrawn to the farthest and darkest end of the room, her figure just discernible by the ruby shine of the flameless fire, was pacing to and fro, muttering to herself fragments of well-remembered poetry. She spoke very low, but Shirley heard her; and while singing softly, she listened. This was the strain:-- "Obscurest night involved the sky, The Atlantic billows roared, When such a destined wretch as I, Washed headlong from on board, Of friends, of hope, of all bereft, His floating home for ever left." Here the fragment stopped, because Shirley's song, erewhile somewhat full and thrilling, had become delicately faint. "Go on," said she. "Then you go on too. I was only repeating 'The Castaway.'" "I know. If you can remember it all, say it all." And as it was nearly dark, and, after all, Miss Keeldar was no formidable auditor, Caroline went through it. She went through it as she should have gone through it. The wild sea, the drowning mariner, the reluctant ship swept on in the storm, you heard were realized by her; and more vividly was realized the heart of the poet, who did not weep for "The Castaway," but who, in an hour of tearless anguish, traced a semblance to his own God-abandoned misery in the fate of that man-forsaken sailor, and cried from the depths where he struggled,-- "No voice divine the storm allayed, No light propitious shone, When, snatched from all effectual aid, We perished--each alone! But I beneath a rougher sea, And whelmed in deeper gulfs than he." "I hope William Cowper is safe and calm in heaven now," said Caroline. "Do you pity what he suffered on earth?" asked Miss Keeldar. "Pity him, Shirley? What can I do else? He was nearly broken-hearted when he wrote that poem, and it almost breaks one's heart to read it. But he found relief in writing it--I know he did; and that gift of poetry--the most divine bestowed on man--was, I believe, granted to allay emotions when their strength threatens harm. It seems to me, Shirley, that nobody should write poetry to exhibit intellect or attainment. Who cares for that sort of poetry? Who cares for learning--who cares for fine words in poetry? And who does not care for feeling--real feeling--however simply, even rudely expressed?" "It seems you care for it, at all events; and certainly, in hearing that poem, one discovers that Cowper was under an impulse strong as that of the wind which drove the ship--an impulse which, while it would not suffer him to stop to add ornament to a single stanza, filled him with force to achieve the whole with consummate perfection. You managed to recite it with a steady voice, Caroline. I wonder thereat." "Cowper's hand did not tremble in writing the lines. Why should my voice falter in repeating them? Depend on it, Shirley, no tear blistered the manuscript of 'The Castaway.' I hear in it no sob of sorrow, only the cry of despair; but, that cry uttered, I believe the deadly spasm passed from his heart, that he wept abundantly, and was comforted." Shirley resumed her ballad minstrelsy. Stopping short, she remarked ere long, "One could have loved Cowper, if it were only for the sake of having the privilege of comforting him." "You never would have loved Cowper," rejoined Caroline promptly. "He was not made to be loved by woman." "What do you mean?" "What I say. I know there is a kind of natures in the world--and very noble, elevated natures too--whom love never comes near. You might have sought Cowper with the intention of loving him, and you would have looked at him, pitied him, and left him, forced away by a sense of the impossible, the incongruous, as the crew were borne from their drowning comrade by 'the furious blast.'" "You may be right. Who told you this?" "And what I say of Cowper, I should say of Rousseau. Was Rousseau ever loved? He loved passionately; but was his passion ever returned? I am certain, never. And if there were any female Cowpers and Rousseaus, I should assert the same of them." "Who told you this, I ask? Did Moore?" "Why should anybody have told me? Have I not an instinct? Can I not divine by analogy? Moore never talked to me either about Cowper, or Rousseau, or love. The voice we hear in solitude told me all I know on these subjects." "Do you like characters of the Rousseau order, Caroline?" "Not at all, as a whole. I sympathize intensely with certain qualities they possess. Certain divine sparks in their nature dazzle my eyes, and make my soul glow. Then, again, I scorn them. They are made of clay and gold. The refuse and the ore make a mass of weakness: taken altogether, I feel them unnatural, unhealthy, repulsive." "I dare say I should be more tolerant of a Rousseau than you would, Cary. Submissive and contemplative yourself, you like the stern and the practical. By the way, you must miss that Cousin Robert of yours very much, now that you and he never meet." "I do." "And he must miss you?" "That he does not." "I cannot imagine," pursued Shirley, who had lately got a habit of introducing Moore's name into the conversation, even when it seemed to have no business there--"I cannot imagine but that he was fond of you, since he took so much notice of you, talked to you, and taught you so much." "He never was fond of me; he never professed to be fond of me. He took pains to prove that he only just tolerated me." Caroline, determined not to err on the flattering side in estimating her cousin's regard for her, always now habitually thought of it and mentioned it in the most scanty measure. She had her own reasons for being less sanguine than ever in hopeful views of the future, less indulgent to pleasurable retrospections of the past. "Of course, then," observed Miss Keeldar, "you only just tolerated him in return?" "Shirley, men and women are so different; they are in such a different position. Women have so few things to think about, men so many. You may have a friendship for a man, while he is almost indifferent to you. Much of what cheers your life may be dependent on him, while not a feeling or interest of moment in his eyes may have reference to you. Robert used to be in the habit of going to London, sometimes for a week or a fortnight together. Well, while he was away, I found his absence a void. There was something wanting; Briarfield was duller. Of course, I had my usual occupations; still I missed him. As I sat by myself in the evenings, I used to feel a strange certainty of conviction I cannot describe, that if a magician or a genius had, at that moment, offered me Prince Ali's tube (you remember it in the 'Arabian Nights'?), and if, with its aid, I had been enabled to take a view of Robert--to see where he was, how occupied--I should have learned, in a startling manner, the width of the chasm which gaped between such as he and such as I. I knew that, however my thoughts might adhere to him, his were effectually sundered from me." "Caroline," demanded Miss Keeldar abruptly, "don't you wish you had a profession--a trade?" "I wish it fifty times a day. As it is, I often wonder what I came into the world for. I long to have something absorbing and compulsory to fill my head and hands and to occupy my thoughts." "Can labour alone make a human being happy?" "No; but it can give varieties of pain, and prevent us from breaking our hearts with a single tyrant master-torture. Besides, successful labour has its recompense; a vacant, weary, lonely, hopeless life has none." "But hard labour and learned professions, they say, make women masculine, coarse, unwomanly." "And what does it signify whether unmarried and never-to-be-married women are unattractive and inelegant or not? Provided only they are decent, decorous, and neat, it is enough. The utmost which ought to be required of old maids, in the way of appearance, is that they should not absolutely offend men's eyes as they pass them in the street; for the rest, they should be allowed, without too much scorn, to be as absorbed, grave, plain-looking, and plain-dressed as they please." "You might be an old maid yourself, Caroline, you speak so earnestly." "I shall be one. It is my destiny. I will never marry a Malone or a Sykes; and no one else will ever marry me." Here fell a long pause. Shirley broke it. Again the name by which she seemed bewitched was almost the first on her lips. "Lina--did not Moore call you Lina sometimes?" "Yes. It is sometimes used as the abbreviation of Caroline in his native country." "Well, Lina, do you remember my one day noticing an inequality in your hair--a curl wanting on that right side--and your telling me that it was Robert's fault, as he had once cut therefrom a long lock?" "Yes." "If he is, and always was, as indifferent to you as you say, why did he steal your hair?" "I don't know--yes, I do. It was my doing, not his. Everything of that sort always was my doing. He was going from home--to London, as usual; and the night before he went, I had found in his sister's workbox a lock of black hair--a short, round curl. Hortense told me it was her brother's, and a keepsake. He was sitting near the table. I looked at his head. He has plenty of hair; on the temples were many such round curls. I thought he could spare me one. I knew I should like to have it, and I asked for it. He said, on condition that he might have his choice of a tress from my head. So he got one of my long locks of hair, and I got one of his short ones. I keep his, but I dare say he has lost mine. It was my doing, and one of those silly deeds it distresses the heart and sets the face on fire to think of; one of those small but sharp recollections that return, lacerating your self-respect like tiny penknives, and forcing from your lips, as you sit alone, sudden, insane-sounding interjections." "Caroline!" "I _do_ think myself a fool, Shirley, in some respects; I _do_ despise myself. But I said I would not make you my confessor, for you cannot reciprocate foible for foible; you are not weak. How steadily you watch me now! Turn aside your clear, strong, she-eagle eye; it is an insult to fix it on me thus." "What a study of character you are--weak, certainly, but not in the sense you think!--Come in!" This was said in answer to a tap at the door. Miss Keeldar happened to be near it at the moment, Caroline at the other end of the room. She saw a note put into Shirley's hands, and heard the words, "From Mr. Moore, ma'am." "Bring candles," said Miss Keeldar. Caroline sat expectant. "A communication on business," said the heiress; but when candles were brought, she neither opened nor read it. The rector's Fanny was presently announced, and the rector's niece went home.

Shirley showed she had been sincere in saying she should be glad of Caroline's society, by frequently seeking it. Indeed, if she had not sought it, she would not have had it, for Miss Helstone was slow to make friends. She was always held back by the idea that people could not want her, that she could not amuse them; and she felt that a brilliant, happy, youthful creature like the heiress of Fieldhead would not find her interesting. Though in about a month Shirley had made the acquaintance of most of the nearby families, and was on quite free and easy terms with all the Misses Sykes and Misses Pearson, yet it appeared she found none of them very congenial: she fraternized with none of them, to use her own words. If she had really been lord of the manor of Briarfield, there was not a single fair one amongst them whom she would have wished to ask to become Mrs. Keeldar, lady of the manor. She made this remark to Mrs. Pryor, who received it very quietly, as she did most of her pupil's off-hand speeches, responding, "My dear, do not allow that strange habit of alluding to yourself as a gentleman to become usual." Shirley never laughed at her former governess; therefore she took her remonstrance in silence. She stood near the window, looking at the grand cedar on her lawn, watching a bird on one of its boughs. Presently she began to chirrup to the bird; her chirrup grew clearer; before long she was whistling a tune, very deftly. "My dear!" expostulated Mrs. Pryor. "Was I whistling?" said Shirley. "I beg your pardon, ma'am. I had resolved not to whistle in your company. But yesterday evening, as I was coming up our lane, I heard a gentleman whistling that very tune on the other side of the hedge, and that reminded me." "What gentleman was it?" "Mr. Moore - the only gentleman in the neighbourhood who is not grey-haired. My two venerable favourites, Mr. Helstone and Mr. Yorke, it is true, are fine old beaus, infinitely better than any of the stupid young ones." Mrs. Pryor was silent. "You do not like Mr. Helstone, ma'am?" asked Shirley. "My dear, Mr. Helstone's office secures him from criticism." "You generally leave the room when he is announced." "Do you walk out this morning, my dear?" "Yes, I shall go to the rectory, and find Caroline Helstone, and make her take some exercise. She shall have a breezy walk over Nunnely Common." "If you do, my dear, please remind Miss Helstone to wrap up well, as there is a fresh wind, and she appears to me to require care." "You shall be obeyed, Mrs. Pryor. Will you not accompany us?" "No, my love; I cannot walk so quickly as you." Shirley easily persuaded Caroline to go with her, and when they were out on the quiet road, traversing the solitary sweep of Nunnely Common, she as easily drew her into conversation. The first feelings of diffidence overcome, Caroline felt glad to talk with Miss Keeldar. Shirley said she liked the green sweep of the common, and, better still, the heath on its ridges, which reminded her of moors. She had seen moors when she was travelling on the borders near Scotland. She remembered particularly a journey on a sultry day, when they had crossed what seemed a boundless waste of deep heath, and had seen nothing but wild sheep, heard nothing but the cries of wild birds. "I know how the heath would look on such a day," said Caroline; "purple-black - a deeper shade of the sky, and that would be livid." "Yes, there were brassy edges to the clouds, and here and there a white gleam, which you expected would kindle into lightning." "Did it thunder?" "It muttered distant peals, but the storm did not break till evening, after we had reached our inn at the foot of a range of mountains. I stood at the window an hour watching the clouds come down. The hills seemed rolled in a sullen mist, and when the rain fell in sheets, suddenly they were blotted out; they were washed from the world." "I have seen such storms in Yorkshire, and they made me think of the Deluge. Miss Keeldar, just stand still now, and look at Nunnely dale and wood." They halted on the green brow of the common, and looked down on the deep valley; on meadows, some pearled with daisies, some golden with king-cups. On Nunnwood - the sole remnant of an ancient forest - slept the shadow of a cloud; the distant hills were dappled, the horizon tinted like mother-of-pearl; silvery blues, soft purples and rose-shades, all melting into fleeces of white cloud, like a remote glimpse of heaven's foundations. "Our England is a bonny island," said Shirley, "and Yorkshire is one of her bonniest nooks." "You are a Yorkshire girl too?" "I am. Five generations of my race sleep under Briarfield Church." Caroline offered her hand, which was accordingly shaken. "We are compatriots," said she. "Yes," agreed Shirley, with a grave nod. She pointed to the forest. "Were you ever in the heart of Nunnwood?" "Many a time." "What is it like?" "The trees are huge and old, with trunks as firm as pillars, while the boughs sway to every breeze. In the deepest calm their leaves are never quite hushed, and in a high wind a sea thunders above you. Can you see a break in the forest? That is a dell, lined with green, and crowded about with the very oldest oaks. In the bottom lie the ruins of a nunnery." "We will go - you and I, Caroline - to that wood, early some fine summer morning, and spend a long day there. We can take pencils and sketch-books, and any interesting reading book we like; and of course something to eat. We could carry our own provisions. It would not tire you too much to walk so far?" "Oh no; especially if we rested in the wood. And I know all the pleasantest spots. I know where wild strawberries abound; I know some lonely, quite untrodden glades, carpeted with strange mosses. I know groups of trees that ravish the eye - oak, delicate birch, glossy beech; and ash trees stately as Saul, standing isolated; and wood-giants clad in bright shrouds of ivy. Miss Keeldar, I could guide you." "You would be dull with me alone?" "I should not. I think we should suit; and what third person is there who would not spoil our pleasure?" "Indeed, I know of none of our own ages - no lady at least. And as to gentlemen-" "An excursion becomes quite a different thing when there are gentlemen," interrupted Caroline. "We were going simply to see the old trees, the old ruins; to pass a day in quietude." "You are right; and the presence of gentlemen dispels the last charm, I think. If they are of the wrong sort, like your Malones, and your young Sykes, irritation takes the place of serenity. If they are of the right sort, there is still a change that is difficult to describe." "We forget Nature." "And then Nature forgets us, and withdraws the peaceful joy with which she would have filled our hearts. Instead she gives us more elation and more anxiety." "Our power of being happy lies a good deal in ourselves, I believe," remarked Caroline. "I have gone to Nunnwood with a large party - all the curates and other gentry and ladies - and I found it insufferably tedious; and I have gone quite alone, or accompanied only by Fanny, and have roamed about and sketched, or read; and enjoyed much quiet happiness. But that was when I was young - two years ago." "Did you ever go with your cousin, Robert Moore?" "Yes; once." "What sort of a companion is he?" "A cousin, you know, is different to a stranger." "I am aware of that; but cousins, if they are stupid, are more insupportable than strangers, because you cannot so easily keep them at a distance. But your cousin is not stupid?" "No; but the society of clever men brings its own peculiar pain also. You wonder whether you are worthy to be his associate." "Oh! there I cannot follow you," cried Shirley. "I consider myself worthy to be the associate of the best of gentlemen. Your uncle, by-the-bye, is not a bad specimen of the elderly gentleman. I am always glad to see his brown, keen, sensible old face. Are you fond of him? Is he kind to you? Now, speak the truth." "He has brought me up from childhood, I doubt not, precisely as he would have brought up his own daughter, if he had had one; and that is kindness. But I am not fond of him. I would rather be out of his presence than in it." "Strange, when he makes himself so agreeable." "Yes, in company; but he is stern and silent at home. As he puts away his hat in the rectory hall, so he locks away his liveliness: the smile and jest are for society." "Is he tyrannical?" asked Shirley. "Not in the least. He is simply a man who is liberal rather than good-natured, and scrupulously equitable rather than truly just - if you understand me." "Oh yes! Genuine justice springs from sympathy and considerateness, of which, I can imagine, my bronzed old friend is quite devoid." "I often wonder, Shirley, whether most men resemble my uncle at home; whether it is necessary for us to be new and unfamiliar to them in order to seem agreeable in their eyes; and whether it is impossible for them to retain a constant interest and affection for those people they see every day." "I don't know. I can't clear up your doubts. I ponder over similar ones myself sometimes. But if I were convinced they were all hard and unsympathizing, I would never marry. I should not like to find out that what I loved did not love me, and never could despite any effort I might make to please. Once I made that discovery, I would long to go away." "But you could not if you were married." "No, I could not. There it is. I could never be my own mistress more. A terrible thought! It suffocates me! Nothing irks me like the idea of being a burden and a bore! Now, when I feel my company superfluous, I can comfortably fold my independence round me like a mantle, and drop my pride like a veil, and withdraw to solitude. If married, that could not be." "I wonder we don't all make up our minds to remain single," said Caroline. "We should if we listened to my uncle. He always speaks of marriage as a burden; and I believe whenever he hears of a man being married, he regards him as a fool." "But, Caroline, surely men are not all like your uncle." "I suppose we each find an exception in the one we love, till we are married," suggested Caroline. "I suppose so. And we fancy him to be like ourselves; we imagine a sense of harmony. We think his voice promises a heart that will never harden against us; we read faithful affection in his eyes. I don't think we should trust to what they call passion, Caroline. I believe it is a mere fire of dry sticks, blazing up and vanishing. But we see him kind to animals, to children, to poor people, and kind to us likewise, good, considerate. He does not flatter women, but he is patient with them, and seems to find their company congenial. Then we observe that he is just, that he always speaks the truth, that he is conscientious. We feel joy and peace when he comes into a room; we feel sad when he leaves it. We know that this man has been a kind son, and a kind brother. Will any one dare to tell me that he will not be a kind husband?" "My uncle would say it unhesitatingly. 'He will be sick of you in a month,' he would say." "Mrs. Pryor would seriously hint the same." "Mrs. Yorke and Miss Mann would darkly suggest ditto." "If they are right," said Shirley, "it is good never to fall in love." "Very good, if you can avoid it." "I choose to doubt them." "I am afraid that proves you are already caught," said Caroline. "Not I. But if I were, I would consult neither man nor woman, but the mouse that steals out of the wainscot; the bird that pecks at my window for a crumb; the dog that licks my hand and sits beside my knee. Did you ever see anyone whom such creatures seemed instinctively to rely on?" "We have a black cat and an old dog at the rectory. I know somebody onto whose knee that black cat loves to climb; and the old dog always comes out of his kennel and wags his tail, and whines affectionately when somebody passes." "And what does that somebody do?" "He quietly strokes the cat, and when he must disturb her by rising, he puts her softly down. He always whistles to the dog and gives him a caress." "Does he? Is it not Robert?" "It is Robert." "Handsome fellow!" said Shirley, with enthusiasm. Her eyes sparkled. "Bless him! he is both graceful and good." "I was sure you would see that he was." "I liked him when I met him. I admire him now. When beauty is blended with goodness, Caroline, there is a powerful charm." "When intelligence is added, Shirley?" "Who can resist it? He is a noble being. I tell you when they are good they are the lords of the creation - they are the sons of God. Indisputably, a great, good, handsome man is the first of created things." "Above us?" "I would scorn to contend for empire with him. Shall my left hand dispute for precedence with my right? Shall my heart quarrel with my pulse?" "Husbands and wives quarrel horribly, Shirley. But are we men's equals, or are we not?" "Nothing ever charms me more than when I meet my superior - one who makes me sincerely feel that he is my superior. It degrades to stoop; it is glorious to look up. What frets me is that when I try to esteem, I am baffled." "Miss Keeldar, will you come in? We are now at the rectory gates." "Not today, but tomorrow I shall fetch you to spend the evening with me. Caroline Helstone, if you really are what at present you seem, you and I will suit. I have never in my whole life been able to talk to a young lady as I have talked to you this morning. Kiss me - and good-bye." Mrs. Pryor seemed as friendly as Shirley. She, who went nowhere else, called at the rectory one afternoon, when the rector happened to be out. It was rather a close day; the heat had flushed her, and she seemed flustered too at entering a strange house. She sat on the sofa, trembling, and fanning herself with her handkerchief with nervous discomposure. Caroline marvelled at this unusual want of self-command in a lady of her years, and also at the lack of strength in one who appeared robust - for Mrs. Pryor said repeatedly that the fatigue of her walk and the heat were the reasons for her weakness. Caroline gently removed her shawl and bonnet: attentions that Mrs. Pryor would not have accepted from everyone. In general she recoiled from touch with embarrassment and coldness. To Miss Helstone's little light hand, however, she yielded, and seemed soothed. In a few minutes she ceased to tremble, and grew quiet and tranquil. Her usual manner being resumed, she began to talk of ordinary topics. She was a good converser. Her language, always a little formal, was well chosen; her sentiments were just; her information was varied and correct. Caroline felt it more pleasant to listen to her than she could have anticipated. On the wall opposite them hung three pictures - the centre one, that of a lady; the two others, male portraits. "That is a beautiful face," said Mrs. Pryor, after a brief pause. "It is a portrait from the life, I presume?" "It is a portrait of Mrs. Helstone." "Of Mrs. Matthewson Helstone? Of your uncle's wife?" "It is, and is said to be a good likeness. Before her marriage she was thought the beauty of the district." "I should say she was. It is, however, a passive face. She could not have been what is generally termed 'a woman of spirit.'" "I believe she was a remarkably still, silent person," said Caroline. "One would scarcely have expected, my dear, that your uncle should have chosen a partner of that description. Is he not fond of being amused by lively chat?" "In company he is. But he always says he could never do with a talking wife. He must have quiet at home." "Mrs. Matthewson lived only a few years after her marriage, I believe?" "About five years." "Well, my dear," pursued Mrs. Pryor, rising to go, "I hope you will frequently come to Fieldhead. You must feel lonely here, having no female relative in the house; you must pass much of your time alone." "I am inured to it. I have grown up by myself. May I arrange your shawl for you?" Mrs. Pryor submitted. "Should you require help in your studies," she said, "you may command me. I hope to have frequent conversations with you. I should wish to be of use to you." Miss Helstone thanked her, thinking what a kind heart was hidden under her visitor's seeming chilliness. Observing that Mrs. Pryor again glanced at the portraits, Caroline explained: "The likeness that hangs near the window, you will see, is my uncle, taken twenty years ago; the other is his brother James, my father." "They resemble each other," said Mrs. Pryor; "yet a difference of character may be traced in the brow and mouth." "What difference?" inquired Caroline, accompanying her to the door. "James Helstone - my father - is generally considered by strangers to be the better-looking of the two. Do you think his picture handsome, Mrs. Pryor?" "It is much finer featured than that of your uncle." "But what is the difference of character you mean? Tell me. I wish to see if you guess right." "My dear, your uncle is a man of principle. His forehead and his lips are firm, and his eye is steady." "And my father? Do not be afraid of offending me. I always like the truth." "Do you like the truth? Good. Keep to that preference. The other, my dear, if he had been living now, would probably have given little support to his daughter. It is, however, a graceful head. My dear" (turning abruptly), "you believe in the importance of principle?" "I am sure no character can have true worth without it." "You have considered the subject?" "Often. Circumstances early forced it upon my attention." "The lesson was not lost, then, though it came so prematurely. My dear, do not stand in the draught; you will take cold. Good-afternoon." Miss Helstone's new acquaintances soon became of value to her: their society was, she felt, a privilege and a chance of relief. A new turn was given to her thoughts, lessening the force of their pressure on one worn-down point. Soon she was content to spend whole days at Fieldhead, doing by turns whatever Shirley or Mrs. Pryor wished; now one would claim her, now the other. The elder lady was not demonstrative, but she was assiduous. I have hinted that she was a peculiar person, and this was evident in the interest she showed in Caroline. She watched all her movements; it seemed as if she wished to guard her steps. It gave her pleasure to be asked by Miss Helstone for advice. She gave her aid with such quiet enjoyment that Caroline before long took delight in depending on her. Shirley Keeldar's complete docility with Mrs. Pryor had at first surprised Caroline, as did the fact of the reserved ex-governess being so much at ease in the house of her young pupil; but she soon found everyone must prize Mrs. Pryor when they knew her. Despite her old-fashioned gowns and formal speech, she was a kind and truthful counsellor. As to dependency or inferiority - Caroline did not feel it in talking to Shirley, so why would Mrs. Pryor? Shirley was rich: she possessed a thousand a year, and Caroline not a penny; and yet there was a safe sense of equality when with her, never known with the ordinary Briarfield gentry. The reason was that Shirley's head ran on other things than money and position. She was glad to be independent; at times she was even elated at the notion of being lady of the manor, and having tenants and an estate. She was especially tickled when reminded of "all that property" down in the Hollow - the mills, gardens and cottage; but her serious thoughts tended elsewhere. To admire the great, reverence the good, and be joyous with the genial, was very much Shirley's way, rather than thinking of her social superiority. Miss Keeldar had first taken an interest in Caroline because she was quiet, and looked delicate and in need of care. Her liking increased greatly when she discovered that Caroline understood and responded to her own way of thinking and talking. She had hardly expected it. Miss Helstone, she fancied, looked too pretty and soft to be anything out of the common way; and she wondered at the self-won knowledge and speculations working in that girlish head. Caroline's taste, too, was like her own. They delighted in the same books, and could have the comfort of laughing together over works of false sentimentality and pompous pretension. Caroline, she found, could tell the true from the false. The minds of the two girls often chimed sweetly in harmony. One evening they chanced to be alone in the oak-parlour. They had passed a long wet day together without tedium. It was now almost dark; candles were not yet brought in; both were meditative and silent. A western wind roared high round the hall, driving wild clouds and stormy rain; all was tempest outside, all deep peace within. Shirley sat at the window, listening to the restless complaints of the gale, which made her pensive. Snatches of sweet ballads haunted her ear; now and then she sang a stanza, obeying the fitful impulse of the wind. Caroline, at the darkest end of the room, was just discernible by the ruby shine of the fire, pacing to and fro, muttering fragments of poetry. She spoke very low, but Shirley heard her: "'Obscurest night involved the sky, The Atlantic billows roared, When such a destined wretch as I, Washed headlong from on board, Of friends, of hope, of all bereft, His floating home for ever left.'" Here she stopped. "Go on," said Shirley. "I was only repeating 'The Castaway.'" "I know. If you can remember it, say it all." So Caroline went through it. The wild sea, the drowning mariner, the reluctant ship swept on in the storm, were made real by her; and so was the heart of the poet, who wept for his own God-abandoned misery, and cried from the depths: "'No voice divine the storm allayed, No light propitious shone, When, snatched from all effectual aid, We perished - each alone! But I beneath a rougher sea, And whelmed in deeper gulfs than he.' "I hope William Cowper is safe and calm in heaven now," continued Caroline. "Poor man: he was nearly broken-hearted when he wrote that poem, and it almost breaks one's heart to read it. But he found relief in writing it - I know he did. It seems to me, Shirley, that nobody should write poetry to show off intellect. Who cares for that sort of poetry? And who does not care for real feeling?" "It seems you care for it; yet you managed to recite it with a steady voice, Caroline." "Cowper's hand did not tremble in writing the lines. Why should my voice falter in repeating them? I believe that in writing 'The Castaway' the deadly spasm passed from his heart, he wept abundantly, and was comforted." Shirley remarked, "One could have loved Cowper, if it were only for the sake of comforting him." "You never would have loved Cowper," rejoined Caroline promptly. "He was not made to be loved by woman." "What do you mean?" "What I say. I know there are natures in the world - and very noble natures too - whom love never comes near. You might have sought Cowper with the intention of loving him, and you would have looked at him, pitied him, and left him, forced away by a sense of the impossible, the incongruous, as the crew were borne from their drowning comrade by 'the furious blast.'" "You may be right. Who told you this?" "And what I say of Cowper, I say of Rousseau. Was he ever loved? He loved passionately; but was his passion ever returned? I am certain, never. And if there were any female Cowpers and Rousseaus, I should say the same of them." "Who told you this? Did Moore?" "Why should anybody have told me? Have I not an instinct? Moore never talked to me either about Cowper, or Rousseau, or love." "Do you like characters of the Rousseau type, Caroline?" "Not at all, as a whole. I sympathize intensely with certain dazzling qualities they possess. But they are made of clay and gold: taken altogether, I feel them unnatural, unhealthy, repulsive." "I dare say I should be more tolerant of a Rousseau than you would, Cary. By the way, you must miss that Cousin Robert of yours very much, now that you and he never meet." "I do." "And he must miss you?" "He does not." "I imagine," pursued Shirley, who had lately got a habit of introducing Moore's name into the conversation, even when it seemed to have no business there - "I imagine that he was fond of you, since he took so much notice of you." "He never was fond of me; he took pains to prove he only just tolerated me." Caroline now habitually thought of Robert's feelings in this scanty measure. She had her own reasons for being less sanguine than ever about hopeful views of the future. "Of course, then," observed Miss Keeldar, "you only just tolerated him in return?" "Shirley, men and women are so different; women have so few things to think about, men so many. You may have a friendship for a man, while he is almost indifferent to you. Robert used to go to London sometimes for a week or a fortnight. Well, while he was away, I found his absence a void. Of course, I had my usual occupations; still I missed him. As I sat by myself in the evenings, I used to feel a strange conviction that if I could magically see Robert - where he was, how occupied - I should learn the width of the chasm between us." "Caroline," demanded Miss Keeldar abruptly, "don't you wish you had a profession?" "I wish it fifty times a day. I often wonder what I came into the world for. I long to have something absorbing to fill my head and hands and to occupy my thoughts. Labour may not make us happy, but it can prevent us from breaking our hearts with a tyrant pain. Besides, successful labour has its reward." "But labour and professions, they say, make women masculine, coarse, unwomanly." "And what does it signify if never-to-be-married women are unattractive or not? Provided they are decorous and neat, it is enough. Old maids should be allowed to be as grave and plain-looking as they please." "You might be an old maid yourself, Caroline, you speak so earnestly." "I shall be one. It is my destiny. I will never marry a Malone or a Sykes; and no one else will ever marry me." Here fell a long pause. Shirley broke it. "Lina - did not Moore call you Lina sometimes?" "Yes. It is short for Caroline in his native country." "Well, Lina, do you remember my one day noticing a curl missing from your hair, and your telling me that it was Robert's fault, as he had once cut off a lock?" "Yes." "If he was as indifferent to you as you say, why did he steal your hair?" "I don't know - yes, I do. It was my doing, not his. He was going to London; and the night before he went, I had found in his sister's workbox a short lock of black hair. Hortense told me it was her brother's, and a keepsake. He was sitting near the table. He has plenty of hair; I thought he could spare me one curl, so I asked for it. He said, on condition that he might have a tress from my head. So he got one of my long locks of hair, and I got one of his short ones. I keep his, but I dare say he has lost mine. It was one of those silly deeds it distresses the heart and sets the face on fire to think of; one of those small but sharp recollections that return, lacerating your self-respect like tiny penknives, and forcing from your lips, as you sit alone, sudden, insane-sounding interjections." "Caroline!" "I do think myself a fool, Shirley, in some respects. But I said I would not make you my confessor, for you cannot reciprocate foible for foible; you are not weak. How steadily you watch me now, like an eagle!" "What a study of character you are. - Come in!" This was said in answer to a tap at the door. Caroline saw the servant put a note into Shirley's hands, and heard the words, "From Mr. Moore, ma'am." "Bring candles," said Miss Keeldar. "It is a note on business." But when candles were brought, she neither opened nor read it, before Caroline went home.

Shirley

Chapter 12: SHIRLEY AND CAROLINE

While Shirley was talking with Moore, Caroline rejoined Mrs. Pryor upstairs. She found that lady deeply depressed. She would not say that Miss Keeldar's hastiness had hurt her feelings, but it was evident an inward wound galled her. To any but a congenial nature she would have seemed insensible to the quiet, tender attentions by which Miss Helstone sought to impart solace; but Caroline knew that, unmoved or slightly moved as she looked, she felt, valued, and was healed by them. "I am deficient in self-confidence and decision," she said at last. "I always have been deficient in those qualities. Yet I think Miss Keeldar should have known my character well enough by this time to be aware that I always feel an even painful solicitude to do right, to act for the best. The unusual nature of the demand on my judgment puzzled me, especially following the alarms of the night. I could not venture to act promptly for another; but I trust no serious harm will result from my lapse of firmness." A gentle knock was here heard at the door. It was half opened. "Caroline, come here," said a low voice. Miss Helstone went out. There stood Shirley in the gallery, looking contrite, ashamed, sorry as any repentant child. "How is Mrs. Pryor?" she asked. "Rather out of spirits," said Caroline. "I have behaved very shamefully, very ungenerously, very ungratefully to her," said Shirley. "How insolent in me to turn on her thus for what, after all, was no fault--only an excess of conscientiousness on her part. But I regret my error most sincerely. Tell her so, and ask if she will forgive me." Caroline discharged the errand with heartfelt pleasure. Mrs. Pryor rose, came to the door. She did not like scenes; she dreaded them as all timid people do. She said falteringly, "Come in, my dear." Shirley did come in with some impetuosity. She threw her arms round her governess, and while she kissed her heartily she said, "You know you _must_ forgive me, Mrs. Pryor. I could not get on at all if there was a misunderstanding between you and me." "I have nothing to forgive," was the reply. "We will pass it over now, if you please. The final result of the incident is that it proves more plainly than ever how unequal I am to certain crises." And that was the painful feeling which _would_ remain on Mrs. Pryor's mind. No effort of Shirley's or Caroline's could efface it thence. She could forgive her offending pupil, not her innocent self. Miss Keeldar, doomed to be in constant request during the morning, was presently summoned downstairs again. The rector called first. A lively welcome and livelier reprimand were at his service. He expected both, and, being in high spirits, took them in equally good part. In the course of his brief visit he quite forgot to ask after his niece; the riot, the rioters, the mill, the magistrates, the heiress, absorbed all his thoughts to the exclusion of family ties. He alluded to the part himself and curate had taken in the defence of the Hollow. "The vials of pharisaical wrath will be emptied on our heads for our share in this business," he said; "but I defy every calumniator. I was there only to support the law, to play my part as a man and a Briton; which characters I deem quite compatible with those of the priest and Levite, in their highest sense. Your tenant Moore," he went on, "has won my approbation. A cooler commander I would not wish to see, nor a more determined. Besides, the man has shown sound judgment and good sense--first, in being thoroughly prepared for the event which has taken place; and subsequently, when his well-concerted plans had secured him success, in knowing how to use without abusing his victory. Some of the magistrates are now well frightened, and, like all cowards, show a tendency to be cruel. Moore restrains them with admirable prudence. He has hitherto been very unpopular in the neighbourhood; but, mark my words, the tide of opinion will now take a turn in his favour. People will find out that they have not appreciated him, and will hasten to remedy their error; and he, when he perceives the public disposed to acknowledge his merits, will show a more gracious mien than that with which he has hitherto favoured us." Mr. Helstone was about to add to this speech some half-jesting, half-serious warnings to Miss Keeldar on the subject of her rumoured partiality for her talented tenant, when a ring at the door, announcing another caller, checked his raillery; and as that other caller appeared in the form of a white-haired elderly gentleman, with a rather truculent countenance and disdainful eye--in short, our old acquaintance, and the rector's old enemy, Mr. Yorke--the priest and Levite seized his hat, and with the briefest of adieus to Miss Keeldar and the sternest of nods to her guest took an abrupt leave. Mr. Yorke was in no mild mood, and in no measured terms did he express his opinion on the transaction of the night. Moore, the magistrates, the soldiers, the mob leaders, each and all came in for a share of his invectives; but he reserved his strongest epithets--and real racy Yorkshire Doric adjectives they were--for the benefit of the fighting parsons, the "sanguinary, demoniac" rector and curate. According to him, the cup of ecclesiastical guilt was now full indeed. "The church," he said, "was in a bonny pickle now. It was time it came down when parsons took to swaggering amang soldiers, blazing away wi' bullet and gunpowder, taking the lives of far honester men than themselves." "What would Moore have done if nobody had helped him?" asked Shirley. "Drunk as he'd brewed, eaten as he'd baked." "Which means you would have left him by himself to face that mob. Good! He has plenty of courage, but the greatest amount of gallantry that ever garrisoned one human breast could scarce avail against two hundred." "He had the soldiers, those poor slaves who hire out their own blood and spill other folk's for money." "You abuse soldiers almost as much as you abuse clergymen. All who wear red coats are national refuse in your eyes, and all who wear black are national swindlers. Mr. Moore, according to you, did wrong to get military aid, and he did still worse to accept of any other aid. Your way of talking amounts to this: he should have abandoned his mill and his life to the rage of a set of misguided madmen, and Mr. Helstone and every other gentleman in the parish should have looked on, and seen the building razed and its owner slaughtered, and never stirred a finger to save either." "If Moore had behaved to his men from the beginning as a master ought to behave, they never would have entertained their present feelings towards him." "Easy for you to talk," exclaimed Miss Keeldar, who was beginning to wax warm in her tenant's cause--"you, whose family have lived at Briarmains for six generations, to whose person the people have been accustomed for fifty years, who know all their ways, prejudices, and preferences--easy, indeed, for _you_ to act so as to avoid offending them. But Mr. Moore came a stranger into the district; he came here poor and friendless, with nothing but his own energies to back him, nothing but his honour, his talent, and his industry to make his way for him. A monstrous crime indeed that, under such circumstances, he could not popularize his naturally grave, quiet manners all at once; could not be jocular, and free, and cordial with a strange peasantry, as you are with your fellow-townsmen! An unpardonable transgression that when he introduced improvements he did not go about the business in quite the most politic way, did not graduate his changes as delicately as a rich capitalist might have done! For errors of this sort is he to be the victim of mob outrage? Is he to be denied even the privilege of defending himself? Are those who have the hearts of men in their breasts (and Mr. Helstone, say what you will of him, has such a heart) to be reviled like malefactors because they stand by him, because they venture to espouse the cause of one against two hundred?" "Come, come now, be cool," said Mr. Yorke, smiling at the earnestness with which Shirley multiplied her rapid questions. "Cool! Must I listen coolly to downright nonsense--to dangerous nonsense? No. I like you very well, Mr. Yorke, as you know, but I thoroughly dislike some of your principles. All that cant--excuse me, but I repeat the word--all that _cant_ about soldiers and parsons is most offensive in my ears. All ridiculous, irrational crying up of one class, whether the same be aristocrat or democrat--all howling down of another class, whether clerical or military--all exacting injustice to individuals, whether monarch or mendicant--is really sickening to me; all arraying of ranks against ranks, all party hatreds, all tyrannies disguised as liberties, I reject and wash my hands of. _You_ think you are a philanthropist; _you_ think you are an advocate of liberty; but I will tell you this--Mr. Hall, the parson of Nunnely, is a better friend both of man and freedom than Hiram Yorke, the reformer of Briarfield." From a man Mr. Yorke would not have borne this language very patiently, nor would he have endured it from some women; but he accounted Shirley both honest and pretty, and her plain-spoken ire amused him. Besides, he took a secret pleasure in hearing her defend her tenant, for we have already intimated he had Robert Moore's interest very much at heart. Moreover, if he wished to avenge himself for her severity, he knew the means lay in his power: a word, he believed, would suffice to tame and silence her, to cover her frank forehead with the rosy shadow of shame, and veil the glow of her eye under down-drooped lid and lash. "What more hast thou to say?" he inquired, as she paused, rather, it appeared, to take breath than because her subject or her zeal was exhausted. "Say, Mr. Yorke!" was the answer, the speaker meantime walking fast from wall to wall of the oak parlour--"say? I have a great deal to say, if I could get it out in lucid order, which I never _can_ do. I have to say that your views, and those of most extreme politicians, are such as none but men in an irresponsible position _can_ advocate; that they are purely opposition views, meant only to be talked about, and never intended to be acted on. Make you Prime Minister of England to-morrow, and you would have to abandon them. You abuse Moore for defending his mill. Had you been in Moore's place you could not with honour or sense have acted otherwise than he acted. You abuse Mr. Helstone for everything he does. Mr. Helstone has his faults; he sometimes does wrong, but oftener right. Were you ordained vicar of Briarfield, you would find it no easy task to sustain all the active schemes for the benefit of the parish planned and persevered in by your predecessor. I wonder people cannot judge more fairly of each other and themselves. When I hear Messrs. Malone and Donne chatter about the authority of the church, the dignity and claims of the priesthood, the deference due to them as clergymen; when I hear the outbreaks of their small spite against Dissenters; when I witness their silly, narrow jealousies and assumptions; when their palaver about forms, and traditions, and superstitions is sounding in my ear; when I behold their insolent carriage to the poor, their often base servility to the rich--I think the Establishment is indeed in a poor way, and both she and her sons appear in the utmost need of reformation. Turning away distressed from minster tower and village spire--ay, as distressed as a churchwarden who feels the exigence of white-wash and has not wherewithal to purchase lime--I recall your senseless sarcasms on the 'fat bishops,' the 'pampered parsons,' 'old mother church,' etc. I remember your strictures on all who differ from you, your sweeping condemnation of classes and individuals, without the slightest allowance made for circumstances or temptations; and then, Mr. Yorke, doubt clutches my inmost heart as to whether men exist clement, reasonable, and just enough to be entrusted with the task of reform. I don't believe _you_ are of the number." "You have an ill opinion of me, Miss Shirley. You never told me so much of your mind before." "I never had an opening. But I have sat on Jessy's stool by your chair in the back-parlour at Briarmains, for evenings together, listening excitedly to your talk, half admiring what you said, and half rebelling against it. I think you a fine old Yorkshireman, sir. I am proud to have been born in the same county and parish as yourself. Truthful, upright, independent you are, as a rock based below seas; but also you are harsh, rude, narrow, and merciless." "Not to the poor, lass, nor to the meek of the earth; only to the proud and high-minded." "And what right have you, sir, to make such distinctions? A prouder, a higher-minded man than yourself does not exist. You find it easy to speak comfortably to your inferiors; you are too haughty, too ambitious, too jealous to be civil to those above you. But you are all alike. Helstone also is proud and prejudiced. Moore, though juster and more considerate than either you or the rector, is still haughty, stern, and, in a public sense, selfish. It is well there are such men as Mr. Hall to be found occasionally--men of large and kind hearts, who can love their whole race, who can forgive others for being richer, more prosperous, or more powerful than they are. Such men may have less originality, less force of character than you, but they are better friends to mankind." "And when is it to be?" said Mr. Yorke, now rising. "When is what to be?" "The wedding." "Whose wedding?" "Only that of Robert Grard Moore, Esq., of Hollow's Cottage, with Miss Keeldar, daughter and heiress of the late Charles Cave Keeldar of Fieldhead Hall." Shirley gazed at the questioner with rising colour. But the light in her eye was not faltering; it shone steadily--yes, it burned deeply. "That is your revenge," she said slowly; then added, "Would it be a bad match, unworthy of the late Charles Cave Keeldar's representative?" "My lass, Moore is a gentleman; his blood is pure and ancient as mine or thine." "And we two set store by ancient blood? We have family pride, though one of us at least is a republican?" Yorke bowed as he stood before her. His lips were mute, but his eye confessed the impeachment. Yes, he had family pride; you saw it in his whole bearing. "Moore _is_ a gentleman," echoed Shirley, lifting her head with glad grace. She checked herself. Words seemed crowding to her tongue. She would not give them utterance; but her look spoke much at the moment. What, Yorke tried to read, but could not. The language was there, visible, but untranslatable--a poem, a fervid lyric, in an unknown tongue. It was not a plain story, however, no simple gush of feeling, no ordinary love-confession--that was obvious. It was something other, deeper, more intricate than he guessed at. He felt his revenge had not struck home. He felt that Shirley triumphed. She held him at fault, baffled, puzzled. _She_ enjoyed the moment, not _he_. "And if Moore _is_ a gentleman, you _can_ be only a lady; therefore----" "Therefore there would be no inequality in our union." "None." "Thank you for your approbation. Will you give me away when I relinquish the name of Keeldar for that of Moore?" Mr. Yorke, instead of replying, gazed at her much puzzled. He could not divine what her look signified--whether she spoke in earnest or in jest. There were purpose and feeling, banter and scoff, playing, mingled, on her mobile lineaments. "I don't understand thee," he said, turning away. She laughed. "Take courage, sir; you are not singular in your ignorance. But I suppose if Moore understands me that will do, will it not?" "Moore may settle his own matters henceforward for me; I'll neither meddle nor make with them further." A new thought crossed her. Her countenance changed magically. With a sudden darkening of the eye and austere fixing of the features she demanded, "Have you been asked to interfere? Are you questioning me as another's proxy?" "The Lord save us! Whoever weds thee must look about him! Keep all your questions for Robert; I'll answer no more on 'em. Good-day, lassie!" * * * * * The day being fine, or at least fair--for soft clouds curtained the sun, and a dim but not chill or waterish haze slept blue on the hills--Caroline, while Shirley was engaged with her callers, had persuaded Mrs. Pryor to assume her bonnet and summer shawl, and to take a walk with her up towards the narrow end of the Hollow. Here the opposing sides of the glen, approaching each other and becoming clothed with brushwood and stunted oaks, formed a wooded ravine, at the bottom of which ran the mill-stream, in broken, unquiet course, struggling with many stones, chafing against rugged banks, fretting with gnarled tree-roots, foaming, gurgling, battling as it went. Here, when you had wandered half a mile from the mill, you found a sense of deep solitude--found it in the shade of unmolested trees, received it in the singing of many birds, for which that shade made a home. This was no trodden way. The freshness of the wood flowers attested that foot of man seldom pressed them; the abounding wild roses looked as if they budded, bloomed, and faded under the watch of solitude, as if in a sultan's harem. Here you saw the sweet azure of blue-bells, and recognized in pearl-white blossoms, spangling the grass, a humble type of some starlit spot in space. Mrs. Pryor liked a quiet walk. She ever shunned high-roads, and sought byways and lonely lanes. One companion she preferred to total solitude, for in solitude she was nervous; a vague fear of annoying encounters broke the enjoyment of quite lonely rambles. But she feared nothing with Caroline. When once she got away from human habitations, and entered the still demesne of nature accompanied by this one youthful friend, a propitious change seemed to steal over her mind and beam in her countenance. When with Caroline--and Caroline only--her heart, you would have said, shook off a burden, her brow put aside a veil, her spirits too escaped from a restraint. With her she was cheerful; with her, at times, she was tender; to her she would impart her knowledge, reveal glimpses of her experience, give her opportunities for guessing what life she had lived, what cultivation her mind had received, of what calibre was her intelligence, how and where her feelings were vulnerable. To-day, for instance, as they walked along, Mrs. Pryor talked to her companion about the various birds singing in the trees, discriminated their species, and said something about their habits and peculiarities. English natural history seemed familiar to her. All the wild flowers round their path were recognized by her; tiny plants springing near stones and peeping out of chinks in old walls--plants such as Caroline had scarcely noticed before--received a name and an intimation of their properties. It appeared that she had minutely studied the botany of English fields and woods. Having reached the head of the ravine, they sat down together on a ledge of gray and mossy rock jutting from the base of a steep green hill which towered above them. She looked round her, and spoke of the neighbourhood as she had once before seen it long ago. She alluded to its changes, and compared its aspect with that of other parts of England, revealing in quiet, unconscious touches of description a sense of the picturesque, an appreciation of the beautiful or commonplace, a power of comparing the wild with the cultured, the grand with the tame, that gave to her discourse a graphic charm as pleasant as it was unpretending. The sort of reverent pleasure with which Caroline listened--so sincere, so quiet, yet so evident--stirred the elder lady's faculties to gentle animation. Rarely, probably, had she, with her chill, repellent outside, her diffident mien, and incommunicative habits, known what it was to excite in one whom she herself could love feelings of earnest affection and admiring esteem. Delightful, doubtless, was the consciousness that a young girl towards whom it seemed, judging by the moved expression of her eyes and features, her heart turned with almost a fond impulse, looked up to her as an instructor, and clung to her as a friend. With a somewhat more marked accent of interest than she often permitted herself to use, she said, as she bent towards her youthful companion, and put aside from her forehead a pale brown curl which had strayed from the confining comb, "I do hope this sweet air blowing from the hill will do you good, my dear Caroline. I wish I could see something more of colour in these cheeks; but perhaps you were never florid?" "I had red cheeks once," returned Miss Helstone, smiling. "I remember a year--two years ago--when I used to look in the glass, I saw a different face there to what I see now--rounder and rosier. But when we are young," added the girl of eighteen, "our minds are careless and our lives easy." "Do you," continued Mrs. Pryor, mastering by an effort that tyrant timidity which made it difficult for her, even under present circumstances, to attempt the scrutiny of another's heart--"do you, at your age, fret yourself with cares for the future? Believe me, you had better not. Let the morrow take thought for the things of itself." "True, dear madam. It is not over the future I pine. The evil of the day is sometimes oppressive--too oppressive--and I long to escape it." "That is--the evil of the day--that is--your uncle perhaps is not--you find it difficult to understand--he does not appreciate----" Mrs. Pryor could not complete her broken sentences; she could not manage to put the question whether Mr. Helstone was too harsh with his niece. But Caroline comprehended. "Oh, that is nothing," she replied. "My uncle and I get on very well. We never quarrel--I don't call him harsh--he never scolds me. Sometimes I wish somebody in the world loved me, but I cannot say that I particularly wish him to have more affection for me than he has. As a child, I should perhaps have felt the want of attention, only the servants were very kind to me; but when people are long indifferent to us, we grow indifferent to their indifference. It is my uncle's way not to care for women and girls, unless they be ladies that he meets in company. He could not alter, and I have no wish that he should alter, as far as I am concerned. I believe it would merely annoy and frighten me were he to be affectionate towards me now. But you know, Mrs. Pryor, it is scarcely _living_ to measure time as I do at the rectory. The hours pass, and I get them over somehow, but I do not _live_. I endure existence, but I rarely enjoy it. Since Miss Keeldar and you came I have been--I was going to say happier, but that would be untrue." She paused. "How untrue? You are fond of Miss Keeldar, are you not, my dear?" "Very fond of Shirley. I both like and admire her. But I am painfully circumstanced. For a reason I cannot explain I want to go away from this place, and to forget it." "You told me before you wished to be a governess; but, my dear, if you remember, I did not encourage the idea. I have been a governess myself great part of my life. In Miss Keeldar's acquaintance I esteem myself most fortunate. Her talents and her really sweet disposition have rendered my office easy to me; but when I was young, before I married, my trials were severe, poignant. I should not like a---- I should not like you to endure similar ones. It was my lot to enter a family of considerable pretensions to good birth and mental superiority, and the members of which also believed that 'on them was perceptible' an unusual endowment of the 'Christian graces;' that all their hearts were regenerate, and their spirits in a peculiar state of discipline. I was early given to understand that 'as I was not their equal,' so I could not expect 'to have their sympathy.' It was in no sort concealed from me that I was held a 'burden and a restraint in society.' The gentlemen, I found, regarded me as a 'tabooed woman,' to whom 'they were interdicted from granting the usual privileges of the sex,' and yet 'who annoyed them by frequently crossing their path.' The ladies too made it plain that they thought me 'a bore.' The servants, it was signified, 'detested me;' _why_, I could never clearly comprehend. My pupils, I was told, 'however much they might love me, and how deep soever the interest I might take in them, could not be my friends.' It was intimated that I must 'live alone, and never transgress the invisible but rigid line which established the difference between me and my employers.' My life in this house was sedentary, solitary, constrained, joyless, toilsome. The dreadful crushing of the animal spirits, the ever-prevailing sense of friendlessness and homelessness consequent on this state of things began ere long to produce mortal effects on my constitution. I sickened. The lady of the house told me coolly I was the victim of 'wounded vanity.' She hinted that if I did not make an effort to quell my 'ungodly discontent,' to cease 'murmuring against God's appointment,' and to cultivate the profound humility befitting my station, my mind would very likely 'go to pieces' on the rock that wrecked most of my sisterhood--morbid self-esteem--and that I should die an inmate of a lunatic asylum. "I said nothing to Mrs. Hardman--it would have been useless; but to her eldest daughter I one day dropped a few observations, which were answered thus. There were hardships, she allowed, in the position of a governess. 'Doubtless they had their trials; but,' she averred, with a manner it makes me smile now to recall--'but it must be so. _She_' (Miss H.) 'had neither view, hope, nor _wish_ to see these things remedied; for in the inherent constitution of English habits, feelings, and prejudices there was no possibility that they should be. Governesses,' she observed, 'must ever be kept in a sort of isolation. It is the only means of maintaining that distance which the reserve of English manners and the decorum of English families exact.' "I remember I sighed as Miss Hardman quitted my bedside. She caught the sound, and turning, said severely, 'I fear, Miss Grey, you have inherited in fullest measure the worst sin of our fallen nature--the sin of pride. You are proud, and therefore you are ungrateful too. Mamma pays you a handsome salary, and if you had average sense you would thankfully put up with much that is fatiguing to do and irksome to bear, since it is so well made worth your while.' "Miss Hardman, my love, was a very strong-minded young lady, of most distinguished talents. The aristocracy are decidedly a very superior class, you know, both physically, and morally, and mentally; as a high Tory I acknowledge that. I could not describe the dignity of her voice and mien as she addressed me thus; still, I fear she was selfish, my dear. I would never wish to speak ill of my superiors in rank, but I think she was a little selfish." "I remember," continued Mrs. Pryor, after a pause, "another of Miss H.'s observations, which she would utter with quite a grand air. 'WE,' she would say--'WE need the imprudences, extravagances, mistakes, and crimes of a certain number of fathers to sow the seed from which WE reap the harvest of governesses. The daughters of trades-people, however well educated, must necessarily be underbred, and as such unfit to be inmates of OUR dwellings, or guardians of OUR children's minds and persons. WE shall ever prefer to place those about OUR offspring who have been born and bred with somewhat of the same refinement as OURSELVES.'" "Miss Hardman must have thought herself something better than her fellow-creatures, ma'am, since she held that their calamities, and even crimes, were necessary to minister to her convenience. You say she was religious. Her religion must have been that of the Pharisee who thanked God that he was not as other men are, nor even as that publican." "My dear, we will not discuss the point. I should be the last person to wish to instil into your mind any feeling of dissatisfaction with your lot in life, or any sentiment of envy or insubordination towards your superiors. Implicit submission to authorities, scrupulous deference to our betters (under which term I, of course, include the higher classes of society), are, in my opinion, indispensable to the well-being of every community. All I mean to say, my dear, is that you had better not attempt to be a governess, as the duties of the position would be too severe for your constitution. Not one word of disrespect would I breathe towards either Mrs. or Miss Hardman; only, recalling my own experience, I cannot but feel that, were you to fall under auspices such as theirs, you would contend a while courageously with your doom, then you would pine and grow too weak for your work; you would come home--if you still had a home--broken down. Those languishing years would follow of which none but the invalid and her immediate friends feel the heart-sickness and know the burden. Consumption or decline would close the chapter. Such is the history of many a life. I would not have it yours. My dear, we will now walk about a little, if you please." They both rose, and slowly paced a green natural terrace bordering the chasm. "My dear," ere long again began Mrs. Pryor, a sort of timid, embarrassed abruptness marking her manner as she spoke, "the young, especially those to whom nature has been favourable, often--frequently--anticipate--look forward to--to marriage as the end, the goal of their hopes." And she stopped. Caroline came to her relief with promptitude, showing a great deal more self-possession and courage than herself on the formidable topic now broached. "They do, and naturally," she replied, with a calm emphasis that startled Mrs. Pryor. "They look forward to marriage with some one they love as the brightest, the only bright destiny that can await them. Are they wrong?" "Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Pryor, clasping her hands; and again she paused. Caroline turned a searching, an eager eye on the face of her friend: that face was much agitated. "My dear," she murmured, "life is an illusion." "But not love! Love is real--the most real, the most lasting, the sweetest and yet the bitterest thing we know." "My dear, it is very bitter. It is said to be strong--strong as death! Most of the cheats of existence are strong. As to their sweetness, nothing is so transitory; its date is a moment, the twinkling of an eye. The sting remains for ever. It may perish with the dawn of eternity, but it tortures through time into its deepest night." "Yes, it tortures through time," agreed Caroline, "except when it is mutual love." "Mutual love! My dear, romances are pernicious. You do not read them, I hope?" "Sometimes--whenever I can get them, indeed. But romance-writers might know nothing of love, judging by the way in which they treat of it." "Nothing whatever, my dear," assented Mrs. Pryor eagerly, "nor of marriage; and the false pictures they give of those subjects cannot be too strongly condemned. They are not like reality. They show you only the green, tempting surface of the marsh, and give not one faithful or truthful hint of the slough underneath." "But it is not always slough," objected Caroline. "There are happy marriages. Where affection is reciprocal and sincere, and minds are harmonious, marriage _must_ be happy." "It is never wholly happy. Two people can never literally be as one. There is, perhaps, a possibility of content under peculiar circumstances, such as are seldom combined; but it is as well not to run the risk--you may make fatal mistakes. Be satisfied, my dear. Let all the single be satisfied with their freedom." "You echo my uncle's words!" exclaimed Caroline, in a tone of dismay. "You speak like Mrs. Yorke in her most gloomy moments, like Miss Mann when she is most sourly and hypochondriacally disposed. This is terrible!" "No, it is only true. O child, you have only lived the pleasant morning time of life; the hot, weary noon, the sad evening, the sunless night, are yet to come for you. Mr. Helstone, you say, talks as I talk; and I wonder how Mrs. Matthewson Helstone would have talked had she been living. She died! she died!" "And, alas! my own mother and father----" exclaimed Caroline, struck by a sombre recollection. "What of them?" "Did I never tell you that they were separated?" "I have heard it." "They must, then, have been very miserable." "You see all _facts_ go to prove what I say." "In this case there ought to be no such thing as marriage." "There ought, my dear, were it only to prove that this life is a mere state of probation, wherein neither rest nor recompense is to be vouchsafed." "But your own marriage, Mrs. Pryor?" Mrs. Pryor shrank and shuddered as if a rude finger had pressed a naked nerve. Caroline felt she had touched what would not bear the slightest contact. "My marriage was unhappy," said the lady, summoning courage at last; "but yet----" She hesitated. "But yet," suggested Caroline, "not immitigably wretched?" "Not in its results, at least. No," she added, in a softer tone; "God mingles something of the balm of mercy even in vials of the most corrosive woe. He can so turn events that from the very same blind, rash act whence sprang the curse of half our life may flow the blessing of the remainder. Then I am of a peculiar disposition--I own that--far from facile, without address, in some points eccentric. I ought never to have married. Mine is not the nature easily to find a duplicate or likely to assimilate with a contrast. I was quite aware of my own ineligibility; and if I had not been so miserable as a governess, I never should have married; and then----" Caroline's eyes asked her to proceed. They entreated her to break the thick cloud of despair which her previous words had seemed to spread over life. "And then, my dear, Mr.--that is, the gentleman I married--was, perhaps, rather an exceptional than an average character. I hope, at least, the experience of few has been such as mine was, or that few have felt their sufferings as I felt mine. They nearly shook my mind; relief was so hopeless, redress so unattainable. But, my dear, I do not wish to dishearten; I only wish to warn you, and to prove that the single should not be too anxious to change their state, as they may change for the worse." "Thank you, my dear madam. I quite understand your kind intentions, but there is no fear of my falling into the error to which you allude. I, at least, have no thoughts of marriage, and for that reason I want to make myself a position by some other means." "My dear, listen to me. On what I am going to say I have carefully deliberated, having, indeed, revolved the subject in my thoughts ever since you first mentioned your wish to obtain a situation. You know I at present reside with Miss Keeldar in the capacity of companion. Should she marry (and that she _will_ marry ere long many circumstances induce me to conclude), I shall cease to be necessary to her in that capacity. I must tell you that I possess a small independency, arising partly from my own savings, and partly from a legacy left me some years since. Whenever I leave Fieldhead I shall take a house of my own. I could not endure to live in solitude. I have no relations whom I care to invite to close intimacy; for, as you must have observed, and as I have already avowed, my habits and tastes have their peculiarities. To you, my dear, I need not say I am attached; with you I am happier than I have ever been with any living thing" (this was said with marked emphasis). "Your society I should esteem a very dear privilege--an inestimable privilege, a comfort, a blessing. You shall come to me, then. Caroline, do you refuse me? I hope you can love me?" And with these two abrupt questions she stopped. "Indeed, I _do_ love you," was the reply. "I should like to live with you. But you are too kind." "All I have," went on Mrs. Pryor, "I would leave to you. You should be provided for. But never again say I am _too kind_. You pierce my heart, child!" "But, my dear madam--this generosity--I have no claim----" "Hush! you must not talk about it. There are some things we cannot bear to hear. Oh! it is late to begin, but I may yet live a few years. I can never wipe out the past, but perhaps a brief space in the future may yet be mine." Mrs. Pryor seemed deeply agitated. Large tears trembled in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. Caroline kissed her, in her gentle, caressing way, saying softly, "I love you dearly. Don't cry." But the lady's whole frame seemed shaken. She sat down, bent her head to her knee, and wept aloud. Nothing could console her till the inward storm had had its way. At last the agony subsided of itself. "Poor thing!" she murmured, returning Caroline's kiss, "poor lonely lamb! But come," she added abruptly--"come; we must go home." For a short distance Mrs. Pryor walked very fast. By degrees, however, she calmed down to her wonted manner, fell into her usual characteristic pace--a peculiar one, like all her movements--and by the time they reached Fieldhead she had re-entered into herself. The outside was, as usual, still and shy.

While Shirley was talking with Moore, Caroline rejoined Mrs. Pryor upstairs. She found that lady deeply depressed. Miss Helstone tried to comfort her, knowing that although Mrs. Pryor looked unmoved by her quiet, tender attentions, she valued them. "I am deficient in self-confidence and decision," said Mrs. Pryor. "I always have been deficient in those qualities. Yet I think Miss Keeldar should have known that I always try to do right. The unusual nature of the demand on my judgment puzzled me, especially following the alarms of the night. I trust no serious harm will result from my lapse of firmness." A gentle knock was heard at the door. "Caroline, come here," said a low voice. Miss Helstone went out. There stood Shirley in the gallery, looking contrite as any repentant child. "How is Mrs. Pryor?" she asked. "Rather out of spirits," said Caroline. "I have behaved very shamefully, very ungenerously to her," said Shirley. "How insolent in me to turn on her for what, after all, was only conscientiousness on her part. But I regret my error most sincerely. Tell her so, and ask if she will forgive me." Caroline did so with pleasure. Mrs. Pryor came to the door, and said falteringly, "Come in, my dear." Shirley came in, and threw her arms round her governess. While she kissed her heartily she said, "You must forgive me, Mrs. Pryor." "I have nothing to forgive," was the reply. "We will pass it over, if you please. The incident proves plainly how unequal I am to certain crises." And that was the painful feeling which would remain on Mrs. Pryor's mind. No effort of Shirley's or Caroline's could efface it. She could forgive her offending pupil, not her innocent self. Miss Keeldar was presently summoned downstairs again. The rector had called, in high spirits. During his brief visit he quite forgot to ask after his niece; the riot, the mill, the magistrates, the heiress, absorbed all his thoughts. He alluded to the part he himself and his curate had taken in the defence of the Hollow. "Wrath will fall on our heads for our share in this business," he said; "but I defy every accuser. I was there to support the law, to play my part as a man. Your tenant Moore has won my approval. A cooler, more determined commander I could not wish to see. The man has shown sound judgment and good sense - first, in being thoroughly prepared; and then in knowing how to use without abusing his victory. Some of the magistrates are frightened, and, like all cowards, show a tendency to be cruel. Moore restrains them with admirable prudence. He has hitherto been very unpopular in the neighbourhood; but, mark my words, the tide of opinion will now turn in his favour." Mr. Helstone was about to add some half-jesting warning to Miss Keeldar about her rumoured partiality for her tenant, when a ring at the door checked him. As the second caller was the rector's old enemy, Mr. Yorke, Mr. Helstone seized his hat, and with a brief adieu took an abrupt leave. Mr. Yorke was in no mild mood. Moore, the magistrates, the soldiers, the mob leaders, all came in for a share of invective; but he reserved his strongest terms - and real racy Yorkshire adjectives they were - for the fighting parsons, the rector and curate. "The church," he said, "is in a bonny pickle, when parsons take to swaggering among soldiers, blazing away wi' bullet and gunpowder." "What would Moore have done if nobody had helped him?" asked Shirley. "He has plenty of courage, but even his gallantry alone could scarce avail against two hundred." "He had the soldiers, those poor slaves who hire out their own blood and spill other folks' for money." "You abuse soldiers almost as much as you abuse clergymen. Your way of talking amounts to this: Mr. Moore should have abandoned his mill and his life to the rage of misguided madmen, and Mr. Helstone and every other gentleman should have looked on, and seen the building razed and its owner slaughtered, and never stirred a finger." "If Moore had behaved to his men from the beginning as a master ought to behave, they wouldn't have their present feelings towards him." "Easy for you to talk," exclaimed Miss Keeldar warmly, "you, whose family have lived at Briarmains for six generations, who knows all the people's ways and prejudices - easy, indeed, for you to avoid offending them. But Mr. Moore came a stranger into the district, poor and friendless, with nothing but his own energies and talent to back him. A monstrous crime indeed that he could not become popular all at once; could not be jocular and free with strangers! Unpardonable that he did not introduce improvements as gradually as a rich capitalist might have done! For these errors is he to be the victim of mob outrage? Is he to be denied the privilege of defending himself? Are brave men to be reviled because they stand by him, and support the cause of one against two hundred?" "Come now, be cool," said Mr. Yorke, smiling at Shirley's earnestness. "Cool! Must I listen coolly to dangerous nonsense? No. I like you very well, Mr. Yorke, but I thoroughly dislike some of your principles. All that cant about soldiers and parsons is most offensive in my ears. All irrational crying up of one class, and howling down of another class, is really sickening to me; all arraying of ranks against ranks, all party hatreds, I reject. You think you are a philanthropist; you think you are an advocate of liberty; but I will tell you this - Mr. Hall is a better friend both of man and freedom than Hiram Yorke." From a man Mr. Yorke would not have borne this language patiently, nor would he have endured it from some women; but he thought Shirley both honest and pretty, and her plain-spoken ire amused him. Besides, he took a secret pleasure in hearing her defend her tenant, for he had Robert Moore's interest at heart. If he wished to revenge himself for her severity, he knew how: a word, he believed, would tame and silence her, would cover her with the rosy shadow of shame, and make her drop her gaze. "What more hast thou to say?" he inquired. "Say, Mr. Yorke? I have a great deal to say, if I could get it out in lucid order, which I never can do. I believe your views, and those of most extreme politicians, are purely opposition views, meant only to be talked about, and never intended to be acted on. You abuse Moore for defending his mill. Had you been in Moore's place you could not have acted otherwise than he acted. You abuse Mr. Helstone for everything he does. Mr. Helstone has his faults; he sometimes does wrong, but oftener right. If you were vicar of Briarfield, you would find it no easy task to sustain all the schemes for the benefit of the parish. I wonder people cannot judge more fairly of each other and themselves. When I hear Messrs. Malone and Donne chatter about the authority of the church and the deference due to them as clergymen; when I hear their spite against Dissenters; when I behold their insolent manner to the poor - I think the Establishment is indeed in a poor way, and needs reforming. I remember your strictures on all who differ from you, your sweeping condemnation of classes and individuals, without the slightest allowance made for circumstance; and then, Mr. Yorke, I doubt whether men exist who are reasonable and just enough to be entrusted with the task of reform. I don't believe you are of the number." "You have an ill opinion of me, Miss Shirley. You never told me so much of your mind before." "I never had an opening. But I have sat in the back-parlour at Briarmains for evenings together, listening to your talk, half admiring what you said, and half rebelling against it. I think you a fine old Yorkshireman, sir. I am proud to have been born in the same county as yourself. Truthful, upright, independent you are; but also you are harsh, rude, narrow, and merciless." "Not to the poor, lass; only to the proud and high-minded." "And what right have you, sir, to make such distinctions? A prouder, a higher-minded man than yourself does not exist. But you are all alike. Helstone also is proud and prejudiced. Moore, though juster than either you or the rector, is still haughty and stern. It is well there are such men as Mr. Hall - men of large hearts, who can love their whole race, who can forgive others for being richer or more powerful than they are. Such men may have less force of character than you, but they are better friends to mankind." "And when is it to be?" said Mr. Yorke, now rising. "When is what to be?" "The wedding." "Whose wedding?" "Only that of Robert Grard Moore, Esq., of Hollow's Cottage, with Miss Keeldar, heiress of Fieldhead Hall." Shirley gazed at the questioner with rising colour. But the light in her eye was not faltering; it shone steadily. "That is your revenge," she said slowly; then added, "Would it be a bad match, unworthy of my family?" "My lass, Moore is a gentleman; his blood is pure and ancient as mine or thine." "And we two set store by ancient blood? We have family pride?" Yorke bowed. Yes, he had family pride. "Moore is a gentleman," echoed Shirley, lifting her head with glad grace. She checked herself. Words seemed crowding to her tongue. She would not give them utterance; but her look spoke much. Yorke could not read it. It was not a plain story, however, no simple gush of feeling, no ordinary love-confession - that was obvious. It was something deeper, more intricate than he guessed at. He felt his revenge had not struck home. He felt that Shirley triumphed, and he was baffled. "And if Moore is a gentleman, you can be only a lady-" "So there would be no inequality in our union." "None." "Thank you for your approval. Will you give me away when I relinquish the name of Keeldar for that of Moore?" Mr. Yorke, instead of replying, gazed at her much puzzled. He could not tell whether she spoke in earnest or jest. "I don't understand thee," he said, turning away. She laughed. "Take courage, sir; you are not the only one." "Moore may settle his own matters; I'll not meddle with them further." A new thought crossed her. Her countenance changed. With a sudden austere darkening of the eye she demanded, "Have you been asked to interfere? Are you questioning me as another's proxy?" "The Lord save us! Whoever weds thee must look about him! Keep all your questions for Robert; I'll answer no more. Good-day, lassie!" While Shirley was engaged with her callers, Caroline had persuaded Mrs. Pryor to put on her shawl, and take a walk with her up towards the end of the Hollow. Here the opposing sides of the glen, clothed with brushwood and stunted oaks, formed a wooded ravine, at the bottom of which ran the mill-stream, struggling with many stones and tree-roots, foaming, gurgling, battling as it went. Half a mile from the mill, you found deep solitude. The wood flowers were fresh underfoot: wild roses bloomed abundantly. The sweet azure of blue-bells and pearl-white blossoms spangled the grass. Mrs. Pryor liked a quiet walk. She shunned high-roads, and sought lonely lanes. In solitude she was nervous; but she feared nothing with Caroline. When once she got away from human habitations, and entered the still demesne of nature with her young friend, a change seemed to come over her. When with Caroline, her heart, you would have said, shook off a burden, her brow put aside a veil. With her she was cheerful, even tender; to her she would reveal glimpses of her experience and learning, give her opportunities for guessing what life she had lived, and where her feelings were vulnerable. Today, for instance, as they walked along, Mrs. Pryor talked about the various birds singing in the trees, and described their species and habits. English natural history seemed familiar to her. She recognised all the wild flowers, even tiny plants peeping out of chinks in old walls - plants such as Caroline had scarcely noticed before. At the head of the ravine, they sat down together on a ledge of mossy rock. Mrs. Pryor looked round, and spoke of the neighbourhood as she had once seen it long ago. She described its changes, comparing it to other parts of England with a sense of the picturesque, and an appreciation of the beautiful and commonplace, that gave her discourse a charm as pleasant as it was unpretending. The sincere pleasure with which Caroline listened animated the elder lady. With her chill, diffident manner, and incommunicative habits, she had seldom known what it was to stir affection in another. It seemed that her heart was moved with a fond impulse towards Caroline, who looked up to her as an instructor, and clung to her as a friend. With more marked interest than usual, she said, as she put aside from Caroline's forehead a straying curl, "I do hope this sweet breeze will do you good, my dear Caroline. I wish I could see more colour in these cheeks; but perhaps you were never florid?" "I had red cheeks once," returned Miss Helstone, smiling. "A year - two years ago - when I used to look in the glass, I saw a rounder, rosier face. But when we are young," added the girl of eighteen, "our minds are careless and our lives easy." "Do you," continued Mrs. Pryor, mastering her timidity with an effort, "do you fret over cares for the future? Believe me, you had better not. Let the morrow take care of itself." "True, dear madam. It is not over the future I pine. The evil of the day is sometimes oppressive, and I long to escape it." "The evil of the day - that is - your uncle perhaps is not - he does not appreciate-" Mrs. Pryor could not complete her broken sentences; she could not ask whether Mr. Helstone was too harsh with his niece. But Caroline comprehended. "Oh, my uncle and I get on very well," she replied. "We never quarrel - he never scolds me. Sometimes I wish somebody in the world loved me, but I cannot say that I particularly wish him to have more affection for me. As a child, I should perhaps have felt the lack of attention, only the servants were very kind to me; but when people are long indifferent to us, we grow indifferent to their indifference. My uncle does not care for women and girls, apart from ladies that he meets in company. I have no wish that he should alter. It would merely annoy and frighten me were he to be affectionate towards me now. But you know, Mrs. Pryor, it is scarcely living to measure time as I do at the rectory. The hours pass, and I get through them somehow, but I do not live. I endure existence, but I rarely enjoy it. Since Miss Keeldar and you came I have been - I was going to say happier, but that would be untrue." She paused. "How untrue? You are fond of Miss Keeldar, are you not, my dear?" "Very fond of Shirley. I both like and admire her. But I am painfully circumstanced. For a reason I cannot explain I want to go away from this place." "You told me before, you wished to be a governess; but, my dear, if you remember, I did not encourage the idea. I have been a governess myself for much of my life. I am most fortunate that Miss Keeldar's talents and her sweet disposition have made my position easy; but when I was young, before I married, my trials were severe. I should not like you to endure similar trials. I worked for a family of good birth, whose members believed that they were unusually good Christians; that all their hearts were reborn, and their spirits perfectly disciplined. I was early given to understand that 'as I was not their equal,' so I could not expect to have their sympathy. The gentlemen, I found, regarded me as a 'tabooed woman,' who annoyed them by crossing their path. The ladies made it plain that they thought me 'a bore,' and the servants, I was told, 'detested me;' why, I could never clearly comprehend. My pupils, I was informed, 'however much they might love me, could not be my friends.' It was made clear that I must never cross the invisible but rigid line which separated me from my employers.' My life was solitary, joyless, toilsome. The sense of friendlessness and homelessness it caused began to affect my health. I sickened. The lady of the house told me coolly I was the victim of wounded vanity. She hinted that if I did not make an effort to quell my 'ungodly discontent,' and to cultivate the humility befitting my station, I would very likely 'go to pieces', and die an inmate of a lunatic asylum. "I said nothing to Mrs. Hardman - it would have been useless; but her eldest daughter, visiting my bedside, allowed that there were hardships in the position of a governess. However, these things, she said, were as they must be. 'Governesses,' she observed, 'must ever be kept in isolation, to maintain that distance which decorum requires.' "I remember I sighed. Miss Hardman said severely, 'I fear, Miss Grey, you have inherited the sin of pride, and are ungrateful too. Mamma pays you a handsome salary, and if you had sense you would thankfully put up with much that is fatiguing and irksome, since it is made well worth your while.' "Miss Hardman, my love, was a very strong-minded young lady, of most distinguished talents. The aristocracy are decidedly a very superior class, you know; as a high Tory I acknowledge that. She was most dignified as she addressed me thus; still, I fear she was a little selfish, my dear. "I remember," continued Mrs. Pryor, after a pause, "another of Miss H.'s observations, which she would utter with quite a grand air. She would say: 'We need the imprudences, mistakes, and crimes of a certain number of fathers to sow the seed from which we reap the harvest of governesses. The daughters of trades-people, however well educated, must necessarily be underbred, and unfit to be guardians of our children. We shall ever prefer to place about our offspring those who have been born and bred with somewhat of the same refinement as ourselves.'" "Miss Hardman must have thought herself something better than her fellow-creatures, ma'am," said Caroline, "since she held that their calamities, and even crimes, were necessary to minister to her convenience. Her religion must have been that of the Pharisee who thanked God that he was not as other men are." "My dear, we will not discuss the point. I should be the last person to wish to make you dissatisfied with your lot in life. Submission to authorities, scrupulous deference to our betters are, in my opinion, indispensable to the well-being of every community. All I mean to say, my dear, is that you had better not attempt to be a governess, as the duties would be too severe for you. Not one word of disrespect would I breathe towards the Hardmans; only I feel that, were you to live with such a family, you would contend a while courageously, then you would pine and grow too weak for your work; you would come home - if you still had a home - broken down. Consumption or decline would close the chapter. Such is the history of many a life. I would not have it yours. My dear, we will now walk about a little, if you please." They both rose, and paced a green terrace bordering the chasm. "My dear," again began Mrs. Pryor, with a timid, embarrassed abruptness, "the young often - frequently - anticipate - look forward to - to marriage as the goal of their hopes." And she stopped. Caroline came promptly to her relief with self-possession and courage. "They do, and naturally," she replied with calmness. "They look forward to marriage with someone they love as the brightest destiny that can await them. Are they wrong?" "Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Pryor, clasping her hands; and again she paused. Caroline turned a searching eye on her agitated face. "My dear," she murmured, "life is an illusion." "But not love!" exclaimed Caroline. "Love is the most real, the most lasting, the sweetest and yet the bitterest thing we know." "My dear, it is very bitter. It is said to be strong - strong as death! As to the sweetness, nothing is so fleeting; but its sting remains for ever. It tortures through time into its deepest night." "Yes, it tortures through time," agreed Caroline, "except when it is mutual love." "Mutual love! My dear, romantic novels are pernicious. You do not read them, I hope?" "Sometimes - whenever I can get them, indeed. But romance-writers might know nothing of love, judging by the way in which they treat of it." "Nothing whatever, my dear," assented Mrs. Pryor eagerly, "nor of marriage; and the false pictures they give of those subjects cannot be too strongly condemned. They are not like reality. They show you only the green, tempting surface of the marsh, and give not one truthful hint of the slough underneath." "But it is not always slough," objected Caroline. "There are happy marriages. Where affection is shared and sincere, and minds are harmonious, marriage must be happy." "It is never wholly happy. Two people can never literally be as one. There is, perhaps, a possibility of contentment under some rare circumstances; but it is as well not to risk it, my dear. Let the single be satisfied with their freedom." "You echo my uncle's words!" exclaimed Caroline, in dismay. "You speak like Mrs. Yorke in her gloomy moments, like Miss Mann at her most sour. This is terrible!" "No, it is only true. O child, you have only lived the pleasant morning of life; the hot, weary noon, the sad evening, the sunless night, are yet to come for you. Mr. Helstone, you say, talks as I talk; and I wonder how his wife would have talked had she been living!" "And, alas! my own mother and father-" exclaimed Caroline. "I have heard that they were separated." "They must have been very miserable." "You see all facts go to prove what I say." "In this case there ought to be no such thing as marriage." "There ought, my dear, if only to prove that in this life there is neither rest nor recompense." "But your own marriage, Mrs. Pryor?" Mrs. Pryor shrank and shuddered as if she had pressed a naked nerve. "My marriage was unhappy," said she, summoning courage at last; "but yet-" She hesitated. "But yet," suggested Caroline, "not entirely wretched?" "Not in its results, at least. No," she added, in a softer tone; "God mingles the balm of mercy with the most corrosive woe. I confess I am of a peculiar disposition - in some points eccentric. I ought never to have married. I was quite aware of it; and if I had not been so miserable as a governess, I never should have married; and then - and then, my dear, the gentleman I married was, perhaps, an exceptional character. I hope, at least, that few have had such an experience as mine was, or have felt my sufferings. But, my dear, I do not wish to dishearten; I only wish to warn you that the single should not be too anxious to change their state, as they may change for the worse." "Thank you, my dear madam. I quite understand your kind intentions, but I have no thoughts of marriage, and for that reason I want to support myself by some other means." "My dear, listen to me. I have revolved this subject in my thoughts ever since you first mentioned your wish to obtain a situation. You know I reside with Miss Keeldar as her companion. Should she marry (and I believe that she will before long), I shall cease to be necessary to her in that capacity. I possess a small independency, arising partly from my own savings, and partly from a legacy left me some years since. When I leave Fieldhead I shall take a house of my own. I could not endure to live in solitude, but I have no relations whom I care to invite to close intimacy. As you must have observed, my habits and tastes have their peculiarities. But with you, my dear, I am happier than I have ever been with any living thing. I should esteem it a great privilege - a comfort, a blessing - if you would come to me then. Will you, Caroline? I hope you can love me?" "Indeed, I do love you," was the reply. "I should like to live with you. But you are too kind." "All I have," went on Mrs. Pryor, "I would leave to you. You should be provided for. But never again say I am too kind. You pierce my heart, child!" "But, my dear madam - this generosity - I have no claim-" "Hush! you must not talk about it. There are some things we cannot bear to hear. Oh! it is late to begin, but I may yet live a few years. I can never wipe out the past, but perhaps a brief space in the future may yet be mine." Mrs. Pryor seemed deeply agitated. Large tears trembled in her eyes. Caroline kissed her gently, saying, "I love you dearly. Don't cry." But the lady's whole frame seemed shaken. She sat down, bent her head and wept, until at last the agony subsided. "Poor lonely lamb!" she murmured, returning Caroline's kiss. "But come; we must go home." At first Mrs. Pryor walked very fast. By degrees, however, she grew calm and fell into her normal pace; and by the time they reached Fieldhead she had re-entered into herself, and was, as usual, still and shy.

Shirley

Chapter 21: MRS. PRYOR

One fine summer day that Caroline had spent entirely alone (her uncle being at Whinbury), and whose long, bright, noiseless, breezeless, cloudless hours (how many they seemed since sunrise!) had been to her as desolate as if they had gone over her head in the shadowless and trackless wastes of Sahara, instead of in the blooming garden of an English home, she was sitting in the alcove--her task of work on her knee, her fingers assiduously plying the needle, her eyes following and regulating their movements, her brain working restlessly--when Fanny came to the door, looked round over the lawn and borders, and not seeing her whom she sought, called out, "Miss Caroline!" A low voice answered "Fanny!" It issued from the alcove, and thither Fanny hastened, a note in her hand, which she delivered to fingers that hardly seemed to have nerve to hold it. Miss Helstone did not ask whence it came, and she did not look at it; she let it drop amongst the folds of her work. "Joe Scott's son, Harry, brought it," said Fanny. The girl was no enchantress, and knew no magic spell; yet what she said took almost magical effect on her young mistress. She lifted her head with the quick motion of revived sensation; she shot, not a languid, but a lifelike, questioning glance at Fanny. "Harry Scott! who sent him?" "He came from the Hollow." The dropped note was snatched up eagerly, the seal was broken--it was read in two seconds. An affectionate billet from Hortense, informing her young cousin that she was returned from Wormwood Wells; that she was alone to-day, as Robert was gone to Whinbury market; that nothing would give her greater pleasure than to have Caroline's company to tea, and the good lady added, she was quite sure such a change would be most acceptable and beneficial to Caroline, who must be sadly at a loss both for safe guidance and improving society since the misunderstanding between Robert and Mr. Helstone had occasioned a separation from her "meilleure amie, Hortense Grard Moore." In a postscript she was urged to put on her bonnet and run down directly. Caroline did not need the injunction. Glad was she to lay by the brown holland child's slip she was trimming with braid for the Jew's basket, to hasten upstairs, cover her curls with her straw bonnet, and throw round her shoulders the black silk scarf, whose simple drapery suited as well her shape as its dark hue set off the purity of her dress and the fairness of her face; glad was she to escape for a few hours the solitude, the sadness, the nightmare of her life; glad to run down the green lane sloping to the Hollow, to scent the fragrance of hedge flowers sweeter than the perfume of moss-rose or lily. True, she knew Robert was not at the cottage; but it was delight to go where he had lately been. So long, so totally separated from him, merely to see his home, to enter the room where he had that morning sat, felt like a reunion. As such it revived her; and then Illusion was again following her in Peri mask. The soft agitation of wings caressed her cheek, and the air, breathing from the blue summer sky, bore a voice which whispered, "Robert may come home while you are in his house, and then, at least, you may look in his face--at least you may give him your hand; perhaps, for a minute, you may sit beside him." "Silence!" was her austere response; but she loved the comforter and the consolation. Miss Moore probably caught from the window the gleam and flutter of Caroline's white attire through the branchy garden shrubs, for she advanced from the cottage porch to meet her. Straight, unbending, phlegmatic as usual, she came on. No haste or ecstasy was ever permitted to disorder the dignity of _her_ movements; but she smiled, well pleased to mark the delight of her pupil, to feel her kiss and the gentle, genial strain of her embrace. She led her tenderly in, half deceived and wholly flattered. Half deceived! had it not been so she would in all probability have put her to the wicket, and shut her out. Had she known clearly to whose account the chief share of this childlike joy was to be placed, Hortense would most likely have felt both shocked and incensed. Sisters do not like young ladies to fall in love with their brothers. It seems, if not presumptuous, silly, weak, a delusion, an absurd mistake. _They_ do not love these gentlemen--whatever sisterly affection they may cherish towards them--and that others should, repels them with a sense of crude romance. The first movement, in short, excited by such discovery (as with many parents on finding their children to be in love) is one of mixed impatience and contempt. Reason--if they be rational people--corrects the false feeling in time; but if they be irrational, it is never corrected, and the daughter or sister-in-law is disliked to the end. "You would expect to find me alone, from what I said in my note," observed Miss Moore, as she conducted Caroline towards the parlour; "but it was written this morning: since dinner, company has come in." And opening the door she made visible an ample spread of crimson skirts overflowing the elbow-chair at the fireside, and above them, presiding with dignity, a cap more awful than a crown. That cap had never come to the cottage under a bonnet; no, it had been brought in a vast bag, or rather a middle-sized balloon of black silk, held wide with whalebone. The screed, or frill of the cap, stood a quarter of a yard broad round the face of the wearer. The ribbon, flourishing in puffs and bows about the head, was of the sort called love-ribbon. There was a good deal of it, I may say, a very great deal. Mrs. Yorke wore the cap--it became her; she wore the gown also--it suited her no less. That great lady was come in a friendly way to take tea with Miss Moore. It was almost as great and as rare a favour as if the queen were to go uninvited to share pot-luck with one of her subjects. A higher mark of distinction she could not show--she who in general scorned visiting and tea-drinking, and held cheap and stigmatized as "gossips" every maid and matron of the vicinage. There was no mistake, however; Miss Moore _was_ a favourite with her. She had evinced the fact more than once--evinced it by stopping to speak to her in the churchyard on Sundays; by inviting her, almost hospitably, to come to Briarmains; evinced it to-day by the grand condescension of a personal visit. Her reasons for the preference, as assigned by herself, were that Miss Moore was a woman of steady deportment, without the least levity of conversation or carriage; also that, being a foreigner, she must feel the want of a friend to countenance her. She might have added that her plain aspect, homely, precise dress, and phlegmatic, unattractive manner were to her so many additional recommendations. It is certain, at least, that ladies remarkable for the opposite qualities of beauty, lively bearing, and elegant taste in attire were not often favoured with her approbation. Whatever gentlemen are apt to admire in women, Mrs. Yorke condemned; and what they overlook or despise, she patronized. Caroline advanced to the mighty matron with some sense of diffidence. She knew little of Mrs. Yorke, and, as a parson's niece, was doubtful what sort of a reception she might get. She got a very cool one, and was glad to hide her discomfiture by turning away to take off her bonnet. Nor, upon sitting down, was she displeased to be immediately accosted by a little personage in a blue frock and sash, who started up like some fairy from the side of the great dame's chair, where she had been sitting on a footstool, screened from view by the folds of the wide red gown, and running to Miss Helstone, unceremoniously threw her arms round her neck and demanded a kiss. "My mother is not civil to you," said the petitioner, as she received and repaid a smiling salute, "and Rose there takes no notice of you; it is their way. If, instead of you, a white angel, with a crown of stars, had come into the room, mother would nod stiffly, and Rose never lift her head at all; but I will be your friend--I have always liked you." "Jessie, curb that tongue of yours, and repress your forwardness!" said Mrs. Yorke. "But, mother, you are so frozen!" expostulated Jessie. "Miss Helstone has never done you any harm; why can't you be kind to her? You sit so stiff, and look so cold, and speak so dry--what for? That's just the fashion in which you treat Miss Shirley Keeldar and every other young lady who comes to our house. And Rose there is such an aut--aut--I have forgotten the word, but it means a machine in the shape of a human being. However, between you, you will drive every soul away from Briarmains; Martin often says so." "I am an automaton? Good! Let me alone, then," said Rose, speaking from a corner where she was sitting on the carpet at the foot of a bookcase, with a volume spread open on her knee.--"Miss Helstone, how do you do?" she added, directing a brief glance to the person addressed, and then again casting down her gray, remarkable eyes on the book and returning to the study of its pages. Caroline stole a quiet gaze towards her, dwelling on her young, absorbed countenance, and observing a certain unconscious movement of the mouth as she read--a movement full of character. Caroline had tact, and she had fine instinct. She felt that Rose Yorke was a peculiar child--one of the unique; she knew how to treat her. Approaching quietly, she knelt on the carpet at her side, and looked over her little shoulder at her book. It was a romance of Mrs. Radcliffe's--"The Italian." Caroline read on with her, making no remark. Presently Rose showed her the attention of asking, ere she turned the leaf, "Are you ready?" Caroline only nodded. "Do you like it?" inquired Rose ere long. "Long since, when I read it as a child, I was wonderfully taken with it." "Why?" "It seemed to open with such promise--such foreboding of a most strange tale to be unfolded." "And in reading it you feel as if you were far away from England--really in Italy--under another sort of sky--that blue sky of the south which travellers describe." "You are sensible of that, Rose?" "It makes me long to travel, Miss Helstone." "When you are a woman, perhaps, you may be able to gratify your wish." "I mean to make a way to do so, if one is not made for me. I cannot live always in Briarfield. The whole world is not very large compared with creation. I must see the outside of our own round planet, at least." "How much of its outside?" "First this hemisphere where we live; then the other. I am resolved that my life shall be a life. Not a black trance like the toad's, buried in marble; nor a long, slow death like yours in Briarfield rectory." "Like mine! what can you mean, child?" "Might you not as well be tediously dying as for ever shut up in that glebe-house--a place that, when I pass it, always reminds me of a windowed grave? I never see any movement about the door. I never hear a sound from the wall. I believe smoke never issues from the chimneys. What do you do there?" "I sew, I read, I learn lessons." "Are you happy?" "Should I be happy wandering alone in strange countries as you wish to do?" "Much happier, even if you did nothing but wander. Remember, however, that I shall have an object in view; but if you only went on and on, like some enchanted lady in a fairy tale, you might be happier than now. In a day's wandering you would pass many a hill, wood, and watercourse, each perpetually altering in aspect as the sun shone out or was overcast; as the weather was wet or fair, dark or bright. Nothing changes in Briarfield rectory. The plaster of the parlour ceilings, the paper on the walls, the curtains, carpets, chairs, are still the same." "Is change necessary to happiness?" "Yes." "Is it synonymous with it?" "I don't know; but I feel monotony and death to be almost the same." Here Jessie spoke. "Isn't she mad?" she asked. "But, Rose," pursued Caroline, "I fear a wanderer's life, for me at least, would end like that tale you are reading--in disappointment, vanity, and vexation of spirit." "Does 'The Italian' so end?" "I thought so when I read it." "Better to try all things and find all empty than to try nothing and leave your life a blank. To do this is to commit the sin of him who buried his talent in a napkin--despicable sluggard!" "Rose," observed Mrs. Yorke, "solid satisfaction is only to be realized by doing one's duty." "Right, mother! And if my Master has given me ten talents, my duty is to trade with them, and make them ten talents more. Not in the dust of household drawers shall the coin be interred. I will _not_ deposit it in a broken-spouted teapot, and shut it up in a china closet among tea-things. I will _not_ commit it to your work-table to be smothered in piles of woollen hose. I will _not_ prison it in the linen press to find shrouds among the sheets. And least of all, mother" (she got up from the floor)--"least of all will I hide it in a tureen of cold potatoes, to be ranged with bread, butter, pastry, and ham on the shelves of the larder." She stopped, then went on, "Mother, the Lord who gave each of us our talents will come home some day, and will demand from all an account. The teapot, the old stocking-foot, the linen rag, the willow-pattern tureen will yield up their barren deposit in many a house. Suffer your daughters, at least, to put their money to the exchangers, that they may be enabled at the Master's coming to pay Him His own with usury." "Rose, did you bring your sampler with you, as I told you?" "Yes, mother." "Sit down, and do a line of marking." Rose sat down promptly, and wrought according to orders. After a busy pause of ten minutes, her mother asked, "Do you think yourself oppressed now--a victim?" "No, mother." "Yet, as far as I understood your tirade, it was a protest against all womanly and domestic employment." "You misunderstood it, mother. I should be sorry not to learn to sew. You do right to teach me, and to make me work." "Even to the mending of your brothers' stockings and the making of sheets?" "Yes." "Where is the use of ranting and spouting about it, then?" "Am I to do nothing but that? I will do that, and then I will do more. Now, mother, I have said my say. I am twelve years old at present, and not till I am sixteen will I speak again about talents. For four years I bind myself an industrious apprentice to all you can teach me." "You see what my daughters are, Miss Helstone," observed Mrs. Yorke; "how precociously wise in their own conceits! 'I would rather this, I prefer that'--such is Jessie's cuckoo song; while Rose utters the bolder cry, 'I _will_, and I will _not_!'" "I render a reason, mother; besides, if my cry is bold, it is only heard once in a twelvemonth. About each birthday the spirit moves me to deliver one oracle respecting my own instruction and management. I utter it and leave it; it is for you, mother, to listen or not." "I would advise all young ladies," pursued Mrs. Yorke, "to study the characters of such children as they chance to meet with before they marry and have any of their own to consider well how they would like the responsibility of guiding the careless, the labour of persuading the stubborn, the constant burden and task of training the best." "But with love it need not be so very difficult," interposed Caroline. "Mothers love their children most dearly--almost better than they love themselves." "Fine talk! very sentimental! There is the rough, practical part of life yet to come for you, young miss." "But, Mrs. Yorke, if I take a little baby into my arms--any poor woman's infant, for instance--I feel that I love that helpless thing quite peculiarly, though I am not its mother. I could do almost anything for it willingly, if it were delivered over entirely to my care--if it were quite dependent on me." "You _feel_! Yes, yes! I dare say, now. You are led a great deal by your _feelings_, and you think yourself a very sensitive personage, no doubt. Are you aware that, with all these romantic ideas, you have managed to train your features into an habitually lackadaisical expression, better suited to a novel-heroine than to a woman who is to make her way in the real world by dint of common sense?" "No; I am not at all aware of that, Mrs. Yorke." "Look in the glass just behind you. Compare the face you see there with that of any early-rising, hard-working milkmaid." "My face is a pale one, but it is _not_ sentimental; and most milkmaids, however red and robust they may be, are more stupid and less practically fitted to make their way in the world than I am. I think more, and more correctly, than milkmaids in general do; consequently, where they would often, for want of reflection, act weakly, I, by dint of reflection, should act judiciously." "Oh no! you would be influenced by your feelings; you would be guided by impulse." "Of course I should often be influenced by my feelings. They were given me to that end. Whom my feelings teach me to love I _must_ and _shall_ love; and I hope, if ever I have a husband and children, my feelings will induce me to love them. I hope, in that case, all my impulses will be strong in compelling me to love." Caroline had a pleasure in saying this with emphasis; she had a pleasure in daring to say it in Mrs. Yorke's presence. She did not care what unjust sarcasm might be hurled at her in reply. She flushed, not with anger but excitement, when the ungenial matron answered coolly, "Don't waste your dramatic effects. That was well said--it was quite fine; but it is lost on two women--an old wife and an old maid. There should have been a disengaged gentleman present.--Is Mr. Robert nowhere hid behind the curtains, do you think, Miss Moore?" Hortense, who during the chief part of the conversation had been in the kitchen superintending the preparations for tea, did not yet quite comprehend the drift of the discourse. She answered, with a puzzled air, that Robert was at Whinbury. Mrs. Yorke laughed her own peculiar short laugh. "Straightforward Miss Moore!" said she patronizingly. "It is like you to understand my question so literally and answer it so simply. _Your_ mind comprehends nothing of intrigue. Strange things might go on around you without your being the wiser; you are not of the class the world calls sharp-witted." These equivocal compliments did not seem to please Hortense. She drew herself up, puckered her black eyebrows, but still looked puzzled. "I have ever been noted for sagacity and discernment from childhood," she returned; for, indeed, on the possession of these qualities she peculiarly piqued herself. "You never plotted to win a husband, I'll be bound," pursued Mrs. Yorke; "and you have not the benefit of previous experience to aid you in discovering when others plot." Caroline felt this kind language where the benevolent speaker intended she should feel it--in her very heart. She could not even parry the shafts; she was defenceless for the present. To answer would have been to avow that the cap fitted. Mrs. Yorke, looking at her as she sat with troubled, downcast eyes, and cheek burning painfully, and figure expressing in its bent attitude and unconscious tremor all the humiliation and chagrin she experienced, felt the sufferer was fair game. The strange woman had a natural antipathy to a shrinking, sensitive character--a nervous temperament; nor was a pretty, delicate, and youthful face a passport to her affections. It was seldom she met with all these obnoxious qualities combined in one individual; still more seldom she found that individual at her mercy, under circumstances in which she could crush her well. She happened this afternoon to be specially bilious and morose--as much disposed to gore as any vicious "mother of the herd." Lowering her large head she made a new charge. "Your cousin Hortense is an excellent sister, Miss Helstone. Such ladies as come to try their life's luck here at Hollow's Cottage may, by a very little clever female artifice, cajole the mistress of the house, and have the game all in their own hands. You are fond of your cousin's society, I dare say, miss?" "Of which cousin's?" "Oh, of the lady's, _of course_." "Hortense is, and always has been, most kind to me." "Every sister with an eligible single brother is considered most kind by her spinster friends." "Mrs. Yorke," said Caroline, lifting her eyes slowly, their blue orbs at the same time clearing from trouble, and shining steady and full, while the glow of shame left her cheek, and its hue turned pale and settled--"Mrs. Yorke, may I ask what you mean?" "To give you a lesson on the cultivation of rectitude, to disgust you with craft and false sentiment." "Do I need this lesson?" "Most young ladies of the present day need it. You are quite a modern young lady--morbid, delicate, professing to like retirement; which implies, I suppose, that you find little worthy of your sympathies in the ordinary world. The ordinary world--every-day honest folks--are better than you think them, much better than any bookish, romancing chit of a girl can be who hardly ever puts her nose over her uncle the parson's garden wall." "Consequently of whom you know nothing. Excuse me--indeed, it does not matter whether you excuse me or not--you have attacked me without provocation; I shall defend myself without apology. Of my relations with my two cousins you are ignorant. In a fit of ill-humour you have attempted to poison them by gratuitous insinuations, which are far more crafty and false than anything with which you can justly charge me. That I happen to be pale, and sometimes to look diffident, is no business of yours; that I am fond of books, and indisposed for common gossip, is still less your business; that I am a 'romancing chit of a girl' is a mere conjecture on your part. I never romanced to you nor to anybody you know. That I am the parson's niece is not a crime, though you may be narrow-minded enough to think it so. You dislike me. You have no just reason for disliking me; therefore keep the expression of your aversion to yourself. If at any time in future you evince it annoyingly, I shall answer even less scrupulously than I have done now." She ceased, and sat in white and still excitement. She had spoken in the clearest of tones, neither fast nor loud; but her silver accents thrilled the ear. The speed of the current in her veins was just then as swift as it was viewless. Mrs. Yorke was not irritated at the reproof, worded with a severity so simple, dictated by a pride so quiet. Turning coolly to Miss Moore, she said, nodding her cap approvingly, "She has spirit in her, after all.--Always speak as honestly as you have done just now," she continued, "and you'll do." "I repel a recommendation so offensive," was the answer, delivered in the same pure key, with the same clear look. "I reject counsel poisoned by insinuation. It is my right to speak as I think proper; nothing binds me to converse as you dictate. So far from always speaking as I have done just now, I shall never address any one in a tone so stern or in language so harsh, unless in answer to unprovoked insult." "Mother, you have found your match," pronounced little Jessie, whom the scene appeared greatly to edify. Rose had heard the whole with an unmoved face. She now said, "No; Miss Helstone is not my mother's match, for she allows herself to be vexed. My mother would wear her out in a few weeks. Shirley Keeldar manages better.--Mother, you have never hurt Miss Keeldar's feelings yet. She wears armour under her silk dress that you cannot penetrate." Mrs. Yorke often complained that her children were mutinous. It was strange that with all her strictness, with all her "strong-mindedness," she could gain no command over them. A look from their father had more influence with them than a lecture from her. Miss Moore--to whom the position of witness to an altercation in which she took no part was highly displeasing, as being an unimportant secondary post--now rallying her dignity, prepared to utter a discourse which was to prove both parties in the wrong, and to make it clear to each disputant that she had reason to be ashamed of herself, and ought to submit humbly to the superior sense of the individual then addressing her. Fortunately for her audience, she had not harangued above ten minutes when Sarah's entrance with the tea-tray called her attention, first to the fact of that damsel having a gilt comb in her hair and a red necklace round her throat, and secondly, and subsequently to a pointed remonstrance, to the duty of making tea. After the meal Rose restored her to good-humour by bringing her guitar and asking for a song, and afterwards engaging her in an intelligent and sharp cross-examination about guitar-playing and music in general. Jessie, meantime, directed her assiduities to Caroline. Sitting on a stool at her feet, she talked to her, first about religion and then about politics. Jessie was accustomed at home to drink in a great deal of what her father said on these subjects, and afterwards in company to retail, with more wit and fluency than consistency or discretion, his opinions, antipathies, and preferences. She rated Caroline soundly for being a member of the Established Church, and for having an uncle a clergyman. She informed her that she lived on the country, and ought to work for her living honestly, instead of passing a useless life, and eating the bread of idleness in the shape of tithes. Thence Jessie passed to a review of the ministry at that time in office, and a consideration of its deserts. She made familiar mention of the names of Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Perceval. Each of these personages she adorned with a character that might have separately suited Moloch and Belial. She denounced the war as wholesale murder, and Lord Wellington as a "hired butcher." Her auditress listened with exceeding edification. Jessie had something of the genius of humour in her nature. It was inexpressibly comic to hear her repeating her sire's denunciations in his nervous northern Doric; as hearty a little Jacobin as ever pent a free mutinous spirit in a muslin frock and sash. Not malignant by nature, her language was not so bitter as it was racy, and the expressive little face gave a piquancy to every phrase which held a beholder's interest captive. Caroline chid her when she abused Lord Wellington; but she listened delighted to a subsequent tirade against the Prince Regent. Jessie quickly read, in the sparkle of her hearer's eye and the laughter hovering round her lips, that at last she had hit on a topic that pleased. Many a time had she heard the fat "Adonis of fifty" discussed at her father's breakfast-table, and she now gave Mr. Yorke's comments on the theme--genuine as uttered by his Yorkshire lips. But, Jessie, I will write about you no more. This is an autumn evening, wet and wild. There is only one cloud in the sky, but it curtains it from pole to pole. The wind cannot rest; it hurries sobbing over hills of sullen outline, colourless with twilight and mist. Rain has beat all day on that church tower. It rises dark from the stony enclosure of its graveyard. The nettles, the long grass, and the tombs all drip with wet. This evening reminds me too forcibly of another evening some years ago--a howling, rainy autumn evening too--when certain who had that day performed a pilgrimage to a grave new-made in a heretic cemetery sat near a wood fire on the hearth of a foreign dwelling. They were merry and social, but they each knew that a gap, never to be filled, had been made in their circle. They knew they had lost something whose absence could never be quite atoned for so long as they lived; and they knew that heavy falling rain was soaking into the wet earth which covered their lost darling, and that the sad, sighing gale was mourning above her buried head. The fire warmed them; life and friendship yet blessed them; but Jessie lay cold, coffined, solitary--only the sod screening her from the storm. * * * * * Mrs. Yorke folded up her knitting, cut short the music lesson and the lecture on politics, and concluded her visit to the cottage, at an hour early enough to ensure her return to Briarmains before the blush of sunset should quite have faded in heaven, or the path up the fields have become thoroughly moist with evening dew. The lady and her daughters being gone, Caroline felt that she also ought to resume her scarf, kiss her cousin's cheek, and trip away homeward. If she lingered much later dusk would draw on, and Fanny would be put to the trouble of coming to fetch her. It was both baking and ironing day at the rectory, she remembered--Fanny would be busy. Still, she could not quit her seat at the little parlour window. From no point of view could the west look so lovely as from that lattice with the garland of jessamine round it, whose white stars and green leaves seemed now but gray pencil outlines--graceful in form, but colourless in tint--against the gold incarnadined of a summer evening--against the fire-tinged blue of an August sky at eight o'clock p.m. Caroline looked at the wicket-gate, beside which holly-oaks spired up tall. She looked at the close hedge of privet and laurel fencing in the garden; her eyes longed to see something more than the shrubs before they turned from that limited prospect. They longed to see a human figure, of a certain mould and height, pass the hedge and enter the gate. A human figure she at last saw--nay, two. Frederick Murgatroyd went by, carrying a pail of water; Joe Scott followed, dangling on his forefinger the keys of the mill. They were going to lock up mill and stables for the night, and then betake themselves home. "So must I," thought Caroline, as she half rose and sighed. "This is all folly--heart-breaking folly," she added. "In the first place, though I should stay till dark there will be no arrival; because I feel in my heart, Fate has written it down in to-day's page of her eternal book, that I am not to have the pleasure I long for. In the second place, if he stepped in this moment, my presence here would be a chagrin to him, and the consciousness that it must be so would turn half my blood to ice. His hand would, perhaps, be loose and chill if I put mine into it; his eye would be clouded if I sought its beam. I should look up for that kindling, something I have seen in past days, when my face, or my language, or my disposition had at some happy moment pleased him; I should discover only darkness. I had better go home." She took her bonnet from the table where it lay, and was just fastening the ribbon, when Hortense, directing her attention to a splendid bouquet of flowers in a glass on the same table, mentioned that Miss Keeldar had sent them that morning from Fieldhead; and went on to comment on the guests that lady was at present entertaining, on the bustling life she had lately been leading; adding divers conjectures that she did not very well like it, and much wonderment that a person who was so fond of her own way as the heiress did not find some means of sooner getting rid of this _cortge_ of relatives. "But they say she actually will not let Mr. Sympson and his family go," she added. "They wanted much to return to the south last week, to be ready for the reception of the only son, who is expected home from a tour. She insists that her cousin Henry shall come and join his friends here in Yorkshire. I dare say she partly does it to oblige Robert and myself." "How to oblige Robert and you?" inquired Caroline. "Why, my child, you are dull. Don't you know--you must often have heard----" "Please, ma'am," said Sarah, opening the door, "the preserves that you told me to boil in treacle--the congfiters, as you call them--is all burnt to the pan." "Les confitures! Elles sont brles? Ah, quelle ngligence coupable! Coquine de cuisinire, fille insupportable!" And mademoiselle, hastily taking from a drawer a large linen apron, and tying it over her black apron, rushed _perdue_ into the kitchen, whence, to speak truth, exhaled an odour of calcined sweets rather strong than savoury. The mistress and maid had been in full feud the whole day, on the subject of preserving certain black cherries, hard as marbles, sour as sloes. Sarah held that sugar was the only orthodox condiment to be used in that process; mademoiselle maintained--and proved it by the practice and experience of her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother--that treacle, "mlasse," was infinitely preferable. She had committed an imprudence in leaving Sarah in charge of the preserving-pan, for her want of sympathy in the nature of its contents had induced a degree of carelessness in watching their confection, whereof the result was--dark and cindery ruin. Hubbub followed; high upbraiding, and sobs rather loud than deep or real. Caroline, once more turning to the little mirror, was shading her ringlets from her cheek to smooth them under her cottage bonnet, certain that it would not only be useless but unpleasant to stay longer, when, on the sudden opening of the back-door, there fell an abrupt calm in the kitchen. The tongues were checked, pulled up as with bit and bridle. "Was it--was it--Robert?" He often--almost always--entered by the kitchen way on his return from market. No; it was only Joe Scott, who, having hemmed significantly thrice--every hem being meant as a lofty rebuke to the squabbling womankind--said, "Now, I thowt I heerd a crack?" None answered. "And," he continued pragmatically, "as t' maister's comed, and as he'll enter through this hoyle, I _con_sidered it desirable to step in and let ye know. A household o' women is nivver fit to be comed on wi'out warning. Here he is.--Walk forrard, sir. They war playing up queerly, but I think I've quietened 'em." Another person, it was now audible, entered. Joe Scott proceeded with his rebukes. "What d'ye mean by being all i' darkness? Sarah, thou quean, canst t' not light a candle? It war sundown an hour syne. He'll brak his shins agean some o' yer pots, and tables, and stuff.--Tak tent o' this baking-bowl, sir; they've set it i' yer way, fair as if they did it i' malice." To Joe's observations succeeded a confused sort of pause, which Caroline, though she was listening with both her ears, could not understand. It was very brief. A cry broke it--a sound of surprise, followed by the sound of a kiss; ejaculations, but half articulate, succeeded. "Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! Est-ce que je m'y attendais?" were the words chiefly to be distinguished. "Et tu te portes toujours bien, bonne sur?" inquired another voice--Robert's, certainly. Caroline was puzzled. Obeying an impulse the wisdom of which she had not time to question, she escaped from the little parlour, by way of leaving the coast clear, and running upstairs took up a position at the head of the banisters, whence she could make further observations ere presenting herself. It was considerably past sunset now; dusk filled the passage, yet not such deep dusk but that she could presently see Robert and Hortense traverse it. "Caroline! Caroline!" called Hortense, a moment afterwards, "venez voir mon frre!" "Strange," commented Miss Helstone, "passing strange! What does this unwonted excitement about such an every-day occurrence as a return from market portend? She has not lost her senses, has she? Surely the burnt treacle has not crazed her?" She descended in a subdued flutter. Yet more was she fluttered when Hortense seized her hand at the parlour door, and leading her to Robert, who stood in bodily presence, tall and dark against the one window, presented her with a mixture of agitation and formality, as though they had been utter strangers, and this was their first mutual introduction. Increasing puzzle! He bowed rather awkwardly, and turning from her with a stranger's embarrassment, he met the doubtful light from the window. It fell on his face, and the enigma of the dream (a dream it seemed) was at its height. She saw a visage like and unlike--Robert, and no Robert. "What is the matter?" said Caroline. "Is my sight wrong? Is it my cousin?" "Certainly it is your cousin," asserted Hortense. Then who was this now coming through the passage--now entering the room? Caroline, looking round, met a new Robert--the real Robert, as she felt at once. "Well," said he, smiling at her questioning, astonished face, "which is which?" "Ah, this is _you_!" was the answer. He laughed. "I believe it is _me_. And do you know who _he_ is? You never saw him before, but you have heard of him." She had gathered her senses now. "It _can_ be only one person--your brother, since it is so like you; my other cousin, Louis." "Clever little dipus! you would have baffled the Sphinx! But now, see us together.--Change places; change again, to confuse her, Louis.--Which is the old love now, Lina?" "As if it were possible to make a mistake when you speak! You should have told Hortense to ask. But you are not so much alike. It is only your height, your figure, and complexion that are so similar." "And I am Robert, am I not?" asked the newcomer, making a first effort to overcome what seemed his natural shyness. Caroline shook her head gently. A soft, expressive ray from her eye beamed on the real Robert. It said much. She was not permitted to quit her cousins soon. Robert himself was peremptory in obliging her to remain. Glad, simple, and affable in her demeanour (glad for this night, at least), in light, bright spirits for the time, she was too pleasant an addition to the cottage circle to be willingly parted with by any of them. Louis seemed naturally rather a grave, still, retiring man; but the Caroline of this evening, which was not (as you know, reader) the Caroline of every day, thawed his reserve, and cheered his gravity soon. He sat near her and talked to her. She already knew his vocation was that of tuition. She learned now he had for some years been the tutor of Mr. Sympson's son; that he had been travelling with him, and had accompanied him to the north. She inquired if he liked his post, but got a look in reply which did not invite or license further question. The look woke Caroline's ready sympathy. She thought it a very sad expression to pass over so sensible a face as Louis's; for he _had_ a sensible face, though not handsome, she considered, when seen near Robert's. She turned to make the comparison. Robert was leaning against the wall, a little behind her, turning over the leaves of a book of engravings, and probably listening, at the same time, to the dialogue between her and Louis. "How could I think them alike?" she asked herself. "I see now it is Hortense Louis resembles, not Robert." And this was in part true. He had the shorter nose and longer upper lip of his sister rather than the fine traits of his brother. He had her mould of mouth and chin--all less decisive, accurate, and clear than those of the young mill-owner. His air, though deliberate and reflective, could scarcely be called prompt and acute. You felt, in sitting near and looking up at him, that a slower and probably a more benignant nature than that of the elder Moore shed calm on your impressions. Robert--perhaps aware that Caroline's glance had wandered towards and dwelt upon him, though he had neither met nor answered it--put down the book of engravings, and approaching, took a seat at her side. She resumed her conversation with Louis, but while she talked to him her thoughts were elsewhere. Her heart beat on the side from which her face was half averted. She acknowledged a steady, manly, kindly air in Louis; but she bent before the secret power of Robert. To be so near him--though he was silent, though he did not touch so much as her scarf-fringe or the white hem of her dress--affected her like a spell. Had she been obliged to speak to him _only_, it would have quelled, but, at liberty to address another, it excited her. Her discourse flowed freely; it was gay, playful, eloquent. The indulgent look and placid manner of her auditor encouraged her to ease; the sober pleasure expressed by his smile drew out all that was brilliant in her nature. She felt that this evening she appeared to advantage, and as Robert was a spectator, the consciousness contented her. Had he been called away, collapse would at once have succeeded stimulus. But her enjoyment was not long to shine full-orbed; a cloud soon crossed it. Hortense, who for some time had been on the move ordering supper, and was now clearing the little table of some books, etc., to make room for the tray, called Robert's attention to the glass of flowers, the carmine and snow and gold of whose petals looked radiant indeed by candlelight. "They came from Fieldhead," she said, "intended as a gift to you, no doubt. We know who is the favourite there; not I, I'm sure." It was a wonder to hear Hortense jest--a sign that her spirits were at high-water mark indeed. "We are to understand, then, that Robert is the favourite?" observed Louis. "Mon cher," replied Hortense, "Robert--c'est tout ce qu'il y a de plus prcieux au monde; ct de lui le reste du genre humain n'est que du rebut.--N'ai-je pas raison, mon enfant?" she added, appealing to Caroline. Caroline was obliged to reply, "Yes," and her beacon was quenched. Her star withdrew as she spoke. "Et toi, Robert?" inquired Louis. "When you shall have an opportunity, ask herself," was the quiet answer. Whether he reddened or paled Caroline did not examine. She discovered that it was late, and she must go home. Home she would go; not even Robert could detain her now.

One fine summer day that Caroline had spent entirely alone (her uncle being at Whinbury), and whose long, bright, cloudless hours had been to her as desolate as if they had been spent in the shadowless wastes of the Sahara, she was sitting in the alcove, sewing, her brain working restlessly - when Fanny came to the door and called, "Miss Caroline!" When she answered, Fanny hastened over, a note in her hand. Miss Helstone did not ask whence it came, and she did not even look at it; she let it drop amongst the folds of her work. "Joe Scott's son brought it from the Hollow," said Fanny. This had an almost magical effect on her young mistress. She lifted her head. The dropped note was snatched up eagerly, the seal was broken - it was read in two seconds. It was an affectionate note from Hortense, informing her young cousin that she was returned from Wormwood Wells; that she was alone today, as Robert was gone to Whinbury market; that nothing would give her greater pleasure than to have Caroline's company for tea. The good lady added, she was sure such a change would be most beneficial to Caroline, who must be sadly at a loss for improving society since the separation from her dear friend, Hortense Grard Moore. Glad was Caroline to lay aside her sewing, to cover her curls with her straw bonnet, and throw round her shoulders the black silk scarf; glad was she to escape for a few hours the solitude, the sadness, the nightmare of her life; glad to run down the fragrant green lane to the Hollow. True, she knew Robert was not there; but it was delight to go where he had lately been, to enter the room where he had that morning sat. And then, her thoughts whispered, "Robert may come home while you are there; you may give him your hand; perhaps, for a minute, you may sit beside him." "Silence!" was her austere response; but she loved the consolation. Miss Moore advanced from the cottage to meet her, straight and unbending as usual. No haste or joy was ever permitted to disorder her dignity; but she smiled, pleased to see the delight of her pupil, to feel her kiss. She led her tenderly in, half deceived and wholly flattered. Half deceived! Had she known on whose account most of this joy was felt, Hortense would have been both shocked and incensed. "You would expect to find me alone, from what I said in my note," observed Miss Moore, as she led Caroline towards the parlour; "but since I wrote it, company has come in." And opening the door she made visible an ample spread of crimson skirts overflowing the chair at the fireside, and above them a cap more awful than a crown. The cap's frill stood a quarter of a yard broad round the face of the wearer, with a great deal of ribbon. The wearer was Mrs. Yorke. That great lady was come to take tea with Miss Moore. It was almost as great and rare a favour as if the queen were to go uninvited to share pot-luck with one of her subjects. Mrs. Yorke in general scorned visiting and tea-drinking. However, Miss Moore was a favourite with her. She had decided that Miss Moore was a woman of steady deportment, without the least levity; also that, being a foreigner, she must feel the want of a friend. She might have added that her plain appearance, homely dress, and phlegmatic manner were additional recommendations. Certainly ladies of beauty, elegance and lively bearing were not often favoured with her approval. Caroline advanced diffidently to the mighty matron. She knew little of Mrs. Yorke, and, as a parson's niece, was doubtful what sort of a reception she might get. She got a very cool one, and was glad to hide her discomfiture by turning away to take off her bonnet. Upon sitting down, she was immediately accosted by a little personage in a blue frock, who started up from the side of the great dame's chair, where she had been sitting on a footstool, screened from view by the wide red gown. Running to Miss Helstone, she threw her arms round her neck and demanded a kiss. "My mother is not civil to you," said this personage, "and Rose there takes no notice of you; it is their way. If a white angel crowned with stars had come into the room, mother would nod stiffly, and Rose never lift her head; but I will be your friend." "Jessie, curb that tongue of yours!" said Mrs. Yorke. "But, mother, you are so frozen!" cried Jessie. "Miss Helstone has never done you any harm; why can't you be kind to her? You sit so stiff, and look so cold, and speak so dry - that's how you treat every young lady who comes to our house. And Rose there is such an aut - aut - I have forgotten the word, but it means a machine in the shape of a human being." "I am an automaton? Good! Let me alone, then," said Rose, from a corner where she was sitting with a book open on her knee. "Miss Helstone, how do you do?" she added, before again casting down her eyes to study the pages. Caroline gazed at her young, absorbed countenance, full of character; with fine instinct, she felt that Rose Yorke was a unique child. Approaching quietly, she knelt on the carpet at her side, and looked over her shoulder at her book. It was a romance of Mrs. Radcliffe's: "The Italian." Caroline read on with her, making no remark. Presently Rose asked, "Do you like it?" "Long ago, when I was a child, I was wonderfully taken with it." "Why?" "It seemed to open with such promise - such foreboding of a strange tale to be unfolded." "And in reading it you feel as if you were really in Italy - under another sort of sky. It makes me long to travel, Miss Helstone." "When you are a woman, perhaps, you may be able to gratify your wish." "I mean to do so. I cannot live always in Briarfield. I am resolved that my life shall be a life. Not a black trance like the toad's, buried in marble; nor a long, slow death like yours in Briarfield rectory." "Like mine! what can you mean, child?" "That house always reminds me of a windowed grave. I never see any movement there. I never hear a sound from it, or see any smoke coming from the chimneys. What do you do there?" "I sew, I read, I learn lessons." "Are you happy?" asked Rose. "Should I be happy wandering alone in strange countries?" "Much happier, even if you did nothing but wander. You would pass many a hill, wood, and river, each perpetually changing with the weather. Nothing changes in Briarfield rectory." "Is change necessary to happiness?" asked Caroline. "Yes. I feel monotony and death to be almost the same thing." Here Jessie spoke. "Isn't she mad?" "But, Rose," pursued Caroline, "I fear a wanderer's life, for me at least, would end like that tale you are reading - in disappointment and vexation of spirit." "Better to try all things and find all empty, than to try nothing and leave your life a blank." "Rose," observed Mrs. Yorke, "solid satisfaction is only to be realized by doing one's duty." "Right, mother! And if my Master has given me ten talents, my duty is to trade with them, and make ten talents more. Not in the dust of household drawers shall the coin be buried. Not in a broken-spouted teapot, or in a china closet among tea-things. Not in the linen press among shrouds of sheets. And least of all, mother" (she got up from the floor) - "least of all will I hide it in a tureen of cold potatoes in the larder. Mother, the Lord who gave each of us our talents will some day demand from all an account. The teapot, the old stocking-foot, the tureen will yield up their barren deposit in many a house. Let your daughters, at least, increase their talents, so that they may pay the Master's His own with interest." "Rose, did you bring your sampler, as I told you?" "Yes, mother." "Sit down, and do a line." Rose sat down promptly, and sewed as ordered. After ten minutes, her mother asked, "Do you think yourself oppressed now - a victim?" "No, mother." "Yet, as far as I understood your tirade, it was a protest against all womanly and domestic employment." "You misunderstood it, mother. I should be sorry not to learn to sew. You do right to teach me, and to make me work and mend." "Where is the use of ranting about it, then?" "Am I to do nothing but that? I will do that, and then I will do more. Now, mother, I have said my say. I am twelve years old, and not till I am sixteen will I speak again about talents. For four years I bind myself an industrious apprentice to all you can teach me." "You see what my daughters are, Miss Helstone," observed Mrs. Yorke; "how precociously wise in their own idea! 'I would rather this, I prefer that' - such is Jessie's cuckoo song; while Rose utters the bolder cry, 'I will, and I will not!'" "I give a reason, mother; besides, my cry is only heard once a year." "I would advise all young ladies," pursued Mrs. Yorke, "to study the characters of such children before they marry and have any of their own; to consider well how they would like the constant burden and task of training them." "But with love it need not be so very difficult," said Caroline. "Mothers love their children almost better than they love themselves." "Fine talk! very sentimental! The practical part of life is yet to come for you, young miss." "But, Mrs. Yorke, if I take any woman's baby into my arms, I feel that I love it, though I am not its mother. I could do almost anything for it willingly, if it were dependent on me." "You feel! Yes, I dare say. You are led a great deal by your feelings, and you think yourself a very sensitive person, no doubt. Are you aware that, with all these romantic ideas, you have managed to train your features into a lackadaisical expression, better suited to a novel-heroine than a woman who is to make her way in the real world by dint of common sense?" "No; I am not aware of that, Mrs. Yorke." "Look in the mirror behind you. Compare the face you see there with that of any hard-working milkmaid." "My face is pale, but it is not sentimental; and most milkmaids, however red and robust they may be, are more stupid and less practically fitted to make their way in the world than I am. I think more, and more correctly, than milkmaids in general do. Where they would often act weakly, I should act judiciously." "Oh no! you would be influenced by your feelings." "Of course I should often be influenced by my feelings. They were given me to that end. I hope, if ever I have a husband and children, my feelings will induce me to love them." Caroline had a pleasure in saying this to Mrs. Yorke. She did not care what unjust sarcasm might be hurled at her in reply. She flushed, not with anger but excitement, when the matron answered coolly, "That was well said - it was quite fine; but it is lost on an old wife and an old maid. There should have been a gentleman present. - Is Mr. Robert nowhere hid behind the curtains, do you think, Miss Moore?" Hortense, who during much of the conversation had been in the kitchen superintending the preparations for tea, did not understand. She answered, with a puzzled air, that Robert was at Whinbury. Mrs. Yorke laughed her short laugh. "Straightforward Miss Moore!" said she patronizingly. "It is like you to understand my question so literally. You comprehend nothing of intrigue. You are not of the class the world calls sharp-witted." At this, Hortense drew herself up and puckered her black eyebrows, but still looked puzzled. "I have been noted for sagacity and discernment from childhood," she returned. "You never plotted to win a husband, I'll be bound," pursued Mrs. Yorke; "and you have no experience to aid you in discovering when others plot." Caroline felt this language where the speaker intended she should feel it - in her very heart. She could not even parry the shafts; to answer would have been to avow that the cap fitted. Mrs. Yorke, looking at her as she sat with troubled, downcast eyes, and cheek burning painfully, felt the sufferer was fair game. The woman had a natural antipathy to a shrinking, sensitive character; nor was a pretty face a passport to her affections. It was seldom she met with all these obnoxious qualities combined in one individual; still more seldom she found that individual at her mercy, under circumstances in which she could crush her well. Lowering her large head she made a new charge. "Your cousin Hortense is an excellent sister, Miss Helstone. Such ladies as come to try their life's luck here at Hollow's Cottage may, by a little clever artifice, cajole the mistress of the house, and have the game all in their own hands. You are fond of your cousin's society, I dare say, miss?" "Of which cousin's?" "Oh, of the lady's, of course." "Hortense is, and always has been, most kind to me." "Every sister with an eligible single brother is considered most kind by her spinster friends." "Mrs. Yorke," said Caroline, lifting her eyes slowly, while the glow of shame left her cheek, and its hue turned pale - "Mrs. Yorke, may I ask what you mean?" "To give you a lesson on rectitude." "Do I need this lesson?" "Most young ladies of the present day need it. You are quite a modern young lady - morbid, delicate, professing to like retirement; which implies, I suppose, that you find little worthy of your sympathies in the ordinary world. The ordinary world - everyday honest folks - are much better than any bookish, romancing chit of a girl who hardly ever puts her nose over her uncle's garden wall." "Consequently of whom you know nothing. Excuse me - indeed, it does not matter whether you excuse me or not - you have attacked me without provocation; I shall defend myself without apology. Of my relations with my two cousins you are ignorant. In a fit of ill-humour you have attempted to poison them by insinuations which are far more crafty and false than anything with which you can justly charge me. That I happen to be pale, and sometimes to look diffident, is no business of yours; that I am fond of books, and dislike gossip, is still less your business; that I am a 'romancing chit of a girl' is a mere conjecture on your part. That I am the parson's niece is not a crime, though you may be narrow-minded enough to think it so. You dislike me, but for no just reason; therefore keep the expression of your dislike to yourself. Otherwise I shall answer even less scrupulously than I have done now." She ceased, and sat in white and still excitement. She had spoken clearly, neither fast nor loud; but her silver accents thrilled the ear. Mrs. Yorke was not irritated at the reproof. Turning coolly to Miss Moore, she said, nodding approvingly, "She has spirit, after all. - Always speak as honestly as you have done just now," she continued, "and you'll do." "I repel a recommendation so offensive," was the answer, delivered with the same clear look. "I reject counsel poisoned by insinuation. I shall speak as I think proper; not as you dictate. So far from always speaking as I have done just now, I shall never address anyone in a tone so stern or in language so harsh, unless in answer to unprovoked insult." "Mother, you have found your match," pronounced little Jessie. Rose had heard the whole with an unmoved face. She now said, "No; Miss Helstone is not my mother's match, for she allows herself to be vexed. My mother would wear her out in a few weeks. Shirley Keeldar manages better. Mother, you have never hurt Miss Keeldar's feelings yet. She wears armour that you cannot penetrate." Mrs. Yorke often complained that her children were mutinous. It was strange that with all her strictness and "strong-mindedness," she could gain no command over them. A look from their father had more influence than a lecture from her. Miss Moore, now rallying her dignity, prepared to utter a speech which was to prove both parties in the wrong, and to make it clear to each that she should be ashamed of herself, and ought to submit humbly to the superior sense of her hostess. Fortunately Sarah's entrance with the tea-tray called her attention to the duty of making tea. After the meal Rose restored her to good-humour by bringing her guitar and asking for a song, and afterwards engaging her in an intelligent discussion about music. Jessie, meantime, talked to Caroline, first about religion and then politics. Jessie was accustomed at home to drink in a great deal of what her father said on these subjects, and afterwards in company to repeat his opinions. She berated Caroline soundly for being a member of the Established Church, and for having an uncle who was a clergyman. She informed her that she ought to work for her living honestly, instead of passing a useless life, and eating the bread of idleness. Thence Jessie passed to a review of the ministry, and mentioned Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Perceval as if they were demons. She denounced the war as wholesale murder, and Lord Wellington as a "hired butcher." It was comic to hear her repeating her sire's denunciations; as hearty a little mutineer as ever wore a muslin frock and sash. Her expressive little face gave a piquancy to every phrase. Caroline chid her when she abused Lord Wellington; but she listened delighted to a subsequent tirade against the Prince Regent. Jessie quickly read, in the sparkle of her hearer's eye and the laughter hovering round her lips, that she had hit on a topic that pleased. But, Jessie, I will write about you no more. This autumn evening, wet and wild, reminds me too forcibly of another howling, rainy evening some years ago, when certain people made a pilgrimage to a new grave in a heretic cemetery. The heavy rain was soaking into the wet earth which covered their lost darling, and the sad, sighing gale was mourning. Jessie lay cold, coffined, solitary - only the earth screening her from the storm. Mrs. Yorke folded up her knitting, cut short the lecture on politics, and concluded her visit before the path up the fields should have become thoroughly moist with evening dew. The lady and her daughters being gone, Caroline felt that she also ought to go home. If she lingered much later, dusk would draw on, and Fanny would be put to the trouble of coming to fetch her. Still, she could not quit her seat at the little parlour window. Her eyes turned west towards the fire-tinged August sky. Caroline looked at the wicket-gate, and the hedge fencing in the garden, longing to see a human figure, of a certain shape and height, pass the hedge and enter the gate. A human figure she at last saw - nay, two. Frederick Murgatroyd went by, carrying a pail of water; Joe Scott followed, carrying the keys of the mill. They were going to lock up for the night, and then go home. "So must I," thought Caroline, sighing. "This is heart-breaking folly. In the first place, even if I should stay till dark there will be no arrival; I feel in my heart that I am not fated to have the pleasure I long for. In the second place, if he stepped in at this moment, my presence here would annoy him, and that would turn my blood to ice. His eye would be clouded with darkness. I had better go home." She took up her bonnet, and was just fastening the ribbon, when Hortense, directing her attention to a splendid bouquet of flowers in a vase, mentioned that Miss Keeldar had sent them that morning from Fieldhead. She went on to comment on the guests that lady was at present entertaining, expressing her wonder that a person who was so fond of her own way did not find some means of getting rid of all these relatives. "But they say she actually will not let Mr. Sympson and his family go," she added. "They wanted to return south last week, to be ready to receive their only son, who is expected home from a tour. She insists that her cousin Henry shall come and join his friends here in Yorkshire. I dare say she partly does it to oblige Robert and myself." "How to oblige Robert and you?" inquired Caroline. "Why, my child, you are dull. Don't you know - you must often have heard-" "Please, ma'am," said Sarah, opening the door, "the preserves that you told me to boil in treacle - the congfiters, as you call them - is all burnt to the pan." "Les confitures! Elles sont brles? Ah, quelle ngligence! Fille insupportable!" And mademoiselle rushed into the kitchen, whence came a strong odour of charcoaled sweets. The mistress and maid had been feuding the whole day on the subject of preserving sour black cherries. Sarah held that sugar should be used; mademoiselle maintained that treacle was far better. She had imprudently left Sarah in charge of the preserving-pan; and the maid's lack of sympathy for its contents had induced a degree of carelessness, whose result was dark and cindery ruin. Hubbub followed; high upbraiding, and sobs more loud than real. On the sudden opening of the back-door, there fell an abrupt calm in the kitchen. The tongues were checked. Was it Robert? wondered Caroline. He often entered by the kitchen. No; it was only Joe Scott, who, having cleared his throat significantly. as a lofty rebuke to the squabbling womankind, said, "Now, I thowt I heerd a crack? As t' maister's comed, I considered it desirable to let ye know. A household o' women is nivver fit to be comed on wi'out warning. Here he is. Walk forrard, sir. They war playing up, but I think I've quietened 'em." Another person was heard to enter. Joe Scott proceeded with his rebukes. "What d'ye mean by being all i' darkness? Sarah, canst t' not light a candle?" There followed a confused sort of pause, which Caroline, listening hard, could not understand. A cry of surprise broke it, followed by the sound of a kiss, and exclamations. "Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! Est-ce que je m'y attendais?" "Et tu te portes toujours bien, bonne sur?" inquired another voice - Robert's, certainly. Caroline was puzzled. She ran upstairs to leave the coast clear, and stopped at the head of the banisters, where she could watch without being seen. It was past sunset now; dusk filled the passage, yet she saw Robert and Hortense cross it. "Caroline!" called Hortense, "come and see my brother!" "Strange," thought Caroline. "Why this excitement about such an everyday occurrence as a return from market? Surely the burnt treacle has not crazed her?" She descended in a subdued flutter. She was still more fluttered when Hortense seized her hand at the parlour door, and leading her to Robert, who stood tall and dark against the window, presented her with a mixture of agitation and formality, as though they had been utter strangers. Increasing puzzle! He bowed rather awkwardly, and as he turned from her with a stranger's embarrassment, the dim light from the window fell on his face. The enigma of the dream was at its height. She saw a visage like and unlike - Robert, and no Robert. "Is my sight wrong?" said Caroline. "Is it my cousin?" "Certainly it is your cousin," asserted Hortense. Then who was this now coming through the passage - now entering the room? Caroline, looking round, met a new Robert - the real Robert, as she felt at once. "Well," said he, smiling at her astonished face, "which is which?" "Ah, this is you!" He laughed. "I believe it is me. And do you know who he is? You have heard of him." She had gathered her senses now. "It can only be your brother; my cousin Louis." "Now, see us together. - Change places, and again, Louis. Which is the old love now, Lina?" "As if it were possible to make a mistake when you speak! But you are not so much alike. It is only your height, your figure, and complexion that are so similar." "And I am Robert, am I not?" asked the newcomer, making an effort to overcome what seemed his natural shyness. Caroline shook her head gently. Her eye beamed softly on the real Robert, saying much. She was not permitted to quit her cousins soon. Robert insisted she remain. Glad, simple, and in light, bright spirits for the time, she was too pleasant an addition to the cottage circle to be willingly parted with. Louis seemed naturally rather a grave, retiring man; but the Caroline of this evening, which was not the Caroline of every day, thawed his reserve. He sat near her and talked to her. She already knew he was a tutor; she learned now that he had for some years been the tutor of Mr. Sympson's son; that he had been travelling with him, and had accompanied him here. She inquired if he liked his post, but got a look in reply which did not invite further question. The look woke Caroline's ready sympathy. She thought it a very sad expression to pass over so sensible a face; for Louis had a sensible face, though not so handsome as Robert's. She turned to compare them. "How could I think them alike?" she asked herself. "It is Hortense Louis resembles, not Robert." This was in part true. He had a shorter nose and less decisive mouth and chin than the young mill-owner. His air, though deliberate, could scarcely be called prompt. You felt that he had a slower and probably a more benignant nature than the elder Moore. Robert - perhaps aware of Caroline's glance - came over and took a seat at her side. She resumed her conversation with Louis, but her thoughts were elsewhere. Her heart beat on the side from which her face was half averted. She acknowledged a steady, manly, kindly air in Louis; but she bent before the secret power of Robert. To be so near him, though he was silent, affected her like a spell. Had she been obliged to speak to him only, it would have quelled her, but, at liberty to address another, it excited her. Her discourse flowed freely; it was gay, playful, eloquent. The sober pleasure expressed by her listener's smile drew out all that was brilliant in her nature. She felt that this evening she appeared to advantage. But a cloud soon crossed her enjoyment. Hortense, who was now clearing the little table to make room for the supper-tray, called Robert's attention to the vase of flowers. "They came from Fieldhead," she said, "intended as a gift to you, no doubt. We know who is the favourite there; not I, I'm sure." It was a wonder to hear Hortense jest - a sign that her spirits were high indeed. "We are to understand, then, that Robert is the favourite?" observed Louis. "The most precious in the world," replied Hortense; "beside him the rest of the human race is nothing. Am I not right, my child?" she added, appealing to Caroline. Caroline was obliged to reply, "Yes," and her star withdrew as she spoke. "Et toi, Robert?" inquired Louis. "When you have an opportunity, ask her," was the quiet answer. Caroline discovered that it was late, and she must go home. Home she would go; not even Robert could detain her now.

Shirley

Chapter 23: AN EVENING OUT

Louis Moore was used to a quiet life. Being a quiet man, he endured it better than most men would. Having a large world of his own in his own head and heart, he tolerated confinement to a small, still corner of the real world very patiently. How hushed is Fieldhead this evening! All but Moore--Miss Keeldar, the whole family of the Sympsons, even Henry--are gone to Nunnely. Sir Philip would have them come; he wished to make them acquainted with his mother and sisters, who are now at the priory. Kind gentleman as the baronet is, he asked the tutor too; but the tutor would much sooner have made an appointment with the ghost of the Earl of Huntingdon to meet him, and a shadowy ring of his merry men, under the canopy of the thickest, blackest, oldest oak in Nunnely Forest. Yes, he would rather have appointed tryst with a phantom abbess, or mist-pale nun, among the wet and weedy relics of that ruined sanctuary of theirs, mouldering in the core of the wood. Louis Moore longs to have something near him to-night; but not the boy-baronet, nor his benevolent but stern mother, nor his patrician sisters, nor one soul of the Sympsons. This night is not calm; the equinox still struggles in its storms. The wild rains of the day are abated; the great single cloud disparts and rolls away from heaven, not passing and leaving a sea all sapphire, but tossed buoyant before a continued, long-sounding, high-rushing moonlight tempest. The moon reigns glorious, glad of the gale, as glad as if she gave herself to his fierce caress with love. No Endymion will watch for his goddess to-night. There are no flocks out on the mountains; and it is well, for to-night she welcomes olus. Moore, sitting in the schoolroom, heard the storm roar round the other gable and along the hall-front. This end was sheltered. He wanted no shelter; he desired no subdued sounds or screened position. "All the parlours are empty," said he. "I am sick at heart of this cell." He left it, and went where the casements, larger and freer than the branch-screened lattice of his own apartment, admitted unimpeded the dark-blue, the silver-fleeced, the stirring and sweeping vision of the autumn night-sky. He carried no candle; unneeded was lamp or fire. The broad and clear though cloud-crossed and fluctuating beam of the moon shone on every floor and wall. Moore wanders through all the rooms. He seems following a phantom from parlour to parlour. In the oak room he stops. This is not chill, and polished, and fireless like the _salon_. The hearth is hot and ruddy; the cinders tinkle in the intense heat of their clear glow; near the rug is a little work-table, a desk upon it, a chair near it. Does the vision Moore has tracked occupy that chair? You would think so, could you see him standing before it. There is as much interest now in his eye, and as much significance in his face, as if in this household solitude he had found a living companion, and was going to speak to it. He makes discoveries. A bag--a small satin bag--hangs on the chair-back. The desk is open, the keys are in the lock. A pretty seal, a silver pen, a crimson berry or two of ripe fruit on a green leaf, a small, clean, delicate glove--these trifles at once decorate and disarrange the stand they strew. Order forbids details in a picture--she puts them tidily away; but details give charm. Moore spoke. "Her mark," he said. "Here she has been--careless, attractive thing!--called away in haste, doubtless, and forgetting to return and put all to rights. Why does she leave fascination in her footprints? Whence did she acquire the gift to be heedless and never offend? There is always something to chide in her, and the reprimand never settles in displeasure on the heart, but, for her lover or her husband, when it had trickled a while in words, would naturally melt from his lips in a kiss. Better pass half an hour in remonstrating with her than a day in admiring or praising any other woman alive. Am I muttering? soliloquizing? Stop that." He did stop it. He stood thinking, and then he made an arrangement for his evening's comfort. He dropped the curtains over the broad window and regal moon. He shut out sovereign and court and starry armies; he added fuel to the hot but fast-wasting fire; he lit a candle, of which there were a pair on the table; he placed another chair opposite that near the workstand; and then he sat down. His next movement was to take from his pocket a small, thick book of blank paper, to produce a pencil, and to begin to write in a cramp, compact hand. Come near, by all means, reader. Do not be shy. Stoop over his shoulder fearlessly, and read as he scribbles. "It is nine o'clock; the carriage will not return before eleven, I am certain. Freedom is mine till then; till then I may occupy her room, sit opposite her chair, rest my elbow on her table, have her little mementoes about me. "I used rather to like Solitude--to fancy her a somewhat quiet and serious, yet fair nymph; an Oread, descending to me from lone mountain-passes, something of the blue mist of hills in her array and of their chill breeze in her breath, but much also of their solemn beauty in her mien. I once could court her serenely, and imagine my heart easier when I held her to it--all mute, but majestic. "Since that day I called S. to me in the schoolroom, and she came and sat so near my side; since she opened the trouble of her mind to me, asked my protection, appealed to my strength--since that hour I abhor Solitude. Cold abstraction, fleshless skeleton, daughter, mother, and mate of Death! "It is pleasant to write about what is near and dear as the core of my heart. None can deprive me of this little book, and through this pencil I can say to it what I will--say what I dare utter to nothing living--say what I dare not _think_ aloud. "We have scarcely encountered each other since that evening. Once, when I was alone in the drawing-room, seeking a book of Henry's, she entered, dressed for a concert at Stilbro'. Shyness--_her_ shyness, not mine--drew a silver veil between us. Much cant have I heard and read about 'maiden modesty,' but, properly used, and not hackneyed, the words are good and appropriate words. As she passed to the window, after tacitly but gracefully recognizing me, I could call her nothing in my own mind save 'stainless virgin.' To my perception, a delicate splendour robed her, and the modesty of girlhood was her halo. I may be the most fatuous, as I am one of the plainest, of men, but in truth that shyness of hers touched me exquisitely; it flattered my finest sensations. I looked a stupid block, I dare say. I was alive with a life of Paradise, as she turned _her_ glance from _my_ glance, and softly averted her head to hide the suffusion of her cheek. "I know this is the talk of a dreamer--of a rapt, romantic lunatic. I _do_ dream. I _will_ dream now and then; and if she has inspired romance into my prosaic composition, how can I help it? "What a child she is sometimes! What an unsophisticated, untaught thing! I see her now looking up into my face, and entreating me to prevent them from smothering her, and to be sure and give her a strong narcotic. I see her confessing that she was not so self-sufficing, so independent of sympathy, as people thought. I see the secret tear drop quietly from her eyelash. She said I thought her childish, and I did. She imagined I despised her. Despised her! It was unutterably sweet to feel myself at once near her and above her--to be conscious of a natural right and power to sustain her, as a husband should sustain his wife. "I worship her perfections; but it is her faults, or at least her foibles, that bring her near to me, that nestle her to my heart, that fold her about with my love, and that for a most selfish but deeply-natural reason. These faults are the steps by which I mount to ascendency over her. If she rose a trimmed, artificial mound, without inequality, what vantage would she offer the foot? It is the natural hill, with its mossy breaks and hollows, whose slope invites ascent, whose summit it is pleasure to gain. "To leave metaphor. It delights my eye to look on her. She suits me. If I were a king and she the housemaid that swept my palace-stairs, across all that space between us my eye would recognize her qualities; a true pulse would beat for her in my heart, though an unspanned gulf made acquaintance impossible. If I were a gentleman, and she waited on me as a servant, I could not help liking that Shirley. Take from her her education; take her ornaments, her sumptuous dress, all extrinsic advantages; take all grace, but such as the symmetry of her form renders inevitable; present her to me at a cottage door, in a stuff gown; let her offer me there a draught of water, with that smile, with that warm good-will with which she now dispenses manorial hospitality--I should like her. I should wish to stay an hour; I should linger to talk with that rustic. I should not feel as I _now_ do; I should find in her nothing divine; but whenever I met the young peasant, it would be with pleasure; whenever I left her, it would be with regret. "How culpably careless in her to leave her desk open, where I know she has money! In the lock hang the keys of all her repositories, of her very jewel-casket. There is a purse in that little satin bag; I see the tassel of silver beads hanging out. That spectacle would provoke my brother Robert. All her little failings would, I know, be a source of irritation to him. If they vex me it is a most pleasurable vexation. I delight to find her at fault; and were I always resident with her, I am aware she would be no niggard in thus ministering to my enjoyment. She would just give me something to do, to rectify--a theme for my tutor lectures. I never lecture Henry, never feel disposed to do so. If he does wrong--and that is very seldom, dear, excellent lad!--a word suffices. Often I do no more than shake my head. But the moment her _minois mutin_ meets my eye, expostulatory words crowd to my lips. From a taciturn man I believe she would transform me into a talker. Whence comes the delight I take in that talk? It puzzles myself sometimes. The more _crne, malin, taquin_ is her mood, consequently the clearer occasion she gives me for disapprobation, the more I seek her, the better I like her. She is never wilder than when equipped in her habit and hat, never less manageable than when she and Zo come in fiery from a race with the wind on the hills; and I confess it--to this mute page I may confess it--I have waited an hour in the court for the chance of witnessing her return, and for the dearer chance of receiving her in my arms from the saddle. I have noticed (again it is to this page only I would make the remark) that she will never permit any man but myself to render her that assistance. I have seen her politely decline Sir Philip Nunnely's aid. She is always mighty gentle with her young baronet, mighty tender for his feelings, forsooth, and of his very thin-skinned _amour propre_. I have marked her haughtily reject Sam Wynne's. Now I know--my heart knows it, for it has felt it--that she resigns herself to me unreluctantly. Is she conscious how my strength rejoices to serve her? I myself am not her slave--I declare it--but my faculties gather to her beauty, like the genii to the glisten of the lamp. All my knowledge, all my prudence, all my calm, and all my power stand in her presence humbly waiting a task. How glad they are when a mandate comes! What joy they take in the toils she assigns! Does she know it? "I have called her careless. It is remarkable that her carelessness never compromises her refinement. Indeed, through this very loophole of character, the reality, depth, genuineness of that refinement may be ascertained. A whole garment sometimes covers meagreness and malformation; through a rent sleeve a fair round arm may be revealed. I have seen and handled many of her possessions, because they are frequently astray. I never saw anything that did not proclaim the lady--nothing sordid, nothing soiled. In one sense she is as scrupulous as, in another, she is unthinking. As a peasant girl, she would go ever trim and cleanly. Look at the pure kid of this little glove, at the fresh, unsullied satin of the bag. "What a difference there is between S. and that pearl C. H.! Caroline, I fancy, is the soul of conscientious punctuality and nice exactitude. She would precisely suit the domestic habits of a certain fastidious kinsman of mine--so delicate, dexterous, quaint, quick, quiet--all done to a minute, all arranged to a strawbreadth. She would suit Robert. But what could _I_ do with anything so nearly faultless? _She_ is my equal, poor as myself. She is certainly pretty: a little Raffaelle head hers--Raffaelle in feature, quite English in expression, all insular grace and purity; but where is there anything to alter, anything to endure, anything to reprimand, to be anxious about? There she is, a lily of the valley, untinted, needing no tint. What change could improve her? What pencil dare to paint? _My_ sweetheart, if I ever have one, must bear nearer affinity to the rose--a sweet, lively delight guarded with prickly peril. _My_ wife, if I ever marry, must stir my great frame with a sting now and then; she must furnish use to her husband's vast mass of patience. I was not made so enduring to be mated with a lamb; I should find more congenial responsibility in the charge of a young lioness or leopardess. I like few things sweet but what are likewise pungent--few things bright but what are likewise hot. I like the summer day, whose sun makes fruit blush and corn blanch. Beauty is never so beautiful as when, if I tease it, it wreathes back on me with spirit. Fascination is never so imperial as when, roused and half ireful, she threatens transformation to fierceness. I fear I should tire of the mute, monotonous innocence of the lamb; I should ere long feel as burdensome the nestling dove which never stirred in my bosom; but my patience would exult in stilling the flutterings and training the energies of the restless merlin. In managing the wild instincts of the scarce manageable _bte fauve_ my powers would revel. "O my pupil! O Peri! too mutinous for heaven, too innocent for hell, never shall I do more than see, and worship, and wish for thee. Alas! knowing I could make thee happy, will it be my doom to see thee possessed by those who have not that power? "However kindly the hand, if it is feeble, it cannot bend Shirley; and she must be bent. It cannot curb her; and she must be curbed. "Beware, Sir Philip Nunnely! I never see you walking or sitting at her side, and observe her lips compressed, or her brow knit, in resolute endurance of some trait of your character which she neither admires nor likes, in determined toleration of some weakness she believes atoned for by a virtue, but which annoys her despite that belief; I never mark the grave glow of her face, the unsmiling sparkle of her eye, the slight recoil of her whole frame when you draw a little too near, and gaze a little too expressively, and whisper a little too warmly--I never witness these things but I think of the fable of Semele reversed. "It is not the daughter of Cadmus I see, nor do I realize her fatal longing to look on Jove in the majesty of his god-head. It is a priest of Juno that stands before me, watching late and lone at a shrine in an Argive temple. For years of solitary ministry he has lived on dreams. There is divine madness upon him. He loves the idol he serves, and prays day and night that his frenzy may be fed, and that the Ox-eyed may smile on her votary. She has heard; she will be propitious. All Argos slumbers. The doors of the temple are shut; the priest waits at the altar. "A shock of heaven and earth is felt--not by the slumbering city, only by that lonely watcher, brave and unshaken in his fanaticism. In the midst of silence, with no preluding sound, he is wrapped in sudden light. Through the roof, through the rent, wide-yawning, vast, white-blazing blue of heaven above, pours a wondrous descent, dread as the downrushing of stars. He has what he asked. Withdraw--forbear to look--I am blinded. I hear in that fane an unspeakable sound. Would that I could not hear it! I see an insufferable glory burning terribly between the pillars. Gods be merciful and quench it! "A pious Argive enters to make an early offering in the cool dawn of morning. There was thunder in the night; the bolt fell here. The shrine is shivered, the marble pavement round split and blackened. Saturnia's statue rises chaste, grand, untouched; at her feet piled ashes lie pale. No priest remains; he who watched will be seen no more. * * * * * "There is the carriage! Let me lock up the desk and pocket the keys. She will be seeking them to-morrow; she will have to come to me. I hear her: 'Mr. Moore, have you seen my keys?' "So she will say, in her clear voice, speaking with reluctance, looking ashamed, conscious that this is the twentieth time of asking. I will tantalize her, keep her with me, expecting, doubting; and when I _do_ restore them, it shall not be without a lecture. Here is the bag, too, and the purse; the glove--pen--seal. She shall wring them all out of me slowly and separately--only by confession, penitence, entreaty. I never can touch her hand, or a ringlet of her head, or a ribbon of her dress, but I will make privileges for myself. Every feature of her face, her bright eyes, her lips, shall go through each change they know, for my pleasure--display each exquisite variety of glance and curve, to delight, thrill, perhaps more hopelessly to enchain me. If I must be her slave, I will not lose my freedom for nothing." He locked the desk, pocketed all the property, and went.

Louis Moore was used to a quiet life. Having a large world in his own head and heart, he tolerated confinement to a small, still corner of the real world very patiently. How hushed is Fieldhead this evening! All but Moore are gone to Nunnely. Sir Philip wished them to meet his mother and sisters, who are now at the priory. The kind baronet asked the tutor too; but the tutor would rather have arranged to meet a ghost in the middle of Nunnely forest. This night is not calm, although the wild rains have abated. The sky is tossed by a high-rushing moonlight tempest. The moon reigns glorious, glad of the gale, as if she gave herself to his fierce caress with love. Moore, sitting in the schoolroom, hears the storm roar along the hall-front. He wants no shelter; he desires no subdued sounds. "I am sick at heart of this cell," says he. He leaves it, and goes where the windows, larger than those in his apartment, admit the sweeping vision of the autumn night-sky. He carries no candle; moonbeams shine on every floor and wall. Moore wanders through all the rooms. He seems following a phantom from parlour to parlour. In the oak room he stops. This is not chill and fireless like the salon. The hearth is hot and ruddy; the cinders tinkle in the intense heat; near the rug is a little work-table, a desk and a chair. Does the vision Moore has tracked occupy that chair? You would think so, if you could see him standing before it with interest in his eye. He makes discoveries. A small satin bag hangs on the chair-back. The desk is open, the keys are in the lock. A pretty seal, a silver pen, a crimson berry or two on a green leaf, a small, clean glove - these trifles at once decorate and disarrange the picture. Moore spoke. "Her mark," he said. "Here she has been - careless, attractive thing! - called away in haste, and forgetting to put all to rights. Why does she leave fascination in her footprints? She is heedless - there is always something to chide in her, but she never offends. Any reprimand from her lover or her husband would naturally melt from his lips in a kiss. Better pass half an hour in remonstrating with her than a day in praising any other woman alive. Am I muttering? Stop that." He did stop it. He stood thinking, and then he closed the curtains. He added fuel to the fire; he lit a candle, and placed another chair at the desk; and he sat down. Taking from his pocket a small notebook and a pencil, he began to write in a cramped, compact hand. Come near, reader. Stoop over his shoulder, and read as he scribbles. "It is nine o'clock; the carriage will not return before eleven. Freedom is mine till then; I may occupy her room, with her little mementoes about me. "I used rather to like Solitude. I once could court Solitude serenely, and imagine my heart easier when I found her - mute, but majestic. "Since that day I called S. to me in the schoolroom, and she came and sat so near my side; since she opened the trouble of her mind to me, asked my protection, appealed to my strength - since that hour I abhor Solitude. Cold mate of Death! "It is pleasant to write about her. Through this pencil I can say what I will - say what I dare not even think aloud. "We have scarcely encountered each other since that evening. Once, when I was alone in the drawing-room, she entered, dressed for a concert at Stilbro'. Her shyness drew a silver veil between us. Much triteness have I heard and read about 'maiden modesty,' but used properly, the words are good. A delicate splendour robed her, and the modesty of girlhood was her halo. I may be the most fatuous of men, but in truth that shyness of hers touched me exquisitely. I looked a stupid block, I dare say. I was alive to Paradise, as she turned her glance from my glance, and softly averted her head to hide the blush on her cheek. "I know this is the talk of a dreamer - of a rapt, romantic lunatic. I do dream now and then; how can I help it? "What a child she is sometimes! What an unsophisticated, untaught thing! She said I thought her childish, and I did. She imagined I despised her. Despised her! It was unutterably sweet to feel myself at once near her and above her - to be conscious of a natural right and power to sustain her, as a husband should sustain his wife. "I worship her perfections; but it is her faults, her foibles, that bring her near to me, that nestle her to my heart, for a selfish but deeply-natural reason. These faults are the steps by which I can have ascendency over her. "It delights my eye to look on her. If I were a king and she the housemaid that swept my palace-stairs, across all that space between us my eye would recognize her qualities; a pulse would beat for her in my heart. Take away her education, her ornaments, her sumptuous dress; place her at a cottage door, in a drab gown; let her offer me there a drink of water, with that smile - I should like her; I should linger to talk with her. "How careless in her to leave her desk open, where I know she has money! In the lock hang all her keys. There is a purse in that little satin bag; I see the beaded tassel hanging out. All her little failings would, I know, irritate my brother Robert. If they vex me it is a most pleasurable vexation. I delight to find her at fault. I never lecture Henry, never feel disposed to do so. If he does wrong - and that is very seldom, dear, excellent lad! - a word suffices. But the moment her mischievous face meets my eye, expostulatory words crowd to my lips, transforming me into a talker. It puzzles me sometimes. The more teasing her mood, the more I seek her, the better I like her. "She is never wilder, never less manageable than when she comes in fiery from a ride on the hills; and I confess I have waited an hour in the courtyard for the chance of seeing her return, and for the dearer chance of lifting her from the saddle. I have noticed that she will never permit any man but myself to do that; not even Sir Philip Nunnely. She is always mighty gentle with her young baronet. But I know that she resigns herself to me willingly. Is she conscious how my strength rejoices to serve her? I myself am not her slave; but all my knowledge, all my prudence, all my calm, and all my power stand in her presence humbly waiting a task. Does she know it? "I have called her careless. Yet her carelessness never compromises her refinement. Her possessions are frequently astray, but amongst them I never saw anything that did not proclaim the lady - nothing sordid, nothing soiled. Look at the pure kid of this little glove, at the fresh, unsullied satin of the bag. "What a difference there is between her and Caroline Helstone! Caroline, I fancy, is the soul of conscientious punctuality. She would precisely suit the domestic habits of a certain kinsman of mine - so dexterous, quick and quiet. But what could I do with anything so nearly faultless? She is certainly pretty: but where is there anything to alter, anything to endure, anything to reprimand, to be anxious about? She is a lily of the valley, needing no tint. What pencil dare to paint her? My sweetheart, if I ever have one, must bear affinity to the rose - a sweet, lively delight guarded with prickly peril. I was not made to be mated with a lamb; I should find a young lioness or leopardess more congenial. I should tire of the lamb's mute, monotonous innocence; I should feel as burdensome the nestling dove which never stirred in my bosom; but my patience would exult in stilling the flutterings and training the energies of the restless falcon. "O my pupil! Never shall I do more than see, and worship, and wish for thee. Alas! knowing I could make thee happy, will it be my doom to see thee possessed by those who have not that power? "However kind the hand, if it is feeble, it cannot bend Shirley; and she must be bent. It cannot curb her; and she must be curbed. "Beware, Sir Philip Nunnely! I never see her at your side without observing her lips compressed, or her brow knit, in resolute endurance of some trait of your character which she does not like, but believes atoned for by a virtue. I observe her slight recoil when you draw a little too near, and gaze a little too expressively, and whisper a little too warmly. "I see a priest of Juno: he stands before me, watching late and lone at a shrine in an Argive temple. For years of solitary ministry he has lived on dreams. He loves the idol he serves, and prays day and night that his frenzy may be fed. She has heard; she will favour him. He waits at the altar. "A shock of heaven and earth is felt by that brave, lonely watcher. He is wrapped in sudden light. Through the roof, through the wide-yawning, vast blue of heaven, pours a wondrous descent, dread as the downrushing of stars. He has what he asked. I see an insufferable glory burning terribly between the pillars. Gods be merciful and quench it! "In the morning, a pious Argive enters to make an early offering. There was thunder in the night; the bolt fell here. The shrine is shivered, the marble pavement split and blackened. Saturnia's statue rises chaste, grand, untouched; at her feet piled ashes lie pale. No priest remains; he who watched will be seen no more. "There is the carriage! Let me lock up the desk and pocket the keys. She will be seeking them tomorrow; she will have to come to me asking if I have seen them, looking ashamed, conscious that this is the twentieth time of asking. I will tantalize her, before restoring them with a lecture. Here is the bag, too, and the purse; the glove - pen - seal. She shall wring them all out of me slowly and separately - only by confession, penitence, entreaty. Every feature of her face, her bright eyes, her lips, shall go through each change they know, for my pleasure - display each exquisite variety of glance and curve, to delight, thrill, perhaps more hopelessly to enchain me. If I must be her slave, I will not lose my freedom for nothing." He locked the desk, pocketed all the property, and went.

Shirley

Chapter 29: LOUIS MOORE

Moore's good spirits were still with him when he rose next morning. He and Joe Scott had both spent the night in the mill, availing themselves of certain sleeping accommodations producible from recesses in the front and back counting-houses. The master, always an early riser, was up somewhat sooner even than usual. He awoke his man by singing a French song as he made his toilet. "Ye're not custen dahn, then, maister?" cried Joe. "Not a stiver, mon garon--which means, my lad. Get up, and we'll take a turn through the mill before the hands come in, and I'll explain my future plans. We'll have the machinery yet, Joseph. You never heard of Bruce, perhaps?" "And th' arrand (spider)? Yes, but I hev. I've read th' history o' Scotland, and happen knaw as mich on't as ye; and I understand ye to mean to say ye'll persevere." "I do." "Is there mony o' your mak' i' your country?" inquired Joe, as he folded up his temporary bed, and put it away. "In my country! Which is my country?" "Why, France--isn't it?" "Not it, indeed! The circumstance of the French having seized Antwerp, where I was born, does not make me a Frenchman." "Holland, then?" "I am not a Dutchman. Now you are confounding Antwerp with Amsterdam." "Flanders?" "I scorn the insinuation, Joe! I a Flamand! Have I a Flemish face--the clumsy nose standing out, the mean forehead falling back, the pale blue eyes ' fleur de tte'? Am I all body and no legs, like a Flamand? But you don't know what they are like, those Netherlanders. Joe, I'm an Anversois. My mother was an Anversoise, though she came of French lineage, which is the reason I speak French." "But your father war Yorkshire, which maks ye a bit Yorkshire too; and onybody may see ye're akin to us, ye're so keen o' making brass, and getting forrards." "Joe, you're an impudent dog; but I've always been accustomed to a boorish sort of insolence from my youth up. The 'classe ouvrire'--that is, the working people in Belgium--bear themselves brutally towards their employers; and by _brutally_, Joe, I mean _brutalement_--which, perhaps, when properly translated, should be _roughly_." "We allus speak our minds i' this country; and them young parsons and grand folk fro' London is shocked at wer 'incivility;' and we like weel enough to gi'e 'em summat to be shocked at, 'cause it's sport to us to watch 'em turn up the whites o' their een, and spreed out their bits o' hands, like as they're flayed wi' bogards, and then to hear 'em say, nipping off their words short like, 'Dear! dear! Whet seveges! How very corse!'" "You _are_ savages, Joe. You don't suppose you're civilized, do you?" "Middling, middling, maister. I reckon 'at us manufacturing lads i' th' north is a deal more intelligent, and knaws a deal more nor th' farming folk i' th' south. Trade sharpens wer wits; and them that's mechanics like me is forced to think. Ye know, what wi' looking after machinery and sich like, I've getten into that way that when I see an effect, I look straight out for a cause, and I oft lig hold on't to purpose; and then I like reading, and I'm curious to knaw what them that reckons to govern us aims to do for us and wi' us. And there's many 'cuter nor me; there's many a one amang them greasy chaps 'at smells o' oil, and amang them dyers wi' blue and black skins, that has a long head, and that can tell what a fooil of a law is, as well as ye or old Yorke, and a deal better nor soft uns like Christopher Sykes o' Whinbury, and greet hectoring nowts like yond' Irish Peter, Helstone's curate." "You think yourself a clever fellow, I know, Scott." "Ay! I'm fairish. I can tell cheese fro' chalk, and I'm varry weel aware that I've improved sich opportunities as I have had, a deal better nor some 'at reckons to be aboon me; but there's thousands i' Yorkshire that's as good as me, and a two-three that's better." "You're a great man--you're a sublime fellow; but you're a prig, a conceited noodle with it all, Joe! You need not to think that because you've picked up a little knowledge of practical mathematics, and because you have found some scantling of the elements of chemistry at the bottom of a dyeing vat, that therefore you're a neglected man of science; and you need not to suppose that because the course of trade does not always run smooth, and you, and such as you, are sometimes short of work and of bread, that therefore your class are martyrs, and that the whole form of government under which you live is wrong. And, moreover, you need not for a moment to insinuate that the virtues have taken refuge in cottages and wholly abandoned slated houses. Let me tell you, I particularly abominate that sort of trash, because I know so well that human nature is human nature everywhere, whether under tile or thatch, and that in every specimen of human nature that breathes, vice and virtue are ever found blended, in smaller or greater proportions, and that the proportion is not determined by station. I have seen villains who were rich, and I have seen villains who were poor, and I have seen villains who were neither rich nor poor, but who had realized Agar's wish, and lived in fair and modest competency. The clock is going to strike six. Away with you, Joe, and ring the mill bell." It was now the middle of the month of February; by six o'clock therefore dawn was just beginning to steal on night, to penetrate with a pale ray its brown obscurity, and give a demi-translucence to its opaque shadows. Pale enough that ray was on this particular morning: no colour tinged the east, no flush warmed it. To see what a heavy lid day slowly lifted, what a wan glance she flung along the hills, you would have thought the sun's fire quenched in last night's floods. The breath of this morning was chill as its aspect; a raw wind stirred the mass of night-cloud, and showed, as it slowly rose, leaving a colourless, silver-gleaming ring all round the horizon, not blue sky, but a stratum of paler vapour beyond. It had ceased to rain, but the earth was sodden, and the pools and rivulets were full. The mill-windows were alight, the bell still rung loud, and now the little children came running in, in too great a hurry, let us hope, to feel very much nipped by the inclement air; and indeed, by contrast, perhaps the morning appeared rather favourable to them than otherwise, for they had often come to their work that winter through snow-storms, through heavy rain, through hard frost. Mr. Moore stood at the entrance to watch them pass. He counted them as they went by. To those who came rather late he said a word of reprimand, which was a little more sharply repeated by Joe Scott when the lingerers reached the work-rooms. Neither master nor overlooker spoke savagely. They were not savage men either of them, though it appeared both were rigid, for they fined a delinquent who came considerably too late. Mr. Moore made him pay his penny down ere he entered, and informed him that the next repetition of the fault would cost him twopence. Rules, no doubt, are necessary in such cases, and coarse and cruel masters will make coarse and cruel rules, which, at the time we treat of at least, they used sometimes to enforce tyrannically; but though I describe imperfect characters (every character in this book will be found to be more or less imperfect, my pen refusing to draw anything in the model line), I have not undertaken to handle degraded or utterly infamous ones. Child-torturers, slave masters and drivers, I consign to the hands of jailers. The novelist may be excused from sullying his page with the record of their deeds. Instead, then, of harrowing up my reader's soul and delighting his organ of wonder with effective descriptions of stripes and scourgings, I am happy to be able to inform him that neither Mr. Moore nor his overlooker ever struck a child in their mill. Joe had, indeed, once very severely flogged a son of his own for telling a lie and persisting in it; but, like his employer, he was too phlegmatic, too calm, as well as too reasonable a man, to make corporal chastisement other than the exception to his treatment of the young. Mr. Moore haunted his mill, his mill-yard, his dye-house, and his warehouse till the sickly dawn strengthened into day. The sun even rose--at least a white disc, clear, tintless, and almost chill-looking as ice, peeped over the dark crest of a hill, changed to silver the livid edge of the cloud above it, and looked solemnly down the whole length of the den, or narrow dale, to whose strait bounds we are at present limited. It was eight o'clock; the mill lights were all extinguished; the signal was given for breakfast; the children, released for half an hour from toil, betook themselves to the little tin cans which held their coffee, and to the small baskets which contained their allowance of bread. Let us hope they have enough to eat; it would be a pity were it otherwise. And now at last Mr. Moore quitted the mill-yard, and bent his steps to his dwelling-house. It was only a short distance from the factory, but the hedge and high bank on each side of the lane which conducted to it seemed to give it something of the appearance and feeling of seclusion. It was a small, whitewashed place, with a green porch over the door; scanty brown stalks showed in the garden soil near this porch, and likewise beneath the windows--stalks budless and flowerless now, but giving dim prediction of trained and blooming creepers for summer days. A grass plat and borders fronted the cottage. The borders presented only black mould yet, except where, in sheltered nooks, the first shoots of snowdrop or crocus peeped, green as emerald, from the earth. The spring was late; it had been a severe and prolonged winter; the last deep snow had but just disappeared before yesterday's rains; on the hills, indeed, white remnants of it yet gleamed, flecking the hollows and crowning the peaks; the lawn was not verdant, but bleached, as was the grass on the bank, and under the hedge in the lane. Three trees, gracefully grouped, rose beside the cottage. They were not lofty, but having no rivals near, they looked well and imposing where they grew. Such was Mr. Moore's home--a snug nest for content and contemplation, but one within which the wings of action and ambition could not long lie folded. Its air of modest comfort seemed to possess no particular attraction for its owner. Instead of entering the house at once he fetched a spade from a little shed and began to work in the garden. For about a quarter of an hour he dug on uninterrupted. At length, however, a window opened, and a female voice called to him,-- "Eh, bien! Tu ne djenes pas ce matin?" The answer, and the rest of the conversation, was in French; but as this is an English book, I shall translate it into English. "Is breakfast ready, Hortense?" "Certainly; it has been ready half an hour." "Then I am ready too. I have a canine hunger." He threw down his spade, and entered the house. The narrow passage conducted him to a small parlour, where a breakfast of coffee and bread and butter, with the somewhat un-English accompaniment of stewed pears, was spread on the table. Over these viands presided the lady who had spoken from the window. I must describe her before I go any farther. She seemed a little older than Mr. Moore--perhaps she was thirty-five, tall, and proportionately stout; she had very black hair, for the present twisted up in curl-papers, a high colour in her cheeks, a small nose, a pair of little black eyes. The lower part of her face was large in proportion to the upper; her forehead was small and rather corrugated; she had a fretful though not an ill-natured expression of countenance; there was something in her whole appearance one felt inclined to be half provoked with and half amused at. The strangest point was her dress--a stuff petticoat and a striped cotton camisole. The petticoat was short, displaying well a pair of feet and ankles which left much to be desired in the article of symmetry. You will think I have depicted a remarkable slattern, reader. Not at all. Hortense Moore (she was Mr. Moore's sister) was a very orderly, economical person. The petticoat, camisole, and curl-papers were her morning costume, in which, of forenoons, she had always been accustomed to "go her household ways" in her own country. She did not choose to adopt English fashions because she was obliged to live in England; she adhered to her old Belgian modes, quite satisfied that there was a merit in so doing. Mademoiselle had an excellent opinion of herself--an opinion not wholly undeserved, for she possessed some good and sterling qualities; but she rather over-estimated the kind and degree of these qualities, and quite left out of the account sundry little defects which accompanied them. You could never have persuaded her that she was a prejudiced and narrow-minded person, that she was too susceptible on the subject of her own dignity and importance, and too apt to take offence about trifles; yet all this was true. However, where her claims to distinction were not opposed, and where her prejudices were not offended, she could be kind and friendly enough. To her two brothers (for there was another Grard Moore besides Robert) she was very much attached. As the sole remaining representatives of their decayed family, the persons of both were almost sacred in her eyes. Of Louis, however, she knew less than of Robert. He had been sent to England when a mere boy, and had received his education at an English school. His education not being such as to adapt him for trade, perhaps, too, his natural bent not inclining him to mercantile pursuits, he had, when the blight of hereditary prospects rendered it necessary for him to push his own fortune, adopted the very arduous and very modest career of a teacher. He had been usher in a school, and was said now to be tutor in a private family. Hortense, when she mentioned Louis, described him as having what she called "des moyens," but as being too backward and quiet. Her praise of Robert was in a different strain, less qualified: she was very proud of him; she regarded him as the greatest man in Europe; all he said and did was remarkable in her eyes, and she expected others to behold him from the same point of view; nothing could be more irrational, monstrous, and infamous than opposition from any quarter to Robert, unless it were opposition to herself. Accordingly, as soon as the said Robert was seated at the breakfast-table, and she had helped him to a portion of stewed pears, and cut him a good-sized Belgian tartine, she began to pour out a flood of amazement and horror at the transaction of last night, the destruction of the frames. "Quelle ide! to destroy them. Quelle action honteuse! On voyait bien que les ouvriers de ce pays taient la fois betes et mchants. C'tait absolument comme les domestiques anglais, les servantes surtout: rien d'insupportable comme cette Sara, par exemple!" "She looks clean and industrious," Mr. Moore remarked. "Looks! I don't know how she looks, and I do not say that she is altogether dirty or idle, mais elle est d'une insolence! She disputed with me a quarter of an hour yesterday about the cooking of the beef; she said I boiled it to rags, that English people would never be able to eat such a dish as our bouilli, that the bouillon was no better than greasy warm water, and as to the choucroute, she affirms she cannot touch it! That barrel we have in the cellar--delightfully prepared by my own hands--she termed a tub of hog-wash, which means food for pigs. I am harassed with the girl, and yet I cannot part with her lest I should get a worse. You are in the same position with your workmen, pauvre cher frre!" "I am afraid you are not very happy in England, Hortense." "It is my duty to be happy where you are, brother; but otherwise there are certainly a thousand things which make me regret our native town. All the world here appears to me ill-bred (mal-lev). I find my habits considered ridiculous. If a girl out of your mill chances to come into the kitchen and find me in my jupon and camisole preparing dinner (for you know I cannot trust Sarah to cook a single dish), she sneers. If I accept an invitation out to tea, which I have done once or twice, I perceive I am put quite into the background; I have not that attention paid me which decidedly is my due. Of what an excellent family are the Grards, as we know, and the Moores also! They have a right to claim a certain respect, and to feel wounded when it is withheld from them. In Antwerp I was always treated with distinction; here, one would think that when I open my lips in company I speak English with a ridiculous accent, whereas I am quite assured that I pronounce it perfectly." "Hortense, in Antwerp we were known rich; in England we were never known but poor." "Precisely, and thus mercenary are mankind. Again, dear brother, last Sunday, if you recollect, was very wet; accordingly I went to church in my neat black sabots, objects one would not indeed wear in a fashionable city, but which in the country I have ever been accustomed to use for walking in dirty roads. Believe me, as I paced up the aisle, composed and tranquil, as I am always, four ladies, and as many gentlemen, laughed and hid their faces behind their prayer-books." "Well, well! don't put on the sabots again. I told you before I thought they were not quite the thing for this country." "But, brother, they are not common sabots, such as the peasantry wear. I tell you, they are sabots noirs, trs propres, trs convenables. At Mons and Leuze--cities not very far removed from the elegant capital of Brussels--it is very seldom that the respectable people wear anything else for walking in winter. Let any one try to wade the mud of the Flemish chausses in a pair of Paris brodequins, on m'en dirait des nouvelles!" "Never mind Mons and Leuze and the Flemish chausses; do at Rome as the Romans do. And as to the camisole and jupon, I am not quite sure about them either. I never see an English lady dressed in such garments. Ask Caroline Helstone." "Caroline! _I_ ask Caroline? _I_ consult her about my dress? It is _she_ who on all points should consult _me_. She is a child." "She is eighteen, or at least seventeen--old enough to know all about gowns, petticoats, and chaussures." "Do not spoil Caroline, I entreat you, brother. Do not make her of more consequence than she ought to be. At present she is modest and unassuming: let us keep her so." "With all my heart. Is she coming this morning?" "She will come at ten, as usual, to take her French lesson." "You don't find that she sneers at you, do you?" "She does not. She appreciates me better than any one else here; but then she has more intimate opportunities of knowing me. She sees that I have education, intelligence, manner, principles--all, in short, which belongs to a person well born and well bred." "Are you at all fond of her?" "For _fond_ I cannot say. I am not one who is prone to take violent fancies, and, consequently, my friendship is the more to be depended on. I have a regard for her as my relative; her position also inspires interest, and her conduct as my pupil has hitherto been such as rather to enhance than diminish the attachment that springs from other causes." "She behaves pretty well at lessons?" "To _me_ she behaves very well; but you are conscious, brother, that I have a manner calculated to repel over-familiarity, to win esteem, and to command respect. Yet, possessed of penetration, I perceive clearly that Caroline is not perfect, that there is much to be desired in her." "Give me a last cup of coffee, and while I am drinking it amuse me with an account of her faults." "Dear brother, I am happy to see you eat your breakfast with relish, after the fatiguing night you have passed. Caroline, then, is defective; but with my forming hand and almost motherly care she may improve. There is about her an occasional something--a reserve, I think--which I do not quite like, because it is not sufficiently girlish and submissive; and there are glimpses of an unsettled hurry in her nature, which put me out. Yet she is usually most tranquil, too dejected and thoughtful indeed sometimes. In time, I doubt not, I shall make her uniformly sedate and decorous, without being unaccountably pensive. I ever disapprove what is not intelligible." "I don't understand your account in the least. What do you mean by 'unsettled hurries,' for instance?" "An example will, perhaps, be the most satisfactory explanation. I sometimes, you are aware, make her read French poetry by way of practice in pronunciation. She has in the course of her lessons gone through much of Corneille and Racine, in a very steady, sober spirit, such as I approve. Occasionally she showed, indeed, a degree of languor in the perusal of those esteemed authors, partaking rather of apathy than sobriety; and apathy is what I cannot tolerate in those who have the benefit of my instructions--besides, one should not be apathetic in studying standard works. The other day I put into her hands a volume of short fugitive pieces. I sent her to the window to learn one by heart, and when I looked up I saw her turning the leaves over impatiently, and curling her lip, absolutely with scorn, as she surveyed the little poems cursorily. I chid her. 'Ma cousine,' said she, 'tout cela m'ennuie la mort.' I told her this was improper language. 'Dieu!' she exclaimed, 'il n'y a donc pas deux lignes de posie dans toute la littrature franaise?' I inquired what she meant. She begged my pardon with proper submission. Ere long she was still. I saw her smiling to herself over the book. She began to learn assiduously. In half an hour she came and stood before me, presented the volume, folded her hands, as I always require her to do, and commenced the repetition of that short thing by Chnier, 'La Jeune Captive.' If you had heard the manner in which she went through this, and in which she uttered a few incoherent comments when she had done, you would have known what I meant by the phrase 'unsettled hurry.' One would have thought Chnier was more moving than all Racine and all Corneille. You, brother, who have so much sagacity, will discern that this disproportionate preference argues an ill-regulated mind; but she is fortunate in her preceptress. I will give her a system, a method of thought, a set of opinions; I will give her the perfect control and guidance of her feelings." "Be sure you do, Hortense. Here she comes. That was her shadow passed the window, I believe." "Ah! truly. She is too early--half an hour before her time.--My child, what brings you here before I have breakfasted?" This question was addressed to an individual who now entered the room, a young girl, wrapped in a winter mantle, the folds of which were gathered with some grace round an apparently slender figure. "I came in haste to see how you were, Hortense, and how Robert was too. I was sure you would be both grieved by what happened last night. I did not hear till this morning. My uncle told me at breakfast." "Ah! it is unspeakable. You sympathize with us? Your uncle sympathizes with us?" "My uncle is very angry--but he was with Robert, I believe, was he not?--Did he not go with you to Stilbro' Moor?" "Yes, we set out in very martial style, Caroline; but the prisoners we went to rescue met us half-way." "Of course nobody was hurt?" "Why, no; only Joe Scott's wrists were a little galled with being pinioned too tightly behind his back." "You were not there? You were not with the wagons when they were attacked?" "No. One seldom has the fortune to be present at occurrences at which one would particularly wish to assist." "Where are you going this morning? I saw Murgatroyd saddling your horse in the yard." "To Whinbury. It is market day." "Mr. Yorke is going too. I met him in his gig. Come home with him." "Why?" "Two are better than one, and nobody dislikes Mr. Yorke--at least, poor people do not dislike him." "Therefore he would be a protection to me, who am hated?" "Who are _misunderstood_. That, probably, is the word. Shall you be late?--Will he be late, Cousin Hortense?" "It is too probable. He has often much business to transact at Whinbury. Have you brought your exercise-book, child?" "Yes.--What time will you return, Robert?" "I generally return at seven. Do you wish me to be at home earlier?" "Try rather to be back by six. It is not absolutely dark at six now, but by seven daylight is quite gone." "And what danger is to be apprehended, Caroline, when daylight _is_ gone? What peril do you conceive comes as the companion of darkness for me?" "I am not sure that I can define my fears, but we all have a certain anxiety at present about our friends. My uncle calls these times dangerous. He says, too, that mill-owners are unpopular." "And I am one of the most unpopular? Is not that the fact? You are reluctant to speak out plainly, but at heart you think me liable to Pearson's fate, who was shot at--not, indeed, from behind a hedge, but in his own house, through his staircase window, as he was going to bed." "Anne Pearson showed me the bullet in the chamber-door," remarked Caroline gravely, as she folded her mantle and arranged it and her muff on a side-table. "You know," she continued, "there is a hedge all the way along the road from here to Whinbury, and there are the Fieldhead plantations to pass; but you will be back by six--or before?" "Certainly he will," affirmed Hortense. "And now, my child, prepare your lessons for repetition, while I put the peas to soak for the pure at dinner." With this direction she left the room. "You suspect I have many enemies, then, Caroline," said Mr. Moore, "and doubtless you know me to be destitute of friends?" "Not destitute, Robert. There is your sister, your brother Louis, whom I have never seen; there is Mr. Yorke, and there is my uncle--besides, of course, many more." Robert smiled. "You would be puzzled to name your 'many more,'" said he. "But show me your exercise-book. What extreme pains you take with the writing! My sister, I suppose, exacts this care. She wants to form you in all things after the model of a Flemish school-girl. What life are you destined for, Caroline? What will you do with your French, drawing, and other accomplishments, when they are acquired?" "You may well say, when they are acquired; for, as you are aware, till Hortense began to teach me, I knew precious little. As to the life I am destined for, I cannot tell. I suppose to keep my uncle's house till----" She hesitated. "Till what? Till he dies?" "No. How harsh to say that! I never think of his dying. He is only fifty-five. But till--in short, till events offer other occupations for me." "A remarkably vague prospect! Are you content with it?" "I used to be, formerly. Children, you know, have little reflection, or rather their reflections run on ideal themes. There are moments _now_ when I am not quite satisfied." "Why?" "I am making no money--earning nothing." "You come to the point, Lina. You too, then, wish to make money?" "I do. I should like an occupation; and if I were a boy, it would not be so difficult to find one. I see such an easy, pleasant way of learning a business, and making my way in life." "Go on. Let us hear what way." "I could be apprenticed to your trade--the cloth-trade. I could learn it of you, as we are distant relations. I would do the counting-house work, keep the books, and write the letters, while you went to market. I know you greatly desire to be rich, in order to pay your father's debts; perhaps I could help you to get rich." "Help _me_? You should think of yourself." "I do think of myself; but must one for ever think only of oneself?" "Of whom else do I think? Of whom else _dare_ I think? The poor ought to have no large sympathies; it is their duty to be narrow." "No, Robert----" "Yes, Caroline. Poverty is necessarily selfish, contracted, grovelling, anxious. Now and then a poor man's heart, when certain beams and dews visit it, may smell like the budding vegetation in yonder garden on this spring day, may feel ripe to evolve in foliage, perhaps blossom; but he must not encourage the pleasant impulse; he must invoke Prudence to check it, with that frosty breath of hers, which is as nipping as any north wind." "No cottage would be happy then." "When I speak of poverty, I do not so much mean the natural, habitual poverty of the working-man, as the embarrassed penury of the man in debt. My grub-worm is always a straitened, struggling, care-worn tradesman." "Cherish hope, not anxiety. Certain ideas have become too fixed in your mind. It may be presumptuous to say it, but I have the impression that there is something wrong in your notions of the best means of attaining happiness, as there is in----" Second hesitation. "I am all ear, Caroline." "In (courage! let me speak the truth)--in your manner--mind, I say only _manner_--to these Yorkshire workpeople." "You have often wanted to tell me that, have you not?" "Yes; often--very often." "The faults of my manner are, I think, only negative. I am not proud. What has a man in my position to be proud of? I am only taciturn, phlegmatic, and joyless." "As if your living cloth-dressers were all machines like your frames and shears. In your own house you seem different." "To those of my own house I am no alien, which I am to these English clowns. I might act the benevolent with them, but acting is not my _forte_. I find them irrational, perverse; they hinder me when I long to hurry forward. In treating them justly I fulfil my whole duty towards them." "You don't expect them to love you, of course?" "Nor wish it." "Ah!" said the monitress, shaking her head and heaving a deep sigh. With this ejaculation, indicative that she perceived a screw to be loose somewhere, but that it was out of her reach to set it right, she bent over her grammar, and sought the rule and exercise for the day. "I suppose I am not an affectionate man, Caroline. The attachment of a very few suffices me." "If you please, Robert, will you mend me a pen or two before you go?" "First let me rule your book, for you always contrive to draw the lines aslant. There now. And now for the pens. You like a fine one, I think?" "Such as you generally make for me and Hortense; not your own broad points." "If I were of Louis's calling I might stay at home and dedicate this morning to you and your studies, whereas I must spend it in Skyes's wool-warehouse." "You will be making money." "More likely losing it." As he finished mending the pens, a horse, saddled and bridled, was brought up to the garden-gate. "There, Fred is ready for me; I must go. I'll take one look to see what the spring has done in the south border, too, first." He quitted the room, and went out into the garden ground behind the mill. A sweet fringe of young verdure and opening flowers--snowdrop, crocus, even primrose--bloomed in the sunshine under the hot wall of the factory. Moore plucked here and there a blossom and leaf, till he had collected a little bouquet. He returned to the parlour, pilfered a thread of silk from his sister's work-basket, tied the flowers, and laid them on Caroline's desk. "Now, good-morning." "Thank you, Robert. It is pretty; it looks, as it lies there, like sparkles of sunshine and blue sky. Good-morning." He went to the door, stopped, opened his lips as if to speak, said nothing, and moved on. He passed through the wicket, and mounted his horse. In a second he had flung himself from his saddle again, transferred the reins to Murgatroyd, and re-entered the cottage. "I forgot my gloves," he said, appearing to take something from the side-table; then, as an impromptu thought, he remarked, "You have no binding engagement at home perhaps, Caroline?" "I never have. Some children's socks, which Mrs. Ramsden has ordered, to knit for the Jew's basket; but they will keep." "Jew's basket be--sold! Never was utensil better named. Anything more Jewish than it--its contents and their prices--cannot be conceived. But I see something, a very tiny curl, at the corners of your lip, which tells me that you know its merits as well as I do. Forget the Jew's basket, then, and spend the day here as a change. Your uncle won't break his heart at your absence?" She smiled. "No." "The old Cossack! I dare say not," muttered Moore. "Then stay and dine with Hortense; she will be glad of your company. I shall return in good time. We will have a little reading in the evening. The moon rises at half-past eight, and I will walk up to the rectory with you at nine. Do you agree?" She nodded her head, and her eyes lit up. Moore lingered yet two minutes. He bent over Caroline's desk and glanced at her grammar, he fingered her pen, he lifted her bouquet and played with it; his horse stamped impatient; Fred Murgatroyd hemmed and coughed at the gate, as if he wondered what in the world his master was doing. "Good-morning," again said Moore, and finally vanished. Hortense, coming in ten minutes after, found, to her surprise, that Caroline had not yet commenced her exercise.

Moore was still in good spirits when he rose next morning. He and Joe Scott had spent the night in the mill, on camp-beds kept in the counting-houses. The master was up early, and awoke his man by singing a French song as he dressed. "Get up, Joseph, and we'll walk through the mill before the hands come in, and I'll explain my plans. We'll have the machinery yet. You never heard of Bruce, perhaps?" "And the spider? Yes, I hev. Ye mean to say ye'll persevere." "I do." "Is there many like you i' your country?" inquired Joe, as he folded up his bed. "In my country! Which is my country?" "Why, France - isn't it?" "No, indeed! Just because the French have seized Antwerp, where I was born, does not make me a Frenchman." "Dutch, then?" "Now you are confounding Antwerp with Amsterdam." "Flanders?" "I scorn the insinuation, Joe! Have I a Flemish face, with a clumsy nose and pale blue eyes? Am I all body and no legs? Joe, I'm an Anversois - a native of Antwerp - though my mother came of French lineage, which is why I speak French." "But your father were Yorkshire, which maks ye a bit Yorkshire too; and onybody may see ye're akin to us, ye're so keen o' making brass." "Joe, you're an impudent dog." "We allus speak our minds i' this country; and them young parsons and grand folk fro' London is shocked at it; and we like to gi'e 'em summat to be shocked at, so we can watch 'em widen their eyes, and say, 'Dear! dear! Whet seveges! How very coarse!'" "You are savages, Joe. You don't suppose you're civilized, do you?" "Middling, maister. I reckon us manufacturing lads i' th' north is a deal more intelligent nor th' farming folk i' th' south. Trade sharpens our wits; and mechanics like me is forced to think. When I see an effect, I look straight away for a cause; and then I like reading." "You think yourself a clever fellow, Scott." "Ay! I'm fairish; but there's thousands i' Yorkshire that's as good as me, and a few that's better." "You're a sublime fellow; but you're a conceited noodle too, Joe! You need not think that because you've picked up a little mathematics, and the elements of chemistry at the bottom of a dyeing vat, that therefore you're a neglected man of science. Virtue does not live only in workmen's cottages. Human nature is human nature everywhere, amongst rich or poor, and in between. Away with you, Joe, and ring the mill bell." It was now the middle of February; dawn was just beginning to penetrate the brown obscurity of night with a pale ray. No colour tinged the east, as day slowly lifted a heavy eyelid. The morning was chill; a raw wind blew. It had ceased to rain, but the earth was sodden, and the pools and rivulets were full. The mill-windows were alight, the bell rung loud, and now the little children came running in, in too great a hurry, let us hope, to feel the cold. Mr. Moore stood at the entrance, counting them as they went by. To those who came late he said a word of reprimand, which was a little more sharply repeated by Joe Scott when they reached the work-rooms. Neither master nor overlooker spoke savagely, although they fined one boy a penny for coming very late. Though I describe imperfect characters (every character in this book will be found to be more or less imperfect, my pen refusing to draw anything in the model line), I do not handle utterly degraded ones. There are no child-torturers or slave drivers here. I am happy to inform my reader that neither Mr. Moore nor his overlooker ever struck a child in their mill. Mr. Moore haunted his mill, his dye-house, and his warehouse till the sickly dawn strengthened into day. The sun rose - a clear white disc, as chill as ice. At eight o'clock the signal was given for breakfast; the children, released for half an hour from toil, opened their little tin cans of coffee, and their small baskets of bread. And now at last Mr. Moore quitted the mill-yard, and went to his house. It was only a short distance from the factory, but secluded by a hedge and high bank on each side of the lane. It was a small, whitewashed place, with a green porch over the door; scanty brown stalks showed in the garden soil beneath the windows, predicting blooming creepers for summer days. Only in sheltered nooks did the first shoots of snowdrop or crocus peep, green as emerald, from the earth. The spring was late; the last deep snow had only just disappeared. Three trees, not lofty, but graceful, rose beside the cottage. It was a snug nest, but one within which the wings of action and ambition could not long lie folded. Instead of entering the house, Mr. Moore fetched a spade from a shed and began to work in the garden. For about a quarter of an hour he dug, until a window opened, and a female voice called: "Eh, bien! Tu ne djenes pas ce matin?" His answer, and the rest of the conversation, I shall translate into English. "Is breakfast ready, Hortense?" "Certainly; it has been ready half an hour." "Then I am ready too." He threw down his spade, and entered the house. The narrow passage led him to a small parlour, where a breakfast of coffee, bread and butter, and stewed pears, was spread on the table. Over this meal presided the lady who had spoken from the window. She was a little older than Mr. Moore - perhaps thirty-five, tall, and stout; she had very black hair, twisted up in curl-papers, a high colour in her cheeks, and little black eyes. Her forehead was rather corrugated; she had a fretful though not an ill-natured expression. The strangest point was her dress - a short petticoat and a striped cotton camisole. You will think she is a remarkable slattern, reader. Not at all. Hortense Moore, Mr. Moore's sister, was a very orderly, economical person. The petticoat, camisole, and curl-papers were her usual morning costume: she adhered to her old Belgian customs. Mademoiselle had an excellent opinion of herself - an opinion not wholly undeserved, for she possessed some good qualities; but she over-estimated her own virtues, and quite left out her various little defects. You could never have persuaded her that she was prejudiced and narrow-minded, with too much self-importance, and too apt to take offence about trifles; yet all this was true. However, she could be kind and friendly enough. To her two brothers (for there was another besides Robert) she was very much attached. Louis, however, she knew less well than Robert. He had been sent to an English school when a mere boy, and had followed the arduous and modest career of a teacher. He had taught in a school, and was said now to be tutor in a private family. Hortense thought of him as backward and quiet. She was very proud of Robert, regarding him as the greatest man in Europe; all he said and did was remarkable in her eyes, and she expected others to have the same opinion. As soon as Robert was seated at the breakfast-table, and she had helped him to some stewed pears and a good-sized Belgian tartine, she began to pour out a flood of amazement and horror at last night's destruction of the frames. "What a shameful thing to do! It's clear that English workers are wicked beasts, just like English servants - that Sarah, for one!" "She looks clean and industrious," Mr. Moore remarked. "Looks? I do not say that she is dirty or idle, but her insolence! She disputed with me a quarter of an hour yesterday about cooking the beef; she said I boiled it to rags, and that my stock was no better than greasy water! Yet I cannot part with the girl lest I should get a worse. You are in the same position with your workmen, my poor brother!" "I am afraid you are not very happy in England, Hortense." "It is my duty to be happy where you are, brother; but certainly people here appear to me ill-bred. They consider my habits ridiculous. If a girl from your mill chances to come into the kitchen and finds me in my camisole and petticoat, she sneers. If I accept an invitation to tea, I am put quite into the background; I have not that attention paid me which is my due. The Grards are an excellent family, and the Moores also! They have a right to claim respect. In Antwerp I was always treated with distinction." "Hortense, in Antwerp we were known as rich; in England we have always been known as poor." "Again, dear brother, last Sunday, because it was wet, I went to church in my neat black sabots, footwear which one would not indeed wear in a fashionable city, but which in the country I have always used on dirty roads. Believe me, as I paced up the aisle, four ladies laughed and hid their faces behind their prayer-books." "Well, well! don't wear them again. I told you before they were not quite the thing for this country. And as to the camisole and petticoat, I am not sure about them either. I never see an English lady dressed in such garments. Ask Caroline Helstone." "Caroline! I consult her about my dress? It is she who on all points should consult me. She is a child." "She is eighteen - old enough to know all about gowns and petticoats." "Do not make Caroline of more consequence than she ought to be, brother. At present she is modest and unassuming: let us keep her so." "With all my heart. Is she coming this morning?" "At ten, as usual, for her French lesson." "You don't find that she sneers at you, do you?" "She does not. She appreciates me better than anyone else here; but then she sees more of me. She sees that I have the education and manner of a person well born and well bred." "Are you fond of her?" asked Moore. "I have a regard for her as my relative; and she behaves very well at lessons. But you know, brother, that my manner commands respect. Yet I perceive clearly that Caroline is not perfect, that there is much to be desired in her." "Give me a last cup of coffee, and while I am drinking it, amuse me with an account of her faults." "Caroline is defective; but with my motherly care she may improve. She has an occasional reserve, which I do not quite like, because it is not sufficiently girlish and submissive; and there are glimpses of an unsettled hurry in her nature, which put me out. Yet she is usually most tranquil, too dejected and thoughtful indeed sometimes. In time, I doubt not, I shall make her uniformly sedate." "I don't understand. What do you mean by 'unsettled hurry'?" "For example, when I ask her to read French poetry to practice her pronunciation. She has gone through much of Corneille and Racine, in a very steady, sober spirit, such as I approve. Occasionally she seemed, indeed, apathetic. The other day I gave her a book of short pieces, to learn one by heart. I saw her turning the leaves over impatiently, and curling her lip with scorn. I chided her. 'Cousin,' said she, 'all this bores me to death. Are there not two lines of poetry in all of French literature?' I inquired what she meant. She begged my pardon, and began to learn assiduously. In half an hour she stood before me, and recited Chenier's La Jeune Captive. If you had heard her, you would have known what I meant by 'unsettled hurry.' One would have thought Chnier was more moving than all Racine and Corneille. She has an ill-regulated mind; but she is fortunate in her teacher. I will give her a set of opinions; I will guide her feelings." "Be sure you do, Hortense. Here she comes." "Ah! She is half an hour early. -My child, what brings you here before I have breakfasted?" This question was addressed to a young girl who now entered the room, wrapped in a winter mantle which was gathered gracefully round a slender figure. "I came in haste to see how you were, Hortense, and Robert too. I was sure you would both be grieved by what happened last night. My uncle told me about it at breakfast. He is very angry - but he was with Robert, was he not? Did he not go with you to Stilbro' Moor?" "Yes, we set out in martial style, Caroline; but the prisoners we went to rescue met us half-way." "Nobody was hurt?" "Why, no." "You were not with the wagons when they were attacked?" "No." "Where are you going this morning?" asked Caroline. "I saw Murgatroyd saddling your horse in the yard." "To Whinbury. It is market day." "Mr. Yorke is going too. I met him in his gig. Come home with him. Two are better than one, and nobody dislikes Mr. Yorke." "Therefore he would be a protection to me, who am hated?" suggested Moore. "Misunderstood, not hated. What time will you return, Robert?" "I generally return at seven.' "Try to be back by six. By seven daylight is quite gone." "And what danger do you foresee for me in darkness, Caroline?" "I am not sure, but we all feel anxious at present. My uncle calls these times dangerous. He says, too, that mill-owners are unpopular." "And I am one of the most unpopular? Is not that the fact? You are reluctant to speak out plainly, but you think I may be attacked, like Pearson - who was shot in his own house, through the window." "Anne Pearson showed me the bullet," said Caroline gravely. "You will be back by six?" "Certainly he will," affirmed Hortense. "And now, my child, prepare your lessons, while I put the peas to soak for dinner." She left the room. "You suspect I have many enemies, then, Caroline," said Mr. Moore. "Have I no friends?" "Your sister, and your brother Louis, whom I have never seen; and Mr. Yorke, and my uncle - besides, of course, many more." Robert smiled. "You would be puzzled to name your 'many more,'" said he. "But show me your exercise-book. What careful handwriting! My sister wants to form you like a Flemish school-girl. What life are you destined for, Caroline? What will you do with your French, drawing, and other accomplishments, when they are acquired?" "You may well say, when they are acquired; for till Hortense began to teach me, I knew precious little. As to the life I am destined for, I cannot tell. I suppose to keep my uncle's house till - till events offer other occupations for me." "A remarkably vague prospect! Are you content with it?" "I used to be. But there are moments now when I am not quite satisfied. I am earning nothing." "You wish to make money, Lina?" "I do. I should like an occupation; and if I were a boy, it would not be so difficult to find one. I can see such an easy, pleasant way of learning a business, and making my way in life." "Go on. Let us hear how." "I could be apprenticed to your trade - the cloth-trade. I could learn it from you. I could keep the books and write the letters, while you went to market. I know you want to pay your father's debts; perhaps I could help you." "Help me? You should think of yourself." "I do think of myself; but must one think only of oneself?" "Of whom else dare I think? The poor need to have narrow sympathies. Poverty is selfish and anxious, and sympathy must be checked by Prudence, whose frosty breath is as nipping as any north wind. By poverty, I mean the embarrassed penury of the man in debt." "Cherish hope, not anxiety," urged Caroline. "I feel there is something wrong in your notions of the best way of attaining happiness, as there is in - in your manner to the Yorkshire workpeople." "You have often wanted to tell me that, have you not?" "Yes; very often." "The faults of my manner are, I think, only negative. I am not proud. I am only taciturn, and serious." "As if your workmen were machines like your frames. In your own house you seem different." "I am an alien to them. And for my part I find them irrational, perverse; they hinder me when I long to hurry forward. I don't expect them to love me." "Ah!" said Caroline, shaking her head and heaving a deep sigh. "I suppose I am not an affectionate man, Caroline. The attachment of a very few people is enough for me." "Please, Robert, will you mend my pen before you go?" "First let me rule your book, for you always manage to draw the lines aslant. There now. If I were a tutor like Louis I might stay and dedicate this morning to you and your studies, whereas I must spend it in Skyes's wool-warehouse." "You will be making money." "More likely losing it. There, my horse is ready; I must go. I'll take a look at the garden first." He went out into the garden behind the mill. A sweet fringe of snowdrop, crocus and primrose bloomed in the sunshine under the hot wall of the factory. Moore plucked a little bouquet of flowers, returned to the parlour, and laid them on Caroline's desk. "Thank you, Robert. It is pretty; it looks like sparkles of sunshine and blue sky. Good-morning." Robert went to the door, stopped as if about to speak; said nothing, and went out. But in a second he re-entered the cottage. "I forgot my gloves," he said, and then asked, "You have no binding engagement at home perhaps, Caroline?" "I never have. Some children's socks to knit for the Jew's basket; but they will keep." "Forget the Jew's basket, and spend the day here for a change. Your uncle won't break his heart at your absence?" She smiled. "No." "Then stay and dine with Hortense; she will be glad of your company. When I return, we will have a little reading in the evening. The moon rises at half-past eight, and I will walk up to the rectory with you at nine. Do you agree?" She nodded her head, and her eyes lit up. Moore lingered for two more minutes. He bent over Caroline's desk and glanced at her grammar, he lifted her bouquet and played with it; his horse stamped impatiently; his groom coughed at the gate, as if he wondered what in the world his master was doing. "Good-morning," again said Moore, and finally vanished. Hortense, coming in ten minutes after, found, to her surprise, that Caroline had not yet begun her exercise.

Shirley

Chapter 5: HOLLOW'S COTTAGE

Messrs. Helstone and Sykes began to be extremely jocose and congratulatory with Mr. Moore when he returned to them after dismissing the deputation. He was so quiet, however, under their compliments upon his firmness, etc., and wore a countenance so like a still, dark day, equally beamless and breezeless, that the rector, after glancing shrewdly into his eyes, buttoned up his felicitations with his coat, and said to Sykes, whose senses were not acute enough to enable him to discover unassisted where his presence and conversation were a nuisance, "Come, sir; your road and mine lie partly together. Had we not better bear each other company? We'll bid Moore good-morning, and leave him to the happy fancies he seems disposed to indulge." "And where is Sugden?" demanded Moore, looking up. "Ah, ha!" cried Helstone. "I've not been quite idle while you were busy. I've been helping you a little; I flatter myself not injudiciously. I thought it better not to lose time; so, while you were parleying with that down-looking gentleman--Farren I think his name is--I opened this back window, shouted to Murgatroyd, who was in the stable, to bring Mr. Sykes's gig round; then I smuggled Sugden and brother Moses--wooden leg and all--through the aperture, and saw them mount the gig (always with our good friend Sykes's permission, of course). Sugden took the reins--he drives like Jehu--and in another quarter of an hour Barraclough will be safe in Stilbro' jail." "Very good; thank you," said Moore; "and good-morning, gentlemen," he added, and so politely conducted them to the door, and saw them clear of his premises. He was a taciturn, serious man the rest of the day. He did not even bandy a repartee with Joe Scott, who, for his part, said to his master only just what was absolutely necessary to the progress of business, but looked at him a good deal out of the corners of his eyes, frequently came to poke the counting-house fire for him, and once, as he was locking up for the day (the mill was then working short time, owing to the slackness of trade), observed that it was a grand evening, and he "could wish Mr. Moore to take a bit of a walk up th' Hollow. It would do him good." At this recommendation Mr. Moore burst into a short laugh, and after demanding of Joe what all this solicitude meant, and whether he took him for a woman or a child, seized the keys from his hand, and shoved him by the shoulders out of his presence. He called him back, however, ere he had reached the yard-gate. "Joe, do you know those Farrens? They are not well off, I suppose?" "They cannot be well off, sir, when they've not had work as a three month. Ye'd see yoursel' 'at William's sorely changed--fair paired. They've selled most o' t' stuff out o' th' house." "He was not a bad workman?" "Ye never had a better, sir, sin' ye began trade." "And decent people--the whole family?" "Niver dacenter. Th' wife's a raight cant body, and as clean--ye mught eat your porridge off th' house floor. They're sorely comed down. I wish William could get a job as gardener or summat i' that way; he understands gardening weel. He once lived wi' a Scotchman that tached him the mysteries o' that craft, as they say." "Now, then, you can go, Joe. You need not stand there staring at me." "Ye've no orders to give, sir?" "None, but for you to take yourself off." Which Joe did accordingly. * * * * * Spring evenings are often cold and raw, and though this had been a fine day, warm even in the morning and meridian sunshine, the air chilled at sunset, the ground crisped, and ere dusk a hoar frost was insidiously stealing over growing grass and unfolding bud. It whitened the pavement in front of Briarmains (Mr. Yorke's residence), and made silent havoc among the tender plants in his garden, and on the mossy level of his lawn. As to that great tree, strong-trunked and broad-armed, which guarded the gable nearest the road, it seemed to defy a spring-night frost to harm its still bare boughs; and so did the leafless grove of walnut-trees rising tall behind the house. In the dusk of the moonless if starry night, lights from windows shone vividly. This was no dark or lonely scene, nor even a silent one. Briarmains stood near the highway. It was rather an old place, and had been built ere that highway was cut, and when a lane winding up through fields was the only path conducting to it. Briarfield lay scarce a mile off; its hum was heard, its glare distinctly seen. Briar Chapel, a large, new, raw Wesleyan place of worship, rose but a hundred yards distant; and as there was even now a prayer-meeting being held within its walls, the illumination of its windows cast a bright reflection on the road, while a hymn of a most extraordinary description, such as a very Quaker might feel himself moved by the Spirit to dance to, roused cheerily all the echoes of the vicinage. The words were distinctly audible by snatches. Here is a quotation or two from different strains; for the singers passed jauntily from hymn to hymn and from tune to tune, with an ease and buoyancy all their own:-- "Oh! who can explain This struggle for life, This travail and pain, This trembling and strife? Plague, earthquake, and famine, And tumult and war, The wonderful coming Of Jesus declare! "For every fight Is dreadful and loud: The warrior's delight Is slaughter and blood, His foes overturning, Till all shall expire: And this is with burning, And fuel, and fire!" Here followed an interval of clamorous prayer, accompanied by fearful groans. A shout of "I've found liberty!" "Doad o' Bill's has fun' liberty!" rang from the chapel, and out all the assembly broke again. "What a mercy is this! What a heaven of bliss! How unspeakably happy am I! Gathered into the fold, With Thy people enrolled, With Thy people to live and to die! "Oh, the goodness of God In employing a clod His tribute of glory to raise; His standard to bear, And with triumph declare His unspeakable riches of grace! "Oh, the fathomless love That has deigned to approve And prosper the work of my hands. With my pastoral crook I went over the brook, And behold I am spread into bands! "Who, I ask in amaze, Hath begotten me these? And inquire from what quarter they came. My full heart it replies, They are born from the skies, And gives glory to God and the Lamb!" The stanza which followed this, after another and longer interregnum of shouts, yells, ejaculations, frantic cries, agonized groans, seemed to cap the climax of noise and zeal. "Sleeping on the brink of sin, Tophet gaped to take us in; Mercy to our rescue flew, Broke the snare, and brought us through. "Here, as in a lion's den, Undevoured we still remain, Pass secure the watery flood, Hanging on the arm of God. "Here----" (Terrible, most distracting to the ear, was the strained shout in which the last stanza was given.) "Here we raise our voices higher, Shout in the refiner's fire, Clap our hands amidst the flame, Glory give to Jesus' name!" The roof of the chapel did _not_ fly off, which speaks volumes in praise of its solid slating. But if Briar Chapel seemed alive, so also did Briarmains, though certainly the mansion appeared to enjoy a quieter phase of existence than the temple. Some of its windows too were aglow; the lower casements opened upon the lawn; curtains concealed the interior, and partly obscured the ray of the candles which lit it, but they did not entirely muffle the sound of voice and laughter. We are privileged to enter that front door, and to penetrate to the domestic sanctum. It is not the presence of company which makes Mr. Yorke's habitation lively, for there is none within it save his own family, and they are assembled in that farthest room to the right, the back parlour. This is the usual sitting-room of an evening. Those windows would be seen by daylight to be of brilliantly-stained glass, purple and amber the predominant hues, glittering round a gravely-tinted medallion in the centre of each, representing the suave head of William Shakespeare, and the serene one of John Milton. Some Canadian views hung on the walls--green forest and blue water scenery--and in the midst of them blazes a night-eruption of Vesuvius; very ardently it glows, contrasted with the cool foam and azure of cataracts, and the dusky depths of woods. The fire illuminating this room, reader, is such as, if you be a southern, you do not often see burning on the hearth of a private apartment. It is a clear, hot coal fire, heaped high in the ample chimney. Mr. Yorke _will_ have such fires even in warm summer weather. He sits beside it with a book in his hand, a little round stand at his elbow supporting a candle; but he is not reading--he is watching his children. Opposite to him sits his lady--a personage whom I might describe minutely, but I feel no vocation to the task. I see her, though, very plainly before me--a large woman of the gravest aspect, care on her front and on her shoulders, but not overwhelming, inevitable care, rather the sort of voluntary, exemplary cloud and burden people ever carry who deem it their duty to be gloomy. Ah, well-a-day! Mrs. Yorke had that notion, and grave as Saturn she was, morning, noon, and, night; and hard things she thought if any unhappy wight--especially of the female sex--who dared in her presence to show the light of a gay heart on a sunny countenance. In her estimation, to be mirthful was to be profane, to be cheerful was to be frivolous. She drew no distinctions. Yet she was a very good wife, a very careful mother, looked after her children unceasingly, was sincerely attached to her husband; only the worst of it was, if she could have had her will, she would not have permitted him to have any friend in the world beside herself. All his relations were insupportable to her, and she kept them at arm's length. Mr. Yorke and she agreed perfectly well, yet he was naturally a social, hospitable man, an advocate for family unity; and in his youth, as has been said, he liked none but lively, cheerful women. Why he chose her, how they contrived to suit each other, is a problem puzzling enough, but which might soon be solved if one had time to go into the analysis of the case. Suffice it here to say that Yorke had a shadowy side as well as a sunny side to his character, and that his shadowy side found sympathy and affinity in the whole of his wife's uniformly overcast nature. For the rest, she was a strong-minded woman; never said a weak or a trite thing; took stern, democratic views of society, and rather cynical ones of human nature; considered herself perfect and safe, and the rest of the world all wrong. Her main fault was a brooding, eternal, immitigable suspicion of all men, things, creeds, and parties; this suspicion was a mist before her eyes, a false guide in her path, wherever she looked, wherever she turned. It may be supposed that the children of such a pair were not likely to turn out quite ordinary, commonplace beings; and they were not. You see six of them, reader. The youngest is a baby on the mother's knee. It is all her own yet, and that one she has not yet begun to doubt, suspect, condemn; it derives its sustenance from her, it hangs on her, it clings to her, it loves her above everything else in the world. She is sure of that, because, as it lives by her, it cannot be otherwise, therefore she loves it. The two next are girls, Rose and Jessy; they are both now at their father's knee; they seldom go near their mother, except when obliged to do so. Rose, the elder, is twelve years old; she is like her father--the most like him of the whole group--but it is a granite head copied in ivory; all is softened in colour and line. Yorke himself has a harsh face--his daughter's is not harsh, neither is it quite pretty; it is simple, childlike in feature; the round cheeks bloom: as to the gray eyes, they are otherwise than childlike; a serious soul lights them--a young soul yet, but it will mature, if the body lives; and neither father nor mother have a spirit to compare with it. Partaking of the essence of each, it will one day be better than either--stronger, much purer, more aspiring. Rose is a still, sometimes a stubborn, girl now. Her mother wants to make of her such a woman as she is herself--a woman of dark and dreary duties; and Rose has a mind full-set, thick-sown with the germs of ideas her mother never knew. It is agony to her often to have these ideas trampled on and repressed. She has never rebelled yet; but if hard driven, she will rebel one day, and then it will be once for all. Rose loves her father: her father does not rule her with a rod of iron; he is good to her. He sometimes fears she will not live, so bright are the sparks of intelligence which, at moments, flash from her glance and gleam in her language. This idea makes him often sadly tender to her. He has no idea that little Jessy will die young, she is so gay and chattering, arch, original even now; passionate when provoked, but most affectionate if caressed; by turns gentle and rattling; exacting, yet generous; fearless--of her mother, for instance, whose irrationally hard and strict rule she has often defied--yet reliant on any who will help her. Jessy, with her little piquant face, engaging prattle, and winning ways, is made to be a pet, and her father's pet she accordingly is. It is odd that the doll should resemble her mother feature by feature, as Rose resembles her father, and yet the physiognomy--how different! Mr. Yorke, if a magic mirror were now held before you, and if therein were shown you your two daughters as they will be twenty years from this night, what would you think? The magic mirror is here: you shall learn their destinies--and first that of your little life, Jessy. Do you know this place? No, you never saw it; but you recognize the nature of these trees, this foliage--the cypress, the willow, the yew. Stone crosses like these are not unfamiliar to you, nor are these dim garlands of everlasting flowers. Here is the place--green sod and a gray marble headstone. Jessy sleeps below. She lived through an April day; much loved was she, much loving. She often, in her brief life, shed tears, she had frequent sorrows; she smiled between, gladdening whatever saw her. Her death was tranquil and happy in Rose's guardian arms, for Rose had been her stay and defence through many trials. The dying and the watching English girls were at that hour alone in a foreign country, and the soil of that country gave Jessy a grave. Now, behold Rose two years later. The crosses and garlands looked strange, but the hills and woods of this landscape look still stranger. This, indeed, is far from England; remote must be the shores which wear that wild, luxuriant aspect. This is some virgin solitude. Unknown birds flutter round the skirts of that forest; no European river this, on whose banks Rose sits thinking. The little quiet Yorkshire girl is a lonely emigrant in some region of the southern hemisphere. Will she ever come back? The three eldest of the family are all boys--Matthew, Mark, and Martin. They are seated together in that corner, engaged in some game. Observe their three heads: much alike at a first glance; at a second, different; at a third, contrasted. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, red-cheeked are the whole trio; small English features they all possess; all own a blended resemblance to sire and mother; and yet a distinctive physiognomy, mark of a separate character, belongs to each. I shall not say much about Matthew, the first-born of the house, though it is impossible to avoid gazing at him long, and conjecturing what qualities that visage hides or indicates. He is no plain-looking boy: that jet-black hair, white brow, high-coloured cheek, those quick, dark eyes, are good points in their way. How is it that, look as long as you will, there is but one object in the room, and that the most sinister, to which Matthew's face seems to bear an affinity, and of which, ever and anon, it reminds you strangely--the eruption of Vesuvius? Flame and shadow seem the component parts of that lad's soul--no daylight in it, and no sunshine, and no pure, cool moonbeam ever shone there. He has an English frame, but, apparently, not an English mind--you would say, an Italian stiletto in a sheath of British workmanship. He is crossed in the game--look at his scowl. Mr. Yorke sees it, and what does he say? In a low voice he pleads, "Mark and Martin, don't anger your brother." And this is ever the tone adopted by both parents. Theoretically, they decry partiality--no rights of primogeniture are to be allowed in that house; but Matthew is never to be vexed, never to be opposed; they avert provocation from him as assiduously as they would avert fire from a barrel of gunpowder. "Concede, conciliate," is their motto wherever he is concerned. The republicans are fast making a tyrant of their own flesh and blood. This the younger scions know and feel, and at heart they all rebel against the injustice. They cannot read their parents' motives; they only see the difference of treatment. The dragon's teeth are already sown amongst Mr. Yorke's young olive-branches; discord will one day be the harvest. Mark is a bonny-looking boy, the most regular-featured of the family. He is exceedingly calm; his smile is shrewd; he can say the driest, most cutting things in the quietest of tones. Despite his tranquillity, a somewhat heavy brow speaks temper, and reminds you that the smoothest waters are not always the safest. Besides, he is too still, unmoved, phlegmatic, to be happy. Life will never have much joy in it for Mark. By the time he is five-and-twenty he will wonder why people ever laugh, and think all fools who seem merry. Poetry will not exist for Mark, either in literature or in life; its best effusions will sound to him mere rant and jargon. Enthusiasm will be his aversion and contempt. Mark will have no youth; while he looks juvenile and blooming, he will be already middle-aged in mind. His body is now fourteen years of age, but his soul is already thirty. Martin, the youngest of the three, owns another nature. Life may, or may not, be brief for him, but it will certainly be brilliant. He will pass through all its illusions, half believe in them, wholly enjoy them, then outlive them. That boy is not handsome--not so handsome as either of his brothers. He is plain; there is a husk upon him, a dry shell, and he will wear it till he is near twenty, then he will put it off. About that period he will make himself handsome. He will wear uncouth manners till that age, perhaps homely garments; but the chrysalis will retain the power of transfiguring itself into the butterfly, and such transfiguration will, in due season, take place. For a space he will be vain, probably a downright puppy, eager for pleasure and desirous of admiration, athirst, too, for knowledge. He will want all that the world can give him, both of enjoyment and lore; he will, perhaps, take deep draughts at each fount. That thirst satisfied, what next? I know not. Martin might be a remarkable man. Whether he will or not, the seer is powerless to predict: on that subject there has been no open vision. Take Mr. Yorke's family in the aggregate: there is as much mental power in those six young heads, as much originality, as much activity and vigour of brain, as--divided amongst half a dozen commonplace broods--would give to each rather more than an average amount of sense and capacity. Mr. Yorke knows this, and is proud of his race. Yorkshire has such families here and there amongst her hills and wolds--peculiar, racy, vigorous; of good blood and strong brain; turbulent somewhat in the pride of their strength, and intractable in the force of their native powers; wanting polish, wanting consideration, wanting docility, but sound, spirited, and true-bred as the eagle on the cliff or the steed in the steppe. A low tap is heard at the parlour door; the boys have been making such a noise over their game, and little Jessy, besides, has been singing so sweet a Scotch song to her father--who delights in Scotch and Italian songs, and has taught his musical little daughter some of the best--that the ring at the outer door was not observed. "Come in," says Mrs. Yorke, in that conscientiously constrained and solemnized voice of hers, which ever modulates itself to a funereal dreariness of tone, though the subject it is exercised upon be but to give orders for the making of a pudding in the kitchen, to bid the boys hang up their caps in the hall, or to call the girls to their sewing--"come in!" And in came Robert Moore. Moore's habitual gravity, as well as his abstemiousness (for the case of spirit decanters is never ordered up when he pays an evening visit), has so far recommended him to Mrs. Yorke that she has not yet made him the subject of private animadversions with her husband; she has not yet found out that he is hampered by a secret intrigue which prevents him from marrying, or that he is a wolf in sheep's clothing--discoveries which she made at an early date after marriage concerning most of her husband's bachelor friends, and excluded them from her board accordingly; which part of her conduct, indeed, might be said to have its just and sensible as well as its harsh side. "Well, is it you?" she says to Mr. Moore, as he comes up to her and gives his hand. "What are you roving about at this time of night for? You should be at home." "Can a single man be said to have a home, madam?" he asks. "Pooh!" says Mrs. Yorke, who despises conventional smoothness quite as much as her husband does, and practises it as little, and whose plain speaking on all occasions is carried to a point calculated, sometimes, to awaken admiration, but oftener alarm--"pooh! you need not talk nonsense to me; a single man can have a home if he likes. Pray, does not your sister make a home for you?" "Not she," joined in Mr. Yorke. "Hortense is an honest lass. But when I was Robert's age I had five or six sisters, all as decent and proper as she is; but you see, Hesther, for all that it did not hinder me from looking out for a wife." "And sorely he has repented marrying me," added Mrs. Yorke, who liked occasionally to crack a dry jest against matrimony, even though it should be at her own expense. "He has repented it in sackcloth and ashes, Robert Moore, as you may well believe when you see his punishment" (here she pointed to her children). "Who would burden themselves with such a set of great, rough lads as those, if they could help it? It is not only bringing them into the world, though that is bad enough, but they are all to feed, to clothe, to rear, to settle in life. Young sir, when you feel tempted to marry, think of our four sons and two daughters, and look twice before you leap." "I am not tempted now, at any rate. I think these are not times for marrying or giving in marriage." A lugubrious sentiment of this sort was sure to obtain Mrs. Yorke's approbation. She nodded and groaned acquiescence; but in a minute she said, "I make little account of the wisdom of a Solomon of your age; it will be upset by the first fancy that crosses you. Meantime, sit down, sir. You can talk, I suppose, as well sitting as standing?" This was her way of inviting her guest to take a chair. He had no sooner obeyed her than little Jessy jumped from her father's knee and ran into Mr. Moore's arms, which were very promptly held out to receive her. "You talk of marrying him," said she to her mother, quite indignantly, as she was lifted lightly to his knee, "and he is married now, or as good. He promised that I should be his wife last summer, the first time he saw me in my new white frock and blue sash. Didn't he, father?" (These children were not accustomed to say papa and mamma; their mother would allow no such "namby-pamby.") "Ay, my little lassie, he promised; I'll bear witness. But make him say it over again now, Jessy. Such as he are only false loons." "He is not false. He is too bonny to be false," said Jessy, looking up to her tall sweetheart with the fullest confidence in his faith. "Bonny!" cried Mr. Yorke. "That's the reason that he should be, and proof that he is, a scoundrel." "But he looks too sorrowful to be false," here interposed a quiet voice from behind the father's chair. "If he was always laughing, I should think he forgot promises soon, but Mr. Moore never laughs." "Your sentimental buck is the greatest cheat of all, Rose," remarked Mr. Yorke. "He's not sentimental," said Rose. Mr. Moore turned to her with a little surprise, smiling at the same time. "How do you know I am not sentimental, Rose?" "Because I heard a lady say you were not." "Voil, qui devient intressant!" exclaimed Mr. Yorke, hitching his chair nearer the fire. "A lady! That has quite a romantic twang. We must guess who it is.--Rosy, whisper the name low to your father. Don't let _him_ hear." "Rose, don't be too forward to talk," here interrupted Mrs. Yorke, in her usual kill-joy fashion, "nor Jessy either. It becomes all children, especially girls, to be silent in the presence of their elders." "Why have we tongues, then?" asked Jessy pertly; while Rose only looked at her mother with an expression that seemed to say she should take that maxim in and think it over at her leisure. After two minutes' grave deliberation, she asked, "And why especially girls, mother?" "Firstly, because I say so; and secondly, because discretion and reserve are a girl's best wisdom." "My dear madam," observed Moore, "what you say is excellent--it reminds me, indeed, of my dear sister's observations; but really it is not applicable to these little ones. Let Rose and Jessy talk to me freely, or my chief pleasure in coming here is gone. I like their prattle; it does me good." "Does it not?" asked Jessy. "More good than if the rough lads came round you.--You call them rough, mother, yourself." "Yes, mignonne, a thousand times more good. I have rough lads enough about me all day long, poulet." "There are plenty of people," continued she, "who take notice of the boys. All my uncles and aunts seem to think their nephews better than their nieces, and when gentlemen come here to dine, it is always Matthew, and Mark, and Martin that are talked to, and never Rose and me. Mr. Moore is _our_ friend, and we'll keep him.--But mind, Rose, he's not so much your friend as he is mine. He is my _particular acquaintance_; remember that!" And she held up her small hand with an admonitory gesture. Rose was quite accustomed to be admonished by that small hand. Her will daily bent itself to that of the impetuous little Jessy. She was guided, overruled by Jessy in a thousand things. On all occasions of show and pleasure Jessy took the lead, and Rose fell quietly into the background; whereas, when the disagreeables of life--its work and privations--were in question, Rose instinctively took upon her, in addition to her own share, what she could of her sister's. Jessy had already settled it in her mind that she, when she was old enough, was to be married; Rose, she decided, must be an old maid, to live with her, look after her children, keep her house. This state of things is not uncommon between two sisters, where one is plain and the other pretty; but in this case, if there _was_ a difference in external appearance, Rose had the advantage: her face was more regular-featured than that of the piquant little Jessy. Jessy, however, was destined to possess, along with sprightly intelligence and vivacious feeling, the gift of fascination, the power to charm when, where, and whom she would. Rose was to have a fine, generous soul, a noble intellect profoundly cultivated, a heart as true as steel, but the manner to attract was not to be hers. "Now, Rose, tell me the name of this lady who denied that I was sentimental," urged Mr. Moore. Rose had no idea of tantalization, or she would have held him a while in doubt. She answered briefly, "I can't. I don't know her name." "Describe her to me. What was she like? Where did you see her?" "When Jessy and I went to spend the day at Whinbury with Kate and Susan Pearson, who were just come home from school, there was a party at Mrs. Pearson's, and some grown-up ladies were sitting in a corner of the drawing-room talking about you." "Did you know none of them?" "Hannah, and Harriet, and Dora, and Mary Sykes." "Good. Were they abusing me, Rosy?" "Some of them were. They called you a misanthrope. I remember the word. I looked for it in the dictionary when I came home. It means a man-hater." "What besides?" "Hannah Sykes said you were a solemn puppy." "Better!" cried Mr. Yorke, laughing. "Oh, excellent! Hannah! that's the one with the red hair--a fine girl, but half-witted." "She has wit enough for me, it appears," said Moore. "A solemn puppy, indeed! Well, Rose, go on." "Miss Pearson said she believed there was a good deal of affectation about you, and that with your dark hair and pale face you looked to her like some sort of a sentimental noodle." Again Mr. Yorke laughed. Mrs. Yorke even joined in this time. "You see in what esteem you are held behind your back," said she; "yet I believe _that_ Miss Pearson would like to catch you. She set her cap at you when you first came into the country, old as she is." "And who contradicted her, Rosy?" inquired Moore. "A lady whom I don't know, because she never visits here, though I see her every Sunday at church. She sits in the pew near the pulpit. I generally look at her, instead of looking at my prayer-book, for she is like a picture in our dining-room, that woman with the dove in her hand--at least she has eyes like it, and a nose too, a straight nose, that makes all her face look, somehow, what I call clear." "And you don't know her!" exclaimed Jessy, in a tone of exceeding surprise. "That's so like Rose. Mr. Moore, I often wonder in what sort of a world my sister lives. I am sure she does not live all her time in this. One is continually finding out that she is quite ignorant of some little matter which everybody else knows. To think of her going solemnly to church every Sunday, and looking all service-time at one particular person, and never so much as asking that person's name. She means Caroline Helstone, the rector's niece. I remember all about it. Miss Helstone was quite angry with Anne Pearson. She said, 'Robert Moore is neither affected nor sentimental; you mistake his character utterly, or rather not one of you here knows anything about it.' Now, shall I tell you what she is like? I can tell what people are like, and how they are dressed, better than Rose can." "Let us hear." "She is nice; she is fair; she has a pretty white slender throat; she has long curls, not stiff ones--they hang loose and soft, their colour is brown but not dark; she speaks quietly, with a clear tone; she never makes a bustle in moving; she often wears a gray silk dress; she is neat all over--her gowns, and her shoes, and her gloves always fit her. She is what I call a lady, and when I am as tall as she is, I mean to be like her. Shall I suit you if I am? Will you really marry me?" Moore stroked Jessy's hair. For a minute he seemed as if he would draw her nearer to him, but instead he put her a little farther off. "Oh! you won't have me? You push me away." "Why, Jessy, you care nothing about me. You never come to see me now at the Hollow." "Because you don't ask me." Hereupon Mr. Moore gave both the little girls an invitation to pay him a visit next day, promising that, as he was going to Stilbro' in the morning, he would buy them each a present, of what nature he would not then declare, but they must come and see. Jessy was about to reply, when one of the boys unexpectedly broke in,-- "I know that Miss Helstone you have all been palavering about. She's an ugly girl. I hate her. I hate all womenites. I wonder what they were made for." "Martin!" said his father, for Martin it was. The lad only answered by turning his cynical young face, half-arch, half-truculent, towards the paternal chair. "Martin, my lad, thou'rt a swaggering whelp now; thou wilt some day be an outrageous puppy. But stick to those sentiments of thine. See, I'll write down the words now i' my pocket-book." (The senior took out a morocco-covered book, and deliberately wrote therein.) "Ten years hence, Martin, if thou and I be both alive at that day, I'll remind thee of that speech." "I'll say the same then. I mean always to hate women. They're such dolls; they do nothing but dress themselves finely, and go swimming about to be admired. I'll never marry. I'll be a bachelor." "Stick to it! stick to it!--Hesther" (addressing his wife), "I was like him when I was his age--a regular misogamist; and, behold! by the time I was three-and-twenty--being then a tourist in France and Italy, and the Lord knows where--I curled my hair every night before I went to bed, and wore a ring i' my ear, and would have worn one i' my nose if it had been the fashion, and all that I might make myself pleasing and charming to the ladies. Martin will do the like." "Will I? Never! I've more sense. What a guy you were, father! As to dressing, I make this vow: I'll never dress more finely than as you see me at present.--Mr. Moore, I'm clad in blue cloth from top to toe, and they laugh at me, and call me sailor at the grammar-school. I laugh louder at them, and say they are all magpies and parrots, with their coats one colour, and their waistcoats another, and their trousers a third. I'll always wear blue cloth, and nothing but blue cloth. It is beneath a human being's dignity to dress himself in parti-coloured garments." "Ten years hence, Martin, no tailor's shop will have choice of colours varied enough for thy exacting taste; no perfumer's stores essences exquisite enough for thy fastidious senses." Martin looked disdain, but vouchsafed no further reply. Meantime Mark, who for some minutes had been rummaging amongst a pile of books on a side-table, took the word. He spoke in a peculiarly slow, quiet voice, and with an expression of still irony in his face not easy to describe. "Mr. Moore," said he, "you think perhaps it was a compliment on Miss Caroline Helstone's part to say you were not sentimental. I thought you appeared confused when my sisters told you the words, as if you felt flattered. You turned red, just like a certain vain little lad at our school, who always thinks proper to blush when he gets a rise in the class. For your benefit, Mr. Moore, I've been looking up the word 'sentimental' in the dictionary, and I find it to mean 'tinctured with sentiment.' On examining further, 'sentiment' is explained to be thought, idea, notion. A sentimental man, then, is one who has thoughts, ideas, notions; an unsentimental man is one destitute of thought, idea, or notion." And Mark stopped. He did not smile, he did not look round for admiration. He had said his say, and was silent. "Ma foi! mon ami," observed Mr. Moore to Yorke, "ce sont vraiment des enfants terribles, que les vtres!" Rose, who had been listening attentively to Mark's speech, replied to him, "There are different kinds of thoughts, ideas, and notions," said she, "good and bad. Sentimental must refer to the bad, or Miss Helstone must have taken it in that sense, for she was not blaming Mr. Moore; she was defending him." "That's my kind little advocate!" said Moore, taking Rose's hand. "She was defending him," repeated Rose, "as I should have done had I been in her place, for the other ladies seemed to speak spitefully." "Ladies always do speak spitefully," observed Martin. "It is the nature of womenites to be spiteful." Matthew now, for the first time, opened his lips. "What a fool Martin is, to be always gabbling about what he does not understand!" "It is my privilege, as a freeman, to gabble on whatever subject I like," responded Martin. "You use it, or rather abuse it, to such an extent," rejoined the elder brother, "that you prove you ought to have been a slave." "A slave! a slave! That to a Yorke, and from a Yorke! This fellow," he added, standing up at the table, and pointing across it to Matthew--"this fellow forgets, what every cottier in Briarfield knows, that all born of our house have that arched instep under which water can flow--proof that there has not been a slave of the blood for three hundred years." "Mountebank!" said Matthew. "Lads, be silent!" exclaimed Mr. Yorke.--"Martin, you are a mischief-maker. There would have been no disturbance but for you." "Indeed! Is that correct? Did I begin, or did Matthew? Had I spoken to him when he accused me of gabbling like a fool?" "A presumptuous fool!" repeated Matthew. Here Mrs. Yorke commenced rocking herself--rather a portentous movement with her, as it was occasionally followed, especially when Matthew was worsted in a conflict, by a fit of hysterics. "I don't see why I should bear insolence from Matthew Yorke, or what right he has to use bad language to me," observed Martin. "He has no right, my lad; but forgive your brother until seventy-and-seven times," said Mr. Yorke soothingly. "Always alike, and theory and practice always adverse!" murmured Martin as he turned to leave the room. "Where art thou going, my son?" asked the father. "Somewhere where I shall be safe from insult, if in this house I can find any such place." Matthew laughed very insolently. Martin threw a strange look at him, and trembled through all his slight lad's frame; but he restrained himself. "I suppose there is no objection to my withdrawing?" he inquired. "No. Go, my lad; but remember not to bear malice." Martin went, and Matthew sent another insolent laugh after him. Rose, lifting her fair head from Moore's shoulder, against which, for a moment, it had been resting, said, as she directed a steady gaze to Matthew, "Martin is grieved, and you are glad; but I would rather be Martin than you. I dislike your nature." Here Mr. Moore, by way of averting, or at least escaping, a scene--which a sob from Mrs. Yorke warned him was likely to come on--rose, and putting Jessy off his knee, he kissed her and Rose, reminding them, at the same time, to be sure and come to the Hollow in good time to-morrow afternoon; then, having taken leave of his hostess, he said to Mr. Yorke, "May I speak a word with you?" and was followed by him from the room. Their brief conference took place in the hall. "Have you employment for a good workman?" asked Moore. "A nonsense question in these times, when you know that every master has many good workmen to whom he cannot give full employment." "You must oblige me by taking on this man, if possible." "My lad, I can take on no more hands to oblige all England." "It does not signify; I must find him a place somewhere." "Who is he?" "William Farren." "I know William. A right-down honest man is William." "He has been out of work three months. He has a large family. We are sure they cannot live without wages. He was one of the deputation of cloth-dressers who came to me this morning to complain and threaten. William did not threaten. He only asked me to give them rather more time--to make my changes more slowly. You know I cannot do that: straitened on all sides as I am, I have nothing for it but to push on. I thought it would be idle to palaver long with them. I sent them away, after arresting a rascal amongst them, whom I hope to transport--a fellow who preaches at the chapel yonder sometimes." "Not Moses Barraclough?" "Yes." "Ah! you've arrested him? Good! Then out of a scoundrel you're going to make a martyr. You've done a wise thing." "I've done a right thing. Well, the short and the long of it is, I'm determined to get Farren a place, and I reckon on you to give him one." "This is cool, however!" exclaimed Mr. Yorke. "What right have you to reckon on me to provide for your dismissed workmen? What do I know about your Farrens and your Williams? I've heard he's an honest man, but am I to support all the honest men in Yorkshire? You may say that would be no great charge to undertake; but great or little, I'll none of it." "Come, Mr. Yorke, what can you find for him to do?" "_I_ find! You'll make me use language I'm not accustomed to use. I wish you would go home. Here is the door; set off." Moore sat down on one of the hall chairs. "You can't give him work in your mill--good; but you have land. Find him some occupation on your land, Mr. Yorke." "Bob, I thought you cared nothing about our _lourdauds de paysans_. I don't understand this change." "I do. The fellow spoke to me nothing but truth and sense. I answered him just as roughly as I did the rest, who jabbered mere gibberish. I couldn't make distinctions there and then. His appearance told what he had gone through lately clearer than his words; but where is the use of explaining? Let him have work." "Let him have it yourself. If you are so very much in earnest, strain a point." "If there was a point left in my affairs to strain, I would strain it till it cracked again; but I received letters this morning which showed me pretty clearly where I stand, and it is not far off the end of the plank. My foreign market, at any rate, is gorged. If there is no change--if there dawns no prospect of peace--if the Orders in Council are not, at least, suspended, so as to open our way in the West--I do not know where I am to turn. I see no more light than if I were sealed in a rock, so that for me to pretend to offer a man a livelihood would be to do a dishonest thing." "Come, let us take a turn on the front. It is a starlight night," said Mr. Yorke. They passed out, closing the front door after them, and side by side paced the frost-white pavement to and fro. "Settle about Farren at once," urged Mr. Moore. "You have large fruit-gardens at Yorke Mills. He is a good gardener. Give him work there." "Well, so be it. I'll send for him to-morrow, and we'll see. And now, my lad, you're concerned about the condition of your affairs?" "Yes, a second failure--which I may delay, but which, at this moment, I see no way finally to avert--would blight the name of Moore completely; and you are aware I had fine intentions of paying off every debt and re-establishing the old firm on its former basis." "You want capital--that's all you want." "Yes; but you might as well say that breath is all a dead man wants to live." "I know--I know capital is not to be had for the asking; and if you were a married man, and had a family, like me, I should think your case pretty nigh desperate; but the young and unencumbered have chances peculiar to themselves. I hear gossip now and then about your being on the eve of marriage with this miss and that; but I suppose it is none of it true?" "You may well suppose that. I think I am not in a position to be dreaming of marriage. Marriage! I cannot bear the word; it sounds so silly and utopian. I have settled it decidedly that marriage and love are superfluities, intended only for the rich, who live at ease, and have no need to take thought for the morrow; or desperations--the last and reckless joy of the deeply wretched, who never hope to rise out of the slough of their utter poverty." "I should not think so if I were circumstanced as you are. I should think I could very likely get a wife with a few thousands, who would suit both me and my affairs." "I wonder where?" "Would you try if you had a chance?" "I don't know. It depends on--in short, it depends on many things." "Would you take an old woman?" "I'd rather break stones on the road." "So would I. Would you take an ugly one?" "Bah! I hate ugliness and delight in beauty. My eyes and heart, Yorke, take pleasure in a sweet, young, fair face, as they are repelled by a grim, rugged, meagre one. Soft delicate lines and hues please, harsh ones prejudice me. I won't have an ugly wife." "Not if she were rich?" "Not if she were dressed in gems. I could not love--I could not fancy--I could not endure her. My taste must have satisfaction, or disgust would break out in despotism, or worse--freeze to utter iciness." "What! Bob, if you married an honest, good-natured, and wealthy lass, though a little hard-favoured, couldn't you put up with the high cheek-bones, the rather wide mouth, and reddish hair?" "I'll never try, I tell you. Grace at least I _will_ have, and youth and symmetry--yes, and what I call beauty." "And poverty, and a nursery full of bairns you can neither clothe nor feed, and very soon an anxious, faded mother; and then bankruptcy, discredit--a life-long struggle." "Let me alone, Yorke." "If you are romantic, Robert, and especially if you are already in love, it is of no use talking." "I am not romantic. I am stripped of romance as bare as the white tenters in that field are of cloth." "Always use such figures of speech, lad; I can understand them. And there is no love affair to disturb your judgment?" "I thought I had said enough on that subject before. Love for me? Stuff!" "Well, then, if you are sound both in heart and head, there is no reason why you should not profit by a good chance if it offers; therefore, wait and see." "You are quite oracular, Yorke." "I think I am a bit i' that line. I promise ye naught and I advise ye naught; but I bid ye keep your heart up, and be guided by circumstances." "My namesake the physician's almanac could not speak more guardedly." "In the meantime, I care naught about ye, Robert Moore: ye are nothing akin to me or mine, and whether ye lose or find a fortune it maks no difference to me. Go home, now. It has stricken ten. Miss Hortense will be wondering where ye are."

Messrs. Helstone and Sykes congratulated Mr. Moore when he returned to them. He was so quiet, however, and so still and grim, that the rector, after glancing shrewdly into his eyes, buttoned up his coat, and said to Sykes: "Come, sir; your road and mine lie partly together. We'll bid Moore good-morning." "Where is Sugden?" demanded Moore. "Ah, ha!" cried Helstone. "I've not been quite idle. While you were busy parleying with that Farren, I opened this back window, shouted to Murgatroyd to bring Mr. Sykes's gig round; then I smuggled Sugden and brother Moses - wooden leg and all - through the opening, and saw them mount the gig. Sugden took the reins, and in another quarter of an hour Barraclough will be safe in Stilbro' jail." "Very good; thank you," said Moore; "and good-morning, gentlemen." He politely conducted them to the door. He was taciturn and serious the rest of the day. He did not even bandy repartee with Joe Scott, who looked at him a good deal out of the corners of his eyes, and as he was locking up for the day, observed that it was a grand evening, and he "could wish Mr. Moore to take a bit of a walk up th' Hollow. It would do him good." At this, Mr. Moore burst into a short laugh, and after demanding whether Joe took him for a woman or a child, he seized the keys from his hand, and shoved him out by the shoulders. He called him back, however, to ask: "Joe, do you know those Farrens? They are not well off, I suppose?" "No, sir, for they've not had work for three month. They've selled most o' t' stuff out o' th' house." "He was not a bad workman?" "Ye never had a better, sir." "And decent people - the family?" "None dacenter. Th' wife's a raight cant body, and so clean ye mught eat your porridge off th' floor. They're sorely comed down. I wish William could get a job as gardener or summat; he understands gardening." "You can go, Joe. You need not stand there staring at me." "Ye've no orders to give, sir?" "None. Take yourself off." Which Joe did accordingly. Though this had been a fine day, the air chilled at sunset, the ground crisped, and by dusk frost was insidiously stealing over the grass. It whitened the pavement in front of Briarmains, Mr. Yorke's house, and made silent havoc among the tender plants in his garden. In the moonless night, lights from the windows shone vividly. This was no lonely scene; Briarmains stood near the highway. It was an old place, built before the highway was cut. Briarfield town lay scarce a mile off; its hum was heard, its glare distinctly seen. Briar Chapel, a large, new, raw Wesleyan place of worship, rose a hundred yards distant; and as there was a prayer-meeting being held within its walls, its windows cast a bright reflection on the road, while a hymn roused cheery echoes. The words were distinctly audible, sung with a jaunty buoyancy: "Oh! who can explain This struggle for life, This travail and pain, This trembling and strife?" After the hymn followed clamorous prayer, accompanied by fearful groans and frantic shouts, and more noisy singing. Briarmains was quieter. Its windows too were aglow; curtains concealed the interior, but did not entirely muffle the sound of voices and laughter. We are privileged to enter that front door, and to join Mr. Yorke's family within. This is the usual sitting-room of an evening. Those windows are of brilliantly-stained glass, with purple and amber glittering round a medallion in the centre of each, representing the heads of Shakespeare and Milton. Some Canadian views hang on the walls - green forest and blue water - and in the midst of them blazes a night-eruption of Vesuvius. The fire is heaped high in the ample chimney. Mr. Yorke sits beside it with a book; but he is not reading - he is watching his children. Opposite him sits his lady: a large woman of grave aspect, wearing an expression of care - the sort of care of a person who deems it her duty to be gloomy. In Mrs. Yorke's opinion, to be cheerful was to be frivolous. Yet she was a very good wife, a careful mother, looked after her children unceasingly, and was sincerely attached to her husband; although if she could, she would not have allowed him any friend in the world besides herself. Mr. Yorke and she agreed perfectly well; yet he was a social, hospitable man, and in his youth, as has been said, he liked lively, cheerful women. Why he chose her is puzzling. But Yorke had a shadowy side as well as a sunny side to his character, and his shadowy side found sympathy in his wife's overcast nature. For the rest, she was a strong-minded woman; never said a weak or a trite thing; was rather stern and cynical; considered herself right, and the rest of the world all wrong. Her main fault was a brooding suspicion of all men, things and beliefs, which hindered her vision. It may be supposed that the children of such a pair were not likely to turn out commonplace beings; and they were not. You see six of them, reader. The youngest is a baby on the mother's knee. It is all her own still, and therefore she loves it. The two next are girls, Rose and Jessy; they are both at their father's knee; they seldom go near their mother, except when obliged to do so. Rose, the elder, is twelve years old; she is like her father, but softened, with round cheeks and grey eyes lit by a serious soul - a young soul yet, but it will mature; and neither father nor mother have a spirit to compare with it. Rose is sometimes a stubborn girl, with a mind thick-sown with the germs of ideas her mother never knew. She has never rebelled yet; but if hard driven, she will rebel one day. Rose loves her father, for he is good to her. He sometimes fears she will not live long, and this idea makes him sadly tender to her. He has no idea that little Jessy will die young, she is so gay and chattering, arch and original; by turns gentle and rattling; exacting, yet generous; fearless of her mother, yet reliant on anyone who will help her. Jessy, with her engaging prattle and winning ways, is made to be a pet, and her father's pet she accordingly is. Let us hold up a magic mirror, and see their destinies. This place is unfamiliar, but the stone crosses are not; we recognize the cypress and the yew. Here is the place where Jessy sleeps. Much loved was she, much loving. Her death was tranquil and happy in Rose's arms, for Rose had been her stay and defence through many trials. Now, behold Rose two years later. This landscape is far from England; remote must be those wild, luxuriant shores. Unknown birds flutter round the skirts of that forest; no European river this, on whose banks Rose sits thinking. The little quiet Yorkshire girl is a lonely emigrant in the southern hemisphere. Will she ever come back? The three eldest of the family are all boys - Matthew, Mark, and Martin. They are seated together in the corner, their three heads much alike at first glance. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, red-cheeked are the whole trio; yet a distinctive character belongs to each. Matthew, the first-born, seems to have an affinity to one picture in the room - the eruption of Vesuvius. Flame and shadow make up that lad's soul, no English sunshine. You would say he is an Italian stiletto in a sheath of British workmanship. Look at his scowl. Mr. Yorke sees it, and in a low voice he pleads, "Mark and Martin, don't anger your brother." This is the tone adopted by both parents. Matthew is never to be vexed, never to be opposed; they avert provocation from him as assiduously as they would avert fire from a barrel of gunpowder. They are fast making him a tyrant. The younger children feel this, and rebel against the injustice. The dragon's teeth are already sown; discord will one day be the harvest. Mark is a bonny-looking boy. He is calm and shrewd; he can say the driest, most cutting things in the quietest of tones. Despite his tranquillity, a somewhat heavy brow speaks of temper. Life will never have much joy in it for Mark. By the time he is five-and-twenty he will wonder why people ever laugh, and think merry men are all fools. Mark is now fourteen, but his soul is already thirty. Martin, the youngest of the three, has another nature. Life may, or may not, be brief for him, but it will certainly be brilliant. He will pass through all its illusions, half believe in them, wholly enjoy them, then outlive them. The boy is plainer than his brothers; but at near twenty he will become handsome. For a space he will be a vain puppy, eager for pleasure and admiration, but also thirsty for knowledge. And what next? I know not. Altogether, there is much mental power in those six young Yorke heads, much originality and vigour of brain. Mr. Yorke knows this, and is proud of them. Yorkshire has such families here and there - peculiar, racy, strong and clever; somewhat turbulent and proud, wanting polish, but sound and spirited. A low tap is heard at the parlour door. "Come in," says Mrs. Yorke, in her funereal tone. And in comes Robert Moore. Moore's habitual gravity has recommended him to Mrs. Yorke. She has not yet tried to stop her husband from seeing him; she has not yet found out that Moore is a wolf in sheep's clothing - a discovery which she made soon after marriage about most of her husband's bachelor friends, excluding them from her house accordingly. "Well, is it you?" she says to Mr. Moore. "What are you roving about at this time of night for? You should be at home." "Can a single man be said to have a home, madam?" he asks. "Pooh!" says Mrs. Yorke. "You need not talk nonsense to me; a single man can have a home if he likes. Pray, does not your sister make a home for you?" "When I was Robert's age I had five or six sisters," said Mr. Yorke, "but it did not hinder me from looking out for a wife." "And sorely he has repented marrying me," added Mrs. Yorke, who liked occasionally to crack a dry jest against matrimony, even at her own expense. "He has repented it in sackcloth and ashes, Robert Moore, as you may well believe when you see his punishment" (here she pointed to her children). "Who would burden themselves with such great, rough lads as those, if they could help it? Young sir, when you feel tempted to marry, look twice before you leap." "I am not tempted now, at any rate. I think these are not times for marrying." Mrs. Yorke nodded in approval; but she said, "That wisdom will be upset by the first fancy that crosses you. Sit down, sir." He had no sooner obeyed than little Jessy jumped from her father's knee and ran into Mr. Moore's arms, which were promptly held out to receive her. "He is married now, or as good," said she to her mother, quite indignantly, as she was lifted lightly to his knee, "for he promised that I should be his wife last summer, the first time he saw me in my new frock. Didn't he, father?" "Ay, my little lassie, he promised; I'll bear witness. He is false." "He is not false. He is too bonny to be false," said Jessy, looking up confidently at her tall sweetheart. "Bonny!" cried Mr. Yorke. "That's the proof that he's a scoundrel." "But he looks too sorrowful to be false," interposed Rose quietly. "If he was always laughing, I should think he forgot promises soon, but Mr. Moore never laughs." "Your sentimental buck is the greatest cheat of all, Rose," remarked Mr. Yorke. "He's not sentimental," said Rose. Mr. Moore turned to her, surprised and smiling. "How do you know I am not sentimental, Rose?" "Because I heard a lady say you were not." "A lady!" exclaimed Mr. Yorke. "That has quite a romantic twang. We must guess who it is. Rosy, whisper the name to your father." "Rose, don't be forward," interrupted Mrs. Yorke, "nor Jessy either. All children, especially girls, should be silent in the presence of their elders." "Why have we tongues, then?" asked Jessy pertly; while Rose only looked at her mother with grave deliberation, before asking, "And why especially girls, mother?" "Firstly, because I say so; and secondly, because reserve is a girl's best wisdom." "My dear madam," observed Moore, "what you say is excellent; but really it does not apply to these little ones. Let Rose and Jessy talk. I like their prattle; it does me good." "Does it not?" asked Jessy. "More good than the rough lads. There are plenty of people who take notice of the boys. When gentlemen come here to dine, it is always the boys that are talked to, and never Rose and me. Mr. Moore is our friend. But mind, Rose, he's not so much your friend as he is mine. Remember that!" And she held up her small hand with a warning gesture. Rose was quite accustomed to be admonished by that small hand. Her will daily bent itself to that of the impetuous little Jessy. On pleasant occasions Jessy took the lead, and Rose fell quietly into the background; whereas in the difficulties of life, Rose took her sister's share upon her, as well as her own. Jessy had already decided that when she married, Rose, an old maid, would live with her, look after her children and keep her house. Jessy possessed charm; while Rose had a fine, generous, true soul, but charm she had not. "Now, Rose, tell me the name of this lady who denied that I was sentimental," urged Mr. Moore. "I don't know her name." "What was she like? Where did you see her?" "When Jessy and I went to spend the day with Kate and Susan Pearson, the Misses Sykes were sitting in Mrs. Pearson's drawing-room talking about you." "Good. Were they abusing me, Rosy?" "Some of them called you a misanthrope. I looked for it in the dictionary when I came home. It means a man-hater. And Hannah Sykes said you were a solemn puppy." "Better!" cried Mr. Yorke, laughing. "Oh, excellent! Hannah's a fine girl, but half-witted." "A solemn puppy, indeed!" said Moore. "Well, Rose, go on." "Miss Pearson said you were affected, and that with your dark hair and pale face you looked like a sentimental noodle." Again Mr. Yorke laughed. Mrs. Yorke even joined in this time. "You see in what esteem you are held," said she; "yet I believe Miss Pearson would like to catch you." "And who contradicted her, Rosy?" inquired Moore. "A lady whom I don't know, though every Sunday at church she sits in the pew near the pulpit. She is like a picture in our dining-room, that woman with the dove in her hand - at least she has eyes like it, and a straight nose, that makes her face look, somehow, clear." "And you don't know her!" exclaimed Jessy, in a tone of exceeding surprise. "Mr. Moore, I often wonder what world my sister lives in. To think of her going to church every Sunday, and never asking that person's name. She means Caroline Helstone, the rector's niece. She was quite angry with Anne Pearson. She said, 'Robert Moore is neither affected nor sentimental; you mistake his character utterly.' Miss Helstone is nice; she has a pretty white slender throat; she has long soft curls; she speaks quietly, and she never makes a bustle in moving; she often wears a grey silk dress; she is neat all over. She is what I call a lady, and when I am as tall as she is, I mean to be like her. Shall I suit you if I am? Will you really marry me?" Moore stroked Jessy's hair, but then put her a little farther off. "Oh! you won't have me? You push me away." "Why, Jessy, you care nothing about me. You never come to see me now at the Hollow." "Because you don't ask me." Hereupon Mr. Moore gave both the little girls an invitation to visit next day, promising that, as he was going to Stilbro' in the morning, he would buy them each a present. Jessy was about to reply, when one of the boys broke in: "I know that Miss Helstone you have been palavering about. She's an ugly girl. I hate her. I hate all womenites. I wonder what they were made for." "Martin!" said his father. "Martin, my lad, thou'rt a swaggering whelp now; thou wilt some day be an outrageous puppy. But stick to those sentiments of thine. See, I'll write down the words now i' my pocket-book. Ten years hence, Martin, I'll remind thee of that speech." "I'll say the same then. I mean always to hate women. They're such dolls; they do nothing but dress themselves finely, and go swimming about to be admired. I'll never marry." "Stick to it! - Hesther" (addressing his wife), "I was like him when I was his age; and, behold! by the time I was three-and-twenty I curled my hair every night, and wore a ring i' my ear, and would have worn one i' my nose if it might charm the ladies. Martin will do the like." Martin looked disdainful, but made no reply. Meantime Mark, who had been rummaging amongst some books on a side-table, spoke in a slow, quiet voice, and with an ironic expression. "Mr. Moore," said he, "you think perhaps it was a compliment on Miss Caroline Helstone's part to say you were not sentimental. You turned red, as if you felt flattered. I've been looking up 'sentimental' in the dictionary, and I find it to mean 'tinctured with sentiment.' And 'sentiment' means thought, idea, notion. A sentimental man, then, is one who has thoughts and ideas; an unsentimental man is one without thoughts or ideas." Rose replied. "There are different kinds of thoughts and ideas, good and bad. Miss Helstone must have taken sentimental to mean having bad thoughts, for she was not blaming Mr. Moore; she was defending him, just as I should have done in her place, for the other ladies seemed to speak spitefully." "Ladies always speak spitefully," observed Martin. "It is the nature of womenites to be spiteful." Matthew now spoke for the first time. "What a fool Martin is, always gabbling about what he does not understand!" "It is my privilege, as a freeman, to gabble on whatever subject I like," responded Martin. "You ought to have been a slave," rejoined the elder brother. "A slave!" "Mountebank!" said Matthew. "Lads, be silent!" exclaimed Mr. Yorke. "Martin, you are a mischief-maker." "Did I begin, or Matthew? He accused me of gabbling like a fool!" "A presumptuous fool!" repeated Matthew. Here Mrs. Yorke began rocking herself - rather a portentous movement with her, as it was occasionally followed by a fit of hysterics, especially when Matthew was worsted in a conflict. "I don't see what right Matthew has to use bad language to me," said Martin. "He has no right, my lad; but forgive your brother until seventy-and-seven times," said Mr. Yorke soothingly. "Always the same!" murmured Martin, leaving the room. "Where art thou going, my son?" asked the father. "Somewhere where I shall be safe from insult. I suppose I may go?" Matthew laughed insolently. Martin threw a strange look at him, and trembled; but he restrained himself. "Go, my lad," said Mr. Yorke; "but remember not to bear malice." Martin went, and Matthew sent another insolent laugh after him. Rose, lifting her fair head from Moore's shoulder, said to Matthew, "Martin is grieved, and you are glad; but I would rather be Martin than you. I dislike your nature." Here Mr. Moore, by way of averting a scene, stood up and kissed Jessy and Rose, reminding them to come to the Hollow tomorrow afternoon. He said to Mr. Yorke: "May I speak a word with you?" They conferred briefly in the hall. "Have you employment for a good workman?" asked Moore. "A nonsense question in these times, when you know that every master has many good workmen to whom he cannot give work." "Oblige me by taking on this man, if possible. I must find him a place somewhere." "Who is he?" "William Farren." "I know William. An honest man." "He has been out of work three months. He has a large family. He was one of the cloth-dressers who came to me this morning to complain and threaten. William did not threaten. He only asked me to give them more time, but you know I cannot do that. I sent them away, after arresting a rascal amongst them - a fellow who preaches at the chapel yonder." "Not Moses Barraclough?" "Yes. But I'm determined to get Farren a place, and I rely on you to give him one." "This is cool!" exclaimed Mr. Yorke. "What right have you to rely on me to provide for your dismissed workmen? I've heard he's an honest man, but am I to support all the honest men in Yorkshire? I'll none of it." "Come, Mr. Yorke, what can you find for him to do? You have land. Find him some work on your land, Mr. Yorke." "Bob, I thought you cared nothing about the workmen. I don't understand this change." "The fellow spoke truth and sense, while the others merely jabbered. Let him have work." "Let him have it yourself, if you are so very much in earnest." "I received letters this morning which showed me pretty clearly where I stand," said Moore, "and it is not far off the end of the plank. If there is no change - if the Orders in Council are not suspended - I do not know where I am to turn. I see no light, and for me to pretend to offer a man a livelihood would be dishonest." "Come, let us take a turn outside. It is a starlit night," said Mr. Yorke. They went out, and paced the frost-white pavement. "You have large fruit-gardens at Yorke Mills," urged Mr. Moore. "Farren is a good gardener. Give him work there." "Well, I'll send for him tomorrow, and we'll see. And now, my lad, you're concerned about your affairs?" "Yes. A second failure would blight the name of Moore completely; and you are aware I had fine intentions of paying off every debt and re-establishing the old firm." "You need capital - that's all." "Yes; but you might as well say that breath is all a dead man needs to live." "If you were married with a family, I should think your case pretty desperate; but you're young and unencumbered. I hear gossip now and then about your being on the eve of marriage with this miss and that; but I suppose none of it is true?" "I am not in a position to be dreaming of marriage. Marriage! I cannot bear the word; it sounds so silly and utopian. I have decided that marriage and love are only for the rich; or the deeply wretched, who never hope to rise out of the slough of utter poverty." "If I were you, I should think I could very likely get a wife with a few thousands, who would suit both me and my affairs. Would you try if you had a chance?" "I don't know." "Would you take an old woman?" "I'd rather break stones on the road." "So would I," said Yorke. "Would you take an ugly one?" "Bah! I won't have an ugly wife." "Not if she were rich?" "Not if she were dressed in gems. I could not love her - I could not endure her. My disgust would break out in despotism, or worse - freeze to utter iciness." "What! Bob, if you married an honest, good-natured, wealthy lass, though a little hard-favoured, couldn't you put up with the plain features?" "I'll never try, I tell you. I will have youth, and beauty." "And poverty, and a nursery full of bairns you can neither clothe nor feed, and very soon an anxious, faded mother; and then bankruptcy and a life-long struggle." "Let me alone, Yorke." "If you are romantic, Robert, and especially if you are already in love, it is of no use talking." "I am not romantic." "And there is no love affair to disturb your judgment?" "I thought I had said that before." "Well, then, there is no reason why you should not profit by a good chance if it offers; therefore, wait and see. I promise ye naught and I advise ye naught; but keep your heart up. Go home, now. Miss Hortense will be wondering where ye are."

Shirley

Chapter 9: BRIARMAINS

Roger Carbury said well that it was very improbable that he and his cousin, the widow, should agree in their opinions as to the expedience of fortune-hunting by marriage. It was impossible that they should ever understand each other. To Lady Carbury the prospect of a union between her son and Miss Melmotte was one of unmixed joy and triumph. Could it have been possible that Marie Melmotte should be rich and her father be a man doomed to a deserved sentence in a penal settlement, there might perhaps be a doubt about it. The wealth even in that case would certainly carry the day against the disgrace, and Lady Carbury would find reasons why "poor Marie" should not be punished for her father's sins, even while enjoying the money which those sins had produced. But how different were the existing facts? Mr. Melmotte was not at the galleys, but was entertaining duchesses in Grosvenor Square. People said that Mr. Melmotte had a reputation throughout Europe as a gigantic swindler,--as one who in the dishonest and successful pursuit of wealth had stopped at nothing. People said of him that he had framed and carried out long premeditated and deeply laid schemes for the ruin of those who had trusted him, that he had swallowed up the property of all who had come in contact with him, that he was fed with the blood of widows and children;--but what was all this to Lady Carbury? If the duchesses condoned it all, did it become her to be prudish? People also said that Melmotte would yet get a fall,--that a man who had risen after such a fashion never could long keep his head up. But he might keep his head up long enough to give Marie her fortune. And then Felix wanted a fortune so badly;--was so exactly the young man who ought to marry a fortune! To Lady Carbury there was no second way of looking at the matter. And to Roger Carbury also there was no second way of looking at it. That condonation of antecedents which, in the hurry of the world, is often vouchsafed to success, that growing feeling which induces people to assert to themselves that they are not bound to go outside the general verdict, and that they may shake hands with whomsoever the world shakes hands with, had never reached him. The old-fashioned idea that the touching of pitch will defile still prevailed with him. He was a gentleman;--and would have felt himself disgraced to enter the house of such a one as Augustus Melmotte. Not all the duchesses in the peerage, or all the money in the city, could alter his notions or induce him to modify his conduct. But he knew that it would be useless for him to explain this to Lady Carbury. He trusted, however, that one of the family might be taught to appreciate the difference between honour and dishonour. Henrietta Carbury had, he thought, a higher turn of mind than her mother, and had as yet been kept free from soil. As for Felix,--he had so grovelled in the gutters as to be dirt all over. Nothing short of the prolonged sufferings of half a life could cleanse him. He found Henrietta alone in the drawing-room. "Have you seen Felix?" she said, as soon as they had greeted each other. "Yes. I caught him in the street." "We are so unhappy about him." "I cannot say but that you have reason. I think, you know, that your mother indulges him foolishly." "Poor mamma! She worships the very ground he treads on." "Even a mother should not throw her worship away like that. The fact is that your brother will ruin you both if this goes on." "What can mamma do?" "Leave London, and then refuse to pay a shilling on his behalf." "What would Felix do in the country?" "If he did nothing, how much better would that be than what he does in town? You would not like him to become a professional gambler." "Oh, Mr. Carbury; you do not mean that he does that!" "It seems cruel to say such things to you,--but in a matter of such importance one is bound to speak the truth. I have no influence over your mother; but you may have some. She asks my advice, but has not the slightest idea of listening to it. I don't blame her for that; but I am anxious for the sake of--, for the sake of the family." "I am sure you are." "Especially for your sake. You will never throw him over." "You would not ask me to throw him over." "But he may drag you into the mud. For his sake you have already been taken into the house of that man Melmotte." "I do not think that I shall be injured by anything of that kind," said Henrietta, drawing herself up. "Pardon me if I seem to interfere." "Oh, no;--it is no interference from you." "Pardon me then if I am rough. To me it seems that an injury is done to you if you are made to go to the house of such a one as this man. Why does your mother seek his society? Not because she likes him; not because she has any sympathy with him or his family;--but simply because there is a rich daughter." "Everybody goes there, Mr. Carbury." "Yes,--that is the excuse which everybody makes. Is that sufficient reason for you to go to a man's house? Is there not another place to which we are told that a great many are going, simply because the road has become thronged and fashionable? Have you no feeling that you ought to choose your friends for certain reasons of your own? I admit there is one reason here. They have a great deal of money, and it is thought possible that he may get some of it by falsely swearing to a girl that he loves her. After what you have heard, are the Melmottes people with whom you would wish to be connected?" "I don't know." "I do. I know very well. They are absolutely disgraceful. A social connection with the first crossing-sweeper would be less objectionable." He spoke with a degree of energy of which he was himself altogether unaware. He knit his brows, and his eyes flashed, and his nostrils were extended. Of course she thought of his own offer to herself. Of course her mind at once conceived,--not that the Melmotte connection could ever really affect him, for she felt sure that she would never accept his offer,--but that he might think that he would be so affected. Of course she resented the feeling which she thus attributed to him. But, in truth, he was much too simple-minded for any such complex idea. "Felix," he continued, "has already descended so far that I cannot pretend to be anxious as to what houses he may frequent. But I should be sorry to think that you should often be seen at Mr. Melmotte's." "I think, Mr. Carbury, that mamma will take care that I am not taken where I ought not to be taken." "I wish you to have some opinion of your own as to what is proper for you." "I hope I have. I am sorry you should think that I have not." "I am old-fashioned, Hetta." "And we belong to a newer and worse sort of world. I dare say it is so. You have been always very kind, but I almost doubt whether you can change us now. I have sometimes thought that you and mamma were hardly fit for each other." "I have thought that you and I were,--or possibly might be fit for each other." "Oh,--as for me, I shall always take mamma's side. If mamma chooses to go to the Melmottes I shall certainly go with her. If that is contamination, I suppose I must be contaminated. I don't see why I'm to consider myself better than any one else." "I have always thought that you were better than any one else." "That was before I went to the Melmottes. I am sure you have altered your opinion now. Indeed, you have told me so. I am afraid, Mr. Carbury, you must go your way, and we must go ours." He looked into her face as she spoke, and gradually began to perceive the working of her mind. He was so true himself that he did not understand that there should be with her even that violet-coloured tinge of prevarication which women assume as an additional charm. Could she really have thought that he was attending to his own possible future interests when he warned her as to the making of new acquaintances? "For myself," he said, putting out his hand and making a slight vain effort to get hold of hers, "I have only one wish in the world; and that is, to travel the same road with you. I do not say that you ought to wish it too; but you ought to know that I am sincere. When I spoke of the Melmottes, did you believe that I was thinking of myself?" "Oh no;--how should I?" "I was speaking to you then as to a cousin who might regard me as an elder brother. No contact with legions of Melmottes could make you other to me than the woman on whom my heart has settled. Even were you in truth disgraced,--could disgrace touch one so pure as you,--it would be the same. I love you so well that I have already taken you for better or for worse. I cannot change. My nature is too stubborn for such changes. Have you a word to say to comfort me?" She turned away her head, but did not answer him at once. "Do you understand how much I am in need of comfort?" "You can do very well without comfort from me." "No, indeed. I shall live, no doubt; but I shall not do very well. As it is, I am not doing at all well. I am becoming sour and moody, and ill at ease with my friends. I would have you believe me, at any rate, when I say I love you." "I suppose you mean something." "I mean a great deal, dear. I mean all that a man can mean. That is it. You hardly understand that I am serious to the extent of ecstatic joy on the one side, and utter indifference to the world on the other. I shall never give it up till I learn that you are to be married to some one else." "What can I say, Mr. Carbury?" "That you will love me." "But if I don't?" "Say that you will try." "No; I will not say that. Love should come without a struggle. I don't know how one person is to try to love another in that way. I like you very much; but being married is such a terrible thing." "It would not be terrible to me, dear." "Yes;--when you found that I was too young for your tastes." "I shall persevere, you know. Will you assure me of this,--that if you promise your hand to another man, you will let me know at once?" "I suppose I may promise that," she said, after pausing for a moment. "There is no one as yet?" "There is no one. But, Mr. Carbury, you have no right to question me. I don't think it generous. I allow you to say things that nobody else could say because you are a cousin and because mamma trusts you so much. No one but mamma has a right to ask me whether I care for any one." "Are you angry with me?" "No." "If I have offended you it is because I love you so dearly." "I am not offended, but I don't like to be questioned by a gentleman. I don't think any girl would like it. I am not to tell everybody all that happens." "Perhaps when you reflect how much of my happiness depends upon it you will forgive me. Good-bye now." She put out her hand to him and allowed it to remain in his for a moment. "When I walk about the old shrubberies at Carbury where we used to be together, I am always asking myself what chance there is of your walking there as the mistress." "There is no chance." "I am, of course, prepared to hear you say so. Well; good-bye, and may God bless you." The man had no poetry about him. He did not even care for romance. All the outside belongings of love which are so pleasant to many men and which to many women afford the one sweetness in life which they really relish, were nothing to him. There are both men and women to whom even the delays and disappointments of love are charming, even when they exist to the detriment of hope. It is sweet to such persons to be melancholy, sweet to pine, sweet to feel that they are now wretched after a romantic fashion as have been those heroes and heroines of whose sufferings they have read in poetry. But there was nothing of this with Roger Carbury. He had, as he believed, found the woman that he really wanted, who was worthy of his love, and now, having fixed his heart upon her, he longed for her with an amazing longing. He had spoken the simple truth when he declared that life had become indifferent to him without her. No man in England could be less likely to throw himself off the Monument or to blow out his brains. But he felt numbed in all the joints of his mind by this sorrow. He could not make one thing bear upon another, so as to console himself after any fashion. There was but one thing for him;--to persevere till he got her, or till he had finally lost her. And should the latter be his fate, as he began to fear that it would be, then, he would live, but live only, like a crippled man. He felt almost sure in his heart of hearts that the girl loved that other, younger man. That she had never owned to such love he was quite sure. The man himself and Henrietta also had both assured him on this point, and he was a man easily satisfied by words and prone to believe. But he knew that Paul Montague was attached to her, and that it was Paul's intention to cling to his love. Sorrowfully looking forward through the vista of future years, he thought he saw that Henrietta would become Paul's wife. Were it so, what should he do? Annihilate himself as far as all personal happiness in the world was concerned, and look solely to their happiness, their prosperity, and their joys? Be as it were a beneficent old fairy to them, though the agony of his own disappointment should never depart from him? Should he do this, and be blessed by them,--or should he let Paul Montague know what deep resentment such ingratitude could produce? When had a father been kinder to a son, or a brother to a brother, than he had been to Paul? His home had been the young man's home, and his purse the young man's purse. What right could the young man have to come upon him just as he was perfecting his bliss and rob him of all that he had in the world? He was conscious all the while that there was a something wrong in his argument,--that Paul when he commenced to love the girl knew nothing of his friend's love,--that the girl, though Paul had never come in the way, might probably have been as obdurate as she was now to his entreaties. He knew all this because his mind was clear. But yet the injustice,--at any rate, the misery was so great, that to forgive it and to reward it would be weak, womanly, and foolish. Roger Carbury did not quite believe in the forgiveness of injuries. If you pardon all the evil done to you, you encourage others to do you evil! If you give your cloak to him who steals your coat, how long will it be before your shirt and trousers will go also? Roger Carbury returned that afternoon to Suffolk, and as he thought of it all throughout the journey, he resolved that he would never forgive Paul Montague if Paul Montague should become his cousin's husband.

On the subject of fortune-hunting by marriage, it was impossible that Roger and Lady Carbury should ever understand each other. To Lady Carbury the prospect of a union between her son and Miss Melmotte was one of joy and triumph. Even if her father were disgraced, the wealth would certainly carry the day. But in fact Mr. Melmotte was not in jail, but was entertaining duchesses in Grosvenor Square. People said that he had a reputation throughout Europe as a gigantic swindler, who had carried out schemes for the ruin of those who had trusted him, and had swallowed up the property of all who had come in contact with him. They said that he was fed with the blood of widows and children; - but what was all this to Lady Carbury? If the duchesses condoned it, why should she be prudish? People also said that Melmotte would fall; he couldn't keep his head up for long. But he might keep his head up long enough to give Marie her fortune. And then Felix was so exactly the young man who should marry a fortune! To Lady Carbury there was no other way of looking at the matter. And to Roger Carbury also there was no second way of looking at it. He had the old-fashioned idea that the touching of pitch will defile one. He was a gentleman; and would have felt himself disgraced to enter Melmotte's house. Not all the duchesses or money in the city could alter his notions. But he knew that it would be useless to explain this to Lady Carbury. He trusted, however, that Henrietta Carbury might be taught to appreciate the difference between honour and dishonour. Henrietta Carbury had, he thought, a higher turn of mind than her mother. He found Henrietta alone in the drawing-room. "Have you seen Felix?" she said. "Yes. I caught him in the street." "We are so unhappy about him." "I think, you know, that your mother indulges him foolishly." "Poor mamma! She worships the ground he treads on." "Even a mother should not throw her worship away like that. Your brother will ruin you both if this goes on." "What can mamma do?" "Leave London, and refuse to pay a shilling on his behalf." "What would Felix do in the country?" "If he did nothing, how much better would that be than what he does in town? You would not like him to become a professional gambler." "Oh, Mr. Carbury; you do not mean that he does that!" "It seems cruel to say it, but I have to speak the truth. I have no influence over your mother; but you may have some. She asks my advice without having the slightest idea of listening to it. I don't blame her for that; but I am anxious for the sake of the family - and especially for you. Felix may drag you into the mud. For his sake you have already been to the house of that man Melmotte." "I do not think that I shall be injured by anything of that kind," said Henrietta, drawing herself up. "Pardon me if I seem to interfere, or if I am rough. I feel an injury is done to you if you are made to go to the house of such a man. Why does your mother seek his society? Not because she likes him; but simply because there is a rich daughter." "Everybody goes there, Mr. Carbury." "Yes, that is the excuse which everybody makes. Is that sufficient reason? Have you no feeling that you ought to choose your friends for your own reasons? Are the Melmottes people with whom you would wish to be connected?" "I don't know." "I know very well. They are absolutely disgraceful. A social connection with a crossing-sweeper would be less objectionable." He spoke with a degree of energy of which he was himself unaware. He knit his brows, and his eyes flashed. Of course she thought of his offer to herself. Not that the Melmotte connection could ever really affect him, because she would not marry him - but he might think that he would be so affected. She resented this. In truth, he was too simple-minded for any such complex idea. "Felix," he continued, "has already descended so far that I cannot pretend to be anxious about him. But I should be sorry to think that you should often be seen at Mr. Melmotte's." "I think, Mr. Carbury, that mamma will not take me where I ought not to be taken." "I wish you to have some opinion of your own as to what is proper for you." "I hope I have. I am sorry you should think that I have not." "I am old-fashioned, Hetta." "And I daresay we belong to a newer and worse sort of world. You have always been very kind, but I doubt whether you can change us now. If mamma chooses to go to the Melmottes I shall go with her. If that is contamination, I suppose I must be contaminated. I don't see why I'm to consider myself better than anyone else." "I have always thought that you were better than anyone else," said Roger. "That was before I went to the Melmottes. I am sure you have altered your opinion now. I am afraid, Mr. Carbury, you must go your way, and we must go ours." He looked into her face as she spoke, and gradually began to perceive the working of her mind. Could she really have thought that he was concerned with his own possible future interests when he warned her about her new acquaintances? "For myself," he said, making a vain effort to take her hand, "I have only one wish in the world; and that is to travel the same road with you. You must know that I am sincere. When I spoke of the Melmottes, did you believe that I was thinking of myself?" "Oh no; how should I?" "I was speaking to you as a cousin. No contact with legions of Melmottes could make you other than the woman on whom my heart has settled. I love you so well that I have already taken you for better or for worse. I cannot change. My nature is too stubborn. Have you a word to comfort me?" She turned away her head, but did not answer. "Do you understand how much I am in need of comfort?" "You can do very well without comfort from me." "I shall live, no doubt; but I am not doing very well. I am becoming sour and moody, and ill at ease with my friends. Please believe me, at any rate, when I say I love you." "I suppose you mean something." "I mean a great deal, dear. I mean all that a man can mean. That is it. You hardly understand that I am serious to the extent of ecstatic joy on the one side, and utter indifference to the world on the other. I shall never give it up till I learn that you are to be married to someone else." "What can I say, Mr. Carbury?" "That you will love me." "But if I don't?" "Say that you will try." "No; I will not say that. Love should come without a struggle. I don't know how one person is to try to love another in that way. I like you very much; but being married is such a terrible thing." "It would not be terrible to me, dear." "Yes; when you found that I was too young for your tastes." "I shall persevere, you know. If you promise your hand to another man, will you let me know at once?" "I suppose so," she said. "There is no one yet?" "No. But, Mr. Carbury, you have no right to question me. I don't think it generous. I allow you to say things that nobody else could say because you are a cousin and because mamma trusts you. But no one except mamma has a right to ask me whether I care for anyone." "If I have offended you it is because I love you so dearly." "I am not offended, but I don't like to be questioned by a gentleman." "Perhaps when you reflect how much of my happiness depends upon it you will forgive me. Good-bye now." She put out her hand to him and allowed it to remain in his for a moment. "When I walk about the old shrubberies at Carbury, I am always asking myself what chance there is of your walking there as the mistress." "There is no chance," she said. "I am, of course, prepared to hear you say so. Well; good-bye, and may God bless you." The man had no poetry about him. All the embellishments of love were nothing to him. There are men and women to whom even the delays and disappointments of love are charming. It is sweet to such persons to be melancholy, sweet to pine in a romantic fashion. But there was nothing of this with Roger Carbury. Having fixed his heart upon Henrietta, he longed for her with an amazing longing. He had spoken the simple truth when he declared that life was indifferent to him without her. No man in England was less likely to blow out his brains. But he felt numbed in all the joints of his mind by this sorrow. There was only one thing for him: to persevere till he got her, or till he finally lost her. And should the latter be his fate, as he began to fear it would be, then he would live like a crippled man. He felt almost sure that the girl loved Paul. That she had never confessed such love he was quite sure. Paul and Henrietta had both assured him on this point, and he believed them. But he knew that Paul Montague was attached to her. Sorrowfully looking forward through future years, he thought that Henrietta would become Paul's wife. Were it so, what should he do? Forget all personal happiness, and look solely to their prosperity, and their joys? Be a beneficent fairy godfather to them, in the agony of his own disappointment? Or should he let Paul Montague know of his deep resentment of Paul's ingratitude? What father had been kinder to a son, or brother to a brother, than he had been to Paul? His home had been the young man's home, and his purse the young man's purse. What right did Paul have to rob him of all that he had in the world? He was conscious that there was something wrong in his argument; that Paul when he began to love the girl knew nothing of Roger's love - that the girl would probably have refused him even without Paul. He knew all this. But still the injustice was so great, that to forgive it would be weak, womanly, and foolish. Roger Carbury did not quite believe in forgiving injuries. If you pardon all the evil done to you, you encourage others to do you evil. He returned that afternoon to Suffolk, and as he thought about it during the journey, he resolved that he would never forgive Paul Montague if Paul became his cousin's husband.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 8: Love-Sick

During all these days Miss Melmotte was by no means contented with her lover's prowess, though she would not allow herself to doubt his sincerity. She had not only assured him of her undying affection in the presence of her father and mother, had not only offered to be chopped in pieces on his behalf, but had also written to him, telling how she had a large sum of her father's money within her power, and how willing she was to make it her own, to throw over her father and mother, and give herself and her fortune to her lover. She felt that she had been very gracious to her lover, and that her lover was a little slow in acknowledging the favours conferred upon him. But, nevertheless, she was true to her lover, and believed that he was true to her. Didon had been hitherto faithful. Marie had written various letters to Sir Felix, and had received two or three very short notes in reply, containing hardly more than a word or two each. But now she was told that a day was absolutely fixed for her marriage with Lord Nidderdale, and that her things were to be got ready. She was to be married in the middle of August, and here they were, approaching the end of June. "You may buy what you like, mamma," she said; "and if papa agrees about Felix, why then I suppose they'll do. But they'll never be of any use about Lord Nidderdale. If you were to sew me up in the things by main force, I wouldn't have him." Madame Melmotte groaned, and scolded in English, French, and German, and wished that she were dead; she told Marie that she was a pig, and ass, and a toad, and a dog. And ended, as she always did end, by swearing that Melmotte must manage the matter himself. "Nobody shall manage this matter for me," said Marie. "I know what I'm about now, and I won't marry anybody just because it will suit papa." "Que nous tions encore Francfort, ou New York," said the elder lady, remembering the humbler but less troubled times of her earlier life. Marie did not care for Francfort or New York; for Paris or for London;--but she did care for Sir Felix Carbury. While her father on Sunday morning was transacting business in his own house with Paul Montague and the great commercial magnates of the city,--though it may be doubted whether that very respectable gentleman Sir Gregory Gribe was really in Grosvenor Square when his name was mentioned,--Marie was walking inside the gardens; Didon was also there at some distance from her; and Sir Felix Carbury was there also close along side of her. Marie had the key of the gardens for her own use; and had already learned that her neighbours in the square did not much frequent the place during church time on Sunday morning. Her lover's letter to her father had of course been shown to her, and she had taxed him with it immediately. Sir Felix, who had thought much of the letter as he came from Welbeck Street to keep his appointment,--having been assured by Didon that the gate should be left unlocked, and that she would be there to close it after he had come in,--was of course ready with a lie. "It was the only thing to do, Marie;--it was indeed." "But you said you had accepted some offer." "You don't suppose I wrote the letter?" "It was your handwriting, Felix." "Of course it was. I copied just what he put down. He'd have sent you clean away where I couldn't have got near you if I hadn't written it." "And you have accepted nothing?" "Not at all. As it is, he owes me money. Is not that odd? I gave him a thousand pounds to buy shares, and I haven't got anything from him yet." Sir Felix, no doubt, forgot the cheque for 200. "Nobody ever does who gives papa money," said the observant daughter. "Don't they? Dear me! But I just wrote it because I thought anything better than a downright quarrel." "I wouldn't have written it, if it had been ever so." "It's no good scolding, Marie. I did it for the best. What do you think we'd best do now?" Marie looked at him, almost with scorn. Surely it was for him to propose and for her to yield. "I wonder whether you're sure you're right about that money which you say is settled." [Illustration: "It's no good scolding."] "I'm quite sure. Mamma told me in Paris,--just when we were coming away,--that it was done so that there might be something if things went wrong. And papa told me that he should want me to sign something from time to time; and of course I said I would. But of course I won't,--if I should have a husband of my own." Felix walked along, pondering the matter, with his hands in his trowsers pockets. He entertained those very fears which had latterly fallen upon Lord Nidderdale. There would be no "cropper" which a man could "come" so bad as would be his cropper were he to marry Marie Melmotte, and then find that he was not to have a shilling! And, were he now to run off with Marie, after having written that letter, the father would certainly not forgive him. This assurance of Marie's as to the settled money was too doubtful! The game to be played was too full of danger! And in that case he would certainly get neither his 800, nor the shares. And if he were true to Melmotte, Melmotte would probably supply him with ready money. But then here was the girl at his elbow, and he no more dared to tell her to her face that he meant to give her up, than he dared to tell Melmotte that he intended to stick to his engagement. Some half promise would be the only escape for the present. "What are you thinking of, Felix?" she asked. "It's d---- difficult to know what to do." "But you do love me?" "Of course I do. If I didn't love you why should I be here walking round this stupid place? They talk of your being married to Nidderdale about the end of August." "Some day in August. But that's all nonsense, you know. They can't take me up and marry me, as they used to do the girls ever so long ago. I won't marry him. He don't care a bit for me, and never did. I don't think you care much, Felix." "Yes, I do. A fellow can't go on saying so over and over again in a beastly place like this. If we were anywhere jolly together, then I could say it often enough." "I wish we were, Felix. I wonder whether we ever shall be." "Upon my word I hardly see my way as yet." "You're not going to give it up!" "Oh no;--not give it up; certainly not. But the bother is a fellow doesn't know what to do." "You've heard of young Mr. Goldsheiner, haven't you?" suggested Marie. "He's one of those city chaps." "And Lady Julia Start?" "She's old Lady Catchboy's daughter. Yes; I've heard of them. They got spliced last winter." "Yes,--somewhere in Switzerland, I think. At any rate they went to Switzerland, and now they've got a house close to Albert Gate." "How jolly for them! He is awfully rich, isn't he?" "I don't suppose he's half so rich as papa. They did all they could to prevent her going, but she met him down at Folkestone just as the tidal boat was starting. Didon says that nothing was easier." "Oh;--ah. Didon knows all about it." "That she does." "But she'd lose her place." "There are plenty of places. She could come and live with us, and be my maid. If you would give her 50 for herself, she'd arrange it all." "And would you come to Folkestone?" "I think that would be stupid, because Lady Julia did that. We should make it a little different. If you liked I wouldn't mind going to--New York. And then, perhaps, we might--get--married, you know, on board. That's what Didon thinks." "And would Didon go too?" "That's what she proposes. She could go as my aunt, and I'd call myself by her name;--any French name you know. I should go as a French girl. And you could call yourself Smith, and be an American. We wouldn't go together, but we'd get on board just at the last moment. If they wouldn't--marry us on board, they would at New York, instantly." "That's Didon's plan?" "That's what she thinks best,--and she'll do it, if you'll give her 50 for herself, you know. The 'Adriatic,'--that's a White Star boat, goes on Thursday week at noon. There's an early train that would take us down that morning. You had better go and sleep at Liverpool, and take no notice of us at all till we meet on board. We could be back in a month,--and then papa would be obliged to make the best of it." Sir Felix at once felt that it would be quite unnecessary for him to go to Herr Vossner or to any other male counsellor for advice as to the best means of carrying off his love. The young lady had it all at her fingers' ends,--even to the amount of the fee required by the female counsellor. But Thursday week was very near, and the whole thing was taking uncomfortably defined proportions. Where was he to get funds if he were to resolve that he would do this thing? He had been fool enough to intrust his ready money to Melmotte, and now he was told that when Melmotte got hold of ready money he was not apt to release it. And he had nothing to show;--no security that he could offer to Vossner. And then,--this idea of starting to New York with Melmotte's daughter immediately after he had written to Melmotte renouncing the girl, frightened him. "There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune." Sir Felix did not know these lines, but the lesson taught by them came home to him at this moment. Now was the tide in his affairs at which he might make himself, or utterly mar himself. "It's deuced important," he said at last with a groan. "It's not more important for you than me," said Marie. "If you're wrong about the money, and he shouldn't come round, where should we be then?" "Nothing venture, nothing have," said the heiress. "That's all very well; but one might venture everything and get nothing after all." "You'd get me," said Marie with a pout. "Yes;--and I'm awfully fond of you. Of course I should get you! But--" "Very well then;--if that's your love," said Marie, turning back from him. Sir Felix gave a great sigh, and then announced his resolution. "I'll venture it." "Oh, Felix, how grand it will be!" "There's a great deal to do, you know. I don't know whether it can be Thursday week." He was putting in the coward's plea for a reprieve. "I shall be afraid of Didon if it's delayed long." "There's the money to get, and all that." "I can get some money. Mamma has money in the house." "How much?" asked the baronet eagerly. "A hundred pounds, perhaps;--perhaps two hundred." "That would help certainly. I must go to your father for money. Won't that be a sell? To get it from him, to take you away!" It was decided that they were to go to New York, on a Thursday,--on Thursday week if possible, but as to that he was to let her know in a day or two. Didon was to pack up the clothes and get it sent out of the house. Didon was to have 50 before she went on board; and as one of the men must know about it, and must assist in having the trunks smuggled out of the house, he was to have 10. All had been settled beforehand, so that Sir Felix really had no need to think about anything. "And now," said Marie, "there's Didon. Nobody's looking and she can open that gate for you. When we're gone, do you creep out. The gate can be left, you know. Then we'll get out on the other side." Marie Melmotte was certainly a clever girl.

Meanwhile Miss Melmotte was not contented with her lover's prowess, though she did not doubt his sincerity. She had not only assured him of her undying affection, and had offered to be chopped in pieces on his behalf, but had also written telling him she had a large sum of her father's money within her power, and was willing to give herself and her fortune to her lover. She felt that her lover was a little slow in acknowledging the favours conferred upon him. But, nevertheless, she believed that he was true to her. Through Didon, Marie had written various letters to Sir Felix, and had received two or three very short notes in reply. But now, in June, she was told that a day was fixed for her marriage with Lord Nidderdale, in the middle of August. "You may buy what wedding clothes you like, mamma," she said; "but if you were to sew me up in the things by force, I wouldn't have Lord Nidderdale." Madame Melmotte groaned and scolded, and wished that she were dead; she told Marie that she was a pig, an ass, a toad, and a dog. She ended, as always, by swearing that Melmotte must manage the matter himself. "Nobody shall manage this matter for me," said Marie. "I know what I'm about now, and I won't marry anybody just to suit papa." On Sunday morning, while her father was doing business with Paul Montague in Grosvenor Square, Marie was walking in the square's gardens. Didon was there, at some distance; and Sir Felix Carbury was alongside her. Marie had learned that her neighbours did not frequent the square during church time on Sunday morning. Her lover's letter to her father had of course been shown to her, and she taxed him with it immediately. Sir Felix was ready with a lie. "It was the only thing to do, Marie; it was indeed. I just copied what he put down. He'd have sent you away where I couldn't have got near you if I hadn't written it." "And you have accepted nothing for it?" "Not at all. As it is, he owes me money. I gave him a thousand pounds to buy shares, and I haven't got anything from him yet." Sir Felix, no doubt, forgot the cheque for 200. "Nobody ever does who gives papa money," said the observant daughter. "Don't they? Dear me! What do you think we'd best do now?" Marie looked at him almost with scorn. Surely it was for him to propose and for her to yield. "I wonder whether you're sure about that money which you say is settled," said Felix. "I'm quite sure. Mamma told me in Paris that it was done so that there might be something if things went wrong. And papa told me that he should want me to sign something from time to time; and I said I would. But of course I won't if I have a husband of my own." Felix pondered the matter. If he were to run off with Marie, after having written that letter, the father would certainly not forgive him. This assurance of Marie's as to the settled money was too doubtful. The game to be played was too full of danger. And if he were true to Melmotte, Melmotte would probably supply him with ready money. But then here was the girl at his elbow, and he no more dared to tell her to her face that he meant to give her up, than he dared to tell Melmotte that he intended to stick to his engagement. Some half promise was the only escape for the present. "It's d___ difficult to know what to do," he said. "But you do love me?" "Of course I do. If I didn't love you why should I be walking round this stupid place? They talk of your marrying Nidderdale in August." "That's all nonsense. They can't make me. He don't care a bit for me, and never did. I don't think you care much, Felix." "Yes, I do. A fellow can't go on saying so over and over again in a beastly place like this. If we were anywhere jolly together, then I could say it often enough." "I wish we were, Felix. I wonder whether we ever shall be." "Upon my word I hardly see my way as yet." "You're not giving it up!" "Oh no; certainly not. But the bother is a fellow doesn't know what to do." "You've heard of young Mr. Goldsheiner, haven't you?" suggested Marie. "He married Lady Julia Start last winter in Switzerland, and now they've got a house close to Albert Gate." "How jolly! He is awfully rich, isn't he?" "Not half so rich as papa. They did all they could to prevent her going, but she met him down at Folkestone. Didon says that nothing was easier." "Oh; ah. Didon knows all about it." "For 50, Didon would arrange it all." "And would you come to Folkestone?" "I think that would be stupid, because Lady Julia did that. I wouldn't mind going to New York. And then, perhaps, we might - get married, you know, on board ship. That's what Didon thinks." "And would Didon go too?" "She could go as my aunt. I should go as a French girl. And you could call yourself Smith, and be an American. We wouldn't go together, but we'd get on board just at the last moment. If they wouldn't marry us on board, they would at New York. The Adriatic - that's a White Star boat - goes from Liverpool on Thursday week at noon. There's an early train we could get. You had better go and sleep at Liverpool, and take no notice of us till we meet on board. We could be back in a month - and then papa would be obliged to make the best of it." Sir Felix felt that the young lady had it all at her fingers' ends. But Thursday week was very near, and the whole thing was taking uncomfortably defined proportions. Where was he to get funds to do this? And the idea of starting to New York with Melmotte's daughter, immediately after he had written to Melmotte renouncing the girl, frightened him. Now was the time come when he might make himself, or utterly mar himself. "It's deuced important," he said with a groan. "If you're wrong about the money, and he shouldn't come round, where would we be then?" "Nothing venture, nothing have," said the heiress. "That's all very well; but one might venture everything and get nothing after all." "You'd get me," said Marie with a pout. "Yes - and I'm awfully fond of you, of course. But-" "Very well; if that's your love," she said, turning away. Sir Felix gave a great sigh. "I'll venture it." "Oh, Felix, how grand it will be!" "There's a great deal to do, you know. I don't know whether it can be Thursday week." "I shall be afraid of Didon if it's delayed long." "There's the money to get, and all that." "I can get some money. Mamma has money in the house." "How much?" asked the baronet eagerly. "A hundred pounds; perhaps two hundred." "That would help, certainly. I must go to your father for money. Won't that be a sell? To get it from him, to take you away!" It was decided that they were to go to New York, on Thursday week if possible. Didon was to pack up the clothes. Didon would be paid 50; and as one of the men must know about it, and help smuggle the trunks out, he was to have 10. Sir Felix really had no need to think about anything. "And now," said Marie, "there's Didon. You leave through that gate, and we'll get out on the other side." Marie Melmotte was certainly a clever girl.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 41: All Prepared

Sir Felix as he walked down to his club felt that he had been checkmated,--and was at the same time full of wrath at the insolence of the man who had so easily beaten him out of the field. As far as he could see, the game was over. No doubt he might marry Marie Melmotte. The father had told him so much himself, and he perfectly believed the truth of that oath which Marie had sworn. He did not doubt but that she'd stick to him close enough. She was in love with him, which was natural; and was a fool,--which was perhaps also natural. But romance was not the game which he was playing. People told him that when girls succeeded in marrying without their parents' consent, fathers were always constrained to forgive them at last. That might be the case with ordinary fathers. But Melmotte was decidedly not an ordinary father. He was,--so Sir Felix declared to himself,--perhaps the greatest brute ever created. Sir Felix could not but remember that elevation of the eyebrows, and the brazen forehead, and the hard mouth. He had found himself quite unable to stand up against Melmotte, and now he cursed and swore at the man as he was carried down to the Beargarden in a cab. But what should he do? Should he abandon Marie Melmotte altogether, never go to Grosvenor Square again, and drop the whole family, including the Great Mexican Railway? Then an idea occurred to him. Nidderdale had explained to him the result of his application for shares. "You see we haven't bought any and therefore can't sell any. There seems to be something in that. I shall explain it all to my governor, and get him to go a thou' or two. If he sees his way to get the money back, he'd do that and let me have the difference." On that Sunday afternoon Sir Felix thought over all this. "Why shouldn't he 'go a thou,' and get the difference?" He made a mental calculation. 12 10_s._ per 100! 125 for a thousand! and all paid in ready money. As far as Sir Felix could understand, directly the one operation had been perfected the thousand pounds would be available for another. As he looked into it with all his intelligence he thought that he began to perceive that that was the way in which the Melmottes of the world made their money. There was but one objection. He had not got the entire thousand pounds. But luck had been on the whole very good to him. He had more than the half of it in real money, lying at a bank in the city at which he had opened an account. And he had very much more than the remainder in I. O. U.'s from Dolly Longestaffe and Miles Grendall. In fact if every man had his own,--and his bosom glowed with indignation as he reflected on the injustice with which he was kept out of his own,--he could go into the city and take up his shares to-morrow, and still have ready money at his command. If he could do this, would not such conduct on his part be the best refutation of that charge of not having any fortune which Melmotte had brought against him? He would endeavour to work the money out of Dolly Longestaffe;--and he entertained an idea that though it would be impossible to get cash from Miles Grendall, he might use his claim against Miles in the city. Miles was Secretary to the Board, and might perhaps contrive that the money required for the shares should not be all ready money. Sir Felix was not very clear about it, but thought that he might possibly in this way use the indebtedness of Miles Grendall. "How I do hate a fellow who does not pay up," he said to himself as he sat alone in his club, waiting for some friend to come in. And he formed in his head Draconic laws which he would fain have executed upon men who lost money at play and did not pay. "How the deuce fellows can look one in the face, is what I can't understand," he said to himself. He thought over this great stroke of exhibiting himself to Melmotte as a capitalist till he gave up his idea of abandoning his suit. So he wrote a note to Marie Melmotte in accordance with her instructions. DEAR M., Your father cut up very rough,--about money. Perhaps you had better see him yourself; or would your mother? Yours always, F. This, as directed, he put under cover to Madame Didon,--Grosvenor Square, and posted at the club. He had put nothing at any rate in the letter which could commit him. There was generally on Sundays a house dinner, so called, at eight o'clock. Five or six men would sit down, and would always gamble afterwards. On this occasion Dolly Longestaffe sauntered in at about seven in quest of sherry and bitters, and Felix found the opportunity a good one to speak of his money. "You couldn't cash your I. O. U.'s for me to-morrow;--could you?" "To-morrow! oh, lord!" "I'll tell you why. You know I'd tell you anything because I think we are really friends. I'm after that daughter of Melmotte's." "I'm told you're to have her." "I don't know about that. I mean to try at any rate. I've gone in you know for that Board in the city." "I don't know anything about Boards, my boy." "Yes, you do, Dolly. You remember that American fellow, Montague's friend, that was here one night and won all our money." "The chap that had the waistcoat, and went away in the morning to California. Fancy starting to California after a hard night. I always wondered whether he got there alive." "Well;--I can't explain to you all about it, because you hate those kinds of things." "And because I am such a fool." "I don't think you're a fool at all, but it would take a week. But it's absolutely essential for me to take up a lot of shares in the city to-morrow;--or perhaps Wednesday might do. I'm bound to pay for them, and old Melmotte will think that I'm utterly hard up if I don't. Indeed he said as much, and the only objection about me and this girl of his is as to money. Can't you understand, now, how important it may be?" "It's always important to have a lot of money. I know that." "I shouldn't have gone in for this kind of thing if I hadn't thought I was sure. You know how much you owe me, don't you?" "Not in the least." "It's about eleven hundred pounds!" "I shouldn't wonder." "And Miles Grendall owes me two thousand. Grasslough and Nidderdale when they lose always pay with Miles's I. O. U.'s." "So should I, if I had them." "It'll come to that soon that there won't be any other stuff going, and they really ain't worth anything. I don't see what's the use of playing when this rubbish is shoved about the table. As for Grendall himself, he has no feeling about it." "Not the least, I should say." "You'll try and get me the money, won't you, Dolly?" "Melmotte has been at me twice. He wants me to agree to sell something. He's an old thief, and of course he means to rob me. You may tell him that if he'll let me have the money in the way I've proposed, you are to have a thousand pounds out of it. I don't know any other way." "You could write me that,--in a business sort of way." "I couldn't do that, Carbury. What's the use? I never write any letters. I can't do it. You tell him that; and if the sale comes off, I'll make it straight." Miles Grendall also dined there, and after dinner, in the smoking-room, Sir Felix tried to do a little business with the Secretary. He began his operations with unusual courtesy, believing that the man must have some influence with the great distributor of shares. "I'm going to take up my shares in that company," said Sir Felix. "Ah;--indeed." And Miles enveloped himself from head to foot in smoke. "I didn't quite understand about it, but Nidderdale saw Melmotte and he has explained it. I think I shall go in for a couple of thousand on Wednesday." "Oh;--ah." "It will be the proper thing to do;--won't it?" "Very good--thing to do!" Miles Grendall smoked harder and harder as the suggestions were made to him. "Is it always ready money?" "Always ready money," said Miles shaking his head, as though in reprobation of so abominable an institution. "I suppose they allow some time to their own Directors, if a deposit, say 50 per cent., is made for the shares?" "They'll give you half the number, which would come to the same thing." Sir Felix turned this over in his mind, but let him look at it as he would, could not see the truth of his companion's remark. "You know I should want to sell again,--for the rise." "Oh; you'll want to sell again." "And therefore I must have the full number." "You could sell half the number, you know," said Miles. "I'm determined to begin with ten shares;--that's 1,000. Well;--I have got the money, but I don't want to draw out so much. Couldn't you manage for me that I should get them on paying 50 per cent. down?" "Melmotte does all that himself." "You could explain, you know, that you are a little short in your own payments to me." This Sir Felix said, thinking it to be a delicate mode of introducing his claim upon the Secretary. "That's private," said Miles frowning. "Of course it's private; but if you would pay me the money I could buy the shares with it, though they are public." "I don't think we could mix the two things together, Carbury." "You can't help me?" "Not in that way." "Then, when the deuce will you pay me what you owe me?" Sir Felix was driven to this plain expression of his demand by the impassibility of his debtor. Here was a man who did not pay his debts of honour, who did not even propose any arrangement for paying them, and who yet had the impudence to talk of not mixing up private matters with affairs of business! It made the young baronet very sick. Miles Grendall smoked on in silence. There was a difficulty in answering the question, and he therefore made no answer. "Do you know how much you owe me?" continued the baronet, determined to persist now that he had commenced the attack. There was a little crowd of other men in the room, and the conversation about the shares had been commenced in an under-tone. These two last questions Sir Felix had asked in a whisper, but his countenance showed plainly that he was speaking in anger. "Of course I know," said Miles. "Well?" "I'm not going to talk about it here." "Not going to talk about it here?" "No. This is a public room." "I am going to talk about it," said Sir Felix, raising his voice. "Will any fellow come up-stairs and play a game of billiards?" said Miles Grendall rising from his chair. Then he walked slowly out of the room, leaving Sir Felix to take what revenge he pleased. For a moment Sir Felix thought that he would expose the transaction to the whole room; but he was afraid, thinking that Miles Grendall was a more popular man than himself. It was Sunday night; but not the less were the gamblers assembled in the card-room at about eleven. Dolly Longestaffe was there, and with him the two lords, and Sir Felix, and Miles Grendall of course, and, I regret to say, a much better man than any of them, Paul Montague. Sir Felix had doubted much as to the propriety of joining the party. What was the use of playing with a man who seemed by general consent to be liberated from any obligation to pay? But then if he did not play with him, where should he find another gambling table? They began with whist, but soon laid that aside and devoted themselves to loo. The least respected man in that confraternity was Grendall, and yet it was in compliance with the persistency of his suggestion that they gave up the nobler game. "Let's stick to whist; I like cutting out," said Grasslough. "It's much more jolly having nothing to do now and then; one can always bet," said Dolly shortly afterwards. "I hate loo," said Sir Felix in answer to a third application. "I like whist best," said Nidderdale, "but I'll play anything anybody likes;--pitch and toss if you please." But Miles Grendall had his way, and loo was the game. At about two o'clock Grendall was the only winner. The play had not been very high, but nevertheless he had won largely. Whenever a large pool had collected itself he swept it into his garners. The men opposed to him hardly grudged him this stroke of luck. He had hitherto been unlucky; and they were able to pay him with his own paper, which was so valueless that they parted with it without a pang. Even Dolly Longestaffe seemed to have a supply of it. The only man there not so furnished was Montague, and while the sums won were quite small he was allowed to pay with cash. But to Sir Felix it was frightful to see ready money going over to Miles Grendall, as under no circumstances could it be got back from him. "Montague," he said, "just change these for the time. I'll take them back, if you still have them when we've done." And he handed a lot of Miles's paper across the table. The result of course would be that Felix would receive so much real money, and that Miles would get back more of his own worthless paper. To Montague it would make no difference, and he did as he was asked;--or rather was preparing to do so, when Miles interfered. On what principle of justice could Sir Felix come between him and another man? "I don't understand this kind of thing," he said. "When I win from you, Carbury, I'll take my I. O. U.'s, as long as you have any." "By George, that's kind." "But I won't have them handed about the table to be changed." "Pay them yourself, then," said Sir Felix, laying a handful down on the table. "Don't let's have a row," said Lord Nidderdale. "Carbury is always making a row," said Grasslough. "Of course he is," said Miles Grendall. "I don't make more row than anybody else; but I do say that as we have such a lot of these things, and as we all know that we don't get cash for them as we want it, Grendall shouldn't take money and walk off with it." "Who is walking off?" said Miles. "And why should you be entitled to Montague's money more than any of us?" asked Grasslough. The matter was debated, and was thus decided. It was not to be allowed that Miles's paper should be negotiated at the table in the manner that Sir Felix had attempted to adopt. But Mr. Grendall pledged his honour that when they broke up the party he would apply any money that he might have won to the redemption of his I. O. U.'s, paying a regular percentage to the holders of them. The decision made Sir Felix very cross. He knew that their condition at six or seven in the morning would not be favourable to such commercial accuracy,--which indeed would require an accountant to effect it; and he felt sure that Miles, if still a winner, would in truth walk off with the ready money. For a considerable time he did not speak, and became very moderate in his play, tossing his cards about, almost always losing, but losing a minimum, and watching the board. He was sitting next to Grendall, and he thought that he observed that his neighbour moved his chair farther and farther away from him, and nearer to Dolly Longestaffe, who was next to him on the other side. This went on for an hour, during which Grendall still won,--and won heavily from Paul Montague. "I never saw a fellow have such a run of luck in my life," said Grasslough. "You've had two trumps dealt to you every hand almost since we began!" "Ever so many hands I haven't played at all," said Miles. "You've always won when I've played," said Dolly. "I've been looed every time." "You oughtn't to begrudge me one run of luck, when I've lost so much," said Miles, who, since he began, had destroyed paper counters of his own making, supposed to represent considerably above 1,000, and had also,--which was of infinitely greater concern to him,--received an amount of ready money which was quite a godsend to him. "What's the good of talking about it?" said Nidderdale. "I hate all this row about winning and losing. Let's go on, or go to bed." The idea of going to bed was absurd. So they went on. Sir Felix, however, hardly spoke at all, played very little, and watched Miles Grendall without seeming to watch him. At last he felt certain that he saw a card go into the man's sleeve, and remembered at the moment that the winner had owed his success to a continued run of aces. He was tempted to rush at once upon the player, and catch the card on his person. But he feared. Grendall was a big man; and where would he be if there should be no card there? And then, in the scramble, there would certainly be at any rate a doubt. And he knew that the men around him would be most unwilling to believe such an accusation. Grasslough was Grendall's friend, and Nidderdale and Dolly Longestaffe would infinitely rather be cheated than suspect any one of their own set of cheating them. He feared both the violence of the man he should accuse, and also the impassive good humour of the others. He let that opportunity pass by, again watched, and again saw the card abstracted. Thrice he saw it, till it was wonderful to him that others also should not see it. As often as the deal came round, the man did it. Felix watched more closely, and was certain that in each round the man had an ace at least once. It seemed to him that nothing could be easier. At last he pleaded a headache, got up, and went away, leaving the others playing. He had lost nearly a thousand pounds, but it had been all in paper. "There's something the matter with that fellow," said Grasslough. "There's always something the matter with him, I think," said Miles. "He is so awfully greedy about his money." Miles had become somewhat triumphant in his success. "The less said about that, Grendall, the better," said Nidderdale. "We have put up with a good deal, you know, and he has put up with as much as anybody." Miles was cowed at once, and went on dealing without manoeuvring a card on that hand.

Sir Felix felt that he had been checkmated - and was at the same time full of wrath at Melmotte's insolence. As far as he could see, the game was over. No doubt he might marry Marie Melmotte. She was in love with him, which was natural; and was a fool, which was perhaps also natural. But Melmotte would not forgive his daughter for marrying without his consent. He was - so Sir Felix declared to himself - the greatest brute ever created. Sir Felix had found himself quite unable to stand up against Melmotte, and now he cursed the man as he was carried down to the Beargarden in a cab. But what should he do? Should he abandon Marie Melmotte altogether, and drop the whole family, including the Great Mexican Railway? An idea occurred to him. Nidderdale had explained to him the result of his application for shares. "You see we haven't bought any and therefore can't sell any. There seems to be something in that. I shall explain it all to my governor, and get him to let me have a thousand or two." Sir Felix thought this over, and made a mental calculation. 12 10s. per 100! 125 for a thousand! and paid in ready money. As far as Sir Felix could understand, as soon as one operation had been completed the thousand pounds would be available for another. There was just one objection. He had not got a thousand pounds. But luck had been good to him, and he had more than half that amount lying at a bank in the city. And he had very much more than the remainder in I.O.U.'s from Dolly Longestaffe and Miles Grendall. In fact, if every man paid up, he could take up his shares tomorrow. Would that not refute Melmotte's charge of not having any fortune? He would try to get the money out of Dolly Longestaffe; and though it would be impossible to get cash from Miles Grendall, he might use his claim against Miles, who was Secretary to the Board, and could perhaps contrive that the money required for the shares should not be all ready money. As he sat in his club, he thought over this great stroke till he gave up his idea of abandoning his suit. So he wrote a note to Marie Melmotte: Dear M., Your father cut up very rough about money. Perhaps you had better see him yourself; or would your mother? Yours always, F. This, as directed, he addressed to Madame Didon, and posted at the club. On Sundays there was generally a house dinner, so called, at eight o'clock. Five or six men would sit down, and gamble afterwards. On this occasion Dolly Longestaffe sauntered in at about seven, and Felix said, "You couldn't cash your I.O.U.'s for me tomorrow; could you?" "Tomorrow! oh, lord!" "I'll tell you why, because you're a friend. I'm after that daughter of Melmotte's." "I'm told you're to have her." "I don't know about that. I mean to try. I've gone in for that Board in the city." "I don't know anything about Boards, my boy." "Well, it would take a week to explain it all, but it's absolutely essential for me to take up a lot of shares in the city tomorrow; or perhaps Wednesday. Old Melmotte will think that I'm utterly hard up if I don't pay for them. Can't you understand, now, how important it may be?" "It's always important to have a lot of money. I know that." "You know how much you owe me, don't you?" "Not in the least." "It's about eleven hundred pounds!" "I shouldn't wonder." "And Miles Grendall owes me two thousand. Grasslough and Nidderdale always pay me with Miles's I.O.U.'s. They ain't really worth anything. I don't see what's the use of playing when this rubbish is shoved about the table. But you'll try and get me the money, won't you, Dolly?" "Melmotte has been at me twice," said Dolly Longestaffe. "He wants me to agree to sell something. He's an old thief, and he means to rob me. You may tell him that if he'll let me have the money in the way I've proposed, you are to have a thousand pounds out of it. I don't know any other way." "You could write that in a business letter." "I couldn't, Carbury. I never write letters. You tell him that if the sale comes off, I'll make it straight." Miles Grendall also dined there, and in the smoking-room after dinner, Sir Felix tried to do a little business with him, believing that he must have some influence with Melmotte. "I'm going to take up my shares in that company," said Sir Felix. "Nidderdale saw Melmotte and he has explained it. I think I shall go in for a couple of thousand on Wednesday." "Oh; ah." "It will be the proper thing to do, won't it?" "Very good thing to do!" Miles Grendall smoked harder. "Is it always ready money?" "Always ready money," said Miles, shaking his head. "I suppose they allow some time to their own Directors, if a deposit, say 50 per cent, is made for the shares?" "They'll give you half the number, which would come to the same thing." Sir Felix turned this over in his mind, but could not see the truth of it. "You know I should want to sell again - for the rise." "Oh; you'll want to sell again." "I want to begin with ten shares; that's 1,000. I have got the money, but I don't want to draw out so much. Couldn't you manage for me that I should get them on paying 50 per cent down?" "Melmotte does all that himself." "You could explain, you know, that you are a little short in your own payments to me." Sir Felix thought this was a delicate way of introducing his claim upon the Secretary. "That's private," said Miles, frowning. "Of course it's private; but if you would pay me the money I could buy the shares." "I don't think we could mix the two things together, Carbury." "Then when the deuce will you pay what you owe me?" demanded Sir Felix. Miles Grendall smoked on in silence. "Do you know how much you owe me?" continued the baronet, determined to persist. There was a little crowd of other men in the room, and he asked these questions in a whisper, but he was plainly angry. "Of course I know," said Miles. "I'm not going to talk about it here, in a public room." "I am going to talk about it," said Sir Felix, raising his voice. "Will any fellow come upstairs and play a game of billiards?" said Miles Grendall, rising from his chair. Then he walked out slowly. For a moment Sir Felix considered exposing the transaction to the whole room; but he was afraid, thinking that Miles Grendall was a more popular man than himself. The gamblers were assembled in the card-room at eleven. Dolly Longestaffe was there, and with him the two lords, and Sir Felix, and Miles Grendall, and, I regret to say, Paul Montague. Sir Felix had doubted whether he should join the party. What was the use of playing with a man who seemed to feel no obligation to pay? But then where should he find another gaming table? They began with whist, but soon switched to loo at Grendall's repeated suggestions. "Let's stick to whist," said Grasslough. "I hate loo," said Sir Felix. "I like whist best," said Nidderdale, "but I'll play anything anybody likes." Miles Grendall had his way, and loo was the game. At about two o'clock Grendall was the only winner. His opponents did not grudge him his unusual luck; and they were able to pay him with his own paper, which was so valueless that they parted with it without a pang. The only man without any of his I.O.U.s was Montague, and since the sums won were quite small he paid with cash. But to Sir Felix it was frightful to see ready money going over to Miles Grendall. "Montague," he said, "just change these." And he handed a lot of Miles's paper across the table, so that he would receive so much real money, and Miles would get back more of his own worthless paper. Paul Montague was about to do as he was asked, when Miles interfered. "When I win from you, Carbury," he said, "I'll take my I.O.U.'s, as long as you have any. But I won't have them handed about the table to be changed." "Pay them yourself, then," said Sir Felix, laying a handful down on the table. "Don't let's have a row," said Lord Nidderdale. "Carbury is always making a row," said Grasslough. "Of course he is," said Miles Grendall. "I don't make more row than anybody else; but I do say that as we have such a lot of these things, Grendall shouldn't take money and walk off with it." "Who is walking off?" said Miles. "And why should you be entitled to Montague's money?" asked Grasslough. The matter was debated; and it was decided that Miles's paper should not be negotiated at the table in this way. But Mr. Grendall pledged his honour that when they broke up the party he would give any money that he might have won towards the paying of his I.O.U.'s. The decision made Sir Felix very cross. He knew that by six or seven in the morning they would need an accountant to work that out; and he felt sure that Miles would simply walk off with the money. For a considerable time he did not speak, and became very moderate in his play, losing a minimum, and watching the board. He was sitting next to Grendall, and he thought that he observed that his neighbour moved his chair farther and farther away from him. This went on for an hour, during which Grendall still won - and won heavily from Paul Montague. "I never saw a fellow have such a run of luck," said Grasslough. "You've had two trumps dealt to you every hand almost since we began!" "You've always won when I've played," said Dolly. "I've been looed every time." "You oughtn't to begrudge me one run of luck, when I've lost so much," said Miles, who by now had destroyed his own papers to the amount of 1,000, and had also received an amount of ready money which was a godsend to him. "What's the good of talking about it?" said Nidderdale. "Let's go on, or go to bed." The idea of going to bed was absurd. So they went on. Sir Felix, however, hardly spoke, and watched Miles Grendall. At last he felt certain that he saw a card go into the man's sleeve. He was tempted to rush at once upon him, and catch the card on his person. But Grendall was a big man; and what if there should be no card there? And the men around him would be most unwilling to believe such an accusation. Grasslough was Grendall's friend, and Nidderdale and Dolly Longestaffe would rather be cheated than suspect one of their own set of cheating them. So Felix let that opportunity pass by, again watched, and again saw the card abstracted. Thrice he saw it, till it was amazing to him that others did not. He watched more closely, and was certain that in each round the man had an ace at least once. At last he pleaded a headache, got up, and went away, leaving the others playing. He had lost nearly a thousand pounds, but it had been all in paper. "There's something the matter with that fellow," said Grasslough. "There's always something the matter with him," said Miles. "He is so awfully greedy about his money." "The less said about that, Grendall, the better," said Nidderdale. "We have all put up with a good deal, you know." Miles was cowed, and dealt without manoeuvring a card on that hand.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 24: Miles Grendall's Triumph

Poor Hetta passed a very bad night. The story she had heard seemed to be almost too awful to be true,--even about any one else. The man had come to her, and had asked her to be his wife,--and yet at that very moment was living in habits of daily intercourse with another woman whom he had promised to marry! And then, too, his courtship with her had been so graceful, so soft, so modest, and yet so long continued! Though he had been slow in speech, she had known since their first meeting how he regarded her! The whole state of his mind had, she had thought, been visible to her,--had been intelligible, gentle, and affectionate. He had been aware of her friends' feeling, and had therefore hesitated. He had kept himself from her because he had owed so much to friendship. And yet his love had not been the less true, and had not been less dear to poor Hetta. She had waited, sure that it would come,--having absolute confidence in his honour and love. And now she was told that this man had been playing a game so base, and at the same time so foolish, that she could find not only no excuse but no possible cause for it. It was not like any story she had heard before of man's faithlessness. Though she was wretched and sore at heart she swore to herself that she would not believe it. She knew that her mother would write to Roger Carbury,--but she knew also that nothing more would be said about the letter till the answer should come. Nor could she turn anywhere else for comfort. She did not dare to appeal to Paul himself. As regarded him, for the present she could only rely on the assurance, which she continued to give herself, that she would not believe a word of the story that had been told her. But there was other wretchedness besides her own. She had undertaken to give Marie Melmotte's message to her brother. She had done so, and she must now let Marie have her brother's reply. That might be told in a very few words--"Everything is over!" But it had to be told. "I want to call upon Miss Melmotte, if you'll let me," she said to her mother at breakfast. "Why should you want to see Miss Melmotte? I thought you hated the Melmottes?" "I don't hate them, mamma. I certainly don't hate her. I have a message to take to her,--from Felix." "A message--from Felix." "It is an answer from him. She wanted to know if all that was over. Of course it is over. Whether he said so or not, it would be so. They could never be married now;--could they, mamma?" The marriage, in Lady Carbury's mind, was no longer even desirable. She, too, was beginning to disbelieve in the Melmotte wealth, and did quite disbelieve that that wealth would come to her son, even should he succeed in marrying the daughter. It was impossible that Melmotte should forgive such offence as had now been committed. "It is out of the question," she said. "That, like everything else with us, has been a wretched failure. You can go, if you please. Felix is under no obligation to them, and has taken nothing from them. I should much doubt whether the girl will get anybody to take her now. You can't go alone, you know," Lady Carbury added. But Hetta said that she did not at all object to going alone as far as that. It was only just over Oxford Street. So she went out and made her way into Grosvenor Square. She had heard, but at the time remembered nothing, of the temporary migration of the Melmottes to Bruton Street. Seeing, as she approached the house, that there was a confusion there of carts and workmen, she hesitated. But she went on, and rang the bell at the door, which was wide open. Within the hall the pilasters and trophies, the wreaths and the banners, which three or four days since had been built up with so much trouble, were now being pulled down and hauled away. And amidst the ruins Melmotte himself was standing. He was now a member of Parliament, and was to take his place that night in the House. Nothing, at any rate, should prevent that. It might be but for a short time;--but it should be written in the history of his life that he had sat in the British House of Commons as member for Westminster. At the present moment he was careful to show himself everywhere. It was now noon, and he had already been into the City. At this moment he was talking to the contractor for the work,--having just propitiated that man by a payment which would hardly have been made so soon but for the necessity which these wretched stories had entailed upon him of keeping up his credit for the possession of money. Hetta timidly asked one of the workmen whether Miss Melmotte was there. "Do you want my daughter?" said Melmotte coming forward, and just touching his hat. "She is not living here at present." "Oh,--I remember now," said Hetta. "May I be allowed to tell her who was asking after her?" At the present moment Melmotte was not unreasonably suspicious about his daughter. "I am Miss Carbury," said Hetta in a very low voice. "Oh, indeed;--Miss Carbury!--the sister of Sir Felix Carbury?" There was something in the tone of the man's voice which grated painfully on Hetta's ears,--but she answered the question. "Oh;--Sir Felix's sister! May I be permitted to ask whether--you have any business with my daughter?" The story was a hard one to tell, with all the workmen around her, in the midst of the lumber, with the coarse face of the suspicious man looking down upon her; but she did tell it very simply. She had come with a message from her brother. There had been something between her brother and Miss Melmotte, and her brother had felt that it would be best that he should acknowledge that it must be all over. "I wonder whether that is true," said Melmotte, looking at her out of his great coarse eyes, with his eyebrows knit, with his hat on his head and his hands in his pockets. Hetta, not knowing how, at the moment, to repudiate the suspicion expressed, was silent. "Because, you know, there has been a deal of falsehood and double dealing. Sir Felix has behaved infamously; yes,--by G----, infamously. A day or two before my daughter started, he gave me a written assurance that the whole thing was over, and now he sends you here. How am I to know what you are really after?" "I have come because I thought I could do some good," she said, trembling with anger and fear. "I was speaking to your daughter at your party." "Oh, you were there;--were you? It may be as you say, but how is one to tell? When one has been deceived like that, one is apt to be suspicious, Miss Carbury." Here was one who had spent his life in lying to the world, and who was in his very heart shocked at the atrocity of a man who had lied to him! "You are not plotting another journey to Liverpool;--are you?" To this Hetta could make no answer. The insult was too much, but alone, unsupported, she did not know how to give him back scorn for scorn. At last he proposed to take her across to Bruton Street himself, and at his bidding she walked by his side. "May I hear what you say to her?" he asked. "If you suspect me, Mr. Melmotte, I had better not see her at all. It is only that there may no longer be any doubt." "You can say it all before me." "No;--I could not do that. But I have told you, and you can say it for me. If you please, I think I will go home now." But Melmotte knew that his daughter would not believe him on such a subject. This girl she probably would believe. And though Melmotte himself found it difficult to trust anybody, he thought that there was more possible good than evil to be expected from the proposed interview. "Oh, you shall see her," he said. "I don't suppose she's such a fool as to try that kind of thing again." Then the door in Bruton Street was opened, and Hetta, repenting her mission, found herself almost pushed into the hall. She was bidden to follow Melmotte up-stairs, and was left alone in the drawing-room, as she thought, for a long time. Then the door was slowly opened and Marie crept into the room. "Miss Carbury," she said, "this is so good of you,--so good of you! I do so love you for coming to me! You said you would love me. You will; will you not?" and Marie, sitting down by the stranger, took her hand and encircled her waist. "Mr. Melmotte has told you why I have come." "Yes;--that is, I don't know. I never believe what papa says to me." To poor Hetta such an announcement as this was horrible. "We are at daggers drawn. He thinks I ought to do just what he tells me, as though my very soul were not my own. I won't agree to that;--would you?" Hetta had not come there to preach disobedience, but could not fail to remember at the moment that she was not disposed to obey her mother in an affair of the same kind. "What does he say, dear?" Hetta's message was to be conveyed in three words, and when those were told, there was nothing more to be said. "It must all be over, Miss Melmotte." "Is that his message, Miss Carbury?" Hetta nodded her head. "Is that all?" "What more can I say? The other night you told me to bid him send you word. And I thought he ought to do so. I gave him your message, and I have brought back the answer. My brother, you know, has no income of his own;--nothing at all." "But I have," said Marie with eagerness. "But your father--" "It does not depend upon papa. If papa treats me badly, I can give it to my husband. I know I can. If I can venture, cannot he?" "I think it is impossible." "Impossible! Nothing should be impossible. All the people that one hears of that are really true to their loves never find anything impossible. Does he love me, Miss Carbury? It all depends on that. That's what I want to know." She paused, but Hetta could not answer the question. "You must know about your brother. Don't you know whether he does love me? If you know I think you ought to tell me." Hetta was still silent. "Have you nothing to say?" "Miss Melmotte--" began poor Hetta very slowly. "Call me Marie. You said you would love me;--did you not? I don't even know what your name is." "My name is--Hetta." "Hetta;--that's short for something. But it's very pretty. I have no brother, no sister. And I'll tell you, though you must not tell anybody again;--I have no real mother. Madame Melmotte is not my mamma, though papa chooses that it should be thought so." All this she whispered, with rapid words, almost into Hetta's ear. "And papa is so cruel to me! He beats me sometimes." The new friend, round whom Marie still had her arm, shuddered as she heard this. "But I never will yield a bit for that. When he boxes and thumps me I always turn and gnash my teeth at him. Can you wonder that I want to have a friend? Can you be surprised that I should be always thinking of my lover? But,--if he doesn't love me, what am I to do then?" "I don't know what I am to say," ejaculated Hetta amidst her sobs. Whether the girl was good or bad, to be sought or to be avoided, there was so much tragedy in her position that Hetta's heart was melted with sympathy. "I wonder whether you love anybody, and whether he loves you," said Marie. Hetta certainly had not come there to talk of her own affairs, and made no reply to this. "I suppose you won't tell me about yourself." "I wish I could tell you something for your own comfort." "He will not try again, you think?" "I am sure he will not." "I wonder what he fears. I should fear nothing,--nothing. Why should not we walk out of the house, and be married any way? Nobody has a right to stop me. Papa could only turn me out of his house. I will venture if he will." It seemed to Hetta that even listening to such a proposition amounted to falsehood,--to that guilt of which Mr. Melmotte had dared to suppose that she could be capable. "I cannot listen to it. Indeed I cannot listen to it. My brother is sure that he cannot--cannot--" "Cannot love me, Hetta! Say it out, if it is true." "It is true," said Hetta. There came over the face of the other girl a stern hard look, as though she had resolved at the moment to throw away from her all soft womanly things. And she relaxed her hold on Hetta's waist. "Oh, my dear, I do not mean to be cruel, but you ask me for the truth." "Yes; I did." "Men are not, I think, like girls." "I suppose not," said Marie slowly. "What liars they are, what brutes;--what wretches! Why should he tell me lies like that? Why should he break my heart? That other man never said that he loved me. Did he never love me,--once?" Hetta could hardly say that her brother was incapable of such love as Marie expected, but she knew that it was so. "It is better that you should think of him no more." "Are you like that? If you had loved a man and told him of it, and agreed to be his wife and done as I have, could you bear to be told to think of him no more,--just as though you had got rid of a servant or a horse? I won't love him. No;--I'll hate him. But I must think of him. I'll marry that other man to spite him, and then, when he finds that we are rich, he'll be broken-hearted." "You should try to forgive him, Marie." "Never. Do not tell him that I forgive him. I command you not to tell him that. Tell him,--tell him, that I hate him, and that if I ever meet him, I will look at him so that he shall never forget it. I could,--oh!--you do not know what I could do. Tell me;--did he tell you to say that he did not love me?" "I wish I had not come," said Hetta. "I am glad you have come. It was very kind. I don't hate you. Of course I ought to know. But did he say that I was to be told that he did not love me?" "No;--he did not say that." "Then how do you know? What did he say?" "That it was all over." "Because he is afraid of papa. Are you sure he does not love me?" "I am sure." "Then he is a brute. Tell him that I say that he is a false-hearted liar, and that I trample him under my foot." Marie as she said this thrust her foot upon the ground as though that false one were in truth beneath it,--and spoke aloud, as though regardless who might hear her. "I despise him;--despise him. They are all bad, but he is the worst of all. Papa beats me, but I can bear that. Mamma reviles me and I can bear that. He might have beaten me and reviled me, and I could have borne it. But to think that he was a liar all the time;--that I can't bear." Then she burst into tears. Hetta kissed her, tried to comfort her, and left her sobbing on the sofa. Later in the day, two or three hours after Miss Carbury had gone, Marie Melmotte, who had not shown herself at luncheon, walked into Madame Melmotte's room, and thus declared her purpose. "You can tell papa that I will marry Lord Nidderdale whenever he pleases." She spoke in French and very rapidly. On hearing this Madame Melmotte expressed herself to be delighted. "Your papa," said she, "will be very glad to hear that you have thought better of this at last. Lord Nidderdale is, I am sure, a very good young man." "Yes," continued Marie, boiling over with passion as she spoke. "I'll marry Lord Nidderdale, or that horrid Mr. Grendall who is worse than all the others, or his old fool of a father,--or the sweeper at the crossing,--or the black man that waits at table, or anybody else that he chooses to pick up. I don't care who it is the least in the world. But I'll lead him such a life afterwards! I'll make Lord Nidderdale repent the hour he saw me! You may tell papa." And then, having thus entrusted her message to Madame Melmotte, Marie left the room.

Poor Hetta passed a very bad night. Paul's courtship had been so graceful, so soft, so modest, and so long continued! The whole state of his mind had, she had thought, been visible to her - gentle and affectionate. He had been aware of her friends' feeling, and had therefore hesitated to declare himself. And yet his love had not been the less true. Poor Hetta had waited, having absolute confidence in his honour and love. And now she was told that this man had been playing a game so base, and so foolish, that she could find no possible cause for it. Though she was wretched and sore at heart she swore to herself that she would not believe it. She knew that her mother would write to Roger Carbury. She did not dare to appeal to Paul himself. But there was other wretchedness besides her own. She had given Marie Melmotte's message to her brother, and she must now let Marie have her brother's reply. That might be told in a very few words - "Everything is over!" But it had to be told. "I want to call upon Miss Melmotte," she said to her mother at breakfast. "Why? I thought you hated the Melmottes?" "I don't hate her, mamma. I have a message for her, from Felix. She wanted to know if all that was over. Of course it is over. They could never be married now; could they, mamma?" Lady Carbury was beginning to disbelieve in the Melmotte wealth, and thought it impossible in any case that Melmotte should forgive Felix's offence. "It is out of the question," she said. "You can go, if you please. I doubt whether the girl will get anybody to take her now." So Hetta made her way to Grosvenor Square. Seeing a confusion of carts and workmen outside the house, she hesitated. But she went on, and rang the bell at the door, which was wide open. Within the hall, the pilasters, wreaths and banners, which had been built up with so much trouble, were now being pulled down and hauled away. Amidst the ruins Melmotte himself was standing. He was now a member of Parliament, and was to take his place that night in the House. It might be only for a short time; but it should be written in the story of his life that he had sat in the House of Commons as member for Westminster. At present he was careful to show himself everywhere. That morning he had already been into the City, and he was now propitiating the contractor about payment. Hetta timidly asked one of the workmen whether Miss Melmotte was there. "Do you want my daughter?" said Melmotte coming forward, and just touching his hat. "She is not living here at present. May I be allowed to tell her who was asking after her?" "I am Miss Carbury," said Hetta in a very low voice. "Oh, indeed! Sir Felix's sister! May I ask whether you have any business with my daughter?" The story was a hard one to tell; but she did tell it very simply. She had come with a message from her brother. There had been something between her brother and Miss Melmotte, and her brother had felt that it would be best that he should acknowledge that it must all be over. "I wonder whether that is true," said Melmotte, with his eyebrows knit. "Because, you know, there has been a deal of falsehood and double dealing. Sir Felix has behaved infamously. A day or two before my daughter started, he gave me a written assurance that the whole thing was over, and now he sends you here. How am I to know what you are really after?" "I have come because I thought I could do some good," she said, trembling with anger and fear. "I was speaking to your daughter at your party." "Oh, you were there, were you? When one has been deceived like that, one is apt to be suspicious, Miss Carbury. You are not plotting another journey to Liverpool; are you? I will take you across to Bruton Street to see her." At his bidding she walked by his side. "May I hear what you say to her?" he asked. "No. But I have told you, and you can say it for me. If you please, I think I will go home now." But Melmotte knew that his daughter would not believe him on such a subject. This girl she probably would believe. "Oh, you shall see her," he said. "I don't suppose she's such a fool as to try that kind of thing again." The door in Bruton Street was opened, and Hetta found herself almost pushed into the hall. She was left alone in the drawing-room for a long time. Then the door was slowly opened and Marie crept into the room. "Miss Carbury," she said, "this is so good of you! I do so love you for coming to me! You said you would love me. You will; will you not?" and Marie, sitting down, took her hand and encircled her waist. "Mr. Melmotte has told you why I have come." "Yes; that is, I don't know. I never believe what papa says to me." To poor Hetta this announcement was horrible. "He thinks I ought to do just what he tells me, as though my soul were not my own. I won't agree to that; would you? What does Felix say, dear?" "It must all be over, Miss Melmotte." "Is that all, Miss Carbury?" "What more can I say? I gave him your message, and I have brought back the answer. My brother, you know, has no income - nothing at all." "But I have," said Marie with eagerness. "But your father-" "It does not depend upon papa. If papa treats me badly, I can give it to my husband. I know I can. If I can venture, cannot he?" "I think it is impossible." "Impossible! Nothing should be impossible. Does he love me, Miss Carbury? It all depends on that. That's what I want to know." She paused, but Hetta could not answer. "Does he love me? If you know I think you ought to tell me." Hetta was still silent. "Have you nothing to say?" "Miss Melmotte-" began poor Hetta very slowly. "Call me Marie. I don't even know what your name is." "Hetta." "Hetta; that's short for something. But it's very pretty. I have no brother, no sister. And I'll tell you, though you must not tell anybody: I have no real mother. Madame Melmotte is not my mamma. And papa is so cruel to me! He beats me sometimes." Hetta shuddered as she heard this. "But I never will yield for that. When he thumps me I turn and gnash my teeth at him. Can you be surprised that I should be always thinking of my lover? But if he doesn't love me, what am I to do then?" "I don't know what to say." Hetta's heart was melted with sympathy. "I wish I could tell you something for your comfort." "He will not try again, you think?" "I am sure he will not." "I wonder what he fears. I should fear nothing. Why should we not walk out of the house, and be married anyway? Nobody has a right to stop me." "Indeed my brother is sure that he cannot - cannot-" "Cannot love me, Hetta! Say it out, if it is true." "It is true," said Hetta. There came over the face of the other girl a stern hard look, and she relaxed her hold on Hetta's waist. "Oh, my dear, I do not mean to be cruel, but you asked me for the truth." "Yes; I did." "Men are not, I think, like girls." "I suppose not," said Marie slowly. "What liars they are, what brutes; what wretches! Why should he break my heart? Did he never love me?" "It is better that you should think of him no more." "Could you? If you had loved a man and agreed to be his wife, could you bear to be told to think of him no more? I won't love him. No; I'll hate him. But I must think of him. I'll marry that other man to spite him, and then, when he finds that we are rich, he'll be broken-hearted." "You should try to forgive him, Marie." "Never. Do not tell him that I forgive him. Tell him that I hate him. Did he tell you to say that he did not love me?" "I wish I had not come," said Hetta. "I am glad you have come. It was very kind. I don't hate you. But are you sure he does not love me?" "I am sure." "Then he is a brute. Tell him that I say that he is a false-hearted liar, and that I trample him under my foot. I despise him. He is the worst of all. Papa beats me, but I can bear that. Mamma reviles me and I can bear that. He might have beaten me and reviled me, and I could have borne it. But to think that he was a liar all the time; that I can't bear." Then she burst into tears. Hetta kissed her, tried to comfort her, and left her sobbing on the sofa. Two or three hours later, Marie Melmotte walked into Madame Melmotte's room, and declared: "You can tell papa that I will marry Lord Nidderdale whenever he pleases." "Your papa will be very glad to hear it," said Madame Melmotte. "Yes," continued Marie passionately. "I'll marry Lord Nidderdale, or that horrid Mr. Grendall, or his old fool of a father - or the sweeper at the crossing, or anybody else that he chooses. I don't care who it is. But I'll lead him such a life afterwards! I'll make Lord Nidderdale repent the hour he saw me! You may tell papa." And having entrusted this message to Madame Melmotte, Marie left the room.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 68: Miss Melmotte Declares her Purpose

During the last six weeks Lady Carbury had lived a life of very mixed depression and elevation. Her great work had come out,--the "Criminal Queens,"--and had been very widely reviewed. In this matter it had been by no means all pleasure, in as much as many very hard words had been said of her. In spite of the dear friendship between herself and Mr. Alf, one of Mr. Alf's most sharp-nailed subordinates had been set upon her book, and had pulled it to pieces with almost rabid malignity. One would have thought that so slight a thing could hardly have been worthy of such protracted attention. Error after error was laid bare with merciless prolixity. No doubt the writer of the article must have had all history at his finger-ends, as in pointing out the various mistakes made he always spoke of the historical facts which had been misquoted, misdated, or misrepresented, as being familiar in all their bearings to every schoolboy of twelve years old. The writer of the criticism never suggested the idea that he himself, having been fully provided with books of reference, and having learned the art of finding in them what he wanted at a moment's notice, had, as he went on with his work, checked off the blunders without any more permanent knowledge of his own than a housekeeper has of coals when she counts so many sacks into the coal-cellar. He spoke of the parentage of one wicked ancient lady, and the dates of the frailties of another, with an assurance intended to show that an exact knowledge of all these details abided with him always. He must have been a man of vast and varied erudition, and his name was Jones. The world knew him not, but his erudition was always there at the command of Mr. Alf,--and his cruelty. The greatness of Mr. Alf consisted in this, that he always had a Mr. Jones or two ready to do his work for him. It was a great business, this of Mr. Alf's, for he had his Jones also for philology, for science, for poetry, for politics, as well as for history, and one special Jones, extraordinarily accurate and very well posted up in his references, entirely devoted to the Elizabethan drama. There is the review intended to sell a book,--which comes out immediately after the appearance of the book, or sometimes before it; the review which gives reputation, but does not affect the sale, and which comes a little later; the review which snuffs a book out quietly; the review which is to raise or lower the author a single peg, or two pegs, as the case may be; the review which is suddenly to make an author, and the review which is to crush him. An exuberant Jones has been known before now to declare aloud that he would crush a man, and a self-confident Jones has been known to declare that he has accomplished the deed. Of all reviews, the crushing review is the most popular, as being the most readable. When the rumour goes abroad that some notable man has been actually crushed,--been positively driven over by an entire Juggernaut's car of criticism till his literary body be a mere amorphous mass,--then a real success has been achieved, and the Alf of the day has done a great thing; but even the crushing of a poor Lady Carbury, if it be absolute, is effective. Such a review will not make all the world call for the "Evening Pulpit," but it will cause those who do take the paper to be satisfied with their bargain. Whenever the circulation of such a paper begins to slacken, the proprietors should, as a matter of course, admonish their Alf to add a little power to the crushing department. Lady Carbury had been crushed by the "Evening Pulpit." We may fancy that it was easy work, and that Mr. Alf's historical Mr. Jones was not forced to fatigue himself by the handling of many books of reference. The errors did lie a little near the surface; and the whole scheme of the work, with its pandering to bad tastes by pretended revelations of frequently fabulous crime, was reprobated in Mr. Jones's very best manner. But the poor authoress, though utterly crushed, and reduced to little more than literary pulp for an hour or two, was not destroyed. On the following morning she went to her publishers, and was closeted for half an hour with the senior partner, Mr. Leadham. "I've got it all in black and white," she said, full of the wrong which had been done her, "and can prove him to be wrong. It was in 1522 that the man first came to Paris, and he couldn't have been her lover before that. I got it all out of the 'Biographie Universelle.' I'll write to Mr. Alf myself,--a letter to be published, you know." "Pray don't do anything of the kind, Lady Carbury." "I can prove that I'm right." "And they can prove that you're wrong." "I've got all the facts,--and the figures." Mr. Leadham did not care a straw for facts or figures,--had no opinion of his own whether the lady or the reviewer were right; but he knew very well that the "Evening Pulpit" would surely get the better of any mere author in such a contention. "Never fight the newspapers, Lady Carbury. Who ever yet got any satisfaction by that kind of thing? It's their business, and you are not used to it." "And Mr. Alf is my particular friend! It does seem so hard," said Lady Carbury, wiping hot tears from her cheeks. "It won't do us the least harm, Lady Carbury." "It'll stop the sale?" "Not much. A book of that sort couldn't hope to go on very long, you know. The 'Breakfast Table' gave it an excellent lift, and came just at the right time. I rather like the notice in the 'Pulpit,' myself." "Like it!" said Lady Carbury, still suffering in every fibre of her self-love from the soreness produced by those Juggernaut's car-wheels. "Anything is better than indifference, Lady Carbury. A great many people remember simply that the book has been noticed, but carry away nothing as to the purport of the review. It's a very good advertisement." "But to be told that I have got to learn the ABC of history,--after working as I have worked!" "That's a mere form of speech, Lady Carbury." "You think the book has done pretty well?" "Pretty well;--just about what we hoped, you know." "There'll be something coming to me, Mr. Leadham?" Mr. Leadham sent for a ledger, and turned over a few pages and ran up a few figures, and then scratched his head. There would be something, but Lady Carbury was not to imagine that it could be very much. It did not often happen that a great deal could be made by a first book. Nevertheless, Lady Carbury, when she left the publisher's shop, did carry a cheque with her. She was smartly dressed and looked very well, and had smiled on Mr. Leadham. Mr. Leadham, too, was no more than man, and had written--a small cheque. Mr. Alf certainly had behaved badly to her; but both Mr. Broune of the "Breakfast Table," and Mr. Booker of the "Literary Chronicle," had been true to her interests. Lady Carbury had, as she promised, "done" Mr. Booker's "New Tale of a Tub" in the "Breakfast Table." That is, she had been allowed, as a reward for looking into Mr. Broune's eyes, and laying her soft hand on Mr. Broune's sleeve, and suggesting to Mr. Broune that no one understood her so well as he did, to bedaub Mr. Booker's very thoughtful book in a very thoughtless fashion,--and to be paid for her work. What had been said about his work in the "Breakfast Table" had been very distasteful to poor Mr. Booker. It grieved his inner contemplative intelligence that such rubbish should be thrown upon him; but in his outside experience of life he knew that even the rubbish was valuable, and that he must pay for it in the manner to which he had unfortunately become accustomed. So Mr. Booker himself wrote the article on the "Criminal Queens" in the "Literary Chronicle," knowing that what he wrote would also be rubbish. "Remarkable vivacity." "Power of delineating character." "Excellent choice of subject." "Considerable intimacy with the historical details of various periods." "The literary world would be sure to hear of Lady Carbury again." The composition of the review, together with the reading of the book, consumed altogether perhaps an hour of Mr. Booker's time. He made no attempt to cut the pages, but here and there read those that were open. He had done this kind of thing so often, that he knew well what he was about. He could have reviewed such a book when he was three parts asleep. When the work was done he threw down his pen and uttered a deep sigh. He felt it to be hard upon him that he should be compelled, by the exigencies of his position, to descend so low in literature; but it did not occur to him to reflect that in fact he was not compelled, and that he was quite at liberty to break stones, or to starve honestly, if no other honest mode of carrying on his career was open to him. "If I didn't, somebody else would," he said to himself. But the review in the "Morning Breakfast Table" was the making of Lady Carbury's book, as far as it ever was made. Mr. Broune saw the lady after the receipt of the letter given in the first chapter of this Tale, and was induced to make valuable promises which had been fully performed. Two whole columns had been devoted to the work, and the world had been assured that no more delightful mixture of amusement and instruction had ever been concocted than Lady Carbury's "Criminal Queens." It was the very book that had been wanted for years. It was a work of infinite research and brilliant imagination combined. There had been no hesitation in the laying on of the paint. At that last meeting Lady Carbury had been very soft, very handsome, and very winning; Mr. Broune had given the order with good will, and it had been obeyed in the same feeling. Therefore, though the crushing had been very real, there had also been some elation; and as a net result, Lady Carbury was disposed to think that her literary career might yet be a success. Mr. Leadham's cheque had been for a small amount, but it might probably lead the way to something better. People at any rate were talking about her, and her Tuesday evenings at home were generally full. But her literary life, and her literary successes, her flirtations with Mr. Broune, her business with Mr. Booker, and her crushing by Mr. Alf's Mr. Jones, were after all but adjuncts to that real inner life of hers of which the absorbing interest was her son. And with regard to him too she was partly depressed, and partly elated, allowing her hopes however to dominate her fears. There was very much to frighten her. Even the moderate reform in the young man's expenses which had been effected under dire necessity had been of late abandoned. Though he never told her anything, she became aware that during the last month of the hunting season he had hunted nearly every day. She knew, too, that he had a horse up in town. She never saw him but once in the day, when she visited him in his bed about noon, and was aware that he was always at his club throughout the night. She knew that he was gambling, and she hated gambling as being of all pastimes the most dangerous. But she knew that he had ready money for his immediate purposes, and that two or three tradesmen who were gifted with a peculiar power of annoying their debtors, had ceased to trouble her in Welbeck Street. For the present, therefore, she consoled herself by reflecting that his gambling was successful. But her elation sprung from a higher source than this. From all that she could hear, she thought it likely that Felix would carry off the great prize; and then,--should he do that,--what a blessed son would he have been to her! How constantly in her triumph would she be able to forget all his vices, his debts, his gambling, his late hours, and his cruel treatment of herself! As she thought of it the bliss seemed to be too great for the possibility of realisation. She was taught to understand that 10,000 a year, to begin with, would be the least of it; and that the ultimate wealth might probably be such as to make Sir Felix Carbury the richest commoner in England. In her very heart of hearts she worshipped wealth, but desired it for him rather than for herself. Then her mind ran away to baronies and earldoms, and she was lost in the coming glories of the boy whose faults had already nearly engulfed her in his own ruin. And she had another ground for elation, which comforted her much, though elation from such a cause was altogether absurd. She had discovered that her son had become a Director of the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway Company. She must have known,--she certainly did know,--that Felix, such as he was, could not lend assistance by his work to any company or commercial enterprise in the world. She was aware that there was some reason for such a choice hidden from the world, and which comprised and conveyed a falsehood. A ruined baronet of five-and-twenty, every hour of whose life since he had been left to go alone had been loaded with vice and folly,--whose egregious misconduct warranted his friends in regarding him as one incapable of knowing what principle is,--of what service could he be, that he should be made a Director? But Lady Carbury, though she knew that he could be of no service, was not at all shocked. She was now able to speak up a little for her boy, and did not forget to send the news by post to Roger Carbury. And her son sat at the same Board with Mr. Melmotte! What an indication was this of coming triumphs! Fisker had started, as the reader will perhaps remember, on the morning of Saturday, 19th April, leaving Sir Felix at the Club at about seven in the morning. All that day his mother was unable to see him. She found him asleep in his room at noon and again at two; and when she sought him again he had flown. But on the Sunday she caught him. "I hope," she said, "you'll stay at home on Tuesday evening." Hitherto she had never succeeded in inducing him to grace her evening parties by his presence. "All your people are coming! You know, mother, it is such an awful bore." "Madame Melmotte and her daughter will be here." "One looks such a fool carrying on that kind of thing in one's own house. Everybody sees that it has been contrived. And it is such a pokey, stuffy little place!" Then Lady Carbury spoke out her mind. "Felix, I think you must be a fool. I have given over ever expecting that you would do anything to please me. I sacrifice everything for you and I do not even hope for a return. But when I am doing everything to advance your own interests, when I am working night and day to rescue you from ruin, I think you might at any rate help a little,--not for me of course, but for yourself." "I don't know what you mean by working day and night. I don't want you to work day and night." "There is hardly a young man in London that is not thinking of this girl, and you have chances that none of them have. I am told they are going out of town at Whitsuntide, and that she's to meet Lord Nidderdale down in the country." "She can't endure Nidderdale. She says so herself." "She will do as she is told,--unless she can be made to be downright in love with some one like yourself. Why not ask her at once on Tuesday?" "If I'm to do it at all I must do it after my own fashion. I'm not going to be driven." "Of course if you will not take the trouble to be here to see her when she comes to your own house, you cannot expect her to think that you really love her." "Love her! what a bother there is about loving! Well;--I'll look in. What time do the animals come to feed?" "There will be no feeding. Felix, you are so heartless and so cruel that I sometimes think I will make up my mind to let you go your own way and never to speak to you again. My friends will be here about ten;--I should say from ten till twelve. I think you should be here to receive her, not later than ten." "If I can get my dinner out of my throat by that time, I will come." When the Tuesday came, the over-driven young man did contrive to get his dinner eaten, and his glass of brandy sipped, and his cigar smoked, and perhaps his game of billiards played, so as to present himself in his mother's drawing-room not long after half-past ten. Madame Melmotte and her daughter were already there,--and many others, of whom the majority were devoted to literature. Among them Mr. Alf was in the room, and was at this very moment discussing Lady Carbury's book with Mr. Booker. He had been quite graciously received, as though he had not authorised the crushing. Lady Carbury had given him her hand with that energy of affection with which she was wont to welcome her literary friends, and had simply thrown one glance of appeal into his eyes as she looked into his face,--as though asking him how he had found it in his heart to be so cruel to one so tender, so unprotected, so innocent as herself. "I cannot stand this kind of thing," said Mr. Alf, to Mr. Booker. "There's a regular system of touting got abroad, and I mean to trample it down." "If you're strong enough," said Mr. Booker. "Well, I think I am. I'm strong enough, at any rate, to show that I'm not afraid to lead the way. I've the greatest possible regard for our friend here;--but her book is a bad book, a thoroughly rotten book, an unblushing compilation from half-a-dozen works of established reputation, in pilfering from which she has almost always managed to misapprehend her facts, and to muddle her dates. Then she writes to me and asks me to do the best I can for her. I have done the best I could." Mr. Alf knew very well what Mr. Booker had done, and Mr. Booker was aware of the extent of Mr. Alf's knowledge. "What you say is all very right," said Mr. Booker; "only you want a different kind of world to live in." "Just so;--and therefore we must make it different. I wonder how our friend Broune felt when he saw that his critic had declared that the 'Criminal Queens' was the greatest historical work of modern days." "I didn't see the notice. There isn't much in the book, certainly, as far as I have looked at it. I should have said that violent censure or violent praise would be equally thrown away upon it. One doesn't want to break a butterfly on the wheel;--especially a friendly butterfly." "As to the friendship, it should be kept separate. That's my idea," said Mr. Alf, moving away. "I'll never forget what you've done for me,--never!" said Lady Carbury, holding Mr. Broune's hand for a moment, as she whispered to him. "Nothing more than my duty," said he, smiling. "I hope you'll learn to know that a woman can really be grateful," she replied. Then she let go his hand and moved away to some other guest. There was a dash of true sincerity in what she had said. Of enduring gratitude it may be doubtful whether she was capable: but at this moment she did feel that Mr. Broune had done much for her, and that she would willingly make him some return of friendship. Of any feeling of another sort, of any turn at the moment towards flirtation, of any idea of encouragement to a gentleman who had once acted as though he were her lover, she was absolutely innocent. She had forgotten that little absurd episode in their joint lives. She was at any rate too much in earnest at the present moment to think about it. But it was otherwise with Mr. Broune. He could not quite make up his mind whether the lady was or was not in love with him,--or whether, if she were, it was incumbent on him to indulge her;--and if so, in what manner. Then as he looked after her, he told himself that she was certainly very beautiful, that her figure was distinguished, that her income was certain, and her rank considerable. Nevertheless, Mr. Broune knew of himself that he was not a marrying man. He had made up his mind that marriage would not suit his business, and he smiled to himself as he reflected how impossible it was that such a one as Lady Carbury should turn him from his resolution. "I am so glad that you have come to-night, Mr. Alf," Lady Carbury said to the high-minded editor of the "Evening Pulpit." "Am I not always glad to come, Lady Carbury?" "You are very good. But I feared,--" "Feared what, Lady Carbury?" "That you might perhaps have felt that I should be unwilling to welcome you after,--well, after the compliments of last Thursday." "I never allow the two things to join themselves together. You see, Lady Carbury, I don't write all these things myself." "No indeed. What a bitter creature you would be if you did." "To tell the truth, I never write any of them. Of course we endeavour to get people whose judgments we can trust, and if, as in this case, it should unfortunately happen that the judgment of our critic should be hostile to the literary pretensions of a personal friend of my own, I can only lament the accident, and trust that my friend may have spirit enough to divide me as an individual from that Mr. Alf who has the misfortune to edit a newspaper." "It is because you have so trusted me that I am obliged to you," said Lady Carbury with her sweetest smile. She did not believe a word that Mr. Alf had said to her. She thought, and thought rightly, that Mr. Alf's Mr. Jones had taken direct orders from his editor, as to his treatment of the "Criminal Queens." But she remembered that she intended to write another book, and that she might perhaps conquer even Mr. Alf by spirit and courage under her present infliction. It was Lady Carbury's duty on the occasion to say pretty things to everybody. And she did her duty. But in the midst of it all she was ever thinking of her son and Marie Melmotte, and she did at last venture to separate the girl from her mother. Marie herself was not unwilling to be talked to by Sir Felix. He had never bullied her, had never seemed to scorn her; and then he was so beautiful! She, poor girl, bewildered among various suitors, utterly confused by the life to which she was introduced, troubled by fitful attacks of admonition from her father, who would again, fitfully, leave her unnoticed for a week at a time; with no trust in her pseudo-mother--for poor Marie had in truth been born before her father had been a married man, and had never known what was her own mother's fate,--with no enjoyment in her present life, had come solely to this conclusion, that it would be well for her to be taken away somewhere by somebody. Many a varied phase of life had already come in her way. She could just remember the dirty street in the German portion of New York in which she had been born and had lived for the first four years of her life, and could remember too the poor, hardly-treated woman who had been her mother. She could remember being at sea, and her sickness,--but could not quite remember whether that woman had been with her. Then she had run about the streets of Hamburgh, and had sometimes been very hungry, sometimes in rags,--and she had a dim memory of some trouble into which her father had fallen, and that he was away from her for a time. She had up to the present splendid moment her own convictions about that absence, but she had never mentioned them to a human being. Then her father had married her present mother in Francfort. That she could remember distinctly, as also the rooms in which she was then taken to live, and the fact that she was told that from henceforth she was to be a Jewess. But there had soon come another change. They went from Francfort to Paris, and there they were all Christians. From that time they had lived in various apartments in the French capital, but had always lived well. Sometimes there had been a carriage, sometimes there had been none. And then there came a time in which she was grown woman enough to understand that her father was being much talked about. Her father to her had always been alternately capricious and indifferent rather than cross or cruel, but just at this period he was cruel both to her and to his wife. And Madame Melmotte would weep at times and declare that they were all ruined. Then, at a moment, they burst out into sudden splendour at Paris. There was an hotel, with carriages and horses almost unnumbered;--and then there came to their rooms a crowd of dark, swarthy, greasy men, who were entertained sumptuously; but there were few women. At this time Marie was hardly nineteen, and young enough in manner and appearance to be taken for seventeen. Suddenly again she was told that she was to be taken to London, and the migration had been effected with magnificence. She was first taken to Brighton, where the half of an hotel had been hired, and had then been brought to Grosvenor Square, and at once thrown into the matrimonial market. No part of her life had been more disagreeable to her, more frightful, than the first months in which she had been trafficked for by the Nidderdales and Grassloughs. She had been too frightened, too much of a coward to object to anything proposed to her, but still had been conscious of a desire to have some hand in her own future destiny. Luckily for her, the first attempts at trafficking with the Nidderdales and Grassloughs had come to nothing; and at length she was picking up a little courage, and was beginning to feel that it might be possible to prevent a disposition of herself which did not suit her own tastes. She was also beginning to think that there might be a disposition of herself which would suit her own tastes. Felix Carbury was standing leaning against a wall, and she was seated on a chair close to him. "I love you better than anyone in the world," he said, speaking plainly enough for her to hear, perhaps indifferent as to the hearing of others. "Oh, Sir Felix, pray do not talk like that." "You knew that before. Now I want you to say whether you will be my wife." "How can I answer that myself? Papa settles everything." "May I go to papa?" "You may if you like," she replied in a very low whisper. It was thus that the greatest heiress of the day, the greatest heiress of any day if people spoke truly, gave herself away to a man without a penny.

During the last six weeks Lady Carbury had lived a life of mixed depression and elevation. Her "Criminal Queens" had come out, and had been widely reviewed. However, many hard words had been said of her. In spite of the dear friendship between herself and Mr. Alf, one of Mr. Alf's most sharp-nailed subordinates had been set upon her book, and had pulled it to pieces with rabid malignity. Error after error was laid bare without mercy. The writer pointed out basic historical facts which had been misquoted, misdated, or misrepresented. He checked off the blunders with an assurance intended to show that he himself had an exact knowledge of all these details. This learned man was called Jones. The world knew him not, but his learning was at the command of Mr. Alf. Mr. Alf always had a Mr. Jones or two ready to do his work for him. He had his Jones for science, for poetry, for politics, as well as for history, and one special Jones entirely devoted to the Elizabethan drama. There is the review intended to sell a book, which comes out immediately after the book's appearance; there is the review which gives reputation, which comes a little later; the review which snuffs a book out quietly; the review which is suddenly to make an author, and the review which is to crush him. Of all reviews, the crushing review is the most readable and the most popular. When the rumour goes abroad that some notable man has been crushed - been positively driven over by an entire Juggernaut of criticism - then a real success has been achieved; but even the crushing of a Lady Carbury is effective, and will cause those who buy the paper to be satisfied with their bargain. Whenever the circulation of a newspaper begins to slacken, the proprietors should, as a matter of course, add a little power to the crushing department. Lady Carbury had been crushed by the Evening Pulpit in Mr. Jones's very best manner. But the poor authoress, though reduced to little more than literary pulp for an hour or two, was not destroyed. On the following morning she went to her publishers, and met the senior partner, Mr. Leadham. "I've got it all in black and white," she said, "and can prove him to be wrong. It was in 1522 that the man first came to Paris, and he couldn't have been her lover before that. I got it all out of the 'Biographie Universelle.' I'll write to Mr. Alf myself - a letter to be published, you know." "Pray don't do anything of the kind, Lady Carbury." "I can prove that I'm right." "And they can prove that you're wrong." "I've got all the facts and figures." Mr. Leadham did not care a straw for facts or figures; but he knew very well that the Evening Pulpit would get the better of any mere author in such an argument. "Never fight the newspapers, Lady Carbury." "And Mr. Alf is my particular friend! It does seem so hard," said Lady Carbury, wiping tears from her cheeks. "It won't do us the least harm, Lady Carbury. A book of that sort couldn't hope to go on very long, you know. The Breakfast Table gave it an excellent lift, just at the right time. I rather like the notice in the Pulpit, myself." "Like it!" said Lady Carbury. "Anything is better than indifference, Lady Carbury. A great many people remember simply that the book has been noticed. It's a very good advertisement." "But to be told that I have got to learn the ABC of history!" "That's a mere form of speech, Lady Carbury." "You think the book has done pretty well?" "Pretty well; just about what we hoped, you know." "There'll be something coming to me, Mr. Leadham?" Mr. Leadham sent for a ledger, and ran up a few figures, and then scratched his head. There would be something, but Lady Carbury was not to imagine that it could be very much. A first book did not often make a great deal. Nevertheless, Lady Carbury, when she left the publisher's shop, did carry a cheque. She was smartly dressed, and had smiled on Mr. Leadham. Mr. Leadham was no more than man, and had written a small cheque. Mr. Alf certainly had behaved badly to her; but both Mr. Broune of the Breakfast Table, and Mr. Booker of the Literary Chronicle, had been true. Lady Carbury had, as she promised, "done" Mr. Booker's "New Tale of a Tub" in the Breakfast Table. That is, she had been allowed, as a reward for looking into Mr. Broune's eyes, and laying her soft hand on Mr. Broune's sleeve, to bedaub Mr. Booker's very thoughtful book in a very thoughtless fashion, and to be paid for it. Her review had been very distasteful to poor Mr. Booker. It grieved his intelligence that such rubbish should be thrown upon him; but he knew that even the rubbish was valuable, and that he must pay for it in the usual manner. So Mr. Booker himself reviewed "Criminal Queens" in the Literary Chronicle, knowing that what he wrote would also be rubbish. "Remarkable vivacity." "Power of delineating character." "Excellent choice of subject." "The literary world would be sure to hear of Lady Carbury again." The writing of the review, together with the reading of the book, took him perhaps an hour. He had done this kind of thing so often that he knew what he was about. When the work was done he threw down his pen and uttered a deep sigh, feeling it hard that he had to descend so low in literature. "If I didn't, somebody else would," he said to himself. But the review in the Morning Breakfast Table was the making of Lady Carbury's book, as far as it ever was made. Two whole columns had been devoted to the work, assuring the world that no more delightful mixture of amusement and instruction had ever been concocted than Criminal Queens. It was the very book that had been wanted for years. At that last meeting Lady Carbury had been very soft and very handsome; Mr. Broune had given the order, and it had been obeyed. Therefore, despite the crushing, there had also been some elation; and overall Lady Carbury was disposed to think that her literary career might yet be a success. The small cheque might lead to something better. People at any rate were talking about her, and her Tuesday evenings at home were generally full. But her literary life and successes were only adjuncts to her real inner life, of which the absorbing interest was her son. About him too she was partly depressed, and partly elated. There was very much to frighten her. Any moderate reform in the young man's expenses had been abandoned. Though he never told her anything, she became aware that during the last month of the hunting season he hunted nearly every day. She knew he had a horse in town. She only saw him at noon, and was aware that he was always at his club throughout the night, gambling, which she hated. But she knew that he had ready money, and that two or three tradesmen had ceased to trouble her in Welbeck Street. For the present, therefore, she consoled herself by reflecting that his gambling was successful. But her elation sprung from a higher source. From all that she could hear, she thought it likely that Felix would carry off the great prize of Marie Melmotte; and then what a blessed son would he have been! She would be able to forget all his vices, his debts, his gambling, and his cruel treatment of herself! The bliss seemed too great to be possible. She understood that 10,000 a year to start with would be the least of it; and that the ultimate wealth might make Sir Felix Carbury the richest commoner in England. She desired it for him rather than for herself. Then her mind ran away to baronies and earldoms, and she was lost in the coming glories of the boy whose faults had nearly ruined her. She had another ground for elation: her son had become a Director of the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway Company. She was aware that there was some reason for such a choice that was hidden from the world. A ruined baronet of five-and-twenty, whose life had been loaded with vice and folly - of what use could he be? But Lady Carbury was not shocked. She was now able to speak up for her boy, and sent the news by post to Roger Carbury. Her son on the same Board with Mr. Melmotte! What a sign of coming triumphs! Fisker had departed on the 19th of April, leaving Sir Felix at the Club. All that day his mother was unable to see him. She found him asleep in his room at noon and again at two; and when she sought him again he had flown. But the next day she caught him. "I hope," she said, "you'll stay at home on Tuesday evening." Hitherto she had never succeeded in inducing him to attend her evening parties. "Mother, it is such an awful bore." "Madame Melmotte and her daughter will be here." "One looks such a fool carrying on that kind of thing in one's own house. Everybody sees that it has been contrived." Then Lady Carbury spoke her mind. "Felix, I think you must be a fool. I have given up expecting that you would do anything to please me. I sacrifice everything for you and I do not even hope for a return. But when I am working night and day to rescue you from ruin, I think you might at any rate help a little - not for me, but for yourself." "I don't know what you mean by working day and night. I don't want you to work day and night." "There is hardly a young man in London that is not thinking of this girl, and you have chances that none of them have. I am told they are going out of town at Whitsuntide, and that she's to meet Lord Nidderdale down in the country." "She can't endure Nidderdale. She says so herself." "She will do as she is told - unless she can be made to be in love with someone like yourself. Why not offer for her on Tuesday?" "If I'm to do it I must do it in my own way. I'm not going to be driven." "Of course if you will not take the trouble to see her when she comes to your own house, you cannot expect her to think that you love her." "Love her! what a bother there is about loving! Well; I'll look in. What time do the animals come to feed?" "There will be no feeding. Felix, you are so heartless that I sometimes think I will let you go your own way and never speak to you again. You should be here not later than ten." "If I can get my dinner by that time, I will come." When the Tuesday came, the young man did contrive to get his dinner eaten, and his glass of brandy sipped, so as to present himself in his mother's drawing-room not long after half-past ten. Madame Melmotte and her daughter were already there, and many others. Mr. Alf was discussing Lady Carbury's book with Mr. Booker. He had been graciously received, as though he had not authorised the crushing. Lady Carbury had given him her hand, and had simply thrown one appealing glance into his eyes - as though asking how he had found it in his heart to be so cruel to one so unprotected as herself. "I cannot stand this kind of thing," said Mr. Alf to Mr. Booker. "There's a regular system of touting got abroad, and I mean to trample it down." "If you're strong enough," said Mr. Booker. "Well, I think I am. I'm not afraid to lead the way. I've the greatest possible regard for our friend here; but her book is a thoroughly rotten book, an unblushing compilation from half-a-dozen other works, with misunderstood facts and muddled dates. Then she writes to me and asks me to do the best I can for her. I have done the best I could." Mr. Alf knew very well what Mr. Booker had done, and Mr. Booker was aware of this. "What you say is right," said Mr. Booker; "only you want a different kind of world to live in." "Just so; and therefore we must make it different. I wonder how our friend Broune felt when he saw that his critic had declared that the Criminal Queens was the greatest historical work of modern days." "I didn't see the notice. There isn't much in the book, certainly. I should have said that violent censure or violent praise would be equally thrown away upon it. One doesn't want to break a butterfly on the wheel; especially a friendly butterfly." "The friendship should be kept separate," said Mr. Alf. "I'll never forget what you've done for me - never!" said Lady Carbury, holding Mr. Broune's hand. "Nothing more than my duty," said he, smiling. "I hope you'll learn to know that a woman can really be grateful." She let go his hand and moved away to some other guest. At that moment she did feel that she would willingly make Mr. Broune some return of friendship. Of any flirtation, she was absolutely innocent. She had forgotten that little absurd episode in their lives. But it was otherwise with Mr. Broune. He could not make up his mind whether the lady was in love with him - and if she were, whether he ought to indulge her; and if so, in what manner. She was certainly very beautiful, her figure was distinguished, her income certain, and her rank considerable. Nevertheless, Mr. Broune knew that he was not a marrying man. He had made up his mind that marriage would not suit his business, and Lady Carbury would not turn him from his resolution. "I am so glad that you have come tonight, Mr. Alf," Lady Carbury said to the high-minded editor of the Evening Pulpit. "Am I not always glad to come, Lady Carbury?" "You are very good. But I feared that you might perhaps have felt that I should be unwilling to welcome you after - well, after the compliments of last Thursday." "Lady Carbury, I don't write all these things myself." "No indeed. What a bitter creature you would be if you did." "To tell the truth, I never write any of them. Of course we endeavour to get critics whose judgments we can trust, and if, as in this case, our critic's judgment is unfortunately hostile to a friend's book, I can only lament the accident, and trust that my friend may have spirit enough to divide me as an individual from Mr. Alf the editor." "It is because you have so trusted me that I am obliged to you," said Lady Carbury with her sweetest smile. She did not believe a word that Mr. Alf said. She thought, and thought rightly, that Mr. Alf's critic had taken direct orders from his editor as to his treatment of the "Criminal Queens." But she intended to write another book, and thought she might perhaps conquer even Mr. Alf by her courage. It was Lady Carbury's duty to say pretty things to everybody. And she did her duty. But in the midst of it all she was thinking of her son and Marie Melmotte, and she did at last venture to separate the girl from her mother. Marie was not unwilling to be talked to by Sir Felix. He had never bullied her, had never seemed to scorn her; and then he was so beautiful! She, poor girl, bewildered by suitors, utterly confused by the life to which she was introduced, troubled by fitful admonitions from her father, who would leave her unnoticed for a week at a time; with no trust in her pseudo-mother - for poor Marie had in truth been born before her father had married, and had never known her own mother's fate - she had concluded that it would be well for her to be taken away somewhere by somebody. She had already led a varied life. She could just remember the dirty street in the German portion of New York where she had lived for her first four years, and could remember too the poor woman who had been her mother. She could remember being at sea, and her sickness, but could not quite remember whether that woman had been with her. Then she had run about the streets of Hamburg, sometimes very hungry, sometimes in rags - and she had a dim memory that her father had fallen into some trouble, and was away for a time. Then her father had married her present mother in Frankfurt. She could remember that distinctly, and also the fact that she was told that from henceforth she was to be a Jewess. But soon they went to Paris, where they were all Christians. They had lived in various apartments in the French capital, sometimes with a carriage, sometimes not. She had realised that her father was being much talked about. He had always been capricious and indifferent rather than cruel, but at this period he was cruel both to her and to his wife. And Madame Melmotte would weep at times and declare that they were all ruined. Then, at a moment, they burst out into sudden splendour at Paris. There was a hotel, with carriages and horses, and a crowd of dark, greasy men, who were entertained sumptuously in their rooms; but few women. At this time Marie was hardly nineteen. Suddenly again she was told that she was to be taken to London; and she had been brought to Grosvenor Square, and at once thrown into the matrimonial market. No part of her life had been more disagreeable, more frightful, than the first months in which she had been trafficked for by the Nidderdales and Grassloughs. She had been too frightened to object, but still had wished to have some hand in her own future destiny. Luckily for her, the first attempts at trafficking with the Nidderdales and Grassloughs had come to nothing; and she was picking up a little courage, and was beginning to feel that it might be possible to prevent an alliance which she did not like. She was also beginning to think that there might be one which would suit her own tastes. Felix Carbury was leaning against a wall, and she was seated on a chair close to him. "I love you better than anyone in the world," he said. "Oh, Sir Felix, pray do not talk like that." "You knew that before. Now I want you to say whether you will be my wife." "How can I answer that myself? Papa settles everything." "May I go to papa?" "You may if you like," she replied in a very low whisper. It was thus that the greatest heiress of the day gave herself away to a man without a penny.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 11: Lady Carbury at Home

That evening Montague was surprised to receive at the Beargarden a note from Mr. Melmotte, which had been brought thither by a messenger from the city,--who had expected to have an immediate answer, as though Montague lived at the club. "Dear Sir," said the letter, If not inconvenient would you call on me in Grosvenor Square to-morrow, Sunday, at half past eleven. If you are going to church, perhaps you will make an appointment in the afternoon; if not, the morning will suit best. I want to have a few words with you in private about the Company. My messenger will wait for answer if you are at the club. Yours truly, AUGUSTUS MELMOTTE. PAUL MONTAGUE, Esq., The Beargarden. Paul immediately wrote to say that he would call at Grosvenor Square at the hour appointed,--abandoning any intentions which he might have had in reference to Sunday morning service. But this was not the only letter he received that evening. On his return to his lodgings he found a note, containing only one line, which Mrs. Hurtle had found the means of sending to him after her return from Southend. "I am so sorry to have been away. I will expect you all to-morrow. W. H." The period of the reprieve was thus curtailed to less than a day. On the Sunday morning he breakfasted late and then walked up to Grosvenor Square, much pondering what the great man could have to say to him. The great man had declared himself very plainly in the Board-room,--especially plainly after the Board had risen. Paul had understood that war was declared, and had understood also that he was to fight the battle single-handed, knowing nothing of such strategy as would be required, while his antagonist was a great master of financial tactics. He was prepared to go to the wall in reference to his money, only hoping that in doing so he might save his character and keep the reputation of an honest man. He was quite resolved to be guided altogether by Mr. Ramsbottom, and intended to ask Mr. Ramsbottom to draw up for him such a statement as would be fitting for him to publish. But it was manifest now that Mr. Melmotte would make some proposition, and it was impossible that he should have Mr. Ramsbottom at his elbow to help him. He had been in Melmotte's house on the night of the ball, but had contented himself after that with leaving a card. He had heard much of the splendour of the place, but remembered simply the crush and the crowd, and that he had danced there more than once or twice with Hetta Carbury. When he was shown into the hall he was astonished to find that it was not only stripped, but was full of planks, and ladders, and trussels, and mortar. The preparations for the great dinner had been already commenced. Through all this he made his way to the stairs, and was taken up to a small room on the second floor, where the servant told him that Mr. Melmotte would come to him. Here he waited a quarter of an hour looking out into the yard at the back. There was not a book in the room, or even a picture with which he could amuse himself. He was beginning to think whether his own personal dignity would not be best consulted by taking his departure, when Melmotte himself, with slippers on his feet and enveloped in a magnificent dressing-gown, bustled into the room. "My dear sir, I am so sorry. You are a punctual man I see. So am I. A man of business should be punctual. But they ain't always. Brehgert,--from the house of Todd, Brehgert, and Goldsheiner, you know,--has just been with me. We had to settle something about the Moldavian loan. He came a quarter late, and of course he went a quarter late. And how is a man to catch a quarter of an hour? I never could do it." Montague assured the great man that the delay was of no consequence. "And I am so sorry to ask you into such a place as this. I had Brehgert in my room down-stairs, and then the house is so knocked about! We get into a furnished house a little way off in Bruton Street to-morrow. Longestaffe lets me his house for a month till this affair of the dinner is over. By-the-bye, Montague, if you'd like to come to the dinner, I've got a ticket I can let you have. You know how they're run after." Montague had heard of the dinner, but had perhaps heard as little of it as any man frequenting a club at the west end of London. He did not in the least want to be at the dinner, and certainly did not wish to receive any extraordinary civility from Mr. Melmotte's hands. But he was very anxious to know why Mr. Melmotte should offer it. He excused himself saying that he was not particularly fond of big dinners, and that he did not like standing in the way of other people. "Ah, indeed," said Melmotte. "There are ever so many people of title would give anything for a ticket. You'd be astonished at the persons who have asked. We've had to squeeze in a chair on one side for the Master of the Buckhounds, and on another for the Bishop of--; I forget what bishop it is, but we had the two archbishops before. They say he must come because he has something to do with getting up the missionaries for Thibet. But I've got the ticket, if you'll have it." This was the ticket which was to have taken in Georgiana Longestaffe as one of the Melmotte family, had not Melmotte perceived that it might be useful to him as a bribe. But Paul would not take the bribe. "You're the only man in London then," said Melmotte, somewhat offended. "But at any rate you'll come in the evening, and I'll have one of Madame Melmotte's tickets sent to you." Paul, not knowing how to escape, said that he would come in the evening. "I am particularly anxious," continued he, "to be civil to those who are connected with our great Railway, and of course, in this country, your name stands first,--next to my own." Then the great man paused, and Paul began to wonder whether it could be possible that he had been sent for to Grosvenor Square on a Sunday morning in order that he might be asked to dine in the same house a fortnight later. But that was impossible. "Have you anything special to say about the Railway?" he asked. "Well, yes. It is so hard to get things said at the Board. Of course there are some there who do not understand matters." "I doubt if there be any one there who does understand this matter," said Paul. Melmotte affected to laugh. "Well, well; I am not prepared to go quite so far as that. My friend Cohenlupe has had great experience in these affairs, and of course you are aware that he is in Parliament. And Lord Alfred sees farther into them than perhaps you give him credit for." "He may easily do that." "Well, well. Perhaps you don't know him quite as well as I do." The scowl began to appear on Mr. Melmotte's brow. Hitherto it had been banished as well as he knew how to banish it. "What I wanted to say to you was this. We didn't quite agree at the last meeting." "No; we did not." "I was very sorry for it. Unanimity is everything in the direction of such an undertaking as this. With unanimity we can do--everything." Mr. Melmotte in the ecstasy of his enthusiasm lifted up both his hands over his head. "Without unanimity we can do--nothing." And the two hands fell. "Unanimity should be printed everywhere about a Board-room. It should, indeed, Mr. Montague." "But suppose the directors are not unanimous." "They should be unanimous. They should make themselves unanimous. God bless my soul! You don't want to see the thing fall to pieces!" "Not if it can be carried on honestly." "Honestly! Who says that anything is dishonest?" Again the brow became very heavy. "Look here, Mr. Montague. If you and I quarrel in that Board-room, there is no knowing the amount of evil we may do to every individual shareholder in the Company. I find the responsibility on my own shoulders so great that I say the thing must be stopped. Damme, Mr. Montague, it must be stopped. We mustn't ruin widows and children, Mr. Montague. We mustn't let those shares run down 20 below par for a mere chimera. I've known a fine property blasted, Mr. Montague, sent straight to the dogs,--annihilated, sir;--so that it all vanished into thin air, and widows and children past counting were sent out to starve about the streets,--just because one director sat in another director's chair. I did, by G----! What do you think of that, Mr. Montague? Gentlemen who don't know the nature of credit, how strong it is,--as the air,--to buoy you up; how slight it is,--as a mere vapour,--when roughly touched, can do an amount of mischief of which they themselves don't in the least understand the extent! What is it you want, Mr. Montague?" "What do I want?" Melmotte's description of the peculiar susceptibility of great mercantile speculations had not been given without some effect on Montague, but this direct appeal to himself almost drove that effect out of his mind. "I only want justice." "But you should know what justice is before you demand it at the expense of other people. Look here, Mr. Montague. I suppose you are like the rest of us, in this matter. You want to make money out of it." "For myself, I want interest for my capital; that is all. But I am not thinking of myself." "You are getting very good interest. If I understand the matter,"--and here Melmotte pulled out a little book, showing thereby how careful he was in mastering details,--"you had about 6,000 embarked in the business when Fisker joined your firm. You imagine yourself to have that still." "I don't know what I've got." "I can tell you then. You have that, and you've drawn nearly a thousand pounds since Fisker came over, in one shape or another. That's not bad interest on your money." "There was back interest due to me." "If so, it's due still. I've nothing to do with that. Look here, Mr. Montague. I am most anxious that you should remain with us. I was about to propose, only for that little rumpus the other day, that, as you're an unmarried man, and have time on your hands, you should go out to California and probably across to Mexico, in order to get necessary information for the Company. Were I of your age, unmarried, and without impediment, it is just the thing I should like. Of course you'd go at the Company's expense. I would see to your own personal interests while you were away;--or you could appoint any one by power of attorney. Your seat at the Board would be kept for you; but, should anything occur amiss,--which it won't, for the thing is as sound as anything I know,--of course you, as absent, would not share the responsibility. That's what I was thinking. It would be a delightful trip;--but if you don't like it, you can of course remain at the Board, and be of the greatest use to me. Indeed, after a bit I could devolve nearly the whole management on you;--and I must do something of the kind, as I really haven't the time for it. But,--if it is to be that way,--do be unanimous. Unanimity is the very soul of these things;--the very soul, Mr. Montague." "But if I can't be unanimous?" "Well;--if you can't, and if you won't take my advice about going out;--which, pray, think about, for you would be most useful. It might be the very making of the railway;--then I can only suggest that you should take your 6,000 and leave us. I, myself, should be greatly distressed; but if you are determined that way I will see that you have your money. I will make myself personally responsible for the payment of it,--some time before the end of the year." Paul Montague told the great man that he would consider the whole matter, and see him in Abchurch Lane before the next Board day. "And now, good-bye," said Mr. Melmotte, as he bade his young friend adieu in a hurry. "I'm afraid that I'm keeping Sir Gregory Gribe, the Bank Director, waiting down-stairs."

That evening Montague was surprised to receive at the Beargarden this note from Mr. Melmotte. Dear Sir, If convenient would you call on me in Grosvenor Square tomorrow, Sunday, at half past eleven. I want to have a few words with you in private about the Company. My messenger will wait for an answer if you are at the club. Yours truly, Augustus Melmotte. Paul immediately wrote to say that he would call at Grosvenor Square at the hour appointed. But this was not the only letter he received that evening. On his return to his lodgings he found a brief note, which Mrs. Hurtle had sent him after her return from Southend. "I am so sorry to have been away. I will expect you all tomorrow. W. H." His reprieve was thus curtailed to less than a day. On the Sunday morning he walked up to Grosvenor Square, pondering what the great man could have to say to him. In the Board-room, Paul had understood that war was declared, and that his antagonist was a master of financial tactics. He was prepared to lose his money, if in doing so he might save his character and reputation. He intended to ask Mr. Ramsbottom to draw up for him a fitting statement. But it now appeared that Mr. Melmotte would make some proposition, when there was no Mr. Ramsbottom at his elbow to help him. He had been in Melmotte's house on the night of the ball, but remembered only the crush and the crowd, and that he had danced with Hetta Carbury. When he was shown into the hall he was astonished to find that it was stripped, and full of planks, ladders and mortar. The preparations for the great dinner had already commenced. He was taken up to a small room on the second floor, where the servant told him that Mr. Melmotte would come to him. He waited a quarter of an hour looking out into the yard. There was not a book in the room with which he could amuse himself. He was beginning to wonder whether he should leave, when Melmotte, in a magnificent dressing-gown and slippers, bustled in. "My dear sir, I am so sorry. You are a punctual man I see. A man of business should be punctual. But they ain't always. Brehgert has just been with me, about the Moldavian loan, and he came a quarter of an hour late." Montague assured him that the delay was of no consequence. "And I am so sorry to ask you into such a place as this. The house is so knocked about! We move into a furnished house in Bruton Street tomorrow - Longstaffe is letting me his house for a month till this dinner is over. By-the-bye, Montague, if you'd like to come to the dinner, I've got a ticket for you. You know how they're run after." Montague did not in the least want to attend the dinner. But he was very anxious to know why Mr. Melmotte should offer it. He excused himself, saying that he was not fond of big dinners. "Ah, indeed," said Melmotte. "Ever so many people would give anything for a ticket. You'd be astonished at the persons who have asked, archbishops and people of title." But Paul would not take the bribe. "You're the only man in London then," said Melmotte, somewhat offended. "At any rate you'll come in the evening, and I'll have one of Madame Melmotte's tickets sent to you." Paul, not knowing how to escape, said that he would come in the evening. "I am particularly anxious," continued Melmotte, "to be civil to those who are connected with our great Railway, and of course, in this country, your name stands next to my own." Then he paused. "Have you anything special to say about the Railway?" asked Paul. "Well, yes. It is so hard to get things said at the Board. Of course there are some there who do not understand matters." "I doubt if there is anyone there who does understand this matter," said Paul. Melmotte pretended to laugh. "Well, well; I would not go quite so far as that. My friend Cohenlupe has had great experience in these affairs, and Lord Alfred sees farther into them than perhaps you give him credit for." "He may easily do that." "Perhaps you don't know him quite as well as I do." The scowl began to appear on Mr. Melmotte's brow. "What I wanted to say was this. We didn't quite agree at the last meeting." "No; we did not." "I was very sorry for it. Unanimity is everything in such an undertaking as this. With unanimity we can do - everything." Mr. Melmotte in his enthusiasm lifted both his hands over his head. "Without unanimity we can do - nothing." The two hands fell. "But suppose the directors are not unanimous." "They should make themselves unanimous. God bless my soul! You don't want to see the thing fall to pieces!" "Not if it can be carried on honestly." "Honestly! Who says that anything is dishonest?" The brow became very heavy. "Look here, Mr. Montague. If you and I quarrel in that Board-room, there is no knowing the evil we may do to every shareholder in the Company. I find the responsibility so great that I say the thing must be stopped. Damme, Mr. Montague, it must be stopped. We mustn't ruin widows and children by letting those shares run down for a mere fancy. I've known a fine property blasted, Mr. Montague, annihilated, sir; so that widows and children past counting were sent out to starve in the streets, just because one director sat in another director's chair, by G__! What is it you want, Mr. Montague?" "I only want justice." "But you should know what justice is before you demand it at the expense of other people. Look here, Mr. Montague. I suppose you are like the rest of us. You want to make money out of it." "I want interest for my capital; that is all. But I am not thinking of myself." "You are getting very good interest." Here Melmotte pulled out a little book. "You had about 6,000 embarked in the business when Fisker joined your firm. You still have that, and you've drawn nearly a thousand pounds since Fisker came over. That's not bad interest on your money." "There was back interest due to me." "If so, it's due still. I've nothing to do with that. Look here, Mr. Montague. I am most anxious that you should remain with us. I was about to propose, but for that little rumpus the other day, that you should go out to California and across to Mexico, to get necessary information for the Company. Were I of your age, unmarried, and without impediment, it is just the thing I should like. Of course you'd go at the Company's expense. Your seat at the Board would be kept for you. It would be a delightful trip; but if you don't like it, you can of course remain at the Board, and be of the greatest use to me. Indeed, after a bit I could devolve nearly the whole management on you; and I must do something of the kind, as I really haven't the time for it. But do be unanimous. Unanimity is the very soul of these things, Mr. Montague." "But if I can't be unanimous?" "Well; if you can't, and if you won't take my advice about going out; which, pray, think about, for you would be most useful - then I can only suggest that you should take your 6,000 and leave us. I, myself, should be greatly distressed; but if you are determined I will see that you have your money before the end of the year." Paul Montague told the great man that he would consider the matter, and see him in Abchurch Lane before the next Board day. "And now, good-bye," said Mr. Melmotte. "I'm afraid that I'm keeping Sir Gregory Gribe, the Bank Director, waiting downstairs."

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 40: "Unanimity is the very Soul of these Things"

Melmotte had got back his daughter, and was half inclined to let the matter rest there. He would probably have done so had he not known that all his own household were aware that she had gone off to meet Sir Felix Carbury, and had he not also received the condolence of certain friends in the city. It seemed that about two o'clock in the day the matter was known to everybody. Of course Lord Nidderdale would hear of it, and if so all the trouble that he had taken in that direction would have been taken in vain. Stupid fool of a girl to throw away her chance,--nay, to throw away the certainty of a brilliant career, in that way! But his anger against Sir Felix was infinitely more bitter than his anger against his daughter. The man had pledged himself to abstain from any step of this kind,--had given a written pledge,--had renounced under his own signature his intention of marrying Marie! Melmotte had of course learned all the details of the cheque for 250,--how the money had been paid at the bank to Didon, and how Didon had given it to Sir Felix. Marie herself acknowledged that Sir Felix had received the money. If possible he would prosecute the baronet for stealing his money. Had Melmotte been altogether a prudent man he would probably have been satisfied with getting back his daughter and would have allowed the money to go without further trouble. At this especial point in his career ready money was very valuable to him, but his concerns were of such magnitude that 250 could make but little difference. But there had grown upon the man during the last few months an arrogance, a self-confidence inspired in him by the worship of other men, which clouded his intellect, and robbed him of much of that power of calculation which undoubtedly he naturally possessed. He remembered perfectly his various little transactions with Sir Felix. Indeed it was one of his gifts to remember with accuracy all money transactions, whether great or small, and to keep an account book in his head, which was always totted up and balanced with accuracy. He knew exactly how he stood, even with the crossing-sweeper to whom he had given a penny last Tuesday, as with the Longestaffes, father and son, to whom he had not as yet made any payment on behalf of the purchase of Pickering. But Sir Felix's money had been consigned into his hands for the purchase of shares,--and that consignment did not justify Sir Felix in taking another sum of money from his daughter. In such a matter he thought that an English magistrate, and an English jury, would all be on his side,--especially as he was Augustus Melmotte, the man about to be chosen for Westminster, the man about to entertain the Emperor of China! The next day was Friday,--the day of the Railway Board. Early in the morning he sent a note to Lord Nidderdale. MY DEAR NIDDERDALE,-- Pray come to the Board to-day;--or at any rate come to me in the city. I specially want to speak to you. Yours, A. M. This he wrote, having made up his mind that it would be wise to make a clear breast of it with his hoped-for son-in-law. If there was still a chance of keeping the young lord to his guns that chance would be best supported by perfect openness on his part. The young lord would of course know what Marie had done. But the young lord had for some weeks past been aware that there had been a difficulty in regard to Sir Felix Carbury, and had not on that account relaxed his suit. It might be possible to persuade the young lord that as the young lady had now tried to elope and tried in vain, his own chance might on the whole be rather improved than injured. Mr. Melmotte on that morning had many visitors, among whom one of the earliest and most unfortunate was Mr. Longestaffe. At that time there had been arranged at the offices in Abchurch Lane a mode of double ingress and egress,--a front stairs and a back stairs approach and exit, as is always necessary with very great men,--in reference to which arrangement the honour and dignity attached to each is exactly contrary to that which generally prevails in the world; the front stairs being intended for everybody, and being both slow and uncertain, whereas the back stairs are quick and sure, and are used only for those who are favoured. Miles Grendall had the command of the stairs, and found that he had plenty to do in keeping people in their right courses. Mr. Longestaffe reached Abchurch Lane before one,--having altogether failed in getting a moment's private conversation with the big man on that other Friday, when he had come later. He fell at once into Miles's hands, and was ushered through the front stairs passage and into the front stairs waiting-room, with much external courtesy. Miles Grendall was very voluble. Did Mr. Longestaffe want to see Mr. Melmotte? Oh;--Mr. Longestaffe wanted to see Mr. Melmotte as soon as possible! Of course Mr. Longestaffe should see Mr. Melmotte. He, Miles, knew that Mr. Melmotte was particularly desirous of seeing Mr. Longestaffe. Mr. Melmotte had mentioned Mr. Longestaffe's name twice during the last three days. Would Mr. Longestaffe sit down for a few minutes? Had Mr. Longestaffe seen the "Morning Breakfast Table"? Mr. Melmotte undoubtedly was very much engaged. At this moment a deputation from the Canadian Government was with him;--and Sir Gregory Gribe was in the office waiting for a few words. But Miles thought that the Canadian Government would not be long,--and as for Sir Gregory, perhaps his business might be postponed. Miles would do his very best to get an interview for Mr. Longestaffe,--more especially as Mr. Melmotte was so very desirous himself of seeing his friend. It was astonishing that such a one as Miles Grendall should have learned his business so well and should have made himself so handy! We will leave Mr. Longestaffe with the "Morning Breakfast Table" in his hands, in the front waiting-room, merely notifying the fact that there he remained for something over two hours. In the mean time both Mr. Broune and Lord Nidderdale came to the office, and both were received without delay. Mr. Broune was the first. Miles knew who he was, and made no attempt to seat him in the same room with Mr. Longestaffe. "I'll just send him a note," said Mr. Broune, and he scrawled a few words at the office counter. "I'm commissioned to pay you some money on behalf of Miss Melmotte." Those were the words, and they at once procured him admission to the sanctum. The Canadian Deputation must have taken its leave, and Sir Gregory could hardly have as yet arrived. Lord Nidderdale, who had presented himself almost at the same moment with the Editor, was shown into a little private room,--which was, indeed, Miles Grendall's own retreat. "What's up with the Governor?" asked the young lord. "Anything particular do you mean?" said Miles. "There are always so many things up here." "He has sent for me." "Yes,--you'll go in directly. There's that fellow who does the 'Breakfast Table' in with him. I don't know what he's come about. You know what he has sent for you for?" Lord Nidderdale answered this question by another. "I suppose all this about Miss Melmotte is true?" "She did go off yesterday morning," said Miles, in a whisper. "But Carbury wasn't with her." "Well, no;--I suppose not. He seems to have mulled it. He's such a d---- brute, he'd be sure to go wrong whatever he had in hand." "You don't like him, of course, Miles. For that matter I've no reason to love him. He couldn't have gone. He staggered out of the club yesterday morning at four o'clock as drunk as Cloe. He'd lost a pot of money, and had been kicking up a row about you for the last hour." "Brute!" exclaimed Miles, with honest indignation. "I dare say. But though he was able to make a row, I'm sure he couldn't get himself down to Liverpool. And I saw all his things lying about the club hall late last night;--no end of portmanteaux and bags; just what a fellow would take to New York. By George! Fancy taking a girl to New York! It was plucky." "It was all her doing," said Miles, who was of course intimate with Mr. Melmotte's whole establishment, and had had means therefore of hearing the true story. "What a fiasco!" said the young lord, "I wonder what the old boy means to say to me about it." Then there was heard the clear tingle of a little silver bell, and Miles told Lord Nidderdale that his time had come. Mr. Broune had of late been very serviceable to Mr. Melmotte, and Melmotte was correspondingly gracious. On seeing the Editor he immediately began to make a speech of thanks in respect of the support given by the "Breakfast Table" to his candidature. But Mr. Broune cut him short. "I never talk about the 'Breakfast Table,'" said he. "We endeavour to get along as right as we can, and the less said the soonest mended." Melmotte bowed. "I have come now about quite another matter, and perhaps, the less said the sooner mended about that also. Sir Felix Carbury on a late occasion received a sum of money in trust from your daughter. Circumstances have prevented its use in the intended manner, and, therefore, as Sir Felix's friend, I have called to return the money to you." Mr. Broune did not like calling himself the friend of Sir Felix, but he did even that for the lady who had been good enough to him not to marry him. "Oh, indeed," said Mr. Melmotte, with a scowl on his face, which he would have repressed if he could. "No doubt you understand all about it." "Yes;--I understand. D---- scoundrel!" "We won't discuss that, Mr. Melmotte. I've drawn a cheque myself, payable to your order,--to make the matter all straight. The sum was 250, I think." And Mr. Broune put a cheque for that amount down upon the table. "I dare say it's all right," said Mr. Melmotte. "But, remember, I don't think that this absolves him. He has been a scoundrel." "At any rate he has paid back the money, which chance put into his hands, to the only person entitled to receive it on the young lady's behalf. Good morning." Mr. Melmotte did put out his hand in token of amity. Then Mr. Broune departed and Melmotte tinkled his bell. As Nidderdale was shown in he crumpled up the cheque, and put it into his pocket. He was at once clever enough to perceive that any idea which he might have had of prosecuting Sir Felix must be abandoned. "Well, my Lord, and how are you?" said he with his pleasantest smile. Nidderdale declared himself to be as fresh as paint. "You don't look down in the mouth, my Lord." Then Lord Nidderdale,--who no doubt felt that it behoved him to show a good face before his late intended father-in-law,--sang the refrain of an old song, which it is trusted my readers may remember. "Cheer up, Sam; Don't let your spirits go down. There's many a girl that I know well, Is waiting for you in the town." "Ha, ha, ha," laughed Melmotte, "very good. I've no doubt there is,--many a one. But you won't let this stupid nonsense stand in your way with Marie." "Upon my word, sir, I don't know about that. Miss Melmotte has given the most convincing proof of her partiality for another gentleman, and of her indifference to me." "A foolish baggage! A silly little romantic baggage! She's been reading novels till she has learned to think she couldn't settle down quietly till she had run off with somebody." "She doesn't seem to have succeeded on this occasion, Mr. Melmotte." "No;--of course we had her back again from Liverpool." "But they say that she got further than the gentleman." "He is a dishonest, drunken scoundrel. My girl knows very well what he is now. She'll never try that game again. Of course, my Lord, I'm very sorry. You know that I've been on the square with you always. She's my only child, and sooner or later she must have all that I possess. What she will have at once will make any man wealthy,--that is, if she marries with my sanction; and in a year or two I expect that I shall be able to double what I give her now, without touching my capital. Of course you understand that I desire to see her occupying high rank. I think that, in this country, that is a noble object of ambition. Had she married that sweep I should have broken my heart. Now, my Lord, I want you to say that this shall make no difference to you. I am very honest with you. I do not try to hide anything. The thing of course has been a misfortune. Girls will be romantic. But you may be sure that this little accident will assist rather than impede your views. After this she will not be very fond of Sir Felix Carbury." "I dare say not. Though, by Jove, girls will forgive anything." "She won't forgive him. By George, she shan't. She shall hear the whole story. You'll come and see her just the same as ever!" "I don't know about that, Mr. Melmotte." "Why not? You're not so weak as to surrender all your settled projects for such a piece of folly as that! He didn't even see her all the time." "That wasn't her fault." "The money will all be there, Lord Nidderdale." "The money's all right, I've no doubt. And there isn't a man in all London would be better pleased to settle down with a good income than I would. But, by Jove, it's a rather strong order when a girl has just run away with another man. Everybody knows it." "In three months' time everybody will have forgotten it." "To tell you the truth, sir, I think Miss Melmotte has got a will of her own stronger than you give her credit for. She has never given me the slightest encouragement. Ever so long ago, about Christmas, she did once say that she would do as you bade her. But she is very much changed since then. The thing was off." "She had nothing to do with that." "No;--but she has taken advantage of it, and I have no right to complain." "You just come to the house, and ask her again to-morrow. Or come on Sunday morning. Don't let us be done out of all our settled arrangements by the folly of an idle girl. Will you come on Sunday morning about noon?" Lord Nidderdale thought of his position for a few moments and then said that perhaps he would come on Sunday morning. After that Melmotte proposed that they two should go and "get a bit of lunch" at a certain Conservative club in the City. There would be time before the meeting of the Railway Board. Nidderdale had no objection to the lunch, but expressed a strong opinion that the Board was "rot." "That's all very well for you, young man," said the chairman, "but I must go there in order that you may be able to enjoy a splendid fortune." Then he touched the young man on the shoulder and drew him back as he was passing out by the front stairs. "Come this way, Nidderdale;--come this way. I must get out without being seen. There are people waiting for me there who think that a man can attend to business from morning to night without ever having a bit in his mouth." And so they escaped by the back stairs. At the club, the City Conservative world,--which always lunches well,--welcomed Mr. Melmotte very warmly. The election was coming on, and there was much to be said. He played the part of the big City man to perfection, standing about the room with his hat on, and talking loudly to a dozen men at once. And he was glad to show the club that Lord Nidderdale had come there with him. The club of course knew that Lord Nidderdale was the accepted suitor of the rich man's daughter,--accepted, that is, by the rich man himself,--and the club knew also that the rich man's daughter had tried,--but had failed,--to run away with Sir Felix Carbury. There is nothing like wiping out a misfortune and having done with it. The presence of Lord Nidderdale was almost an assurance to the club that the misfortune had been wiped out, and, as it were, abolished. A little before three Mr. Melmotte returned to Abchurch Lane, intending to regain his room by the back way; while Lord Nidderdale went westward, considering within his own mind whether it was expedient that he should continue to show himself as a suitor for Miss Melmotte's hand. He had an idea that a few years ago a man could not have done such a thing--that he would be held to show a poor spirit should he attempt it; but that now it did not much matter what a man did,--if only he were successful. "After all it's only an affair of money," he said to himself. Mr. Longestaffe in the meantime had progressed from weariness to impatience, from impatience to ill-humour, and from ill-humour to indignation. More than once he saw Miles Grendall, but Miles Grendall was always ready with an answer. That Canadian Deputation was determined to settle the whole business this morning, and would not take itself away. And Sir Gregory Gribe had been obstinate, beyond the ordinary obstinacy of a bank director. The rate of discount at the bank could not be settled for to-morrow without communication with Mr. Melmotte, and that was a matter on which the details were always most oppressive. At first Mr. Longestaffe was somewhat stunned by the Deputation and Sir Gregory Gribe; but as he waxed wroth the potency of those institutions dwindled away, and as, at last, he waxed hungry, they became as nothing to him. Was he not Mr. Longestaffe of Caversham, a Deputy-Lieutenant of his County, and accustomed to lunch punctually at two o'clock? When he had been in that waiting-room for two hours, it occurred to him that he only wanted his own, and that he would not remain there to be starved for any Mr. Melmotte in Europe. It occurred to him also that that thorn in his side, Squercum, would certainly get a finger into the pie to his infinite annoyance. Then he walked forth, and attempted to see Grendall for the fourth time. But Miles Grendall also liked his lunch, and was therefore declared by one of the junior clerks to be engaged at that moment on most important business with Mr. Melmotte. "Then say that I can't wait any longer," said Mr. Longestaffe, stamping out of the room with angry feet. At the very door he met Mr. Melmotte. "Ah, Mr. Longestaffe," said the great financier, seizing him by the hand, "you are the very man I am desirous of seeing." "I have been waiting two hours up in your place," said the Squire of Caversham. "Tut, tut, tut;--and they never told me!" "I spoke to Mr. Grendall half a dozen times." "Yes,--yes. And he did put a slip with your name on it on my desk. I do remember. My dear sir, I have so many things on my brain, that I hardly know how to get along with them. You are coming to the Board? It's just the time now." "No;"--said Mr. Longestaffe. "I can stay no longer in the City." It was cruel that a man so hungry should be asked to go to a Board by a chairman who had just lunched at his club. "I was carried away to the Bank of England and could not help myself," said Melmotte. "And when they get me there I can never get away again." "My son is very anxious to have the payments made about Pickering," said Mr. Longestaffe, absolutely holding Melmotte by the collar of his coat. "Payments for Pickering!" said Melmotte, assuming an air of unimportant doubt,--of doubt as though the thing were of no real moment. "Haven't they been made?" "Certainly not," said Mr. Longestaffe, "unless made this morning." "There was something about it, but I cannot just remember what. My second cashier, Mr. Smith, manages all my private affairs, and they go clean out of my head. I'm afraid he's in Grosvenor Square at this moment. Let me see;--Pickering! Wasn't there some question of a mortgage? I'm sure there was something about a mortgage." "There was a mortgage, of course;--but that only made three payments necessary instead of two." "But there was some unavoidable delay about the papers;--something occasioned by the mortgagee. I know there was. But you shan't be inconvenienced, Mr. Longestaffe." "It's my son, Mr. Melmotte. He's got a lawyer of his own." "I never knew a young man that wasn't in a hurry for his money," said Melmotte laughing. "Oh, yes;--there were three payments to be made; one to you, one to your son, and one to the mortgagee. I will speak to Mr. Smith myself to-morrow--and you may tell your son that he really need not trouble his lawyer. He will only be losing his money, for lawyers are expensive. What; you won't come to the Board? I am sorry for that." Mr. Longestaffe, having after a fashion said what he had to say, declined to go to the Board. A painful rumour had reached him the day before, which had been communicated to him in a very quiet way by a very old friend,--by a member of a private firm of bankers whom he was accustomed to regard as the wisest and most eminent man of his acquaintance,--that Pickering had been already mortgaged to its full value by its new owner. "Mind, I know nothing," said the banker. "The report has reached me, and if it be true, it shows that Mr. Melmotte must be much pressed for money. It does not concern you at all if you have got your price. But it seems to be rather a quick transaction. I suppose you have, or he wouldn't have the title-deeds." Mr. Longestaffe thanked his friend, and acknowledged that there had been something remiss on his part. Therefore, as he went westward, he was low in spirits. But nevertheless he had been reassured by Melmotte's manner. Sir Felix Carbury of course did not attend the Board; nor did Paul Montague, for reasons with which the reader has been made acquainted. Lord Nidderdale had declined, having had enough of the City for that day, and Mr. Longestaffe had been banished by hunger. The chairman was therefore supported only by Lord Alfred and Mr. Cohenlupe. But they were such excellent colleagues that the work was got through as well as though those absentees had all attended. When the Board was over Mr. Melmotte and Mr. Cohenlupe retired together. "I must get that money for Longestaffe," said Melmotte to his friend. "What, eighty thousand pounds! You can't do it this week,--nor yet before this day week." "It isn't eighty thousand pounds. I've renewed the mortgage, and that makes it only fifty. If I can manage the half of that which goes to the son, I can put the father off." "You must raise what you can on the whole property." "I've done that already," said Melmotte hoarsely. "And where's the money gone?" "Brehgert has had 40,000. I was obliged to keep it up with them. You can manage 25,000 for me by Monday?" Mr. Cohenlupe said that he would try, but intimated his opinion that there would be considerable difficulty in the operation.

Melmotte had got back his daughter, and was half inclined to let the matter rest there. He would probably have done so had it not become widely known that she had gone off to meet Sir Felix Carbury. Of course Lord Nidderdale would hear of it, and all the trouble that he had taken in that direction would be in vain. Stupid fool of a girl to throw away her chance in that way! But his anger against Sir Felix was infinitely more bitter than his anger against his daughter. The man had given a written pledge not to marry Marie! Melmotte had of course learned all the details of the cheque for 250. Marie acknowledged that Sir Felix had received the money. If possible he would prosecute the baronet for theft. Had Melmotte been prudent he would have allowed the money to go without further trouble. Although at this point ready money was very valuable to him, his concerns were of such magnitude that 250 could make little difference. But during the last few months there had grown in him an arrogance, a self-confidence inspired by the worship of other men, which clouded his intellect. He remembered perfectly his various little transactions with Sir Felix. Indeed it was one of his gifts to remember accurately all money transactions. But Sir Felix's money had been handed to him for the purchase of shares, and did not justify Sir Felix in taking money from his daughter. He thought that an English magistrate would be on his side - especially as he was Augustus Melmotte, the man about to be chosen for Westminster, the man about to entertain the Emperor of China! The next day was Friday, and he sent a note to Lord Nidderdale asking him to come to the Railway Board. He thought that it would be wise to make a clean breast of it with his hoped-for son-in-law. The young lord would of course know what Marie had done. But Nidderdale had already known that there was a difficulty in regard to Sir Felix Carbury, yet had not given up his suit. It might be possible to persuade him that his own chances might now be improved rather than injured. Mr. Melmotte on that morning had many visitors, amongst them Mr. Longestaffe. His offices in Abchurch Lane had a front stairs and a back stairs; the front stairs being intended for everybody, whereas the back stairs were only for those who were favoured. Miles Grendall had the command of the stairs, and when Mr. Longestaffe reached Abchurch Lane, he fell at once into Miles's hands. Miles ushered him through the front stairs passage and into the waiting-room, with much courtesy. Of course Mr. Longestaffe should see Mr. Melmotte as soon as possible. Would Mr. Longestaffe sit down for a few minutes? Mr. Melmotte was very much engaged. At this moment a deputation from the Canadian Government was with him; but Miles thought that they would not be long. Miles would do his very best to get an interview for Mr. Longestaffe. We will leave Mr. Longestaffe in the front waiting-room, merely noting that he remained there for over two hours. In the meantime both Mr. Broune and Lord Nidderdale came to the office, and were received without delay. Mr. Broune was the first. "I'm commissioned to pay some money on behalf of Miss Melmotte," said Mr. Broune - words which at once procured him admission to the sanctum. The Canadian Deputation must have taken its leave. Lord Nidderdale, who had arrived almost at the same moment, was shown into a little private room. "You'll go in directly," said Miles. "I suppose all this about Miss Melmotte is true?" asked Nidderdale. "She did go off yesterday morning," said Miles, in a whisper. "But Carbury wasn't with her. He staggered out of the club yesterday morning at four o'clock, drunk. He'd lost a pot of money, and had been kicking up a row about you." "Brute!" exclaimed Miles, with honest indignation. "I dare say. But I'm sure he couldn't get himself down to Liverpool. And I saw all his things lying about the club hall late last night. By George! What a fiasco!" said the young lord. "I wonder what the old boy means to say to me about it." Then there was heard the clear tingle of a little silver bell, and Miles told Lord Nidderdale that his time had come. Melmotte had been very gracious to Mr. Broune, on account of the support given by the Breakfast Table to his candidature. But Mr. Broune cut short his speech of thanks. "I never talk about the Breakfast Table," said he. "I have come about quite another matter. Sir Felix Carbury lately received a sum of money in trust from your daughter, and as Sir Felix's friend, I have called to return it to you." Mr. Broune did not like calling himself the friend of Sir Felix, but he did even that for the lady who had been good enough not to marry him. "Oh, indeed," said Mr. Melmotte, with a scowl. "D___ scoundrel!" "We won't discuss that, Mr. Melmotte. The sum was 250, I think." And Mr. Broune put a cheque for that amount upon the table. "Good morning." They shook hands; then Mr. Broune departed and Melmotte tinkled his bell. As Nidderdale was shown in he put the cheque into his pocket, abandoning any idea of prosecuting Sir Felix. "Well, my Lord, and how are you?" said he with his pleasantest smile. Nidderdale declared himself to be as fresh as paint, and - to show a good face before his late intended father-in-law - sang the refrain of an old song: "Cheer up, Sam; Don't let your spirits go down. There's many a girl that I know well, Is waiting for you in the town." "Ha, ha," laughed Melmotte, "very good. But you won't let this stupid nonsense stand in your way with Marie." "Upon my word, sir, I don't know about that. Miss Melmotte has given convincing proof of her partiality for another gentleman, and of her indifference to me." "A silly little romantic baggage! She's been reading novels till she has learned to think she had to run off with somebody." "She doesn't seem to have succeeded on this occasion, Mr. Melmotte." "No; of course we had her back again from Liverpool." "But they say that she got further than the gentleman." "He is a dishonest, drunken scoundrel. My girl knows that now. Of course, my Lord, I'm very sorry. You know that I've been square with you always. She's my only child, and sooner or later she must have all that I possess. In a year or two I expect that I shall be able to double what I give her now, without touching my capital. Of course you understand that I desire to see her occupying high rank. Now, my Lord, I hope this shall make no difference to you. I do not try to hide anything. This has been a misfortune. Girls will be romantic. But after this she will not be very fond of Sir Felix Carbury." "I dare say not. Though, by Jove, girls will forgive anything." "She won't forgive him. She shall hear the whole story. You'll come and see her just the same as ever!" "I don't know about that, Mr. Melmotte." "The money will all be there, Lord Nidderdale." "The money's all right, I've no doubt. But, by Jove, it's a rather strong order when a girl has just run away with another man. Everybody knows it." "In three months everybody will have forgotten it." "To tell you the truth, sir, I think Miss Melmotte has got a will of her own stronger than you give her credit for. She has never given me the slightest encouragement." "You just come to the house, and ask her again tomorrow, or on Sunday morning." Lord Nidderdale thought for a few moments and then said that perhaps he would come on Sunday morning. After that Melmotte proposed that they should go and have lunch at a Conservative club, before the meeting of the Railway Board. Nidderdale had no objection to the lunch, but expressed a strong opinion that the Board was "rot." "That's all very well for you, young man," said the chairman, "but I must go there in order that you may enjoy a splendid fortune. Come this way, Nidderdale; there are people waiting for me there who think that a man can attend to business from morning to night without ever having to eat." And they escaped by the back stairs. At the club, Mr. Melmotte was warmly welcomed. He played the part of the big City man to perfection, talking loudly to a dozen men at once. He was glad to show the club that Lord Nidderdale had come there with him. The club of course knew that Melmotte's daughter had tried to run away with Sir Felix Carbury; and Lord Nidderdale's presence was an assurance that the misfortune had been wiped out. A little before three Mr. Melmotte returned to Abchurch Lane, intending to regain his room by the back way; while Lord Nidderdale went westward, considering whether he should continue to be a suitor for Miss Melmotte's hand. "After all it's only an affair of money," he said to himself. Mr. Longestaffe in the meantime had progressed from weariness to impatience, from impatience to ill-humour, and from ill-humour to indignation. Miles Grendall informed him that the Canadian Deputation would not take itself away. Mr. Longstaffe was accustomed to lunch punctually at two o'clock; and he would not be starved for any Melmotte in Europe. He attempted to see Grendall for the fourth time. But Miles Grendall also liked his lunch, and was therefore declared by one of the junior clerks to be on most important business with Mr. Melmotte. "Then say that I can't wait any longer," said Mr. Longestaffe, stamping out angrily. At the door he met Mr. Melmotte. "Ah, Mr. Longestaffe," said the great financier, seizing him by the hand, "you are the very man I wanted to see." "I have been waiting two hours," said the Squire of Caversham. "Tut, tut; and they never told me!" "I spoke to Mr. Grendall half a dozen times." "Yes, yes. I do remember. My dear sir, I have so many things on my brain, that I hardly know how to get along with them. You are coming to the Board now?" "No," said Mr. Longestaffe. "I can stay no longer in the City. My son is very anxious to have the payments made about Pickering." "Payments for Pickering!" said Melmotte, assuming an air of absent-minded doubt. "Haven't they been made?" "Certainly not," said Mr. Longestaffe, "unless made this morning." "There was something about it, but I cannot just remember what. My second cashier, Mr. Smith, manages all my private affairs, and they go clean out of my head. Pickering! Wasn't there some question of a mortgage?" "Of course there was a mortgage; that made three payments necessary instead of two." "But there was some unavoidable delay about the papers; something occasioned by the mortgagee. I know there was. But you shan't be inconvenienced, Mr. Longestaffe." "It's my son, Mr. Melmotte. He's got a lawyer of his own." "I never knew a young man that wasn't in a hurry for his money," said Melmotte, laughing. "Oh, yes; there were three payments to be made; one to you, one to your son, and one to the mortgagee. I will speak to Mr. Smith tomorrow - and tell your son that he really need not trouble his lawyer. You won't come to the Board?" Mr. Longestaffe declined. A painful rumour had reached him the day before, quietly communicated by a very old friend, a member of a private firm of bankers - that Pickering had been already mortgaged to its full value by its new owner. "If true," said the banker, "It shows that Mr. Melmotte must be much pressed for money. It does not concern you at all if you have got your price. I suppose you have, or he wouldn't have the title-deeds." Therefore, as Mr. Longstaffe left, he was low in spirits. But nevertheless he had been reassured by Melmotte's manner. Sir Felix Carbury of course did not attend the Board; nor did Paul Montague. Lord Nidderdale had had enough of the City for that day, and Mr. Longestaffe had been banished by hunger. The chairman was therefore supported only by Lord Alfred and Mr. Cohenlupe. But the work was got through as well as if those absentees had all attended, and then Mr. Melmotte and Mr. Cohenlupe retired together. "I must get that money for Longestaffe," said Melmotte to his friend. "What, eighty thousand pounds!" "It isn't eighty thousand. I've renewed the mortgage, and that makes it only fifty. If I can manage half of the son's money, I can put the father off." "You must raise what you can on the whole property." "I've done that already," said Melmotte hoarsely. "And where's the money gone?" "Brehgert has had 40,000. You can manage 25,000 for me by Monday?" Mr. Cohenlupe said that he would try, but that it would be very difficult.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 53: A Day in the City

The very greatness of Mr. Melmotte's popularity, the extent of the admiration which was accorded by the public at large to his commercial enterprise and financial sagacity, created a peculiar bitterness in the opposition that was organised against him at Westminster. As the high mountains are intersected by deep valleys, as puritanism in one age begets infidelity in the next, as in many countries the thickness of the winter's ice will be in proportion to the number of the summer musquitoes, so was the keenness of the hostility displayed on this occasion in proportion to the warmth of the support which was manifested. As the great man was praised, so also was he abused. As he was a demi-god to some, so was he a fiend to others. And indeed there was hardly any other way in which it was possible to carry on the contest against him. From the moment in which Mr. Melmotte had declared his purpose of standing for Westminster in the Conservative interest, an attempt was made to drive him down the throats of the electors by clamorous assertions of his unprecedented commercial greatness. It seemed that there was but one virtue in the world, commercial enterprise,--and that Melmotte was its prophet. It seemed, too, that the orators and writers of the day intended all Westminster to believe that Melmotte treated his great affairs in a spirit very different from that which animates the bosoms of merchants in general. He had risen above any feeling of personal profit. His wealth was so immense that there was no longer place for anxiety on that score. He already possessed,--so it was said,--enough to found a dozen families, and he had but one daughter! But by carrying on the enormous affairs which he held in his hands, he would be able to open up new worlds, to afford relief to the oppressed nationalities of the over-populated old countries. He had seen how small was the good done by the Peabodys and the Bairds, and, resolving to lend no ear to charities and religions, was intent on projects for enabling young nations to earn plentiful bread by the moderate sweat of their brows. He was the head and front of the railway which was to regenerate Mexico. It was presumed that the contemplated line from ocean to ocean across British America would become a fact in his hands. It was he who was to enter into terms with the Emperor of China for farming the tea-fields of that vast country. He was already in treaty with Russia for a railway from Moscow to Khiva. He had a fleet,--or soon would have a fleet of emigrant ships,--ready to carry every discontented Irishman out of Ireland to whatever quarter of the globe the Milesian might choose for the exercise of his political principles. It was known that he had already floated a company for laying down a submarine wire from Penzance to Point de Galle, round the Cape of Good Hope,--so that, in the event of general wars, England need be dependent on no other country for its communications with India. And then there was the philanthropic scheme for buying the liberty of the Arabian fellahs from the Khedive of Egypt for thirty millions sterling,--the compensation to consist of the concession of a territory about four times as big as Great Britain in the lately annexed country on the great African lakes. It may have been the case that some of these things were as yet only matters of conversation,--speculations as to which Mr. Melmotte's mind and imagination had been at work, rather than his pocket or even his credit; but they were all sufficiently matured to find their way into the public press, and to be used as strong arguments why Melmotte should become member of Parliament for Westminster. All this praise was of course gall to those who found themselves called upon by the demands of their political position to oppose Mr. Melmotte. You can run down a demi-god only by making him out to be a demi-devil. These very persons, the leading Liberals of the leading borough in England as they called themselves, would perhaps have cared little about Melmotte's antecedents had it not become their duty to fight him as a Conservative. Had the great man found at the last moment that his own British politics had been liberal in their nature, these very enemies would have been on his committee. It was their business to secure the seat. And as Melmotte's supporters began the battle with an attempt at what the Liberals called "bounce,"--to carry the borough with a rush by an overwhelming assertion of their candidate's virtues,--the other party was driven to make some enquiries as to that candidate's antecedents. They quickly warmed to the work, and were not less loud in exposing the Satan of speculation, than had been the Conservatives in declaring the commercial Jove. Emissaries were sent to Paris and Francfort, and the wires were used to Vienna and New York. It was not difficult to collect stories,--true or false; and some quiet men, who merely looked on at the game, expressed an opinion that Melmotte might have wisely abstained from the glories of Parliament. Nevertheless there was at first some difficulty in finding a proper Liberal candidate to run against him. The nobleman who had been elevated out of his seat by the death of his father had been a great Whig magnate, whose family was possessed of immense wealth and of popularity equal to its possessions. One of that family might have contested the borough at a much less expense than any other person,--and to them the expense would have mattered but little. But there was no such member of it forthcoming. Lord This and Lord That,--and the Honourable This and the Honourable That, sons of other cognate Lords,--already had seats which they were unwilling to vacate in the present state of affairs. There was but one other session for the existing Parliament; and the odds were held to be very greatly in Melmotte's favour. Many an outsider was tried, but the outsiders were either afraid of Melmotte's purse or his influence. Lord Buntingford was asked, and he and his family were good old Whigs. But he was nephew to Lord Alfred Grendall, first cousin to Miles Grendall, and abstained on behalf of his relatives. An overture was made to Sir Damask Monogram, who certainly could afford the contest. But Sir Damask did not see his way. Melmotte was a working bee, while he was a drone,--and he did not wish to have the difference pointed out by Mr. Melmotte's supporters. Moreover, he preferred his yacht and his four-in-hand. At last a candidate was selected, whose nomination and whose consent to occupy the position created very great surprise in the London world. The press had of course taken up the matter very strongly. The "Morning Breakfast Table" supported Mr. Melmotte with all its weight. There were people who said that this support was given by Mr. Broune under the influence of Lady Carbury, and that Lady Carbury in this way endeavoured to reconcile the great man to a marriage between his daughter and Sir Felix. But it is more probable that Mr. Broune saw,--or thought that he saw,--which way the wind sat, and that he supported the commercial hero because he felt that the hero would be supported by the country at large. In praising a book, or putting foremost the merits of some official or military claimant, or writing up a charity,--in some small matter of merely personal interest,--the Editor of the "Morning Breakfast Table" might perhaps allow himself to listen to a lady whom he loved. But he knew his work too well to jeopardize his paper by such influences in any matter which might probably become interesting to the world of his readers. There was a strong belief in Melmotte. The clubs thought that he would be returned for Westminster. The dukes and duchesses fted him. The city,--even the city was showing a wavering disposition to come round. Bishops begged for his name on the list of promoters of their pet schemes. Royalty without stint was to dine at his table. Melmotte himself was to sit at the right hand of the brother of the Sun and of the uncle of the Moon, and British Royalty was to be arranged opposite, so that every one might seem to have the place of most honour. How could a conscientious Editor of a "Morning Breakfast Table," seeing how things were going, do other than support Mr. Melmotte? In fair justice it may be well doubted whether Lady Carbury had exercised any influence in the matter. But the "Evening Pulpit" took the other side. Now this was the more remarkable, the more sure to attract attention, inasmuch as the "Evening Pulpit" had never supported the Liberal interest. As was said in the first chapter of this work, the motto of that newspaper implied that it was to be conducted on principles of absolute independence. Had the "Evening Pulpit," like some of its contemporaries, lived by declaring from day to day that all Liberal elements were godlike, and all their opposites satanic, as a matter of course the same line of argument would have prevailed as to the Westminster election. But as it had not been so, the vigour of the "Evening Pulpit" on this occasion was the more alarming and the more noticeable,--so that the short articles which appeared almost daily in reference to Mr. Melmotte were read by everybody. Now they who are concerned in the manufacture of newspapers are well aware that censure is infinitely more attractive than eulogy,--but they are quite as well aware that it is more dangerous. No proprietor or editor was ever brought before the courts at the cost of ever so many hundred pounds,--which if things go badly may rise to thousands,--because he had attributed all but divinity to some very poor specimen of mortality. No man was ever called upon for damages because he had attributed grand motives. It might be well for politics and literature and art,--and for truth in general, if it was possible to do so. But a new law of libel must be enacted before such salutary proceedings can take place. Censure on the other hand is open to very grave perils. Let the Editor have been ever so conscientious, ever so beneficent,--even ever so true,--let it be ever so clear that what he has written has been written on behalf of virtue, and that he has misstated no fact, exaggerated no fault, never for a moment been allured from public to private matters,--and he may still be in danger of ruin. A very long purse, or else a very high courage is needed for the exposure of such conduct as the "Evening Pulpit" attributed to Mr. Melmotte. The paper took up this line suddenly. After the second article Mr. Alf sent back to Mr. Miles Grendall, who in the matter was acting as Mr. Melmotte's secretary, the ticket of invitation for the dinner, with a note from Mr. Alf stating that circumstances connected with the forthcoming election for Westminster could not permit him to have the great honour of dining at Mr. Melmotte's table in the presence of the Emperor of China. Miles Grendall showed the note to the dinner committee, and, without consultation with Mr. Melmotte, it was decided that the ticket should be sent to the Editor of a thorough-going Conservative journal. This conduct on the part of the "Evening Pulpit" astonished the world considerably; but the world was more astonished when it was declared that Mr. Ferdinand Alf himself was going to stand for Westminster on the Liberal interest. Various suggestions were made. Some said that as Mr. Alf had a large share in the newspaper, and as its success was now an established fact, he himself intended to retire from the laborious position which he filled, and was therefore free to go into Parliament. Others were of opinion that this was the beginning of a new era in literature, of a new order of things, and that from this time forward editors would frequently be found in Parliament, if editors were employed of sufficient influence in the world to find constituencies. Mr. Broune whispered confidentially to Lady Carbury that the man was a fool for his pains, and that he was carried away by pride. "Very clever,--and dashing," said Mr. Broune, "but he never had ballast." Lady Carbury shook her head. She did not want to give up Mr. Alf if she could help it. He had never said a civil word of her in his paper;--but still she had an idea that it was well to be on good terms with so great a power. She entertained a mysterious awe for Mr. Alf,--much in excess of any similar feeling excited by Mr. Broune, in regard to whom her awe had been much diminished since he had made her an offer of marriage. Her sympathies as to the election of course were with Mr. Melmotte. She believed in him thoroughly. She still thought that his nod might be the means of making Felix,--or if not his nod, then his money without the nod. "I suppose he is very rich," she said, speaking to Mr. Broune respecting Mr. Alf. "I dare say he has put by something. But this election will cost him 10,000;--and if he goes on as he is doing now, he had better allow another 10,000 for action for libel. They've already declared that they will indict the paper." "Do you believe about the Austrian Insurance Company?" This was a matter as to which Mr. Melmotte was supposed to have retired from Paris not with clean hands. "I don't believe the 'Evening Pulpit' can prove it,--and I'm sure that they can't attempt to prove it without an expense of three or four thousand pounds. That's a game in which nobody wins but the lawyers. I wonder at Alf. I should have thought that he would have known how to get all said that he wanted to have said without running with his head into the lion's mouth. He has been so clever up to this! God knows he has been bitter enough, but he has always sailed within the wind." Mr. Alf had a powerful committee. By this time an animus in regard to the election had been created strong enough to bring out the men on both sides, and to produce heat, when otherwise there might only have been a warmth or possibly frigidity. The Whig Marquises and the Whig Barons came forward, and with them the liberal professional men, and the tradesmen who had found that party to answer best, and the democratical mechanics. If Melmotte's money did not, at last, utterly demoralise the lower class of voters, there would still be a good fight. And there was a strong hope that, under the ballot, Melmotte's money might be taken without a corresponding effect upon the voting. It was found upon trial that Mr. Alf was a good speaker. And though he still conducted the "Evening Pulpit," he made time for addressing meetings of the constituency almost daily. And in his speeches he never spared Melmotte. No one, he said, had a greater reverence for mercantile grandeur than himself. But let them take care that the grandeur was grand. How great would be the disgrace to such a borough as that of Westminster if it should find that it had been taken in by a false spirit of speculation and that it had surrendered itself to gambling when it had thought to do honour to honest commerce. This, connected as of course it was, with the articles in the paper, was regarded as very open speaking. And it had its effect. Some men began to say that Melmotte had not been known long enough to deserve confidence in his riches, and the Lord Mayor was already beginning to think that it might be wise to escape the dinner by some excuse. Melmotte's committee was also very grand. If Alf was supported by Marquises and Barons, he was supported by Dukes and Earls. But his speaking in public did not of itself inspire much confidence. He had very little to say when he attempted to explain the political principles on which he intended to act. After a little he confined himself to remarks on the personal attacks made on him by the other side, and even in doing that was reiterative rather than diffusive. Let them prove it. He defied them to prove it. Englishmen were too great, too generous, too honest, too noble,--the men of Westminster especially were a great deal too high-minded to pay any attention to such charges as these till they were proved. Then he began again. Let them prove it. Such accusations as these were mere lies till they were proved. He did not say much himself in public as to actions for libel,--but assurances were made on his behalf to the electors, especially by Lord Alfred Grendall and his son, that as soon as the election was over all speakers and writers would be indicted for libel, who should be declared by proper legal advice to have made themselves liable to such action. The "Evening Pulpit" and Mr. Alf would of course be the first victims. The dinner was fixed for Monday, July the 8th. The election for the borough was to be held on Tuesday the 9th. It was generally thought that the proximity of the two days had been arranged with the view of enhancing Melmotte's expected triumph. But such in truth was not the case. It had been an accident, and an accident that was distressing to some of the Melmottites. There was much to be done about the dinner,--which could not be omitted; and much also as to the election,--which was imperative. The two Grendalls, father and son, found themselves to be so driven that the world seemed for them to be turned topsey-turvey. The elder had in old days been accustomed to electioneering in the interest of his own family, and had declared himself willing to make himself useful on behalf of Mr. Melmotte. But he found Westminster to be almost too much for him. He was called here and sent there, till he was very near rebellion. "If this goes on much longer I shall cut it," he said to his son. "Think of me, governor," said the son. "I have to be in the city four or five times a week." "You've a regular salary." "Come, governor; you've done pretty well for that. What's my salary to the shares you've had? The thing is;--will it last?" "How last?" "There are a good many who say that Melmotte will burst up." "I don't believe it," said Lord Alfred. "They don't know what they're talking about. There are too many in the same boat to let him burst up. It would be the bursting up of half London. But I shall tell him after this that he must make it easier. He wants to know who's to have every ticket for the dinner, and there's nobody to tell him except me. And I've got to arrange all the places, and nobody to help me except that fellow from the Herald's office. I don't know about people's rank. Which ought to come first: a director of the bank or a fellow who writes books?" Miles suggested that the fellow from the Herald's office would know all about that, and that his father need not trouble himself with petty details. "And you shall come to us for three days,--after it's over," said Lady Monogram to Miss Longestaffe; a proposition to which Miss Longestaffe acceded, willingly indeed, but not by any means as though a favour had been conferred upon her. Now the reason why Lady Monogram had changed her mind as to inviting her old friend, and thus threw open her hospitality for three whole days to the poor young lady who had disgraced herself by staying with the Melmottes, was as follows. Miss Longestaffe had the disposal of two evening tickets for Madame Melmotte's grand reception; and so greatly had the Melmottes risen in general appreciation, that Lady Monogram had found that she was bound, on behalf of her own position in society, to be present on that occasion. It would not do that her name should not be in the printed list of the guests. Therefore she had made a serviceable bargain with her old friend Miss Longestaffe. She was to have her two tickets for the reception, and Miss Longestaffe was to be received for three days as a guest by Lady Monogram. It had also been conceded that at any rate on one of these nights Lady Monogram should take Miss Longestaffe out with her, and that she should herself receive company on another. There was perhaps something slightly painful at the commencement of the negotiation; but such feelings soon fade away, and Lady Monogram was quite a woman of the world.

The very greatness of Mr. Melmotte's popularity created bitter opposition against him at Westminster. As the great man was praised, so also was he abused. From the moment he declared his purpose of standing for Westminster, an attempt was made to drive him down the throats of the electors by assertions of his commercial greatness. His wealth was so immense, it was said, that he had no need for any personal profit. He would open up new worlds, and enable young nations to prosper. He was the head of the railway which was to regenerate Mexico. He was to enter into terms with the Emperor of China for farming the tea-fields of that vast country. He was already in treaty with Russia for a railway from Moscow to Khiva. He had a fleet - or soon would have a fleet - of emigrant ships, ready to carry every discontented Irishman from Ireland to all quarters of the globe. Some of these things were only speculation; but they all found their way into the public press, and were used as strong arguments why Melmotte should become member of Parliament for Westminster. The opposing Liberals were driven to make enquiries about his history. Messages were sent to Paris and Frankfurt, Vienna and New York. It was not difficult to collect stories - true or false. Nevertheless there was at first some difficulty in finding a Liberal candidate to run against him. Many were asked, but they were either afraid of Melmotte's purse or his influence. Lord Buntingford was asked, but he was nephew to Lord Alfred Grendall, and abstained. An overture was made to Sir Damask Monogram, who certainly could afford the contest. But Sir Damask preferred his yacht and his four-in-hand. At last a candidate was selected, whose nomination created very great surprise. The press had of course taken up the matter. The Morning Breakfast Table supported Mr. Melmotte - perhaps under Lady Carbury's influence, but more probably because Mr. Broune saw the way the wind was blowing, and supported the commercial hero of the day. There was a strong belief in Melmotte. Dukes and duchesses fted him. Royalty was to dine at his table. Melmotte himself was to sit at the right hand of the Brother of the Sun and the Uncle of the Moon, with British royalty arranged opposite. How could the Editor of the Morning Breakfast Table do other than support him? But the Evening Pulpit took the other side. Now this was remarkable, because the Evening Pulpit had never supported the Liberal interest. It pronounced itself to be independent. So the newspaper's vigour on this occasion was all the more alarming; and the short articles which appeared almost daily about Mr. Melmotte were read by everybody. Now newspaper proprietors are well aware that censure is far more attractive than praise - but also more dangerous. No proprietor was ever brought before the courts for over-praising. Censure, on the other hand, be it ever so truthful, brings the danger of ruin from a libel suit. A very long purse, or very high courage, is needed for the exposure of such conduct as the Evening Pulpit attributed to Mr. Melmotte. The paper took up this line suddenly. After the second article Mr. Alf sent back to Mr. Miles Grendall, who was acting as Mr. Melmotte's secretary, the ticket of invitation for the dinner, with a note stating Mr. Alf could not dine at Mr. Melmotte's table in the presence of the Emperor of China. This conduct astonished the world considerably; but the world was more astonished when it was declared that Mr. Ferdinand Alf himself was going to stand for Westminster as a Liberal. Some said that Mr. Alf intended to retire from his position at the newspaper, and go into Parliament. Mr. Broune whispered to Lady Carbury that the man was a fool, and was carried away by pride. Lady Carbury shook her head. She did not want to give up Mr. Alf if she could help it. He had never said a civil word of her in his paper; but still she felt that it was well to be on good terms with so great a power. She felt much more awe for Mr. Alf than for Mr. Broune. Her awe for him had been much diminished since he had made her an offer of marriage. Of course in the election she supported Mr. Melmotte, still thinking that he might be the making of Felix. "I suppose Mr. Alf is very rich," she said to Mr. Broune. "I dare say he has put by something. But this election will cost him 10,000; and if he goes on as he is doing now, he had better allow another 10,000 for libel actions." "Do you believe that about the Austrian Insurance Company?" This was a matter in which Mr. Melmotte was supposed to have retired from Paris not with clean hands. "I don't believe the Evening Pulpit can prove it - and it will cost them three or four thousand pounds to try. That's a game which nobody wins but the lawyers. I wonder at Alf. He has been so clever until now!" Mr. Alf had a powerful committee. The Whig Marquises and the Whig Barons came forward, and with them the Liberal professional men and tradesmen. There would be a good fight. And it was found that Mr. Alf was a good speaker. He addressed meetings of the constituency almost daily, and in his speeches he never spared Melmotte. No one, he said, had a greater reverence for mercantile grandeur than himself. But let them make sure that the grandeur was honest. How great would be the disgrace to Westminster if it should find that it had been taken in by a false spirit of speculation and gambling! This was regarded as very open speaking. And it had its effect. Some men began to say that Melmotte had not been known long enough to deserve confidence, and the Lord Mayor was beginning to think that it might be wise to escape the dinner by some excuse. Melmotte's committee was also very grand, and included Dukes and Earls. But his public speaking did not inspire much confidence. He had very little to say when he attempted to explain his political principles. After a while he confined himself to remarks on the personal attacks made on him by the other side, and even in doing that he repeated himself. Let them prove it. He defied them to prove it. The men of Westminster were too high-minded to pay any attention to such charges as these till they were proved. Let them prove it. He did not say much himself about libel - but assurances were made on his behalf by Lord Alfred Grendall and his son, that as soon as the election was over various people would be indicted for libel: the Evening Pulpit and Mr. Alf would of course be the first victims. The dinner was fixed for Monday, July the 8th. The election was to be held on Tuesday the 9th. This accident was distressing to some of the Melmottites, for there was much to be done both about the dinner and about the election. The two Grendalls, father and son, found themselves to be so driven that the world seemed to be turned topsey-turvey. "If this goes on much longer I shall cut it," said the elder to his son. "Think of me, governor," said the son. "I have to be in the city four or five times a week." "You've a regular salary." "The thing is - will it last? There are a good many who say that Melmotte will burst up." "I don't believe it," said Lord Alfred. "They don't know what they're talking about. There are too many in the same boat to let him burst up. It would be the bursting up of half London. But I shall tell him after this that he must make it easier." "You shall come to us for three days - after it's over," said Lady Monogram to Miss Georgiana Longestaffe; to which Miss Longestaffe agreed, though not as if a favour had been conferred upon her. The reason why Lady Monogram had changed her mind about inviting her old friend was as follows. Miss Longestaffe had the disposal of two evening tickets for Madame Melmotte's grand reception; and so greatly had the Melmottes risen in society's appreciation, that Lady Monogram had found that she was bound to go. So she had made a bargain with Miss Longestaffe. She was to have her two tickets, and would receive Miss Longestaffe for three days as a guest. It had also been conceded that on one of these nights Lady Monogram should take Miss Longestaffe out with her. There was perhaps something slightly painful at the start of the negotiation; but such feelings soon fade away, and Lady Monogram was a woman of the world.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 44: The Coming Election

When Hetta Carbury received that letter from her lover which was given to the reader some chapters back, it certainly did not tend in any way to alleviate her misery. Even when she had read it over half-a-dozen times, she could not bring herself to think it possible that she could be reconciled to the man. It was not only that he had sinned against her by giving his society to another woman to whom he had at any rate been engaged not long since, at the very time at which he was becoming engaged to her,--but also that he had done this in such a manner as to make his offence known to all her friends. Perhaps she had been too quick;--but there was the fact that with her own consent she had acceded to her mother's demand that the man should be rejected. The man had been rejected, and even Roger Carbury knew that it was so. After this it was, she thought, impossible that she should recall him. But they should all know that her heart was unchanged. Roger Carbury should certainly know that, if he ever asked her further question on the matter. She would never deny it; and though she knew that the man had behaved badly,--having entangled himself with a nasty American woman,--yet she would be true to him as far as her own heart was concerned. And now he told her that she had been most unjust to him. He said that he could not understand her injustice. He did not fill his letter with entreaties, but with reproaches. And certainly his reproaches moved her more than any prayer would have done. It was too late now to remedy the evil; but she was not quite sure within her own bosom that she had not been unjust to him. The more she thought of it the more puzzled her mind became. Had she quarrelled with him because he had once been in love with Mrs. Hurtle, or because she had grounds for regarding Mrs. Hurtle as her present rival? She hated Mrs. Hurtle, and she was very angry with him in that he had ever been on affectionate terms with a woman she hated;--but that had not been the reason put forward by her for quarrelling with him. Perhaps it was true that he, too, had of late loved Mrs. Hurtle hardly better than she did herself. It might be that he had been indeed constrained by hard circumstances to go with the woman to Lowestoft. Having so gone with her, it was no doubt right that he should be rejected;--for how can it be that a man who is engaged shall be allowed to travel about the country with another woman to whom also he was engaged a few months back? But still there might be hardship in it. To her, to Hetta herself, the circumstances were very hard. She loved the man with all her heart. She could look forward to no happiness in life without him. But yet it must be so. At the end of his letter he had told her to go to Mrs. Hurtle herself if she wanted corroboration of the story as told by him. Of course he had known when he wrote it that she could not and would not go to Mrs. Hurtle. But when the letter had been in her possession three or four days,--unanswered, for, as a matter of course, no answer to it from herself was possible,--and had been read and re-read till she knew every word of it by heart, she began to think that if she could hear the story as it might be told by Mrs. Hurtle, a good deal that was now dark might become light to her. As she continued to read the letter, and to brood over it all, by degrees her anger was turned from her lover to her mother, her brother, and to her cousin Roger. Paul had of course behaved badly, very badly,--but had it not been for them she might have had an opportunity of forgiving him. They had driven her on to the declaration of a purpose from which she could now see no escape. There had been a plot against her, and she was a victim. In the first dismay and agony occasioned by that awful story of the American woman,--which had, at the moment, struck her with a horror which was now becoming less and less every hour,--she had fallen head foremost into the trap laid for her. She acknowledged to herself that it was too late to recover her ground. She was, at any rate, almost sure that it must be too late. But yet she was disposed to do battle with her mother and her cousin in the matter--if only with the object of showing that she would not submit her own feelings to their control. She was savage to the point of rebellion against all authority. Roger Carbury would of course think that any communication between herself and Mrs. Hurtle must be most improper,--altogether indelicate. Two or three days ago she thought so herself. But the world was going so hard with her, that she was beginning to feel herself capable of throwing propriety and delicacy to the winds. This man whom she had once accepted, whom she altogether loved, and who, in spite of all his faults, certainly still loved her,--of that she was beginning to have no further doubt,--accused her of dishonesty, and referred her to her rival for a corroboration of his story. She would appeal to Mrs. Hurtle. The woman was odious, abominable, a nasty intriguing American female. But her lover desired that she should hear the woman's story; and she would hear the story,--if the woman would tell it. So resolving, she wrote as follows to Mrs. Hurtle, finding great difficulty in the composition of a letter which should tell neither too little nor too much, and determined that she would be restrained by no mock modesty, by no girlish fear of declaring the truth about herself. The letter at last was stiff and hard, but it sufficed for its purpose. MADAM,-- Mr. Paul Montague has referred me to you as to certain circumstances which have taken place between him and you. It is right that I should tell you that I was a short time since engaged to marry him, but that I have found myself obliged to break off that engagement in consequence of what I have been told as to his acquaintance with you. I make this proposition to you, not thinking that anything you will say to me can change my mind, but because he has asked me to do so, and has, at the same time, accused me of injustice towards him. I do not wish to rest under an accusation of injustice from one to whom I was once warmly attached. If you will receive me, I will make it my business to call any afternoon you may name. Yours truly, HENRIETTA CARBURY. When the letter was written she was not only ashamed of it, but very much afraid of it also. What if the American woman should put it in a newspaper! She had heard that everything was put into newspapers in America. What if this Mrs. Hurtle should send back to her some horribly insolent answer;--or should send such answer to her mother, instead of herself! And then, again, if the American woman consented to receive her, would not the American woman, as a matter of course, trample upon her with rough words? Once or twice she put the letter aside, and almost determined that it should not be sent;--but at last, with desperate fortitude, she took it out with her and posted it herself. She told no word of it to any one. Her mother, she thought, had been cruel to her, had disregarded her feelings, and made her wretched for ever. She could not ask her mother for sympathy in her present distress. There was no friend who would sympathise with her. She must do everything alone. Mrs. Hurtle, it will be remembered, had at last determined that she would retire from the contest and own herself to have been worsted. It is, I fear, impossible to describe adequately the various half resolutions which she formed, and the changing phases of her mind before she brought herself to this conclusion. And soon after she had assured herself that this should be the conclusion,--after she had told Paul Montague that it should be so,--there came back upon her at times other half resolutions to a contrary effect. She had written a letter to the man threatening desperate revenge, and had then abstained from sending it, and had then shown it to the man,--not intending to give it to him as a letter upon which he would have to act, but only that she might ask him whether, had he received it, he would have said that he had not deserved it. Then she had parted with him, refusing either to hear or to say a word of farewell, and had told Mrs. Pipkin that she was no longer engaged to be married. At that moment everything was done that could be done. The game had been played and the stakes lost,--and she had schooled herself into such restraint as to have abandoned all idea of vengeance. But from time to time there arose in her heart a feeling that such softness was unworthy of her. Who had ever been soft to her? Who had spared her? Had she not long since found out that she must fight with her very nails and teeth for every inch of ground, if she did not mean to be trodden into the dust? Had she not held her own among rough people after a very rough fashion, and should she now simply retire that she might weep in a corner like a love-sick schoolgirl? And she had been so stoutly determined that she would at any rate avenge her own wrongs, if she could not turn those wrongs into triumph! There were moments in which she thought that she could still seize the man by the throat, where all the world might see her, and dare him to deny that he was false, perjured, and mean. Then she received a long passionate letter from Paul Montague, written at the same time as those other letters to Roger Carbury and Hetta, in which he told her all the circumstances of his engagement to Hetta Carbury, and implored her to substantiate the truth of his own story. It was certainly marvellous to her that the man who had so long been her own lover and who had parted with her after such a fashion should write such a letter to her. But it had no tendency to increase either her anger or her sorrow. Of course she had known that it was so, and at certain times she had told herself that it was only natural,--had almost told herself that it was right. She and this young Englishman were not fit to be mated. He was to her thinking a tame, sleek household animal, whereas she knew herself to be wild,--fitter for the woods than for polished cities. It had been one of the faults of her life that she had allowed herself to be bound by tenderness of feeling to this soft over-civilised man. The result had been disastrous, as might have been expected. She was angry with him,--almost to the extent of tearing him to pieces,--but she did not become more angry because he wrote to her of her rival. Her only present friend was Mrs. Pipkin, who treated her with the greatest deference, but who was never tired of asking questions about the lost lover. "That letter was from Mr. Montague?" said Mrs. Pipkin on the morning after it had been received. "How can you know that?" "I'm sure it was. One does get to know handwritings when letters come frequent." "It was from him. And why not?" "Oh dear no;--why not certainly? I wish he'd write every day of his life, so that things would come round again. Nothing ever troubles me so much as broken love. Why don't he come again himself, Mrs. Hurtle?" "It is not at all likely that he should come again. It is all over, and there is no good in talking of it. I shall return to New York on Saturday week." "Oh, Mrs. Hurtle!" "I can't remain here, you know, all my life doing nothing. I came over here for a certain purpose, and that has--gone by. Now I may just go back again." "I know he has ill-treated you. I know he has." "I am not disposed to talk about it, Mrs. Pipkin." "I should have thought it would have done you good to speak your mind out free. I know it would me if I'd been served in that way." "If I had anything to say at all after that fashion it would be to the gentleman, and not to any other else. As it is I shall never speak of it again to any one. You have been very kind to me, Mrs. Pipkin, and I shall be sorry to leave you." "Oh, Mrs. Hurtle, you can't understand what it is to me. It isn't only my feelings. The likes of me can't stand by their feelings only, as their betters do. I've never been above telling you what a godsend you've been to me this summer;--have I? I've paid everything, butcher, baker, rates and all, just like clockwork. And now you're going away!" Then Mrs. Pipkin began to sob. "I suppose I shall see Mr. Crumb before I go," said Mrs. Hurtle. "She don't deserve it; do she? And even now she never says a word about him that I call respectful. She looks on him as just being better than Mrs. Buggins's children. That's all." "She'll be all right when he has once got her home." "And I shall be all alone by myself," said Mrs. Pipkin, with her apron up to her eyes. It was after this that Mrs. Hurtle received Hetta's letter. She had as yet returned no answer to Paul Montague,--nor had she intended to send any written answer. Were she to comply with his request she could do so best by writing to the girl who was concerned rather than to him. And though she wrote no such letter she thought of it,--of the words she would use were she to write it, and of the tale which she would have to tell. She sat for hours thinking of it, trying to resolve whether she would tell the tale,--if she told it at all,--in a manner to suit Paul's purpose, or so as to bring that purpose utterly to shipwreck. She did not doubt that she could cause the shipwreck were she so minded. She could certainly have her revenge after that fashion. But it was a woman's fashion, and, as such, did not recommend itself to Mrs. Hurtle's feelings. A pistol or a horsewhip, a violent seizing by the neck, with sharp taunts and bitter-ringing words, would have made the fitting revenge. If she abandoned that she could do herself no good by telling a story of her wrongs to another woman. Then came Hetta's note, so stiff, so cold, so true,--so like the letter of an Englishwoman, as Mrs. Hurtle said to herself. Mrs. Hurtle smiled as she read the letter. "I make this proposition not thinking that anything you can say to me can change my mind." Of course the girl's mind would be changed. The girl's mind, indeed, required no change. Mrs. Hurtle could see well enough that the girl's heart was set upon the man. Nevertheless she did not doubt but that she could tell the story after such a fashion as to make it impossible that the girl should marry him,--if she chose to do so. At first she thought that she would not answer the letter at all. What was it to her? Let them fight their own lovers' battles out after their own childish fashion. If the man meant at last to be honest, there could be no doubt, Mrs. Hurtle thought, that the girl would go to him. It would require no interference of hers. But after a while she thought that she might as well see this English chit who had superseded herself in the affections of the Englishman she had condescended to love. And if it were the case that all revenge was to be abandoned, that no punishment was to be exacted in return for all the injury that had been done, why should she not say a kind word so as to smooth away the existing difficulties? Wild cat as she was, kindness was more congenial to her nature than cruelty. So she wrote to Hetta making an appointment. DEAR MISS CARBURY,-- If you could make it convenient to yourself to call here either Thursday or Friday at any hour between two and four, I shall be very happy to see you. Yours sincerely, WINIFRID HURTLE.

When Hetta received the letter from Paul Montague, it did not alleviate her misery. Even when she had read it half-a-dozen times, she could not see how she could be reconciled to him. It was not only that he had sinned against her by associating with another woman, at the very time at which he was becoming engaged to her - but also that he had done this in such a way as to make his offence known to her friends. He had been rejected, and she thought it was impossible that she should recall him. But they should all know that her heart was unchanged. Roger Carbury should certainly know it, if he ever asked her. Though she knew that Paul had behaved badly, yet she would be true to him as far as her own heart was concerned. And now he told her that she had been unjust to him. He did not fill his letter with entreaties, but with reproaches. And certainly his reproaches moved her more than any prayer would have done. It was too late now to remedy the evil; but she wondered if she had been unjust. The more she thought of it the more puzzled she became. Had she quarrelled with him because he had once been in love with Mrs. Hurtle, or because she had grounds for regarding Mrs. Hurtle as a present rival? Maybe he had indeed been forced by circumstances to go with her to Lowestoft. Having done so, it was no doubt right that he should be rejected; but still there might be hardship in it. To Hetta herself, it was very hard. She loved the man with all her heart. She could look forward to no happiness in life without him. But yet it must be so. At the end of his letter he had told her to go to Mrs. Hurtle herself if she wanted corroboration of his story. Of course he knew that she could not go to Mrs. Hurtle. But when the letter had been in her possession three or four days - unanswered, but constantly re-read - she began to think that if she could hear Mrs. Hurtle's story, a good deal that was now dark might become light to her. As she continued to brood over the letter, by degrees her anger turned from her lover to her mother, her brother, and to her cousin Roger. Paul had of course behaved very badly - but had it not been for them, she might have had an opportunity of forgiving him. They had driven her on to a rejection from which she could now see no escape. In the first agony caused by that awful story of the American woman, she had fallen head foremost into the trap laid for her. She was almost sure that it was too late to recover her ground. But she could still do battle with her mother and her cousin - if only to show that she would not submit her feelings to their control. She was savage against all authority. Roger Carbury would of course think that any communication between herself and Mrs. Hurtle must be most improper and indelicate. But she was beginning to feel herself capable of throwing propriety and delicacy to the winds. She would appeal to Mrs. Hurtle. The woman was odious, a nasty scheming American female. But Paul desired that she should hear the woman's story. So she wrote as follows to Mrs. Hurtle, finding great difficulty in composing a suitable letter. It was stiff, but it sufficed for its purpose. Madam, Mr. Paul Montague has referred me to you as to certain circumstances which have taken place between him and you. It is right that I should tell you that I was a short time ago engaged to marry him, but that I have been obliged to break off that engagement in consequence of what I have been told about his acquaintance with you. I write to you, not thinking that anything you will say can change my mind, but because he has asked me to do so, and has, at the same time, accused me of injustice towards him. I do not wish to rest under an accusation of injustice from one to whom I was once warmly attached. If you will receive me, I will call any afternoon you may name. Yours truly, Henrietta Carbury. When the letter was written and posted she was not only ashamed of it, but afraid of it also. What if this Mrs. Hurtle should send back some horribly insolent answer - or send such answer to her mother, instead of herself! She told no word of the letter to anyone. She could not ask her mother for sympathy. There was no friend who would sympathise with her. She must do everything alone. Mrs. Hurtle, it will be remembered, had at last decided to retire from the contest, though not without many changing phases of her mind. But she had parted with Paul, and had told Mrs. Pipkin that she was no longer engaged to be married. The game had been played and the stakes lost. But from time to time there arose in her heart a wish for vengeance. Who had spared her? Should she now simply retire to weep in a corner like a love-sick schoolgirl? There were moments when she thought that she could still seize the man by the throat, and dare him to deny that he was false, perjured, and mean. Then she received a long passionate letter from Paul Montague, written at the same time as those other letters to Roger Carbury and Hetta, in which he told her all the circumstances of his engagement to Hetta Carbury, and implored her to substantiate the truth of his own story. She was amazed that he should write such a letter; but it did not increase either her anger or her sorrow. She told herself that she and this young Englishman were not fit to be mated. He was a tame, sleek household animal, whereas she knew herself to be wild - fitter for the woods than for cities. It had been one of the faults of her life that she had allowed herself to be bound to him by tenderness; and the result had been disastrous, as might have been expected. Mrs. Pipkin, who had been told her engagement was ended, asked her, "That letter was from Mr. Montague? One gets to know handwritings when letters come frequent." "It was from him. And why not?" "Why not certainly? I wish he'd write every day, so that things would come round again. Nothing ever troubles me so much as broken love." "It is all over, and there is no good in talking of it. I shall return to New York on Saturday week." "Oh, Mrs. Hurtle! I know he has ill-treated you. I know he has." "I am not disposed to talk about it, Mrs. Pipkin. If I had anything to say it would be to the gentleman, and no one else. You have been very kind to me, Mrs. Pipkin, and I shall be sorry to leave you." "Oh, Mrs. Hurtle, you've been a Godsend to me this summer - I've paid everything, butcher, baker, rates and all, just like clockwork. And now you're going away!" Then Mrs. Pipkin began to sob. It was after this that Mrs. Hurtle received Hetta's letter. She had as yet returned no answer to Paul Montague, although she had thought of writing to the girl, and had pondered the words that she would use - whether she would tell the tale in a manner to suit Paul's purpose, or so as to bring him utterly to shipwreck. She did not doubt that she could cause the shipwreck if she wished. But such a revenge did not recommend itself to Mrs. Hurtle. She would have preferred a pistol or a horsewhip. Then came Hetta's note, so stiff, so cold, so true - so like the letter of an Englishwoman, thought Mrs. Hurtle, smiling as she read it. She could see well enough that the girl's heart was still set upon the man. Nevertheless she did not doubt that she could tell the story so as to make it impossible for the girl to marry him - if she chose to do so. At first she thought that she would not answer the letter at all. What was it to her? But after a while she thought that she might as well see this English chit who had superseded her in Montague's affections. And if all revenge was to be abandoned, why should she not say a kind word so as to smooth away difficulties? Wild cat as she was, kindness was more congenial to her nature than cruelty. So she wrote to Hetta. Dear Miss Carbury, If you could call here either Thursday or Friday at any hour between two and four, I shall be very happy to see you. Yours sincerely, Winifred Hurtle.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 90: Hetta's Sorrow

Melmotte's success, and Melmotte's wealth, and Melmotte's antecedents were much discussed down in Suffolk at this time. He had been seen there in the flesh, and there is no believing like that which comes from sight. He had been staying at Caversham, and many in those parts knew that Miss Longestaffe was now living in his house in London. The purchase of the Pickering estate had also been noticed in all the Suffolk and Norfolk newspapers. Rumours, therefore, of his past frauds, rumour also as to the instability of his presumed fortune, were as current as those which declared him to be by far the richest man in England. Miss Melmotte's little attempt had also been communicated in the papers; and Sir Felix, though he was not recognised as being "real Suffolk" himself, was so far connected with Suffolk by name as to add something to this feeling of reality respecting the Melmottes generally. Suffolk is very old-fashioned. Suffolk, taken as a whole, did not like the Melmotte fashion. Suffolk, which is, I fear, persistently and irrecoverably Conservative, did not believe in Melmotte as a Conservative Member of Parliament. Suffolk on this occasion was rather ashamed of the Longestaffes, and took occasion to remember that it was barely the other day, as Suffolk counts days, since the original Longestaffe was in trade. This selling of Pickering, and especially the selling of it to Melmotte, was a mean thing. Suffolk, as a whole, thoroughly believed that Melmotte had picked the very bones of every shareholder in that Franco-Austrian Assurance Company. Mr. Hepworth was over with Roger one morning, and they were talking about him,--or talking rather of the attempted elopement. "I know nothing about it," said Roger, "and I do not intend to ask. Of course I did know when they were down here that he hoped to marry her, and I did believe that she was willing to marry him. But whether the father had consented or not I never enquired." "It seems he did not consent." "Nothing could have been more unfortunate for either of them than such a marriage. Melmotte will probably be in the 'Gazette' before long, and my cousin not only has not a shilling, but could not keep one if he had it." "You think Melmotte will turn out a failure." "A failure! Of course he's a failure, whether rich or poor;--a miserable imposition, a hollow vulgar fraud from beginning to end,--too insignificant for you and me to talk of, were it not that his position is a sign of the degeneracy of the age. What are we coming to when such as he is an honoured guest at our tables?" "At just a table here and there," suggested his friend. "No;--it is not that. You can keep your house free from him, and so can I mine. But we set no example to the nation at large. They who do set the example go to his feasts, and of course he is seen at theirs in return. And yet these leaders of the fashion know,--at any rate they believe,--that he is what he is because he has been a swindler greater than other swindlers. What follows as a natural consequence? Men reconcile themselves to swindling. Though they themselves mean to be honest, dishonesty of itself is no longer odious to them. Then there comes the jealousy that others should be growing rich with the approval of all the world,--and the natural aptitude to do what all the world approves. It seems to me that the existence of a Melmotte is not compatible with a wholesome state of things in general." Roger dined with the Bishop of Elmham that evening, and the same hero was discussed under a different heading. "He has given 200," said the Bishop, "to the Curates' Aid Society. I don't know that a man could spend his money much better than that." "Clap-trap!" said Roger, who in his present mood was very bitter. "The money is not clap-trap, my friend. I presume that the money is really paid." "I don't feel at all sure of that." "Our collectors for clerical charities are usually stern men,--very ready to make known defalcations on the part of promising subscribers. I think they would take care to get the money during the election." "And you think that money got in that way redounds to his credit?" "Such a gift shows him to be a useful member of society,--and I am always for encouraging useful men." "Even though their own objects may be vile and pernicious?" "There you beg ever so many questions, Mr. Carbury. Mr. Melmotte wishes to get into Parliament, and if there would vote on the side which you at any rate approve. I do not know that his object in that respect is pernicious. And as a seat in Parliament has been a matter of ambition to the best of our countrymen for centuries, I do not know why we should say that it is vile in this man." Roger frowned and shook his head. "Of course Mr. Melmotte is not the sort of gentleman whom you have been accustomed to regard as a fitting member for a Conservative constituency. But the country is changing." "It's going to the dogs, I think;--about as fast as it can go." "We build churches much faster than we used to do." "Do we say our prayers in them when we have built them?" asked the Squire. "It is very hard to see into the minds of men," said the Bishop; "but we can see the results of their minds' work. I think that men on the whole do live better lives than they did a hundred years ago. There is a wider spirit of justice abroad, more of mercy from one to another, a more lively charity, and if less of religious enthusiasm, less also of superstition. Men will hardly go to heaven, Mr. Carbury, by following forms only because their fathers followed the same forms before them." "I suppose men will go to heaven, my Lord, by doing as they would be done by." "There can be no safer lesson. But we must hope that some may be saved even if they have not practised at all times that grand self-denial. Who comes up to that teaching? Do you not wish for, nay, almost demand, instant pardon for any trespass that you may commit,--of temper, or manner, for instance? and are you always ready to forgive in that way yourself? Do you not writhe with indignation at being wrongly judged by others who condemn you without knowing your actions or the causes of them; and do you never judge others after that fashion?" "I do not put myself forward as an example." "I apologise for the personal form of my appeal. A clergyman is apt to forget that he is not in the pulpit. Of course I speak of men in general. Taking society as a whole, the big and the little, the rich and the poor, I think that it grows better from year to year, and not worse. I think, too, that they who grumble at the times, as Horace did, and declare that each age is worse than its forerunner, look only at the small things beneath their eyes, and ignore the course of the world at large." "But Roman freedom and Roman manners were going to the dogs when Horace wrote." "But Christ was about to be born, and men were already being made fit by wider intelligence for Christ's teaching. And as for freedom, has not freedom grown, almost every year, from that to this?" "In Rome they were worshipping just such men as this Melmotte. Do you remember the man who sat upon the seats of the knights and scoured the Via Sacra with his toga, though he had been scourged from pillar to post for his villainies? I always think of that man when I hear Melmotte's name mentioned. Hoc, hoc tribuno militum! Is this the man to be Conservative member for Westminster?" "Do you know of the scourges, as a fact?" "I think I know that they are deserved." "That is hardly doing to others as you would be done by. If the man is what you say, he will surely be found out at last, and the day of his punishment will come. Your friend in the ode probably had a bad time of it, in spite of his farms and his horses. The world perhaps is managed more justly than you think, Mr. Carbury." "My Lord, I believe you're a Radical at heart," said Roger, as he took his leave. "Very likely,--very likely. Only don't say so to the Prime Minister, or I shall never get any of the better things which may be going." The Bishop was not hopelessly in love with a young lady, and was therefore less inclined to take a melancholy view of things in general than Roger Carbury. To Roger everything seemed to be out of joint. He had that morning received a letter from Lady Carbury, reminding him of the promise of a loan, should a time come to her of great need. It had come very quickly. Roger Carbury did not in the least begrudge the hundred pounds which he had already sent to his cousin; but he did begrudge any furtherance afforded to the iniquitous schemes of Sir Felix. He felt all but sure that the foolish mother had given her son money for his abortive attempt, and that therefore this appeal had been made to him. He alluded to no such fear in his letter. He simply enclosed the cheque, and expressed a hope that the amount might suffice for the present emergency. But he was disheartened and disgusted by all the circumstances of the Carbury family. There was Paul Montague, bringing a woman such as Mrs. Hurtle down to Lowestoft, declaring his purpose of continuing his visits to her, and, as Roger thought, utterly unable to free himself from his toils,--and yet, on this man's account, Hetta was cold and hard to him. He was conscious of the honesty of his own love, sure that he could make her happy,--confident, not in himself, but in the fashion and ways of his own life. What would be Hetta's lot if her heart was really given to Paul Montague? When he got home, he found Father Barham sitting in his library. An accident had lately happened at Father Barham's own establishment. The wind had blown the roof off his cottage; and Roger Carbury, though his affection for the priest was waning, had offered him shelter while the damage was being repaired. Shelter at Carbury Manor was very much more comfortable than the priest's own establishment, even with the roof on, and Father Barham was in clover. Father Barham was reading his own favourite newspaper, "The Surplice," when Roger entered the room. "Have you seen this, Mr. Carbury?" he said. "What's this? I am not likely to have seen anything that belongs peculiarly to 'The Surplice.'" "That's the prejudice of what you are pleased to call the Anglican Church. Mr. Melmotte is a convert to our faith. He is a great man, and will perhaps be one of the greatest known on the face of the globe." "Melmotte a convert to Romanism! I'll make you a present of him, and thank you to take him; but I don't believe that we've any such good riddance." Then Father Barham read a paragraph out of "The Surplice." "Mr. Augustus Melmotte, the great financier and capitalist, has presented a hundred guineas towards the erection of an altar for the new church of St. Fabricius, in Tothill Fields. The donation was accompanied by a letter from Mr. Melmotte's secretary, which leaves but little doubt that the new member for Westminster will be a member, and no inconsiderable member, of the Catholic party in the House, during the next session." "That's another dodge, is it?" said Carbury. "What do you mean by a dodge, Mr. Carbury? Because money is given for a pious object of which you do not happen to approve, must it be a dodge?" "But, my dear Father Barham, the day before the same great man gave 200 to the Protestant Curates' Aid Society. I have just left the Bishop exulting in this great act of charity." "I don't believe a word of it;--or it may be a parting gift to the Church to which he belonged in his darkness." "And you would be really proud of Mr. Melmotte as a convert?" "I would be proud of the lowest human being that has a soul," said the priest; "but of course we are glad to welcome the wealthy and the great." "The great! oh dear!" "A man is great who has made for himself such a position as that of Mr. Melmotte. And when such a one leaves your Church and joins our own, it is a great sign to us that the Truth is prevailing." Roger Carbury, without another word, took his candle and went to bed.

Melmotte's success, wealth, and history were much discussed in Suffolk at this time. He had stayed at Caversham, and many in those parts knew that Miss Longestaffe was now living in his house in London. The purchase of the Pickering estate had been noticed in the Suffolk newspapers, as had rumours of his past frauds. Miss Melmotte's attempt at running away had also been reported in the papers. Suffolk is very old-fashioned; and did not like the Melmotte fashion. Although Conservative, Suffolk did not believe in Melmotte as a Conservative Member of Parliament. Suffolk on this occasion was rather ashamed of the Longestaffes, and remembered that it was barely the other day since the original Longestaffe was in trade. This selling of Pickering to Melmotte was a mean thing. Mr. Hepworth was with Roger one morning, and they were talking about the attempted elopement. "I know nothing about it," said Roger, "Of course I knew when they were down here that Sir Felix hoped to marry her. But nothing could have been more unfortunate for either of them than such a marriage. Melmotte will probably be bankrupt before long, and my cousin not only has not a shilling, but could not keep one if he had it." "You think Melmotte will turn out a failure." "A failure! Of course he's a failure - a hollow vulgar fraud from beginning to end. What are we coming to when such as he is an honoured guest at our tables? These leaders of fashion who invite him know he is a swindler. But men reconcile themselves to swindling. Dishonesty is no longer odious to them." Roger dined with the Bishop of Elmham that evening, and Melmotte was again discussed. "He has given 200 to the Curates' Aid Society," said the Bishop. "I don't think a man could spend his money better." "Clap-trap!" said Roger bitterly. "The money is not clap-trap, my friend. I presume that the money is really paid." "I don't feel at all sure of that." "Such a gift shows him to be a useful member of society, and I am always for encouraging useful men." "Even though their aims may be vile and pernicious?" "There you beg ever so many questions, Mr. Carbury. Mr. Melmotte wishes to get into Parliament. I do not know why we should say that ambition is pernicious or vile." Roger frowned and shook his head. "Of course Mr. Melmotte is not the sort of gentleman whom you regard as fitting for a Conservative constituency. But the country is changing." "It's going to the dogs, I think." "I think that men on the whole live better lives than they did a hundred years ago," said the Bishop. "There is a wider spirit of justice and mercy, a more lively charity, and if less religious enthusiasm, less also of superstition. Men will hardly go to heaven, Mr. Carbury, simply by doing as their fathers did." "I suppose men will go to heaven, my Lord, by doing as they would be done by." "There can be no safer lesson. But who comes up to that teaching? Do you not wish for, nay, almost demand, instant pardon for any trespass that you may commit, of temper, or manner, for instance? and are you always ready to forgive in that way yourself?" "I do not put myself forward as an example." "I apologise; a clergyman is apt to forget that he is not in the pulpit. Of course I speak of men in general. Taking society as a whole, I think that it grows better from year to year, and not worse. I think, too, that they who grumble at the times, and declare that each age is worse than its forerunner, look only at the small things, and ignore the course of the world at large. And as for freedom, has it not grown almost every year? The world perhaps is managed more justly than you think, Mr. Carbury." "My Lord, I believe you're a Radical at heart," said Roger. "Very likely, very likely." But to Roger everything seemed to be out of joint. He had that morning received a letter from Lady Carbury, reminding him of the promise of a loan, should a time come to her of great need. It had come very quickly. Roger Carbury did not in the least begrudge her the hundred pounds which he sent; but he did begrudge any money going to the iniquitous schemes of Sir Felix. He was disheartened and disgusted by all the circumstances of the Carbury family. There was Paul Montague, bringing a woman such as Mrs. Hurtle down to Lowestoft, utterly unable, Roger thought, to free himself; and yet on Montague's account, Hetta was cold and hard to him. He was sure that he could make her happy; or rather, his way of life could. What would be Hetta's lot if her heart was given to Paul Montague? When he got home, he found Father Barham sitting in his library. The wind had recently blown the roof off the priest's cottage; and Roger Carbury, though his affection for him was waning, had offered him shelter while the damage was being repaired. Carbury Manor was very much more comfortable than the priest's home, and Father Barham was in clover. Father Barham was reading his favourite newspaper, The Surplice, when Roger entered the room. "Have you seen this, Mr. Carbury?" he said. "Mr. Melmotte is a convert to our faith. He is a great man." "Melmotte a convert to Romanism! I don't believe it." Then Father Barham read out: "Mr. Augustus Melmotte, the great financier, has presented a hundred guineas towards the erection of an altar for the new church of St. Fabricius, in Tothill Fields. An accompanying letter leaves little doubt that the new member for Westminster will be a member of the Catholic party in the House, during the next session." "That's another dodge, is it?" said Carbury. "The other day, the great man gave 200 to the Protestant Curates' Aid Society. I have just left the Bishop exulting over it." "I don't believe that - or it may be a parting gift to his former Church." "Would you really be proud of Mr. Melmotte as a convert?" "I would be proud of the lowest human being that has a soul," said the priest; "but of course we are glad to welcome the wealthy and the great." "The great! oh dear!" "A man is great who has made for himself such a position as Mr. Melmotte's. And when such a one leaves your Church and joins our own, it is a sign to us that the Truth is prevailing." Roger Carbury, without another word, took his candle and went to bed.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 55: Clerical Charities

"This is so kind of you," said Lady Carbury, grasping her cousin's hand as she got out of the carriage. "The kindness is on your part," said Roger. "I felt so much before I dared to ask you to take us. But I did so long to get into the country, and I do so love Carbury. And--and--" "Where should a Carbury go to escape from London smoke, but to the old house? I am afraid Henrietta will find it dull." "Oh no," said Hetta smiling. "You ought to remember that I am never dull in the country." "The bishop and Mrs. Yeld are coming here to dine to-morrow,--and the Hepworths." "I shall be so glad to meet the bishop once more," said Lady Carbury. "I think everybody must be glad to meet him, he is such a dear, good fellow, and his wife is just as good. And there is another gentleman coming whom you have never seen." "A new neighbour?" "Yes,--a new neighbour;--Father John Barham, who has come to Beccles as priest. He has got a little cottage about a mile from here, in this parish, and does duty both at Beccles and Bungay. I used to know something of his family." "He is a gentleman then?" "Certainly he is a gentleman. He took his degree at Oxford, and then became what we call a pervert, and what I suppose they call a convert. He has not got a shilling in the world beyond what they pay him as a priest, which I take it amounts to about as much as the wages of a day labourer. He told me the other day that he was absolutely forced to buy second-hand clothes." "How shocking!" said Lady Carbury, holding up her hands. "He didn't seem to be at all shocked at telling it. We have got to be quite friends." "Will the bishop like to meet him?" "Why should not the bishop like to meet him? I've told the bishop all about him, and the bishop particularly wishes to know him. He won't hurt the bishop. But you and Hetta will find it very dull." "I shan't find it dull, Mr. Carbury," said Henrietta. "It was to escape from the eternal parties that we came down here," said Lady Carbury. She had nevertheless been anxious to hear what guests were expected at the Manor House. Sir Felix had promised to come down on Saturday, with the intention of returning on Monday, and Lady Carbury had hoped that some visiting might be arranged between Caversham and the Manor House, so that her son might have the full advantage of his closeness to Marie Melmotte. "I have asked the Longestaffes for Monday," said Roger. "They are down here then?" "I think they arrived yesterday. There is always a flustering breeze in the air and a perturbation generally through the county when they come or go, and I think I perceived the effects about four in the afternoon. They won't come, I dare say." "Why not?" "They never do. They have probably a house full of guests, and they know that my accommodation is limited. I've no doubt they'll ask us on Tuesday or Wednesday, and if you like we will go." "I know they are to have guests," said Lady Carbury. "What guests?" "The Melmottes are coming to them." Lady Carbury, as she made the announcement, felt that her voice and countenance and self-possession were failing her, and that she could not mention the thing as she would any matter that was indifferent to her. "The Melmottes coming to Caversham!" said Roger, looking at Henrietta, who blushed with shame as she remembered that she had been brought into her lover's house solely in order that her brother might have an opportunity of seeing Marie Melmotte in the country. "Oh yes,--Madame Melmotte told me. I take it they are very intimate." "Mr. Longestaffe ask the Melmottes to visit him at Caversham!" "Why not?" "I should almost as soon have believed that I myself might have been induced to ask them here." "I fancy, Roger, that Mr. Longestaffe does want a little pecuniary assistance." "And he condescends to get it in this way! I suppose it will make no difference soon whom one knows, and whom one doesn't. Things aren't as they were, of course, and never will be again. Perhaps it's all for the better;--I won't say it isn't. But I should have thought that such a man as Mr. Longestaffe might have kept such another man as Mr. Melmotte out of his wife's drawing-room." Henrietta became redder than ever. Even Lady Carbury flushed up, as she remembered that Roger Carbury knew that she had taken her daughter to Madame Melmotte's ball. He thought of this himself as soon as the words were spoken, and then tried to make some half apology. "I don't approve of them in London, you know; but I think they are very much worse in the country." Then there was a movement. The ladies were shown into their rooms, and Roger again went out into the garden. He began to feel that he understood it all. Lady Carbury had come down to his house in order that she might be near the Melmottes! There was something in this which he felt it difficult not to resent. It was for no love of him that she was there. He had felt that Henrietta ought not to have been brought to his house; but he could have forgiven that, because her presence there was a charm to him. He could have forgiven that, even while he was thinking that her mother had brought her there with the object of disposing of her. If it were so, the mother's object would be the same as his own, and such a manoeuvre he could pardon, though he could not approve. His self-love had to some extent been gratified. But now he saw that he and his house had been simply used in order that a vile project of marrying two vile people to each other might be furthered! As he was thinking of all this, Lady Carbury came out to him in the garden. She had changed her travelling dress, and made herself pretty, as she well knew how to do. And now she dressed her face in her sweetest smiles. Her mind, also, was full of the Melmottes, and she wished to explain to her stern, unbending cousin all the good that might come to her and hers by an alliance with the heiress. "I can understand, Roger," she said, taking his arm, "that you should not like those people." "What people?" "The Melmottes." "I don't dislike them. How should I dislike people that I never saw? I dislike those who seek their society simply because they have the reputation of being rich." "Meaning me." "No; not meaning you. I don't dislike you, as you know very well, though I do dislike the fact that you should run after these people. I was thinking of the Longestaffes then." "Do you suppose, my friend, that I run after them for my own gratification? Do you think that I go to their house because I find pleasure in their magnificence; or that I follow them down here for any good that they will do me?" "I would not follow them at all." "I will go back if you bid me, but I must first explain what I mean. You know my son's condition,--better, I fear, than he does himself." Roger nodded assent to this, but said nothing. "What is he to do? The only chance for a young man in his position is that he should marry a girl with money. He is good-looking; you can't deny that." "Nature has done enough for him." "We must take him as he is. He was put into the army very young, and was very young when he came into possession of his own small fortune. He might have done better; but how many young men placed in such temptations do well? As it is, he has nothing left." "I fear not." "And therefore is it not imperative that he should marry a girl with money?" "I call that stealing a girl's money, Lady Carbury." "Oh, Roger, how hard you are!" "A man must be hard or soft,--which is best?" "With women I think that a little softness has the most effect. I want to make you understand this about the Melmottes. It stands to reason that the girl will not marry Felix unless she loves him." "But does he love her?" "Why should he not? Is a girl to be debarred from being loved because she has money? Of course she looks to be married, and why should she not have Felix if she likes him best? Cannot you sympathize with my anxiety so to place him that he shall not be a disgrace to the name and to the family?" "We had better not talk about the family, Lady Carbury." "But I think so much about it." "You will never get me to say that I think the family will be benefited by a marriage with the daughter of Mr. Melmotte. I look upon him as dirt in the gutter. To me, in my old-fashioned way, all his money, if he has it, can make no difference. When there is a question of marriage people at any rate should know something of each other. Who knows anything of this man? Who can be sure that she is his daughter?" "He would give her her fortune when she married." "Yes; it all comes to that. Men say openly that he is an adventurer and a swindler. No one pretends to think that he is a gentleman. There is a consciousness among all who speak of him that he amasses his money not by honest trade, but by unknown tricks,--as does a card sharper. He is one whom we would not admit into our kitchens, much less to our tables, on the score of his own merits. But because he has learned the art of making money, we not only put up with him, but settle upon his carcase as so many birds of prey." "Do you mean that Felix should not marry the girl, even if they love each other?" He shook his head in disgust, feeling sure that any idea of love on the part of the young man was a sham and a pretence, not only as regarded him, but also his mother. He could not quite declare this, and yet he desired that she should understand that he thought so. "I have nothing more to say about it," he continued. "Had it gone on in London I should have said nothing. It is no affair of mine. When I am told that the girl is in the neighbourhood, at such a house as Caversham, and that Felix is coming here in order that he may be near to his prey, and when I am asked to be a party to the thing, I can only say what I think. Your son would be welcome to my house, because he is your son and my cousin, little as I approve his mode of life; but I could have wished that he had chosen some other place for the work that he has on hand." "If you wish it, Roger, we will return to London. I shall find it hard to explain to Hetta;--but we will go." "No; I certainly do not wish that." "But you have said such hard things! How are we to stay? You speak of Felix as though he were all bad." She looked at him hoping to get from him some contradiction of this, some retractation, some kindly word; but it was what he did think, and he had nothing to say. She could bear much. She was not delicate as to censure implied, or even expressed. She had endured rough usage before, and was prepared to endure more. Had he found fault with herself, or with Henrietta, she would have put up with it, for the sake of benefits to come,--would have forgiven it the more easily because perhaps it might not have been deserved. But for her son she was prepared to fight. If she did not defend him, who would? "I am grieved, Roger, that we should have troubled you with our visit, but I think that we had better go. You are very harsh, and it crushes me." "I have not meant to be harsh." "You say that Felix is seeking for his--prey, and that he is to be brought here to be near--his prey. What can be more harsh than that? At any rate, you should remember that I am his mother." [Illustration: "You should remember that I am his mother."] She expressed her sense of injury very well. Roger began to be ashamed of himself, and to think that he had spoken unkind words. And yet he did not know how to recall them. "If I have hurt you, I regret it much." "Of course you have hurt me. I think I will go in now. How very hard the world is! I came here thinking to find peace and sunshine, and there has come a storm at once." "You asked me about the Melmottes, and I was obliged to speak. You cannot think that I meant to offend you." They walked on in silence till they had reached the door leading from the garden into the house, and here he stopped her. "If I have been over hot with you, let me beg your pardon." She smiled and bowed; but her smile was not one of forgiveness; and then she essayed to pass on into the house. "Pray do not speak of going, Lady Carbury." "I think I will go to my room now. My head aches so that I can hardly stand." It was late in the afternoon,--about six,--and according to his daily custom he should have gone round to the offices to see his men as they came from their work, but he stood still for a few moments on the spot where Lady Carbury had left him and went slowly across the lawn to the bridge and there seated himself on the parapet. Could it really be that she meant to leave his house in anger and to take her daughter with her? Was it thus that he was to part with the one human being in the world that he loved? He was a man who thought much of the duties of hospitality, feeling that a man in his own house was bound to exercise a courtesy towards his guests sweeter, softer, more gracious than the world required elsewhere. And of all guests those of his own name were the best entitled to such courtesy at Carbury. He held the place in trust for the use of others. But if there were one among all others to whom the house should be a house of refuge from care, not an abode of trouble, on whose behalf were it possible he would make the very air softer, and the flowers sweeter than their wont, to whom he would declare, were such words possible to his tongue, that of him and of his house, and of all things there she was the mistress, whether she would condescend to love him or no,--that one was his cousin Hetta. And now he had been told by his guest that he had been so rough to her that she and her daughter must return to London! And he could not acquit himself. He knew that he had been rough. He had said very hard words. It was true that he could not have expressed his meaning without hard words, nor have repressed his meaning without self-reproach. But in his present mood he could not comfort himself by justifying himself. She had told him that he ought to have remembered that Felix was her son; and as she spoke she had acted well the part of an outraged mother. His heart was so soft that though he knew the woman to be false and the son to be worthless, he utterly condemned himself. Look where he would there was no comfort. When he had sat half-an-hour upon the bridge he turned towards the house to dress for dinner,--and to prepare himself for an apology, if any apology might be accepted. At the door, standing in the doorway as though waiting for him, he met his cousin Hetta. She had on her bosom the rose he had placed in her room, and as he approached her he thought that there was more in her eyes of graciousness towards him than he had ever seen there before. "Mr. Carbury," she said, "mamma is so unhappy!" "I fear that I have offended her." "It is not that, but that you should be so,--so angry about Felix." "I am vexed with myself that I have vexed her,--more vexed than I can tell you." "She knows how good you are." "No, I'm not. I was very bad just now. She was so offended with me that she talked of going back to London." He paused for her to speak, but Hetta had no words ready for the moment. "I should be wretched indeed if you and she were to leave my house in anger." "I do not think she will do that." "And you?" "I am not angry. I should never dare to be angry with you. I only wish that Felix would be better. They say that young men have to be bad, and that they do get to be better as they grow older. He is something in the city now, a director they call him, and mamma thinks that the work will be of service to him." Roger could express no hope in this direction or even look as though he approved of the directorship. "I don't see why he should not try at any rate." "Dear Hetta, I only wish he were like you." "Girls are so different, you know." It was not till late in the evening, long after dinner, that he made his apology in form to Lady Carbury; but he did make it, and at last it was accepted. "I think I was rough to you, talking about Felix," he said,--"and I beg your pardon." "You were energetic, that was all." "A gentleman should never be rough to a lady, and a man should never be rough to his own guests. I hope you will forgive me." She answered him by putting out her hand and smiling on him; and so the quarrel was over. Lady Carbury understood the full extent of her triumph, and was enabled by her disposition to use it thoroughly. Felix might now come down to Carbury, and go over from thence to Caversham, and prosecute his wooing, and the master of Carbury could make no further objection. And Felix, if he would come, would not now be snubbed. Roger would understand that he was constrained to courtesy by the former severity of his language. Such points as these Lady Carbury never missed. He understood it too, and though he was soft and gracious in his bearing, endeavouring to make his house as pleasant as he could to his two guests, he felt that he had been cheated out of his undoubted right to disapprove of all connection with the Melmottes. In the course of the evening there came a note,--or rather a bundle of notes,--from Caversham. That addressed to Roger was in the form of a letter. Lady Pomona was sorry to say that the Longestaffe party were prevented from having the pleasure of dining at Carbury Hall by the fact that they had a house full of guests. Lady Pomona hoped that Mr. Carbury and his relatives, who, Lady Pomona heard, were with him at the Hall, would do the Longestaffes the pleasure of dining at Caversham either on the Monday or Tuesday following, as might best suit the Carbury plans. That was the purport of Lady Pomona's letter to Roger Carbury. Then there were cards of invitation for Lady Carbury and her daughter, and also for Sir Felix. Roger, as he read his own note, handed the others over to Lady Carbury, and then asked her what she would wish to have done. The tone of his voice, as he spoke, grated on her ear, as there was something in it of his former harshness. But she knew how to use her triumph. "I should like to go," she said. "I certainly shall not go," he replied; "but there will be no difficulty whatever in sending you over. You must answer at once, because their servant is waiting." "Monday will be best," she said; "--that is, if nobody is coming here." "There will be nobody here." "I suppose I had better say that I, and Hetta,--and Felix will accept their invitation." "I can make no suggestion," said Roger, thinking how delightful it would be if Henrietta could remain with him; how objectionable it was that Henrietta should be taken to Caversham to meet the Melmottes. Poor Hetta herself could say nothing. She certainly did not wish to meet the Melmottes, nor did she wish to dine, alone, with her cousin Roger. "That will be best," said Lady Carbury after a moment's thought. "It is very good of you to let us go, and to send us." "Of course you will do here just as you please," he replied. But there was still that tone in his voice which Lady Carbury feared. A quarter of an hour later the Caversham servant was on his way home with two letters,--the one from Roger expressing his regret that he could not accept Lady Pomona's invitation, and the other from Lady Carbury declaring that she and her son and daughter would have great pleasure in dining at Caversham on the Monday.

"This is so kind of you," said Lady Carbury, grasping her cousin's hand as she got out of the carriage. "I did so long to get into the country, and I do so love Carbury." "Where should a Carbury go to escape from London smoke, but to the old house? I am afraid Henrietta will find it dull." "Oh no," said Hetta, smiling. "I am never dull in the country." "The bishop and Mrs. Yeld are coming to dine tomorrow, and the Hepworths." "I shall be so glad to meet the bishop once more," said Lady Carbury. "He is a dear, good fellow, and his wife is just as good. And there is another gentleman coming whom you have never seen: a Father John Barham, who has come to Beccles as priest. He has got a little cottage about a mile from here. I used to know his family." "He is a gentleman then?" "Certainly. He took his degree at Oxford, and then became a convert. He has not got a shilling in the world beyond his priest's pay, which is not much more than a labourer's. He told me the other day that he was forced to buy second-hand clothes." "How shocking!" said Lady Carbury. "He didn't seem to be at all shocked at telling it. We have got to be quite friends." "Will the bishop like to meet him?" "Why not? I've told the bishop all about him, and he wishes to know him. He won't hurt the bishop. But you and Hetta will find it very dull." "I shan't find it dull, Mr. Carbury," said Henrietta. "It was to escape from the eternal parties that we came down here," said Lady Carbury. She had nevertheless been anxious to hear what guests were expected at the Manor House. Sir Felix had promised to come down from Saturday until Monday, and Lady Carbury had hoped that some visiting might be arranged between the Manor House and Caversham. "I have asked the Longestaffes for Monday," said Roger. "But they won't come, I dare say." "Why not?" "They never do. They probably have a house full of guests, and they know that my accommodation is limited. I've no doubt they'll ask us on Tuesday or Wednesday, and if you like we will go." "I know they are to have guests," said Lady Carbury. "What guests?" "The Melmottes." Lady Carbury felt that her voice and self-possession were failing her. "The Melmottes coming to Caversham!" said Roger, looking at Henrietta, who blushed with shame as she remembered that she had been brought here solely in order that her brother might have an opportunity of seeing Marie Melmotte. "Why not?" said Lady Carbury. "I fancy, Roger, that Mr. Longestaffe needs a little pecuniary help." "And he condescends to get it in this way! I should have thought that Mr. Longestaffe might have kept such a man as Mr. Melmotte out of his wife's drawing-room." Henrietta became redder than ever. Even Lady Carbury flushed, as she remembered that Roger knew she had taken her daughter to Madame Melmotte's ball. He thought of this himself as soon as the words were spoken, and tried to make some half apology. "I don't approve of them in London, you know; but I think they are very much worse in the country." Then the ladies were shown into their rooms, and Roger again went out into the garden. He began to feel that he understood it all. Lady Carbury had come to his house not for love of him, but to be near the Melmottes! He and his house had been simply used in order to further a vile project of marrying two vile people to each other! As he was thinking all this, Lady Carbury came out to him in the garden. She had changed her travelling dress, and made herself pretty. And now she dressed her face in her sweetest smiles. She wished to explain to her stern cousin the good that might come by an alliance with the heiress. "I can understand, Roger," she said, taking his arm, "that you should not like those Melmottes." "I don't dislike them. How should I dislike people that I never saw? I dislike those who seek their society simply because they have the reputation of being rich." "Meaning me." "No; not meaning you. I don't dislike you, as you know very well, though I do dislike the fact that you should run after these people." "Do you suppose, my friend, that I run after them for my own pleasure? You know my son's condition. What is he to do? His only chance is to marry a girl with money. He is good-looking; you can't deny that." "Certainly." "He was very young when he came into possession of his own small fortune. He might have done better; but how many young men placed in such temptations do well? He has nothing left. Is it not imperative that he should marry a girl with money?" "I call that stealing a girl's money, Lady Carbury." "Oh, Roger, how hard you are! The girl will not marry Felix unless she loves him." "But does he love her?" "Why should he not? Of course she hopes to be married, and why should she not have Felix if she likes him best? Cannot you sympathize with my anxiety that he shall not be a disgrace to the family?" "We had better not talk about the family, Lady Carbury. The family will not be benefited by a marriage with the daughter of Mr. Melmotte. I look upon him as dirt in the gutter. All his money, if he has it, can make no difference. Who knows anything of this man? Who can be sure that she is his daughter?" "He would give her a fortune when she married." "Yes; it all comes to that. Men say openly that he is an adventurer and a swindler. No one pretends to think that he is a gentleman. His money is amassed not by honest trade, but by unknown tricks. He is one whom we would not admit into our kitchens, much less to our dining-tables, on his own merits. But because he has learned the art of making money, we not only put up with him, but settle upon his carcase like birds of prey." "Do you mean that Felix should not marry the girl, even if they love each other?" He shook his head in disgust, feeling sure that any idea of love on the young man's part was a sham - and that his mother knew it. "It is no affair of mine. When I am told that the girl is at Caversham, and that Felix is coming here in order to be near his prey, I can only say what I think. Your son is welcome to my house, little as I approve his mode of life; but I could have wished that he had chosen some other place for the work that he has on hand." "If you wish, Roger, we will return to London. I shall find it hard to explain to Hetta; but we will go." "No; I certainly do not wish that." "But you have said such hard things! You speak of Felix as though he were all bad." She looked at him hoping to get some retraction, but he had nothing to say. Had he found fault with herself, or with Henrietta, she would have put up with it, for the sake of benefits to come. But for her son she was prepared to fight. "I am grieved, Roger, that we should have troubled you with our visit, but I think that we had better go. You are very harsh, and it crushes me." "I have not meant to be harsh." "You say that Felix is brought here to be near - his prey. What can be more harsh than that? You should remember that I am his mother." Roger began to be ashamed of himself, and to think that he had spoken unkind words. "If I have hurt you, I regret it." "Of course you have hurt me. I think I will go in now. How very hard the world is! I came here thinking to find peace and sunshine, and there has come a storm at once." "You asked me about the Melmottes, and I was obliged to speak." They walked in silence to the door, where he stopped. "If I have been over hot with you, let me beg your pardon." She smiled and bowed; but her smile was not one of forgiveness. "Pray do not speak of going, Lady Carbury." "I think I will go to my room now. My head aches so that I can hardly stand." It was about six in the afternoon, and according to his daily custom Roger should have gone to see his men as they finished their work; but he stood still for a few moments and then went slowly across the lawn to the bridge, sitting on the parapet. Would she really leave his house in anger and take her daughter - the one human being in the world that he loved? He was a man who thought much of the duties of hospitality, especially when his guests were Carburys. But if there were one person among all others to whom the house should be a refuge from care, that one was his cousin Hetta. And now he had been told that he had been so rough to his guest that she and her daughter must return to London! He could not acquit himself. He had said very hard words. He could not have expressed his meaning without hard words. And Lady Carbury had acted well the part of an outraged mother. His heart was so soft that though he knew the woman to be false and the son to be worthless, he utterly condemned himself. When he had sat half-an-hour upon the bridge he turned towards the house to dress for dinner - and to prepare himself for an apology. At the door, standing as though waiting for him, was his cousin Hetta. She had on her bosom the rose he had placed in her room, and as he approached her he thought that there was in her eyes more graciousness towards him than he had ever seen there before. "Mr. Carbury," she said, "mamma is so unhappy!" "I fear that I have offended her." "It is not that, but that you should be so - so angry about Felix." "I am more vexed with myself than I can tell you. She talked of going back to London. I should be wretched indeed if you and she were to leave my house in anger." "I do not think she will do that," said Hetta. "And you?" "I am not angry. I should never dare to be angry with you. I only wish that Felix would be better. They say that young men do get better as they grow older. He is something in the city now, a director they call him, and mamma thinks that the work will be of service to him." Roger could express no hope or approval. "Dear Hetta, I only wish he were like you." "Girls are so different, you know." It was not till late in the evening, after dinner, that he made his apology to Lady Carbury; but he did make it, and it was accepted. "I think I was rough to you, talking about Felix," he said, "and I beg your pardon." "You were energetic, that was all." "A gentleman should never be rough to a lady, nor to his guests. I hope you will forgive me." She answered by putting out her hand and smiling; and so the quarrel was over. Lady Carbury understood the full extent of her triumph, and used it thoroughly. Felix might now come down to Carbury, and go to Caversham to do his wooing, and the master of Carbury could make no objection. And Felix would not now be snubbed. Roger would understand that he was constrained to courtesy. He did understand it, and though he was soft and gracious towards his two guests, he felt that he had been cheated out of his right to disapprove of all connection with the Melmottes. During the evening there came a bundle of notes from Caversham. That addressed to Roger was a letter from Lady Pomona; who was sorry to say that the Longestaffes were prevented from having the pleasure of dining at Carbury Hall by the fact that they had a house full of guests. Lady Pomona hoped that Mr. Carbury and his relatives would do the Longestaffes the pleasure of dining at Caversham either on the Monday or Tuesday following, as might best suit. There were cards of invitation for Lady Carbury and her daughter, and for Sir Felix. Roger, as he read his own note, handed the others over to Lady Carbury, and asked her what she wished to have done. "I should like to go," she said. "I certainly shall not go," he replied; "but there will be no difficulty whatever in sending you over. You must answer at once, because their servant is waiting." "Monday will be best," she said; "I suppose I had better say that I, and Hetta, and Felix will accept their invitation." "I can make no suggestion," said Roger, thinking how delightful it would be if Henrietta could remain with him instead. Poor Hetta herself could say nothing. She certainly did not wish to meet the Melmottes, but nor did she wish to dine alone with her cousin Roger. "That will be best," said Lady Carbury. "It is very good of you to send us." "Of course you will do here just as you please," he replied; but still with that tone of voice which Lady Carbury feared. Soon the Caversham servant was on his way with the reply.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 15: "You Should Remember that I am his Mother"

"I don't think it quite nice, mamma; that's all. Of course if you have made up your mind to go, I must go with you." "What on earth can be more natural than that you should go to your own cousin's house?" "You know what I mean, mamma." "It's done now, my dear, and I don't think there is anything at all in what you say." This little conversation arose from Lady Carbury's announcement to her daughter of her intention of soliciting the hospitality of Carbury Manor for the Whitsun week. It was very grievous to Henrietta that she should be taken to the house of a man who was in love with her, even though he was her cousin. But she had no escape. She could not remain in town by herself, nor could she even allude to her grievance to anyone but to her mother. Lady Carbury, in order that she might be quite safe from opposition, had posted the following letter to her cousin before she spoke to her daughter:-- Welbeck Street, 24th April, 18--. MY DEAR ROGER, We know how kind you are and how sincere, and that if what I am going to propose doesn't suit you'll say so at once. I have been working very hard,--too hard indeed, and I feel that nothing will do me so much real good as getting into the country for a day or two. Would you take us for a part of Whitsun week? We would come down on the 20th May and stay over the Sunday if you would keep us. Felix says he would run down though he would not trouble you for so long a time as we talk of staying. I'm sure you must have been glad to hear of his being put upon that Great American Railway Board as a Director. It opens a new sphere of life to him, and will enable him to prove that he can make himself useful. I think it was a great confidence to place in one so young. Of course you will say so at once if my little proposal interferes with any of your plans, but you have been so very very kind to us that I have no scruple in making it. Henrietta joins with me in kind love. Your affectionate cousin, MATILDA CARBURY. There was much in this letter that disturbed and even annoyed Roger Carbury. In the first place he felt that Henrietta should not be brought to his house. Much as he loved her, dear as her presence to him always was, he hardly wished to have her at Carbury unless she would come with a resolution to be its future mistress. In one respect he did Lady Carbury an injustice. He knew that she was anxious to forward his suit, and he thought that Henrietta was being brought to his house with that object. He had not heard that the great heiress was coming into his neighbourhood, and therefore knew nothing of Lady Carbury's scheme in that direction. He was, too, disgusted by the ill-founded pride which the mother expressed at her son's position as a director. Roger Carbury did not believe in the Railway. He did not believe in Fisker, nor in Melmotte, and certainly not in the Board generally. Paul Montague had acted in opposition to his advice in yielding to the seductions of Fisker. The whole thing was to his mind false, fraudulent, and ruinous. Of what nature could be a Company which should have itself directed by such men as Lord Alfred Grendall and Sir Felix Carbury? And then as to their great Chairman, did not everybody know, in spite of all the duchesses, that Mr. Melmotte was a gigantic swindler? Although there was more than one immediate cause for bitterness between them, Roger loved Paul Montague well and could not bear with patience the appearance of his friend's name on such a list. And now he was asked for warm congratulations because Sir Felix Carbury was one of the Board! He did not know which to despise most, Sir Felix for belonging to such a Board, or the Board for having such a director. "New sphere of life!" he said to himself. "The only proper sphere for them all would be Newgate!" And there was another trouble. He had asked Paul Montague to come to Carbury for this special week, and Paul had accepted the invitation. With the constancy, which was perhaps his strongest characteristic, he clung to his old affection for the man. He could not bear the idea of a permanent quarrel, though he knew that there must be a quarrel if the man interfered with his dearest hopes. He had asked him down to Carbury intending that the name of Henrietta Carbury should not be mentioned between them;--and now it was proposed to him that Henrietta Carbury should be at the Manor House at the very time of Paul's visit! He made up his mind at once that he must tell Paul not to come. He wrote his two letters at once. That to Lady Carbury was very short. He would be delighted to see her and Henrietta at the time named,--and would be very glad should it suit Felix to come also. He did not say a word about the Board, or the young man's probable usefulness in his new sphere of life. To Montague his letter was longer. "It is always best to be open and true," he said. "Since you were kind enough to say that you would come to me, Lady Carbury has proposed to visit me just at the same time and to bring her daughter. After what has passed between us I need hardly say that I could not make you both welcome here together. It is not pleasant to me to have to ask you to postpone your visit, but I think you will not accuse me of a want of hospitality towards you." Paul wrote back to say that he was sure that there was no want of hospitality, and that he would remain in town. Suffolk is not especially a picturesque county, nor can it be said that the scenery round Carbury was either grand or beautiful; but there were little prettinesses attached to the house itself and the grounds around it which gave it a charm of its own. The Carbury River,--so called, though at no place is it so wide but that an active schoolboy might jump across it,--runs, or rather creeps into the Waveney, and in its course is robbed by a moat which surrounds Carbury Manor House. The moat has been rather a trouble to the proprietors, and especially so to Roger, as in these days of sanitary considerations it has been felt necessary either to keep it clean with at any rate moving water in it, or else to fill it up and abolish it altogether. That plan of abolishing it had to be thought of and was seriously discussed about ten years since; but then it was decided that such a proceeding would altogether alter the character of the house, would destroy the gardens, and would create a waste of mud all round the place which it would take years to beautify, or even to make endurable. And then an important question had been asked by an intelligent farmer who had long been a tenant on the property; "Fill un oop;--eh, eh; sooner said than doone, squoire. Where be the stoof to come from?" The squire, therefore, had given up that idea, and instead of abolishing his moat had made it prettier than ever. The high road from Bungay to Beccles ran close to the house,--so close that the gable ends of the building were separated from it only by the breadth of the moat. A short, private road, not above a hundred yards in length, led to the bridge which faced the front door. The bridge was old, and high, with sundry architectural pretensions, and guarded by iron gates in the centre, which, however, were very rarely closed. Between the bridge and the front door there was a sweep of ground just sufficient for the turning of a carriage, and on either side of this the house was brought close to the water, so that the entrance was in a recess, or irregular quadrangle, of which the bridge and moat formed one side. At the back of the house there were large gardens screened from the road by a wall ten feet high, in which there were yew trees and cypresses said to be of wonderful antiquity. The gardens were partly inside the moat, but chiefly beyond them, and were joined by two bridges--a foot bridge and one with a carriage way,--and there was another bridge at the end of the house furthest from the road, leading from the back door to the stables and farmyard. The house itself had been built in the time of Charles II., when that which we call Tudor architecture was giving way to a cheaper, less picturesque, though perhaps more useful form. But Carbury Manor House, through the whole county, had the reputation of being a Tudor building. The windows were long, and for the most part low, made with strong mullions, and still contained small, old-fashioned panes; for the squire had not as yet gone to the expense of plate glass. There was one high bow window, which belonged to the library, and which looked out on to the gravel sweep, at the left of the front door as you entered it. All the other chief rooms faced upon the garden. The house itself was built of a stone that had become buff, or almost yellow with years, and was very pretty. It was still covered with tiles, as were all the attached buildings. It was only two stories high, except at the end, where the kitchens were placed and the offices, which thus rose above the other part of the edifice. The rooms throughout were low, and for the most part long and narrow, with large wide fire-places and deep wainscotings. Taking it altogether, one would be inclined to say, that it was picturesque rather than comfortable. Such as it was its owner was very proud of it,--with a pride of which he never spoke to anyone, which he endeavoured studiously to conceal, but which had made itself known to all who knew him well. The houses of the gentry around him were superior to his in material comfort and general accommodation, but to none of them belonged that thoroughly established look of old county position which belonged to Carbury. Bundlesham, where the Primeros lived, was the finest house in that part of the county, but it looked as if it had been built within the last twenty years. It was surrounded by new shrubs and new lawns, by new walls and new outhouses, and savoured of trade;--so at least thought Roger Carbury, though he never said the words. Caversham was a very large mansion, built in the early part of George III.'s reign, when men did care that things about them should be comfortable, but did not care that they should be picturesque. There was nothing at all to recommend Caversham but its size. Eardly Park, the seat of the Hepworths, had, as a park, some pretensions. Carbury possessed nothing that could be called a park, the enclosures beyond the gardens being merely so many home paddocks. But the house of Eardly was ugly and bad. The Bishop's palace was an excellent gentleman's residence, but then that too was comparatively modern, and had no peculiar features of its own. Now Carbury Manor House was peculiar, and in the eyes of its owner was pre-eminently beautiful. It often troubled him to think what would come of the place when he was gone. He was at present forty years old, and was perhaps as healthy a man as you could find in the whole county. Those around who had known him as he grew into manhood among them, especially the farmers of the neighbourhood, still regarded him as a young man. They spoke of him at the country fairs as the young squire. When in his happiest moods he could be almost a boy, and he still had something of old-fashioned boyish reverence for his elders. But of late there had grown up a great care within his breast,--a care which does not often, perhaps, in these days bear so heavily on men's hearts as it used to do. He had asked his cousin to marry him,--having assured himself with certainty that he did love her better than any other woman,--and she had declined. She had refused him more than once, and he believed her implicitly when she told him that she could not love him. He had a way of believing people, especially when such belief was opposed to his own interests, and had none of that self-confidence which makes a man think that if opportunity be allowed him he can win a woman even in spite of herself. But if it were fated that he should not succeed with Henrietta, then,--so he felt assured,--no marriage would now be possible to him. In that case he must look out for an heir, and could regard himself simply as a stop-gap among the Carburys. In that case he could never enjoy the luxury of doing the best he could with the property in order that a son of his own might enjoy it. Now Sir Felix was the next heir. Roger was hampered by no entail, and could leave every acre of the property as he pleased. In one respect the natural succession to it by Sir Felix would generally be considered fortunate. It had happened that a title had been won in a lower branch of the family, and were this succession to take place the family title and the family property would go together. No doubt to Sir Felix himself such an arrangement would seem to be the most proper thing in the world,--as it would also to Lady Carbury were it not that she looked to Carbury Manor as the future home of another child. But to all this the present owner of the property had very strong objections. It was not only that he thought ill of the baronet himself,--so ill as to feel thoroughly convinced that no good could come from that quarter,--but he thought ill also of the baronetcy itself. Sir Patrick, to his thinking, had been altogether unjustifiable in accepting an enduring title, knowing that he would leave behind him no property adequate for its support. A baronet, so thought Roger Carbury, should be a rich man, rich enough to grace the rank which he assumed to wear. A title, according to Roger's doctrine on such subjects, could make no man a gentleman, but, if improperly worn, might degrade a man who would otherwise be a gentleman. He thought that a gentleman, born and bred, acknowledged as such without doubt, could not be made more than a gentleman by all the titles which the Queen could give. With these old-fashioned notions Roger hated the title which had fallen upon a branch of his family. He certainly would not leave his property to support the title which Sir Felix unfortunately possessed. But Sir Felix was the natural heir, and this man felt himself constrained, almost as by some divine law, to see that his land went by natural descent. Though he was in no degree fettered as to its disposition, he did not presume himself to have more than a life interest in the estate. It was his duty to see that it went from Carbury to Carbury as long as there was a Carbury to hold it, and especially his duty to see that it should go from his hands, at his death, unimpaired in extent or value. There was no reason why he should himself die for the next twenty or thirty years,--but were he to die Sir Felix would undoubtedly dissipate the acres, and then there would be an end of Carbury. But in such case he, Roger Carbury, would at any rate have done his duty. He knew that no human arrangements can be fixed, let the care in making them be ever so great. To his thinking it would be better that the estate should be dissipated by a Carbury than held together by a stranger. He would stick to the old name while there was one to bear it, and to the old family while a member of it was left. So thinking he had already made his will, leaving the entire property to the man whom of all others he most despised, should he himself die without child. In the afternoon of the day on which Lady Carbury was expected, he wandered about the place thinking of all this. How infinitely better it would be that he should have an heir of his own. How wonderfully beautiful would the world be to him if at last his cousin would consent to be his wife! How wearily insipid must it be if no such consent could be obtained from her. And then he thought much of her welfare too. In very truth he did not like Lady Carbury. He saw through her character, judging her with almost absolute accuracy. The woman was affectionate, seeking good things for others rather than for herself; but she was essentially worldly, believing that good could come out of evil, that falsehood might in certain conditions be better than truth, that shams and pretences might do the work of true service, that a strong house might be built upon the sand! It was lamentable to him that the girl he loved should be subjected to this teaching, and live in an atmosphere so burdened with falsehood. Would not the touch of pitch at last defile her? In his heart of hearts he believed that she loved Paul Montague; and of Paul himself he was beginning to fear evil. What but a sham could be a man who consented to pretend to sit as one of a Board of Directors to manage an enormous enterprise with such colleagues as Lord Alfred Grendall and Sir Felix Carbury, under the absolute control of such a one as Mr. Augustus Melmotte? Was not this building a house upon the sand with a vengeance? What a life it would be for Henrietta Carbury were she to marry a man striving to become rich without labour and without capital, and who might one day be wealthy and the next a beggar,--a city adventurer, who of all men was to him the vilest and most dishonest? He strove to think well of Paul Montague, but such was the life which he feared the young man was preparing for himself. Then he went into the house and wandered up through the rooms which the two ladies were to occupy. As their host, a host without a wife or mother or sister, it was his duty to see that things were comfortable, but it may be doubted whether he would have been so careful had the mother been coming alone. In the smaller room of the two the hangings were all white, and the room was sweet with May flowers; and he brought a white rose from the hot-house, and placed it in a glass on the dressing table. Surely she would know who put it there. Then he stood at the open window, looking down upon the lawn, gazing vacantly for half an hour, till he heard the wheels of the carriage before the front door. During that half hour he resolved that he would try again as though there had as yet been no repulse.

"I don't think it quite nice, mamma; that's all. Of course if you have made up your mind to go, I must go with you." "What on earth can be more natural than going to your cousin's house?" "You know what I mean, mamma." "It's done now, my dear." This little conversation arose when Lady Carbury announced her intention of visiting Carbury Manor for the Whitsun week. It was very grievous to Henrietta that she should be taken to the house of a man who was in love with her. But she had no escape. She could not remain in town by herself. Lady Carbury had already posted the following letter to Roger: My dear Roger, We know how kind you are, and if what I am going to propose doesn't suit you, say so at once. I have been working very hard, and feel it would do me good to get into the country for a day or two. Would you take us for a part of Whitsun week? We would come down on the 20th May and stay over the Sunday if you would keep us. Felix says he would run down though he would not trouble you for so long a time as we talk of staying. I'm sure you must have been glad to hear of his being made a Director of that Great American Railway Board. It will enable him to prove that he can make himself useful. I think it was a great confidence to place in one so young. Of course you will say so at once if my little proposal interferes with your plans, but you have been so very very kind to us that I have no scruple in making it. Henrietta joins with me in kind love. Your affectionate cousin, Matilda Carbury. There was much in this letter that disturbed and even annoyed Roger Carbury. In the first place he felt that Henrietta should not be brought to his house. Much as he loved her, he hardly wished to have her at Carbury unless she came with a resolution to be its future mistress. He thought that Henrietta was being brought to his house with the object of furthering his suit. He had not heard that the great heiress was coming into his neighbourhood, and therefore knew nothing of Lady Carbury's scheme in that direction. He was, too, disgusted by the ill-founded pride which the mother expressed at her son's position as a director. Roger Carbury did not believe in the Railway, or in Fisker, or Melmotte. Paul Montague had acted against his advice in yielding to Fisker's seductions. The whole thing was to his mind fraudulent and ruinous. What sort of company was directed by such men as Lord Alfred Grendall and Sir Felix Carbury? He did not know which to despise most, Sir Felix for belonging to such a Board, or the Board for having such a director. And did not everybody know that Mr. Melmotte was a gigantic swindler? There was another trouble. He had asked Paul Montague to come to Carbury the same week, and Paul had accepted. Roger clung to his old affection for the man. He could not bear the idea of a permanent quarrel, though he knew that there must be a quarrel if Paul interfered with his dearest hopes. He had asked him down to Carbury intending that Henrietta's name should not be mentioned between them; and now it was proposed that Henrietta should be at the Manor House at the very same time! He decided that he must tell Paul not to come. He wrote two letters at once. That to Lady Carbury was very short. He would be delighted to see her and Henrietta, and also Felix. He did not say a word about the Board. To Montague his letter was longer. "It is always best to be open and true," he wrote. "Since you were kind enough to say that you would come to me, Lady Carbury has proposed to visit me just at the same time with her daughter. I need hardly say that I could not make you both welcome here together. It is not pleasant to me to have to ask you to postpone your visit, but I think you will not accuse me of a lack of hospitality towards you." Paul wrote back to say that he was sure that there was no lack of hospitality, and that he would remain in town. Suffolk is not an especially picturesque county, nor can it be said that the scenery round Carbury was grand or beautiful; but the house and its grounds had a charm of their own. Carbury Manor House was surrounded by a moat, which was rather a trouble to Roger, as it was felt necessary either to keep it clean with moving water, or else to fill it up and abolish it altogether. That plan of abolishing it had been discussed about ten years previously; but it was decided that it would alter the character of the house, and create a waste of mud around it which it would take years to beautify. The squire, therefore, had given up that idea, and instead had made his moat prettier than ever. The high road from Bungay to Beccles ran very close to the house; a short, private road led from it to the old bridge over the moat. Between the bridge and the front door there was a sweep of ground just sufficient for the turning of a carriage. At the back of the house there were large gardens screened from the road by a wall ten feet high, and ancient yews and cypresses. The gardens were partly inside the moat, but chiefly beyond them, and were joined by two bridges - a foot bridge and one with a carriage way. The house itself had been built in the time of Charles II, when Tudor architecture was giving way to a less picturesque, though perhaps more useful form. But Carbury Manor House had the reputation of being a Tudor building. The windows were long, with strong mullions, and small, old-fashioned panes. There was one high bow window in the library, which looked out on to the gravel sweep by the front door. All the other chief rooms faced the garden. The house was built of a buff stone that was very pretty. It was only two storeys high, except at the end where the kitchens were. The rooms were low, and mostly long and narrow, with large fire-places. Its owner was very proud of it. The houses of the gentry around him were superior in comfort, but none of them had that thoroughly established look of Carbury Manor. Bundlesham, where the Primeros lived, looked as if it had been built within the last twenty years, and savoured of trade; so at least thought Roger Carbury, though he never said it aloud. Caversham was a very large mansion, built in the early part of George III's reign, and had nothing to recommend it but its size. The Bishop's palace was an excellent gentleman's residence, but modern, with no distinctive features. Carbury Manor House, in its owner's eyes, was pre-eminently beautiful. It often troubled him to think what would become of the place when he was gone. He was at present in excellent health, and the farmers of the neighbourhood still spoke of him as the young squire. When in his happiest moods he could be almost a boy; but a great care had grown within him. If he should not succeed with Henrietta, he felt that no marriage would be possible to him. In that case he must look for an heir. Now Sir Felix was the next heir, though Roger could leave his property as he pleased. In one respect the natural succession to it by Sir Felix would be fortunate: the baronetcy and the family property would then go together. No doubt to Sir Felix himself such an arrangement would seem to be the most proper thing in the world. But Roger had very strong objections. It was not only that he thought ill of the baronet, but he thought ill of the baronetcy itself. Sir Patrick, to his thinking, should not have accepted the title, knowing that he would leave no property adequate for its support. A baronet, thought Roger Carbury, should be rich enough to grace his rank. With these old-fashioned notions Roger certainly would not leave his property to support the baronetcy. But Sir Felix was the natural heir, and Roger felt it was his duty to see that his land went from Carbury to Carbury, unimpaired in extent or value. There was no reason why he should himself die for twenty or thirty years - but if he were to die, Sir Felix would undoubtedly dissipate the acres, and then there would be an end of Carbury. But in such case he, Roger Carbury, would at any rate have done his duty. Better that the estate should be dissipated by a Carbury than held together by a stranger. So thinking, he had already made his will, leaving the entire property to the man whom of all others he most despised, should he himself die childless. In the afternoon on which Lady Carbury was expected, he wandered about the place thinking of all this. How infinitely better it would be to have an heir of his own - how wonderfully beautiful would the world be to him if his cousin would consent to be his wife! He thought much of her welfare too. He did not like Lady Carbury, accurately judging her as affectionate but worldly. She believed that good could come out of evil, and that falsehood might sometimes be better than truth. It was lamentable to him that the girl he loved should be subjected to this teaching. Would not the touch of pitch at last defile her? In his heart of hearts he believed that she loved Paul Montague; and of Paul himself he was beginning to fear evil. Only a sham would pretend to sit on a Board of Directors with Lord Alfred Grendall and Sir Felix Carbury, under the control of Melmotte. What a life it would be for Henrietta were she to marry a man striving to become rich without labour - a city adventurer, of all men the vilest and most dishonest! He strove to think well of Paul Montague, but he feared for his future. Then he went into the house and wandered through the rooms which the two ladies were to occupy. In the smaller room of the two the hangings were all white, and the room was sweet with May flowers; and he brought a white rose from the hot-house, and placed it in a glass on the dressing table. Surely she would know who had put it there. Then he stood at the open window, gazing vacantly down upon the lawn for half an hour, till he heard the wheels of the arriving carriage. During that half hour he resolved that he would try again.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 14: Carbury Manor

When Marie Melmotte assured Sir Felix Carbury that her father had already endowed her with a large fortune which could not be taken from her without her own consent, she spoke no more than the truth. She knew of the matter almost as little as it was possible that she should know. As far as reticence on the subject was compatible with the object he had in view Melmotte had kept from her all knowledge of the details of the arrangement. But it had been necessary when the thing was done to explain, or to pretend to explain, much; and Marie's memory and also her intelligence had been strong beyond her father's anticipation. He was deriving a very considerable income from a large sum of money which he had invested in foreign funds in her name, and had got her to execute a power of attorney enabling him to draw this income on her behalf. This he had done fearing shipwreck in the course which he meant to run, and resolved that, let circumstances go as they might, there should still be left enough to him of the money which he had realised to enable him to live in comfort and luxury, should he be doomed to live in obscurity, or even in infamy. He had sworn to himself solemnly that under no circumstances would he allow this money to go back into the vortex of his speculations, and hitherto he had been true to his oath. Though bankruptcy and apparent ruin might be imminent he would not bolster up his credit by the use of this money even though it might appear at the moment that the money would be sufficient for the purpose. If such a day should come, then, with that certain income, he would make himself happy, if possible, or at any rate luxurious, in whatever city of the world might know least of his antecedents, and give him the warmest welcome on behalf of his wealth. Such had been his scheme of life. But he had failed to consider various circumstances. His daughter might be untrue to him, or in the event of her marriage might fail to release his property,--or it might be that the very money should be required to dower his daughter. Or there might come troubles on him so great that even the certainty of a future income would not enable him to bear them. Now, at this present moment, his mind was tortured by great anxiety. Were he to resume this property it would more than enable him to pay all that was due to the Longestaffes. It would do that and tide him for a time over some other difficulties. Now in regard to the Longestaffes themselves, he certainly had no desire to depart from the rule which he had made for himself, on their behalf. Were it necessary that a crash should come they would be as good creditors as any other. But then he was painfully alive to the fact that something beyond simple indebtedness was involved in that transaction. He had with his own hand traced Dolly Longestaffe's signature on the letter which he had found in old Mr. Longestaffe's drawer. He had found it in an envelope, addressed by the elder Mr. Longestaffe to Messrs. Slow and Bideawhile, and he had himself posted this letter in a pillar-box near to his own house. In the execution of this manoeuvre, circumstances had greatly befriended him. He had become the tenant of Mr. Longestaffe's house, and at the same time had only been the joint tenant of Mr. Longestaffe's study,--so that Mr. Longestaffe's papers were almost in his very hands. To pick a lock was with him an accomplishment long since learned. But his science in that line did not go so far as to enable him to replace the bolt in its receptacle. He had picked a lock, had found the letter prepared by Mr. Bideawhile with its accompanying envelope, and had then already learned enough of the domestic circumstances of the Longestaffe family to feel assured that unless he could assist the expedition of this hitherto uncompleted letter by his own skill, the letter would never reach its intended destination. In all this fortune had in some degree befriended him. The circumstances being as they were it was hardly possible that the forgery should be discovered. Even though the young man were to swear that the signature was not his, even though the old man were to swear that he had left that drawer properly locked with the unsigned letter in it, still there could be no evidence. People might think. People might speak. People might feel sure. And then a crash would come. But there would still be that ample fortune on which to retire and eat and drink and make merry for the rest of his days. Then there came annoying complications in his affairs. What had been so easy in reference to that letter which Dolly Longestaffe never would have signed, was less easy but still feasible in another matter. Under the joint pressure of immediate need, growing ambition, and increasing audacity it had been done. Then the rumours that were spread abroad,--which to Melmotte were serious indeed,--they named, at any rate in reference to Dolly Longestaffe, the very thing that had been done. Now if that, or the like of that, were brought actually home to him, if twelve jurymen could be got to say that he had done that thing, of what use then would be all that money? When that fear arose, then there arose also the question whether it might not be well to use the money to save him from such ruin, if it might be so used. No doubt all danger in that Longestaffe affair might be bought off by payment of the price stipulated for the Pickering property. Neither would Dolly Longestaffe nor Squercum, of whom Mr. Melmotte had already heard, concern himself in this matter if the money claimed were paid. But then the money would be as good as wasted by such a payment, if, as he firmly believed, no sufficient evidence could be produced to prove the thing which he had done. But the complications were so many! Perhaps in his admiration for the country of his adoption Mr. Melmotte had allowed himself to attach higher privileges to the British aristocracy than do in truth belong to them. He did in his heart believe that could he be known to all the world as the father-in-law of the eldest son of the Marquis of Auld Reekie he would become, not really free of the law, but almost safe from its fangs in regard to such an affair as this. He thought he could so use the family with which he would be connected as to force from it that protection which he would need. And then again, if he could tide over this bad time, how glorious would it be to have a British Marquis for his son-in-law! Like many others he had failed altogether to enquire when the pleasure to himself would come, or what would be its nature. But he did believe that such a marriage would add a charm to his life. Now he knew that Lord Nidderdale could not be got to marry his daughter without the positive assurance of absolute property, but he did think that the income which might thus be transferred with Marie, though it fell short of that which had been promised, might suffice for the time; and he had already given proof to the Marquis's lawyer that his daughter was possessed of the property in question. And indeed, there was another complication which had arisen within the last few days and which had startled Mr. Melmotte very much indeed. On a certain morning he had sent for Marie to the study and had told her that he should require her signature in reference to a deed. She had asked him what deed. He had replied that it would be a document regarding money and reminded her that she had signed such a deed once before, telling her that it was all in the way of business. It was not necessary that she should ask any more questions as she would be wanted only to sign the paper. Then Marie astounded him, not merely by showing him that she understood a great deal more of the transaction than he had thought,--but also by a positive refusal to sign anything at all. The reader may understand that there had been many words between them. "I know, papa. It is that you may have the money to do what you like with. You have been so unkind to me about Sir Felix Carbury that I won't do it. If I ever marry the money will belong to my husband!" His breath almost failed him as he listened to these words. He did not know whether to approach her with threats, with entreaties, or with blows. Before the interview was over he had tried all three. He had told her that he could and would put her in prison for conduct so fraudulent. He besought her not to ruin her parent by such monstrous perversity. And at last he took her by both arms and shook her violently. But Marie was quite firm. He might cut her to pieces; but she would sign nothing. "I suppose you thought Sir Felix would have had the entire sum," said the father with deriding scorn. "And he would;--if he had the spirit to take it," answered Marie. This was another reason for sticking to the Nidderdale plan. He would no doubt lose the immediate income, but in doing so he would secure the Marquis. He was therefore induced, on weighing in his nicest-balanced scales the advantages and disadvantages, to leave the Longestaffes unpaid and to let Nidderdale have the money. Not that he could make up his mind to such a course with any conviction that he was doing the best for himself. The dangers on all sides were very great! But at the present moment audacity recommended itself to him, and this was the boldest stroke. Marie had now said that she would accept Nidderdale,--or the sweep at the crossing. On Monday morning,--it was on the preceding Thursday that he had made his famous speech in Parliament,--one of the Bideawhiles had come to him in the City. He had told Mr. Bideawhile that all the world knew that just at the present moment money was very "tight" in the City. "We are not asking for payment of a commercial debt," said Mr. Bideawhile, "but for the price of a considerable property which you have purchased." Mr. Melmotte had suggested that the characteristics of the money were the same, let the sum in question have become due how it might. Then he offered to make the payment in two bills at three and six months' date, with proper interest allowed. But this offer Mr. Bideawhile scouted with indignation, demanding that the title-deeds might be restored to them. "You have no right whatever to demand the title-deeds," said Melmotte. "You can only claim the sum due, and I have already told you how I propose to pay it." Mr. Bideawhile was nearly beside himself with dismay. In the whole course of his business, in all the records of the very respectable firm to which he belonged, there had never been such a thing as this. Of course Mr. Longestaffe had been the person to blame,--so at least all the Bideawhiles declared among themselves. He had been so anxious to have dealings with the man of money that he had insisted that the title-deeds should be given up. But then the title-deeds had not been his to surrender. The Pickering estate had been the joint property of him and his son. The house had been already pulled down, and now the purchaser offered bills in lieu of the purchase money! "Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Melmotte, that you have not got the money to pay for what you have bought, and that nevertheless the title-deeds have already gone out of your hands?" "I have property to ten times the value, twenty times the value, thirty times the value," said Melmotte proudly; "but you must know I should think by this time that a man engaged in large affairs cannot always realise such a sum as eighty thousand pounds at a day's notice." Mr. Bideawhile without using language that was absolutely vituperative gave Mr. Melmotte to understand that he thought that he and his client had been robbed, and that he should at once take whatever severest steps the law put in his power. As Mr. Melmotte shrugged his shoulders and made no further reply, Mr. Bideawhile could only take his departure. The attorney, although he was bound to be staunch to his own client, and to his own house in opposition to Mr. Squercum, nevertheless was becoming doubtful in his own mind as to the genuineness of the letter which Dolly was so persistent in declaring that he had not signed. Mr. Longestaffe himself, who was at any rate an honest man, had given it as his opinion that Dolly had not signed the letter. His son had certainly refused to sign it once, and as far as he knew could have had no opportunity of signing it since. He was all but sure that he had left the letter under lock and key in his own drawer in the room which had latterly become Melmotte's study as well as his own. Then, on entering the room in Melmotte's presence,--their friendship at the time having already ceased,--he found that his drawer was open. This same Mr. Bideawhile was with him at the time. "Do you mean to say that I have opened your drawer?" said Mr. Melmotte. Mr. Longestaffe had become very red in the face and had replied by saying that he certainly made no such accusation, but as certainly he had not left the drawer unlocked. He knew his own habits and was sure that he had never left that drawer open in his life. "Then you must have changed the habits of your life on this occasion," said Mr. Melmotte with spirit. Mr. Longestaffe would trust himself to no other word within the house, but, when they were out in the street together, he assured the lawyer that certainly that drawer had been left locked, and that to the best of his belief the letter unsigned had been left within the drawer. Mr. Bideawhile could only remark that it was the most unfortunate circumstance with which he had ever been concerned. The marriage with Nidderdale would upon the whole be the best thing, if it could only be accomplished. The reader must understand that though Mr. Melmotte had allowed himself considerable poetical licence in that statement as to property thirty times as great as the price which he ought to have paid for Pickering, still there was property. The man's speculations had been so great and so wide that he did not really know what he owned, or what he owed. But he did know that at the present moment he was driven very hard for large sums. His chief trust for immediate money was in Cohenlupe, in whose hands had really been the manipulation of the shares of the Mexican railway. He had trusted much to Cohenlupe,--more than it had been customary with him to trust to any man. Cohenlupe assured him that nothing could be done with the railway shares at the present moment. They had fallen under the panic almost to nothing. Now in the time of his trouble Melmotte wanted money from the great railway, but just because he wanted money the great railway was worth nothing. Cohenlupe told him that he must tide over the evil hour,--or rather over an evil month. It was at Cohenlupe's instigation that he had offered the two bills to Mr. Bideawhile. "Offer 'em again," said Cohenlupe. "He must take the bills sooner or later." On the Monday afternoon Melmotte met Lord Nidderdale in the lobby of the House. "Have you seen Marie lately?" he said. Nidderdale had been assured that morning, by his father's lawyer, in his father's presence, that if he married Miss Melmotte at present he would undoubtedly become possessed of an income amounting to something over 5,000 a year. He had intended to get more than that,--and was hardly prepared to accept Marie at such a price; but then there probably would be more. No doubt there was a difficulty about Pickering. Melmotte certainly had been raising money. But this might probably be an affair of a few weeks. Melmotte had declared that Pickering should be made over to the young people at the marriage. His father had recommended him to get the girl to name a day. The marriage could be broken off at the last day if the property were not forthcoming. "I'm going up to your house almost immediately," said Nidderdale. "You'll find the women at tea to a certainty between five and six," said Melmotte.

When Marie Melmotte assured Sir Felix Carbury that her father had already endowed her with a large fortune which could not be taken from her without her consent, she spoke the truth. She knew of the matter almost as little as it was possible that she should know. Melmotte had kept all the details from her. But it had been necessary for him to explain, or to pretend to explain, much; and Marie's memory and also her intelligence were strong beyond her father's anticipation. He had invested a large sum of money in foreign funds in her name, and he had got her to give him a power of attorney enabling him to draw the income from them on her behalf. This he had done so that he should still have enough money to live in comfort, should he be doomed to obscurity. But he had failed to consider various circumstances. His daughter might be untrue to him, or in the event of her marriage might fail to release his property; or there might come troubles so great that even the future income would not be enough. At present, he was tortured by anxiety. Were he to take back this property it would enable him to pay all that was due to the Longestaffes, and more. He did not care about the Longstaffes themselves. But he was painfully aware that not just a simple debt was involved. He had with his own hand written Dolly Longestaffe's signature on the letter which he had found in old Mr. Longestaffe's drawer. He had discovered it in an envelope addressed in Mr. Longstaffe's writing to Messrs. Slow and Bideawhile, and he had posted it himself. At the time, he was the joint tenant of Mr. Longestaffe's study; and he had long since learned to pick a lock, though he could not then relock it. He had picked a lock, and had found the letter prepared by Mr. Bideawhile. Even if the young man were to swear that the signature was not his, and the old man were to swear that he had left that drawer locked, still there could be no evidence. People might talk. And a crash might come. But there would still be that ample fortune on which to retire and make merry for the rest of his days. Then there came annoying complications. Rumours of the forgery were spread abroad. If a jury were persuaded that he had done it, of what use then would be all that money? He wondered whether it might not be better to use the money to save him from such ruin, by paying for the Pickering property. Neither Dolly Longestaffe nor Squercum would concern themselves any further if the money were paid. But then the money would be as good as wasted by such a payment, if - as he believed - no firm evidence of the forgery could be produced. Perhaps Mr. Melmotte attached higher privileges to the British aristocracy than in truth belong to them. He really believed that if he became the father-in-law of the eldest son of the Marquis of Auld Reekie, he would be safe from the fangs of the law. And if he could tide over this bad time, how glorious would it be to have a Marquis for his son-in-law! He knew that Lord Nidderdale would not marry his daughter without property, but he thought that the funds which had been transferred to Marie might suffice; and he had already given proof to the Marquis's lawyer that his daughter possessed them. Now another complication had arisen which had startled Mr. Melmotte very much indeed. One morning he had sent for Marie to the study and had told her that he required her signature for a deed. She had asked him what deed. He had replied that it was a document regarding money, and that she need not ask any more questions as she would be wanted only to sign the paper. Then Marie astounded him, not merely by showing him that she understood a great deal more of the transaction than he had thought, but also by a refusal to sign anything at all. "You have been so unkind to me about Sir Felix Carbury that I won't do it," she said. "If I ever marry, the money will belong to my husband!" His breath almost failed him at these words. He did not know whether to use threats, entreaties, or blows. He tried all three: he told her that he would put her in prison, he besought her not to ruin her parent, and then he shook her violently. But Marie was quite firm. He might cut her to pieces; but she would sign nothing. This was another reason for sticking to the Nidderdale plan. On weighing things up, therefore, he decided to leave the Longestaffes unpaid and to let Nidderdale have the money. The dangers on all sides were very great; but he intended to be bold. Marie had now said that she would accept Nidderdale - or the sweep at the crossing. On the Monday after his famous speech in Parliament, one of the Bideawhiles had come to him in the City, asking for payment for Pickering. Mr. Melmotte offered to make the payment in two bills at three and six months' date, with proper interest allowed. But this offer Mr. Bideawhile rejected indignantly, demanding that the title-deeds should be restored to them. "You have no right whatever to demand the title-deeds," said Melmotte. "You can only claim the sum due, and I have already told you how I propose to pay it." Mr. Bideawhile was nearly beside himself with dismay. In the whole course of his business, there had never been such a thing as this. Of course Mr. Longestaffe was to blame - so the Bideawhiles declared among themselves. He had been so anxious to have dealings with the man of money that he had insisted that the title-deeds should be given up. But the title-deeds had not been his to surrender; for Pickering was the joint property of him and his son. The house had already been pulled down, and now the purchaser offered bills in lieu of money! "Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Melmotte, that you have not got the money to pay for what you have bought, and that the title-deeds have already gone out of your hands?" "I have property of ten times, twenty times the value," said Melmotte proudly; "but you must know that a man engaged in large affairs cannot always realise such a sum as eighty thousand pounds at a day's notice." Mr. Bideawhile replied that he thought that his client had been robbed, and that he would at once take the severest steps the law put in his power. As Mr. Melmotte shrugged his shoulders and made no further reply, Mr. Bideawhile could only depart. Mr. Bideawhile was now doubtful about the genuineness of the letter which Dolly declared that he had not signed. Mr. Longestaffe himself had asserted that he had left the letter locked in his own drawer in the room which had become Melmotte's study. On entering the room with Mr. Bideawhile, in Melmotte's presence, he had found that his drawer was open. "Do you mean to say that I have opened your drawer?" said Mr. Melmotte. Mr. Longestaffe had become very red in the face and had replied that he made no such accusation, but he had certainly locked the drawer. He knew his own habits and had never left that drawer open in his life. "Then you must have changed your habits on this occasion," said Mr. Melmotte with spirit. Mr. Longestaffe would trust himself to no other word within the house. Mr. Bideawhile could only remark that it was most unfortunate. The marriage with Nidderdale would upon the whole be the best thing, thought Melmotte, if it could be accomplished. He was driven very hard for money. His chief trust was in Cohenlupe, who dealt with the shares of the Mexican railway: to him he had trusted more than he normally trusted to any man. Cohenlupe assured him that nothing could be done with the railway shares at present; they had fallen almost to nothing. It was at Cohenlupe's instigation that he had offered the two bills to Mr. Bideawhile. "Offer 'em again," said Cohenlupe. "He must take them sooner or later." On the Monday afternoon Melmotte met Lord Nidderdale in the lobby of the House. "Have you seen Marie lately?" he said. Nidderdale had been assured that morning, by his father's lawyer, that if he married Miss Melmotte now he would undoubtedly become possessed of an income amounting to over 5,000 a year. He had intended to get more than that; but then there probably would be more. No doubt there was a difficulty about Pickering. But Melmotte had been raising money, and had declared that Pickering should be made over to the young people at the marriage. His father had recommended him to get the girl to name a day. The marriage could be broken off at the last minute if the property were not forthcoming. "I'm going up to your house now," said Nidderdale. "You'll find the women at tea between five and six," said Melmotte.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 73: Marie's Fortune

In the meantime Marie Melmotte was living with Madame Melmotte in their lodgings up at Hampstead, and was taking quite a new look out into the world. Fisker had become her devoted servant,--not with that old-fashioned service which meant making love, but with perhaps a truer devotion to her material interests. He had ascertained on her behalf that she was the undoubted owner of the money which her father had made over to her on his first arrival in England,--and she also had made herself mistress of that fact with equal precision. It would have astonished those who had known her six months since could they now have seen how excellent a woman of business she had become, and how capable she was of making the fullest use of Mr. Fisker's services. In doing him justice it must be owned that he kept nothing back from her of that which he learned, probably feeling that he might best achieve success in his present project by such honesty,--feeling also, no doubt, the girl's own strength in discovering truth and falsehood. "She's her father's own daughter," he said one day to Croll in Abchurch Lane;--for Croll, though he had left Melmotte's employment when he found that his name had been forged, had now returned to the service of the daughter in some undefined position, and had been engaged to go with her and Madame Melmotte to New York. "Ah; yees," said Croll, "but bigger. He vas passionate, and did lose his 'ead; and vas blow'd up vid bigness." Whereupon Croll made an action as though he were a frog swelling himself to the dimensions of an ox. "'E bursted himself, Mr. Fisker. 'E vas a great man; but the greater he grew he vas always less and less vise. 'E ate so much that he became too fat to see to eat his vittels." It was thus that Herr Croll analyzed the character of his late master. "But Ma'me'selle,--ah, she is different. She vill never eat too moch, but vill see to eat alvays." Thus too he analyzed the character of his young mistress. At first things did not arrange themselves pleasantly between Madame Melmotte and Marie. The reader will perhaps remember that they were in no way connected by blood. Madame Melmotte was not Marie's mother, nor, in the eye of the law, could Marie claim Melmotte as her father. She was alone in the world, absolutely without a relation, not knowing even what had been her mother's name,--not even knowing what was her father's true name, as in the various biographies of the great man which were, as a matter of course, published within a fortnight of his death, various accounts were given as to his birth, parentage, and early history. The general opinion seemed to be that his father had been a noted coiner in New York,--an Irishman of the name of Melmody,--and, in one memoir, the probability of the descent was argued from Melmotte's skill in forgery. But Marie, though she was thus isolated, and now altogether separated from the lords and duchesses who a few weeks since had been interested in her career, was the undoubted owner of the money,--a fact which was beyond the comprehension of Madame Melmotte. She could understand,--and was delighted to understand,--that a very large sum of money had been saved from the wreck, and that she might therefore look forward to prosperous tranquillity for the rest of her life. Though she never acknowledged so much to herself, she soon learned to regard the removal of her husband as the end of her troubles. But she could not comprehend why Marie should claim all the money as her own. She declared herself to be quite willing to divide the spoil,--and suggested such an arrangement both to Marie and to Croll. Of Fisker she was afraid, thinking that the iniquity of giving all the money to Marie originated with him, in order that he might obtain it by marrying the girl. Croll, who understood it all perfectly, told her the story a dozen times,--but quite in vain. She made a timid suggestion of employing a lawyer on her own behalf, and was only deterred from doing so by Marie's ready assent to such an arrangement. Marie's equally ready surrender of any right she might have to a portion of the jewels which had been saved had perhaps some effect in softening the elder lady's heart. She thus was in possession of a treasure of her own,--though a treasure small in comparison with that of the younger woman; and the younger woman had promised that in the event of her marriage she would be liberal. It was distinctly understood that they were both to go to New York under Mr. Fisker's guidance as soon as things should be sufficiently settled to allow of their departure; and Madame Melmotte was told, about the middle of August, that their places had been taken for the 3rd of September. But nothing more was told her. She did not as yet know whether Marie was to go out free or as the affianced bride of Hamilton Fisker. And she felt herself injured by being left so much in the dark. She herself was inimical to Fisker, regarding him as a dark, designing man, who would ultimately swallow up all that her husband had left behind him,--and trusted herself entirely to Croll, who was personally attentive to her. Fisker was, of course, going on to San Francisco. Marie also had talked of crossing the American continent. But Madame Melmotte was disposed to think that for her, with her jewels, and such share of the money as Marie might be induced to give her, New York would be the most fitting residence. Why should she drag herself across the continent to California? Herr Croll had declared his purpose of remaining in New York. Then it occurred to the lady that as Melmotte was a name which might be too well known in New York, and which it therefore might be wise to change, Croll would do as well as any other. She and Herr Croll had known each other for a great many years, and were, she thought, of about the same age. Croll had some money saved. She had, at any rate, her jewels,--and Croll would probably be able to get some portion of all that money, which ought to be hers, if his affairs were made to be identical with her own. So she smiled upon Croll, and whispered to him; and when she had given Croll two glasses of Curaoa,--which comforter she kept in her own hands, as safe-guarded almost as the jewels,--then Croll understood her. But it was essential that she should know what Marie intended to do. Marie was anything but communicative, and certainly was not in any way submissive. "My dear," she said one day, asking the question in French, without any preface or apology, "are you going to be married to Mr. Fisker?" "What makes you ask that?" "It is so important I should know. Where am I to live? What am I to do? What money shall I have? Who will be a friend to me? A woman ought to know. You will marry Fisker if you like him. Why cannot you tell me?" "Because I do not know. When I know I will tell you. If you go on asking me till to-morrow morning I can say no more." And this was true. She did not know. It certainly was not Fisker's fault that she should still be in the dark as to her own destiny, for he had asked her often enough, and had pressed his suit with all his eloquence. But Marie had now been wooed so often that she felt the importance of the step which was suggested to her. The romance of the thing was with her a good deal worn, and the material view of matrimony had also been damaged in her sight. She had fallen in love with Sir Felix Carbury, and had assured herself over and over again that she worshipped the very ground on which he stood. But she had taught herself this business of falling in love as a lesson, rather than felt it. After her father's first attempts to marry her to this and that suitor because of her wealth,--attempts which she had hardly opposed amidst the consternation and glitter of the world to which she was suddenly introduced,--she had learned from novels that it would be right that she should be in love, and she had chosen Sir Felix as her idol. The reader knows what had been the end of that episode in her life. She certainly was not now in love with Sir Felix Carbury. Then she had as it were relapsed into the hands of Lord Nidderdale,--one of her early suitors,--and had felt that as love was not to prevail, and as it would be well that she should marry some one, he might probably be as good as any other, and certainly better than many others. She had almost learned to like Lord Nidderdale and to believe that he liked her, when the tragedy came. Lord Nidderdale had been very good-natured,--but he had deserted her at last. She had never allowed herself to be angry with him for a moment. It had been a matter of course that he should do so. Her fortune was still large, but not so large as the sum named in the bargain made. And it was moreover weighted with her father's blood. From the moment of her father's death she had never dreamed that he would marry her. Why should he? Her thoughts in reference to Sir Felix were bitter enough;--but as against Nidderdale they were not at all bitter. Should she ever meet him again she would shake hands with him and smile,--if not pleasantly as she thought of the things which were past,--at any rate with good humour. But all this had not made her much in love with matrimony generally. She had over a hundred thousand pounds of her own, and, feeling conscious of her own power in regard to her own money, knowing that she could do as she pleased with her wealth, she began to look out into life seriously. What could she do with her money, and in what way would she shape her life, should she determine to remain her own mistress? Were she to refuse Fisker how should she begin? He would then be banished, and her only remaining friends, the only persons whose names she would even know in her own country, would be her father's widow and Herr Croll. She already began to see Madame Melmotte's purport in reference to Croll, and could not reconcile herself to the idea of opening an establishment with them on a scale commensurate with her fortune. Nor could she settle in her own mind any pleasant position for herself as a single woman, living alone in perfect independence. She had opinions of women's rights,--especially in regard to money; and she entertained also a vague notion that in America a young woman would not need support so essentially as in England. Nevertheless, the idea of a fine house for herself in Boston, or Philadelphia,--for in that case she would have to avoid New York as the chosen residence of Madame Melmotte,--did not recommend itself to her. As to Fisker himself,--she certainly liked him. He was not beautiful like Felix Carbury, nor had he the easy good-humour of Lord Nidderdale. She had seen enough of English gentlemen to know that Fisker was very unlike them. But she had not seen enough of English gentlemen to make Fisker distasteful to her. He told her that he had a big house at San Francisco, and she certainly desired to live in a big house. He represented himself to be a thriving man, and she calculated that he certainly would not be here, in London, arranging her father's affairs, were he not possessed of commercial importance. She had contrived to learn that, in the United States, a married woman has greater power over her own money than in England, and this information acted strongly in Fisker's favour. On consideration of the whole subject she was inclined to think that she would do better in the world as Mrs. Fisker than as Marie Melmotte,--if she could see her way clearly in the matter of her own money. "I have got excellent berths," Fisker said to her one morning at Hampstead. At these interviews, which were devoted first to business and then to love, Madame Melmotte was never allowed to be present. "I am to be alone?" "Oh, yes. There is a cabin for Madame Melmotte and the maid, and a cabin for you. Everything will be comfortable. And there is another lady going,--Mrs. Hurtle,--whom I think you will like." "Has she a husband?" "Not going with us," said Mr. Fisker evasively. "But she has one?" "Well, yes;--but you had better not mention him. He is not exactly all that a husband should be." "Did she not come over here to marry some one else?"--For Marie in the days of her sweet intimacy with Sir Felix Carbury had heard something of Mrs. Hurtle's story. "There is a story, and I dare say I shall tell you all about it some day. But you may be sure I should not ask you to associate with any one you ought not to know." "Oh,--I can take care of myself." "No doubt, Miss Melmotte,--no doubt. I feel that quite strongly. But what I meant to observe was this,--that I certainly should not introduce a lady whom I aspire to make my own lady to any lady whom a lady oughtn't to know. I hope I make myself understood, Miss Melmotte." "Oh, quite." "And perhaps I may go on to say that if I could go on board that ship as your accepted lover, I could do a deal more to make you comfortable, particularly when you land, than just as a mere friend, Miss Melmotte. You can't doubt my heart." "I don't see why I shouldn't. Gentlemen's hearts are things very much to be doubted as far as I've seen 'em. I don't think many of 'em have 'em at all." "Miss Melmotte, you do not know the glorious west. Your past experiences have been drawn from this effete and stone-cold country in which passion is no longer allowed to sway. On those golden shores which the Pacific washes man is still true,--and woman is still tender." "Perhaps I'd better wait and see, Mr. Fisker." But this was not Mr. Fisker's view of the case. There might be other men desirous of being true on those golden shores. "And then," said he, pleading his cause not without skill, "the laws regulating woman's property there are just the reverse of those which the greediness of man has established here. The wife there can claim her share of her husband's property, but hers is exclusively her own. America is certainly the country for women,--and especially California." "Ah;--I shall find out all about it, I suppose, when I've been there a few months." "But you would enter San Francisco, Miss Melmotte, under such much better auspices,--if I may be allowed to say so,--as a married lady or as a lady just going to be married." "Ain't single ladies much thought of in California?" "It isn't that. Come, Miss Melmotte, you know what I mean." "Yes, I do." "Let us go in for life together. We've both done uncommon well. I'm spending 30,000 dollars a year,--at that rate,--in my own house. You'll see it all. If we put them both together,--what's yours and what's mine,--we can put our foot out as far as about any one there, I guess." "I don't know that I care about putting my foot out. I've seen something of that already, Mr. Fisker. You shouldn't put your foot out farther than you can draw it in again." "You needn't fear me as to that, Miss Melmotte. I shouldn't be able to touch a dollar of your money. It would be such a triumph to go into Francisco as man and wife." "I shouldn't think of being married till I had been there a while and looked about me." "And seen the house! Well;--there's something in that. The house is all there, I can tell you. I'm not a bit afraid but what you'll like the house. But if we were engaged, I could do every thing for you. Where would you be, going into San Francisco all alone? Oh, Miss Melmotte, I do admire you so much!" I doubt whether this last assurance had much efficacy. But the arguments with which it was introduced did prevail to a certain extent. "I'll tell you how it must be then," she said. "How shall it be?" and as he asked the question he jumped up and put his arm round her waist. "Not like that, Mr. Fisker," she said, withdrawing herself. "It shall be in this way. You may consider yourself engaged to me." "I'm the happiest man on this continent," he said, forgetting in his ecstasy that he was not in the United States. "But if I find when I get to Francisco anything to induce me to change my mind, I shall change it. I like you very well, but I'm not going to take a leap in the dark, and I'm not going to marry a pig in a poke." "There you're quite right," he said,--"quite right." "You may give it out on board the ship that we're engaged, and I'll tell Madame Melmotte the same. She and Croll don't mean going any farther than New York." "We needn't break our hearts about that;--need we?" "It don't much signify. Well;--I'll go on with Mrs. Hurtle, if she'll have me." "Too much delighted she'll be." "And she shall be told we're engaged." "My darling!" "But if I don't like it when I get to Frisco, as you call it, all the ropes in California shan't make me do it. Well;--yes; you may give me a kiss I suppose now if you care about it." And so,--or rather so far,--Mr. Fisker and Marie Melmotte became engaged to each other as man and wife. After that Mr. Fisker's remaining business in England went very smoothly with him. It was understood up at Hampstead that he was engaged to Marie Melmotte,--and it soon came to be understood also that Madame Melmotte was to be married to Herr Croll. No doubt the father of the one lady and the husband of the other had died so recently as to make these arrangements subject to certain censorious objections. But there was a feeling that Melmotte had been so unlike other men, both in his life and in his death, that they who had been concerned with him were not to be weighed by ordinary scales. Nor did it much matter, for the persons concerned took their departure soon after the arrangement was made, and Hampstead knew them no more. On the 3rd of September Madame Melmotte, Marie, Mrs. Hurtle, Hamilton K. Fisker, and Herr Croll left Liverpool for New York; and the three ladies were determined that they never would revisit a country of which their reminiscences certainly were not happy. The writer of the present chronicle may so far look forward,--carrying his reader with him,--as to declare that Marie Melmotte did become Mrs. Fisker very soon after her arrival at San Francisco.

In the meantime Marie Melmotte was living with Madame Melmotte in the Hampstead lodgings, and was taking quite a new look at the world. Fisker had become her devoted servant in terms of her material interests. He had proved that she was the undoubted owner of the money which her father had made over to her. She had now become an excellent woman of business, and was making full use of Mr. Fisker's services. To do him justice, he kept nothing back from her which he learned, probably feeling that he might best achieve success in his project by honesty. "She's her father's own daughter," he said one day to Croll in Abchurch Lane; for Croll had returned to the daughter's service, and was to go with her and Madame Melmotte to New York. At first things did not arrange themselves pleasantly between Madame Melmotte and Marie. The reader will perhaps remember that they were not related by blood. Marie was alone in the world, absolutely without a relation, not knowing her mother's name - or even her father's true name. In the various biographies of the great man which were published within a fortnight of his death, various accounts were given as to his early history. The general opinion seemed to be that his father had been a noted coiner in New York, an Irishman of the name of Melmody. But Marie was the undoubted owner of the money - a fact which was beyond the comprehension of Madame Melmotte. Croll explained it to her a dozen times, but quite in vain. However, her heart was softened by Marie's surrender of the jewels which had been saved. Madame Melmotte thus was in possession of a small treasure of her own. Madame Melmotte was told that they were to sail for New York on the 3rd of September. But nothing more was told her. She did not know whether Marie was affianced to Hamilton Fisker; and she felt herself injured by being left in the dark. She thought Fisker was a designing man, and trusted herself entirely to Croll. Fisker was, of course, going on to San Francisco. Marie also had talked of going there. But Madame Melmotte was disposed to prefer New York as a residence. Why should she drag herself across the continent to California? Herr Croll had declared his purpose of remaining in New York. Then it occurred to the lady that, as Melmotte was a name which might be too well known in New York, and which it therefore might be wise to change, Croll would do as well as any other. She and Herr Croll had known each other for a great many years. Croll had some money saved, and she had her jewels. So she smiled upon Croll, and whispered to him; and Croll understood her. But she needed to know what Marie intended to do. "My dear," she said one day, "are you going to be married to Mr. Fisker?" "What makes you ask that?" "It is important I should know. Where am I to live? What am I to do? Why cannot you tell me?" "Because I do not know. When I know I will tell you." And this was true. She did not know. It certainly was not Fisker's fault, for he had asked her often enough. But Marie had now been wooed so many times that the romance of the thing was worn and damaged. She had chosen Sir Felix as her idol, modelled on the books she had read, but she was not now in love with Sir Felix Carbury. Then she had as it were relapsed into the hands of Lord Nidderdale, and felt that he would probably be as good as any other. She had almost learned to like him when the tragedy came, and he had deserted her. She had not been at all angry or bitter. Should she ever meet him again she would shake hands with him and smile. But all this had not made her much in love with matrimony generally. She had over a hundred thousand pounds of her own, and knew that she could do as she pleased with her wealth. In what way would she shape her life, if she decided to remain her own mistress? Were she to refuse Fisker, how should she begin? If he were banished, her only remaining friends would be her father's widow and Herr Croll. She already guessed Madame Melmotte's purpose in reference to Croll, and did not wish to live with them. Nor could she think it would be pleasant to live alone in perfect independence. As to Fisker himself - she certainly liked him. He was not beautiful like Felix Carbury, nor had he the easy good-humour of Lord Nidderdale. But he told her that he had a big house at San Francisco, and she certainly desired to live in a big house. He represented himself as a thriving man, and she calculated that he certainly had commercial importance. She had learned that, in the United States, a married woman has greater power over her own money than in England, and this information acted strongly in Fisker's favour. On consideration, she was inclined to think that she would do better in the world as Mrs. Fisker than as Marie Melmotte - if she could see her way clearly in the matter of her own money. "I have got excellent berths," Fisker said to her one morning at Hampstead, when Madame Melmotte was not present. "There is a cabin for Madame Melmotte and the maid, and a cabin for you. Everything will be comfortable. And there is another lady going, Mrs. Hurtle, whom I think you will like." "Has she a husband?" "Well, yes; but you had better not mention him. There is a story I shall tell some day. But you may be sure I should not ask you to associate with anyone you ought not to know." "Oh, I can take care of myself." "No doubt, Miss Melmotte. But I meant that I should not introduce a lady whom I hope to make my own lady to any lady whom a lady oughtn't to know. I hope I make myself understood, Miss Melmotte." "Quite." "And perhaps I may go on to say that if I could go on board that ship as your accepted lover, I could do a deal more to make you comfortable than just as a mere friend, Miss Melmotte. You can't doubt my heart." "I don't see why not. I think gentlemen's hearts are things very much to be doubted." "Miss Melmotte, your experiences have been drawn from this effete and stone-cold country in which passion is allowed no sway. On those golden shores which the Pacific washes, man is still true, and woman is still tender." "Perhaps I'd better wait and see, Mr. Fisker." But this was not Mr. Fisker's view of the case. There might be other men desirous of being true on those golden shores. "But you would enter San Francisco, Miss Melmotte, under much better auspices as a married lady or as a lady just going to be married." "Ain't single ladies much thought of in California?" "It isn't that. Come, Miss Melmotte, you know what I mean. Let us go in for life together. We've both done uncommon well. I'm spending 30,000 dollars in my own house. You'll see it all. And I shouldn't be able to touch a dollar of your money. It would be such a triumph to go into Frisco as man and wife." "I shouldn't think of being married till I had been there a while and looked about me." "And seen the house! I know you'll like the house. But if we were engaged, I could do everything for you. Oh, Miss Melmotte, I do admire you so much!" "I'll tell you how it must be then," she said. "How shall it be?" He put his arm round her waist. "Not like that, Mr. Fisker," she said, withdrawing herself. "It shall be in this way. You may consider yourself engaged to me." "I'm the happiest man on this continent," he said. "But if I find when I get to San Francisco anything to induce me to change my mind, I shall change it. I like you very well, but I'm not going to take a leap in the dark, and I'm not going to marry a pig in a poke." "There you're quite right," he said. "We'll tell people we're engaged, but if I don't like it when I get to Frisco, as you call it, all the ropes in California shan't make me do it. Well; you may give me a kiss now if you care to." On the 3rd of September Madame Melmotte, Marie, Mrs. Hurtle, Hamilton Fisker, and Herr Croll left Liverpool for New York; and the three ladies were determined that they would never return to England. The writer may so far look forward as to declare that Marie Melmotte did become Mrs. Fisker very soon after her arrival at San Francisco.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 98: Marie Melmotte's Fate

Lady Monogram retired from Mr. Melmotte's house in disgust as soon as she was able to escape; but we must return to it for a short time. When the guests were once in the drawing-room the immediate sense of failure passed away. The crowd never became so thick as had been anticipated. They who were knowing in such matters had declared that the people would not be able to get themselves out of the room till three or four o'clock in the morning, and that the carriages would not get themselves out of the Square till breakfast time. With a view to this kind of thing Mr. Melmotte had been told that he must provide a private means of escape for his illustrious guests, and with a considerable sacrifice of walls and general house arrangements this had been done. No such gathering as was expected took place; but still the rooms became fairly full, and Mr. Melmotte was able to console himself with the feeling that nothing certainly fatal had as yet occurred. There can be no doubt that the greater part of the people assembled did believe that their host had committed some great fraud which might probably bring him under the arm of the law. When such rumours are spread abroad, they are always believed. There is an excitement and a pleasure in believing them. Reasonable hesitation at such a moment is dull and phlegmatic. If the accused one be near enough to ourselves to make the accusation a matter of personal pain, of course we disbelieve. But, if the distance be beyond this, we are almost ready to think that anything may be true of anybody. In this case nobody really loved Melmotte and everybody did believe. It was so probable that such a man should have done something horrible! It was only hoped that the fraud might be great and horrible enough. Melmotte himself during that part of the evening which was passed up-stairs kept himself in the close vicinity of royalty. He behaved certainly very much better than he would have done had he had no weight at his heart. He made few attempts at beginning any conversation, and answered, at any rate with brevity, when he was addressed. With scrupulous care he ticked off on his memory the names of those who had come and whom he knew, thinking that their presence indicated a verdict of acquittal from them on the evidence already before them. Seeing the members of the Government all there, he wished that he had come forward in Westminster as a Liberal. And he freely forgave those omissions of Royalty as to which he had been so angry at the India Office, seeing that not a Prince or Princess was lacking of those who were expected. He could turn his mind to all this, although he knew how great was his danger. Many things occurred to him as he stood, striving to smile as a host should smile. It might be the case that half-a-dozen detectives were already stationed in his own hall,--perhaps one or two, well dressed, in the very presence of royalty,--ready to arrest him as soon as the guests were gone, watching him now lest he should escape. But he bore the burden,--and smiled. He had always lived with the consciousness that such a burden was on him and might crush him at any time. He had known that he had to run these risks. He had told himself a thousand times that when the dangers came, dangers alone should never cow him. He had always endeavoured to go as near the wind as he could, to avoid the heavy hand of the criminal law of whatever country he inhabited. He had studied the criminal laws, so that he might be sure in his reckonings; but he had always felt that he might be carried by circumstances into deeper waters than he intended to enter. As the soldier who leads a forlorn hope, or as the diver who goes down for pearls, or as the searcher for wealth on fever-breeding coasts, knows that as his gains may be great, so are his perils, Melmotte had been aware that in his life, as it opened itself out to him, he might come to terrible destruction. He had not always thought, or even hoped, that he would be as he was now, so exalted as to be allowed to entertain the very biggest ones of the earth; but the greatness had grown upon him,--and so had the danger. He could not now be as exact as he had been. He was prepared himself to bear all mere ignominy with a tranquil mind,--to disregard any shouts of reprobation which might be uttered, and to console himself when the bad quarter of an hour should come with the remembrance that he had garnered up a store sufficient for future wants and placed it beyond the reach of his enemies. But as his intellect opened up to him new schemes, and as his ambition got the better of his prudence, he gradually fell from the security which he had preconceived, and became aware that he might have to bear worse than ignominy. Perhaps never in his life had he studied his own character and his own conduct more accurately, or made sterner resolves, than he did as he stood there smiling, bowing, and acting without impropriety the part of host to an Emperor. No;--he could not run away. He soon made himself sure of that. He had risen too high to be a successful fugitive, even should he succeed in getting off before hands were laid upon him. He must bide his ground, if only that he might not at once confess his own guilt by flight; and he would do so with courage. Looking back at the hour or two that had just passed he was aware that he had allowed himself not only to be frightened in the dinner-room,--but also to seem to be frightened. The thing had come upon him unawares and he had been untrue to himself. He acknowledged that. He should not have asked those questions of Mr. Todd and Mr. Beauclerk, and should have been more good-humoured than usual with Lord Alfred in discussing those empty seats. But for spilt milk there is no remedy. The blow had come upon him too suddenly, and he had faltered. But he would not falter again. Nothing should cow him,--no touch from a policeman, no warrant from a magistrate, no defalcation of friends, no scorn in the City, no solitude in the West End. He would go down among the electors to-morrow and would stand his ground, as though all with him were right. Men should know at any rate that he had a heart within his bosom. And he confessed also to himself that he had sinned in that matter of arrogance. He could see it now,--as so many of us do see the faults which we have committed, which we strive, but in vain, to discontinue, and which we never confess except to our own bosoms. The task which he had imposed on himself, and to which circumstances had added weight, had been very hard to bear. He should have been good-humoured to these great ones whose society he had gained. He should have bound these people to him by a feeling of kindness as well as by his money. He could see it all now. And he could see too that there was no help for spilt milk. I think he took some pride in his own confidence as to his own courage, as he stood there turning it all over in his mind. Very much might be suspected. Something might be found out. But the task of unravelling it all would not be easy. It is the small vermin and the little birds that are trapped at once. But wolves and vultures can fight hard before they are caught. With the means which would still be at his command, let the worst come to the worst, he could make a strong fight. When a man's frauds have been enormous there is a certain safety in their very diversity and proportions. Might it not be that the fact that these great ones of the earth had been his guests should speak in his favour? A man who had in very truth had the real brother of the Sun dining at his table could hardly be sent into the dock and then sent out of it like a common felon. Madame Melmotte during the evening stood at the top of her own stairs with a chair behind her on which she could rest herself for a moment when any pause took place in the arrivals. She had of course dined at the table,--or rather sat there;--but had been so placed that no duty had devolved upon her. She had heard no word of the rumours, and would probably be the last person in that house to hear them. It never occurred to her to see whether the places down the table were full or empty. She sat with her large eyes fixed on the Majesty of China and must have wondered at her own destiny at finding herself with an Emperor and Princes to look at. From the dining-room she had gone when she was told to go, up to the drawing-room, and had there performed her task, longing only for the comfort of her bedroom. She, I think, had but small sympathy with her husband in all his work, and but little understanding of the position in which she had been placed. Money she liked, and comfort, and perhaps diamonds and fine dresses, but she can hardly have taken pleasure in duchesses or have enjoyed the company of the Emperor. From the beginning of the Melmotte era it had been an understood thing that no one spoke to Madame Melmotte. Marie Melmotte had declined a seat at the dinner-table. This at first had been cause of quarrel between her and her father, as he desired to have seen her next to young Lord Nidderdale as being acknowledged to be betrothed to him. But since the journey to Liverpool he had said nothing on the subject. He still pressed the engagement, but thought now that less publicity might be expedient. She was, however, in the drawing-room standing at first by Madame Melmotte, and afterwards retreating among the crowd. To some ladies she was a person of interest as the young woman who had lately run away under such strange circumstances; but no one spoke to her till she saw a girl whom she herself knew, and whom she addressed, plucking up all her courage for the occasion. This was Hetta Carbury who had been brought hither by her mother. The tickets for Lady Carbury and Hetta had of course been sent before the elopement;--and also, as a matter of course, no reference had been made to them by the Melmotte family after the elopement. Lady Carbury herself was anxious that that affair should not be considered as having given cause for any personal quarrel between herself and Mr. Melmotte, and in her difficulty had consulted Mr. Broune. Mr. Broune was the staff on which she leant at present in all her difficulties. Mr. Broune was going to the dinner. All this of course took place while Melmotte's name was as yet unsullied as snow. Mr. Broune saw no reason why Lady Carbury should not take advantage of her tickets. These invitations were simply tickets to see the Emperor surrounded by the Princes. The young lady's elopement is "no affair of yours," Mr. Broune had said. "I should go, if it were only for the sake of showing that you did not consider yourself to be implicated in the matter." Lady Carbury did as she was advised, and took her daughter with her. "Nonsense," said the mother, when Hetta objected; "Mr. Broune sees it quite in the right light. This is a grand demonstration in honour of the Emperor, rather than a private party;--and we have done nothing to offend the Melmottes. You know you wish to see the Emperor." A few minutes before they started from Welbeck Street a note came from Mr. Broune, written in pencil and sent from Melmotte's house by a Commissioner. "Don't mind what you hear; but come. I am here and as far as I can see it is all right. The E. is beautiful, and P.'s are as thick as blackberries." Lady Carbury, who had not been in the way of hearing the reports, understood nothing of this; but of course she went. And Hetta went with her. Hetta was standing alone in a corner, near to her mother, who was talking to Mr. Booker, with her eyes fixed on the awful tranquillity of the Emperor's countenance, when Marie Melmotte timidly crept up to her and asked her how she was. Hetta, probably, was not very cordial to the poor girl, being afraid of her, partly as the daughter of the great Melmotte and partly as the girl with whom her brother had failed to run away; but Marie was not rebuked by this. "I hope you won't be angry with me for speaking to you." Hetta smiled more graciously. She could not be angry with the girl for speaking to her, feeling that she was there as the guest of the girl's mother. "I suppose you know about your brother," said Marie, whispering with her eyes turned to the ground. "I have heard about it," said Hetta. "He never told me himself." "Oh, I do so wish that I knew the truth. I know nothing. Of course, Miss Carbury, I love him. I do love him so dearly! I hope you don't think I would have done it if I hadn't loved him better than anybody in the world. Don't you think that if a girl loves a man,--really loves him,--that ought to go before everything?" This was a question that Hetta was hardly prepared to answer. She felt quite certain that under no circumstances would she run away with a man. "I don't quite know. It is so hard to say," she replied. "I do. What's the good of anything if you're to be broken-hearted? I don't care what they say of me, or what they do to me, if he would only be true to me. Why doesn't he--let me know--something about it?" This also was a question difficult to be answered. Since that horrid morning on which Sir Felix had stumbled home drunk,--which was now four days since,--he had not left the house in Welbeck Street till this evening. He had gone out a few minutes before Lady Carbury had started, but up to that time he had almost kept his bed. He would not get up till dinner-time, would come down after some half-dressed fashion, and then get back to his bedroom, where he would smoke and drink brandy-and-water and complain of headache. The theory was that he was ill;--but he was in fact utterly cowed and did not dare to show himself at his usual haunts. He was aware that he had quarrelled at the club, aware that all the world knew of his intended journey to Liverpool, aware that he had tumbled about the streets intoxicated. He had not dared to show himself, and the feeling had grown upon him from day to day. Now, fairly worn out by his confinement, he had crept out intending, if possible, to find consolation with Ruby Ruggles. "Do tell me. Where is he?" pleaded Marie. "He has not been very well lately." "Is he ill? Oh, Miss Carbury, do tell me. You can understand what it is to love him as I do;--can't you?" "He has been ill. I think he is better now." "Why does he not come to me, or send to me; or let me know something? It is cruel, is it not? Tell me,--you must know,--does he really care for me?" Hetta was exceedingly perplexed. The real feeling betrayed by the girl recommended her. Hetta could not but sympathize with the affection manifested for her own brother, though she could hardly understand the want of reticence displayed by Marie in thus speaking of her love to one who was almost a stranger. "Felix hardly ever talks about himself to me," she said. "If he doesn't care for me, there shall be an end of it," Marie said very gravely. "If I only knew! If I thought that he loved me, I'd go through,--oh,--all the world for him. Nothing that papa could say should stop me. That's my feeling about it. I have never talked to any one but you about it. Isn't that strange? I haven't a person to talk to. That's my feeling, and I'm not a bit ashamed of it. There's no disgrace in being in love. But it's very bad to get married without being in love. That's what I think." "It is bad," said Hetta, thinking of Roger Carbury. "But if Felix doesn't care for me!" continued Marie, sinking her voice to a low whisper, but still making her words quite audible to her companion. Now Hetta was strongly of opinion that her brother did not in the least "care for" Marie Melmotte, and that it would be very much for the best that Marie Melmotte should know the truth. But she had not that sort of strength which would have enabled her to tell it. "Tell me just what you think," said Marie. Hetta was still silent. "Ah,--I see. Then I must give him up? Eh?" "What can I say, Miss Melmotte? Felix never tells me. He is my brother,--and of course I love you for loving him." This was almost more than Hetta meant; but she felt herself constrained to say some gracious word. "Do you? Oh! I wish you did. I should so like to be loved by you. Nobody loves me, I think. That man there wants to marry me. Do you know him? He is Lord Nidderdale. He is very nice; but he does not love me any more than he loves you. That's the way with men. It isn't the way with me. I would go with Felix and slave for him if he were poor. Is it all to be over then? You will give him a message from me?" Hetta, doubting as to the propriety of the promise, promised that she would. "Just tell him I want to know; that's all. I want to know. You'll understand. I want to know the real truth. I suppose I do know it now. Then I shall not care what happens to me. It will be all the same. I suppose I shall marry that young man, though it will be very bad. I shall just be as if I hadn't any self of my own at all. But he ought to send me word after all that has passed. Do not you think he ought to send me word?" "Yes, indeed." "You tell him, then," said Marie, nodding her head as she crept away. Nidderdale had been observing her while she had been talking to Miss Carbury. He had heard the rumour, and of course felt that it behoved him to be on his guard more specially than any one else. But he had not believed what he had heard. That men should be thoroughly immoral, that they should gamble, get drunk, run into debt, and make love to other men's wives, was to him a matter of every-day life. Nothing of that kind shocked him at all. But he was not as yet quite old enough to believe in swindling. It had been impossible to convince him that Miles Grendall had cheated at cards, and the idea that Mr. Melmotte had forged was as improbable and shocking to him as that an officer should run away in battle. Common soldiers, he thought, might do that sort of thing. He had almost fallen in love with Marie when he saw her last, and was inclined to feel the more kindly to her now because of the hard things that were being said about her father. And yet he knew that he must be careful. If "he came a cropper" in this matter, it would be such an awful cropper! "How do you like the party?" he said to Marie. "I don't like it at all, my lord. How do you like it?" "Very much, indeed. I think the Emperor is the greatest fun I ever saw. Prince Frederic,"--one of the German princes who was staying at the time among his English cousins,--"Prince Frederic says that he's stuffed with hay, and that he's made up fresh every morning at a shop in the Haymarket." "I've seen him talk." "He opens his mouth, of course. There is machinery as well as hay. I think he's the grandest old buffer out, and I'm awfully glad that I've dined with him. I couldn't make out whether he really put anything to eat into his jolly old mouth." "Of course he did." "Have you been thinking about what we were talking about the other day?" "No, my lord,--I haven't thought about it since. Why should I?" "Well;--it's a sort of thing that people do think about, you know." "You don't think about it." "Don't I? I've been thinking about nothing else the last three months." "You've been thinking whether you'd get married or not." "That's what I mean," said Lord Nidderdale. "It isn't what I mean, then." "I'll be shot if I can understand you." "Perhaps not. And you never will understand me. Oh, goodness;--they're all going, and we must get out of the way. Is that Prince Frederic, who told you about the hay? He is handsome; isn't he? And who is that in the violet dress;--with all the pearls?" "That's the Princess Dwarza." "Dear me;--isn't it odd, having a lot of people in one's own house, and not being able to speak a word to them? I don't think it's at all nice. Good night, my lord. I'm glad you like the Emperor." And then the people went, and when they had all gone Melmotte put his wife and daughter into his own carriage, telling them that he would follow them on foot to Bruton Street when he had given some last directions to the people who were putting out the lights, and extinguishing generally the embers of the entertainment. He had looked round for Lord Alfred, taking care to avoid the appearance of searching; but Lord Alfred had gone. Lord Alfred was one of those who knew when to leave a falling house. Melmotte at the moment thought of all that he had done for Lord Alfred, and it was something of the real venom of ingratitude that stung him at the moment rather than this additional sign of coming evil. He was more than ordinarily gracious as he put his wife into the carriage, and remarked that, considering all things, the party had gone off very well. "I only wish it could have been done a little cheaper," he said laughing. Then he went back into the house, and up into the drawing-rooms which were now utterly deserted. Some of the lights had been put out, but the men were busy in the rooms below, and he threw himself into the chair in which the Emperor had sat. It was wonderful that he should come to such a fate as this;--that he, the boy out of the gutter, should entertain at his own house, in London, a Chinese Emperor and English and German Royalty,--and that he should do so almost with a rope round his neck. Even if this were to be the end of it all, men would at any rate remember him. The grand dinner which he had given before he was put into prison would live in history. And it would be remembered, too, that he had been the Conservative candidate for the great borough of Westminster,--perhaps, even, the elected member. He, too, in his manner, assured himself that a great part of him would escape Oblivion. "Non omnis moriar," in some language of his own, was chanted by him within his own breast, as he sat there looking out on his own magnificent suite of rooms from the arm-chair which had been consecrated by the use of an Emperor. No policemen had come to trouble him yet. No hint that he would be "wanted" had been made to him. There was no tangible sign that things were not to go on as they went before. Things would be exactly as they were before, but for the absence of those guests from the dinner-table, and for the words which Miles Grendall had spoken. Had he not allowed himself to be terrified by shadows? Of course he had known that there must be such shadows. His life had been made dark by similar clouds before now, and he had lived through the storms which had followed them. He was thoroughly ashamed of the weakness which had overcome him at the dinner-table, and of that palsy of fear which he had allowed himself to exhibit. There should be no more shrinking such as that. When people talked of him they should say that he was at least a man. As this was passing through his mind a head was pushed in through one of the doors, and immediately withdrawn. It was his Secretary. "Is that you, Miles?" he said. "Come in. I'm just going home, and came up here to see how the empty rooms would look after they were all gone. What became of your father?" "I suppose he went away." "I suppose he did," said Melmotte, unable to hinder himself from throwing a certain tone of scorn into his voice,--as though proclaiming the fate of his own house and the consequent running away of the rat. "It went off very well, I think." "Very well," said Miles, still standing at the door. There had been a few words of consultation between him and his father,--only a very few words. "You'd better see it out to-night, as you've had a regular salary, and all that. I shall hook it. I sha'n't go near him to-morrow till I find out how things are going. By G----, I've had about enough of him." But hardly enough of his money,--or it may be presumed that Lord Alfred would have "hooked it" sooner. "Why don't you come in, and not stand there?" said Melmotte. "There's no Emperor here now for you to be afraid of." "I'm afraid of nobody," said Miles, walking into the middle of the room. "Nor am I. What's one man that another man should be afraid of him? We've got to die, and there'll be an end of it, I suppose." "That's about it," said Miles, hardly following the working of his master's mind. "I shouldn't care how soon. When a man has worked as I have done, he gets about tired at my age. I suppose I'd better be down at the committee-room about ten to-morrow?" "That's the best, I should say." "You'll be there by that time?" Miles Grendall assented slowly, and with imperfect assent. "And tell your father he might as well be there as early as convenient." "All right," said Miles as he took his departure. "Curs!" said Melmotte almost aloud. "They neither of them will be there. If any evil can be done to me by treachery and desertion, they will do it." Then it occurred to him to think whether the Grendall article had been worth all the money that he had paid for it. "Curs!" he said again. He walked down into the hall, and through the banqueting-room, and stood at the place where he himself had sat. What a scene it had been, and how frightfully low his heart had sunk within him! It had been the defection of the Lord Mayor that had hit him hardest. "What cowards they are!" The men went on with their work, not noticing him, and probably not knowing him. The dinner had been done by contract, and the contractor's foreman was there. The care of the house and the alterations had been confided to another contractor, and his foreman was waiting to see the place locked up. A confidential clerk, who had been with Melmotte for years, and who knew his ways, was there also to guard the property. "Good night, Croll," he said to the man in German. Croll touched his hat and bade him good night. Melmotte listened anxiously to the tone of the man's voice, trying to catch from it some indication of the mind within. Did Croll know of these rumours, and if so, what did he think of them? Croll had known him in some perilous circumstances before, and had helped him through them. He paused a moment as though he would ask a question, but resolved at last that silence would be safest. "You'll see everything safe, eh, Croll?" Croll said that he would see everything safe, and Melmotte passed out into the Square. He had not far to go, round through Berkeley Square into Bruton Street, but he stood for a few moments looking up at the bright stars. If he could be there, in one of those unknown distant worlds, with all his present intellect and none of his present burdens, he would, he thought, do better than he had done here on earth. If he could even now put himself down nameless, fameless, and without possessions in some distant corner of the world, he could, he thought, do better. But he was Augustus Melmotte, and he must bear his burdens, whatever they were, to the end. He could reach no place so distant but that he would be known and traced. [Illustration: Mr. Melmotte speculates.]

Lady Monogram retired from Mr. Melmotte's house in disgust as soon as she could escape; but we must return to it for a short time. Once the guests were in the drawing-room the sense of failure passed away. The crowd never became so thick as had been anticipated; but still the rooms were fairly full, and Mr. Melmotte consoled himself with the feeling that nothing fatal had as yet occurred. There can be no doubt that most of the people there did believe that their host had committed some great fraud which might bring him under the arm of the law. Such rumours are always believed. There is an excitement and a pleasure in believing them. Reasonable hesitation at such a moment is dull and phlegmatic. As long as the accused one is not near to ourselves, we are almost ready to think anything of anybody. In this case everybody did believe. It was so probable that such a man should have done something horrible! It was only hoped that the fraud might be great and horrible enough. Melmotte himself behaved very much better than he would have done had he had no weight at his heart. He made few attempts at beginning any conversation, and answered with brevity when he was addressed. With scrupulous care he ticked off on his memory the names of those who had come, thinking that their presence indicated a verdict of acquittal from them. Seeing the members of the Government all there, he wished that he had come forward in Westminster as a Liberal. Many things occurred to him as he stood, striving to smile as a host should smile. Half-a-dozen detectives might be already stationed in his own hall, ready to arrest him as soon as the guests were gone. But he bore the burden, and smiled. He had always lived with the consciousness that such a burden lay on him and might crush him at any time. He had known that he had to run these risks, and had told himself that they should never cow him. He had always tried to go as near the wind as he could, while avoiding the heavy hand of the criminal law; but he had also felt that he might be carried into deeper waters than he intended to enter. Melmotte had not always thought, or even hoped, that he would be so exalted as he was now; but the greatness had grown upon him - and so had the danger. He had prepared himself to bear all mere ignominy with a tranquil mind, and to remember that he had garnered up a store sufficient for future needs and placed it beyond the reach of his enemies. But now he became aware that he might have to bear worse than ignominy. Perhaps never in his life had he studied his own character and conduct more accurately, or made sterner resolves, than he did as he stood there smiling and bowing. No; he could not run away. He had risen too high. He must stand his ground, and not confess his own guilt by flight. Looking back at the past hour or two he was aware that he had allowed himself to be frightened - and also to seem to be frightened. He should not have asked those questions of Mr. Todd and Mr. Beauclerk. But there is no remedy for spilt milk. He had faltered at the sudden blow, but he would not falter again. No policeman or magistrate, no defection of friends, no scorn in the City would affect him. He would go down among the electors tomorrow as though all were right. And he confessed also to himself that he had sinned in that matter of arrogance. He could see it now. He should have been good-humoured to these great ones whose society he had gained. He should have bound these people to him by a feeling of kindness as well as by his money. I think he took some pride in his confidence as to his own courage, as he stood there turning it all over in his mind. Very much might be suspected; something might be found out. But the task of unravelling it all would not be easy. It is the small vermin that are trapped at once; but wolves and vultures can fight hard before they are caught. He could make a strong fight. When a man's frauds have been enormous there is a certain safety in their very diversity and proportions. A man who had had the brother of the Sun dining at his table could hardly be sent into the dock like a common felon. Madame Melmotte during the evening stood at the top of her own stairs greeting the arrivals. She had heard no word of the rumours, and would probably be the last person in that house to hear them. It never occurred to her to see whether the places down the table were full or empty. She sat with her large eyes fixed on the Majesty of China. Marie Melmotte had declined a seat at the dinner-table. This had caused a quarrel between her and her father, as he wanted her to be seen sitting next to Lord Nidderdale. She was, however, in the drawing-room, standing at first by Madame Melmotte, and afterwards retreating among the crowd. To some ladies she was a person of interest; but no one spoke to her till she saw a girl whom she knew, and whom she addressed, plucking up all her courage. This was Hetta Carbury, who had been brought by her mother. The tickets for Lady Carbury and Hetta had of course been sent before the elopement; and Lady Carbury was anxious that that affair should not be seen to have caused any personal quarrel between herself and Mr. Melmotte. In her difficulty she had consulted Mr. Broune, who was going to the dinner, and who saw no reason why she should not go. "The young lady's elopement is no affair of yours," Mr. Broune had said. "I should go, if only to show that you do not consider yourself implicated in the matter." Lady Carbury did as she was advised, and took her daughter with her. A few minutes before they started from Welbeck Street a note came from Mr. Broune: "Don't mind what you hear; but come. I am here and as far as I can see it is all right. The E. is beautiful, and P.'s are as thick as blackberries." Lady Carbury understood nothing of this; but of course she went. And Hetta went with her. Hetta was standing alone in a corner, with her eyes fixed on the awful tranquillity of the Emperor's countenance, when Marie Melmotte timidly crept up and asked her how she was. Hetta was probably not very cordial to the poor girl, as the daughter of the great Melmotte with whom her brother had failed to run away. "I hope you won't be angry with me for speaking to you," said Marie. Hetta smiled more graciously. "I suppose you know about your brother," said Marie, whispering with her eyes turned to the ground. "I have heard about it," said Hetta. "He never told me himself." "Oh, I do so wish that I knew the truth. I know nothing. Miss Carbury, I love him so dearly! I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't loved him better than anybody in the world. Don't you think that if a girl really loves a man, that ought to go before everything?" This was a question that Hetta was hardly prepared to answer. She felt certain that under no circumstances would she run away with a man. "I don't quite know." "I do. What's the good of anything if you're broken-hearted? I don't care what they do to me, if he would only be true to me. Why doesn't he let me know - something about it?" This was also difficult to answer. Since that horrid morning on which Sir Felix had stumbled home drunk, four days ago, he had not left the house in Welbeck Street till this evening. He had stayed in bed till dinner-time, would come down half-dressed, and then go back to his bedroom, where he would smoke and drink brandy-and-water and complain of headache. The theory was that he was ill; but he was in fact utterly cowed and did not dare to show himself at his usual haunts. He was aware that he had quarrelled at the club, aware that all the world knew of his intended journey to Liverpool, aware that he had tumbled about the streets intoxicated. This evening, worn out by his confinement, he had crept out intending, if possible, to find consolation with Ruby Ruggles. "Do tell me. Where is he?" pleaded Marie. "He has not been very well lately." "Is he ill? Oh, Miss Carbury, do tell me." "He has been ill. I think he is better now." "Why does he not come to me, or send word to me? It is cruel, is it not? Tell me - you must know - does he really care for me?" Hetta was exceedingly perplexed. The real feeling shown by the girl made Hetta sympathize with her, though she could hardly understand Marie's lack of reticence in speaking of her love to one who was almost a stranger. "Felix hardly ever talks about himself to me," she said. "If he doesn't care for me, there shall be an end of it," Marie said very gravely. "If I only knew! If I thought that he loved me, I'd go through anything for him. I have never talked to anyone but you about it. Isn't that strange? I have no one to talk to. There's no disgrace in being in love. But it's very bad to get married without being in love. That's what I think." "It is bad," said Hetta, thinking of Roger Carbury. "But if Felix doesn't care for me!" continued Marie in a whisper. Now Hetta was strongly of the opinion that her brother did not in the least care for her, and thought that Marie should know the truth. But she had not the strength to tell it. "Tell me just what you think," said Marie. Hetta was still silent. "Ah - I see. Then I must give him up?" "What can I say, Miss Melmotte? Felix never tells me. He is my brother, and of course I love you for loving him." This was almost more than Hetta meant; but she felt obliged to say some gracious word. "Do you? Oh! I wish you did. I should so like to be loved by you. Nobody loves me, I think. That man there, Lord Nidderdale, wants to marry me. He is very nice; but he does not love me. That's the way with men. It isn't the way with me. I would go with Felix and slave for him if he were poor. Is it all to be over then? Will you give him a message from me?" Hetta, though doubting the propriety of this, promised that she would. "Just tell him I want to know; that's all. I want to know the real truth. I suppose I do know it now. Then I shall not care what happens to me. I suppose I shall marry that young man, though it will be very bad. I shall just be as if I hadn't any self of my own. But he ought to send me word. Do not you think so?" "Yes, indeed." "You tell him, then," said Marie, as she crept away. Nidderdale had been observing her while she had been talking to Miss Carbury. He had heard the rumour about Melmotte, but he had not believed it. That men should gamble, get drunk, run into debt, and make love to other men's wives, was to him a matter of everyday life. Nothing of that kind shocked him at all. But he was not yet quite old enough to believe in swindling. He had almost fallen in love with Marie when he saw her last, and was inclined to feel kindly to her now because of the hard things that were being said about her father. And yet he knew that he must be careful. If "he came a cropper" in this matter, it would be such an awful cropper! "How do you like the party?" he said to Marie. "I don't like it at all, my lord. How do you like it?" "Very much indeed. I think the Emperor is the greatest fun I ever saw. Prince Frederic says that he's stuffed with hay." "I've seen him talk." "He opens his mouth, of course. There is machinery as well as hay. I think he's the grandest old buffer out, and I'm awfully glad that I've dined with him. I couldn't make out whether he really ate anything." "Of course he did." "Have you thought of what we were talking about the other day?" "No, my lord. Why should I?" "I've been thinking about nothing else the last three months." "You've been thinking whether you'd get married or not." "That's what I mean," said Lord Nidderdale. "It isn't what I mean, though." "I'll be shot if I can understand you." "Perhaps not. And you never will understand me. Oh, goodness; they're all going, and we must get out of the way. Is that Prince Frederic? He is handsome; isn't he? Isn't it odd, having a lot of people in one's own house, and not being able to speak a word to them? Good night, my lord. I'm glad you liked the Emperor." The people went. When they had all gone Melmotte put his wife and daughter into his carriage, telling them that he would follow them on foot to Bruton Street after giving some last directions to the servants. He looked round for Lord Alfred; but Lord Alfred had gone. Melmotte thought of all that he had done for Lord Alfred, and the venom of ingratitude stung him. He was unusually gracious as he put his wife into the carriage, and remarked that the party had gone off very well. "I only wish it could have been done a little cheaper," he said, laughing. Then he went back into the house, and up into the deserted drawing-rooms. The men were busy in the rooms below, and he threw himself into the chair in which the Emperor had sat. It was wonderful that he, the boy out of the gutter, should entertain at his own house a Chinese Emperor and English and German Royalty - and that he should do so almost with a rope round his neck. Even if this were to be the end of it all, men would at any rate remember him. The grand dinner would live in history. And it would be remembered, too, that he had been the Conservative candidate for Westminster - perhaps the elected member. Part of him would escape Oblivion, he thought, as he sat there looking at his magnificent suite of rooms from the arm-chair which had been consecrated by the use of an Emperor. No policemen had come to trouble him yet. There was no tangible sign that things were not to go on as they went before. Had he allowed himself to be terrified by shadows? Of course he had known that there must be such shadows. His life had been made dark by similar clouds before now, and he had lived through the storms. He was thoroughly ashamed of the weakness and fear which had overcome him at the dinner-table. There should be no more shrinking such as that. As this was passing through his mind a head was pushed in through one of the doors. "Is that you, Miles?" he said. "Come in. I came up here to see how the empty rooms would look after they were all gone. What became of your father?" "I suppose he went away." "I suppose he did," said Melmotte, unable to prevent a certain scorn entering his voice. "It went off very well, I think." "Very well," said Miles, still standing at the door. There had been a few words of consultation between him and his father. "You'd better see it out tonight," his father had said, "as you've had a regular salary. I shan't go near him till I find out how things are going. By G__ , I've had about enough of him." "Why don't you come in?" said Melmotte. "There's no Emperor here now for you to be afraid of." "I'm afraid of nobody," said Miles, walking into the room. "Nor am I. What's one man that another man should be afraid of him? We've got to die, and there'll be an end of it, I suppose." "That's about it," said Miles, hardly following the working of his master's mind. "I shouldn't care how soon. When a man has worked as I have done, he gets tired. I suppose I'd better be down at the committee-room about ten tomorrow?" "That's the best, I should say." "You'll be there?" Miles Grendall assented slowly. "And tell your father he might as well be there early." "All right," said Miles as left. "Curs!" said Melmotte almost aloud. "Neither of them will be there. If any evil can be done to me by treachery and desertion, they will do it. Curs!" He walked down into the hall, and through the banqueting-room. What a scene it had been! The defection of the Lord Mayor had hit him the hardest. "What cowards they are!" The men went on with their work, not noticing him, and probably not knowing him. A clerk who had been with Melmotte for years, and who knew his ways, was there to guard the property. "Good night, Croll," he said to the man in German. Croll touched his hat and bade him good night. Melmotte listened anxiously to the tone of the man's voice. Did Croll know of these rumours, and if so, what did he think of them? Croll had helped him through perils before. He paused as though he would ask a question, but resolved at last that silence would be safest. "You'll see everything safe, eh, Croll?" Croll said that he would, and Melmotte passed out into the Square. He had not far to go to Bruton Street, but he stood for a few moments looking up at the bright stars. If he could be there, in one of those unknown distant worlds, with all his present intellect and none of his present burdens, he would, he thought, do better than he had done here on earth. But he was Augustus Melmotte, and he must bear his burdens to the end. He could reach no place so distant that he would not be known and traced.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 62: The Party

About this time, a fortnight or nearly so before the election, Mr. Longestaffe came up to town and saw Mr. Melmotte very frequently. He could not go into his own house, as he had let that for a month to the great financier, nor had he any establishment in town; but he slept at an hotel and lived at the Carlton. He was quite delighted to find that his new friend was an honest Conservative, and he himself proposed the honest Conservative at the club. There was some idea of electing Mr. Melmotte out of hand, but it was decided that the club could not go beyond its rule, and could only admit Mr. Melmotte out of his regular turn as soon as he should occupy a seat in the House of Commons. Mr. Melmotte, who was becoming somewhat arrogant, was heard to declare that if the club did not take him when he was willing to be taken, it might do without him. If not elected at once, he should withdraw his name. So great was his prestige at this moment with his own party that there were some, Mr. Longestaffe among the number, who pressed the thing on the committee. Mr. Melmotte was not like other men. It was a great thing to have Mr. Melmotte in the party. Mr. Melmotte's financial capabilities would in themselves be a tower of strength. Rules were not made to control the club in a matter of such importance as this. A noble lord, one among seven who had been named as a fit leader of the Upper House on the Conservative side in the next session, was asked to take the matter up; and men thought that the thing might have been done had he complied. But he was old-fashioned, perhaps pig-headed; and the club for the time lost the honour of entertaining Mr. Melmotte. It may be remembered that Mr. Longestaffe had been anxious to become one of the directors of the Mexican Railway, and that he was rather snubbed than encouraged when he expressed his wish to Mr. Melmotte. Like other great men, Mr. Melmotte liked to choose his own time for bestowing favours. Since that request was made the proper time had come, and he had now intimated to Mr. Longestaffe that in a somewhat altered condition of things there would be a place for him at the Board, and that he and his brother directors would be delighted to avail themselves of his assistance. The alliance between Mr. Melmotte and Mr. Longestaffe had become very close. The Melmottes had visited the Longestaffes at Caversham. Georgiana Longestaffe was staying with Madame Melmotte in London. The Melmottes were living in Mr. Longestaffe's town house, having taken it for a month at a very high rent. Mr. Longestaffe now had a seat at Mr. Melmotte's board. And Mr. Melmotte had bought Mr. Longestaffe's estate at Pickering on terms very favourable to the Longestaffes. It had been suggested to Mr. Longestaffe by Mr. Melmotte that he had better qualify for his seat at the Board by taking shares in the Company to the amount of--perhaps two or three thousand pounds, and Mr. Longestaffe had of course consented. There would be no need of any transaction in absolute cash. The shares could of course be paid for out of Mr. Longestaffe's half of the purchase money for Pickering Park, and could remain for the present in Mr. Melmotte's hands. To this also Mr. Longestaffe had consented, not quite understanding why the scrip should not be made over to him at once. It was a part of the charm of all dealings with this great man that no ready money seemed ever to be necessary for anything. Great purchases were made and great transactions apparently completed without the signing even of a cheque. Mr. Longestaffe found himself to be afraid even to give a hint to Mr. Melmotte about ready money. In speaking of all such matters Melmotte seemed to imply that everything necessary had been done, when he had said that it was done. Pickering had been purchased and the title-deeds made over to Mr. Melmotte; but the 80,000 had not been paid,--had not been absolutely paid, though of course Mr. Melmotte's note assenting to the terms was security sufficient for any reasonable man. The property had been mortgaged, though not heavily, and Mr. Melmotte had no doubt satisfied the mortgagee; but there was still a sum of 50,000 to come, of which Dolly was to have one half and the other was to be employed in paying off Mr. Longestaffe's debts to tradesmen and debts to the bank. It would have been very pleasant to have had this at once,--but Mr. Longestaffe felt the absurdity of pressing such a man as Mr. Melmotte, and was partly conscious of the gradual consummation of a new ra in money matters. "If your banker is pressing you, refer him to me," Mr. Melmotte had said. As for many years past we have exchanged paper instead of actual money for our commodities, so now it seemed that, under the new Melmotte rgime, an exchange of words was to suffice. But Dolly wanted his money. Dolly, idle as he was, foolish as he was, dissipated as he was and generally indifferent to his debts, liked to have what belonged to him. It had all been arranged. 5,000 would pay off all his tradesmen's debts and leave him comfortably possessed of money in hand, while the other 20,000 would make his own property free. There was a charm in this which awakened even Dolly, and for the time almost reconciled him to his father's society. But now a shade of impatience was coming over him. He had actually gone down to Caversham to arrange the terms with his father,--and had in fact made his own terms. His father had been unable to move him, and had consequently suffered much in spirit. Dolly had been almost triumphant,--thinking that the money would come on the next day, or at any rate during the next week. Now he came to his father early in the morning,--at about two o'clock,--to enquire what was being done. He had not as yet been made blessed with a single ten-pound note in his hand, as the result of the sale. "Are you going to see Melmotte, sir?" he asked somewhat abruptly. "Yes;--I'm to be with him to-morrow, and he is to introduce me to the Board." "You're going in for that, are you, sir? Do they pay anything?" "I believe not." "Nidderdale and young Carbury belong to it. It's a sort of Beargarden affair." "A bear-garden affair, Adolphus. How so?" "I mean the club. We had them all there for dinner one day, and a jolly dinner we gave them. Miles Grendall and old Alfred belong to it. I don't think they'd go in for it, if there was no money going. I'd make them fork out something if I took the trouble of going all that way." "I think that perhaps, Adolphus, you hardly understand these things." "No, I don't. I don't understand much about business, I know. What I want to understand is, when Melmotte is going to pay up this money." "I suppose he'll arrange it with the banks," said the father. "I beg that he won't arrange my money with the banks, sir. You'd better tell him not. A cheque upon his bank which I can pay in to mine is about the best thing going. You'll be in the city to-morrow, and you'd better tell him. If you don't like, you know, I'll get Squercum to do it." Mr. Squercum was a lawyer whom Dolly had employed of late years much to the annoyance of his parent. Mr. Squercum's name was odious to Mr. Longestaffe. "I beg you'll do nothing of the kind. It will be very foolish if you do;--perhaps ruinous." "Then he'd better pay up, like anybody else," said Dolly as he left the room. The father knew the son, and was quite sure that Squercum would have his finger in the pie unless the money were paid quickly. When Dolly had taken an idea into his head, no power on earth,--no power at least of which the father could avail himself,--would turn him. On that same day Melmotte received two visits in the city from two of his fellow directors. At the time he was very busy. Though his electioneering speeches were neither long nor pithy, still he had to think of them beforehand. Members of his Committee were always trying to see him. Orders as to the dinner and the preparation of the house could not be given by Lord Alfred without some reference to him. And then those gigantic commercial affairs which were enumerated in the last chapter could not be adjusted without much labour on his part. His hands were not empty, but still he saw each of these young men,--for a few minutes. "My dear young friend, what can I do for you?" he said to Sir Felix, not sitting down, so that Sir Felix also should remain standing. "About that money, Mr. Melmotte?" "What money, my dear fellow? You see that a good many money matters pass through my hands." "The thousand pounds I gave you for shares. If you don't mind, and as the shares seem to be a bother, I'll take the money back." "It was only the other day you had 200," said Melmotte, showing that he could apply his memory to small transactions when he pleased. "Exactly;--and you might as well let me have the 800." "I've ordered the shares;--gave the order to my broker the other day." "Then I'd better take the shares," said Sir Felix, feeling that it might very probably be that day fortnight before he could start for New York. "Could I get them, Mr. Melmotte?" "My dear fellow, I really think you hardly calculate the value of my time when you come to me about such an affair as this." "I'd like to have the money or the shares," said Sir Felix, who was not specially averse to quarrelling with Mr. Melmotte now that he had resolved upon taking that gentleman's daughter to New York in direct opposition to his written promise. Their quarrel would be so thoroughly internecine when the departure should be discovered, that any present anger could hardly increase its bitterness. What Felix thought of now was simply his money, and the best means of getting it out of Melmotte's hands. "You're a spendthrift," said Melmotte, apparently relenting, "and I'm afraid a gambler. I suppose I must give you 200 more on account." Sir Felix could not resist the touch of ready money, and consented to take the sum offered. As he pocketed the cheque he asked for the name of the brokers who were employed to buy the shares. But here Melmotte demurred. "No, my friend," said Melmotte; "you are only entitled to shares for 600 pounds now. I will see that the thing is put right." So Sir Felix departed with 200 only. Marie had said that she could get 200. Perhaps if he bestirred himself and wrote to some of Miles's big relations he could obtain payment of a part of that gentleman's debt to him. Sir Felix going down the stairs in Abchurch Lane met Paul Montague coming up. Carbury, on the spur of the moment, thought that he would "take a rise" as he called it out of Montague. "What's this I hear about a lady at Islington?" he asked. "Who has told you anything about a lady at Islington?" "A little bird. There are always little birds about telling of ladies. I'm told that I'm to congratulate you on your coming marriage." "Then you've been told an infernal falsehood," said Montague passing on. He paused a moment and added, "I don't know who can have told you, but if you hear it again, I'll trouble you to contradict it." As he was waiting in Melmotte's outer room while the Duke's nephew went in to see whether it was the great man's pleasure to see him, he remembered whence Carbury must have heard tidings of Mrs. Hurtle. Of course the rumour had come through Ruby Ruggles. Miles Grendall brought out word that the great man would see Mr. Montague; but he added a caution. "He's awfully full of work just now,--you won't forget that;--will you?" Montague assured the duke's nephew that he would be concise, and was shown in. "I should not have troubled you," said Paul, "only that I understood that I was to see you before the Board met." "Exactly;--of course. It was quite necessary,--only you see I am a little busy. If this d----d dinner were over I shouldn't mind. It's a deal easier to make a treaty with an Emperor, than to give him a dinner; I can tell you that. Well;--let me see. Oh;--I was proposing that you should go out to Pekin?" "To Mexico." "Yes, yes;--to Mexico. I've so many things running in my head! Well;--if you'll say when you're ready to start, we'll draw up something of instructions. You'd know better, however, than we can tell you what to do. You'll see Fisker, of course. You and Fisker will manage it. The chief thing will be a cheque for the expenses; eh? We must get that passed at the next Board." Mr. Melmotte had been so quick that Montague had been unable to interrupt him. "There need be no trouble about that, Mr. Melmotte, as I have made up my mind that it would not be fit that I should go." "Oh, indeed!" There had been a shade of doubt on Montague's mind, till the tone in which Melmotte had spoken of the embassy grated on his ears. The reference to the expenses disgusted him altogether. "No;--even did I see my way to do any good in America my duties here would not be compatible with the undertaking." "I don't see that at all. What duties have you got here? What good are you doing the Company? If you do stay, I hope you'll be unanimous; that's all;--or perhaps you intend to go out. If that's it, I'll look to your money. I think I told you that before." "That, Mr. Melmotte, is what I should prefer." "Very well,--very well. I'll arrange it. Sorry to lose you,--that's all. Miles, isn't Mr. Goldsheiner waiting to see me?" "You're a little too quick, Mr. Melmotte," said Paul. "A man with my business on his hands is bound to be quick, sir." "But I must be precise. I cannot tell you as a fact that I shall withdraw from the Board till I receive the advice of a friend with whom I am consulting. I hardly yet know what my duty may be." "I'll tell you, sir, what can not be your duty. It cannot be your duty to make known out of that Board-room any of the affairs of the Company which you have learned in that Board-room. It cannot be your duty to divulge the circumstances of the Company or any differences which may exist between Directors of the Company, to any gentleman who is a stranger to the Company. It cannot be your duty--." "Thank you, Mr. Melmotte. On matters such as that I think that I can see my own way. I have been in fault in coming in to the Board without understanding what duties I should have to perform--." "Very much in fault, I should say," replied Melmotte, whose arrogance in the midst of his inflated glory was overcoming him. "But in reference to what I may or may not say to any friend, or how far I should be restricted by the scruples of a gentleman, I do not want advice from you." "Very well;--very well. I can't ask you to stay, because a partner from the house of Todd, Brehgert, and Goldsheiner is waiting to see me, about matters which are rather more important than this of yours." Montague had said what he had to say, and departed. On the following day, three-quarters of an hour before the meeting of the Board of Directors, old Mr. Longestaffe called in Abchurch Lane. He was received very civilly by Miles Grendall, and asked to sit down. Mr. Melmotte quite expected him, and would walk with him over to the offices of the railway, and introduce him to the Board. Mr. Longestaffe, with some shyness, intimated his desire to have a few moments conversation with the chairman before the Board met. Fearing his son, especially fearing Squercum, he had made up his mind to suggest that the little matter about Pickering Park should be settled. Miles assured him that the opportunity should be given him, but that at the present moment the chief secretary of the Russian Legation was with Mr. Melmotte. Either the chief secretary was very tedious with his business, or else other big men must have come in, for Mr. Longestaffe was not relieved till he was summoned to walk off to the Board five minutes after the hour at which the Board should have met. He thought that he could explain his views in the street; but on the stairs they were joined by Mr. Cohenlupe, and in three minutes they were in the Board-room. Mr. Longestaffe was then presented, and took the chair opposite to Miles Grendall. Montague was not there, but had sent a letter to the secretary explaining that for reasons with which the chairman was acquainted he should absent himself from the present meeting. "All right," said Melmotte. "I know all about it. Go on. I'm not sure but that Mr. Montague's retirement from among us may be an advantage. He could not be made to understand that unanimity in such an enterprise as this is essential. I am confident that the new director whom I have had the pleasure of introducing to you to-day will not sin in the same direction." Then Mr. Melmotte bowed and smiled very sweetly on Mr. Longestaffe. Mr. Longestaffe was astonished to find how soon the business was done, and how very little he had been called on to do. Miles Grendall had read something out of a book which he had been unable to follow. Then the chairman had read some figures. Mr. Cohenlupe had declared that their prosperity was unprecedented;--and the Board was over. When Mr. Longestaffe explained to Miles Grendall that he still wished to speak to Mr. Melmotte, Miles explained to him that the chairman had been obliged to run off to a meeting of gentlemen connected with the interior of Africa, which was now being held at the Cannon Street Hotel.

At this time, a fortnight before the election, Mr. Longestaffe came up to town and saw Mr. Melmotte very frequently. He could not go into his own house, as he had let that for a month to the great financier, but he lived at the Carlton. He was delighted to find that his new friend was an honest Conservative, and proposed him as a member at the club. However, according to the rules it was decided that the club could only admit Mr. Melmotte once he occupied a seat in the House of Commons. Mr. Melmotte, who was becoming somewhat arrogant, was heard to declare that the club might do without him. If not elected at once, he should withdraw his name. So great was his prestige at this moment that there were some, Mr. Longestaffe included, who tried to persuade the committee that Mr. Melmotte was not like other men. Rules should not control the club in a matter of such importance as this. But the club for the time lost the honour of entertaining Mr. Melmotte. It may be remembered that Mr. Longestaffe had been anxious to become one of the directors of the Mexican Railway, and that he was snubbed when he expressed his wish to Mr. Melmotte. Like other great men, Mr. Melmotte liked to choose his own time for bestowing favours. The time had now come, and he had let Mr. Longestaffe know that there would be a place for him at the Board. The alliance between Mr. Melmotte and Mr. Longestaffe had become very close. And Mr. Melmotte had bought Mr. Longestaffe's estate at Pickering on terms very favourable to the Longestaffes. Mr. Melmotte suggested to Mr. Longestaffe that he had better qualify for his seat at the Board by taking shares in the Company to the amount of two or three thousand pounds, and Mr. Longestaffe had of course consented. No ready cash was needed. The shares could be paid for out of Mr. Longestaffe's half of the purchase money for Pickering Park, and could remain for the present in Mr. Melmotte's hands. To this also Mr. Longestaffe had consented, not quite understanding why the scrip should not be made over to him at once. It was a part of the charm of all dealings with this great man that no ready money seemed ever to be necessary for anything. Great transactions were apparently completed without the signing even of a cheque. Mr. Longestaffe was afraid even to give a hint to Mr. Melmotte about ready money. Pickering had been purchased and the title-deeds made over to Mr. Melmotte; but the 80,000 had not been paid, though of course Mr. Melmotte's note assenting to the terms was security sufficient for any reasonable man. The property had been mortgaged, but there was still a sum of 50,000 to come, of which Dolly was to have one half and the other was to be used in paying off Mr. Longestaffe's debts. It would have been very pleasant to have had this at once - but Mr. Longestaffe felt the absurdity of pressing such a man as Mr. Melmotte. But Dolly wanted his money. Dolly, idle and foolish as he was, liked to have what belonged to him. 5,000 would pay off all his tradesmen's debts and leave him comfortably possessed of money in hand, while the other 20,000 would make his own property free. Dolly was growing impatient. He had actually gone down to Caversham to arrange the terms with his father, and had been almost triumphant, thinking that the money would come the next day, or at any rate during the next week. Now Dolly came to his father to enquire what was being done. He had not as yet been blessed with a single ten-pound note as the result of the sale. "Are you going to see Melmotte, sir?" he asked somewhat abruptly. "Yes, tomorrow; and he is to introduce me to the Board." "You're going in for that, are you, sir? Do they pay anything?" "I believe not." "Nidderdale and young Carbury belong to it, and Miles Grendall and old Alfred. I don't think they'd go in for it, if there was no money going. I'd make them fork out something." "I think that perhaps, Adolphus, you hardly understand these things." "No, I don't understand much about business, I know. What I want to understand is, when Melmotte is going to pay up this money." "I suppose he'll arrange it with the banks," said the father. "I beg that he won't arrange my money with the banks, sir. I want a cheque upon his bank which I can pay in to mine. You'd better tell him. If you don't like, you know, I'll get Squercum to do it." Mr. Squercum was a lawyer whom Dolly had employed lately, much to the annoyance of his parent. "I beg you'll do nothing of the kind." "Then he'd better pay up, like anybody else," said Dolly as he left the room. His father was quite sure that Squercum would have his finger in the pie unless the money were paid quickly. When Dolly had taken an idea into his head, no power on earth would turn him. On that same day Melmotte received visits from two of his fellow directors. At the time he was very busy. He had speeches to write. Members of his Committee were always trying to see him. Orders as to the dinner and the preparation of the house had to be given. And then his gigantic commercial affairs required much labour on his part. Still he saw each of these young men for a few minutes. "My dear young friend, what can I do for you?" he said to Sir Felix, not sitting down, so that Sir Felix also should remain standing. "About that money, Mr. Melmotte?" "What money, my dear fellow? A good many money matters pass through my hands." "The thousand pounds I gave you for shares. If you don't mind, as the shares seem to be a bother, I'll take the money back." "It was only the other day you had 200," said Melmotte. "Exactly; and you might as well let me have the 800." "I've ordered the shares; gave the order to my broker the other day." "Then I'd better take the shares," said Sir Felix. "Could I get them, Mr. Melmotte?" "My dear fellow, I really think you hardly calculate the value of my time when you come to me about such an affair as this." "I'd like to have the money or the shares," said Sir Felix, who was not especially averse to quarrelling with Mr. Melmotte now that he had resolved upon taking that gentleman's daughter to New York. Their quarrel would be so bitter when the departure should be discovered, that any present anger could hardly increase its bitterness. What Felix thought of now was simply his money. "You're a spendthrift," said Melmotte, apparently relenting, "and I'm afraid a gambler. I can give you 200 more on account." Sir Felix could not resist the touch of ready money, and consented. As he pocketed the cheque he asked for the name of the brokers who were employed to buy the shares. But here Melmotte demurred. "No, my friend. You are only entitled to shares for 600 now. I will see that the thing is put right." So Sir Felix departed with 200 only. Marie had said that she could get 200. Perhaps if he wrote to some of Miles's relations he could obtain payment of part of that gentleman's debt to him. Sir Felix going down the stairs in Abchurch Lane met Paul Montague coming up. Carbury, on the spur of the moment, said, "What's this I hear about a lady at Islington?" "Who has told you anything about a lady at Islington?" "A little bird. I'm told that I'm to congratulate you on your coming marriage." "Then you've been told an infernal falsehood," said Montague, passing on. He paused and added, "I don't know who can have told you, but if you hear it again, I'll trouble you to contradict it." As he was waiting in Melmotte's outer room, he thought that of course the rumour had come through Ruby Ruggles. Miles Grendall came out and said that the great man would see him; but was very busy. Paul assured him that he would be concise, and was shown in. "I should not have troubled you," said Paul to Melmotte, "only I understood that I was to see you before the Board met." "Exactly; of course - only you see I am a little busy. If this d___d dinner were over I shouldn't mind. Let me see. Oh; I was proposing that you should go out to Peking?" "To Mexico." "Yes, yes; to Mexico. I've so many things running in my head! Well; if you'll say when you're ready to start, we'll draw up some instructions. You'll see Fisker, of course. You and Fisker will manage it. The chief thing will be a cheque for the expenses; eh? We must get that passed at the next Board." "Mr. Melmotte, I have made up my mind that it would not be fit that I should go." "Oh, indeed!" "No; even if I saw my way to do any good in America, my duties here would not be compatible with the trip." "I don't see that at all. What duties have you got here? If you do stay, I hope you'll be unanimous; that's all; or perhaps you intend to get out. If that's it, I'll look to your money." "That, Mr. Melmotte, is what I should prefer." "Very well, very well. I'll arrange it. Sorry to lose you, that's all. Miles, isn't Mr. Goldsheiner waiting to see me?" "You're a little too quick, Mr. Melmotte," said Paul. "I cannot tell you as a fact that I shall withdraw from the Board till I receive the advice of a friend with whom I am consulting. I do not yet know what my duty may be." "I'll tell you, sir, what cannot be your duty. You cannot make known any of the affairs of the Company which you have learned in that Board-room. You cannot divulge the circumstances of the Company to any gentleman who is a stranger to the Company." "Thank you, Mr. Melmotte. On matters such as that I think that I can see my own way. I have been in fault in coming in to the Board without understanding my duties." "Very much in fault, I should say," replied Melmotte, whose arrogance was overcoming him. "But in reference to what I may or may not say to any friend, I do not want advice from you." "Very well; very well. I can't ask you to stay, because Goldsheiner is waiting to see me, about more important matters." Montague had said what he had to say, and departed. On the following day, before the meeting of the Board of Directors, old Mr. Longestaffe called in Abchurch Lane. He was received very civilly by Miles Grendall. Mr. Melmotte quite expected him, and would walk with him over to the offices of the railway, and introduce him to the Board. Mr. Longestaffe, with some shyness, said he desired to have a few moments' conversation with the chairman before the Board met. Fearing his son and Squercum, he had made up his mind to suggest that the little matter about Pickering Park should be settled. Miles assured him that the opportunity should be given him, but that at the present moment the chief secretary of the Russian Legation was with Mr. Melmotte. The chief secretary must have been very tedious with his business, for Mr. Longestaffe was not summoned to walk off to the Board until five minutes after the Board should have met. He thought that he could explain his views in the street; but on the stairs they were joined by Mr. Cohenlupe, and in three minutes they were in the Board-room. Mr. Longestaffe was presented, and took the chair opposite Miles Grendall. Montague was not there, but had sent a letter to the secretary explaining that for reasons known to the chairman he was absent. "All right," said Melmotte. "I know all about it. Mr. Montague's retirement may be an advantage. He could not be made to understand that unanimity in such an enterprise is essential. I am confident that our new director will not sin in the same direction." Mr. Melmotte bowed and smiled very sweetly on Mr. Longestaffe. Mr. Longestaffe was astonished to find how soon the business was done, and how very little he had been called on to do. Miles Grendall had read something out of a book which he had been unable to follow. Then the chairman had read some figures. Mr. Cohenlupe had declared that their prosperity was unprecedented; and the Board was over. When Mr. Longestaffe told Miles that he still wished to speak to Mr. Melmotte, Miles explained to him that the chairman had been obliged to run off to a meeting about the interior of Africa, which was being held at the Cannon Street Hotel.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 45: Mr. Melmotte is Pressed for Time

Our poor old honest friend John Crumb was taken away to durance vile after his performance in the street with Sir Felix, and was locked up for the remainder of the night. This indignity did not sit so heavily on his spirits as it might have done on those of a quicker nature. He was aware that he had not killed the baronet, and that he had therefore enjoyed his revenge without the necessity of "swinging for it at Bury." That in itself was a comfort to him. Then it was a great satisfaction to think that he had "served the young man out" in the actual presence of his Ruby. He was not prone to give himself undue credit for his capability and willingness to knock his enemies about; but he did think that Ruby must have observed on this occasion that he was the better man of the two. And, to John, a night in the station-house was no great personal inconvenience. Though he was very proud of his four-post bed at home, he did not care very much for such luxuries as far as he himself was concerned. Nor did he feel any disgrace from being locked up for the night. He was very good-humoured with the policeman, who seemed perfectly to understand his nature, and was as meek as a child when the lock was turned upon him. As he lay down on the hard bench, he comforted himself with thinking that Ruby would surely never care any more for the "baronite" since she had seen him go down like a cur without striking a blow. He thought a good deal about Ruby, but never attributed any blame to her for her share in the evils that had befallen him. The next morning he was taken before the magistrates, but was told at an early hour of the day that he was again free. Sir Felix was not much the worse for what had happened to him, and had refused to make any complaint against the man who had beaten him. John Crumb shook hands cordially with the policeman who had had him in charge, and suggested beer. The constable, with regrets, was forced to decline, and bade adieu to his late prisoner with the expression of a hope that they might meet again before long. "You come down to Bungay," said John, "and I'll show you how we live there." From the police-office he went direct to Mrs. Pipkin's house, and at once asked for Ruby. He was told that Ruby was out with the children, and was advised both by Mrs. Pipkin and Mrs. Hurtle not to present himself before Ruby quite yet. "You see," said Mrs. Pipkin, "she's a thinking how heavy you were upon that young gentleman." "But I wasn't;--not particular. Lord love you, he ain't a hair the wuss." "You let her alone for a time," said Mrs. Hurtle. "A little neglect will do her good." "Maybe," said John,--"only I wouldn't like her to have it bad. You'll let her have her wittles regular, Mrs. Pipkin." It was then explained to him that the neglect proposed should not extend to any deprivation of food, and he took his leave, receiving an assurance from Mrs. Hurtle that he should be summoned to town as soon as it was thought that his presence there would serve his purposes; and with loud promises repeated to each of the friendly women that as soon as ever a "line should be dropped" he would appear again upon the scene, he took Mrs. Pipkin aside, and suggested that if there were "any hextras," he was ready to pay for them. Then he took his leave without seeing Ruby, and went back to Bungay. When Ruby returned with the children she was told that John Crumb had called. "I thought as he was in prison," said Ruby. "What should they keep him in prison for?" said Mrs. Pipkin. "He hasn't done nothing as he oughtn't to have done. That young man was dragging you about as far as I can make out, and Mr. Crumb just did as anybody ought to have done to prevent it. Of course they weren't going to keep him in prison for that. Prison indeed! It isn't him as ought to be in prison." "And where is he now, aunt?" "Gone down to Bungay to mind his business, and won't be coming here any more of a fool's errand. He must have seen now pretty well what's worth having, and what ain't. Beauty is but skin deep, Ruby." "John Crumb 'd be after me again to-morrow, if I'd give him encouragement," said Ruby. "If I'd hold up my finger he'd come." "Then John Crumb's a fool for his pains, that's all; and now do you go about your work." Ruby didn't like to be told to go about her work, and tossed her head, and slammed the kitchen door, and scolded the servant girl, and then sat down to cry. What was she to do with herself now? She had an idea that Felix would not come back to her after the treatment he had received;--and a further idea that if he did come he was not, as she phrased it to herself, "of much account." She certainly did not like him the better for having been beaten, though, at the time, she had been disposed to take his part. She did not believe that she would ever dance with him again. That had been the charm of her life in London, and that was now all over. And as for marrying her,--she began to feel certain that he did not intend it. John Crumb was a big, awkward, dull, uncouth lump of a man, with whom Ruby thought it impossible that a girl should be in love. Love and John Crumb were poles asunder. But--! Ruby did not like wheeling the perambulator about Islington, and being told by her aunt Pipkin to go about her work. What Ruby did like was being in love and dancing; but if all that must come to an end, then there would be a question whether she could not do better for herself, than by staying with her aunt and wheeling the perambulator about Islington. Mrs. Hurtle was still living in solitude in the lodgings, and having but little to do on her own behalf, had devoted herself to the interest of John Crumb. A man more unlike one of her own countrymen she had never seen. "I wonder whether he has any ideas at all in his head," she had said to Mrs. Pipkin. Mrs. Pipkin had replied that Mr. Crumb had certainly a very strong idea of marrying Ruby Ruggles. Mrs. Hurtle had smiled, thinking that Mrs. Pipkin was also very unlike her own countrywomen. But she was very kind to Mrs. Pipkin, ordering rice-puddings on purpose that the children might eat them, and she was quite determined to give John Crumb all the aid in her power. In order that she might give effectual aid she took Mrs. Pipkin into confidence, and prepared a plan of action in reference to Ruby. Mrs. Pipkin was to appear as chief actor on the scene, but the plan was altogether Mrs. Hurtle's plan. On the day following John's return to Bungay Mrs. Pipkin summoned Ruby into the back parlour, and thus addressed her. "Ruby, you know, this must come to an end now." "What must come to an end?" "You can't stay here always, you know." "I'm sure I work hard, Aunt Pipkin, and I don't get no wages." "I can't do with more than one girl,--and there's the keep if there isn't wages. Besides, there's other reasons. Your grandfather won't have you back there; that's certain." "I wouldn't go back to grandfather, if it was ever so." "But you must go somewheres. You didn't come to stay here always,--nor I couldn't have you. You must go into service." "I don't know anybody as 'd have me," said Ruby. "You must put a 'vertisement into the paper. You'd better say as nursemaid, as you seems to take kindly to children. And I must give you a character;--only I shall say just the truth. You mustn't ask much wages just at first." Ruby looked very sorrowful, and the tears were near her eyes. The change from the glories of the music hall was so startling and so oppressive! "It has got to be done sooner or later, so you may as well put the 'vertisement in this afternoon." "You're going to turn me out, Aunt Pipkin." "Well;--if that's turning out, I am. You see you never would be said by me as though I was mistress. You would go out with that rapscallion when I bid you not. Now when you're in a regular place like, you must mind when you're spoke to, and it will be best for you. You've had your swing, and now you see you've got to pay for it. You must earn your bread, Ruby, as you've quarrelled both with your lover and with your grandfather." There was no possible answer to this, and therefore the necessary notice was put into the paper,--Mrs. Hurtle paying for its insertion. "Because, you know," said Mrs. Hurtle, "she must stay here really, till Mr. Crumb comes and takes her away." Mrs. Pipkin expressed her opinion that Ruby was a "baggage" and John Crumb a "soft." Mrs. Pipkin was perhaps a little jealous at the interest which her lodger took in her niece, thinking perhaps that all Mrs. Hurtle's sympathies were due to herself. Ruby went hither and thither for a day or two, calling upon the mothers of children who wanted nursemaids. The answers which she had received had not come from the highest members of the aristocracy, and the houses which she visited did not appal her by their splendour. Many objections were made to her. A character from an aunt was objectionable. Her ringlets were objectionable. She was a deal too flighty-looking. She spoke up much too free. At last one happy mother of five children offered to take her on approval for a month, at 12 a year, Ruby to find her own tea and wash for herself. This was slavery;--abject slavery. And she too, who had been the beloved of a baronet, and who might even now be the mistress of a better house than that into which she was to go as a servant,--if she would only hold up her finger! But the place was accepted, and with broken-hearted sobbings Ruby prepared herself for her departure from aunt Pipkin's roof. "I hope you like your place, Ruby," Mrs. Hurtle said on the afternoon of her last day. "Indeed then I don't like it at all. They're the ugliest children you ever see, Mrs. Hurtle." "Ugly children must be minded as well as pretty ones." "And the mother of 'em is as cross as cross." "It's your own fault, Ruby; isn't it?" "I don't know as I've done anything out of the way." "Don't you think it's anything out of the way to be engaged to a young man and then to throw him over? All this has come because you wouldn't keep your word to Mr. Crumb. Only for that your grandfather wouldn't have turned you out of his house." "He didn't turn me out. I ran away. And it wasn't along of John Crumb, but because grandfather hauled me about by the hair of my head." "But he was angry with you about Mr. Crumb. When a young woman becomes engaged to a young man, she ought not to go back from her word." No doubt Mrs. Hurtle, when preaching this doctrine, thought that the same law might be laid down with propriety for the conduct of young men. "Of course you have brought trouble on yourself. I am sorry that you don't like the place. I'm afraid you must go to it now." "I am agoing,--I suppose," said Ruby, probably feeling that if she could but bring herself to condescend so far there might yet be open for her a way of escape. "I shall write and tell Mr. Crumb where you are placed." "Oh, Mrs. Hurtle, don't. What should you write to him for? It ain't nothing to him." "I told him I'd let him know if any steps were taken." "You can forget that, Mrs. Hurtle. Pray don't write. I don't want him to know as I'm in service." "I must keep my promise. Why shouldn't he know? I don't suppose you care much now what he hears about you." "Yes I do. I wasn't never in service before, and I don't want him to know." "What harm can it do you?" "Well, I don't want him to know. It is such a come down, Mrs. Hurtle." "There is nothing to be ashamed of in that. What you have to be ashamed of is jilting him. It was a bad thing to do;--wasn't it, Ruby?" "I didn't mean nothing bad, Mrs. Hurtle; only why couldn't he say what he had to say himself, instead of bringing another to say it for him? What would you feel, Mrs. Hurtle, if a man was to come and say it all out of another man's mouth?" "I don't think I should much care if the thing was well said at last. You know he meant it." "Yes;--I did know that." "And you know he means it now?" "I'm not so sure about that. He's gone back to Bungay, and he isn't no good at writing letters no more than at speaking. Oh,--he'll go and get somebody else now." "Of course he will if he hears nothing about you. I think I'd better tell him. I know what would happen." "What would happen, Mrs. Hurtle?" "He'd be up in town again in half a jiffey to see what sort of a place you'd got. Now, Ruby, I'll tell you what I'll do, if you'll say the word. I'll have him up here at once and you shan't go to Mrs. Buggins'." Ruby dropped her hands and stood still, staring at Mrs. Hurtle. "I will. But if he comes you mustn't behave this time as you did before." "But I'm to go to Mrs. Buggins' to-morrow." "We'll send to Mrs. Buggins and tell her to get somebody else. You're breaking your heart about going there;--are you not?" "I don't like it, Mrs. Hurtle." "And this man will make you mistress of his house. You say he isn't good at speaking; but I tell you I never came across an honester man in the whole course of my life, or one who I think would treat a woman better. What's the use of a glib tongue if there isn't a heart with it? What's the use of a lot of tinsel and lacker, if the real metal isn't there? Sir Felix Carbury could talk, I dare say, but you don't think now he was a very fine fellow." "He was so beautiful, Mrs. Hurtle!" "But he hadn't the spirit of a mouse in his bosom. Well, Ruby, you have one more choice left you. Shall it be John Crumb or Mrs. Buggins?" "He wouldn't come, Mrs. Hurtle." "Leave that to me, Ruby. May I bring him if I can?" Then Ruby in a very low whisper told Mrs. Hurtle, that if she thought proper she might bring John Crumb back again. "And there shall be no more nonsense?" "No," whispered Ruby. On that same night a letter was sent to Mrs. Buggins, which Mrs. Hurtle also composed, informing that lady that unforeseen circumstances prevented Ruby Ruggles from keeping the engagement she had made; to which a verbal answer was returned that Ruby Ruggles was an impudent hussey. And then Mrs. Hurtle in her own name wrote a short note to Mr. John Crumb. DEAR MR. CRUMB, If you will come back to London I think you will find Miss Ruby Ruggles all that you desire. Yours faithfully, WINIFRID HURTLE. "She's had a deal more done for her than I ever knew to be done for young women in my time," said Mrs. Pipkin, "and I'm not at all so sure that she has deserved it." "John Crumb will think she has." "John Crumb's a fool;--and as to Ruby; well, I haven't got no patience with girls like them. Yes; it is for the best; and as for you, Mrs. Hurtle, there's no words to say how good you've been. I hope, Mrs. Hurtle, you ain't thinking of going away because this is all done."

Our poor old honest friend John Crumb was taken away to the cells after his performance in the street with Sir Felix, and was locked up for the rest of the night. He was not downcast; for it was a great satisfaction to think that he had "served the young man right" in the presence of his Ruby. Although he was not vain, he did think that Ruby must have observed that he was the better man of the two. Nor did he feel any disgrace from being locked up for the night. He was as meek as a child, and very good-humoured with the policeman, who seemed to understand his nature. As he lay down on the hard bench, he comforted himself with thinking that Ruby would surely never care any more for the "baronite" since she had seen him go down like a cur without striking a blow. He thought a good deal about Ruby, but never blamed her for what had happened. The next morning he was taken before the magistrates, but was told that he was again free. Sir Felix had refused to make any complaint against him. John Crumb shook hands cordially with the policeman, and suggested beer. The constable, with regrets, was forced to decline, and bade adieu with the hope that they might meet again before long. From the police-office John went to Mrs. Pipkin's house, and asked for Ruby. He was told that Ruby was out with the children, and was advised both by Mrs. Pipkin and Mrs. Hurtle not to meet her quite yet. "You see," said Mrs. Pipkin, "she's a thinking how heavy you were upon that young gentleman." "But I wasn't; not particular. Lord love you, he ain't a hair the worse." "You let her alone for a time," said Mrs. Hurtle. "A little neglect will do her good." "Maybe," said John. "I wouldn't like her to have it bad." Mrs. Hurtle assured him that he should be summoned to town as soon as it was thought that his presence there would serve his purposes; and he took Mrs. Pipkin aside, and suggested that if there were "any hextras," he was ready to pay for them. Then he took his leave without seeing Ruby, and went back to Bungay. When Ruby returned with the children she was told that John Crumb had called. "I thought as he was in prison," said Ruby. "What should they keep him in prison for?" said Mrs. Pipkin. "He hasn't done nothing as he oughtn't to have done. That young man was dragging you about, and Mr. Crumb just did as anybody ought to have done to prevent it. Prison indeed! It isn't him as ought to be in prison." "And where is he now, aunt?" "Gone down to Bungay to mind his business, and won't be coming here any more of a fool's errand. He must have seen now pretty well what's worth having, and what ain't." "John Crumb'd be after me again tomorrow, if I just hold up my finger," said Ruby. "Then John Crumb's a fool; and now you go about your work." Ruby tossed her head, and slammed the kitchen door, and scolded the servant girl, and then sat down to cry. What was she to do with herself now? She had an idea that Felix would not come back to her after that beating - and she certainly did not like him the better for having been beaten. She did not believe that she would ever dance with him again. That had been the charm of her life in London, and that was now over. And as for marrying her - she began to feel certain that Sir Felix did not intend it. John Crumb was a big, awkward, dull, uncouth lump of a man, with whom Ruby thought it impossible that a girl should be in love. Love and John Crumb were poles asunder. But-! Ruby did not like wheeling the pram about Islington, and being told by her aunt Pipkin to go about her work. Mrs. Hurtle was still living in solitude in the lodgings, and took an interest in John Crumb. A man more unlike one of her own countrymen she had never seen. "I wonder whether he has any ideas at all in his head," she had said to Mrs. Pipkin. Mrs. Pipkin had replied that Mr. Crumb had certainly a very strong idea of marrying Ruby Ruggles. Mrs. Hurtle had smiled. She was determined to give John Crumb all the aid in her power. So she took Mrs. Pipkin into her confidence, and prepared a plan of action. On the day after John's return to Bungay Mrs. Pipkin summoned Ruby into the back parlour, and spoke to her. "Ruby, this must come to an end now. You can't stay here always, you know." "I'm sure I work hard, Aunt Pipkin, and I don't get no wages." "There's the keep if there isn't wages. Besides, there's other reasons. Your grandfather won't have you back; that's certain." "I wouldn't go back to grandfather." "But you must go somewheres. You didn't come to stay here always. You must go into service." "I don't know anybody as 'd have me," said Ruby. "You must put a 'vertisement into the paper. You'd better say nursemaid, as you seems to take kindly to children. And I must give you a character; only I shall say just the truth. You mustn't ask much wages at first." Ruby looked very sorrowful, and the tears were near her eyes. The change from the glories of the music hall was so startling and so oppressive! "It has got to be done, so you may as well put the 'vertisement in this afternoon." "You're going to turn me out, Aunt Pipkin." "Well; if that's turning out, I am. You never acted like I was your mistress. You would go out with that rapscallion when I bid you not. Now when you're in a regular place like, you must mind when you're spoke to. You must earn your bread, Ruby." There was no possible answer to this, and the notice was put into the paper - Mrs. Hurtle paying. "You know," said Mrs. Hurtle, "she must stay here really, till Mr. Crumb comes and takes her away." Mrs. Pipkin expressed her opinion that Ruby was a "baggage" and John Crumb "soft." Ruby went hither and thither for a day or two, calling upon the mothers of children who wanted nursemaids. The houses which she visited were not great and splendid. Many objections were made to her: her ringlets were objectionable. She was too flighty-looking. She spoke up much too free. At last one mother of five children offered to take her on approval for a month, at 12 a year, Ruby to find her own tea and wash for herself. This was abject slavery. And she who had been the beloved of a baronet, and who might even now be the mistress of a house - if she would only hold up her finger! But the place was accepted, and with broken-hearted sobbings Ruby prepared to depart from aunt Pipkin's roof. "I hope you like your new place, Ruby," Mrs. Hurtle said on her last day. "Indeed I don't like it at all. They're the ugliest children you ever see, Mrs. Hurtle." "Ugly children must be minded as well as pretty ones." "And their mother is as cross as cross." "It's your own fault, Ruby. All this has come because you wouldn't keep your word to Mr. Crumb. But for that, your grandfather wouldn't have turned you out of his house." "He didn't turn me out. I ran away. And it wasn't along of John Crumb, but because grandfather hauled me about by my hair." "But he was angry about Mr. Crumb. When a young woman becomes engaged to a young man, she ought not to go back from her word. Of course you have brought trouble on yourself. I am sorry that you don't like the place. I'm afraid you must go to it now." "I am agoing - I suppose," said Ruby. "I shall write and tell Mr. Crumb where you are." "Oh, Mrs. Hurtle, don't. What should you write to him for? It ain't nothing to him. I don't want him to know as I'm in service. It's such a come-down." "There is nothing to be ashamed of in that. What you have to be ashamed of is jilting him. It was a bad thing to do; wasn't it, Ruby?" "I didn't mean nothing bad, Mrs. Hurtle; only why couldn't he say what he had to say himself, instead of bringing another to say it for him? What would you feel, Mrs. Hurtle, if a man was to come and say it all out of another man's mouth?" "I don't think I should much care if the thing was well said at last. You know he meant it." "Yes; I did know that." "And you know he means it now?" "I'm not so sure. He's gone back to Bungay. He'll go and get somebody else now." "Of course he will if he hears nothing about you. I think I'd better tell him. I know what would happen." "What would happen, Mrs. Hurtle?" "He'd be up in town again in half a jiffy to see what sort of a place you'd got. Now, Ruby, I'll tell you what I'll do, if you'll say the word. I'll have him up here at once and you shan't go to Mrs. Buggins." Ruby stood still, staring at Mrs. Hurtle. "But if he comes you mustn't behave this time as you did before." "But I'm to go to Mrs. Buggins tomorrow." "We'll send to her and tell her to get somebody else. And this man will make you mistress of his house. You say he isn't good at speaking; but I never came across an honester man in my whole life, or one who I think would treat a woman better. What's the use of a glib tongue if there isn't a heart with it? Sir Felix Carbury could talk, I dare say, but you don't think now he was a very fine fellow." "He was so beautiful, Mrs. Hurtle!" "But he hadn't the spirit of a mouse. Well, Ruby, you choose. Shall it be John Crumb or Mrs. Buggins?" Then Ruby in a very low whisper told Mrs. Hurtle that she might bring John Crumb back again. "And there shall be no more nonsense?" "No," whispered Ruby. On that same night a letter was sent to Mrs. Buggins, which Mrs. Hurtle composed. And then Mrs. Hurtle in her own name wrote a short note to Mr. John Crumb. Dear Mr. Crumb, If you will come back to London I think you will find Miss Ruby Ruggles all that you desire. Yours faithfully, Winifred Hurtle. "She's had a deal more done for her than she deserves," said Mrs. Pipkin. "I haven't got no patience with girls like them. Yes; it is for the best; and there's no words to say how good you've been. I hope, Mrs. Hurtle, you ain't thinking of going away because this is all done."

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 80: Ruby Prepares for Service

On the following morning there came a telegram from Felix. He was to be expected at Beccles on that afternoon by a certain train; and Roger, at Lady Carbury's request, undertook to send a carriage to the station for him. This was done, but Felix did not arrive. There was still another train by which he might come so as to be just in time for dinner if dinner were postponed for half an hour. Lady Carbury with a tender look, almost without speaking a word, appealed to her cousin on behalf of her son. He knit his brows, as he always did, involuntarily, when displeased; but he assented. Then the carriage had to be sent again. Now carriages and carriage-horses were not numerous at Carbury. The squire kept a waggonnette and a pair of horses which, when not wanted for house use, were employed about the farm. He himself would walk home from the train, leaving the luggage to be brought by some cheap conveyance. He had already sent the carriage once on this day,--and now sent it again, Lady Carbury having said a word which showed that she hoped that this would be done. But he did it with deep displeasure. To the mother her son was Sir Felix, the baronet, entitled to special consideration because of his position and rank,--because also of his intention to marry the great heiress of the day. To Roger Carbury, Felix was a vicious young man, peculiarly antipathetic to himself, to whom no respect whatever was due. Nevertheless the dinner was put off, and the waggonnette was sent. But the waggonnette again came back empty. That evening was spent by Roger, Lady Carbury, and Henrietta, in very much gloom. About four in the morning the house was roused by the coming of the baronet. Failing to leave town by either of the afternoon trains, he had contrived to catch the evening mail, and had found himself deposited at some distant town from which he had posted to Carbury. Roger came down in his dressing-gown to admit him, and Lady Carbury also left her room. Sir Felix evidently thought that he had been a very fine fellow in going through so much trouble. Roger held a very different opinion, and spoke little or nothing. "Oh, Felix," said the mother, "you have so terrified us!" "I can tell you I was terrified myself when I found that I had to come fifteen miles across the country with a pair of old jades who could hardly get up a trot." "But why didn't you come by the train you named?" "I couldn't get out of the city," said the baronet with a ready lie. "I suppose you were at the Board?" To this Felix made no direct answer. Roger knew that there had been no Board. Mr. Melmotte was in the country and there could be no Board, nor could Sir Felix have had business in the city. It was sheer impudence,--sheer indifference, and, into the bargain, a downright lie. The young man, who was of himself so unwelcome, who had come there on a project which he, Roger, utterly disapproved,--who had now knocked him and his household up at four o'clock in the morning,--had uttered no word of apology. "Miserable cub!" Roger muttered between his teeth. Then he spoke aloud, "You had better not keep your mother standing here. I will show you your room." "All right, old fellow," said Sir Felix. "I'm awfully sorry to disturb you all in this way. I think I'll just take a drop of brandy and soda before I go to bed, though." This was another blow to Roger. "I doubt whether we have soda-water in the house, and if we have, I don't know where to get it. I can give you some brandy if you will come with me." He pronounced the word "brandy" in a tone which implied that it was a wicked, dissipated beverage. It was a wretched work to Roger. He was forced to go up-stairs and fetch a key in order that he might wait upon this cub,--this cur! He did it, however, and the cub drank his brandy-and-water, not in the least disturbed by his host's ill-humour. As he went to bed he suggested the probability of his not showing himself till lunch on the following day, and expressed a wish that he might have breakfast sent to him in bed. "He is born to be hung," said Roger to himself as he went to his room,--"and he'll deserve it." On the following morning, being Sunday, they all went to church,--except Felix. Lady Carbury always went to church when she was in the country, never when she was at home in London. It was one of those moral habits, like early dinners and long walks, which suited country life. And she fancied that were she not to do so, the bishop would be sure to know it and would be displeased. She liked the bishop. She liked bishops generally; and was aware that it was a woman's duty to sacrifice herself for society. As to the purpose for which people go to church, it had probably never in her life occurred to Lady Carbury to think of it. On their return they found Sir Felix smoking a cigar on the gravel path, close in front of the open drawing-room window. "Felix," said his cousin, "take your cigar a little farther. You are filling the house with tobacco." "Oh heavens,--what a prejudice!" said the baronet. "Let it be so, but still do as I ask you." Sir Felix chucked the cigar out of his mouth on to the gravel walk, whereupon Roger walked up to the spot and kicked the offending weed away. This was the first greeting of the day between the two men. After lunch Lady Carbury strolled about with her son, instigating him to go over at once to Caversham. "How the deuce am I to get there?" "Your cousin will lend you a horse." "He's as cross as a bear with a sore head. He's a deal older than I am, and a cousin and all that, but I'm not going to put up with insolence. If it were anywhere else I should just go into the yard and ask if I could have a horse and saddle as a matter of course." "Roger has not a great establishment." "I suppose he has a horse and saddle, and a man to get it ready. I don't want anything grand." "He is vexed because he sent twice to the station for you yesterday." "I hate the kind of fellow who is always thinking of little grievances. Such a man expects you to go like clockwork, and because you are not wound up just as he is, he insults you. I shall ask him for a horse as I would any one else, and if he does not like it, he may lump it." About half an hour after this he found his cousin. "Can I have a horse to ride over to Caversham this afternoon?" he said. "Our horses never go out on Sunday," said Roger. Then he added, after a pause, "You can have it. I'll give the order." Sir Felix would be gone on Tuesday, and it should be his own fault if that odious cousin ever found his way into Carbury House again! So he declared to himself as Felix rode out of the yard; but he soon remembered how probable it was that Felix himself would be the owner of Carbury. And should it ever come to pass,--as still was possible,--that Henrietta should be the mistress of Carbury, he could hardly forbid her to receive her brother. He stood for a while on the bridge watching his cousin as he cantered away upon the road, listening to the horse's feet. The young man was offensive in every possible way. Who does not know that ladies only are allowed to canter their friends' horses upon roads? A gentleman trots his horse, and his friend's horse. Roger Carbury had but one saddle horse,--a favourite old hunter that he loved as a friend. And now this dear old friend, whose legs probably were not quite so good as they once were, was being galloped along the hard road by that odious cub! "Soda and brandy!" Roger exclaimed to himself almost aloud, thinking of the discomfiture of that early morning. "He'll die some day of delirium tremens in a hospital!" Before the Longestaffes left London to receive their new friends the Melmottes at Caversham, a treaty had been made between Mr. Longestaffe, the father, and Georgiana, the strong-minded daughter. The daughter on her side undertook that the guests should be treated with feminine courtesy. This might be called the most-favoured-nation clause. The Melmottes were to be treated exactly as though old Melmotte had been a gentleman and Madame Melmotte a lady. In return for this the Longestaffe family were to be allowed to return to town. But here again the father had carried another clause. The prolonged sojourn in town was to be only for six weeks. On the 10th of July the Longestaffes were to be removed into the country for the remainder of the year. When the question of a foreign tour was proposed, the father became absolutely violent in his refusal. "In God's name where do you expect the money is to come from?" When Georgiana urged that other people had money to go abroad, her father told her that a time was coming in which she might think it lucky if she had a house over her head. This, however, she took as having been said with poetical licence, the same threat having been made more than once before. The treaty was very clear, and the parties to it were prepared to carry it out with fair honesty. The Melmottes were being treated with decent courtesy, and the house in town was not dismantled. The idea, hardly ever in truth entertained but which had been barely suggested from one to another among the ladies of the family, that Dolly should marry Marie Melmotte, had been abandoned. Dolly, with all his vapid folly, had a will of his own, which, among his own family, was invincible. He was never persuaded to any course either by his father or mother. Dolly certainly would not marry Marie Melmotte. Therefore when the Longestaffes heard that Sir Felix was coming to the country, they had no special objection to entertaining him at Caversham. He had been lately talked of in London as the favourite in regard to Marie Melmotte. Georgiana Longestaffe had a grudge of her own against Lord Nidderdale, and was on that account somewhat well inclined towards Sir Felix's prospects. Soon after the Melmottes' arrival she contrived to say a word to Marie respecting Sir Felix. "There is a friend of yours going to dine here on Monday, Miss Melmotte." Marie, who was at the moment still abashed by the grandeur and size and general fashionable haughtiness of her new acquaintances, made hardly any answer. "I think you know Sir Felix Carbury," continued Georgiana. "Oh yes, we know Sir Felix Carbury." "He is coming down to his cousin's. I suppose it is for your bright eyes, as Carbury Manor would hardly be just what he would like." "I don't think he is coming because of me," said Marie blushing. She had once told him that he might go to her father, which according to her idea had been tantamount to accepting his offer as far as her power of acceptance went. Since that she had seen him, indeed, but he had not said a word to press his suit, nor, as far as she knew, had he said a word to Mr. Melmotte. But she had been very rigorous in declining the attentions of other suitors. She had made up her mind that she was in love with Felix Carbury, and she had resolved on constancy. But she had begun to tremble, fearing his faithlessness. "We had heard," said Georgiana, "that he was a particular friend of yours." And she laughed aloud, with a vulgarity which Madame Melmotte certainly could not have surpassed. Sir Felix, on the Sunday afternoon, found all the ladies out on the lawn, and he also found Mr. Melmotte there. At the last moment Lord Alfred Grendall had been asked,--not because he was at all in favour with any of the Longestaffes, but in order that he might be useful in disposing of the great Director. Lord Alfred was used to him and could talk to him, and might probably know what he liked to eat and drink. Therefore Lord Alfred had been asked to Caversham, and Lord Alfred had come, having all his expenses paid by the great Director. When Sir Felix arrived, Lord Alfred was earning his entertainment by talking to Mr. Melmotte in a summer-house. He had cool drink before him and a box of cigars, but was probably thinking at the time how hard the world had been to him. Lady Pomona was languid, but not uncivil in her reception. She was doing her best to perform her part of the treaty in reference to Madame Melmotte. Sophia was walking apart with a certain Mr. Whitstable, a young squire in the neighbourhood, who had been asked to Caversham because as Sophia was now reputed to be twenty-eight,--they who decided the question might have said thirty-one without falsehood,--it was considered that Mr. Whitstable was good enough, or at least as good as could be expected. Sophia was handsome, but with a big, cold, unalluring handsomeness, and had not quite succeeded in London. Georgiana had been more admired, and boasted among her friends of the offers which she had rejected. Her friends on the other hand were apt to tell of her many failures. Nevertheless she held her head up, and had not as yet come down among the rural Whitstables. At the present moment her hands were empty, and she was devoting herself to such a performance of the treaty as should make it impossible for her father to leave his part of it unfulfilled. For a few minutes Sir Felix sat on a garden chair making conversation to Lady Pomona and Madame Melmotte. "Beautiful garden," he said; "for myself I don't much care for gardens; but if one is to live in the country, this is the sort of thing that one would like." "Delicious," said Madame Melmotte, repressing a yawn, and drawing her shawl higher round her throat. It was the end of May, and the weather was very warm for the time of the year; but, in her heart of hearts, Madame Melmotte did not like sitting out in the garden. "It isn't a pretty place; but the house is comfortable, and we make the best of it," said Lady Pomona. "Plenty of glass, I see," said Sir Felix. "If one is to live in the country, I like that kind of thing. Carbury is a very poor place." There was offence in this;--as though the Carbury property and the Carbury position could be compared to the Longestaffe property and the Longestaffe position. Though dreadfully hampered for money, the Longestaffes were great people. "For a small place," said Lady Pomona, "I think Carbury is one of the nicest in the county. Of course it is not extensive." "No, by Jove," said Sir Felix, "you may say that, Lady Pomona. It's like a prison to me with that moat round it." Then he jumped up and joined Marie Melmotte and Georgiana. Georgiana, glad to be released for a time from performance of the treaty, was not long before she left them together. She had understood that the two horses now in the running were Lord Nidderdale and Sir Felix; and though she would not probably have done much to aid Sir Felix, she was quite willing to destroy Lord Nidderdale. Sir Felix had his work to do, and was willing to do it,--as far as such willingness could go with him. The prize was so great, and the comfort of wealth was so sure, that even he was tempted to exert himself. It was this feeling which had brought him into Suffolk, and induced him to travel all night, across dirty roads, in an old cab. For the girl herself he cared not the least. It was not in his power really to care for anybody. He did not dislike her much. He was not given to disliking people strongly, except at the moments in which they offended him. He regarded her simply as the means by which a portion of Mr. Melmotte's wealth might be conveyed to his uses. In regard to feminine beauty he had his own ideas, and his own inclinations. He was by no means indifferent to such attraction. But Marie Melmotte, from that point of view, was nothing to him. Such prettiness as belonged to her came from the brightness of her youth, and from a modest shy demeanour joined to an incipient aspiration for the enjoyment of something in the world which should be her own. There was, too, arising within her bosom a struggle to be something in the world, an idea that she, too, could say something, and have thoughts of her own, if only she had some friend near her whom she need not fear. Though still shy, she was always resolving that she would abandon her shyness, and already had thoughts of her own as to the perfectly open confidence which should exist between two lovers. When alone,--and she was much alone,--she would build castles in the air, which were bright with art and love, rather than with gems and gold. The books she read, poor though they generally were, left something bright on her imagination. She fancied to herself brilliant conversations in which she bore a bright part, though in real life she had hitherto hardly talked to any one since she was a child. Sir Felix Carbury, she knew, had made her an offer. She knew also, or thought that she knew, that she loved the man. And now she was with him alone! Now surely had come the time in which some one of her castles in the air might be found to be built of real materials. "You know why I have come down here?" he said. [Illustration: "You know why I have come down here?"] "To see your cousin." "No, indeed. I'm not particularly fond of my cousin, who is a methodical stiff-necked old bachelor,--as cross as the mischief." "How disagreeable!" "Yes; he is disagreeable. I didn't come down to see him, I can tell you. But when I heard that you were going to be here with the Longestaffes, I determined to come at once. I wonder whether you are glad to see me?" "I don't know," said Marie, who could not at once find that brilliancy of words with which her imagination supplied her readily enough in her solitude. "Do you remember what you said to me that evening at my mother's?" "Did I say anything? I don't remember anything particular." "Do you not? Then I fear you can't think very much of me." He paused as though he supposed that she would drop into his mouth like a cherry. "I thought you told me that you would love me." "Did I?" "Did you not?" "I don't know what I said. Perhaps if I said that, I didn't mean it." "Am I to believe that?" "Perhaps you didn't mean it yourself." "By George, I did. I was quite in earnest. There never was a fellow more in earnest than I was. I've come down here on purpose to say it again." "To say what?" "Whether you'll accept me?" "I don't know whether you love me well enough." She longed to be told by him that he loved her. He had no objection to tell her so, but, without thinking much about it, felt it to be a bore. All that kind of thing was trash and twaddle. He desired her to accept him; and he would have wished, were it possible, that she should have gone to her father for his consent. There was something in the big eyes and heavy jaws of Mr. Melmotte which he almost feared. "Do you really love me well enough?" she whispered. "Of course I do. I'm bad at making pretty speeches, and all that, but you know I love you." "Do you?" "By George, yes. I always liked you from the first moment I saw you. I did indeed." It was a poor declaration of love, but it sufficed. "Then I will love you," she said. "I will with all my heart." "There's a darling!" "Shall I be your darling? Indeed I will. I may call you Felix now;--mayn't I?" "Rather." "Oh, Felix, I hope you will love me. I will so dote upon you. You know a great many men have asked me to love them." "I suppose so." "But I have never, never cared for one of them in the least;--not in the least." "You do care for me?" "Oh yes." She looked up into his beautiful face as she spoke, and he saw that her eyes were swimming with tears. He thought at the moment that she was very common to look at. As regarded appearance only he would have preferred even Sophia Longestaffe. There was indeed a certain brightness of truth which another man might have read in Marie's mingled smiles and tears, but it was thrown away altogether upon him. They were walking in some shrubbery quite apart from the house, where they were unseen; so, as in duty bound, he put his arm round her waist and kissed her. "Oh, Felix," she said, giving her face up to him; "no one ever did it before." He did not in the least believe her, nor was the matter one of the slightest importance to him. "Say that you will be good to me, Felix. I will be so good to you." "Of course I will be good to you." "Men are not always good to their wives. Papa is often very cross to mamma." "I suppose he can be cross?" "Yes, he can. He does not often scold me. I don't know what he'll say when we tell him about this." "But I suppose he intends that you shall be married?" "He wanted me to marry Lord Nidderdale and Lord Grasslough, but I hated them both. I think he wants me to marry Lord Nidderdale again now. He hasn't said so, but mamma tells me. But I never will;--never!" "I hope not, Marie." "You needn't be a bit afraid. I would not do it if they were to kill me. I hate him,--and I do so love you." Then she leaned with all her weight upon his arm and looked up again into his beautiful face. "You will speak to papa; won't you?" "Will that be the best way?" "I suppose so. How else?" "I don't know whether Madame Melmotte ought not--" "Oh dear no. Nothing would induce her. She is more afraid of him than anybody;--more afraid of him than I am. I thought the gentleman always did that." "Of course I'll do it," said Sir Felix. "I'm not afraid of him. Why should I? He and I are very good friends, you know." "I'm glad of that." "He made me a Director of one of his companies the other day." "Did he? Perhaps he'll like you for a son-in-law." "There's no knowing;--is there?" "I hope he will. I shall like you for papa's son-in-law. I hope it isn't wrong to say that. Oh, Felix, say that you love me." Then she put her face up towards his again. "Of course I love you," he said, not thinking it worth his while to kiss her. "It's no good speaking to him here. I suppose I had better go and see him in the city." "He is in a good humour now," said Marie. "But I couldn't get him alone. It wouldn't be the thing to do down here." "Wouldn't it?" "Not in the country,--in another person's house. Shall you tell Madame Melmotte?" "Yes, I shall tell mamma; but she won't say anything to him. Mamma does not care much about me. But I'll tell you all that another time. Of course I shall tell you everything now. I never yet had anybody to tell anything to, but I shall never be tired of telling you." Then he left her as soon as he could, and escaped to the other ladies. Mr. Melmotte was still sitting in the summer-house, and Lord Alfred was still with him, smoking and drinking brandy and seltzer. As Sir Felix passed in front of the great man he told himself that it was much better that the interview should be postponed till they were all in London. Mr. Melmotte did not look as though he were in a good humour. Sir Felix said a few words to Lady Pomona and Madame Melmotte. Yes; he hoped to have the pleasure of seeing them with his mother and sister on the following day. He was aware that his cousin was not coming. He believed that his cousin Roger never did go any where like any one else. No; he had not seen Mr. Longestaffe. He hoped to have the pleasure of seeing him to-morrow. Then he escaped, and got on his horse, and rode away. "That's going to be the lucky man," said Georgiana to her mother, that evening. "In what way lucky?" "He is going to get the heiress and all the money. What a fool Dolly has been!" "I don't think it would have suited Dolly," said Lady Pomona. "After all, why should not Dolly marry a lady?"

On the following morning there came a telegram from Felix: he would be at Beccles that afternoon by a certain train. Roger sent a carriage to the station for him, but Felix did not arrive. There was another train by which he might come so as to be just in time for dinner; and Roger, with knitted brows, sent the carriage again. Now carriages and carriage-horses were not numerous at Carbury. Roger kept a waggonnette and a pair of horses which were used about the farm. He himself would walk home from the train, leaving the luggage to be brought by some cheap conveyance. He sent the carriage a second time with deep displeasure. He felt Felix was not entitled to any special consideration. Nevertheless the dinner was put off, and the waggonnette was sent - but it again came back empty. That evening was spent by Roger, Lady Carbury, and Henrietta in gloom. About four in the morning the house was roused by the baronet's arrival. Failing to leave town by either of the afternoon trains, he had contrived to catch the evening mail coach, and had been deposited at some distant town from which he had posted to Carbury. Roger came down in his dressing-gown to let him in, and Lady Carbury also came downstairs. Sir Felix evidently thought that he had been a very fine fellow in going through so much trouble. "Oh, Felix," said the mother, "you have so terrified us!" "I can tell you I was terrified myself when I found that I had to come fifteen miles across country with a pair of old jades who could hardly trot." "But why didn't you come by the train?" "I couldn't get out of the city," lied the baronet. "I suppose you were at the Board?" To this Felix made no answer. Roger knew that there had been no Board, because Mr. Melmotte was in the country. It was sheer impudence. The young man had knocked him and his household up at four in the morning, and had uttered no word of apology. "Miserable cub!" Roger muttered between his teeth. Then he spoke aloud, "You had better not keep your mother standing here. I will show you your room." "All right, old fellow," said Sir Felix. "I'm awfully sorry to disturb you all in this way. I think I'll just take a drop of brandy and soda before I go to bed." This was another blow to Roger. "I doubt whether we have soda-water in the house. I can give you some brandy if you will come with me." He pronounced the word "brandy" in a tone which implied that it was a wicked beverage. He was forced to go upstairs and fetch a key in order that he might wait upon this cub - this cur! The cub drank his brandy-and-water, not in the least disturbed by his host's ill-humour. As he went to bed he said he would probably not show himself till lunch the following day, and requested that breakfast be sent to him in bed. "He is born to be hung," said Roger to himself as he went to his room. The following morning being Sunday, they all went to church, except Felix. Lady Carbury always went to church in the country, never in London. It was one of those habits, like early dinners and long walks, which suited country life. And she fancied that were she not to do so, the bishop would be sure to know it. She liked the bishop. As to the religious purpose for which people go to church, it never occurred to Lady Carbury to think of it. On their return they found Sir Felix smoking a cigar on the gravel path, in front of the open drawing-room window. "Felix," said Roger, "take your cigar a little farther. You are filling the house with tobacco." "Oh, heavens - what a prejudice!" said the baronet. "Maybe, but still do as I ask you." Sir Felix chucked the cigar out of his mouth on to the gravel walk, whereupon Roger walked up and kicked it away. After lunch Lady Carbury urged her son to go over at once to Caversham. "How the deuce am I to get there?" "Your cousin will lend you a horse." "He's as cross as a bear with a sore head. He's a deal older than I am, and a cousin and all that, but I'm not going to put up with insolence. If it were anywhere else I should just go into the yard and ask for a horse and saddle as a matter of course. I don't want anything grand." "He is vexed because he sent twice to the station for you yesterday." "I hate the kind of fellow who is always thinking of little grievances. Such a man expects you to go like clockwork, and if you don't, he insults you. I shall ask him for a horse, and if he does not like it, he may lump it." About half an hour after this he found his cousin. "Can I have a horse to ride over to Caversham this afternoon?" he said. "Our horses never go out on Sunday," said Roger. Then he added, after a pause, "You can have it." Sir Felix would be gone on Tuesday, and need never come to Carbury House again! So he declared to himself as Felix rode out of the yard; but he soon remembered how probable it was that Felix himself would be the owner of Carbury. And if ever Henrietta should be the mistress of Carbury, he could hardly forbid her to receive her brother. He stood for a while on the bridge watching his cousin canter off down the road. The young man was offensive in every possible way. Who does not know that only ladies are allowed to canter their friends' horses upon roads? A gentleman trots his friend's horse. Roger Carbury had only one saddle horse - a favourite old hunter, whose legs were not so good as they once were. And now this dear old friend was being galloped along the hard road by that odious cub! "Soda and brandy!" Roger exclaimed to himself. "He'll die some day of delirium tremens!" Before the Longestaffes left London for Caversham, a treaty had been made between Mr. Longestaffe and Georgiana, his strong-minded daughter. The daughter undertook that the guests should be treated with courtesy, exactly as though old Melmotte had been a gentleman and Madame Melmotte a lady. In return for this the Longestaffe family were to be allowed to return to town. But here again the father carried another clause. The stay in London was to be only for six weeks. On the 10th of July the Longestaffes were to remove to the country for the rest of the year. When a foreign tour was proposed, the father became absolutely violent in his refusal. "Where in God's name do you expect the money to come from?" He told Georgiana that a time was coming when she might think herself lucky to have a roof over her head. This she took as poetic licence, since he had made the same threat before. However, both parties to the treaty were prepared to carry it out honestly. The faint idea that Dolly should marry Marie Melmotte had been abandoned. Dolly, with all his vapid folly, had a will of his own, and he certainly would not marry her. Therefore the Longestaffes had no special objection to entertaining Sir Felix at Caversham. He had been talked of in London as the favourite in regard to Marie Melmotte. Georgiana Longestaffe had a grudge of her own against Lord Nidderdale, and was on that account somewhat well inclined towards Sir Felix's prospects. Soon after the Melmottes' arrival she managed to say a word to Marie. "There is a friend of yours going to dine here on Monday, Miss Melmotte. I think you know Sir Felix Carbury." Marie, still abashed by the grandeur and fashionable haughtiness of her new acquaintances, said, "Oh yes, we know Sir Felix Carbury." "He is coming down to his cousin's. I suppose it is for your bright eyes, as Carbury Manor would hardly be what he would like." "I don't think he is coming because of me," said Marie, blushing. She had once told him that he might go to her father, which she felt had been tantamount to accepting his offer as far as she was able. Since then she had seen him, indeed, but he had not said a word to press his suit, nor, as far as she knew, had he said a word to Mr. Melmotte. But she had been very rigorous in declining the attentions of other suitors. She had made up her mind that she was in love with Felix Carbury, and she had resolved on constancy. Yet she had begun to tremble, fearing his faithlessness. Sir Felix, on the Sunday afternoon, found all the ladies out on the lawn, and he also found Mr. Melmotte there. At the last moment Lord Alfred Grendall had been asked, since he could talk to Melmotte, and he had come, with all his expenses paid by the great Director. When Sir Felix arrived, Lord Alfred was earning his keep by talking to Mr. Melmotte in a summer-house, with a cool drink and a box of cigars. Sophia was walking apart with a certain Mr. Whitstable, a young squire in the neighbourhood, who had been asked to Caversham because as Sophia was now reputed to be twenty-eight - in fact she was thirty-one - Mr. Whitstable was considered good enough. Sophia was handsome, but with a big, cold, unalluring handsomeness, and had not succeeded in London. Georgiana had been more admired, and boasted among her friends of the offers which she had rejected. She held her head up, and had not as yet come down among the rural Whitstables. For a few minutes Sir Felix sat on a garden chair making conversation to Lady Pomona and Madame Melmotte. "Beautiful garden," he said; "for myself I don't much care for gardens; but if one is to live in the country, this is the sort of thing that one would like." "Delicious," said Madame Melmotte, repressing a yawn, and drawing her shawl round her throat. It was the end of May, and very warm; but she did not like sitting out in the garden. "It isn't a pretty place; but the house is comfortable, and we make the best of it," said Lady Pomona. "Plenty of glass, I see," said Sir Felix. "I like that kind of thing. Carbury is a very poor place." This was offensive - as though the Carbury property could be compared to the Longestaffe mansion. "For a small place," said Lady Pomona, "I think Carbury is one of the nicest in the county. Of course it is not extensive." "No, by Jove," said Sir Felix. "It's like a prison with that moat round it." Then he jumped up and joined Marie Melmotte and Georgiana. Georgiana, glad to be released from her duty, soon left them together. Sir Felix had his work to do, and was willing to do it. The prize was so great, and the comfort of wealth was so sure, that even he was tempted to exert himself. It was this feeling which had induced him to travel across dirty roads in an old cab. For the girl herself he cared not the least. It was not in his power really to care for anybody. He did not dislike her much. He regarded her simply as the means by which Mr. Melmotte's wealth might be conveyed to his uses. Miss Melmotte was not his idea of a beauty. Such prettiness as she had came from the brightness of her youth, and from a modest, shy demeanour joined to a hope for the enjoyment of something in the world which should be her own. There was arising within her bosom an idea that she, too, could say something, and have thoughts of her own, if only she had some friend near her whom she need not fear. Though still shy, she was always resolving to abandon her shyness, and thought a perfectly open confidence should exist between two lovers. When alone - and she was much alone - she would build castles in the air, which were bright with art and love, rather than with gems and gold. She fancied to herself brilliant conversations in which she bore a bright part, though in real life she had hardly talked to anyone. Sir Felix Carbury had made her an offer; and she loved him. And now she was with him alone! Now surely had come the time in which one of her castles in the air might be found to be built of real materials. "You know why I have come down here?" he said. "To see your cousin." "No, indeed. I'm not particularly fond of my cousin, who is a cross old bachelor." "How disagreeable!" "Yes; I didn't come to see him, I can tell you. But when I heard that you were going to be here, I determined to come at once. I wonder whether you are glad to see me?" "I don't know," said Marie, who could not immediately find those brilliant words which her imagination supplied in solitude. "Do you remember what you said to me that evening at my mother's?" "Did I say anything? I don't remember anything particular." "Do you not? Then I fear you can't think very much of me." He paused. "I thought you told me that you would love me." "Did I?" "Did you not?" "I don't know what I said. Perhaps if I said that, I didn't mean it." "Am I to believe that?" "Perhaps you didn't mean it yourself." "By George, I did. I was quite in earnest. There never was a fellow more in earnest than I was. I've come down here on purpose to say it again." "To say what?" "To ask whether you'll accept me?" "I don't know whether you love me well enough." She longed to be told that he loved her. He had no objection to telling her so, but felt it to be a bore. All that kind of thing was trash and twaddle. He wanted her to accept him; and he wished that she could have gone to her father for his consent. There was something in the big eyes and heavy jaws of Mr. Melmotte which he almost feared. "Do you really love me well enough?" she whispered. "Of course I do. I'm bad at making pretty speeches, and all that, but you know I love you." "Do you?" "By George, yes. I always liked you from the first moment I saw you. I did indeed." It was a poor declaration of love, but it sufficed. "Then I will love you," she said, "with all my heart." "There's a darling!" "I may call you Felix now;- mayn't I?" "Rather." "Oh, Felix, I hope you will love me. You know a great many men have asked me to love them." "I suppose so." "But I have never cared for any of them in the least." "You do care for me?" "Oh yes." She looked up into his beautiful face, and he saw that her eyes were swimming with tears. He thought that she was very common to look at. Even Sophia Longestaffe looked better. The brightness which another man might have read in Marie's mingled smiles and tears was thrown away altogether upon him. They were walking in some shrubbery apart from the house; so, as in duty bound, he put his arm around her waist and kissed her. "Oh, Felix," she said, giving her face up to him; "no one ever did it before." He did not believe her, nor did it matter to him. "Say that you will be good to me, Felix. I will be so good to you." "Of course I will be good to you." "Men are not always good to their wives. Papa is often very cross to mamma." "I suppose he can be cross?" "Yes, he can. I don't know what he'll say when we tell him about this." "But I suppose he intends that you shall be married?" "He wanted me to marry Lord Nidderdale and Lord Grasslough, but I hated them both. I think he wants me to marry Lord Nidderdale again. But I never will!" "I hope not, Marie." "I would not do it if they were to kill me. I hate him - and I do so love you." Then she leaned upon his arm and looked up again into his beautiful face. "You will speak to papa; won't you?" "Will that be the best way?" "I suppose so. How else?" "I don't know whether Madame Melmotte-" "Oh dear no. Nothing would induce her. She is more afraid of him than I am. I thought the gentleman always did it." "Of course I'll do it," said Sir Felix. "I'm not afraid of him. He and I are very good friends. He made me a Director of one of his companies." "Did he? Perhaps he'll like you for a son-in-law. Oh, Felix, say that you love me." Then she put her face up towards his again. "Of course I love you," he said, not thinking it worth his while to kiss her. "It's no good speaking to him here. I suppose I had better go and see him in the city." "He is in a good humour now," said Marie. "But I couldn't get him alone. It wouldn't be the thing to do in another person's house. Will you tell Madame Melmotte?" "Yes, I shall tell mamma; but she won't say anything to him. Mamma does not care much about me. But I'll tell you all that another time. I never yet had anybody to tell anything to, but I shall never be tired of telling you." Then he left her as soon as he could, and escaped to the other ladies. Mr. Melmotte was still sitting in the summer-house with Lord Alfred. As Sir Felix passed the great man he told himself that it was much better to postpone the interview till they were in London. Mr. Melmotte did not look as though he were in a good humour. Sir Felix said a few words to Lady Pomona and Madame Melmotte. Yes; he hoped to have the pleasure of seeing them on the following day. His cousin was not coming. He believed that his cousin Roger never did go anywhere. Then he got on his horse, and rode away.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 17: Marie Melmotte hears a Love Tale

Very early the next morning, very early that is for London life, Melmotte was told by a servant that Mr. Croll had called and wanted to see him. Then it immediately became a question with him whether he wanted to see Croll. "Is it anything special?" he asked. The man thought that it was something special, as Croll had declared his purpose of waiting when told that Mr. Melmotte was not as yet dressed. This happened at about nine o'clock in the morning. Melmotte longed to know every detail of Croll's manner,--to know even the servant's opinion of the clerk's manner,--but he did not dare to ask a question. Melmotte thought that it might be well to be gracious. "Ask him if he has breakfasted, and if not give him something in the study." But Mr. Croll had breakfasted and declined any further refreshment. Nevertheless Melmotte had not as yet made up his mind that he would meet his clerk. His clerk was his clerk. It might perhaps be well that he should first go into the City and send word to Croll, bidding him wait for his return. Over and over again, against his will, the question of flying would present itself to him; but, though he discussed it within his own bosom in every form, he knew that he could not fly. And if he stood his ground,--as most assuredly he would do,--then must he not be afraid to meet any man, let the man come with what thunderbolts in his hand he might. Of course sooner or later some man must come with a thunderbolt,--and why not Croll as well as another? He stood against a press in his chamber, with a razor in his hand, and steadied himself. How easily might he put an end to it all! Then he rang his bell and desired that Croll might be shown up into his room. The three or four minutes which intervened seemed to him to be very long. He had absolutely forgotten in his anxiety that the lather was still upon his face. But he could not smother his anxiety. He was fighting with it at every turn, but he could not conquer it. When the knock came at his door, he grasped at his own breast as though to support himself. With a hoarse voice he told the man to come in, and Croll himself appeared, opening the door gently and very slowly. Melmotte had left the bag which contained the papers in possession of Mr. Brehgert, and he now saw, at a glance, that Croll had got the bag in his hand,--and could see also by the shape of the bag that the bag contained the papers. The man therefore had in his own hands, in his own keeping, the very documents to which his own name had been forged! There was no longer a hope, no longer a chance that Croll should be ignorant of what had been done. "Well, Croll," he said with an attempt at a smile, "what brings you here so early?" He was pale as death, and let him struggle as he would, could not restrain himself from trembling. "Herr Brehgert vas vid me last night," said Croll. "Eh!" "And he thought I had better bring these back to you. That's all." Croll spoke in a very low voice, with his eyes fixed on his master's face, but with nothing of a threat in his attitude or manner. [Illustration: "He thought I had better bring these back to you."] "Eh!" repeated Melmotte. Even though he might have saved himself from all coming evils by a bold demeanour at that moment, he could not assume it. But it all flashed upon him at a moment. Brehgert had seen Croll after he, Melmotte, had left the City, had then discovered the forgery, and had taken this way of sending back all the forged documents. He had known Brehgert to be of all men who ever lived the most good-natured, but he could hardly believe in pure good-nature such as this. It seemed that the thunderbolt was not yet to fall. "Mr. Brehgert came to me," continued Croll, "because one signature was wanting. It was very late, so I took them home with me. I said I'd bring them to you in the morning." They both knew that he had forged the documents, Brehgert and Croll; but how would that concern him, Melmotte, if these two friends had resolved together that they would not expose him? He had desired to get the documents back into his own hands, and here they were! Melmotte's immediate trouble arose from the difficulty of speaking in a proper manner to his own servant who had just detected him in forgery. He couldn't speak. There were no words appropriate to such an occasion. "It vas a strong order, Mr. Melmotte," said Croll. Melmotte tried to smile but only grinned. "I vill not be back in the Lane, Mr. Melmotte." "Not back at the office, Croll?" "I tink not;--no. De leetle money coming to me, you will send it. Adieu." And so Mr. Croll took his final leave of his old master after an intercourse which had lasted twenty years. We may imagine that Herr Croll found his spirits to be oppressed and his capacity for business to be obliterated by his patron's misfortunes rather than by his patron's guilt. But he had not behaved unkindly. He had merely remarked that the forgery of his own name half-a-dozen times over was a "strong order." Melmotte opened the bag, and examined the documents one by one. It had been necessary that Marie should sign her name some half-dozen times, and Marie's father had made all the necessary forgeries. It had been of course necessary that each name should be witnessed;--but here the forger had scamped his work. Croll's name he had written five times; but one forged signature he had left unattested! Again he had himself been at fault. Again he had aided his own ruin by his own carelessness. One seems inclined to think sometimes that any fool might do an honest business. But fraud requires a man to be alive and wide awake at every turn! Melmotte had desired to have the documents back in his own hands, and now he had them. Did it matter much that Brehgert and Croll both knew the crime which he had committed? Had they meant to take legal steps against him they would not have returned the forgeries to his own hands. Brehgert, he thought, would never tell the tale,--unless there should arise some most improbable emergency in which he might make money by telling it; but he was by no means so sure of Croll. Croll had signified his intention of leaving Melmotte's service, and would therefore probably enter some rival service, and thus become an enemy to his late master. There could be no reason why Croll should keep the secret. Even if he got no direct profit by telling it, he would curry favour by making it known. Of course Croll would tell it. But what harm could the telling of such a secret do him? The girl was his own daughter! The money had been his own money! The man had been his own servant! There had been no fraud; no robbery; no purpose of peculation. Melmotte, as he thought of this, became almost proud of what he had done, thinking that if the evidence were suppressed the knowledge of the facts could do him no harm. But the evidence must be suppressed, and with the view of suppressing it he took the little bag and all the papers down with him to the study. Then he ate his breakfast,--and suppressed the evidence by the aid of his gas lamp. When this was accomplished he hesitated as to the manner in which he would pass his day. He had now given up all idea of raising the money for Longestaffe. He had even considered the language in which he would explain to the assembled gentlemen on the morrow the fact that a little difficulty still presented itself, and that as he could not exactly name a day, he must leave the matter in their hands. For he had resolved that he would not evade the meeting. Cohenlupe had gone since he had made his promise, and he would throw all the blame on Cohenlupe. Everybody knows that when panics arise the breaking of one merchant causes the downfall of another. Cohenlupe should bear the burden. But as that must be so, he could do no good by going into the City. His pecuniary downfall had now become too much a matter of certainty to be staved off by his presence; and his personal security could hardly be assisted by it. There would be nothing for him to do. Cohenlupe had gone. Miles Grendall had gone. Croll had gone. He could hardly go to Cuthbert's Court and face Mr. Brehgert! He would stay at home till it was time for him to go down to the House, and then he would face the world there. He would dine down at the House, and stand about in the smoking-room with his hat on, and be visible in the lobbies, and take his seat among his brother legislators,--and, if it were possible, rise on his legs and make a speech to them. He was about to have a crushing fall,--but the world should say that he had fallen like a man. About eleven his daughter came to him as he sat in the study. It can hardly be said that he had ever been kind to Marie, but perhaps she was the only person who in the whole course of his career had received indulgence at his hands. He had often beaten her; but he had also often made her presents and smiled on her, and in the periods of his opulence, had allowed her pocket-money almost without limit. Now she had not only disobeyed him, but by most perverse obstinacy on her part had driven him to acts of forgery which had already been detected. He had cause to be angry now with Marie if he had ever had cause for anger. But he had almost forgotten the transaction. He had at any rate forgotten the violence of his own feelings at the time of its occurrence. He was no longer anxious that the release should be made, and therefore no longer angry with her for her refusal. "Papa," she said, coming very gently into the room, "I think that perhaps I was wrong yesterday." "Of course you were wrong;--but it doesn't matter now." "If you wish it I'll sign those papers. I don't suppose Lord Nidderdale means to come any more;--and I'm sure I don't care whether he does or not." "What makes you think that, Marie?" "I was out last night at Lady Julia Goldsheiner's, and he was there. I'm sure he doesn't mean to come here any more." "Was he uncivil to you?" "O dear no. He's never uncivil. But I'm sure of it. Never mind how. I never told him that I cared for him and I never did care for him. Papa, is there something going to happen?" "What do you mean?" "Some misfortune! Oh, papa, why didn't you let me marry that other man?" "He is a penniless adventurer." "But he would have had this money that I call my money, and then there would have been enough for us all. Papa, he would marry me still if you would let him." "Have you seen him since you went to Liverpool?" "Never, papa." "Or heard from him?" "Not a line." "Then what makes you think he would marry you?" "He would if I got hold of him and told him. And he is a baronet. And there would be plenty of money for us all. And we could go and live in Germany." "We could do that just as well without your marrying." "But I suppose, papa, I am to be considered as somebody. I don't want after all to run away from London, just as if everybody had turned up their noses at me. I like him, and I don't like anybody else." "He wouldn't take the trouble to go to Liverpool with you." "He got tipsy. I know all about that. I don't mean to say that he's anything particularly grand. I don't know that anybody is very grand. He's as good as anybody else." "It can't be done, Marie." "Why can't it be done?" "There are a dozen reasons. Why should my money be given up to him? And it is too late. There are other things to be thought of now than marriage." "You don't want me to sign the papers?" "No;--I haven't got the papers. But I want you to remember that the money is mine and not yours. It may be that much may depend on you, and that I shall have to trust to you for nearly everything. Do not let me find myself deceived by my daughter." "I won't,--if you'll let me see Sir Felix Carbury once more." Then the father's pride again reasserted itself and he became angry. "I tell you, you little fool, that it is out of the question. Why cannot you believe me? Has your mother spoken to you about your jewels? Get them packed up, so that you can carry them away in your hand if we have to leave this suddenly. You are an idiot to think of that young man. As you say, I don't know that any of them are very good, but among them all he is about the worst. Go away and do as I bid you." That afternoon the page in Welbeck Street came up to Lady Carbury and told her that there was a young lady down-stairs who wanted to see Sir Felix. At this time the dominion of Sir Felix in his mother's house had been much curtailed. His latch-key had been surreptitiously taken away from him, and all messages brought for him reached his hands through those of his mother. The plasters were not removed from his face, so that he was still subject to that loss of self-assertion with which we are told that hitherto dominant cocks become afflicted when they have been daubed with mud. Lady Carbury asked sundry questions about the lady, suspecting that Ruby Ruggles, of whom she had heard, had come to seek her lover. The page could give no special description, merely saying that the young lady wore a black veil. Lady Carbury directed that the young lady should be shown into her own presence,--and Marie Melmotte was ushered into the room. "I dare say you don't remember me, Lady Carbury," Marie said. "I am Marie Melmotte." At first Lady Carbury had not recognised her visitor;--but she did so before she replied. "Yes, Miss Melmotte, I remember you." "Yes;--I am Mr. Melmotte's daughter. How is your son? I hope he is better. They told me he had been horribly used by a dreadful man in the street." "Sit down, Miss Melmotte. He is getting better." Now Lady Carbury had heard within the last two days from Mr. Broune that "it was all over" with Melmotte. Broune had declared his very strong belief, his thorough conviction, that Melmotte had committed various forgeries, that his speculations had gone so much against him as to leave him a ruined man, and, in short, that the great Melmotte bubble was on the very point of bursting. "Everybody says that he'll be in gaol before a week is over." That was the information which had reached Lady Carbury about the Melmottes only on the previous evening. "I want to see him," said Marie. Lady Carbury, hardly knowing what answer to make, was silent for a while. "I suppose he told you everything;--didn't he? You know that we were to have been married? I loved him very much, and so I do still. I am not ashamed of coming and telling you." "I thought it was all off," said Lady Carbury. "I never said so. Does he say so? Your daughter came to me and was very good to me. I do so love her. She said that it was all over; but perhaps she was wrong. It shan't be all over if he will be true." Lady Carbury was taken greatly by surprise. It seemed to her at the moment that this young lady, knowing that her own father was ruined, was looking out for another home, and was doing so with a considerable amount of audacity. She gave Marie little credit either for affection or for generosity; but yet she was unwilling to answer her roughly. "I am afraid," she said, "that it would not be suitable." "Why should it not be suitable? They can't take my money away. There is enough for all of us even if papa wanted to live with us;--but it is mine. It is ever so much;--I don't know how much, but a great deal. We should be quite rich enough. I ain't a bit ashamed to come and tell you, because we were engaged. I know he isn't rich, and I should have thought it would be suitable." It then occurred to Lady Carbury that if this were true the marriage after all might be suitable. But how was she to find out whether it was true? "I understand that your papa is opposed to it," she said. "Yes, he is;--but papa can't prevent me, and papa can't make me give up the money. It's ever so many thousands a year, I know. If I can dare to do it, why can't he?" Lady Carbury was so beside herself with doubts, that she found it impossible to form any decision. It would be necessary that she should see Mr. Broune. What to do with her son, how to bestow him, in what way to get rid of him so that in ridding herself of him she might not aid in destroying him,--this was the great trouble of her life, the burden that was breaking her back. Now this girl was not only willing but persistently anxious to take her black sheep and to endow him,--as she declared,--with ever so many thousands a year. If the thousands were there,--or even an income of a single thousand a year,--then what a blessing would such a marriage be! Sir Felix had already fallen so low that his mother on his behalf would not be justified in declining a connection with the Melmottes because the Melmottes had fallen. To get any niche in the world for him in which he might live with comparative safety would now be to her a heaven-sent comfort. "My son is up-stairs," she said. "I will go up and speak to him." "Tell him I am here and that I have said that I will forgive him everything, and that I love him still, and that if he will be true to me, I will be true to him." "I couldn't go down to her," said Sir Felix, "with my face all in this way." "I don't think she would mind that." "I couldn't do it. Besides, I don't believe about her money. I never did believe it. That was the real reason why I didn't go to Liverpool." "I think I would see her if I were you, Felix. We could find out to a certainty about her fortune. It is evident at any rate that she is very fond of you." "What's the use of that, if he is ruined?" He would not go down to see the girl,--because he could not endure to expose his face, and was ashamed of the wounds which he had received in the street. As regarded the money he half-believed and half-disbelieved Marie's story. But the fruition of the money, if it were within his reach, would be far off and to be attained with much trouble; whereas the nuisance of a scene with Marie would be immediate. How could he kiss his future bride, with his nose bound up with a bandage? "What shall I say to her?" asked his mother. "She oughtn't to have come. I should tell her just that. You might send the maid to her to tell her that you couldn't see her again." But Lady Carbury could not treat the girl after that fashion. She returned to the drawing-room, descending the stairs very slowly, and thinking what answer she would make. "Miss Melmotte," she said, "my son feels that everything has been so changed since he and you last met, that nothing can be gained by a renewal of your acquaintance." "That is his message;--is it?" Lady Carbury remained silent. "Then he is indeed all that they have told me; and I am ashamed that I should have loved him. I am ashamed;--not of coming here, although you will think that I have run after him. I don't see why a girl should not run after a man if they have been engaged together. But I'm ashamed of thinking so much of so mean a person. Good-bye, Lady Carbury." "Good-bye, Miss Melmotte. I don't think you should be angry with me." "No;--no. I am not angry with you. You can forget me now as soon as you please, and I will try to forget him." Then with a rapid step she walked back to Bruton Street, going round by Grosvenor Square and in front of her old house on the way. What should she now do with herself? What sort of life should she endeavour to prepare for herself? The life that she had led for the last year had been thoroughly wretched. The poverty and hardship which she remembered in her early days had been more endurable. The servitude to which she had been subjected before she had learned by intercourse with the world to assert herself, had been preferable. In these days of her grandeur, in which she had danced with princes, and seen an emperor in her father's house, and been affianced to lords, she had encountered degradation which had been abominable to her. She had really loved;--but had found out that her golden idol was made of the basest clay. She had then declared to herself that bad as the clay was she would still love it;--but even the clay had turned away from her and had refused her love! She was well aware that some catastrophe was about to happen to her father. Catastrophes had happened before, and she had been conscious of their coming. But now the blow would be a very heavy blow. They would again be driven to pack up and move and seek some other city,--probably in some very distant part. But go where she might, she would now be her own mistress. That was the one resolution she succeeded in forming before she re-entered the house in Bruton Street.

Very early the next morning, Melmotte was told by a servant that Mr. Croll had called and wanted to see him. He was not sure whether he wanted to see Croll. He longed to know the servant's opinion of the clerk's manner, but he did not dare ask. "See if he has breakfasted, and if not give him something in the study," he said. But Mr. Croll had breakfasted and declined any further refreshment. Melmotte could not make up his mind whether to meet his clerk. It might be well that he should first go into the City, telling Croll to wait for his return. Over and over again, against his will, the question of flying would present itself to him; but he knew that he could not fly. And if he stood his ground, he must not be afraid to meet any man, let the man come with what thunderbolts he may. Of course sooner or later some man must come with a thunderbolt - and why not Croll as well as another? He stood in his chamber, with a razor in his hand, and steadied himself. How easily might he put an end to it all! Then he rang his bell and desired that Croll might be shown up into his room. The three or four minutes which intervened seemed very long. He had absolutely forgotten in his anxiety that the lather was still upon his face. But he could not conquer his anxiety, though he was fighting it at every turn. When the knock came at his door, he grasped at his own breast as though to support himself. Hoarsely he told the man to come in, and Croll opened the door very gently and slowly. Melmotte had left the bag which contained the papers in possession of Mr. Brehgert, and he now saw that Croll had the bag in his hand. He could see also by the shape of the bag that it contained the papers to which Croll's name had been forged. There was no longer a hope that Croll was ignorant of what had been done. "Well, Croll," he said with an attempt at a smile, "what brings you here so early?" He was pale as death, and could not stop himself from trembling. "Herr Brehgert vas vid me last night," said Croll. "He thought I had better bring these back to you. That's all." Croll spoke in a very low voice, but with no threat in his manner. It all flashed upon Melmotte in a moment. Brehgert had seen Croll, had discovered the forgery, and had taken this way of sending back all the forged documents. He had known Brehgert to be the most good-natured of men, but he could hardly believe in pure good-nature such as this. It seemed that the thunderbolt was not yet to fall. "Mr. Brehgert came to me," continued Croll, "because one signature was wanting. It was very late, so I took them home, and said I'd bring them to you in the morning." They both knew that he had forged the documents, Brehgert and Croll; but had resolved together that they would not expose him. Melmotte had wished to get the documents back, and here they were. He found that he could not speak. "It vas a strong order, Mr. Melmotte," said Croll. Melmotte tried to smile. "I vill not be back in the Lane, Mr. Melmotte." "Not back at the office, Croll?" "I tink not. De leetle money coming to me, you will send it. Adieu." And so Mr. Croll took his final leave of his old master after twenty years. Melmotte opened the bag, and examined all the documents. It had been necessary that Marie should sign her name some half-dozen times, and Marie's father had made all the necessary forgeries. It had of course been necessary that each name should be witnessed; but here the forger had left one signature undone! He had aided his own ruin by his carelessness. Brehgert, he thought, would never tell the tale; but he was by no means so sure of Croll. Croll would probably enter some rival service, and there could be no reason why he should keep the secret. Of course Croll would tell it. But what harm could the telling of such a secret do him? The girl was his own daughter! The money had been his own money! There had been no fraud; no robbery. Melmotte, as he thought of this, became almost proud of what he had done. But the evidence must be suppressed, so he took the bag and all the papers down with him to the study. Then he ate his breakfast - and suppressed the evidence by the aid of his gas lamp. When this was done he hesitated as to how to pass his day. He had now given up all idea of raising the money for Longestaffe. He had even considered the language in which he would explain to the gentlemen on the next day the fact that he must leave the matter in their hands. For he had resolved not to evade the meeting. He would throw all the blame on Cohenlupe. But he could do no good now by going into the City. There would be nothing for him to do. Cohenlupe had gone. Miles Grendall had gone. Croll had gone. He could hardly go to Cuthbert's Court and face Mr. Brehgert! He would stay at home till it was time for him to go down to the House, and he would dine there, and stand about in the smoking-room, and be visible in the lobbies, and take his seat among his brother legislators - and, if it were possible, rise on his legs and make a speech to them. He was about to have a crushing fall - but the world should say that he had fallen like a man. About eleven his daughter came to him as he sat in the study. It can hardly be said that he had ever been kind to Marie, but perhaps she was the only person who had ever received indulgence at his hands. He had often beaten her; but he had also often made her presents and smiled on her. Now she had not only disobeyed him, but by her obstinacy had driven him to acts of forgery. He had cause to be angry with Marie. But he had almost forgotten the transaction. He had at any rate forgotten the violence of his own feelings. "Papa," she said, "I think that perhaps I was wrong yesterday." "Of course you were wrong; but it doesn't matter now." "If you wish it I'll sign those papers. I don't suppose Lord Nidderdale means to come any more. Papa, is something going to happen?" "What do you mean?" "Some misfortune! Oh, papa, why didn't you let me marry that other man?" "He is a penniless adventurer." "But he would have had this money that I call my money, and then there would have been enough for us all. Papa, he would marry me still if you would let him." "Have you seen him since you went to Liverpool?" "Never, papa." "Or heard from him?" "Not a line." "Then what makes you think he would marry you?" "He would if I got hold of him and told him. And he is a baronet. And there would be plenty of money for us all. And we could go and live in Germany." "We could do that just as well without your marrying." "I like him, Papa, and I don't like anybody else." "He wouldn't take the trouble to go to Liverpool with you." "He got tipsy. I know all about that. I don't mean to say that he's anything particularly grand. I don't know that anybody is very grand. He's as good as anybody else." "It can't be done, Marie. It is too late. There are other things to be thought of now than marriage." "You don't want me to sign the papers?" "No. But I want you to remember that the money is mine and not yours. It may be that I shall have to trust to you for nearly everything. Do not let me find myself deceived by my daughter." "I won't - if you'll let me see Sir Felix Carbury once more." Then the father became angry. "I tell you, you little fool, that it is out of the question. Why cannot you believe me? Has your mother spoken to you about your jewels? Get them packed up, so that you can carry them away if we have to leave suddenly. You are an idiot to think of that young man. Maybe none of them are very good, but he is about the worst. Go away and do as I bid you." That afternoon the servant in Welbeck Street came up to Lady Carbury and told her that there was a young lady downstairs who wanted to see Sir Felix. At this time Sir Felix still had plasters on his face, and was much subdued. Lady Carbury asked about the lady, suspecting that it was Ruby Ruggles. The servant could say only that the young lady wore a black veil. Lady Carbury directed that she be shown up - and Marie Melmotte was ushered into the room. "I dare say you don't remember me, Lady Carbury," she said. "Yes, Miss Melmotte, I remember you." "How is your son? I hope he is better. They told me he had been horribly used by a dreadful man in the street." "Sit down, Miss Melmotte. He is getting better." Now Lady Carbury had heard from Mr. Broune that "it was all over" with Melmotte. Broune believed that Melmotte had committed various forgeries, and was a ruined man. "I want to see him," said Marie. Lady Carbury was silent for a while. "I suppose he told you everything. You know that we were to have been married? I loved him very much, and so I do still. I am not ashamed of telling you." "I thought it was all off," said Lady Carbury. "I never said so. Does he say so? Your daughter came to me and was very good to me. I do so love her. She said that it was all over; but perhaps she was wrong." Lady Carbury was taken greatly by surprise. It seemed to her that this young lady, knowing that her father was ruined, was boldly looking for another home. She gave Marie little credit either for affection or for generosity; yet she was unwilling to answer her roughly. "I am afraid," she said, "that it would not be suitable." "Why not? They can't take my money away. There is enough for all of us even if papa wanted to live with us; but it is mine. It is a great deal - thousands a year. We should be rich enough. I ain't ashamed to come and tell you, because we were engaged. I know he isn't rich, and I should have thought it would be suitable." It then occurred to Lady Carbury that if this were true the marriage after all might be suitable. But how was she to find out whether it was true? "I understand that your papa is opposed to it," she said. "Yes, he is; but papa can't prevent me, and he can't make me give up the money." Lady Carbury was beside herself with doubt. She needed to see Mr. Broune. What to do with her son was the great trouble of her life, the burden that was breaking her back. Now this girl was not only willing but anxious to take her black sheep and to endow him with thousands a year. If the thousands were there - or even a single thousand a year - what a blessing would such a marriage be! "My son is upstairs," she said. "I will go up and speak to him." "Tell him I am here and that I will forgive him everything, and that I love him still, and that if he will be true to me, I will be true to him." "I couldn't go down to her," said Sir Felix, "with my face all in this way." "I don't think she would mind that." "I couldn't do it. Besides, I don't believe about her money. I never did believe it. That was the real reason why I didn't go to Liverpool." "I think I would see her if I were you, Felix. We could find out about her fortune. She is very fond of you." "What's the use of that, if her father is ruined?" He would not go down to see the girl - because he could not bear to expose his face, and was ashamed of his wounds. As regarded the money he half-believed and half-disbelieved Marie's story. But getting the money would be a lot of trouble. And how could he kiss his future bride, with his nose bound up with a bandage? "What shall I say to her?" asked his mother. "She oughtn't to have come. Tell her just that." Lady Carbury went very slowly back down to the drawing-room. "Miss Melmotte," she said, "my son feels that nothing can be gained by a renewal of your acquaintance." "That is his message, is it? Then he is indeed all that they have told me; and I am ashamed that I should have loved him. I am not ashamed of coming here, although you will think that I have run after him. But I'm ashamed of thinking so much of so mean a person. Good-bye, Lady Carbury. I will try to forget him." Then with a rapid step she walked back to Bruton Street. What should she now do with herself? What sort of life should she prepare for? The life that she had led for the last year had been thoroughly wretched. The poverty and hardship of her early days had been more endurable. In these days of her grandeur, in which she had danced with princes, and seen an emperor in her father's house, and been affianced to lords, she had encountered degradation. She had really loved; but had found out that her golden idol was made of the basest clay. She had declared that bad as the clay was she would still love it; but even the clay had turned away from her and had refused her love! She was well aware that some catastrophe was about to happen to her father. Catastrophes had happened before. But this blow would be a very heavy blow. They would need to pack up and move to some other, distant city. But go where she might, she would now be her own mistress. That was the one resolution she formed before she re-entered the house in Bruton Street.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 82: Marie's Perseverance

When Sir Felix Carbury declared to his friends at the Beargarden that he intended to devote the next few months of his life to foreign travel, and that it was his purpose to take with him a Protestant divine,--as was much the habit with young men of rank and fortune some years since,--he was not altogether lying. There was indeed a sounder basis of truth than was usually to be found attached to his statements. That he should have intended to produce a false impression was a matter of course,--and nearly equally so that he should have made his attempt by asserting things which he must have known that no one would believe. He was going to Germany, and he was going in company with a clergyman, and it had been decided that he should remain there for the next twelve months. A representation had lately been made to the Bishop of London that the English Protestants settled in a certain commercial town in the north-eastern district of Prussia were without pastoral aid, and the bishop had stirred himself in the matter. A clergyman was found willing to expatriate himself, but the income suggested was very small. The Protestant English population of the commercial town in question, though pious, was not liberal. It had come to pass that the "Morning Breakfast Table" had interested itself in the matter, having appealed for subscriptions after a manner not unusual with that paper. The bishop and all those concerned in the matter had fully understood that if the "Morning Breakfast Table" could be got to take the matter up heartily, the thing would be done. The heartiness had been so complete that it had at last devolved upon Mr. Broune to appoint the clergyman; and, as with all the aid that could be found, the income was still small, the Rev. Septimus Blake,--a brand snatched from the burning of Rome,--had been induced to undertake the maintenance and total charge of Sir Felix Carbury for a consideration. Mr. Broune imparted to Mr. Blake all that there was to know about the baronet, giving much counsel as to the management of the young man, and specially enjoining on the clergyman that he should on no account give Sir Felix the means of returning home. It was evidently Mr. Broune's anxious wish that Sir Felix should see as much as possible of German life, at a comparatively moderate expenditure, and under circumstances that should be externally respectable if not absolutely those which a young gentleman might choose for his own comfort or profit;--but especially that those circumstances should not admit of the speedy return to England of the young gentleman himself. Lady Carbury had at first opposed the scheme. Terribly difficult as was to her the burden of maintaining her son, she could not endure the idea of driving him into exile. But Mr. Broune was very obstinate, very reasonable, and, as she thought, somewhat hard of heart. "What is to be the end of it then?" he said to her, almost in anger. For in those days the great editor, when in presence of Lady Carbury, differed very much from that Mr. Broune who used to squeeze her hand and look into her eyes. His manner with her had become so different that she regarded him as quite another person. She hardly dared to contradict him, and found herself almost compelled to tell him what she really felt and thought. "Do you mean to let him eat up everything you have to your last shilling, and then go to the workhouse with him?" "Oh, my friend, you know how I am struggling! Do not say such horrid things." "It is because I know how you are struggling that I find myself compelled to say anything on the subject. What hardship will there be in his living for twelve months with a clergyman in Prussia? What can he do better? What better chance can he have of being weaned from the life he is leading?" "If he could only be married!" "Married! Who is to marry him? Why should any girl with money throw herself away upon him?" "He is so handsome." "What has his beauty brought him to? Lady Carbury, you must let me tell you that all that is not only foolish but wrong. If you keep him here you will help to ruin him, and will certainly ruin yourself. He has agreed to go;--let him go." She was forced to yield. Indeed, as Sir Felix had himself assented, it was almost impossible that she should not do so. Perhaps Mr. Broune's greatest triumph was due to the talent and firmness with which he persuaded Sir Felix to start upon his travels. "Your mother," said Mr. Broune, "has made up her mind that she will not absolutely beggar your sister and herself in order that your indulgence may be prolonged for a few months. She cannot make you go to Germany of course. But she can turn you out of her house, and, unless you go, she will do so." "I don't think she ever said that, Mr. Broune." "No;--she has not said so. But I have said it for her in her presence; and she has acknowledged that it must necessarily be so. You may take my word as a gentleman that it will be so. If you take her advice 175 a year will be paid for your maintenance;--but if you remain in England not a shilling further will be paid." He had no money. His last sovereign was all but gone. Not a tradesman would give him credit for a coat or a pair of boots. The key of the door had been taken away from him. The very page treated him with contumely. His clothes were becoming rusty. There was no prospect of amusement for him during the coming autumn or winter. He did not anticipate much excitement in Eastern Prussia, but he thought that any change must be a change for the better. He assented, therefore, to the proposition made by Mr. Broune, was duly introduced to the Rev. Septimus Blake, and, as he spent his last sovereign on a last dinner at the Beargarden, explained his intentions for the immediate future to those friends at his club who would no doubt mourn his departure. Mr. Blake and Mr. Broune between them did not allow the grass to grow under their feet. Before the end of August Sir Felix, with Mr. and Mrs. Blake and the young Blakes, had embarked from Hull for Hamburgh,--having extracted at the very hour of parting a last five-pound note from his foolish mother. "It will be just enough to bring him home," said Mr. Broune with angry energy when he was told of this. But Lady Carbury, who knew her son well, assured him that Felix would be restrained in his expenditure by no such prudence as such a purpose would indicate. "It will be gone," she said, "long before they reach their destination." "Then why the deuce should you give it him?" said Mr. Broune. Mr. Broune's anxiety had been so intense that he had paid half a year's allowance in advance to Mr. Blake out of his own pocket. Indeed, he had paid various sums for Lady Carbury,--so that that unfortunate woman would often tell herself that she was becoming subject to the great editor, almost like a slave. He came to her, three or four times a week, at about nine o'clock in the evening, and gave her instructions as to all that she should do. "I wouldn't write another novel if I were you," he said. This was hard, as the writing of novels was her great ambition, and she had flattered herself that the one novel which she had written was good. Mr. Broune's own critic had declared it to be very good in glowing language. The "Evening Pulpit" had of course abused it,--because it is the nature of the "Evening Pulpit" to abuse. So she had argued with herself, telling herself that the praise was all true, whereas the censure had come from malice. After that article in the "Breakfast Table," it did seem hard that Mr. Broune should tell her to write no more novels. She looked up at him piteously but said nothing. "I don't think you'd find it answer. Of course you can do it as well as a great many others. But then that is saying so little!" "I thought I could make some money." "I don't think Mr. Leadham would hold out to you very high hopes;--I don't, indeed. I think I would turn to something else." "It is so very hard to get paid for what one does." To this Mr. Broune made no immediate answer; but, after sitting for a while, almost in silence, he took his leave. On that very morning Lady Carbury had parted from her son. She was soon about to part from her daughter, and she was very sad. She felt that she could hardly keep up that house in Welbeck Street for herself, even if her means permitted it. What should she do with herself? Whither should she take herself? Perhaps the bitterest drop in her cup had come from those words of Mr. Broune forbidding her to write more novels. After all, then, she was not a clever woman,--not more clever than other women around her! That very morning she had prided herself on her coming success as a novelist, basing all her hopes on that review in the "Breakfast Table." Now, with that reaction of spirits which is so common to all of us, she was more than equally despondent. He would not thus have crushed her without a reason. Though he was hard to her now,--he who used to be so soft,--he was very good. It did not occur to her to rebel against him. After what he had said, of course there would be no more praise in the "Breakfast Table,"--and, equally of course, no novel of hers could succeed without that. The more she thought of him, the more omnipotent he seemed to be. The more she thought of herself, the more absolutely prostrate she seemed to have fallen from those high hopes with which she had begun her literary career not much more than twelve months ago. On the next day he did not come to her at all, and she sat idle, wretched, and alone. She could not interest herself in Hetta's coming marriage, as that marriage was in direct opposition to one of her broken schemes. She had not ventured to confess so much to Mr. Broune, but she had in truth written the first pages of the first chapter of a second novel. It was impossible now that she should even look at what she had written. All this made her very sad. She spent the evening quite alone; for Hetta was staying down in Suffolk, with her cousin's friend, Mrs. Yeld, the bishop's wife; and as she thought of her life past and her life to come, she did, perhaps, with a broken light, see something of the error of her ways, and did, after a fashion, repent. It was all "leather or prunello," as she said to herself;--it was all vanity,--and vanity,--and vanity! What real enjoyment had she found in anything? She had only taught herself to believe that some day something would come which she would like;--but she had never as yet in truth found anything to like. It had all been in anticipation,--but now even her anticipations were at an end. Mr. Broune had sent her son away, had forbidden her to write any more novels,--and had been refused when he had asked her to marry him! The next day he came to her as usual, and found her still very wretched. "I shall give up this house," she said. "I can't afford to keep it; and in truth I shall not want it. I don't in the least know where to go, but I don't think that it much signifies. Any place will be the same to me now." "I don't see why you should say that." "What does it matter?" "You wouldn't think of going out of London." "Why not? I suppose I had better go wherever I can live cheapest." "I should be sorry that you should be settled where I could not see you," said Mr. Broune plaintively. "So shall I,--very. You have been more kind to me than anybody. But what am I to do? If I stay in London I can live only in some miserable lodgings. I know you will laugh at me, and tell me that I am wrong; but my idea is that I shall follow Felix wherever he goes, so that I may be near him and help him when he needs help. Hetta doesn't want me. There is nobody else that I can do any good to." "I want you," said Mr. Broune, very quietly. "Ah,--that is so kind of you. There is nothing makes one so good as goodness;--nothing binds your friend to you so firmly as the acceptance from him of friendly actions. You say you want me, because I have so sadly wanted you. When I go you will simply miss an almost daily trouble, but where shall I find a friend?" "When I said I wanted you, I meant more than that, Lady Carbury. Two or three months ago I asked you to be my wife. You declined, chiefly, if I understood you rightly, because of your son's position. That has been altered, and therefore I ask you again. I have quite convinced myself,--not without some doubts, for you shall know all; but, still, I have quite convinced myself,--that such a marriage will best contribute to my own happiness. I do not think, dearest, that it would mar yours." This was said with so quiet a voice and so placid a demeanour, that the words, though they were too plain to be misunderstood, hardly at first brought themselves home to her. Of course he had renewed his offer of marriage, but he had done so in a tone which almost made her feel that the proposition could not be an earnest one. It was not that she believed that he was joking with her or paying her a poor insipid compliment. When she thought about it at all, she knew that it could not be so. But the thing was so improbable! Her opinion of herself was so poor, she had become so sick of her own vanities and littlenesses and pretences, that she could not understand that such a man as this should in truth want to make her his wife. At this moment she thought less of herself and more of Mr. Broune than either perhaps deserved. She sat silent, quite unable to look him in the face, while he kept his place in his arm-chair, lounging back, with his eyes intent on her countenance. "Well," he said; "what do you think of it? I never loved you better than I did for refusing me before, because I thought that you did so because it was not right that I should be embarrassed by your son." "That was the reason," she said, almost in a whisper. "But I shall love you better still for accepting me now,--if you will accept me." The long vista of her past life appeared before her eyes. The ambition of her youth which had been taught to look only to a handsome maintenance, the cruelty of her husband which had driven her to run from him, the further cruelty of his forgiveness when she returned to him; the calumny which had made her miserable, though she had never confessed her misery; then her attempts at life in London, her literary successes and failures, and the wretchedness of her son's career;--there had never been happiness, or even comfort, in any of it. Even when her smiles had been sweetest her heart had been heaviest. Could it be that now at last real peace should be within her reach, and that tranquillity which comes from an anchor holding to a firm bottom? Then she remembered that first kiss,--or attempted kiss,--when, with a sort of pride in her own superiority, she had told herself that the man was a susceptible old goose. She certainly had not thought then that his susceptibility was of this nature. Nor could she quite understand now whether she had been right then, and that the man's feelings, and almost his nature, had since changed,--or whether he had really loved her from first to last. As he remained silent it was necessary that she should answer him. "You can hardly have thought of it enough," she said. "I have thought of it a good deal too. I have been thinking of it for six months at least." "There is so much against me." "What is there against you?" "They say bad things of me in India." "I know all about that," replied Mr. Broune. "And Felix!" "I think I may say that I know all about that also." "And then I have become so poor!" "I am not proposing to myself to marry you for your money. Luckily for me,--I hope luckily for both of us,--it is not necessary that I should do so." "And then I seem so to have fallen through in everything. I don't know what I've got to give to a man in return for all that you offer to give to me." "Yourself," he said, stretching out his right hand to her. And there he sat with it stretched out,--so that she found herself compelled to put her own into it, or to refuse to do so with very absolute words. Very slowly she put out her own, and gave it to him without looking at him. Then he drew her towards him, and in a moment she was kneeling at his feet, with her face buried on his knees. Considering their ages perhaps we must say that their attitude was awkward. They would certainly have thought so themselves had they imagined that any one could have seen them. But how many absurdities of the kind are not only held to be pleasant, but almost holy,--as long as they remain mysteries inspected by no profane eyes! It is not that Age is ashamed of feeling passion and acknowledging it,--but that the display of it is, without the graces of which Youth is proud, and which Age regrets. On that occasion there was very little more said between them. He had certainly been in earnest, and she had now accepted him. As he went down to his office he told himself now that he had done the best, not only for her but for himself also. And yet I think that she had won him more thoroughly by her former refusal than by any other virtue. She, as she sat alone, late into the night, became subject to a thorough reaction of spirit. That morning the world had been a perfect blank to her. There was no single object of interest before her. Now everything was rose-coloured. This man who had thus bound her to him, who had given her such assured proofs of his affection and truth, was one of the considerable ones of the world; a man than whom few,--so she now told herself,--were greater or more powerful. Was it not a career enough for any woman to be the wife of such a man, to receive his friends, and to shine with his reflected glory? Whether her hopes were realised, or,--as human hopes never are realised,--how far her content was assured, these pages cannot tell; but they must tell that, before the coming winter was over, Lady Carbury became the wife of Mr. Broune, and, in furtherance of her own resolve, took her husband's name. The house in Welbeck Street was kept, and Mrs. Broune's Tuesday evenings were much more regarded by the literary world than had been those of Lady Carbury.

When Sir Felix Carbury declared to his friends at the Beargarden that he intended to travel abroad with a clergyman, he was, for once, not lying. He was indeed going to Germany for the next twelve months. The Bishop of London had recently decided that a small commercial town in north-eastern Prussia was in need of a minister. The income suggested was very small; but the Morning Breakfast Table interested itself in the matter, and appealed for subscriptions so successfully that it at last devolved upon Mr. Broune to appoint the clergyman. And so the Rev. Septimus Blake, who took the post, was also induced to undertake the charge of Sir Felix Carbury for a further payment. Mr. Broune gave Mr. Blake much counsel about the management of the baronet, who should see as much as possible of German life at modest expense; and Mr. Broune emphasised that the clergyman should on no account give Sir Felix the means of returning home early. Lady Carbury had at first opposed the scheme. She could not endure the idea of driving her son into exile. But Mr. Broune was very obstinate, and, she thought, hard-hearted. "What is to be the end of it then?" he said to her, almost in anger. For in those days Mr. Broune no longer squeezed her hand and looked into her eyes. His manner had become so different that she regarded him as quite another person. "Do you mean to let him eat up everything you have to your last shilling?" "Oh, my friend, do not say such horrid things." "I have to. What hardship will there be in his living for twelve months with a clergyman in Prussia? What can he do better?" "If he could only be married!" "Married! Why should any girl with money throw herself away upon him? Lady Carbury, if you keep him here you will help to ruin him, and will certainly ruin yourself. Let him go." She was forced to yield. And Mr. Broune was equally firm in persuading Sir Felix to start upon his travels. "Your mother," said Mr. Broune, "will not beggar herself to indulge you. She cannot make you go to Germany, of course. But she can turn you out of her house, and, unless you go, she will do so. If you go, 175 a year will be paid for your maintenance; but if you remain in England you will not get a shilling." Felix had no money. No tradesman would give him credit, and his clothes were becoming rusty. There was no prospect of amusement during the coming months; and he thought that any change must be for the better. He assented, therefore, and was duly introduced to the Rev. Septimus Blake. Before the end of August Sir Felix, with Mr. and Mrs. Blake and the young Blakes, had embarked from Hull for Hamburg - having extracted at the very hour of parting a last five-pound note from his foolish mother. "It will be just enough to bring him home," said Mr. Broune with angry energy when he was told of this. But Lady Carbury assured him that Felix would have spent the sum long before they reached their destination. "Then why the deuce should you give it him?" said Mr. Broune, whose anxiety had been so intense that he had paid half a year's allowance in advance to Mr. Blake out of his own pocket. Indeed, he had paid various sums for Lady Carbury; and he came three or four evenings a week, and gave her instructions as to all that she should do. "I wouldn't write another novel if I were you," he said. This was hard, as she had flattered herself that the one novel which she had written was good. Mr. Broune's own critic had reviewed it in glowing language, although the Evening Pulpit had of course abused it. She looked up at him piteously but said nothing. "I don't think you'd find it would answer," said Mr. Broune. "I think I would turn to something else." "It is so very hard to get paid for what one does." To this Mr. Broune made no reply; but, after sitting for a while in silence, he took his leave. On that very morning Lady Carbury had parted from her son. She was soon about to part from her daughter, and she was very sad. She felt that she could hardly keep up that house in Welbeck Street for herself. What should she do? That very morning she had prided herself on her coming success as a novelist, basing her hopes on the review in the Breakfast Table. Now she was equally despondent. After what he had said, there would be no more praise in the Breakfast Table, - and no novel of hers could succeed without that. On the next day he did not come, and she sat idle and wretched. She could not interest herself in Hetta's coming marriage. She had not ventured to confess so much to Mr. Broune, but she had in truth written the first pages of a second novel. It was impossible now to even look at what she had written. She spent the evening quite alone; for Hetta was staying down in Suffolk, with the bishop's wife; and as she thought of her life past and her life to come, she did, perhaps, see something of the error of her ways, and did, after a fashion, repent. It was all vanity! What real enjoyment had she found in anything? She had taught herself to believe that some day something would come which she would like; but she had never yet in truth found anything to like. It had all been in anticipation, but now even her anticipations were at an end. The next day Mr. Broune came, and found her still very wretched. "I shall give up this house," she said. "I can't afford to keep it. I don't know where to go, but I don't think that it much signifies. Any place will be the same to me now." "You wouldn't go out of London." "Why not? I had better go wherever I can live cheapest." "I should be sorry that you should be settled where I could not see you," said Mr. Broune plaintively. "So shall I - very. You have been more kind to me than anybody. But what am I to do? If I stay in London I can live only in some miserable lodgings. I know you tell me I am wrong; but my idea is that I shall follow Felix wherever he goes, so that I may help him when he needs help. Hetta doesn't want me. There is nobody else that I can do any good to." "I want you," said Mr. Broune, very quietly. "Ah - that is so kind of you. You say you want me, because I have so sadly needed you. When I go you will simply miss an almost daily trouble, but where shall I find a friend?" "When I said I wanted you, I meant more than that, Lady Carbury. Two or three months ago I asked you to be my wife. You declined, chiefly, I understood, because of your son's position. That has been altered, and therefore I ask you again. I have convinced myself - not without some doubts, for you shall know all; but, still, I have convinced myself that such a marriage will make me happy, and I think, dearest, you too." This was said so quietly and placidly that the words hardly at first brought themselves home to her. She could not feel his offer was in earnest. It was so improbable! Her opinion of herself was so poor, she had become so sick of her own vanities and pretences, that she could not understand that he should in truth want to make her his wife. At this moment she thought less of herself and more of Mr. Broune than either perhaps deserved. She sat silent, quite unable to look him in the face. "Well," he said; "what do you think?" The long vista of her past life appeared before her eyes. The ambition of her youth which had been taught to look only for money, the cruelty of her husband which had driven her to run from him, the further cruelty of his forgiveness when she returned; the calumny which had made her miserable; then her attempts at life in London, her literary successes and failures, and the wretchedness of her son's career - there had never been happiness, or even comfort, in any of it. Even when her smiles had been sweetest her heart had been heaviest. Could it be that now at last real peace should be within her reach? Then she remembered that first attempted kiss, when she had told herself that the man was a susceptible old goose. She could not quite understand whether she had been right then, and that the man's feelings, and even nature had since changed - or whether he had really loved her from first to last. "There is so much against me," she said. "And I have become so poor!" "I am not proposing to marry you for your money. Luckily it is not necessary that I should do so." "And then I seem to have fallen through in everything. I don't know what I've got to give in return for all that you offer me." "Yourself," he said, stretching out his right hand to her. She found herself compelled to put her own, very slowly, into it. Then he drew her towards him, and in a moment she was kneeling at his feet, with her face buried on his knees. Considering their ages perhaps we must say that their attitude was awkward. But Age is not ashamed of feeling passion - it is only the public display of it which Age regrets. Little more was said between them. As he went down to his office he told himself that he had done the best, not only for her but for himself also. And yet I think that she had won him more thoroughly by her former refusal than by any other virtue. She, as she sat alone late into the night, underwent a reversal of spirit. That morning the world had been a perfect blank to her. Now everything was rose-coloured. This man, who had given her such proofs of his affection and truth, was one of the considerable ones of the world. Was it not a career enough for any woman to be the wife of such a man, and to shine with his reflected glory? Whether her hopes were realised, these pages cannot tell; but before winter was over, Lady Carbury became Mrs. Broune. The house in Welbeck Street was kept, and Mrs. Broune's Tuesday evenings were much more regarded by the literary world than had been those of Lady Carbury.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 99: Lady Carbury and Mr. Broune

Lady Monogram, when she left Madame Melmotte's house after that entertainment of Imperial Majesty which had been to her of so very little avail, was not in a good humour. Sir Damask, who had himself affected to laugh at the whole thing, but who had been in truth as anxious as his wife to see the Emperor in private society, put her ladyship and Miss Longestaffe into the carriage without a word, and rushed off to his club in disgust. The affair from beginning to end, including the final failure, had been his wife's doing. He had been made to work like a slave, and had been taken against his will to Melmotte's house, and had seen no Emperor and shaken hands with no Prince! "They may fight it out between them now like the Kilkenny cats." That was his idea as he closed the carriage-door on the two ladies,--thinking that if a larger remnant were left of one cat than of the other that larger remnant would belong to his wife. "What a horrid affair!" said Lady Monogram. "Did anybody ever see anything so vulgar?" This was at any rate unreasonable, for whatever vulgarity there may have been, Lady Monogram had seen none of it. "I don't know why you were so late," said Georgiana. "Late! Why it's not yet twelve. I don't suppose it was eleven when we got into the Square. Anywhere else it would have been early." "You knew they did not mean to stay long. It was particularly said so. I really think it was your own fault." "My own fault. Yes;--I don't doubt that. I know it was my own fault, my dear, to have had anything to do with it. And now I have got to pay for it." "What do you mean by paying for it, Julia?" "You know what I mean very well. Is your friend going to do us the honour of coming to us to-morrow night?" She could not have declared in plainer language how very high she thought the price to be which she had consented to give for those ineffective tickets. "If you mean Mr. Brehgert, he is coming. You desired me to ask him, and I did so." "Desired you! The truth is, Georgiana, when people get into different sets, they'd better stay where they are. It's no good trying to mix things." Lady Monogram was so angry that she could not control her tongue. Miss Longestaffe was ready to tear herself with indignation. That she should have been brought to hear insolence such as this from Julia Triplex,--she, the daughter of Adolphus Longestaffe of Caversham and Lady Pomona; she, who was considered to have lived in quite the first London circle! But she could hardly get hold of fit words for a reply. She was almost in tears, and was yet anxious to fight rather than weep. But she was in her friend's carriage, and was being taken to her friend's house, was to be entertained by her friend all the next day, and was to see her lover among her friend's guests. "I wonder what has made you so ill-natured," she said at last. "You didn't use to be like that." "It's no good abusing me," said Lady Monogram. "Here we are, and I suppose we had better get out,--unless you want the carriage to take you anywhere else." Then Lady Monogram got out and marched into the house, and taking a candle went direct to her own room. Miss Longestaffe followed slowly to her own chamber, and having half undressed herself, dismissed her maid and prepared to write to her mother. The letter to her mother must be written. Mr. Brehgert had twice proposed that he should, in the usual way, go to Mr. Longestaffe, who had been backwards and forwards in London, and was there at the present moment. Of course it was proper that Mr. Brehgert should see her father,--but, as she had told him, she preferred that he should postpone his visit for a day or two. She was now agonized by many doubts. Those few words about "various sets" and the "mixing of things" had stabbed her to the very heart,--as had been intended. Mr. Brehgert was rich. That was a certainty. But she already repented of what she had done. If it were necessary that she should really go down into another and a much lower world, a world composed altogether of Brehgerts, Melmottes, and Cohenlupes, would it avail her much to be the mistress of a gorgeous house? She had known, and understood, and had revelled in the exclusiveness of county position. Caversham had been dull, and there had always been there a dearth of young men of the proper sort; but it had been a place to talk of, and to feel satisfied with as a home to be acknowledged before the world. Her mother was dull, and her father pompous and often cross; but they were in the right set,--miles removed from the Brehgerts and Melmottes,--until her father himself had suggested to her that she should go to the house in Grosvenor Square. She would write one letter to-night; but there was a question in her mind whether the letter should be written to her mother telling her the horrid truth,--or to Mr. Brehgert begging that the match should be broken off. I think she would have decided on the latter had it not been that so many people had already heard of the match. The Monograms knew it, and had of course talked far and wide. The Melmottes knew it, and she was aware that Lord Nidderdale had heard it. It was already so far known that it was sure to be public before the end of the season. Each morning lately she had feared that a letter from home would call upon her to explain the meaning of some frightful rumours reaching Caversham, or that her father would come to her and with horror on his face demand to know whether it was indeed true that she had given her sanction to so abominable a report. And there were other troubles. She had just spoken to Madame Melmotte this evening, having met her late hostess as she entered the drawing-room, and had felt from the manner of her reception that she was not wanted back again. She had told her father that she was going to transfer herself to the Monograms for a time, not mentioning the proposed duration of her visit, and Mr. Longestaffe, in his ambiguous way, had expressed himself glad that she was leaving the Melmottes. She did not think that she could go back to Grosvenor Square, although Mr. Brehgert desired it. Since the expression of Mr. Brehgert's wishes she had perceived that ill-will had grown up between her father and Mr. Melmotte. She must return to Caversham. They could not refuse to take her in, though she had betrothed herself to a Jew! If she decided that the story should be told to her mother it would be easier to tell it by letter than by spoken words, face to face. But then if she wrote the letter there would be no retreat,--and how should she face her family after such a declaration? She had always given herself credit for courage, and now she wondered at her own cowardice. Even Lady Monogram, her old friend Julia Triplex, had trampled upon her. Was it not the business of her life, in these days, to do the best she could for herself, and would she allow paltry considerations as to the feelings of others to stand in her way and become bugbears to affright her? Who sent her to Melmotte's house? Was it not her own father? Then she sat herself square at the table, and wrote to her mother,--as follows,--dating her letter for the following morning:-- Hill Street, 9th July, 187--. MY DEAR MAMMA, I am afraid you will be very much astonished by this letter, and perhaps disappointed. I have engaged myself to Mr. Brehgert, a member of a very wealthy firm in the City, called Todd, Brehgert, and Goldsheiner. I may as well tell you the worst at once. Mr. Brehgert is a Jew. This last word she wrote very rapidly, but largely, determined that there should be no lack of courage apparent in the letter. He is a very wealthy man, and his business is about banking and what he calls finance. I understand they are among the most leading people in the City. He lives at present at a very handsome house at Fulham. I don't know that I ever saw a place more beautifully fitted up. I have said nothing to papa, nor has he; but he says he will be willing to satisfy papa perfectly as to settlements. He has offered to have a house in London if I like,--and also to keep the villa at Fulham or else to have a place somewhere in the country. Or I may have the villa at Fulham and a house in the country. No man can be more generous than he is. He has been married before, and has a family, and now I think I have told you all. I suppose you and papa will be very much dissatisfied. I hope papa won't refuse his consent. It can do no good. I am not going to remain as I am now all my life, and there is no use waiting any longer. It was papa who made me go to the Melmottes, who are not nearly so well placed as Mr. Brehgert. Everybody knows that Madame Melmotte is a Jewess, and nobody knows what Mr. Melmotte is. It is no good going on with the old thing when everything seems to be upset and at sixes and sevens. If papa has got to be so poor that he is obliged to let the house in town, one must of course expect to be different from what we were. I hope you won't mind having me back the day after to-morrow,--that is to-morrow, Wednesday. There is a party here to-night, and Mr. Brehgert is coming. But I can't stay longer with Julia, who doesn't make herself nice, and I do not at all want to go back to the Melmottes. I fancy that there is something wrong between papa and Mr. Melmotte. Send the carriage to meet me by the 2.30 train from London,--and pray, mamma, don't scold when you see me, or have hysterics, or anything of that sort. Of course it isn't all nice, but things have got so that they never will be nice again. I shall tell Mr. Brehgert to go to papa on Wednesday. Your affectionate daughter, G. When the morning came she desired the servant to take the letter away and have it posted, so that the temptation to stop it might no longer be in her way. About one o'clock on that day Mr. Longestaffe called at Lady Monogram's. The two ladies had breakfasted up-stairs, and had only just met in the drawing-room when he came in. Georgiana trembled at first, but soon perceived that her father had as yet heard nothing of Mr. Brehgert. She immediately told him that she proposed returning home on the following day. "I am sick of the Melmottes," she said. "And so am I," said Mr. Longestaffe, with a serious countenance. "We should have been delighted to have had Georgiana to stay with us a little longer," said Lady Monogram; "but we have but the one spare bedroom, and another friend is coming." Georgiana, who knew both these statements to be false, declared that she wouldn't think of such a thing. "We have a few friends coming to-night, Mr. Longestaffe, and I hope you'll come in and see Georgiana." Mr. Longestaffe hummed and hawed and muttered something, as old gentlemen always do when they are asked to go out to parties after dinner. "Mr. Brehgert will be here," continued Lady Monogram with a peculiar smile. "Mr. who?" The name was not at first familiar to Mr. Longestaffe. "Mr. Brehgert." Lady Monogram looked at her friend. "I hope I'm not revealing any secret." "I don't understand anything about it," said Mr. Longestaffe. "Georgiana, who is Mr. Brehgert?" He had understood very much. He had been quite certain from Lady Monogram's manner and words, and also from his daughter's face, that Mr. Brehgert was mentioned as an accepted lover. Lady Monogram had meant that it should be so, and any father would have understood her tone. As she said afterwards to Sir Damask, she was not going to have that Jew there at her house as Georgiana Longestaffe's accepted lover without Mr. Longestaffe's knowledge. "My dear Georgiana," she said, "I supposed your father knew all about it." "I know nothing. Georgiana, I hate a mystery. I insist upon knowing. Who is Mr. Brehgert, Lady Monogram?" "Mr. Brehgert is a--very wealthy gentleman. That is all I know of him. Perhaps, Georgiana, you will be glad to be alone with your father." And Lady Monogram left the room. Was there ever cruelty equal to this! But now the poor girl was forced to speak,--though she could not speak as boldly as she had written. "Papa, I wrote to mamma this morning, and Mr. Brehgert was to come to you to-morrow." "Do you mean that you are engaged to marry him?" "Yes, papa." "What Mr. Brehgert is he?" "He is a merchant." "You can't mean the fat Jew whom I've met with Mr. Melmotte;--a man old enough to be your father!" The poor girl's condition now was certainly lamentable. The fat Jew, old enough to be her father, was the very man she did mean. She thought that she would try to brazen it out with her father. But at the present moment she had been so cowed by the manner in which the subject had been introduced that she did not know how to begin to be bold. She only looked at him as though imploring him to spare her. "Is the man a Jew?" demanded Mr. Longestaffe, with as much thunder as he knew how to throw into his voice. "Yes, papa," she said. "He is that fat man?" "Yes, papa." "And nearly as old as I am?" "No, papa,--not nearly as old as you are. He is fifty." "And a Jew?" He again asked the horrid question, and again threw in the thunder. On this occasion she condescended to make no further reply. "If you do, you shall do it as an alien from my house. I certainly will never see him. Tell him not to come to me, for I certainly will not speak to him. You are degraded and disgraced; but you shall not degrade and disgrace me and your mother and sister." "It was you, papa, who told me to go to the Melmottes." "That is not true. I wanted you to stay at Caversham. A Jew! an old fat Jew! Heavens and earth! that it should be possible that you should think of it! You;--my daughter,--that used to take such pride in yourself! Have you written to your mother?" "I have." "It will kill her. It will simply kill her. And you are going home to-morrow?" "I wrote to say so." "And there you must remain. I suppose I had better see the man and explain to him that it is utterly impossible. Heavens on earth;--a Jew! An old fat Jew! My daughter! I will take you down home myself to-morrow. What have I done that I should be punished by my children in this way?" The poor man had had rather a stormy interview with Dolly that morning. "You had better leave this house to-day, and come to my hotel in Jermyn Street." "Oh, papa, I can't do that." "Why can't you do it? You can do it, and you shall do it. I will not have you see him again. I will see him. If you do not promise me to come, I will send for Lady Monogram and tell her that I will not permit you to meet Mr. Brehgert at her house. I do wonder at her. A Jew! An old fat Jew!" Mr. Longestaffe, putting up both his hands, walked about the room in despair. She did consent, knowing that her father and Lady Monogram between them would be too strong for her. She had her things packed up, and in the course of the afternoon allowed herself to be carried away. She said one word to Lady Monogram before she went. "Tell him that I was called away suddenly." "I will, my dear. I thought your papa would not like it." The poor girl had not spirit sufficient to upbraid her friend; nor did it suit her now to acerbate an enemy. For the moment, at least, she must yield to everybody and everything. She spent a lonely evening with her father in a dull sitting-room in the hotel, hardly speaking or spoken to, and the following day she was taken down to Caversham. She believed that her father had seen Mr. Brehgert on the morning of that day;--but he said no word to her, nor did she ask him any question. That was on the day after Lady Monogram's party. Early in the evening, just as the gentlemen were coming up from the dining-room, Mr. Brehgert, apparelled with much elegance, made his appearance. Lady Monogram received him with a sweet smile. "Miss Longestaffe," she said, "has left me and gone to her father." "Oh, indeed." "Yes," said Lady Monogram, bowing her head, and then attending to other persons as they arrived. Nor did she condescend to speak another word to Mr. Brehgert, or to introduce him even to her husband. He stood for about ten minutes inside the drawing-room, leaning against the wall, and then he departed. No one had spoken a word to him. But he was an even-tempered, good-humoured man. When Miss Longestaffe was his wife things would no doubt be different;--or else she would probably change her acquaintance.

Lady Monogram, when she left Madame Melmotte's house after the Emperor's dinner, was not in a good humour. Sir Damask put her and Miss Longestaffe into the carriage without a word, and rushed off to his club in disgust. The affair from beginning to end, including the final failure, had been his wife's doing. "They may fight it out between them now like the Kilkenny cats," he thought, as he closed the carriage-door on the two ladies. "What a horrid affair!" said Lady Monogram. "Did anybody ever see anything so vulgar?" "I don't know why you were so late," said Georgiana. "Late! Why, it's not yet twelve. I don't suppose it was eleven when we got into the Square." "You knew they did not mean to stay long. I really think it was your own fault." "My own fault. Yes; it was my own fault, my dear, to have had anything to do with it. And now I have got to pay for it." "What do you mean by paying for it, Julia?" "You know very well. Is your friend going to do us the honour of coming to us tomorrow night?" "If you mean Mr. Brehgert, he is coming. You desired me to ask him, and I did so." "Desired you! The truth is, Georgiana, when people get into different sets, they'd better stay where they are." Lady Monogram was so angry that she could not control her tongue. Miss Longestaffe was ready to tear herself with indignation. That she should have been brought to hear insolence such as this from Julia Triplex! She was almost in tears, and yet anxious to fight rather than weep. But she was in her friend's carriage, and was being taken to her friend's house, was to be entertained by her friend all the next day, and was to see her lover among her friend's guests. "I wonder what has made you so ill-natured," she said at last. "You didn't use to be like that." "It's no good abusing me," said Lady Monogram. "Here we are, and I suppose we had better get out - unless you want the carriage to take you anywhere else." Then Lady Monogram marched into the house, and went direct to her room. Miss Longestaffe followed slowly to her own chamber, and having half undressed herself, prepared to write to her mother. The letter must be written. Mr. Brehgert had twice suggested that he should, in the usual way, go to see Mr. Longestaffe, who was at present in London. But she had asked him to postpone his visit for a day or two. She was now agonized by many doubts. Mr. Brehgert was rich, certainly. But she already repented of accepting him. If it were really necessary to go down into another, much lower world, a world composed of Brehgerts, Melmottes, and Cohenlupes, would it avail her to be the mistress of a gorgeous house? Caversham had been dull; but it was a home to be acknowledged before the world. Her mother was dull, and her father pompous and often cross; but they were in the right set - miles removed from the Brehgerts and Melmottes. She would write one letter tonight; but she did not know whether to write to her mother telling her the horrid truth - or to Mr. Brehgert begging that the match should be broken off. She might have decided on the latter had so many people not already heard of the match. The Monograms had talked of it far and wide. Each morning lately she had feared that a letter from home would call upon her to explain the meaning of some frightful rumours reaching Caversham. And there were other troubles. She had spoken to Madame Melmotte this evening, and had felt from the manner of her reception that she was not wanted back again. She did not think that she could go back to Grosvenor Square, for ill-will had grown up between her father and Mr. Melmotte. She must return to Caversham. They could not refuse to take her in, though she had betrothed herself to a Jew! If the story should be told to her mother it would be easier to tell it by letter than face to face. But then if she wrote the letter there would be no retreat - and how should she face her family? She wondered at her own cowardice. Even Lady Monogram, her old friend Julia Triplex, had trampled upon her. Was it not the business of her life, in these days, to do the best she could for herself? Who sent her to Melmotte's house? Was it not her own father? Then she sat herself square at the table, and wrote to her mother as follows: My Dear Mamma, I am afraid you will be very much astonished by this letter, and perhaps disappointed. I have engaged myself to Mr. Brehgert, a member of a very wealthy firm in the City, called Todd, Brehgert, and Goldsheiner. I may as well tell you the worst at once. Mr. Brehgert is a Jew. (This last word she wrote very rapidly, but largely, determined that there should be no lack of courage apparent in the letter.) He is a very wealthy man, and his business is about banking and finance. I understand they are among the leading people in the City. He lives at present at a very handsome house at Fulham. I don't know that I ever saw a place more beautifully fitted up. I have said nothing to papa, nor has he; but he says he will be willing to satisfy papa perfectly as to settlements. He has offered to have a house in London if I like, and also to keep the villa at Fulham or else a place somewhere in the country. Or I may have both. No man can be more generous. He has been married before, and has a family, and now I think I have told you all. I suppose you and papa will be very much dissatisfied. I hope papa won't refuse his consent. It can do no good. I am not going to remain as I am all my life, and there is no use waiting any longer. It was papa who made me go to the Melmottes, who are not nearly so well placed as Mr. Brehgert. If papa has got to be so poor that he is obliged to let the house in town, one must of course expect to be different from what we were. I hope you won't mind having me back on Wednesday. There is a party here tonight, and Mr. Brehgert is coming. But I can't stay longer with Julia, who doesn't make herself nice, and I do not want to go back to the Melmottes. I fancy that there is something wrong between papa and Mr. Melmotte. Send the carriage to meet me by the 2.30 train from London - and pray, mamma, don't scold when you see me, or have hysterics. Of course it isn't all nice, but things will never be nice again. I shall tell Mr. Brehgert to go to papa on Wednesday. Your affectionate daughter, G. When the morning came she asked the servant to take the letter away and have it posted, so that she could not be tempted to stop it. About one o'clock on that day Mr. Longestaffe called at Lady Monogram's. Georgiana trembled at first, but soon perceived that her father had heard nothing of Mr. Brehgert. She immediately told him that she proposed returning home on the following day. "I am sick of the Melmottes," she said. "And so am I," said Mr. Longestaffe. "We should have been delighted to have had Georgiana to stay a little longer," said Lady Monogram; "but we have only one spare bedroom, and another friend is coming. We have a few friends coming tonight, Mr. Longestaffe, and I hope you'll come and see Georgiana. Mr. Brehgert will be here," she continued with a peculiar smile. "Mr. who?" "Mr. Brehgert." Lady Monogram looked at her friend. "I hope I'm not revealing any secret." "I don't understand anything about it," said Mr. Longestaffe. "Georgiana, who is Mr. Brehgert?" He was certain from Lady Monogram's manner that Mr. Brehgert was an accepted lover. Lady Monogram had meant him to understand. "My dear Georgiana," she said, "I supposed your father knew all about it." "I know nothing. Who is Mr. Brehgert, Lady Monogram?" "Mr. Brehgert is a - very wealthy gentleman. Perhaps, Georgiana, you will be glad to be alone with your father." And Lady Monogram left the room. Was there ever cruelty equal to this! But now the poor girl was forced to speak. "Papa, I wrote to mamma this morning, and Mr. Brehgert was to come to you tomorrow." "Do you mean that you are engaged to marry him?" "Yes, papa." "Who is he?" "He is a merchant." "You can't mean the fat Jew whom I've met with Mr. Melmotte; a man old enough to be your father!" The poor girl thought that she would try to brazen it out. But she had been so cowed by the manner in which the subject had been introduced that she did not know how to begin. "Is the man a Jew?" demanded Mr. Longestaffe. "Yes, papa," she said. "He is that fat old man?" "Not as old as you are, papa. He is fifty." "And a Jew? If you marry him, I will never see him. Tell him not to come to me, for I certainly will not speak to him. You are degraded and disgraced; but you shall not degrade and disgrace me and your mother and sister." "It was you, papa, who told me to go to the Melmottes." "That is not true. I wanted you to stay at Caversham. A Jew! an old fat Jew! Heavens and earth! You - my daughter - that used to take such pride in yourself! Have you written to your mother?" "I have." "It will kill her. It will simply kill her. And you are going home tomorrow?" "I wrote to say so." "There you must remain. I suppose I had better see the man and explain to him that it is utterly impossible. Heavens on earth; a Jew! My daughter! I will take you home myself tomorrow. You had better leave this house today, and come to my hotel in Jermyn Street." "Oh, papa, I can't do that." "Why not? You can do it, and you shall do it. I will not have you see him again. If you do not promise me to come, I will send for Lady Monogram and tell her that I will not permit you to meet Mr. Brehgert at her house. I do wonder at her. An old fat Jew!" Mr. Longestaffe walked about the room in despair. She knew that her father and Lady Monogram between them would be too strong for her. So she had her things packed up, and allowed herself to be carried away. She said one word to Lady Monogram before she went. "Tell him that I was called away suddenly." "I will, my dear. I thought your papa would not like it." The poor girl had not enough spirit to upbraid her friend. For the moment, at least, she must yield to everybody and everything. She spent a lonely evening with her father in a dull sitting-room in the hotel, and the following day she was taken down to Caversham. She believed that her father had seen Mr. Brehgert that morning; but he said no word to her, nor did she ask him. That was on the day after Lady Monogram's party. Early in the evening, Brehgert, elegantly dressed, made his appearance. Lady Monogram received him with a sweet smile. "Miss Longestaffe has left me and gone to her father." "Oh, indeed." "Yes," said Lady Monogram, bowing her head. She did not say another word to Mr. Brehgert. He stood for about ten minutes in the drawing-room, and then he departed. No one had spoken a word to him. But he was an even-tempered, good-humoured man. When Miss Longestaffe was his wife things would no doubt be different; or else she would probably change her acquaintance.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 65: Miss Longstaffe Writes Home

It was considered to be a great thing to catch the Roman Catholic vote in Westminster. For many years it has been considered a great thing both in the House and out of the House to "catch" Roman Catholic votes. There are two modes of catching these votes. This or that individual Roman Catholic may be promoted to place, so that he personally may be made secure; or the right hand of fellowship may be extended to the people of the Pope generally, so that the people of the Pope may be taught to think that a general step is being made towards the reconversion of the nation. The first measure is the easier, but the effect is but slight and soon passes away. The promoted one, though as far as his prayers go he may remain as good a Catholic as ever, soon ceases to be one of the party to be conciliated, and is apt after a while to be regarded by them as an enemy. But the other mode, if a step be well taken, may be very efficacious. It has now and then occurred that every Roman Catholic in Ireland and England has been brought to believe that the nation is coming round to them;--and in this or that borough the same conviction has been made to grow. To catch the Protestant,--that is the peculiarly Protestant,--vote and the Roman Catholic vote at the same instant is a feat difficult of accomplishment; but it has been attempted before, and was attempted now by Mr. Melmotte and his friends. It was perhaps thought by his friends that the Protestants would not notice the 100 given for the altar to St. Fabricius; but Mr. Alf was wide awake, and took care that Mr. Melmotte's religious opinions should be a matter of interest to the world at large. During all that period of newspaper excitement there was perhaps no article that created so much general interest as that which appeared in the "Evening Pulpit," with a special question asked at the head of it, "For Priest or Parson?" In this article, which was more than usually delightful as being pungent from the beginning to the end and as being unalloyed with any dry didactic wisdom, Mr. Alf's man, who did that business, declared that it was really important that the nation at large and especially the electors of Westminster should know what was the nature of Mr. Melmotte's faith. That he was a man of a highly religious temperament was most certain by his munificent charities on behalf of religion. Two noble donations, which by chance had been made just at this crisis, were doubtless no more than the regular continuation of his ordinary flow of Christian benevolence. The "Evening Pulpit" by no means insinuated that the gifts were intended to have any reference to the approaching election. Far be it from the "Evening Pulpit" to imagine that so great a man as Mr. Melmotte looked for any return in this world from his charitable generosity. But still, as Protestants naturally desired to be represented in Parliament by a Protestant member, and as Roman Catholics as naturally desired to be represented by a Roman Catholic, perhaps Mr. Melmotte would not object to declare his creed. This was biting, and of course did mischief; but Mr. Melmotte and his manager were not foolish enough to allow it to actuate them in any way. He had thrown his bread upon the waters, assisting St. Fabricius with one hand and the Protestant curates with the other, and must leave the results to take care of themselves. If the Protestants chose to believe that he was hyper-protestant, and the Catholics that he was tending towards papacy, so much the better for him. Any enthusiastic religionists wishing to enjoy such conviction's would not allow themselves to be enlightened by the manifestly interested malignity of Mr. Alf's newspaper. It may be doubted whether the donation to the Curates' Aid Society did have much effect. It may perhaps have induced a resolution in some few to go to the poll whose minds were active in regard to religion and torpid as to politics. But the donation to St. Fabricius certainly had results. It was taken up and made much of by the Roman Catholic party generally, till a report got itself spread abroad and almost believed that Mr. Melmotte was going to join the Church of Rome. These manoeuvres require most delicate handling, or evil may follow instead of good. On the second afternoon after the question had been asked in the "Evening Pulpit," an answer to it appeared, "For Priest and not for Parson." Therein various assertions made by Roman Catholic organs and repeated in Roman Catholic speeches were brought together, so as to show that Mr. Melmotte really had at last made up his mind on this important question. All the world knew now, said Mr. Alf's writer, that with that keen sense of honesty which was the Great Financier's peculiar characteristic,--the Great Financier was the name which Mr. Alf had specially invented for Mr. Melmotte,--he had doubted, till the truth was absolutely borne in upon him, whether he could serve the nation best as a Liberal or as a Conservative. He had solved that doubt with wisdom. And now this other doubt had passed through the crucible, and by the aid of fire a golden certainty had been produced. The world of Westminster at last knew that Mr. Melmotte was a Roman Catholic. Now nothing was clearer than this,--that though catching the Catholic vote would greatly help a candidate, no real Roman Catholic could hope to be returned. This last article vexed Mr. Melmotte, and he proposed to his friends to send a letter to the "Breakfast Table" asserting that he adhered to the Protestant faith of his ancestors. But, as it was suspected by many, and was now being whispered to the world at large, that Melmotte had been born a Jew, this assurance would perhaps have been too strong. "Do nothing of the kind," said Mr. Beauchamp Beauclerk. "If any one asks you a question at any meeting, say that you are a Protestant. But it isn't likely, as we have none but our own people. Don't go writing letters." But unfortunately the gift of an altar to St. Fabricius was such a godsend that sundry priests about the country were determined to cling to the good man who had bestowed his money so well. I think that many of them did believe that this was a great sign of a beauteous stirring of people's minds in favour of Rome. The fervent Romanists have always this point in their favour, that they are ready to believe. And they have a desire for the conversion of men which is honest in an exactly inverse ratio to the dishonesty of the means which they employ to produce it. Father Barham was ready to sacrifice anything personal to himself in the good cause,--his time, his health, his money when he had any, and his life. Much as he liked the comfort of Carbury Hall, he would never for a moment condescend to ensure its continued enjoyment by reticence as to his religion. Roger Carbury was hard of heart. He could see that. But the dropping of water might hollow the stone. If the dropping should be put an end to by outward circumstances before the stone had been impressed that would not be his fault. He at any rate would do his duty. In that fixed resolution Father Barham was admirable. But he had no scruple whatsoever as to the nature of the arguments he would use,--or as to the facts which he would proclaim. With the mingled ignorance of his life and the positiveness of his faith he had at once made up his mind that Melmotte was a great man, and that he might be made a great instrument on behalf of the Pope. He believed in the enormous proportions of the man's wealth,--believed that he was powerful in all quarters of the globe,--and believed, because he was so told by "The Surplice," that the man was at heart a Catholic. That a man should be at heart a Catholic, and live in the world professing the Protestant religion, was not to Father Barham either improbable or distressing. Kings who had done so were to him objects of veneration. By such subterfuges and falsehood of life had they been best able to keep alive the spark of heavenly fire. There was a mystery and religious intrigue in this which recommended itself to the young priest's mind. But it was clear to him that this was a peculiar time,--in which it behoved an earnest man to be doing something. He had for some weeks been preparing himself for a trip to London in order that he might spend a week in retreat with kindred souls who from time to time betook themselves to the cells of St. Fabricius. And so, just at this season of the Westminster election, Father Barham made a journey to London. He had conceived the great idea of having a word or two with Mr. Melmotte himself. He thought that he might be convinced by a word or two as to the man's faith. And he thought, also, that it might be a happiness to him hereafter to have had intercourse with a man who was perhaps destined to be the means of restoring the true faith to his country. On Saturday night,--that Saturday night on which Mr. Melmotte had so successfully exercised his greatness at the India Office,--he took up his quarters in the cloisters of St. Fabricius; he spent a goodly festive Sunday among the various Romanist church services of the metropolis; and on the Monday morning he sallied forth in quest of Mr. Melmotte. Having obtained that address from some circular, he went first to Abchurch Lane. But on this day, and on the next, which would be the day of the election, Mr. Melmotte was not expected in the City, and the priest was referred to his present private residence in Bruton Street. There he was told that the great man might probably be found in Grosvenor Square, and at the house in the square Father Barham was at last successful. Mr. Melmotte was there superintending the arrangements for the entertainment of the Emperor. The servants, or more probably the workmen, must have been at fault in giving the priest admittance. But in truth the house was in great confusion. The wreaths of flowers and green boughs were being suspended, last daubs of heavy gilding were being given to the wooden capitals of mock pilasters, incense was being burned to kill the smell of the paint, tables were being fixed and chairs were being moved; and an enormous set of open presses were being nailed together for the accommodation of hats and cloaks. The hall was chaos, and poor Father Barham, who had heard a good deal of the Westminster election, but not a word of the intended entertainment of the Emperor, was at a loss to conceive for what purpose these operations were carried on. But through the chaos he made his way, and did soon find himself in the presence of Mr. Melmotte in the banqueting hall. Mr. Melmotte was attended both by Lord Alfred and his son. He was standing in front of the chair which had been arranged for the Emperor, with his hat on one side of his head, and he was very angry indeed. He had been given to understand when the dinner was first planned, that he was to sit opposite to his august guest;--by which he had conceived that he was to have a seat immediately in face of the Emperor of Emperors, of the Brother of the Sun, of the Celestial One himself. It was now explained to him that this could not be done. In face of the Emperor there must be a wide space, so that his Majesty might be able to look down the hall; and the royal princesses who sat next to the Emperor, and the royal princes who sat next to the princesses, must also be so indulged. And in this way Mr. Melmotte's own seat became really quite obscure. Lord Alfred was having a very bad time of it. "It's that fellow from 'The Herald' office did it, not me," he said, almost in a passion. "I don't know how people ought to sit. But that's the reason." "I'm d---- if I'm going to be treated in this way in my own house," were the first words which the priest heard. And as Father Barham walked up the room and came close to the scene of action, unperceived by either of the Grendalls, Mr. Melmotte was trying, but trying in vain, to move his own seat nearer to Imperial Majesty. A bar had been put up of such a nature that Melmotte, sitting in the seat prepared for him, would absolutely be barred out from the centre of his own hall. "Who the d---- are you?" he asked, when the priest appeared close before his eyes on the inner or more imperial side of the bar. It was not the habit of Father Barham's life to appear in sleek apparel. He was ever clothed in the very rustiest brown black that age can produce. In Beccles where he was known it signified little, but in the halls of the great one in Grosvenor Square, perhaps the stranger's welcome was cut to the measure of his outer man. A comely priest in glossy black might have been received with better grace. Father Barham stood humbly with his hat off. He was a man of infinite pluck; but outward humility--at any rate at the commencement of an enterprise,--was the rule of his life. "I am the Rev. Mr. Barham," said the visitor. "I am the priest of Beccles in Suffolk. I believe I am speaking to Mr. Melmotte." [Illustration: Father Barham.] "That's my name, sir. And what may you want? I don't know whether you are aware that you have found your way into my private dining-room without any introduction. Where the mischief are the fellows, Alfred, who ought to have seen about this? I wish you'd look to it, Miles. Can anybody who pleases walk into my hall?" "I came on a mission which I hope may be pleaded as my excuse," said the priest. Although he was bold, he found it difficult to explain his mission. Had not Lord Alfred been there he could have done it better, in spite of the very repulsive manner of the great man himself. "Is it business?" asked Lord Alfred. "Certainly it is business," said Father Barham with a smile. "Then you had better call at the office in Abchurch Lane,--in the City," said his lordship. "My business is not of that nature. I am a poor servant of the Cross, who is anxious to know from the lips of Mr. Melmotte himself that his heart is inclined to the true Faith." "Some lunatic," said Melmotte. "See that there ain't any knives about, Alfred." "No otherwise mad, sir, than they have ever been accounted mad who are enthusiastic in their desire for the souls of others." "Just get a policeman, Alfred. Or send somebody; you'd better not go away." "You will hardly need a policeman, Mr. Melmotte," continued the priest. "If I might speak to you alone for a few minutes--" "Certainly not;--certainly not. I am very busy, and if you will not go away you'll have to be taken away. I wonder whether anybody knows him." "Mr. Carbury, of Carbury Hall, is my friend." "Carbury! D---- the Carburys! Did any of the Carburys send you here? A set of beggars! Why don't you do something, Alfred, to get rid of him?" "You'd better go," said Lord Alfred. "Don't make a rumpus, there's a good fellow;--but just go." "There shall be no rumpus," said the priest, waxing wrathful. "I asked for you at the door, and was told to come in by your own servants. Have I been uncivil that you should treat me in this fashion?" "You're in the way," said Lord Alfred. "It's a piece of gross impertinence," said Melmotte. "Go away." "Will you not tell me before I go whether I shall pray for you as one whose steps in the right path should be made sure and firm; or as one still in error and in darkness?" "What the mischief does he mean?" asked Melmotte. "He wants to know whether you're a papist," said Lord Alfred. "What the deuce is it to him?" almost screamed Melmotte;--whereupon Father Barham bowed and took his leave. "That's a remarkable thing," said Melmotte,--"very remarkable." Even this poor priest's mad visit added to his inflation. "I suppose he was in earnest." "Mad as a hatter," said Lord Alfred. "But why did he come to me in his madness--to me especially? That's what I want to know. I'll tell you what it is. There isn't a man in all England at this moment thought of so much as--your humble servant. I wonder whether the 'Morning Pulpit' people sent him here now to find out really what is my religion." "Mad as a hatter," said Lord Alfred again;--"just that and no more." "My dear fellow, I don't think you've the gift of seeing very far. The truth is they don't know what to make of me;--and I don't intend that they shall. I'm playing my game, and there isn't one of 'em understands it except myself. It's no good my sitting here, you know. I shan't be able to move. How am I to get at you if I want anything?" "What can you want? There'll be lots of servants about." "I'll have this bar down, at any rate." And he did succeed in having removed the bar which had been specially put up to prevent his intrusion on his own guests in his own house. "I look upon that fellow's coming here as a very singular sign of the times," he went on to say. "They'll want before long to know where I have my clothes made, and who measures me for my boots!" Perhaps the most remarkable circumstance in the career of this remarkable man was the fact that he came almost to believe in himself. Father Barham went away certainly disgusted; and yet not altogether disheartened. The man had not declared that he was not a Roman Catholic. He had shown himself to be a brute. He had blasphemed and cursed. He had been outrageously uncivil to a man whom he must have known to be a minister of God. He had manifested himself to this priest, who had been born an English gentleman, as being no gentleman. But, not the less might he be a good Catholic,--or good enough at any rate to be influential on the right side. To his eyes Melmotte, with all his insolent vulgarity, was infinitely a more hopeful man than Roger Carbury. "He insulted me," said Father Barham to a brother religionist that evening within the cloisters of St. Fabricius. "Did he intend to insult you?" "Certainly he did. But what of that? It is not by the hands of polished men, nor even of the courteous, that this work has to be done. He was preparing for some great festival, and his mind was intent upon that." "He entertains the Emperor of China this very day," said the brother priest, who, as a resident in London, heard from time to time what was being done. "The Emperor of China! Ah, that accounts for it. I do think that he is on our side, even though he gave me but little encouragement for saying so. Will they vote for him, here at Westminster?" "Our people will. They think that he is rich and can help them." "There is no doubt of his wealth, I suppose," said Father Barham. "Some people do doubt;--but others say he is the richest man in the world." "He looked like it,--and spoke like it," said Father Barham. "Think what such a man might do, if he be really the wealthiest man in the world! And if he had been against us would he not have said so? Though he was uncivil, I am glad that I saw him." Father Barham, with a simplicity that was singularly mingled with his religious cunning, made himself believe before he returned to Beccles that Mr. Melmotte was certainly a Roman Catholic.

It was considered to be a great thing to catch the Roman Catholic vote in Westminster. To catch the Protestant and the Roman Catholic vote at the same time is difficult; but it was attempted now by Mr. Melmotte and his friends. It was perhaps thought that the Protestants would not notice the 100 given for the altar to St. Fabricius; but Mr. Alf took care that Mr. Melmotte's religious opinions should be reported. No article at that time created so much interest as that which appeared in the Evening Pulpit, under the heading "For Priest or Parson?" In this delightfully pungent article, Mr. Alf's writer declared that it was really important that the nation should know the nature of Mr. Melmotte's faith. That he was a highly religious man was most certain, from his two recent donations - doubtless part of a regular flow of Christian benevolence. The Evening Pulpit did not imagine that so great a man as Mr. Melmotte looked for any return in this world from his generosity. But still, as Protestants naturally wish to be represented in Parliament by a Protestant member, and Roman Catholics by a Catholic, perhaps Mr. Melmotte would not object to declare his creed. This was biting; but Mr. Melmotte and his manager were not foolish enough to allow it to influence them. If the Protestants chose to believe that he was hyper-protestant, and the Catholics that he was tending towards papacy, so much the better for him. It may be doubted whether the donation to the Curates' Aid Society had much effect. It may perhaps have induced a few religiously-minded men to go to the poll. But the donation to St. Fabricius certainly had results. It was made much of by the Roman Catholic party generally, till a report got itself spread abroad that Mr. Melmotte was going to join the Church of Rome. These manuvres require delicate handling, or evil may follow instead of good. On the second day after the question had been asked in the Evening Pulpit, an answer to it appeared: "For Priest and not for Parson." Therein, various assertions made by Roman Catholic journals were brought together, to show that Mr. Melmotte really had made up his mind on this important question. All the world knew, said Mr. Alf's writer, that with that keen sense of honesty which was the Great Financier's peculiar characteristic, he had doubted whether he could serve the nation best as a Liberal or as a Conservative. He had solved that doubt with wisdom. And now this other doubt had passed through the crucible, and a golden certainty had been produced. Westminster at last knew that Mr. Melmotte was a Roman Catholic. Now it was clear that no real Roman Catholic could hope to be elected. This article vexed Mr. Melmotte, and he proposed to his friends that they send a letter to the Breakfast Table asserting that he kept to the Protestant faith of his ancestors. But, as it was suspected by many that Melmotte had been born a Jew, this assurance would perhaps have been too strong. "Do nothing of the kind," said Mr. Beauchamp Beauclerk. "If anyone asks you, say you are a Protestant. But don't go writing letters." Unfortunately the gift of an altar to St. Fabricius was such a godsend that priests around the country were determined to cling to the good man who had bestowed his money so well. Father Barham was ready to sacrifice anything in the good cause of returning the country to the Catholic faith - his time, his health, and his money when he had any. In his resolution Father Barham was admirable. But he had no scruple whatsoever as to the nature of the arguments and facts he would use. With mingled ignorance and faith he had at once made up his mind that Melmotte was a great man, and that he might be made a great instrument on behalf of the Pope. He believed in the man's enormous wealth and power, and believed that he was at heart a Catholic. That he should profess the Protestant religion was not to Father Barham either improbable or distressing. He had for some time been preparing for a trip to London in order to spend a week in retreat at the cells of St. Fabricius. And so he now travelled there. He had conceived the great idea of having a word with Mr. Melmotte himself; he wished to meet a man who was perhaps destined to be the means of restoring the true faith to his country. On Saturday night - that night on which Mr. Melmotte had so successfully exercised his greatness at the India Office - Father Barham took up his quarters in the cloisters of St. Fabricius; he spent the Sunday at various church services; and on the Monday morning he sought Mr. Melmotte. He went first to Abchurch Lane. But on this day, and the next, which would be the day of the election, Mr. Melmotte was not expected in the City, and the priest was told that he might be in Grosvenor Square. There he found Mr. Melmotte superintending the arrangements for the entertainment of the Emperor. The house was in great confusion. Wreaths of flowers and green boughs were being hung up, last daubs of heavy gilding were being given to the wooden capitals of mock pillars, incense was being burned to kill the smell of the paint, tables were being fixed and chairs moved. The hall was in chaos, and poor Father Barham, who had heard a good deal of the Westminster election, but not a word about the Emperor, was at a loss to conceive why these operations were carried on. But through the chaos he made his way, and found himself in the presence of Mr. Melmotte in the banqueting hall. Mr. Melmotte was with Lord Alfred and his son. He was standing in front of the chair which had been arranged for the Emperor, and he was very angry indeed. He had been given to understand, when the dinner was first planned, that he was to sit opposite his guest - which he thought meant immediately in front of the Emperor of Emperors. It was now explained to him that this could not be done. In front of the Emperor there must be a wide space, so that his Majesty could look down the hall; and the same for the royal princesses and princes who sat by him. In this way Mr. Melmotte's own seat became really quite obscure. Lord Alfred was having a very bad time of it. "It's that fellow from The Herald office did it, not me," he said, almost in a passion. "I don't know how people ought to sit." "I'm d___ if I'm going to be treated this way in my own house," were the first words which the priest heard. And as Father Barham walked towards him, Mr. Melmotte was trying, in vain, to move his own seat nearer to the Imperial Majesty. A bar had been put up that kept him from the centre of his own hall. "Who the d___ are you?" he demanded of the priest, who was clothed in his usual very rusty brown black. A comely priest in glossy black might have been received with better grace. Father Barham stood humbly with his hat off. Outward humility - at any rate at the start of an enterprise - was the rule of his life. "I am the Reverend Mr. Barham," he said, "the priest of Beccles in Suffolk. I believe I am speaking to Mr. Melmotte." "That's my name, sir. And what may you want? Who let him in, Alfred? Can anybody who pleases walk into my hall?" "I came on a mission which I hope may be pleaded as my excuse," said the priest. Although he was bold, he found it difficult to explain his mission. "Is it business?" asked Lord Alfred. "Certainly," said Father Barham with a smile. "Then you had better call at the office in Abchurch Lane," said his lordship. "My business is not of that nature. I am a poor servant of the Cross, who is anxious to know from the lips of Mr. Melmotte himself that his heart is inclined to the true Faith." "Some lunatic," said Melmotte. "See that there ain't any knives about, Alfred." "Not mad, sir, only enthusiastic for the souls of others." "Just get a policeman, Alfred." "You will hardly need a policeman, Mr. Melmotte," continued the priest. "If I might speak to you alone for a few minutes-" "Certainly not. I am very busy. I wonder whether anybody knows him." "Mr. Carbury, of Carbury Hall, is my friend." "Carbury! D__ the Carburys! Did they send you here? A set of beggars! Why don't you do something, Alfred, to get rid of him?" "You'd better go," said Lord Alfred. "Don't make a rumpus, there's a good fellow; just go." "There shall be no rumpus," said the priest, growing angry. "I asked for you at the door, and was told to come in by your servants. Have I been uncivil that you should treat me in this fashion?" "You're in the way," said Lord Alfred. "It's gross impertinence," said Melmotte. "Go away." "Will you not tell me whether I shall pray for you as one whose steps are in the right path; or as one still in error and darkness?" "What the mischief does he mean?" asked Melmotte. "He wants to know whether you're a papist," said Lord Alfred. "What the deuce is it to him?" almost screamed Melmotte - whereupon Father Barham bowed and took his leave. "Remarkable," said Melmotte. "Mad as a hatter," said Lord Alfred. "But why did he come to me in his madness? I'll tell you what it is. There isn't a man in all England at this moment thought of so much as I am. I wonder whether the Morning Pulpit people sent him here to find out my real religion." "Mad as a hatter," said Lord Alfred again; "just that and no more." "My dear fellow, the truth is they don't know what to make of me; and I don't intend that they shall. Now, can we have this bar down?" And he succeeded in removing the bar which had been put up to prevent his intrusion on his own guests in his own house. "That fellow's coming here is a sign of the times," he went on. "Before long they'll want to know where I have my clothes and boots made!" Perhaps the most remarkable circumstance in Melmotte's remarkable career was the fact that he almost came to believe in himself. Father Barham went away disgusted; and yet not disheartened. The man had blasphemed and cursed, and had been outrageously uncivil to a minister of God. He was no gentleman. But, none the less, he might be a good Catholic - or good enough at any rate to be influential. To his eyes Melmotte was a much more hopeful prospect than Roger Carbury. "He insulted me," said Father Barham to a brother priest that evening at St. Fabricius. "But it is not by the hands of polished men, nor even of the courteous, that this work has to be done. He was preparing for some great festival, and was intent on that." "He entertains the Emperor of China today," said the brother priest. "The Emperor of China! Ah, that accounts for it. I do think that he is on our side, though he gave me little encouragement for saying so. Will they vote for him, here at Westminster?" "Our people will. They think that he is rich and can help them." "There is no doubt of his wealth, I suppose," said Father Barham. "Some people doubt; but others say he is the richest man in the world." "He looked like it - and spoke like it," said Father Barham. "Think what such a man might do! Though he was uncivil, I am glad that I saw him." Father Barham, with singular simplicity, made himself believe before he returned to Beccles that Mr. Melmotte was certainly a Roman Catholic.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 56: Father Barham Visits London

Roger Carbury, of Carbury Hall, the owner of a small property in Suffolk, was the head of the Carbury family. The Carburys had been in Suffolk a great many years,--certainly from the time of the War of the Roses,--and had always held up their heads. But they had never held them very high. It was not known that any had risen ever to the honour of knighthood before Sir Patrick, going higher than that, had been made a baronet. They had, however, been true to their acres and their acres true to them through the perils of civil wars, Reformation, Commonwealth, and Revolution, and the head Carbury of the day had always owned, and had always lived at, Carbury Hall. At the beginning of the present century the squire of Carbury had been a considerable man, if not in his county, at any rate in his part of the county. The income of the estate had sufficed to enable him to live plenteously and hospitably, to drink port wine, to ride a stout hunter, and to keep an old lumbering coach for his wife's use when she went avisiting. He had an old butler who had never lived anywhere else, and a boy from the village who was in a way apprenticed to the butler. There was a cook, not too proud to wash up her own dishes, and a couple of young women;--while the house was kept by Mrs. Carbury herself, who marked and gave out her own linen, made her own preserves, and looked to the curing of her own hams. In the year 1800 the Carbury property was sufficient for the Carbury house. Since that time the Carbury property has considerably increased in value, and the rents have been raised. Even the acreage has been extended by the enclosure of commons. But the income is no longer comfortably adequate to the wants of an English gentleman's household. If a moderate estate in land be left to a man now, there arises the question whether he is not damaged unless an income also be left to him wherewith to keep up the estate. Land is a luxury, and of all luxuries is the most costly. Now the Carburys never had anything but land. Suffolk has not been made rich and great either by coal or iron. No great town had sprung up on the confines of the Carbury property. No eldest son had gone into trade or risen high in a profession so as to add to the Carbury wealth. No great heiress had been married. There had been no ruin,--no misfortune. But in the days of which we write the Squire of Carbury Hall had become a poor man simply through the wealth of others. His estate was supposed to bring him in 2,000 a year. Had he been content to let the Manor House, to live abroad, and to have an agent at home to deal with the tenants, he would undoubtedly have had enough to live luxuriously. But he lived on his own land among his own people, as all the Carburys before him had done, and was poor because he was surrounded by rich neighbours. The Longestaffes of Caversham,--of which family Dolly Longestaffe was the eldest son and hope,--had the name of great wealth, but the founder of the family had been a Lord Mayor of London and a chandler as lately as in the reign of Queen Anne. The Hepworths, who could boast good blood enough on their own side, had married into new money. The Primeros,--though the good nature of the country folk had accorded to the head of them the title of Squire Primero,--had been trading Spaniards fifty years ago, and had bought the Bundlesham property from a great duke. The estates of those three gentlemen, with the domain of the Bishop of Elmham, lay all around the Carbury property, and in regard to wealth enabled their owners altogether to overshadow our squire. The superior wealth of a bishop was nothing to him. He desired that bishops should be rich, and was among those who thought that the country had been injured when the territorial possessions of our prelates had been converted into stipends by Act of Parliament. But the grandeur of the Longestaffes and the too apparent wealth of the Primeros did oppress him, though he was a man who would never breathe a word of such oppression into the ear even of his dearest friend. It was his opinion,--which he did not care to declare loudly, but which was fully understood to be his opinion by those with whom he lived intimately,--that a man's standing in the world should not depend at all upon his wealth. The Primeros were undoubtedly beneath him in the social scale, although the young Primeros had three horses apiece, and killed legions of pheasants annually at about 10_s_. a head. Hepworth of Eardly was a very good fellow, who gave himself no airs and understood his duties as a country gentleman; but he could not be more than on a par with Carbury of Carbury, though he was supposed to enjoy 7,000 a year. The Longestaffes were altogether oppressive. Their footmen, even in the country, had powdered hair. They had a house in town,--a house of their own,--and lived altogether as magnates. The lady was Lady Pomona Longestaffe. The daughters, who certainly were handsome, had been destined to marry peers. The only son, Dolly, had, or had had, a fortune of his own. They were an oppressive people in a country neighbourhood. And to make the matter worse, rich as they were, they never were able to pay anybody anything that they owed. They continued to live with all the appurtenances of wealth. The girls always had horses to ride, both in town and country. The acquaintance of Dolly the reader has already made. Dolly, who certainly was a poor creature though good natured, had energy in one direction. He would quarrel perseveringly with his father, who only had a life interest in the estate. The house at Caversham Park was during six or seven months, of the year full of servants, if not of guests, and all the tradesmen in the little towns around, Bungay, Beccles, and Harlestone, were aware that the Longestaffes were the great people of that country. Though occasionally much distressed for money, they would always execute the Longestaffe orders with submissive punctuality, because there was an idea that the Longestaffe property was sound at the bottom. And, then, the owner of a property so managed cannot scrutinise bills very closely. Carbury of Carbury had never owed a shilling that he could not pay, or his father before him. His orders to the tradesmen at Beccles were not extensive, and care was used to see that the goods supplied were neither overcharged nor unnecessary. The tradesmen, consequently, of Beccles did not care much for Carbury of Carbury;--though perhaps one or two of the elders among them entertained some ancient reverence for the family. Roger Carbury, Esq., was Carbury of Carbury,--a distinction of itself, which, from its nature, could not belong to the Longestaffes and Primeros, which did not even belong to the Hepworths of Eardly. The very parish in which Carbury Hall stood,--or Carbury Manor House, as it was more properly called,--was Carbury parish. And there was Carbury Chase, partly in Carbury parish and partly in Bundlesham,--but belonging, unfortunately, in its entirety to the Bundlesham estate. Roger Carbury himself was all alone in the world. His nearest relatives of the name were Sir Felix and Henrietta, but they were no more than second cousins. He had sisters, but they had long since been married and had gone away into the world with their husbands, one to India, and another to the far west of the United States. At present he was not much short of forty years of age, and was still unmarried. He was a stout, good-looking man, with a firmly set square face, with features finely cut, a small mouth, good teeth, and well-formed chin. His hair was red, curling round his head, which was now partly bald at the top. He wore no other beard than small, almost unnoticeable whiskers. His eyes were small, but bright, and very cheery when his humour was good. He was about five feet nine in height, having the appearance of great strength and perfect health. A more manly man to the eye was never seen. And he was one with whom you would instinctively wish at first sight to be on good terms,--partly because in looking at him there would come on you an unconscious conviction that he would be very stout in holding his own against his opponents; partly also from a conviction equally strong, that he would be very pleasant to his friends. When Sir Patrick had come home from India as an invalid, Roger Carbury had hurried up to see him in London, and had proffered him all kindness. Would Sir Patrick and his wife and children like to go down to the old place in the country? Sir Patrick did not care a straw for the old place in the country, and so told his cousin in almost those very words. There had not, therefore, been much friendship during Sir Patrick's life. But when the violent ill-conditioned old man was dead, Roger paid a second visit, and again offered hospitality to the widow and her daughter,--and to the young baronet. The young baronet had just joined his regiment and did not care to visit his cousin in Suffolk; but Lady Carbury and Henrietta had spent a month there, and everything had been done to make them happy. The effort as regarded Henrietta had been altogether successful. As regarded the widow, it must be acknowledged that Carbury Hall had not quite suited her tastes. She had already begun to sigh for the glories of a literary career. A career of some kind,--sufficient to repay her for the sufferings of her early life,--she certainly desired. "Dear cousin Roger," as she called him, had not seemed to her to have much power of assisting her in these views. She was a woman who did not care much for country charms. She had endeavoured to get up some mild excitement with the bishop, but the bishop had been too plain spoken and sincere for her. The Primeros had been odious; the Hepworths stupid; the Longestaffes,--she had endeavoured to make up a little friendship with Lady Pomona,--insufferably supercilious. She had declared to Henrietta "that Carbury Hall was very dull." But then there had come a circumstance which altogether changed her opinions as to Carbury Hall, and its proprietor. The proprietor after a few weeks followed them up to London, and made a most matter-of-fact offer to the mother for the daughter's hand. He was at that time thirty-six, and Henrietta was not yet twenty. He was very cool;--some might have thought him phlegmatic in his love-making. Henrietta declared to her mother that she had not in the least expected it. But he was very urgent, and very persistent. Lady Carbury was eager on his side. Though the Carbury Manor House did not exactly suit her, it would do admirably for Henrietta. And as for age, to her thinking, she being then over forty, a man of thirty-six was young enough for any girl. But Henrietta had an opinion of her own. She liked her cousin, but did not love him. She was amazed, and even annoyed by the offer. She had praised him and praised the house so loudly to her mother,--having in her innocence never dreamed of such a proposition as this,--so that now she found it difficult to give an adequate reason for her refusal. Yes;--she had undoubtedly said that her cousin was charming, but she had not meant charming in that way. She did refuse the offer very plainly, but still with some apparent lack of persistency. When Roger suggested that she should take a few months to think of it, and her mother supported Roger's suggestion, she could say nothing stronger than that she was afraid that thinking about it would not do any good. Their first visit to Carbury had been made in September. In the following February she went there again,--much against the grain as far as her own wishes were concerned; and when there had been cold, constrained, almost dumb in the presence of her cousin. Before they left the offer was renewed, but Henrietta declared that she could not do as they would have her. She could give no reason, only she did not love her cousin in that way. But Roger declared that he by no means intended to abandon his suit. In truth he verily loved the girl, and love with him was a serious thing. All this happened a full year before the beginning of our present story. But something else happened also. While that second visit was being made at Carbury there came to the hall a young man of whom Roger Carbury had said much to his cousins,--one Paul Montague, of whom some short account shall be given in this chapter. The squire,--Roger Carbury was always called the squire about his own place,--had anticipated no evil when he so timed this second visit of his cousins to his house that they must of necessity meet Paul Montague there. But great harm had come of it. Paul Montague had fallen into love with his cousin's guest, and there had sprung up much unhappiness. Lady Carbury and Henrietta had been nearly a month at Carbury, and Paul Montague had been there barely a week, when Roger Carbury thus spoke to the guest who had last arrived. "I've got to tell you something, Paul." "Anything serious?" "Very serious to me. I may say so serious that nothing in my own life can approach it in importance." He had unconsciously assumed that look, which his friend so thoroughly understood, indicating his resolve to hold to what he believed to be his own, and to fight if fighting be necessary. Montague knew him well, and became half aware that he had done something, he knew not what, militating against this serious resolve of his friend. He looked up, but said nothing. "I have offered my hand in marriage to my cousin Henrietta," said Roger very gravely. "Miss Carbury?" "Yes; to Henrietta Carbury. She has not accepted it. She has refused me twice. But I still have hopes of success. Perhaps I have no right to hope, but I do. I tell it you just as it is. Everything in life to me depends upon it. I think I may count upon your sympathy." "Why did you not tell me before?" said Paul Montague in a hoarse voice. Then there had come a sudden and rapid interchange of quick speaking between the men, each of them speaking the truth exactly, each of them declaring himself to be in the right and to be ill-used by the other, each of them equally hot, equally generous, and equally unreasonable. Montague at once asserted that he also loved Henrietta Carbury. He blurted out his assurance in the baldest and most incomplete manner, but still in such words as to leave no doubt. No;--he had not said a word to her. He had intended to consult Roger Carbury himself,--should have done so in a day or two,--perhaps on that very day had not Roger spoken to him. "You have neither of you a shilling in the world," said Roger; "and now you know what my feelings are you must abandon it." Then Montague declared that he had a right to speak to Miss Carbury. He did not suppose that Miss Carbury cared a straw about him. He had not the least reason to think that she did. It was altogether impossible. But he had a right to his chance. That chance was all the world to him. As to money,--he would not admit that he was a pauper, and, moreover, he might earn an income as well as other men. Had Carbury told him that the young lady had shown the slightest intention to receive his, Carbury's, addresses, he, Paul, would at once have disappeared from the scene. But as it was not so, he would not say that he would abandon his hope. The scene lasted for above an hour. When it was ended, Paul Montague packed up all his clothes and was driven away to the railway station by Roger himself, without seeing either of the ladies. There had been very hot words between the men, but the last words which Roger spoke to the other on the railway platform were not quarrelsome in their nature. "God bless you, old fellow," he said, pressing Paul's hands. Paul's eyes were full of tears, and he replied only by returning the pressure. Paul Montague's father and mother had long been dead. The father had been a barrister in London, having perhaps some small fortune of his own. He had, at any rate, left to this son, who was one among others, a sufficiency with which to begin the world. Paul when he had come of age had found himself possessed of about 6,000. He was then at Oxford, and was intended for the bar. An uncle of his, a younger brother of his father, had married a Carbury, the younger sister of two, though older than her brother Roger. This uncle many years since had taken his wife out to California, and had there become an American. He had a large tract of land, growing wool, and wheat, and fruit; but whether he prospered or whether he did not, had not always been plain to the Montagues and Carburys at home. The intercourse between the two families had in the quite early days of Paul Montague's life, created an affection between him and Roger, who, as will be understood by those who have carefully followed the above family history, were not in any degree related to each other. Roger, when quite a young man, had had the charge of the boy's education, and had sent him to Oxford. But the Oxford scheme, to be followed by the bar, and to end on some one of the many judicial benches of the country, had not succeeded. Paul had got into a "row" at Balliol, and had been rusticated,--had then got into another row, and was sent down. Indeed he had a talent for rows,--though, as Roger Carbury always declared, there was nothing really wrong about any of them. Paul was then twenty-one, and he took himself and his money out to California, and joined his uncle. He had perhaps an idea,--based on very insufficient grounds,--that rows are popular in California. At the end of three years he found that he did not like farming life in California,--and he found also that he did not like his uncle. So he returned to England, but on returning was altogether unable to get his 6,000 out of the Californian farm. Indeed he had been compelled to come away without any of it, with funds insufficient even to take him home, accepting with much dissatisfaction an assurance from his uncle that an income amounting to ten per cent. upon his capital should be remitted to him with the regularity of clockwork. The clock alluded to must have been one of Sam Slick's. It had gone very badly. At the end of the first quarter there came the proper remittance;--then half the amount;--then there was a long interval without anything; then some dropping payments now and again;--and then a twelvemonth without anything. At the end of that twelvemonth he paid a second visit to California, having borrowed money from Roger for his journey. He had now again returned, with some little cash in hand, and with the additional security of a deed executed in his favour by one Hamilton K. Fisker, who had gone into partnership with his uncle, and who had added a vast flour-mill to his uncle's concerns. In accordance with this deed he was to get twelve per cent. on his capital, and had enjoyed the gratification of seeing his name put up as one of the firm, which now stood as Fisker, Montague, and Montague. A business declared by the two elder partners to be most promising had been opened at Fiskerville, about two hundred and fifty miles from San Francisco, and the hearts of Fisker and the elder Montague were very high. Paul hated Fisker horribly, did not love his uncle much, and would willingly have got back his 6,000 had he been able. But he was not able, and returned as one of Fisker, Montague, and Montague, not altogether unhappy, as he had succeeded in obtaining enough of his back income to pay what he owed to Roger, and to live for a few months. He was intent on considering how he should bestow himself, consulting daily with Roger on the subject, when suddenly Roger had perceived that the young man was becoming attached to the girl whom he himself loved. What then occurred has been told. Not a word was said to Lady Carbury or her daughter of the real cause of Paul's sudden disappearance. It had been necessary that he should go to London. Each of the ladies probably guessed something of the truth, but neither spoke a word to the other on the subject. Before they left the Manor the squire again pleaded his cause with Henrietta, but he pleaded it in vain. Henrietta was colder than ever,--but she made use of one unfortunate phrase which destroyed all the effect which her coldness might have had. She said that she was too young to think of marrying yet. She had meant to imply that the difference in their ages was too great, but had not known how to say it. It was easy to tell her that in a twelvemonth she would be older;--but it was impossible to convince her that any number of twelvemonths would alter the disparity between her and her cousin. But even that disparity was not now her strongest reason for feeling sure that she could not marry Roger Carbury. Within a week of the departure of Lady Carbury from the Manor House, Paul Montague returned, and returned as a still dear friend. He had promised before he went that he would not see Henrietta again for three months, but he would promise nothing further. "If she won't take you, there is no reason why I shouldn't try." That had been his argument. Roger would not accede to the justice even of this. It seemed to him that Paul was bound to retire altogether, partly because he had got no income, partly because of Roger's previous claim,--partly no doubt in gratitude, but of this last reason Roger never said a word. If Paul did not see this himself, Paul was not such a man as his friend had taken him to be. Paul did see it himself, and had many scruples. But why should his friend be a dog in the manger? He would yield at once to Roger Carbury's older claims if Roger could make anything of them. Indeed he could have no chance if the girl were disposed to take Roger for her husband. Roger had all the advantage of Carbury Manor at his back, whereas he had nothing but his share in the doubtful business of Fisker, Montague, and Montague, in a wretched little town 250 miles further off than San Francisco! But if, with all this, Roger could not prevail, why should he not try? What Roger said about want of money was mere nonsense. Paul was sure that his friend would have created no such difficulty had not he himself been interested. Paul declared to himself that he had money, though doubtful money, and that he certainly would not give up Henrietta on that score. He came up to London at various times in search of certain employment which had been half promised him, and, after the expiration of the three months, constantly saw Lady Carbury and her daughter. But from time to time he had given renewed promises to Roger Carbury that he would not declare his passion,--now for two months, then for six weeks, then for a month. In the meantime the two men were fast friends,--so fast that Montague spent by far the greater part of his time as his friend's guest,--and all this was done with the understanding that Roger Carbury was to blaze up into hostile wrath should Paul ever receive the privilege to call himself Henrietta Carbury's favoured lover, but that everything was to be smooth between them should Henrietta be persuaded to become the mistress of Carbury Hall. So things went on up to the night at which Montague met Henrietta at Madame Melmotte's ball. The reader should also be informed that there had been already a former love affair in the young life of Paul Montague. There had been, and indeed there still was, a widow, one Mrs. Hurtle, whom he had been desperately anxious to marry before his second journey to California;--but the marriage had been prevented by the interference of Roger Carbury.

Roger Carbury, of Carbury Hall, a small property in Suffolk, was the head of the Carbury family. The Carburys had been in Suffolk a great many years - certainly since the War of the Roses - and had always held up their heads. But they had never held them very high. They had, however, been true to their acres and their acres true to them through the civil wars, Reformation, Commonwealth, and Revolution; and the head Carbury had always lived at Carbury Hall. Back in 1800 the squire of Carbury had been an important man, if not in his county, at any rate in his part of the county. The income of the estate had enabled him to live, to drink port wine, to ride a stout hunter, and to keep an old lumbering coach for his wife's use. He had an old butler, a cook, and a couple of maidservants; while the housekeeper was Mrs. Carbury herself, who marked her own linen, made her own preserves, and cured her own hams. Since that time the Carbury property had considerably increased in value; but the income was no longer comfortably adequate for the wants of an English gentleman's household. Land is a costly luxury, and the Carburys never had anything but land. No eldest son had gone into a profession so as to add to the Carbury wealth. No great heiress had been married. There had been no ruin; yet the present Squire of Carbury was a poor man. His estate was supposed to bring him 2,000 a year. Had he been content to let the Manor House and live abroad, he would have had enough to live luxuriously. But he lived on his own land among his own people, as all the Carburys before him had done, and was poor because he was surrounded by rich neighbours. The Longestaffes of Caversham - of whom Dolly Longestaffe was the eldest son - had the name of great wealth, although the founder of the family had been a Lord Mayor of London and a chandler as lately as Queen Anne's reign. The Hepworths had married money. The Primeros had been Spanish traders fifty years ago, and had bought their property from a great duke. The estates of those three gentlemen, with the domain of the Bishop of Elmham, lay all around the Carbury property, and in regard to wealth altogether overshadowed our squire. He did not mind the Bishop's superior riches. But the grandeur of the Longestaffes and the wealth of the Primeros did oppress him, though he never breathed a word of such oppression. He felt that a man's standing in the world should not depend upon his wealth. The Primeros were undoubtedly beneath him in the social scale, although the young Primeros had three horses apiece, and killed legions of pheasants. Hepworth was a very good fellow, who gave himself no airs; but he could not be higher than Carbury, though he had 7,000 a year. But the Longestaffes were altogether oppressive. Their footmen, even in the country, had powdered hair. They owned a house in town, and lived like magnates. The lady was Lady Pomona Longestaffe. The daughters, who were handsome, had been destined to marry peers. The only son, Dolly, had, or had had, a fortune of his own. To make the matter worse, rich as they were, they were never able to pay anybody anything that they owed. They lived with all the trappings of wealth. The house at Caversham Park was for six or seven months of the year full of servants, and all the tradesmen in the little towns around knew that the Longestaffes were great people. Though occasionally much distressed for money, they would always fulfil the Longestaffe orders with submissive punctuality, and assume they would be paid in the end. Carbury of Carbury had never owed a shilling that he could not pay. His orders to the tradesmen of Beccles were not extensive, and he took care to see that he was not overcharged. The Beccles tradesmen, consequently, did not care much for Carbury of Carbury; though perhaps one or two of the elders among them had some ancient reverence for the family. Roger Carbury himself was alone in the world. His nearest Carbury relatives were Sir Felix and Henrietta, but they were no more than second cousins. He had sisters, but they had long since married and gone away with their husbands, one to India, and another to the United States. At present Roger was almost forty, and still unmarried. He was a robust, good-looking man, with a firmly set square face, and finely cut features. His hair was red and curling, though he was now partly bald. He wore no beard. His eyes were small, but bright, and very cheery when his humour was good. He had the appearance of great strength and perfect health. A more manly man was never seen. And he was one with whom you would instinctively wish to be on good terms, because he looked as if he would be very stout in holding his own against opponents, but also as if he would be very pleasant to his friends. When Sir Patrick and Lady Carbury had come home from India, Roger Carbury had hurried to see the invalid, and had offered him all kindness. Would Sir Patrick and his wife and children like to go down to the old place in the country? Sir Patrick did not care a straw for the old place in the country, and told his cousin so. But when the violent old man was dead, Roger paid a second visit to the widow and her daughter. Sir Felix had just joined his regiment and did not care to visit his cousin in Suffolk; but Lady Carbury and Henrietta had spent a month there, and everything had been done to make them happy. Henrietta was indeed very happy there. As for the widow, Carbury Hall had not quite suited her tastes. She had already begun to sigh for a literary career, and "Dear cousin Roger," as she called him, could not assist her. She was a woman who did not care much for country charms. She found the Primeros odious; the Hepworths stupid; the Longestaffes - she had tried to make up a little friendship with Lady Pomona - insufferably supercilious. She had declared to Henrietta that Carbury Hall was very dull. But then something happened which altogether changed her opinions. Roger Carbury followed them up to London, and made a most matter-of-fact offer to the mother for the daughter's hand. He was at that time thirty-six, and Henrietta was not yet twenty. He was very cool in his love-making, and Henrietta told her mother that she had not in the least expected it. But he was very persistent. Lady Carbury was eager on his side. Though Carbury Manor did not suit her, it would do admirably for Henrietta. And as for age, to her thinking (she being over forty) a man of thirty-six was young enough for any girl. But Henrietta had an opinion of her own. She liked her cousin, but did not love him. She was amazed, and even annoyed by the offer. She had praised him so loudly and innocently to her mother that now she found it difficult to give an adequate reason for her refusal. Yes; her cousin was charming, but not in that way. She refused the offer very plainly, but when Roger suggested that she should take a few months to think about it, she could say only that she was afraid that thinking about it would not do any good. Their first visit to Carbury had been made in September. In the following February she went there again - against her wishes; and she had been cold and constrained in her cousin's presence. The offer was renewed, but Henrietta again refused it, saying she did not love her cousin in that way. But Roger declared that he would not abandon his suit. He truly loved the girl, and love with him was a serious thing. All this happened a full year before the beginning of our story. But something else happened also. During that second visit to Carbury there came to the hall a young man of whom Roger Carbury had said much to his cousins - one Paul Montague. The squire, Roger, had anticipated no evil in his guests meeting Paul Montague at his house. But great harm had come of it. Paul Montague had fallen in love with Henrietta, causing much unhappiness. Lady Carbury and Henrietta had been nearly a month at Carbury, and Paul Montague had been there barely a week, when Roger Carbury spoke to him. "I've got to tell you something, Paul." "Anything serious?" "Very serious to me. Nothing in my own life can approach it in importance." He had unconsciously assumed that look, which his friend understood, of his resolve to fight if fighting be necessary. Montague knew him well, and became half aware that he had done something wrong, he knew not what. "I have offered my hand in marriage to my cousin Henrietta," said Roger gravely. "She has refused me twice. But I still have hopes of success. Perhaps I have no right to hope, but I do. Everything in life to me depends upon it. I think I may count upon your sympathy." "Why did you not tell me before?" said Paul Montague hoarsely. Then there had come a sudden and rapid interchange, each of them declaring himself to be in the right and ill-used by the other, each of them equally hot, equally generous, and equally unreasonable. Montague baldly asserted that he also loved Henrietta Carbury. No; he had not said a word to her. He had intended to consult Roger in a day or two - perhaps that very day, had Roger not spoken to him. "You have neither of you a shilling in the world," said Roger; "and now you know what my feelings are you must abandon it." Then Montague declared that he had a right to speak to Miss Carbury. He did not suppose that she cared a straw about him. But he had a right to his chance, which was all the world to him. He was not a pauper, and he might earn an income as well as other men. If the young lady had accepted Roger, Paul would at once have left. But as it was not so, he would not abandon his hope. The scene lasted for above an hour. When it was ended, Paul Montague packed up his clothes and was driven to the railway station by Roger, without seeing either of the ladies. There had been very hot words between the men, but the parting on the railway platform was not quarrelsome. "God bless you, old fellow," said Roger, pressing Paul's hands. Paul's eyes were full of tears, and he replied only by returning the pressure. Paul Montague's parents had long been dead. The father had been a barrister in London, who left a moderate sum of about 6,000 to this son, when he was twenty-one. He was then at Oxford, and was intended to be a lawyer. An uncle of his had married Roger's sister, and had taken her out to California; there he grew wool, wheat, and fruit; but whether he prospered or not was not clear to his English relatives. An affectionate friendship had grown up between Paul Montague and Roger, despite the fact that they were not related. Roger had had charge of the boy's education, and had sent him to Oxford. But Paul had got into a "row" at Balliol, and then another row, and was sent down. Indeed he had a talent for rows - though, as Roger Carbury always declared, there was nothing really wrong about any of them. At twenty-one, Paul took himself and his money out to California, and joined his uncle. He had perhaps an idea that rows are popular in California. At the end of three years he found that he did not like farming there, and nor did he like his uncle. So he returned to England, but was unable to get any of his 6,000 out of the Californian farm. Indeed his uncle had assured him he would be sent an income amounting to ten per cent of his capital with the regularity of clockwork. But the clock must have been a very bad one. At the end of the first quarter there came the proper amount; then half the amount; then there was a long interval without anything; then some low payments now and again; and then a year with nothing. Paul paid a second visit to California, having borrowed money from Roger for his journey. He had now again returned, with a little cash, and with a deed executed in his favour by one Hamilton K. Fisker, who had gone into partnership with his uncle, and who had added a vast flour-mill to his uncle's concerns. The deed stated that he was to get twelve per cent on his capital, and had his name put up as one of the firm - now Fisker, Montague, and Montague. Paul hated Fisker horribly, did not love his uncle much, and would willingly have got back his 6,000 had he been able. But he was not able. However, he had succeeded in getting enough of his income to pay what he owed Roger, and to live for a few months. He was considering what to do next, consulting with Roger on the subject, when suddenly Roger had perceived that the young man was becoming attached to the girl whom he loved - with the result which has been told. Nothing was said to Lady Carbury or her daughter of the cause of Paul's sudden disappearance. They probably guessed the truth, but neither spoke a word to the other on the subject. Before they left the Manor, the squire again pleaded his cause with Henrietta - in vain. Henrietta was colder than ever; but she used one unfortunate phrase. She said that she was too young to think of marrying yet. She had meant to imply that the difference in their ages was too great, but had not known how to say it. But that was not now her strongest reason for feeling sure that she could not marry Roger Carbury. A week after the departure of the Carburys from the Manor House, Paul Montague returned, as a still dear friend. He had promised that he would not see Henrietta again for three months, but he would promise nothing further. "If she won't take you, there is no reason why I shouldn't try." That had been his argument. Roger would not concede the justice of this. It seemed to him that Paul was bound to retire altogether, partly because he had no income, partly because of Roger's previous claim - and partly no doubt in gratitude, but of this last reason Roger never said a word. If Paul did not see this himself, he was not the man Roger had taken him to be. Paul did see it himself, and had many scruples. But why should his friend be a dog in the manger? He would yield at once if Roger could succeed in his suit. But if Roger could not prevail, why should he not try? What Roger said about lack of money was mere nonsense. Paul declared to himself that he certainly would not give up Henrietta on that score. He came up to London at various times in search of employment which had been half promised him, and, after the three months were up, constantly saw Lady Carbury and her daughter. But from time to time he had given renewed promises to Roger Carbury that he would not declare his passion. In the meantime the two men were fast friends; so much so that Montague spent most of his time as Roger's guest - with the understanding that Roger would blaze up into hostile wrath should Paul ever call himself Henrietta Carbury's favoured lover, but that everything was to be smooth between them if Henrietta could be persuaded to become the mistress of Carbury Hall. So things went on until the night at which Montague met Henrietta at Madame Melmotte's ball. The reader should be informed that there had already been a love affair in the young life of Paul Montague. There had been, and indeed there still was, a widow, one Mrs. Hurtle, whom he had been desperately anxious to marry before his second journey to California; but the marriage had been prevented by the interference of Roger Carbury.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 6: Roger Carbury and Paul Montague

When Roger Carbury returned to Suffolk, after seeing his cousins in Welbeck Street, he was by no means contented with himself. That he should be discontented generally with the circumstances of his life was a matter of course. He knew that he was farther removed than ever from the object on which his whole mind was set. Had Hetta Carbury learned all the circumstances of Paul's engagement with Mrs. Hurtle before she had confessed her love to Paul,--so that her heart might have been turned against the man before she had made her confession,--then, he thought, she might at last have listened to him. Even though she had loved the other man, she might have at last done so, as her love would have been buried in her own bosom. But the tale had been told after the fashion which was most antagonistic to his own interests. Hetta had never heard Mrs. Hurtle's name till she had given herself away, and had declared to all her friends that she had given herself away to this man, who was so unworthy of her. The more Roger thought of this, the more angry he was with Paul Montague, and the more convinced that that man had done him an injury which he could never forgive. But his grief extended even beyond that. Though he was never tired of swearing to himself that he would not forgive Paul Montague, yet there was present to him a feeling that an injury was being done to the man, and that he was in some sort responsible for that injury. He had declined to tell Hetta any part of the story about Mrs. Hurtle,--actuated by a feeling that he ought not to betray the trust put in him by a man who was at the time his friend; and he had told nothing. But no one knew so well as he did the fact that all the attention latterly given by Paul to the American woman had by no means been the effect of love, but had come from a feeling on Paul's part that he could not desert the woman he had once loved, when she asked him for his kindness. If Hetta could know everything exactly,--if she could look back and read the state of Paul's mind as he, Roger, could read it,--then she would probably forgive the man, or perhaps tell herself that there was nothing for her to forgive. Roger was anxious that Hetta's anger should burn hot,--because of the injury done to himself. He thought that there were ample reasons why Paul Montague should be punished,--why Paul should be utterly expelled from among them, and allowed to go his own course. But it was not right that the man should be punished on false grounds. It seemed to Roger now that he was doing an injustice to his enemy by refraining from telling all that he knew. As to the girl's misery in losing her lover, much as he loved her, true as it was that he was willing to devote himself and all that he had to her happiness, I do not think that at the present moment he was disturbed in that direction. It is hardly natural, perhaps, that a man should love a woman with such devotion as to wish to make her happy by giving her to another man. Roger told himself that Paul would be an unsafe husband, a fickle husband,--one who might be carried hither and thither both in his circumstances and his feelings,--and that it would be better for Hetta that she should not marry him; but at the same time he was unhappy as he reflected that he himself was a party to a certain amount of deceit. And yet he had said not a word. He had referred Hetta to the man himself. He thought that he knew, and he did indeed accurately know, the state of Hetta's mind. She was wretched because she thought that while her lover was winning her love, while she herself was willingly allowing him to win her love, he was dallying with another woman, and making to that other woman promises the same as those he made to her. This was not true. Roger knew that it was not true. But when he tried to quiet his conscience by saying that they must fight it out among themselves, he felt himself to be uneasy under that assurance. His life at Carbury, at this time, was very desolate. He had become tired of the priest, who, in spite of various repulses, had never for a moment relaxed his efforts to convert his friend. Roger had told him once that he must beg that religion might not be made the subject of further conversation between them. In answer to this, Father Barham had declared that he would never consent to remain as an intimate associate with any man on those terms. Roger had persisted in his stipulation, and the priest had then suggested that it was his host's intention to banish him from Carbury Hall. Roger had made no reply, and the priest had of course been banished. But even this added to his misery. Father Barham was a gentleman, was a good man, and in great penury. To ill-treat such a one, to expel such a one from his house, seemed to Roger to be an abominable cruelty. He was unhappy with himself about the priest, and yet he could not bid the man come back to him. It was already being said of him among his neighbours, at Eardly, at Caversham, and at the Bishop's palace, that he either had become or was becoming a Roman Catholic, under the priest's influence. Mrs. Yeld had even taken upon herself to write to him a most affectionate letter, in which she said very little as to any evidence that had reached her as to Roger's defection, but dilated at very great length on the abominations of a certain lady who is supposed to indulge in gorgeous colours. He was troubled, too, about old Daniel Ruggles, the farmer at Sheep's Acre, who had been so angry because his niece would not marry John Crumb. Old Ruggles, when abandoned by Ruby and accused by his neighbours of personal cruelty to the girl, had taken freely to that source of consolation which he found to be most easily within his reach. Since Ruby had gone he had been drunk every day, and was making himself generally a scandal and a nuisance. His landlord had interfered with his usual kindness, and the old man had always declared that his niece and John Crumb were the cause of it all; for now, in his maudlin misery, he attributed as much blame to the lover as he did to the girl. John Crumb wasn't in earnest. If he had been in earnest he would have gone after her to London at once. No;--he wouldn't invite Ruby to come back. If Ruby would come back, repentant, full of sorrow,--and hadn't been and made a fool of herself in the meantime,--then he'd think of taking her back. In the meantime, with circumstances in their present condition, he evidently thought that he could best face the difficulties of the world by an unfaltering adhesion to gin, early in the day and all day long. This, too, was a grievance to Roger Carbury. But he did not neglect his work, the chief of which at the present moment was the care of the farm which he kept in his own hands. He was making hay at this time in certain meadows down by the river side; and was standing by while the men were loading a cart, when he saw John Crumb approaching across the field. He had not seen John since the eventful journey to London; nor had he seen him in London; but he knew well all that had occurred,--how the dealer in pollard had thrashed his cousin, Sir Felix, how he had been locked up by the police and then liberated,--and how he was now regarded in Bungay as a hero, as far as arms were concerned, but as being very "soft" in the matter of love. The reader need hardly be told that Roger was not at all disposed to quarrel with Mr. Crumb, because the victim of Crumb's heroism had been his own cousin. Crumb had acted well, and had never said a word about Sir Felix since his return to the country. No doubt he had now come to talk about his love,--and in order that his confessions might not be made before all the assembled haymakers, Roger Carbury hurried to meet him. There was soon evident on Crumb's broad face a whole sunshine of delight. As Roger approached him he began to laugh aloud, and to wave a bit of paper that he had in his hands. "She's a coomin; she's a coomin," were the first words he uttered. Roger knew very well that in his friend's mind there was but one "she" in the world, and that the name of that she was Ruby Ruggles. [Illustration: "She's a coomin; she's a coomin."] "I am delighted to hear it," said Roger. "She has made it up with her grandfather?" "Don't know now't about grandfeyther. She have made it up wi' me. Know'd she would when I'd polish'd t'other un off a bit;--know'd she would." "Has she written to you, then?" "Well, squoire,--she ain't; not just herself. I do suppose that isn't the way they does it. But it's all as one." And then Mr. Crumb thrust Mrs. Hurtle's note into Roger Carbury's hand. Roger certainly was not predisposed to think well or kindly of Mrs. Hurtle. Since he had first known Mrs. Hurtle's name, when Paul Montague had told the story of his engagement on his return from America, Roger had regarded her as a wicked, intriguing, bad woman. It may, perhaps, be confessed that he was prejudiced against all Americans, looking upon Washington much as he did upon Jack Cade or Wat Tyler; and he pictured to himself all American women as being loud, masculine, and atheistical. But it certainly did seem that in this instance Mrs. Hurtle was endeavouring to do a good turn from pure charity. "She is a lady," Crumb began to explain, "who do be living with Mrs. Pipkin; and she is a lady as is a lady." Roger could not fully admit the truth of this assertion; but he explained that he, too, knew something of Mrs. Hurtle, and that he thought it probable that what she said of Ruby might be true. "True, squoire!" said Crumb, laughing with his whole face. "I ha' nae a doubt it's true. What's again its being true? When I had dropped into t'other fellow, of course she made her choice. It was me as was to blame, because I didn't do it before. I ought to ha' dropped into him when I first heard as he was arter her. It's that as girls like. So, squoire, I'm just going again to Lon'on right away." Roger suggested that old Ruggles would, of course, receive his niece; but as to this John expressed his supreme indifference. The old man was nothing to him. Of course he would like to have the old man's money; but the old man couldn't live for ever, and he supposed that things would come right in time. But this he knew,--that he wasn't going to cringe to the old man about his money. When Roger observed that it would be better that Ruby should have some home to which she might at once return, John adverted with a renewed grin to all the substantial comforts of his own house. It seemed to be his idea, that on arriving in London he would at once take Ruby away to church and be married to her out of hand. He had thrashed his rival, and what cause could there now be for delay? But before he left the field he made one other speech to the squire. "You ain't a'taken it amiss, squoire, 'cause he was coosin to yourself?" "Not in the least, Mr. Crumb." "That's koind now. I ain't a done the yong man a ha'porth o' harm, and I don't feel no grudge again him, and when me and Ruby's once spliced, I'm darned if I don't give 'un a bottle of wine the first day as he'll come to Bungay." Roger did not feel himself justified in accepting this invitation on the part of Sir Felix; but he renewed his assurance that he, on his own part, thought that Crumb had behaved well in that matter of the street encounter, and he expressed a strong wish for the immediate and continued happiness of Mr. and Mrs. John Crumb. "Oh, ay, we'll be 'appy, squoire," said Crumb as he went exulting out of the field. On the day after this Roger Carbury received a letter which disturbed him very much, and to which he hardly knew whether to return any answer, or what answer. It was from Paul Montague, and was written by him but a few hours after he had left his letter for Hetta with his own hands, at the door of her mother's house. Paul's letter to Roger was as follows:-- MY DEAR ROGER,-- Though I know that you have cast me off from you I cannot write to you in any other way, as any other way would be untrue. You can answer me, of course, as you please, but I do think that you will owe me an answer, as I appeal to you in the name of justice. You know what has taken place between Hetta and myself. She had accepted me, and therefore I am justified in feeling sure that she must have loved me. But she has now quarrelled with me altogether, and has told me that I am never to see her again. Of course I don't mean to put up with this. Who would? You will say that it is no business of yours. But I think that you would not wish that she should be left under a false impression, if you could put her right. Somebody has told her the story of Mrs. Hurtle. I suppose it was Felix, and that he had learned it from those people at Islington. But she has been told that which is untrue. Nobody knows and nobody can know the truth as you do. She supposes that I have willingly been passing my time with Mrs. Hurtle during the last two months, although during that very time I have asked for and have received the assurance of her love. Now, whether or no I have been to blame about Mrs. Hurtle,--as to which nothing at present need be said,--it is certainly the truth that her coming to England was not only not desired by me, but was felt by me to be the greatest possible misfortune. But after all that had passed I certainly owed it to her not to neglect her;--and this duty was the more incumbent on me as she was a foreigner and unknown to any one. I went down to Lowestoft with her at her request, having named the place to her as one known to myself, and because I could not refuse her so small a favour. You know that it was so, and you know also, as no one else does, that whatever courtesy I have shown to Mrs. Hurtle in England, I have been constrained to show her. I appeal to you to let Hetta know that this is true. She had made me understand that not only her mother and brother, but you also, are well acquainted with the story of my acquaintance with Mrs. Hurtle. Neither Lady Carbury nor Sir Felix has ever known anything about it. You, and you only, have known the truth. And now, though at the present you are angry with me, I call upon you to tell Hetta the truth as you know it. You will understand me when I say that I feel that I am being destroyed by a false representation. I think that you, who abhor a falsehood, will see the justice of setting me right, at any rate as far as the truth can do so. I do not want you to say a word for me beyond that. Yours always, PAUL MONTAGUE. What business is all that of mine? This, of course, was the first feeling produced in Roger's mind by Montague's letter. If Hetta had received any false impression, it had not come from him. He had told no stories against his rival, whether true or false. He had been so scrupulous that he had refused to say a word at all. And if any false impression had been made on Hetta's mind, either by circumstances or by untrue words, had not Montague deserved any evil that might fall upon him? Though every word in Montague's letter might be true, nevertheless, in the end, no more than justice would be done him, even should he be robbed at last of his mistress under erroneous impressions. The fact that he had once disgraced himself by offering to make Mrs. Hurtle his wife, rendered him unworthy of Hetta Carbury. Such, at least, was Roger Carbury's verdict as he thought over all the circumstances. At any rate, it was no business of his to correct these wrong impressions. And yet he was ill at ease as he thought of it all. He did believe that every word in Montague's letter was true. Though he had been very indignant when he met Paul and Mrs. Hurtle together on the sands at Lowestoft, he was perfectly convinced that the cause of their coming there had been precisely that which Montague had stated. It took him two days to think over all this, two days of great discomfort and unhappiness. After all, why should he be a dog in the manger? The girl did not care for him,--looked upon him as an old man to be regarded in a fashion altogether different from that in which she regarded Paul Montague. He had let his time for love-making go by, and now it behoved him, as a man, to take the world as he found it, and not to lose himself in regrets for a kind of happiness which he could never attain. In such an emergency as this he should do what was fair and honest, without reference to his own feelings. And yet the passion which dominated John Crumb altogether, which made the mealman so intent on the attainment of his object as to render all other things indifferent to him for the time, was equally strong with Roger Carbury. Unfortunately for Roger, strong as his passion was, it was embarrassed by other feelings. It never occurred to Crumb to think whether he was a fit husband for Ruby, or whether Ruby, having a decided preference for another man, could be a fit wife for him. But with Roger there were a thousand surrounding difficulties to hamper him. John Crumb never doubted for a moment what he should do. He had to get the girl, if possible, and he meant to get her whatever she might cost him. He was always confident though sometimes perplexed. But Roger had no confidence. He knew that he should never win the game. In his sadder moments he felt that he ought not to win it. The people around him, from old fashion, still called him the young squire! Why;--he felt himself at times to be eighty years old,--so old that he was unfitted for intercourse with such juvenile spirits as those of his neighbour the bishop, and of his friend Hepworth. Could he, by any training, bring himself to take her happiness in hand, altogether sacrificing his own? In such a mood as this he did at last answer his enemy's letter,--and he answered it as follows:-- I do not know that I am concerned to meddle in your affairs at all. I have told no tale against you, and I do not know that I have any that I wish to tell in your favour, or that I could so tell if I did wish. I think that you have behaved badly to me, cruelly to Mrs. Hurtle, and disrespectfully to my cousin. Nevertheless, as you appeal to me on a certain point for evidence which I can give, and which you say no one else can give, I do acknowledge that, in my opinion, Mrs. Hurtle's presence in England has not been in accordance with your wishes, and that you accompanied her to Lowestoft, not as her lover but as an old friend whom you could not neglect. ROGER CARBURY. Paul Montague, Esq. You are at liberty to show this letter to Miss Carbury, if you please; but if she reads part she should read the whole! There was more perhaps of hostility in this letter than of that spirit of self-sacrifice to which Roger intended to train himself; and so he himself felt after the letter had been dispatched.

When Roger Carbury returned to Suffolk after seeing his cousins in Welbeck Street, he was discontented with himself. He knew that he was farther removed than ever from the object on which his whole mind was set. If Hetta Carbury had learned about Paul's engagement with Mrs. Hurtle before she had confessed her love to Paul, she would have buried her love, and might have come to love him, Roger. But Hetta had never heard Mrs. Hurtle's name till she had given herself away. The more Roger thought of this, the more angry he was with Paul Montague, and the more convinced that the man had done him an injury which he could never forgive. But his grief extended beyond that. He also felt that an injury was being done to the man, and that he was in some sort responsible for that injury. He had declined to tell Hetta any part of the story about Mrs. Hurtle. Yet he knew well that Paul's attention to the American woman had not been because of love, but because Paul had felt that he could not desert her when she asked him for kindness. If Hetta could read the state of Paul's mind as he, Roger, could read it, then she would probably forgive the man. Roger was anxious that Hetta's anger should burn hot, because of the injury done to himself, and he thought that Paul Montague should be punished; but not on false grounds. As to the girl's misery in losing her lover - even though Roger was devoted to her happiness, I do not think that he was disturbed about that. He told himself that Paul would be an unsafe, fickle husband, and that it would be better for Hetta not to marry him. At the same time he was unhappy as he reflected that he himself was a party to a certain amount of deceit. And yet he had not said a word. He had referred Hetta to Paul. He tried to quieten his conscience by saying that they must fight it out between themselves, but he was uneasy. His life at Carbury, at this time, was very desolate. He had become tired of the priest, who kept trying to convert him. Roger had told him that he did not wish to discuss religion with him any more; Father Barham had declared that he could never remain as a friend with any man on those terms. When Roger had persisted, the priest had suggested that his host wished to banish him from Carbury Hall. Roger had made no reply, and the priest was banished. But even this added to his misery. He felt he had been cruel to the priest, yet he could not bid him come back. His neighbours were already saying that he was about to become a Roman Catholic. He was troubled, too, about old Ruggles, at Sheep's Acre, who had taken to drink, and was making himself a scandal and a nuisance. He declared that his niece and John Crumb were the cause; for now, in his maudlin misery, he attributed as much blame to John Crumb as he did to the girl. This, too, was a grievance to Roger Carbury. But he did not neglect his work. He was making hay at this time in some meadows down by the river; and was standing by while the men were loading a cart, when he saw John Crumb approaching across the field. He had not seen John since the eventful journey to London, but he had heard all that had happened. John was now regarded in Bungay as a hero, though very "soft" in the matter of love. Roger hurried to meet him. Crumb's broad face beamed with a whole sunshine of delight. As Roger came closer he began to laugh, and to wave a bit of paper. "She's a coomin; she's a coomin," were the first words he uttered. "I am delighted to hear it," said Roger. "She has made it up with her grandfather?" "Don't know now't about grandfeyther. She have made it up wi' me." "Has she written to you, then?" "Well, squoire, she ain't, herself. But it's all as one." And Mr. Crumb thrust Mrs. Hurtle's note into Roger's hand. Roger was not disposed to think kindly of Mrs. Hurtle. Since he had first heard her name from Paul, he had regarded her as a wicked, intriguing woman. But it certainly did seem that in this case Mrs. Hurtle was trying to do a good turn. Roger said that he thought that what she said of Ruby might be true. "True, squoire!" laughed Crumb. "I ha' nae a doubt it's true. When I dropped into t'other fellow, of course she made her choice. So, squoire, I'm going again to Lon'on right away." When Roger observed that it would be better that Ruby should have some home to which she might at once return, John listed with a renewed grin all the comforts of his own house. It seemed to be his idea that on arriving in London he would at once take Ruby to church and be married out of hand. But before he left the field he made one speech about Sir Felix. "You ain't a'taken it amiss, squoire, 'cause he was your coosin?" "Not in the least, Mr. Crumb." "That's koind now. I ain't a done the yong man no harm, and I don't feel no grudge again him." Roger assured him that he thought that Crumb had behaved well in that encounter, and he expressed a strong wish for the happiness of Mr. and Mrs. John Crumb. "Oh, ay, we'll be 'appy, squoire," said Crumb, as he went exulting out of the field. On the day after this Roger Carbury received a letter which disturbed him very much. It was from Paul Montague, written a few hours after he had left his letter for Hetta. Paul's letter to Roger was as follows: My dear Roger, Though I know that you have cast me off I cannot write to you in any other way. You can answer me, of course, as you please, but I do think that you will owe me an answer, as I appeal to you in the name of justice. You know what has taken place between Hetta and myself. She had accepted me, and therefore I feel sure that she must have loved me. But she has now quarrelled with me altogether, and has told me that I am never to see her again. Of course I don't mean to put up with this. Who would? You will say that it is no business of yours. But I think that you would not wish that she should be left under a false impression, if you could put her right. Somebody has told her the story of Mrs. Hurtle. I suppose it was Felix. But she has not been told the truth. Nobody knows the truth as you do. She supposes that I have willingly been passing my time with Mrs. Hurtle during the last two months. Now, whether or no I have been to blame about Mrs. Hurtle, her coming to England was not desired by me; I felt it to be the greatest possible misfortune. But I owed it to her not to neglect her, as she was a foreigner unknown to anyone. I went to Lowestoft with her at her request, because I could not refuse her so small a favour. You know that it was so, and you know also that whatever courtesy I have shown to Mrs. Hurtle in England, I have been forced to show her. Though you are angry with me, I appeal to you to tell Hetta the truth as you know it. I think that you, who abhor a falsehood, will see the justice of telling her the truth. I do not want you to say a word for me beyond that. Yours always, Paul Montague. What business is it of mine? This was Roger's first feeling. If Hetta had received any false impression, it had not come from him. He had told no stories against his rival, true or false. He had been so scrupulous that he had refused to say a word at all. And had not Montague deserved any evil that might fall upon him? It would be no more than justice if he were robbed at last of his love. The fact that he had once disgraced himself by offering to make Mrs. Hurtle his wife rendered him unworthy of Hetta Carbury. Such, at least, was Roger's verdict. And yet he was ill at ease. After all, why should he be a dog in the manger? The girl did not care for him; she looked upon him as an old man. He had let his time for love-making go by, and he ought not to lose himself in regrets for a happiness which he could never attain. In such an emergency as this he should do what was fair and honest, without reference to his own feelings. And yet the passion which dominated John Crumb was equally strong with Roger Carbury. Unfortunately for Roger, unlike John Crumb, he knew that he would never win the game. In his sadder moments he felt that he ought not to win it. Why, he felt himself at times to be eighty years old. Could he bring himself to take her happiness in hand, altogether sacrificing his own? In such a mood he did at last answer his enemy's letter, as follows: I do not know that I am concerned to meddle in your affairs at all. I have told no tale against you, and I do not have any that I wish to tell in your favour. I think that you have behaved badly to me, cruelly to Mrs. Hurtle, and disrespectfully to my cousin. Nevertheless, as you appeal to me on a certain point for evidence which I can give, I do acknowledge that, in my opinion, Mrs. Hurtle's presence in England has not been in accordance with your wishes, and that you accompanied her to Lowestoft, not as her lover but as an old friend whom you could not neglect. Roger Carbury. You are at liberty to show this letter to Miss Carbury, if you please; but if she reads part she should read the whole! There was perhaps more hostility in this letter than the self-sacrifice Roger had intended; and so he felt after the letter had been sent.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 87: Down at Carbury

Melmotte had been found dead on Friday morning, and late on the evening of the same day Madame Melmotte and Marie were removed to lodgings far away from the scene of the tragedy, up at Hampstead. Herr Croll had known of the place, and at Lord Nidderdale's instance had busied himself in the matter, and had seen that the rooms were made instantly ready for the widow of his late employer. Nidderdale himself had assisted them in their departure; and the German, with the poor woman's maid, with the jewels also, which had been packed according to Melmotte's last orders to his wife, followed the carriage which took the mother and the daughter. They did not start till nine o'clock in the evening, and Madame Melmotte at the moment would fain have been allowed to rest one other night in Bruton Street. But Lord Nidderdale, with one hardly uttered word, made Marie understand that the inquest would be held early on the following morning, and Marie was imperious with her mother and carried her point. So the poor woman was taken away from Mr. Longestaffe's residence, and never again saw the grandeur of her own house in Grosvenor Square, which she had not visited since the night on which she had helped to entertain the Emperor of China. On Saturday morning the inquest was held. There was not the slightest doubt as to any one of the incidents of the catastrophe. The servants, the doctor, and the inspector of police between them, learned that he had come home alone, that nobody had been near him during the night, that he had been found dead, and that he had undoubtedly been poisoned by prussic acid. It was also proved that he had been drunk in the House of Commons, a fact to which one of the clerks of the House, very much against his will, was called upon to testify. That he had destroyed himself there was no doubt,--nor was there any doubt as to the cause. In such cases as this it is for the jury to say whether the unfortunate one who has found his life too hard for endurance, and has rushed away to see whether he could not find an improved condition of things elsewhere, has or has not been mad at the moment. Surviving friends are of course anxious for a verdict of insanity, as in that case no further punishment is exacted. The body can be buried like any other body, and it can always be said afterwards that the poor man was mad. Perhaps it would be well that all suicides should be said to have been mad, for certainly the jurymen are not generally guided in their verdicts by any accurately ascertained facts. If the poor wretch has, up to his last days, been apparently living a decent life; if he be not hated, or has not in his last moments made himself specially obnoxious to the world at large, then he is declared to have been mad. Who would be heavy on a poor clergyman who has been at last driven by horrid doubts to rid himself of a difficulty from which he saw no escape in any other way? Who would not give the benefit of the doubt to the poor woman whose lover and lord had deserted her? Who would remit to unhallowed earth the body of the once beneficent philosopher who has simply thought that he might as well go now, finding himself powerless to do further good upon earth? Such, and such like, have of course been temporarily insane, though no touch even of strangeness may have marked their conduct up to their last known dealings with their fellow-mortals. But let a Melmotte be found dead, with a bottle of prussic acid by his side--a man who has become horrid to the world because of his late iniquities, a man who has so well pretended to be rich that he has been able to buy and to sell properties without paying for them, a wretch who has made himself odious by his ruin to friends who had taken him up as a pillar of strength in regard to wealth, a brute who had got into the House of Commons by false pretences, and had disgraced the House by being drunk there,--and, of course, he will not be saved by a verdict of insanity from the cross roads, or whatever scornful grave may be allowed to those who have killed themselves, with their wits about them. Just at this moment there was a very strong feeling against Melmotte, owing perhaps as much to his having tumbled over poor Mr. Beauclerk in the House of Commons as to the stories of the forgeries he had committed, and the virtue of the day vindicated itself by declaring him to have been responsible for his actions when he took the poison. He was _felo de se_, and therefore carried away to the cross roads--or elsewhere. But it may be imagined, I think, that during that night he may have become as mad as any other wretch, have been driven as far beyond his powers of endurance as any other poor creature who ever at any time felt himself constrained to go. He had not been so drunk but that he knew all that happened, and could foresee pretty well what would happen. The summons to attend upon the Lord Mayor had been served upon him. There were some, among them Croll and Mr. Brehgert, who absolutely knew that he had committed forgery. He had no money for the Longestaffes, and he was well aware what Squercum would do at once. He had assured himself long ago,--he had assured himself indeed not very long ago,--that he would brave it all like a man. But we none of us know what load we can bear, and what would break our backs. Melmotte's back had been so utterly crushed that I almost think that he was mad enough to have justified a verdict of temporary insanity. But he was carried away, no one knew whither, and for a week his name was hateful. But after that, a certain amount of whitewashing took place, and, in some degree, a restitution of fame was made to the manes of the departed. In Westminster he was always odious. Westminster, which had adopted him, never forgave him. But in other districts it came to be said of him that he had been more sinned against than sinning; and that, but for the jealousy of the old stagers in the mercantile world, he would have done very wonderful things. Marylebone, which is always merciful, took him up quite with affection, and would have returned his ghost to Parliament could his ghost have paid for committee rooms. Finsbury delighted for a while to talk of the great Financier, and even Chelsea thought that he had been done to death by ungenerous tongues. It was, however, Marylebone alone that spoke of a monument. Mr. Longestaffe came back to his house, taking formal possession of it a few days after the verdict. Of course he was alone. There had been no further question of bringing the ladies of the family up to town; and Dolly altogether declined to share with his father the honour of encountering the dead man's spirit. But there was very much for Mr. Longestaffe to do, and very much also for his son. It was becoming a question with both of them how far they had been ruined by their connection with the horrible man. It was clear that they could not get back the title-deeds of the Pickering property without paying the amount which had been advanced upon them, and it was equally clear that they could not pay that sum unless they were enabled to do so by funds coming out of the Melmotte estate. Dolly, as he sat smoking upon the stool in Mr. Squercum's office, where he now passed a considerable portion of his time, looked upon himself as a miracle of ill-usage. "By George, you know, I shall have to go to law with the governor. There's nothing else for it; is there, Squercum?" Squercum suggested that they had better wait till they found what pickings there might be out of the Melmotte estate. He had made inquiries too about that, and had been assured that there must be property, but property so involved and tied up as to make it impossible to lay hands upon it suddenly. "They say that the things in the square, and the plate, and the carriages and horses, and all that, ought to fetch between twenty and thirty thousand. There were a lot of jewels, but the women have taken them," said Squercum. "By George, they ought to be made to give up everything. Did you ever hear of such a thing;--the very house pulled down;--my house; and all done without a word from me in the matter? I don't suppose such a thing was ever known before, since properties were properties." Then he uttered sundry threats against the Bideawhiles, in reference to whom he declared his intention of "making it very hot for them." It was an annoyance added to the elder Mr. Longestaffe that the management of Melmotte's affairs fell at last almost exclusively into the hands of Mr. Brehgert. Now Brehgert, in spite of his many dealings with Melmotte, was an honest man, and, which was perhaps of as much immediate consequence, both an energetic and a patient man. But then he was the man who had wanted to marry Georgiana Longestaffe, and he was the man to whom Mr. Longestaffe had been particularly uncivil. Then there arose necessities for the presence of Mr. Brehgert in the house in which Melmotte had lately lived and had died. The dead man's papers were still there,--deeds, documents, and such letters as he had not chosen to destroy;--and these could not be removed quite at once. "Mr. Brehgert must of course have access to my private room, as long as it is necessary,--absolutely necessary," said Mr. Longestaffe in answer to a message which was brought to him; "but he will of course see the expediency of relieving me from such intrusion as soon as possible." But he soon found it preferable to come to terms with the rejected suitor, especially as the man was singularly good-natured and forbearing after the injuries he had received. All minor debts were to be paid at once; an arrangement to which Mr. Longestaffe cordially agreed, as it included a sum of 300 due to him for the rent of his house in Bruton Street. Then by degrees it became known that there would certainly be a dividend of not less than fifty per cent. payable on debts which could be proved to have been owing by Melmotte, and perhaps of more;--an arrangement which was very comfortable to Dolly, as it had been already agreed between all the parties interested that the debt due to him should be satisfied before the father took anything. Mr. Longestaffe resolved during these weeks that he remained in town that, as regarded himself and his own family, the house in London should not only not be kept up, but that it should be absolutely sold, with all its belongings, and that the servants at Caversham should be reduced in number, and should cease to wear powder. All this was communicated to Lady Pomona in a very long letter, which she was instructed to read to her daughters. "I have suffered great wrongs," said Mr. Longestaffe, "but I must submit to them, and as I submit so must my wife and children. If our son were different from what he is the sacrifice might probably be made lighter. His nature I cannot alter, but from my daughters I expect cheerful obedience." From what incidents of his past life he was led to expect cheerfulness at Caversham it might be difficult to say; but the obedience was there. Georgey was for the time broken down; Sophia was satisfied with her nuptial prospects, and Lady Pomona had certainly no spirits left for a combat. I think the loss of the hair-powder afflicted her most; but she said not a word even about that. But in all this the details necessary for the telling of our story are anticipated. Mr. Longestaffe had remained in London actually over the 1st of September, which in Suffolk is the one great festival of the year, before the letter was written to which allusion has been made. In the meantime he saw much of Mr. Brehgert, and absolutely formed a kind of friendship for that gentleman, in spite of the abomination of his religion,--so that on one occasion he even condescended to ask Mr. Brehgert to dine alone with him in Bruton Street. This, too, was in the early days of the arrangement of the Melmotte affairs, when Mr. Longestaffe's heart had been softened by that arrangement with reference to the rent. Mr. Brehgert came, and there arose a somewhat singular conversation between the two gentlemen as they sat together over a bottle of Mr. Longestaffe's old port wine. Hitherto not a word had passed between them respecting the connection which had once been proposed, since the day on which the young lady's father had said so many bitter things to the expectant bridegroom. But in this evening Mr. Brehgert, who was by no means a coward in such matters and whose feelings were not perhaps painfully fine, spoke his mind in a way that at first startled Mr. Longestaffe. The subject was introduced by a reference which Brehgert had made to his own affairs. His loss would be, at any rate, double that which Mr. Longestaffe would have to bear;--but he spoke of it in an easy way, as though it did not sit very near his heart. "Of course there's a difference between me and you," he said. Mr. Longestaffe bowed his head graciously, as much as to say that there was of course a very wide difference. "In our affairs," continued Brehgert, "we expect gains, and of course look for occasional losses. When a gentleman in your position sells a property he expects to get the purchase-money." "Of course he does, Mr. Brehgert. That's what made it so hard." "I can't even yet quite understand how it was with him, or why he took upon himself to spend such an enormous deal of money here in London. His business was quite irregular, but there was very much of it, and some of it immensely profitable. He took us in completely." "I suppose so." "It was old Mr. Todd that first took to him;--but I was deceived as much as Todd, and then I ventured on a speculation with him outside of our house. The long and the short of it is that I shall lose something about sixty thousand pounds." "That's a large sum of money." "Very large;--so large as to affect my daily mode of life. In my correspondence with your daughter, I considered it to be my duty to point out to her that it would be so. I do not know whether she told you." This reference to his daughter for the moment altogether upset Mr. Longestaffe. The reference was certainly most indelicate, most deserving of censure; but Mr. Longestaffe did not know how to pronounce his censure on the spur of the moment, and was moreover at the present time so very anxious for Brehgert's assistance in the arrangement of his affairs that, so to say, he could not afford to quarrel with the man. But he assumed something more than his normal dignity as he asserted that his daughter had never mentioned the fact. "It was so," said Brehgert. "No doubt;"--and Mr. Longestaffe assumed a great deal of dignity. "Yes; it was so. I had promised your daughter when she was good enough to listen to the proposition which I made to her, that I would maintain a second house when we should be married." "It was impossible," said Mr. Longestaffe,--meaning to assert that such hymeneals were altogether unnatural and out of the question. "It would have been quite possible as things were when that proposition was made. But looking forward to the loss which I afterwards anticipated from the affairs of our deceased friend, I found it to be prudent to relinquish my intention for the present, and I thought myself bound to inform Miss Longestaffe." "There were other reasons," muttered Mr. Longestaffe, in a suppressed voice, almost in a whisper,--in a whisper which was intended to convey a sense of present horror and a desire for future reticence. "There may have been; but in the last letter which Miss Longestaffe did me the honour to write to me,--a letter with which I have not the slightest right to find any fault,--she seemed to me to confine herself almost exclusively to that reason." "Why mention this now, Mr. Brehgert; why mention this now? The subject is painful." "Just because it is not painful to me, Mr. Longestaffe; and because I wish that all they who have heard of the matter should know that it is not painful. I think that throughout I behaved like a gentleman." Mr. Longestaffe, in an agony, first shook his head twice, and then bowed it three times, leaving the Jew to take what answer he could from so dubious an oracle. "I am sure," continued Brehgert, "that I behaved like an honest man; and I didn't quite like that the matter should be passed over as if I was in any way ashamed of myself." "Perhaps on so delicate a subject the less said the soonest mended." "I've nothing more to say, and I've nothing at all to mend." Finishing the conversation with this little speech Brehgert arose to take his leave, making some promise at the time that he would use all the expedition in his power to complete the arrangement of the Melmotte affairs. As soon as he was gone Mr. Longestaffe opened the door and walked about the room and blew out long puffs of breath, as though to cleanse himself from the impurities of his late contact. He told himself that he could not touch pitch and not be defiled! How vulgar had the man been, how indelicate, how regardless of all feeling, how little grateful for the honour which Mr. Longestaffe had conferred upon him by asking him to dinner! Yes;--yes! A horrid Jew! Were not all Jews necessarily an abomination? Yet Mr. Longestaffe was aware that in the present crisis of his fortunes he could not afford to quarrel with Mr. Brehgert.

Melmotte had been found dead on Friday morning, and late that evening Madame Melmotte and Marie were moved to lodgings far away up at Hampstead. Herr Croll had known of the place, and at Lord Nidderdale's request had seen that the rooms were instantly made ready. Nidderdale himself had helped them depart. They did not go till nine o'clock in the evening, and Madame Melmotte would fain have stayed one more night in Bruton Street. But Marie was imperious with her mother; so the poor woman was taken away. On Saturday morning the inquest was held. The servants, the doctor, and the police inspector agreed that Melmotte had come home alone, that nobody had been near him during the night, and that he had been found dead, poisoned by prussic acid. There was no doubt that he had destroyed himself - nor as to the cause. In such cases it is for the jury to say whether the unfortunate one has been mad at the time. Surviving friends are of course anxious for a verdict of insanity, so that the body can be buried like any other body, and it can always be said afterwards that the poor man was mad. But let a Melmotte be found dead - a man who has become horrid to the world, a man who has pretended to be rich, a brute who has got into the House of Commons by false pretences, and has disgraced the House by being drunk there - he will not be saved by a verdict of insanity. There was a very strong feeling against Melmotte, and he was declared to have been responsible for his actions when he took the poison. All the same, I think that during that night he may have become as mad as any other wretch driven beyond his powers of endurance. He could foresee pretty well what would happen. He had committed forgery; he had no money for the Longestaffes, and was well aware what Squercum would do. Although he had assured himself that he would bear it all like a man, we none of us know what load we can bear, and what would break our backs. His body was carried away, and for a week his name was hateful. But after that, there was a certain amount of whitewashing. In Westminster he was always odious; but Marylebone took him up quite with affection, while Finsbury delighted to talk of the great Financier, and even Chelsea thought that he had been done to death by unkind tongues. Mr. Longestaffe came back to his house alone. There was much for both him and Dolly to do, in working out how far they had been ruined. They could not get back the title-deeds of the Pickering property without paying the amount which had been advanced upon them, and they could not pay that sum unless they were enabled to do so by funds coming out of the Melmotte estate. Dolly, as he sat smoking in Mr. Squercum's office, said, "By George, you know, I shall have to go to law with the governor. There's nothing else for it; is there, Squercum?" Squercum suggested that they had better wait till they found what pickings there might be from the Melmotte estate. "They say that the furnishings, and the silver plate, and carriages and horses, and all that, ought to fetch between twenty and thirty thousand. There were a lot of jewels, but the women have taken them." "By George, they ought to be made to give up everything." Then Dolly uttered threats against the Bideawhiles, declaring he would "make it very hot for them." It was an added annoyance to the elder Mr. Longestaffe that the management of Melmotte's estate fell at last into the hands of Mr. Brehgert. Now Brehgert, in spite of his many dealings with Melmotte, was an honest man, and also energetic and patient. But he was the man who had wanted to marry Georgiana Longestaffe, and to whom Mr. Longestaffe had been particularly uncivil. Mr. Brehgert needed to be in the house, for the dead man's papers were still there - those that he had not destroyed - and could not yet be removed. "Mr. Brehgert must of course have access to my private room, if it is absolutely necessary," said Mr. Longestaffe; "but he will relieve me from such intrusion as soon as possible." However, he soon found it preferable to come to terms with the rejected suitor, especially as the man was singularly good-natured after the injuries he had received. All minor debts were to be paid at once; an arrangement to which Mr. Longestaffe agreed, as it included a sum of 300 due to him for the rent of the house in Bruton Street. Then it became known that there would certainly be a dividend of at least fifty per cent payable on debts which had been owing by Melmotte; an arrangement which was very comfortable to Dolly. Mr. Longestaffe resolved during these weeks that his house in London should be sold, with all its belongings, and that the servants at Caversham should be reduced in number. All this was communicated to Lady Pomona in a very long letter, which she was instructed to read to her daughters. "I have suffered great wrongs," wrote Mr. Longestaffe, "but I must submit to them, and as I submit so must my wife and children. From my daughters I expect cheerful obedience." Exactly what led him to expect cheerfulness at Caversham it is difficult to say; but the obedience was there. Georgey was for the time broken down, while Sophia was satisfied with her nuptial prospects. While Mr. Longestaffe remained in London, he saw much of Mr. Brehgert, and formed a kind of friendship with that gentleman, in spite of the abomination of his religion. He once even asked Mr. Brehgert to dine with him in Bruton Street. Mr. Brehgert came, and there was a somewhat singular conversation between the two gentlemen as they sat together over a bottle of Mr. Longestaffe's old port wine. Until then not a word had passed between them about the engagement with Georgiana, since the day on which her father had said so many bitter things to the expectant bridegroom. But this evening Mr. Brehgert spoke his mind in a way that at first startled Mr. Longestaffe. The subject was introduced by a reference which Brehgert made to his own affairs. His loss would be double Mr. Longestaffe's; but he spoke of it in an easy way, as though it did not sit very near his heart. "Of course there's a difference between me and you," he said. Mr. Longestaffe bowed his head graciously. "In our affairs," continued Brehgert, "we expect gains, and of course look for occasional losses. When a gentleman in your position sells a property he expects to get the purchase-money." "Of course he does, Mr. Brehgert. That's what made it so hard." "I can't even yet quite understand why he decided to spend such an enormous deal of money here in London. His business was quite irregular, but there was very much of it, and some of it immensely profitable. He took us in completely." "I suppose so." "I ventured on a speculation with him; and the long and the short of it is that I shall lose about sixty thousand pounds." "That's a large sum of money." "Very large; so large as to affect my daily mode of life. In my correspondence with your daughter, I considered it my duty to point out to her that it would be so. I do not know whether she told you." This indelicate reference to his daughter altogether upset Mr. Longestaffe. He was so anxious for Brehgert's assistance that he could not afford to quarrel with the man. But he assumed more than his normal dignity as he said that his daughter had never mentioned the fact. "It was so. I had promised your daughter that I would maintain a second house when we should be married." "It was impossible," said Mr. Longestaffe - meaning the marriage. "It would have been quite possible as things were when I proposed. But on looking forward to the loss which I anticipated, I found it best to relinquish my intention for the present, and I thought myself bound to inform Miss Longestaffe." "There were other reasons," muttered Mr. Longestaffe, in a suppressed whisper. "There may have been; but in the last letter which Miss Longestaffe did me the honour to write to me, she seemed to confine herself almost exclusively to that reason." "Why mention this now, Mr. Brehgert? The subject is painful." "Because it is not painful to me, Mr. Longestaffe; and because I wish everyone to know that it is not painful. I think that throughout I behaved like a gentleman and an honest man." Mr. Longestaffe, in an agony, first shook his head twice, and then nodded three times. "Perhaps less said the soonest mended." "I've nothing more to say, and I've nothing to mend." With this little speech Brehgert arose to take his leave, promising to do all in his power to complete the arrangement of the Melmotte affairs. As soon as he was gone Mr. Longestaffe walked about the room and blew out long puffs of breath, as though to cleanse himself from impurities. How vulgar had the man been, how indelicate, how little grateful for the honour which Mr. Longestaffe had shown him by asking him to dinner! A horrid Jew! Yet Mr. Longestaffe was aware that in the present crisis he could not afford to quarrel with Mr. Brehgert.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 88: The Inquest

When the Melmottes went from Caversham the house was very desolate. The task of entertaining these people was indeed over, and had the return to London been fixed for a certain near day, there would have been comfort at any rate among the ladies of the family. But this was so far from being the case that the Thursday and Friday passed without anything being settled, and dreadful fears began to fill the minds of Lady Pomona and Sophia Longestaffe. Georgiana was also impatient, but she asserted boldly that treachery, such as that which her mother and sister contemplated, was impossible. Their father, she thought, would not dare to propose it. On each of these days,--three or four times daily,--hints were given and questions were asked, but without avail. Mr. Longestaffe would not consent to have a day fixed till he had received some particular letter, and would not even listen to the suggestion of a day. "I suppose we can go at any rate on Tuesday," Georgiana said on the Friday evening. "I don't know why you should suppose anything of the kind," the father replied. Poor Lady Pomona was urged by her daughters to compel him to name a day; but Lady Pomona was less audacious in urging the request than her younger child, and at the same time less anxious for its completion. On the Sunday morning before they went to church there was a great discussion up-stairs. The Bishop of Elmham was going to preach at Caversham church, and the three ladies were dressed in their best London bonnets. They were in their mother's room, having just completed the arrangements of their church-going toilet. It was supposed that the expected letter had arrived. Mr. Longestaffe had certainly received a dispatch from his lawyer, but had not as yet vouchsafed any reference to its contents. He had been more than ordinarily silent at breakfast, and,--so Sophia asserted,--more disagreeable than ever. The question had now arisen especially in reference to their bonnets. "You might as well wear them," said Lady Pomona, "for I am sure you will not be in London again this year." "You don't mean it, mamma," said Sophia. "I do, my dear. He looked like it when he put those papers back into his pocket. I know what his face means so well." "It is not possible," said Sophia. "He promised, and he got us to have those horrid people because he promised." "Well, my dear, if your father says that we can't go back, I suppose we must take his word for it. It is he must decide of course. What he meant I suppose was, that he would take us back if he could." "Mamma!" shouted Georgiana. Was there to be treachery not only on the part of their natural adversary, who, adversary though he was, had bound himself to terms by a treaty, but treachery also in their own camp! "My dear, what can we do?" said Lady Pomona. "Do!" Georgiana was now going to speak out plainly. "Make him understand that we are not going to be sat upon like that. I'll do something, if that's going to be the way of it. If he treats me like that I'll run off with the first man that will take me, let him be who it may." "Don't talk like that, Georgiana, unless you wish to kill me." "I'll break his heart for him. He does not care about us,--not the least,--whether we are happy or miserable; but he cares very much about the family name. I'll tell him that I'm not going to be a slave. I'll marry a London tradesman before I'll stay down here." The younger Miss Longestaffe was lost in passion at the prospect before her. "Oh, Georgey, don't say such horrid things as that," pleaded her sister. "It's all very well for you, Sophy. You've got George Whitstable." "I haven't got George Whitstable." "Yes, you have, and your fish is fried. Dolly does just what he pleases, and spends money as fast as he likes. Of course it makes no difference to you, mamma, where you are." "You are very unjust," said Lady Pomona, wailing, "and you say horrid things." "I ain't unjust at all. It doesn't matter to you. And Sophy is the same as settled. But I'm to be sacrificed! How am I to see anybody down here in this horrid hole? Papa promised and he must keep his word." Then there came to them a loud voice calling to them from the hall. "Are any of you coming to church, or are you going to keep the carriage waiting all day?" Of course they were all going to church. They always did go to church when they were at Caversham; and would more especially do so to-day, because of the bishop and because of the bonnets. They trooped down into the hall and into the carriage, Lady Pomona leading the way. Georgiana stalked along, passing her father at the front door without condescending to look at him. Not a word was spoken on the way to church, or on the way home. During the service Mr. Longestaffe stood up in the corner of his pew, and repeated the responses in a loud voice. In performing this duty he had been an example to the parish all his life. The three ladies knelt on their hassocks in the most becoming fashion, and sat during the sermon without the slightest sign either of weariness or of attention. They did not collect the meaning of any one combination of sentences. It was nothing to them whether the bishop had or had not a meaning. Endurance of that kind was their strength. Had the bishop preached for forty-five minutes instead of half an hour they would not have complained. It was the same kind of endurance which enabled Georgiana to go on from year to year waiting for a husband of the proper sort. She could put up with any amount of tedium if only the fair chance of obtaining ultimate relief were not denied to her. But to be kept at Caversham all the summer would be as bad as hearing a bishop preach for ever! After the service they came back to lunch, and that meal also was eaten in silence. When it was over the head of the family put himself into the dining-room arm-chair, evidently meaning to be left alone there. In that case he would have meditated upon his troubles till he went to sleep, and would have thus got through the afternoon with comfort. But this was denied to him. The two daughters remained steadfast while the things were being removed; and Lady Pomona, though she made one attempt to leave the room, returned when she found that her daughters would not follow her. Georgiana had told her sister that she meant to "have it out" with her father, and Sophia had of course remained in the room in obedience to her sister's behest. When the last tray had been taken out, Georgiana began. "Papa, don't you think you could settle now when we are to go back to town? Of course we want to know about engagements and all that. There is Lady Monogram's party on Wednesday. We promised to be there ever so long ago." "You had better write to Lady Monogram and say you can't keep your engagement." "But why not, papa? We could go up on Wednesday morning." "You can't do anything of the kind." "But, my dear, we should all like to have a day fixed," said Lady Pomona. Then there was a pause. Even Georgiana, in her present state of mind, would have accepted some distant, even some undefined time, as a compromise. "Then you can't have a day fixed," said Mr. Longestaffe. "How long do you suppose that we shall be kept here?" said Sophia, in a low constrained voice. "I do not know what you mean by being kept here. This is your home, and this is where you may make up your minds to live." "But we are to go back?" demanded Sophia. Georgiana stood by in silence, listening, resolving, and biding her time. "You'll not return to London this season," said Mr. Longestaffe, turning himself abruptly to a newspaper which he held in his hands. "Do you mean that that is settled?" said Lady Pomona. "I mean to say that that is settled," said Mr. Longestaffe. Was there ever treachery like this! The indignation in Georgiana's mind approached almost to virtue as she thought of her father's falseness. She would not have left town at all but for that promise. She would not have contaminated herself with the Melmottes but for that promise. And now she was told that the promise was to be absolutely broken, when it was no longer possible that she could get back to London,--even to the house of the hated Primeros,--without absolutely running away from her father's residence! "Then, papa," she said, with affected calmness, "you have simply and with premeditation broken your word to us." "How dare you speak to me in that way, you wicked child!" "I am not a child, papa, as you know very well. I am my own mistress,--by law." "Then go and be your own mistress. You dare to tell me, your father, that I have premeditated a falsehood! If you tell me that again, you shall eat your meals in your own room or not eat them in this house." "Did you not promise that we should go back if we would come down and entertain these people?" "I will not argue with a child, insolent and disobedient as you are. If I have anything to say about it, I will say it to your mother. It should be enough for you that I, your father, tell you that you have to live here. Now go away, and if you choose to be sullen, go and be sullen where I shan't see you." Georgiana looked round on her mother and sister and then marched majestically out of the room. She still meditated revenge, but she was partly cowed, and did not dare in her father's presence to go on with her reproaches. She stalked off into the room in which they generally lived, and there she stood panting with anger, breathing indignation through her nostrils. [Illustration: She marched majestically out of the room.] "And you mean to put up with it, mamma?" she said. "What can we do, my dear?" "I will do something. I'm not going to be cheated and swindled and have my life thrown away into the bargain. I have always behaved well to him. I have never run up bills without saying anything about them." This was a cut at her elder sister, who had once got into some little trouble of that kind. "I have never got myself talked about with any body. If there is anything to be done I always do it. I have written his letters for him till I have been sick, and when you were ill I never asked him to stay out with us after two or half-past two at the latest. And now he tells me that I am to eat my meals up in my bedroom because I remind him that he distinctly promised to take us back to London! Did he not promise, mamma?" "I understood so, my dear." "You know he promised, mamma. If I do anything now he must bear the blame of it. I am not going to keep myself straight for the sake of the family, and then be treated in that way." "You do that for your own sake, I suppose," said her sister. "It is more than you've been able to do for anybody's sake," said Georgiana, alluding to a very old affair,--to an ancient flirtation, in the course of which the elder daughter had made a foolish and a futile attempt to run away with an officer of dragoons whose private fortune was very moderate. Ten years had passed since that, and the affair was never alluded to except in moments of great bitterness. "I've kept myself as straight as you have," said Sophia. "It's easy enough to be straight, when a person never cares for anybody, and nobody cares for a person." "My dears, if you quarrel what am I to do?" said their mother. "It is I that have to suffer," continued Georgiana. "Does he expect me to find anybody here that I could take? Poor George Whitstable is not much; but there is nobody else at all." "You may have him if you like," said Sophia, with a chuck of her head. "Thank you, my dear, but I shouldn't like it at all. I haven't come to that quite yet." "You were talking of running away with somebody." "I shan't run away with George Whitstable; you may be sure of that. I'll tell you what I shall do,--I will write papa a letter. I suppose he'll condescend to read it. If he won't take me up to town himself, he must send me up to the Primeros. What makes me most angry in the whole thing is that we should have condescended to be civil to the Melmottes down in the country. In London one does those things, but to have them here was terrible!" During that entire afternoon nothing more was said. Not a word passed between them on any subject beyond those required by the necessities of life. Georgiana had been as hard to her sister as to her father, and Sophia in her quiet way resented the affront. She was now almost reconciled to the sojourn in the country, because it inflicted a fitting punishment on Georgiana, and the presence of Mr. Whitstable at a distance of not more than ten miles did of course make a difference to herself. Lady Pomona complained of a headache, which was always an excuse with her for not speaking;--and Mr. Longestaffe went to sleep. Georgiana during the whole afternoon remained apart, and on the next morning the head of the family found the following letter on his dressing-table;-- MY DEAR PAPA,-- I don't think you ought to be surprised because we feel that our going up to town is so very important to us. If we are not to be in London at this time of the year we can never see anybody, and of course you know what that must mean for me. If this goes on about Sophia, it does not signify for her, and, though mamma likes London, it is not of real importance. But it is very, very hard upon me. It isn't for pleasure that I want to go up. There isn't so very much pleasure in it. But if I'm to be buried down here at Caversham, I might just as well be dead at once. If you choose to give up both houses for a year, or for two years, and take us all abroad, I should not grumble in the least. There are very nice people to be met abroad, and perhaps things go easier that way than in town. And there would be nothing for horses, and we could dress very cheap and wear our old things. I'm sure I don't want to run up bills. But if you would only think what Caversham must be to me, without any one worth thinking about within twenty miles, you would hardly ask me to stay here. You certainly did say that if we would come down here with those Melmottes we should be taken back to town, and you cannot be surprised that we should be disappointed when we are told that we are to be kept here after that. It makes me feel that life is so hard that I can't bear it. I see other girls having such chances when I have none, that sometimes I think I don't know what will happen to me. This was the nearest approach which she dared to make in writing to that threat which she had uttered to her mother of running away with somebody. I suppose that now it is useless for me to ask you to take us all back this summer,--though it was promised; but I hope you'll give me money to go up to the Primeros. It would only be me and my maid. Julia Primero asked me to stay with them when you first talked of not going up, and I should not in the least object to reminding her, only it should be done at once. Their house in Queen's Gate is very large, and I know they've a room. They all ride, and I should want a horse; but there would be nothing else, as they have plenty of carriages, and the groom who rides with Julia would do for both of us. Pray answer this at once, papa. Your affectionate daughter, GEORGIANA LONGESTAFFE. Mr. Longestaffe did condescend to read the letter. He, though he had rebuked his mutinous daughter with stern severity, was also to some extent afraid of her. At a sudden burst he could stand upon his authority, and assume his position with parental dignity; but not the less did he dread the wearing toil of continued domestic strife. He thought that upon the whole his daughter liked a row in the house. If not, there surely would not be so many rows. He himself thoroughly hated them. He had not any very lively interest in life. He did not read much; he did not talk much; he was not specially fond of eating and drinking; he did not gamble, and he did not care for the farm. To stand about the door and hall and public rooms of the clubs to which he belonged and hear other men talk politics or scandal, was what he liked better than anything else in the world. But he was quite willing to give this up for the good of his family. He would be contented to drag through long listless days at Caversham, and endeavour to nurse his property, if only his daughter would allow it. By assuming a certain pomp in his living, which had been altogether unserviceable to himself and family, by besmearing his footmen's heads, and bewigging his coachmen, by aping, though never achieving, the grand ways of grander men than himself, he had run himself into debt. His own ambition had been a peerage, and he had thought that this was the way to get it. A separate property had come to his son from his wife's mother,--some 2,000 or 3,000 a year, magnified by the world into double its amount,--and the knowledge of this had for a time reconciled him to increasing the burdens on the family estates. He had been sure that Adolphus, when of age, would have consented to sell the Sussex property in order that the Suffolk property might be relieved. But Dolly was now in debt himself, and though in other respects the most careless of men, was always on his guard in any dealings with his father. He would not consent to the sale of the Sussex property unless half of the proceeds were to be at once handed to himself. The father could not bring himself to consent to this, but, while refusing it, found the troubles of the world very hard upon him. Melmotte had done something for him,--but in doing this Melmotte was very hard and tyrannical. Melmotte, when at Caversham, had looked into his affairs, and had told him very plainly that with such an establishment in the country he was not entitled to keep a house in town. Mr. Longestaffe had then said something about his daughters,--something especially about Georgiana,--and Mr. Melmotte had made a suggestion. Mr. Longestaffe, when he read his daughter's appeal, did feel for her, in spite of his anger. But if there was one man he hated more than another, it was his neighbour Mr. Primero; and if one woman, it was Mrs. Primero. Primero, whom Mr. Longestaffe regarded as quite an upstart, and anything but a gentleman, owed no man anything. He paid his tradesmen punctually, and never met the squire of Caversham without seeming to make a parade of his virtue in that direction. He had spent many thousands for his party in county elections and borough elections, and was now himself member for a metropolitan district. He was a radical, of course, or, according to Mr. Longestaffe's view of his political conduct, acted and voted on the radical side because there was nothing to be got by voting and acting on the other. And now there had come into Suffolk a rumour that Mr. Primero was to have a peerage. To others the rumour was incredible, but Mr. Longestaffe believed it, and to Mr. Longestaffe that belief was an agony. A Baron Bundlesham just at his door, and such a Baron Bundlesham, would be more than Mr. Longestaffe could endure. It was quite impossible that his daughter should be entertained in London by the Primeros. But another suggestion had been made. Georgiana's letter had been laid on her father's table on the Monday morning. On the following morning, when there could have been no intercourse with London by letter, Lady Pomona called her younger daughter to her, and handed her a note to read. "Your papa has this moment given it me. Of course you must judge for yourself." This was the note;-- MY DEAR MR. LONGESTAFFE, As you seem determined not to return to London this season, perhaps one of your young ladies would like to come to us. Mrs. Melmotte would be delighted to have Miss Georgiana for June and July. If so, she need only give Mrs. Melmotte a day's notice. Yours truly, AUGUSTUS MELMOTTE. Georgiana, as soon as her eye had glanced down the one side of note paper on which this invitation was written, looked up for the date. It was without a date, and had, she felt sure, been left in her father's hands to be used as he might think fit. She breathed very hard. Both her father and mother had heard her speak of these Melmottes, and knew what she thought of them. There was an insolence in the very suggestion. But at the first moment she said nothing of that. "Why shouldn't I go to the Primeros?" she asked. "Your father will not hear of it. He dislikes them especially." "And I dislike the Melmottes. I dislike the Primeros of course, but they are not so bad as the Melmottes. That would be dreadful." "You must judge for yourself, Georgiana." "It is that,--or staying here?" "I think so, my dear." "If papa chooses I don't know why I am to mind. It will be awfully disagreeable,--absolutely disgusting!" "She seemed to be very quiet." "Pooh, mamma! Quiet! She was quiet here because she was afraid of us. She isn't yet used to be with people like us. She'll get over that if I'm in the house with her. And then she is, oh! so frightfully vulgar! She must have been the very sweeping of the gutters. Did you not see it, mamma? She could not even open her mouth, she was so ashamed of herself. I shouldn't wonder if they turned out to be something quite horrid. They make me shudder. Was there ever anything so dreadful to look at as he is?" "Everybody goes to them," said Lady Pomona. "The Duchess of Stevenage has been there over and over again, and so has Lady Auld Reekie. Everybody goes to their house." "But everybody doesn't go and live with them. Oh, mamma,--to have to sit down to breakfast every day for ten weeks with that man and that woman!" "Perhaps they'll let you have your breakfast up-stairs." "But to have to go out with them;--walking into the room after her! Only think of it!" "But you are so anxious to be in London, my dear." "Of course I am anxious. What other chance have I, mamma? And, oh dear, I am so tired of it! Pleasure, indeed! Papa talks of pleasure. If papa had to work half as hard as I do, I wonder what he'd think of it. I suppose I must do it. I know it will make me so ill that I shall almost die under it. Horrid, horrid people! And papa to propose it, who has always been so proud of everything,--who used to think so much of being with the right set." "Things are changed, Georgiana," said the anxious mother. "Indeed they are when papa wants me to go and stay with people like that. Why, mamma, the apothecary in Bungay is a fine gentleman compared with Mr. Melmotte, and his wife is a fine lady compared with Madame Melmotte. But I'll go. If papa chooses me to be seen with such people it is not my fault. There will be no disgracing one's self after that. I don't believe in the least that any decent man would propose to a girl in such a house, and you and papa must not be surprised if I take some horrid creature from the Stock Exchange. Papa has altered his ideas; and so, I suppose, I had better alter mine." Georgiana did not speak to her father that night, but Lady Pomona informed Mr. Longestaffe that Mr. Melmotte's invitation was to be accepted. She herself would write a line to Madame Melmotte, and Georgiana would go up on the Friday following. "I hope she'll like it," said Mr. Longestaffe. The poor man had no intention of irony. It was not in his nature to be severe after that fashion. But to poor Lady Pomona the words sounded very cruel. How could any one like to live in a house with Mr. and Madame Melmotte! On the Friday morning there was a little conversation between the two sisters, just before Georgiana's departure to the railway station, which was almost touching. She had endeavoured to hold up her head as usual, but had failed. The thing that she was going to do cowed her even in the presence of her sister. "Sophy, I do so envy you staying here." "But it was you who were so determined to be in London." "Yes; I was determined, and am determined. I've got to get myself settled somehow, and that can't be done down here. But you are not going to disgrace yourself." "There's no disgrace in it, Georgey." "Yes, there is. I believe the man to be a swindler and a thief; and I believe her to be anything low that you can think of. As to their pretensions to be gentlefolk, it is monstrous. The footmen and housemaids would be much better." "Then don't go, Georgey." "I must go. It's the only chance that is left. If I were to remain down here everybody would say that I was on the shelf. You are going to marry Whitstable, and you'll do very well. It isn't a big place, but there's no debt on it, and Whitstable himself isn't a bad sort of fellow." "Is he, now?" "Of course he hasn't much to say for himself, for he's always at home. But he is a gentleman." "That he certainly is." "As for me I shall give over caring about gentlemen now. The first man that comes to me with four or five thousand a year, I'll take him, though he'd come out of Newgate or Bedlam. And I shall always say it has been papa's doing." And so Georgiana Longestaffe went up to London and stayed with the Melmottes.

When the Melmottes left Caversham the house was very desolate. The Longestaffe ladies would have been comforted if the date of their return to London had been fixed. But days passed, and dreadful fears began to fill the minds of Lady Pomona and Sophia Longestaffe. Georgiana was also impatient, but she asserted boldly that treachery was impossible. Their father would not dare to propose it. Three or four times daily, hints were given and questions were asked, but without avail. Mr. Longestaffe would not consent to fix a day till he had received some particular letter. Poor Lady Pomona was urged by her daughters to compel him to name a day; but Lady Pomona was less bold than Georgiana, and less anxious to go to London. On the Sunday, before church, there was a great discussion in Lady Pomona's room. The Bishop of Elmham was going to preach at Caversham church, and the three ladies were dressed in their best London bonnets. It was supposed that the expected letter had arrived. Mr. Longestaffe had certainly received a message from his lawyer. He had been unusually silent at breakfast, and - so Sophia asserted - more disagreeable than ever. The question had now arisen in reference to their bonnets. "You might as well wear them," said Lady Pomona, "for I am sure you will not be in London again this year." "You don't mean it, mamma," said Sophia. "I do, my dear. He looked like it when he put those papers into his pocket. I know what his face means." "It is not possible," said Sophia. "He promised, and he got us to have those horrid people because he promised." "Well, my dear, if your father says that we can't go back to London, we must take his word for it. I suppose that he would take us back if he could." "Mamma!" shouted Georgiana, outraged by her treachery. "My dear, what can we do?" said Lady Pomona. "Do! Make him understand that we are not going to be sat upon like that. I'll do something! If he treats me like that I'll run off with the first man that will take me." "Don't talk like that, Georgiana, unless you wish to kill me." "I'll break his heart for him. He does not care about us - not the least; but he cares about the family name. I'll tell him that I'm not going to be a slave. I'll marry a London tradesman before I'll stay here." "Oh, Georgey, don't say such horrid things," pleaded her sister. "It's all very well for you, Sophy. You've got George Whitstable, and your fish is fried. Dolly does just what he pleases, and spends money as fast as he likes. Of course it makes no difference to you, mamma, where you are." "You are very unjust," wailed Lady Pomona. "I ain't unjust. It doesn't matter to you. And Sophy is settled. But I'm to be sacrificed! How am I to see anybody down here in this horrid hole? Papa promised and he must keep his word." A loud voice called from the hall. "Are you coming to church, or are you going to keep the carriage waiting all day?" Of course they were going to church, because of the bishop and the bonnets. They trooped downstairs, Georgiana stalking along. She passed her father at the front door without condescending to look at him. Not a word was spoken on the way to church, or on the way home. During the sermon the ladies sat without the slightest sign either of weariness or of attention. It was nothing to them what the bishop was speaking about. It was the same kind of endurance which enabled Georgiana to go on from year to year waiting for a suitable husband. She could put up with any amount of tedium if only the chance of obtaining ultimate relief were not denied to her. But to be kept at Caversham all summer would be as bad as hearing a bishop preach for ever! After the service they came back to lunch, which was eaten in silence. Then Mr. Longestaffe settled into the dining-room arm-chair, evidently intending to sleep in comfort. But this was denied to him. The two daughters remained; and Lady Pomona, though she made one attempt to leave the room, returned when she found that her daughters would not follow her. Georgiana had told her sister that she meant to "have it out" with her father. When the last tray had been taken out, she began. "Papa, don't you think you could settle now when we are to go back to town? There is Lady Monogram's party on Wednesday. We promised to be there." "You had better write to Lady Monogram and say you can't go." "But why not, papa? We could go up on Wednesday morning." "You can't do anything of the kind." "But, my dear, we should all like to have a day fixed," said Lady Pomona. There was a pause. Even Georgiana would have accepted some distant, undefined time, as a compromise. "You can't have a day fixed," said Mr. Longestaffe. "How long shall we be kept here?" said Sophia, in a low constrained voice. "I do not know what you mean by being kept here. This is your home." "But we are to go back?" demanded Sophia. Georgiana waited in silence, biding her time. "You'll not return to London this season," said Mr. Longestaffe, turning abruptly to his newspaper. "That is settled." Was there ever treachery like this! Georgiana's indignation approached almost to virtue as she thought of her father's falseness. She would not have left town at all but for that promise. She would not have contaminated herself with the Melmottes but for that promise. And now the promise was to be absolutely broken! "Then, papa," she said, with affected calmness, "you have simply and premeditatedly broken your word to us." "How dare you speak to me in that way, you wicked child!" "I am not a child, papa, as you know very well. I am my own mistress, by law." "Then go and be your own mistress. You dare to tell me, your father, that I have premeditated a falsehood! If you tell me that again, you shall eat your meals in your own room." "Did you not promise that we should go back if we would come here and entertain these people?" "I will not argue with an insolent child. If I have anything to say about it, I will say it to your mother. Now go away, and if you choose to be sullen, go and be sullen where I shan't see you." Georgiana looked round on her mother and sister and then marched majestically out of the room. She still meditated revenge, but she was partly cowed, and did not dare to go on with her reproaches. She stalked off into another room, and stood panting with anger. "And you mean to put up with it, mamma?" she said when Lady Pomona followed. "What can we do, my dear?" "I will do something. I'm not going to be cheated and swindled and have my life thrown away. I have always behaved well to him. I have never run up bills without saying anything about them." This was a cut at her elder sister. "I have never got myself talked about. If there is anything to be done I always do it. I have written his letters for him till I have been sick. And now he tells me that I am to eat my meals up in my bedroom because I remind him that he distinctly promised to take us back to London! Did he not promise, mamma?" "I understood so, my dear." "You know he promised, mamma. If I do anything now he must bear the blame. I am not going to keep myself straight for the sake of the family, and then be treated in that way." "You keep straight for your own sake, I suppose," said her sister. "It is more than you've been able to do," said Georgiana, alluding to an ancient flirtation, when Sophia had made a foolish and futile attempt to run away with an impoverished officer of dragoons. Ten years had passed since that, and the affair was never mentioned except in moments of great bitterness. "I've kept myself as straight as you have," said Sophia. "It's easy enough when nobody cares for a person." "My dears, if you quarrel what am I to do?" said their mother. "It is I that have to suffer," continued Georgiana. "Does he expect me to find anybody here? Poor George Whitstable is not much; but there is nobody else at all." "You may have him if you like," said Sophia, with a toss of her head. "Thank you, but I haven't come to that quite yet. I shall write papa a letter. If he won't take me up to town himself, he must send me up to the Primeros. What makes me most angry is that we condescended to be civil to the Melmottes. To have them here was terrible!" During that afternoon nothing more was said. Georgiana had been as hard to her sister as to her father, and Sophia in her quiet way resented the affront. She was almost reconciled to staying in the country, because it inflicted a fitting punishment on Georgiana, and the presence of Mr. Whitstable only ten miles away did of course make a difference to herself. Lady Pomona complained of a headache, and Mr. Longestaffe went to sleep. The next morning he found the following letter on his dressing-table: My dear Papa, I don't think you ought to be surprised that our going up to town is so important to us. If we are not to be in London at this time of the year we can never see anybody, and of course you know what that must mean for me. It does not signify for Sophia, but it is very, very hard upon me. It isn't for pleasure that I want to go up. But if I'm to be buried down here at Caversham, I might just as well be dead at once. If you choose to give up both houses for a year, or two years, and take us all abroad, I should not grumble in the least. There are very nice people to be met abroad, and there would be no expense for horses, and we could dress very cheap. I'm sure I don't want to run up bills. But if you would only think what Caversham must be to me, without anyone worth thinking about within twenty miles, you would hardly ask me to stay here. You certainly did say that if we came down here with those Melmottes we should be taken back to town, and you cannot be surprised that we should be disappointed. It makes me feel that life is so hard that I can't bear it. I see other girls having such chances when I have none, that sometimes I think I don't know what will happen to me. I suppose that it is useless for me to ask you to take us back this summer - though it was promised; but I hope you'll give me money to go up to the Primeros. It would only be me and my maid. Julia Primero asked me to stay with them earlier on, and I know they've a room. They all ride, and I should want a horse; but there would be nothing else, as they have plenty of carriages, and Julia's groom would do for both of us. Pray answer this at once, papa. Your affectionate daughter, Georgiana Longestaffe. Mr. Longestaffe read this. Though he had rebuked his mutinous daughter severely, he was somewhat afraid of her; and he dreaded the weariness of continued domestic strife. He thought that his daughter liked a row. He himself hated them. He had not any very lively interest in life. To stand about the public rooms of his clubs, and hear other men talk politics or scandal, was what he liked better than anything else in the world. But he was quite willing to give this up for the good of his family By living with a certain useless pomp, by powdering his footmen's heads and bewigging his coachmen, by aping the ways of grander men, he had run into debt. His own ambition had been a peerage, and he had thought that this was the way to get it. A separate property had come to his son Adolphus from his wife's mother - some 2,000 or 3,000 a year - and the knowledge of this had reconciled him to increasing the burdens on the family estates. He had been sure that Adolphus, when of age, would consent to sell the Sussex property to pay the debts. But Dolly was now in debt himself, and though careless in most respects he was always on his guard in dealings with his father. He would not consent to the sale of the Sussex property unless he got half the proceeds. The father found his troubles very hard upon him. Melmotte had done something for him - but he had been hard and tyrannical. Melmotte, while at Caversham, had looked into his affairs, and had told him very plainly that he was not entitled to keep a house in town. Mr. Longestaffe had said something about his daughters - especially about Georgiana - and Mr. Melmotte had made a suggestion. Mr. Longestaffe, when he read his daughter's appeal, did feel for her, in spite of his anger. But he regarded the Primeros as upstarts. Mr. Primero was not a gentleman. He owed no man anything. He paid his tradesmen punctually. He had spent many thousands in county elections, and was now a Member of Parliament - a radical, according to Mr. Longestaffe's views. And now there was a rumour that Mr. Primero was to have a peerage. That would be more than Mr. Longstaffe could endure. It was quite impossible that his daughter should stay in London with the Primeros. But another suggestion had been made. On the morning after Georgiana's letter, Lady Pomona handed her a note, saying, "Your papa has given it me. Of course you must judge for yourself." The note read: My dear Mr. Longestaffe, As you seem determined not to return to London this season, perhaps one of your young ladies would like to come to us. Mrs. Melmotte would be delighted to have Miss Georgiana for June and July. If so, she need only give Mrs. Melmotte a day's notice. Yours truly, Augustus Melmotte. Georgiana, as soon as her eye had glanced over this paper, looked in vain for the date. It had, she felt sure, been left in her father's hands to be used as he might think fit. She breathed very hard. Both her father and mother knew what she thought of the Melmottes. There was an insolence in the very suggestion. "Why shouldn't I go to the Primeros?" she asked. "Your father will not hear of it. He dislikes them." "And I dislike the Melmottes. I dislike the Primeros of course, but they are not so bad as the Melmottes." "You must judge for yourself, Georgiana." "It is that - or staying here?" "I think so, my dear." "It will be awfully disagreeable,- absolutely disgusting!" "She seemed to be very quiet." "Pooh, mamma! She was quiet here because she was afraid of us. She'll be frightfully vulgar! She must have been the very sweeping of the gutters. She could not even open her mouth, she was so ashamed of herself. They make me shudder." "Everybody goes to them," said Lady Pomona. "The Duchess of Stevenage has been there over and over again." "But everybody doesn't go and live with them. Oh, mamma!" "But you are so anxious to be in London, my dear." "Of course I am. What other chance have I? And I am so tired of it! Papa does not have to work half as hard as I do. I suppose I must do it. I know it will make me ill. Horrid, horrid people! And papa has always been so proud of being with the right set." "Things are changed, Georgiana." "Indeed they are when papa wants me to go and stay with people like that. But I'll go. I don't believe that any decent man would propose to a girl in such a house, and you and papa must not be surprised if I take some horrid creature from the Stock Exchange. Papa has altered his ideas; and so I had better alter mine." Georgiana did not speak to her father that night, but Lady Pomona informed him that Mr. Melmotte's invitation was to be accepted. Georgiana would go to London on the Friday following. On the Friday morning there was a little conversation between the two sisters, just before Georgiana's departure. She had tried to hold up her head, but had failed. She was cowed even in front of her sister. "Sophy, I do so envy you staying here." "But it was you who were so determined to be in London." "Yes; I've got to get myself settled somehow, and that can't be done down here. But I believe the man to be a swindler and a thief; and I believe her to be anything low that you can think of. As to their pretensions to be gentlefolk, it is monstrous." "Then don't go, Georgey." "I must go. It's the only chance that is left. You are going to marry Whitstable, and you'll do very well. Whitstable has no debt, and he isn't a bad sort of fellow. He hasn't much to say for himself, but he is a gentleman." "That he certainly is." "As for me, I shall give over caring about gentlemen now. The first man that comes to me with four or five thousand a year, I'll take him, though he'd come out of Newgate or Bedlam. And I shall always say it has been papa's doing." And so Georgiana Longestaffe went up to London and stayed with the Melmottes.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 21: Everybody Goes to Them

How eager Lady Carbury was that her son should at once go in form to Marie's father and make his proposition may be easily understood. "My dear Felix," she said, standing over his bedside a little before noon, "pray don't put it off; you don't know how many slips there may be between the cup and the lip." "It's everything to get him in a good humour," pleaded Sir Felix. "But the young lady will feel that she is ill-used." "There's no fear of that; she's all right. What am I to say to him about money? That's the question." "I shouldn't think of dictating anything, Felix." "Nidderdale, when he was on before, stipulated for a certain sum down; or his father did for him. So much cash was to be paid over before the ceremony, and it only went off because Nidderdale wanted the money to do what he liked with." "You wouldn't mind having it settled?" "No;--I'd consent to that on condition that the money was paid down, and the income insured to me,--say 7,000 or 8,000 a year. I wouldn't do it for less, mother; it wouldn't be worth while." "But you have nothing left of your own." "I've got a throat that I can cut, and brains that I can blow out," said the son, using an argument which he conceived might be efficacious with his mother; though, had she known him, she might have been sure that no man lived less likely to cut his own throat or blow out his own brains. "Oh, Felix! how brutal it is to speak to me in that way." "It may be brutal; but you know, mother, business is business. You want me to marry this girl because of her money." "You want to marry her yourself." "I'm quite a philosopher about it. I want her money; and when one wants money, one should make up one's mind how much or how little one means to take,--and whether one is sure to get it." "I don't think there can be any doubt." "If I were to marry her, and if the money wasn't there, it would be very like cutting my throat then, mother. If a man plays and loses, he can play again and perhaps win; but when a fellow goes in for an heiress, and gets the wife without the money, he feels a little hampered you know." "Of course he'd pay the money first." "It's very well to say that. Of course he ought; but it would be rather awkward to refuse to go into church after everything had been arranged because the money hadn't been paid over. He's so clever, that he'd contrive that a man shouldn't know whether the money had been paid or not. You can't carry 10,000 a year about in your pocket, you know. If you'll go, mother, perhaps I might think of getting up." Lady Carbury saw the danger, and turned over the affair on every side in her own mind. But she could also see the house in Grosvenor Square, the expenditure without limit, the congregating duchesses, the general acceptation of the people, and the mercantile celebrity of the man. And she could weigh against that the absolute pennilessness of her baronet-son. As he was, his condition was hopeless. Such a one must surely run some risk. The embarrassments of such a man as Lord Nidderdale were only temporary. There were the family estates, and the marquisate, and a golden future for him; but there was nothing coming to Felix in the future. All the goods he would ever have of his own, he had now;--position, a title, and a handsome face. Surely he could afford to risk something! Even the ruins and wreck of such wealth as that displayed in Grosvenor Square would be better than the baronet's present condition. And then, though it was possible that old Melmotte should be ruined some day, there could be no doubt as to his present means; and would it not be probable that he would make hay while the sun shone by securing his daughter's position? She visited her son again on the next morning, which was Sunday, and again tried to persuade him to the marriage. "I think you should be content to run a little risk," she said. Sir Felix had been unlucky at cards on Saturday night, and had taken, perhaps, a little too much wine. He was at any rate sulky, and in a humour to resent interference. "I wish you'd leave me alone," he said, "to manage my own business." "Is it not my business too?" "No; you haven't got to marry her, and to put up with these people. I shall make up my mind what to do myself, and I don't want anybody to meddle with me." "You ungrateful boy!" "I understand all about that. Of course I'm ungrateful when I don't do everything just as you wish it. You don't do any good. You only set me against it all." "How do you expect to live, then? Are you always to be a burden on me and your sister? I wonder that you've no shame. Your cousin Roger is right. I will quit London altogether, and leave you to your own wretchedness." "That's what Roger says; is it? I always thought Roger was a fellow of that sort." "He is the best friend I have." What would Roger have thought had he heard this assertion from Lady Carbury? "He's an ill-tempered, close-fisted, interfering cad, and if he meddles with my affairs again, I shall tell him what I think of him. Upon my word, mother, these little disputes up in my bedroom ain't very pleasant. Of course it's your house; but if you do allow me a room, I think you might let me have it to myself." It was impossible for Lady Carbury, in her present mood, and in his present mood, to explain to him that in no other way and at no other time could she ever find him. If she waited till he came down to breakfast, he escaped from her in five minutes, and then he returned no more till some unholy hour in the morning. She was as good a pelican as ever allowed the blood to be torn from her own breast to satisfy the greed of her young, but she felt that she should have something back for her blood,--some return for her sacrifices. This chick would take all as long as there was a drop left, and then resent the fondling of the mother-bird as interference. Again and again there came upon her moments in which she thought that Roger Carbury was right. And yet she knew that when the time came she would not be able to be severe. She almost hated herself for the weakness of her own love,--but she acknowledged it. If he should fall utterly, she must fall with him. In spite of his cruelty, his callous hardness, his insolence to herself, his wickedness and ruinous indifference to the future, she must cling to him to the last. All that she had done, and all that she had borne,--all that she was doing and bearing,--was it not for his sake? Sir Felix had been in Grosvenor Square since his return from Carbury, and had seen Madame Melmotte and Marie; but he had seen them together, and not a word had been said about the engagement. He could not make much use of the elder woman. She was as gracious as was usual with her; but then she was never very gracious. She had told him that Miss Longestaffe was coming to her, which was a great bore, as the young lady was "fatigante." Upon this Marie had declared that she intended to like the young lady very much. "Pooh!" said Madame Melmotte. "You never like no person at all." At this Marie had looked over to her lover and smiled. "Ah, yes; that is all very well,--while it lasts; but you care for no friend." From which Felix had judged that Madame Melmotte at any rate knew of his offer, and did not absolutely disapprove of it. On the Saturday he had received a note at his club from Marie. "Come on Sunday at half-past two. You will find papa after lunch." This was in his possession when his mother visited him in his bedroom, and he had determined to obey the behest. But he would not tell her of his intention, because he had drunk too much wine, and was sulky. At about three on Sunday he knocked at the door in Grosvenor Square and asked for the ladies. Up to the moment of his knocking,--even after he had knocked, and when the big porter was opening the door,--he intended to ask for Mr. Melmotte; but at the last his courage failed him, and he was shown up into the drawing-room. There he found Madame Melmotte, Marie, Georgiana Longestaffe, and--Lord Nidderdale. Marie looked anxiously into his face, thinking that he had already been with her father. He slid into a chair close to Madame Melmotte, and endeavoured to seem at his ease. Lord Nidderdale continued his flirtation with Miss Longestaffe,--a flirtation which she carried on in a half whisper, wholly indifferent to her hostess or the young lady of the house. "We know what brings you here," she said. "I came on purpose to see you." "I'm sure, Lord Nidderdale, you didn't expect to find me here." "Lord bless you, I knew all about it, and came on purpose. It's a great institution; isn't it?" "It's an institution you mean to belong to,--permanently." "No, indeed. I did have thoughts about it as fellows do when they talk of going into the army or to the bar; but I couldn't pass. That fellow there is the happy man. I shall go on coming here, because you're here. I don't think you'll like it a bit, you know." "I don't suppose I shall, Lord Nidderdale." After a while Marie contrived to be alone with her lover near one of the windows for a few seconds. "Papa is down-stairs in the book-room," she said. "Lord Alfred was told when he came that he was out." It was evident to Sir Felix that everything was prepared for him. "You go down," she continued, "and ask the man to show you into the book-room." "Shall I come up again?" "No; but leave a note for me here under cover to Madame Didon." Now Sir Felix was sufficiently at home in the house to know that Madame Didon was Madame Melmotte's own woman, commonly called Didon by the ladies of the family. "Or send it by post,--under cover to her. That will be better. Go at once, now." It certainly did seem to Sir Felix that the very nature of the girl was altered. But he went, just shaking hands with Madame Melmotte, and bowing to Miss Longestaffe. In a few moments he found himself with Mr. Melmotte in the chamber which had been dignified with the name of the book-room. The great financier was accustomed to spend his Sunday afternoons here, generally with the company of Lord Alfred Grendall. It may be supposed that he was meditating on millions, and arranging the prices of money and funds for the New York, Paris, and London Exchanges. But on this occasion he was waked from slumber, which he seemed to have been enjoying with a cigar in his mouth. "How do you do, Sir Felix?" he said. "I suppose you want the ladies." "I've just been in the drawing-room, but I thought I'd look in on you as I came down." It immediately occurred to Melmotte that the baronet had come about his share of the plunder out of the railway, and he at once resolved to be stern in his manner, and perhaps rude also. He believed that he should thrive best by resenting any interference with him in his capacity as financier. He thought that he had risen high enough to venture on such conduct, and experience had told him that men who were themselves only half-plucked, might easily be cowed by a savage assumption of superiority. And he, too, had generally the advantage of understanding the game, while those with whom he was concerned did not, at any rate, more than half understand it. He could thus trade either on the timidity or on the ignorance of his colleagues. When neither of these sufficed to give him undisputed mastery, then he cultivated the cupidity of his friends. He liked young associates because they were more timid and less greedy than their elders. Lord Nidderdale's suggestions had soon been put at rest, and Mr. Melmotte anticipated no greater difficulty with Sir Felix. Lord Alfred he had been obliged to buy. "I'm very glad to see you, and all that," said Melmotte, assuming a certain exaltation of the eyebrows, which they who had many dealings with him often found to be very disagreeable; "but this is hardly a day for business, Sir Felix, nor,--yet a place for business." Sir Felix wished himself at the Beargarden. He certainly had come about business,--business of a particular sort; but Marie had told him that of all days Sunday would be the best, and had also told him that her father was more likely to be in a good humour on Sunday than on any other day. Sir Felix felt that he had not been received with good humour. "I didn't mean to intrude, Mr. Melmotte," he said. "I dare say not. I only thought I'd tell you. You might have been going to speak about that railway." "Oh dear no." "Your mother was saying to me down in the country that she hoped you attended to the business. I told her that there was nothing to attend to." "My mother doesn't understand anything at all about it," said Sir Felix. "Women never do. Well;--what can I do for you, now that you are here?" "Mr. Melmotte, I'm come,--I'm come to;--in short, Mr. Melmotte, I want to propose myself as a suitor for your daughter's hand." "The d---- you do!" "Well, yes; and we hope you'll give us your consent." "She knows you're coming then?" "Yes;--she knows." "And my wife;--does she know?" "I've never spoken to her about it. Perhaps Miss Melmotte has." "And how long have you and she understood each other?" "I've been attached to her ever since I saw her," said Sir Felix. "I have indeed. I've spoken to her sometimes. You know how that kind of thing goes on." "I'm blessed if I do. I know how it ought to go on. I know that when large sums of money are supposed to be concerned, the young man should speak to the father before he speaks to the girl. He's a fool if he don't, if he wants to get the father's money. So she has given you a promise?" "I don't know about a promise." "Do you consider that she's engaged to you?" "Not if she's disposed to get out of it," said Sir Felix, hoping that he might thus ingratiate himself with the father. "Of course, I should be awfully disappointed." "She has consented to your coming to me?" "Well, yes;--in a sort of a way. Of course she knows that it all depends on you." "Not at all. She's of age. If she chooses to marry you, she can marry you. If that's all you want, her consent is enough. You're a baronet, I believe?" "Oh, yes, I'm a baronet." "And therefore you've come to your own property. You haven't to wait for your father to die, and I dare say you are indifferent about money." This was a view of things which Sir Felix felt that he was bound to dispel, even at the risk of offending the father. "Not exactly that," he said. "I suppose you will give your daughter a fortune, of course." "Then I wonder you didn't come to me before you went to her. If my daughter marries to please me, I shall give her money, no doubt. How much is neither here nor there. If she marries to please herself, without considering me, I shan't give her a farthing." "I had hoped that you might consent, Mr. Melmotte." "I've said nothing about that. It is possible. You're a man of fashion and have a title of your own,--and no doubt a property. If you'll show me that you've an income fit to maintain her, I'll think about it at any rate. What is your property, Sir Felix?" What could three or four thousand a year, or even five or six, matter to a man like Melmotte? It was thus that Sir Felix looked at it. When a man can hardly count his millions he ought not to ask questions about trifling sums of money. But the question had been asked, and the asking of such a question was no doubt within the prerogative of a proposed father-in-law. At any rate, it must be answered. For a moment it occurred to Sir Felix that he might conveniently tell the truth. It would be nasty for the moment, but there would be nothing to come after. Were he to do so he could not be dragged down lower and lower into the mire by cross-examinings. There might be an end of all his hopes, but there would at the same time be an end of all his misery. But he lacked the necessary courage. "It isn't a large property, you know," he said. "Not like the Marquis of Westminster's, I suppose," said the horrid, big, rich scoundrel. "No;--not quite like that," said Sir Felix, with a sickly laugh. "But you have got enough to support a baronet's title?" "That depends on how you want to support it," said Sir Felix, putting off the evil day. "Where's your family seat?" "Carbury Manor, down in Suffolk, near the Longestaffes, is the old family place." "That doesn't belong to you," said Melmotte, very sharply. "No; not yet. But I'm the heir." Perhaps if there is one thing in England more difficult than another to be understood by men born and bred out of England, it is the system under which titles and property descend together, or in various lines. The jurisdiction of our Courts of Law is complex, and so is the business of Parliament. But the rules regulating them, though anomalous, are easy to the memory compared with the mixed anomalies of the peerage and primogeniture. They who are brought up among it, learn it as children do a language, but strangers who begin the study in advanced life, seldom make themselves perfect in it. It was everything to Melmotte that he should understand the ways of the country which he had adopted; and when he did not understand, he was clever at hiding his ignorance. Now he was puzzled. He knew that Sir Felix was a baronet, and therefore presumed him to be the head of the family. He knew that Carbury Manor belonged to Roger Carbury, and he judged by the name it must be an old family property. And now the baronet declared that he was heir to the man who was simply an Esquire. "Oh, the heir are you? But how did he get it before you? You're the head of the family?" "Yes, I am the head of the family, of course," said Sir Felix, lying directly. "But the place won't be mine till he dies. It would take a long time to explain it all." "He's a young man, isn't he?" "No,--not what you'd call a young man. He isn't very old." "If he were to marry and have children, how would it be then?" Sir Felix was beginning to think that he might have told the truth with discretion. "I don't quite know how it would be. I have always understood that I am the heir. It's not very likely that he will marry." "And in the meantime what is your own property?" [Illustration: "In the meantime what is your own property?"] "My father left me money in the funds and in railway stock,--and then I am my mother's heir." "You have done me the honour of telling me that you wish to marry my daughter." "Certainly." "Would you then object to inform me the amount and nature of the income on which you intend to support your establishment as a married man? I fancy that the position you assume justifies the question on my part." The bloated swindler, the vile city ruffian, was certainly taking a most ungenerous advantage of the young aspirant for wealth. It was then that Sir Felix felt his own position. Was he not a baronet, and a gentleman, and a very handsome fellow, and a man of the world who had been in a crack regiment? If this surfeited sponge of speculation, this crammed commercial cormorant, wanted more than that for his daughter, why could he not say so without asking disgusting questions such as these,--questions which it was quite impossible that a gentleman should answer? Was it not sufficiently plain that any gentleman proposing to marry the daughter of such a man as Melmotte, must do so under the stress of pecuniary embarrassment? Would it not be an understood bargain that as he provided the rank and position, she would provide the money? And yet the vulgar wretch took advantage of his assumed authority to ask these dreadful questions! Sir Felix stood silent, trying to look the man in the face, but failing;--wishing that he was well out of the house, and at the Beargarden. "You don't seem to be very clear about your own circumstances, Sir Felix. Perhaps you will get your lawyer to write to me." "Perhaps that will be best," said the lover. "Either that, or to give it up. My daughter, no doubt, will have money; but money expects money." At this moment Lord Alfred entered the room. "You're very late to-day, Alfred. Why didn't you come as you said you would?" "I was here more than an hour ago, and they said you were out." "I haven't been out of this room all day,--except to lunch. Good morning, Sir Felix. Ring the bell, Alfred, and we'll have a little soda and brandy." Sir Felix had gone through some greeting with his fellow Director, Lord Alfred, and at last succeeded in getting Melmotte to shake hands with him before he went. "Do you know anything about that young fellow?" Melmotte asked as soon as the door was closed. "He's a baronet without a shilling;--was in the army and had to leave it," said Lord Alfred as he buried his face in a big tumbler. "Without a shilling! I supposed so. But he's heir to a place down in Suffolk;--eh?" "Not a bit of it. It's the same name, and that's about all. Mr. Carbury has a small property there, and he might give it to me to-morrow. I wish he would, though there isn't much of it. That young fellow has nothing to do with it whatever." "Hasn't he now?" Mr. Melmotte as he speculated upon it, almost admired the young man's impudence.

Lady Carbury was eager that her son should go at once to Marie's father. "My dear Felix," she said, standing over his bedside just before noon, "pray don't put it off." "I need to get him in a good humour," pleaded Sir Felix. "But the young lady will feel that she is ill-used." "There's no fear of that; she's all right. What am I to say to him about money? That's the question. Nidderdale asked for a certain sum down, to be paid before the ceremony, and it only went off because Nidderdale wanted the money to do what he liked with." "You wouldn't mind having it settled?" "No; I'd consent to that if the money was paid down, and the income insured to me - say 7,000 or 8,000 a year. It wouldn't be worth while for less." "But you have nothing left of your own." "I've got a throat that I can cut, and brains that I can blow out," said the son, using an argument which he thought might be effective with his mother; though no man lived less likely to cut his own throat. "Oh, Felix! how brutal." "It may be brutal; but you know, mother, business is business. You want me to marry this girl because of her money." "You want to marry her yourself." "I want her money; and if I were to marry her, and if the money wasn't there, it would be like cutting my throat. There'd be no going back." "Of course he'd pay the money first." "Of course he ought; but it would be rather awkward to refuse to go into church because the money hadn't been paid over. He's so clever, that he'd contrive that a man shouldn't know whether the money had been paid or not. If you'll go, mother, I might think of getting up." Lady Carbury saw the danger, and turned over the affair in her own mind. But she could also see the house in Grosvenor Square, the wealth and celebrity of the man, and weigh that against the absolute pennilessness of her son. Felix's condition was hopeless. Lord Nidderdale's embarrassments were only temporary. There were the family estates, and a golden future for him; but there was nothing coming to Felix. All he would ever have, he had now; position, a title, and a handsome face. Even the ruins of such wealth as that displayed in Grosvenor Square would be better than his present condition. And though it was possible that old Melmotte should be ruined some day, there could be no doubt about his riches now. She visited her son again the next morning, which was Sunday, and again tried to persuade him to the marriage. "I think you should be content to run a little risk," she said. Sir Felix had been unlucky at cards on Saturday night, and was sulky. "I wish you'd leave me alone," he said, "to manage my own business." "Is it not my business too?" "No; you haven't got to marry her, and to put up with these people. I shall make up my mind what to do, and I don't want anybody to meddle." "You ungrateful boy! Are you always to be a burden on me and your sister? You have no shame. Your cousin Roger is right. I will quit London altogether, and leave you to your own wretchedness." "That's what Roger says, is it?" "He is the best friend I have." "He's an ill-tempered, close-fisted, interfering cad, and if he meddles with my affairs again, I shall tell him what I think of him. Upon my word, mother, I think you might let me have my room to myself." It was impossible for Lady Carbury, in his present mood, to explain that it was the only way she could ever find him. If she waited till he came down to breakfast, he escaped in five minutes, and did not return till some ungodly hour in the morning. Again and again there came upon her moments in which she thought that Roger Carbury was right about Felix. She almost hated herself for the weakness of her love - but she acknowledged it. If he should fall, she must fall with him. In spite of his cruelty, his callous hardness, his insolence and ruinous indifference to the future, she must cling to him to the last. All that she had done and borne - was it not for his sake? Sir Felix had been in Grosvenor Square, and had seen Madame Melmotte and Marie; but not a word had been said about the engagement. Madame Melmotte had told him that Miss Longestaffe was coming, which was a great bore. Upon this Marie had declared that she intended to like the young lady very much. "Pooh!" said Madame Melmotte. "You never like no person at all." At this Marie had looked over to her lover and smiled. "Ah, yes; that is all very well, while it lasts; but you care for no friend." From which Felix had judged that Madame Melmotte knew of his offer, and did not absolutely disapprove. On Saturday he had received a note at his club from Marie. "Come on Sunday at half-past two. You will find papa after lunch." But he did not tell his mother of his intention. At about three on Sunday he knocked at the door in Grosvenor Square and asked for the ladies. He intended to ask for Mr. Melmotte; but his courage failed him, and he was shown up into the drawing-room, where he found Madame Melmotte, Marie, Georgiana Longestaffe, and Lord Nidderdale. Marie looked anxiously into his face, thinking that he had already been with her father. He slid into a chair close to Madame Melmotte, and tried to seem at his ease. Lord Nidderdale continued his flirtation with Miss Longestaffe - a flirtation which she carried on in a half whisper, wholly indifferent to her hostess. "We know what brings you here," said Georgiana. "I came to see you." "I'm sure, Lord Nidderdale, you didn't expect to find me here." "Lord bless you, I knew all about it, and came on purpose. That fellow there is the happy man. I shall go on coming here, because you're here. I don't think you'll like it here a bit, you know." "I don't suppose I shall, Lord Nidderdale." After a while Marie contrived to be alone with her lover near one of the windows. "Papa is downstairs in the book-room," she said. "Go down, and ask the man to show you into the book-room." "Shall I come up again?" "No; but leave a note for me under cover to Madame Didon." Sir Felix knew that Madame Didon was Madame Melmotte's maid. "Or post it under cover to her. Go at once, now." It seemed to Sir Felix that the very nature of the girl was altered. But he went, shaking hands with Madame Melmotte, and bowing to Miss Longestaffe. In a few moments he found himself with Mr. Melmotte. The great financier was waked from slumber, which he seemed to have been enjoying with a cigar in his mouth. "How do you do, Sir Felix?" he said. "I suppose you want the ladies." "I've just been in the drawing-room, but I thought I'd look in on you as I came down." It immediately occurred to Melmotte that the baronet had come about his share of the plunder out of the railway, and he resolved to be stern, and perhaps rude, in resenting any such interference. Experience had told him that young men might easily be cowed by a savage assumption of superiority. And he understood the game, which Sir Felix did not. He liked young associates because they were more timid and less greedy than their elders. Lord Nidderdale's suggestions had soon been put at rest, and Mr. Melmotte anticipated no greater difficulty with Sir Felix. Lord Alfred he had been obliged to buy. "I'm very glad to see you, and all that," said Melmotte, raising his eyebrows in a disagreeable way; "but this is hardly a day for business." Sir Felix wished himself at the Beargarden. "I didn't mean to intrude, Mr. Melmotte," he said. "I dare say not. I only thought I'd tell you. You might have been going to speak about that railway." "Oh dear no." "Your mother was saying to me down in the country that she hoped you attended to the business. I told her that there was nothing to attend to." "My mother doesn't understand anything about it," said Sir Felix. "Women never do. Well; what can I do for you?" "Mr. Melmotte, I'm come - I'm come to - in short, Mr. Melmotte, I want to propose myself as a suitor for your daughter's hand." "The d____ you do!" "Well, yes; and we hope you'll give us your consent." "She knows you're coming then?" "Yes." "And my wife - does she know?" "I've never spoken to her about it. Perhaps Miss Melmotte has." "And how long have you and she had an understanding?" "I've been attached to her ever since I saw her," said Sir Felix. "I have indeed. You know how that kind of thing goes on." "I'm blessed if I do. I know how it ought to go on. I know that the young man should speak to the father before he speaks to the girl. He's a fool if he don't, if he wants to get the father's money. So she has given you a promise?" "I don't know about a promise." "Do you consider that she's engaged to you?" "Not if she's disposed to get out of it," said Sir Felix, hoping that he might thus ingratiate himself with the father. "Of course, I should be awfully disappointed." "She has consented to your coming to me?" "Well, yes, sort of. Of course she knows that it all depends on you." "Not at all. She's of age. If she chooses to marry you, she can marry you. If that's all you want, her consent is enough. You're a baronet, I believe?" "Oh, yes, I'm a baronet." "And therefore you haven't to wait for your father to die, and I dare say you are indifferent about money." This was a view of things which Sir Felix felt that he was bound to dispel. "Not exactly," he said. "I suppose you will give your daughter a fortune, of course." "Then I wonder you didn't come to me before you went to her. If my daughter marries to please me, I shall give her money. If she marries to please herself, without considering me, I shan't give her a farthing." "I had hoped that you might consent, Mr. Melmotte." "It is possible. You're a man of fashion and have a title - and no doubt a property. If you'll show me that you've an income fit to maintain her, I'll think about it at any rate. What is your property, Sir Felix?" Sit Felix thought that when a man can hardly count his millions he ought not to ask questions about trifling sums of money. But the question had been asked, and must be answered. For a moment it occurred to Sir Felix that he might conveniently tell the truth. It would be nasty for the moment, but there would be nothing to come after. He could not be dragged down lower into the mire by cross-examinings. There might be an end of his hopes, but at the same time an end of his misery. But he lacked the necessary courage. "It isn't a large property, you know," he said. "Not like the Marquis of Westminster's, I suppose," said the horrid, big, rich scoundrel. "No; not quite," said Sir Felix, with a sickly laugh. "But you can support a baronet's title? Where's your family seat?" "Carbury Manor, down in Suffolk, near the Longestaffes." "That doesn't belong to you," said Melmotte sharply. "No; not yet. But I'm the heir." Now Melmotte was puzzled. He did not understand the complex English system under which titles and property descend. He wanted to comprehend the ways of the country which he had adopted; and was clever at hiding his ignorance. He knew that Sir Felix was a baronet, and therefore presumed him to be the head of the family. He knew that Carbury Manor belonged to Roger Carbury. And now the baronet declared that he was heir to the man who was simply an Esquire. "Oh, the heir are you? But how did he get it before you? You're the head of the family?" "Yes, I am the head of the family, of course," said Sir Felix, lying. "But the place won't be mine till he dies. It would take a long time to explain it all." "He's a young man, isn't he? If he were to marry and have children, how would it be then?" "I don't quite know. I have always understood that I am the heir. It's not very likely that he will marry." "And in the meantime what is your own property?" "My father left me money in the funds and in railway stock - and then I am my mother's heir." "You wish to marry my daughter. Would you inform me the amount and nature of the income on which you intend to support her?" Sir Felix felt that the bloated swindler was taking a most ungenerous advantage of him. Was he not a baronet and a gentleman, and a very handsome fellow, who had been in a crack regiment? If this surfeited sponge of speculation, this crammed commercial cormorant, wanted more than that for his daughter, why could he not say so without asking disgusting questions which it was quite impossible for a gentleman to answer? Was it not plain that any gentleman proposing to marry the daughter of such a man as Melmotte, must do so because he needed money in return for his rank? Sir Felix stood silent, wishing that he was well out of the house. "You don't seem to be very clear about your own circumstances, Sir Felix. Perhaps you will get your lawyer to write to me." "Perhaps that will be best," said the lover. "Either that, or give it up." At this moment Lord Alfred entered the room. "You're very late today, Alfred. Good morning, Sir Felix. Ring the bell, Alfred, and we'll have a little soda and brandy." Sir Felix succeeded in getting Melmotte to shake hands with him before he went. "Do you know anything about that young fellow?" Melmotte asked as soon as the door was closed. "He's a baronet without a shilling; was in the army and had to leave it," said Lord Alfred. "I supposed so. But he's heir to a place down in Suffolk; eh?" "No. It's the same name, and that's about all. That young fellow has nothing to do with it whatever." "Hasn't he now?" Mr. Melmotte, thinking it over, almost admired the young man's impudence.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 23: "Yes - I'm a Baronet"

Marie Melmotte, as she had promised, sat up all night, as did also the faithful Didon. I think that to Marie the night was full of pleasure,--or at any rate of pleasurable excitement. With her door locked, she packed and unpacked and repacked her treasures,--having more than once laid out on the bed the dress in which she purposed to be married. She asked Didon her opinion whether that American clergyman of whom they had heard would marry them on board, and whether in that event the dress would be fit for the occasion. Didon thought that the man, if sufficiently paid, would marry them, and that the dress would not much signify. She scolded her young mistress very often during the night for what she called nonsense; but was true to her, and worked hard for her. They determined to go without food in the morning, so that no suspicion should be raised by the use of cups and plates. They could get refreshment at the railway-station. At six they started. Robert went first with the big boxes, having his ten pounds already in his pocket,--and Marie and Didon with smaller luggage followed in a second cab. No one interfered with them and nothing went wrong. The very civil man at Euston Square gave them their tickets, and even attempted to speak to them in French. They had quite determined that not a word of English was to be spoken by Marie till the ship was out at sea. At the station they got some very bad tea and almost uneatable food,--but Marie's restrained excitement was so great that food was almost unnecessary to her. They took their seats without any impediment,--and then they were off. During a great part of the journey they were alone, and then Marie gabbled to Didon about her hopes and her future career, and all the things she would do;--how she had hated Lord Nidderdale;--especially when, after she had been awed into accepting him, he had given her no token of love;--"pas un baiser!" Didon suggested that such was the way with English lords. She herself had preferred Lord Nidderdale, but had been willing to join in the present plan,--as she said, from devoted affection to Marie. Marie went on to say that Nidderdale was ugly, and that Sir Felix was as beautiful as the morning. "Bah!" exclaimed Didon, who was really disgusted that such considerations should prevail. Didon had learned in some indistinct way that Lord Nidderdale would be a marquis and would have a castle, whereas Sir Felix would never be more than Sir Felix, and, of his own, would never have anything at all. She had striven with her mistress, but her mistress liked to have a will of her own. Didon no doubt had thought that New York, with 50 and other perquisites in hand, might offer her a new career. She had therefore yielded, but even now could hardly forbear from expressing disgust at the folly of her mistress. Marie bore it with imperturbable good humour. She was running away,--and was running to a distant continent,--and her lover would be with her! She gave Didon to understand that she cared nothing for marquises. As they drew near to Liverpool Didon explained that they must still be very careful. It would not do for them to declare at once their destination on the platform,--so that every one about the station should know that they were going on board the packet for New York. They had time enough. They must leisurely look for the big boxes and other things, and need say nothing about the steam packet till they were in a cab. Marie's big box was directed simply "Madame Racine, Passenger to Liverpool;"--so also was directed a second box, nearly as big, which was Didon's property. Didon declared that her anxiety would not be over till she found the ship moving under her. Marie was sure that all their dangers were over,--if only Sir Felix was safe on board. Poor Marie! Sir Felix was at this moment in Welbeck Street, striving to find temporary oblivion for his distressing situation and loss of money, and some alleviation for his racking temples, beneath the bedclothes. When the train ran into the station at Liverpool the two women sat for a few moments quite quiet. They would not seek remark by any hurry or noise. The door was opened, and a well-mannered porter offered to take their luggage. Didon handed out the various packages, keeping however the jewel-case in her own hands. She left the carriage first, and then Marie. But Marie had hardly put her foot on the platform, before a gentleman addressed her, touching his hat, "You, I think, are Miss Melmotte." Marie was struck dumb, but said nothing. Didon immediately became voluble in French. No; the young lady was not Miss Melmotte; the young lady was Mademoiselle Racine, her niece. She was Madame Racine. Melmotte! What was Melmotte? They knew nothing about Melmottes. Would the gentleman kindly allow them to pass on to their cab? [Illustration: "You, I think, are Miss Melmotte."] But the gentleman would by no means kindly allow them to pass on to their cab. With the gentleman was another gentleman,--who did not seem to be quite so much of a gentleman;--and again, not far in the distance Didon quickly espied a policeman, who did not at present connect himself with the affair, but who seemed to have his time very much at command, and to be quite ready if he were wanted. Didon at once gave up the game,--as regarded her mistress. "I am afraid I must persist in asserting that you are Miss Melmotte," said the gentleman, "and that this other--person is your servant, Elise Didon. You speak English, Miss Melmotte." Marie declared that she spoke French. "And English too," said the gentleman. "I think you had better make up your minds to go back to London. I will accompany you." "Ah, Didon, nous sommes perdues!" exclaimed Marie. Didon, plucking up her courage for the moment, asserted the legality of her own position and of that of her mistress. They had both a right to come to Liverpool. They had both a right to get into the cab with their luggage. Nobody had a right to stop them. They had done nothing against the laws. Why were they to be stopped in this way? What was it to anybody whether they called themselves Melmotte or Racine? The gentleman understood the French oratory, but did not commit himself to reply in the same language. "You had better trust yourself to me; you had indeed," said the gentleman. "But why?" demanded Marie. Then the gentleman spoke in a very low voice. "A cheque has been changed which you took from your father's house. No doubt your father will pardon that when you are once with him. But in order that we may bring you back safely we can arrest you on the score of the cheque,--if you force us to do so. We certainly shall not let you go on board. If you will travel back to London with me, you shall be subjected to no inconvenience which can be avoided." There was certainly no help to be found anywhere. It may be well doubted whether upon the whole the telegraph has not added more to the annoyances than to the comforts of life, and whether the gentlemen who spent all the public money without authority ought not to have been punished with special severity in that they had injured humanity, rather than pardoned because of the good they had produced. Who is benefited by telegrams? The newspapers are robbed of all their old interest, and the very soul of intrigue is destroyed. Poor Marie, when she heard her fate, would certainly have gladly hanged Mr. Scudamore. When the gentleman had made his speech, she offered no further opposition. Looking into Didon's face and bursting into tears, she sat down on one of the boxes. But Didon became very clamorous on her own behalf,--and her clamour was successful. "Who was going to stop her? What had she done? Why should not she go where she pleased? Did anybody mean to take her up for stealing anybody's money? If anybody did, that person had better look to himself. She knew the law. She would go where she pleased." So saying she began to tug the rope of her box as though she intended to drag it by her own force out of the station. The gentleman looked at his telegram,--looked at another document which he now held in his hand, ready prepared, should it be wanted. Elise Didon had been accused of nothing that brought her within the law. The gentleman in imperfect French suggested that Didon had better return with her mistress. But Didon clamoured only the more. No; she would go to New York. She would go wherever she pleased,--all the world over. Nobody should stop her. Then she addressed herself in what little English she could command to half-a-dozen cabmen who were standing round and enjoying the scene. They were to take her trunk at once. She had money and she could pay. She started off to the nearest cab, and no one stopped her. "But the box in her hand is mine," said Marie, not forgetting her trinkets in her misery. Didon surrendered the jewel-case, and ensconced herself in the cab without a word of farewell; and her trunk was hoisted on to the roof. Then she was driven away out of the station,--and out of our story. She had a first-class cabin all to herself as far as New York, but what may have been her fate after that it matters not to us to enquire. Poor Marie! We who know how recreant a knight Sir Felix had proved himself, who are aware that had Miss Melmotte succeeded in getting on board the ship she would have passed an hour of miserable suspense, looking everywhere for her lover, and would then at last have been carried to New York without him, may congratulate her on her escape. And, indeed, we who know his character better than she did, may still hope in her behalf that she may be ultimately saved from so wretched a marriage. But to her her present position was truly miserable. She would have to encounter an enraged father; and when,--when should she see her lover again? Poor, poor Felix! What would be his feelings when he should find himself on his way to New York without his love! But in one matter she made up her mind steadfastly. She would be true to him! They might chop her in pieces! Yes;--she had said it before, and she would say it again. There was, however, doubt on her mind from time to time, whether one course might not be better even than constancy. If she could contrive to throw herself out of the carriage and to be killed,--would not that be the best termination to her present disappointment? Would not that be the best punishment for her father? But how then would it be with poor Felix? "After all I don't know that he cares for me," she said to herself, thinking over it all. The gentleman was very kind to her, not treating her at all as though she were disgraced. As they got near town he ventured to give her a little advice. "Put a good face on it," he said, "and don't be cast down." "Oh, I won't," she answered. "I don't mean." "Your mother will be delighted to have you back again." "I don't think that mamma cares. It's papa. I'd do it again to-morrow if I had the chance." The gentleman looked at her, not having expected so much determination. "I would. Why is a girl to be made to marry to please any one but herself? I won't. And it's very mean saying that I stole the money. I always take what I want, and papa never says anything about it." "Two hundred and fifty pounds is a large sum, Miss Melmotte." "It is nothing in our house. It isn't about the money. It's because papa wants me to marry another man;--and I won't. It was downright mean to send and have me taken up before all the people." "You wouldn't have come back if he hadn't done that." "Of course I wouldn't," said Marie. The gentleman had telegraphed up to Grosvenor Square while on the journey, and at Euston Square they were met by one of the Melmotte carriages. Marie was to be taken home in the carriage, and the box was to follow in a cab;--to follow at some interval so that Grosvenor Square might not be aware of what had taken place. Grosvenor Square, of course, very soon knew all about it. "And are you to come?" Marie asked, speaking to the gentleman. The gentleman replied that he had been requested to see Miss Melmotte home. "All the people will wonder who you are," said Marie laughing. Then the gentleman thought that Miss Melmotte would be able to get through her troubles without much suffering. When she got home she was hurried up at once to her mother's room,--and there she found her father, alone. "This is your game, is it?" said he, looking down at her. "Well, papa;--yes. You made me do it." "You fool you! You were going to New York,--were you?" To this she vouchsafed no reply. "As if I hadn't found out all about it. Who was going with you?" "If you have found out all about it, you know, papa." "Of course I know;--but you don't know all about it, you little idiot." "No doubt I'm a fool and an idiot. You always say so." "Where do you suppose Sir Felix Carbury is now?" Then she opened her eyes and looked at him. "An hour ago he was in bed at his mother's house in Welbeck Street." "I don't believe it, papa." "You don't, don't you? You'll find it true. If you had gone to New York, you'd have gone alone. If I'd known at first that he had stayed behind, I think I'd have let you go." "I'm sure he didn't stay behind." "If you contradict me, I'll box your ears, you jade. He is in London at this moment. What has become of the woman that went with you?" "She's gone on board the ship." "And where is the money you took from your mother?" Marie was silent. "Who got the cheque changed?" "Didon did." "And has she got the money?" "No, papa." "Have you got it?" "No, papa." "Did you give it to Sir Felix Carbury?" "Yes, papa." "Then I'll be hanged if I don't prosecute him for stealing it." "Oh, papa, don't do that;--pray don't do that. He didn't steal it. I only gave it him to take care of for us. He'll give it you back again." "I shouldn't wonder if he lost it at cards, and therefore didn't go to Liverpool. Will you give me your word that you'll never attempt to marry him again if I don't prosecute him?" Marie considered. "Unless you do that I shall go to a magistrate at once." "I don't believe you can do anything to him. He didn't steal it. I gave it to him." "Will you promise me?" "No, papa, I won't. What's the good of promising when I should only break it. Why can't you let me have the man I love? What's the good of all the money if people don't have what they like?" "All the money!--What do you know about the money? Look here," and he took her by the arm. "I've been very good to you. You've had your share of everything that has been going;--carriages and horses, bracelets and brooches, silks and gloves, and every thing else." He held her very hard and shook her as he spoke. "Let me go, papa; you hurt me. I never asked for such things. I don't care a straw about bracelets and brooches." "What do you care for?" "Only for somebody to love me," said Marie, looking down. "You'll soon have nobody to love you, if you go on this fashion. You've had everything done for you, and if you don't do something for me in return, by G---- you shall have a hard time of it. If you weren't such a fool you'd believe me when I say that I know more than you do." "You can't know better than me what'll make me happy." "Do you think only of yourself? If you'll marry Lord Nidderdale you'll have a position in the world which nothing can take from you." "Then I won't," said Marie firmly. Upon this he shook her till she cried, and calling for Madame Melmotte desired his wife not to let the girl for one minute out of her presence. The condition of Sir Felix was I think worse than that of the lady with whom he was to have run away. He had played at the Beargarden till four in the morning and had then left the club, on the breaking-up of the card-table, intoxicated and almost penniless. During the last half hour he had made himself very unpleasant at the club, saying all manner of harsh things of Miles Grendall;--of whom, indeed, it was almost impossible to say things too hard, had they been said in a proper form and at a proper time. He declared that Grendall would not pay his debts, that he had cheated when playing loo,--as to which Sir Felix appealed to Dolly Longestaffe; and he ended by asserting that Grendall ought to be turned out of the club. They had a desperate row. Dolly of course had said that he knew nothing about it, and Lord Grasslough had expressed an opinion that perhaps more than one person ought to be turned out. At four o'clock the party was broken up and Sir Felix wandered forth into the streets, with nothing more than the change of a ten pound note in his pocket. All his luggage was lying in the hall of the club, and there he left it. There could hardly have been a more miserable wretch than Sir Felix wandering about the streets of London that night. Though he was nearly drunk, he was not drunk enough to forget the condition of his affairs. There is an intoxication that makes merry in the midst of affliction;--and there is an intoxication that banishes affliction by producing oblivion. But again there is an intoxication which is conscious of itself though it makes the feet unsteady, and the voice thick, and the brain foolish; and which brings neither mirth nor oblivion. Sir Felix trying to make his way to Welbeck Street and losing it at every turn, feeling himself to be an object of ridicule to every wanderer, and of dangerous suspicion to every policeman, got no good at all out of his intoxication. What had he better do with himself? He fumbled in his pocket, and managed to get hold of his ticket for New York. Should he still make the journey? Then he thought of his luggage, and could not remember where it was. At last, as he steadied himself against a letter-post, he was able to call to mind that his portmanteaus were at the club. By this time he had wandered into Marylebone Lane, but did not in the least know where he was. But he made an attempt to get back to his club, and stumbled half down Bond Street. Then a policeman enquired into his purposes, and when he said that he lived in Welbeck Street, walked back with him as far as Oxford Street. Having once mentioned the place where he lived, he had not strength of will left to go back to his purpose of getting his luggage and starting for Liverpool. Between six and seven he was knocking at the door in Welbeck Street. He had tried his latch-key, but had found it inefficient. As he was supposed to be at Liverpool, the door had in fact been locked. At last it was opened by Lady Carbury herself. He had fallen more than once, and was soiled with the gutter. Most of my readers will not probably know how a man looks when he comes home drunk at six in the morning; but they who have seen the thing will acknowledge that a sorrier sight can not meet a mother's eye than that of a son in such a condition. "Oh, Felix!" she exclaimed. "It'sh all up," he said, stumbling in. "What has happened, Felix?" "Discovered, and be d---- to it! The old shap'sh stopped ush." Drunk as he was, he was able to lie. At that moment the "old shap" was fast asleep in Grosvenor Square, altogether ignorant of the plot; and Marie, joyful with excitement, was getting into the cab in the mews. "Bettersh go to bed." And so he stumbled up-stairs by daylight, the wretched mother helping him. She took off his clothes for him and his boots, and having left him already asleep, she went down to her own room, a miserable woman.

Marie Melmotte, as she had promised, sat up all night with Didon. To Marie the night was full of pleasurable excitement. She unpacked and repacked her treasures, including her wedding dress, and asked Didon if she thought the dress would be fit for getting married on board ship. Didon thought that the dress would not much signify. They had no breakfast, so that no suspicion should be raised by the use of cups and plates. At six they started. Robert went first with the big boxes, and Marie and Didon with the smaller luggage followed in a second cab. No one interfered with them and nothing went wrong. The very civil man at Euston Square gave them their tickets, and even attempted to speak to them in French. They had agreed that not a word of English was to be spoken till the ship was out at sea. At the station they got some very bad tea, then took their seats - and they were off. Marie gabbled to Didon about her hopes and her future life, and all the things she would do, and how she had hated Lord Nidderdale. Nidderdale was ugly, and Sir Felix was as beautiful as the morning. "Bah!" exclaimed Didon in disgust. She had learned that Lord Nidderdale would be a marquis and would have a castle, whereas Sir Felix would never be more than Sir Felix, and would never have anything at all. She had preferred Lord Nidderdale, but her mistress liked to have a will of her own. Didon thought, however, that New York might offer her a new career, so she had yielded. Marie bore her disgust with good humour. She was running away to a distant continent - and her lover would be with her! She cared nothing for marquises. As they drew near to Liverpool Didon explained that they must still be very careful, and say nothing about New York till they were in a cab. Marie's big box was directed simply "Madame Racine, Passenger to Liverpool;" so was a second box, nearly as big, which was Didon's property. Didon declared that she would be anxious until the ship was moving. Marie was sure that all their dangers were over, if only Sir Felix was safe on board. Poor Marie! Sir Felix was at this moment in Welbeck Street, striving to find temporary oblivion from his distressing situation and loss of money, and his headache, beneath the bedclothes. When the train arrived at Liverpool a well-mannered porter offered to take their luggage. Didon handed out the packages, keeping the jewel-case in her own hands. She left the carriage first, and then Marie. But Marie had hardly put her foot on the platform, before a gentleman addressed her, touching his hat. "You, I think, are Miss Melmotte." Marie was struck dumb. Didon immediately became voluble in French. No; the young lady was not Miss Melmotte; the young lady was Mademoiselle Racine, her niece. What was Melmotte? They knew nothing about Melmottes. Would the gentleman kindly allow them to pass on to their cab? But the gentleman would not allow them to pass on to their cab. With him was another gentleman, and not far in the distance Didon espied a policeman, who seemed to be quite ready if he were wanted. "You are Miss Melmotte," said the gentleman, "and this is your servant, Elise Didon. You had better make up your minds to go back to London. I will accompany you." "Ah, Didon, nous sommes perdues!" exclaimed Marie. Didon, plucking up her courage, asserted that they had a right to come to Liverpool. They had done nothing against the law. Why were they to be stopped in this way? "You had better trust yourself to me; you had indeed," said the gentleman. "A cheque has been changed which you took from your father's house. No doubt your father will pardon that when you are back with him. But in order to bring you back safely we can arrest you on the score of the cheque, if necessary. We shall not let you go on board. If you travel back to London with me, you shall be subjected to no inconvenience." There was no help to be found anywhere. Marie blamed the telegraph system; and she offered no further opposition. Bursting into tears, she sat down on one of the boxes. But Didon became very clamorous on her own behalf. "What had she - Didon - done? Did anybody mean to take her up for stealing anybody's money? If anybody did, that person had better look to himself. She knew the law. She would go where she pleased." So saying she began to tug her box away. The gentleman looked at his telegram. Elise Didon had been accused of nothing unlawful. He suggested that Didon had better return with her mistress; but Didon only clamoured the more. No; she would go to New York. Nobody should stop her. She started off to the nearest cab, and no one did stop her. "But the box in her hand is mine," said Marie, not forgetting her trinkets in her misery. Didon surrendered the jewel-case, and got into the cab without a word of farewell. Then she was driven away - and out of our story. She had a first-class cabin all to herself as far as New York, but what may have been her fate after that it matters not to us to enquire. Poor Marie! If she had succeeded in getting on board the ship she would have passed an hour of miserable suspense, looking everywhere for her lover, and would then have been carried to New York without him. She had a lucky escape. But she was truly miserable. She would have to encounter an enraged father; and when should she see her lover again? Poor, poor Felix! What would be his feelings when he should find himself on his way to New York without his love! She would be true to him. But might it not be even better to throw herself out of the carriage and to be killed? Would not that be the best punishment for her father? But how would it be with poor Felix? "After all I don't know that he cares for me," she said to herself. The gentleman was very kind to her. As they got near town he ventured to advise her. "Put a good face on it," he said, "and don't be cast down. Your mother will be delighted to have you back again." "I don't think that mamma cares. It's papa. I'd do it again tomorrow if I had the chance. And it's very mean saying that I stole the money. I always take what I want, and papa never says anything about it." "Two hundred and fifty pounds is a large sum, Miss Melmotte." "It is nothing in our house. It isn't about the money. It's because papa wants me to marry another man; and I won't." The gentleman had telegraphed up to Grosvenor Square, and at Euston they were met by one of the Melmotte carriages. Marie was taken home in the carriage, and the box was to follow later in a cab, so that Grosvenor Square might not be aware of what had happened. Grosvenor Square, of course, very soon knew all about it. When she got home she was hurried at once to her mother's room - and there she found her father, alone. "This is your game, is it?" said he, looking down at her. "Well, papa; yes. You made me do it." "You fool! You were going to New York? As if I hadn't found out all about it. Who was going with you?" "If you have found out all about it, you know, papa." "Of course I know; but you don't know all about it, you little idiot." "No doubt I'm a fool and an idiot. You always say so." "Where do you suppose Sir Felix Carbury is now?" She looked at him. "An hour ago he was in bed at his mother's house in Welbeck Street." "I don't believe it, papa." "Don't you? It's true. If you had gone to New York, you'd have gone alone." "I'm sure he didn't stay behind." "If you contradict me, I'll box your ears, you jade. He is in London at this moment. Where is Didon?" "She's gone on board the ship." "And where is the money you took from your mother?" Marie was silent. "Who got the cheque changed?" "Didon." "And has she got the money?" "No, papa." "Did you give it to Sir Felix Carbury?" "Yes, papa." "Then I'll be hanged if I don't prosecute him for stealing it." "Oh, papa, don't do that. He didn't steal it. I only gave it him to take care of for us. He'll give it you back again." "I shouldn't wonder if he lost it at cards, and therefore didn't go to Liverpool. Will you give me your word that you'll never try to marry him again if I don't prosecute him?" "No, papa. What's the good of making a promise when I should only break it? Why can't you let me have the man I love? What's the good of all the money if people don't have what they like?" "All the money! What do you know about the money? Look here," and he took her by the arm and shook her. "I've been very good to you. You've had your share of everything; carriages and horses, bracelets and brooches, silks and gloves." "Let me go, papa; you hurt me. I don't care a straw about bracelets and brooches." "What do you care for?" "Only for somebody to love me," said Marie, looking down. "You'll soon have nobody to love you, if you go on this way. You've had everything done for you, and if you don't do something for me in return, by G__, you shall have a hard time of it. I know more than you do, you fool." "You don't know what'll make me happy." "Do you think only of yourself? If you'll marry Lord Nidderdale you'll have a position in the world which nothing can take from you." "Then I won't," said Marie firmly. Upon this he shook her till she cried, and calling for Madame Melmotte told her not to let the girl out of her presence. Sir Felix's condition was worse than Marie's. He had played at the Beargarden till four in the morning and had then left the club, intoxicated and almost penniless. During the last half hour at the club he had made himself very unpleasant, saying all manner of harsh things about Miles Grendall; declaring that he would not pay his debts, and that he cheated. There was a desperate row. At four o'clock Sir Felix wandered forth into the streets, with nothing more than the change of a ten pound note in his pocket. All his luggage was lying in the hall of the club, and there he left it. There could hardly have been a more miserable wretch than Sir Felix wandering about the streets that night. He was not drunk enough to forget the condition of his affairs. He felt himself to be an object of ridicule to every wanderer, and of dangerous suspicion to every policeman. What had he better do? He fumbled in his pocket for his ticket to New York. Should he still make the journey? Then he thought of his luggage, and could not remember where it was. At last he remembered that it was at the club, and tried to get back there, staggering down Bond Street. Then a policeman enquired into his purposes, and when he said that he lived in Welbeck Street, walked back with him to Oxford Street. He had not strength of will left to go back for his luggage and start for Liverpool. Between six and seven he was knocking at the door in Welbeck Street. As he was supposed to be at Liverpool, the door had been locked. At last it was opened by Lady Carbury. He had fallen more than once, and was soiled with the gutter. A sorrier sight cannot meet a mother's eye than that of a son coming home drunk at six in the morning. "Oh, Felix!" she exclaimed. "It'sh all up," he said, stumbling in. "What has happened, Felix?" "Discovered, and be d___ to it! The old chap'sh stopped ush." Drunk as he was, he was able to lie. At that moment the "old chap" was fast asleep in Grosvenor Square, altogether ignorant of the plot; and Marie, joyful with excitement, was getting into the cab. "Bettersh go to bed." So he stumbled upstairs. His wretched mother took off his clothes and his boots, and having left him already asleep, she went to her own room, a miserable woman.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 50: The Journey to Liverpool

Mr. Adolphus Longestaffe, the squire of Caversham in Suffolk, and of Pickering Park in Sussex, was closeted on a certain morning for the best part of an hour with Mr. Melmotte in Abchurch Lane, had there discussed all his private affairs, and was about to leave the room with a very dissatisfied air. There are men,--and old men too, who ought to know the world,--who think that if they can only find the proper Medea to boil the cauldron for them, they can have their ruined fortunes so cooked that they shall come out of the pot fresh and new and unembarrassed. These great conjurors are generally sought for in the City; and in truth the cauldrons are kept boiling though the result of the process is seldom absolute rejuvenescence. No greater Medea than Mr. Melmotte had ever been potent in money matters, and Mr. Longestaffe had been taught to believe that if he could get the necromancer even to look at his affairs everything would be made right for him. But the necromancer had explained to the squire that property could not be created by the waving of any wand or the boiling of any cauldron. He, Mr. Melmotte, could put Mr. Longestaffe in the way of realising property without delay, of changing it from one shape into another, or could find out the real market value of the property in question; but he could create nothing. "You have only a life interest, Mr. Longestaffe." "No; only a life interest. That is customary with family estates in this country, Mr. Melmotte." "Just so. And therefore you can dispose of nothing else. Your son, of course, could join you, and then you could sell either one estate or the other." "There is no question of selling Caversham, sir. Lady Pomona and I reside there." "Your son will not join you in selling the other place?" "I have not directly asked him; but he never does do anything that I wish. I suppose you would not take Pickering Park on a lease for my life." "I think not, Mr. Longestaffe. My wife would not like the uncertainty." Then Mr. Longestaffe took his leave with a feeling of outraged aristocratic pride. His own lawyer would almost have done as much for him, and he need not have invited his own lawyer as a guest to Caversham,--and certainly not his own lawyer's wife and daughter. He had indeed succeeded in borrowing a few thousand pounds from the great man at a rate of interest which the great man's head clerk was to arrange, and this had been effected simply on the security of the lease of a house in town. There had been an ease in this, an absence of that delay which generally took place between the expression of his desire for money and the acquisition of it,--and this had gratified him. But he was already beginning to think that he might pay too dearly for that gratification. At the present moment, too, Mr. Melmotte was odious to him for another reason. He had condescended to ask Mr. Melmotte to make him a director of the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway, and he,--Adolphus Longestaffe of Caversham,--had had his request refused! Mr. Longestaffe had condescended very low. "You have made Lord Alfred Grendall one!" he had said in a complaining tone. Then Mr. Melmotte explained that Lord Alfred possessed peculiar aptitudes for the position. "I'm sure I could do anything that he does," said Mr. Longestaffe. Upon this Mr. Melmotte, knitting his brows and speaking with some roughness, replied that the number of directors required was completed. Since he had had two duchesses at his house Mr. Melmotte was beginning to feel that he was entitled to bully any mere commoner, especially a commoner who could ask him for a seat at his board. Mr. Longestaffe was a tall, heavy man, about fifty, with hair and whiskers carefully dyed, whose clothes were made with great care, though they always seemed to fit him too tightly, and who thought very much of his personal appearance. It was not that he considered himself handsome, but that he was specially proud of his aristocratic bearing. He entertained an idea that all who understood the matter would perceive at a single glance that he was a gentleman of the first water, and a man of fashion. He was intensely proud of his position in life, thinking himself to be immensely superior to all those who earned their bread. There were no doubt gentlemen of different degrees, but the English gentleman of gentlemen was he who had land, and family title-deeds, and an old family place, and family portraits, and family embarrassments, and a family absence of any useful employment. He was beginning even to look down upon peers, since so many men of much less consequence than himself had been made lords; and, having stood and been beaten three or four times for his county, he was of opinion that a seat in the House was rather a mark of bad breeding. He was a silly man, who had no fixed idea that it behoved him to be of use to any one; but, yet, he had compassed a certain nobility of feeling. There was very little that his position called upon him to do, but there was much that it forbad him to do. It was not allowed to him to be close in money matters. He could leave his tradesmen's bills unpaid till the men were clamorous, but he could not question the items in their accounts. He could be tyrannical to his servants, but he could not make inquiry as to the consumption of his wines in the servants' hall. He had no pity for his tenants in regard to game, but he hesitated much as to raising their rent. He had his theory of life and endeavoured to live up to it; but the attempt had hardly brought satisfaction to himself or to his family. At the present moment, it was the great desire of his heart to sell the smaller of his two properties and disembarrass the other. The debt had not been altogether of his own making, and the arrangement would, he believed, serve his whole family as well as himself. It would also serve his son, who was blessed with a third property of his own which he had already managed to burden with debt. The father could not bear to be refused; and he feared that his son would decline. "But Adolphus wants money as much as any one," Lady Pomona had said. He had shaken his head and pished and pshawed. Women never could understand anything about money. Now he walked down sadly from Mr. Melmotte's office and was taken in his brougham to his lawyer's chambers in Lincoln's Inn. Even for the accommodation of those few thousand pounds he was forced to condescend to tell his lawyers that the title-deeds of his house in town must be given up. Mr. Longestaffe felt that the world in general was very hard on him. "What on earth are we to do with them?" said Sophia, the eldest Miss Longestaffe, to her mother. "I do think it's a shame of papa," said Georgiana, the second daughter. "I certainly shan't trouble myself to entertain them." "Of course you will leave them all on my hands," said Lady Pomona wearily. "But what's the use of having them?" urged Sophia. "I can understand going to a crush at their house in town when everybody else goes. One doesn't speak to them, and need not know them afterwards. As to the girl, I'm sure I shouldn't remember her if I were to see her." "It would be a fine thing if Adolphus would marry her," said Lady Pomona. "Dolly will never marry anybody," said Georgiana. "The idea of his taking the trouble of asking a girl to have him! Besides, he won't come down to Caversham; cart-ropes wouldn't bring him. If that is to be the game, mamma, it is quite hopeless." "Why should Dolly marry such a creature as that?" asked Sophia. "Because everybody wants money," said Lady Pomona. "I'm sure I don't know what your papa is to do, or how it is that there never is any money for anything. I don't spend it." "I don't think that we do anything out of the way," said Sophia. "I haven't the slightest idea what papa's income is; but if we're to live at all, I don't know how we are to make a change." "It's always been like this ever since I can remember," said Georgiana, "and I don't mean to worry about it any more. I suppose it's just the same with other people, only one doesn't know it." "But, my dears--when we are obliged to have such people as these Melmottes!" "As for that, if we didn't have them somebody else would. I shan't trouble myself about them. I suppose it will only be for two days." "My dear, they're coming for a week!" "Then papa must take them about the country, that's all. I never did hear of anything so absurd. What good can they do papa by being down there?" "He is wonderfully rich," said Lady Pomona. "But I don't suppose he'll give papa his money," continued Georgiana. "Of course I don't pretend to understand, but I think there is more fuss about these things than they deserve. If papa hasn't got money to live at home, why doesn't he go abroad for a year? The Sydney Beauchamps did that, and the girls had quite a nice time of it in Florence. It was there that Clara Beauchamp met young Lord Liffey. I shouldn't at all mind that kind of thing, but I think it quite horrible to have these sort of people brought down upon us at Caversham. No one knows who they are, or where they came from, or what they'll turn to." So spoke Georgiana, who among the Longestaffes was supposed to have the strongest head, and certainly the sharpest tongue. This conversation took place in the drawing-room of the Longestaffes' family town-house in Bruton Street. It was not by any means a charming house, having but few of those luxuries and elegancies which have been added of late years to newly-built London residences. It was gloomy and inconvenient, with large drawing-rooms, bad bedrooms, and very little accommodation for servants. But it was the old family town-house, having been inhabited by three or four generations of Longestaffes, and did not savour of that radical newness which prevails, and which was peculiarly distasteful to Mr. Longestaffe. Queen's Gate and the quarters around were, according to Mr. Longestaffe, devoted to opulent tradesmen. Even Belgrave Square, though its aristocratic properties must be admitted, still smelt of the mortar. Many of those living there and thereabouts had never possessed in their families real family town-houses. The old streets lying between Piccadilly and Oxford Street, with one or two well-known localities to the south and north of these boundaries, were the proper sites for these habitations. When Lady Pomona, instigated by some friend of high rank but questionable taste, had once suggested a change to Eaton Square, Mr. Longestaffe had at once snubbed his wife. If Bruton Street wasn't good enough for her and the girls then they might remain at Caversham. The threat of remaining at Caversham had been often made, for Mr. Longestaffe, proud as he was of his town-house, was, from year to year, very anxious to save the expense of the annual migration. The girls' dresses and the girls' horses, his wife's carriage and his own brougham, his dull London dinner-parties, and the one ball which it was always necessary that Lady Pomona should give, made him look forward to the end of July, with more dread than to any other period. It was then that he began to know what that year's season would cost him. But he had never yet been able to keep his family in the country during the entire year. The girls, who as yet knew nothing of the Continent beyond Paris, had signified their willingness to be taken about Germany and Italy for twelve months, but had shown by every means in their power that they would mutiny against any intention on their father's part to keep them at Caversham during the London season. Georgiana had just finished her strong-minded protest against the Melmottes, when her brother strolled into the room. Dolly did not often show himself in Bruton Street. He had rooms of his own, and could seldom even be induced to dine with his family. His mother wrote to him notes without end,--notes every day, pressing invitations of all sorts upon him; would he come and dine; would he take them to the theatre; would he go to this ball; would he go to that evening-party? These Dolly barely read, and never answered. He would open them, thrust them into some pocket, and then forget them. Consequently his mother worshipped him; and even his sisters, who were at any rate superior to him in intellect, treated him with a certain deference. He could do as he liked, and they felt themselves to be slaves, bound down by the dulness of the Longestaffe regime. His freedom was grand to their eyes, and very enviable, although they were aware that he had already so used it as to impoverish himself in the midst of his wealth. "My dear Adolphus," said the mother, "this is so nice of you." "I think it is rather nice," said Dolly, submitting himself to be kissed. "Oh Dolly, whoever would have thought of seeing you?" said Sophia. "Give him some tea," said his mother. Lady Pomona was always having tea from four o'clock till she was taken away to dress for dinner. "I'd sooner have soda and brandy," said Dolly. "My darling boy!" "I didn't ask for it, and I don't expect to get it; indeed I don't want it. I only said I'd sooner have it than tea. Where's the governor?" They all looked at him with wondering eyes. There must be something going on more than they had dreamed of, when Dolly asked to see his father. "Papa went out in the brougham immediately after lunch," said Sophia gravely. "I'll wait a little for him," said Dolly, taking out his watch. "Do stay and dine with us," said Lady Pomona. "I could not do that, because I've got to go and dine with some fellow." "Some fellow! I believe you don't know where you're going," said Georgiana. "My fellow knows. At least he's a fool if he don't." "Adolphus," began Lady Pomona very seriously, "I've got a plan and I want you to help me." "I hope there isn't very much to do in it, mother." "We're all going to Caversham, just for Whitsuntide, and we particularly want you to come." "By George! no; I couldn't do that." "You haven't heard half. Madame Melmotte and her daughter are coming." "The d---- they are!" ejaculated Dolly. "Dolly!" said Sophia, "do remember where you are." "Yes I will;--and I'll remember too where I won't be. I won't go to Caversham to meet old mother Melmotte." "My dear boy," continued the mother, "do you know that Miss Melmotte will have twenty--thousand--a year the day she marries; and that in all probability her husband will some day be the richest man in Europe?" "Half the fellows in London are after her," said Dolly. "Why shouldn't you be one of them?" "She isn't going to stay in the same house with half the fellows in London," suggested Georgiana. "If you've a mind to try it you'll have a chance which nobody else can have just at present." "But I haven't any mind to try it. Good gracious me;--oh dear! it isn't at all in my way, mother." "I knew he wouldn't," said Georgiana. "It would put everything so straight," said Lady Pomona. "They'll have to remain crooked if nothing else will put them straight. There's the governor. I heard his voice. Now for a row." Then Mr. Longestaffe entered the room. "My dear," said Lady Pomona, "here's Adolphus come to see us." The father nodded his head at his son but said nothing. "We want him to stay and dine, but he's engaged." "Though he doesn't know where," said Sophia. "My fellow knows;--he keeps a book. I've got a letter, sir, ever so long, from those fellows in Lincoln's Inn. They want me to come and see you about selling something; so I've come. It's an awful bore, because I don't understand anything about it. Perhaps there isn't anything to be sold. If so I can go away again, you know." "You'd better come with me into the study," said the father. "We needn't disturb your mother and sisters about business." Then the squire led the way out of the room, and Dolly followed, making a woful grimace at his sisters. The three ladies sat over their tea for about half-an-hour, waiting,--not the result of the conference, for with that they did not suppose that they would be made acquainted,--but whatever signs of good or evil might be collected from the manner and appearance of the squire when he should return to them. Dolly they did not expect to see again,--probably for a month. He and the squire never did come together without quarrelling, and careless as was the young man in every other respect, he had hitherto been obdurate as to his own rights in any dealings which he had with his father. At the end of the half hour Mr. Longestaffe returned to the drawing-room, and at once pronounced the doom of the family. "My dear," he said, "we shall not return from Caversham to London this year." He struggled hard to maintain a grand dignified tranquillity as he spoke, but his voice quivered with emotion. [Illustration: Then the squire led the way out of the room, and Dolly followed.] "Papa!" screamed Sophia. "My dear, you don't mean it," said Lady Pomona. "Of course papa doesn't mean it," said Georgiana rising to her feet. "I mean it accurately and certainly," said Mr. Longestaffe. "We go to Caversham in about ten days, and we shall not return from Caversham to London this year." "Our ball is fixed," said Lady Pomona. "Then it must be unfixed." So saying, the master of the house left the drawing-room and descended to his study. The three ladies, when left to deplore their fate, expressed their opinions as to the sentence which had been pronounced very strongly. But the daughters were louder in their anger than was their mother. "He can't really mean it," said Sophia. "He does," said Lady Pomona, with tears in her eyes. "He must unmean it again;--that's all," said Georgiana. "Dolly has said something to him very rough, and he resents it upon us. Why did he bring us up at all if he means to take us down before the season has begun?" "I wonder what Adolphus has said to him. Your papa is always hard upon Adolphus." "Dolly can take care of himself," said Georgiana, "and always does do so. Dolly does not care for us." "Not a bit," said Sophia. "I'll tell you what you must do, mamma. You mustn't stir from this at all. You must give up going to Caversham altogether, unless he promises to bring us back. I won't stir,--unless he has me carried out of the house." "My dear, I couldn't say that to him." "Then I will. To go and be buried down in that place for a whole year with no one near us but the rusty old bishop and Mr. Carbury, who is rustier still. I won't stand it. There are some sort of things that one ought not to stand. If you go down I shall stay up with the Primeros. Mrs. Primero would have me I know. It wouldn't be nice of course. I don't like the Primeros. I hate the Primeros. Oh yes;--it's quite true; I know that as well as you, Sophia; they are vulgar; but not half so vulgar, mamma, as your friend Madame Melmotte." "That's ill-natured, Georgiana. She is not a friend of mine." "But you're going to have her down at Caversham. I can't think what made you dream of going to Caversham just now, knowing as you do how hard papa is to manage." "Everybody has taken to going out of town at Whitsuntide, my dear." "No, mamma; everybody has not. People understand too well the trouble of getting up and down for that. The Primeros aren't going down. I never heard of such a thing in all my life. What does he expect is to become of us? If he wants to save money why doesn't he shut Caversham up altogether and go abroad? Caversham costs a great deal more than is spent in London, and it's the dullest house, I think, in all England." The family party in Bruton Street that evening was not very gay. Nothing was being done, and they sat gloomily in each other's company. Whatever mutinous resolutions might be formed and carried out by the ladies of the family, they were not brought forward on that occasion. The two girls were quite silent, and would not speak to their father, and when he addressed them they answered simply by monosyllables. Lady Pomona was ill, and sat in a corner of a sofa, wiping her eyes. To her had been imparted up-stairs the purport of the conversation between Dolly and his father. Dolly had refused to consent to the sale of Pickering unless half the produce of the sale were to be given to him at once. When it had been explained to him that the sale would be desirable in order that the Caversham property might be freed from debt, which Caversham property would eventually be his, he replied that he also had an estate of his own which was a little mortgaged and would be the better for money. The result seemed to be that Pickering could not be sold,--and, as a consequence of that, Mr. Longestaffe had determined that there should be no more London expenses that year. The girls, when they got up to go to bed, bent over him and kissed his head, as was their custom. There was very little show of affection in the kiss. "You had better remember that what you have to do in town must be done this week," he said. They heard the words, but marched in stately silence out of the room without deigning to notice them.

Mr. Adolphus Longestaffe senior, the squire of Caversham, and of Pickering Park in Sussex, was closeted one morning for an hour with Mr. Melmotte in Abchurch Lane. He had discussed all his private affairs, and was about to leave the room with a very dissatisfied air. Mr. Longestaffe had believed that if he could get Mr. Melmotte just to look at his affairs everything would be made right for him. But Mr. Melmotte had explained that property could not be created by the waving of any wand. He could help Mr. Longestaffe to realise property, or could find out the real market value of the property in question; but he could create nothing. "You have only a life interest, Mr. Longestaffe." "That is customary with family estates in this country, Mr. Melmotte." "Just so. And therefore you can dispose of nothing else. Your son, of course, could join you, and then you could sell either one estate or the other." "There is no question of selling Caversham, sir. Lady Pomona and I reside there." "Your son will not join you in selling the other place?" "He never does anything that I wish. I suppose you would not take Pickering Park on a lease?" "I think not, Mr. Longestaffe. My wife would not like the uncertainty." Mr. Longestaffe left with a feeling of outraged aristocratic pride. His own lawyer would almost have done as much for him, and he need not have invited his own lawyer as a guest to Caversham - and certainly not his lawyer's wife and daughter. He had indeed succeeded in borrowing a few thousand pounds from the great man at a rate of interest which the great man's head clerk was to arrange, on the security of the lease of a house in town. There had been an ease in this which had gratified him. But he was already beginning to think that he might pay too dearly for that gratification. At present, Mr. Melmotte was odious to him for another reason. He had condescended to ask Mr. Melmotte to make him a director of the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway, and he, Adolphus Longestaffe of Caversham, had had his request refused! "You have made Lord Alfred Grendall one!" he had complained. "I'm sure I could do anything that he does." Mr. Melmotte, knitting his brows, had replied that the number of directors required was complete. Since he had had two duchesses at his house Mr. Melmotte was beginning to feel that he was entitled to bully any mere commoner, especially a commoner who could ask him for a seat at his board. Mr. Longestaffe was a tall, heavy man, about fifty, with hair and whiskers carefully dyed, whose clothes were made with great care, though they always seemed too tight, and who thought very much of his personal appearance. He was especially proud of his aristocratic bearing. He had an idea that people could perceive at a single glance that he was a gentleman and a man of fashion. He thought himself to be immensely superior to all those who earned their bread. There were no doubt gentlemen of different degrees, but the greatest English gentleman was he who had land, an old family place, family portraits, and family debts, and a family absence of any useful employment. He was beginning even to look down upon peers, since so many men of much less consequence than himself had been made lords; and, having stood for Parliament unsuccessfully three or four times, he was of the opinion that a seat in the House was rather a mark of bad breeding. He was a silly man; yet he had a certain nobility of feeling. He could leave his tradesmen's bills unpaid, but he could not question the items in their accounts. He could be tyrannical to his servants, but he could not inquire about the consumption of his wines in the servants' hall. He had no pity for his tenants if they poached game, but he hesitated much as to raising their rent. He had his theory of life and endeavoured to live up to it; but the attempt had hardly brought satisfaction to himself or to his family. It was now the great desire of his heart to sell the smaller of his two properties and free the other from debt. The arrangement would, he believed, serve his whole family, and also his son, who was blessed with a third property of his own which he had already managed to burden with debt. But the father feared that his son would decline. Now he walked sadly from Mr. Melmotte's office and went to his lawyer's chambers. Even for those few thousand pounds he was forced to tell his lawyers that the title-deeds of his house in town must be given up. Mr. Longestaffe felt that the world was very hard on him. "What on earth are we to do with the Melmottes?" said Sophia, the eldest Miss Longestaffe, to her mother. "I do think it's a shame of papa," said Georgiana, the second daughter. "I certainly shan't trouble myself to entertain them." "Of course you will leave them all on my hands," said Lady Pomona wearily. "But what's the use of having them?" urged Sophia. "I can understand going to a crush at their house in town when everybody else goes. One doesn't speak to them, and need not know them afterwards. I'm sure I shouldn't remember the girl if I were to see her." "It would be a fine thing if Adolphus would marry her," said Lady Pomona. "Dolly will never marry anybody," said Georgiana. "The idea of his taking the trouble of asking a girl to have him! Besides, he won't come down to Caversham. If that is to be the game, mamma, it is quite hopeless." "Why should Dolly marry such a creature as that?" asked Sophia. "Because everybody wants money," said Lady Pomona. "I'm sure I don't know why there is never any money for anything. I don't spend it." "I don't think that we do anything out of the way," said Sophia. "I haven't the slightest idea what papa's income is; but if we're to live at all, I don't know how we are to make a change." "It's been like this ever since I can remember," said Georgiana, "and I don't mean to worry about it any more. I suppose it's just the same with other people, only one doesn't know it. I suppose we shall only have these Melmottes for two days." "My dear, they're coming for a week!" "Then papa must take them about the country, that's all. I never did hear of anything so absurd. What good can they do papa?" "He is wonderfully rich," said Lady Pomona. "But I don't suppose he'll give papa his money," continued Georgiana. "If papa hasn't got money to live at home, why doesn't he go abroad for a year? The Sydney Beauchamps did that, and the girls had quite a nice time in Florence. Clara Beauchamp met young Lord Liffey there. I shouldn't at all mind that kind of thing, but I think it quite horrible to have these sort of people brought down upon us at Caversham. No one knows who they are." So spoke Georgiana, who among the Longestaffes was supposed to have the strongest head, and certainly the sharpest tongue. This conversation took place in the drawing-room of the Longestaffes' London town-house in Bruton Street. It was by no means a charming house, being gloomy and inconvenient, with large drawing-rooms, bad bedrooms, and very little accommodation for servants. But three or four generations of Longestaffes had lived there. When Lady Pomona had once suggested a change to Eaton Square, Mr. Longestaffe had snubbed her. If Bruton Street wasn't good enough for her and the girls, then they might remain at Caversham. The threat of remaining at Caversham was often made, for Mr. Longestaffe, proud as he was of his town-house, was very anxious to save the expense of the annual migration to London. The girls' dresses and horses, the carriages and dull London dinner-parties, and the one ball which it was always necessary to give, made him dread the season and its cost. But he had never yet been able to keep his family in the country during the entire year. The girls were willing to be taken about Germany and Italy for twelve months, but had shown that they would mutiny against any attempt by their father to keep them at Caversham during the London season. Georgiana had just finished her protest against the Melmottes, when her brother strolled into the room. Dolly did not often show himself in Bruton Street. He had rooms of his own, and could seldom even be induced to dine with his family. His mother wrote him notes asking, would he come and dine; would he take them to the theatre; would he go to this ball or that party? These Dolly barely read, and never answered. Consequently his mother worshipped him; and even his sisters, who were superior to him in intellect, treated him with deference. He was free to do as he liked, while they felt themselves to be slaves, bound down by the dull Longestaffe regime. "My dear Adolphus," said the mother, "this is so nice of you." "I think it is rather nice," said Dolly, submitting himself to be kissed. "Oh Dolly, whoever would have thought of seeing you?" said Sophia. "Give him some tea," said his mother. "I'd sooner have soda and brandy," said Dolly. "My darling boy!" "I didn't ask for it. I only said I'd sooner have it than tea. Where's the governor?" They looked at him with wondering eyes. There must be something going on when Dolly asked to see his father. "Papa went out after lunch," said Sophia gravely. "I'll wait for him," said Dolly, taking out his watch. "Do stay and dine with us," said Lady Pomona. "No, I've got to go and dine with some fellow." "Adolphus," began Lady Pomona very seriously, "I've got a plan and I want you to help me. We're all going to Caversham for Whitsuntide, and we particularly want you to come." "By George! no; I couldn't do that." "You haven't heard half. Madame Melmotte and her daughter are coming." "The d___ they are!" ejaculated Dolly. "Dolly!" said Sophia, "remember where you are." "I won't go to Caversham to meet old mother Melmotte." "My dear boy," continued the mother, "do you know that Miss Melmotte will have twenty thousand a year the day she marries; and that her husband will probably some day be the richest man in Europe?" "Half the fellows in London are after her," said Dolly. "She isn't going to stay in the same house with half the fellows in London," suggested Georgiana. "If you've a mind to try it you'll have a chance which nobody else can have." "But I haven't any mind to try it. Good gracious me - it isn't at all in my way, mother." "I knew he wouldn't," said Georgiana. "It would put everything so straight," said Lady Pomona. "There's the governor. I heard his voice. Now for a row." Mr. Longestaffe entered the room. "My dear," said Lady Pomona, "here's Adolphus come to see us." "I've got a letter, sir," said Dolly, "ever so long, from those lawyer fellows. They want me to come and see you about selling something; so I've come. It's an awful bore, because I don't understand anything about it." "You'd better come with me into the study," said the father. "We needn't disturb your mother and sisters about business." The squire led the way out of the room, and Dolly followed, making a woeful grimace at his sisters. The three ladies sat over their tea for about half-an-hour, waiting for whatever signs of good or evil might be collected from the squire's manner when he should return to them. Dolly they did not expect to see again - probably for a month. He and the squire never met without quarrelling. At the end of the half hour Mr. Longestaffe returned to the drawing-room, and at once pronounced the doom of the family. "My dear," he said, "we shall not come back to London this year." He struggled hard to maintain a grand dignified tranquillity, but his voice quivered with emotion. "Papa!" screamed Sophia. "My dear, you don't mean it," said Lady Pomona. "Of course papa doesn't mean it," said Georgiana, rising to her feet. "Certainly I mean it," said Mr. Longestaffe. "We go to Caversham in about ten days, and we shall not return to London this year." "Our ball is fixed," said Lady Pomona. "Then it must be unfixed." So saying, the master of the house left the drawing-room. The three ladies expressed their opinions very strongly, the daughters more loudly than their mother. "He can't really mean it," said Sophia. "He does," said Lady Pomona, with tears in her eyes. "Why did he bring us up to London at all," said Georgiana, "if he means to take us away before the season has begun?" "I wonder what Adolphus said to him. Your papa is always hard upon Adolphus." "Dolly can take care of himself," said Georgiana. "He does not care for us." "Not a bit," said Sophia. "I'll tell you what you must do, mamma. You must give up going to Caversham, unless he promises to bring us back. I won't stir, unless he has me carried out of the house." "My dear, I couldn't say that to him." "Then I will. To be buried down in that place for a whole year with no one near but the rusty old bishop and Mr. Carbury - I won't stand it. If you go there I shall stay in town with the Primeros. Mrs. Primero would have me, I know. It wouldn't be nice, of course. I don't like the Primeros. They are vulgar; but not half so vulgar, mamma, as your friend Madame Melmotte." "She is not a friend of mine." "But you're going to have her down at Caversham. I can't think what made you dream of going to Caversham just now." "Everybody is going out of town at Whitsuntide, my dear." "No, mamma; everybody is not. The Primeros aren't. What does he expect is to become of us? If he wants to save money why doesn't he shut Caversham up altogether and go abroad? Caversham costs a great deal more than is spent in London, and it's the dullest house in all England." The family party in Bruton Street that evening was not very gay. The two girls were quite silent, and would not speak to their father. When he addressed them they answered simply by monosyllables. Lady Pomona was ill, and sat in a corner of a sofa, wiping her eyes. She had been told the purport of the conversation between Dolly and his father. Dolly had refused to consent to the sale of Pickering unless half the proceeds were to be given to him at once. When it had been explained to him that the sale was to free the Caversham property from debt - and Caversham would eventually be his - he replied that he also had an estate of his own which would be the better for money. The result seemed to be that Pickering could not be sold. In consequence, Mr. Longestaffe had determined that there should be no more London expenses that year. The girls, when they got up to go to bed, bent over him and kissed his head with very little show of affection. "You had better remember that anything you have to do in town must be done this week," he said. They heard the words, but marched out in stately silence.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 13: The Longestaffes

Mr. Fisker was fully satisfied with the progress he had made, but he never quite succeeded in reconciling Paul Montague to the whole transaction. Mr. Melmotte was indeed so great a reality, such a fact in the commercial world of London, that it was no longer possible for such a one as Montague to refuse to believe in the scheme. Melmotte had the telegraph at his command, and had been able to make as close inquiries as though San Francisco and Salt Lake City had been suburbs of London. He was chairman of the British branch of the Company, and had had shares allocated to him,--or as he said to the house,--to the extent of two millions of dollars. But still there was a feeling of doubt, and a consciousness that Melmotte, though a tower of strength, was thought by many to have been built upon the sands. Paul had now of course given his full authority to the work, much in opposition to the advice of his old friend Roger Carbury,--and had come up to live in town, that he might personally attend to the affairs of the great railway. There was an office just behind the Exchange, with two or three clerks and a secretary, the latter position being held by Miles Grendall, Esq. Paul, who had a conscience in the matter and was keenly alive to the fact that he was not only a director but was also one of the firm of Fisker, Montague, and Montague which was responsible for the whole affair, was grievously anxious to be really at work, and would attend most inopportunely at the Company's offices. Fisker, who still lingered in London, did his best to put a stop to this folly, and on more than one occasion somewhat snubbed his partner. "My dear fellow, what's the use of your flurrying yourself? In a thing of this kind, when it has once been set agoing, there is nothing else to do. You may have to work your fingers off before you can make it move, and then fail. But all that has been done for you. If you go there on the Thursdays that's quite as much as you need do. You don't suppose that such a man as Melmotte would put up with any real interference." Paul endeavoured to assert himself, declaring that as one of the managers he meant to take a part in the management;--that his fortune, such as it was, had been embarked in the matter, and was as important to him as was Mr. Melmotte's fortune to Mr. Melmotte. But Fisker got the better of him and put him down. "Fortune! what fortune had either of us? a few beggarly thousands of dollars not worth talking of, and barely sufficient to enable a man to look at an enterprise. And now where are you? Look here, sir;--there's more to be got out of the smashing up of such an affair as this, if it should smash up, than could be made by years of hard work out of such fortunes as yours and mine in the regular way of trade." Paul Montague certainly did not love Mr. Fisker personally, nor did he relish his commercial doctrines; but he allowed himself to be carried away by them. "When and how was I to have helped myself?" he wrote to Roger Carbury. "The money had been raised and spent before this man came here at all. It's all very well to say that he had no right to do it; but he had done it. I couldn't even have gone to law with him without going over to California, and then I should have got no redress." Through it all he disliked Fisker, and yet Fisker had one great merit which certainly recommended itself warmly to Montague's appreciation. Though he denied the propriety of Paul's interference in the business, he quite acknowledged Paul's right to a share in the existing dash of prosperity. As to the real facts of the money affairs of the firm he would tell Paul nothing. But he was well provided with money himself, and took care that his partner should be in the same position. He paid him all the arrears of his stipulated income up to the present moment, and put him nominally into possession of a large number of shares in the railway,--with, however, an understanding that he was not to sell them till they had reached ten per cent. above par, and that in any sale transacted he was to touch no other money than the amount of profit which would thus accrue. What Melmotte was to be allowed to do with his shares, he never heard. As far as Montague could understand, Melmotte was in truth to be powerful over everything. All this made the young man unhappy, restless, and extravagant. He was living in London and had money at command, but he never could rid himself of the fear that the whole affair might tumble to pieces beneath his feet and that he might be stigmatised as one among a gang of swindlers. We all know how, in such circumstances, by far the greater proportion of a man's life will be given up to the enjoyments that are offered to him and the lesser proportion to the cares, sacrifices, and sorrows. Had this young director been describing to his intimate friend the condition in which he found himself, he would have declared himself to be distracted by doubts, suspicions, and fears till his life was a burden to him. And yet they who were living with him at this time found him to be a very pleasant fellow, fond of amusement, and disposed to make the most of all the good things which came in his way. Under the auspices of Sir Felix Carbury he had become a member of the Beargarden, at which best of all possible clubs the mode of entrance was as irregular as its other proceedings. When any young man desired to come in who was thought to be unfit for its style of living, it was shown to him that it would take three years before his name could be brought up at the usual rate of vacancies; but in regard to desirable companions the committee had a power of putting them at the top of the list of candidates and bringing them in at once. Paul Montague had suddenly become credited with considerable commercial wealth and greater commercial influence. He sat at the same Board with Melmotte and Melmotte's men; and was on this account elected at the Beargarden without any of that harassing delay to which other less fortunate candidates are subjected. And,--let it be said with regret, for Paul Montague was at heart honest and well-conditioned,--he took to living a good deal at the Beargarden. A man must dine somewhere, and everybody knows that a man dines cheaper at his club than elsewhere. It was thus he reasoned with himself. But Paul's dinners at the Beargarden were not cheap. He saw a good deal of his brother directors, Sir Felix Carbury and Lord Nidderdale, entertained Lord Alfred more than once at the club, and had twice dined with his great chairman amidst all the magnificence of merchant-princely hospitality in Grosvenor Square. It had indeed been suggested to him by Mr. Fisker that he also ought to enter himself for the great Marie Melmotte plate. Lord Nidderdale had again declared his intention of running, owing to considerable pressure put upon him by certain interested tradesmen, and with this intention had become one of the directors of the Mexican Railway Company. At the time, however, of which we are now writing, Sir Felix was the favourite for the race among fashionable circles generally. The middle of April had come, and Fisker was still in London. When millions of dollars are at stake,--belonging perhaps to widows and orphans, as Fisker remarked,--a man was forced to set his own convenience on one side. But this devotion was not left without reward, for Mr. Fisker had "a good time" in London. He also was made free of the Beargarden, as an honorary member, and he also spent a good deal of money. But there is this comfort in great affairs, that whatever you spend on yourself can be no more than a trifle. Champagne and ginger-beer are all the same when you stand to win or lose thousands,--with this only difference, that champagne may have deteriorating results which the more innocent beverage will not produce. The feeling that the greatness of these operations relieved them from the necessity of looking to small expenses operated in the champagne direction, both on Fisker and Montague, and the result was deleterious. The Beargarden, no doubt, was a more lively place than Carbury Manor, but Montague found that he could not wake up on these London mornings with thoughts as satisfactory as those which attended his pillow at the old Manor House. On Saturday, the 19th of April, Fisker was to leave London on his return to New York, and on the 18th a farewell dinner was to be given to him at the club. Mr. Melmotte was asked to meet him, and on such an occasion all the resources of the club were to be brought forth. Lord Alfred Grendall was also to be a guest, and Mr. Cohenlupe, who went about a good deal with Melmotte. Nidderdale, Carbury, Montague, and Miles Grendall were members of the club, and gave the dinner. No expense was spared. Herr Vossner purveyed the viands and wines,--and paid for them. Lord Nidderdale took the chair, with Fisker on his right hand, and Melmotte on his left, and, for a fast-going young lord, was supposed to have done the thing well. There were only two toasts drunk, to the healths of Mr. Melmotte and Mr. Fisker, and two speeches were of course made by them. Mr. Melmotte may have been held to have clearly proved the genuineness of that English birth which he claimed by the awkwardness and incapacity which he showed on the occasion. He stood with his hands on the table and with his face turned to his plate blurted out his assurance that the floating of this railway company would be one of the greatest and most successful commercial operations ever conducted on either side of the Atlantic. It was a great thing,--a very great thing;--he had no hesitation in saying that it was one of the greatest things out. He didn't believe a greater thing had ever come out. He was happy to give his humble assistance to the furtherance of so great a thing,--and so on. These assertions, not varying much one from the other, he jerked out like so many separate interjections, endeavouring to look his friends in the face at each, and then turning his countenance back to his plate as though seeking for inspiration for the next attempt. He was not eloquent; but the gentlemen who heard him remembered that he was the great Augustus Melmotte, that he might probably make them all rich men, and they cheered him to the echo. Lord Alfred had reconciled himself to be called by his Christian name, since he had been put in the way of raising two or three hundred pounds on the security of shares which were to be allotted to him, but of which in the flesh he had as yet seen nothing. Wonderful are the ways of trade! If one can only get the tip of one's little finger into the right pie, what noble morsels, what rich esculents, will stick to it as it is extracted! When Melmotte sat down Fisker made his speech, and it was fluent, fast, and florid. Without giving it word for word, which would be tedious, I could not adequately set before the reader's eye the speaker's pleasing picture of world-wide commercial love and harmony which was to be produced by a railway from Salt Lake City to Vera Cruz, nor explain the extent of gratitude from the world at large which might be claimed by, and would finally be accorded to, the great firms of Melmotte & Co. of London, and Fisker, Montague, and Montague of San Francisco. Mr. Fisker's arms were waved gracefully about. His head was turned now this way and now that, but never towards his plate. It was very well done. But there was more faith in one ponderous word from Mr. Melmotte's mouth than in all the American's oratory. There was not one of them then present who had not after some fashion been given to understand that his fortune was to be made, not by the construction of the railway, but by the floating of the railway shares. They had all whispered to each other their convictions on this head. Even Montague did not beguile himself into an idea that he was really a director in a company to be employed in the making and working of a railway. People out of doors were to be advertised into buying shares, and they who were so to say indoors were to have the privilege of manufacturing the shares thus to be sold. That was to be their work, and they all knew it. But now, as there were eight of them collected together, they talked of humanity at large and of the coming harmony of nations. After the first cigar, Melmotte withdrew, and Lord Alfred went with him. Lord Alfred would have liked to remain, being a man who enjoyed tobacco and soda and brandy,--but momentous days had come upon him, and he thought it well to cling to his Melmotte. Mr. Samuel Cohenlupe also went, not having taken a very distinguished part in the entertainment. Then the young men were left alone, and it was soon proposed that they should adjourn to the cardroom. It had been rather hoped that Fisker would go with the elders. Nidderdale, who did not understand much about the races of mankind, had his doubts whether the American gentleman might not be a "Heathen Chinee," such as he had read of in poetry. But Mr. Fisker liked to have his amusement as well as did the others, and went up resolutely into the cardroom. Here they were joined by Lord Grasslough, and were very quickly at work, having chosen loo as their game. Mr. Fisker made an allusion to poker as a desirable pastime, but Lord Nidderdale, remembering his poetry, shook his head. "Oh! bother," he said, "let's have some game that Christians play." Mr. Fisker declared himself ready for any game,--irrespective of religious prejudices. It must be explained that the gambling at the Beargarden had gone on with very little interruption, and that on the whole Sir Felix Carbury kept his luck. There had of course been vicissitudes, but his star had been in the ascendant. For some nights together this had been so continual that Mr. Miles Grendall had suggested to his friend Lord Grasslough that there must be foul play. Lord Grasslough, who had not many good gifts, was, at least, not suspicious, and repudiated the idea. "We'll keep an eye on him," Miles Grendall had said. "You may do as you like, but I'm not going to watch any one," Grasslough had replied. Miles had watched, and had watched in vain, and it may as well be said at once that Sir Felix, with all his faults, was not as yet a blackleg. Both of them now owed Sir Felix a considerable sum of money, as did also Dolly Longestaffe, who was not present on this occasion. Latterly very little ready money had passed hands,--very little in proportion to the sums which had been written down on paper,--though Sir Felix was still so well in funds as to feel himself justified in repudiating any caution that his mother might give him. When I.O.U.'s have for some time passed freely in such a company as that now assembled the sudden introduction of a stranger is very disagreeable, particularly when that stranger intends to start for San Francisco on the following morning. If it could be arranged that the stranger should certainly lose, no doubt then he would be regarded as a godsend. Such strangers have ready money in their pockets, a portion of which would be felt to descend like a soft shower in a time of drought. When these dealings in unsecured paper have been going on for a considerable time real bank notes come to have a loveliness which they never possessed before. But should the stranger win, then there may arise complications incapable of any comfortable solution. In such a state of things some Herr Vossner must be called in, whose terms are apt to be ruinous. On this occasion things did not arrange themselves comfortably. From the very commencement Fisker won, and quite a budget of little papers fell into his possession, many of which were passed to him from the hands of Sir Felix,--bearing, however, a "G" intended to stand for Grasslough, or an "N" for Nidderdale, or a wonderful hieroglyphic which was known at the Beargarden to mean D. L----, or Dolly Longestaffe, the fabricator of which was not present on the occasion. Then there was the M. G. of Miles Grendall, which was a species of paper peculiarly plentiful and very unattractive on these commercial occasions. Paul Montague hitherto had never given an I.O.U. at the Beargarden,--nor of late had our friend Sir Felix. On the present occasion Montague won, though not heavily. Sir Felix lost continually, and was almost the only loser. But Mr. Fisker won nearly all that was lost. He was to start for Liverpool by train at 8.30 A.M., and at 6 A.M. he counted up his bits of paper and found himself the winner of about 600. "I think that most of them came from you, Sir Felix," he said,--handing the bundle across the table. "I dare say they did, but they are all good against these other fellows." Then Fisker, with most perfect good humour, extracted one from the mass which indicated Dolly Longestaffe's indebtedness to the amount of 50. "That's Longestaffe," said Felix, "and I'll change that of course." Then out of his pocket-book he extracted other minute documents bearing that M. G. which was so little esteemed among them,--and so made up the sum. "You seem to have 150 from Grasslough, 145 from Nidderdale, and 322 10_s._ from Grendall," said the baronet. Then Sir Felix got up as though he had paid his score. Fisker, with smiling good humour, arranged the little bits of paper before him and looked round upon the company. "This won't do, you know," said Nidderdale. "Mr. Fisker must have his money before he leaves. You've got it, Carbury." "Of course he has," said Grasslough. "As it happens I have not," said Sir Felix;--"but what if I had?" "Mr. Fisker starts for New York immediately," said Lord Nidderdale. "I suppose we can muster 600 among us. Ring the bell for Vossner. I think Carbury ought to pay the money as he lost it, and we didn't expect to have our I.O.U.'s brought up in this way." "Lord Nidderdale," said Sir Felix, "I have already said that I have not got the money about me. Why should I have it more than you, especially as I knew I had I.O.U.'s more than sufficient to meet anything I could lose when I sat down?" "Mr. Fisker must have his money at any rate," said Lord Nidderdale, ringing the bell again. "It doesn't matter one straw, my lord," said the American. "Let it be sent to me to Frisco, in a bill, my lord." And so he got up to take his hat, greatly to the delight of Miles Grendall. But the two young lords would not agree to this. "If you must go this very minute I'll meet you at the train with the money," said Nidderdale. Fisker begged that no such trouble should be taken. Of course he would wait ten minutes if they wished. But the affair was one of no consequence. Wasn't the post running every day? Then Herr Vossner came from his bed, suddenly arrayed in a dressing-gown, and there was a conference in a corner between him, the two lords, and Mr. Grendall. In a very few minutes Herr Vossner wrote a cheque for the amount due by the lords, but he was afraid that he had not money at his banker's sufficient for the greater claim. It was well understood that Herr Vossner would not advance money to Mr. Grendall unless others would pledge themselves for the amount. "I suppose I'd better send you a bill over to America," said Miles Grendall, who had taken no part in the matter as long as he was in the same boat with the lords. "Just so. My partner, Montague, will tell you the address." Then bustling off, taking an affectionate adieu of Paul, shaking hands with them all round, and looking as though he cared nothing for the money, he took his leave. "One cheer for the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway," he said as he went out of the room. Not one there had liked Fisker. His manners were not as their manners; his waistcoat not as their waistcoats. He smoked his cigar after a fashion different from theirs, and spat upon the carpet. He said "my lord" too often, and grated their prejudices equally whether he treated them with familiarity or deference. But he had behaved well about the money, and they felt that they were behaving badly. Sir Felix was the immediate offender, as he should have understood that he was not entitled to pay a stranger with documents which, by tacit contract, were held to be good among themselves. But there was no use now in going back to that. Something must be done. "Vossner must get the money," said Nidderdale. "Let's have him up again." "I don't think it's my fault," said Miles. "Of course no one thought he was to be called upon in this sort of way." "Why shouldn't you be called upon?" said Carbury. "You acknowledge that you owe the money." "I think Carbury ought to have paid it," said Grasslough. "Grassy, my boy," said the baronet, "your attempts at thinking are never worth much. Why was I to suppose that a stranger would be playing among us? Had you a lot of ready money with you to pay if you had lost it? I don't always walk about with six hundred pounds in my pocket;--nor do you!" "It's no good jawing," said Nidderdale; "let's get the money." Then Montague offered to undertake the debt himself, saying that there were money transactions between him and his partner. But this could not be allowed. He had only lately come among them, had as yet had no dealing in I.O.U.'s, and was the last man in the company who ought to be made responsible for the impecuniosity of Miles Grendall. He, the impecunious one,--the one whose impecuniosity extended to the absolute want of credit,--sat silent, stroking his heavy moustache. There was a second conference between Herr Vossner and the two lords in another room, which ended in the preparation of a document by which Miles Grendall undertook to pay to Herr Vossner 450 at the end of three months, and this was endorsed by the two lords, by Sir Felix, and by Paul Montague; and in return for this the German produced 322 10_s._ in notes and gold. This had taken some considerable time. Then a cup of tea was prepared and swallowed; after which Nidderdale, with Montague, started off to meet Fisker at the railway station. "It'll only be a trifle over 100 each," said Nidderdale, in the cab. "Won't Mr. Grendall pay it?" "Oh, dear no. How the devil should he?" "Then he shouldn't play." "That 'd be hard on him, poor fellow. If you went to his uncle the duke, I suppose you could get it. Or Buntingford might put it right for you. Perhaps he might win, you know, some day, and then he'd make it square. He'd be fair enough if he had it. Poor Miles!" They found Fisker wonderfully brilliant with bright rugs, and greatcoats with silk linings. "We've brought you the tin," said Nidderdale, accosting him on the platform. "Upon my word, my lord, I'm sorry you have taken so much trouble about such a trifle." "A man should always have his money when he wins." "We don't think anything about such little matters at Frisco, my lord." "You're fine fellows at Frisco, I dare say. Here we pay up,--when we can. Sometimes we can't, and then it is not pleasant." Fresh adieus were made between the two partners, and between the American and the lord;--and then Fisker was taken off on his way towards Frisco. "He's not half a bad fellow, but he's not a bit like an Englishman," said Lord Nidderdale, as he walked out of the station.

Mr. Fisker was fully satisfied with his progress, but he never quite succeeded in reconciling Paul Montague to the transaction. Mr. Melmotte was indeed so great in the commercial world of London that Paul could no longer refuse to believe in the scheme. Melmotte had made close inquiries of San Francisco and Salt Lake City by telegraph. He was chairman of the British branch of the Company, and had shares allocated to him - he said - to the extent of two million dollars. But still Paul felt doubt, and was conscious that Melmotte, though a tower of strength, was thought by many to have been built upon the sands. Paul had now given his full consent to the work, against the advice of his old friend Roger Carbury, and had come to live in London, to attend to the affairs of the great railway. There was an office behind the Exchange, with two or three clerks and a secretary - the latter being Miles Grendall. Paul, who was keenly aware that he was not only a director but also one of the firm responsible for the whole affair, was very anxious to be really at work, and would arrive most inopportunely at the Company's offices. Fisker did his best to put a stop to this folly. "My dear fellow," he said, "what's the use of flurrying yourself? Once a thing of this kind has been set agoing, there is nothing else to do. If you go there on Thursdays that's quite as much as you need do. A man such as Melmotte would not put up with any real interference." Paul tried to assert himself, declaring that as one of the managers he meant to take a part in the management, his own fortune being at stake; but Fisker put him down. "Fortune! what fortune had either of us? a few beggarly thousand dollars not worth talking of. And now where are you? Look here, sir; there's more to be made here than could be made by years of hard work in regular trade." Paul Montague allowed himself to be carried away by Fisker's arguments. "How could I have helped myself?" he wrote to Roger Carbury. "The money had been raised and spent before this man came here at all. I couldn't have gone to law with him without going over to California, and then I should have got no redress." He disliked Fisker, and yet Fisker had one great merit: he quite acknowledged Paul's right to a share in the current dash of prosperity. As to the real facts of the firm's money affairs, he would tell Paul nothing. But he was well provided with money himself, and took care that Paul should be too. He paid him all the arrears of his income, and allocated him a large number of shares in the railway - with an understanding that he was not to sell them till they had reached ten per cent above par, and that in any sale he was to touch no other money than the accruing profit. What Melmotte was to be allowed to do with his shares, Paul never heard. It seemed Melmotte was to be powerful over everything. All this made the young man unhappy, restless, and extravagant. He was living in London and had money at command, but he never could rid himself of the fear that the whole affair might tumble to pieces beneath his feet and that he might be stigmatised as a swindler. Yet more of Paul's life was given up to enjoyments than to his cares and sorrows. Although he felt himself distracted by doubts, his associates found him to be a very pleasant fellow, fond of amusement and good living. Under the auspices of Sir Felix Carbury he had become a member of the Beargarden. The waiting list for that club was three years, but Paul Montague had suddenly become credited with commercial wealth and influence, and was elected at the Beargarden without any delay. And - let it be said with regret, for Paul Montague was at heart honest and well-conditioned - he took to living a good deal at the Beargarden. A man must dine somewhere, and he reasoned that a man dines cheaper at his club than elsewhere. But Paul's dinners at the Beargarden were not cheap. He saw a good deal of his brother directors, Sir Felix Carbury and Lord Nidderdale, entertained Lord Alfred at the club, and had twice dined with his great chairman amidst the magnificence of Grosvenor Square. Mr. Fisker suggested to him that he ought to enter himself for the great Marie Melmotte plate. Lord Nidderdale had again declared his intention of running, owing to pressure put upon him by certain tradesmen, and with this intention had become one of the directors of the Mexican Railway Company. However, Sir Felix was the favourite for the race among fashionable circles. By the middle of April Fisker was still in London. He was made an honorary member of the Beargarden, and spent a good deal of money. But champagne and ginger-beer are all the same when you stand to win or lose thousands. The feeling that they need not worry about small expenses led both Fisker and Montague in the champagne direction; and the result was damaging. Montague found that he could not wake up on these London mornings with thoughts as satisfactory as those which had attended him at Carbury Manor. On the 19th of April, Fisker was to leave London for New York, and on the 18th a farewell dinner was to be given to him at the club. Mr. Melmotte was asked to meet him; Lord Alfred Grendall was also to be a guest, and Mr. Cohenlupe, who went about a good deal with Melmotte. Nidderdale, Carbury, Montague, and Miles Grendall, as members of the club, gave the dinner. No expense was spared. Herr Vossner provided the food and wines. There were two toasts drunk, to the healths of Mr. Melmotte and Mr. Fisker, and speeches were made by them. Mr. Melmotte perhaps proved the genuineness of his English birth by the awkwardness he showed. He stood with his hands on the table, and with his face turned to his plate blurted out his assurance that the floating of this railway company would be one of the greatest commercial operations ever conducted on either side of the Atlantic. It was a great thing - a very great thing; it was one of the greatest things ever. He didn't believe a greater thing had ever come out. He was happy to give his humble assistance to the furtherance of so great a thing - and so on. He was not eloquent; but the gentlemen who heard him remembered that he might make them all rich men, and they cheered. When Melmotte sat down Fisker made his speech, and it was fluent, fast, and florid. But the listeners had more faith in one ponderous word from Mr. Melmotte than in all the American's oratory. All those present by now understood that their fortunes were to be made, not by the construction of the railway, but by the floating of the railway shares. Even Montague did not beguile himself into an idea that he was really employed in the making and working of a railway. They were in the business of manufacturing shares to be sold. That was to be their work, and they all knew it. But the eight of them talked of humanity at large and of the coming harmony of nations. After the first cigar, Melmotte withdrew, and Lord Alfred went with him. Lord Alfred would have liked to remain to enjoy the tobacco and soda and brandy, but he thought it well to cling to his benefactor Melmotte. Mr. Samuel Cohenlupe also went. The young men were left alone, and it was soon proposed that they should adjourn to the cardroom. Mr. Fisker went with them, and they were joined by Lord Grasslough, and were very quickly playing loo. During the recent gambling at the Beargarden, on the whole Sir Felix Carbury had kept his luck. This luck had been so continual that Miles Grendall had suggested to his friend Lord Grasslough that there must be foul play. Lord Grasslough, though he had not many good gifts, was at least not suspicious, and rejected the idea. "We'll keep an eye on him," Miles Grendall had said. "You may do as you like, but I'm not going to watch anyone," Grasslough had replied. Miles had watched in vain, and it may as well be said at once that Sir Felix, with all his faults, was not a cheat. Both of them now owed Sir Felix a considerable sum of money, as did Dolly Longestaffe. Very little ready money had passed hands, compared to the sums which had been written down on paper. When I.O.U.'s have for some time passed freely in such a company, the sudden introduction of a stranger is very disagreeable, particularly when that stranger intends to start for San Francisco the next morning. Should the stranger win, then there may arise complications which have no comfortable solution. In such a state of things Herr Vossner must be called in to loan them cash at ruinous rates. On this occasion things did not arrange themselves comfortably. From the start Fisker won, and quite a pile of little papers fell into his possession, many of which were passed to him from the hands of Sir Felix - bearing, however, a "G" for Grasslough, or an "N" for Nidderdale, or a wonderful hieroglyphic which was known at the Beargarden to mean D.L. for Dolly Longestaffe, who was not present. And then there were plentiful M.G.s of Miles Grendall. Paul Montague up to now had never given an I.O.U. On this night he won, though not heavily. Sir Felix lost continually. But Mr. Fisker won nearly all that was lost. He was to start for Liverpool by train at 8.30 a.m., and at 6 a.m. he counted up his bits of paper and found himself the winner of about 600. "I think that most of them came from you, Sir Felix," he said, handing the bundle across the table. "I dare say they did, but they are all good against these other fellows." Fisker, with perfect good humour, extracted one from the mass which indicated that Dolly Longestaffe owed 50. "That's Longestaffe," said Felix, "and I'll change that of course." Out of his pocket-book he extracted other minute documents bearing "M.G.", and so made up the sum. "You seem to have 150 from Grasslough, 145 from Nidderdale, and 322 10s. from Grendall," said Sir Felix, and he got up as though he had paid his score. Fisker, with smiling good humour, arranged the little bits of paper before him and looked round upon the company. "This won't do, you know," said Nidderdale. "Mr. Fisker must have his money before he leaves. You've got it, Carbury." "Of course he has," said Grasslough. "As it happens I have not," said Sir Felix; "but what if I had?" "Mr. Fisker starts for New York immediately," said Lord Nidderdale. "I suppose we can muster 600 among us. Ring the bell for Vossner. I think Carbury ought to pay the money as he lost it, and we didn't expect to have our I.O.U.'s brought up in this way." "Lord Nidderdale," said Sir Felix, "I have already said that I have not got the money about me. Why should I have it more than you, especially as I knew I had I.O.U.'s more than sufficient to meet anything I could lose when I sat down?" "Mr. Fisker must have his money at any rate," said Lord Nidderdale, ringing the bell again. "It doesn't matter one straw, my lord," said the American. "Let it be sent to me to Frisco, in a bill, my lord." And he got up to take his hat, greatly to the delight of Miles Grendall. But the two young lords would not agree to this. "If you must go I'll meet you at the train with the money," said Nidderdale. Fisker begged that no such trouble should be taken. Of course he would wait ten minutes if they wished. But the affair was of no consequence. Wasn't the post running every day? Then Herr Vossner came from his bed, in a dressing-gown, and there was a conference in a corner between him, the two lords, and Mr. Grendall. In a very few minutes Herr Vossner wrote a cheque for the amount due from Nidderdale and Grasslough, but he was afraid that he had not money at his bank sufficient for the greatest sum. It was known that Herr Vossner would not advance money to Mr. Grendall unless others would guarantee it. "I suppose I'd better send you a bill over to America," said Miles Grendall. "Just so. Montague will tell you the address." Then, shaking hands all round, he took his leave. No one there had liked Fisker. His manners were not as their manners; his waistcoat not as their waistcoats. He spat upon the carpet. He said "my lord" too often. But he had behaved well about the money, and they felt that they were behaving badly. Sir Felix was the immediate offender, as he should have understood that he was not entitled to pay a stranger with their I.O.U.s. But there was no use now in going back to that. Something must be done. "Vossner must get the money," said Nidderdale. "I don't think it's my fault," said Miles. "Of course no one expected to be called upon in this way." "Why shouldn't you be called upon?" said Carbury. "You acknowledge that you owe the money." "I think Carbury ought to have paid it," said Grasslough. "Grassy, my boy," said the baronet, "your attempts at thinking are never worth much. Why was I to suppose that a stranger would be playing among us? I don't walk about with six hundred pounds in my pocket - nor do you!" "It's no good jawing," said Nidderdale; "let's get the money." Montague offered to undertake the debt himself, saying that there were money transactions between him and his partner. But this could not be allowed. He had only lately come among them, and was the last man in the company who ought to be made responsible for the debts of Miles Grendall. He, the impecunious one, sat silent, stroking his moustache. There was a second conference between Herr Vossner and the two lords in another room, which ended in the preparation of a document by which Miles Grendall undertook to pay Herr Vossner 450 at the end of three months; and in return for this the German produced 322 10s. in notes and gold. Then a cup of tea was swallowed; after which Nidderdale and Montague set off to meet Fisker at the railway station. "It'll only be a trifle over 100 each," said Nidderdale, in the cab. "Won't Mr. Grendall pay it?" "Oh, dear no. How the devil should he?" "Then he shouldn't play." "That'd be hard on him, poor fellow. If you went to his uncle the duke, I suppose you could get it. Or he might win, you know, some day, and then he'd make it square. Poor Miles!" They found Fisker on the platform. "We've brought you the tin," said Nidderdale. "Upon my word, my lord, I'm sorry you have taken so much trouble about such a trifle." "A man should always have his money when he wins." "We don't think anything about such little matters at Frisco, my lord." "You're fine fellows at Frisco, I dare say. Here we pay up, when we can." Fresh adieus were made, and then Fisker was taken off. "He's not a bad fellow, but he's not a bit like an Englishman," said Lord Nidderdale, as he walked out of the station.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 10: Mr. Fisker's Success

When all her friends were gone Lady Carbury looked about for her son,--not expecting to find him, for she knew how punctual was his nightly attendance at the Beargarden, but still with some faint hope that he might have remained on this special occasion to tell her of his fortune. She had watched the whispering, had noticed the cool effrontery with which Felix had spoken,--for without hearing the words she had almost known the very moment in which he was asking,--and had seen the girl's timid face, and eyes turned to the ground, and the nervous twitching of her hands as she replied. As a woman, understanding such things, who had herself been wooed, who had at least dreamed of love, she had greatly disapproved her son's manner. But yet, if it might be successful, if the girl would put up with love-making so slight as that, and if the great Melmotte would accept in return for his money a title so modest as that of her son, how glorious should her son be to her in spite of his indifference! "I heard him leave the house before the Melmottes went," said Henrietta, when the mother spoke of going up to her son's bedroom. "He might have stayed to-night. Do you think he asked her?" "How can I say, mamma?" "I should have thought you would have been anxious about your brother. I feel sure he did,--and that she accepted him." "If so I hope he will be good to her. I hope he loves her." "Why shouldn't he love her as well as any one else? A girl need not be odious because she has money. There is nothing disagreeable about her." "No,--nothing disagreeable. I do not know that she is especially attractive." "Who is? I don't see anybody specially attractive. It seems to me you are quite indifferent about Felix." "Do not say that, mamma." "Yes you are. You don't understand all that he might be with this girl's fortune, and what he must be unless he gets money by marriage. He is eating us both up." "I would not let him do that, mamma." "It's all very well to say that, but I have some heart. I love him. I could not see him starve. Think what he might be with 20,000 a-year!" "If he is to marry for that only, I cannot think that they will be happy." "You had better go to bed, Henrietta. You never say a word to comfort me in all my troubles." Then Henrietta went to bed, and Lady Carbury absolutely sat up the whole night waiting for her son, in order that she might hear his tidings. She went up to her room, disembarrassed herself of her finery, and wrapped herself in a white dressing-gown. As she sat opposite to her glass, relieving her head from its garniture of false hair, she acknowledged to herself that age was coming on her. She could hide the unwelcome approach by art,--hide it more completely than can most women of her age; but, there it was, stealing on her with short grey hairs over her ears and around her temples, with little wrinkles round her eyes easily concealed by unobjectionable cosmetics, and a look of weariness round the mouth which could only be removed by that self-assertion of herself which practice had made always possible to her in company, though it now so frequently deserted her when she was alone. But she was not a woman to be unhappy because she was growing old. Her happiness, like that of most of us, was ever in the future,--never reached but always coming. She, however, had not looked for happiness to love and loveliness, and need not therefore be disappointed on that score. She had never really determined what it was that might make her happy,--having some hazy aspiration after social distinction and literary fame, in which was ever commingled solicitude respecting money. But at the present moment her great fears and her great hopes were centred on her son. She would not care how grey might be her hair, or how savage might be Mr. Alf, if her Felix were to marry this heiress. On the other hand, nothing that pearl-powder or the "Morning Breakfast Table" could do would avail anything, unless he could be extricated from the ruin that now surrounded him. So she went down into the dining-room, that she might be sure to hear the key in the door, even should she sleep, and waited for him with a volume of French memoirs in her hand. Unfortunate woman! she might have gone to bed and have been duly called about her usual time, for it was past eight and the full staring daylight shone into her room when Felix's cab brought him to the door. The night had been very wretched to her. She had slept, and the fire had sunk nearly to nothing and had refused to become again comfortable. She could not keep her mind to her book, and while she was awake the time seemed to be everlasting. And then it was so terrible to her that he should be gambling at such hours as these! Why should he desire to gamble if this girl's fortune was ready to fall into his hands? Fool, to risk his health, his character, his beauty, the little money which at this moment of time might be so indispensable to his great project, for the chance of winning something which in comparison with Marie Melmotte's money must be despicable! But at last he came! She waited patiently till he had thrown aside his hat and coat, and then she appeared at the dining-room door. She had studied her part for the occasion. She would not say a harsh word, and now she endeavoured to meet him with a smile. "Mother," he said, "you up at this hour!" His face was flushed, and she thought that there was some unsteadiness in his gait. She had never seen him tipsy, and it would be doubly terrible to her if such should be his condition. "I could not go to bed till I had seen you." "Why not? why should you want to see me? I'll go to bed now. There'll be plenty of time by-and-bye." "Is anything the matter, Felix?" "Matter;--what should be the matter? There's been a gentle row among the fellows at the club;--that's all. I had to tell Grasslough a bit of my mind, and he didn't like it. I didn't mean that he should." "There is not going to be any fighting, Felix?" "What, duelling; oh no,--nothing so exciting as that. Whether somebody may not have to kick somebody is more than I can say at present. You must let me go to bed now, for I am about used up." "What did Marie Melmotte say to you?" "Nothing particular." And he stood with his hand on the door as he answered her. "And what did you say to her?" "Nothing particular. Good heavens, mother, do you think that a man is in a condition to talk about such stuff as that at eight o'clock in the morning, when he has been up all night?" "If you knew all that I suffer on your behalf you would speak a word to me," she said, imploring him, holding him by the arm, and looking into his purple face and bloodshot eyes. She was sure that he had been drinking. She could smell it in his breath. "I must go to the old fellow, of course." "She told you to go to her father?" "As far as I remember, that was about it. Of course, he means to settle it as he likes. I should say that it's ten to one against me." Pulling himself away with some little roughness from his mother's hold, he made his way up to his own bedroom, occasionally stumbling against the stairs. Then the heiress herself had accepted her son! If so, surely the thing might be done. Lady Carbury recalled to mind her old conviction that a daughter may always succeed in beating a hard-hearted parent in a contention about marriage, if she be well in earnest. But then the girl must be really in earnest, and her earnestness will depend on that of her lover. In this case, however, there was as yet no reason for supposing that the great man would object. As far as outward signs went, the great man had shown some partiality for her son. No doubt it was Mr. Melmotte who had made Sir Felix a director of the great American Company. Felix had also been kindly received in Grosvenor Square. And then Sir Felix was Sir Felix,--a real baronet. Mr. Melmotte had no doubt endeavoured to catch this and that lord; but, failing a lord, why should he not content himself with a baronet? Lady Carbury thought that her son wanted nothing but money to make him an acceptable suitor to such a father-in-law as Mr. Melmotte;--not money in the funds, not a real fortune, not so many thousands a-year that could be settled;--the man's own enormous wealth rendered this unnecessary;--but such a one as Mr. Melmotte would not like outward palpable signs of immediate poverty. There should be means enough for present sleekness and present luxury. He must have a horse to ride, and rings and coats to wear, and bright little canes to carry, and above all the means of making presents. He must not be seen to be poor. Fortunately, most fortunately, Chance had befriended him lately and had given him some ready money. But if he went on gambling Chance would certainly take it all away again. For aught that the poor mother knew, Chance might have done so already. And then again, it was indispensable that he should abandon the habit of play--at any rate for the present, while his prospects depended on the good opinions of Mr. Melmotte. Of course such a one as Mr. Melmotte could not like gambling at a club, however much he might approve of it in the City. Why, with such a preceptor to help him, should not Felix learn to do his gambling on the Exchange, or among the brokers, or in the purlieus of the Bank? Lady Carbury would at any rate instigate him to be diligent in his position as director of the Great Mexican Railway,--which position ought to be the beginning to him of a fortune to be made on his own account. But what hope could there be for him if he should take to drink? Would not all hopes be over with Mr. Melmotte should he ever learn that his daughter's lover reached home and tumbled up-stairs to bed between eight and nine o'clock in the morning? She watched for his appearance on the following day, and began at once on the subject. "Do you know, Felix, I think I shall go down to your cousin Roger for Whitsuntide." "To Carbury Manor!" said he, as he eat some devilled kidneys which the cook had been specially ordered to get for his breakfast. "I thought you found it so dull that you didn't mean to go there any more." "I never said so, Felix. And now I have a great object." "What will Hetta do?" "Go too--why shouldn't she?" "Oh; I didn't know. I thought that perhaps she mightn't like it." "I don't see why she shouldn't like it. Besides, everything can't give way to her." "Has Roger asked you?" "No; but I'm sure he'd be pleased to have us if I proposed that we should all go." "Not me, mother!" "Yes; you especially." "Not if I know it, mother. What on earth should I do at Carbury Manor?" "Madame Melmotte told me last night that they were all going down to Caversham to stay three or four days with the Longestaffes. She spoke of Lady Pomona as quite her particular friend." "Oh--h! that explains it all." "Explains what, Felix?" said Lady Carbury, who had heard of Dolly Longestaffe, and was not without some fear that this projected visit to Caversham might have some matrimonial purpose in reference to that delightful young heir. "They say at the club that Melmotte has taken up old Longestaffe's affairs, and means to put them straight. There's an old property in Sussex as well as Caversham, and they say that Melmotte is to have that himself. There's some bother because Dolly, who would do anything for anybody else, won't join his father in selling. So the Melmottes are going to Caversham!" "Madame Melmotte told me so." "And the Longestaffes are the proudest people in England." "Of course we ought to be at Carbury Manor while they are there. What can be more natural? Everybody goes out of town at Whitsuntide; and why shouldn't we run down to the family place?" "All very natural if you can manage it, mother." "And you'll come?" "If Marie Melmotte goes, I'll be there at any rate for one day and night," said Felix. His mother thought that, for him, the promise had been graciously made.

When all her friends were gone Lady Carbury looked about for her son - expecting him to have gone to the Beargarden, but still with some faint hope that he might have remained to tell her of his fortune. She had watched the whispering, and without hearing the words she had almost known the very moment in which he was asking - and had seen the girl's timid face, eyes turned to the ground, and the nervous twitching of her hands as she replied. As a woman who had herself been wooed, she had greatly disapproved of her son's manner. Yet if the girl would put up with love-making so slight as that, and if the great Melmotte would accept in return for his money a title as modest as her son's, how glorious should Felix be to her! "I heard him leave the house before the Melmottes went," said Henrietta. "He might have stayed tonight. Do you think he asked her? I feel sure he did - and that she accepted him." "If so I hope he will be good to her. I hope he loves her." "Why shouldn't he love her as well as anyone else? There is nothing disagreeable about her." "No. I do not know that she is especially attractive." "Who is? It seems to me you are quite indifferent about Felix." "Do not say that, mamma." "You don't understand all that he might be with this girl's fortune, and what he must be unless he gets money by marriage. He is eating us both up." "I would not let him do that, mamma." "It's all very well to say that, but I have some heart. I love him. I could not see him starve. Think what he might be with 20,000 a year!" "If he is to marry for that only, I cannot think that they will be happy." "You had better go to bed, Henrietta. You never say a word to comfort me in all my troubles." Henrietta went to bed, and Lady Carbury sat up the whole night waiting for her son. She went up to her room, took off her finery, and wrapped herself in a white dressing-gown. As she sat before her mirror, she acknowledged that age was coming on her. She could hide the unwelcome approach by art; but there it was, stealing on her with grey hairs around her temples, with little wrinkles round her eyes, and a look of weariness round the mouth which could only be removed by that self-assertion which practice had always made possible in company, though it now frequently deserted her when she was alone. But she was not unhappy because she was growing old. Her happiness, like that of most of us, was ever in the future - never reached but always coming. She had never really determined what might make her happy - having some hazy aspiration after social distinction and literary fame, mixed with anxiety about money. But at present her great fears and hopes were centred on her son. She went down into the dining-room, where she would hear the key in the door, and waited for him with a volume of French memoirs in her hand. Unfortunate woman! she might as well have gone to bed, for it was past eight when Felix's cab brought him to the door. The night had been very wretched to her. She had slept, and the fire had sunk nearly to nothing. While she was awake the time seemed everlasting. It was so terrible to her that he should be gambling at these hours! Why should he desire to gamble if this girl's fortune was ready to fall into his hands? Fool, to risk his health, his character, his beauty, and the little money which he needed for his great project! But at last he came. She waited patiently till he had thrown aside his hat and coat, and then she appeared at the dining-room door. She had rehearsed her part. She would not say a harsh word, and now she endeavoured to meet him with a smile. "Mother," he said, "you up at this hour!" His face was flushed, and she thought that he was unsteady. She had never seen him tipsy; it would be doubly terrible to her if that were so. "I could not go to bed till I had seen you," she said. "Why not? I'll go to bed now. There'll be plenty of time by-and-by." "Is anything the matter, Felix?" "Matter - what should be the matter? There's been a row among the fellows at the club; that's all. I had to tell Grasslough my mind, and he didn't like it. You must let me go to bed now, for I am about used up." "What did Marie Melmotte say to you?" "Nothing particular." He stood with his hand on the door. "And what did you say to her?" "Nothing particular. Good heavens, mother, do you think a man is in a condition to talk about such stuff at eight o'clock in the morning, when he has been up all night?" "If you knew all that I suffer on your behalf you would speak a word to me," she said, imploring him, holding him by the arm, and looking into his purple face and bloodshot eyes. She could smell the drink in his breath. "I must go to the old fellow, of course." "She told you to go to her father?" "As far as I remember, that was about it. Of course, he will settle it as he likes. I should say that it's ten to one against me." Pulling himself away with some roughness, he made his way up to his own bedroom, occasionally stumbling against the stairs. Then the heiress had accepted her son! If so, surely the thing might be done. But to beat a hard-hearted parent in an argument about marriage, a girl must be really in earnest, and her earnestness will depend on that of her lover. However, there was no reason for supposing that Mr. Melmotte would object. He had shown some partiality for her son, in making him a director of the great American Company. Felix had also been kindly received in Grosvenor Square. And then he was a real baronet. If Mr. Melmotte had failed to catch a lord, why should he not content himself with a baronet? Lady Carbury thought that her son wanted nothing but money to make him acceptable to Mr. Melmotte; not a real fortune - the man's own enormous wealth made this unnecessary - but Melmotte would not like outward signs of poverty. There should be means enough for sleekness and luxury. Felix must have a horse to ride, and rings and coats to wear, and above all the means of giving presents. He must not be seen to be poor. Fortunately, Chance had befriended him lately and had given him some ready money. But if he went on gambling Chance would certainly take it all away again. For all that the poor mother knew, Chance might have done so already. He must abandon the habit of play - at any rate while his prospects depended on the good opinions of Mr. Melmotte. Such a one as Mr. Melmotte would not like gambling at a club, however much he might approve of it in the City. Why should not Felix learn to do his gambling on the Exchange, or among the brokers? Lady Carbury would at any rate urge him to be diligent in his position as director of the Great Mexican Railway. But what hope could there be for him if he should take to drink? Would not all hopes be over if Mr. Melmotte should ever learn that his daughter's lover tumbled upstairs to bed between eight and nine o'clock in the morning? She watched for Felix's appearance at breakfast on the following day, and began at once on the subject. "Do you know, Felix, I think I shall go down to your cousin Roger for Whitsuntide." "To Carbury Manor!" said he. "I thought you found it so dull that you didn't mean to go there any more." "I never said so, Felix. And now I have a great object." "Hetta mightn't like it." "I don't see why not." "Has Roger asked you?" "No; but I'm sure he'd be pleased to have us if I proposed that we should all go." "Not me, mother!" "Yes; you especially." "What on earth should I do at Carbury Manor?" demanded Felix. "Madame Melmotte told me last night that they were all going down to Caversham to stay three or four days with the Longestaffes. She spoke of Lady Pomona as quite her particular friend." "Oh! that explains it all." "Explains what, Felix?" said Lady Carbury, who had heard of Dolly Longestaffe, and feared that he might also have some matrimonial purpose in reference to Miss Melmotte's visit. "They say at the club that Melmotte has taken up old Longestaffe's affairs, and means to put them straight. There's an old property in Sussex as well as Caversham, and they say that Melmotte is to buy that for himself. There's some bother because Dolly won't join his father in selling it. So the Melmottes are going to Caversham!" "Of course we ought to be at Carbury Manor while they are there. What can be more natural? Everybody goes out of town at Whitsuntide." "All very natural if you can manage it, mother." "And you'll come?" "If Marie Melmotte goes, I'll be there at any rate for one day and night," said Felix. His mother thought that, for him, the promise had been graciously made.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 12: Sir Felix in his Mother's House

It is hoped that the reader need hardly be informed that Hetta Carbury was a very miserable young woman as soon as she decided that duty compelled her to divide herself altogether from Paul Montague. I think that she was irrational; but to her it seemed that the offence against herself,--the offence against her own dignity as a woman,--was too great to be forgiven. There can be no doubt that it would all have been forgiven with the greatest ease had Paul told the story before it had reached her ears from any other source. Had he said to her,--when her heart was softest towards him,--I once loved another woman, and that woman is here now in London, a trouble to me, persecuting me, and her history is so and so, and the history of my love for her was after this fashion, and the history of my declining love is after that fashion, and of this at any rate you may be sure, that this woman has never been near my heart from the first moment in which I saw you;--had he told it to her thus, there would not have been an opening for anger. And he doubtless would have so told it, had not Hetta's brother interfered too quickly. He was then forced to exculpate himself, to confess rather than to tell his own story,--and to admit facts which wore the air of having been concealed, and which had already been conceived to be altogether damning if true. It was that journey to Lowestoft, not yet a month old, which did the mischief,--a journey as to which Hetta was not slow in understanding all that Roger Carbury had thought about it, though Roger would say nothing of it to herself. Paul had been staying at the seaside with this woman in amicable intimacy,--this horrid woman,--in intimacy worse than amicable, and had been visiting her daily at Islington! Hetta felt quite sure that he had never passed a day without going there since the arrival of the woman; and everybody would know what that meant. And during this very hour he had been,--well, perhaps not exactly making love to herself, but looking at her and talking to her, and behaving to her in a manner such as could not but make her understand that he intended to make love to her. Of course they had really understood it, since they had met at Madame Melmotte's first ball, when she had made a plea that she could not allow herself to dance with him more than,--say half-a-dozen times. Of course she had not intended him then to know that she would receive his love with favour; but equally of course she had known that he must so feel it. She had not only told herself, but had told her mother, that her heart was given away to this man; and yet the man during this very time was spending his hours with a--woman, with a strange American woman, to whom he acknowledged that he had been once engaged. How could she not quarrel with him? How could she refrain from telling him that everything must be over between them? Everybody was against him,--her mother, her brother, and her cousin: and she felt that she had not a word to say in his defence. A horrid woman! A wretched, bad, bold American intriguing woman! It was terrible to her that a friend of hers should ever have attached himself to such a creature;--but that he should have come to her with a second tale of love long, long before he had cleared himself from the first;--perhaps with no intention of clearing himself from the first! Of course she could not forgive him! No;--she would never forgive him. She would break her heart for him. That was a matter of course; but she would never forgive him. She knew well what it was that her mother wanted. Her mother thought that by forcing her into a quarrel with Montague she would force her also into a marriage with Roger Carbury. But her mother would find out that in that she was mistaken. She would never marry her cousin, though she would be always ready to acknowledge his worth. She was sure now that she would never marry any man. As she made this resolve she had a wicked satisfaction in feeling that it would be a trouble to her mother;--for though she was altogether in accord with Lady Carbury as to the iniquities of Paul Montague she was not the less angry with her mother for being so ready to expose those iniquities. Oh, with what slow, cautious fingers, with what heartbroken tenderness did she take out from its guardian case the brooch which Paul had given her! It had as yet been an only present, and in thanking him for it, which she had done with full, free-spoken words of love, she had begged him to send her no other, so that that might ever be to her,--to her dying day,--the one precious thing that had been given to her by her lover while she was yet a girl. Now it must be sent back;--and, no doubt, it would go to that abominable woman! But her fingers lingered over it as she touched it, and she would fain have kissed it, had she not told herself that she would have been disgraced, even in her solitude, by such a demonstration of affection. She had given her answer to Paul Montague; and, as she would have no further personal correspondence with him, she took the brooch to her mother with a request that it might be returned. "Of course, my dear, I will send it back to him. Is there nothing else?" "No, mamma;--nothing else. I have no letters, and no other present. You always knew everything that took place. If you will just send that back to him,--without a word. You won't say anything,--will you, mamma?" "There is nothing for me to say if you have really made him understand you." "I think he understood me, mamma. You need not doubt about that." "He has behaved very, very badly,--from the beginning," said Lady Carbury. But Hetta did not really think that the young man had behaved very badly from the beginning, and certainly did not wish to be told of his misbehaviour. No doubt she thought that the young man had behaved very well in falling in love with her directly he saw her;--only that he had behaved so badly in taking Mrs. Hurtle to Lowestoft afterwards! "It's no good talking about that, mamma. I hope you will never talk of him any more." "He is quite unworthy," said Lady Carbury. "I can't bear to--have him--abused," said Hetta sobbing. "My dear Hetta, I have no doubt this has made you for the time unhappy. Such little accidents do make people unhappy--for the time. But it will be much for the best that you should endeavour not to be so sensitive about it. The world is too rough and too hard for people to allow their feelings full play. You have to look out for the future, and you can best do so by resolving that Paul Montague shall be forgotten at once." "Oh, mamma, don't. How is a person to resolve? Oh, mamma, don't say any more." "But, my dear, there is more that I must say. Your future life is before you, and I must think of it, and you must think of it. Of course you must be married." "There is no of course at all." "Of course you must be married," continued Lady Carbury, "and of course it is your duty to think of the way in which this may be best done. My income is becoming less and less every day. I already owe money to your cousin, and I owe money to Mr. Broune." "Money to Mr. Broune!" "Yes,--to Mr. Broune. I had to pay a sum for Felix which Mr. Broune told me ought to be paid. And I owe money to tradesmen. I fear that I shall not be able to keep on this house. And they tell me,--your cousin and Mr. Broune,--that it is my duty to take Felix out of London,--probably abroad." "Of course I shall go with you." "It may be so at first; but, perhaps, even that may not be necessary. Why should you? What pleasure could you have in it? Think what my life must be with Felix in some French or German town!" "Mamma, why don't you let me be a comfort to you? Why do you speak of me always as though I were a burden?" "Everybody is a burden to other people. It is the way of life. But you,--if you will only yield in ever so little,--you may go where you will be no burden, where you will be accepted simply as a blessing. You have the opportunity of securing comfort for your whole life, and of making a friend, not only for yourself, but for me and your brother, of one whose friendship we cannot fail to want." "Mamma, you cannot really mean to talk about that now?" "Why should I not mean it? What is the use of indulging in high-flown nonsense? Make up your mind to be the wife of your cousin Roger." "This is horrid," said Hetta, bursting out in her agony. "Cannot you understand that I am broken-hearted about Paul, that I love him from my very soul, that parting from him is like tearing my heart in pieces? I know that I must, because he has behaved so very badly,--and because of that wicked woman! And so I have. But I did not think that in the very next hour you would bid me give myself to somebody else! I will never marry Roger Carbury. You may be quite--quite sure that I shall never marry any one. If you won't take me with you when you go away with Felix, I must stay behind and try and earn my bread. I suppose I could go out as a nurse." Then, without waiting for a reply she left the room and betook herself to her own apartment. Lady Carbury did not even understand her daughter. She could not conceive that she had in any way acted unkindly in taking the opportunity of Montague's rejection for pressing the suit of the other lover. She was simply anxious to get a husband for her daughter,--as she had been anxious to get a wife for her son,--in order that her child might live comfortably. But she felt that whenever she spoke common sense to Hetta, her daughter took it as an offence, and flew into tantrums, being altogether unable to accommodate herself to the hard truths of the world. Deep as was the sorrow which her son brought upon her, and great as was the disgrace, she could feel more sympathy for him than for the girl. If there was anything that she could not forgive in life it was romance. And yet she, at any rate, believed that she delighted in romantic poetry! At the present moment she was very wretched; and was certainly unselfish in her wish to see her daughter comfortably settled before she commenced those miserable roamings with her son which seemed to be her coming destiny. In these days she thought a good deal of Mr. Broune's offer, and of her own refusal. It was odd that since that refusal she had seen more of him, and had certainly known much more of him than she had ever seen or known before. Previous to that little episode their intimacy had been very fictitious, as are many intimacies. They had played at being friends, knowing but very little of each other. But now, during the last five or six weeks,--since she had refused his offer,--they had really learned to know each other. In the exquisite misery of her troubles, she had told him the truth about herself and her son, and he had responded, not by compliments, but by real aid and true counsel. His whole tone was altered to her, as was hers to him. There was no longer any egregious flattery between them,--and he, in speaking to her, would be almost rough to her. Once he had told her that she would be a fool if she did not do so and so. The consequence was that she almost regretted that she had allowed him to escape. But she certainly made no effort to recover the lost prize, for she told him all her troubles. It was on that afternoon, after her disagreement with her daughter, that Marie Melmotte came to her. And, on that same evening, closeted with Mr. Broune in her back room, she told him of both occurrences. "If the girl has got the money--," she began, regretting her son's obstinacy. "I don't believe a bit of it," said Broune. "From all that I can hear, I don't think that there is any money. And if there is, you may be sure that Melmotte would not let it slip through his fingers in that way. I would not have anything to do with it." "You think it is all over with the Melmottes?" "A rumour reached me just now that he had been already arrested." It was now between nine and ten in the evening. "But as I came away from my room, I heard that he was down at the House. That he will have to stand a trial for forgery, I think there cannot be a doubt, and I imagine that it will be found that not a shilling will be saved out of the property." "What a wonderful career it has been!" "Yes,--the strangest thing that has come up in our days. I am inclined to think that the utter ruin at this moment has been brought about by his reckless personal expenditure." "Why did he spend such a lot of money?" "Because he thought that he could conquer the world by it, and obtain universal credit. He very nearly succeeded too. Only he had forgotten to calculate the force of the envy of his competitors." "You think he has committed forgery?" "Certainly, I think so. Of course we know nothing as yet." "Then I suppose it is better that Felix should not have married her." "Certainly better. No redemption was to have been had on that side, and I don't think you should regret the loss of such money as his." Lady Carbury shook her head, meaning probably to imply that even Melmotte's money would have had no bad odour to one so dreadfully in want of assistance as her son. "At any rate do not think of it any more." Then she told him her grief about Hetta. "Ah, there," said he, "I feel myself less able to express an authoritative opinion." "He doesn't owe a shilling," said Lady Carbury, "and he is really a fine gentleman." "But if she doesn't like him?" "Oh, but she does. She thinks him to be the finest person in the world. She would obey him a great deal sooner than she would me. But she has her mind stuffed with nonsense about love." "A great many people, Lady Carbury, have their minds stuffed with that nonsense." "Yes;--and ruin themselves with it, as she will do. Love is like any other luxury. You have no right to it unless you can afford it. And those who will have it when they can't afford it, will come to the ground like this Mr. Melmotte. How odd it seems! It isn't a fortnight since we all thought him the greatest man in London." Mr. Broune only smiled, not thinking it worth his while to declare that he had never held that opinion about the late idol of Abchurch Lane. On the following morning, very early, while Melmotte was still lying, as yet undiscovered, on the floor of Mr. Longestaffe's room, a letter was brought up to Hetta by the maid-servant, who told her that Mr. Montague had delivered it with his own hands. She took it greedily, and then repressing herself, put it with an assumed gesture of indifference beneath her pillow. But as soon as the girl had left the room she at once seized her treasure. It never occurred to her as yet to think whether she would or would not receive a letter from her dismissed lover. She had told him that he must go, and go for ever, and had taken it for granted that he would do so,--probably willingly. No doubt he would be delighted to return to the American woman. But now that she had the letter, she allowed no doubt to come between her and the reading of it. As soon as she was alone she opened it, and she ran through its contents without allowing herself a moment for thinking, as she went on, whether the excuses made by her lover were or were not such as she ought to accept. DEAREST HETTA, I think you have been most unjust to me, and if you have ever loved me I cannot understand your injustice. I have never deceived you in anything, not by a word, or for a moment. Unless you mean to throw me over because I did once love another woman, I do not know what cause of anger you have. I could not tell you about Mrs. Hurtle till you had accepted me, and, as you yourself must know, I had had no opportunity to tell you anything afterwards till the story had reached your ears. I hardly know what I said the other day, I was so miserable at your accusation. But I suppose I said then, and I again declare now, that I had made up my mind that circumstances would not admit of her becoming my wife before I had ever seen you, and that I have certainly never wavered in my determination since I saw you. I can with safety refer to Roger as to this, because I was with him when I so determined, and made up my mind very much at his instance. This was before I had ever even met you. If I understand it all right you are angry because I have associated with Mrs. Hurtle since I so determined. I am not going back to my first acquaintance with her now. You may blame me for that if you please,--though it cannot have been a fault against you. But, after what had occurred, was I to refuse to see her when she came to England to see me? I think that would have been cowardly. Of course I went to her. And when she was all alone here, without a single other friend, and telling me that she was unwell, and asking me to take her down to the seaside, was I to refuse? I think that that would have been unkind. It was a dreadful trouble to me. But of course I did it. She asked me to renew my engagement. I am bound to tell you that, but I know in telling you that it will go no farther. I declined, telling her that it was my purpose to ask another woman to be my wife. Of course there has been anger and sorrow,--anger on her part and sorrow on mine. But there has been no doubt. And at last she yielded. As far as she was concerned my trouble was over,--except in so far that her unhappiness has been a great trouble to me,--when, on a sudden, I found that the story had reached you in such a form as to make you determined to quarrel with me! Of course you do not know it all, for I cannot tell you all without telling her history. But you know everything that in the least concerns yourself, and I do say that you have no cause whatever for anger. I am writing at night. This evening your brooch was brought to me with three or four cutting words from your mother. But I cannot understand that if you really love me, you should wish to separate yourself from me,--or that, if you ever loved me, you should cease to love me now because of Mrs. Hurtle. I am so absolutely confused by the blow that I hardly know what I am writing, and take first one outrageous idea into my head and then another. My love for you is so thorough and so intense that I cannot bring myself to look forward to living without you, now that you have once owned that you have loved me. I cannot think it possible that love, such as I suppose yours must have been, could be made to cease all at a moment. Mine can't. I don't think it is natural that we should be parted. If you want corroboration of my story go yourself to Mrs. Hurtle. Anything is better than that we both should be broken-hearted. Yours most affectionately, PAUL MONTAGUE.

Hetta Carbury was very miserable after she decided that she had to divide herself altogether from Paul Montague. I think that she was irrational; but to her it seemed that the offence against her dignity as a woman was too great to be forgiven. There can be no doubt that it would have been forgiven with the greatest ease had Paul told the story before it had reached her ears from another source. If he had said to her, I once loved another woman, and that woman is here now in London, a trouble to me, persecuting me, and her history is so and so - you may be sure that she would not have been angry. But he had been forced to confess rather than tell his own story, and to admit facts which had been concealed. It was that journey to Lowestoft, not yet a month old, which did the mischief. Paul had been staying at the seaside with this woman in amicable intimacy, and had been visiting her daily at Islington! Hetta felt quite sure that he had never passed a day without going there; and meanwhile had been behaving to herself in a manner which implied love for her. She had told herself that her heart was given away to this man; and yet he was spending his hours with a strange American woman, to whom he acknowledged that he had been once engaged. How could she not quarrel with him? She would never forgive him. She would break her heart for him. She knew well what her mother wanted. Her mother thought that a quarrel with Montague would force her into a marriage with Roger Carbury. But her mother would find out that she was mistaken. Hetta would never marry her cousin, though she would always acknowledge his worth. She was sure now that she would never marry any man. With what slow fingers, with what heartbroken tenderness did she take out from its case the brooch which Paul had given her! It had been his only present to her. Now it must be sent back; and, no doubt, it would go to that abominable woman! But her fingers lingered as she touched it, and she would fain have kissed it, had she not told herself that she would have been disgraced by such a demonstration of affection. As she would have no further personal correspondence with Paul Montague, she took the brooch to her mother with a request that it might be returned. "Of course, my dear, I will send it back to him. Is there nothing else?" "No, mamma; nothing else. I have no letters, and no other present. You always knew everything that took place. If you will just send that back to him - without a word." "He has behaved very, very badly, from the beginning," said Lady Carbury. But Hetta certainly did not wish to be told of his misbehaviour. No doubt she thought that the young man had behaved very well in falling in love with her - only that he had behaved so badly in taking Mrs. Hurtle to Lowestoft afterwards! "It's no good talking about that, mamma. I hope you will never talk of him any more." "He is quite unworthy," said Lady Carbury. "I can't bear to - have him - abused," said Hetta, sobbing. "My dear Hetta, I have no doubt this has made you for the time unhappy. But you should endeavour not to be so sensitive about it. You have to look out for the future, and you can best do so by resolving that Paul Montague shall be forgotten at once." "Oh, mamma, don't." "But, my dear, there is more that I must say. Your future life is before you, and I must think of it. Of course you must be married." "There is no of course at all." "Of course you must be married," continued Lady Carbury, "and of course it is your duty to think of the way in which this may be best done. My income is becoming less and less every day. I already owe money to your cousin, and I owe money to Mr. Broune." "Money to Mr. Broune!" "Yes; I had to pay a sum for Felix. And I owe money to tradesmen. I fear that I shall not be able to keep this house. And they tell me - your cousin and Mr. Broune - that it is my duty to take Felix out of London, probably abroad." "Of course I shall go with you." "Perhaps that may not be necessary. What pleasure could you have in it? Think what my life must be with Felix in some French or German town!" "Mamma, why don't you let me be a comfort to you? Why do you speak of me always as though I were a burden?" "Everybody is a burden to other people. It is the way of life. But you - if you will only yield in ever so little - you may go where you will be no burden, where you will be accepted as a blessing. You have the opportunity of securing comfort for your whole life, not only for yourself, but for me and your brother." "Mamma, you cannot really mean to talk about that now?" "Why not? Make up your mind to be the wife of your cousin Roger." "This is horrid," said Hetta, bursting out in her agony. "Cannot you understand that I am broken-hearted about Paul, that I love him from my very soul, that parting from him is like tearing my heart in pieces? I know that I must, because he has behaved so very badly - and because of that wicked woman! And so I have. But I did not think that in the very next hour you would bid me give myself to somebody else! I will never marry Roger Carbury. I shall never marry anyone. If you won't take me with you, I must stay behind and earn my bread. I suppose I could go out as a nurse." Without waiting for a reply she left the room. Lady Carbury did not even understand her daughter. She could not conceive that she had in any way acted unkindly. She was simply anxious to get a husband for her child, so that she might live comfortably. But she felt that whenever she spoke common sense to Hetta, her daughter took it as an offence, and flew into tantrums. If there was anything that she could not forgive in life it was romance. And yet she believed that she delighted in romantic poetry! At present she was very wretched; and was certainly unselfish in her wish to see her daughter comfortably settled before she commenced those miserable roamings with her son which seemed to be her destiny. In these days she thought a good deal of Mr. Broune's offer, and of her own refusal. It was odd that since that refusal she had seen more of him than she ever had before. Previously their intimacy had been fictitious; they had played at being friends, knowing little of each other. But now, during the last five or six weeks since she had refused his offer, they had really learned to know each other. In her troubles, she had told him the truth about herself and her son, and he had responded, not by compliments, but by real aid and true counsel. His whole tone was altered to her, as was hers to him. There was no longer any flattery between them. In consequence she almost regretted that she had allowed him to escape. But she certainly made no effort to recover the lost prize. It was on that afternoon, after her disagreement with her daughter, that Marie Melmotte came to her. And, on that same evening, closeted with Mr. Broune, she told him of both occurrences. "If the girl has got the money-" she began. "I don't believe it," said Broune. "I don't think that there is any money. And if there is, you may be sure that Melmotte would not let it slip through his fingers. I would not have anything to do with it." "You think it is all over with the Melmottes?" "He will have to stand trial for forgery, without a doubt, and I imagine that it will be found that not a shilling will be saved out of the property." "What an extraordinary career it has been!" "Yes, the strangest thing that has come up in our days. He thought that he could conquer the world, and obtain universal credit. He very nearly succeeded too." "You think he has committed forgery?" "I think so." "Then I suppose it is better that Felix should not have married her." "Certainly. I don't think you should regret the loss of such money as his." Lady Carbury shook her head. Then she told him her grief about Hetta. "Ah, there," said he, "I feel less able to express an opinion." "He doesn't owe a shilling," said Lady Carbury, "and he is really a fine gentleman." "But if she doesn't like him?" "Oh, but she does. She thinks him to be the finest person in the world. She would obey him a great deal sooner than she would me. But she has her mind stuffed with nonsense about love." "A great many people, Lady Carbury, have their minds stuffed with that nonsense." "Yes; and ruin themselves with it, as she will do. Love is like any other luxury. You have no right to it unless you can afford it." On the following morning, very early, while Melmotte was still lying undiscovered on the floor of Mr. Longestaffe's room, a letter was brought up to Hetta by the maid-servant, who told her that Mr. Montague had delivered it. She put it aside with assumed indifference. But as soon as the girl had left the room she seized her treasure. She opened it, and ran through its contents without allowing herself a moment for thinking whether the excuses made by her lover were such as she ought to accept. Dearest Hetta, I think you have been most unjust to me. I have never deceived you in anything, not by a word, or for a moment. Unless you mean to throw me over because I did once love another woman, I do not know what cause of anger you have. I could not tell you about Mrs. Hurtle till you had accepted me, and then I had no opportunity to tell you till the story had reached your ears. I hardly know what I said the other day, I was so miserable at your accusation. But I suppose I said then, and I again declare now, that I had made up my mind that I could not marry her before I had ever seen you, and that I have never wavered in my determination. I can refer to Roger as to this, because I was with him when I so decided, and made up my mind very much at his instance. This was before I had ever even met you. If I understand it right you are angry because I have associated with Mrs. Hurtle since then. I am not going back to my first acquaintance with her now. But, after what had occurred, was I to refuse to see her when she came to England to see me? I think that would have been cowardly. Of course I went to her. And when she was all alone here, without a single other friend, and telling me that she was unwell, and asking me to take her down to the seaside, was I to refuse? It was a dreadful trouble to me. But of course I did it. She asked me to renew my engagement. I declined, telling her that I intended to ask another woman to be my wife. Of course there has been anger and sorrow - anger on her part and sorrow on mine. But there has been no doubt. And at last she yielded. Of course you do not know all the story, for I cannot tell you all without telling her history. But you know everything that concerns yourself, and I do say that you have no cause whatever for anger. I am writing at night. This evening your brooch was brought to me with three or four cutting words from your mother. But I cannot understand that if you really love me, you should wish to separate yourself from me - or that, if you ever loved me, you should cease to love me now because of Mrs. Hurtle. I am so absolutely confused by the blow that I hardly know what I am writing. My love for you is so thorough and so intense that I cannot bring myself to look forward to living without you. I cannot think it possible that your love could be made to cease all at a moment. Mine can't. If you want corroboration of my story go yourself to Mrs. Hurtle. Anything is better than that we should both be broken-hearted. Yours most affectionately, Paul Montague.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 84: Paul Montague's Vindication

Sir Felix, when he promised to meet Ruby at the Music Hall on the Tuesday, was under an engagement to start with Marie Melmotte for New York on the Thursday following, and to go down to Liverpool on the Wednesday. There was no reason, he thought, why he should not enjoy himself to the last, and he would say a parting word to poor little Ruby. The details of his journey were settled between him and Marie, with no inconsiderable assistance from Didon, in the garden of Grosvenor Square, on the previous Sunday,--where the lovers had again met during the hours of morning service. Sir Felix had been astonished at the completion of the preparations which had been made. "Mind you go by the 5 P.M. train," Marie said. "That will take you into Liverpool at 10.15. There's an hotel at the railway-station. Didon has got our tickets under the names of Madame and Mademoiselle Racine. We are to have one cabin between us. You must get yours to-morrow. She has found out that there is plenty of room." "I'll be all right." "Pray don't miss the train that afternoon. Somebody would be sure to suspect something if we were seen together in the same train. We leave at 7 A.M. I shan't go to bed all night, so as to be sure to be in time. Robert,--he's the man,--will start a little earlier in the cab with my heavy box. What do you think is in it?" "Clothes," suggested Felix. "Yes, but what clothes?--my wedding dresses. Think of that! What a job to get them and nobody to know anything about it except Didon and Madame Craik at the shop in Mount Street! They haven't come yet, but I shall be there whether they come or not. And I shall have all my jewels. I'm not going to leave them behind. They'll go off in our cab. We can get the things out behind the house into the mews. Then Didon and I follow in another cab. Nobody ever is up before near nine, and I don't think we shall be interrupted." "If the servants were to hear." "I don't think they'd tell. But if I was to be brought back again, I should only tell papa that it was no good. He can't prevent me marrying." "Won't your mother find out?" "She never looks after anything. I don't think she'd tell if she knew. Papa leads her such a life! Felix! I hope you won't be like that."--And she looked up into his face, and thought that it would be impossible that he should be. "I'm all right," said Felix, feeling very uncomfortable at the time. This great effort of his life was drawing very near. There had been a pleasurable excitement in talking of running away with the great heiress of the day, but now that the deed had to be executed,--and executed after so novel and stupendous a fashion, he almost wished that he had not undertaken it. It must have been much nicer when men ran away with their heiresses only as far as Gretna Green. And even Goldsheiner with Lady Julia had nothing of a job in comparison with this which he was expected to perform. And then if they should be wrong about the girl's fortune! He almost repented. He did repent, but he had not the courage to recede. "How about money though?" he said hoarsely. "You have got some?" "I have just the two hundred pounds which your father paid me, and not a shilling more. I don't see why he should keep my money, and not let me have it back." "Look here," said Marie, and she put her hand into her pocket. "I told you I thought I could get some. There is a cheque for two hundred and fifty pounds. I had money of my own enough for the tickets." "And whose is this?" said Felix, taking the bit of paper with much trepidation. "It is papa's cheque. Mamma gets ever so many of them to carry on the house and pay for things. But she gets so muddled about it that she doesn't know what she pays and what she doesn't." Felix looked at the cheque and saw that it was payable to House or Bearer, and that it was signed by Augustus Melmotte. "If you take it to the bank you'll get the money," said Marie. "Or shall I send Didon, and give you the money on board the ship?" Felix thought over the matter very anxiously. If he did go on the journey he would much prefer to have the money in his own pocket. He liked the feeling of having money in his pocket. Perhaps if Didon were entrusted with the cheque she also would like the feeling. But then might it not be possible that if he presented the cheque himself he might be arrested for stealing Melmotte's money? "I think Didon had better get the money," he said, "and bring it to me to-morrow, at four o'clock in the afternoon, to the club." If the money did not come he would not go down to Liverpool, nor would he be at the expense of his ticket for New York. "You see," he said, "I'm so much in the City that they might know me at the bank." To this arrangement Marie assented and took back the cheque. "And then I'll come on board on Thursday morning," he said, "without looking for you." "Oh dear, yes;--without looking for us. And don't know us even till we are out at sea. Won't it be fun when we shall be walking about on the deck and not speaking to one another! And, Felix;--what do you think? Didon has found out that there is to be an American clergyman on board. I wonder whether he'd marry us." "Of course he will." "Won't that be jolly? I wish it was all done. Then, directly it's done, and when we get to New York, we'll telegraph and write to papa, and we'll be ever so penitent and good; won't we? Of course he'll make the best of it." "But he's so savage; isn't he?" "When there's anything to get;--or just at the moment. But I don't think he minds afterwards. He's always for making the best of everything;--misfortunes and all. Things go wrong so often that if he was to go on thinking of them always they'd be too many for anybody. It'll be all right in a month's time. I wonder how Lord Nidderdale will look when he hears that we've gone off. I should so like to see him. He never can say that I've behaved bad to him. We were engaged, but it was he broke it. Do you know, Felix, that though we were engaged to be married, and everybody knew it, he never once kissed me!" Felix at this moment almost wished that he had never done so. As to what the other man had done, he cared nothing at all. Then they parted with the understanding that they were not to see each other again till they met on board the boat. All arrangements were made. But Felix was determined that he would not stir in the matter unless Didon brought him the full sum of 250; and he almost thought, and indeed hoped, that she would not. Either she would be suspected at the bank and apprehended, or she would run off with the money on her own account when she got it;--or the cheque would have been missed and the payment stopped. Some accident would occur, and then he would be able to recede from his undertaking. He would do nothing till after Monday afternoon. Should he tell his mother that he was going? His mother had clearly recommended him to run away with the girl, and must therefore approve of the measure. His mother would understand how great would be the expense of such a trip, and might perhaps add something to his stock of money. He determined that he would tell his mother;--that is, if Didon should bring him full change for the cheque. He walked into the Beargarden exactly at four o'clock on the Monday, and there he found Didon standing in the hall. His heart sank within him as he saw her. Now must he certainly go to New York. She made him a little curtsey, and without a word handed him an envelope, soft and fat with rich enclosures. He bade her wait a moment, and going into a little waiting-room counted the notes. The money was all there;--the full sum of 250. He must certainly go to New York. "C'est tout en rgle?" said Didon in a whisper as he returned to the hall. Sir Felix nodded his head, and Didon took her departure. Yes; he must go now. He had Melmotte's money in his pocket, and was therefore bound to run away with Melmotte's daughter. It was a great trouble to him as he reflected that Melmotte had more of his money than he had of Melmotte's. And now how should he dispose of his time before he went? Gambling was too dangerous. Even he felt that. Where would he be were he to lose his ready money? He would dine that night at the club, and in the evening go up to his mother. On the Tuesday he would take his place for New York in the City, and would spend the evening with Ruby at the Music Hall. On the Wednesday, he would start for Liverpool,--according to his instructions. He felt annoyed that he had been so fully instructed. But should the affair turn out well nobody would know that. All the fellows would give him credit for the audacity with which he had carried off the heiress to America. At ten o'clock he found his mother and Hetta in Welbeck Street--"What; Felix?" exclaimed Lady Carbury. "You're surprised; are you not?" Then he threw himself into a chair. "Mother," he said, "would you mind coming into the other room?" Lady Carbury of course went with him. "I've got something to tell you," he said. "Good news?" she asked, clasping her hands together. From his manner she thought that it was good news. Money had in some way come into his hands,--or at any rate a prospect of money. "That's as may be," he said, and then he paused. "Don't keep me in suspense, Felix." "The long and the short of it is that I'm going to take Marie off." "Oh, Felix." "You said you thought it was the right thing to do;--and therefore I'm going to do it. The worst of it is that one wants such a lot of money for this kind of thing." "But when?" "Immediately. I wouldn't tell you till I had arranged everything. I've had it in my mind for the last fortnight." "And how is it to be? Oh, Felix, I hope it may succeed." "It was your own idea, you know. We're going to;--where do you think?" "How can I think?--Boulogne." "You say that just because Goldsheiner went there. That wouldn't have done at all for us. We're going to--New York." "To New York! But when will you be married?" "There will be a clergyman on board. It's all fixed. I wouldn't go without telling you." "Oh; I wish you hadn't told me." "Come now;--that's kind. You don't mean to say it wasn't you that put me up to it. I've got to get my things ready." "Of course, if you tell me that you are going on a journey, I will have your clothes got ready for you. When do you start?" "Wednesday afternoon." "For New York! We must get some things ready-made. Oh, Felix, how will it be if he does not forgive her?" He attempted to laugh. "When I spoke of such a thing as possible he had not sworn then that he would never give her a shilling." "They always say that." "You are going to risk it?" "I am going to take your advice." This was dreadful to the poor mother. "There is money settled on her." "Settled on whom?" "On Marie;--money which he can't get back again." "How much?" "She doesn't know;--but a great deal; enough for them all to live upon if things went amiss with them." "But that's only a form, Felix. That money can't be her own, to give to her husband." "Melmotte will find that it is, unless he comes to terms. That's the pull we've got over him. Marie knows what she's about. She's a great deal sharper than any one would take her to be. What can you do for me about money, mother?" "I have none, Felix." "I thought you'd be sure to help me, as you wanted me so much to do it." "That's not true, Felix. I didn't want you to do it. Oh, I am so sorry that that word ever passed my mouth! I have no money. There isn't 20 at the bank altogether." "They would let you overdraw for 50 or 60." "I will not do it. I will not starve myself and Hetta. You had ever so much money only lately. I will get some things for you, and pay for them as I can if you cannot pay for them after your marriage;--but I have not money to give you." "That's a blue look out," said he, turning himself in his chair,--"just when 60 or 70 might make a fellow for life! You could borrow it from your friend Broune." "I will do no such thing, Felix. 50 or 60 would make very little difference in the expense of such a trip as this. I suppose you have some money?" "Some;--yes, some. But I'm so short that any little thing would help me." Before the evening was over she absolutely did give him a cheque for 30, although she had spoken the truth in saying that she had not so much at her banker's. After this he went back to his club, although he himself understood the danger. He could not bear the idea of going to bed quietly at home at half-past ten. He got into a cab, and was very soon up in the card-room. He found nobody there, and went to the smoking-room, where Dolly Longestaffe and Miles Grendall were sitting silently together, with pipes in their mouths. "Here's Carbury," said Dolly, waking suddenly into life. "Now we can have a game at three-handed loo." "Thank ye; not for me," said Sir Felix. "I hate three-handed loo." "Dummy," suggested Dolly. "I don't think I'll play to-night, old fellow. I hate three fellows sticking down together." Miles sat silent, smoking his pipe, conscious of the baronet's dislike to play with him. "By-the-bye, Grendall,--look here." And Sir Felix in his most friendly tone whispered into his enemy's ear a petition that some of the I. O. U.'s might be converted into cash. "'Pon my word, I must ask you to wait till next week," said Miles. "It's always waiting till next week with you," said Sir Felix, getting up and standing with his back to the fire-place. There were other men in the room, and this was said so that every one should hear it. "I wonder whether any fellow would buy these for five shillings in the pound?" And he held up the scraps of paper in his hand. He had been drinking freely before he went up to Welbeck Street, and had taken a glass of brandy on re-entering the club. "Don't let's have any of that kind of thing down here," said Dolly. "If there is to be a row about cards, let it be in the card-room." "Of course," said Miles. "I won't say a word about the matter down here. It isn't the proper thing." "Come up into the card-room, then," said Sir Felix, getting up from his chair. "It seems to me that it makes no difference to you, what room you're in. Come up, now; and Dolly Longestaffe shall come and hear what you say." But Miles Grendall objected to this arrangement. He was not going up into the card-room that night, as no one was going to play. He would be there to-morrow, and then if Sir Felix Carbury had anything to say, he could say it. "How I do hate a row!" said Dolly. "One has to have rows with one's own people, but there ought not to be rows at a club." "He likes a row,--Carbury does," said Miles. "I should like my money, if I could get it," said Sir Felix, walking out of the room. On the next day he went into the City, and changed his mother's cheque. This was done after a little hesitation. The money was given to him, but a gentleman from behind the desks begged him to remind Lady Carbury that she was overdrawing her account. "Dear, dear;" said Sir Felix, as he pocketed the notes, "I'm sure she was unaware of it." Then he paid for his passage from Liverpool to New York under the name of Walter Jones, and felt as he did so that the intrigue was becoming very deep. This was on Tuesday. He dined again at the club, alone, and in the evening went to the Music Hall. There he remained from ten till nearly twelve, very angry at the non-appearance of Ruby Ruggles. As he smoked and drank in solitude, he almost made up his mind that he had intended to tell her of his departure for New York. Of course he would have done no such thing. But now, should she ever complain on that head he would have his answer ready. He had devoted his last night in England to the purpose of telling her, and she had broken her appointment. Everything would now be her fault. Whatever might happen to her she could not blame him. Having waited till he was sick of the Music Hall,--for a music hall without ladies' society must be somewhat dull,--he went back to his club. He was very cross, as brave as brandy could make him, and well inclined to expose Miles Grendall if he could find an opportunity. Up in the card-room he found all the accustomed men,--with the exception of Miles Grendall. Nidderdale, Grasslough, Dolly, Paul Montague, and one or two others were there. There was, at any rate, comfort in the idea of playing without having to encounter the dead weight of Miles Grendall. Ready money was on the table,--and there was none of the peculiar Beargarden paper flying about. Indeed the men at the Beargarden had become sick of paper, and there had been formed a half-expressed resolution that the play should be somewhat lower, but the payments punctual. The I. O. U.'s had been nearly all converted into money,--with the assistance of Herr Vossner,--excepting those of Miles Grendall. The resolution mentioned did not refer back to Grendall's former indebtedness, but was intended to include a clause that he must in future pay ready money. Nidderdale had communicated to him the determination of the committee. "Bygones are bygones, old fellow; but you really must stump up, you know, after this." Miles had declared that he would "stump up." But on this occasion Miles was absent. At three o'clock in the morning, Sir Felix had lost over a hundred pounds in ready money. On the following night about one he had lost a further sum of two hundred pounds. The reader will remember that he should at that time have been in the hotel at Liverpool. But Sir Felix, as he played on in the almost desperate hope of recovering the money which he so greatly needed, remembered how Fisker had played all night, and how he had gone off from the club to catch the early train for Liverpool, and how he had gone on to New York without delay.

Sir Felix was to start with Marie Melmotte for New York on the Thursday, and to go down to Liverpool on the Wednesday. There was no reason, he thought, why he should not enjoy himself to the last by seeing Ruby. The details of his journey had been settled between him and Marie, with help from Didon, in the garden of Grosvenor Square. Sir Felix had been astonished at the completeness of the preparations. "Mind you go by the 5 p.m. train," Marie said. "That will take you into Liverpool at 10.15. There's an hotel at the railway-station. Didon has got our tickets under the names of Madame and Mademoiselle Racine. We are to share a cabin. You must get yours tomorrow. She has found out that there is plenty of room." "I'll be all right." "Pray don't miss that train. We leave at 7 a.m. I shan't go to bed all night, so as to be sure to be in time. Robert will start a little earlier in the cab with my heavy box. What do you think is in it?" "Clothes," suggested Felix. "My wedding dresses. Think of that! What a job to get them and nobody to know anything about it except Didon and the shop in Mount Street! And I shall have all my jewels. They'll go in our cab, then Didon and I follow in another cab. Nobody is ever up before nine, and I don't think we shall be interrupted." "Won't your mother find out?" "I don't think she'd tell if she knew. Papa leads her such a life! Felix, I hope you won't be like that." She looked into his face, and thought that it would be impossible that he should be. "I'm all right," said Felix, feeling very uncomfortable. This great effort of his life was drawing very near. There had been a pleasurable excitement in talking about running away with the heiress, but now that the deed had to be done, he almost wished that he had not undertaken it. And then if they should be wrong about the girl's fortune! He almost repented, but he had not the courage to withdraw. "How about money though?" he said hoarsely. "I have only the two hundred pounds which your father paid me. I don't see why he should keep my money." "Look here," said Marie. "There is a cheque for two hundred and fifty pounds. I had money of my own enough for the tickets." "Whose is this?" said Felix, taking it. "It is papa's cheque. Mamma gets ever so many of them to pay for things, but she gets so muddled that she doesn't know what she pays and what she doesn't." Felix saw that the cheque was payable to House or Bearer, and was signed by Augustus Melmotte. "If you take it to the bank you'll get the money," said Marie. "Or shall I send Didon, and give you the money on board the ship?" Felix thought this over very anxiously. He would much prefer to have the money in his own pocket. But if he presented the cheque himself, might he be arrested for stealing Melmotte's money? "I think Didon had better get the money," he said, "and bring it to me tomorrow afternoon, to the club." If the money did not come he would not go down to Liverpool. "You see," he said, "I'm so much in the City that they might know me at the bank. And then I'll come on board on Thursday morning without looking for you." "Oh dear, yes. And don't know us till we are out at sea. Won't it be fun when we are walking about on the deck and not speaking to one another! And, Felix; Didon has found that there is to be an American clergyman on board. I wonder whether he'd marry us. Won't that be jolly? Then, when we get to New York, we'll telegraph and write to papa, and be penitent and good. Of course he'll make the best of it." "But he's so savage." "Just for the moment. But I don't think he minds afterwards. He's always for making the best of everything. Things go wrong so often that he can't go on thinking of them for ever. It'll be all right in a month. I wonder how Lord Nidderdale will look when he hears that we've gone off. Do you know, Felix, that though we were engaged, he never once kissed me!" Felix at this moment almost wished that he had never done so. Then they parted with the understanding that they were not to see each other again till they met on the boat. But Felix was determined that he would not stir unless Didon brought him the 250; and he almost hoped that she would not. Either she would be stopped at the bank, or she would run off with the money. Then he would be able to withdraw. He would do nothing till after Monday afternoon. Should he tell his mother that he was going? She had recommended him to run away with the girl, and must approve. She would understand the great expense of such a trip, and might perhaps give him some money. He determined that he would tell his mother, if Didon brought him the full amount for the cheque. He walked into the Beargarden at four o'clock on the Monday, and found Didon standing in the hall. His heart sank. She made him a little curtsey, and handed him a fat envelope. He bade her wait a moment, and going into a side room counted the notes. The money was all there. Now he must certainly go to New York. "It is all in order?" whispered Didon when he returned. Sir Felix nodded, and she departed. Yes; he must go. How should he dispose of his time before he went? Gambling was too dangerous: even he felt that. He would dine that night at the club, and in the evening go to his mother. On the Tuesday he would book his place for New York, and would spend the evening with Ruby at the Music Hall. On the Wednesday, he would start for Liverpool, according to his instructions. He felt annoyed that he had been so fully instructed. But should the affair turn out well, all the fellows would give him credit for the audacity with which he had carried off the heiress to America. At ten o'clock he found his mother and Hetta in Welbeck Street. "What; Felix?" exclaimed Lady Carbury. "Mother," he said, "would you mind coming into the other room?" Lady Carbury followed him. "I've got something to tell you," he said. "Good news?" she asked, clasping her hands together. "That's as may be. I'm going to take Marie off." "Oh, Felix!" "You said it was the right thing to do - so I'm going to do it. But one wants such a lot of money for this kind of thing." "When?" "Immediately. I wouldn't tell you till I had arranged everything. We're going to New York." "To New York! But when will you be married?" "There will be a clergyman on board. It's all fixed. I wouldn't go without telling you." "I will have your clothes got ready for you. When do you start?" "Wednesday afternoon." "For New York! Oh, Felix, how will it be if he does not forgive her? You are going to risk it?" "I am going to take your advice." This was dreadful to the poor mother. "There is money settled on Marie; money which he can't get back again." "How much?" "She doesn't know; but a great deal." "But the money can't be her own, Felix." "Melmotte will find that it is. Marie knows what she's about. She's a great deal sharper than anyone would think. What can you do for me about money, mother?" "I have none, Felix." "I thought you'd be sure to help me, as you wanted me so much to do it." "That's not true, Felix. Oh, I am so sorry I ever said that! I have no money in the bank." "They would let you overdraw 50 or 60." "I will not starve myself and Hetta. You had ever so much money only lately. I will get some clothes for you, and pay for them if you cannot - but I have no money to give you." "That's a blue look out," said he, "just when 60 or 70 might make a fellow for life! You could borrow it from your friend Broune." "I will do no such thing, Felix. 50 or 60 would make very little difference in such a trip as this. You have some money?" "Some; yes. But I'm so short that any little thing would help me." Before the evening was over she gave him a cheque for 30. Then he went back to his club, even though he understood the danger. He could not bear the idea of going to bed quietly at home at half-past ten. He was very soon up in the card-room. He found nobody there, and went to the smoking-room, where Dolly Longestaffe and Miles Grendall were sitting silently together. "Here's Carbury," said Dolly, waking suddenly into life. "Now we can have a game at three-handed loo." "Thank ye; not for me," said Sir Felix. "I don't think I'll play tonight, old fellow. I hate three fellows sticking down together." Miles sat silently smoking his pipe, conscious of the baronet's dislike of playing with him. "By-the-bye, Grendall." And Sir Felix in his most friendly tone whispered into his enemy's ear a request that some of the I.O.U.'s might be converted into cash. "I must ask you to wait till next week," said Miles. "It's always waiting till next week with you," said Sir Felix, getting up and speaking so that everyone in the room should hear. "I wonder whether any fellow would buy these for five shillings in the pound?" And he held up the scraps of paper. He had been drinking freely before he went up to Welbeck Street, and had just taken a glass of brandy. "Don't let's have that kind of thing down here," said Dolly. "If there is to be a row about cards, let it be in the card-room." "Come into the card-room, then," said Sir Felix. "Come up, now; and Dolly shall come and hear what you say." But Miles objected. He was not going up into the card-room that night, as no one was going to play. "How I do hate a row!" said Dolly. "Carbury likes a row," said Miles. "I should like my money," said Sir Felix, walking out of the room. On the next day he went into the City, and changed his mother's cheque. A gentleman behind the desk begged him to remind Lady Carbury that she was overdrawing her account. "Dear, dear," said Sir Felix, as he pocketed the notes. "I'm sure she was unaware of it." Then he paid for his passage from Liverpool to New York under the name of Walter Jones. This was on Tuesday. He dined again at the club, alone, and in the evening went to the Music Hall. There he remained from ten till nearly twelve, very angry at the non-appearance of Ruby Ruggles. As he smoked and drank in solitude, he decided that since she had broken her appointment everything would now be her fault. Whatever might happen to her, she could not blame him. He went back to his club very cross, as brave as brandy could make him, and inclined to expose Miles Grendall if he had an opportunity. Up in the card-room he found all the usual men - except Miles. Nidderdale, Grasslough, Dolly, Paul Montague, and one or two others were there. Ready money was on the table; indeed the men at the Beargarden had become sick of I.O.U.'s, and they had been nearly all converted into money, excepting those of Miles Grendall. The committee had decided to take no more I.O.U.s. At three o'clock in the morning, Sir Felix had lost over a hundred pounds in ready money. On the following night about one he had lost a further sum of two hundred pounds. The reader will remember that he should at that time have been in the hotel at Liverpool. But Sir Felix, as he played on in the almost desperate hope of recovering the money which he needed, remembered how Fisker had played all night, and how he had left the club to catch the early train for Liverpool, and had gone on to New York without delay.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 49: Sir Felix Makes Himself Ready

Lady Carbury was at this time so miserable in regard to her son that she found herself unable to be active as she would otherwise have been in her endeavours to separate Paul Montague and her daughter. Roger had come up to town and given his opinion, very freely at any rate with regard to Sir Felix. But Roger had immediately returned to Suffolk, and the poor mother in want of assistance and consolation turned naturally to Mr. Broune, who came to see her for a few minutes almost every evening. It had now become almost a part of Mr. Broune's life to see Lady Carbury once in the day. She told him of the two propositions which Roger had made: first, that she should fix her residence in some second-rate French or German town, and that Sir Felix should be made to go with her; and, secondly, that she should take possession of Carbury manor for six months. "And where would Mr. Carbury go?" asked Mr. Broune. "He's so good that he doesn't care what he does with himself. There's a cottage on the place, he says, that he would move to." Mr. Broune shook his head. Mr. Broune did not think that an offer so quixotically generous as this should be accepted. As to the German or French town, Mr. Broune said that the plan was no doubt feasible, but he doubted whether the thing to be achieved was worth the terrible sacrifice demanded. He was inclined to think that Sir Felix should go to the colonies. "That he might drink himself to death," said Lady Carbury, who now had no secrets from Mr. Broune. Sir Felix in the mean time was still in the doctor's hands up-stairs. He had no doubt been very severely thrashed, but there was not in truth very much ailing him beyond the cuts on his face. He was, however, at the present moment better satisfied to be an invalid than to have to come out of his room and to meet the world. "As to Melmotte," said Mr. Broune, "they say now that he is in some terrible mess which will ruin him and all who have trusted him." "And the girl?" "It is impossible to understand it all. Melmotte was to have been summoned before the Lord Mayor to-day on some charge of fraud;--but it was postponed. And I was told this morning that Nidderdale still means to marry the girl. I don't think anybody knows the truth about it. We shall hold our tongue about him till we really do know something." The "we" of whom Mr. Broune spoke was, of course, the "Morning Breakfast Table." But in all this there was nothing about Hetta. Hetta, however, thought very much of her own condition, and found herself driven to take some special step by the receipt of two letters from her lover, written to her from Liverpool. They had never met since she had confessed her love to him. The first letter she did not at once answer, as she was at that moment waiting to hear what Roger Carbury would say about Mrs. Hurtle. Roger Carbury had spoken, leaving a conviction on her mind that Mrs. Hurtle was by no means a fiction,--but indeed a fact very injurious to her happiness. Then Paul's second love-letter had come, full of joy, and love, and contentment,--with not a word in it which seemed to have been in the slightest degree influenced by the existence of a Mrs. Hurtle. Had there been no Mrs. Hurtle, the letter would have been all that Hetta could have desired; and she could have answered it, unless forbidden by her mother, with all a girl's usual enthusiastic affection for her chosen lord. But it was impossible that she should now answer it in that strain;--and it was equally impossible that she should leave such letters unanswered. Roger had told her to "ask himself;" and she now found herself constrained to bid him either come to her and answer the question, or, if he thought it better, to give her some written account of Mrs. Hurtle,--so that she might know who the lady was, and whether the lady's condition did in any way interfere with her own happiness. So she wrote to Paul, as follows:-- Welbeck Street, 16th July, 18--. MY DEAR PAUL. She found that after that which had passed between them she could not call him "My dear Sir," or "My dear Mr. Montague," and that it must either be "Sir" or "My dear Paul." He was dear to her,--very dear; and she thought that he had not been as yet convicted of any conduct bad enough to force her to treat him as an outcast. Had there been no Mrs. Hurtle he would have been her "Dearest Paul,"--but she made her choice, and so commenced. MY DEAR PAUL, A strange report has come round to me about a lady called Mrs. Hurtle. I have been told that she is an American lady living in London, and that she is engaged to be your wife. I cannot believe this. It is too horrid to be true. But I fear,--I fear there is something true that will be very very sad for me to hear. It was from my brother I first heard it,--who was of course bound to tell me anything he knew. I have talked to mamma about it, and to my cousin Roger. I am sure Roger knows it all;--but he will not tell me. He said,--"Ask himself." And so I ask you. Of course I can write about nothing else till I have heard about this. I am sure I need not tell you that it has made me very unhappy. If you cannot come and see me at once, you had better write. I have told mamma about this letter. Then came the difficulty of the signature, with the declaration which must naturally be attached to it. After some hesitation she subscribed herself, Your affectionate friend, HENRIETTA CARBURY. "Most affectionately your own Hetta" would have been the form in which she would have wished to finish the first letter she had ever written to him. Paul received it at Liverpool on the Wednesday morning, and on the Wednesday evening he was in Welbeck Street. He had been quite aware that it had been incumbent on him to tell her the whole history of Mrs. Hurtle. He had meant to keep back--almost nothing. But it had been impossible for him to do so on that one occasion on which he had pleaded his love to her successfully. Let any reader who is intelligent in such matters say whether it would have been possible for him then to have commenced the story of Mrs. Hurtle and to have told it to the bitter end. Such a story must be postponed for a second or a third interview. Or it may, indeed, be communicated by letter. When Paul was called away to Liverpool he did consider whether he should write the story. But there are many reasons strong against such written communications. A man may desire that the woman he loves should hear the record of his folly,--so that, in after days, there may be nothing to be detected; so that, should the Mrs. Hurtle of his life at any time intrude upon his happiness, he may with a clear brow and undaunted heart say to his beloved one,--"Ah, this is the trouble of which I spoke to you." And then he and his beloved one will be in one cause together. But he hardly wishes to supply his beloved one with a written record of his folly. And then who does not know how much tenderness a man may show to his own faults by the tone of his voice, by half-spoken sentences, and by an admixture of words of love for the lady who has filled up the vacant space once occupied by the Mrs. Hurtle of his romance? But the written record must go through from beginning to end, self-accusing, thoroughly perspicuous, with no sweet, soft falsehoods hidden under the half-expressed truth. The soft falsehoods which would be sweet as the scent of violets in a personal interview, would stand in danger of being denounced as deceit added to deceit, if sent in a letter. I think therefore that Paul Montague did quite right in hurrying up to London. He asked for Miss Carbury, and when told that Miss Henrietta was with her mother, he sent his name up and said that he would wait in the dining-room. He had thoroughly made up his mind to this course. They should know that he had come at once; but he would not, if it could be helped, make his statement in the presence of Lady Carbury. Then, up-stairs, there was a little discussion. Hetta pleaded her right to see him alone. She had done what Roger had advised, and had done it with her mother's consent. Her mother might be sure that she would not again accept her lover till this story of Mrs. Hurtle had been sifted to the very bottom. But she must herself hear what her lover had to say for himself. Felix was at the time in the drawing-room and suggested that he should go down and see Paul Montague on his sister's behalf;--but his mother looked at him with scorn, and his sister quietly said that she would rather see Mr. Montague herself. Felix had been so cowed by circumstances that he did not say another word, and Hetta left the room alone. When she entered the parlour Paul stept forward to take her in his arms. That was a matter of course. She knew it would be so, and she had prepared herself for it. "Paul," she said, "let me hear about all this--first." She sat down at some distance from him,--and he found himself compelled to seat himself at some little distance from her. "And so you have heard of Mrs. Hurtle," he said, with a faint attempt at a smile. "Yes;--Felix told me, and Roger evidently had heard about her." "Oh yes; Roger Carbury has heard about her from the beginning;--knows the whole history almost as well as I know it myself. I don't think your brother is as well informed." "Perhaps not. But--isn't it a story that--concerns me?" "Certainly it so far concerns you, Hetta, that you ought to know it. And I trust you will believe that it was my intention to tell it you." "I will believe anything that you will tell me." "If so, I don't think that you will quarrel with me when you know all. I was engaged to marry Mrs. Hurtle." "Is she a widow?"--He did not answer this at once. "I suppose she must be a widow if you were going to marry her." "Yes;--she is a widow. She was divorced." "Oh, Paul! And she is an American?" "Yes." "And you loved her?" Montague was desirous of telling his own story, and did not wish to be interrogated. "If you will allow me I will tell it you all from beginning to end." "Oh, certainly. But I suppose you loved her. If you meant to marry her you must have loved her." There was a frown upon Hetta's brow and a tone of anger in her voice which made Paul uneasy. "Yes;--I loved her once; but I will tell you all." Then he did tell his story, with a repetition of which the reader need not be detained. Hetta listened with fair attention,--not interrupting very often, though when she did interrupt, the little words which she spoke were bitter enough. But she heard the story of the long journey across the American continent, of the ocean journey before the end of which Paul had promised to make this woman his wife. "Had she been divorced then?" asked Hetta,--"because I believe they get themselves divorced just when they like." Simple as the question was he could not answer it. "I could only know what she told me," he said, as he went on with his story. Then Mrs. Hurtle had gone on to Paris, and he, as soon as he reached Carbury, had revealed everything to Roger. "Did you give her up then?" demanded Hetta with stern severity. No,--not then. He had gone back to San Francisco, and,--he had not intended to say that the engagement had been renewed, but he was forced to acknowledge that it had not been broken off. Then he had written to her on his second return to England,--and then she had appeared in London at Mrs. Pipkin's lodgings in Islington. "I can hardly tell you how terrible that was to me," he said, "for I had by that time become quite aware that my happiness must depend upon you." He tried the gentle, soft falsehoods that should have been as sweet as violets. Perhaps they were sweet. It is odd how stern a girl can be, while her heart is almost breaking with love. Hetta was very stern. "But Felix says you took her to Lowestoft,--quite the other day." Montague had intended to tell all,--almost all. There was a something about the journey to Lowestoft which it would be impossible to make Hetta understand, and he thought that that might be omitted. "It was on account of her health." "Oh;--on account of her health. And did you go to the play with her?" "I did." "Was that for her--health?" "Oh, Hetta, do not speak to me like that! Cannot you understand that when she came here, following me, I could not desert her?" "I cannot understand why you deserted her at all," said Hetta. "You say you loved her, and you promised to marry her. It seems horrid to me to marry a divorced woman,--a woman who just says that she was divorced. But that is because I don't understand American ways. And I am sure you must have loved her when you took her to the theatre, and down to Lowestoft,--for her health. That was only a week ago." "It was nearly three weeks," said Paul in despair. "Oh;--nearly three weeks! That is not such a very long time for a gentleman to change his mind on such a matter. You were engaged to her, not three weeks ago." "No, Hetta, I was not engaged to her then." "I suppose she thought you were when she went to Lowestoft with you." "She wanted then to force me to--to--to--. Oh, Hetta, it is so hard to explain, but I am sure that you understand. I do know that you do not, cannot think that I have, even for one moment, been false to you." "But why should you be false to her? Why should I step in and crush all her hopes? I can understand that Roger should think badly of her because she was--divorced. Of course he would. But an engagement is an engagement. You had better go back to Mrs. Hurtle and tell her that you are quite ready to keep your promise." [Illustration: "You had better go back to Mrs. Hurtle."] "She knows now that it is all over." "I dare say you will be able to persuade her to reconsider it. When she came all the way here from San Francisco after you, and when she asked you to take her to the theatre, and to Lowestoft--because of her health, she must be very much attached to you. And she is waiting here,--no doubt on purpose for you. She is a very old friend,--very old,--and you ought not to treat her unkindly. Good bye, Mr. Montague. I think you had better lose no time in going--back to Mrs. Hurtle." All this she said with sundry little impedimentary gurgles in her throat, but without a tear and without any sign of tenderness. "You don't mean to tell me, Hetta, that you are going to quarrel with me!" "I don't know about quarrelling. I don't wish to quarrel with any one. But of course we can't be friends when you have married--Mrs. Hurtle." "Nothing on earth would induce me to marry her." "Of course I cannot say anything about that. When they told me this story I did not believe them. No; I hardly believed Roger when,--he would not tell it for he was too kind,--but when he would not contradict it. It seemed to be almost impossible that you should have come to me just at the very same moment. For, after all, Mr. Montague, nearly three weeks is a very short time. That trip to Lowestoft couldn't have been much above a week before you came to me." "What does it matter?" "Oh no; of course not;--nothing to you. I think I will go away now, Mr. Montague. It was very good of you to come and tell me all. It makes it so much easier." "Do you mean to say that--you are going to--throw me over?" "I don't want you to throw Mrs. Hurtle over. Good bye." "Hetta!" "No; I will not have you lay your hand upon me. Good night, Mr. Montague." And so she left him. Paul Montague was beside himself with dismay as he left the house. He had never allowed himself for a moment to believe that this affair of Mrs. Hurtle would really separate him from Hetta Carbury. If she could only really know it all, there could be no such result. He had been true to her from the first moment in which he had seen her, never swerving from his love. It was to be supposed that he had loved some woman before; but, as the world goes, that would not, could not, affect her. But her anger was founded on the presence of Mrs. Hurtle in London,--which he would have given half his possessions to have prevented. But when she did come, was he to have refused to see her? Would Hetta have wished him to be cold and cruel like that? No doubt he had behaved badly to Mrs. Hurtle;--but that trouble he had overcome. And now Hetta was quarrelling with him, though he certainly had never behaved badly to her. He was almost angry with Hetta as he walked home. Everything that he could do he had done for her. For her sake he had quarrelled with Roger Carbury. For her sake,--in order that he might be effectually free from Mrs. Hurtle,--he had determined to endure the spring of the wild cat. For her sake,--so he told himself,--he had been content to abide by that odious railway company, in order that he might if possible preserve an income on which to support her. And now she told him that they must part,--and that only because he had not been cruelly indifferent to the unfortunate woman who had followed him from America. There was no logic in it, no reason,--and, as he thought, very little heart. "I don't want you to throw Mrs. Hurtle over," she had said. Why should Mrs. Hurtle be anything to her? Surely she might have left Mrs. Hurtle to fight her own battles. But they were all against him. Roger Carbury, Lady Carbury, and Sir Felix; and the end of it would be that she would be forced into marriage with a man almost old enough to be her father! She could not ever really have loved him. That was the truth. She must be incapable of such love as was his own for her. True love always forgives. And here there was really so very little to forgive! Such were his thoughts as he went to bed that night. But he probably omitted to ask himself whether he would have forgiven her very readily had he found that she had been living "nearly three weeks ago" in close intercourse with another lover of whom he had hitherto never even heard the name. But then,--as all the world knows,--there is a wide difference between young men and young women! Hetta, as soon as she had dismissed her lover, went up at once to her own room. Thither she was soon followed by her mother, whose anxious ear had heard the closing of the front door. "Well; what has he said?" asked Lady Carbury. Hetta was in tears,--or very nigh to tears,--struggling to repress them, and struggling almost successfully. "You have found that what we told you about that woman was all true." "Enough of it was true," said Hetta, who, angry as she was with her lover, was not on that account less angry with her mother for disturbing her bliss. "What do you mean by that, Hetta? Had you not better speak to me openly?" "I say, mamma, that enough was true. I do not know how to speak more openly. I need not go into all the miserable story of the woman. He is like other men, I suppose. He has entangled himself with some abominable creature and then when he is tired of her thinks that he has nothing to do but to say so,--and to begin with somebody else." "Roger Carbury is very different." "Oh, mamma, you will make me ill if you go on like that. It seems to me that you do not understand in the least." "I say he is not like that." "Not in the least. Of course I know that he is not in the least like that." "I say that he can be trusted." "Of course he can be trusted. Who doubts it?" "And that if you would give yourself to him, there would be no cause for any alarm." "Mamma," said Hetta jumping up, "how can you talk to me in that way? As soon as one man doesn't suit, I am to give myself to another! Oh, mamma, how can you propose it? Nothing on earth will ever induce me to be more to Roger Carbury than I am now." "You have told Mr. Montague that he is not to come here again?" "I don't know what I told him, but he knows very well what I mean." "That it is all over?" Hetta made no reply. "Hetta, I have a right to ask that, and I have a right to expect a reply. I do not say that you have hitherto behaved badly about Mr. Montague." "I have not behaved badly. I have told you everything. I have done nothing that I am ashamed of." "But we have now found out that he has behaved very badly. He has come here to you,--with unexampled treachery to your cousin Roger--" "I deny that," exclaimed Hetta. "And at the very time was almost living with this woman who says that she is divorced from her husband in America! Have you told him that you will see him no more?" "He understood that." "If you have not told him so plainly, I must tell him." "Mamma, you need not trouble yourself. I have told him very plainly." Then Lady Carbury expressed herself satisfied for the moment, and left her daughter to her solitude.

Lady Carbury was at this time so miserable about her son that she was unable to be as active as she would otherwise have been in her endeavours to separate Paul Montague and her daughter. Roger had returned to Suffolk; so in need of assistance and consolation she turned naturally to Mr. Broune. It had now become almost a part of Mr. Broune's life to see Lady Carbury every day. She told him of Roger's proposals: first, that she should take Sir Felix abroad to live in some second-rate French or German town, and, secondly, that she should live at Carbury manor for six months. "And where would Mr. Carbury go?" asked Mr. Broune. "There's a cottage on the place, he says, that he would move to." Mr. Broune shook his head. He did not think that an offer so quixotically generous should be accepted. As to the German or French town, Mr. Broune said that the plan was no doubt feasible, but he doubted whether it was worth the sacrifice. He was inclined to think that Sir Felix should go to the colonies. "So that he might drink himself to death," said Lady Carbury, who now had no secrets from Mr. Broune. Sir Felix was still in the doctor's hands upstairs. There was not in truth much ailing him beyond the cuts on his face. At present, however, he preferred to be an invalid rather than to meet the world. "As to Melmotte," said Mr. Broune, "they say now that he is in some terrible mess which will ruin him and all who have trusted him." "And the girl?" "It is impossible to understand it all. Melmotte was to have been summoned before the Lord Mayor today on some charge of fraud; but it was postponed. And I was told Nidderdale still means to marry the girl." In all this there was nothing about Hetta. Hetta, however, thought very much of her own condition. She received two letters from her lover, written to her from Liverpool. They had not met since she had confessed her love to him. The first letter she did not at once answer, as she was waiting to hear what Roger Carbury would say about Mrs. Hurtle. Roger Carbury had spoken, leaving her convinced that Mrs. Hurtle was by no means a fiction. Then Paul's second love-letter had come, full of joy, and love, and contentment - with not a word that suggested the existence of a Mrs. Hurtle. Had there been no Mrs. Hurtle, the letter would have been all that Hetta could have desired; but now she did not know how to answer it. Roger had told her to "ask Paul himself." So she wrote to Paul, as follows: My dear Paul, (Had there been no Mrs. Hurtle he would have been her "Dearest Paul.") My dear Paul, A strange report has come to me about a lady called Mrs. Hurtle. I have been told that she is an American lady living in London, and that she is engaged to be your wife. I cannot believe this. It is too horrid. But I fear there is something true that will be very sad for me to hear. I first heard it from my brother, and I have talked to mamma about it, and to my cousin Roger. I am sure Roger knows it all, but he will not tell me. And so I ask you. I am sure I need not tell you that it has made me very unhappy. If you cannot come and see me at once, you had better write. I have told mamma about this letter. Your affectionate friend, Henrietta Carbury. Paul received this letter at Liverpool on the Wednesday morning, and on the Wednesday evening he was in Welbeck Street. He had been quite aware that he needed to tell her the whole history of Mrs. Hurtle. He had meant to keep back - almost nothing. But it had been impossible for him to do so on that one occasion on which he had pleaded his love to her successfully. When he was called away to Liverpool he did consider whether he should write the story. But a man hardly wishes to supply his beloved one with a written record of his folly. And a writer cannot show tenderness by tone of voice. I think therefore that Paul Montague did quite right in hurrying to London. He asked for Miss Carbury, and when told that Miss Henrietta was with her mother, he sent his name up and said that he would wait in the dining-room. He would not, if it could be helped, make his statement in the presence of Lady Carbury. Upstairs, there was a little discussion. Hetta pleaded her right to see him alone. She had done what Roger had advised, with her mother's consent. But she must herself hear what her lover had to say. Felix, who was there, suggested that he should go down and see Paul Montague on his sister's behalf; but his mother looked at him with scorn, and his sister quietly said that she would rather go herself. Felix did not say another word, and Hetta left the room alone. When she entered the parlour Paul stepped forward to take her in his arms. She had prepared herself for this. "Paul," she said, "let me hear about all this first." She sat down at some distance from him. "And so you have heard of Mrs. Hurtle," he said, with a faint attempt at a smile. "Yes. Felix told me, and Roger evidently had heard about her." "Oh yes; Roger knows the whole history. I don't think your brother is as well informed." "Perhaps not. But - isn't it a story that - concerns me?" "Certainly you ought to know it, Hetta. And I trust you will believe that it was my intention to tell it you." "I will believe anything that you will tell me." "Well, then, I was engaged to marry Mrs. Hurtle." "Is she a widow? I suppose she must be a widow if you were going to marry her." "Yes; she is a widow. She was divorced." "Oh, Paul! And she is an American?" "Yes." "And you loved her?" Montague did not wish to be interrogated. "If you will allow me I will tell it you all from beginning to end." "Oh, certainly. But if you meant to marry her you must have loved her." There was a frown upon Hetta's brow and a tone of anger in her voice which made Paul uneasy. "Yes; I loved her once; but I will tell you all." Then he did tell his story. Hetta listened, not interrupting very often, though when she did interrupt, her words were bitter enough. But she heard the story of the long journey across the American continent, of the ocean crossing when Paul had promised to make this woman his wife. "Had she been divorced then?" asked Hetta. Simple as the question was he could not answer it. "I only knew what she told me," he said, as he went on with his story. Then Mrs. Hurtle had gone on to Paris, and he, as soon as he reached Carbury, had revealed everything to Roger. "Did you give her up then?" demanded Hetta with stern severity. No, not then. He had gone back to San Francisco, and - he was forced to acknowledge that the engagement had not been broken off. He had written to her on his second return to England, and then she had appeared in London at Mrs. Pipkin's lodgings in Islington. "I can hardly tell you how terrible that was," he said, "for I had by that time become quite aware that my happiness must depend upon you." It is odd how stern a girl can be, while her heart is almost breaking with love. Hetta was very stern. "Felix says you took her to Lowestoft - quite the other day." Montague had intended to tell almost all. There was something about the journey to Lowestoft which it would be impossible to make Hetta understand. "It was on account of her health." "Oh; on account of her health. And did you go to the play with her?" "I did." "Was that for her health?" "Oh, Hetta, do not speak to me like that! Cannot you understand that when she came here, following me, I could not desert her?" "I cannot understand why you deserted her at all," said Hetta. "You say you loved her, and you promised to marry her. I am sure you must have loved her when you took her to the theatre, and down to Lowestoft, for her health. That was only a week ago." "It was nearly three weeks," said Paul in despair. "Oh; nearly three weeks! You were engaged to her, not three weeks ago." "No, Hetta, I was not engaged to her then." "I suppose she thought you were when she went to Lowestoft with you." "She wanted then to force me to - to - Oh, Hetta, it is so hard to explain, but I am sure you understand. You cannot think that I have, even for one moment, been false to you." "But why should you be false to her? Why should I step in and crush all her hopes? I can understand that Roger should think badly of her because she was divorced. Of course he would. But an engagement is an engagement. You had better go back to Mrs. Hurtle and tell her that you are quite ready to keep your promise." "She knows now that it is all over." "I dare say you will be able to persuade her to reconsider. To have come all the way here from San Francisco after you, she must be very much attached to you. She is a very old friend, and you ought not to treat her unkindly. Good bye, Mr. Montague. I think you had better lose no time in going back to Mrs. Hurtle." All this she said with little chokes in her throat, but without a tear or any sign of tenderness. "You don't mean to tell me, Hetta, that you are going to quarrel with me!" "I don't wish to quarrel with any one. But of course we can't be friends when you have married - Mrs. Hurtle." "Nothing on earth would induce me to marry her." "I cannot say anything about that. When they told me this story I did not believe them. It seemed to be impossible that you should have come to me not much more than a week after that trip to Lowestoft." "What does it matter?" "Oh, nothing to you. I think I will go away now, Mr. Montague. It was very good of you to come and tell me all. It makes it so much easier." "Do you mean to say that you are going to - throw me over?" "I don't want you to throw Mrs. Hurtle over. Good bye." "Hetta!" "No; do not lay your hand upon me. Good night, Mr. Montague." And so she left him. Paul Montague was beside himself with dismay. He had never allowed himself for a moment to believe that this affair of Mrs. Hurtle would really separate him from Hetta Carbury. He had been true to her from the first moment in which he had seen her. Even if he had loved some woman before, that would not affect her. Her anger was founded on the presence of Mrs. Hurtle in London. Yet when she had come, could he have refused to see her? Would Hetta have wished him to be so cold and cruel? No doubt he had behaved badly to Mrs. Hurtle; but he had overcome that trouble. And now Hetta was quarrelling with him, though he certainly had never behaved badly to her. He was almost angry with Hetta as he walked home. Everything that he could do he had done for her. For her sake he had quarrelled with Roger Carbury. For her sake he had determined to endure the spring of the wild cat. For her sake - so he told himself - he had stayed involved with that odious railway company, in order that he might have an income on which to support her. And now she told him that they must part, because he had not been cruelly indifferent to Mrs. Hurtle. There was no logic in it, and, as he thought, very little heart. "I don't want you to throw Mrs. Hurtle over," she had said. Why should Mrs. Hurtle be anything to her? But they were all against him. Roger Carbury, Lady Carbury, and Sir Felix. She could not ever really have loved him. That was the truth. She must be incapable of such love as was his own for her. True love always forgives. And there was so very little to forgive! Such were his thoughts as he went to bed that night. But he probably omitted to ask himself whether he would have forgiven her very readily had he found that she had been living "nearly three weeks ago" with another lover of whom he had never even heard. But then, there is a wide difference between young men and young women! Hetta, as soon as she had dismissed him, went up at once to her own room. She was followed by her mother, whose anxious ear had heard the closing of the front door. "Well; what has he said?" asked Lady Carbury. Hetta was struggling to repress her tears. "You have found that what we told you about that woman was all true." "Enough of it was true," said Hetta. "He is like other men, I suppose. He has entangled himself with some abominable creature and then when he is tired of her thinks that he has nothing to do but to say so, and to begin with somebody else." "Roger Carbury is very different." "Oh, mamma, you will make me ill if you go on like that. You do not understand in the least." "I say he is not like that. He can be trusted." "Of course he can be trusted. Who doubts it?" "If you would give yourself to him, there would be no cause for any alarm." "Mamma," said Hetta, jumping up, "how can you talk to me in that way? As soon as one man doesn't suit, I am to give myself to another! Nothing on earth will ever induce me to marry Roger." "You have told Mr. Montague that he is not to come here again?" "I don't know what I told him, but he knows very well what I mean." "That it is all over?" Hetta made no reply. "Hetta, I have a right to expect a reply. We have now found out that he has behaved very badly. He has come here to you, with unexampled treachery to your cousin Roger-" "I deny that," exclaimed Hetta. "And at the very time was almost living with this woman who says that she is divorced! Have you told him that you will see him no more?" "He understood that." "If you have not told him so plainly, I must tell him." "Mamma, you need not trouble yourself. I have told him very plainly." Then Lady Carbury expressed herself satisfied for the moment, and left her daughter to her solitude.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 76: Hetta and her Lover

"It's weary work," said Sir Felix as he got into the brougham with his mother and sister. "What must it have been to me then, who had nothing to do?" said his mother. "It's the having something to do that makes me call it weary work. By-the-bye, now I think of it, I'll run down to the club before I go home." So saying he put his head out of the brougham, and stopped the driver. "It is two o'clock, Felix," said his mother. "I'm afraid it is, but you see I'm hungry. You had supper, perhaps; I had none." "Are you going down to the club for supper at this time in the morning?" "I must go to bed hungry if I don't. Good night." Then he jumped out of the brougham, called a cab, and had himself driven to the Beargarden. He declared to himself that the men there would think it mean of him if he did not give them their revenge. He had renewed his play on the preceding night, and had again won. Dolly Longestaffe owed him now a considerable sum of money, and Lord Grasslough was also in his debt. He was sure that Grasslough would go to the club after the ball, and he was determined that they should not think that he had submitted to be carried home by his mother and sister. So he argued with himself; but in truth the devil of gambling was hot within his bosom; and though he feared that in losing he might lose real money, and that if he won it would be long before he was paid, yet he could not keep himself from the card-table. Neither mother or daughter said a word till they reached home and had got up-stairs. Then the elder spoke of the trouble that was nearest to her heart at the moment. "Do you think he gambles?" "He has got no money, mamma." "I fear that might not hinder him. And he has money with him, though, for him and such friends as he has, it is not much. If he gambles everything is lost." "I suppose they all do play,--more or less." "I have not known that he played. I am wearied too, out of all heart, by his want of consideration to me. It is not that he will not obey me. A mother perhaps should not expect obedience from a grown-up son. But my word is nothing to him. He has no respect for me. He would as soon do what is wrong before me as before the merest stranger." "He has been so long his own master, mamma." "Yes,--his own master! And yet I must provide for him as though he were but a child. Hetta, you spent the whole evening talking to Paul Montague." "No, mamma;--that is unjust." "He was always with you." "I knew nobody else. I could not tell him not to speak to me. I danced with him twice." Her mother was seated, with both her hands up to her forehead, and shook her head. "If you did not want me to speak to Paul you should not have taken me there." "I don't wish to prevent your speaking to him. You know what I want." Henrietta came up and kissed her, and bade her good night. "I think I am the unhappiest woman in all London," she said, sobbing hysterically. "Is it my fault, mamma?" "You could save me from much if you would. I work like a horse, and I never spend a shilling that I can help. I want nothing for myself,--nothing for myself. Nobody has suffered as I have. But Felix never thinks of me for a moment." "I think of you, mamma." "If you did you would accept your cousin's offer. What right have you to refuse him? I believe it is all because of that young man." "No, mamma; it is not because of that young man. I like my cousin very much;--but that is all. Good night, mamma." Lady Carbury just allowed herself to be kissed, and then was left alone. At eight o'clock the next morning daybreak found four young men who had just risen from a card-table at the Beargarden. The Beargarden was so pleasant a club that there was no rule whatsoever as to its being closed,--the only law being that it should not be opened before three in the afternoon. A sort of sanction had, however, been given to the servants to demur to producing supper or drinks after six in the morning, so that, about eight, unrelieved tobacco began to be too heavy even for juvenile constitutions. The party consisted of Dolly Longestaffe, Lord Grasslough, Miles Grendall, and Felix Carbury, and the four had amused themselves during the last six hours with various innocent games. They had commenced with whist, and had culminated during the last half-hour with blind hookey. But during the whole night Felix had won. Miles Grendall hated him, and there had been an expressed opinion between Miles and the young lord that it would be both profitable and proper to relieve Sir Felix of the winnings of the last two nights. The two men had played with the same object, and being young had shown their intention,--so that a certain feeling of hostility had been engendered. The reader is not to understand that either of them had cheated, or that the baronet had entertained any suspicion of foul play. But Felix had felt that Grendall and Grasslough were his enemies, and had thrown himself on Dolly for sympathy and friendship. Dolly, however, was very tipsy. At eight o'clock in the morning there came a sort of settling, though no money then passed. The ready-money transactions had not lasted long through the night. Grasslough was the chief loser, and the figures and scraps of paper which had been passed over to Carbury, when counted up, amounted to nearly 2,000. His lordship contested the fact bitterly, but contested it in vain. There were his own initials and his own figures, and even Miles Grendall, who was supposed to be quite wide awake, could not reduce the amount. Then Grendall had lost over 400 to Carbury,--an amount, indeed, that mattered little, as Miles could, at present, as easily have raised 40,000. However, he gave his I.O.U. to his opponent with an easy air. Grasslough, also, was impecunious; but he had a father,--also impecunious, indeed; but with them the matter would not be hopeless. Dolly Longestaffe was so tipsy that he could not even assist in making up his own account. That was to be left between him and Carbury for some future occasion. "I suppose you'll be here to-morrow,--that is to-night," said Miles. "Certainly,--only one thing," answered Felix. "What one thing?" "I think these things should be squared before we play any more!" "What do you mean by that?" said Grasslough angrily. "Do you mean to hint anything?" "I never hint anything, my Grassy," said Felix. "I believe when people play cards, it's intended to be ready-money, that's all. But I'm not going to stand on P's and Q's with you. I'll give you your revenge to-night." "That's all right," said Miles. "I was speaking to Lord Grasslough," said Felix. "He is an old friend, and we know each other. You have been rather rough to-night, Mr. Grendall." "Rough;--what the devil do you mean by that?" "And I think it will be as well that our account should be settled before we begin again." "A settlement once a week is the kind of thing I'm used to," said Grendall. There was nothing more said; but the young men did not part on good terms. Felix, as he got himself taken home, calculated that if he could realize his spoil, he might begin the campaign again with horses, servants, and all luxuries as before. If all were paid, he would have over 3,000!

"It's weary work," said Sir Felix in the carriage with his mother and sister. "I think I'll run down to the club before I go home." He put his head out, and stopped the driver. "It is two o'clock in the morning, Felix," said his mother. "I'm afraid it is, but you see I'm hungry. I had no supper. Good night." He jumped out of the carriage, called a cab, and had himself driven to the Beargarden. He told himself that the men there would think it mean of him if he did not give them their revenge. He had won again on the previous night. Dolly Longestaffe and Lord Grasslough owed him money, and he was determined that they should not think that he had been carried home by his mother and sister. So he argued with himself; but in truth he could not keep away from the card-table. Neither mother nor daughter said a word till they reached home. Then the mother spoke of the trouble that was nearest to her heart. "Do you think he gambles?" "He has got no money, mamma." "I fear that might not stop him. If he gambles everything is lost." "I suppose they all play, more or less." "I am wearied out of all heart by his lack of consideration to me. It is not that I expect obedience from a grown-up son. But my word is nothing to him. He has no respect for me. He would as soon do what is wrong before me as before the merest stranger." "He has been so long his own master, mamma." "His own master! And yet I must provide for him as though he were a child. Hetta, you spent the whole evening talking to Paul Montague." "No, mamma; that is unjust. I knew nobody else. I could not tell him not to speak to me. I danced with him twice." Her mother shook her head. "If you did not want me to speak to Paul," said Hetta, "you should not have taken me there." "I don't wish to prevent your speaking to him. You know what I want." As Henrietta kissed her good night, Lady Carbury began to sob. "I think I am the unhappiest woman in all London." "Is it my fault, mamma?" "You could save me from much if you wished. I work like a horse, and I never spend a shilling on myself. Nobody has suffered as I have. But Felix never thinks of me for a moment." "I think of you, mamma." "If you did you would accept your cousin's offer. What right have you to refuse him? I believe it is because of that young man." "No, mamma; it is not because of that young man. I like my cousin Roger very much; - but that is all. Good night, mamma." At eight o'clock the next morning four young men had just risen from a card-table at the Beargarden. The party consisted of Dolly Longestaffe, Lord Grasslough, Miles Grendall, and Felix Carbury; they had amused themselves during the last six hours with various innocent games. They had commenced with whist, and had finished with blind hookey. But all night Felix had won. Miles Grendall hated him, and agreed with Lord Grasslough that it would be proper to relieve Sir Felix of his previous winnings. The two men had shown their intention, causing a certain hostility. Felix had felt that Grendall and Grasslough were his enemies, and had thrown himself on Dolly for sympathy. Dolly, however, was very tipsy. At eight o'clock in the morning there came a sort of settling-up, though no money passed hands. Grasslough was the chief loser, and the paper I.O.U.s which had been passed over to Carbury, when counted up, amounted to nearly 2,000. His lordship contested the amount bitterly, but in vain. Grendall had lost over 400 to Carbury, an amount that he could never hope to raise. However, he gave his I.O.U. to his opponent with an easy air. Dolly Longestaffe was too tipsy to make up his own account. That was to be left for some future occasion. "I suppose you'll be here tomorrow, - that is, tonight," said Miles. "Certainly," answered Felix. "Only I think these things should be squared before we play any more." "What do you mean by that?" said Grasslough angrily. "Do you mean to hint anything?" "I never hint anything, my Grassy," said Felix. "I believe when people play cards, it's intended to be ready money, that's all. But I'll give you your revenge tonight." "All right," said Miles. "I was speaking to Lord Grasslough," said Felix. "He is an old friend. You have been rather rough tonight, Mr. Grendall." "Rough - what the devil do you mean by that?" "And I think it will be as well that our account should be settled before we begin again." "I'm used to settling once a week," said Grendall. There was nothing more said; but the young men did not part on good terms. Felix, as he went home, calculated that if he were fully paid, he might begin the campaign again with all luxuries as before. He would have over 3,000!

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 5: After the Ball

Paul Montague at this time lived in comfortable lodgings in Sackville Street, and ostensibly the world was going well with him. But he had many troubles. His troubles in reference to Fisker, Montague, and Montague,--and also their consolation,--are already known to the reader. He was troubled too about his love, though when he allowed his mind to expatiate on the success of the great railway he would venture to hope that on that side his life might perhaps be blessed. Henrietta had at any rate as yet showed no disposition to accept her cousin's offer. He was troubled too about the gambling, which he disliked, knowing that in that direction there might be speedy ruin, and yet returning to it from day to day in spite of his own conscience. But there was yet another trouble which culminated just at this time. One morning, not long after that Sunday night which had been so wretchedly spent at the Beargarden, he got into a cab in Piccadilly and had himself taken to a certain address in Islington. Here he knocked at a decent, modest door,--at such a house as men live in with two or three hundred a year,--and asked for Mrs. Hurtle. Yes;--Mrs. Hurtle lodged there, and he was shown into the drawing-room. There he stood by the round table for a quarter of an hour turning over the lodging-house books which lay there, and then Mrs. Hurtle entered the room. Mrs. Hurtle was a widow whom he had once promised to marry. "Paul," she said, with a quick, sharp voice, but with a voice which could be very pleasant when she pleased,--taking him by the hand as she spoke, "Paul, say that that letter of yours must go for nothing. Say that it shall be so, and I will forgive everything." "I cannot say that," he replied, laying his hand in hers. "You cannot say it! What do you mean? Will you dare to tell me that your promises to me are to go for nothing?" "Things are changed," said Paul hoarsely. He had come thither at her bidding because he had felt that to remain away would be cowardly, but the meeting was inexpressibly painful to him. He did think that he had sufficient excuse for breaking his troth to this woman, but the justification of his conduct was founded on reasons which he hardly knew how to plead to her. He had heard that of her past life which, had he heard it before, would have saved him from his present difficulty. But he had loved her,--did love her in a certain fashion; and her offences, such as they were, did not debar her from his sympathies. "How are they changed? I am two years older, if you mean that." As she said this she looked round at the glass, as though to see whether she was become so haggard with age as to be unfit to become this man's wife. She was very lovely, with a kind of beauty which we seldom see now. In these days men regard the form and outward lines of a woman's face and figure more than either the colour or the expression, and women fit themselves to men's eyes. With padding and false hair without limit a figure may be constructed of almost any dimensions. The sculptors who construct them, male and female, hairdressers and milliners, are very skilful, and figures are constructed of noble dimensions, sometimes with voluptuous expansion, sometimes with classic reticence, sometimes with dishevelled negligence which becomes very dishevelled indeed when long out of the sculptors' hands. Colours indeed are added, but not the colours which we used to love. The taste for flesh and blood has for the day given place to an appetite for horsehair and pearl powder. But Mrs. Hurtle was not a beauty after the present fashion. She was very dark,--a dark brunette,--with large round blue eyes, that could indeed be soft, but could also be very severe. Her silken hair, almost black, hung in a thousand curls all round her head and neck. Her cheeks and lips and neck were full, and the blood would come and go, giving a varying expression to her face with almost every word she spoke. Her nose also was full, and had something of the pug. But nevertheless it was a nose which any man who loved her would swear to be perfect. Her mouth was large, and she rarely showed her teeth. Her chin was full, marked by a large dimple, and as it ran down to her neck was beginning to form a second. Her bust was full and beautifully shaped; but she invariably dressed as though she were oblivious, or at any rate neglectful, of her own charms. Her dress, as Montague had seen her, was always black,--not a sad weeping widow's garment, but silk or woollen or cotton as the case might be, always new, always nice, always well-fitting, and most especially always simple. She was certainly a most beautiful woman, and she knew it. She looked as though she knew it,--but only after that fashion in which a woman ought to know it. Of her age she had never spoken to Montague. She was in truth over thirty,--perhaps almost as near thirty-five as thirty. But she was one of those whom years hardly seem to touch. "You are beautiful as ever you were," he said. "Psha! Do not tell me of that. I care nothing for my beauty unless it can bind me to your love. Sit down there and tell me what it means." Then she let go his hand, and seated herself opposite to the chair which she gave him. "I told you in my letter." "You told me nothing in your letter,--except that it was to be--off. Why is it to be--off? Do you not love me?" Then she threw herself upon her knees, and leaned upon his, and looked up in his face. "Paul," she said, "I have come again across the Atlantic on purpose to see you,--after so many months,--and will you not give me one kiss? Even though you should leave me for ever, give me one kiss." Of course he kissed her, not once, but with a long, warm embrace. How could it have been otherwise? With all his heart he wished that she would have remained away, but while she knelt there at his feet what could he do but embrace her? "Now tell me everything," she said, seating herself on a footstool at his feet. [Illustration: "I have come across the Atlantic to see you."] She certainly did not look like a woman whom a man might ill treat or scorn with impunity. Paul felt, even while she was lavishing her caresses upon him, that she might too probably turn and rend him before he left her. He had known something of her temper before, though he had also known the truth and warmth of her love. He had travelled with her from San Francisco to England, and she had been very good to him in illness, in distress of mind and in poverty,--for he had been almost penniless in New York. When they landed at Liverpool they were engaged as man and wife. He had told her all his affairs, had given her the whole history of his life. This was before his second journey to America, when Hamilton K. Fisker was unknown to him. But she had told him little or nothing of her own life,--but that she was a widow, and that she was travelling to Paris on business. When he left her at the London railway station, from which she started for Dover, he was full of all a lover's ardour. He had offered to go with her, but that she had declined. But when he remembered that he must certainly tell his friend Roger of his engagement, and remembered also how little he knew of the lady to whom he was engaged, he became embarrassed. What were her means he did not know. He did know that she was some years older than himself, and that she had spoken hardly a word to him of her own family. She had indeed said that her husband had been one of the greatest miscreants ever created, and had spoken of her release from him as the one blessing she had known before she had met Paul Montague. But it was only when he thought of all this after she had left him,--only when he reflected how bald was the story which he must tell Roger Carbury,--that he became dismayed. Such had been the woman's cleverness, such her charm, so great her power of adaptation, that he had passed weeks in her daily company, with still progressing intimacy and affection, without feeling that anything had been missing. He had told his friend, and his friend had declared to him that it was impossible that he should marry a woman whom he had met in a railway train without knowing something about her. Roger did all he could to persuade the lover to forget his love,--and partially succeeded. It is so pleasant and so natural that a young man should enjoy the company of a clever, beautiful woman on a long journey,--so natural that during the journey he should allow himself to think that she may during her whole life be all in all to him as she is at that moment;--and so natural again that he should see his mistake when he has parted from her! But Montague, though he was half false to his widow, was half true to her. He had pledged his word, and that he said ought to bind him. Then he returned to California, and learned through the instrumentality of Hamilton K. Fisker, that in San Francisco Mrs. Hurtle was regarded as a mystery. Some people did not quite believe that there ever had been a Mr. Hurtle. Others said that there certainly had been a Mr. Hurtle, and that to the best of their belief he still existed. The fact, however, best known of her was, that she had shot a man through the head somewhere in Oregon. She had not been tried for it, as the world of Oregon had considered that the circumstances justified the deed. Everybody knew that she was very clever and very beautiful,--but everybody also thought that she was very dangerous. "She always had money when she was here," Hamilton Fisker said, "but no one knew where it came from." Then he wanted to know why Paul inquired. "I don't think, you know, that I should like to go in for a life partnership, if you mean that," said Hamilton K. Fisker. Montague had seen her in New York as he passed through on his second journey to San Francisco, and had then renewed his promises in spite of his cousin's caution. He told her that he was going to see what he could make of his broken fortunes,--for at this time, as the reader will remember, there was no great railway in existence,--and she had promised to follow him. Since that they had never met till this day. She had not made the promised journey to San Francisco, at any rate before he had left it. Letters from her had reached him in England, and these he had answered by explaining to her, or endeavouring to explain, that their engagement must be at an end. And now she had followed him to London! "Tell me everything," she said, leaning upon him and looking up into his face. "But you,--when did you arrive here?" "Here, at this house, I arrived the night before last. On Tuesday I reached Liverpool. There I found that you were probably in London, and so I came on. I have come only to see you. I can understand that you should have been estranged from me. That journey home is now so long ago! Our meeting in New York was so short and wretched. I would not tell you because you then were poor yourself, but at that moment I was penniless. I have got my own now out from the very teeth of robbers." As she said this, she looked as though she could be very persistent in claiming her own,--or what she might think to be her own. "I could not get across to San Francisco as I said I would, and when I was there you had quarrelled with your uncle and returned. And now I am here. I at any rate have been faithful." As she said this his arm was again thrown over her, so as to press her head to his knee. "And now," she said, "tell me about yourself?" His position was embarrassing and very odious to himself. Had he done his duty properly, he would gently have pushed her from him, have sprung to his legs, and have declared that, however faulty might have been his previous conduct, he now found himself bound to make her understand that he did not intend to become her husband. But he was either too much of a man or too little of a man for conduct such as that. He did make the avowal to himself, even at that moment as she sat there. Let the matter go as it would, she should never be his wife. He would marry no one unless it was Hetta Carbury. But he did not at all know how to get this said with proper emphasis, and yet with properly apologetic courtesy. "I am engaged here about this railway," he said. "You have heard, I suppose, of our projected scheme?" "Heard of it! San Francisco is full of it. Hamilton Fisker is the great man of the day there, and, when I left, your uncle was buying a villa for seventy-four thousand dollars. And yet they say that the best of it all has been transferred to you Londoners. Many there are very hard upon Fisker for coming here and doing as he did." "It's doing very well, I believe," said Paul, with some feeling of shame, as he thought how very little he knew about it. "You are the manager here in England?" "No,--I am a member of the firm that manages it at San Francisco; but the real manager here is our chairman, Mr. Melmotte." "Ah,--I have heard of him. He is a great man;--a Frenchman, is he not? There was a talk of inviting him to California. You know him of course?" "Yes;--I know him. I see him once a week." "I would sooner see that man than your Queen, or any of your dukes or lords. They tell me that he holds the world of commerce in his right hand. What power;--what grandeur!" "Grand enough," said Paul, "if it all came honestly." "Such a man rises above honesty," said Mrs. Hurtle, "as a great general rises above humanity when he sacrifices an army to conquer a nation. Such greatness is incompatible with small scruples. A pigmy man is stopped by a little ditch, but a giant stalks over the rivers." "I prefer to be stopped by the ditches," said Montague. "Ah, Paul, you were not born for commerce. And I will grant you this, that commerce is not noble unless it rises to great heights. To live in plenty by sticking to your counter from nine in the morning to nine at night, is not a fine life. But this man with a scratch of his pen can send out or call in millions of dollars. Do they say here that he is not honest?" "As he is my partner in this affair perhaps I had better say nothing against him." "Of course such a man will be abused. People have said that Napoleon was a coward, and Washington a traitor. You must take me where I shall see Melmotte. He is a man whose hand I would kiss; but I would not condescend to speak even a word of reverence to any of your Emperors." "I fear you will find that your idol has feet of clay." "Ah,--you mean that he is bold in breaking those precepts of yours about coveting worldly wealth. All men and women break that commandment, but they do so in a stealthy fashion, half drawing back the grasping hand, praying to be delivered from temptation while they filch only a little, pretending to despise the only thing that is dear to them in the world. Here is a man who boldly says that he recognises no such law; that wealth is power, and that power is good, and that the more a man has of wealth the greater and the stronger and the nobler he can be. I love a man who can turn the hobgoblins inside out and burn the wooden bogies that he meets." Montague had formed his own opinions about Melmotte. Though connected with the man, he believed their Grand Director to be as vile a scoundrel as ever lived. Mrs. Hurtle's enthusiasm was very pretty, and there was something of feminine eloquence in her words. But it was shocking to see them lavished on such a subject. "Personally, I do not like him," said Paul. "I had thought to find that you and he were hand and glove." "Oh no." "But you are prospering in this business?" "Yes,--I suppose we are prospering. It is one of those hazardous things in which a man can never tell whether he be really prosperous till he is out of it. I fell into it altogether against my will. I had no alternative." "It seems to me to have been a golden chance." "As far as immediate results go it has been golden." "That at any rate is well, Paul. And now,--now that we have got back into our old way of talking, tell me what all this means. I have talked to no one after this fashion since we parted. Why should our engagement be over? You used to love me, did you not?" He would willingly have left her question unanswered, but she waited for an answer. "You know I did," he said. "I thought so. This I know, that you were sure and are sure of my love to you. Is it not so? Come, speak openly like a man. Do you doubt me?" He did not doubt her, and was forced to say so. "No, indeed." "Oh, with what bated, half-mouthed words you speak,--fit for a girl from a nursery! Out with it if you have anything to say against me! You owe me so much at any rate. I have never ill-treated you. I have never lied to you. I have taken nothing from you,--if I have not taken your heart. I have given you all that I have to give." Then she leaped to her feet and stood a little apart from him. "If you hate me, say so." "Winifrid," he said, calling her by her name. "Winifrid! Yes, now for the first time, though I have called you Paul from the moment you entered the room. Well, speak out. Is there another woman that you love?" At this moment Paul Montague proved that at any rate he was no coward. Knowing the nature of the woman, how ardent, how impetuous she could be, and how full of wrath, he had come at her call intending to tell her the truth which he now spoke. "There is another," he said. She stood silent, looking into his face, thinking how she would commence her attack upon him. She fixed her eyes upon him, standing quite upright, squeezing her own right hand with the fingers of the left. "Oh," she said, in a whisper;--"that is the reason why I am told that I am to be--off." "That was not the reason." "What;--can there be more reason than that,--better reason than that? Unless, indeed, it be that as you have learned to love another so also you have learned to--hate me." "Listen to me, Winifrid." "No, sir; no Winifrid now! How did you dare to kiss me, knowing that it was on your tongue to tell me I was to be cast aside? And so you love--some other woman! I am too old to please you, too rough,--too little like the dolls of your own country! What were your--other reasons? Let me hear your--other reasons, that I may tell you that they are lies." The reasons were very difficult to tell, though when put forward by Roger Carbury they had been easily pleaded. Paul knew but little about Winifrid Hurtle, and nothing at all about the late Mr. Hurtle. His reasons curtly put forward might have been so stated. "We know too little of each other," he said. "What more do you want to know? You can know all for the asking. Did I ever refuse to answer you? As to my knowledge of you and your affairs, if I think it sufficient, need you complain? What is it that you want to know? Ask anything and I will tell you. Is it about my money? You knew when you gave me your word that I had next to none. Now I have ample means of my own. You knew that I was a widow. What more? If you wish to hear of the wretch that was my husband, I will deluge you with stories. I should have thought that a man who loved would not have cared to hear much of one--who perhaps was loved once." He knew that his position was perfectly indefensible. It would have been better for him not to have alluded to any reasons, but to have remained firm to his assertion that he loved another woman. He must have acknowledged himself to be false, perjured, inconstant, and very base. A fault that may be venial to those who do not suffer, is damnable, deserving of an eternity of tortures, in the eyes of the sufferer. He must have submitted to be told that he was a fiend, and might have had to endure whatever of punishment a lady in her wrath could inflict upon him. But he would have been called upon for no further mental effort. His position would have been plain. But now he was all at sea. "I wish to hear nothing," he said. "Then why tell me that we know so little of each other? That, surely, is a poor excuse to make to a woman,--after you have been false to her. Why did you not say that when we were in New York together? Think of it, Paul. Is not that mean?" "I do not think that I am mean." "No;--a man will lie to a woman, and justify it always. Who is--this lady?" He knew that he could not at any rate be warranted in mentioning Hetta Carbury's name. He had never even asked her for her love, and certainly had received no assurance that he was loved. "I can not name her." "And I, who have come hither from California to see you, am to return satisfied because you tell me that you have--changed your affections? That is to be all, and you think that fair? That suits your own mind, and leaves no sore spot in your heart? You can do that, and shake hands with me, and go away,--without a pang, without a scruple?" "I did not say so." "And you are the man who cannot bear to hear me praise Augustus Melmotte because you think him dishonest! Are you a liar?" "I hope not." "Did you say you would be my husband? Answer me, sir." "I did say so." "Do you now refuse to keep your promise? You shall answer me." "I cannot marry you." "Then, sir, are you not a liar?" It would have taken him long to explain to her, even had he been able, that a man may break a promise and yet not tell a lie. He had made up his mind to break his engagement before he had seen Hetta Carbury, and therefore he could not accuse himself of falseness on her account. He had been brought to his resolution by the rumours he had heard of her past life, and as to his uncertainty about her husband. If Mr. Hurtle were alive, certainly then he would not be a liar because he did not marry Mrs. Hurtle. He did not think himself to be a liar, but he was not at once ready with his defence. "Oh, Paul," she said, changing at once into softness,--"I am pleading to you for my life. Oh, that I could make you feel that I am pleading for my life. Have you given a promise to this lady also?" "No," said he. "I have given no promise." "But she loves you?" "She has never said so." "You have told her of your love?" "Never." "There is nothing, then, between you? And you would put her against me,--some woman who has nothing to suffer, no cause of complaint, who, for aught you know, cares nothing for you. Is that so?" "I suppose it is," said Paul. "Then you may still be mine. Oh, Paul, come back to me. Will any woman love you as I do;--live for you as I do? Think what I have done in coming here, where I have no friend,--not a single friend,--unless you are a friend. Listen to me. I have told the woman here that I am engaged to marry you." "You have told the woman of the house?" "Certainly I have. Was I not justified? Were you not engaged to me? Am I to have you to visit me here, and to risk her insults, perhaps to be told to take myself off and to find accommodation elsewhere, because I am too mealy-mouthed to tell the truth as to the cause of my being here? I am here because you have promised to make me your wife, and, as far as I am concerned, I am not ashamed to have the fact advertised in every newspaper in the town. I told her that I was the promised wife of one Paul Montague, who was joined with Mr. Melmotte in managing the new great American railway, and that Mr. Paul Montague would be with me this morning. She was too far-seeing to doubt me, but had she doubted, I could have shown her your letters. Now go and tell her that what I have said is false,--if you dare." The woman was not there, and it did not seem to be his immediate duty to leave the room in order that he might denounce a lady whom he certainly had ill-used. The position was one which required thought. After a while he took up his hat to go. "Do you mean to tell her that my statement is untrue?" "No,--" he said; "not to-day." "And you will come back to me?" "Yes;--I will come back." "I have no friend here, but you, Paul. Remember that. Remember all your promises. Remember all our love,--and be good to me." Then she let him go without another word.

Paul Montague at this time lived in comfortable lodgings in Sackville Street, and the world appeared to go well with him. But he had many troubles. His troubles about Fisker, Montague, and Montague are already known to the reader. He was also troubled about his love, though when he thought about the success of the great railway he hoped that he might be blessed by Henrietta's acceptance. He was troubled too about the gambling, which he disliked, and yet returned to. But there was another trouble which culminated just at this time. One morning he got a cab in Piccadilly and travelled to a certain address in Islington. Here he knocked at a decent, modest door, and asked for Mrs. Hurtle. He was shown into the drawing-room, and stood by the table until Mrs. Hurtle entered the room. Mrs. Hurtle was a widow whom he had once promised to marry. "Paul," she said, with a quick, sharp voice, but a voice which could be very pleasant when she pleased, "Paul, say that that letter of yours means nothing. Say that, and I will forgive everything." "I cannot say that." "You cannot say it! What do you mean? Will you dare to tell me that your promises mean nothing?" "Things are changed," said Paul hoarsely. He had come here at her bidding because he had felt that to stay away would be cowardly, but the meeting was inexpressibly painful to him. He did think that he had sufficient excuse for breaking his troth to this woman, but he hardly knew how to justify it to her. He had heard things about her past life which, had he heard them before, would have saved him from this difficulty. But he had loved her - did love her in a way, in spite of her offences. "How are they changed? I am two years older, if you mean that." As she said this she looked round at the mirror, as though to see whether she was become haggard with age. She was very lovely, though not in the current fashion. She was a dark brunette with large round blue eyes, that could be soft, but could also be very severe. Her silken hair, almost black, hung in a thousand curls around her head and neck. Her cheeks and lips were full, and she blushed easily. Her bust was beautifully shaped; but she dressed as though she were oblivious of her own charms. Her dress, when Montague had seen her, was always black, always new, always nice, well-fitting, and above all simple. She was certainly a beautiful woman, and she knew it. Of her age she had never spoken to Montague. She was in truth over thirty. But she was one of those whom years hardly seem to touch. "You are as beautiful as ever you were," he said. "Psha! I care nothing for my beauty unless it can bind me to your love. Sit down and tell me what it means." She seated herself opposite him. "I told you in my letter." "You told me nothing in your letter, except that it was - off. Why? Do you not love me?" Then she threw herself upon her knees, and leaned upon his, looking up in his face. "Paul," she said, "I have come again across the Atlantic to see you, after so many months - and will you not give me one kiss? Even though you should leave me for ever, give me one kiss." Of course he kissed her, with a long, warm embrace. While she knelt there at his feet what could he do but embrace her? "Now tell me everything," she said, seating herself on a footstool at his feet. She did not look like a woman whom a man might scorn unpunished. Paul felt, even while she was caressing him, that she might well turn and rend him before he left her. He had known something of her temper before, though he had also known the truth and warmth of her love. He had travelled with her from San Francisco to England, and she had been very good to him in illness, distress and poverty - for he had been almost penniless in New York. When they landed at Liverpool they were engaged to marry. He had given her the whole history of his life. This was when Hamilton K. Fisker was unknown to him. But she had told him little or nothing of her own life, except that she was a widow, travelling to Paris on business. When he left her at the London railway station, he was full of a lover's ardour. But when he remembered that he must tell his friend Roger of his engagement, and remembered also how little he knew of Mrs. Hurtle, he became embarrassed. She had spoken hardly a word of her own family, although she had said that her husband had been a great miscreant, and her release from him had been the one blessing she had known before she had met Paul Montague. After she had left him, he reflected how bald was the story which he must tell Roger Carbury, and became dismayed. Such had been the woman's cleverness and charm, that he had passed weeks in her daily company without feeling that anything had been missing. He had told Roger, and his friend had declared to him that it was impossible that he should marry a woman whom he had met on a train without knowing anything about her. Roger did all he could to persuade him to forget his love - and partially succeeded. Paul saw his mistake. Yet, though he was half false to his widow, he was half true to her. He had pledged his word, and said that ought to bind him. Then he returned to California, and learned through Hamilton K. Fisker that in San Francisco Mrs. Hurtle was regarded as a mystery. Some people did not believe that there ever had been a Mr. Hurtle. Others said that there certainly had been, and that he still existed. The fact, however, best known was, that she had shot a man through the head in Oregon. She had not been tried for it, as the world of Oregon had considered that the circumstances justified the deed. Everybody thought that she was very clever and very beautiful, but also very dangerous. "She always had money," Hamilton Fisker said, "but no one knew where it came from. I don't think, you know, that I should like to go in for a life partnership." Montague had seen her in New York on his second journey to San Francisco, and had then renewed his promises in spite of his cousin's caution. He told her that he was going to see what he could make of his broken fortunes - for this was before the great railway - and she had promised to follow him. Since then they had not met till this day. Letters from her had reached him in England, and he had answered these by trying to explain that their engagement must be at an end. And now she had followed him to London! "Tell me everything," she said, looking up into his face. "When did you arrive here?" "On Tuesday I reached Liverpool. There I found that you were in London, and so I came here. I can understand that you should have been estranged from me. Our meeting in New York was so short and wretched. I did not tell you because you then were poor yourself, but at that moment I was penniless. I could not get across to San Francisco as I said I would, and when I did you had quarrelled with your uncle and left. And now I am here. I at any rate have been faithful. And now," she said, "tell me about yourself?" His position was very embarrassing. He ought to have gently pushed her away, have sprung to his legs, and have declared that, however faulty might have been his conduct, he did not intend to become her husband. But he was either too much or too little of a man to do that. He did vow to himself that she should never be his wife. But he did not know how to say this with properly apologetic courtesy. "I am engaged here about this railway," he said. "You have heard of it, I suppose?" "Heard of it! San Francisco is full of it. Hamilton Fisker is the great man of the day there, and, when I left, your uncle was buying a villa for seventy-four thousand dollars. And yet they say that the best of it has been transferred to you Londoners." "It's doing very well, I believe," said Paul, with some shame, as he thought how little he knew about it. "You are the manager here in England?" "No; I am a member of the firm; but the real manager here is our chairman, Mr. Melmotte." "Ah - I have heard of him. A great man. You know him, of course?" "Yes; I see him once a week." "I would sooner see that man than any of your dukes or lords. They tell me that he holds the world of commerce in his right hand. What power; what grandeur!" "Grand enough," said Paul, "if it all came honestly." "Such a man rises above honesty," said Mrs. Hurtle, "as a great general rises above humanity when he sacrifices an army to conquer a nation. Such greatness is incompatible with small scruples. Commerce is not noble unless it rises to great heights. Do they say here that he is not honest?" "As he is my partner perhaps I had better say nothing against him." "Of course such a man will be abused. People have said that Napoleon was a coward, and Washington a traitor. I would like to see Melmotte - to kiss his hand; but I would not condescend to speak a word of reverence to any of your Emperors." "I fear you will find that your idol has feet of clay." "Ah - you mean that he covets worldly wealth. All men and women break that commandment, but they do so stealthily, pretending to despise what they really love. Here is a man who boldly says that wealth is power, and that power is good, and that the more wealth a man has the greater and the nobler he can be." Montague had formed his own opinions about Melmotte. He believed the Grand Director to be as vile a scoundrel as ever lived. Mrs. Hurtle's enthusiasm was very pretty, and it was shocking to see it lavished on such a subject. "Personally, I do not like him," said Paul. "But you are prospering in this business?" "I suppose so. It is hard to tell. I fell into it altogether against my will. I had no alternative." "It seems to me to have been a golden chance." "As far as immediate results go it has been golden." "That at any rate is well, Paul. And now - tell me what all this means. Why should our engagement be over? You used to love me, did you not?" She waited, and he had to answer. "You know I did," he said. "I thought so. You are sure of my love to you. Is it not so? Come, speak like a man. Do you doubt me?" He did not doubt her, and was forced to say so. "No, indeed." "Oh, with what half-mouthed words you speak - like a girl from a nursery! Out with it if you have anything to say against me! I have never lied to you. I have taken nothing from you - if not your heart. I have given you all that I have to give." Then she leaped to her feet and stood a little apart from him. "If you hate me, say so." "Winifrid," he said. "Winifrid! Yes, now for the first time, though I have called you Paul from the moment you entered the room. Well, speak out. Is there another woman that you love?" At this moment Paul Montague proved that at any rate he was no coward. "There is another," he said. She stood silent, looking into his face, thinking how she would begin her attack. She fixed her eyes upon him, squeezing her hands together. "Oh," she whispered; "that is the reason why I am told that it is - off." "That was not the reason." "What better reason than that? Unless, indeed, as you have learned to love another so also you have learned to hate me." "Listen to me, Winifrid." "No, sir; no Winifrid now! How did you dare to kiss me, knowing that you were about to tell me I was to be cast aside? And so you love some other woman! I am too old to please you, too rough, too little like the dolls of your own country! Let me hear your other reasons, so that I may tell you that they are lies." The reasons were very difficult to tell. Paul knew little about Winifrid Hurtle, and nothing at all about the late Mr. Hurtle. "We know too little of each other," he said. "What more do you want to know? Ask anything and I will tell you. Did I ever refuse to answer you? Is it about my money? You knew when you gave me your word that I had next to none. Now I have ample means of my own. You knew that I was a widow. What more? If you wish to hear of the wretch that was my husband, I will deluge you with stories. I should have thought that a man who loved would not have cared to hear much of that." He knew that his position was indefensible. It would have been better for him not to have alluded to any other reasons, but to have stuck to his assertion that he loved another woman. He would have been called false, and a fiend, and might have had to endure whatever punishment an angry lady could inflict upon him. But his position would have been plain. Now he was all at sea. "I wish to hear nothing," he said. "Then why tell me that we know so little of each other? That is a poor excuse to make to a woman - after you have been false to her. Why did you not say that when we were in New York? Is that not mean?" "I do not think that I am mean." "No; a man will lie to a woman, and justify it always. Who is this lady?" He knew that he could not mention Hetta Carbury's name. He had never asked her for her love, and had received no assurance that he was loved. "I cannot name her." "And I, who have come from California to see you, am to return satisfied because you tell me that you have changed your affections? You can shake hands with me, and go away without a pang?" "I did not say so." "Did you say you would be my husband? Answer me, sir." "I did say so." "Do you now refuse to keep your promise?" "I cannot marry you." "Then, sir, are you not a liar?" It would have taken him long to explain that a man may break a promise and yet not tell a lie. He had made up his mind to break his engagement before he had seen Hetta Carbury, because of the rumours he had heard of Mrs. Hurtle's past life, and his uncertainty about her husband. "Oh, Paul," she said, changing into softness, "I am pleading for my life! Have you given a promise to this lady also?" "No," said he. "But she loves you?" "She has never said so." "You have told her of your love?" "Never." "There is nothing, then, between you? And you would put her against me,- some woman who has nothing to suffer, who, for all you know, cares nothing for you. Is that so?" "I suppose it is," said Paul. "Then you may still be mine. Oh, Paul, come back to me. Will any woman love you as I do - live for you as I do? I have come here without a single friend. I have told the woman here that I am engaged to marry you." "You have told your landlady?" "Certainly. Were you not engaged to me? Am I to have you visit, and to risk her insults, and perhaps be told to take myself off? I am here because you promised to make me your wife, and I am not ashamed of the fact. If she had doubted me, I could have shown her your letters. Now go and tell her that what I said is false - if you dare." Paul felt he could hardly leave the room in order to denounce a lady whom he had certainly ill-used. He needed to think; and he took up his hat to go. "Do you mean to tell her?" "No," he said; "not today." "And you will come back to me?" "Yes." "I have no friend here but you, Paul. Remember that. Remember your promises. Remember all our love - and be good to me." Then she let him go.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 26: Mrs. Hurtle

Something of herself and condition Lady Carbury has told the reader in the letters given in the former chapter, but more must be added. She has declared she had been cruelly slandered; but she has also shown that she was not a woman whose words about herself could be taken with much confidence. If the reader does not understand so much from her letters to the three editors they have been written in vain. She has been made to say that her object in work was to provide for the need of her children, and that with that noble purpose before her she was struggling to make for herself a career in literature. Detestably false as had been her letters to the editors, absolutely and abominably foul as was the entire system by which she was endeavouring to achieve success, far away from honour and honesty as she had been carried by her ready subserviency to the dirty things among which she had lately fallen, nevertheless her statements about herself were substantially true. She had been ill-treated. She had been slandered. She was true to her children,--especially devoted to one of them,--and was ready to work her nails off if by doing so she could advance their interests. She was the widow of one Sir Patrick Carbury, who many years since had done great things as a soldier in India, and had been thereupon created a baronet. He had married a young wife late in life and, having found out when too late that he had made a mistake, had occasionally spoilt his darling and occasionally ill used her. In doing each he had done it abundantly. Among Lady Carbury's faults had never been that of even incipient,--not even of sentimental infidelity to her husband. When as a very lovely and penniless girl of eighteen she had consented to marry a man of forty-four who had the spending of a large income, she had made up her mind to abandon all hope of that sort of love which poets describe and which young people generally desire to experience. Sir Patrick at the time of his marriage was red-faced, stout, bald, very choleric, generous in money, suspicious in temper, and intelligent. He knew how to govern men. He could read and understand a book. There was nothing mean about him. He had his attractive qualities. He was a man who might be loved;--but he was hardly a man for love. The young Lady Carbury had understood her position and had determined to do her duty. She had resolved before she went to the altar that she would never allow herself to flirt and she had never flirted. For fifteen years things had gone tolerably well with her,--by which it is intended that the reader should understand that they had so gone that she had been able to tolerate them. They had been home in England for three or four years, and then Sir Patrick had returned with some new and higher appointment. For fifteen years, though he had been passionate, imperious, and often cruel, he had never been jealous. A boy and a girl had been born to them, to whom both father and mother had been over indulgent;--but the mother, according to her lights, had endeavoured to do her duty by them. But from the commencement of her life she had been educated in deceit, and her married life had seemed to make the practice of deceit necessary to her. Her mother had run away from her father, and she had been tossed to and fro between this and that protector, sometimes being in danger of wanting any one to care for her, till she had been made sharp, incredulous, and untrustworthy by the difficulties of her position. But she was clever, and had picked up an education and good manners amidst the difficulties of her childhood,--and had been beautiful to look at. To marry and have the command of money, to do her duty correctly, to live in a big house and be respected, had been her ambition,--and during the first fifteen years of her married life she was successful amidst great difficulties. She would smile within five minutes of violent ill-usage. Her husband would even strike her,--and the first effort of her mind would be given to conceal the fact from all the world. In latter years he drank too much, and she struggled hard first to prevent the evil, and then to prevent and to hide the ill effects of the evil. But in doing all this she schemed, and lied, and lived a life of manoeuvres. Then, at last, when she felt that she was no longer quite a young woman, she allowed herself to attempt to form friendships for herself, and among her friends was one of the other sex. If fidelity in a wife be compatible with such friendship, if the married state does not exact from a woman the necessity of debarring herself from all friendly intercourse with any man except her lord, Lady Carbury was not faithless. But Sir Carbury became jealous, spoke words which even she could not endure, did things which drove even her beyond the calculations of her prudence,--and she left him. But even this she did in so guarded a way that, as to every step she took, she could prove her innocence. Her life at that period is of little moment to our story, except that it is essential that the reader should know in what she had been slandered. For a month or two all hard words had been said against her by her husband's friends, and even by Sir Patrick himself. But gradually the truth was known, and after a year's separation they came again together and she remained the mistress of his house till he died. She brought him home to England, but during the short period left to him of life in his old country he had been a worn-out, dying invalid. But the scandal of her great misfortune had followed her, and some people were never tired of reminding others that in the course of her married life Lady Carbury had run away from her husband, and had been taken back again by the kind-hearted old gentleman. Sir Patrick had left behind him a moderate fortune, though by no means great wealth. To his son, who was now Sir Felix Carbury, he had left 1,000 a year; and to his widow as much, with a provision that after her death the latter sum should be divided between his son and daughter. It therefore came to pass that the young man, who had already entered the army when his father died, and upon whom devolved no necessity of keeping a house, and who in fact not unfrequently lived in his mother's house, had an income equal to that with which his mother and his sister were obliged to maintain a roof over their head. Now Lady Carbury, when she was released from her thraldom at the age of forty, had no idea at all of passing her future life amidst the ordinary penances of widowhood. She had hitherto endeavoured to do her duty, knowing that in accepting her position she was bound to take the good and the bad together. She had certainly encountered hitherto much that was bad. To be scolded, watched, beaten, and sworn at by a choleric old man till she was at last driven out of her house by the violence of his ill-usage; to be taken back as a favour with the assurance that her name would for the remainder of her life be unjustly tarnished; to have her flight constantly thrown in her face; and then at last to become for a year or two the nurse of a dying debauchee, was a high price to pay for such good things as she had hitherto enjoyed. Now at length had come to her a period of relaxation--her reward, her freedom, her chance of happiness. She thought much about herself, and resolved on one or two things. The time for love had gone by, and she would have nothing to do with it. Nor would she marry again for convenience. But she would have friends,--real friends; friends who could help her,--and whom possibly she might help. She would, too, make some career for herself, so that life might not be without an interest to her. She would live in London, and would become somebody at any rate in some circle. Accident at first rather than choice had thrown her among literary people, but that accident had, during the last two years, been supported and corroborated by the desire which had fallen upon her of earning money. She had known from the first that economy would be necessary to her,--not chiefly or perhaps not at all from a feeling that she and her daughter could not live comfortably together on a thousand a year,--but on behalf of her son. She wanted no luxury but a house so placed that people might conceive of her that she lived in a proper part of the town. Of her daughter's prudence she was as well convinced as of her own. She could trust Henrietta in everything. But her son, Sir Felix, was not very trustworthy. And yet Sir Felix was the darling of her heart. At the time of the writing of the three letters, at which our story is supposed to begin, she was driven very hard for money. Sir Felix was then twenty-five, had been in a fashionable regiment for four years, had already sold out, and, to own the truth at once, had altogether wasted the property which his father had left him. So much the mother knew,--and knew, therefore, that with her limited income she must maintain not only herself and daughter, but also the baronet. She did not know, however, the amount of the baronet's obligations;--nor, indeed, did he, or any one else. A baronet, holding a commission in the Guards, and known to have had a fortune left him by his father, may go very far in getting into debt; and Sir Felix had made full use of all his privileges. His life had been in every way bad. He had become a burden on his mother so heavy,--and on his sister also,--that their life had become one of unavoidable embarrassments. But not for a moment had either of them ever quarrelled with him. Henrietta had been taught by the conduct of both father and mother that every vice might be forgiven in a man and in a son, though every virtue was expected from a woman, and especially from a daughter. The lesson had come to her so early in life that she had learned it without the feeling of any grievance. She lamented her brother's evil conduct as it affected him, but she pardoned it altogether as it affected herself. That all her interests in life should be made subservient to him was natural to her; and when she found that her little comforts were discontinued, and her moderate expenses curtailed because he, having eaten up all that was his own, was now eating up also all that was his mother's, she never complained. Henrietta had been taught to think that men in that rank of life in which she had been born always did eat up everything. The mother's feeling was less noble,--or perhaps, it might better be said, more open to censure. The boy, who had been beautiful as a star, had ever been the cynosure of her eyes, the one thing on which her heart had rivetted itself. Even during the career of his folly she had hardly ventured to say a word to him with the purport of stopping him on his road to ruin. In everything she had spoilt him as a boy, and in everything she still spoilt him as a man. She was almost proud of his vices, and had taken delight in hearing of doings which if not vicious of themselves had been ruinous from their extravagance. She had so indulged him that even in her own presence he was never ashamed of his own selfishness or apparently conscious of the injustice which he did to others. From all this it had come to pass that that dabbling in literature which had been commenced partly perhaps from a sense of pleasure in the work, partly as a passport into society, had been converted into hard work by which money if possible might be earned. So that Lady Carbury when she wrote to her friends, the editors, of her struggles was speaking the truth. Tidings had reached her of this and the other man's success, and,--coming near to her still,--of this and that other woman's earnings in literature. And it had seemed to her that, within moderate limits, she might give a wide field to her hopes. Why should she not add a thousand a year to her income, so that Felix might again live like a gentleman and marry that heiress who, in Lady Carbury's look-out into the future, was destined to make all things straight! Who was so handsome as her son? Who could make himself more agreeable? Who had more of that audacity which is the chief thing necessary to the winning of heiresses? And then he could make his wife Lady Carbury. If only enough money might be earned to tide over the present evil day, all might be well. The one most essential obstacle to the chance of success in all this was probably Lady Carbury's conviction that her end was to be obtained not by producing good books, but by inducing certain people to say that her books were good. She did work hard at what she wrote,--hard enough at any rate to cover her pages quickly; and was, by nature, a clever woman. She could write after a glib, common-place, sprightly fashion, and had already acquired the knack of spreading all she knew very thin, so that it might cover a vast surface. She had no ambition to write a good book, but was painfully anxious to write a book that the critics should say was good. Had Mr. Broune, in his closet, told her that her book was absolutely trash, but had undertaken at the same time to have it violently praised in the "Breakfast Table," it may be doubted whether the critic's own opinion would have even wounded her vanity. The woman was false from head to foot, but there was much of good in her, false though she was. Whether Sir Felix, her son, had become what he was solely by bad training, or whether he had been born bad, who shall say? It is hardly possible that he should not have been better had he been taken away as an infant and subjected to moral training by moral teachers. And yet again it is hardly possible that any training or want of training should have produced a heart so utterly incapable of feeling for others as was his. He could not even feel his own misfortunes unless they touched the outward comforts of the moment. It seemed that he lacked sufficient imagination to realise future misery though the futurity to be considered was divided from the present but by a single month, a single week,--but by a single night. He liked to be kindly treated, to be praised and petted, to be well fed and caressed; and they who so treated him were his chosen friends. He had in this the instincts of a horse, not approaching the higher sympathies of a dog. But it cannot be said of him that he had ever loved any one to the extent of denying himself a moment's gratification on that loved one's behalf. His heart was a stone. But he was beautiful to look at, ready-witted, and intelligent. He was very dark, with that soft olive complexion which so generally gives to young men an appearance of aristocratic breeding. His hair, which was never allowed to become long, was nearly black, and was soft and silky without that taint of grease which is so common with silken-headed darlings. His eyes were long, brown in colour, and were made beautiful by the perfect arch of the perfect eyebrow. But perhaps the glory of the face was due more to the finished moulding and fine symmetry of the nose and mouth than to his other features. On his short upper lip he had a moustache as well formed as his eyebrows, but he wore no other beard. The form of his chin too was perfect, but it lacked that sweetness and softness of expression, indicative of softness of heart, which a dimple conveys. He was about five feet nine in height, and was as excellent in figure as in face. It was admitted by men and clamorously asserted by women that no man had ever been more handsome than Felix Carbury, and it was admitted also that he never showed consciousness of his beauty. He had given himself airs on many scores;--on the score of his money, poor fool, while it lasted; on the score of his title; on the score of his army standing till he lost it; and especially on the score of superiority in fashionable intellect. But he had been clever enough to dress himself always with simplicity and to avoid the appearance of thought about his outward man. As yet the little world of his associates had hardly found out how callous were his affections,--or rather how devoid he was of affection. His airs and his appearance, joined with some cleverness, had carried him through even the viciousness of his life. In one matter he had marred his name, and by a moment's weakness had injured his character among his friends more than he had done by the folly of three years. There had been a quarrel between him and a brother officer, in which he had been the aggressor; and, when the moment came in which a man's heart should have produced manly conduct, he had first threatened and had then shown the white feather. That was now a year since, and he had partly outlived the evil;--but some men still remembered that Felix Carbury had been cowed, and had cowered. It was now his business to marry an heiress. He was well aware that it was so, and was quite prepared to face his destiny. But he lacked something in the art of making love. He was beautiful, had the manners of a gentleman, could talk well, lacked nothing of audacity, and had no feeling of repugnance at declaring a passion which he did not feel. But he knew so little of the passion, that he could hardly make even a young girl believe that he felt it. When he talked of love, he not only thought that he was talking nonsense, but showed that he thought so. From this fault he had already failed with one young lady reputed to have 40,000, who had refused him because, as she naively said, she knew "he did not really care." "How can I show that I care more than by wishing to make you my wife?" he had asked. "I don't know that you can, but all the same you don't care," she said. And so that young lady escaped the pit-fall. Now there was another young lady, to whom the reader shall be introduced in time, whom Sir Felix was instigated to pursue with unremitting diligence. Her wealth was not defined, as had been the 40,000 of her predecessor, but was known to be very much greater than that. It was, indeed, generally supposed to be fathomless, bottomless, endless. It was said that in regard to money for ordinary expenditure, money for houses, servants, horses, jewels, and the like, one sum was the same as another to the father of this young lady. He had great concerns;--concerns so great that the payment of ten or twenty thousand pounds upon any trifle was the same thing to him,--as to men who are comfortable in their circumstances it matters little whether they pay sixpence or ninepence for their mutton chops. Such a man may be ruined at any time; but there was no doubt that to any one marrying his daughter during the present season of his outrageous prosperity he could give a very large fortune indeed. Lady Carbury, who had known the rock on which her son had been once wrecked, was very anxious that Sir Felix should at once make a proper use of the intimacy which he had effected in the house of this topping Croesus of the day. And now there must be a few words said about Henrietta Carbury. Of course she was of infinitely less importance than her brother, who was a baronet, the head of that branch of the Carburys, and her mother's darling; and, therefore, a few words should suffice. She also was very lovely, being like her brother; but somewhat less dark and with features less absolutely regular. But she had in her countenance a full measure of that sweetness of expression which seems to imply that consideration of self is subordinated to consideration for others. This sweetness was altogether lacking to her brother. And her face was a true index of her character. Again, who shall say why the brother and sister had become so opposite to each other; whether they would have been thus different had both been taken away as infants from their father's and mother's training, or whether the girl's virtues were owing altogether to the lower place which she had held in her parent's heart? She, at any rate, had not been spoilt by a title, by the command of money, and by the temptations of too early acquaintance with the world. At the present time she was barely twenty-one years old, and had not seen much of London society. Her mother did not frequent balls, and during the last two years there had grown upon them a necessity for economy which was inimical to many gloves and costly dresses. Sir Felix went out of course, but Hetta Carbury spent most of her time at home with her mother in Welbeck Street. Occasionally the world saw her, and when the world did see her the world declared that she was a charming girl. The world was so far right. But for Henrietta Carbury the romance of life had already commenced in real earnest. There was another branch of the Carburys, the head branch, which was now represented by one Roger Carbury, of Carbury Hall. Roger Carbury was a gentleman of whom much will have to be said, but here, at this moment, it need only be told that he was passionately in love with his cousin Henrietta. He was, however, nearly forty years old, and there was one Paul Montague whom Henrietta had seen.

Dishonest as were Lady Carbury's letters to the editors, and the system by which she was trying to achieve success, nevertheless her statements about herself were largely true. She had been ill-treated. She had been slandered. She was devoted to her children - one of them especially - and was ready to work her nails off to advance their interests. She was the widow of one Sir Patrick Carbury, who had done great things as a soldier in India, and had been made a baronet. He had married a young wife late in life and, having found out too late that he had made a mistake, had occasionally spoilt his darling and occasionally ill-used her. As for Lady Carbury, when as a very lovely and penniless girl of eighteen she had consented to marry a wealthy man of forty-four, she had made up her mind to abandon all hope of romantic love. Sir Patrick was red-faced, stout, bald, short-tempered, generous in money, suspicious and intelligent. He knew how to govern men. He could read and understand a book. There was nothing mean about him. He had his attractive qualities. He was a man who might be loved; but he was hardly a man for love. The young Lady Carbury had understood her position and had determined to do her duty. She had never flirted. For fifteen years her marriage had been tolerable. A boy and a girl had been born, to whom both father and mother had been over-indulgent. Lady Carbury was clever, educated, and beautiful. To do her duty correctly, to live in a big house and be respected, had been her ambition - and during the first fifteen years of her married life she was successful amidst great difficulties. But she had all her life been educated in deceit, and her married life had seemed to make the practice of deceit necessary. She would smile within five minutes of violent ill-usage. Her husband would strike her - and her first reaction would be to conceal the fact from all the world. For fifteen years, though Sir Patrick had been imperious and often cruel, he had never been jealous. But in later years he drank too much, and she struggled hard first to prevent the evil, and then to hide its ill effects. But in doing this she schemed, and lied. Then, at last, when she was no longer quite a young woman, she attempted to form friendships for herself, and among her friends was one of the other sex. Lady Carbury was not faithless. But Sir Patrick became jealous, spoke words which even she could not endure - and she left him. Her life at that time is of little importance to our story, except that the reader should know how she had been slandered. For a month or two hard words had been said against her by Sir Patrick and his friends. But gradually the truth was known, and after a year's separation they came together again. She remained the mistress of his house till he died. She brought him home to England when he had become a worn-out invalid. But scandal had followed her, and some people were never tired of reminding others that Lady Carbury had once run away from her husband, and had been taken back again by the kind-hearted old gentleman. Sir Patrick left a moderate fortune, though by no means great wealth. To his son, Sir Felix Carbury, he had left 1,000 a year; and to his widow the same, to be divided between his son and daughter after her death. The young man was in the army when his father died, and, needing no home of his own, often lived in his mother's house. Yet he now had an income equal to that with which his mother and sister had to keep a roof over their head. Now Lady Carbury, when she was widowed at the age of forty, did not intend to pass her future life in grieving. She had endeavoured to do her duty, taking the good and the bad together. She had certainly encountered much that was bad. To be scolded, beaten, and sworn at by a choleric old man till she was at last driven out of her house by his violence; to be taken back as a favour with the assurance that her name would be tarnished for the rest of her life; to have her flight constantly thrown in her face; and then at last to become his nurse, was a high price to pay for the good things she had enjoyed. Now at length had come her reward, her freedom, her chance of happiness. She thought much about herself, and resolved that she would have nothing to do with love. Nor would she marry again for convenience. But she would have friends - real friends, who could help her, and whom possibly she might help. She would make some career for herself, and live in London, and become somebody in some circle. She had known from the first that economy was necessary - not for herself and her daughter, but on behalf of her son. Of her daughter's prudence she was convinced. She could trust Henrietta in everything. But her son, Sir Felix, was not very trustworthy. And yet Sir Felix was the darling of her heart. At the time of the writing of the three letters, she was driven very hard for money. Sir Felix was then twenty-five, had sold out from his regiment, and, to tell the truth, had altogether wasted the property which his father had left him. The mother knew that she must maintain the young baronet. She did not know, however, the amount of his debts - nor, indeed, did he. He had gone a very long way into debt; his life had been in every way bad. He had become so heavy a burden on his mother and sister that their life had become full of unavoidable embarrassments. But neither of them ever quarrelled with Sir Felix. Henrietta had been taught by her parents' conduct that every vice might be forgiven in a man, though every virtue was expected from a woman. It seemed natural to her that her interests should be subservient to her brother's; and when she found that her little comforts were curtailed because he, having eaten up all that was his own, was now eating up all that was his mother's, she never complained. Henrietta had been taught to think that men always did eat up everything. The mother's feeling was more open to blame. Even on his road to ruin she had hardly said a word to stop him. She had spoilt him as a boy, and she spoilt him as a man. She was almost proud of his vices and extravagances. She had so indulged him that he was never ashamed of his selfishness or conscious of the injustice which he did to others. Because of this, Lady Carbury's dabbling in literature had become hard work by which money might be earned. When she wrote to the editors of her struggles, she was speaking the truth. Other women made good earnings from literature. Why should she not add a thousand a year to her income, so that Felix might again live like a gentleman and marry an heiress? Who was so handsome as her son? Who could make himself more agreeable? If only enough money might be earned to tide her over the present evil day, all might be well. However, Lady Carbury was convinced that she would achieve success not by producing good books, but by persuading people to say that her books were good. She worked hard and wrote quickly; and was a clever woman. She wrote with a glib, sprightly style, and had acquired the knack of spreading all she knew very thin, so that it might cover a vast surface. She had no ambition to write a good book, but was painfully anxious to write a book that the critics should say was good. The woman was false from head to foot, yet there was much of good in her. Whether Sir Felix, her son, had become what he was by bad training, or whether he had been born bad, who shall say? Surely any lack of training could not have produced a heart so utterly incapable of feeling. He could not even feel his own misfortunes unless they touched his outward comforts. He lacked the imagination to think of future misery even a month ahead, or a week - or a single night. He liked to be kindly treated, to be praised and petted and well fed; in this he had the instincts of a horse, not even the higher sympathies of a dog. He had never loved anyone enough to deny himself a moment's gratification. His heart was a stone. But he was beautiful to look at, ready-witted, and intelligent. His hair was nearly black, soft and silky. His eyes were long and brown, made beautiful by the perfect arch of the eyebrow. But perhaps the glory of the face was in the fine moulding of the nose and mouth. He had a well-formed moustache, but no beard; his chin was perfect. He was as excellent in figure as in face. It was admitted by men and asserted by women that no man had ever been more handsome than Felix Carbury, and it was admitted also that he never showed consciousness of his beauty. He gave himself airs on many scores; his money, his title, and his intellect. But he was clever enough to dress simply and avoid the appearance of vanity. As yet, his associates had hardly found out how devoid he was of affection. In one matter he had marred his name, and by a moment's weakness had injured his character among his friends. He had started a quarrel with a brother officer; and when he should have acted with manly conduct, he had first threatened and had then shown the white feather. That was now a year since, but men still remembered that Felix Carbury had cowered. It was now his business to marry an heiress. He was quite prepared for it. But he lacked the art of making love. He had the manners of a gentleman, could talk well, and felt no repugnance at declaring a passion he did not feel. But he knew so little of love, that when he talked of it he showed that he thought it was nonsense. Due to this fault he had already failed with one young lady, who had refused him because "he did not really care." And so that young lady escaped the pit-fall. Now there was another young lady whom Sir Felix was urged to pursue. Her wealth was known to be very great. It was, indeed, generally supposed to be endless, since the young lady's father had such great concerns in business that ten or twenty thousand pounds was but a trifle to him. Such a man may be ruined at any time; but there was no doubt that to anyone marrying his daughter during his present outrageous prosperity he could give a very large fortune indeed. Lady Carbury was very anxious that Sir Felix should pursue this magnate's daughter. And now there must be a few words said about Henrietta Carbury. Of course she was of infinitely less importance than her brother, so a few words should suffice. She was very lovely, like her brother; though less dark and with less regular features. But her face had a sweetness of expression altogether lacking in her brother. And her face was a true index of her character. Again, who shall say why the brother and sister had become so opposite to each other? She, at any rate, had not been spoilt by a title, and by the temptations of money and society. At present she was twenty-one, and had not seen much of London society. Her mother did not go to balls, and the need for economy had not allowed for gloves and costly dresses. Sir Felix went out of course, but Hetta Carbury spent most of her time at home. Occasionally the world saw her, and declared that she was a charming girl. The world was so far right. But for Henrietta Carbury romance had already commenced in earnest. There was another branch of the Carburys, the head branch, which was represented by one Roger Carbury, of Carbury Hall: a gentlemen of which, at this moment, it need only be said that he was passionately in love with his cousin Henrietta. He was, however, nearly forty years old, and there was one Paul Montague whom Henrietta had seen.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 2: The Carbury Family

Mrs. Hurtle had consented at the joint request of Mrs. Pipkin and John Crumb to postpone her journey to New York and to go down to Bungay and grace the marriage of Ruby Ruggles, not so much from any love for the persons concerned, not so much even from any desire to witness a phase of English life, as from an irresistible tenderness towards Paul Montague. She not only longed to see him once again, but she could with difficulty bring herself to leave the land in which he was living. There was no hope for her. She was sure of that. She had consented to relinquish him. She had condoned his treachery to her,--and for his sake had even been kind to the rival who had taken her place. But still she lingered near him. And then, though, in all her very restricted intercourse with such English people as she met, she never ceased to ridicule things English, yet she dreaded a return to her own country. In her heart of hearts she liked the somewhat stupid tranquillity of the life she saw, comparing it with the rough tempests of her past days. Mrs. Pipkin, she thought, was less intellectual than any American woman she had ever known; and she was quite sure that no human being so heavy, so slow, and so incapable of two concurrent ideas as John Crumb had ever been produced in the United States;--but, nevertheless, she liked Mrs. Pipkin, and almost loved John Crumb. How different would her life have been could she have met a man who would have been as true to her as John Crumb was to his Ruby! She loved Paul Montague with all her heart, and she despised herself for loving him. How weak he was;--how inefficient; how unable to seize glorious opportunities; how swathed and swaddled by scruples and prejudices;--how unlike her own countrymen in quickness of apprehension and readiness of action! But yet she loved him for his very faults, telling herself that there was something sweeter in his English manners than in all the smart intelligence of her own land. The man had been false to her,--false as hell; had sworn to her and had broken his oath; had ruined her whole life; had made everything blank before her by his treachery! But then she also had not been quite true with him. She had not at first meant to deceive;--nor had he. They had played a game against each other; and he, with all the inferiority of his intellect to weigh him down, had won,--because he was a man. She had much time for thinking, and she thought much about these things. He could change his love as often as he pleased, and be as good a lover at the end as ever;--whereas she was ruined by his defection. He could look about for a fresh flower and boldly seek his honey; whereas she could only sit and mourn for the sweets of which she had been rifled. She was not quite sure that such mourning would not be more bitter to her in California than in Mrs. Pipkin's solitary lodgings at Islington. "So he was Mr. Montague's partner,--was he now?" asked Mrs. Pipkin a day or two after their return from the Crumb marriage. For Mr. Fisker had called on Mrs. Hurtle, and Mrs. Hurtle had told Mrs. Pipkin so much. "To my thinking now he's a nicer man than Mr. Montague." Mrs. Pipkin perhaps thought that as her lodger had lost one partner she might be anxious to secure the other;--perhaps felt, too, that it might be well to praise an American at the expense of an Englishman. "There's no accounting for tastes, Mrs. Pipkin." "And that's true, too, Mrs. Hurtle." "Mr. Montague is a gentleman." "I always did say that of him, Mrs. Hurtle." "And Mr. Fisker is--an American citizen." Mrs. Hurtle when she said this was very far gone in tenderness. "Indeed now!" said Mrs. Pipkin, who did not in the least understand the meaning of her friend's last remark. "Mr. Fisker came to me with tidings from San Francisco which I had not heard before, and has offered to take me back with him." Mrs. Pipkin's apron was immediately at her eyes. "I must go some day, you know." "I suppose you must. I couldn't hope as you'd stay here always. I wish I could. I never shall forget the comfort it's been. There hasn't been a week without everything settled; and most ladylike,--most ladylike! You seem to me, Mrs. Hurtle, just as though you had the bank in your pocket." All this the poor woman said, moved by her sorrow to speak the absolute truth. "Mr. Fisker isn't in any way a special friend of mine. But I hear that he will be taking other ladies with him, and I fancy I might as well join the party. It will be less dull for me, and I shall prefer company just at present for many reasons. We shall start on the first of September." As this was said about the middle of August there was still some remnant of comfort for poor Mrs. Pipkin. A fortnight gained was something; and as Mr. Fisker had come to England on business, and as business is always uncertain, there might possibly be further delay. Then Mrs. Hurtle made a further communication to Mrs. Pipkin, which, though not spoken till the latter lady had her hand on the door, was, perhaps, the one thing which Mrs. Hurtle had desired to say. "By-the-bye, Mrs. Pipkin, I expect Mr. Montague to call to-morrow at eleven. Just show him up when he comes." She had feared that unless some such instructions were given, there might be a little scene at the door when the gentleman came. "Mr. Montague;--oh! Of course, Mrs. Hurtle,--of course. I'll see to it myself." Then Mrs. Pipkin went away abashed,--feeling that she had made a great mistake in preferring any other man to Mr. Montague, if, after all, recent difficulties were to be adjusted. On the following morning Mrs. Hurtle dressed herself with almost more than her usual simplicity, but certainly with not less than her usual care, and immediately after breakfast seated herself at her desk, nursing an idea that she would work as steadily for the next hour as though she expected no special visitor. Of course she did not write a word of the task which she had prescribed to herself. Of course she was disturbed in her mind, though she had dictated to herself absolute quiescence. She almost knew that she had been wrong even to desire to see him. She had forgiven him, and what more was there to be said? She had seen the girl, and had in some fashion approved of her. Her curiosity had been satisfied, and her love of revenge had been sacrificed. She had no plan arranged as to what she would now say to him, nor did she at this moment attempt to make a plan. She could tell him that she was about to return to San Francisco with Fisker, but she did not know that she had anything else to say. Then came the knock at the door. Her heart leaped within her, and she made a last great effort to be tranquil. She heard the steps on the stairs, and then the door was opened and Mr. Montague was announced by Mrs. Pipkin herself. Mrs. Pipkin, however, quite conquered by a feeling of gratitude to her lodger, did not once look in through the door, nor did she pause a moment to listen at the keyhole. "I thought you would come and see me once again before I went," said Mrs. Hurtle, not rising from her sofa, but putting out her hand to greet him. "Sit there opposite, so that we can look at one another. I hope it has not been a trouble to you." "Of course I came when you left word for me to do so." "I certainly should not have expected it from any wish of your own." "I should not have dared to come, had you not bade me. You know that." "I know nothing of the kind;--but as you are here we will not quarrel as to your motives. Has Miss Carbury pardoned you as yet? Has she forgiven your sins?" "We are friends,--if you mean that." "Of course you are friends. She only wanted to have somebody to tell her that somebody had maligned you. It mattered not much who it was. She was ready to believe any one who would say a good word for you. Perhaps I wasn't just the person to do it, but I believe even I was sufficient to serve the turn." "Did you say a good word for me?" "Well; no;" replied Mrs. Hurtle. "I will not boast that I did. I do not want to tell you fibs at our last meeting. I said nothing good of you. What could I say of good? But I told her what was quite as serviceable to you as though I had sung your virtues by the hour without ceasing. I explained to her how very badly you had behaved to me. I let her know that from the moment you had seen her, you had thrown me to the winds." "It was not so, my friend." "What did that matter? One does not scruple a lie for a friend, you know! I could not go into all the little details of your perfidies. I could not make her understand during one short and rather agonizing interview how you had allowed yourself to be talked out of your love for me by English propriety even before you had seen her beautiful eyes. There was no reason why I should tell her all my disgrace,--anxious as I was to be of service. Besides, as I put it, she was sure to be better pleased. But I did tell her how unwillingly you had spared me an hour of your company;--what a trouble I had been to you;--how you would have shirked me if you could!" "Winifrid, that is untrue." "That wretched journey to Lowestoft was the great crime. Mr. Roger Carbury, who I own is poison to me--" "You do not know him." "Knowing him or not I choose to have my own opinion, sir. I say that he is poison to me, and I say that he had so stuffed her mind with the flagrant sin of that journey, with the peculiar wickedness of our having lived for two nights under the same roof, with the awful fact that we had travelled together in the same carriage, till that had become the one stumbling block on your path to happiness." "He never said a word to her of our being there." "Who did then? But what matters? She knew it;--and, as the only means of whitewashing you in her eyes, I did tell her how cruel and how heartless you had been to me. I did explain how the return of friendship which you had begun to show me, had been frozen, harder than Wenham ice, by the appearance of Mr. Carbury on the sands. Perhaps I went a little farther and hinted that the meeting had been arranged as affording you the easiest means of escape from me." "You do not believe that." "You see I had your welfare to look after; and the baser your conduct had been to me, the truer you were in her eyes. Do I not deserve some thanks for what I did? Surely you would not have had me tell her that your conduct to me had been that of a loyal, loving gentleman. I confessed to her my utter despair;--I abased myself in the dust, as a woman is abased who has been treacherously ill-used, and has failed to avenge herself. I knew that when she was sure that I was prostrate and hopeless she would be triumphant and contented. I told her on your behalf how I had been ground to pieces under your chariot wheels. And now you have not a word of thanks to give me!" "Every word you say is a dagger." "You know where to go for salve for such skin-deep scratches as I make. Where am I to find a surgeon who can put together my crushed bones? Daggers, indeed! Do you not suppose that in thinking of you I have often thought of daggers? Why have I not thrust one into your heart, so that I might rescue you from the arms of this puny, spiritless English girl?" All this time she was still seated, looking at him, leaning forward towards him with her hands upon her brow. "But, Paul, I spit out my words to you, like any common woman, not because they will hurt you, but because I know I may take that comfort, such as it is, without hurting you. You are uneasy for a moment while you are here, and I have a cruel pleasure in thinking that you cannot answer me. But you will go from me to her, and then will you not be happy? When you are sitting with your arm round her waist, and when she is playing with your smiles, will the memory of my words interfere with your joy then? Ask yourself whether the prick will last longer than the moment. But where am I to go for happiness and joy? Can you understand what it is to have to live only on retrospects?" "I wish I could say a word to comfort you." "You cannot say a word to comfort me, unless you will unsay all that you have said since I have been in England. I never expect comfort again. But, Paul, I will not be cruel to the end. I will tell you all that I know of my concerns, even though my doing so should justify your treatment of me. He is not dead." "You mean Mr. Hurtle." "Whom else should I mean? And he himself says that the divorce which was declared between us was no divorce. Mr. Fisker came here to me with tidings. Though he is not a man whom I specially love,--though I know that he has been my enemy with you,--I shall return with him to San Francisco." "I am told that he is taking Madame Melmotte with him, and Melmotte's daughter." "So I understand. They are adventurers,--as I am, and I do not see why we should not suit each other." "They say also that Fisker will marry Miss Melmotte." "Why should I object to that? I shall not be jealous of Mr. Fisker's attentions to the young lady. But it will suit me to have some one to whom I can speak on friendly terms when I am back in California. I may have a job of work to do there which will require the backing of some friends. I shall be hand-and-glove with these people before I have travelled half across the ocean with them." "I hope they will be kind to you," said Paul. "No;--but I will be kind to them. I have conquered others by being kind, but I have never had much kindness myself. Did I not conquer you, sir, by being gentle and gracious to you? Ah, how kind I was to that poor wretch, till he lost himself in drink! And then, Paul, I used to think of better people, perhaps of softer people, of things that should be clean and sweet and gentle,--of things that should smell of lavender instead of wild garlic. I would dream of fair, feminine women,--of women who would be scared by seeing what I saw, who would die rather than do what I did. And then I met you, Paul, and I said that my dreams should come true. I ought to have known that it could not be so. I did not dare quite to tell you all the truth. I know I was wrong, and now the punishment has come upon me. Well;--I suppose you had better say good-bye to me. What is the good of putting it off?" Then she rose from her chair and stood before him with her arms hanging listlessly by her side. "God bless you, Winifrid!" he said, putting out his hand to her. "But he won't. Why should he,--if we are right in supposing that they who do good will be blessed for their good, and those who do evil cursed for their evil? I cannot do good. I cannot bring myself now not to wish that you would return to me. If you would come I should care nothing for the misery of that girl,--nothing, at least nothing now, for the misery I should certainly bring upon you. Look here;--will you have this back?" As she asked this she took from out her bosom a small miniature portrait of himself which he had given her in New York, and held it towards him. "If you wish it I will,--of course," he said. "I would not part with it for all the gold in California. Nothing on earth shall ever part me from it. Should I ever marry another man,--as I may do,--he must take me and this together. While I live it shall be next my heart. As you know, I have but little respect for the proprieties of life. I do not see why I am to abandon the picture of the man I love because he becomes the husband of another woman. Having once said that I love you I shall not contradict myself because you have deserted me. Paul, I have loved you, and do love you,--oh, with my very heart of hearts." So speaking she threw herself into his arms and covered his face with kisses. "For one moment you shall not banish me. For one short minute I will be here. Oh, Paul, my love;--my love!" All this to him was simply agony,--though as she had truly said it was an agony he would soon forget. But to be told by a woman of her love,--without being able even to promise love in return,--to be so told while you are in the very act of acknowledging your love for another woman,--carries with it but little of the joy of triumph. He did not want to see her raging like a tigress, as he had once thought might be his fate; but he would have preferred the continuance of moderate resentment to this flood of tenderness. Of course he stood with his arm round her waist, and of course he returned her caresses; but he did it with such stiff constraint that she at once felt how chill they were. "There," she said, smiling through her bitter tears,--"there; you are released now, and not even my fingers shall ever be laid upon you again. If I have annoyed you, at this our last meeting, you must forgive me." "No;--but you cut me to the heart." "That we can hardly help;--can we? When two persons have made fools of themselves as we have, there must I suppose be some punishment. Yours will never be heavy after I am gone. I do not start till the first of next month because that is the day fixed by our friend, Mr. Fisker, and I shall remain here till then because my presence is convenient to Mrs. Pipkin; but I need not trouble you to come to me again. Indeed it will be better that you should not. Good-bye." He took her by the hand, and stood for a moment looking at her, while she smiled and gently nodded her head at him. Then he essayed to pull her towards him as though he would again kiss her. But she repulsed him, still smiling the while. "No, sir; no; not again; never again, never,--never,--never again." By that time she had recovered her hand and stood apart from him. "Good-bye, Paul;--and now go." Then he turned round and left the room without uttering a word. She stood still, without moving a limb, as she listened to his step down the stairs and to the opening and the closing of the door. Then hiding herself at the window with the scanty drapery of the curtain she watched him as he went along the street. When he had turned the corner she came back to the centre of the room, stood for a moment with her arms stretched out towards the walls, and then fell prone upon the floor. She had spoken the very truth when she said that she had loved him with all her heart. [Illlustration: Mrs. Hurtle at the window.] But that evening she bade Mrs. Pipkin drink tea with her and was more gracious to the poor woman than ever. When the obsequious but still curious landlady asked some question about Mr. Montague, Mrs. Hurtle seemed to speak very freely on the subject of her late lover,--and to speak without any great pain. They had put their heads together, she said, and had found that the marriage would not be suitable. Each of them preferred their own country, and so they had agreed to part. On that evening Mrs. Hurtle made herself more than usually pleasant, having the children up into her room, and giving them jam and bread-and-butter. During the whole of the next fortnight she seemed to take a delight in doing all in her power for Mrs. Pipkin and her family. She gave toys to the children, and absolutely bestowed upon Mrs. Pipkin a new carpet for the drawing-room. Then Mr. Fisker came and took her away with him to America; and Mrs. Pipkin was left,--a desolate but grateful woman. "They do tell bad things about them Americans," she said to a friend in the street, "and I don't pretend to know. But for a lodger, I only wish Providence would send me another just like the one I have lost. She had that good nature about her she liked to see the bairns eating pudding just as if they was her own." I think Mrs. Pipkin was right, and that Mrs. Hurtle, with all her faults, was a good-natured woman.

Mrs. Hurtle had postponed her journey to New York to go to Bungay for the marriage of Ruby Ruggles, not so much from any love for the persons concerned, as from an irresistible tenderness towards Paul Montague. She longed to see him once again, and found it difficult to leave the land in which he was living. She knew there was no hope for her. She had relinquished him. But still she lingered near him. And in her heart of hearts she liked the somewhat stupid tranquillity of life in England compared to the rough tempests of her past days. She even liked Mrs. Pipkin, and almost loved John Crumb. How different would her life have been if she had met a man as true as John Crumb! She loved Paul Montague with all her heart, and she despised herself for loving him. How weak he was; how inefficient; how swathed in scruples and prejudices! Yet she loved him for his very faults, finding something sweet in his English manners. The man had been false to her; but then she had not been quite true with him. Neither had meant to deceive. They had played a game against each other; and he had won - because he was a man. She thought much about these things. He could change his love as often as he pleased, whereas she was ruined by his defection. He could look about for a fresh flower and boldly seek his honey; whereas she could only sit and mourn for the sweets of which she had been robbed. "So Mr. Fisker was Mr. Montague's partner, was he?" asked Mrs. Pipkin a day or two after their return from the Crumb marriage. For Mr. Fisker had called on Mrs. Hurtle. "I think he's a nicer man than Mr. Montague." "Mr. Montague is a gentleman." "I always did say that of him, Mrs. Hurtle." "And Mr. Fisker is - an American citizen. He came to me with news from San Francisco, and has offered to take me back with him. I must go some day, you know." "I suppose you must. I couldn't hope as you'd stay here always, Mrs. Hurtle," said Mrs. Pipkin, starting to weep. "Mr. Fisker will be taking other ladies with him, and I might as well join the party. We shall start on the first of September." As this was said about the middle of August there was still some remnant of comfort for poor Mrs. Pipkin. A fortnight gained was something. Mrs. Hurtle added, with her hand on the door, "By-the-bye, Mrs. Pipkin, I expect Mr. Montague to call tomorrow at eleven. Just show him up when he comes." "Mr. Montague - oh! Of course, Mrs. Hurtle." On the following morning Mrs. Hurtle dressed herself with more than her usual simplicity, but certainly no less than her usual care, and sat at her desk, although she was too disturbed in her mind to work. She knew that she had been wrong even to desire to see him. She had forgiven him, and had seen the girl, and what more was to be said? She had not planned what she would now say to him. Then came the knock at the door. Her heart leaped within her, and she made a last great effort to be tranquil. She heard the steps on the stairs, and then the door was opened and Mr. Montague was announced. "I thought you would come and see me once again before I went," said Mrs. Hurtle, putting out her hand to greet him. "I hope it has not been a trouble to you." "I should not have dared to come, had you not asked me. You know that." "I know nothing of the kind; but as you are here we will not quarrel about it. Has Miss Carbury pardoned you yet?" "We are friends, if you mean that." "Of course you are friends. She only wanted to have somebody to tell her that you had been maligned. She was ready to believe anyone who would say a good word for you." "Did you say a good word for me?" "Well; no," replied Mrs. Hurtle. "What could I say that was good? I explained to her how very badly you had behaved to me. I let her know that from the moment you had seen her, you had thrown me to the winds." "It was not so, my friend." "What did that matter? I could not make her understand during one short and rather agonizing interview how you had allowed yourself to be talked out of your love for me by English propriety even before you had seen her beautiful eyes. But I did tell her what a trouble I had been to you; how you would have shirked me if you could!" "Winifrid, that is untrue." "That wretched journey to Lowestoft was the great crime. Mr. Roger Carbury, who is poison to me-" "You do not know him. He never said a word to her of our being there." "Who did then? But what matters? She knew it; and, as the only means of whitewashing you in her eyes, I told her how cruel and heartless you had been to me. The baser your conduct had been to me, the truer you were in her eyes. Do I not deserve some thanks? I abased myself in the dust. I knew that she would be triumphant and contented. I told her on your behalf how I had been ground to pieces under your chariot wheels. And now you have not a word of thanks to give me!" "Every word you say is a dagger." "Those are mere scratches that I make. Where am I to find a surgeon who can put together my crushed bones? Daggers, indeed! Why have I not thrust one into your heart?" She gazed at him. "Paul, when you go from me to her, you will be happy. But where am I to go for happiness and joy?" "I wish I could say a word to comfort you." "You cannot. I never expect comfort again. But, Paul, I will not be cruel to the end. I will tell you all that I know of my concerns, even though it may justify your treatment of me. He is not dead." "You mean Mr. Hurtle." "Whom else should I mean? And he says that our divorce was no divorce. Mr. Fisker came here to me with the news. Though he is not a man whom I specially love, I shall return with him to San Francisco. He is taking Madame Melmotte with him, and Melmotte's daughter." "They say that Fisker will marry Miss Melmotte." "Why should I object to that? But it will suit me to have friends when I am back in California." "I hope they will be kind to you," said Paul. "No; but I will be kind to them. I have conquered others by being kind, but I have never had much kindness myself. Did I not conquer you, sir, by being gentle and gracious? Ah, how kind I was to that poor Hurtle, till he lost himself in drink! And then, Paul, I used to think of better, softer people; and when I met you, I said that my dreams should come true. I did not dare to tell you all the truth. I know I was wrong. Well; I suppose you had better say good-bye to me." "God bless you, Winifrid!" he said, putting out his hand. "But he won't. Why should he? I cannot do good. If you would come back to me I should care nothing for that girl's misery. Look here; will you have this back?" She took out a small miniature portrait of himself which he had given her in New York. "If you wish it I will." "I would not part with it for all the gold in California. While I live it shall be next my heart. Having once said that I love you, I shall not contradict myself because you have deserted me. Paul, I have loved you, and do love you - oh, with my very heart of hearts." So speaking she threw herself into his arms and covered his face with kisses. "For one moment you shall not banish me. Oh, Paul, my love - my love!" All this to him was simply agony. He did not want to see her raging like a tigress, as he had thought she might; but he would have preferred a moderate resentment to this flood of tenderness. Of course he stood with his arm round her waist, and of course he returned her caresses; but he did it with such stiff constraint that she felt how chill they were. "There," she said, smiling through her bitter tears; "you are released now. If I have annoyed you, you must forgive me." "No; but you cut me to the heart." "When two persons have made fools of themselves as we have, there must I suppose be some punishment. It is better that you should not come to me again. Good-bye." He took her hand, and stood for a moment looking at her. Then he tried to pull her towards him as though he would again kiss her. But she repulsed him, smiling the while. "No, sir; no; never again." She recovered her hand and stood apart from him. "Good-bye, Paul; and now go." He left the room without a word. She stood still as she listened to his step down the stairs and the opening and closing of the door. She stood for a moment with her arms stretched out, and then fell prone upon the floor. She had spoken the truth when she said that she had loved him with all her heart. But that evening she bade Mrs. Pipkin drink tea with her, and was more gracious than ever. When the curious landlady asked about Mr. Montague, Mrs. Hurtle seemed to speak without any great pain. They had put their heads together, she said, and had found that the marriage would not be suitable. Each of them preferred their own country, and so they had agreed to part. During the next fortnight Mrs. Hurtle seemed to take delight in doing all in her power for Mrs. Pipkin and her family. She gave toys to the children, and bestowed upon Mrs. Pipkin a new carpet for the drawing-room. Then Mr. Fisker came and took her away with him to America; and Mrs. Pipkin was left desolate but grateful. "They tell bad things about them Americans," she said to a friend. "But I only wish Providence would send me another lodger like the one I have lost. She had that good nature about her she liked to see the bairns eating pudding just as if they was her own." I think Mrs. Pipkin was right, and that Mrs. Hurtle, with all her faults, was a good-natured woman.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 97: Mrs. Hurtle's Fate

On the day after the visit just recorded, Paul Montague received the following letter from Mrs. Hurtle:-- MY DEAR PAUL,-- I think that perhaps we hardly made ourselves understood to each other yesterday, and I am sure that you do not understand how absolutely my whole life is now at stake. I need only refer you to our journey from San Francisco to London to make you conscious that I really love you. To a woman such love is all important. She cannot throw it from her as a man may do amidst the affairs of the world. Nor, if it has to be thrown from her, can she bear the loss as a man bears it. Her thoughts have dwelt on it with more constancy than his;--and then too her devotion has separated her from other things. My devotion to you has separated me from everything. But I scorn to come to you as a suppliant. If you choose to say after hearing me that you will put me away from you because you have seen some one fairer than I am, whatever course I may take in my indignation, I shall not throw myself at your feet to tell you of my wrongs. I wish, however, that you should hear me. You say that there is some one you love better than you love me, but that you have not committed yourself to her. Alas, I know too much of the world to be surprised that a man's constancy should not stand out two years in the absence of his mistress. A man cannot wrap himself up and keep himself warm with an absent love as a woman does. But I think that some remembrance of the past must come back upon you now that you have seen me again. I think that you must have owned to yourself that you did love me, and that you could love me again. You sin against me to my utter destruction if you leave me. I have given up every friend I have to follow you. As regards the other--nameless lady, there can be no fault; for, as you tell me, she knows nothing of your passion. You hinted that there were other reasons,--that we know too little of each other. You meant no doubt that you knew too little of me. Is it not the case that you were content when you knew only what was to be learned in those days of our sweet intimacy, but that you have been made discontented by stories told you by your partners at San Francisco? If this be so, trouble yourself at any rate to find out the truth before you allow yourself to treat a woman as you propose to treat me. I think you are too good a man to cast aside a woman you have loved,--like a soiled glove,--because ill-natured words have been spoken of her by men, or perhaps by women, who know nothing of her life. My late husband, Caradoc Hurtle, was Attorney-General in the State of Kansas when I married him, I being then in possession of a considerable fortune left to me by my mother. There his life was infamously bad. He spent what money he could get of mine, and then left me and the State, and took himself to Texas;--where he drank himself to death. I did not follow him, and in his absence I was divorced from him in accordance with the laws of Kansas State. I then went to San Francisco about property of my mother's, which my husband had fraudulently sold to a countryman of ours now resident in Paris,--having forged my name. There I met you, and in that short story I tell you all that there is to be told. It may be that you do not believe me now; but if so, are you not bound to go where you can verify your own doubts or my word? I try to write dispassionately, but I am in truth overborne by passion. I also have heard in California rumours about myself, and after much delay I received your letter. I resolved to follow you to England as soon as circumstances would permit me. I have been forced to fight a battle about my property, and I have won it. I had two reasons for carrying this through by my personal efforts before I saw you. I had begun it and had determined that I would not be beaten by fraud. And I was also determined that I would not plead to you as a pauper. We have talked too freely together in past days of our mutual money matters for me to feel any delicacy in alluding to them. When a man and woman have agreed to be husband and wife there should be no delicacy of that kind. When we came here together we were both embarrassed. We both had some property, but neither of us could enjoy it. Since that I have made my way through my difficulties. From what I have heard at San Francisco I suppose that you have done the same. I at any rate shall be perfectly contented if from this time our affairs can be made one. And now about myself,--immediately. I have come here all alone. Since I last saw you in New York I have not had altogether a good time. I have had a great struggle and have been thrown on my own resources and have been all alone. Very cruel things have been said of me. You heard cruel things said, but I presume them to have been said to you with reference to my late husband. Since that they have been said to others with reference to you. I have not now come, as my countrymen do generally, backed with a trunk full of introductions and with scores of friends ready to receive me. It was necessary to me that I should see you and hear my fate,--and here I am. I appeal to you to release me in some degree from the misery of my solitude. You know,--no one so well,--that my nature is social and that I am not given to be melancholy. Let us be cheerful together, as we once were, if it be only for a day. Let me see you as I used to see you, and let me be seen as I used to be seen. Come to me and take me out with you, and let us dine together, and take me to one of your theatres. If you wish it I will promise you not to allude to that revelation you made to me just now, though of course it is nearer to my heart than any other matter. Perhaps some woman's vanity makes me think that if you would only see me again, and talk to me as you used to talk, you would think of me as you used to think. You need not fear but you will find me at home. I have no whither to go,--and shall hardly stir from the house till you come to me. Send me a line, however, that I may have my hat on if you are minded to do as I ask you. Yours with all my heart, WINIFRID HURTLE. This letter took her much time to write, though she was very careful so to write as to make it seem that it had flown easily from her pen. She copied it from the first draught, but she copied it rapidly, with one or two premeditated erasures, so that it should look to have been done hurriedly. There had been much art in it. She had at any rate suppressed any show of anger. In calling him to her she had so written as to make him feel that if he would come he need not fear the claws of an offended lioness:--and yet she was angry as a lioness who had lost her cub. She had almost ignored that other lady whose name she had not yet heard. She had spoken of her lover's entanglement with that other lady as a light thing which might easily be put aside. She had said much of her own wrongs, but had not said much of the wickedness of the wrong doer. Invited as she had invited him, surely he could not but come to her! And then, in her reference to money, not descending to the details of dollars and cents, she had studied how to make him feel that he might marry her without imprudence. As she read it over to herself she thought that there was a tone through it of natural feminine uncautious eagerness. She put her letter up in an envelope, stuck a stamp on it and addressed it,--and then threw herself back in her chair to think of her position. He should marry her,--or there should be something done which should make the name of Winifrid Hurtle known to the world! She had no plan of revenge yet formed. She would not talk of revenge,--she told herself that she would not even think of revenge,--till she was quite sure that revenge would be necessary. But she did think of it, and could not keep her thoughts from it for a moment. Could it be possible that she, with all her intellectual gifts as well as those of her outward person, should be thrown over by a man whom well as she loved him,--and she did love him with all her heart,--she regarded as greatly inferior to herself! He had promised to marry her; and he should marry her, or the world should hear the story of his perjury! Paul Montague felt that he was surrounded by difficulties as soon as he read the letter. That his heart was all the other way he was quite sure; but yet it did seem to him that there was no escape from his troubles open to him. There was not a single word in this woman's letter that he could contradict. He had loved her and had promised to make her his wife,--and had determined to break his word to her because he found that she was enveloped in dangerous mystery. He had so resolved before he had ever seen Hetta Carbury, having been made to believe by Roger Carbury that a marriage with an unknown American woman,--of whom he only did know that she was handsome and clever,--would be a step to ruin. The woman, as Roger said, was an adventuress,--might never have had a husband,--might at this moment have two or three,--might be overwhelmed with debt,--might be anything bad, dangerous, and abominable. All that he had heard at San Francisco had substantiated Roger's views. "Any scrape is better than that scrape," Roger had said to him. Paul had believed his Mentor, and had believed with a double faith as soon as he had seen Hetta Carbury. But what should he do now? It was impossible, after what had passed between them, that he should leave Mrs. Hurtle at her lodgings at Islington without any notice. It was clear enough to him that she would not consent to be so left. Then her present proposal,--though it seemed to be absurd and almost comical in the tragical condition of their present circumstances,--had in it some immediate comfort. To take her out and give her a dinner, and then go with her to some theatre, would be easy and perhaps pleasant. It would be easier, and certainly much pleasanter, because she had pledged herself to abstain from talking of her grievances. Then he remembered some happy evenings, delicious hours, which he had so passed with her, when they were first together at New York. There could be no better companion for such a festival. She could talk,--and she could listen as well as talk. And she could sit silent, conveying to her neighbour the sense of her feminine charms by her simple proximity. He had been very happy when so placed. Had it been possible he would have escaped the danger now, but the reminiscence of past delights in some sort reconciled him to the performance of this perilous duty. But when the evening should be over, how would he part with her? When the pleasant hour should have passed away and he had brought her back to her door, what should he say to her then? He must make some arrangement as to a future meeting. He knew that he was in a great peril, and he did not know how he might best escape it. He could not now go to Roger Carbury for advice; for was not Roger Carbury his rival? It would be for his friend's interest that he should marry the widow. Roger Carbury, as he knew well, was too honest a man to allow himself to be guided in any advice he might give by such a feeling, but, still, on this matter, he could no longer tell everything to Roger Carbury. He could not say all that he would have to say without speaking of Hetta;--and of his love for Hetta he could not speak to his rival. He had no other friend in whom he could confide. There was no other human being he could trust, unless it was Hetta herself. He thought for a moment that he would write a stern and true letter to the woman, telling her that as it was impossible that there should ever be marriage between them, he felt himself bound to abstain from her society. But then he remembered her solitude, her picture of herself in London without even an acquaintance except himself, and he convinced himself that it would be impossible that he should leave her without seeing her. So he wrote to her thus;-- DEAR WINIFRID, I will come for you to-morrow at half-past five. We will dine together at the Thespian;--and then I will have a box at the Haymarket. The Thespian is a good sort of place, and lots of ladies dine there. You can dine in your bonnet. Yours affectionately, P. M. Some half-formed idea ran through his brain that P. M. was a safer signature than Paul Montague. Then came a long train of thoughts as to the perils of the whole proceeding. She had told him that she had announced herself to the keeper of the lodging-house as engaged to him, and he had in a manner authorised the statement by declining to contradict it at once. And now, after that announcement, he was assenting to her proposal that they should go out and amuse themselves together. Hitherto she had always seemed to him to be open, candid, and free from intrigue. He had known her to be impulsive, capricious, at times violent, but never deceitful. Perhaps he was unable to read correctly the inner character of a woman whose experience of the world had been much wider than his own. His mind misgave him that it might be so; but still he thought that he knew that she was not treacherous. And yet did not her present acts justify him in thinking that she was carrying on a plot against him? The note, however, was sent, and he prepared for the evening of the play, leaving the dangers of the occasion to adjust themselves. He ordered the dinner and he took the box, and at the hour fixed he was again at her lodgings. The woman of the house with a smile showed him into Mrs. Hurtle's sitting-room, and he at once perceived that the smile was intended to welcome him as an accepted lover. It was a smile half of congratulation to the lover, half of congratulation to herself as a woman that another man had been caught by the leg and made fast. Who does not know the smile? What man, who has been caught and made sure, has not felt a certain dissatisfaction at being so treated, understanding that the smile is intended to convey to him a sense of his own captivity? It has, however, generally mattered but little to us. If we have felt that something of ridicule was intended, because we have been regarded as cocks with their spurs cut away, then we also have a pride when we have declared to ourselves that upon the whole we have gained more than we have lost. But with Paul Montague at the present moment there was no satisfaction, no pride,--only a feeling of danger which every hour became deeper, and stronger, with less chance of escape. He was almost tempted at this moment to detain the woman, and tell her the truth,--and bear the immediate consequences. But there would be treason in doing so, and he would not, could not do it. He was left hardly a moment to think of this. Almost before the woman had shut the door, Mrs. Hurtle came to him out of her bedroom, with her hat on her head. Nothing could be more simple than her dress, and nothing prettier. It was now June, and the weather was warm, and the lady wore a light gauzy black dress,--there is a fabric which the milliners I think call grenadine,--coming close up round her throat. It was very pretty, and she was prettier even than her dress. And she had on a hat, black also, small and simple, but very pretty. There are times at which a man going to a theatre with a lady wishes her to be bright in her apparel,--almost gorgeous; in which he will hardly be contented unless her cloak be scarlet, and her dress white, and her gloves of some bright hue,--unless she wear roses or jewels in her hair. It is thus our girls go to the theatre now, when they go intending that all the world shall know who they are. But there are times again in which a man would prefer that his companion should be very quiet in her dress,--but still pretty; in which he would choose that she should dress herself for him only. All this Mrs. Hurtle had understood accurately; and Paul Montague, who understood nothing of it, was gratified. "You told me to have a hat, and here I am,--hat and all." She gave him her hand, and laughed, and looked pleasantly at him, as though there was no cause of unhappiness between them. The lodging-house woman saw them enter the cab, and muttered some little word as they went off. Paul did not hear the word, but was sure that it bore some indistinct reference to his expected marriage. Neither during the drive, nor at the dinner, nor during the performance at the theatre, did she say a word in allusion to her engagement. It was with them, as in former days it had been at New York. She whispered pleasant words to him, touching his arm now and again with her finger as she spoke, seeming ever better inclined to listen than to speak. Now and again she referred, after some slightest fashion, to little circumstances that had occurred between them, to some joke, some hour of tedium, some moment of delight; but it was done as one man might do it to another,--if any man could have done it so pleasantly. There was a scent which he had once approved, and now she bore it on her handkerchief. There was a ring which he had once given her, and she wore it on the finger with which she touched his sleeve. With his own hands he had once adjusted her curls, and each curl was as he had placed it. She had a way of shaking her head, that was very pretty,--a way that might, one would think, have been dangerous at her age, as likely to betray those first grey hairs which will come to disturb the last days of youth. He had once told her in sport to be more careful. She now shook her head again, and, as he smiled, she told him that she could still dare to be careless. There are a thousand little silly softnesses which are pretty and endearing between acknowledged lovers, with which no woman would like to dispense, to which even men who are in love submit sometimes with delight; but which in other circumstances would be vulgar,--and to the woman distasteful. There are closenesses and sweet approaches, smiles and nods and pleasant winkings, whispers, innuendoes and hints, little mutual admirations and assurances that there are things known to those two happy ones of which the world beyond is altogether ignorant. Much of this comes of nature, but something of it sometimes comes by art. Of such art as there may be in it Mrs. Hurtle was a perfect master. No allusion was made to their engagement,--not an unpleasant word was spoken; but the art was practised with all its pleasant adjuncts. Paul was flattered to the top of his bent; and, though the sword was hanging over his head, though he knew that the sword must fall,--must partly fall that very night,--still he enjoyed it. There are men who, of their natures, do not like women, even though they may have wives and legions of daughters, and be surrounded by things feminine in all the affairs of their lives. Others again have their strongest affinities and sympathies with women, and are rarely altogether happy when removed from their influence. Paul Montague was of the latter sort. At this time he was thoroughly in love with Hetta Carbury, and was not in love with Mrs. Hurtle. He would have given much of his golden prospects in the American railway to have had Mrs. Hurtle reconveyed suddenly to San Francisco. And yet he had a delight in her presence. "The acting isn't very good," he said when the piece was nearly over. "What does it signify? What we enjoy or what we suffer depends upon the humour. The acting is not first-rate, but I have listened and laughed and cried, because I have been happy." He was bound to tell her that he also had enjoyed the evening, and was bound to say it in no voice of hypocritical constraint. "It has been very jolly," he said. "And one has so little that is really jolly, as you call it. I wonder whether any girl ever did sit and cry like that because her lover talked to another woman. What I find fault with is that the writers and actors are so ignorant of men and women as we see them every day. It's all right that she should cry, but she shouldn't cry there." The position described was so nearly her own, that he could say nothing to this. She had so spoken on purpose,--fighting her own battle after her own fashion, knowing well that her words would confuse him. "A woman hides such tears. She may be found crying because she is unable to hide them;--but she does not willingly let the other woman see them. Does she?" "I suppose not." "Medea did not weep when she was introduced to Creusa." "Women are not all Medeas," he replied. "There's a dash of the savage princess about most of them. I am quite ready if you like. I never want to see the curtain fall. And I have had no nosegay brought in a wheelbarrow to throw on to the stage. Are you going to see me home?" "Certainly." "You need not. I'm not a bit afraid of a London cab by myself." But of course he accompanied her to Islington. He owed her at any rate as much as that. She continued to talk during the whole journey. What a wonderful place London was,--so immense, but so dirty! New York of course was not so big, but was, she thought, pleasanter. But Paris was the gem of gems among towns. She did not like Frenchmen, and she liked Englishmen even better than Americans; but she fancied that she could never like English women. "I do so hate all kinds of buckram. I like good conduct, and law, and religion too if it be not forced down one's throat; but I hate what your women call propriety. I suppose what we have been doing to-night is very improper; but I am quite sure that it has not been in the least wicked." "I don't think it has," said Paul Montague very tamely. It is a long way from the Haymarket to Islington, but at last the cab reached the lodging-house door. "Yes, this is it," she said. "Even about the houses there is an air of stiff-necked propriety which frightens me." She was getting out as she spoke, and he had already knocked at the door. "Come in for one moment," she said as he paid the cabman. The woman the while was standing with the door in her hand. It was near midnight,--but, when people are engaged, hours do not matter. The woman of the house, who was respectability herself,--a nice kind widow, with five children, named Pipkin,--understood that and smiled again as he followed the lady into the sitting-room. She had already taken off her hat and was flinging it on to the sofa as he entered. "Shut the door for one moment," she said; and he shut it. Then she threw herself into his arms, not kissing him but looking up into his face. "Oh Paul," she exclaimed, "my darling! Oh Paul, my love! I will not bear to be separated from you. No, no;--never. I swear it, and you may believe me. There is nothing I cannot do for love of you,--but to lose you." Then she pushed him from her and looked away from him, clasping her hands together. "But Paul, I mean to keep my pledge to you to-night. It was to be an island in our troubles, a little holiday in our hard school-time, and I will not destroy it at its close. You will see me again soon,--will you not?" He nodded assent, then took her in his arms and kissed her, and left her without a word.

On the next day, Paul Montague received this letter from Mrs. Hurtle: My dear Paul, I think that perhaps we hardly understood each other yesterday, and I am sure that you do not understand how absolutely my whole life is now at stake. I need only refer you to our journey from San Francisco to London to make you conscious that I really love you. To a woman such love is all important. She cannot throw it from her as a man may. Nor can she bear the loss as a man bears it. Her thoughts have dwelt on it with more constancy than his; and her devotion has separated her from other things. My devotion to you has separated me from everything. If you say that you will discard me because you have seen some one fairer, I shall not throw myself at your feet. I wish, however, that you should hear me. You say that there is someone you love better than me, but that you have not committed yourself to her. But I think that you must remember the past now that you have seen me again. I think that you must know that you did love me, and that you could love me again. You sin against me to my utter destruction if you leave me. I have given up every friend I have to follow you. As regards the other lady, there can be no fault; for she knows nothing of your passion. You hinted that there were other reasons - that we know too little of each other. You meant that you knew too little of me. Yet have you not merely been made discontented by stories told you at San Francisco? Find out the truth before you treat me the way you propose to. I think you are too good a man to cast aside a woman like a soiled glove, because ill-natured words have been spoken of her by people who know nothing of her life. My late husband, Caradoc Hurtle, was Attorney-General in Kansas when I married him, bringing to him a fortune left to me by my mother. There his life was infamously bad. He spent my money, and then left me and took himself to Texas - where he drank himself to death. I did not follow him, and in his absence I was divorced from him in accordance with the laws of Kansas State. I then went to San Francisco about property of my mother's, which my husband had fraudulently sold, having forged my name. There I met you, and that is all that there is to be told. Maybe you do not believe me; but if so, are you not bound to go where you can verify your doubts? I try to write dispassionately, but I am in truth overcome by passion. I also have heard in California rumours about myself. When I received your letter, I resolved to follow you to England as soon as I could. I have been forced to fight a battle for my property, and I have won it; for I was determined that I would not plead to you as a pauper. When a man and woman have agreed to be husband and wife there should be no delicacy in talking about money. I have made my way through my difficulties, and from what I have heard at San Francisco, I suppose you have done the same. And now about myself. I have come here all alone. Since I last saw you in New York I have not had a good time. I have had a great struggle and have been thrown on my own resources. Very cruel things have been said of me - some of them with reference to you. I have no friends here ready to receive me. I needed to see you and hear my fate - and I appeal to you to release me from the misery of my solitude. You know that I am not usually melancholy. Let us be cheerful together, as we once were, if only for a day. Come and take me out, and let us dine together, and go to one of your theatres. If you wish I will promise not to allude to that revelation you made to me. Perhaps a woman's vanity makes me think that if you would only see me again, and talk to me as you used to talk, you would think of me as you used to think. You will find me at home, for I have nowhere else to go. Send me a line. Yours with all my heart, Winifred Hurtle. This letter took her much time to write, though she was very careful to make it seem that it had flown easily from her pen. She copied it rapidly from the first draft, with one or two premeditated erasures, so that it should look to have been done hurriedly. She had suppressed her anger - and yet she was as angry as a lioness who had lost her cub. Invited as she had invited him, surely he must come to her! As she read it over she thought that it had a tone of natural feminine eagerness. She put her letter in an envelope, addressed it, and then threw herself back in her chair to think. He should marry her - or the name of Winifrid Hurtle would become known to the world! She had no plan of revenge yet formed - she told herself she would not even think of revenge, till she was quite sure that revenge would be necessary. But she did think of it all the time. Could it be possible that she, with all her cleverness and good looks, should be thrown over by a man who - well as she loved him - she regarded as greatly inferior to herself? He had promised to marry her; and he should marry her, or the world should hear the story of his perjury! Paul Montague felt that he was surrounded by difficulties as soon as he read the letter. It did not seem that there was any escape open to him. There was not a single word in the letter that he could contradict. He had loved her and had promised to marry her - and had determined to break his word because, as Roger said, she was an adventuress, about whom he knew almost nothing. "Any scrape is better than that scrape," Roger had said, and Paul had believed him; and had believed doubly once he had met Hetta Carbury. But what should he do now? It was impossible, after what had passed between them, that he should leave Mrs. Hurtle immediately. It was clear that she would not consent to be so left. Her present proposal held some comfort. To take her out to dinner and the theatre would be easy and perhaps pleasant. He remembered some delightful evenings which he had so passed with her, when they were first together at New York. She could both talk and listen, and he had been very happy to sit next to her. The reminiscence partly reconciled him to doing this perilous duty. But when the evening was over, how would he part with her? What should he say to her then? He must arrange some future meeting. He knew that he was in great peril, and he did not know how to escape it. He could not ask Roger Carbury for advice; for was not Roger his rival? He had no other friend in whom he could confide. He thought for a moment of writing a stern and true letter to Mrs. Hurtle, telling her that he felt himself bound to stay away. But then he remembered her solitude in London, and he convinced himself that he ought to see her. So he wrote to her thus: Dear Winifred, I will come for you tomorrow at half-past five. We will dine together at the Thespian; and then I will have a box at the Haymarket Theatre. The Thespian is a good sort of place, and lots of ladies dine there. You can dine in your bonnet. Yours affectionately, P. M. Some half-formed idea ran through his brain that P. M. was a safer signature than Paul Montague. Then came a long train of thoughts as to the perils of the whole proceeding. She had told her landlady that she was engaged to him, and he had not contradicted it. And now he was agreeing to go out with her. However, the note was sent, and he ordered the dinner and the box. At the hour fixed he was again at her lodgings. The woman who owned the lodging-house showed him into Mrs. Hurtle's sitting-room, welcoming him with a congratulatory smile. Paul Montague felt no satisfaction at this - only a sense of danger which every hour became stronger. He was almost tempted to tell the woman the truth; but he could not do it. Mrs. Hurtle came out of her bedroom, with her hat on. It was now June, and the weather was warm, and she wore a light, gauzy black dress coming close up round her throat. It was very pretty, and she was even prettier. Her hat was black also, small and simple. There are times at which a man going to a theatre with a lady wishes her to look bright and gorgeous; but there are also times when he would prefer that his companion should be very quiet in her dress, but still pretty; in other words, that she should dress for him only. All this Mrs. Hurtle had understood; and Paul, who understood nothing of it, was gratified. "You told me to have a hat, and here I am - hat and all." She gave him her hand, and laughed pleasantly as they entered a cab. Neither during the drive, nor at the dinner, nor at the theatre, did she say a word about the engagement. It was as it had been in former days. She whispered pleasant words, touching his arm now and again, seeming more inclined to listen than to speak. Now and again she referred, in the lightest fashion, to little things that had happened between them, to some joke, some hour of tedium, some moment of delight. There was a scent which he had once approved, and now she bore it on her handkerchief. There was a ring which he had once given her, and she wore it on the finger with which she touched his sleeve. She had a way of shaking her head that was very pretty, which she did now. There are a thousand little silly softnesses which are endearing between acknowledged lovers; and Mrs. Hurtle was a perfect master of the art of these. Not an unpleasant word was spoken; Paul was flattered; and though the sword was hanging over his head, still he enjoyed it. There are men who do not like women, even though they may have wives and legions of daughters. But others have their strongest affinities and sympathies with women, and Paul Montague was of the latter sort. At this time he was thoroughly in love with Hetta Carbury, and was not in love with Mrs. Hurtle; yet he delighted in her presence. "The acting isn't very good," he said towards the end of the play. "What does it matter? The acting is not first-rate, but I have listened and laughed and cried, because I have been happy." "It has been very jolly," he admitted. "And one has so little that is really jolly, as you call it. I wonder whether any girl ever did sit and cry like that because her lover talked to another woman. What I find fault with is that the writers and actors are so ignorant of people as we see them every day. It's all right that she should cry, but she shouldn't cry there." She spoke knowing that her words would confuse him. "A woman hides such tears. She may be found crying because she is unable to hide them; but she does not let the other woman see them. Does she?" "I suppose not." "I am quite ready if you like. Are you going to see me home?" "Certainly." "You need not. I'm not afraid of a London cab by myself." But of course he accompanied her to Islington. He owed her that. She talked during the journey of what a wonderful place London was - so immense, but so dirty! New York was, she thought, pleasanter. But Paris was the gem of towns. She did not like Frenchmen, and she liked Englishmen; but she fancied that she could never like English women. "I like good conduct, but I hate what your women call propriety. I suppose what we have been doing tonight is very improper; but I am quite sure that it has not been in the least wicked." "I don't think it has," said Paul Montague very tamely. At last the cab reached the lodging-house door. "Yes, this is it," she said. "Even about the houses there is an air of stiff-necked propriety which frightens me." She was getting out as she spoke. "Come in for one moment," she said. The lodging-house woman was standing with the door in her hand. It was near midnight, but, when people are engaged, hours do not matter. The woman of the house - who was a nice, respectable widow, with five children, named Mrs. Pipkin - smiled again as he followed Mrs. Hurtle into her sitting-room. She flung her hat on to the sofa. "Shut the door for one moment," she said; and he shut it. Then she threw herself into his arms, not kissing him but looking up into his face. "Oh Paul," she exclaimed, "my darling! Oh Paul, my love! I will not bear to be separated from you. No, no; there is nothing I cannot do for love of you - but to lose you." Then she pushed him from her and clasped her hands together. "But Paul, I mean to keep my pledge to you tonight. It was to be an island in our troubles, a little holiday in our hard school-time, and I will not destroy it. You will see me again soon - will you not?" He nodded assent, then took her in his arms and kissed her, and left her without a word.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 27: Mrs. Hurtle Goes to the Play

On Friday, the 21st June, the Board of the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway sat in its own room behind the Exchange, as was the Board's custom every Friday. On this occasion all the members were there, as it had been understood that the chairman was to make a special statement. There was the great chairman as a matter of course. In the midst of his numerous and immense concerns he never threw over the railway, or delegated to other less experienced hands those cares which the commercial world had intrusted to his own. Lord Alfred was there, with Mr. Cohenlupe, the Hebrew gentleman, and Paul Montague, and Lord Nidderdale,--and even Sir Felix Carbury. Sir Felix had come, being very anxious to buy and sell, and not as yet having had an opportunity of realising his golden hopes, although he had actually paid a thousand pounds in hard money into Mr. Melmotte's hands. The secretary, Mr. Miles Grendall, was also present as a matter of course. The Board always met at three, and had generally been dissolved at a quarter past three. Lord Alfred and Mr. Cohenlupe sat at the chairman's right and left hand. Paul Montague generally sat immediately below, with Miles Grendall opposite to him;--but on this occasion the young lord and the young baronet took the next places. It was a nice little family party, the great chairman with his two aspiring sons-in-law, his two particular friends,--the social friend, Lord Alfred, and the commercial friend Mr. Cohenlupe,--and Miles, who was Lord Alfred's son. It would have been complete in its friendliness, but for Paul Montague, who had lately made himself disagreeable to Mr. Melmotte;--and most ungratefully so, for certainly no one had been allowed so free a use of the shares as the younger member of the house of Fisker, Montague, and Montague. [Illustration: The Board-room.] It was understood that Mr. Melmotte was to make a statement. Lord Nidderdale and Sir Felix had conceived that this was to be done as it were out of the great man's own heart, of his own wish, so that something of the condition of the company might be made known to the directors of the company. But this was not perhaps exactly the truth. Paul Montague had insisted on giving vent to certain doubts at the last meeting but one, and, having made himself very disagreeable indeed, had forced this trouble on the great chairman. On the intermediate Friday the chairman had made himself very unpleasant to Paul, and this had seemed to be an effort on his part to frighten the inimical director out of his opposition, so that the promise of a statement need not be fulfilled. What nuisance can be so great to a man busied with immense affairs, as to have to explain,--or to attempt to explain,--small details to men incapable of understanding them? But Montague had stood to his guns. He had not intended, he said, to dispute the commercial success of the company. But he felt very strongly, and he thought that his brother directors should feel as strongly, that it was necessary that they should know more than they did know. Lord Alfred had declared that he did not in the least agree with his brother director. "If anybody don't understand, it's his own fault," said Mr. Cohenlupe. But Paul would not give way, and it was understood that Mr. Melmotte would make a statement. The "Boards" were always commenced by the reading of a certain record of the last meeting out of a book. This was always done by Miles Grendall; and the record was supposed to have been written by him. But Montague had discovered that this statement in the book was always prepared and written by a satellite of Melmotte's from Abchurch Lane who was never present at the meeting. The adverse director had spoken to the secretary,--it will be remembered that they were both members of the Beargarden,--and Miles had given a somewhat evasive reply. "A cussed deal of trouble and all that, you know! He's used to it, and it's what he's meant for. I'm not going to flurry myself about stuff of that kind." Montague after this had spoken on the subject both to Nidderdale and Felix Carbury. "He couldn't do it, if it was ever so," Nidderdale had said. "I don't think I'd bully him if I were you. He gets 500 a-year, and if you knew all he owes, and all he hasn't got, you wouldn't try to rob him of it." With Felix Carbury Montague had as little success. Sir Felix hated the secretary, had detected him cheating at cards, had resolved to expose him,--and had then been afraid to do so. He had told Dolly Longestaffe, and the reader will perhaps remember with what effect. He had not mentioned the affair again, and had gradually fallen back into the habit of playing at the club. Loo, however, had given way to whist, and Sir Felix had satisfied himself with the change. He still meditated some dreadful punishment for Miles Grendall, but, in the meantime, felt himself unable to oppose him at the Board. Since the day at which the aces had been manipulated at the club he had not spoken to Miles Grendall except in reference to the affairs of the whist-table. The "Board" was now commenced as usual. Miles read the short record out of the book,--stumbling over every other word, and going through the performance so badly that had there been anything to understand no one could have understood it. "Gentlemen," said Mr. Melmotte, in his usual hurried way, "is it your pleasure that I shall sign the record?" Paul Montague rose to say that it was not his pleasure that the record should be signed. But Melmotte had made his scrawl, and was deep in conversation with Mr. Cohenlupe before Paul could get upon his legs. Melmotte, however, had watched the little struggle. Melmotte, whatever might be his faults, had eyes to see and ears to hear. He perceived that Montague had made a little struggle and had been cowed; and he knew how hard it is for one man to persevere against five or six, and for a young man to persevere against his elders. Nidderdale was filliping bits of paper across the table at Carbury. Miles Grendall was poring over the book which was in his charge. Lord Alfred sat back in his chair, the picture of a model director, with his right hand within his waistcoat. He looked aristocratic, respectable, and almost commercial. In that room he never by any chance opened his mouth, except when called on to say that Mr. Melmotte was right, and was considered by the chairman really to earn his money. Melmotte for a minute or two went on conversing with Cohenlupe, having perceived that Montague for the moment was cowed. Then Paul put both his hands upon the table, intending to rise and ask some perplexing question. Melmotte saw this also and was upon his legs before Montague had risen from his chair. "Gentlemen," said Mr. Melmotte, "it may perhaps be as well if I take this occasion of saying a few words to you about the affairs of the company." Then, instead of going on with his statement, he sat down again, and began to turn over sundry voluminous papers very slowly, whispering a word or two every now and then to Mr. Cohenlupe. Lord Alfred never changed his posture and never took his hand from his breast. Nidderdale and Carbury filliped their paper pellets backwards and forwards. Montague sat profoundly listening,--or ready to listen when anything should be said. As the chairman had risen from his chair to commence his statement, Paul felt that he was bound to be silent. When a speaker is in possession of the floor, he is in possession even though he be somewhat dilatory in looking to his references, and whispering to his neighbour. And, when that speaker is a chairman, of course some additional latitude must be allowed to him. Montague understood this, and sat silent. It seemed that Melmotte had much to say to Cohenlupe, and Cohenlupe much to say to Melmotte. Since Cohenlupe had sat at the Board he had never before developed such powers of conversation. Nidderdale didn't quite understand it. He had been there twenty minutes, was tired of his present amusement, having been unable to hit Carbury on the nose, and suddenly remembered that the Beargarden would now be open. He was no respecter of persons, and had got over any little feeling of awe with which the big table and the solemnity of the room may have first inspired him. "I suppose that's about all," he said, looking up at Melmotte. "Well;--perhaps as your lordship is in a hurry, and as my lord here is engaged elsewhere,"--turning round to Lord Alfred, who had not uttered a syllable or made a sign since he had been in his seat,--"we had better adjourn this meeting for another week." "I cannot allow that," said Paul Montague. "I suppose then we must take the sense of the Board," said the Chairman. "I have been discussing certain circumstances with our friend and Chairman," said Cohenlupe, "and I must say that it is not expedient just at present to go into matters too freely." "My lords and gentlemen," said Melmotte. "I hope that you trust me." Lord Alfred bowed down to the table and muttered something which was intended to convey most absolute confidence. "Hear, hear," said Mr. Cohenlupe. "All right," said Lord Nidderdale; "go on;" and he fired another pellet with improved success. "I trust," said the Chairman, "that my young friend, Sir Felix, doubts neither my discretion nor my ability." "Oh dear, no;--not at all," said the baronet, much flattered at being addressed in this kindly tone. He had come there with objects of his own, and was quite prepared to support the Chairman on any matter whatever. "My Lords and Gentlemen," continued Melmotte, "I am delighted to receive this expression of your confidence. If I know anything in the world I know something of commercial matters. I am able to tell you that we are prospering. I do not know that greater prosperity has ever been achieved in a shorter time by a commercial company. I think our friend here, Mr. Montague, should be as feelingly aware of that as any gentleman." "What do you mean by that, Mr. Melmotte?" asked Paul. "What do I mean?--Certainly nothing adverse to your character, sir. Your firm in San Francisco, sir, know very well how the affairs of the Company are being transacted on this side of the water. No doubt you are in correspondence with Mr. Fisker. Ask him. The telegraph wires are open to you, sir. But, my Lords and Gentlemen, I am able to inform you that in affairs of this nature great discretion is necessary. On behalf of the shareholders at large whose interests are in our hands, I think it expedient that any general statement should be postponed for a short time, and I flatter myself that in that opinion I shall carry the majority of this Board with me." Mr. Melmotte did not make his speech very fluently; but, being accustomed to the place which he occupied, he did manage to get the words spoken in such a way as to make them intelligible to the company. "I now move that this meeting be adjourned to this day week," he added. "I second that motion," said Lord Alfred, without moving his hand from his breast. "I understood that we were to have a statement," said Montague. "You've had a statement," said Mr. Cohenlupe. "I will put my motion to the vote," said the Chairman. "I shall move an amendment," said Paul, determined that he would not be altogether silenced. "There is nobody to second it," said Mr. Cohenlupe. "How do you know till I've made it?" asked the rebel. "I shall ask Lord Nidderdale to second it, and when he has heard it I think that he will not refuse." "Oh, gracious me! why me? No;--don't ask me. I've got to go away. I have indeed." "At any rate I claim the right of saying a few words. I do not say whether every affair of this Company should or should not be published to the world." "You'd break up everything if you did," said Cohenlupe. "Perhaps everything ought to be broken up. But I say nothing about that. What I do say is this. That as we sit here as directors and will be held to be responsible as such by the public, we ought to know what is being done. We ought to know where the shares really are. I for one do not even know what scrip has been issued." "You've bought and sold enough to know something about it," said Melmotte. Paul Montague became very red in the face. "I, at any rate, began," he said, "by putting what was to me a large sum of money into the affair." "That's more than I know," said Melmotte. "Whatever shares you have, were issued at San Francisco, and not here." "I have taken nothing that I haven't paid for," said Montague. "Nor have I yet had allotted to me anything like the number of shares which my capital would represent. But I did not intend to speak of my own concerns." "It looks very like it," said Cohenlupe. "So far from it that I am prepared to risk the not improbable loss of everything I have in the world. I am determined to know what is being done with the shares, or to make it public to the world at large that I, one of the directors of the Company, do not in truth know anything about it. I cannot, I suppose, absolve myself from further responsibility; but I can at any rate do what is right from this time forward,--and that course I intend to take." "The gentleman had better resign his seat at this Board," said Melmotte. "There will be no difficulty about that." "Bound up as I am with Fisker and Montague in California I fear that there will be difficulty." "Not in the least," continued the Chairman. "You need only gazette your resignation and the thing is done. I had intended, gentlemen, to propose an addition to our number. When I name to you a gentleman, personally known to many of you, and generally esteemed throughout England as a man of business, as a man of probity, and as a man of fortune, a man standing deservedly high in all British circles, I mean Mr. Longestaffe of Caversham--" "Young Dolly, or old?" asked Lord Nidderdale. "I mean Mr. Adolphus Longestaffe, senior, of Caversham. I am sure that you will all be glad to welcome him among you. I had thought to strengthen our number by this addition. But if Mr. Montague is determined to leave us,--and no one will regret the loss of his services so much as I shall,--it will be my pleasing duty to move that Adolphus Longestaffe, senior, Esquire, of Caversham, be requested to take his place. If on reconsideration Mr. Montague shall determine to remain with us,--and I for one most sincerely hope that such reconsideration may lead to such determination,--then I shall move that an additional director be added to our number, and that Mr. Longestaffe be requested to take the chair of that additional director." The latter speech Mr. Melmotte got through very glibly, and then immediately left the chair, so as to show that the business of the Board was closed for that day without any possibility of reopening it. Paul went up to him and took him by the sleeve, signifying that he wished to speak to him before they parted. "Certainly," said the great man bowing. "Carbury," he said, looking round on the young baronet with his blandest smile, "if you are not in a hurry, wait a moment for me. I have a word or two to say before you go. Now, Mr. Montague, what can I do for you?" Paul began his story, expressing again the opinion which he had already very plainly expressed at the table. But Melmotte stopped him very shortly, and with much less courtesy than he had shown in the speech which he had made from the chair. "The thing is about this way, I take it, Mr. Montague;--you think you know more of this matter than I do." "Not at all, Mr. Melmotte." "And I think that I know more of it than you do. Either of us may be right. But as I don't intend to give way to you, perhaps the less we speak together about it the better. You can't be in earnest in the threat you made, because you would be making public things communicated to you under the seal of privacy,--and no gentleman would do that. But as long as you are hostile to me, I can't help you;--and so good afternoon." Then, without giving Montague the possibility of a reply, he escaped into an inner room which had the word "Private" painted on the door, and which was supposed to belong to the chairman individually. He shut the door behind him, and then, after a few moments, put out his head and beckoned to Sir Felix Carbury. Nidderdale was gone. Lord Alfred with his son were already on the stairs. Cohenlupe was engaged with Melmotte's clerk on the record-book. Paul Montague finding himself without support and alone, slowly made his way out into the court. Sir Felix had come into the city intending to suggest to the Chairman that having paid his thousand pounds he should like to have a few shares to go on with. He was, indeed, at the present moment very nearly penniless, and had negotiated, or lost at cards, all the I.O.U.'s which were in any degree serviceable. He still had a pocket-book full of those issued by Miles Grendall; but it was now an understood thing at the Beargarden that no one was to be called upon to take them except Miles Grendall himself;--an arrangement which robbed the card-table of much of its delight. Beyond this, also, he had lately been forced to issue a little paper himself,--in doing which he had talked largely of his shares in the railway. His case certainly was hard. He had actually paid a thousand pounds down in hard cash, a commercial transaction which, as performed by himself, he regarded as stupendous. It was almost incredible to himself that he should have paid any one a thousand pounds, but he had done it with much difficulty,--having carried Dolly junior with him all the way into the city,--in the belief that he would thus put himself in the way of making a continual and unfailing income. He understood that as a director he would be always entitled to buy shares at par, and, as a matter of course, always able to sell them at the market price. This he understood to range from ten to fifteen and twenty per cent. profit. He would have nothing to do but to buy and sell daily. He was told that Lord Alfred was allowed to do it to a small extent; and that Melmotte was doing it to an enormous extent. But before he could do it he must get something,--he hardly knew what,--out of Melmotte's hands. Melmotte certainly did not seem disposed to shun him, and therefore there could be no difficulty about the shares. As to danger;--who could think of danger in reference to money intrusted to the hands of Augustus Melmotte? "I am delighted to see you here," said Melmotte, shaking him cordially by the hand. "You come regularly, and you'll find that it will be worth your while. There's nothing like attending to business. You should be here every Friday." "I will," said the baronet. "And let me see you sometimes up at my place in Abchurch Lane. I can put you more in the way of understanding things there than I can here. This is all a mere formal sort of thing. You can see that." "Oh yes, I see that." "We are obliged to have this kind of thing for men like that fellow Montague. By-the-bye, is he a friend of yours?" "Not particularly. He is a friend of a cousin of mine; and the women know him at home. He isn't a pal of mine if you mean that." "If he makes himself disagreeable, he'll have to go to the wall;--that's all. But never mind him at present. Was your mother speaking to you of what I said to her?" "No, Mr. Melmotte," said Sir Felix, staring with all his eyes. "I was talking to her about you, and I thought that perhaps she might have told you. This is all nonsense, you know, about you and Marie." Sir Felix looked into the man's face. It was not savage, as he had seen it. But there had suddenly come upon his brow that heavy look of a determined purpose which all who knew the man were wont to mark. Sir Felix had observed it a few minutes since in the Board-room, when the chairman was putting down the rebellious director. "You understand that; don't you?" Sir Felix still looked at him, but made no reply. "It's all d---- nonsense. You haven't got a brass farthing, you know. You've no income at all; you're just living on your mother, and I'm afraid she's not very well off. How can you suppose that I shall give my girl to you?" Felix still looked at him but did not dare to contradict a single statement made. Yet when the man told him that he had not a brass farthing he thought of his own thousand pounds which were now in the man's pocket. "You're a baronet, and that's about all, you know," continued Melmotte. "The Carbury property, which is a very small thing, belongs to a distant cousin who may leave it to me if he pleases;--and who isn't very much older than you are yourself." "Oh, come, Mr. Melmotte; he's a great deal older than me." "It wouldn't matter if he were as old as Adam. The thing is out of the question, and you must drop it." Then the look on his brow became a little heavier. "You hear what I say. She is going to marry Lord Nidderdale. She was engaged to him before you ever saw her. What do you expect to get by it?" Sir Felix had not the courage to say that he expected to get the girl he loved. But as the man waited for an answer he was obliged to say something. "I suppose it's the old story," he said. "Just so;--the old story. You want my money, and she wants you, just because she has been told to take somebody else. You want something to live on;--that's what you want. Come;--out with it. Is not that it? When we understand each other I'll put you in the way of making money." "Of course I'm not very well off," said Felix. "About as badly as any young man that I can hear of. You give me your written promise that you'll drop this affair with Marie, and you shan't want for money." "A written promise!" "Yes;--a written promise. I give nothing for nothing. I'll put you in the way of doing so well with these shares that you shall be able to marry any other girl you please;--or to live without marrying, which you'll find to be better." There was something worthy of consideration in Mr. Melmotte's proposition. Marriage of itself, simply as a domestic institution, had not specially recommended itself to Sir Felix Carbury. A few horses at Leighton, Ruby Ruggles or any other beauty, and life at the Beargarden were much more to his taste. And then he was quite alive to the fact that it was possible that he might find himself possessed of the wife without the money. Marie, indeed, had a grand plan of her own, with reference to that settled income; but then Marie might be mistaken,--or she might be lying. If he were sure of making money in the way Melmotte now suggested, the loss of Marie would not break his heart. But then also Melmotte might be--lying. "By-the-bye, Mr. Melmotte," said he, "could you let me have those shares?" "What shares?" And the heavy brow became still heavier. "Don't you know?--I gave you a thousand pounds, and I was to have ten shares." "You must come about that on the proper day, to the proper place." "When is the proper day?" "It is the twentieth of each month I think." Sir Felix looked very blank at hearing this, knowing that this present was the twenty-first of the month. "But what does that signify? Do you want a little money?" "Well, I do," said Sir Felix. "A lot of fellows owe me money, but it's so hard to get it." "That tells a story of gambling," said Mr. Melmotte. "You think I'd give my girl to a gambler?" "Nidderdale's in it quite as thick as I am." "Nidderdale has a settled property which neither he nor his father can destroy. But don't you be such a fool as to argue with me. You won't get anything by it. If you'll write that letter here now--" "What;--to Marie?" "No;--not to Marie at all; but to me. It need never be shown to her. If you'll do that I'll stick to you and make a man of you. And if you want a couple of hundred pounds I'll give you a cheque for it before you leave the room. Mind, I can tell you this. On my word of honour as a gentleman, if my daughter were to marry you, she'd never have a single shilling. I should immediately make a will and leave all my property to St. George's Hospital. I have quite made up my mind about that." "And couldn't you manage that I should have the shares before the twentieth of next month?" "I'll see about it. Perhaps I could let you have a few of my own. At any rate I won't see you short of money." The terms were enticing and the letter was of course written. Melmotte himself dictated the words, which were not romantic in their nature. The reader shall see the letter. DEAR SIR, In consideration of the offers made by you to me, and on a clear understanding that such a marriage would be disagreeable to you and to the lady's mother, and would bring down a father's curse upon your daughter, I hereby declare and promise that I will not renew my suit to the young lady, which I hereby altogether renounce. I am, Dear Sir, Your obedient Servant, FELIX CARBURY. AUGUSTUS MELMOTTE, Esq., --, Grosvenor Square. The letter was dated 21st July, and bore the printed address of the offices of the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway. "You'll give me that cheque for 200, Mr. Melmotte?" The financier hesitated for a moment, but did give the baronet the cheque as promised. "And you'll see about letting me have those shares?" "You can come to me in Abchurch Lane, you know." Sir Felix said that he would call in Abchurch Lane. As he went westward towards the Beargarden, the baronet was not happy in his mind. Ignorant as he was as to the duties of a gentleman, indifferent as he was to the feelings of others, still he felt ashamed of himself. He was treating the girl very badly. Even he knew that he was behaving badly. He was so conscious of it that he tried to console himself by reflecting that his writing such a letter as that would not prevent his running away with the girl, should he, on consideration, find it to be worth his while to do so. That night he was again playing at the Beargarden, and he lost a great part of Mr. Melmotte's money. He did in fact lose much more than the 200; but when he found his ready money going from him he issued paper.

On Friday 21st June, the Board of the Railway sat, as it did every Friday. All the members were there, as it had been understood that the chairman was to make a special statement. Even Sir Felix had come, being very anxious to buy and sell, and not as yet having had an opportunity of realising his golden hopes, although he had paid Mr. Melmotte a thousand pounds. The Board always met at three, and had generally been dissolved at a quarter past. Lord Alfred and Mr. Cohenlupe sat next to Mr. Melmotte. Paul Montague usually sat immediately below, with Miles Grendall opposite him; but on this occasion Lord Nidderdale and Carbury took these places. Montague was out of favour, having insisted on giving vent to certain doubts at the last meeting but one, and making himself very disagreeable to the great chairman. What nuisance can be so great to a man busied with immense affairs, as to have to explain small details to men incapable of understanding them? But Montague had stood to his guns. He felt very strongly, he said, that the directors needed to know more than they did know. Lord Alfred had declared that he did not agree. "If anybody don't understand, it's his own fault," said Mr. Cohenlupe. But Paul would not give way, and it was understood that Mr. Melmotte would therefore make a statement. The "Boards" always began with the reading of a record of the last meeting. This was done by Miles Grendall; and the record was supposed to have been written by him. But Montague had discovered that the statement was written by a satellite of Melmotte's from Abchurch Lane, who was not at the meeting. When he asked Miles about this, Miles had given a somewhat evasive reply. "A cussed deal of trouble and all that, you know! He's used to it." So Montague had spoken on the subject both to Nidderdale and Felix Carbury. "He couldn't do it," Nidderdale had said. "I don't think I'd bully him if I were you. He only gets 500 a year." With Felix Carbury, Montague had as little success. Sir Felix hated Miles Grendall, had detected him cheating at cards, had resolved to expose him - and had then been afraid to do so. He had not mentioned the affair again, and had gradually fallen back into the habit of playing at the club, since they were now playing whist instead of loo. The "Board" now commenced as usual: Miles read the short record out of the book, stumbling over every other word, so that if there had been anything to understand no one could have understood it. "Gentlemen," said Mr. Melmotte, in his usual hurried way, "shall I sign the record?" Paul Montague rose to object; but Melmotte had made his scrawl, and was already deep in conversation with Mr. Cohenlupe. Melmotte, however, had watched him. He perceived that Montague had made a little struggle and had been cowed; and he knew how hard it is for one man to persevere against five or six. Nidderdale was filliping bits of paper across the table at Carbury. The other men were unconcerned, so Melmotte went on talking to Cohenlupe. Then Paul put both his hands upon the table, intending to rise and ask some perplexing question. Melmotte saw this also and was upon his legs first. "Gentlemen," said Mr. Melmotte, "it may perhaps be as well if I take this occasion of saying a few words to you about the affairs of the company." Then, instead of going on with his statement, he sat down again, and began to turn over some voluminous papers very slowly, whispering a word or two every now and then to Mr. Cohenlupe. Nidderdale and Carbury filliped their paper pellets backwards and forwards. Montague sat ready to listen, feeling that he was bound to be silent. It seemed that Melmotte had much to say to Cohenlupe, and Cohenlupe much to say to Melmotte. Cohenlupe had never before shown such powers of conversation. Nidderdale didn't quite understand it. He had been there twenty minutes, and suddenly remembered that the Beargarden would now be open. "I suppose that's about all," he said, looking at Melmotte. "Well, perhaps as your lordship is in a hurry, and as my lord here is engaged elsewhere," - turning round to Lord Alfred, who had not uttered a syllable - "we had better adjourn this meeting for another week." "I cannot allow that," said Paul Montague. "I have been discussing certain circumstances with our Chairman," said Cohenlupe, "and I must say that it is not expedient just at present to go into matters too freely." "My lords and gentlemen," said Melmotte. "I hope that you trust me." Lord Alfred, bowing, muttered something about absolute confidence. "Hear, hear," said Mr. Cohenlupe. "All right," said Lord Nidderdale. "I trust," said the Chairman, "that my young friend, Sir Felix, doubts neither my discretion nor my ability." "Oh dear, no, not at all," said the baronet, much flattered, and quite prepared to support the Chairman on any matter whatever. "My Lords and Gentlemen," continued Melmotte, "I am delighted to receive this expression of your confidence. If I know anything in the world I know something of commercial matters. I am able to tell you that we are prospering. I do not know that greater prosperity has ever been achieved in a shorter time by a commercial company. I think our friend here, Mr. Montague, should be as aware of that as any gentleman." "What do you mean by that, Mr. Melmotte?" asked Paul. "Your firm in San Francisco, sir, know very well how the affairs of the Company are being transacted here. No doubt you are in correspondence with Mr. Fisker. Ask him. The telegraph wires are open to you, sir. But, my Lords and Gentlemen, in affairs of this nature great discretion is necessary. On behalf of our shareholders, I think it expedient that any general statement should be postponed for a short time, and I flatter myself that in that opinion I shall carry the majority of this Board with me. I now move that this meeting be adjourned to this day week." "I second that motion," said Lord Alfred. "I understood that we were to have a statement," said Montague. "You've had a statement," said Mr. Cohenlupe. "I will put my motion to the vote," said the Chairman. "I shall move an amendment," said Paul, determined not to be silenced. "There is nobody to second it," said Mr. Cohenlupe. "How do you know? I shall ask Lord Nidderdale to second it." "Oh, gracious me! Don't ask me. I've got to go away. I have indeed." "At any rate I claim the right of saying a few words," continued Paul. "As we sit here as directors and will be held responsible as such by the public, we ought to know what is being done. We ought to know where the shares really are. I for one do not even know what scrip has been issued." "You've bought and sold enough to know something about it," said Melmotte. Paul Montague became very red in the face. "I began," he said, "by putting what was to me a large sum of money into the affair." "That's more than I know," said Melmotte. "Whatever shares you have, were issued at San Francisco, and not here." "I have taken nothing that I haven't paid for," said Montague. "Nor have I yet had allotted to me anything like the number of shares which my capital would represent. But I did not intend to speak of my own concerns." "It looks very like it," said Cohenlupe. "So far from it that I am prepared to risk the loss of everything I have in the world. I am determined to know what is being done with the shares, or to tell the world at large that I, one of the directors, do not in truth know anything about it. I intend to do what is right." "The gentleman had better resign his seat at this Board," said Melmotte. "There will be no difficulty about that." "Bound up as I am with Fisker and Montague in California I fear that there will be difficulty." "Not in the least," continued the Chairman. "You need only give your resignation and the thing is done. I had intended, gentlemen, to propose an addition to our number. When I name to you a gentleman, personally known to many of you, and esteemed as a man of business, probity, and fortune - I mean Mr. Longestaffe of Caversham-" "Young Dolly, or old?" asked Lord Nidderdale. "I mean Mr. Adolphus Longestaffe, senior. I am sure that you will all be glad to welcome him among you. I had thought to strengthen our number by this addition. But if Mr. Montague is determined to leave us, it will be my pleasing duty to move that Adolphus Longestaffe Esquire should take his place. If on reconsideration Mr. Montague shall determine to remain with us - and I sincerely hope that he will - then I shall move that Mr. Longstaffe be added to our number as an additional director." Mr. Melmotte immediately left the chair, so as to show that the business of the Board was closed for that day. Paul went up to him and took him by the sleeve, signifying that he wished to speak before they parted. "Certainly," said the great man, bowing. "Carbury," he said, looking round on the young baronet with his blandest smile, "if you are not in a hurry, wait a moment for me. I have a word to say before you go. Now, Mr. Montague, what can I do for you?" Paul began to express again the opinion which he had already expressed at the table. But Melmotte stopped him with less courtesy than before. "The thing is, Mr. Montague - you think you know more of this matter than I do." "Not at all, Mr. Melmotte." "And I think that I know more of it than you do. Either of us may be right. But as I don't intend to give way to you, perhaps the less we speak together about it the better. As long as you are hostile to me, I can't help you; and so good afternoon." Then, without giving Montague the possibility of a reply, he escaped into an inner room and shut the door behind him. After a few moments, he put out his head and beckoned to Sir Felix Carbury. Paul Montague slowly made his way out into the courtyard. Sir Felix had come intending to suggest to the Chairman that having paid his thousand pounds he should like to have a few shares to go on with. He was very nearly penniless, and had negotiated, or lost at cards, all the I.O.U.'s which were of any value. He still had a pocket-book full of those issued by Miles Grendall; but it was now understood at the Beargarden that no one was to be called upon to take them except Miles himself. Beyond this, Felix had lately been forced to issue an I.O.U. or two himself. His case certainly was hard. He had paid a thousand pounds down in hard cash, in the belief that he would thus put himself in the way of making a continual income. He understood that as a director he would be always entitled to buy shares at par, and be able to sell them at the market price - giving him from ten to twenty per cent profit. He would have nothing to do but to buy and sell. He was told that Lord Alfred was allowed to do it to a small extent; and that Melmotte was doing it to an enormous extent. But before he could do it he must get something - he hardly knew what - out of Melmotte's hands. Melmotte certainly did not seem to shun him, and therefore there could be no danger about the shares. "I am delighted to see you here," said Melmotte, shaking him cordially by the hand. "There's nothing like attending to business. You should be here every Friday." "I will," said the baronet. "And let me see you sometimes at my place in Abchurch Lane. I can put you more in the way of understanding things there than I can here. This is all a mere formal sort of thing. You can see that." "Oh yes, I see that." "We are obliged to have this kind of thing for men like that fellow Montague. By-the-bye, is he a friend of yours?" "Not particularly." "If he makes himself disagreeable, he'll have to go. But never mind him at present. Did your mother tell you what I said to her?" "No, Mr. Melmotte," said Sir Felix, staring. "I was talking to her about you, and I thought that perhaps she might have told you. This is all nonsense, you know, about you and Marie." Sir Felix looked into the man's face. It was not savage. But there had suddenly come into it a heavy look of determined purpose. "You understand that; don't you?" continued Melmotte. "It's all d___ nonsense. You haven't got a brass farthing. You're just living on your mother, and she's not well off. How can you suppose that I shall give my girl to you?" Felix did not dare to contradict him. Yet when the man told him that he had not a brass farthing he thought of his thousand pounds which were now in the man's pocket. "You're a baronet, and that's about all," said Melmotte. "The Carbury property, which is a very small thing, belongs to a distant cousin who may leave it however he pleases; and who isn't much older than you are yourself." "Oh, come, Mr. Melmotte; he's a great deal older than me." "It wouldn't matter if he were as old as Adam. The thing is out of the question, and you must drop it. She is going to marry Lord Nidderdale. She was engaged to him before you ever saw her. What do you expect to get by it?" Sir Felix had not the courage to say that he expected to get the girl he loved. But he was obliged to say something. "I suppose it's the old story," he said. "Just so; the old story. You want my money. Come; out with it. Is not that it? When we understand each other I'll put you in the way of making money. You give me your written promise that you'll drop this affair with Marie, and you shan't want for money." "A written promise!" "Yes. And then I'll put you in the way of doing so well with these shares that you shall be able to marry any other girl you please - or to live without marrying, which you'll find to be better." Felix considered this. Marriage had not specially recommended itself to him. A few horses, Ruby Ruggles or any other beauty, and life at the Beargarden were much more to his taste. And he was quite aware that he might find himself possessed of the wife without the money. Marie might be mistaken about the amount settled on her - or she might be lying. If he were sure of making money, the loss of Marie would not break his heart. But then also Melmotte might be lying. "By-the-bye, Mr. Melmotte," said he, "could you let me have those shares?" "What shares?" And the heavy brow became still heavier. "I gave you a thousand pounds, and I was to have ten shares." "You must come about that on the proper day, to the proper place." "When is the proper day?" "It is the twentieth of each month." Sir Felix looked very blank at hearing this, since it was now the twenty-first. "Do you need a little money?" "Well, I do," said Sir Felix. "A lot of fellows owe me money, but it's so hard to get it." "That tells of gambling," said Mr. Melmotte. "You think I'd give my girl to a gambler?" "Nidderdale's in it quite as thick as I am." "Nidderdale has a settled property which he cannot destroy. But don't be such a fool as to argue with me. You won't get anything by it. If you'll write that letter here now-" "What; to Marie?" "No, not to Marie at all; but to me. It need never be shown to her. If you'll do that I'll stick to you and make a man of you. And if you want a couple of hundred pounds I'll give you a cheque for it before you leave the room. But if my daughter were to marry you, she'd never have a single shilling." "And couldn't you manage that I should have the shares before the twentieth of next month?" "I'll see about it. Perhaps I could let you have a few of my own. At any rate I won't see you short of money." The terms were enticing and the letter was of course written. Melmotte himself dictated the words, which were not romantic: Dear Sir, In consideration of the offers made by you, and on a clear understanding that such a marriage would be disagreeable to you and to the lady's mother, I hereby declare and promise that I will not renew my suit to the young lady, which I hereby altogether renounce. I am, Dear Sir, Your obedient Servant, Felix Carbury. The letter was dated 21st July, and bore the printed address of the offices of the Railway. "You'll give me that cheque for 200, Mr. Melmotte?" The financier hesitated for a moment, but did give the baronet the cheque as promised. "And you'll see about letting me have those shares?" "You can come to me in Abchurch Lane, you know." Sir Felix said that he would. As he went westward towards the Beargarden, the baronet was not happy. Ignorant as he was about the duties of a gentleman, indifferent as he was to the feelings of others, still he felt ashamed. He knew that he was treating the girl very badly. He tried to console himself by reflecting that his writing such a letter would not prevent his running away with the girl, should he, on consideration, find it worth his while to do so. That night he was again playing at the Beargarden, and he lost a great part of Mr. Melmotte's money. In fact he lost much more than the 200; but he paid in I.O.U.s.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 37: The Board-Room

Augustus Melmotte was becoming greater and greater in every direction,--mightier and mightier every day. He was learning to despise mere lords, and to feel that he might almost domineer over a duke. In truth he did recognise it as a fact that he must either domineer over dukes, or else go to the wall. It can hardly be said of him that he had intended to play so high a game, but the game that he had intended to play had become thus high of its own accord. A man cannot always restrain his own doings and keep them within the limits which he had himself planned for them. They will very often fall short of the magnitude to which his ambition has aspired. They will sometimes soar higher than his own imagination. So it had now been with Mr. Melmotte. He had contemplated great things; but the things which he was achieving were beyond his contemplation. The reader will not have thought much of Fisker on his arrival in England. Fisker was, perhaps, not a man worthy of much thought. He had never read a book. He had never written a line worth reading. He had never said a prayer. He cared nothing for humanity. He had sprung out of some Californian gully, was perhaps ignorant of his own father and mother, and had tumbled up in the world on the strength of his own audacity. But, such as he was, he had sufficed to give the necessary impetus for rolling Augustus Melmotte onwards into almost unprecedented commercial greatness. When Mr. Melmotte took his offices in Abchurch Lane, he was undoubtedly a great man, but nothing so great as when the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway had become not only an established fact, but a fact established in Abchurch Lane. The great company indeed had an office of its own, where the Board was held; but everything was really managed in Mr. Melmotte's own commercial sanctum. Obeying, no doubt, some inscrutable law of commerce, the grand enterprise,--"perhaps the grandest when you consider the amount of territory manipulated, which has ever opened itself before the eyes of a great commercial people," as Mr. Fisker with his peculiar eloquence observed through his nose, about this time to a meeting of shareholders at San Francisco,--had swung itself across from California to London, turning itself to the centre of the commercial world as the needle turns to the pole, till Mr. Fisker almost regretted the deed which himself had done. And Melmotte was not only the head, but the body also, and the feet of it all. The shares seemed to be all in Melmotte's pocket, so that he could distribute them as he would; and it seemed also that when distributed and sold, and when bought again and sold again, they came back to Melmotte's pocket. Men were contented to buy their shares and to pay their money, simply on Melmotte's word. Sir Felix had realised a large portion of his winnings at cards,--with commendable prudence for one so young and extravagant,--and had brought his savings to the great man. The great man had swept the earnings of the Beargarden into his till, and had told Sir Felix that the shares were his. Sir Felix had been not only contented, but supremely happy. He could now do as Paul Montague was doing,--and Lord Alfred Grendall. He could realize a perennial income, buying and selling. It was only after the reflection of a day or two that he found that he had as yet got nothing to sell. It was not only Sir Felix that was admitted into these good things after this fashion. Sir Felix was but one among hundreds. In the meantime the bills in Grosvenor Square were no doubt paid with punctuality,--and these bills must have been stupendous. The very servants were as tall, as gorgeous, almost as numerous, as the servants of royalty,--and remunerated by much higher wages. There were four coachmen with egregious wigs, and eight footmen, not one with a circumference of calf less than eighteen inches. And now there appeared a paragraph in the "Morning Breakfast Table," and another appeared in the "Evening Pulpit," telling the world that Mr. Melmotte had bought Pickering Park, the magnificent Sussex property of Adolphus Longestaffe, Esq., of Caversham. And it was so. The father and son who never had agreed before, and who now had come to no agreement in the presence of each other, had each considered that their affairs would be safe in the hands of so great a man as Mr. Melmotte, and had been brought to terms. The purchase-money, which was large, was to be divided between them. The thing was done with the greatest ease,--there being no longer any delay as is the case when small people are at work. The magnificence of Mr. Melmotte affected even the Longestaffe lawyers. Were I to buy a little property, some humble cottage with a garden,--or you, O reader, unless you be magnificent,--the money to the last farthing would be wanted, or security for the money more than sufficient, before we should be able to enter in upon our new home. But money was the very breath of Melmotte's nostrils, and therefore his breath was taken for money. Pickering was his, and before a week was over a London builder had collected masons and carpenters by the dozen down at Chichester, and was at work upon the house to make it fit to be a residence for Madame Melmotte. There were rumours that it was to be made ready for the Goodwood week, and that the Melmotte entertainment during that festival would rival the duke's. But there was still much to be done in London before the Goodwood week should come round in all of which Mr. Melmotte was concerned, and of much of which Mr. Melmotte was the very centre. A member for Westminster had succeeded to a peerage, and thus a seat was vacated. It was considered to be indispensable to the country that Mr. Melmotte should go into Parliament, and what constituency could such a man as Melmotte so fitly represent as one combining as Westminster does all the essences of the metropolis? There was the popular element, the fashionable element, the legislative element, the legal element, and the commercial element. Melmotte undoubtedly was the man for Westminster. His thorough popularity was evinced by testimony which perhaps was never before given in favour of any candidate for any county or borough. In Westminster there must of course be a contest. A seat for Westminster is a thing not to be abandoned by either political party without a struggle. But, at the beginning of the affair, when each party had to seek the most suitable candidate which the country could supply, each party put its hand upon Melmotte. And when the seat, and the battle for the seat, were suggested to Melmotte, then for the first time was that great man forced to descend from the altitudes on which his mind generally dwelt, and to decide whether he would enter Parliament as a Conservative or a Liberal. He was not long in convincing himself that the Conservative element in British Society stood the most in need of that fiscal assistance which it would be in his province to give; and on the next day every hoarding in London declared to the world that Melmotte was the Conservative candidate for Westminster. It is needless to say that his committee was made up of peers, bankers, and publicans, with all that absence of class prejudice for which the party has become famous since the ballot was introduced among us. Some unfortunate Liberal was to be made to run against him, for the sake of the party; but the odds were ten to one on Melmotte. This no doubt was a great matter,--this affair of the seat; but the dinner to be given to the Emperor of China was much greater. It was the middle of June, and the dinner was to be given on Monday, 8th July, now three weeks hence;--but all London was already talking of it. The great purport proposed was to show to the Emperor by this banquet what an English merchant-citizen of London could do. Of course there was a great amount of scolding and a loud clamour on the occasion. Some men said that Melmotte was not a citizen of London, others that he was not a merchant, others again that he was not an Englishman. But no man could deny that he was both able and willing to spend the necessary money; and as this combination of ability and will was the chief thing necessary, they who opposed the arrangement could only storm and scold. On the 20th of June the tradesmen were at work, throwing up a building behind, knocking down walls, and generally transmuting the house in Grosvenor Square in such a fashion that two hundred guests might be able to sit down to dinner in the dining-room of a British merchant. But who were to be the two hundred? It used to be the case that when a gentleman gave a dinner he asked his own guests;--but when affairs become great, society can hardly be carried on after that simple fashion. The Emperor of China could not be made to sit at table without English royalty, and English royalty must know whom it has to meet,--must select at any rate some of its comrades. The minister of the day also had his candidates for the dinner,--in which arrangement there was however no private patronage, as the list was confined to the cabinet and their wives. The Prime Minister took some credit to himself in that he would not ask for a single ticket for a private friend. But the Opposition as a body desired their share of seats. Melmotte had elected to stand for Westminster on the Conservative interest, and was advised that he must insist on having as it were a Conservative cabinet present, with its Conservative wives. He was told that he owed it to his party, and that his party exacted payment of the debt. But the great difficulty lay with the city merchants. This was to be a city merchant's private feast, and it was essential that the Emperor should meet this great merchant's brother merchants at the merchant's board. No doubt the Emperor would see all the merchants at the Guildhall; but that would be a semi-public affair, paid for out of the funds of a corporation. This was to be a private dinner. Now the Lord Mayor had set his face against it, and what was to be done? Meetings were held; a committee was appointed; merchant guests were selected, to the number of fifteen with their fifteen wives;--and subsequently the Lord Mayor was made a baronet on the occasion of receiving the Emperor in the city. The Emperor with his suite was twenty. Royalty had twenty tickets, each ticket for guest and wife. The existing Cabinet was fourteen; but the coming was numbered at about eleven only;--each one for self and wife. Five ambassadors and five ambassadresses were to be asked. There were to be fifteen real merchants out of the city. Ten great peers,--with their peeresses,--were selected by the general committee of management. There were to be three wise men, two poets, three independent members of the House of Commons, two Royal Academicians, three editors of papers, an African traveller who had just come home, and a novelist;--but all these latter gentlemen were expected to come as bachelors. Three tickets were to be kept over for presentation to bores endowed with a power of making themselves absolutely unendurable if not admitted at the last moment,--and ten were left for the giver of the feast and his own family and friends. It is often difficult to make things go smooth,--but almost all roughnesses may be smoothed at last with patience and care, and money and patronage. But the dinner was not to be all. Eight hundred additional tickets were to be issued for Madame Melmotte's evening entertainment, and the fight for these was more internecine than for seats at the dinner. The dinner-seats, indeed, were handled in so statesmanlike a fashion that there was not much visible fighting about them. Royalty manages its affairs quietly. The existing Cabinet was existing, and though there were two or three members of it who could not have got themselves elected at a single unpolitical club in London, they had a right to their seats at Melmotte's table. What disappointed ambition there might be among Conservative candidates was never known to the public. Those gentlemen do not wash their dirty linen in public. The ambassadors of course were quiet, but we may be sure that the Minister from the United States was among the favoured five. The city bankers and bigwigs, as has been already said, were at first unwilling to be present, and therefore they who were not chosen could not afterwards express their displeasure. No grumbling was heard among the peers, and that which came from the peeresses floated down into the current of the great fight about the evening entertainment. The poet laureate was of course asked, and the second poet was as much a matter of course. Only two Academicians had in this year painted royalty, so that there was no ground for jealousy there. There were three, and only three, specially insolent and specially disagreeable independent members of Parliament at that time in the House, and there was no difficulty in selecting them. The wise men were chosen by their age. Among editors of newspapers there was some ill-blood. That Mr. Alf and Mr. Broune should be selected was almost a matter of course. They were hated accordingly, but still this was expected. But why was Mr. Booker there? Was it because he had praised the Prime Minister's translation of Catullus? The African traveller chose himself by living through all his perils and coming home. A novelist was selected; but as royalty wanted another ticket at the last moment, the gentleman was only asked to come in after dinner. His proud heart, however, resented the treatment, and he joined amicably with his literary brethren in decrying the festival altogether. We should be advancing too rapidly into this portion of our story were we to concern ourselves deeply at the present moment with the feud as it raged before the evening came round, but it may be right to indicate that the desire for tickets at last became a burning passion, and a passion which in the great majority of cases could not be indulged. The value of the privilege was so great that Madame Melmotte thought that she was doing almost more than friendship called for when she informed her guest, Miss Longestaffe, that unfortunately there would be no seat for her at the dinner-table; but that, as payment for her loss, she should receive an evening ticket for herself and a joint ticket for a gentleman and his wife. Georgiana was at first indignant, but she accepted the compromise. What she did with her tickets shall be hereafter told. From all this I trust it will be understood that the Mr. Melmotte of the present hour was a very different man from that Mr. Melmotte who was introduced to the reader in the early chapters of this chronicle. Royalty was not to be smuggled in and out of his house now without his being allowed to see it. No manoeuvres now were necessary to catch a simple duchess. Duchesses were willing enough to come. Lord Alfred when he was called by his Christian name felt no aristocratic twinges. He was only too anxious to make himself more and more necessary to the great man. It is true that all this came as it were by jumps, so that very often a part of the world did not know on what ledge in the world the great man was perched at that moment. Miss Longestaffe who was staying in the house did not at all know how great a man her host was. Lady Monogram when she refused to go to Grosvenor Square, or even to allow any one to come out of the house in Grosvenor Square to her parties, was groping in outer darkness. Madame Melmotte did not know. Marie Melmotte did not know. The great man did not quite know himself where, from time to time, he was standing. But the world at large knew. The world knew that Mr. Melmotte was to be Member for Westminster, that Mr. Melmotte was to entertain the Emperor of China, that Mr. Melmotte carried the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway in his pocket;--and the world worshipped Mr. Melmotte. In the meantime Mr. Melmotte was much troubled about his private affairs. He had promised his daughter to Lord Nidderdale, and as he rose in the world had lowered the price which he offered for this marriage,--not so much in the absolute amount of fortune to be ultimately given, as in the manner of giving it. Fifteen thousand a year was to be settled on Marie and on her eldest son, and twenty thousand pounds were to be paid into Nidderdale's hands six months after the marriage. Melmotte gave his reasons for not paying this sum at once. Nidderdale would be more likely to be quiet, if he were kept waiting for that short time. Melmotte was to purchase and furnish for them a house in town. It was, too, almost understood that the young people were to have Pickering Park for themselves, except for a week or so at the end of July. It was absolutely given out in the papers that Pickering was to be theirs. It was said on all sides that Nidderdale was doing very well for himself. The absolute money was not perhaps so great as had been at first asked; but then, at that time, Melmotte was not the strong rock, the impregnable tower of commerce, the very navel of the commercial enterprise of the world,--as all men now regarded him. Nidderdale's father, and Nidderdale himself, were, in the present condition of things, content with a very much less stringent bargain than that which they had endeavoured at first to exact. But, in the midst of all this, Marie, who had at one time consented at her father's instance to accept the young lord, and who in some speechless fashion had accepted him, told both the young lord and her father, very roundly, that she had changed her mind. Her father scowled at her and told her that her mind in the matter was of no concern. He intended that she should marry Lord Nidderdale, and himself fixed some day in August for the wedding. "It is no use, father, for I will never have him," said Marie. "Is it about that other scamp?" he asked angrily. "If you mean Sir Felix Carbury, it is about him. He has been to you and told you, and therefore I don't know why I need hold my tongue." "You'll both starve, my lady; that's all." Marie however was not so wedded to the grandeur which she encountered in Grosvenor Square as to be afraid of the starvation which she thought she might have to suffer if married to Sir Felix Carbury. Melmotte had not time for any long discussion. As he left her he took hold of her and shook her. "By ----," he said, "if you run rusty after all I've done for you, I'll make you suffer. You little fool; that man's a beggar. He hasn't the price of a petticoat or a pair of stockings. He's looking only for what you haven't got, and shan't have if you marry him. He wants money, not you, you little fool!" But after that she was quite settled in her purpose when Nidderdale spoke to her. They had been engaged and then it had been off;--and now the young nobleman, having settled everything with the father, expected no great difficulty in resettling everything with the girl. He was not very skilful at making love,--but he was thoroughly good-humoured, from his nature anxious to please, and averse to give pain. There was hardly any injury which he could not forgive, and hardly any kindness which he would not do,--so that the labour upon himself was not too great. "Well, Miss Melmotte," he said; "governors are stern beings: are they not?" "Is yours stern, my lord?" "What I mean is that sons and daughters have to obey them. I think you understand what I mean. I was awfully spoony on you that time before; I was indeed." "I hope it didn't hurt you much, Lord Nidderdale." "That's so like a woman; that is. You know well enough that you and I can't marry without leave from the governors." "Nor with it," said Marie, nodding her head. "I don't know how that may be. There was some hitch somewhere,--I don't quite know where."--The hitch had been with himself, as he demanded ready money. "But it's all right now. The old fellows are agreed. Can't we make a match of it, Miss Melmotte?" "No, Lord Nidderdale; I don't think we can." "Do you mean that?" "I do mean it. When that was going on before I knew nothing about it. I have seen more of things since then." "And you've seen somebody you like better than me?" "I say nothing about that, Lord Nidderdale. I don't think you ought to blame me, my lord." "Oh dear no." "There was something before, but it was you that was off first. Wasn't it now?" "The governors were off, I think." "The governors have a right to be off, I suppose. But I don't think any governor has a right to make anybody marry any one." "I agree with you there;--I do indeed," said Lord Nidderdale. "And no governor shall make me marry. I've thought a great deal about it since that other time, and that's what I've come to determine." "But I don't know why you shouldn't--just marry me--because you--like me." "Only,--just because I don't. Well; I do like you, Lord Nidderdale." "Thanks;--so much!" "I like you ever so,--only marrying a person is different." "There's something in that to be sure." "And I don't mind telling you," said Marie with an almost solemn expression on her countenance, "because you are good-natured and won't get me into a scrape if you can help it, that I do like somebody else;--oh, so much." "I supposed that was it." "That is it." "It's a deuced pity. The governors had settled everything, and we should have been awfully jolly. I'd have gone in for all the things you go in for; and though your governor was screwing us up a bit, there would have been plenty of tin to go on with. You couldn't think of it again?" "I tell you, my lord, I'm--in love." "Oh, ah;--yes. So you were saying. It's an awful bore. That's all. I shall come to the party all the same if you send me a ticket." And so Nidderdale took his dismissal, and went away,--not however without an idea that the marriage would still come off. There was always,--so he thought,--such a bother about things before they would get themselves fixed. This happened some days after Mr. Broune's proposal to Lady Carbury, more than a week since Marie had seen Sir Felix. As soon as Lord Nidderdale was gone she wrote again to Sir Felix begging that she might hear from him,--and entrusted her letter to Didon.

Augustus Melmotte was becoming greater and mightier every day. He was learning to despise mere lords, and to feel that he might almost domineer over a duke. He had not intended to play so high a game, but the game had become high of its own accord. A man cannot always keep his doings within the limits which he has planned. They will often fall short of his aspirations; they will sometimes soar higher than he had imagined. So it had been with Mr. Melmotte. He had contemplated great things; but the things which he was achieving were beyond his contemplation. The reader will not have thought much of Fisker on his arrival in England. Fisker was, perhaps, not worthy of much thought. He had never read a book. He had never said a prayer. He cared nothing for humanity. He had sprung out of some Californian gully, and had tumbled up in the world on the strength of his own audacity. But, such as he was, he had given the necessary impetus for rolling Augustus Melmotte onward into almost unprecedented commercial greatness, thanks to the Mexican Railway. The great company had its own office, where the Board was held; but everything was really managed in Mr. Melmotte's offices at Abchurch Lane. The enterprise had swung itself across from California to London, as a compass needle turns to the pole, till Mr. Fisker almost regretted the deed which he had done. And Melmotte was not only the head, but the body of it all. The shares seemed to be all in Melmotte's pocket, so that he could distribute them as he would; and it seemed when sold, they came back to Melmotte's pocket. Men were content to buy shares simply on Melmotte's word. Sir Felix had brought his winnings at cards to the great man, who had swept the money into his till, and had told Sir Felix that the shares were his. Sir Felix was supremely happy. He could now do as Paul Montague was doing: get a perennial income, buying and selling. It was only after a day or two's reflection that he found that he had nothing yet to sell. Sir Felix was just one among hundreds. In the meantime the bills in Grosvenor Square were no doubt paid - and these bills must have been stupendous. The very servants were as tall, gorgeous, and numerous as the servants of royalty. And now there appeared a paragraph in the Morning Breakfast Table, and another in the Evening Pulpit, telling the world that Mr. Melmotte had bought Pickering Park, the magnificent Sussex property of Adolphus Longestaffe. The purchase-money was to be divided between father and son. The thing was done with the greatest ease, for the magnificence of Mr. Melmotte affected even the Longestaffe lawyers. Were I to buy some humble cottage, the money would be wanted to the last farthing before we should be able to enter our new home. But Melmotte's mere breath was taken for money. Pickering was his, and within a week a builder, with masons and carpenters, was at work upon the house. But there was still much for Mr. Melmotte to do in London. The parliamentary seat for Westminster had fallen vacant, and it was considered vital to the country that Mr. Melmotte should go into Parliament. What constituency could be so fit as Westminster? When each party began to seek the most suitable candidate, each put its hand upon Melmotte. And that great man was forced to descend from the heights on which his mind dwelt, and to decide whether he would enter Parliament as a Conservative or a Liberal. The next day every hoarding in London declared to the world that Melmotte was the Conservative candidate for Westminster. Some unfortunate Liberal was to run against him; but the odds were ten to one on Melmotte. This no doubt was a great matter; but the dinner to be given to the Emperor of China was much greater. It was now the middle of June, and the dinner was to be given on the 8th of July. The idea was to show the Emperor by this banquet what an English merchant-citizen of London could do. Of course some men said that Melmotte was not a citizen of London, and not even an Englishman. But no one could deny that he was both able and willing to spend the necessary money. On the 20th of June the tradesmen were at work, knocking down walls, and generally transmuting the house in Grosvenor Square so that two hundred guests might be able to sit down to dinner in the dining-room of a British merchant. But who were the two hundred guests to be? The Emperor of China could not sit at the table without English royalty. The list also included the Prime Minister, his cabinet and their wives. The Opposition desired their share of seats. As a Conservative candidate, Melmotte was advised that he must have Conservative members, with their wives; he owed it to his party. But the great difficulty lay with the city merchants. It was essential that the Emperor should meet this great merchant's brother-merchants at the dinner. Yet the Lord Mayor had set his face against it, and what was to be done? Meetings were held; a committee was appointed; fifteen merchant guests were selected, with their fifteen wives - and the Lord Mayor was made a baronet. The Emperor with his suite was twenty people. Royalty had twenty tickets, each ticket for guest and wife. The existing Cabinet was fourteen; but only eleven were coming. Five ambassadors were to be asked. There were the fifteen city merchants. Ten great peers, with their peeresses, were selected. There were to be three wise men, two poets, three independent members of the House of Commons, two Royal Academicians, three editors of papers - Mr. Alf, Mr. Broune and Mr. Booker; an African traveller who had just come home, and a novelist; but all these latter gentlemen were expected to come alone. Three tickets were kept for last-minute presentation - and ten were left for Melmotte and his own family and friends. But the dinner was not all. Eight hundred additional tickets were to be issued for Madame Melmotte's evening entertainment, and the fight for these was fiercer than for seats at the dinner. The value of the privilege was so great that Madame Melmotte thought that she was doing more than friendship called for when she informed her guest, Miss Longestaffe, that unfortunately there would be no seat for her at the dinner; but that instead she should receive an evening ticket for herself and a joint ticket for a gentleman and his wife. Georgiana was at first indignant, but she accepted the compromise. What she did with her tickets shall be told later. From all this it will be understood that Mr. Melmotte needed no manuvres now to catch a duchess. Duchesses were willing enough to come. Lord Alfred, when he was called by his Christian name, felt no aristocratic twinges, but was only too anxious to make himself necessary to the great man. The world worshipped Mr. Melmotte. In the meantime Mr. Melmotte was much troubled about his private affairs. He had promised his daughter to Lord Nidderdale, and as he rose in the world had lowered the price which he offered for this marriage. Fifteen thousand a year was to be settled on Marie and her first son, and twenty thousand pounds were to be paid to Nidderdale six months after the marriage. This delay, Melmotte said, was so that he could purchase and furnish for them a house in town. It was also said in the papers that the young people were to have Pickering Park; and that Nidderdale was doing very well for himself. The money was not perhaps so great as had been at first asked; but at that time, Melmotte had not been the strong, impregnable tower of commerce, as all men now regarded him. Nidderdale and his father were content with the bargain. But, in the midst of all this, Marie, who had at one time consented to accept the young lord, told both the young lord and her father, very roundly, that she had changed her mind. Her father scowled and told her that her mind was of no concern. She would marry Lord Nidderdale in August. "It is no use, father, for I will never have him," said Marie. "Is it about that other scamp?" he asked angrily. "If you mean Sir Felix Carbury, it is about him." "You'll both starve, my lady; that's all." And Melmotte took hold of her and shook her. "By -," he said, "if you run rusty after all I've done for you, I'll make you suffer. You little fool; that man's a beggar. He hasn't the price of a petticoat. He wants money, not you, you little fool!" But she was quite settled in her purpose when Nidderdale spoke to her. The young nobleman, having settled everything with the father, expected no great difficulty in resettling everything with the girl. He was not very skilful at making love, but he was thoroughly good-humoured, anxious to please, and averse to give pain. "Well, Miss Melmotte," he said; "parents are stern beings: are they not? You know well enough that you and I can't marry without leave from them." "Nor with it," said Marie, nodding. "I don't know about that. There was some hitch somewhere. But it's all right now. The old fellows are agreed. Can't we make a match of it, Miss Melmotte?" "No, Lord Nidderdale; I don't think we can." "Do you mean that?" "I do mean it. I knew nothing before. I have seen more of things since then." "And you've seen somebody you like better than me?" "I say nothing about that, Lord Nidderdale. I don't think you ought to blame me, my lord." "Oh dear, no." "It was you that withdrew first. Wasn't it now?" "It was my father, I think." "I don't think any father has a right to make anybody marry anyone." "I agree with you there," said Lord Nidderdale. "But I don't know why you shouldn't just marry me - because you - like me." "I like you ever so, Lord Nidderdale; only marrying a person is different." "There's something in that to be sure." "And I don't mind telling you," said Marie solemnly, "because you are good-natured and won't get me into a scrape, that I do like somebody else - oh, so much." "I supposed that was it. It's a deuced pity. We should have been awfully jolly. You couldn't think of it again?" "I tell you, my lord, I'm - in love." "Oh, ah; yes. It's an awful bore. I shall come to the party all the same if you send me a ticket." And so Nidderdale went away. This happened more than a week since Marie had seen Sir Felix. As soon as Lord Nidderdale was gone she wrote again to Sir Felix begging that she might hear from him, and entrusted her letter to Didon.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 35: Melmotte's Glory

Roger Carbury's half formed plan of keeping Henrietta at home while Lady Carbury and Sir Felix went to dine at Caversham fell to the ground. It was to be carried out only in the event of Hetta's yielding to his prayer. But he had in fact not made a prayer, and Hetta had certainly yielded nothing. When the evening came, Lady Carbury started with her son and daughter, and Roger was left alone. In the ordinary course of his life he was used to solitude. During the greater part of the year he would eat and drink and live without companionship; so that there was to him nothing peculiarly sad in this desertion. But on the present occasion he could not prevent himself from dwelling on the loneliness of his lot in life. These cousins of his who were his guests cared nothing for him. Lady Carbury had come to his house simply that it might be useful to her; Sir Felix did not pretend to treat him with even ordinary courtesy; and Hetta herself, though she was soft to him and gracious, was soft and gracious through pity rather than love. On this day he had, in truth, asked her for nothing; but he had almost brought himself to think that she might give all that he wanted without asking. And yet, when he told her of the greatness of his love, and of its endurance, she was simply silent. When the carriage taking them to dinner went away down the road, he sat on the parapet of the bridge in front of the house listening to the sound of the horses' feet, and telling himself that there was nothing left for him in life. If ever one man had been good to another, he had been good to Paul Montague, and now Paul Montague was robbing him of everything he valued in the world. His thoughts were not logical, nor was his mind exact. The more he considered it, the stronger was his inward condemnation of his friend. He had never mentioned to anyone the services he had rendered to Montague. In speaking of him to Hetta he had alluded only to the affection which had existed between them. But he felt that because of those services his friend Montague had owed it to him not to fall in love with the girl he loved; and he thought that if, unfortunately, this had happened unawares, Montague should have retired as soon as he learned the truth. He could not bring himself to forgive his friend, even though Hetta had assured him that his friend had never spoken to her of love. He was sore all over, and it was Paul Montague who made him sore. Had there been no such man at Carbury when Hetta came there, Hetta might now have been mistress of the house. He sat there till the servant came to tell him that his dinner was on the table. Then he crept in and ate,--so that the man might not see his sorrow; and, after dinner, he sat with a book in his hand seeming to read. But he read not a word, for his mind was fixed altogether on his cousin Hetta. "What a poor creature a man is," he said to himself, "who is not sufficiently his own master to get over a feeling like this." At Caversham there was a very grand party,--as grand almost as a dinner party can be in the country. There were the Earl and Countess of Loddon and Lady Jane Pewet from Loddon Park, and the bishop and his wife, and the Hepworths. These, with the Carburys and the parson's family, and the people staying in the house, made twenty-four at the dinner table. As there were fourteen ladies and only ten men, the banquet can hardly be said to have been very well arranged. But those things cannot be done in the country with the exactness which the appliances of London make easy; and then the Longestaffes, though they were decidedly people of fashion, were not famous for their excellence in arranging such matters. If aught, however, was lacking in exactness, it was made up in grandeur. There were three powdered footmen, and in that part of the country Lady Pomona alone was served after this fashion; and there was a very heavy butler, whose appearance of itself was sufficient to give clat to a family. The grand saloon in which nobody ever lived was thrown open, and sofas and chairs on which nobody ever sat were uncovered. It was not above once in the year that this kind of thing was done at Caversham; but when it was done, nothing was spared which could contribute to the magnificence of the fte. Lady Pomona and her two tall daughters standing up to receive the little Countess of Loddon and Lady Jane Pewet, who was the image of her mother on a somewhat smaller scale, while Madame Melmotte and Marie stood behind as though ashamed of themselves, was a sight to see. Then the Carburys came, and then Mrs. Yeld with the bishop. The grand room was soon fairly full; but nobody had a word to say. The bishop was generally a man of much conversation, and Lady Loddon, if she were well pleased with her listeners, could talk by the hour without ceasing. But on this occasion nobody could utter a word. Lord Loddon pottered about, making a feeble attempt, in which he was seconded by no one. Lord Alfred stood, stock-still, stroking his grey moustache with his hand. That much greater man, Augustus Melmotte, put his thumbs into the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and was impassible. The bishop saw at a glance the hopelessness of the occasion, and made no attempt. The master of the house shook hands with each guest as he entered, and then devoted his mind to expectation of the next comer. Lady Pomona and her two daughters were grand and handsome, but weary and dumb. In accordance with the treaty, Madame Melmotte had been entertained civilly for four entire days. It could not be expected that the ladies of Caversham should come forth unwearied after such a struggle. When dinner was announced Felix was allowed to take in Marie Melmotte. There can be no doubt but that the Caversham ladies did execute their part of the treaty. They were led to suppose that this arrangement would be desirable to the Melmottes, and they made it. The great Augustus himself went in with Lady Carbury, much to her satisfaction. She also had been dumb in the drawing-room; but now, if ever, it would be her duty to exert herself. "I hope you like Suffolk," she said. "Pretty well, I thank you. Oh, yes;--very nice place for a little fresh air." "Yes;--that's just it, Mr. Melmotte. When the summer comes one does long so to see the flowers." "We have better flowers in our balconies than any I see down here," said Mr. Melmotte. "No doubt;--because you can command the floral tribute of the world at large. What is there that money will not do? It can turn a London street into a bower of roses, and give you grottoes in Grosvenor Square." "It's a very nice place, is London." "If you have got plenty of money, Mr. Melmotte." "And if you have not, it's the best place I know to get it. Do you live in London, ma'am?" He had quite forgotten Lady Carbury even if he had seen her at his house, and with the dulness of hearing common to men, had not picked up her name when told to take her out to dinner. "Oh, yes, I live in London. I have had the honour of being entertained by you there." This she said with her sweetest smile. "Oh, indeed. So many do come, that I don't always just remember." "How should you,--with all the world flocking round you? I am Lady Carbury, the mother of Sir Felix Carbury, whom I think you will remember." "Yes; I know Sir Felix. He's sitting there, next to my daughter." "Happy fellow!" "I don't know much about that. Young men don't get their happiness in that way now. They've got other things to think of." "He thinks so much of his business." "Oh! I didn't know," said Mr. Melmotte. "He sits at the same Board with you, I think, Mr. Melmotte." "Oh;--that's his business!" said Mr. Melmotte, with a grim smile. Lady Carbury was very clever as to many things, and was not ill-informed on matters in general that were going on around her; but she did not know much about the city, and was profoundly ignorant as to the duties of those Directors of whom, from time to time, she saw the names in a catalogue. "I trust that he is diligent, there," she said; "and that he is aware of the great privilege which he enjoys in having the advantage of your counsel and guidance." "He don't trouble me much, ma'am, and I don't trouble him much." After this Lady Carbury said no more as to her son's position in the city. She endeavoured to open various other subjects of conversation; but she found Mr. Melmotte to be heavy on her hands. After a while she had to abandon him in despair, and give herself up to raptures in favour of Protestantism at the bidding of the Caversham parson, who sat on the other side of her, and who had been worked to enthusiasm by some mention of Father Barham's name. Opposite to her, or nearly so, sat Sir Felix and his love. "I have told mamma," Marie had whispered, as she walked in to dinner with him. She was now full of the idea so common to girls who are engaged,--and as natural as it is common,--that she might tell everything to her lover. "Did she say anything?" he asked. Then Marie had to take her place and arrange her dress before she could reply to him. "As to her, I suppose it does not matter what she says, does it?" "She said a great deal. She thinks that papa will think you are not rich enough. Hush! Talk about something else, or people will hear." So much she had been able to say during the bustle. Felix was not at all anxious to talk about his love, and changed the subject very willingly. "Have you been riding?" he asked. "No; I don't think there are horses here,--not for visitors, that is. How did you get home? Did you have any adventures?" "None at all," said Felix, remembering Ruby Ruggles. "I just rode home quietly. I go to town to-morrow." "And we go on Wednesday. Mind you come and see us before long." This she said bringing her voice down to a whisper. "Of course I shall. I suppose I'd better go to your father in the city. Does he go every day?" "Oh yes, every day. He's back always about seven. Sometimes he's good-natured enough when he comes back, but sometimes he's very cross. He's best just after dinner. But it's so hard to get to him then. Lord Alfred is almost always there; and then other people come, and they play cards. I think the city will be best." "You'll stick to it?" he asked. "Oh, yes;--indeed I will. Now that I've once said it nothing will ever turn me. I think papa knows that." Felix looked at her as she said this, and thought that he saw more in her countenance than he had ever read there before. Perhaps she would consent to run away with him; and, if so, being the only child, she would certainly,--almost certainly,--be forgiven. But if he were to run away with her and marry her, and then find that she were not forgiven, and that Melmotte allowed her to starve without a shilling of fortune, where would he be then? Looking at the matter in all its bearings, considering among other things the trouble and the expense of such a measure, he thought that he could not afford to run away with her. After dinner he hardly spoke to her; indeed, the room itself,--the same big room in which they had been assembled before the feast,--seemed to be ill-adapted for conversation. Again nobody talked to anybody, and the minutes went very heavily till at last the carriages were there to take them all home. "They arranged that you should sit next to her," said Lady Carbury to her son, as they were in the carriage. "Oh, I suppose that came naturally;--one young man and one young woman, you know." "Those things are always arranged, and they would not have done it unless they had thought that it would please Mr. Melmotte. Oh, Felix! if you can bring it about." "I shall if I can, mother; you needn't make a fuss about it." "No, I won't. You cannot wonder that I should be anxious. You behaved beautifully to her at dinner; I was so happy to see you together. Good night, Felix, and God bless you!" she said again, as they were parting for the night. "I shall be the happiest and the proudest mother in England if this comes about."

That evening, Lady Carbury went to dine at Caversham with her son and daughter, and Roger was left alone. He was used to solitude. For most of the year he would eat and drink and live without companionship; there was to him nothing particularly sad in it. But on this occasion he could not prevent himself from dwelling on the loneliness of life. His cousins cared nothing for him. Lady Carbury had come to his house simply because it might be useful to her; Sir Felix did not pretend to treat him with even ordinary courtesy; and Hetta herself was soft and gracious to him through pity rather than love. On this day he had almost brought himself to think that she might give all that he wanted without asking. And yet, when he told her of the greatness of his enduring love, she was simply silent. When the carriage took them away, he sat on the parapet of the bridge in front of the house listening to the sound of the horses' feet, and telling himself that there was nothing left for him in life. If ever one man had been good to another, he had been good to Paul Montague, and now Paul Montague was robbing him of everything he valued in the world. His thoughts were not logical, nor exact. The more he considered it, the more strongly he condemned his friend. He had never mentioned to anyone the services he had given to Montague. But he felt that Montague had owed it to him not to fall in love with the girl he loved; he should have retired as soon as he learned the truth. Roger could not bring himself to forgive his friend, even though Hetta had assured him that Montague had never spoken to her of love. He was sore all over. Without Paul, Hetta might now have been mistress of Carbury. He sat there till the servant came to tell him that his dinner was on the table. Then he crept in and ate, so that the man might not see his sorrow; and, after dinner, he sat with a book in his hand seeming to read. But he read not a word, for his mind was fixed on Hetta. "What a poor creature a man is," he said to himself, "who is not sufficiently his own master to get over a feeling like this." At Caversham there was a very grand dinner party. There were the Earl and Countess of Loddon and Lady Jane Pewet, and the bishop and his wife, and the Hepworths. These, with the Carburys and the parson's family, and the people staying in the house, made twenty-four at the dinner table. There were three powdered footmen, unique to that part of the country; and a very heavy and imposing butler. The grand saloon was thrown open, and sofas and chairs on which nobody ever sat were uncovered. This kind of thing was done at Caversham only once a year; but when it was done, nothing was spared which could add to its magnificence. Lady Pomona and her two tall daughters stood up to receive the Countess of Loddon and Lady Jane Pewet. Madame Melmotte and Marie stood behind as though ashamed of themselves. The grand room was soon fairly full; but nobody had a word to say. Lord Loddon pottered about, making a feeble attempt, while Lord Alfred stood stock-still stroking his grey moustache. Augustus Melmotte put his thumbs into the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and was impassive. The bishop saw at a glance the hopelessness of the occasion, and did not try to make conversation. Lady Pomona and her two daughters were grand and handsome, but dumb and weary after four days of civilly entertaining Madame Melmotte. When dinner was announced Felix was allowed to take in Marie Melmotte. The great Augustus went in with Lady Carbury, much to her satisfaction. She also had been dumb in the drawing-room; but now it would be her duty to talk. "I hope you like Suffolk," she said. "Pretty well, I thank you. Very nice place for a little fresh air." "Yes; that's just it, Mr. Melmotte. When the summer comes one does long to see the flowers." "We have better flowers in our balconies than any I see down here," said Mr. Melmotte. "No doubt; because you can command the floral tribute of the world. Money can turn a London street into a bower of roses, and give you grottoes in Grosvenor Square." "It's a very nice place, is London." "If you have got plenty of money, Mr. Melmotte." "And if you have not, it's the best place I know to get it. Do you live in London, ma'am?" "Oh, yes, I live in London. I have had the honour of being entertained by you there." This she said with her sweetest smile. "Oh, indeed. So many do come, that I don't always remember." "How should you - with all the world flocking round you? I am Lady Carbury, the mother of Sir Felix Carbury, whom I think you will remember." "Yes; I know Sir Felix. He's sitting there, next to my daughter." "Happy fellow!" "I don't know about that. Young men don't get their happiness in that way now. They've got other things to think of." "He thinks so much of his business." "Oh! I didn't know," said Mr. Melmotte. "He sits at the same Board with you, I think, Mr. Melmotte." "Oh; that's his business!" said Mr. Melmotte, with a grim smile. Lady Carbury was clever and well-informed about many things, but she did not know much about the city, and was profoundly ignorant as to the duties of Directors. "I trust that he is diligent there," she said; "and that he is aware of the great privilege which he enjoys in having your counsel and guidance." "He don't trouble me much, ma'am, and I don't trouble him much." Lady Carbury said no more about her son's position in the city. She tried to talk of other things; but she found Mr. Melmotte to be heavy on her hands. After a while she had to abandon him in despair, and give herself up to the Caversham parson, who sat on her other side. Opposite her sat Sir Felix and his love. "I have told mamma," Marie had whispered, as she walked in to dinner with him. She was now full of the idea that she might tell everything to her lover. "Did she say anything?" he asked. Marie had to take her place and arrange her dress before she could reply. "She said a great deal. She thinks that papa will think you are not rich enough. Hush! Talk about something else, or people will hear." Felix changed the subject very willingly. "Have you been riding?" he asked. "No; I don't think there are horses here for visitors. How did you get home? Did you have any adventures?" "None at all," said Felix, remembering Ruby Ruggles. "I just rode home quietly. I go to London tomorrow." "And we go on Wednesday. Mind you come and see us before long," she whispered. "Of course I shall. I suppose I'd better go to your father in the city. Does he go every day?" "Oh yes. He's always back about seven. Sometimes he's good-natured enough when he comes back, but sometimes he's very cross. He's best just after dinner. But it's so hard to get to him then. Lord Alfred is almost always there; and then other people come, and they play cards. I think the city will be best." "You'll stick to it?" he asked. "Oh, yes; indeed I will. Nothing will ever turn me. I think papa knows that." Felix looked at her as she said this, and thought that he saw more in her face than he had ever read there before. Perhaps she would consent to run away with him; and, if so, being the only child, she would certainly - almost certainly - be forgiven. But if he were to elope with her, and then find that she were not forgiven, where would he be then? Considering the trouble and the expense of it, he thought that he could not afford to run away with her. After dinner he hardly spoke to her. Indeed, nobody talked to anybody, and the minutes went very heavily till at last the carriages were there to take them all home. "They arranged that you should sit next to her," said Lady Carbury to her son, in the carriage. "They would not have done that unless they had thought that it would please Mr. Melmotte. Oh, Felix! if you can bring it about." "I shall if I can, mother; you needn't make a fuss about it." "No, I won't. You cannot wonder that I should be anxious. You behaved beautifully to her at dinner; I was so happy to see you together. God bless you, Felix! I shall be the happiest and proudest mother in England if this comes about."

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 20: Lady Pomona's Dinner Party

On the following Saturday there appeared in Mr. Alf's paper, the "Evening Pulpit," a very remarkable article on the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway. It was an article that attracted a great deal of attention and was therefore remarkable, but it was in nothing more remarkable than in this,--that it left on the mind of its reader no impression of any decided opinion about the railway. The Editor would at any future time be able to refer to his article with equal pride whether the railway should become a great cosmopolitan fact, or whether it should collapse amidst the foul struggles of a horde of swindlers. In utrumque paratus, the article was mysterious, suggestive, amusing, well-informed,--that in the "Evening Pulpit" was a matter of course,--and, above all things, ironical. Next to its omniscience its irony was the strongest weapon belonging to the "Evening Pulpit." There was a little praise given, no doubt in irony, to the duchesses who served Mr. Melmotte. There was a little praise, given of course in irony, to Mr. Melmotte's Board of English Directors. There was a good deal of praise, but still alloyed by a dash of irony, bestowed on the idea of civilising Mexico by joining it to California. Praise was bestowed upon England for taking up the matter, but accompanied by some ironical touches at her incapacity to believe thoroughly in any enterprise not originated by herself. Then there was something said of the universality of Mr. Melmotte's commercial genius, but whether said in a spirit prophetic of ultimate failure and disgrace, or of heavenborn success and unequalled commercial splendour, no one could tell. It was generally said at the clubs that Mr. Alf had written this article himself. Old Splinter, who was one of a body of men possessing an excellent cellar of wine and calling themselves Paides Pallados, and who had written for the heavy quarterlies any time this last forty years, professed that he saw through the article. The "Evening Pulpit" had been, he explained, desirous of going as far as it could in denouncing Mr. Melmotte without incurring the danger of an action for libel. Mr. Splinter thought that the thing was clever but mean. These new publications generally were mean. Mr. Splinter was constant in that opinion; but, putting the meanness aside, he thought that the article was well done. According to his view it was intended to expose Mr. Melmotte and the railway. But the Paides Pallados generally did not agree with him. Under such an interpretation, what had been the meaning of that paragraph in which the writer had declared that the work of joining one ocean to another was worthy of the nearest approach to divinity that had been granted to men? Old Splinter chuckled and gabbled as he heard this, and declared that there was not wit enough left now even among the Paides Pallados to understand a shaft of irony. There could be no doubt, however, at the time, that the world did not go with old Splinter, and that the article served to enhance the value of shares in the great railway enterprise. Lady Carbury was sure that the article was intended to write up the railway, and took great joy in it. She entertained in her brain a somewhat confused notion that if she could only bestir herself in the right direction and could induce her son to open his eyes to his own advantage, very great things might be achieved, so that wealth might become his handmaid and luxury the habit and the right of his life. He was the beloved and the accepted suitor of Marie Melmotte. He was a Director of this great company, sitting at the same board with the great commercial hero. He was the handsomest young man in London. And he was a baronet. Very wild ideas occurred to her. Should she take Mr. Alf into her entire confidence? If Melmotte and Alf could be brought together what might they not do? Alf could write up Melmotte, and Melmotte could shower shares upon Alf. And if Melmotte would come and be smiled upon by herself, be flattered as she thought that she could flatter him, be told that he was a god, and have that passage about the divinity of joining ocean to ocean construed to him as she could construe it, would not the great man become plastic under her hands? And if, while this was a-doing, Felix would run away with Marie, could not forgiveness be made easy? And her creative mind ranged still farther. Mr. Broune might help, and even Mr. Booker. To such a one as Melmotte, a man doing great things through the force of the confidence placed in him by the world at large, the freely-spoken support of the Press would be everything. Who would not buy shares in a railway as to which Mr. Broune and Mr. Alf would combine in saying that it was managed by "divinity"? Her thoughts were rather hazy, but from day to day she worked hard to make them clear to herself. On the Sunday afternoon Mr. Booker called on her and talked to her about the article. She did not say much to Mr. Booker as to her own connection with Mr. Melmotte, telling herself that prudence was essential in the present emergency. But she listened with all her ears. It was Mr. Booker's idea that the man was going "to make a spoon or spoil a horn." "You think him honest;--don't you?" asked Lady Carbury. Mr. Booker smiled and hesitated. "Of course, I mean honest as men can be in such very large transactions." "Perhaps that is the best way of putting it," said Mr. Booker. "If a thing can be made great and beneficent, a boon to humanity, simply by creating a belief in it, does not a man become a benefactor to his race by creating that belief?" "At the expense of veracity?" suggested Mr. Booker. "At the expense of anything?" rejoined Lady Carbury with energy. "One cannot measure such men by the ordinary rule." "You would do evil to produce good?" asked Mr. Booker. "I do not call it doing evil. You have to destroy a thousand living creatures every time you drink a glass of water, but you do not think of that when you are athirst. You cannot send a ship to sea without endangering lives. You do send ships to sea though men perish yearly. You tell me this man may perhaps ruin hundreds, but then again he may create a new world in which millions will be rich and happy." "You are an excellent casuist, Lady Carbury." "I am an enthusiastic lover of beneficent audacity," said Lady Carbury, picking her words slowly, and showing herself to be quite satisfied with herself as she picked them. "Did I hold your place, Mr. Booker, in the literature of my country,--" "I hold no place, Lady Carbury." "Yes;--and a very distinguished place. Were I circumstanced as you are I should have no hesitation in lending the whole weight of my periodical, let it be what it might, to the assistance of so great a man and so great an object as this." "I should be dismissed to-morrow," said Mr. Booker, getting up and laughing as he took his departure. Lady Carbury felt that, as regarded Mr. Booker, she had only thrown out a chance word that could not do any harm. She had not expected to effect much through Mr. Booker's instrumentality. On the Tuesday evening,--her regular Tuesday as she called it,--all her three editors came to her drawing-room; but there came also a greater man than either of them. She had taken the bull by the horns, and without saying anything to anybody had written to Mr. Melmotte himself, asking him to honour her poor house with his presence. She had written a very pretty note to him, reminding him of their meeting at Caversham, telling him that on a former occasion Madame Melmotte and his daughter had been so kind as to come to her, and giving him to understand that of all the potentates now on earth he was the one to whom she could bow the knee with the purest satisfaction. He wrote back,--or Miles Grendall did for him,--a very plain note, accepting the honour of Lady Carbury's invitation. The great man came, and Lady Carbury took him under her immediate wing with a grace that was all her own. She said a word about their dear friends at Caversham, expressed her sorrow that her son's engagements did not admit of his being there, and then with the utmost audacity rushed off to the article in the "Pulpit." Her friend, Mr. Alf, the editor, had thoroughly appreciated the greatness of Mr. Melmotte's character, and the magnificence of Mr. Melmotte's undertakings. Mr. Melmotte bowed and muttered something that was inaudible. "Now I must introduce you to Mr. Alf," said the lady. The introduction was effected, and Mr. Alf explained that it was hardly necessary, as he had already been entertained as one of Mr. Melmotte's guests. "There were a great many there I never saw, and probably never shall see," said Mr. Melmotte. "I was one of the unfortunates," said Mr. Alf. "I'm sorry you were unfortunate. If you had come into the whist-room you would have found me." "Ah,--if I had but known!" said Mr. Alf. The editor, as was proper, carried about with him samples of the irony which his paper used so effectively, but it was altogether thrown away upon Melmotte. Lady Carbury finding that no immediate good results could be expected from this last introduction, tried another. "Mr. Melmotte," she said, whispering to him, "I do so want to make you known to Mr. Broune. Mr. Broune I know you have never met before. A morning paper is a much heavier burden to an editor than one published in the afternoon. Mr. Broune, as of course you know, manages the 'Breakfast Table.' There is hardly a more influential man in London than Mr. Broune. And they declare, you know," she said, lowering the tone of her whisper as she communicated the fact, "that his commercial articles are gospel,--absolutely gospel." Then the two men were named to each other, and Lady Carbury retreated;--but not out of hearing. "Getting very hot," said Mr. Melmotte. "Very hot indeed," said Mr. Broune. "It was over 70 in the city to-day. I call that very hot for June." "Very hot indeed," said Mr. Broune again. Then the conversation was over. Mr. Broune sidled away, and Mr. Melmotte was left standing in the middle of the room. Lady Carbury told herself at the moment that Rome was not built in a day. She would have been better satisfied certainly if she could have laid a few more bricks on this day. Perseverance, however, was the thing wanted. But Mr. Melmotte himself had a word to say, and before he left the house he said it. "It was very good of you to ask me, Lady Carbury;--very good." Lady Carbury intimated her opinion that the goodness was all on the other side. "And I came," continued Mr. Melmotte, "because I had something particular to say. Otherwise I don't go out much to evening parties. Your son has proposed to my daughter." Lady Carbury looked up into his face with all her eyes;--clasped both her hands together; and then, having unclasped them, put one upon his sleeve. "My daughter, ma'am, is engaged to another man." "You would not enslave her affections, Mr. Melmotte?" "I won't give her a shilling if she marries any one else; that's all. You reminded me down at Caversham that your son is a Director at our Board." "I did;--I did." "I have a great respect for your son, ma'am. I don't want to hurt him in any way. If he'll signify to my daughter that he withdraws from this offer of his, because I'm against it, I'll see that he does uncommon well in the city. I'll be the making of him. Good night, ma'am." Then Mr. Melmotte took his departure without another word. Here at any rate was an undertaking on the part of the great man that he would be the "making of Felix," if Felix would only obey him--accompanied, or rather preceded, by a most positive assurance that if Felix were to succeed in marrying his daughter he would not give his son-in-law a shilling! There was very much to be considered in this. She did not doubt that Felix might be "made" by Mr. Melmotte's city influences, but then any perpetuity of such making must depend on qualifications in her son which she feared that he did not possess. The wife without the money would be terrible! That would be absolute ruin! There could be no escape then; no hope. There was an appreciation of real tragedy in her heart while she contemplated the position of Sir Felix married to such a girl as she supposed Marie Melmotte to be, without any means of support for either of them but what she could supply. It would kill her. And for those young people there would be nothing before them, but beggary and the workhouse. As she thought of this she trembled with true maternal instincts. Her beautiful boy,--so glorious with his outward gifts, so fit, as she thought him, for all the graces of the grand world! Though the ambition was vilely ignoble, the mother's love was noble and disinterested. But the girl was an only child. The future honours of the house of Melmotte could be made to settle on no other head. No doubt the father would prefer a lord for a son-in-law; and, having that preference, would of course do as he was now doing. That he should threaten to disinherit his daughter if she married contrary to his wishes was to be expected. But would it not be equally a matter of course that he should make the best of the marriage if it were once effected? His daughter would return to him with a title, though with one of a lower degree than his ambition desired. To herself personally, Lady Carbury felt that the great financier had been very rude. He had taken advantage of her invitation that he might come to her house and threaten her. But she would forgive that. She could pass that over altogether if only anything were to be gained by passing it over. She looked round the room, longing for a friend, whom she might consult with a true feeling of genuine womanly dependence. Her most natural friend was Roger Carbury. But even had he been there she could not have consulted him on any matter touching the Melmottes. His advice would have been very clear. He would have told her to have nothing at all to do with such adventurers. But then dear Roger was old fashioned, and knew nothing of people as they are now. He lived in a world which, though slow, had been good in its way; but which, whether bad or good, had now passed away. Then her eye settled on Mr. Broune. She was afraid of Mr. Alf. She had almost begun to think that Mr. Alf was too difficult of management to be of use to her. But Mr. Broune was softer. Mr. Booker was serviceable for an article, but would not be sympathetic as a friend. Mr. Broune had been very courteous to her lately;--so much so that on one occasion she had almost feared that the "susceptible old goose" was going to be a goose again. That would be a bore; but still she might make use of the friendly condition of mind which such susceptibility would produce. When her guests began to leave her, she spoke a word aside to him. She wanted his advice. Would he stay for a few minutes after the rest of the company? He did stay, and when all the others were gone she asked her daughter to leave them. "Hetta," she said, "I have something of business to communicate to Mr. Broune." And so they were left alone. "I'm afraid you didn't make much of Mr. Melmotte," she said smiling. He had seated himself on the end of a sofa, close to the arm-chair which she occupied. In reply, he only shook his head and laughed. "I saw how it was, and I was sorry for it; for he certainly is a wonderful man." "I suppose he is, but he is one of those men whose powers do not lie, I should say, chiefly in conversation. Though, indeed, there is no reason why he should not say the same of me;--for if he said little, I said less." "It didn't just come off," Lady Carbury suggested with her sweetest smile. "But now I want to tell you something. I think I am justified in regarding you as a real friend." "Certainly," he said, putting out his hand for hers. She gave it to him for a moment, and then took it back again,--finding that he did not relinquish it of his own accord. "Stupid old goose!" she said to herself. "And now to my story. You know my boy, Felix?" The editor nodded his head. "He is engaged to marry that man's daughter." "Engaged to marry Miss Melmotte?" Then Lady Carbury nodded her head. "Why, she is said to be the greatest heiress that the world has ever produced. I thought she was to marry Lord Nidderdale." "She has engaged herself to Felix. She is desperately in love with him,--as is he with her." She tried to tell her story truly, knowing that no advice can be worth anything that is not based on a true story;--but lying had become her nature. "Melmotte naturally wants her to marry the lord. He came here to tell me that if his daughter married Felix she should not have a penny." "Do you mean that he volunteered that,--as a threat?" "Just so;--and he told me that he had come here simply with the object of saying so. It was more candid than civil, but we must take it as we get it." "He would be sure to make some such threat." "Exactly. That is just what I feel. And in these days young people are not often kept from marrying simply by a father's fantasy. But I must tell you something else. He told me that if Felix would desist, he would enable him to make a fortune in the city." "That's bosh," said Broune with decision. "Do you think it must be so;--certainly?" "Yes, I do. Such an undertaking, if intended by Melmotte, would give me a worse opinion of him than I have ever held." "He did make it." "Then he did very wrong. He must have spoken with the purpose of deceiving." "You know my son is one of the Directors of that great American Railway. It was not just as though the promise were made to a young man who was altogether unconnected with him." "Sir Felix's name was put there, in a hurry, merely because he has a title, and because Melmotte thought he, as a young man, would not be likely to interfere with him. It may be that he will be able to sell a few shares at a profit; but, if I understand the matter rightly, he has no capital to go into such a business." "No;--he has no capital." "Dear Lady Carbury, I would place no dependence at all on such a promise as that." "You think he should marry the girl then in spite of the father?" Mr. Broune hesitated before he replied to this question. But it was to this question that Lady Carbury especially wished for a reply. She wanted some one to support her under the circumstances of an elopement. She rose from her chair, and he rose at the same time. "Perhaps I should have begun by saying that Felix is all but prepared to take her off. She is quite ready to go. She is devoted to him. Do you think he would be wrong?" "That is a question very hard to answer." "People do it every day. Lionel Goldsheiner ran away the other day with Lady Julia Start, and everybody visits them." "Oh yes, people do run away, and it all comes right. It was the gentleman had the money then, and it is said you know that old Lady Catchboy, Lady Julia's mother, had arranged the elopement herself as offering the safest way of securing the rich prize. The young lord didn't like it, so the mother had it done in that fashion." "There would be nothing disgraceful." "I didn't say there would;--but nevertheless it is one of those things a man hardly ventures to advise. If you ask me whether I think that Melmotte would forgive her, and make her an allowance afterwards,--I think he would." "I am so glad to hear you say that." "And I feel quite certain that no dependence whatever should be placed on that promise of assistance." "I quite agree with you. I am so much obliged to you," said Lady Carbury, who was now determined that Felix should run off with the girl. "You have been so very kind." Then again she gave him her hand, as though to bid him farewell for the night. "And now," he said, "I also have something to say to you."

On the following Saturday there appeared in Mr. Alf's paper, the Evening Pulpit, a very remarkable article on the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway. This article attracted a great deal of attention, but the most remarkable thing about it was that it expressed no opinion about the railway at all. The Editor would at any future time be able to refer to his article with equal pride whether the railway should become reality, or whether it should collapse amidst a horde of swindlers. The article was mysterious, amusing, well-informed, and above all ironical. Whether the writer thought the railway would be a failure or an unequalled success, no one could tell. It was generally said that Mr. Alf had written this article himself. Some thought that the Evening Pulpit had wanted to go as far as it could in denouncing Mr. Melmotte without incurring the danger of being sued for libel. But other readers did not agree; and the article served to enhance the value of shares in the great railway enterprise. Lady Carbury was sure that the article was intended to write up the railway, and took great joy in it. She had a somewhat confused notion that if she could only induce her son to open his eyes, very great things might be achieved, so that wealth might become his handmaid and luxury his habit. He was the beloved of Marie Melmotte. He was a Director of this great company. He was the handsomest young man in London. And he was a baronet. Should she take Mr. Alf into her confidence? If he and Melmotte could be brought together, what might they not do? Alf could write up Melmotte, and Melmotte could shower shares upon Alf. And if Melmotte would visit her and be smiled upon and flattered, would not the great man become putty under her hands? And if meanwhile, Felix ran away with Marie, could not forgiveness be made easy? Her creative mind ranged still farther. Mr. Broune might help, and even Mr. Booker. To such a one as Melmotte, the support of the Press would be everything. Who would not buy shares in a railway which Mr. Broune and Mr. Alf both praised to the heavens? Her thoughts were rather hazy, but she worked hard to make them clear to herself. On the Sunday afternoon Mr. Booker called and talked to her about the article. She prudently did not say much to Mr. Booker about her own connection with Melmotte, but she listened with all her ears. "You think him honest, don't you?" she asked. Mr. Booker smiled and hesitated. "Of course, I mean as honest as men can be in such very large transactions." "Perhaps that is the best way of putting it," said Mr. Booker. "If a thing can be made a great boon to humanity, simply by creating a belief in it, does not a man become a benefactor to his race by creating that belief?" "At the expense of truth?" suggested Mr. Booker. "One cannot measure such men by the ordinary rule." "You would do evil to produce good?" asked Mr. Booker. "I do not call it doing evil. You have to destroy a thousand living creatures every time you drink a glass of water, but you do not think of that when you are thirsty. You tell me this man may perhaps ruin hundreds, but then again he may create a new world in which millions will be rich and happy." "You are an excellent casuist, Lady Carbury." "I am an enthusiastic lover of beneficent audacity," said Lady Carbury, picking her words carefully. "If I held your distinguished place, Mr. Booker, I should have no hesitation in lending the whole weight of my periodical to the assistance of so great a man and so great an object as this." "I should be dismissed tomorrow," said Mr. Booker, laughing as he took his departure. Lady Carbury felt that she had only thrown out a word that could not do any harm. On the Tuesday evening - her regular Tuesday - all her three editors came to her drawing-room; but there came also a greater man. She had taken the bull by the horns, and had written a very pretty note to Mr. Melmotte himself, asking him to honour her poor house with his presence. The great man came, and Lady Carbury took him gracefully under her wing. She said a word about their dear friends at Caversham, expressed her sorrow that her son's engagements did not allow him to be there, and then boldly brought up the article in the Pulpit. Her friend, Mr. Alf, the editor, had thoroughly appreciated the greatness of Mr. Melmotte's character, and the magnificence of his undertakings. Mr. Melmotte bowed and muttered something inaudible. "Now I must introduce you to Mr. Alf," said the lady. When she did, Mr. Alf explained that he had already been entertained as one of Mr. Melmotte's guests. "There were a great many there I never saw," said Mr. Melmotte. "If you had come into the whist-room you would have found me." "Ah - if I had but known!" said Mr. Alf. His irony was altogether thrown away upon Melmotte. Lady Carbury, finding that no immediate good results could be expected from this introduction, tried another. "Mr. Melmotte," she whispered to him, "I do so want to make you known to Mr. Broune, who manages the Breakfast Table. There is hardly a more influential man in London." The two men were introduced to each other, and Lady Carbury retreated; but not out of hearing. "Getting very hot," said Mr. Melmotte. "Very hot indeed," said Mr. Broune. "It was over 70 in the city today. I call that very hot for June." "Very hot indeed," said Mr. Broune. Then the conversation was over, and Mr. Broune sidled away. Lady Carbury told herself that Rome was not built in a day. She would have been better satisfied certainly if she could have laid a few more bricks. Perseverance, however, was needed. But Mr. Melmotte himself had a word to say before he left the house. "It was very good of you to ask me, Lady Carbury; very good. And I came because I had something particular to say. Your son has proposed to my daughter." Lady Carbury looked up into his face with all her eyes, and clasped her hands together. "My daughter, ma'am, is engaged to another man. I won't give her a shilling if she marries anyone else; that's all. You reminded me down at Caversham that your son is a Director at our Board." "I did." "I have a great respect for your son, ma'am. I don't want to hurt him in any way. If he'll tell my daughter that he withdraws from his offer, I'll see that he does uncommon well in the city. I'll be the making of him. Good night, ma'am." Then Mr. Melmotte departed without another word. Here was a promise by the great man that he would be the "making of Felix," if Felix would only obey him! There was much to be considered in this. She did not doubt that Felix might be "made" by Mr. Melmotte's city influences. But the wife without the money would be terrible! That would be absolute ruin! The young people would have nothing before them but beggary and the workhouse. As she thought of this she trembled. Her beautiful boy - so glorious, so fit for all the graces of the grand world! But the girl was an only child. The future honours of the house of Melmotte could settle on no other head. No doubt the father would prefer a lord for a son-in-law; but would he not make the best of the marriage if it took place? His daughter would return to him with a title, though a lower one than his ambition desired. She looked round the room, longing for a friend whom she might consult. Her most natural friend was Roger Carbury. But even if he had been there she could not have consulted him about the Melmottes. Dear Roger was old fashioned, and knew nothing of people as they are now. He lived in a world which had been good in its way; but which had now passed on. Then her eye settled on Mr. Broune. She was afraid of Mr. Alf, who was proving difficult to manage. But Mr. Broune was softer. He had been very courteous to her lately - so much so that she had almost feared that he was going to be a goose again. That would be a bore; but still she might make use of his susceptibility. When her guests began to leave, she spoke to him, saying she wanted his advice. Would he stay behind for a few minutes? He did, and she asked her daughter to leave them. "I'm afraid you didn't make much of Mr. Melmotte," she said, smiling. He had seated himself close to her arm-chair. In reply, he shook his head and laughed. "I was sorry for it," said Lady Carbury, "for he certainly is a wonderful man." "I suppose he is, but he is one of those men whose powers do not lie in conversation. Though, indeed, if he said little, I said less." "It didn't come off," Lady Carbury suggested with her sweetest smile. "But now I want to tell you something. I think I am justified in regarding you as a real friend." "Certainly," he said, putting out his hand for hers. She gave it to him for a moment, and then took it back again. "Stupid old goose!" she thought; and then said, "You know my boy, Felix? He is engaged to marry that man's daughter." "Engaged to marry Miss Melmotte? I thought she was to marry Lord Nidderdale." "She is desperately in love with Felix, as is he with her. Melmotte naturally wants her to marry the lord. He came here to tell me that if his daughter married Felix she should not have a penny." "Do you mean that he volunteered that, as a threat?" "Just so. It was more candid than civil. In these days young people are not often stopped from marrying simply by a father's fantasy. But he also told me that if Felix would desist, he would enable him to make a fortune in the city." "That's bosh," said Broune with decision. "Do you think so?" "Yes, I do. He must have meant to deceive you." "You know my son is one of the Directors of that great American Railway, so is connected to him." "Sir Felix's name was put there merely because he has a title, and because Melmotte thought Felix would not interfere. It may be that he will be able to sell a few shares at a profit; but, if I understand the matter rightly, he has no capital to go into such a business." "No." "Dear Lady Carbury, I would place no dependence at all on such a promise as that." "You think he should marry the girl then, in spite of the father?" Mr. Broune hesitated before he replied. But Lady Carbury wanted someone to support her in her view of an elopement. "Felix is all but prepared to take her off. She is quite ready to go. She is devoted to him. Do you think he would be wrong?" "That is very hard to answer," said Mr. Broune. "People do it every day. Lionel Goldsheiner ran away the other day with Lady Julia Start, and everybody visits them." "Oh yes, people do run away, and it all comes right. You know it is said that Lady Julia's mother arranged the elopement herself, as the safest way of securing the young man and his fortune. Nevertheless it is one of those things a man hardly ventures to advise. If you ask me whether I think that Melmotte would forgive her, and make her an allowance afterwards - I think he would." "I am so glad to hear you say that." "And I feel certain that you should not depend on that promise of assistance in the City." "I quite agree with you. I am so much obliged to you," said Lady Carbury, who was now determined that Felix should run off with the girl. "You have been so very kind." She gave him her hand, as though to bid him farewell. "And now," he said, "I also have something to say to you."

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 30: Mr. Melmotte's Promise

Sir Felix Carbury made an appointment for meeting Ruby Ruggles a second time at the bottom of the kitchen-garden belonging to Sheep's Acre farm, which appointment he neglected, and had, indeed, made without any intention of keeping it. But Ruby was there, and remained hanging about among the cabbages till her grandfather returned from Harlestone market. An early hour had been named; but hours may be mistaken, and Ruby had thought that a fine gentleman, such as was her lover, used to live among fine people up in London, might well mistake the afternoon for the morning. If he would come at all she could easily forgive such a mistake. But he did not come, and late in the afternoon she was obliged to obey her grandfather's summons as he called her into the house. After that for three weeks she heard nothing of her London lover, but she was always thinking of him;--and though she could not altogether avoid her country lover, she was in his company as little as possible. One afternoon her grandfather returned from Bungay and told her that her country lover was coming to see her. "John Crumb be a coming over by-and-by," said the old man. "See and have a bit o' supper ready for him." "John Crumb coming here, grandfather? He's welcome to stay away then, for me." "That be dommed." The old man thrust his old hat on to his head and seated himself in a wooden arm-chair that stood by the kitchen-fire. Whenever he was angry he put on his hat, and the custom was well understood by Ruby. "Why not welcome, and he all one as your husband? Look ye here, Ruby, I'm going to have an eend o' this. John Crumb is to marry you next month, and the banns is to be said." "The parson may say what he pleases, grandfather. I can't stop his saying of 'em. It isn't likely I shall try, neither. But no parson among 'em all can marry me without I'm willing." "And why should you no be willing, you contrairy young jade, you?" "You've been a' drinking, grandfather." He turned round at her sharp, and threw his old hat at her head;--nothing to Ruby's consternation, as it was a practice to which she was well accustomed. She picked it up, and returned it to him with a cool indifference which was intended to exasperate him. "Look ye here, Ruby," he said, "out o' this place you go. If you go as John Crumb's wife you'll go with five hun'erd pound, and we'll have a dinner here, and a dance, and all Bungay." "Who cares for all Bungay,--a set of beery chaps as knows nothing but swilling and smoking;--and John Crumb the main of 'em all? There never was a chap for beer like John Crumb." "Never saw him the worse o' liquor in all my life." And the old farmer, as he gave this grand assurance, rattled his fist down upon the table. "It ony just makes him stoopider and stoopider the more he swills. You can't tell me, grandfather, about John Crumb. I knows him." "Didn't ye say as how ye'd have him? Didn't ye give him a promise?" "If I did, I ain't the first girl as has gone back of her word,--and I shan't be the last." "You means you won't have him?" "That's about it, grandfather." "Then you'll have to have somebody to fend for ye, and that pretty sharp,--for you won't have me." "There ain't no difficulty about that, grandfather." "Very well. He's a coming here to-night, and you may settle it along wi' him. Out o' this ye shall go. I know of your doings." "What doings! You don't know of no doings. There ain't no doings. You don't know nothing ag'in me." "He's a coming here to-night, and if you can make it up wi' him, well and good. There's five hun'erd pound, and ye shall have the dinner and the dance and all Bungay. He ain't a going to be put off no longer;--he ain't." "Whoever wanted him to be put on? Let him go his own gait." "If you can't make it up wi' him--" "Well, grandfather, I shan't anyways." "Let me have my say, will ye, yer jade, you? There's five hun'erd pound! and there ain't ere a farmer in Suffolk or Norfolk paying rent for a bit of land like this can do as well for his darter as that,--let alone only a granddarter. You never thinks o' that;--you don't. If you don't like to take it,--leave it. But you'll leave Sheep's Acre too." "Bother Sheep's Acre. Who wants to stop at Sheep's Acre? It's the stoopidest place in all England." "Then find another. Then find another. That's all aboot it. John Crumb's a coming up for a bit o' supper. You tell him your own mind. I'm dommed if I trouble aboot it. On'y you don't stay here. Sheep's Acre ain't good enough for you, and you'd best find another home. Stoopid, is it? You'll have to put up wi' places stoopider nor Sheep's Acre, afore you've done." In regard to the hospitality promised to Mr. Crumb, Miss Ruggles went about her work with sufficient alacrity. She was quite willing that the young man should have a supper, and she did understand that, so far as the preparation of the supper went, she owed her service to her grandfather. She therefore went to work herself, and gave directions to the servant girl who assisted her in keeping her grandfather's house. But as she did this, she determined that she would make John Crumb understand that she would never be his wife. Upon that she was now fully resolved. As she went about the kitchen, taking down the ham and cutting the slices that were to be broiled, and as she trussed the fowl that was to be boiled for John Crumb, she made mental comparisons between him and Sir Felix Carbury. She could see, as though present to her at the moment, the mealy, floury head of the one, with hair stiff with perennial dust from his sacks, and the sweet glossy dark well-combed locks of the other, so bright, so seductive, that she was ever longing to twine her fingers among them. And she remembered the heavy, flat, broad honest face of the meal-man, with his mouth slow in motion, and his broad nose looking like a huge white promontory, and his great staring eyes, from the corners of which he was always extracting meal and grit;--and then also she remembered the white teeth, the beautiful soft lips, the perfect eyebrows, and the rich complexion of her London lover. Surely a lease of Paradise with the one, though but for one short year, would be well purchased at the price of a life with the other! "It's no good going against love," she said to herself, "and I won't try. He shall have his supper, and be told all about it, and then go home. He cares more for his supper than he do for me." And then, with this final resolution firmly made, she popped the fowl into the pot. Her grandfather wanted her to leave Sheep's Acre. Very well. She had a little money of her own, and would take herself off to London. She knew what people would say, but she cared nothing for old women's tales. She would know how to take care of herself, and could always say in her own defence that her grandfather had turned her out of Sheep's Acre. Seven had been the hour named, and punctually at that hour John Crumb knocked at the back door of Sheep's Acre farm-house. Nor did he come alone. He was accompanied by his friend Joe Mixet, the baker of Bungay, who, as all Bungay knew, was to be his best man at his marriage. John Crumb's character was not without many fine attributes. He could earn money,--and having earned it could spend and keep it in fair proportion. He was afraid of no work, and,--to give him his due,--was afraid of no man. He was honest, and ashamed of nothing that he did. And after his fashion he had chivalrous ideas about women. He was willing to thrash any man that ill-used a woman, and would certainly be a most dangerous antagonist to any man who would misuse a woman belonging to him. But Ruby had told the truth of him in saying that he was slow of speech, and what the world calls stupid in regard to all forms of expression. He knew good meal from bad as well as any man, and the price at which he could buy it so as to leave himself a fair profit at the selling. He knew the value of a clear conscience, and without much argument had discovered for himself that honesty is in truth the best policy. Joe Mixet, who was dapper of person and glib of tongue, had often declared that any one buying John Crumb for a fool would lose his money. Joe Mixet was probably right; but there had been a want of prudence, a lack of worldly sagacity, in the way in which Crumb had allowed his proposed marriage with Ruby Ruggles to become a source of gossip to all Bungay. His love was now an old affair; and, though he never talked much, whenever he did talk, he talked about that. He was proud of Ruby's beauty, and of her fortune, and of his own status as her acknowledged lover,--and he did not hide his light under a bushel. Perhaps the publicity so produced had some effect in prejudicing Ruby against the man whose offer she had certainly once accepted. Now when he came to settle the day,--having heard more than once or twice that there was a difficulty with Ruby,--he brought his friend Mixet with him as though to be present at his triumph. "If here isn't Joe Mixet," said Ruby to herself. "Was there ever such a stoopid as John Crumb? There's no end to his being stoopid." The old man had slept off his anger and his beer while Ruby had been preparing the feast, and now roused himself to entertain his guests. "What, Joe Mixet; is that thou? Thou'rt welcome. Come in, man. Well, John, how is it wi' you? Ruby's a stewing o' something for us to eat a bit. Don't 'e smell it?"--John Crumb lifted up his great nose, sniffed and grinned. "John didn't like going home in the dark like," said the baker, with his little joke. "So I just come along to drive away the bogies." "The more the merrier;--the more the merrier. Ruby 'll have enough for the two o' you, I'll go bail. So John Crumb's afraid of bogies;--is he? The more need he to have some 'un in his house to scart 'em away." The lover had seated himself without speaking a word; but now he was instigated to ask a question. "Where be she, Muster Ruggles?" They were seated in the outside or front kitchen, in which the old man and his granddaughter always lived; while Ruby was at work in the back kitchen. As John Crumb asked this question she could be heard distinctly among the pots and the plates. She now came out, and wiping her hands on her apron, shook hands with the two young men. She had enveloped herself in a big household apron when the cooking was in hand, and had not cared to take it off for the greeting of this lover. "Grandfather said as how you was a coming out for your supper, so I've been a seeing to it. You'll excuse the apron, Mr. Mixet." "You couldn't look nicer, miss, if you was to try it ever so. My mother says as it's housifery as recommends a girl to the young men. What do you say, John?" "I loiks to see her loik o' that," said John rubbing his hands down the back of his trowsers, and stooping till he had brought his eyes down to a level with those of his sweetheart. [Illlustration: "I loiks to see her loik o' that."] "It looks homely; don't it, John?" said Mixet. "Bother!" said Ruby, turning round sharp, and going back to the other kitchen. John Crumb turned round also, and grinned at his friend, and then grinned at the old man. "You've got it all afore you," said the farmer,--leaving the lover to draw what lesson he might from this oracular proposition. "And I don't care how soon I ha'e it in hond;--that I don't," said John. "That's the chat," said Joe Mixet. "There ain't nothing wanting in his house;--is there, John? It's all there,--cradle, caudle-cup, and the rest of it. A young woman going to John knows what she'll have to eat when she gets up, and what she'll lie down upon when she goes to bed." This he declared in a loud voice for the benefit of Ruby in the back kitchen. "That she do," said John, grinning again. "There's a hun'erd and fifty poond o' things in my house forbye what mother left behind her." After this there was no more conversation till Ruby reappeared with the boiled fowl, and without her apron. She was followed by the girl with a dish of broiled ham and an enormous pyramid of cabbage. Then the old man got up slowly and opening some private little door of which he kept the key in his breeches pocket, drew a jug of ale and placed it on the table. And from a cupboard of which he also kept the key, he brought out a bottle of gin. Everything being thus prepared, the three men sat round the table, John Crumb looking at his chair again and again before he ventured to occupy it. "If you'll sit yourself down, I'll give you a bit of something to eat," said Ruby at last. Then he sank at once into his chair. Ruby cut up the fowl standing, and dispensed the other good things, not even placing a chair for herself at the table,--and apparently not expected to do so, for no one invited her. "Is it to be spirits or ale, Mr. Crumb?" she said, when the other two men had helped themselves. He turned round and gave her a look of love that might have softened the heart of an Amazon; but instead of speaking he held up his tumbler, and bobbed his head at the beer jug. Then she filled it to the brim, frothing it in the manner in which he loved to have it frothed. He raised it to his mouth slowly, and poured the liquor in as though to a vat. Then she filled it again. He had been her lover, and she would be as kind to him as she knew how,--short of love. There was a good deal of eating done, for more ham came in, and another mountain of cabbage; but very little or nothing was said. John Crumb ate whatever was given to him of the fowl, sedulously picking the bones, and almost swallowing them; and then finished the second dish of ham, and after that the second instalment of cabbage. He did not ask for more beer, but took it as often as Ruby replenished his glass. When the eating was done, Ruby retired into the back kitchen, and there regaled herself with some bone or merry-thought of the fowl, which she had with prudence reserved, sharing her spoils however with the other maiden. This she did standing, and then went to work, cleaning the dishes. The men lit their pipes and smoked in silence, while Ruby went through her domestic duties. So matters went on for half an hour; during which Ruby escaped by the back door, went round into the house, got into her own room, and formed the grand resolution of going to bed. She began her operations in fear and trembling, not being sure but that her grandfather would bring the man up-stairs to her. As she thought of this she stayed her hand, and looked to the door. She knew well that there was no bolt there. It would be terrible to her to be invaded by John Crumb after his fifth or sixth glass of beer. And, she declared to herself, that should he come he would be sure to bring Joe Mixet with him to speak his mind for him. So she paused and listened. When they had smoked for some half hour the old man called for his granddaughter, but called of course in vain. "Where the mischief is the jade gone?" he said, slowly making his way into the back kitchen. The maid as soon as she heard her master moving, escaped into the yard and made no response, while the old man stood bawling at the back door. "The devil's in them. They're off some gates," he said aloud. "She'll make the place hot for her, if she goes on this way." Then he returned to the two young men. "She's playing off her games somwheres," he said. "Take a glass of sperrits and water, Mr. Crumb, and I'll see after her." "I'll just take a drop of y'ell," said John Crumb, apparently quite unmoved by the absence of his sweetheart. It was sad work for the old man. He went down the yard and into the garden, hobbling among the cabbages, not daring to call very loud, as he did not wish to have it supposed that the girl was lost; but still anxious, and sore at heart as to the ingratitude shown to him. He was not bound to give the girl a home at all. She was not his own child. And he had offered her 500! "Domm her," he said aloud as he made his way back to the house. After much search and considerable loss of time he returned to the kitchen in which the two men were sitting, leading Ruby in his hand. She was not smart in her apparel, for she had half undressed herself, and been then compelled by her grandfather to make herself fit to appear in public. She had acknowledged to herself that she had better go down and tell John Crumb the truth. For she was still determined that she would never be John Crumb's wife. "You can answer him as well as I, grandfather," she had said. Then the farmer had cuffed her, and told her that she was an idiot. "Oh, if it comes to that," said Ruby, "I'm not afraid of John Crumb, nor yet of nobody else. Only I didn't think you'd go to strike me, grandfather." "I'll knock the life out of thee, if thou goest on this gate," he had said. But she had consented to come down, and they entered the room together. "We're a disturbing you a'most too late, miss," said Mr. Mixet. "It ain't that at all, Mr. Mixet. If grandfather chooses to have a few friends, I ain't nothing against it. I wish he'd have a few friends a deal oftener than he do. I likes nothing better than to do for 'em;--only when I've done for 'em and they're smoking their pipes and that like, I don't see why I ain't to leave 'em to 'emselves." "But we've come here on a hauspicious occasion, Miss Ruby." "I don't know nothing about auspicious, Mr. Mixet. If you and Mr. Crumb've come out to Sheep's Acre farm for a bit of supper--" "Which we ain't," said John Crumb very loudly;--"nor yet for beer;--not by no means." "We've come for the smiles of beauty," said Joe Mixet. Ruby chucked up her head. "Mr. Mixet, if you'll be so good as to stow that! There ain't no beauty here as I knows of, and if there was it isn't nothing to you." "Except in the way of friendship," said Mixet. "I'm just as sick of all this as a man can be," said Mr. Ruggles, who was sitting low in his chair, with his back bent, and his head forward. "I won't put up with it no more." "Who wants you to put up with it?" said Ruby. "Who wants 'em to come here with their trash? Who brought 'em to-night? I don't know what business Mr. Mixet has interfering along o' me. I never interfere along o' him." "John Crumb, have you anything to say?" asked the old man. Then John Crumb slowly arose from his chair, and stood up at his full height. "I hove," said he, swinging his head to one side. "Then say it." "I will," said he. He was still standing bolt upright with his hands down by his side. Then he stretched out his left to his glass which was half full of beer, and strengthened himself as far as that would strengthen him. Having done this he slowly deposited the pipe which he still held in his right hand. "Now speak your mind, like a man," said Mixet. "I intends it," said John. But he still stood dumb, looking down upon old Ruggles, who from his crouched position was looking up at him. Ruby was standing with both her hands upon the table and her eyes intent upon the wall over the fire-place. "You've asked Miss Ruby to be your wife a dozen times;--haven't you, John?" suggested Mixet. "I hove." "And you mean to be as good as your word?" "I do." "And she has promised to have you?" "She hove." "More nor once or twice?" To this proposition Crumb found it only necessary to bob his head. "You're ready,--and willing?" "I om." "You're wishing to have the banns said without any more delay?" "There ain't no delay 'bout me;--never was." "Everything is ready in your own house?" "They is." "And you will expect Miss Ruby to come to the scratch?" "I sholl." "That's about it, I think," said Joe Mixet, turning to the grandfather. "I don't think there was ever anything much more straightforward than that. You know, I know, Miss Ruby knows all about John Crumb. John Crumb didn't come to Bungay yesterday,--nor yet the day before. There's been a talk of five hundred pounds, Mr. Ruggles." Mr. Ruggles made a slight gesture of assent with his head. "Five hundred pounds is very comfortable; and added to what John has will make things that snug that things never was snugger. But John Crumb isn't after Miss Ruby along of her fortune." "Nohow's," said the lover, shaking his head and still standing upright with his hands by his side. "Not he;--it isn't his ways, and them as knows him'll never say it of him. John has a heart in his buzsom." "I has," said John, raising his hand a little above his stomach. "And feelings as a man. It's true love as has brought John Crumb to Sheep's Acre farm this night;--love of that young lady, if she'll let me make so free. He's a proposed to her, and she's a haccepted him, and now it's about time as they was married. That's what John Crumb has to say." "That's what I has to say," repeated John Crumb, "and I means it." "And now, miss," continued Mixet, addressing himself to Ruby, "you've heard what John has to say." "I've heard you, Mr. Mixet, and I've heard quite enough." "You can't have anything to say against it, miss; can you? There's your grandfather as is willing, and the money as one may say counted out,--and John Crumb is willing, with his house so ready that there isn't a ha'porth to do. All we want is for you to name the day." "Say to-morrow, Ruby, and I'll not be agon it," said John Crumb, slapping his thigh. "I won't say to-morrow, Mr. Crumb, nor yet the day after to-morrow, nor yet no day at all. I'm not going to have you. I've told you as much before." "That was only in fun, loike." "Then now I tell you in earnest. There's some folk wants such a deal of telling." "You don't mean,--never?" "I do mean never, Mr. Crumb." "Didn't you say as you would, Ruby? Didn't you say so as plain as the nose on my face?" John as he asked these questions could hardly refrain from tears. "Young women is allowed to change their minds," said Ruby. "Brute!" exclaimed old Ruggles. "Pig! Jade! I'll tell'ee what, John. She'll go out o' this into the streets;--that's what she wull. I won't keep her here, no longer;--nasty, ungrateful, lying slut." "She ain't that;--she ain't that," said John. "She ain't that at all. She's no slut. I won't hear her called so;--not by her grandfather. But, oh, she has a mind to put me so abouts, that I'll have to go home and hang myself." "Dash it, Miss Ruby, you ain't a going to serve a young man that way," said the baker. "If you'll jist keep yourself to yourself, I'll be obliged to you, Mr. Mixet," said Ruby. "If you hadn't come here at all things might have been different." "Hark at that now," said John, looking at his friend almost with indignation. Mr. Mixet, who was fully aware of his rare eloquence and of the absolute necessity there had been for its exercise if any arrangement were to be made at all, could not trust himself to words after this. He put on his hat and walked out through the back kitchen into the yard declaring that his friend would find him there, round by the pig-stye wall, whenever he was ready to return to Bungay. As soon as Mixet was gone John looked at his sweetheart out of the corners of his eyes and made a slow motion towards her, putting out his right hand as a feeler. "He's aff now, Ruby," said John. "And you'd better be aff after him," said the cruel girl. "And when'll I come back again?" "Never. It ain't no use. What's the good of more words, Mr. Crumb?" "Domm her; domm her," said old Ruggles. "I'll even it to her. She'll have to be out on the roads this night." "She shall have the best bed in my house if she'll come for it," said John, "and the old woman to look arter her; and I won't come nigh her till she sends for me." "I can find a place for myself, thank ye, Mr. Crumb." Old Ruggles sat grinding his teeth, and swearing to himself, taking his hat off and putting it on again, and meditating vengeance. "And now if you please, Mr. Crumb, I'll go up-stairs to my own room." "You don't go up to any room here, you jade you." The old man as he said this got up from his chair as though to fly at her. And he would have struck her with his stick but that he was stopped by John Crumb. "Don't hit the girl, no gate, Mr. Ruggles." "Domm her, John; she breaks my heart." While her lover held her grandfather Ruby escaped, and seated herself on the bedside, again afraid to undress, lest she should be disturbed by her grandfather. "Ain't it more nor a man ought to have to bear;--ain't it, Mr. Crumb?" said the grandfather appealing to the young man. "It's the ways on 'em, Mr. Ruggles." "Ways on 'em! A whipping at the cart-tail ought to be the ways on her. She's been and seen some young buck." Then John Crumb turned red all over, through the flour, and sparks of anger flashed from his eyes. "You ain't a meaning of it, master?" "I'm told there's been the squoire's cousin aboot,--him as they call the baronite." "Been along wi' Ruby?" The old man nodded at him. "By the mortials I'll baronite him;--I wull," said John seizing his hat and stalking off through the back kitchen after his friend.

Sir Felix Carbury agreed to meet Ruby Ruggles a second time at the bottom of the kitchen-garden of Sheep's Acre farm. He made this appointment without any intention of keeping it. But Ruby was there, and hung about among the cabbages till her grandfather returned from Harlestone market. She thought that a fine London gentleman like her lover might well be late. But he did not come, and she was obliged at last to go into the house. After that for three weeks she heard nothing of him, but she was always thinking of him; and though she could not altogether avoid her country lover, she was in his company as little as possible. One afternoon her grandfather told her that her country lover was coming to see her. "John Crumb be a coming over by-and-by," said the old man. "See and have a bit o' supper ready for him." "John Crumb? He's welcome to stay away, for me." "That be dommed." The old man thrust his hat on to his head and seated himself in a wooden arm-chair by the kitchen-fire. Whenever he was angry he put on his hat, as Ruby knew. "Why not welcome? Look ye here, Ruby, I'm going to have an end o' this. John Crumb is to marry you next month, and the banns is to be said." "The parson may say what he pleases, grandfather. I can't stop him. But no parson can marry me without I'm willing." "And why should you no be willing, you contrairy young jade, you?" "You've been a' drinking, grandfather." He turned round sharp, and threw his old hat at her. She picked it up, and returned it to him with cool indifference. "Look ye here, Ruby," he said, "if you go from here as John Crumb's wife you'll go with five hun'erd pound, and we'll have a dinner, and a dance, and all Bungay." "Who cares for all Bungay - beery chaps as knows nothing but swilling and smoking? There never was a chap for beer like John Crumb." "Never saw him the worse o' liquor in all my life." And the old farmer rattled his fist upon the table. "It just makes him stoopider." "Didn't ye say as how ye'd have him? Didn't ye promise?" "If I did, I ain't the first girl as has gone back of her word." "You means you won't have him?" "That's about it, grandfather." "Then you'll have to have somebody to fend for ye, for you won't have me." "There ain't no difficulty about that, grandfather." "Very well. John Crumb's a coming here tonight, and you may settle it along wi' him. I know of your doings." "What doings! There ain't no doings." "If you can make it up wi' him, well and good. There's five hun'erd pound, and if you don't like to take it - leave it. But you'll leave Sheep's Acre too." "Bother Sheep's Acre. Who wants to stop at Sheep's Acre? It's the stoopidest place in all England." "Stoopid, is it? Then find another. If Sheep's Acre ain't good enough for you, you'd best find another home." Miss Ruggles prepared supper for John Crumb; she knew that she owed that service to her grandfather. But she determined that she would make John Crumb understand that she would never be his wife. As she went about the kitchen, cutting slices of ham, and trussing the fowl that was to be boiled for John Crumb, she made mental comparisons between him and Sir Felix Carbury. She could see the mealy, floury head of the one, his hair stiff with dust, and the sweet glossy well-combed locks of the other, so bright, so seductive, that she was always longing to twine her fingers among them. And she remembered the heavy, flat, honest face of the meal-man, with his slowly-moving mouth, and his broad white nose, and his great staring eyes; and then she remembered the white teeth, the perfect eyebrows, and the rich complexion of her London lover. Surely even one year of Paradise with him would be well purchased at the price of a life with the other! "It's no good going against love," she said to herself. "He shall have his supper, and be told all about it, and then go home. He cares more for his supper than he do for me." And with this resolution she popped the fowl into the pot. Her grandfather wanted her to leave Sheep's Acre. Very well. She had a little money of her own, and would take herself off to London. She knew what people would say, but she cared nothing for old women's tales. She knew how to take care of herself. At seven o'clock John Crumb knocked at the door of Sheep's Acre farm-house. He was accompanied by his friend Joe Mixet, the baker of Bungay, who was to be his best man at his wedding. John Crumb had many fine attributes. He was not afraid of work, nor of any man, and he was honest. After his fashion he had chivalrous ideas: he was willing to thrash any man that ill-used a woman. But Ruby had told the truth in saying that he was slow of speech, and what the world calls stupid in regard to expressing himself. Joe Mixet, who was dapper of person and glib of tongue, had often declared that anyone taking John Crumb for a fool would lose his money. Joe Mixet was probably right; but there had been a lack of worldly wisdom in the way in which Crumb had allowed his proposed marriage with Ruby Ruggles to become a source of gossip. He was proud of Ruby's beauty, and of his status as her lover; and he did not hide it. Now, when he came to settle the wedding day - having heard that there was a difficulty with Ruby - he brought his friend Mixet with him as though to be present at his triumph. The old man roused himself to entertain his guests. "Joe Mixet; is that thou? Come in, man. Well, John, how is it wi' you? Ruby's a stewing o' something for us to eat." "Where be she, Muster Ruggles?" asked John Crumb. Ruby was at work in the back kitchen, where she could be heard among the pots and plates. She now came out, wiping her hands on her apron. "Grandfather said as how you was a coming out for your supper, so I've been a seeing to it. You'll excuse the apron, Mr. Mixet." "You couldn't look nicer, miss. My mother says as it's housifery as recommends a girl to the young men. What do you say, John?" "I loiks to see her loik o' that," said John rubbing his hands down the back of his trousers. "Bother!" said Ruby, turning round sharp, and going back to the other kitchen. John Crumb turned round also, and grinned at his friend and the old man. "You've got it all afore you," said the farmer. "There ain't nothing wanting in John's house," said Joe Mixet. "A young woman going to John knows what she'll have to eat when she gets up, and what she'll lie down upon when she goes to bed." This he declared in a loud voice for Ruby's benefit. "That she do," said John, grinning again. "There's a hun'erd and fifty poond o' things in my house forbye what mother left behind her." After this there was no more conversation till Ruby reappeared with the boiled fowl. She was followed by the servant-girl with a dish of broiled ham and an enormous pyramid of cabbage. Then the old man got up slowly and from a little private door drew a jug of ale and a bottle of gin. Everything being thus prepared, the three men sat round the table. Ruby cut up the fowl standing, and dispensed the other good things, not even placing a chair for herself at the table - and no one invited her to do so. "Spirits or ale, Mr. Crumb?" she said. He gave her a look of love that might have softened the heart of an Amazon; but instead of speaking he bobbed his head at the beer jug. She filled his tumbler to the brim. She would be as kind to him as she knew how - short of love. There was a good deal of eating done; but very little was said. John Crumb finished a second dish of ham, and a second instalment of cabbage, and Ruby replenished his glass. When the eating was done, she retired into the back kitchen, and there had a bit of the fowl, standing up, and then went to work cleaning the dishes. The men lit their pipes and smoked in silence. So matters went on for half an hour; during which Ruby escaped by the back door, went round into the house, got into her own room, and resolved to go to bed. But she was afraid her grandfather would bring John Crumb upstairs to speak to her; and her door had no bolt. It would be terrible to be invaded by John Crumb after his fifth or sixth glass of beer. And he would be sure to bring Joe Mixet with him. So she paused and listened. When they had smoked for half an hour the old man called for his granddaughter, in vain. "Where the mischief is the jade gone?" he said, slowly making his way into the empty back kitchen. "She'll make the place hot for her, if she goes on this way." Then he returned to the two young men. "She's playing off her games somewheres," he said. "Take a glass of sperrits and water, Mr. Crumb, and I'll look for her." "I'll just take a drop of ale," said John Crumb, apparently quite unmoved by his sweetheart's absence. It was sad work for the old man. He went down into the garden, hobbling among the cabbages, not daring to call very loud; but still anxious, and sore at heart about Ruby's ingratitude. She was not even his own child - yet he had offered her 500! "Domm her," he said aloud as he made his way back to the house. After much searching he found Ruby, cuffed her and led her to the kitchen. "We're a disturbing you too late, miss," said Mr. Mixet. "It ain't that at all, Mr. Mixet. If grandfather chooses to have a few friends, I ain't nothing against it. If you and Mr. Crumb've come out to Sheep's Acre farm for a bit of supper-" "Which we ain't," said John Crumb very loudly; "nor yet for beer." "We've come for the smiles of beauty," said Joe Mixet. Ruby tossed her head. "Mr. Mixet, stow that! There ain't no beauty here as I knows of, and if there was it isn't nothing to you." "I'm just sick of all this," said Mr. Ruggles, who was sitting bent in his chair. "I won't put up with it no more." "Who wants you to put up with it?" said Ruby. "Who brought 'em tonight? I don't know what business Mr. Mixet has interfering along o' me." "John Crumb, have you anything to say?" asked the old man. Then John Crumb slowly arose from his chair, and stood up at his full height. "I hove," said he, swinging his head to one side. "Then say it." "I will." He stretched out his left hand to his glass, and drained it of beer. Then he slowly put down his pipe. "Now speak your mind, like a man," said Mixet. "I intends it," said John. But he still stood dumb. Ruby was standing with both her hands upon the table and her eyes on the wall over the fire-place. "You've asked Miss Ruby to be your wife a dozen times, haven't you, John?" suggested Mixet. "I hove." "And she has promised to have you?" "She hove." "Everything is ready in your own house?" "They is." "And you will expect Miss Ruby to come to the scratch?" "I sholl." "That's about it, I think," said Joe Mixet, turning to the grandfather. "There's been a talk of five hundred pounds, Mr. Ruggles." Mr. Ruggles made a slight nod. "Five hundred pounds is very comfortable; and added to what John has, will make things snug. But John Crumb isn't after Miss Ruby along of her fortune." "Nohow's," said the lover, shaking his head. "Not he. John has a heart in his buzsom." "I has," said John, raising his hand a little above his stomach. "And feelings as a man. It's true love as has brought John Crumb to Sheep's Acre farm this night. He's a proposed to this young lady, and she's haccepted him, and now it's about time as they was married. That's what John Crumb has to say." "That's what I has to say," repeated John Crumb, "and I means it." "And now, miss," continued Mixet, "you can't have anything to say against it, can you? Your grandfather is willing, and John Crumb is willing, and his house is ready. All we want is for you to name the day." "Say tomorrow, Ruby, and I'll not be agon it," said John Crumb, slapping his thigh. "I won't say tomorrow, Mr. Crumb, nor the day after tomorrow, nor yet no day at all. I'm not going to have you. I've told you as much before." "That was only in fun, loike." "Then now I tell you in earnest." "You don't mean - never?" "I do mean never, Mr. Crumb." "Didn't you say as you would, Ruby?" John was almost in tears. "Young women is allowed to change their minds," said Ruby. "Brute!" exclaimed old Ruggles. "Pig! Jade! I'll tell'ee what, John. She'll go out into the streets. I won't keep her here no longer - nasty, ungrateful, lying slut." "She ain't that," said John. "She's no slut. I won't hear her called so. But, oh, she has put me so abouts, that I'll have to go home and hang myself." "Dash it, Miss Ruby, you can't do that," said the baker. "If you'll keep yourself to yourself, I'll be obliged, Mr. Mixet," said Ruby. Mr. Mixet, not trusting himself to words, put on his hat and walked out into the yard, declaring that his friend would find him there whenever he was ready to return to Bungay. As soon as Mixet was gone John made a slow motion towards his sweetheart, putting out his right hand as a feeler. "You'd better be aff after him," she said. "And when'll I come back again?" "Never. It ain't no use. What's the good of more words, Mr. Crumb?" "Domm her; domm her," said old Ruggles. "She'll have to be out on the roads this night." "She shall have the best bed in my house if she'll come for it," said John, "and the old woman to look arter her; and I won't come nigh her till she sends for me." "I can find a place for myself, thank ye, Mr. Crumb. And now if you please, I'll go upstairs to my own room." "You don't go up to any room here, you jade you." The old man as he said this got up from his chair, and would have struck her with his stick had he not been stopped by John Crumb. "Don't hit the girl, Mr. Ruggles." "Domm her, John; she breaks my heart." While John held her grandfather, Ruby escaped to her bedroom. "Ain't it more nor a man ought to have to bear?" appealed the old man. "She ought to have a whipping at the cart-tail. She's been and seen some young buck." Then John Crumb turned red all over, through the flour, and sparks of anger flashed from his eyes. "You ain't a meaning it, master?" "I'm told the squoire's cousin been about - him as they call the baronite." "Been along wi' Ruby?" The old man nodded. "I'll baronite him - I wull," said John, seizing his hat and stalking off after his friend.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 33: John Crumb

It need hardly be said that Paul Montague was not long in adjusting his affairs with Hetta after the visit which he received from Roger Carbury. Early on the following morning he was once more in Welbeck Street, taking the brooch with him; and though at first Lady Carbury kept up her opposition, she did it after so weak a fashion as to throw in fact very little difficulty in his way. Hetta understood perfectly that she was in this matter stronger than her mother and that she need fear nothing, now that Roger Carbury was on her side. "I don't know what you mean to live on," Lady Carbury said, threatening future evils in a plaintive tone. Hetta repeated, though in other language, the assurance which the young lady made who declared that if her future husband would consent to live on potatoes, she would be quite satisfied with the potato-peelings; while Paul made some vague allusion to the satisfactory nature of his final arrangements with the house of Fisker, Montague, and Montague. "I don't see anything like an income," said Lady Carbury; "but I suppose Roger will make it right. He takes everything upon himself now it seems." But this was before the halcyon day of Mr. Broune's second offer. It was at any rate decided that they were to be married, and the time fixed for the marriage was to be the following spring. When this was finally arranged Roger Carbury, who had returned to his own home, conceived the idea that it would be well that Hetta should pass the autumn and if possible the winter also down in Suffolk, so that she might get used to him in the capacity which he now aspired to fill; and with that object he induced Mrs. Yeld, the Bishop's wife, to invite her down to the palace. Hetta accepted the invitation and left London before she could hear the tidings of her mother's engagement with Mr. Broune. Roger Carbury had not yielded in this matter,--had not brought himself to determine that he would recognise Paul and Hetta as acknowledged lovers,--without a fierce inward contest. Two convictions had been strong in his mind, both of which were opposed to this recognition,--the first telling him that he would be a fitter husband for the girl than Paul Montague, and the second assuring him that Paul had ill-treated him in such a fashion that forgiveness would be both foolish and unmanly. For Roger, though he was a religious man, and one anxious to conform to the spirit of Christianity, would not allow himself to think that an injury should be forgiven unless the man who did the injury repented of his own injustice. As to giving his coat to the thief who had taken his cloak,--he told himself that were he and others to be guided by that precept honest industry would go naked in order that vice and idleness might be comfortably clothed. If any one stole his cloak he would certainly put that man in prison as soon as possible and not commence his lenience till the thief should at any rate affect to be sorry for his fault. Now, to his thinking, Paul Montague had stolen his cloak, and were he, Roger, to give way in this matter of his love, he would be giving Paul his coat also. No! He was bound after some fashion to have Paul put into prison; to bring him before a jury, and to get a verdict against him, so that some sentence of punishment might be at least pronounced. How then could he yield? And Paul Montague had shown himself to be very weak in regard to women. It might be,--no doubt it was true,--that Mrs. Hurtle's appearance in England had been distressing to him. But still he had gone down with her to Lowestoft as her lover, and, to Roger's thinking, a man who could do that was quite unfit to be the husband of Hetta Carbury. He would himself tell no tales against Montague on that head. Even when pressed to do so he had told no tale. But not the less was his conviction strong that Hetta ought to know the truth, and to be induced by that knowledge to reject her younger lover. But then over these convictions there came a third,--equally strong,--which told him that the girl loved the younger man and did not love him, and that if he loved the girl it was his duty as a man to prove his love by doing what he could to make her happy. As he walked up and down the walk by the moat, with his hands clasped behind his back, stopping every now and again to sit on the terrace wall,--walking there, mile after mile, with his mind intent on the one idea,--he schooled himself to feel that that, and that only, could be his duty. What did love mean if not that? What could be the devotion which men so often affect to feel if it did not tend to self-sacrifice on behalf of the beloved one? A man would incur any danger for a woman, would subject himself to any toil,--would even die for her! But if this were done simply with the object of winning her, where was that real love of which sacrifice of self on behalf of another is the truest proof? So, by degrees, he resolved that the thing must be done. The man, though he had been bad to his friend, was not all bad. He was one who might become good in good hands. He, Roger, was too firm of purpose and too honest of heart to buoy himself up into new hopes by assurances of the man's unfitness. What right had he to think that he could judge of that better than the girl herself? And so, when many many miles had been walked, he succeeded in conquering his own heart,--though in conquering it he crushed it,--and in bringing himself to the resolve that the energies of his life should be devoted to the task of making Mrs. Paul Montague a happy woman. We have seen how he acted up to this resolve when last in London, withdrawing at any rate all signs of anger from Paul Montague and behaving with the utmost tenderness to Hetta. When he had accomplished that task of conquering his own heart and of assuring himself thoroughly that Hetta was to become his rival's wife, he was, I think, more at ease and less troubled in his spirit than he had been during those months in which there had still been doubt. The sort of happiness which he had once pictured to himself could certainly never be his. That he would never marry he was quite sure. Indeed he was prepared to settle Carbury on Hetta's eldest boy on condition that such boy should take the old name. He would never have a child whom he could in truth call his own. But if he could induce these people to live at Carbury, or to live there for at least a part of the year, so that there should be some life in the place, he thought that he could awaken himself again, and again take an interest in the property. But as a first step to this he must learn to regard himself as an old man,--as one who had let life pass by too far for the purposes of his own home, and who must therefore devote himself to make happy the homes of others. So thinking of himself and so resolving, he had told much of his story to his friend the Bishop, and as a consequence of those revelations Mrs. Yeld had invited Hetta down to the palace. Roger felt that he had still much to say to his cousin before her marriage which could be said in the country much better than in town, and he wished to teach her to regard Suffolk as the county to which she should be attached and in which she was to find her home. The day before she came he was over at the palace with the pretence of asking permission to come and see his cousin soon after her arrival, but in truth with the idea of talking about Hetta to the only friend to whom he had looked for sympathy in his trouble. "As to settling your property on her or her children," said the Bishop, "it is quite out of the question. Your lawyer would not allow you to do it. Where would you be if after all you were to marry?" "I shall never marry." "Very likely not,--but yet you may. How is a man of your age to speak with certainty of what he will do or what he will not do in that respect? You can make your will, doing as you please with your property;--and the will, when made, can be revoked." "I think you hardly understand just what I feel," said Roger, "and I know very well that I am unable to explain it. But I wish to act exactly as I would do if she were my daughter, and as if her son, if she had a son, would be my natural heir." "But, if she were your daughter, her son wouldn't be your natural heir as long as there was a probability or even a chance that you might have a son of your own. A man should never put the power, which properly belongs to him, out of his own hands. If it does properly belong to you it must be better with you than elsewhere. I think very highly of your cousin, and I have no reason to think otherwise than well of the gentleman whom she intends to marry. But it is only human nature to suppose that the fact that your property is still at your own disposal should have some effect in producing a more complete observance of your wishes." "I do not believe it in the least, my lord," said Roger somewhat angrily. "That is because you are so carried away by enthusiasm at the present moment as to ignore the ordinary rules of life. There are not, perhaps, many fathers who have Regans and Gonerils for their daughters;--but there are very many who may take a lesson from the folly of the old king. 'Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown,' the fool said to him, 'when thou gav'st thy golden one away.' The world, I take it, thinks that the fool was right." The Bishop did so far succeed that Roger abandoned the idea of settling his property on Paul Montague's children. But he was not on that account the less resolute in his determination to make himself and his own interests subordinate to those of his cousin. When he came over, two days afterwards, to see her he found her in the garden, and walked there with her for a couple of hours. "I hope all our troubles are over now," he said smiling. "You mean about Felix," said Hetta,--"and mamma?" "No, indeed. As to Felix I think that Lady Carbury has done the best thing in her power. No doubt she has been advised by Mr. Broune, and Mr. Broune seems to be a prudent man. And about your mother herself, I hope that she may now be comfortable. But I was not alluding to Felix and your mother. I was thinking of you--and of myself." "I hope that you will never have any troubles." "I have had troubles. I mean to speak very freely to you now, dear. I was nearly upset,--what I suppose people call broken-hearted,--when I was assured that you certainly would never become my wife. I ought not to have allowed myself to get into such a frame of mind. I should have known that I was too old to have a chance." "Oh, Roger,--it was not that." "Well,--that and other things. I should have known it sooner, and have got over my misery quicker. I should have been more manly and stronger. After all, though love is a wonderful incident in a man's life, it is not that only that he is here for. I have duties plainly marked out for me; and as I should never allow myself to be withdrawn from them by pleasure, so neither should I by sorrow. But it is done now. I have conquered my regrets, and I can say with safety that I look forward to your presence and Paul's presence at Carbury as the source of all my future happiness. I will make him welcome as though he were my brother, and you as though you were my daughter. All I ask of you is that you will not be chary of your presence there." She only answered him by a close pressure on his arm. "That is what I wanted to say to you. You will teach yourself to regard me as your best and closest friend,--as he on whom you have the strongest right to depend, of all,--except your husband." "There is no teaching necessary for that," she said. "As a daughter leans on a father I would have you lean on me, Hetta. You will soon come to find that I am very old. I grow old quickly, and already feel myself to be removed from everything that is young and foolish." "You never were foolish." "Nor young either, I sometimes think. But now you must promise me this. You will do all that you can to induce him to make Carbury his residence." "We have no plans as yet at all, Roger." "Then it will be certainly so much the easier for you to fall into my plan. Of course you will be married at Carbury?" "What will mamma say?" "She will come here, and I am sure will enjoy it. That I regard as settled. Then, after that, let this be your home,--so that you should learn really to care about and to love the place. It will be your home really, you know, some of these days. You will have to be Squire of Carbury yourself when I am gone, till you have a son old enough to fill that exalted position." With all his love to her and his good-will to them both, he could not bring himself to say that Paul Montague should be Squire of Carbury. "Oh, Roger, please do not talk like that." "But it is necessary, my dear. I want you to know what my wishes are, and, if it be possible, I would learn what are yours. My mind is quite made up as to my future life. Of course, I do not wish to dictate to you,--and if I did, I could not dictate to Mr. Montague." "Pray,--pray do not call him Mr. Montague." "Well, I will not;--to Paul then. There goes the last of my anger." He threw his hands up as though he were scattering his indignation to the air. "I would not dictate either to you or to him, but it is right that you should know that I hold my property as steward for those who are to come after me, and that the satisfaction of my stewardship will be infinitely increased if I find that those for whom I act share the interest which I shall take in the matter. It is the only payment which you and he can make me for my trouble." [Illustration: "There goes the last of my anger."] "But Felix, Roger!" His brow became a little black as he answered her. "To a sister," he said very solemnly, "I will not say a word against her brother; but on that subject I claim a right to come to a decision on my own judgment. It is a matter in which I have thought much, and, I may say, suffered much. I have ideas, old-fashioned ideas, on the matter, which I need not pause to explain to you now. If we are as much together as I hope we shall be, you will, no doubt, come to understand them. The disposition of a family property, even though it be one so small as mine, is, to my thinking, a matter which a man should not make in accordance with his own caprices,--or even with his own affections. He owes a duty to those who live on his land, and he owes a duty to his country. And, though it may seem fantastic to say so, I think he owes a duty to those who have been before him, and who have manifestly wished that the property should be continued in the hands of their descendants. These things are to me very holy. In what I am doing I am in some respects departing from the theory of my life,--but I do so under a perfect conviction that by the course I am taking I shall best perform the duties to which I have alluded. I do not think, Hetta, that we need say any more about that." He had spoken so seriously, that, though she did not quite understand all that he had said, she did not venture to dispute his will any further. He did not endeavour to exact from her any promise, but having explained his purposes, kissed her as he would have kissed a daughter, and then left her and rode home without going into the house. Soon after that, Paul Montague came down to Carbury, and the same thing was said to him, though in a much less solemn manner. Paul was received quite in the old way. Having declared that he would throw all anger behind him, and that Paul should be again Paul, he rigidly kept his promise, whatever might be the cost to his own feelings. As to his love for Hetta, and his old hopes, and the disappointment which had so nearly unmanned him, he said not another word to his fortunate rival. Montague knew it all, but there was now no necessity that any allusion should be made to past misfortunes. Roger indeed made a solemn resolution that to Paul he would never again speak of Hetta as the girl whom he himself had loved, though he looked forward to a time, probably many years hence, when he might perhaps remind her of his fidelity. But he spoke much of the land and of the tenants and the labourers, of his own farm, of the amount of the income, and of the necessity of so living that the income might always be more than sufficient for the wants of the household. When the spring came round, Hetta and Paul were married by the Bishop at the parish church of Carbury, and Roger Carbury gave away the bride. All those who saw the ceremony declared that the squire had not seemed to be so happy for many a long year. John Crumb, who was there with his wife,--himself now one of Roger's tenants, having occupied the land which had become vacant by the death of old Daniel Ruggles,--declared that the wedding was almost as good fun as his own. "John, what a fool you are!" Ruby said to her spouse, when this opinion was expressed with rather a loud voice. "Yes, I be," said John,--"but not such a fool as to a' missed a having o' you." "No, John; it was I was the fool then," said Ruby. "We'll see about that when the bairn's born," said John,--equally aloud. Then Ruby held her tongue. Mrs. Broune, and Mr. Broune, were also at Carbury,--thus doing great honour to Mr. and Mrs. Paul Montague, and showing by their presence that all family feuds were at an end. Sir Felix was not there. Happily up to this time Mr. Septimus Blake had continued to keep that gentleman as one of his Protestant population in the German town,--no doubt not without considerable trouble to himself.

It need hardly be said that Paul Montague was not long in visiting Hetta after seeing Roger Carbury. Early on the following morning he was once more in Welbeck Street; and though at first Lady Carbury kept up her opposition, she did it so weakly as to throw very little difficulty in his way. Hetta understood that she need fear nothing, now that Roger was on her side. "I don't know what you mean to live on," Lady Carbury said plaintively. Paul made some vague allusion to his final arrangements with the house of Fisker, Montague, and Montague. "I don't see anything like an income," said Lady Carbury; "but I suppose Roger will make it right. He takes everything upon himself now, it seems." But this was before the halcyon day of Mr. Broune's second offer. It was decided that the marriage was to be the following spring. When this was arranged Roger Carbury conceived the idea that it would be well that Hetta should pass the autumn in Suffolk, so that she might get used to him in the capacity which he now aspired to fill. With that object he induced Mrs. Yeld, the Bishop's wife, to invite Hetta down to the Bishop's palace; and Hetta accepted the invitation. Roger Carbury had undergone a fierce inward contest before he yielded to a recognition of the lovers. Two convictions had been strong in his mind: firstly, that he would be a fitter husband for the girl than Paul Montague, and secondly, that Paul had so ill-treated him that forgiveness would be unmanly. For Roger did not think that an injury should be forgiven unless the man who did the injury repented of it. He felt bound after some fashion to have Paul put into prison; to bring him before a jury, and to get a verdict against him, so that some sentence of punishment might be at least pronounced. How then could he yield? And Paul Montague had shown himself to be very weak in regard to women. No doubt it was true that Mrs. Hurtle's appearance in England had been distressing to him. But still he had gone down with her to Lowestoft as her lover, and, to Roger's thinking, a man who could do that was quite unfit to be the husband of Hetta Carbury. Although he would himself tell no tales, he still felt that Hetta ought to know the truth, and to be induced by that knowledge to reject Paul Montague. But then over these convictions there came a third, equally strong, which told him that the girl loved Montague and did not love him, and that if he loved the girl it was his duty as a man to prove his love by doing what he could to make her happy. As he walked up and down by the moat, with his hands clasped behind his back, mile after mile, he schooled himself to feel that that was his duty. What did love mean if not that? What was devotion if a man would not sacrifice himself on behalf of the beloved one? So, by degrees, he resolved that the thing must be done. Montague was not all bad. He might become good in good hands. What right had he, Roger, to think that he could judge the man's fitness better than the girl herself? And so, when many many miles had been walked, he succeeded in conquering his own heart - though in conquering it he crushed it - and brought himself to the resolve that his life should be devoted to the task of making Mrs. Paul Montague a happy woman. When he had accomplished that task, he was, I think, more at ease and less troubled in his spirit. The sort of happiness which he had once pictured to himself would certainly never be his. He was quite sure that he would never marry, nor have a child of his own. But if he could induce these people to live at Carbury for at least part of the year, so that there should be some life in the place, he thought that he could awaken himself again, and take an interest in the property. But first he must learn to regard himself as an old man, who had let his life pass by, and must devote himself to making happy the homes of others. When he asked the Bishop's wife to invite Hetta to stay, Roger wished to teach her to regard Suffolk as the county in which she was to find her home. The day before she came he was over at the Bishop's palace, talking about Hetta to the only friend to whom he had looked for sympathy in his trouble. "As to settling your property on her or her children," said the Bishop, "it is quite out of the question. Your lawyer would not allow it. Where would you be if you were to marry?" "I shall never marry." "Very likely not - but yet you may. How is a man of your age to be certain? You can make your will, doing as you please with your property; and the will, when made, can be revoked." "I think you hardly understand what I feel," said Roger. "I wish to act exactly as I would do if she were my daughter, and as if her son, if she had one, would be my natural heir." "But even if she were your daughter, her son wouldn't be your natural heir as long as there was a chance that you might have a son of your own. A man should never put power which properly belongs to him out of his own hands. I think very highly of your cousin. But it is only human nature to suppose that the fact that your property is still at your own disposal should produce a more complete observance of your wishes." "I do not believe it in the least, my lord," said Roger somewhat angrily. "That is because you are so carried away by enthusiasm as to ignore the ordinary rules of life. There are not, perhaps, many fathers who have Regans and Gonerils for their daughters; but there are very many who may take a lesson from the folly of King Lear. 'Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown,' the fool said to him, 'when thou gav'st thy golden one away.'" The Bishop succeeded in so far as Roger abandoned the idea of settling his property on Paul Montague's children. But he was still resolute in his determination to make his own interests subordinate to those of his cousin. When he came over, two days afterwards, to see her, he found her in the garden, and walked there with her for a couple of hours. "I hope all our troubles are over now," he said smiling. "You mean about Felix," said Hetta, "and mamma?" "No, indeed. As to Felix, I think that Lady Carbury has done the best thing in her power. No doubt she has been advised by Mr. Broune, who seems to be a prudent man. And I hope your mother may now be comfortable. But I was not alluding to them. I was thinking of you - and of myself." "I hope that you will never have any troubles." "I have had troubles. I mean to speak very freely to you now, dear. I was nearly upset - what I suppose people call broken-hearted - when I was assured that you would never become my wife. I ought not to have allowed myself to get into such a frame of mind. I should have known that I was too old to have a chance." "Oh, Roger, it was not that." "Well - that and other things. I should have got over my misery quicker. I should have been stronger. After all, though love is a wonderful incident in a man's life, it is not that only that he is here for. I have duties marked out for me. But I have conquered my regrets, and I can safely say that I look forward to your presence at Carbury as the source of all my future happiness. I will make Mr. Montague welcome as though he were my brother, and you as though you were my daughter. Please regard me as your best and closest friend, on whom you have the strongest right to depend, of all - except your husband." "There is no teaching necessary for that," she said. "As a daughter leans on a father I would have you lean on me, Hetta. You will soon come to find that I am very old. I already feel myself to be removed from everything that is young and foolish." "You never were foolish." "Nor young either, I sometimes think. But now you must promise to do all you can to induce him to make Carbury his residence." "We have no plans as yet, Roger." "Then it will be so much the easier. Of course you will be married at Carbury?" "What will mamma say?" "She will come here, and I am sure will enjoy it. Then, after that, let this be your home - so that you should learn to care about and love the place. It will be your home really, you know, one of these days. You will have to be Squire of Carbury yourself when I am gone, till you have a son old enough to fill that exalted position." With all his good-will to them both, he could not bring himself to say that Paul Montague should be Squire of Carbury. "Oh, Roger, please do not talk like that." "But it is necessary, my dear. I want you to know my wishes, and, if possible, I would learn what yours are. Of course, I do not wish to dictate to you - and I could not dictate to Mr. Montague." "Pray, do not call him Mr. Montague." "Well - to Paul then. There goes the last of my anger." He threw his hands up as though he were scattering his indignation to the air. "I would not dictate to either of you, but it is right that you should know that I hold my property as steward for you, and that I fervently hope that you both will share the interest which I take in the matter. It is the only payment which you and he can make me for my trouble." "But Felix, Roger!" "To a sister," he said very solemnly, "I will not say a word against her brother; but on that subject I must make my own judgment. In handing on a family property - even one so small as mine - a man owes a duty to those who live on his land, and he owes a duty to his country. And, though it may seem fantastic to say so, I think he owes a duty to his ancestors. These things are to me very holy. I am convinced that by the course I am taking I shall best perform these duties. I do not think, Hetta, that we need say any more about that." He then kissed her as he would have kissed a daughter, left her and rode home. Soon after that, Paul Montague came down to Carbury, and the same thing was said to him, though in a much less solemn manner. Paul was received quite in the old way. Having declared that he would throw all anger behind him, Roger rigidly kept his promise, whatever the cost to his own feelings. Indeed he made a solemn resolution that to Paul he would never again speak of Hetta as the girl whom he himself had loved, though he looked forward to a time, probably many years hence, when he might perhaps remind her of his fidelity. But he spoke much of the land and tenants and labourers, of his own farm, of the amount of the income, and of the necessity of a household budget. When the spring came round, Hetta and Paul were married by the Bishop at the parish church of Carbury, and Roger Carbury gave away the bride. All those who saw the ceremony declared that the squire had not seemed to be so happy for many a long year. John Crumb, who was there with his wife, loudly declared that the wedding was almost as good fun as his own. "John, what a fool you are!" Ruby said. "Yes, I be," said John, "but not such a fool as to a' missed a having o' you." "No, John; I was the fool then," said Ruby. "We'll see about that when the bairn's born," said John, equally loudly. Then Ruby held her tongue. Mr. and Mrs. Broune were also at Carbury, showing by their presence that all family feuds were at an end. Sir Felix was not there. Happily up to this time, Mr. Septimus Blake had continued to keep that gentleman in the German town - no doubt not without considerable trouble to himself.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 100: Down in Suffolk

When Paul got down into the dining-room Mrs. Hurtle was already there, and the waiter was standing by the side of the table ready to take the cover off the soup. She was radiant with smiles and made herself especially pleasant during dinner, but Paul felt sure that everything was not well with her. Though she smiled, and talked and laughed, there was something forced in her manner. He almost knew that she was only waiting till the man should have left the room to speak in a different strain. And so it was. As soon as the last lingering dish had been removed, and when the door was finally shut behind the retreating waiter, she asked the question which no doubt had been on her mind since she had walked across the strand to the hotel. "Your friend was hardly civil; was he, Paul?" "Do you mean that he should have come in? I have no doubt it was true that he had dined." "I am quite indifferent about his dinner,--but there are two ways of declining as there are of accepting. I suppose he is on very intimate terms with you?" "Oh, yes." "Then his want of courtesy was the more evidently intended for me. In point of fact he disapproves of me. Is not that it?" To this question Montague did not feel himself called upon to make any immediate answer. "I can well understand that it should be so. An intimate friend may like or dislike the friend of his friend, without offence. But unless there be strong reason he is bound to be civil to his friend's friend, when accident brings them together. You have told me that Mr. Carbury was your beau ideal of an English gentleman." "So he is." "Then why didn't he behave as such?" and Mrs. Hurtle again smiled. "Did not you yourself feel that you were rebuked for coming here with me, when he expressed surprise at your journey? Has he authority over you?" "Of course he has not. What authority could he have?" "Nay, I do not know. He may be your guardian. In this safe-going country young men perhaps are not their own masters till they are past thirty. I should have said that he was your guardian, and that he intended to rebuke you for being in bad company. I dare say he did after I had gone." This was so true that Montague did not know how to deny it. Nor was he sure that it would be well that he should deny it. The time must come, and why not now as well as at any future moment? He had to make her understand that he could not join his lot with her,--chiefly indeed because his heart was elsewhere, a reason on which he could hardly insist because she could allege that she had a prior right to his heart;--but also because her antecedents had been such as to cause all his friends to warn him against such a marriage. So he plucked up courage for the battle. "It was nearly that," he said. There are many,--and probably the greater portion of my readers will be among the number,--who will declare to themselves that Paul Montague was a poor creature, in that he felt so great a repugnance to face this woman with the truth. His folly in falling at first under the battery of her charms will be forgiven him. His engagement, unwise as it was, and his subsequent determination to break his engagement, will be pardoned. Women, and perhaps some men also, will feel that it was natural that he should have been charmed, natural that he should have expressed his admiration in the form which unmarried ladies expect from unmarried men when any such expression is to be made at all;--natural also that he should endeavour to escape from the dilemma when he found the manifold dangers of the step which he had proposed to take. No woman, I think, will be hard upon him because of his breach of faith to Mrs. Hurtle. But they will be very hard on him on the score of his cowardice,--as, I think, unjustly. In social life we hardly stop to consider how much of that daring spirit which gives mastery comes from hardness of heart rather than from high purpose, or true courage. The man who succumbs to his wife, the mother who succumbs to her daughter, the master who succumbs to his servant, is as often brought to servility by a continual aversion to the giving of pain, by a softness which causes the fretfulness of others to be an agony to himself,--as by any actual fear which the firmness of the imperious one may have produced. There is an inner softness, a thinness of the mind's skin, an incapability of seeing or even thinking of the troubles of others with equanimity, which produces a feeling akin to fear; but which is compatible not only with courage, but with absolute firmness of purpose, when the demand for firmness arises so strongly as to assert itself. With this man it was not really that. He feared the woman;--or at least such fears did not prevail upon him to be silent; but he shrank from subjecting her to the blank misery of utter desertion. After what had passed between them he could hardly bring himself to tell her that he wanted her no further and to bid her go. But that was what he had to do. And for that his answer to her last question prepared the way. "It was nearly that," he said. "Mr. Carbury did take it upon himself to rebuke you for showing yourself on the sands at Lowestoft with such a one as I am?" "He knew of the letter which I wrote to you." "You have canvassed me between you?" "Of course we have. Is that unnatural? Would you have had me be silent about you to the oldest and the best friend I have in the world?" "No, I would not have had you be silent to your oldest and best friend. I presume you would declare your purpose. But I should not have supposed you would have asked his leave. When I was travelling with you, I thought you were a man capable of managing your own actions. I had heard that in your country girls sometimes hold themselves at the disposal of their friends,--but I did not dream that such could be the case with a man who had gone out into the world to make his fortune." Paul Montague did not like it. The punishment to be endured was being commenced. "Of course you can say bitter things," he replied. "Is it my nature to say bitter things? Have I usually said bitter things to you? When I have hung round your neck and have sworn that you should be my God upon earth, was that bitter? I am alone and I have to fight my own battles. A woman's weapon is her tongue. Say but one word to me, Paul, as you know how to say it, and there will be soon an end to that bitterness. What shall I care for Mr. Carbury, except to make him the cause of some innocent joke, if you will speak but that one word? And think what it is I am asking. Do you remember how urgent were once your own prayers to me;--how you swore that your happiness could only be secured by one word of mine? Though I loved you, I doubted. There were considerations of money, which have now vanished. But I spoke it,--because I loved you, and because I believed you. Give me that which you swore you had given before I made my gift to you." "I cannot say that word." "Do you mean that, after all, I am to be thrown off like an old glove? I have had many dealings with men and have found them to be false, cruel, unworthy, and selfish. But I have met nothing like that. No man has ever dared to treat me like that. No man shall dare." "I wrote to you." "Wrote to me;--yes! And I was to take that as sufficient! No. I think but little of my life and have but little for which to live. But while I do live I will travel over the world's surface to face injustice and to expose it, before I will put up with it. You wrote to me! Heaven and earth;--I can hardly control myself when I hear such impudence!" She clenched her fist upon the knife that lay on the table as she looked at him, and raising it, dropped it again at a further distance. "Wrote to me! Could any mere letter of your writing break the bond by which we were bound together? Had not the distance between us seemed to have made you safe would you have dared to write that letter? The letter must be unwritten. It has already been contradicted by your conduct to me since I have been in this country." "I am sorry to hear you say that." "Am I not justified in saying it?" "I hope not. When I first saw you I told you everything. If I have been wrong in attending to your wishes since, I regret it." "This comes from your seeing your master for two minutes on the beach. You are acting now under his orders. No doubt he came with the purpose. Had you told him you were to be here?" "His coming was an accident." "It was very opportune at any rate. Well;--what have you to say to me? Or am I to understand that you suppose yourself to have said all that is required of you? Perhaps you would prefer that I should argue the matter out with your--friend, Mr. Carbury." "What has to be said, I believe I can say myself." "Say it then. Or are you so ashamed of it, that the words stick in your throat?" "There is some truth in that. I am ashamed of it. I must say that which will be painful, and which would not have been to be said, had I been fairly careful." Then he paused. "Don't spare me," she said. "I know what it all is as well as though it were already told. I know the lies with which they have crammed you at San Francisco. You have heard that up in Oregon--I shot a man. That is no lie. I did. I brought him down dead at my feet." Then she paused, and rose from her chair, and looked at him. "Do you wonder that that is a story that a woman should hesitate to tell? But not from shame. Do you suppose that the sight of that dying wretch does not haunt me? that I do not daily hear his drunken screech, and see him bound from the earth, and then fall in a heap just below my hand? But did they tell you also that it was thus alone that I could save myself,--and that had I spared him, I must afterwards have destroyed myself? If I were wrong, why did they not try me for his murder? Why did the women flock around me and kiss the very hems of my garments? In this soft civilization of yours you know nothing of such necessity. A woman here is protected,--unless it be from lies." "It was not that only," he whispered. "No; they told you other things," she continued, still standing over him. "They told you of quarrels with my husband. I know the lies, and who made them, and why. Did I conceal from you the character of my former husband? Did I not tell you that he was a drunkard and a scoundrel? How should I not quarrel with such a one? Ah, Paul; you can hardly know what my life has been." "They told me that--you fought him." "Psha;--fought him! Yes;--I was always fighting him. What are you to do but to fight cruelty, and fight falsehood, and fight fraud and treachery,--when they come upon you and would overwhelm you but for fighting? You have not been fool enough to believe that fable about a duel? I did stand once, armed, and guarded my bedroom door from him, and told him that he should only enter it over my body. He went away to the tavern and I did not see him for a week afterwards. That was the duel. And they have told you that he is not dead." "Yes;--they have told me that." "Who has seen him alive? I never said to you that I had seen him dead. How should I?" "There would be a certificate." "Certificate;--in the back of Texas;--five hundred miles from Galveston! And what would it matter to you? I was divorced from him according to the law of the State of Kansas. Does not the law make a woman free here to marry again,--and why not with us? I sued for a divorce on the score of cruelty and drunkenness. He made no appearance, and the Court granted it me. Am I disgraced by that?" "I heard nothing of the divorce." "I do not remember. When we were talking of these old days before, you did not care how short I was in telling my story. You wanted to hear little or nothing then of Caradoc Hurtle. Now you have become more particular. I told you that he was dead,--as I believed myself, and do believe. Whether the other story was told or not I do not know." "It was not told." "Then it was your own fault,--because you would not listen. And they have made you believe I suppose that I have failed in getting back my property?" "I have heard nothing about your property but what you yourself have said unasked. I have asked no question about your property." "You are welcome. At last I have made it again my own. And now, sir, what else is there? I think I have been open with you. Is it because I protected myself from drunken violence that I am to be rejected? Am I to be cast aside because I saved my life while in the hands of a reprobate husband, and escaped from him by means provided by law;--or because by my own energy I have secured my own property? If I am not to be condemned for these things, then say why am I condemned." She had at any rate saved him the trouble of telling the story, but in doing so had left him without a word to say. She had owned to shooting the man. Well; it certainly may be necessary that a woman should shoot a man--especially in Oregon. As to the duel with her husband,--she had half denied and half confessed it. He presumed that she had been armed with a pistol when she refused Mr. Hurtle admittance into the nuptial chamber. As to the question of Hurtle's death,--she had confessed that perhaps he was not dead. But then,--as she had asked,--why should not a divorce for the purpose in hand be considered as good as a death? He could not say that she had not washed herself clean;--and yet, from the story as told by herself, what man would wish to marry her? She had seen so much of drunkenness, had become so handy with pistols, and had done so much of a man's work, that any ordinary man might well hesitate before he assumed to be her master. "I do not condemn you," he replied. "At any rate, Paul, do not lie," she answered. "If you tell me that you will not be my husband, you do condemn me. Is it not so?" "I will not lie if I can help it. I did ask you to be my wife--" "Well;--rather. How often before I consented?" "It matters little; at any rate, till you did consent. I have since satisfied myself that such a marriage would be miserable for both of us." "You have?" "I have. Of course, you can speak of me as you please and think of me as you please. I can hardly defend myself." "Hardly, I think." "But, with whatever result, I know that I shall now be acting for the best in declaring that I will not become--your husband." "You will not?" She was still standing, and stretched out her right hand as though again to grasp something. He also now rose from his chair. "If I speak with abruptness it is only to avoid a show of indecision. I will not." "Oh, God! what have I done that it should be my lot to meet man after man false and cruel as this! You tell me to my face that I am to bear it! Who is the jade that has done it? Has she money?--or rank? Or is it that you are afraid to have by your side a woman who can speak for herself,--and even act for herself if some action be necessary? Perhaps you think that I am--old." He was looking at her intently as she spoke, and it did seem to him that many years had been added to her face. It was full of lines round the mouth, and the light play of drollery was gone, and the colour was fixed,--and her eyes seemed to be deep in her head. "Speak, man,--is it that you want a younger wife?" "You know it is not." "Know! How should any one know anything from a liar? From what you tell me I know nothing. I have to gather what I can from your character. I see that you are a coward. It is that man that came to you, and who is your master, that has forced you to this. Between me and him you tremble, and are a thing to be pitied. As for knowing what you would be at, from anything that you would say,--that is impossible. Once again I have come across a mean wretch. Oh, fool!--that men should be so vile, and think themselves masters of the world! My last word to you is, that you are--a liar. Now for the present you can go. Ten minutes since, had I had a weapon in my hand I should have shot another man." Paul Montague, as he looked round the room for his hat, could not but think that perhaps Mrs. Hurtle might have had some excuse. It seemed at any rate to be her custom to have a pistol with her,--though luckily, for his comfort, she had left it in her bedroom on the present occasion. "I will say good-bye to you," he said, when he had found his hat. "Say no such thing. Tell me that you have triumphed and got rid of me. Pluck up your spirits, if you have any, and show me your joy. Tell me that an Englishman has dared to ill-treat an American woman. You would,--were you not afraid to indulge yourself." He was now standing in the doorway, and before he escaped she gave him an imperative command. "I shall not stay here now," she said--"I shall return on Monday. I must think of what you have said, and must resolve what I myself will do. I shall not bear this without seeking a means of punishing you for your treachery. I shall expect you to come to me on Monday." He closed the door as he answered her. "I do not see that it will serve any purpose." "It is for me, sir, to judge of that. I suppose you are not so much a coward that you are afraid to come to me. If so, I shall come to you; and you may be assured that I shall not be too timid to show myself and to tell my story." He ended by saying that if she desired it he would wait upon her, but that he would not at present fix a day. On his return to town he would write to her. When he was gone she went to the door and listened awhile. Then she closed it, and turning the lock, stood with her back against the door and with her hands clasped. After a few moments she ran forward, and falling on her knees, buried her face in her hands upon the table. Then she gave way to a flood of tears, and at last lay rolling upon the floor. Was this to be the end of it? Should she never know rest;--never have one draught of cool water between her lips? Was there to be no end to the storms and turmoils and misery of her life? In almost all that she had said she had spoken the truth, though doubtless not all the truth,--as which among us would in giving the story of his life? She had endured violence, and had been violent. She had been schemed against, and had schemed. She had fitted herself to the life which had befallen her. But in regard to money, she had been honest and she had been loving of heart. With her heart of hearts she had loved this young Englishman;--and now, after all her scheming, all her daring, with all her charms, this was to be the end of it! Oh, what a journey would this be which she must now make back to her own country, all alone! But the strongest feeling which raged within her bosom was that of disappointed love. Full as had been the vials of wrath which she had poured forth over Montague's head, violent as had been the storm of abuse with which she had assailed him, there had been after all something counterfeited in her indignation. But her love was no counterfeit. At any moment if he would have returned to her and taken her in his arms, she would not only have forgiven him but have blessed him also for his kindness. She was in truth sick at heart of violence and rough living and unfeminine words. When driven by wrongs the old habit came back upon her. But if she could only escape the wrongs, if she could find some niche in the world which would be bearable to her, in which, free from harsh treatment, she could pour forth all the genuine kindness of her woman's nature,--then, she thought she could put away violence and be gentle as a young girl. When she first met this Englishman and found that he took delight in being near her, she had ventured to hope that a haven would at last be open to her. But the reek of the gunpowder from that first pistol shot still clung to her, and she now told herself again, as she had often told herself before, that it would have been better for her to have turned the muzzle against her own bosom. After receiving his letter she had run over on what she had told herself was a vain chance. Though angry enough when that letter first reached her, she had, with that force of character which marked her, declared to herself that such a resolution on his part was natural. In marrying her he must give up all his old allies, all his old haunts. The whole world must be changed to him. She knew enough of herself, and enough of Englishwomen, to be sure that when her past life should be known, as it would be known, she would be avoided in England. With all the little ridicule she was wont to exercise in speaking of the old country there was ever mixed, as is so often the case in the minds of American men and women, an almost envious admiration of English excellence. To have been allowed to forget the past and to live the life of an English lady would have been heaven to her. But she, who was sometimes scorned and sometimes feared in the eastern cities of her own country, whose name had become almost a proverb for violence out in the far West,--how could she dare to hope that her lot should be so changed for her? She had reminded Paul that she had required to be asked often before she had consented to be his wife; but she did not tell him that that hesitation had arisen from her own conviction of her own unfitness. But it had been so. Circumstances had made her what she was. Circumstances had been cruel to her. But she could not now alter them. Then gradually, as she came to believe in his love, as she lost herself in love for him, she told herself that she would be changed. She had, however, almost known that it could not be so. But this man had relatives, had business, had property in her own country. Though she could not be made happy in England, might not a prosperous life be opened for him in the far West? Then had risen the offer of that journey to Mexico with much probability that work of no ordinary kind might detain him there for years. With what joy would she have accompanied him as his wife! For that at any rate she would have been fit. She was conscious,--perhaps too conscious, of her own beauty. That at any rate, she felt, had not deserted her. She was hardly aware that time was touching it. And she knew herself to be clever, capable of causing happiness, and mirth and comfort. She had the qualities of a good comrade--which are so much in a woman. She knew all this of herself. If he and she could be together in some country in which those stories of her past life would be matter of indifference, could she not make him happy? But what was she that a man should give up everything and go away and spend his days in some half-barbarous country for her alone? She knew it all and was hardly angry with him in that he had decided against her. But treated as she had been she must play her game with such weapons as she possessed. It was consonant with her old character, it was consonant with her present plans that she should at any rate seem to be angry. Sitting there alone late into the night she made many plans, but the plan that seemed best to suit the present frame of her mind was the writing of a letter to Paul bidding him adieu, sending him her fondest love, and telling him that he was right. She did write the letter, but wrote it with a conviction that she would not have the strength to send it to him. The reader may judge with what feeling she wrote the following words:-- DEAR PAUL,-- You are right and I am wrong. Our marriage would not have been fitting. I do not blame you. I attracted you when we were together; but you have learned and have learned truly that you should not give up your life for such attractions. If I have been violent with you, forgive me. You will acknowledge that I have suffered. Always know that there is one woman who will love you better than any one else. I think too that you will love me even when some other woman is by your side. God bless you, and make you happy. Write me the shortest, shortest word of adieu. Not to do so would make you think yourself heartless. But do not come to me. For ever, W. H. This she wrote on a small slip of paper, and then having read it twice, she put it into her pocket-book. She told herself that she ought to send it; but told herself as plainly that she could not bring herself to do so. It was early in the morning before she went to bed but she had admitted no one into the room after Montague had left her. Paul, when he escaped from her presence, roamed out on to the sea-shore, and then took himself to bed, having ordered a conveyance to take him to Carbury Manor early in the morning. At breakfast he presented himself to the squire. "I have come earlier than you expected," he said. "Yes, indeed;--much earlier. Are you going back to Lowestoft?" Then he told the whole story. Roger expressed his satisfaction, recalling however the pledge which he had given as to his return. "Let her follow you, and bear it," he said. "Of course you must suffer the effects of your own imprudence." On that evening Paul Montague returned to London by the mail train, being sure that he would thus avoid a meeting with Mrs. Hurtle in the railway-carriage.

When Paul went into the dining-room Mrs. Hurtle was already there, radiant with smiles. She made herself especially pleasant during dinner, but Paul felt sure that everything was not well with her. Though she talked and laughed, there was something forced in her manner. He knew that she was only waiting till the serving-man should have left the room to speak in a different strain. And when the door was finally shut behind the retreating waiter, she asked, "Your friend was hardly civil, was he, Paul? I suppose he is on very intimate terms with you?" "Oh, yes." "Then his want of courtesy was intended for me. He disapproves of me. I can understand that it should be so. But he should have been civil to his friend's friend. You have told me that Mr. Carbury was your ideal of an English gentleman." "So he is." "Then why didn't he behave as such?" Mrs. Hurtle again smiled. "Has he authority over you?" "Of course not. What authority could he have?" "I do not know. I should have said that he was your guardian, and that he intended to rebuke you for being in bad company. I dare say he did after I had gone." This was so true that Montague did not know how to deny it. Nor was he sure that he should. Why not say it now as well as at any future moment? He had to make her understand that he could not marry her - chiefly indeed because his heart was elsewhere - but also because her history caused all his friends to warn him against such a marriage. So he plucked up courage for the battle. "It was nearly that," he said. There are many of my readers who will declare that Paul Montague was a poor creature, in his reluctance to face this woman with the truth. His folly in falling for her charms will be forgiven him; his unwise engagement, and his determination to break it, will be pardoned as natural. But readers will be very hard on him on the score of his cowardice - I think unjustly. Mastery often comes from hardness of heart rather than true courage. The man who succumbs to his wife, the mother who succumbs to her daughter, often does so because of an aversion to giving pain. Paul feared the woman; but he also shrank from subjecting her to the blank misery of utter desertion. After what had passed between them he could hardly bring himself to tell her that he wanted her no further. But that was what he had to do. "Mr. Carbury rebuked you for showing yourself on the sands at Lowestoft with me?" "He knew of the letter which I wrote to you." "You have discussed me between you?" "Of course we have. Would you have had me be silent about you to the oldest and best friend I have in the world?" "No. But I should not have supposed you would have asked his leave. I thought you were a man capable of managing your own actions. I had heard that in your country, girls sometimes hold themselves at the disposal of their friends, but I did not dream that such could be the case with a man who had gone out into the world." Paul Montague's punishment was begun, and he did not like it. "Of course you can say bitter things," he replied. "Have I usually said bitter things to you? When I hung round your neck and swore that you should be my God upon earth, was that bitter? I am alone and I have to fight my own battles. Say but one word to me, Paul, and there will be an end to bitterness. And think what it is I am asking. Do you remember how urgent were once your own prayers to me; how you begged for one word of mine? I spoke it, because I loved you, and because I believed you." "I cannot say that word." "So after all, I am to be thrown off like an old glove? I have had many dealings with men and have found them to be false, cruel, unworthy, and selfish. But I have met nothing like that. No man has ever dared to treat me like that." "I wrote to you." "Wrote to me! And I was to take that as sufficient! No. While I live I will face injustice and expose it. You wrote to me! Heaven and earth - I can hardly control myself when I hear such impudence!" She clenched her fist upon the knife that lay on the table, and then dropped it again. "Could any mere letter break the bond by which we were bound together? The letter must be unwritten. It has already been contradicted by your conduct to me since I have been in this country." "I am sorry to hear you say that." "Am I not justified in saying it?" "I hope not. When I first saw you I told you everything. If I have been wrong in attending to your wishes since, I regret it." "This comes from your seeing your master for two minutes on the beach. You are acting now under his orders. No doubt he came with the purpose. Had you told him you were to be here?" "His coming was an accident." "It was very opportune. Well; what have you to say to me? Or perhaps you would prefer that I should argue the matter out with your - friend, Mr. Carbury." "What has to be said, I can say myself." "Say it then. Or are you so ashamed of it, that the words stick in your throat?" "I am ashamed of it. I must say that which will be painful, and which would not have needed to be said, if I had been careful." "Don't spare me," she said. "I already know it all. I know the lies with which they crammed you at San Francisco. You have heard that up in Oregon I shot a man. That is no lie. I did. I brought him down dead at my feet." Then she rose from her chair, and looked at him. "Do you suppose that the sight of that dying wretch does not haunt me? that I do not daily hear his drunken screech, and see him fall? But did they tell you also that it was only thus that I could save myself? Otherwise, why did they not try me for his murder? Why did the women flock around me and kiss the very hems of my garments? In this soft civilization of yours you know nothing of such necessity. A woman here is protected - except from lies." "It was not that only," he whispered. "No; they told you other things," she continued, still standing over him. "They told you of quarrels with my husband. I know the lies, and who made them, and why. Did I conceal my husband's character from you? Did I not tell you that he was a drunkard and a scoundrel?" "They told me that - you fought him." "Fought him! Yes; I was always fighting him. What are you to do but to fight cruelty, and fight falsehood, and fight fraud and treachery? You have not been foolish enough to believe that fable about a duel? I did stand once, armed, and guarded my bedroom door from him, and told him that he should only enter it over my body. He went away to the tavern and I did not see him for a week afterwards. That was the duel. And they have told you that he is not dead." "Yes; they have." "Who has seen him alive? And what would it matter to you? I was divorced from him according to the law of the State of Kansas, on the grounds of his cruelty and drunkenness. He made no appearance, and the Court granted it me. Am I disgraced by that?" "I heard nothing of the divorce." "When we were talking in the old days you wanted to hear nothing of Caradoc Hurtle. Now you are more particular. I told you that he was dead, as I believed myself, and do believe. And I suppose they have told you that I failed in getting back my property?" "I have asked no question about your property." "You are welcome to know. At last I have it again. And now, sir, what else is there? Is it because I protected myself from drunken violence that I am to be rejected? Am I to be cast aside because I saved my life from a reprobate husband, and escaped from him by lawful means; or because I have secured my own property? If I am not condemned for these things, then say why am I condemned." She had left him without a word to say. She had owned to shooting the man. Well; it certainly may be necessary that a woman should shoot a man in Oregon. As to the duel with her husband, she had half confessed it. She had confessed that perhaps Hurtle was not dead. But then, as she had asked, why was not a divorce as good as a death? And yet, from this story, what man would wish to marry her? She had seen so much of drunkenness, had become so handy with pistols, and had done so much of a man's work, that any ordinary man might well hesitate before he assumed to be her master. "I do not condemn you," he replied. "Paul, do not lie. If you tell me that you will not be my husband, you condemn me." "I will not lie if I can help it. I did ask you to be my wife-" "How often did you ask before I consented?" "I now believe such a marriage would be miserable for both of us. Of course, I can hardly defend myself." "Hardly." "But I know that I shall now be acting for the best in declaring that I will not become your husband." "You will not?" She was still standing, and stretched out her right hand as though to grasp something. He also rose. "I will not." "Oh, God! Why is it my lot to meet man after man as false and cruel as this! You tell me to my face that I am to bear it! Who is the jade that has done it? Has she money? or rank? Or are you afraid to marry a woman who can speak for herself, and act for herself? Perhaps you think that I am - old." He was looking at her intently as she spoke, and it did seem to him that many years had been added to her face. It was full of lines round the mouth, and her eyes seemed to be deep in her head. "Speak, man. Is it that you want a younger wife?" "You know it is not." "Know! How should one know anything from a liar? You are a coward. It is that man who has forced you to this. Between me and him you tremble, and are a thing to be pitied - another mean wretch. That men should be so vile, and think themselves masters of the world! You are a liar. Now go. Had I had a weapon in my hand I should have used it." Paul Montague felt that perhaps Mrs. Hurtle might have had some excuse. "I will say good-bye to you," he said. "Say no such thing. Tell me that you have triumphed and got rid of me. Show me your joy. Tell me that an Englishman has dared to ill-treat an American woman." He was now standing in the doorway, and before he escaped she gave him a command. "I shall not stay here now," she said. "I shall return on Monday. I must resolve what I will do. I shall seek a means of punishing you for your treachery. I expect you to come to me on Monday." "I do not see that it will serve any purpose." "It is for me, sir, to judge of that. If you are too much of a coward to come to me, I shall come to you. I shall not be too timid to show myself and tell my story." He said he would visit her, but would not fix a day. On his return to town he would write to her. When he was gone she went to the door and listened. Then she locked it, and stood with her hands clasped. After a few moments she ran forward, and falling on her knees, buried her face in her hands. She gave way to a flood of tears, and at last lay rolling upon the floor. Should she never know rest? Was there to be no end to the storms and turmoils of her life? In almost all that she had said she had spoken the truth, though doubtless not all the truth. She had endured violence, and had been violent. She had been schemed against, and had schemed. But she had been honest about money, and she had been loving of heart. She had loved this young Englishman - and now this was to be the end of it! Oh, what a journey she would now have to make back to her own country, all alone! But the strongest feeling which raged within her bosom was that of disappointed love. Violently as she had abused him, if he had taken her in his arms, she would not only have forgiven him but have blessed him for his kindness. She was in truth sick at heart of rough living. If she could only escape, if she could find some safe niche in the world, then she thought she could put away violence and be as gentle as a girl. When she first met this admiring Englishman, she had ventured to hope that a haven would at last be open to her. But the reek of the gunpowder from that first pistol shot still clung to her, and she told herself - not for the first time - that it would have been better for her to have shot herself. On receiving his letter, though she had been angry, she declared to herself that his resolution was natural. In marrying her he must give up his old friends and haunts. She was aware that when her past life became known, she would be avoided in English society. To have been allowed to forget the past and to live the life of an English lady would have been heaven to her. But she, whose name had become almost a proverb for violence out in the far West - how could she dare to hope that her lot should be so changed? She had reminded Paul that he had asked her often before she had consented to be his wife; but she did not tell him that her hesitation had arisen from her sense of her own unfitness. Then gradually, as she came to believe in his love, as she lost herself in love for him, she told herself that she would be changed. She had, however, known that it could not be so. But this man had relatives and property in the United States. Might not a prosperous life be opened for him in the far West? Then had risen the offer of that journey to Mexico. With what joy would she have accompanied him as his wife! For that at any rate she would have been fit. She was conscious - perhaps too conscious - of her own beauty. And she knew herself to be clever, and a good comrade. If they could be together in some other country, could she not make him happy? Yet what was she that a man should give up everything and go away to some half-barbarous country for her alone? She knew it all and was hardly angry with him. But treated as she had been, she must play her game with such weapons as she possessed. She should at least seem to be angry. Sitting alone late into the night she made many plans, but the plan that seemed best to suit her frame of mind was the writing of a letter to Paul bidding him adieu, sending him her fondest love, and telling him that he was right. She did write this letter, believing that she would not have the strength to send it. Dear Paul, You are right and I am wrong. Our marriage would not have been fitting. I do not blame you. I attracted you; but you have learned truly that you should not give up your life for such attractions. If I have been violent with you, forgive me. You will acknowledge that I have suffered. Always know that there is one woman who will love you better than anyone else. I think too that you will love me even when some other woman is by your side. God bless you, and make you happy. Write me the shortest word of adieu. Not to do so would make you think yourself heartless. But do not come to me. For ever, W. H. Having read this note twice, she put it into her pocket-book. She told herself that she ought to send it; but told herself as plainly that she could not bring herself to do so. Paul, when he escaped from her presence, roamed out on to the sea-shore, and then went to bed, having ordered a carriage to take him to Carbury Manor early in the morning. At breakfast he presented himself to the squire, and told the whole story. Roger expressed his satisfaction. That evening Paul Montague returned to London by the mail train, being sure that he would thus avoid a meeting with Mrs. Hurtle in the railway-carriage.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 47: Mrs. Hurtle at Lowestoft

Mr. Longestaffe had brought his daughter down to Caversham on a Wednesday. During the Thursday and Friday she had passed a very sad time, not knowing whether she was or was not engaged to marry Mr. Brehgert. Her father had declared to her that he would break off the match, and she believed that he had seen Mr. Brehgert with that purpose. She had certainly given no consent, and had never hinted to any one of the family an idea that she was disposed to yield. But she felt that, at any rate with her father, she had not adhered to her purpose with tenacity, and that she had allowed him to return to London with a feeling that she might still be controlled. She was beginning to be angry with Mr. Brehgert, thinking that he had taken his dismissal from her father without consulting her. It was necessary that something should be settled, something known. Life such as that she was leading now would drive her mad. She had all the disadvantages of the Brehgert connection and none of the advantages. She could not comfort herself with thinking of the Brehgert wealth and the Brehgert houses, and yet she was living under the general ban of Caversham on account of her Brehgert associations. She was beginning to think that she herself must write to Mr. Brehgert,--only she did not know what to say to him. But on the Saturday morning she got a letter from Mr. Brehgert. It was handed to her as she was sitting at breakfast with her sister,--who at that moment was triumphant with a present of gooseberries which had been sent over from Toodlam. The Toodlam gooseberries were noted throughout Suffolk, and when the letters were being brought in Sophia was taking her lover's offering from the basket with her own fair hands. "Well!" Georgey had exclaimed, "to send a pottle of gooseberries to his lady love across the country! Who but George Whitstable would do that?" "I dare say you get nothing but gems and gold," Sophy retorted. "I don't suppose that Mr. Brehgert knows what a gooseberry is." At that moment the letter was brought in, and Georgiana knew the writing. "I suppose that's from Mr. Brehgert," said Sophy. "I don't think it matters much to you who it's from." She tried to be composed and stately, but the letter was too important to allow of composure, and she retired to read it in privacy. The letter was as follows:-- MY DEAR GEORGIANA, Your father came to me the day after I was to have met you at Lady Monogram's party. I told him then that I would not write to you till I had taken a day or two to consider what he said to me;--and also that I thought it better that you should have a day or two to consider what he might say to you. He has now repeated what he said at our first interview, almost with more violence; for I must say that I think he has allowed himself to be violent when it was surely unnecessary. The long and short of it is this. He altogether disapproves of your promise to marry me. He has given three reasons;--first that I am in trade; secondly that I am much older than you, and have a family; and thirdly that I am a Jew. In regard to the first I can hardly think that he is earnest. I have explained to him that my business is that of a banker; and I can hardly conceive it to be possible that any gentleman in England should object to his daughter marrying a banker, simply because the man is a banker. There would be a blindness of arrogance in such a proposition of which I think your father to be incapable. This has merely been added in to strengthen his other objections. As to my age, it is just fifty-one. I do not at all think myself too old to be married again. Whether I am too old for you is for you to judge,--as is also that question of my children who, of course, should you become my wife will be to some extent a care upon your shoulders. As this is all very serious you will not, I hope, think me wanting in gallantry if I say that I should hardly have ventured to address you if you had been quite a young girl. No doubt there are many years between us;--and so I think there should be. A man of my age hardly looks to marry a woman of the same standing as himself. But the question is one for the lady to decide,--and you must decide it now. As to my religion, I acknowledge the force of what your father says,--though I think that a gentleman brought up with fewer prejudices would have expressed himself in language less likely to give offence. However I am a man not easily offended; and on this occasion I am ready to take what he has said in good part. I can easily conceive that there should be those who think that the husband and wife should agree in religion. I am indifferent to it myself. I shall not interfere with you if you make me happy by becoming my wife, nor, I suppose, will you with me. Should you have a daughter or daughters I am quite willing that they should be brought up subject to your influence. There was a plain-speaking in this which made Georgiana look round the room as though to see whether any one was watching her as she read it. But no doubt your father objects to me specially because I am a Jew. If I were an atheist he might, perhaps, say nothing on the subject of religion. On this matter as well as on others it seems to me that your father has hardly kept pace with the movements of the age. Fifty years ago whatever claim a Jew might have to be as well considered as a Christian, he certainly was not so considered. Society was closed against him, except under special circumstances, and so were all the privileges of high position. But that has been altered. Your father does not admit the change; but I think he is blind to it, because he does not wish to see. I say all this more as defending myself than as combating his views with you. It must be for you and for you alone to decide how far his views shall govern you. He has told me, after a rather peremptory fashion, that I have behaved badly to him and to his family because I did not go to him in the first instance when I thought of obtaining the honour of an alliance with his daughter. I have been obliged to tell him that in this matter I disagree with him entirely, though in so telling him I endeavoured to restrain myself from any appearance of warmth. I had not the pleasure of meeting you in his house, nor had I any acquaintance with him. And again, at the risk of being thought uncourteous, I must say that you are to a certain degree emancipated by age from that positive subordination to which a few years ago you probably submitted without a question. If a gentleman meets a lady in society, as I met you in the home of our friend Mr. Melmotte, I do not think that the gentleman is to be debarred from expressing his feelings because the lady may possibly have a parent. Your father, no doubt with propriety, had left you to be the guardian of yourself, and I cannot submit to be accused of improper conduct because, finding you in that condition, I availed myself of it. And now, having said so much, I must leave the question to be decided entirely by yourself. I beg you to understand that I do not at all wish to hold you to a promise merely because the promise has been given. I readily acknowledge that the opinion of your family should be considered by you, though I will not admit that I was bound to consult that opinion before I spoke to you. It may well be that your regard for me or your appreciation of the comforts with which I may be able to surround you, will not suffice to reconcile you to such a breach from your own family as your father, with much repetition, has assured me will be inevitable. Take a day or two to think of this and turn it well over in your mind. When I last had the happiness of speaking to you, you seemed to think that your parents might raise objections, but that those objections would give way before an expression of your own wishes. I was flattered by your so thinking; but, if I may form any judgment from your father's manner, I must suppose that you were mistaken. You will understand that I do not say this as any reproach to you. Quite the contrary. I think your father is irrational; and you may well have failed to anticipate that he should be so. As to my own feelings they remain exactly as they were when I endeavoured to explain them to you. Though I do not find myself to be too old to marry, I do think myself too old to write love letters. I have no doubt you believe me when I say that I entertain a most sincere affection for you; and I beseech you to believe me in saying further that should you become my wife it shall be the study of my life to make you happy. It is essentially necessary that I should allude to one other matter, as to which I have already told your father what I will now tell you. I think it probable that within this week I shall find myself a loser of a very large sum of money through the failure of a gentleman whose bad treatment of me I will the more readily forgive because he was the means of making me known to you. This you must understand is private between you and me, though I have thought it proper to inform your father. Such loss, if it fall upon me, will not interfere in the least with the income which I have proposed to settle upon you for your use after my death; and, as your father declares that in the event of your marrying me he will neither give to you nor bequeath to you a shilling, he might have abstained from telling me to my face that I was a bankrupt merchant when I myself told him of my loss. I am not a bankrupt merchant nor at all likely to become so. Nor will this loss at all interfere with my present mode of living. But I have thought it right to inform you of it, because, if it occur,--as I think it will,--I shall not deem it right to keep a second establishment probably for the next two or three years. But my house at Fulham and my stables there will be kept up just as they are at present. I have now told you everything which I think it is necessary you should know, in order that you may determine either to adhere to or to recede from your engagement. When you have resolved you will let me know,--but a day or two may probably be necessary for your decision. I hope I need not say that a decision in my favour will make me a happy man. I am, in the meantime, your affectionate friend, EZEKIEL BREHGERT. This very long letter puzzled Georgey a good deal, and left her, at the time of reading it, very much in doubt as to what she would do. She could understand that it was a plain-spoken and truth-telling letter. Not that she, to herself, gave it praise for those virtues; but that it imbued her unconsciously with a thorough belief. She was apt to suspect deceit in other people;--but it did not occur to her that Mr. Brehgert had written a single word with an attempt to deceive her. But the single-minded genuine honesty of the letter was altogether thrown away upon her. She never said to herself, as she read it, that she might safely trust herself to this man, though he were a Jew, though greasy and like a butcher, though over fifty and with a family, because he was an honest man. She did not see that the letter was particularly sensible;--but she did allow herself to be pained by the total absence of romance. She was annoyed at the first allusion to her age, and angry at the second; and yet she had never supposed that Brehgert had taken her to be younger than she was. She was well aware that the world in general attributes more years to unmarried women than they have lived, as a sort of equalising counter-weight against the pretences which young women make on the other side, or the lies which are told on their behalf. Nor had she wished to appear peculiarly young in his eyes. But, nevertheless, she regarded the reference to be uncivil,--perhaps almost butcher-like,--and it had its effect upon her. And then the allusion to the "daughter or daughters" troubled her. She told herself that it was vulgar,--just what a butcher might have said. And although she was quite prepared to call her father the most irrational, the most prejudiced, and most ill-natured of men, yet she was displeased that Mr. Brehgert should take such a liberty with him. But the passage in Mr. Brehgert's letter which was most distasteful to her was that which told her of the loss which he might probably incur through his connection with Melmotte. What right had he to incur a loss which would incapacitate him from keeping his engagements with her? The town-house had been the great persuasion, and now he absolutely had the face to tell her that there was to be no town-house for three years. When she read this she felt that she ought to be indignant, and for a few moments was minded to sit down without further consideration and tell the man with considerable scorn that she would have nothing more to say to him. But on that side too there would be terrible bitterness. How would she have fallen from her greatness when, barely forgiven by her father and mother for the vile sin which she had contemplated, she should consent to fill a common bridesmaid place at the nuptials of George Whitstable! And what would then be left to her in life? This episode of the Jew would make it quite impossible for her again to contest the question of the London house with her father. Lady Pomona and Mrs. George Whitstable would be united with him against her. There would be no "season" for her, and she would be nobody at Caversham. As for London, she would hardly wish to go there! Everybody would know the story of the Jew. She thought that she could have plucked up courage to face the world as the Jew's wife, but not as the young woman who had wanted to marry the Jew and had failed. How would her future life go with her, should she now make up her mind to retire from the proposed alliance? If she could get her father to take her abroad at once, she would do it; but she was not now in a condition to make any terms with her father. As all this gradually passed through her mind, she determined that she would so far take Mr. Brehgert's advice as to postpone her answer till she had well considered the matter. She slept upon it, and the next day she asked her mother a few questions. "Mamma, have you any idea what papa means to do?" "In what way, my dear?" Lady Pomona's voice was not gracious, as she was free from that fear of her daughter's ascendancy which had formerly affected her. "Well;--I suppose he must have some plan." "You must explain yourself. I don't know why he should have any particular plan." "Will he go to London next year?" "That will depend upon money, I suppose. What makes you ask?" "Of course I have been very cruelly circumstanced. Everybody must see that. I'm sure you do, mamma. The long and the short of it is this;--if I give up my engagement, will he take us abroad for a year?" "Why should he?" "You can't suppose that I should be very comfortable in England. If we are to remain here at Caversham, how am I to hope ever to get settled?" "Sophy is doing very well." "Oh, mamma, there are not two George Whitstables;--thank God." She had meant to be humble and supplicating, but she could not restrain herself from the use of that one shaft. "I don't mean but what Sophy may be very happy, and I am sure that I hope she will. But that won't do me any good. I should be very unhappy here." "I don't see how you are to find any one to marry you by going abroad," said Lady Pomona, "and I don't see why your papa is to be taken away from his own home. He likes Caversham." "Then I am to be sacrificed on every side," said Georgey, stalking out of the room. But still she could not make up her mind what letter she would write to Mr. Brehgert, and she slept upon it another night. On the next day after breakfast she did write her letter, though when she sat down to her task she had not clearly made up her mind what she would say. But she did get it written, and here it is. Caversham, Monday. MY DEAR MR. BREHGERT, As you told me not to hurry, I have taken a little time to think about your letter. Of course it would be very disagreeable to quarrel with papa and mamma and everybody. And if I do do so, I'm sure somebody ought to be very grateful. But papa has been very unfair in what he has said. As to not asking him, it could have been of no good, for of course he would be against it. He thinks a great deal of the Longestaffe family, and so, I suppose, ought I. But the world does change so quick that one doesn't think of anything now as one used to do. Anyway, I don't feel that I'm bound to do what papa tells me just because he says it. Though I'm not quite so old as you seem to think, I'm old enough to judge for myself,--and I mean to do so. You say very little about affection, but I suppose I am to take all that for granted. I don't wonder at papa being annoyed about the loss of the money. It must be a very great sum when it will prevent your having a house in London,--as you agreed. It does make a great difference, because, of course, as you have no regular place in the country, one could only see one's friends in London. Fulham is all very well now and then, but I don't think I should like to live at Fulham all the year through. You talk of three years, which would be dreadful. If as you say it will not have any lasting effect, could you not manage to have a house in town? If you can do it in three years, I should think you could do it now. I should like to have an answer to this question. I do think so much about being the season in town! As for the other parts of your letter, I knew very well beforehand that papa would be unhappy about it. But I don't know why I'm to let that stand in my way when so very little is done to make me happy. Of course you will write to me again, and I hope you will say something satisfactory about the house in London. Yours always sincerely, GEORGIANA LONGESTAFFE. It probably never occurred to Georgey that Mr. Brehgert would under any circumstances be anxious to go back from his engagement. She so fully recognised her own value as a Christian lady of high birth and position giving herself to a commercial Jew, that she thought that under any circumstances Mr. Brehgert would be only too anxious to stick to his bargain. Nor had she any idea that there was anything in her letter which could probably offend him. She thought that she might at any rate make good her claim to the house in London; and that as there were other difficulties on his side, he would yield to her on this point. But as yet she hardly knew Mr. Brehgert. He did not lose a day in sending to her a second letter. He took her letter with him to his office in the city, and there answered it without a moment's delay. No. 7, St. Cuthbert's Court, London, Tuesday, July 16, 18--. MY DEAR MISS LONGESTAFFE, You say it would be very disagreeable to you to quarrel with your papa and mamma; and as I agree with you, I will take your letter as concluding our intimacy. I should not, however, be dealing quite fairly with you or with myself if I gave you to understand that I felt myself to be coerced to this conclusion simply by your qualified assent to your parents' views. It is evident to me from your letter that you would not wish to be my wife unless I can supply you with a house in town as well as with one in the country. But this for the present is out of my power. I would not have allowed my losses to interfere with your settlement because I had stated a certain income; and must therefore to a certain extent have compromised my children. But I should not have been altogether happy till I had replaced them in their former position, and must therefore have abstained from increased expenditure till I had done so. But of course I have no right to ask you to share with me the discomfort of a single home. I may perhaps add that I had hoped that you would have looked to your happiness to another source, and that I will bear my disappointment as best I may. As you may perhaps under these circumstances be unwilling that I should wear the ring you gave me, I return it by post. I trust you will be good enough to keep the trifle you were pleased to accept from me, in remembrance of one who will always wish you well. Yours sincerely, EZEKIEL BREHGERT. And so it was all over! Georgey, when she read this letter, was very indignant at her lover's conduct. She did not believe that her own letter had at all been of a nature to warrant it. She had regarded herself as being quite sure of him, and only so far doubting herself, as to be able to make her own terms because of such doubts. And now the Jew had rejected her! She read this last letter over and over again, and the more she read it the more she felt that in her heart of hearts she had intended to marry him. There would have been inconveniences no doubt, but they would have been less than the sorrow on the other side. Now she saw nothing before her but a long vista of Caversham dullness, in which she would be trampled upon by her father and mother, and scorned by Mr. and Mrs. George Whitstable. She got up and walked about the room thinking of vengeance. But what vengeance was possible to her? Everybody belonging to her would take the part of the Jew in that which he had now done. She could not ask Dolly to beat him; nor could she ask her father to visit him with the stern frown of paternal indignation. There could be no revenge. For a time,--only for a few seconds,--she thought that she would write to Mr. Brehgert and tell him that she had not intended to bring about this termination of their engagement. This, no doubt, would have been an appeal to the Jew for mercy;--and she could not quite descend to that. But she would keep the watch and chain he had given her, and which somebody had told her had not cost less than a hundred and fifty guineas. She could not wear them, as people would know whence they had come; but she might exchange them for jewels which she could wear. At lunch she said nothing to her sister, but in the course of the afternoon she thought it best to inform her mother. "Mamma," she said, "as you and papa take it so much to heart, I have broken off everything with Mr. Brehgert." "Of course it must be broken off," said Lady Pomona. This was very ungracious,--so much so that Georgey almost flounced out of the room. "Have you heard from the man?" asked her ladyship. "I have written to him, and he has answered me; and it is all settled. I thought that you would have said something kind to me." And the unfortunate young woman burst out into tears. "It was so dreadful," said Lady Pomona;--"so very dreadful. I never heard of anything so bad. When young what's-his-name married the tallow-chandler's daughter I thought it would have killed me if it had been Dolly; but this was worse than that. Her father was a methodist." "They had neither of them a shilling of money," said Georgey through her tears. "And your papa says this man was next door to a bankrupt. But it's all over?" "Yes, mamma." "And now we must all remain here at Caversham till people forget it. It has been very hard upon George Whitstable, because of course everybody has known it through the county. I once thought he would have been off, and I really don't know that we could have said anything." At that moment Sophy entered the room. "It's all over between Georgiana and the--man," said Lady Pomona, who hardly saved herself from stigmatising him by a further reference to his religion. "I knew it would be," said Sophia. "Of course it could never have really taken place," said their mother. "And now I beg that nothing more may be said about it," said Georgiana. "I suppose, mamma, you will write to papa?" "You must send him back his watch and chain, Georgey," said Sophia. "What business is that of yours?" "Of course she must. Her papa would not let her keep it." To such a miserable depth of humility had the younger Miss Longestaffe been brought by her ill-considered intimacy with the Melmottes! Georgiana, when she looked back on this miserable episode in her life, always attributed her grief to the scandalous breach of compact of which her father had been guilty.

Georgiana felt that she had allowed her father to return to London thinking that she might still be controlled. She was beginning to be angry with Mr. Brehgert, assuming he had taken his dismissal from her father without consulting her. It was necessary that something should be settled, something known. She had all the disadvantages of the Brehgert connection and none of the advantages. She was beginning to think that she herself must write to Mr. Brehgert - only she did not know what to say to him. But on the Saturday morning she got a letter from Mr. Brehgert. It was handed to her as she was sitting at breakfast with her sister - who at that moment was triumphant with a present of gooseberries which had been sent over from Toodlam. "Well!" Georgey had exclaimed, "to send gooseberries to his lady love across the country! Who but George Whitstable would do that?" "I dare say you get nothing but gems and gold," Sophy retorted. "I don't suppose that Mr. Brehgert knows what a gooseberry is." At that moment the letter was brought in. "I suppose that's from Mr. Brehgert." "I don't think it matters to you who it's from." Georgiana tried to be composed and stately, but the letter was too important to allow of composure, and she retired to read it in privacy. The letter was as follows: My dear Georgiana, Your father came to me the day after I was to have met you at Lady Monogram's party. I told him that I would not write to you till I had taken a day or two to consider what he said to me; and also that I thought that you should have a day or two to consider what he might say to you. He has now repeated what he said at our first interview, almost with more violence; for I must say that I think he has allowed himself to be violent when it was surely unnecessary. The long and short of it is this. He altogether disapproves of your promise to marry me. He has given three reasons; first that I am in trade; secondly that I am much older than you, and have a family; and thirdly that I am a Jew. In regard to the first I can hardly think that he is earnest. I am a banker; and I can hardly conceive it to be possible that any gentleman in England should object to his daughter marrying a banker. As to my age, it is fifty-one. I do not think myself too old to be married again. Whether I am too old for you is for you to judge - as is also that question of my children who, of course, should you become my wife will be to some extent a care upon your shoulders. As this is all very serious you will not, I hope, think me wanting in gallantry if I say that I should hardly have ventured to address you if you had been quite a young girl. No doubt there are many years between us. But the question is one for the lady to decide, and you must decide it now. As to my religion, I acknowledge the force of what your father says, though I think that a gentleman brought up with fewer prejudices would have expressed himself in language less likely to give offence. However I am a man not easily offended; and I am ready to take what he has said in good part. I can easily conceive that there should be those who think that the husband and wife should agree in religion. I am indifferent to it myself. I shall not interfere with you if you make me happy by becoming my wife, nor, I suppose, will you with me. Should you have a daughter or daughters I am quite willing that they should be brought up subject to your influence. (There was a plain-speaking in this which made Georgiana look round the room as though to see whether anyone was watching her as she read it.) But no doubt your father objects to me specially because I am a Jew. If I were an atheist he might, perhaps, say nothing on the subject of religion. On this matter it seems to me that your father has hardly kept pace with the movements of the age. Fifty years ago Society was closed against the Jew, except under special circumstances, and so were all the privileges of high position. But that has been altered. Your father is blind to the change; but I think he does not wish to see. I say this more to defend myself than to combat his views. It must be for you and for you alone to decide how far his views shall govern you. He has told me, in a rather peremptory fashion, that I have behaved badly because I did not go to him in the first instance when I thought of obtaining the honour of an alliance with his daughter. I have been obliged to tell him that in this matter I disagree with him entirely. I had no acquaintance with him. And again, at the risk of being thought uncourteous, I must say that you are to a certain degree freed by age from that subordination to which a few years ago you probably submitted without question. Your father, no doubt with propriety, had left you to be the guardian of yourself, and I cannot submit to be accused of improper conduct because, finding you in that condition, I availed myself of it. And now, having said so much, I must leave the question to be decided entirely by yourself. I beg you to understand that I do not at all wish to hold you to a promise merely because the promise has been given. I readily acknowledge that you should consider the opinion of your family. It may well be that your regard for me will not suffice to reconcile you to such a breach from your own family as your father, with much repetition, has assured me will be inevitable. Take a day or two to think of this and turn it over in your mind. When I last had the happiness of speaking to you, you seemed to think that your parents might raise objections, but that those objections would give way before your own wishes. I was flattered by your so thinking; but I must suppose that you were mistaken. I do not say this as any reproach to you. Quite the contrary. I think your father is irrational; and you may well have failed to anticipate that he should be so. As to my own feelings, they remain exactly the same as before. Though I do not find myself to be too old to marry, I do think myself too old to write love letters. However, I have a most sincere affection for you; and if you should become my wife it shall be the study of my life to make you happy. It is necessary that I should allude to one other matter; I have already told your father what I will now tell you. I think it probable that within this week I shall find myself a loser of a very large sum of money through the failure of a gentleman whose bad treatment of me I will the more readily forgive because he was the means of making me known to you. Such a loss, if it falls upon me, will not interfere in the least with the income which I have proposed to settle upon you for your use after my death; and, as your father declares that in the event of your marrying me he will not give you a shilling, he might have abstained from telling me that I was a bankrupt merchant when I myself told him of my loss. I am not a bankrupt merchant nor at all likely to become so. Nor will this loss interfere with my present mode of living. But I have thought it right to inform you of it, because, if it occurs, I shall probably not keep a second establishment for the next two or three years. But my house at Fulham and my stables there will be kept up just as they are at present. I have now told you everything which I think it is necessary you should know, in order that you may determine either to keep to or withdraw from your engagement. I hope I need not say that a decision in my favour will make me a happy man. I am, in the meantime, your affectionate friend, Ezekiel Brehgert. This long letter puzzled Georgey a good deal, and left her very much in doubt as to what she would do. She could understand that it was a plain-spoken and truth-telling letter. Not that she gave it praise for those virtues; but it filled her unconsciously with a thorough belief. But the genuine honesty of the letter was altogether thrown away upon her. She never said to herself, as she read it, that she might safely trust herself to this man, though he were a Jew over fifty, because he was honest. She did not see that the letter was particularly sensible; but she did allow herself to be pained by the total absence of romance. She was annoyed at the first allusion to her age, and angry at the second; and yet she had never supposed that Brehgert had taken her to be younger than she was. Nor had she wished to appear particularly young in his eyes. Nevertheless, she felt the reference to be uncivil, and it had its effect upon her. And then the allusion to the "daughter or daughters" troubled her. She told herself that it was vulgar - just what a butcher might have said. And although she was quite prepared to call her father irrational and prejudiced, yet she was displeased that Mr. Brehgert should take such a liberty. But the most distasteful passage in the letter was that which told her of the loss which he might incur through his connection with Melmotte. What right had he to incur a loss which would stop him from keeping his engagement? The town-house had been the great persuasion, and now he absolutely had the face to tell her that there was to be no town-house for three years. When she read this she felt that she ought to be indignant, and for a few moments was minded to sit down and tell the man scornfully that she would have nothing more to say to him. But on that side too there would be terrible bitterness. How would she have fallen from her greatness when she would be a common bridesmaid at her sister's wedding! And what would then be left to her in life? There would be no "season" for her, and she would be nobody at Caversham. As for London, she would hardly wish to go there! Everybody would know the story of the Jew. She could have plucked up courage to face the world as the Jew's wife, but not as the young woman who had wanted to marry the Jew and had failed. If she could get her father to take her abroad at once, she would do it; but she was not now in a condition to make any terms with her father. As all this passed through her mind, she determined that she would so far take Mr. Brehgert's advice as to postpone her answer till she had considered the matter. She slept upon it, and the next day she asked her mother a few questions. "Mamma, have you any idea what papa means to do?" "In what way, my dear?" Lady Pomona's voice was not gracious. "Will he go to London next year?" "That will depend upon money, I suppose. What makes you ask?" "Of course I have been very cruelly circumstanced. Everybody must see that. The long and the short of it is this; if I give up my engagement, will he take us abroad for a year?" "Why should he?" "You can't suppose that I should be comfortable in England. If we are to remain here at Caversham, how am I ever to get settled?" "Sophy is doing very well." "Oh, mamma, there are not two George Whitstables - thank God." She had meant to be humble, but she could not restrain herself from that one shaft. "I am sure that I hope she will be very happy. But that won't do me any good." "I don't see how you are to find anyone to marry you by going abroad," said Lady Pomona, "and I don't see why your papa is to be taken away from his home. He likes Caversham." "Then I am to be sacrificed on every side," said Georgey, stalking out of the room. But still she could not make up her mind what letter she would write to Mr. Brehgert, and she slept upon it another night. On the next day after breakfast she did write her letter, though when she sat down she had not clearly made up her mind what she would say. But she got it written, and here it is. My dear Mr. Brehgert, As you told me not to hurry, I have taken a little time to think about your letter. Of course it would be very disagreeable to quarrel with papa and mamma and everybody. And if I do so, I'm sure somebody ought to be very grateful. But papa has been very unfair. He thinks a great deal of the Longestaffe family, and so, I suppose, ought I. But the world does change so quick that one doesn't think of anything now as one used to do. Anyway, I don't feel that I'm bound to do what papa tells me just because he says it. Though I'm not quite so old as you seem to think, I'm old enough to judge for myself, and I mean to do so. You say very little about affection, but I suppose I am to take all that for granted. I don't wonder at papa being annoyed about the loss of the money. It must be a very great sum when it will prevent your having a house in London, as you agreed. It does make a great difference, because one could only see one's friends in London. Fulham is all very well now and then, but I don't think I should like to live at Fulham all the year through. You talk of three years, which would be dreadful. If as you say it will not have any lasting effect, could you not manage to have a house in town? If you can do it in three years, I should think you could do it now. I should like to have an answer to this question. I do think so much about spending the season in town! As for the other parts of your letter, I knew very well beforehand that papa would be unhappy about it. But I don't know why I'm to let that stand in my way when so very little is done to make me happy. Of course you will write to me again, and I hope you will say something satisfactory about the house in London. Yours always sincerely, Georgiana Longestaffe. It probably never occurred to Georgey that Mr. Brehgert might wish to go back from his engagement. She so fully recognised her own value as a Christian lady of high birth that she thought that Mr. Brehgert would be only too anxious to stick to his bargain. Nor had she any idea that there was anything in her letter which could offend him. She thought that she might at least make good her claim to the house in London; and that he would yield to her on this point. But Mr. Brehgert did not lose a day in replying to her. My dear Miss Longestaffe, You say it would be very disagreeable to you to quarrel with your papa and mamma; and as I agree with you, I will take your letter as concluding our intimacy. I should not, however, be dealing quite fairly with you or with myself if I gave you to understand that I felt myself to be forced to this conclusion simply by your qualified assent to your parents' views. It is evident to me from your letter that you would not wish to be my wife unless I can supply you with a house in town. But this for the present is out of my power. I would not have allowed my losses to interfere with your settlement, but I must therefore to a certain extent have compromised my children. I should not have been happy till I had replaced them in their former position, and must therefore have abstained from increased expenditure till I had done so. But of course I have no right to ask you to share with me the discomfort of a single home. I may perhaps add that I had hoped that you would have looked for your happiness to another source, and that I will bear my disappointment as best I may. As you may under these circumstances be unwilling that I should wear the ring you gave me, I return it by post. I trust you will be good enough to keep the trifle you were pleased to accept from me, in remembrance of one who will always wish you well. Yours sincerely, Ezekiel Brehgert. And so it was all over! Georgey, when she read this letter, was very indignant at her lover's conduct. She did not believe that her own letter had at all warranted it. She had been quite sure of him. And now the Jew had rejected her! She read this letter over and over again, and the more she read it the more she felt that in her heart of hearts she had intended to marry him. There would have been inconveniences no doubt; but now she saw nothing before her but a long vista of Caversham dullness, in which she would be trampled upon by her father and mother, and scorned by Mr. and Mrs. George Whitstable. She got up and walked about the room thinking of vengeance. But what vengeance was possible? She could not ask Dolly to beat him; nor could she ask her father to visit him with paternal indignation. There could be no revenge. For a time - only for a few seconds - she thought that she would write to Mr. Brehgert and tell him that she had not intended to end their engagement. But she could not quite descend to that. However she would keep the watch and chain he had given her, and which somebody had told her had cost more than a hundred and fifty guineas. She could not wear them, as people would know whence they had come; but she might exchange them for jewels which she could wear. She thought it best to inform her mother. "Mamma," she said, "as you and papa take it so much to heart, I have broken off everything with Mr. Brehgert." "Of course it must be broken off," said Lady Pomona. This was so ungracious that Georgey almost flounced out of the room. "Have you heard from the man?" asked her ladyship. "I have written to him, and it is all settled. I thought that you would have said something kind to me." And she burst into tears. "It was so very dreadful," said Lady Pomona; "I never heard of anything so bad. It was worse than when young what's-his-name married the tallow-chandler's daughter." "They had neither of them a shilling," said Georgey through her tears. "And your papa says this man was next door to a bankrupt. But it's all over?" "Yes, mamma." "And now we must all remain here at Caversham till people forget it. It has been very hard upon George Whitstable. I once thought he would have been off, and I really don't know that we could have said anything." At that moment Sophy entered the room. "It's all over between Georgiana and that man," said Lady Pomona. "I knew it would be," said Sophia. "And now I beg that nothing more may be said about it," said Georgiana. "I suppose, mamma, you will write to papa?" "You must send him back his watch and chain, Georgey," said Sophia. "What business is that of yours?" "Of course she must. Papa would not let her keep it." To such a miserable depth of humility had she been brought! Georgiana, when she looked back on this miserable episode in her life, always blamed her father for her grief, by bringing about her ill-considered intimacy with the Melmottes.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 79: The Brehgert Correspondence

Lord Nidderdale was greatly disgusted with his own part of the performance when he left the House of Commons, and was, we may say, disgusted with his own position generally, when he considered all its circumstances. That had been at the commencement of the evening, and Melmotte had not then been tipsy; but he had behaved with unsurpassable arrogance and vulgarity, and had made the young lord drink the cup of his own disgrace to the very dregs. Everybody now knew it as a positive fact that the charges made against the man were to become matter of investigation before the chief magistrate for the City, everybody knew that he had committed forgery upon forgery, everybody knew that he could not pay for the property which he had pretended to buy, and that he was actually a ruined man;--and yet he had seized Nidderdale by the hand, and called the young lord "his dear boy" before the whole House. And then he had made himself conspicuous as this man's advocate. If he had not himself spoken openly of his coming marriage with the girl, he had allowed other men to speak to him about it. He had quarrelled with one man for saying that Melmotte was a rogue, and had confidentially told his most intimate friends that in spite of a little vulgarity of manner, Melmotte at bottom was a very good fellow. How was he now to back out of his intimacy with the Melmottes generally? He was engaged to marry the girl, and there was nothing of which he could accuse her. He acknowledged to himself that she deserved well at his hands. Though at this moment he hated the father most bitterly, as those odious words, and the tone in which they had been pronounced, rang in his ears, nevertheless he had some kindly feeling for the girl. Of course he could not marry her now. That was manifestly out of the question. She herself, as well as all others, had known that she was to be married for her money, and now that bubble had been burst. But he felt that he owed it to her, as to a comrade who had on the whole been loyal to him, to have some personal explanation with herself. He arranged in his own mind the sort of speech that he would make to her. "Of course you know it can't be. It was all arranged because you were to have a lot of money, and now it turns out that you haven't got any. And I haven't got any, and we should have nothing to live upon. It's out of the question. But, upon my word, I'm very sorry, for I like you very much, and I really think we should have got on uncommon well together." That was the kind of speech that he suggested to himself, but he did not know how to find for himself the opportunity of making it. He thought that he must put it all into a letter. But then that would be tantamount to a written confession that he had made her an offer of marriage, and he feared that Melmotte,--or Madame Melmotte on his behalf, if the great man himself were absent, in prison,--might make an ungenerous use of such an admission. Between seven and eight he went into the Beargarden, and there he saw Dolly Longestaffe and others. Everybody was talking about Melmotte, the prevailing belief being that he was at this moment in custody. Dolly was full of his own griefs; but consoled amidst them by a sense of his own importance. "I wonder whether it's true," he was saying to Lord Grasslough. "He has an appointment to meet me and my governor at twelve o'clock to-morrow, and to pay us what he owes us. He swore yesterday that he would have the money to-morrow. But he can't keep his appointment, you know, if he's in prison." "You won't see the money, Dolly, you may swear to that," said Grasslough. "I don't suppose I shall. By George, what an ass my governor has been. He had no more right than you have to give up the property. Here's Nidderdale. He could tell us where he is; but I'm afraid to speak to him since he cut up so rough the other night." In a moment the conversation was stopped; but when Lord Grasslough asked Nidderdale in a whisper whether he knew anything about Melmotte, the latter answered out loud, "Yes;--I left him in the House half an hour ago." "People are saying that he has been arrested." "I heard that also; but he certainly had not been arrested when I left the House." Then he went up and put his hand on Dolly Longestaffe's shoulder, and spoke to him. "I suppose you were about right the other night and I was about wrong; but you could understand what it was that I meant. I'm afraid this is a bad look out for both of us." "Yes;--I understand. It's deuced bad for me," said Dolly. "I think you're very well out of it. But I'm glad there's not to be a quarrel. Suppose we have a rubber of whist." Later on in the night news was brought to the club that Melmotte had tried to make a speech in the House, that he had been very drunk, and that he had tumbled over, upsetting Beauchamp Beauclerk in his fall. "By George, I should like to have seen that!" said Dolly. "I am very glad I was not there," said Nidderdale. It was three o'clock before they left the card table, at which time Melmotte was lying dead upon the floor in Mr. Longestaffe's house. On the following morning, at ten o'clock, Lord Nidderdale sat at breakfast with his father in the old lord's house in Berkeley Square. From thence the house which Melmotte had hired was not above a few hundred yards distant. At this time the young lord was living with his father, and the two had now met by appointment in order that something might be settled between them as to the proposed marriage. The Marquis was not a very pleasant companion when the affairs in which he was interested did not go exactly as he would have them. He could be very cross and say most disagreeable words,--so that the ladies of the family, and others connected with him, for the most part, found it impossible to live with him. But his eldest son had endured him;--partly perhaps because, being the eldest, he had been treated with a nearer approach to courtesy, but chiefly by means of his own extreme good humour. What did a few hard words matter? If his father was ungracious to him, of course he knew what all that meant. As long as his father would make fair allowance for his own peccadilloes,--he also would make allowances for his father's roughness. All this was based on his grand theory of live and let live. He expected his father to be a little cross on this occasion, and he acknowledged to himself that there was cause for it. He was a little late himself, and he found his father already buttering his toast. "I don't believe you'd get out of bed a moment sooner than you liked if you could save the whole property by it." "You show me how I can make a guinea by it, sir, and see if I don't earn the money." Then he sat down and poured himself out a cup of tea, and looked at the kidneys and looked at the fish. "I suppose you were drinking last night," said the old lord. "Not particular." The old man turned round and gnashed his teeth at him. "The fact is, sir, I don't drink. Everybody knows that." "I know when you're in the country you can't live without champagne. Well;--what have you got to say about all this?" "What have you got to say?" "You've made a pretty kettle of fish of it." "I've been guided by you in everything. Come, now; you ought to own that. I suppose the whole thing is over?" "I don't see why it should be over. I'm told she has got her own money." Then Nidderdale described to his father Melmotte's behaviour in the House on the preceding evening. "What the devil does that matter?" said the old man. "You're not going to marry the man himself." "I shouldn't wonder if he's in gaol now." "And what does that matter? She's not in gaol. And if the money is hers, she can't lose it because he goes to prison. Beggars mustn't be choosers. How do you mean to live if you don't marry this girl?" "I shall scrape on, I suppose. I must look for somebody else." The Marquis showed very plainly by his demeanour that he did not give his son much credit either for diligence or for ingenuity in making such a search. "At any rate, sir, I can't marry the daughter of a man who is to be put upon his trial for forgery." "I can't see what that has to do with you." "I couldn't do it, sir. I'd do anything else to oblige you, but I couldn't do that. And, moreover, I don't believe in the money." "Then you may just go to the devil," said the old Marquis turning himself round in his chair, and lighting a cigar as he took up the newspaper. Nidderdale went on with his breakfast with perfect equanimity, and when he had finished lighted his cigar. "They tell me," said the old man, "that one of those Goldsheiner girls will have a lot of money." "A Jewess," suggested Nidderdale. "What difference does that make?" [Illustration: "What difference does that make?"] "Oh no;--not in the least;--if the money's really there. Have you heard any sum named, sir?" The old man only grunted. "There are two sisters and two brothers. I don't suppose the girls would have a hundred thousand each." "They say the widow of that brewer who died the other day has about twenty thousand a year." "It's only for her life, sir." "She could insure her life. D----me, sir, we must do something. If you turn up your nose at one woman after another how do you mean to live?" "I don't think that a woman of forty with only a life interest would be a good speculation. Of course I'll think of it if you press it." The old man growled again. "You see, sir, I've been so much in earnest about this girl that I haven't thought of inquiring about any one else. There always is some one up with a lot of money. It's a pity there shouldn't be a regular statement published with the amount of money, and what is expected in return. It 'd save a deal of trouble." "If you can't talk more seriously than that you'd better go away," said the old Marquis. At that moment a footman came into the room and told Lord Nidderdale that a man particularly wished to see him in the hall. He was not always anxious to see those who called on him, and he asked the servant whether he knew who the man was. "I believe, my lord, he's one of the domestics from Mr. Melmotte's in Bruton Street," said the footman, who was no doubt fully acquainted with all the circumstances of Lord Nidderdale's engagement. The son, who was still smoking, looked at his father as though in doubt. "You'd better go and see," said the Marquis. But Nidderdale before he went asked a question as to what he had better do if Melmotte had sent for him. "Go and see Melmotte. Why should you be afraid to see him? Tell him that you are ready to marry the girl if you can see the money down, but that you won't stir a step till it has been actually paid over." "He knows that already," said Nidderdale as he left the room. In the hall he found a man whom he recognised as Melmotte's butler, a ponderous, elderly, heavy man who now had a letter in his hand. But the lord could tell by the man's face and manner that he himself had some story to tell. "Is there anything the matter?" "Yes, my lord,--yes. Oh, dear,--oh, dear! I think you'll be sorry to hear it. There was none who came there he seemed to take to so much as your lordship." "They've taken him to prison!" exclaimed Nidderdale. But the man shook his head. "What is it then? He can't be dead." Then the man nodded his head, and, putting his hand up to his face, burst into tears. "Mr. Melmotte dead! He was in the House of Commons last night. I saw him myself. How did he die?" But the fat, ponderous man was so affected by the tragedy he had witnessed, that he could not as yet give any account of the scene of his master's death, but simply handed the note which he had in his hand to Lord Nidderdale. It was from Marie, and had been written within half an hour of the time at which news had been brought to her of what had occurred. The note was as follows:-- DEAR LORD NIDDERDALE, The man will tell you what has happened. I feel as though I was mad. I do not know who to send to. Will you come to me, only for a few minutes? MARIE. He read it standing up in the hall, and then again asked the man as to the manner of his master's death. And now the Marquis, gathering from a word or two that he heard and from his son's delay that something special had occurred, hobbled out into the hall. "Mr. Melmotte is--dead," said his son. The old man dropped his stick, and fell back against the wall. "This man says that he is dead, and here is a letter from Marie asking me to go there. How was it that he--died?" "It was--poison," said the butler solemnly. "There has been a doctor already, and there isn't no doubt of that. He took it all by himself last night. He came home, perhaps a little fresh, and he had in brandy and soda and cigars;--and sat himself down all to himself. Then in the morning, when the young woman went in,--there he was,--poisoned! I see him lay on the ground, and I helped to lift him up, and there was that smell of prussic acid that I knew what he had been and done just the same as when the doctor came and told us." Before the man could be allowed to go back, there was a consultation between the father and son as to a compliance with the request which Marie had made in her first misery. The Marquis thought that his son had better not go to Bruton Street. "What's the use? What good can you do? She'll only be falling into your arms, and that's what you've got to avoid,--at any rate, till you know how things are." But Nidderdale's better feelings would not allow him to submit to this advice. He had been engaged to marry the girl, and she in her abject misery had turned to him as the friend she knew best. At any rate for the time the heartlessness of his usual life deserted him, and he felt willing to devote himself to the girl not for what he could get,--but because she had so nearly been so near to him. "I couldn't refuse her," he said over and over again. "I couldn't bring myself to do it. Oh, no;--I shall certainly go." "You'll get into a mess if you do." "Then I must get into a mess. I shall certainly go. I will go at once. It is very disagreeable, but I cannot possibly refuse. It would be abominable." Then going back to the hall, he sent a message by the butler to Marie, saying that he would be with her in less than half an hour. "Don't you go and make a fool of yourself," his father said to him when he was alone. "This is just one of those times when a man may ruin himself by being soft-hearted." Nidderdale simply shook his head as he took his hat and gloves to go across to Bruton Street.

Lord Nidderdale was greatly disgusted with his own position when he left the House of Commons. Melmotte had behaved with unsurpassable arrogance and vulgarity, and had made the young lord drink the cup of his own disgrace to the very dregs. Everybody now knew that the man had committed forgery upon forgery, and that he was ruined; and yet he had seized Nidderdale by the hand, and called him "his dear boy" before the whole House. And Nidderdale had made himself conspicuous as this man's advocate. He had quarrelled with one man for saying that Melmotte was a rogue, and had told his friends that in spite of a little vulgarity, Melmotte at bottom was a very good fellow. How was he now to back out of his intimacy with the Melmottes? He was engaged to marry the girl, and could accuse her of nothing. He had some kindly feeling for her. Of course he could not marry her now; but he felt that he owed it to her to explain. He imagined what he would say. "Of course you know it can't be, now that it turns out that you haven't got any money. And I haven't got any, and we should have nothing to live upon. But, upon my word, I'm very sorry, for I like you very much, and I really think we should have got on uncommon well together." Between seven and eight he went into the Beargarden, where he saw Dolly Longestaffe and others. Everybody was talking about Melmotte, believing that he was now in custody. "I wonder whether it's true," Dolly was saying to Lord Grasslough. "He was to meet me and my governor tomorrow, and to pay us what he owes us." "You won't see the money, Dolly," said Grasslough. "I don't suppose I shall. By George, what an ass my governor has been. Here's Nidderdale. He could tell us where he is." When Lord Grasslough asked Nidderdale in a whisper whether he knew anything about Melmotte, he answered out loud. "Yes; I left him in the House half an hour ago." "People are saying that he has been arrested." "He had not been arrested when I left the House." Then he put his hand on Dolly Longestaffe's shoulder. "You were right the other night and I was wrong; but I'm afraid this is a bad look out for both of us." "Yes, it's deuced bad for me," said Dolly. "You're well out of it. Suppose we have a rubber of whist." Later that night news was brought to the club that Melmotte had tried to make a speech in the House, very drunk, and had tumbled over. "By George, I should like to have seen that!" said Dolly. "I am glad I was not there," said Nidderdale. It was three o'clock before they left the card table; and Melmotte was lying dead upon the floor in Mr. Longestaffe's house. On the following morning, at ten o'clock, Lord Nidderdale sat at breakfast with his father in Berkeley Square. The house which Melmotte had hired was only a few hundred yards distant. Nidderdale was a little late to breakfast, and found his father already buttering his toast. He sat down and poured himself a cup of tea. "I suppose you were drinking last night," said the old lord. "Well; what have you got to say about all this? You've made a pretty kettle of fish of it." "I've been guided by you in everything, sir. I suppose the whole thing is over?" "I don't see why it should be over. I'm told she has her own money." Then Nidderdale described to his father Melmotte's behaviour in the House. "What the devil does that matter?" said the old man. "You're not going to marry the man himself. If the money is hers, she can't lose it if he goes to prison. How do you mean to live if you don't marry this girl?" "I shall scrape on, I suppose. I must look for somebody else." The Marquis snorted. "At any rate, sir, I can't marry the daughter of a man who is to be put on trial for forgery." "I can't see what that has to do with you." "I couldn't do it, sir. And, moreover, I don't believe in the money." "Then you may go to the devil," said the old Marquis turning round, and lighting a cigar as he took up the newspaper. Nidderdale went on with his breakfast with perfect equanimity. "They tell me," said the old man, "that one of those Goldsheiner girls will have a lot of money." "A Jewess," said Nidderdale. "What difference does that make?" "None in the least, if the money's really there. I don't suppose the girls would have a hundred thousand each." "D___ me, sir, we must do something. If you turn up your nose at one woman after another, how do you mean to live?" "I've been so much in earnest about this girl that I haven't thought of inquiring about anyone else. It's a pity there shouldn't be a regular statement published with the amount of money, and what is expected in return. It'd save a deal of trouble." "If you can't talk more seriously you'd better go away," said the old Marquis. At that moment a footman came in and told Lord Nidderdale that a man particularly wished to see him in the hall. "I believe, my lord, he's one of the domestics from Mr. Melmotte's in Bruton Street," said the footman. "You'd better go and see," said the Marquis. "Go and tell Melmotte that you are ready to marry the girl, but that you won't stir a step till the money is actually paid over." "He knows that already," said Nidderdale as he left the room. In the hall he found Melmotte's butler, a ponderous man who held a letter. He could tell by the man's face that he had some story to tell. "Is there anything the matter?" "Yes, my lord. Oh, dear! I think you'll be sorry to hear it. There was none who he seemed to take to so much as your lordship." "They've taken him to prison!" exclaimed Nidderdale. But the man shook his head. "What is it then? He can't be dead." Then the man nodded, and, putting his hand to his face, burst into tears. "Mr. Melmotte dead! But I saw him last night. How did he die?" But the ponderous man was so affected that he could not speak. He simply handed over the note in his hand. It was from Marie: Dear Lord Nidderdale, The man will tell you what has happened. I feel as though I was mad. I do not know who to send to. Will you come to me, only for a few minutes? Marie. He read it standing up in the hall. The Marquis, hearing a word or two, hobbled out to him. "Mr. Melmotte is dead," said his son. The old man dropped his stick. "This is a letter from Marie asking me to go there. How did he die?" "Poison," said the butler solemnly. "A doctor has been, and there is no doubt. He came home last night and had brandy and soda and cigars; and sat down by himself. Then in the morning, there he was - poisoned! I smelt prussic acid and knew what he had been and done, just like the doctor said." Then the Marquis thought that his son had better not go to Bruton Street. "What's the use? What good can you do? She'll only be falling into your arms, and that's what you've got to avoid, till you know how things are." But Nidderdale's better feelings would not allow him to follow this advice. He had been engaged to marry the girl, and she in her misery had turned to him. "I couldn't refuse her," he said. "I shall go. It would be abominable to refuse." And he took up his hat and gloves to go across to Bruton Street.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 85: Breakfast in Berkeley Square

Lady Carbury continued to ask frequent questions as to the prosecution of her son's suit, and Sir Felix began to think that he was persecuted. "I have spoken to her father," he said crossly. "And what did Mr. Melmotte say?" "Say;--what should he say? He wanted to know what income I had got. After all he's an old screw." "Did he forbid you to come there any more?" "Now, mother, it's no use your cross-examining me. If you'll let me alone I'll do the best I can." "She has accepted you, herself?" "Of course she has. I told you that at Carbury." "Then, Felix, if I were you I'd run off with her. I would indeed. It's done every day, and nobody thinks any harm of it when you marry the girl. You could do it now because I know you've got money. From all I can hear she's just the sort of girl that would go with you." The son sat silent, listening to these maternal councils. He did believe that Marie would go off with him, were he to propose the scheme to her. Her own father had almost alluded to such a proceeding,--had certainly hinted that it was feasible,--but at the same time had very clearly stated that in such case the ardent lover would have to content himself with the lady alone. In any such event as that there would be no fortune. But then, might not that only be a threat? Rich fathers generally do forgive their daughters, and a rich father with only one child would surely forgive her when she returned to him, as she would do in this instance, graced with a title. Sir Felix thought of all this as he sat there silent. His mother read his thoughts as she continued. "Of course, Felix, there must be some risk." "Fancy what it would be to be thrown over at last!" he exclaimed. "I couldn't bear it. I think I should kill her." "Oh no, Felix; you wouldn't do that. But when I say there would be some risk I mean that there would be very little. There would be nothing in it that ought to make him really angry. He has nobody else to give his money to, and it would be much nicer to have his daughter, Lady Carbury, with him, than to be left all alone in the world." "I couldn't live with him, you know. I couldn't do it." "You needn't live with him, Felix. Of course she would visit her parents. When the money was once settled you need see as little of them as you pleased. Pray do not allow trifles to interfere with you. If this should not succeed, what are you to do? We shall all starve unless something be done. If I were you, Felix, I would take her away at once. They say she is of age." "I shouldn't know where to take her," said Sir Felix, almost stunned into thoughtfulness by the magnitude of the proposition made to him. "All that about Scotland is done with now." "Of course you would marry her at once." "I suppose so,--unless it were better to stay as we were, till the money was settled." "Oh, no; no! Everybody would be against you. If you take her off in a spirited sort of way and then marry her, everybody will be with you. That's what you want. The father and mother will be sure to come round, if--" "The mother is nothing." "He will come round if people speak up in your favour. I could get Mr. Alf and Mr. Broune to help. I'd try it, Felix; indeed I would. Ten thousand a year is not to be had every year." Sir Felix gave no assent to his mother's views. He felt no desire to relieve her anxiety by an assurance of activity in the matter. But the prospect was so grand that it had excited even him. He had money sufficient for carrying out the scheme, and if he delayed the matter now, it might well be that he would never again find himself so circumstanced. He thought that he would ask somebody whither he ought to take her, and what he ought to do with her;--and that he would then make the proposition to herself. Miles Grendall would be the man to tell him, because, with all his faults, Miles did understand things. But he could not ask Miles. He and Nidderdale were good friends; but Nidderdale wanted the girl for himself. Grasslough would be sure to tell Nidderdale. Dolly would be altogether useless. He thought that, perhaps, Herr Vossner would be the man to help him. There would be no difficulty out of which Herr Vossner would not extricate "a fellow,"--if "the fellow" paid him. On Thursday evening he went to Grosvenor Square, as desired by Marie,--but unfortunately found Melmotte in the drawing-room. Lord Nidderdale was there also, and his lordship's old father, the Marquis of Auld Reekie, whom Felix, when he entered the room, did not know. He was a fierce-looking, gouty old man, with watery eyes, and very stiff grey hair,--almost white. He was standing up supporting himself on two sticks when Sir Felix entered the room. There were also present Madame Melmotte, Miss Longestaffe, and Marie. As Felix had entered the hall one huge footman had said that the ladies were not at home; then there had been for a moment a whispering behind a door,--in which he afterwards conceived that Madame Didon had taken a part;--and upon that a second tall footman had contradicted the first and had ushered him up to the drawing-room. He felt considerably embarrassed, but shook hands with the ladies, bowed to Melmotte, who seemed to take no notice of him, and nodded to Lord Nidderdale. He had not had time to place himself, when the Marquis arranged things. "Suppose we go down-stairs," said the Marquis. "Certainly, my lord," said Melmotte. "I'll show your lordship the way." The Marquis did not speak to his son, but poked at him with his stick, as though poking him out of the door. So instigated Nidderdale followed the financier, and the gouty old Marquis toddled after them. Madame Melmotte was beside herself with trepidation. "You should not have been made to come up at all," she said. "Il faut que vous vous retirez." "I am very sorry," said Sir Felix, looking quite aghast. "I think that I had at any rate better retire," said Miss Longestaffe, raising herself to her full height and stalking out of the room. "Qu'elle est mchante," said Madame Melmotte. "Oh, she is so bad. Sir Felix, you had better go too. Yes,--indeed." "No," said Marie, running to him, and taking hold of his arm. "Why should he go? I want papa to know." "Il vous tuera," said Madame Melmotte. "My God, yes." "Then he shall," said Marie, clinging to her lover. "I will never marry Lord Nidderdale. If he were to cut me into bits I wouldn't do it. Felix, you love me;--do you not?" "Certainly," said Sir Felix, slipping his arm round her waist. "Mamma," said Marie, "I will never have any other man but him;--never, never, never. Oh, Felix, tell her that you love me." "You know that, don't you, ma'am?" Sir Felix was a little troubled in his mind as to what he should say, or what he should do. "Oh, love! It is a beastliness," said Madame Melmotte. "Sir Felix, you had better go. Yes, indeed. Will you be so obliging?" "Don't go," said Marie. "No, mamma, he shan't go. What has he to be afraid of? I will walk down among them into papa's room, and say that I will never marry that man, and that this is my lover. Felix, will you come?" Sir Felix did not quite like the proposition. There had been a savage ferocity in that Marquis's eye, and there was habitually a heavy sternness about Melmotte, which together made him resist the invitation. "I don't think I have a right to do that," he said, "because it is Mr. Melmotte's own house." "I wouldn't mind," said Marie. "I told papa to-day that I wouldn't marry Lord Nidderdale." "Was he angry with you?" "He laughed at me. He manages people till he thinks that everybody must do exactly what he tells them. He may kill me, but I will not do it. I have quite made up my mind. Felix, if you will be true to me, nothing shall separate us. I will not be ashamed to tell everybody that I love you." Madame Melmotte had now thrown herself into a chair and was sighing. Sir Felix stood on the rug with his arm round Marie's waist, listening to her protestations, but saying little in answer to them,--when, suddenly, a heavy step was heard ascending the stairs. "C'est lui," screamed Madame Melmotte, bustling up from her seat and hurrying out of the room by a side door. The two lovers were alone for one moment, during which Marie lifted up her face, and Sir Felix kissed her lips. "Now be brave," she said, escaping from his arm, "and I'll be brave." Mr. Melmotte looked round the room as he entered. "Where are the others?" he asked. "Mamma has gone away, and Miss Longestaffe went before mamma." "Sir Felix, it is well that I should tell you that my daughter is engaged to marry Lord Nidderdale." "Sir Felix, I am not engaged--to--marry Lord Nidderdale," said Marie. "It's no good, papa. I won't do it. If you chop me to pieces, I won't do it." "She will marry Lord Nidderdale," continued Mr. Melmotte, addressing himself to Sir Felix. "As that is arranged, you will perhaps think it better to leave us. I shall be happy to renew my acquaintance with you as soon as the fact is recognised;--or happy to see you in the city at any time." "Papa, he is my lover," said Marie. "Pooh!" "It is not pooh. He is. I will never have any other. I hate Lord Nidderdale; and as for that dreadful old man, I could not bear to look at him. Sir Felix is as good a gentleman as he is. If you loved me, papa, you would not want to make me unhappy all my life." Her father walked up to her rapidly with his hand raised, and she clung only the closer to her lover's arm. At this moment Sir Felix did not know what he might best do, but he thoroughly wished himself out in the square. "Jade!" said Melmotte, "get to your room." [Illustration: "Get to your room."] "Of course I will go to bed, if you tell me, papa." "I do tell you. How dare you take hold of him in that way before me! Have you no idea of disgrace?" "I am not disgraced. It is not more disgraceful to love him than that other man. Oh, papa, don't. You hurt me. I am going." He took her by the arm and dragged her to the door, and then thrust her out. "I am very sorry, Mr. Melmotte," said Sir Felix, "to have had a hand in causing this disturbance." "Go away, and don't come back any more;--that's all. You can't both marry her. All you have got to understand is this. I'm not the man to give my daughter a single shilling if she marries against my consent. By the God that hears me, Sir Felix, she shall not have one shilling. But look you,--if you'll give this up, I shall be proud to co-operate with you in anything you may wish to have done in the city." After this Sir Felix left the room, went down the stairs, had the door opened for him, and was ushered into the square. But as he went through the hall a woman managed to shove a note into his hand,--which he read as soon as he found himself under a gas lamp. It was dated that morning, and had therefore no reference to the fray which had just taken place. It ran as follows:-- I hope you will come to-night. There is something I cannot tell you then, but you ought to know it. When we were in France papa thought it wise to settle a lot of money on me. I don't know how much, but I suppose it was enough to live on if other things went wrong. He never talked to me about it, but I know it was done. And it hasn't been undone, and can't be without my leave. He is very angry about you this morning, for I told him I would never give you up. He says he won't give me anything if I marry without his leave. But I am sure he cannot take it away. I tell you, because I think I ought to tell you everything. M. Sir Felix as he read this could not but think that he had become engaged to a very enterprising young lady. It was evident that she did not care to what extent she braved her father on behalf of her lover, and now she coolly proposed to rob him. But Sir Felix saw no reason why he should not take advantage of the money made over to the girl's name, if he could lay his hands on it. He did not know much of such transactions, but he knew more than Marie Melmotte, and could understand that a man in Melmotte's position should want to secure a portion of his fortune against accidents, by settling it on his daughter. Whether having so settled it, he could again resume it without the daughter's assent, Sir Felix did not know. Marie, who had no doubt been regarded as an absolutely passive instrument when the thing was done, was now quite alive to the benefit which she might possibly derive from it. Her proposition, put into plain English, amounted to this: "Take me and marry me without my father's consent,--and then you and I together can rob my father of the money which, for his own purposes, he has settled upon me." He had looked upon the lady of his choice as a poor weak thing, without any special character of her own, who was made worthy of consideration only by the fact that she was a rich man's daughter; but now she began to loom before his eyes as something bigger than that. She had had a will of her own when the mother had none. She had not been afraid of her brutal father when he, Sir Felix, had trembled before him. She had offered to be beaten, and killed, and chopped to pieces on behalf of her lover. There could be no doubt about her running away if she were asked. It seemed to him that within the last month he had gained a great deal of experience, and that things which heretofore had been troublesome to him, or difficult, or perhaps impossible, were now coming easily within his reach. He had won two or three thousand pounds at cards, whereas invariable loss had been the result of the small play in which he had before indulged. He had been set to marry this heiress, having at first no great liking for the attempt, because of its difficulties and the small amount of hope which it offered him. The girl was already willing and anxious to jump into his arms. Then he had detected a man cheating at cards,--an extent of iniquity that was awful to him before he had seen it,--and was already beginning to think that there was not very much in that. If there was not much in it, if such a man as Miles Grendall could cheat at cards and be brought to no punishment, why should not he try it? It was a rapid way of winning, no doubt. He remembered that on one or two occasions he had asked his adversary to cut the cards a second time at whist, because he had observed that there was no honour at the bottom. No feeling of honesty had interfered with him. The little trick had hardly been premeditated, but when successful without detection had not troubled his conscience. Now it seemed to him that much more than that might be done without detection. But nothing had opened his eyes to the ways of the world so widely as the sweet little lover-like proposition made by Miss Melmotte for robbing her father. It certainly recommended the girl to him. She had been able at an early age, amidst the circumstances of a very secluded life, to throw off from her altogether those scruples of honesty, those bugbears of the world, which are apt to prevent great enterprises in the minds of men. What should he do next? This sum of money of which Marie wrote so easily was probably large. It would not have been worth the while of such a man as Mr. Melmotte to make a trifling provision of this nature. It could hardly be less than 50,000,--might probably be very much more. But this was certain to him,--that if he and Marie were to claim this money as man and wife, there could then be no hope of further liberality. It was not probable that such a man as Mr. Melmotte would forgive even an only child such an offence as that. Even if it were obtained, 50,000 would not be very much. And Melmotte might probably have means, even if the robbery were duly perpetrated, of making the possession of the money very uncomfortable. These were deep waters into which Sir Felix was preparing to plunge; and he did not feel himself to be altogether comfortable, although he liked the deep waters.

Lady Carbury asked frequent questions about her son's suit for Marie's hand, until Sir Felix began to think that he was persecuted. "I have spoken to her father," he said crossly. "And what did he say?" "Say - what should he say? He wanted to know what income I had got. He's an old screw." "She has accepted you?" "Of course she has. I told you that." "Then, Felix, if I were you I'd run off with her. I would indeed. It's done every day, and nobody thinks any harm of it when you marry the girl. From all I can hear she's just the sort of girl that would go with you." The son sat silent. He did believe that Marie would go off with him if he asked. Her own father had hinted that such a thing was feasible, but at the same time had very clearly stated that in such case the lady would have no money. But then, might not that be only a threat? Rich fathers generally forgive their daughters, and a rich father with only one child would surely forgive her when she returned graced with a title. Sir Felix thought of all this as he sat silent. His mother read his thoughts. "Of course, Felix, there must be some risk." "Imagine if I were to be thrown over at last!" he exclaimed. "I couldn't bear it. I think I should kill her." "Oh no, Felix; you wouldn't do that. But when I say some risk, I mean very little. He has nobody else to give his money to, and it would be much nicer to have his daughter, Lady Carbury, with him, than to be left all alone in the world." "I couldn't live with him, you know. I couldn't do it." "You needn't live with him, Felix. Of course she would visit her parents. Once the money was settled you need see little of them. Pray do not allow trifles to interfere. If this should not succeed, what are you to do? We shall all starve unless something be done. If I were you, Felix, I would take her away at once." "I shouldn't know where to take her," said Sir Felix, almost stunned by the magnitude of the proposition. "Maybe better not to marry, till the money was settled." "Oh, no; no! Everybody would be against you. If you take her off in a spirited way and then marry her, everybody will be with you. The father will be sure to come round, if people speak up in your favour. I could get Mr. Alf and Mr. Broune to help. I'd try it, Felix." Sir Felix gave no assent. But the prospect was so grand that it excited even him. He had enough money to carry out the scheme, and if he delayed now, he might never have the chance again. He thought that he would ask somebody where he ought to take her. Miles Grendall would know, but he could not ask Miles. He and Nidderdale were good friends; but Nidderdale wanted the girl for himself. Dolly would be altogether useless. He thought that, perhaps, Herr Vossner would help him. Herr Vossner would help any fellow out of difficulty, for a payment. On Thursday evening he went to Grosvenor Square, as desired by Marie, but unfortunately found Melmotte in the drawing-room. Lord Nidderdale was there also, with his father, the Marquis of Auld Reekie, a fierce-looking, gouty old man, with watery eyes, and very stiff grey hair. There were also present Madame Melmotte, Miss Longestaffe, and Marie. Felix shook hands with the ladies, bowed to Melmotte, who seemed to take no notice of him, and nodded to Lord Nidderdale. A moment later the old Marquis said, "Suppose we go downstairs." "Certainly, my lord," said Melmotte. "I'll show your lordship the way." The Marquis poked at his son with his stick until Nidderdale followed Melmotte; and the gouty old Marquis toddled after them. Madame Melmotte was beside herself with anxiety. "You should not have been shown in," she said. "You have to go." "I am very sorry," said Sir Felix, quite aghast. "I think that I had better retire," said Miss Longestaffe, stalking out of the room. "Oh, she is so bad," said Madame Melmotte. "Sir Felix, you had better go too." "No," said Marie, running to him, and taking hold of his arm. "Why should he go? I want papa to know." "He will kill you," said Madame Melmotte. "My God, yes." "Then he shall," said Marie, clinging to her lover. "I will never marry Lord Nidderdale. Felix, you love me - do you not?" "Certainly," said Sir Felix, slipping his arm round her waist. "Mamma," said Marie, "I will never have any other man but him; never, never, never. Felix, tell her that you love me." "You know that, don't you, ma'am?" Sir Felix was a little troubled as to what he should say or do. "Oh, love! It is a beastliness," said Madame Melmotte. "Sir Felix, you had better go." "Don't go," said Marie. "No, mamma. I will walk down into papa's room, and say that I will never marry that man, and that this is my lover. Felix, will you come?" Sir Felix did not quite like the proposition. There had been a savage ferocity in that Marquis's eye, and a sternness about Melmotte, which made him cautious. "I don't think I have a right to do that," he said, "because it is Mr. Melmotte's own house." "I wouldn't mind," said Marie. "I told papa today that I wouldn't marry Lord Nidderdale." "Was he angry?" "He laughed at me. He thinks that everybody must do exactly what he tells them. He may kill me, but I will not do it. Felix, if you will be true to me, nothing shall separate us. I will not be ashamed to tell everybody that I love you." Madame Melmotte had thrown herself into a chair, sighing. Sir Felix stood with his arm round Marie's waist, listening - when a heavy step was heard ascending the stairs. "C'est lui," screamed Madame Melmotte, bustling up and hurrying out of the room by a side door. The two lovers were alone for one moment, during which Marie lifted up her face, and Sir Felix kissed her lips. "Now be brave," she said, escaping from his arm, "and I'll be brave." Mr. Melmotte looked round the room as he entered. "Where are the others?" he asked. "They have gone away." "Sir Felix, I must tell you that my daughter is engaged to marry Lord Nidderdale." "Sir Felix, I am not engaged to marry Lord Nidderdale," said Marie. "It's no good, papa. I won't do it, if you chop me to pieces." "She will marry Lord Nidderdale," continued Mr. Melmotte, addressing Sir Felix. "As that is arranged, you will perhaps think it better to leave us. I shall be happy to see you in the city at any time." "Papa, he is my lover," said Marie. "Pooh!" "It is not pooh. I will never have any other. I hate Lord Nidderdale; and as for that dreadful old man, I could not bear to look at him. Sir Felix is as good a gentleman as he is. If you loved me, papa, you would not want to make me unhappy all my life." Her father walked up to her rapidly with his hand raised, and she clung closer to her lover's arm. Sir Felix wished himself out in the square. "Jade!" said Melmotte, "go to your room." "Of course, if you tell me, papa." "I do tell you. How dare you take hold of him in that disgraceful way!" "It is not more disgraceful to love him than that other man. Oh, papa, don't. You hurt me. I am going." He took her by the arm and dragged her to the door, and then thrust her out. "I am very sorry, Mr. Melmotte," said Sir Felix, "to have had a hand in causing this disturbance." "Go away, and don't come back any more; that's all. Just understand this. I won't give my daughter a single shilling if she marries against my consent. By God, Sir Felix, she shall not have one shilling. But look you - if you'll give this up, I shall be proud to co-operate with you in anything you may wish to have done in the city." Sir Felix went downstairs and was ushered out into the square. But as he went through the hall a woman managed to shove a note into his hand. It was dated that morning, and ran as follows: There is something you ought to know. When we were in France papa thought it wise to settle a lot of money on me. I don't know how much, but I suppose it was enough to live on if other things went wrong. He never talked to me about it, but I know it was done, and it can't be undone without my leave. He says he won't give me anything if I marry without his leave. But I am sure he cannot take it away. M. Sir Felix felt that he had become engaged to a very enterprising young lady. She braved her father on behalf of her lover, and now she coolly proposed to rob him. But Sir Felix saw no reason why he should not take advantage of the money made over to the girl's name. He could understand that a man in Melmotte's position should want to secure some of his fortune against accidents, by settling it on his daughter. Whether having so settled it, he could take it back without the daughter's assent, Sir Felix did not know. Marie had no doubt been regarded as a passive instrument when the thing was done, but she was now aware of the benefit which she might derive from it. Her proposition amounted to this: "Marry me without my father's consent, and together we can rob my father of the money which, for his own purposes, he has settled upon me." He had looked upon her as a poor weak thing; but now she began to loom before his eyes as something bigger than that. She had a will of her own. She had not been afraid of her brutal father when he, Sir Felix, had trembled. She had offered to be beaten, and killed, and chopped to pieces on behalf of her lover. There could be no doubt she would run away if she were asked. It seemed to him that things which had been troublesome or difficult were now coming easily within his reach. He had won two or three thousand pounds at cards. He had been set to marry this heiress, and the girl was willing and anxious to jump into his arms. If such a man as Miles Grendall could cheat at cards and be brought to no punishment, it seemed to him that much more than that might be done without detection. But nothing had opened his eyes to the ways of the world so widely as the sweet little lover-like proposition made by Miss Melmotte for robbing her father. It certainly recommended the girl to him. She had been able to throw off altogether those scruples of honesty which are apt to prevent great enterprises. What should he do next? This sum of money of which Marie wrote was probably large. It would not have been worth her father's while to make a provision of less than 50,000 - probably very much more. But this was certain: if he and Marie were to marry, there could then be no hope of more money beyond that. In that case, 50,000 would not be very much. And Melmotte would probably have means of making the possession of the money very uncomfortable. These were deep waters into which Sir Felix was preparing to plunge; and he was uneasy.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 29: Miss Melmotte's Courage

Lady Carbury's desire for a union between Roger and her daughter was greatly increased by her solicitude in respect to her son. Since Roger's offer had first been made, Felix had gone on from bad to worse, till his condition had become one of hopeless embarrassment. If her daughter could but be settled in the world, Lady Carbury said to herself, she could then devote herself to the interests of her son. She had no very clear idea of what that devotion would be. But she did know that she had paid so much money for him, and would have so much more extracted from her, that it might well come to pass that she would be unable to keep a home for her daughter. In all these troubles she constantly appealed to Roger Carbury for advice,--which, however, she never followed. He recommended her to give up her house in town, to find a home for her daughter elsewhere, and also for Felix if he would consent to follow her. Should he not so consent, then let the young man bear the brunt of his own misdoings. Doubtless, when he could no longer get bread in London he would find her out. Roger was always severe when he spoke of the baronet,--or seemed to Lady Carbury to be severe. But, in truth, she did not ask for advice in order that she might follow it. She had plans in her head with which she knew that Roger would not sympathise. She still thought that Sir Felix might bloom and burst out into grandeur, wealth, and fashion, as the husband of a great heiress, and in spite of her son's vices, was proud of him in that anticipation. When he succeeded in obtaining from her money, as in the case of that 20,--when, with brazen-faced indifference to her remonstrances, he started off to his club at two in the morning, when with impudent drollery he almost boasted of the hopelessness of his debts, a sickness of heart would come upon her, and she would weep hysterically, and lie the whole night without sleeping. But could he marry Miss Melmotte, and thus conquer all his troubles by means of his own personal beauty,--then she would be proud of all that had passed. With such a condition of mind Roger Carbury could have no sympathy. To him it seemed that a gentleman was disgraced who owed money to a tradesman which he could not pay. And Lady Carbury's heart was high with other hopes,--in spite of her hysterics and her fears. The "Criminal Queens" might be a great literary success. She almost thought that it would be a success. Messrs. Leadham and Loiter, the publishers, were civil to her. Mr. Broune had promised. Mr. Booker had said that he would see what could be done. She had gathered from Mr. Alf's caustic and cautious words that the book would be noticed in the "Evening Pulpit." No;--she would not take dear Roger's advice as to leaving London. But she would continue to ask Roger's advice. Men like to have their advice asked. And, if possible, she would arrange the marriage. What country retirement could be so suitable for a Lady Carbury when she wished to retire for awhile,--as Carbury Manor, the seat of her own daughter? And then her mind would fly away into regions of bliss. If only by the end of this season Henrietta could be engaged to her cousin, Felix be the husband of the richest bride in Europe, and she be the acknowledged author of the cleverest book of the year, what a Paradise of triumph might still be open to her after all her troubles! Then the sanguine nature of the woman would bear her up almost to exultation, and for an hour she would be happy, in spite of everything. A few days after the ball Roger Carbury was up in town, and was closeted with her in her back drawing-room. The declared cause of his coming was the condition of the baronet's affairs and the indispensable necessity,--so Roger thought,--of taking some steps by which at any rate the young man's present expenses might be brought to an end. It was horrible to him that a man who had not a shilling in the world or any prospect of a shilling, who had nothing and never thought of earning anything, should have hunters! He was very much in earnest about it, and quite prepared to speak his mind to the young man himself,--if he could get hold of him. "Where is he now, Lady Carbury;--at this moment?" "I think he's out with the Baron." Being "out with the Baron" meant that the young man was hunting with the stag hounds some forty miles away from London. "How does he manage it? Whose horses does he ride? Who pays for them?" "Don't be angry with me, Roger. What can I do to prevent it?" "I think you should refuse to have anything to do with him while he continues in such courses." "My own son!" "Yes;--exactly. But what is to be the end of it? Is he to be allowed to ruin you, and Hetta? It can't go on long." "You wouldn't have me throw him over." "I think he is throwing you over. And then it is so thoroughly dishonest,--so ungentlemanlike! I don't understand how it goes on from day to day. I suppose you don't supply him with ready money." "He has had a little." Roger frowned angrily. "I can understand that you should provide him with bed and food, but not that you should pander to his vices by giving him money." This was very plain speaking, and Lady Carbury winced under it. "The kind of life that he is leading requires a large income of itself. I understand the thing, and know that with all I have in the world I could not do it myself." "You are so different." "I am older of course,--very much older. But he is not so young that he should not begin to comprehend. Has he any money beyond what you give him?" Then Lady Carbury revealed certain suspicions which she had begun to entertain during the last day or two. "I think he has been playing." "That is the way to lose money,--not to get it," said Roger. "I suppose somebody wins,--sometimes." "They who win are the sharpers. They who lose are the dupes. I would sooner that he were a fool than a knave." "O Roger, you are so severe!" "You say he plays. How would he pay, were he to lose?" "I know nothing about it. I don't even know that he does play; but I have reason to think that during the last week he has had money at his command. Indeed I have seen it. He comes home at all manner of hours and sleeps late. Yesterday I went into his room about ten and did not wake him. There were notes and gold lying on his table;--ever so much." "Why did you not take them?" "What; rob my own boy?" "When you tell me that you are absolutely in want of money to pay your own bills, and that he has not hesitated to take yours from you! Why does he not repay you what he has borrowed?" "Ah, indeed;--why not? He ought to if he has it. And there were papers there;--I. O. U.'s, signed by other men." "You looked at them." "I saw as much as that. It is not that I am curious, but one does feel about one's own son. I think he has bought another horse. A groom came here and said something about it to the servants." "Oh dear;--oh dear!" "If you could only induce him to stop the gambling! Of course it is very bad whether he wins or loses,--though I am sure that Felix would do nothing unfair. Nobody ever said that of him. If he has won money, it would be a great comfort if he would let me have some of it,--for, to tell the truth, I hardly know how to turn. I am sure nobody can say that I spend it on myself." Then Roger again repeated his advice. There could be no use in attempting to keep up the present kind of life in Welbeck Street. Welbeck Street might be very well without a penniless spendthrift such as Sir Felix, but must be ruinous under the present conditions. If Lady Carbury felt, as no doubt she did feel, bound to afford a home to her ruined son in spite of all his wickedness and folly, that home should be found far away from London. If he chose to remain in London, let him do so on his own resources. The young man should make up his mind to do something for himself. A career might possibly be opened for him in India. "If he be a man he would sooner break stones than live on you," said Roger. Yes, he would see his cousin to-morrow and speak to him;--that is if he could possibly find him. "Young men who gamble all night, and hunt all day are not easily found." But he would come at twelve as Felix generally breakfasted at that hour. Then he gave an assurance to Lady Carbury which to her was not the least comfortable part of the interview. In the event of her son not giving her the money which she at once required he, Roger, would lend her a hundred pounds till her half year's income should be due. After that his voice changed altogether, as he asked a question on another subject, "Can I see Henrietta to-morrow?" "Certainly;--why not? She is at home now, I think." "I will wait till to-morrow,--when I call to see Felix. I should like her to know that I am coming. Paul Montague was in town the other day. He was here, I suppose?" "Yes;--he called." "Was that all you saw of him?" "He was at the Melmottes' ball. Felix got a card for him;--and we were there. Has he gone down to Carbury?" "No;--not to Carbury. I think he had some business about his partners at Liverpool. There is another case of a young man without anything to do. Not that Paul is at all like Sir Felix." This he was induced to say by the spirit of honesty which was always strong within him. "Don't be too hard upon poor Felix," said Lady Carbury. Roger, as he took his leave, thought that it would be impossible to be too hard upon Sir Felix Carbury. The next morning Lady Carbury was in her son's bedroom before he was up, and with incredible weakness told him that his cousin Roger was coming to lecture him. "What the Devil's the use of it?" said Felix from beneath the bedclothes. "If you speak to me in that way, Felix, I must leave the room." "But what is the use of his coming to me? I know what he has got to say just as if it were said. It's all very well preaching sermons to good people, but nothing ever was got by preaching to people who ain't good." "Why shouldn't you be good?" "I shall do very well, mother, if that fellow will leave me alone. I can play my hand better than he can play it for me. If you'll go now I'll get up." She had intended to ask him for some of the money which she believed he still possessed, but her courage failed her. If she asked for his money, and took it, she would in some fashion recognise and tacitly approve his gambling. It was not yet eleven, and it was early for him to leave his bed; but he had resolved that he would get out of the house before that horrible bore should be upon him with his sermon. To do this he must be energetic. He was actually eating his breakfast at half-past eleven, and had already contrived in his mind how he would turn the wrong way as soon as he got into the street,--towards Marylebone Road, by which route Roger would certainly not come. He left the house at ten minutes before twelve, cunningly turned away, dodging round by the first corner,--and just as he had turned it encountered his cousin. Roger, anxious in regard to his errand, with time at his command, had come before the hour appointed and had strolled about, thinking not of Felix but of Felix's sister. The baronet felt that he had been caught,--caught unfairly, but by no means abandoned all hope of escape. "I was going to your mother's house on purpose to see you," said Roger. "Were you indeed? I am so sorry. I have an engagement out here with a fellow which I must keep. I could meet you at any other time, you know." "You can come back for ten minutes," said Roger, taking him by the arm. "Well;--not conveniently at this moment." "You must manage it. I am here at your mother's request, and can't afford to remain in town day after day looking for you. I go down to Carbury this afternoon. Your friend can wait. Come along." His firmness was too much for Felix, who lacked the courage to shake his cousin off violently, and to go his way. But as he returned he fortified himself with the remembrance of all the money in his pocket,--for he still had his winnings,--remembered too certain sweet words which had passed between him and Marie Melmotte since the ball, and resolved that he would not be "sat upon" by Roger Carbury. The time was coming,--he might almost say that the time had come,--in which he might defy Roger Carbury. Nevertheless, he dreaded the words which were now to be spoken to him with a craven fear. "Your mother tells me," said Roger, "that you still keep hunters." "I don't know what she calls hunters. I have one that I didn't part with when the others went." "You have only one horse?" "Well;--if you want to be exact, I have a hack as well as the horse I ride." "And another up here in town?" "Who told you that? No; I haven't. At least there is one staying at some stables which has been sent for me to look at." "Who pays for all these horses?" "At any rate I shall not ask you to pay for them." "No;--you would be afraid to do that. But you have no scruple in asking your mother, though you should force her to come to me or to other friends for assistance. You have squandered every shilling of your own, and now you are ruining her." "That isn't true. I have money of my own." "Where did you get it?" "This is all very well, Roger; but I don't know that you have any right to ask me these questions. I have money. If I buy a horse I can pay for it. If I keep one or two I can pay for them. Of course I owe a lot of money, but other people owe me money too. I'm all right, and you needn't frighten yourself." "Then why do you beg her last shilling from your mother, and when you have money not pay it back to her?" "She can have the twenty pounds, if you mean that." "I mean that, and a good deal more than that. I suppose you have been gambling." "I don't know that I am bound to answer your questions, and I won't do it. If you have nothing else to say, I'll go about my own business." "I have something else to say, and I mean to say it." Felix had walked towards the door, but Roger was before him, and now leaned his back against it. "I am not going to be kept here against my will," said Felix. "You have to listen to me, so you may as well sit still. Do you wish to be looked upon as a blackguard by all the world?" "Oh,--go on." "That is what it will be. You have spent every shilling of your own,--and because your mother is affectionate and weak, you are now spending all that she has, and are bringing her and your sister to beggary." "I don't ask them to pay anything for me." "Not when you borrow her money?" "There is the 20. Take it and give it her," said Felix, counting the notes out of the pocket-book. "When I asked her for it, I did not think she would make such a row about such a trifle." Roger took up the notes and thrust them into his pocket. "Now, have you done?" said Felix. [Illustration: "There's the 20."] "Not quite. Do you purpose that your mother should keep you and clothe you for the rest of your life?" "I hope to be able to keep her before long, and to do it much better than it has ever been done before. The truth is, Roger, you know nothing about it. If you'll leave me to myself, you'll find that I shall do very well." "I don't know any young man who ever did worse, or one who had less moral conception of what is right and wrong." "Very well. That's your idea. I differ from you. People can't all think alike, you know. Now, if you please, I'll go." Roger felt that he hadn't half said what he had to say, but he hardly knew how to get it said. And of what use could it be to talk to a young man who was altogether callous and without feeling? The remedy for the evil ought to be found in the mother's conduct rather than the son's. She, were she not foolishly weak, would make up her mind to divide herself utterly from her son, at any rate for a while, and to leave him to suffer utter penury. That would bring him round. And then when the agony of want had tamed him, he would be content to take bread and meat from her hand and would be humble. At present he had money in his pocket, and would eat and drink of the best, and be free from inconvenience for the moment. While this prosperity remained it would be impossible to touch him. "You will ruin your sister, and break your mother's heart," said Roger, firing a last harmless shot after the young reprobate. When Lady Carbury came into the room, which she did as soon as the front door was closed behind her son, she seemed to think that a great success had been achieved because the 20 had been recovered. "I knew he would give it me back, if he had it," she said. "Why did he not bring it to you of his own accord?" "I suppose he did not like to talk about it. Has he said that he got it by--playing?" "No,--he did not speak a word of truth while he was here. You may take it for granted that he did get it by gambling. How else should he have it? And you may take it for granted also that he will lose all that he has got. He talked in the wildest way,--saying that he would soon have a home for you and Hetta." "Did he;--dear boy!" "Had he any meaning?" "Oh; yes. And it is quite on the cards that it should be so. You have heard of Miss Melmotte." "I have heard of the great French swindler who has come over here, and who is buying his way into society." "Everybody visits them now, Roger." "More shame for everybody. Who knows anything about him,--except that he left Paris with the reputation of a specially prosperous rogue? But what of him?" "Some people think that Felix will marry his only child. Felix is handsome; isn't he? What young man is there nearly so handsome? They say she'll have half a million of money." "That's his game;--is it?" "Don't you think he is right?" "No; I think he's wrong. But we shall hardly agree with each other about that. Can I see Henrietta for a few minutes?"

Lady Carbury's desire for a union between Roger and her daughter was greatly increased by her anxiety about her son. If her daughter could only be settled in the world, Lady Carbury thought, she could devote herself to her son's interests. She had no very clear idea of what that devotion would be. But she knew that she had paid so much money for him, and would have to pay so much more, that she might be unable to keep a home for her daughter. In these troubles she constantly appealed to Roger Carbury for advice - which, however, she never followed. He recommended her to give up her house in town, and find a home for her daughter and Felix elsewhere. If Felix would not follow her, then let him bear the brunt of his own misdoings. When he had no more money he would seek her out. Lady Carbury thought Roger was always severe when he spoke of the baronet. But, in truth, she did not ask for advice in order that she might follow it. She had plans with which she knew that Roger would not sympathise. She still thought that Sir Felix might bloom and burst out into grandeur, wealth, and fashion, as the husband of a great heiress. When he got money from her - when, with brazen-faced indifference to her remonstrances, he started off to his club at two in the morning - when he almost boasted of the hopelessness of his debts, a sickness of heart would come upon her, and she would weep hysterically, and lie the whole night without sleeping. But if he could marry Miss Melmotte, then she would be proud of him. With such a view Roger Carbury could have no sympathy. He thought that a gentleman was disgraced by owing money to a tradesman. And Lady Carbury's heart was high with other hopes: the "Criminal Queens" might be a great literary success. Mr. Broune had promised. Mr. Booker had said that he would see what could be done. She had gathered from Mr. Alf's cautious words that the book would be reviewed in the Evening Pulpit. No; she would not leave London. But she would continue to ask Roger's advice. Men like to have their advice asked. And, if possible, she would arrange the marriage. Her mind would fly away into regions of bliss. If only Henrietta could be engaged to her cousin, Felix marry the richest bride in Europe, and she be the author of the cleverest book of the year, what a Paradise of triumph might be open to her after all her troubles! Thinking this, for an hour she would be happy, in spite of everything. A few days after the ball Roger Carbury was in town, and was with her in the back drawing-room. He had come because of the condition of the baronet's affairs and the necessity - so Roger thought - of taking steps to curtail the young man's expenses. It was horrible to him that a penniless man should have horses to hunt with! He was quite prepared to speak his mind to Felix himself, if he could get hold of him. "Where is he now, Lady Carbury?" "I think he's out with the Baron." This meant that he was hunting some forty miles from London. "How does he manage it? Whose horses does he ride? Who pays for them?" "Don't be angry with me, Roger. What can I do?" "I think you should refuse to have anything to do with him while he continues in such courses. Is he to be allowed to ruin you and Hetta? It can't go on." "You wouldn't have me throw him over." "I think he is throwing you over. And it is so thoroughly dishonest - so ungentlemanlike! I don't understand how it goes on. I suppose you don't supply him with money." "He has had a little." Roger frowned. "I can understand that you should provide him with bed and food, but not that you should pander to his vices by giving him money." Lady Carbury winced. "His kind of life needs a large income. I could not afford it myself." "You are so different," she said. "I am older, of course. But he is old enough to understand it. Has he any money beyond what you give him?" Then Lady Carbury revealed her suspicions. "I think he has been playing." "That is the way to lose money, not to get it," said Roger. "I suppose somebody wins, sometimes." "They who win are the sharpers. They who lose are the dupes. I would rather he were a fool than a knave." "O Roger, you are so severe!" "How would he pay, if he were to lose?" "I don't even know that he does play; but I think that during the last week he has had money. He comes home at all hours and sleeps late. Yesterday I went into his room and there were notes and gold lying on his table - ever so much." "Why did you not take them?" "What; rob my own boy?" "When you tell me that you need money to pay your bills, and that he has taken yours! Why does he not repay you what he has borrowed?" "Ah, indeed, he ought to. And there were papers there; I.O.U.s, signed by other men. And I think he has bought another horse." "Oh dear!" "If you could only induce him to stop gambling! If he has won money, it would be a great comfort if he would let me have some of it - for, to tell the truth, I hardly know where to turn." Then Roger repeated his advice. If Lady Carbury felt bound to offer a home to her ruined son in spite of all his folly, that home should be far away from London. If he chose to remain in London, let him do so on his own resources. "If he is a man he would sooner break stones than live on you," said Roger. He would see his cousin tomorrow and speak to him. He would come at twelve, when Felix generally breakfasted. Then he assured Lady Carbury that if her son did not give her the money she needed, he, Roger, would lend her a hundred pounds. After that his voice changed, as he asked, "Can I see Henrietta tomorrow?" "Certainly; why not?" "I should like her to know that I am coming. Paul Montague was in town the other day. He was here, I suppose?" "Yes; he called. And he was at the Melmottes' ball. Felix got a card for him. Has he gone down to Carbury?" "No, not to Carbury. I think he had some business about his partners at Liverpool. He is another young man without anything to do. Not that Paul is at all like Sir Felix." "Don't be too hard upon poor Felix," said Lady Carbury. Roger, as he took his leave, thought that it would be impossible to be too hard upon Sir Felix. The next morning Lady Carbury was in her son's bedroom before he was up, and with incredible weakness told him that his cousin Roger was coming to lecture him. "What the Devil's the use of it?" said Felix from beneath the bedclothes. "If you speak to me in that way, Felix, I must leave the room." "But what is the use of his coming to me? I know what he's going to say. Nothing was ever got by preaching to people who ain't good." "Why shouldn't you be good?" "I shall do very well, mother, if that fellow will leave me alone. If you'll go now I'll get up." She had intended to ask him for some money, but her courage failed her. To ask for his money would be to recognise and even approve his gambling. It was not yet eleven; but Felix resolved to get out of the house before that horrible bore should come with his sermon. He ate his breakfast at half-past eleven, planning how he would go out towards Marylebone Road, by which route Roger would not come. He left the house at ten to twelve, cunningly dodging round the first corner - and as he turned it, met his cousin. Roger had come early and strolled about, thinking of Henrietta. Felix felt that he had been caught unfairly. "I was going to your mother's house to see you," said Roger. "Were you? I am so sorry. I have an engagement with a fellow." "You can come back for ten minutes," said Roger, taking him by the arm. "I go down to Carbury this afternoon. Your friend can wait. Come along." His firmness was too much for Felix, who lacked the courage to shake his cousin off. But he fortified himself with the remembrance of the money in his pocket. He remembered too certain sweet words which had passed between him and Marie Melmotte since the ball, and resolved that he would not be "sat upon" by Roger Carbury. The time was coming when he might defy Roger Carbury. Nevertheless, he dreaded the coming words. "Your mother tells me," said Roger, "that you still keep hunters." "I have one that I kept when the others went." "Only one horse?" "Well - to be exact, I have a hack as well." "And another up here in town?" "No; I've just been looking at one." "Who pays for all these horses?" "I shall not ask you to pay for them." "No, you would be afraid to do that. But you have no scruple in asking your mother. You have squandered every shilling of your own, and now you are ruining her." "That isn't true. I have my own money." "Where did you get it?" "This is all very well, Roger; but I don't know that you have any right to ask me these questions. I have money. If I buy a horse I can pay for it. Of course I owe a lot of money, but other people owe me money too. I'm all right." "Then why do you beg her last shilling from your mother, and not pay it back to her?" "She can have the twenty pounds, if you mean that." "I mean that, and a good deal more. I suppose you have been gambling." "I won't answer your questions. If you have nothing else to say, I'll go." "I have something else to say, and I mean to say it." Felix had walked towards the door, but Roger was before him, and leaned his back against it. "I am not going to be kept here against my will," said Felix. "Listen to me. Do you wish to be looked upon as a blackguard by all the world? That is what it will be. You have spent every shilling of your own - and because your mother is affectionate and weak, you are now bringing her and your sister to beggary." "There is the 20. Give it her," said Felix, counting the notes out. "When I asked for it, I did not think she would make such a row about such a trifle. Now, have you done?" "Not quite. Do you intend that your mother should keep you for the rest of your life?" "I hope to be able to keep her before long. The truth is, Roger, you know nothing about it. If you'll leave me to myself, I shall do very well." "I don't know any young man who ever did worse, or one who had less idea of what is right and wrong." "Very well. I differ from you. People can't all think alike, you know. Now, if you please, I'll go." Roger felt that he hadn't said half of what he had to say. But of what use could it be to talk to a young man who was altogether callous? If his mother were not foolishly weak, she would divide herself from her son for a while, and leave him to suffer penury. That would tame him and make him humble. While he had money in his pocket it would be impossible to touch him. "You will ruin your sister, and break your mother's heart," said Roger, firing a last harmless shot. When Lady Carbury came into the room after her son had left, she seemed to think that a great success had been achieved because the 20 had been recovered. "I knew he would give it back," she said. "Why did he not bring it to you of his own accord?" "I suppose he did not like to talk about it. Has he said that he got it by - playing?" "No; but you may take it for granted that he did get it by gambling - and also that he will lose all he has got. He talked in the wildest way, saying that he would soon have a home for you." "Dear boy! It is quite possible. You have heard of Miss Melmotte." "I have heard of the great French swindler who is buying his way into society." "Everybody visits them now, Roger." "More shame for everybody. But what of him?" "Some people think that Felix will marry his only child. Felix is handsome, isn't he? They say she'll have half a million." "That's his game, is it?" "Don't you think he is right?" "No; I think he's wrong. But we shall hardly agree about that. Can I see Henrietta for a few minutes?"

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 7: Mentor

Marie Melmotte was hardly satisfied with the note which she received from Didon early on the Monday morning. With a volubility of French eloquence, Didon declared that she would be turned out of the house if either Monsieur or Madame were to know what she was doing. Marie told her that Madame would certainly never dismiss her. "Well, perhaps not Madame," said Didon, who knew too much about Madame to be dismissed; "but Monsieur!" Marie declared that by no possibility could Monsieur know anything about it. In that house nobody ever told anything to Monsieur. He was regarded as the general enemy, against whom the whole household was always making ambushes, always firing guns from behind rocks and trees. It is not a pleasant condition for a master of a house; but in this house the master at any rate knew how he was placed. It never occurred to him to trust any one. Of course his daughter might run away. But who would run away with her without money? And there could be no money except from him. He knew himself and his own strength. He was not the man to forgive a girl, and then bestow his wealth on the Lothario who had injured him. His daughter was valuable to him because she might make him the father-in-law of a Marquis or an Earl; but the higher that he rose without such assistance, the less need had he of his daughter's aid. Lord Alfred was certainly very useful to him. Lord Alfred had whispered into his ear that by certain conduct and by certain uses of his money, he himself might be made a baronet. "But if they should say that I'm not an Englishman?" suggested Melmotte. Lord Alfred had explained that it was not necessary that he should have been born in England, or even that he should have an English name. No questions would be asked. Let him first get into Parliament, and then spend a little money on the proper side,--by which Lord Alfred meant the Conservative side,--and be munificent in his entertainments, and the baronetcy would be almost a matter of course. Indeed, there was no knowing what honours might not be achieved in the present days by money scattered with a liberal hand. In these conversations, Melmotte would speak of his money and power of making money as though they were unlimited,--and Lord Alfred believed him. Marie was dissatisfied with her letter,--not because it described her father as "cutting up very rough." To her who had known her father all her life that was a matter of course. But there was no word of love in the note. An impassioned correspondence carried on through Didon would be delightful to her. She was quite capable of loving, and she did love the young man. She had, no doubt, consented to accept the addresses of others whom she did not love,--but this she had done at the moment almost of her first introduction to the marvellous world in which she was now living. As days went on she ceased to be a child, and her courage grew within her. She became conscious of an identity of her own, which feeling was produced in great part by the contempt which accompanied her increasing familiarity with grand people and grand names and grand things. She was no longer afraid of saying No to the Nidderdales on account of any awe of them personally. It might be that she should acknowledge herself to be obliged to obey her father, though she was drifting away even from the sense of that obligation. Had her mind been as it was now when Lord Nidderdale first came to her, she might indeed have loved him, who, as a man, was infinitely better than Sir Felix, and who, had he thought it to be necessary, would have put some grace into his love-making. But at that time she had been childish. He, finding her to be a child, had hardly spoken to her. And she, child though she was, had resented such usage. But a few months in London had changed all this, and now she was a child no longer. She was in love with Sir Felix, and had told her love. Whatever difficulties there might be, she intended to be true. If necessary, she would run away. Sir Felix was her idol, and she abandoned herself to its worship. But she desired that her idol should be of flesh and blood, and not of wood. She was at first half-inclined to be angry; but as she sat with his letter in her hand, she remembered that he did not know Didon as well as she did, and that he might be afraid to trust his raptures to such custody. She could write to him at his club, and having no such fear, she could write warmly. --, Grosvenor Square. Early Monday Morning. DEAREST, DEAREST FELIX, I have just got your note;--such a scrap! Of course papa would talk about money because he never thinks of anything else. I don't know anything about money, and I don't care in the least how much you have got. Papa has got plenty, and I think he would give us some if we were once married. I have told mamma, but mamma is always afraid of everything. Papa is very cross to her sometimes;--more so than to me. I will try to tell him, though I can't always get at him. I very often hardly see him all day long. But I don't mean to be afraid of him, and will tell him that on my word and honour I will never marry any one except you. I don't think he will beat me, but if he does, I'll bear it,--for your sake. He does beat mamma sometimes, I know. You can write to me quite safely through Didon. I think if you would call some day and give her something, it would help, as she is very fond of money. Do write and tell me that you love me. I love you better than anything in the world, and I will never,--never give you up. I suppose you can come and call,--unless papa tells the man in the hall not to let you in. I'll find that out from Didon, but I can't do it before sending this letter. Papa dined out yesterday somewhere with that Lord Alfred, so I haven't seen him since you were here. I never see him before he goes into the city in the morning. Now I am going down-stairs to breakfast with mamma and that Miss Longestaffe. She is a stuck-up thing. Didn't you think so at Caversham? Good-bye. You are my own, own, own darling Felix, And I am your own, own affectionate ladylove, MARIE. Sir Felix when he read this letter at his club in the afternoon of the Monday, turned up his nose and shook his head. He thought if there were much of that kind of thing to be done, he could not go on with it, even though the marriage were certain, and the money secure. "What an infernal little ass!" he said to himself as he crumpled the letter up. Marie having intrusted her letter to Didon, together with a little present of gloves and shoes, went down to breakfast. Her mother was the first there, and Miss Longestaffe soon followed. That lady, when she found that she was not expected to breakfast with the master of the house, abandoned the idea of having her meal sent to her in her own room. Madame Melmotte she must endure. With Madame Melmotte she had to go out in the carriage every day. Indeed she could only go to those parties to which Madame Melmotte accompanied her. If the London season was to be of any use at all, she must accustom herself to the companionship of Madame Melmotte. The man kept himself very much apart from her. She met him only at dinner, and that not often. Madame Melmotte was very bad; but she was silent, and seemed to understand that her guest was only her guest as a matter of business. But Miss Longestaffe already perceived that her old acquaintances were changed in their manner to her. She had written to her dear friend Lady Monogram, whom she had known intimately as Miss Triplex, and whose marriage with Sir Damask Monogram had been splendid preferment, telling how she had been kept down in Suffolk at the time of her friend's last party, and how she had been driven to consent to return to London as the guest of Madame Melmotte. She hoped her friend would not throw her off on that account. She had been very affectionate, with a poor attempt at fun, and rather humble. Georgiana Longestaffe had never been humble before; but the Monograms were people so much thought of and in such an excellent set! She would do anything rather than lose the Monograms. But it was of no use. She had been humble in vain, for Lady Monogram had not even answered her note. "She never really cared for anybody but herself," Georgiana said in her wretched solitude. Then, too, she had found that Lord Nidderdale's manner to her had been quite changed. She was not a fool, and could read these signs with sufficient accuracy. There had been little flirtations between her and Nidderdale,--meaning nothing, as every one knew that Nidderdale must marry money; but in none of them had he spoken to her as he spoke when he met her in Madame Melmotte's drawing-room. She could see it in the faces of people as they greeted her in the park,--especially in the faces of the men. She had always carried herself with a certain high demeanour, and had been able to maintain it. All that was now gone from her, and she knew it. Though the thing was as yet but a few days old she understood that others understood that she had degraded herself. "What's all this about?" Lord Grasslough had said to her, seeing her come into a room behind Madame Melmotte. She had simpered, had tried to laugh, and had then turned away her face. "Impudent scoundrel!" she said to herself, knowing that a fortnight ago he would not have dared to address her in such a tone. A day or two afterwards an occurrence took place worthy of commemoration. Dolly Longestaffe called on his sister! His mind must have been much stirred when he allowed himself to be moved to such uncommon action. He came too at a very early hour, not much after noon, when it was his custom to be eating his breakfast in bed. He declared at once to the servant that he did not wish to see Madame Melmotte or any of the family. He had called to see his sister. He was therefore shown into a separate room where Georgiana joined him. "What's all this about?" She tried to laugh as she tossed her head. "What brings you here, I wonder? This is quite an unexpected compliment." "My being here doesn't matter. I can go anywhere without doing much harm. Why are you staying with these people?" "Ask papa." "I don't suppose he sent you here?" "That's just what he did do." "You needn't have come, I suppose, unless you liked it. Is it because they are none of them coming up?" "Exactly that, Dolly. What a wonderful young man you are for guessing!" "Don't you feel ashamed of yourself?" "No;--not a bit." "Then I feel ashamed for you." "Everybody comes here." "No;--everybody does not come and stay here as you are doing. Everybody doesn't make themselves a part of the family. I have heard of nobody doing it except you. I thought you used to think so much of yourself." "I think as much of myself as ever I did," said Georgiana, hardly able to restrain her tears. "I can tell you nobody else will think much of you if you remain here. I could hardly believe it when Nidderdale told me." "What did he say, Dolly?" "He didn't say much to me, but I could see what he thought. And of course everybody thinks the same. How you can like the people yourself is what I can't understand!" "I don't like them,--I hate them." "Then why do you come and live with them?" "Oh, Dolly, it is impossible to make you understand. A man is so different. You can go just where you please, and do what you like. And if you're short of money, people will give you credit. And you can live by yourself, and all that sort of thing. How should you like to be shut up down at Caversham all the season?" "I shouldn't mind it,--only for the governor." "You have got a property of your own. Your fortune is made for you. What is to become of me?" "You mean about marrying?" "I mean altogether," said the poor girl, unable to be quite as explicit with her brother, as she had been with her father, and mother, and sister. "Of course I have to think of myself." "I don't see how the Melmottes are to help you. The long and the short of it is, you oughtn't to be here. It's not often I interfere, but when I heard it I thought I'd come and tell you. I shall write to the governor, and tell him too. He should have known better." "Don't write to papa, Dolly!" "Yes, I shall. I am not going to see everything going to the devil without saying a word. Good-bye." As soon as he had left he hurried down to some club that was open,--not the Beargarden, as it was long before the Beargarden hours,--and actually did write a letter to his father. MY DEAR FATHER, I have seen Georgiana at Mr. Melmotte's house. She ought not to be there. I suppose you don't know it, but everybody says he's a swindler. For the sake of the family I hope you will get her home again. It seems to me that Bruton Street is the proper place for the girls at this time of the year. Your affectionate son, ADOLPHUS LONGESTAFFE. This letter fell upon old Mr. Longestaffe at Caversham like a thunderbolt. It was marvellous to him that his son should have been instigated to write a letter. The Melmottes must be very bad indeed,--worse than he had thought,--or their iniquities would not have brought about such energy as this. But the passage which angered him most was that which told him that he ought to have taken his family back to town. This had come from his son, who had refused to do anything to help him in his difficulties.

Marie Melmotte was hardly satisfied with the note which she received from Didon on Monday morning. With French volubility, Didon declared that she would be turned out of the house if Monsieur knew what she was doing. Marie retorted that Monsieur could not possibly know anything about it. In that house nobody ever told anything to Monsieur. He was regarded as the general enemy, against whom the whole household was always making ambushes. It is not a pleasant condition for a master of a house; but the master knew how he was placed, and never trusted anyone. Of course his daughter might run away. But who would run away with her without money? And there could be no money except from him. He knew his own strength. His daughter was valuable to him because she might make him the father-in-law of a Marquis or an Earl; but the higher he rose, the less need had he of his daughter's aid. Lord Alfred had suggested that by certain uses of his money, Melmotte might be made a baronet. "But if they should say that I'm not an Englishman?" asked Melmotte. Lord Alfred had explained that it was not necessary that he should have been born in England. No questions would be asked. Let him first get into Parliament, and then spend a little money on the Conservative side, and entertain lavishly, and the baronetcy would follow. Marie was dissatisfied with her letter, because there was no word of love in it. An impassioned correspondence would be delightful to her. She loved the young man, and was living in a new, marvellous world. As days went on she ceased to be a child, and her courage grew. She became conscious of an identity of her own, partly because her increasing familiarity with grand people meant she was no longer in awe of them. She was no longer afraid of saying No to the Nidderdales. She was drifting away even from the sense of obligation to her father. Had her mind been as independent when Lord Nidderdale first came to her, she might indeed have loved him; for, as a man, he was infinitely better than Sir Felix. But at that time she had been childish, and he, finding her to be a child, had hardly spoken to her. And she had resented it. But she was a child no longer. She was in love with Sir Felix, and had told her love. Whatever difficulties there might be, she intended to be true. If necessary, she would run away. Sir Felix was her idol, and she abandoned herself to its worship. But she desired that her idol should be of flesh and blood, not wood. She was at first half-inclined to be angry; but as she sat with his letter in her hand, she remembered that he did not know Didon well, and that he might be afraid to trust his raptures to the maid's custody. She could write to him at his club. Dearest, Dearest Felix, I have just got your note - such a scrap! Of course papa would talk about money because he never thinks of anything else. I don't know anything about money, and I don't care in the least how much you have got. Papa has got plenty, and I think he would give us some if we were married. I have told mamma, but she is always afraid of everything. Papa is very cross to her sometimes; more so than to me. I will try to tell him, though I can't always get at him. I hardly see him. But I don't mean to be afraid, and I will tell him that on my word and honour I will never marry anyone except you. I don't think he will beat me, but if he does, I'll bear it, for your sake. He does beat mamma sometimes. You can write to me quite safely through Didon. I think if you would give her something, it would help, as she is very fond of money. Do write and tell me that you love me. I love you better than anything in the world, and I will never, never give you up. I suppose you can come and call, unless papa tells the servants not to let you in. I'll find out from Didon. Now I am going downstairs to breakfast with mamma and that Miss Longestaffe. She is a stuck-up thing. Didn't you think so at Caversham? Good-bye. You are my own, own, own darling Felix, And I am your own, own affectionate ladylove, Marie. Sir Felix when he read this turned up his nose and shook his head. He thought if there were much more of that kind of thing, he could not go on with it, despite the money. "What an infernal little ass!" he said to himself as he crumpled the letter up. Marie, having entrusted her letter to Didon, together with a little present of gloves and shoes, went down to breakfast. Her mother was there, and Miss Longestaffe soon followed, having resolved to endure Madame Melmotte. She had to go out in the carriage with her every day, and could only go to parties if Madame Melmotte accompanied her. She met Mr. Melmotte only infrequently, at dinner. But Miss Longestaffe already perceived that her old acquaintances were changed in their manner to her. She had written to her dear friend Lady Monogram, whom she had known intimately as Miss Triplex, telling her she had been forced to consent to return to London as Madame Melmotte's guest. She hoped her friend would not throw her off on that account. She had been very affectionate, with a poor attempt at fun, and rather humble. Georgiana Longestaffe had never been humble before; but the Monograms were in such an excellent set! But it was of no use. She had been humble in vain, for Lady Monogram had not even answered her note. "She never really cared for anybody but herself," Georgiana said wretchedly. Then, too, Lord Nidderdale's manner to her had changed. She was not a fool, and could read these signs. She could see it in the faces of people - especially the men - as they greeted her in the park. She already understood that others understood that she had degraded herself. "What's all this about?" Lord Grasslough had said to her, seeing her come into a room behind Madame Melmotte. She had tried to laugh, and had then turned away her face. "Impudent scoundrel!" she said to herself, knowing that a fortnight ago he would not have dared to address her in such a tone. A day or two afterwards a memorable event occurred. Dolly Longestaffe called on his sister! His mind must have been much stirred to move him to such uncommon action. He came at a very early hour, not much after noon, and declared to the servant that he did not wish to see any of the family, only his sister. He was shown into a room where Georgiana joined him. "What's all this about? Why are you staying with these people?" "Ask papa." "I don't suppose he sent you here?" "That's just what he did do." "You needn't have come, I suppose, unless you liked it. Is it because they aren't coming up to London?" "Exactly that, Dolly." "Don't you feel ashamed of yourself? I feel ashamed for you." "Everybody comes here." "No; everybody does not stay here. I thought you used to think so much of yourself." "I think as much of myself as ever I did," said Georgiana, hardly able to restrain her tears. "I can tell you nobody else will think much of you if you remain here. I could hardly believe it when Nidderdale told me." "What did he say, Dolly?" "He didn't say much, but I could see what he thought. And of course everybody thinks the same. I don't understand how you can like these people!" "I don't - I hate them." "Then why do you stay here?" "Oh, Dolly, it is impossible to make you understand. A man is so different. You can go just where you please. And your fortune is made for you. What is to become of me?" "You mean about marrying?" "I mean altogether," said the poor girl. "I don't see how the Melmottes are to help you. The long and the short of it is, you oughtn't to be here. It's not often I interfere, but I shall write to the governor, and tell him. He should have known better." "Don't write to papa, Dolly!" "Yes, I shall. Good-bye." As soon as he had left he hurried down to some club, and actually did write to his father. My Dear Father, I have seen Georgiana at Mr. Melmotte's house. She ought not to be there. Everybody says he's a swindler. For the sake of the family I hope you will get her home again. I think Bruton Street is the proper place for the girls at this time of the year. Your affectionate son, Adolphus Longestaffe. This letter fell upon old Mr. Longestaffe at Caversham like a thunderbolt. It was extraordinary to him that his son should have written a letter. The Melmottes must be very bad indeed for him to expend such energies. But he was angry at being told that he ought to have taken his family back to town. This came from his son, who had refused to help him in his difficulties!

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 25: In Grosvenor Square

Dolly Longestaffe had found himself compelled to go to Fetter Lane immediately after that meeting in Bruton Street at which he had consented to wait two days longer for the payment of his money. This was on a Wednesday, the day appointed for the payment being Friday. He had undertaken that, on his part, Squercum should be made to desist from further immediate proceedings, and he could only carry out his word by visiting Squercum. The trouble to him was very great, but he began to feel that he almost liked it. The excitement was nearly as good as that of loo. Of course it was a "horrid bore,"--this having to go about in cabs under the sweltering sun of a London July day. Of course it was a "horrid bore,"--this doubt about his money. And it went altogether against the grain with him that he should be engaged in any matter respecting the family property in agreement with his father and Mr. Bideawhile. But there was an importance in it that sustained him amidst his troubles. It is said that if you were to take a man of moderate parts and make him Prime Minister out of hand, he might probably do as well as other Prime Ministers, the greatness of the work elevating the man to its own level. In that way Dolly was elevated to the level of a man of business, and felt and enjoyed his own capacity. "By George!" It depended chiefly upon him whether such a man as Melmotte should or should not be charged before the Lord Mayor. "Perhaps I oughtn't to have promised," he said to Squercum, sitting in the lawyer's office on a high-legged stool with a cigar in his mouth. He preferred Squercum to any other lawyer he had met because Squercum's room was untidy and homely, because there was nothing awful about it, and because he could sit in what position he pleased, and smoke all the time. "Well; I don't think you ought, if you ask me," said Squercum. "You weren't there to be asked, old fellow." "Bideawhile shouldn't have asked you to agree to anything in my absence," said Squercum indignantly. "It was a very unprofessional thing on his part, and so I shall take an opportunity of telling him." "It was you told me to go." "Well;--yes. I wanted you to see what they were at in that room; but I told you to look on and say nothing." "I didn't speak half-a-dozen words." "You shouldn't have spoken those words. Your father then is quite clear that you did not sign the letter?" "Oh, yes;--the governor is pig-headed, you know, but he's honest." "That's a matter of course," said the lawyer. "All men are honest; but they are generally specially honest to their own side. Bideawhile's honest; but you've got to fight him deuced close to prevent his getting the better of you. Melmotte has promised to pay the money on Friday, has he?" "He's to bring it with him to Bruton Street." "I don't believe a word of it;--and I'm sure Bideawhile doesn't. In what shape will he bring it? He'll give you a cheque dated on Monday, and that'll give him two days more, and then on Monday there'll be a note to say the money can't be lodged till Wednesday. There should be no compromising with such a man. You only get from one mess into another. I told you neither to do anything or to say anything." "I suppose we can't help ourselves now. You're to be there on Friday. I particularly bargained for that. If you're there, there won't be any more compromising." Squercum made one or two further remarks to his client, not at all flattering to Dolly's vanity,--which might have caused offence had not there been such perfectly good feeling between the attorney and the young man. As it was Dolly replied to everything that was said with increased flattery. "If I was a sharp fellow like you, you know," said Dolly, "of course I should get along better; but I ain't, you know." It was then settled that they should meet each other, and also meet Mr. Longestaffe senior, Bideawhile, and Melmotte, at twelve o'clock on Friday morning in Bruton Street. Squercum was by no means satisfied. He had busied himself in this matter, and had ferreted things out, till he had pretty nearly got to the bottom of that affair about the houses in the East, and had managed to induce the heirs of the old man who had died to employ him. As to the Pickering property he had not a doubt on the subject. Old Longestaffe had been induced by promises of wonderful aid and by the bribe of a seat at the Board of the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway to give up the title-deeds of the property,--as far as it was in his power to give them up; and had endeavoured to induce Dolly to do so also. As he had failed, Melmotte had supplemented his work by ingenuity, with which the reader is acquainted. All this was perfectly clear to Squercum, who thought that he saw before him a most attractive course of proceeding against the Great Financier. It was pure ambition rather than any hope of lucre that urged him on. He regarded Melmotte as a grand swindler,--perhaps the grandest that the world had ever known,--and he could conceive no greater honour than the detection, successful prosecution, and ultimate destroying of so great a man. To have hunted down Melmotte would make Squercum as great almost as Melmotte himself. But he felt himself to have been unfairly hampered by his own client. He did not believe that the money would be paid; but delay might rob him of his Melmotte. He had heard a good many things in the City, and believed it to be quite out of the question that Melmotte should raise the money,--but there were various ways in which a man might escape. It may be remembered that Croll, the German clerk, preceded Melmotte into the City on Wednesday after Marie's refusal to sign the deeds. He, too, had his eyes open, and had perceived that things were not looking as well as they used to look. Croll had for many years been true to his patron, having been, upon the whole, very well paid for such truth. There had been times when things had gone badly with him, but he had believed in Melmotte, and, when Melmotte rose, had been rewarded for his faith. Mr. Croll at the present time had little investments of his own, not made under his employer's auspices, which would leave him not absolutely without bread for his family should the Melmotte affairs at any time take an awkward turn. Melmotte had never required from him service that was actually fraudulent,--had at any rate never required it by spoken words. Mr. Croll had not been over-scrupulous, and had occasionally been very useful to Mr. Melmotte. But there must be a limit to all things; and why should any man sacrifice himself beneath the ruins of a falling house,--when convinced that nothing he can do can prevent the fall? Mr. Croll would have been of course happy to witness Miss Melmotte's signature; but as for that other kind of witnessing,--this clearly to his thinking was not the time for such good-nature on his part. "You know what's up now;--don't you?" said one of the junior clerks to Mr. Croll when he entered the office in Abchurch Lane. "A good deal will be up soon," said the German. "Cohenlupe has gone!" "And to vere has Mr. Cohenlupe gone?" "He hasn't been civil enough to leave his address. I fancy he don't want his friends to have to trouble themselves by writing to him. Nobody seems to know what's become of him." "New York," suggested Mr. Croll. "They seem to think not. They're too hospitable in New York for Mr. Cohenlupe just at present. He's travelling private. He's on the continent somewhere,--half across France by this time; but nobody knows what route he has taken. That'll be a poke in the ribs for the old boy;--eh, Croll?" Croll merely shook his head. "I wonder what has become of Miles Grendall," continued the clerk. "Ven de rats is going avay it is bad for de house. I like de rats to stay." "There seems to have been a regular manufactory of Mexican Railway scrip." "Our governor knew noding about dat," said Croll. "He has a hat full of them at any rate. If they could have been kept up another fortnight they say Cohenlupe would have been worth nearly a million of money, and the governor would have been as good as the bank. Is it true they are going to have him before the Lord Mayor about the Pickering title-deeds?" Croll declared that he knew nothing about the matter, and settled himself down to his work. In little more than two hours he was followed by Melmotte, who thus reached the City late in the afternoon. It was he knew too late to raise the money on that day, but he hoped that he might pave the way for getting it on the next day, which would be Thursday. Of course the first news which he heard was of the defection of Mr. Cohenlupe. It was Croll who told him. He turned back, and his jaw fell, but at first he said nothing. "It's a bad thing," said Mr. Croll. "Yes;--it is bad. He had a vast amount of my property in his hands. Where has he gone?" Croll shook his head. "It never rains but it pours," said Melmotte. "Well; I'll weather it all yet. I've been worse than I am now, Croll, as you know, and have had a hundred thousand pounds at my banker's,--loose cash,--before the month was out." "Yes, indeed," said Croll. "But the worst of it is that every one around me is so damnably jealous. It isn't what I've lost that will crush me, but what men will say that I've lost. Ever since I began to stand for Westminster there has been a dead set against me in the City. The whole of that affair of the dinner was planned,--planned by G----, that it might ruin me. It was all laid out just as you would lay the foundation of a building. It is hard for one man to stand against all that when he has dealings so large as mine." "Very hard, Mr. Melmotte." "But they'll find they're mistaken yet. There's too much of the real stuff, Croll, for them to crush me. Property's a kind of thing that comes out right at last. It's cut and come again, you know, if the stuff is really there. But I mustn't stop talking here. I suppose I shall find Brehgert in Cuthbert's Court." "I should say so, Mr. Melmotte. Mr. Brehgert never leaves much before six." Then Mr. Melmotte took his hat and gloves, and the stick that he usually carried, and went out with his face carefully dressed in its usually jaunty air. But Croll as he went heard him mutter the name of Cohenlupe between his teeth. The part which he had to act is one very difficult to any actor. The carrying an external look of indifference when the heart is sinking within,--or has sunk almost to the very ground,--is more than difficult; it is an agonizing task. In all mental suffering the sufferer longs for solitude,--for permission to cast himself loose along the ground, so that every limb and every feature of his person may faint in sympathy with his heart. A grandly urbane deportment over a crushed spirit and ruined hopes is beyond the physical strength of most men;--but there have been men so strong. Melmotte very nearly accomplished it. It was only to the eyes of such a one as Herr Croll that the failure was perceptible. Melmotte did find Mr. Brehgert. At this time Mr. Brehgert had completed his correspondence with Miss Longestaffe, in which he had mentioned the probability of great losses from the anticipated commercial failure in Mr. Melmotte's affairs. He had now heard that Mr. Cohenlupe had gone upon his travels, and was therefore nearly sure that his anticipation would be correct. Nevertheless, he received his old friend with a smile. When large sums of money are concerned there is seldom much of personal indignation between man and man. The loss of fifty pounds or of a few hundreds may create personal wrath;--but fifty thousand require equanimity. "So Cohenlupe hasn't been seen in the City to-day," said Brehgert. "He has gone," said Melmotte hoarsely. "I think I once told you that Cohenlupe was not the man for large dealings." "Yes, you did," said Melmotte. "Well;--it can't be helped; can it? And what is it now?" Then Melmotte explained to Mr. Brehgert what it was that he wanted then, taking the various documents out of the bag which throughout the afternoon he had carried in his hand. Mr. Brehgert understood enough of his friend's affairs, and enough of affairs in general, to understand readily all that was required. He examined the documents, declaring as he did so that he did not know how the thing could be arranged by Friday. Melmotte replied that 50,000 was not a very large sum of money, that the security offered was worth twice as much as that. "You will leave them with me this evening," said Brehgert. Melmotte paused for a moment, and said that he would of course do so. He would have given much, very much, to have been sufficiently master of himself to have assented without hesitation;--but then the weight within was so very heavy! Having left the papers and the bag with Mr. Brehgert, he walked westwards to the House of Commons. He was accustomed to remain in the City later than this, often not leaving it till seven,--though during the last week or ten days he had occasionally gone down to the House in the afternoon. It was now Wednesday, and there was no evening sitting;--but his mind was too full of other things to allow him to remember this. As he walked along the Embankment, his thoughts were very heavy. How would things go with him?--What would be the end of it? Ruin;--yes, but there were worse things than ruin. And a short time since he had been so fortunate;--had made himself so safe! As he looked back at it, he could hardly say how it had come to pass that he had been driven out of the track that he had laid down for himself. He had known that ruin would come, and had made himself so comfortably safe, so brilliantly safe, in spite of ruin. But insane ambition had driven him away from his anchorage. He told himself over and over again that the fault had been not in circumstances,--not in that which men call Fortune,--but in his own incapacity to bear his position. He saw it now. He felt it now. If he could only begin again, how different would his conduct be! But of what avail were such regrets as these? He must take things as they were now, and see that, in dealing with them, he allowed himself to be carried away neither by pride nor cowardice. And if the worst should come to the worst, then let him face it like a man! There was a certain manliness about him which showed itself perhaps as strongly in his own self-condemnation as in any other part of his conduct at this time. Judging of himself, as though he were standing outside himself and looking on to another man's work, he pointed out to himself his own shortcomings. If it were all to be done again he thought that he could avoid this bump against the rocks on one side, and that terribly shattering blow on the other. There was much that he was ashamed of,--many a little act which recurred to him vividly in this solitary hour as a thing to be repented of with inner sackcloth and ashes. But never once, not for a moment, did it occur to him that he should repent of the fraud in which his whole life had been passed. No idea ever crossed his mind of what might have been the result had he lived the life of an honest man. Though he was inquiring into himself as closely as he could, he never even told himself that he had been dishonest. Fraud and dishonesty had been the very principle of his life, and had so become a part of his blood and bones that even in this extremity of his misery he made no question within himself as to his right judgment in regard to them. Not to cheat, not to be a scoundrel, not to live more luxuriously than others by cheating more brilliantly, was a condition of things to which his mind had never turned itself. In that respect he accused himself of no want of judgment. But why had he, so unrighteous himself, not made friends to himself of the Mammon of unrighteousness? Why had he not conciliated Lord Mayors? Why had he trod upon all the corns of all his neighbours? Why had he been insolent at the India Office? Why had he trusted any man as he had trusted Cohenlupe? Why had he not stuck to Abchurch Lane instead of going into Parliament? Why had he called down unnecessary notice on his head by entertaining the Emperor of China? It was too late now, and he must bear it; but these were the things that had ruined him. He walked into Palace Yard and across it, to the door of Westminster Abbey, before he found out that Parliament was not sitting. "Oh, Wednesday! Of course it is," he said, turning round and directing his steps towards Grosvenor Square. Then he remembered that in the morning he had declared his purpose of dining at home, and now he did not know what better use to make of the present evening. His house could hardly be very comfortable to him. Marie no doubt would keep out of his way, and he did not habitually receive much pleasure from his wife's company. But in his own house he could at least be alone. Then, as he walked slowly across the park, thinking so intently on matters as hardly to observe whether he himself were observed or no, he asked himself whether it still might not be best for him to keep the money which was settled on his daughter, to tell the Longestaffes that he could make no payment, and to face the worst that Mr. Squercum could do to him,--for he knew already how busy Mr. Squercum was in the matter. Though they should put him on his trial for forgery, what of that? He had heard of trials in which the accused criminals had been heroes to the multitude while their cases were in progress,--who had been fted from the beginning to the end though no one had doubted their guilt,--and who had come out unscathed at the last. What evidence had they against him? It might be that the Longestaffes and Bideawhiles and Squercums should know that he was a forger, but their knowledge would not produce a verdict. He, as member for Westminster, as the man who had entertained the Emperor, as the owner of one of the most gorgeous houses in London, as the great Melmotte, could certainly command the best half of the bar. He already felt what popular support might do for him. Surely there need be no despondency while so good a hope remained to him! He did tremble as he remembered Dolly Longestaffe's letter, and the letter of the old man who was dead. And he knew that it was possible that other things might be adduced; but would it not be better to face it all than surrender his money and become a pauper, seeing, as he did very clearly, that even by such surrender he could not cleanse his character? But he had given those forged documents into the hands of Mr. Brehgert! Again he had acted in a hurry,--without giving sufficient thought to the matter in hand. He was angry with himself for that also. But how is a man to give sufficient thought to his affairs when no step that he takes can be other than ruinous? Yes;--he had certainly put into Brehgert's hands means of proving him to have been absolutely guilty of forgery. He did not think that Marie would disclaim the signatures, even though she had refused to sign the deeds, when she should understand that her father had written her name; nor did he think that his clerk would be urgent against him, as the forgery of Croll's name could not injure Croll. But Brehgert, should he discover what had been done, would certainly not permit him to escape. And now he had put these forgeries without any guard into Brehgert's hands. He would tell Brehgert in the morning that he had changed his mind. He would see Brehgert before any action could have been taken on the documents, and Brehgert would no doubt restore them to him. Then he would instruct his daughter to hold the money fast, to sign no paper that should be put before her, and to draw the income herself. Having done that, he would let his foes do their worst. They might drag him to gaol. They probably would do so. He had an idea that he could not be admitted to bail if accused of forgery. But he would bear all that. If convicted he would bear the punishment, still hoping that an end might come. But how great was the chance that they might fail to convict him! As to the dead man's letter, and as to Dolly Longestaffe's letter, he did not think that any sufficient evidence could be found. The evidence as to the deeds by which Marie was to have released the property was indeed conclusive; but he believed that he might still recover those documents. For the present it must be his duty to do nothing,--when he should have recovered and destroyed those documents,--and to live before the eyes of men as though he feared nothing. He dined at home alone, in the study, and after dinner carefully went through various bundles of papers, preparing them for the eyes of those ministers of the law who would probably before long have the privilege of searching them. At dinner, and while he was thus employed, he drank a bottle of champagne,--feeling himself greatly comforted by the process. If he could only hold up his head and look men in the face, he thought that he might still live through it all. How much had he done by his own unassisted powers! He had once been imprisoned for fraud at Hamburgh, and had come out of gaol a pauper; friendless, with all his wretched antecedents against him. Now he was a member of the British House of Parliament, the undoubted owner of perhaps the most gorgeously furnished house in London, a man with an established character for high finance,--a commercial giant whose name was a familiar word on all the exchanges of the two hemispheres. Even though he should be condemned to penal servitude for life, he would not all die. He rang the bell and desired that Madame Melmotte might be sent to him, and bade the servant bring him brandy. In ten minutes his poor wife came crawling into the room. Every one connected with Melmotte regarded the man with a certain amount of awe,--every one except Marie, to whom alone he had at times been himself almost gentle. The servants all feared him, and his wife obeyed him implicitly when she could not keep away from him. She came in now and stood opposite to him, while he spoke to her. She never sat in his presence in that room. He asked her where she and Marie kept their jewelry;--for during the last twelvemonths rich trinkets had been supplied to both of them. Of course she answered by another question. "Is anything going to happen, Melmotte?" "A good deal is going to happen. Are they here in this house, or in Grosvenor Square?" "They are here." "Then have them all packed up,--as small as you can; never mind about wool and cases and all that. Have them close to your hand so that if you have to move you can take them with you. Do you understand?" "Yes; I understand." "Why don't you speak, then?" "What is going to happen, Melmotte?" "How can I tell? You ought to know by this time that when a man's work is such as mine, things will happen. You'll be safe enough. Nothing can hurt you." "Can they hurt you, Melmotte?" "Hurt me! I don't know what you call hurting. Whatever there is to be borne, I suppose it is I must bear it. I have not had it very soft all my life hitherto, and I don't think it's going to be very soft now." "Shall we have to move?" "Very likely. Move! What's the harm of moving? You talk of moving as though that were the worst thing that could happen. How would you like to be in some place where they wouldn't let you move?" "Are they going to send you to prison?" "Hold your tongue." "Tell me, Melmotte;--are they going to?" Then the poor woman did sit down, overcome by her feelings. "I didn't ask you to come here for a scene," said Melmotte. "Do as I bid you about your own jewels, and Marie's. The thing is to have them in small compass, and that you should not have it to do at the last moment, when you will be flurried and incapable. Now you needn't stay any longer, and it's no good asking any questions because I shan't answer them." So dismissed, the poor woman crept out again, and immediately, after her own slow fashion, went to work with her ornaments. Melmotte sat up during the greater part of the night, sometimes sipping brandy and water, and sometimes smoking. But he did no work, and hardly touched a paper after his wife left him.

Dolly Longestaffe was promised his money on a Wednesday; the payment to be made on Friday. He had agreed that Squercum should be made to desist from further proceedings. The bother of visiting Squercum was very great, but he began to feel that he almost liked it. The excitement was nearly as good as that of loo. Of course it was a "horrid bore," this doubt about his money. But there was an importance in it that sustained him amidst his troubles. Dolly was elevated to the level of a man of business, and enjoyed his own capacity. Why, it depended chiefly upon him whether Melmotte should or should not be charged before the Lord Mayor. "Perhaps I oughtn't to have promised," he said to Squercum, sitting in the lawyer's office with a cigar in his mouth. He preferred Squercum to any other lawyer he had met because Squercum's room was untidy, and he could sit where he pleased, and smoke all the time. "Well; I don't think you ought. Bideawhile shouldn't have asked you to agree to anything in my absence," said Squercum indignantly. "It was very unprofessional on his part." "It was you told me to go." "I wanted you to see what they were at in that room. Your father then is quite clear that you did not sign the letter?" "Oh, yes; the governor is pig-headed, you know, but he's honest." "All men are honest," said the lawyer, "but they are generally specially honest to their own side. Melmotte has promised to pay the money on Friday, has he?" "He's to bring it to Bruton Street." "I don't believe a word of it. How will he bring it? He'll give you a cheque dated for Monday, and that'll give him two days more, and then on Monday there'll be a note to say the money can't be lodged till Wednesday. There should be no compromising with such a man. You only get from one mess into another. I told you not to say anything." "I suppose we can't help it now. You're to be there on Friday. If you're there, there won't be any more compromising." Squercum made one or two further unflattering remarks which might have caused offence had there not been such perfectly good feeling between the attorney and the young man. "If I was a sharp fellow like you, you know," said Dolly, "of course I should get along better; but I ain't, you know." It was settled that they should meet each other, and Mr. Longestaffe senior, Bideawhile, and Melmotte, at twelve o'clock on Friday in Bruton Street. Squercum was by no means satisfied. He had ferreted things out, till he had pretty nearly got to the bottom of that affair about the houses in the East End, and he had managed to induce the heirs of the old man who had died to employ him. As to Pickering, he had not a doubt about it. Old Longestaffe had been bribed with a seat at the Railway Board to give up the title-deeds; and when he had failed to induce Dolly to do the same, Melmotte had used his ingenuity. All this was perfectly clear to Squercum. He regarded Melmotte as a grand swindler - perhaps the grandest that the world had ever known; and he could conceive no greater honour than the detection, successful prosecution, and ultimate destroying of so great a man. But he felt himself to have been unfairly hampered by his own client. He did not believe that the money would be paid; but delay might rob him of his Melmotte. He considered it to be out of the question that Melmotte should raise the money - but there were various ways in which a man might escape. It may be remembered that Croll, the German clerk, preceded Melmotte into the City on Wednesday after Marie's refusal to sign the deeds. He, too, had his eyes open, and had perceived that things were not looking as well as they used to look. Croll had for many years been true to his patron, having been well paid for such truth. When things had gone badly, he had believed in Melmotte, and had been rewarded for his faith. Mr. Croll had little investments of his own, which would leave him some money should the Melmotte affairs take an awkward turn. Melmotte had never required him to do anything that was actually fraudulent, although Mr. Croll had not been over-scrupulous. But there must be a limit to all things; and why should any man sacrifice himself beneath the ruins of a falling house? Mr. Croll would have been happy to witness Miss Melmotte's signature; but as for that other kind of witnessing, he was unwilling. "You know what's up now, don't you?" said one of the junior clerks to Mr. Croll when he entered the office in Abchurch Lane. "A good deal will be up soon," said the German. "Cohenlupe has gone! He's left no address. Nobody seems to know what's become of him." "New York," suggested Mr. Croll. "They seem to think not. He's on the continent somewhere, half across France by this time; but nobody knows what route he has taken. That'll be a poke in the ribs for the old boy; eh, Croll?" Croll merely shook his head. "I wonder what has become of Miles Grendall," continued the clerk. "Ven de rats is going avay it is bad for de house." "There seems to have been a regular manufactory of Mexican Railway scrip." "Our governor knew noding about dat," said Croll. "If they could have been kept up another fortnight they say Cohenlupe would have been worth nearly a million, and the governor would have been as good as the bank. Is it true they are going to have him before the Lord Mayor?" Croll declared that he knew nothing about it, and settled down to his work. In two hours he was followed by Melmotte, who knew it was too late that day to raise the money, but hoped to pave the way for getting it the next day, the Thursday. Of course the first news he heard was of the defection of Mr. Cohenlupe. It was Croll who told him. His jaw fell, but he said nothing. "It's a bad thing," said Mr. Croll. "Yes. Where has he gone?" Croll shook his head. "It never rains but it pours," said Melmotte. "Well; I'll weather it all yet. I've been worse than I am now, Croll, as you know, and have had a hundred thousand pounds before the month was out." "Yes, indeed," said Croll. "But the worst of it is that everyone around me is so damnably jealous. Ever since I stood for Westminster there has been a dead set against me in the City. That affair of the dinner was planned so that it might ruin me. It is hard for one man to stand against all that when he has dealings so large as mine." "Very hard, Mr. Melmotte." "But they'll find they're mistaken yet. I suppose I shall find Brehgert in Cuthbert's Court." "I should say so, Mr. Melmotte." Then Mr. Melmotte took his hat and gloves and stick, and went out with his face carefully dressed in its usually jaunty air. But Croll heard him mutter the name of Cohenlupe between his teeth. Melmotte had a difficult part to act. To look indifferent when the heart is sinking - or has sunk to the very ground - is an agonizing task. A grandly urbane appearance over ruined hopes is beyond the strength of most men. Melmotte very nearly accomplished it. It was only to the eyes of such a one as Herr Croll that the failure was perceptible. Melmotte found Mr. Brehgert, who at this time had completed his correspondence with Miss Longestaffe, in which he had mentioned the probability of great losses. He had now heard that Mr. Cohenlupe had gone upon his travels, and was therefore sure that his anticipation would be correct. Nevertheless, he received his old friend with a smile. When large sums of money are concerned there is seldom personal indignation between man and man. The loss of fifty pounds may create personal wrath; but fifty thousand require equanimity. "So Cohenlupe hasn't been seen in the City today," said Brehgert. "He has gone," said Melmotte hoarsely. "I think I once told you that Cohenlupe was not the man for large dealings." "Yes, you did," said Melmotte. "Well; it can't be helped. And what is it now?" Then Melmotte explained to Mr. Brehgert what he wanted, taking the various documents out of his bag. Mr. Brehgert understood readily all that was required. He examined the documents, declaring that he did not know how the thing could be arranged by Friday. Melmotte replied that 50,000 was not a very large sum, and the security offered was worth twice that. "You will leave them with me this evening," said Brehgert. Melmotte paused for a moment, and said that he would of course do so. He would have given much to have been sufficiently master of himself to have assented without hesitation; but the weight within him was so very heavy! Having left the papers and the bag with Mr. Brehgert, he walked westwards to the House of Commons. During the last week he had occasionally gone down to the House in the afternoon. Today there was no evening sitting; but his mind was too full of other things to allow him to remember this. As he walked along the Embankment, his thoughts were very heavy. What would be the end of it? Ruin; yes, but there were worse things than ruin. And a short time ago, he had made himself so safe! As he looked back at it, he could hardly say how he had been driven out of the track that he had laid down for himself. Insane ambition had tempted him away from his anchorage. He blamed himself, not his circumstances. If he could only begin again, how different would his conduct be! But of what use were such regrets as these? He must take things as they were now, and not allow himself to be carried away by pride or cowardice. And if the worst should come to the worst, then let him face it like a man! There was a certain manliness about him which showed itself in his self-condemnation. Judging himself, he pointed out to himself his own shortcomings. There was much that he was ashamed of; many a little act which recurred to him vividly in this solitary hour as a thing to be repented of. Yet never for a moment did it occur to him to repent of the fraud in which his whole life had been passed. Though he was inquiring into himself as closely as he could, he never even told himself that he had been dishonest. Fraud and dishonesty had been the very principle of his life, and had so become a part of his blood and bones that even in this extremity of misery he did not question them. Not to cheat, not to be a scoundrel, was a condition of things to which his mind had never turned itself. But why had he not conciliated Lord Mayors? Why had he been insolent at the India Office? Why had he trusted Cohenlupe? Why had he not stuck to Abchurch Lane instead of going into Parliament? Why had he called down unnecessary notice on his head by entertaining the Emperor of China? It was too late now, and he must bear it; but these were the things that had ruined him. He walked into Palace Yard and across it, to the door of Westminster Abbey, before he found out that Parliament was not sitting. "Oh, Wednesday! Of course," he said, turning round. Now he did not know what use to make of the evening. His house could hardly be very comfortable to him. But in his own house he could at least be alone. Then, as he walked slowly across the park, thinking intently, he asked himself whether it still might not be best for him to keep the money which was settled on his daughter, to tell the Longestaffes that he could make no payment, and to face the worst that Mr. Squercum could do. Though they should put him on trial for forgery, what of that? He had heard of trials in which the accused criminals had been heroes - had been fted though no one had doubted their guilt - and had come out unscathed at last. What evidence had they against him? He, the great Melmotte, could certainly command a better lawyer. Surely there need be no despondency while so good a hope remained to him! He did tremble as he remembered Dolly Longestaffe's letter, and the letter of the old man who was dead. But would it not be better to face it all than to surrender his money and become a pauper? But he had given those forged documents into the hands of Mr. Brehgert! Again he had acted in a hurry, without sufficient thought. He was angry with himself for that. But how is a man to give sufficient thought to his affairs when every step is ruinous? Yes - he had certainly put into Brehgert's hands means of proving him to be absolutely guilty of forgery. He did not think that Marie would disclaim the signatures; nor did he think that his clerk Croll would be urgent against him. But Brehgert, should he discover what had been done, would certainly not permit him to escape. He would tell Brehgert in the morning that he had changed his mind. He would see him before any action could have been taken on the documents, and Brehgert would restore them to him. Then he would instruct his daughter to hold the money fast, to sign no paper, and to draw the income herself. Having done that, he would let his foes do their worst. They might drag him to jail. But they might fail to convict him! For the present he must do nothing - once he had recovered and destroyed those documents - and would live as though he feared nothing. He dined at home alone, in the study, and after dinner carefully went through various bundles of papers, preparing them for the eyes of those lawyers who would probably before long be searching them. While he was doing this, he drank a bottle of champagne, and felt greatly comforted by the process. If he could only hold up his head, he might still live through it all. How much had he done by his own unassisted powers! He had once been imprisoned for fraud at Hamburg, and had come out of jail a friendless pauper; now he was a member of the British House of Parliament, the owner of perhaps the most gorgeously furnished house in London, and commercial giant. He rang the bell and desired that Madame Melmotte might be sent to him, and bade the servant bring him brandy. In ten minutes his poor wife came crawling into the room. She stood opposite him while he spoke. She never sat in his presence in that room. He asked her where she and Marie kept their jewellery. "Is anything going to happen, Melmotte?" "A good deal is going to happen. Are the jewels here in this house, or in Grosvenor Square?" "They are here." "Then have them all packed up, as small as you can. Have them close to hand so that if you have to move you can take them with you. Do you understand?" "Yes; I understand. What is going to happen, Melmotte?" "How can I tell? You ought to know by this time that when a man's work is such as mine, things will happen. You'll be safe enough. Nothing can hurt you." "Shall we have to move?" "Very likely. What's the harm of moving?" "Are they going to send you to prison?" "Hold your tongue." "Tell me, Melmotte." The poor woman sat down, overcome by her feelings. "I didn't ask you to come here for a scene," said Melmotte. "Do as I bid you about your jewels, and Marie's. The thing is not to have it to do at the last moment, when you will be flurried. Now you needn't stay any longer, and it's no good asking any questions because I shan't answer them." So dismissed, the poor woman crept out again, and went to work with her ornaments. Melmotte sat up most of the night, sipping brandy and water, and sometimes smoking. But he hardly touched a paper after his wife left him.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 81: Mr. Cohenlupe Leaves London

Miss Ruby Ruggles, the granddaughter of old Daniel Ruggles, of Sheep's Acre, in the parish of Sheepstone, close to Bungay, received the following letter from the hands of the rural post letter-carrier on that Sunday morning;--"A friend will be somewhere near Sheepstone Birches between four and five o'clock on Sunday afternoon." There was not another word in the letter, but Miss Ruby Ruggles knew well from whom it came. Daniel Ruggles was a farmer, who had the reputation of considerable wealth, but who was not very well looked on in the neighbourhood as being somewhat of a curmudgeon and a miser. His wife was dead;--he had quarrelled with his only son, whose wife was also dead, and had banished him from his home;--his daughters were married and away; and the only member of his family who lived with him was his granddaughter Ruby. And this granddaughter was a great trouble to the old man. She was twenty-three years old, and had been engaged to a prosperous young man at Bungay in the meal and pollard line, to whom old Ruggles had promised to give 500 on their marriage. But Ruby had taken it into her foolish young head that she did not like meal and pollard, and now she had received the above very dangerous letter. Though the writer had not dared to sign his name she knew well that it came from Sir Felix Carbury,--the most beautiful gentleman she had ever set her eyes upon. Poor Ruby Ruggles! Living down at Sheep's Acre, on the Waveney, she had heard both too much and too little of the great world beyond her ken. There were, she thought, many glorious things to be seen which she would never see were she in these her early years to become the wife of John Crumb, the dealer in meal and pollard at Bungay. Therefore she was full of a wild joy, half joy half fear, when she got her letter; and, therefore, punctually at four o'clock on that Sunday she was ensconced among the Sheepstone Birches, so that she might see without much danger of being seen. Poor Ruby Ruggles, who was left to be so much mistress of herself at the time of her life in which she most required the kindness of a controlling hand! Mr. Ruggles held his land, or the greater part of it, on what is called a bishop's lease, Sheep's Acre Farm being a part of the property which did belong to the bishopric of Elmham, and which was still set apart for its sustentation;--but he also held a small extent of outlying meadow which belonged to the Carbury estate, so that he was one of the tenants of Roger Carbury. Those Sheepstone Birches, at which Felix made his appointment, belonged to Roger. On a former occasion, when the feeling between the two cousins was kinder than that which now existed, Felix had ridden over with the landlord to call on the old man, and had then first seen Ruby;--and had heard from Roger something of Ruby's history up to that date. It had then been just made known that she was to marry John Crumb. Since that time not a word had been spoken between the men respecting the girl. Mr. Carbury had heard, with sorrow, that the marriage was either postponed or abandoned,--but his growing dislike to the baronet had made it very improbable that there should be any conversation between them on the subject. Sir Felix, however, had probably heard more of Ruby Ruggles than her grandfather's landlord. There is, perhaps, no condition of mind more difficult for the ordinarily well-instructed inhabitant of a city to realise than that of such a girl as Ruby Ruggles. The rural day labourer and his wife live on a level surface which is comparatively open to the eye. Their aspirations, whether for good or evil,--whether for food and drink to be honestly earned for themselves and children, or for drink first, to be come by either honestly or dishonestly,--are, if looked at at all, fairly visible. And with the men of the Ruggles class one can generally find out what they would be at, and in what direction their minds are at work. But the Ruggles woman,--especially the Ruggles young woman,--is better educated, has higher aspirations and a brighter imagination, and is infinitely more cunning than the man. If she be good-looking and relieved from the pressure of want, her thoughts soar into a world which is as unknown to her as heaven is to us, and in regard to which her longings are apt to be infinitely stronger than are ours for heaven. Her education has been much better than that of the man. She can read, whereas he can only spell words from a book. She can write a letter after her fashion, whereas he can barely spell words out on a paper. Her tongue is more glib, and her intellect sharper. But her ignorance as to the reality of things is much more gross than his. By such contact as he has with men in markets, in the streets of the towns he frequents, and even in the fields, he learns something unconsciously of the relative condition of his countrymen,--and, as to that which he does not learn, his imagination is obtuse. But the woman builds castles in the air, and wonders, and longs. To the young farmer the squire's daughter is a superior being very much out of his way. To the farmer's daughter the young squire is an Apollo, whom to look at is a pleasure,--by whom to be looked at is a delight. The danger for the most part is soon over. The girl marries after her kind, and then husband and children put the matter at rest for ever. A mind more absolutely uninstructed than that of Ruby Ruggles as to the world beyond Suffolk and Norfolk it would be impossible to find. But her thoughts were as wide as they were vague, and as active as they were erroneous. Why should she with all her prettiness, and all her cleverness,--with all her fortune to boot,--marry that dustiest of all men, John Crumb, before she had seen something of the beauties of the things of which she had read in the books which came in her way? John Crumb was not bad-looking. He was a sturdy, honest fellow, too,--slow of speech but sure of his points when he had got them within his grip,--fond of his beer but not often drunk, and the very soul of industry at his work. But though she had known him all her life she had never known him otherwise than dusty. The meal had so gotten within his hair, and skin, and raiment, that it never came out altogether even on Sundays. His normal complexion was a healthy pallor, through which indeed some records of hidden ruddiness would make themselves visible, but which was so judiciously assimilated to his hat and coat and waistcoat, that he was more like a stout ghost than a healthy young man. Nevertheless it was said of him that he could thrash any man in Bungay, and carry two hundred weight of flour upon his back. And Ruby also knew this of him,--that he worshipped the very ground on which she trod. But, alas, she thought there might be something better than such worship; and, therefore, when Felix Carbury came in her way, with his beautiful oval face, and his rich brown colour, and his bright hair and lovely moustache, she was lost in a feeling which she mistook for love; and when he sneaked over to her a second and a third time, she thought more of his listless praise than ever she had thought of John Crumb's honest promises. But, though she was an utter fool, she was not a fool without a principle. She was miserably ignorant; but she did understand that there was a degradation which it behoved her to avoid. She thought, as the moths seem to think, that she might fly into the flame and not burn her wings. After her fashion she was pretty, with long glossy ringlets, which those about the farm on week days would see confined in curl-papers, and large round dark eyes, and a clear dark complexion, in which the blood showed itself plainly beneath the soft brown skin. She was strong, and healthy, and tall,--and had a will of her own which gave infinite trouble to old Daniel Ruggles, her grandfather. Felix Carbury took himself two miles out of his way in order that he might return by Sheepstone Birches, which was a little copse distant not above half a mile from Sheep's Acre farmhouse. A narrow angle of the little wood came up to the road, by which there was a gate leading into a grass meadow, which Sir Felix had remembered when he made his appointment. The road was no more than a country lane, unfrequented at all times, and almost sure to be deserted on Sundays. He approached the gate in a walk, and then stood awhile looking into the wood. He had not stood long before he saw the girl's bonnet beneath a tree standing just outside the wood, in the meadow, but on the bank of the ditch. Thinking for a moment what he would do about his horse, he rode him into the field, and then, dismounting, fastened him to a rail which ran down the side of the copse. Then he sauntered on till he stood looking down upon Ruby Ruggles as she sat beneath the tree. "I like your impudence," she said, "in calling yourself a friend." "Ain't I a friend, Ruby?" "A pretty sort of friend, you! When you was going away, you was to be back at Carbury in a fortnight; and that is,--oh, ever so long ago now." "But I wrote to you, Ruby." "What's letters? And the postman to know all as in 'em for anything anybody knows, and grandfather to be almost sure to see 'em. I don't call letters no good at all, and I beg you won't write 'em any more." "Did he see them?" "No thanks to you if he didn't. I don't know why you are come here, Sir Felix,--nor yet I don't know why I should come and meet you. It's all just folly like." "Because I love you;--that's why I come; eh, Ruby? And you have come because you love me; eh, Ruby? Is not that about it?" Then he threw himself on the ground beside her, and got his arm round her waist. It would boot little to tell here all that they said to each other. The happiness of Ruby Ruggles for that half hour was no doubt complete. She had her London lover beside her; and though in every word he spoke there was a tone of contempt, still he talked of love, and made her promises, and told her that she was pretty. He probably did not enjoy it much; he cared very little about her, and carried on the liaison simply because it was the proper sort of thing for a young man to do. He had begun to think that the odour of patchouli was unpleasant, and that the flies were troublesome, and the ground hard, before the half hour was over. She felt that she could be content to sit there for ever and to listen to him. This was a realisation of those delights of life of which she had read in the thrice-thumbed old novels which she had gotten from the little circulating library at Bungay. But what was to come next? She had not dared to ask him to marry her,--had not dared to say those very words; and he had not dared to ask her to be his mistress. There was an animal courage about her, and an amount of strength also, and a fire in her eye, of which he had learned to be aware. Before the half hour was over I think that he wished himself away;--but when he did go, he made a promise to see her again on the Tuesday morning. Her grandfather would be at Harlestone market, and she would meet him at about noon at the bottom of the kitchen garden belonging to the farm. As he made the promise he resolved that he would not keep it. He would write to her again, and bid her come to him in London, and would send her money for the journey. "I suppose I am to be his wedded wife," said Ruby to herself, as she crept away down from the road, away also from her own home;--so that on her return her presence should not be associated with that of the young man, should any one chance to see the young man on the road. "I'll never be nothing unless I'm that," she said to herself. Then she allowed her mind to lose itself in expatiating on the difference between John Crumb and Sir Felix Carbury.

Miss Ruby Ruggles, the granddaughter of old Daniel Ruggles, of Sheep's Acre, near Bungay, received the following letter from the rural postman that Sunday morning: "A friend will be near Sheepstone Birches between four and five on Sunday afternoon." There was not another word in the letter, but Miss Ruby Ruggles knew from whom it came. Daniel Ruggles was a farmer, who had the reputation of wealth, but also the reputation of being a curmudgeon and a miser. His wife was dead; he had quarrelled with his only son, and had banished him from his home; his daughters were married and had moved away; and the only member of his family who lived with him was his granddaughter Ruby. This granddaughter was twenty-three, and had been engaged to a prosperous young man at Bungay in the corn-meal and bran line, to whom old Ruggles had promised to give 500 on their marriage. But Ruby had taken it into her foolish young head that she did not like meal and bran, and now she had received the above very dangerous letter. She knew well that it came from Sir Felix Carbury - the most beautiful gentleman she had ever set her eyes upon. Poor Ruby Ruggles! Living down at Sheep's Acre, she had heard both too much and too little of the great world. There were, she thought, many glorious things which she would never see if she were to become the wife of John Crumb, the meal and bran dealer. Therefore she was full of a wild joy - half joy, half fear - when she got her letter. At four o'clock on that Sunday she was at Sheepstone Birches. Mr. Ruggles's land at Sheep's Acre Farm belonged to the bishopric of Elmham; but he also held an outlying meadow which belonged to the Carbury estate. Sheepstone Birches, at which Felix made his appointment, belonged to Roger. Once Felix had ridden over with Roger to call on the old man, and had then first seen Ruby; and had heard from Roger that she was to marry John Crumb. Since then Roger had heard, with sorrow, that the marriage was either postponed or abandoned - but he had not spoken to Felix on the subject. Sir Felix, however, had probably heard more of Ruby Ruggles than he had. There is, perhaps, no condition of mind more difficult for the educated city-dweller to imagine than that of such a girl as Ruby Ruggles. The rural labourer and his wife live a life that seems open to the eye. With the men of the Ruggles class one can generally find out what they want, and how their minds work. But the Ruggles woman - especially the Ruggles young woman - has higher aspirations and a brighter imagination, and is infinitely more cunning than the man. Her education has been much better than his: she can read, whereas he can only spell words from a book. She can write a letter after her fashion, whereas he can barely form words on paper. Her tongue is more glib, and her intellect sharper. But her ignorance about real life is much greater than his. He learns from the markets, the streets and the fields of the condition of his countrymen. The woman builds castles in the air, and wonders, and longs. To the farmer's daughter the young squire is an Apollo, whom to look at is a pleasure - by whom to be looked at is a delight. The danger for the most part is soon over: the girl marries one of her own kind, and the matter is at rest. A mind more absolutely ignorant than that of Ruby Ruggles about the world beyond Suffolk it would be impossible to find. But her thoughts were as wide as they were vague, and as active as they were mistaken. Why should she, with all her prettiness and cleverness, marry that dusty John Crumb, before she had seen any of the beauties of the world? John Crumb was not bad-looking. He was a sturdy, honest fellow, slow of speech but sure of his points, fond of his beer but not often drunk, and the very soul of industry at his work. But he was always dusty. The meal had got within his hair, and skin, and clothes, so that he looked more like a stout ghost than a healthy young man. Nevertheless it was said that he could thrash any man in Bungay, and carry two hundred weight of flour upon his back. And Ruby also knew that he worshipped the very ground on which she trod. But, alas, she thought there might be something better than such worship; and when Felix Carbury came in her way, with his beautiful face, she was lost in a feeling which she mistook for love; and when he sneaked over to her a second and a third time, she thought more of his listless praise than ever she had thought of John Crumb's honest promises. But though she was an utter fool, and miserably ignorant, she did understand that there was a degradation which she needed to avoid. She thought, as moths seem to think, that she might fly into the flame and not burn her wings. She was pretty, with long glossy ringlets, large round dark eyes, and a clear complexion. She was strong, healthy, and tall - and had a will of her own which gave infinite trouble to old Daniel Ruggles, her grandfather. Felix Carbury took himself two miles out of his way in order that he might return by Sheepstone Birches. The road leading to it was a quiet country lane, almost sure to be deserted on Sundays. He approached the gate, and stood awhile looking into the wood. When he saw the girl's bonnet, he dismounted, fastened his horse to a rail, and sauntered on till he stood looking down upon Ruby Ruggles as she sat beneath the tree. "I like your impudence," she said, "in calling yourself a friend." "Ain't I a friend, Ruby?" "A pretty sort of friend! You said you was to be back at Carbury in a fortnight; and that is ever so long ago now." "But I wrote to you, Ruby." "What's letters? And grandfather is almost sure to see 'em. I beg you won't write any more." "Did he see them?" "No thanks to you if he didn't. I don't know why you are come here, Sir Felix, - nor why I should come and meet you. It's all just folly like." "Because I love you; that's why I come, Ruby. And you have come because you love me; eh, Ruby? Is not that about it?" Then he threw himself on the ground beside her, and got his arm round her waist. There is no need to tell here all that they said to each other. The happiness of Ruby Ruggles for that half hour was complete. She had her London lover beside her; and though in every word he spoke there was a tone of contempt, still he talked of love, and made her promises, and told her she was pretty. He probably did not enjoy it much; he cared very little about her, and carried on the liaison simply because it was the proper sort of thing for a young man to do. He had begun to think that the odour of patchouli was unpleasant, and that the flies were troublesome, and the ground hard, before the half hour was over. She felt that she could sit there for ever and listen to him. But what was to come next? She had not dared to ask him to marry her; and he had not dared to ask her to be his mistress. There was an animal courage about her, and a strength, and a fire in her eye, of which he had learned to be wary. Before the half hour was over he wished himself away; but when he did go, he promised to see her again on the Tuesday morning. Her grandfather would be at Harlestone market, and she would meet him at noon at the bottom of the farm's kitchen garden. As he made the promise he resolved that he would not keep it. He would write to her, and bid her come to him in London, and would send her money for the journey. "I suppose I am to be his wedded wife," thought Ruby, as she crept away. "I'll never be nothing unless I'm that." Then she allowed her mind to lose itself in thinking of the difference between John Crumb and Sir Felix Carbury.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 18: Ruby Ruggles Hears a Love Tale

Paul Montague reached London on his return from Suffolk early on the Monday morning, and on the following day he wrote to Mrs. Hurtle. As he sat in his lodgings, thinking of his condition, he almost wished that he had taken Melmotte's offer and gone to Mexico. He might at any rate have endeavoured to promote the railway earnestly, and then have abandoned it if he found the whole thing false. In such case of course he would never have seen Hetta Carbury again; but, as things were, of what use to him was his love,--of what use to him or to her? The kind of life of which he dreamed, such a life in England as was that of Roger Carbury, or, as such life would be, if Roger had a wife whom he loved, seemed to be far beyond his reach. Nobody was like Roger Carbury! Would it not be well that he should go away, and, as he went, write to Hetta and bid her marry the best man that ever lived in the world? But the journey to Mexico was no longer open to him. He had repudiated the proposition and had quarrelled with Melmotte. It was necessary that he should immediately take some further step in regard to Mrs. Hurtle. Twice lately he had gone to Islington determined that he would see that lady for the last time. Then he had taken her to Lowestoft, and had been equally firm in his resolution that he would there put an end to his present bonds. Now he had promised to go again to Islington;--and was aware that if he failed to keep his promise, she would come to him. In this way there would never be an end to it. He would certainly go again, as he had promised,--if she should still require it; but he would first try what a letter would do,--a plain unvarnished tale. Might it still be possible that a plain tale sent by post should have sufficient efficacy? This was his plain tale as he now told it. Tuesday, 2nd July, 1873. MY DEAR MRS. HURTLE,-- I promised that I would go to you again in Islington, and so I will, if you still require it. But I think that such a meeting can be of no service to either of us. What is to be gained? I do not for a moment mean to justify my own conduct. It is not to be justified. When I met you on our journey hither from San Francisco, I was charmed with your genius, your beauty, and your character. They are now what I found them to be then. But circumstances have made our lives and temperaments so far different, that I am certain that, were we married, we should not make each other happy. Of course the fault was mine; but it is better to own that fault, and to take all the blame,--and the evil consequences, let them be what they may,-- to be shot, for instance, like the gentleman in Oregon,-- than to be married with the consciousness that even at the very moment of the ceremony, such marriage will be a matter of sorrow and repentance. As soon as my mind was made up on this I wrote to you. I can not,--I dare not,--blame you for the step you have since taken. But I can only adhere to the resolution I then expressed. The first day I saw you here in London you asked me whether I was attached to another woman. I could answer you only by the truth. But I should not of my own accord have spoken to you of altered affections. It was after I had resolved to break my engagement with you that I first knew this girl. It was not because I had come to love her that I broke it. I have no grounds whatever for hoping that my love will lead to any results. I have now told you as exactly as I can the condition of my mind. If it were possible for me in any way to compensate the injury I have done you,--or even to undergo retribution for it,--I would do so. But what compensation can be given, or what retribution can you exact? I think that our further meeting can avail nothing. But if, after this, you wish me to come again, I will come for the last time,--because I have promised. Your most sincere friend, PAUL MONTAGUE. Mrs. Hurtle, as she read this, was torn in two ways. All that Paul had written was in accordance with the words written by herself on a scrap of paper which she still kept in her own pocket. Those words, fairly transcribed on a sheet of note-paper, would be the most generous and the fittest answer she could give. And she longed to be generous. She had all a woman's natural desire to sacrifice herself. But the sacrifice which would have been most to her taste would have been of another kind. Had she found him ruined and penniless she would have delighted to share with him all that she possessed. Had she found him a cripple, or blind, or miserably struck with some disease, she would have stayed by him and have nursed him and given him comfort. Even had he been disgraced she would have fled with him to some far country and have pardoned all his faults. No sacrifice would have been too much for her that would have been accompanied by a feeling that he appreciated all that she was doing for him, and that she was loved in return. But to sacrifice herself by going away and never more being heard of, was too much for her! What woman can endure such sacrifice as that? To give up not only her love, but her wrath also;--that was too much for her! The idea of being tame was terrible to her. Her life had not been very prosperous, but she was what she was because she had dared to protect herself by her own spirit. Now, at last, should she succumb and be trodden on like a worm? Should she be weaker even than an English girl? Should she allow him to have amused himself with her love, to have had "a good time," and then to roam away like a bee, while she was so dreadfully scorched, so mutilated and punished! Had not her whole life been opposed to the theory of such passive endurance? She took out the scrap of paper and read it; and, in spite of all, she felt that there was a feminine softness in it that gratified her. But no;--she could not send it. She could not even copy the words. And so she gave play to all her strongest feelings on the other side,--being in truth torn in two directions. Then she sat herself down to her desk, and with rapid words, and flashing thoughts, wrote as follows:-- PAUL MONTAGUE,-- I have suffered many injuries, but of all injuries this is the worst and most unpardonable,--and the most unmanly. Surely there never was such a coward, never so false a liar. The poor wretch that I destroyed was mad with liquor and was only acting after his kind. Even Caradoc Hurtle never premeditated such wrong as this. What;--you are to bind yourself to me by the most solemn obligation that can join a man and a woman together, and then tell me,--when they have affected my whole life,--that they are to go for nothing, because they do not suit your view of things? On thinking over it, you find that an American wife would not make you so comfortable as some English girl;--and therefore it is all to go for nothing! I have no brother, no man near me;--or you would not dare to do this. You can not but be a coward. You talk of compensation! Do you mean money? You do not dare to say so, but you must mean it. It is an insult the more. But as to retribution; yes. You shall suffer retribution. I desire you to come to me,--according to your promise,--and you will find me with a horsewhip in my hand. I will whip you till I have not a breath in my body. And then I will see what you will dare to do;--whether you will drag me into a court of law for the assault. Yes; come. You shall come. And now you know the welcome you shall find. I will buy the whip while this is reaching you, and you shall find that I know how to choose such a weapon. I call upon you to come. But should you be afraid and break your promise, I will come to you. I will make London too hot to hold you;--and if I do not find you I will go with my story to every friend you have. I have now told you as exactly as I can the condition of my mind. WINIFRID HURTLE. Having written this she again read the short note, and again gave way to violent tears. But on that day she sent no letter. On the following morning she wrote a third, and sent that. This was the third letter:-- Yes. Come. W. H. This letter duly reached Paul Montague at his lodgings. He started immediately for Islington. He had now no desire to delay the meeting. He had at any rate taught her that his gentleness towards her, his going to the play with her, and drinking tea with her at Mrs. Pipkin's, and his journey with her to the sea, were not to be taken as evidence that he was gradually being conquered. He had declared his purpose plainly enough at Lowestoft,--and plainly enough in his last letter. She had told him down at the hotel, that had she by chance have been armed at the moment, she would have shot him. She could arm herself now if she pleased;--but his real fear had not lain in that direction. The pang consisted in having to assure her that he was resolved to do her wrong. The worst of that was now over. The door was opened for him by Ruby, who by no means greeted him with a happy countenance. It was the second morning after the night of her imprisonment; and nothing had occurred to alleviate her woe. At this very moment her lover should have been in Liverpool, but he was, in fact, abed in Welbeck Street. "Yes, sir; she's at home," said Ruby, with a baby in her arms and a little child hanging on to her dress. "Don't pull so, Sally. Please, sir, is Sir Felix still in London?" Ruby had written to Sir Felix the very night of her imprisonment, but had not as yet received any reply. Paul, whose mind was altogether intent on his own troubles, declared that at present he knew nothing about Sir Felix, and was then shown into Mrs. Hurtle's room. [Illustration: The door was opened for him by Ruby.] "So you have come," she said, without rising from her chair. "Of course I came, when you desired it." "I don't know why you should. My wishes do not seem to affect you much. Will you sit down there," she said, pointing to a seat at some distance from herself. "So you think it would be best that you and I should never see each other again?" She was very calm; but it seemed to him that the quietness was assumed, and that at any moment it might be converted into violence. He thought that there was that in her eye which seemed to foretell the spring of the wild-cat. "I did think so certainly. What more can I say?" "Oh, nothing; clearly nothing." Her voice was very low. "Why should a gentleman trouble himself to say any more,--than that he has changed his mind? Why make a fuss about such little things as a woman's life, or a woman's heart?" Then she paused. "And having come, in consequence of my unreasonable request, of course you are wise to hold your peace." "I came because I promised." "But you did not promise to speak;--did you?" "What would you have me say?" "Ah what! Am I to be so weak as to tell you now what I would have you say? Suppose you were to say, 'I am a gentleman, and a man of my word, and I repent me of my intended perfidy,' do you not think you might get your release that way? Might it not be possible that I should reply that as your heart was gone from me, your hand might go after it;--that I scorned to be the wife of a man who did not want me?" As she asked this she gradually raised her voice, and half lifted herself in her seat, stretching herself towards him. "You might indeed," he replied, not well knowing what to say. "But I should not. I at least will be true. I should take you, Paul,--still take you; with a confidence that I should yet win you to me by my devotion. I have still some kindness of feeling towards you,--none to that woman who is I suppose younger than I, and gentler, and a maid." She still looked as though she expected a reply, but there was nothing to be said in answer to this. "Now that you are going to leave me, Paul, is there any advice you can give me, as to what I shall do next? I have given up every friend in the world for you. I have no home. Mrs. Pipkin's room here is more my home than any other spot on the earth. I have all the world to choose from, but no reason whatever for a choice. I have my property. What shall I do with it, Paul? If I could die and be no more heard of, you should be welcome to it." There was no answer possible to all this. The questions were asked because there was no answer possible. "You might at any rate advise me. Paul, you are in some degree responsible,--are you not,--for my loneliness?" "I am. But you know that I cannot answer your questions." "You cannot wonder that I should be somewhat in doubt as to my future life. As far as I can see, I had better remain here. I do good at any rate to Mrs. Pipkin. She went into hysterics yesterday when I spoke of leaving her. That woman, Paul, would starve in our country, and I shall be desolate in this." Then she paused, and there was absolute silence for a minute. "You thought my letter very short; did you not?" "It said, I suppose, all you had to say." "No, indeed. I did have much more to say. That was the third letter I wrote. Now you shall see the other two. I wrote three, and had to choose which I would send you. I fancy that yours to me was easier written than either one of mine. You had no doubts, you know. I had many doubts. I could not send them all by post, together. But you may see them all now. There is one. You may read that first. While I was writing it, I was determined that that should go." Then she handed him the sheet of paper which contained the threat of the horsewhip. "I am glad you did not send that," he said. "I meant it." "But you have changed your mind?" "Is there anything in it that seems to you to be unreasonable? Speak out and tell me." "I am thinking of you, not of myself." "Think of me, then. Is there anything said there which the usage to which I have been subjected does not justify?" "You ask me questions which I cannot answer. I do not think that under any provocation a woman should use a horsewhip." "It is certainly more comfortable for gentlemen,--who amuse themselves,--that women should have that opinion. But, upon my word, I don't know what to say about that. As long as there are men to fight for women, it may be well to leave the fighting to the men. But when a woman has no one to help her, is she to bear everything without turning upon those who ill-use her? Shall a woman be flayed alive because it is unfeminine in her to fight for her own skin? What is the good of being--feminine, as you call it? Have you asked yourself that? That men may be attracted, I should say. But if a woman finds that men only take advantage of her assumed weakness, shall she not throw it off? If she be treated as prey, shall she not fight as a beast of prey? Oh, no;--it is so unfeminine! I also, Paul, had thought of that. The charm of womanly weakness presented itself to my mind in a soft moment,--and then I wrote this other letter. You may as well see them all." And so she handed him the scrap which had been written at Lowestoft, and he read that also. He could hardly finish it, because of the tears which filled his eyes. But, having mastered its contents, he came across the room and threw himself on his knees at her feet, sobbing. "I have not sent it, you know," she said. "I only show it you that you may see how my mind has been at work." "It hurts me more than the other," he replied. "Nay, I would not hurt you,--not at this moment. Sometimes I feel that I could tear you limb from limb, so great is my disappointment, so ungovernable my rage! Why,--why should I be such a victim? Why should life be an utter blank to me, while you have everything before you? There, you have seen them all. Which will you have?" "I cannot now take that other as the expression of your mind." "But it will be when you have left me;--and was when you were with me at the sea-side. And it was so I felt when I got your first letter in San Francisco. Why should you kneel there? You do not love me. A man should kneel to a woman for love, not for pardon." But though she spoke thus, she put her hand upon his forehead, and pushed back his hair, and looked into his face. "I wonder whether that other woman loves you. I do not want an answer, Paul. I suppose you had better go." She took his hand and pressed it to her breast. "Tell me one thing. When you spoke of--compensation, did you mean--money?" "No; indeed no." "I hope not;--I hope not that. Well, there;--go. You shall be troubled no more with Winifrid Hurtle." She took the sheet of paper which contained the threat of the horsewhip and tore it into scraps. "And am I to keep the other?" he asked. "No. For what purpose would you have it? To prove my weakness? That also shall be destroyed." But she took it and restored it to her pocket-book. "Good-bye, my friend," he said. "Nay! This parting will not bear a farewell. Go, and let there be no other word spoken." And so he went. As soon as the front door was closed behind him she rang the bell and begged Ruby to ask Mrs. Pipkin to come to her. "Mrs. Pipkin," she said, as soon as the woman had entered the room; "everything is over between me and Mr. Montague." She was standing upright in the middle of the room, and as she spoke there was a smile on her face. "Lord a' mercy," said Mrs. Pipkin, holding up both her hands. "As I have told you that I was to be married to him, I think it right now to tell you that I'm not going to be married to him." "And why not?--and he such a nice young man,--and quiet too." "As to the why not, I don't know that I am prepared to speak about that. But it is so. I was engaged to him." "I'm well sure of that, Mrs. Hurtle." "And now I'm no longer engaged to him. That's all." "Dearie me! and you going down to Lowestoft with him, and all." Mrs. Pipkin could not bear to think that she should hear no more of such an interesting story. "We did go down to Lowestoft together, and we both came back,--not together. And there's an end of it." "I'm sure it's not your fault, Mrs. Hurtle. When a marriage is to be, and doesn't come off, it never is the lady's fault." "There's an end of it, Mrs. Pipkin. If you please, we won't say anything more about it." "And are you going to leave, ma'am?" said Mrs. Pipkin, prepared to have her apron up to her eyes at a moment's notice. Where should she get such another lodger as Mrs. Hurtle,--a lady who not only did not inquire about victuals, but who was always suggesting that the children should eat this pudding or finish that pie, and who had never questioned an item in a bill since she had been in the house! "We'll say nothing about that yet, Mrs. Pipkin." Then Mrs. Pipkin gave utterance to so many assurances of sympathy and help that it almost seemed that she was prepared to guarantee to her lodger another lover in lieu of the one who was now dismissed.

Paul Montague reached London from Suffolk early on the Monday morning, and the following day he wrote to Mrs. Hurtle. He almost wished that he had taken Melmotte's offer and gone to Mexico. In that case he would never have seen Hetta Carbury again; but, as things were, of what use was his love? The kind of life of which he dreamed seemed to be far beyond his reach. Perhaps he should go away, and write to Hetta and bid her marry Roger Carbury - the best man that ever lived. But the journey to Mexico was no longer open to him. He had quarrelled with Melmotte. And as to Mrs. Hurtle, he had promised to go again to Islington. He knew that if he failed to keep his promise, she would come to him. So he would go there; but first he would try what a letter would do - a plain unvarnished tale. This was his plain tale as he now told it. My Dear Mrs. Hurtle, I promised that I would come to you again in Islington, and so I will, if you still require it. But I think that such a meeting can be of no use to either of us. What is to be gained? I do not mean to justify my own conduct. It is not to be justified. When I met you on our journey from San Francisco, I was charmed with your genius, your beauty, and your character. But circumstances have made our lives and temperaments so different, that I am certain that, were we married, we should not make each other happy. Of course the fault was mine; but it is better to own that fault, and to take all the blame, and any evil consequences (-to be shot, for instance, like the gentleman in Oregon-) than to be married knowing that such marriage will be a matter of sorrow and repentance. I cannot blame you for the step you have taken. But I can only adhere to my resolution. The first day I saw you here in London you asked me whether I was attached to another woman. I could answer you only by the truth. But it was after I had resolved to break my engagement with you that I first knew this girl. It was not because I had come to love her that I broke it. I have no grounds whatever for hoping that my love will lead to any results. I have now told you as exactly as I can the condition of my mind. If it were possible for me in any way to compensate the injury I have done you, or to suffer retribution, I would do so. I think that our further meeting can avail nothing. But if you wish me to come again, I will come for the last time - because I have promised. Your most sincere friend, Paul Montague. Mrs. Hurtle, as she read this, was torn. All that Paul had written was in accordance with the words written by herself on a scrap of paper which she still kept in her pocket. Those words would be the most generous and the fittest answer she could give. And she longed to be generous. She had all a woman's natural desire to sacrifice herself. Had he been ruined, or blind, or crippled, she would have stayed by him and have given him comfort. No sacrifice would have been too much for her if she was appreciated and loved in return. But to sacrifice herself by going away was too much. What woman can endure such sacrifice as that? To give up not only her love, but her anger also! The idea of being tame was terrible to her. She had always protected herself by her own spirit. Now, at last, should she succumb and be trodden on like a worm? She took out the scrap of paper and read it; the softness in it gratified her. But no, she could not send it. And so she sat down, and wrote rapidly as follows: Paul Montague,- I have suffered many injuries, but of all injuries this is the worst and most unmanly. Surely there never was such a coward, never so false a liar. Even poor Caradoc Hurtle never premeditated such wrong as this. What; you are to bind yourself to me by the most solemn promises that can join a man and a woman together, and then tell me - when they have affected my whole life - that they are to go for nothing, because they do not suit your view of things? I have no brother, no man near me; or you would not dare to do this. You talk of compensation! Do you mean money? It is an insult. But as to retribution; yes. You shall suffer retribution. I desire you to come to me - according to your promise - and you will find me with a horsewhip in my hand. I will whip you till I have not a breath in my body. And then I will see whether you will dare to drag me into a court of law for the assault. Yes; come. Now you know the welcome you shall find. But should you be afraid and break your promise, I will come to you. I will make London too hot to hold you; and if I do not find you I will go with my story to every friend you have. I have now told you as exactly as I can the condition of my mind. Winifred Hurtle. Having written this she again read the short note, and again gave way to violent tears. But on that day she sent no letter. On the following morning she wrote a third, and sent that. This was the third letter: Yes. Come. W. H. This letter reached Paul Montague at his lodgings. He started immediately for Islington, having no desire to delay the meeting. He had declared his purpose plainly, and she could arm herself if she pleased; but he had now told her that he was resolved to do her wrong. The worst of that was over. The door was opened for him by Ruby, who looked unhappy. It was the second morning after the night of her imprisonment; and nothing had occurred to alleviate her woe. At this very moment her lover was in bed in Welbeck Street. "Yes, sir; she's at home," said Ruby, with a baby in her arms and a little child hanging on to her dress. "Please, sir, is Sir Felix still in London?" Ruby had written to Sir Felix, but had not received any reply. Paul declared that he knew nothing about Sir Felix, and was shown into Mrs. Hurtle's room. "So you have come," she said, without rising from her chair. "Of course I came, when you desired it." "I don't know why you should. My wishes do not seem to affect you much. Sit down. So you think it would be best that you and I should never see each other again?" She was very calm; but it seemed to him that the quietness might at any moment change to violence. He thought that her eye seemed to foretell the spring of the wild-cat. "I did think so. What more can I say?" "Oh, clearly nothing." Her voice was very low. "Why should a gentleman trouble himself to say any more than that he has changed his mind? Why make a fuss about such little things as a woman's life, or a woman's heart?" "What would you have me say?" "Ah! Suppose you were to say, 'I am a gentleman, and a man of my word, and I repent of my intended perfidy,' do you not think you might get your release that way? Might it not be possible that I should reply that I scorned to be the wife of a man who did not want me?" As she asked this she gradually raised her voice, and half lifted herself in her seat. "You might indeed." "But I at least will be true. I should still take you, Paul; with a confidence that I should yet win you by my devotion. I have still some kindness towards you - none to that woman who is I suppose younger and gentler than I." There was nothing to be said in answer to this. "Now that you are going to leave me, Paul, is there any advice you can give me, as to what I shall do next? I have given up every friend in the world for you. I have no home but this room. I have all the world to choose from, but no reason whatever for a choice. I have my property. What shall I do with it, Paul? You might at any rate advise me. You are in some degree responsible, are you not, for my loneliness?" "I am. But you know that I cannot answer your questions." "As far as I can see, I had better remain here. I do good at any rate to Mrs. Pipkin. She went into hysterics yesterday when I spoke of leaving her." She paused for a minute. "You thought my letter very short; did you not?" "It said, I suppose, all you had to say." "No, indeed. I had much more to say. That was the third letter I wrote. Now you shall see the other two. There is one. You may read that first." Then she handed him the sheet of paper which contained the threat of the horsewhip. "I am glad you did not send that," he said. "I meant it." "But you have changed your mind?" "Is there anything in it that seems to you to be unreasonable?" "I am thinking of you, not of myself. I do not think that under any provocation a woman should use a horsewhip." "Upon my word, I don't know what to say about that. When a woman has no one to help her, is she to bear everything without turning upon those who ill-use her? Shall a woman be flayed alive because it is unfeminine to fight for her own skin? If she is treated as prey, shall she not fight as a beast of prey? Oh, no; it is so unfeminine! Paul, the charm of womanly weakness entered my mind in a soft moment, and then I wrote this other letter." She handed him the scrap which had been written at Lowestoft. He could hardly finish it because of the tears which filled his eyes. Then he came across the room and threw himself on his knees at her feet, sobbing. "I have not sent it, you know," she said. "It hurts me more than the other." "Nay, I would not hurt you - not at this moment. Sometimes I feel that I could tear you limb from limb, so great is my disappointment and my rage! Why should I be such a victim? Why should life be an utter blank to me, while you have everything before you? There, you have seen them all. Which will you have?" "I cannot now take that other as the expression of your mind." "But it will be my feeling when you have left me - and was when you were with me at the sea-side. And it was so I felt when I got your first letter in San Francisco. Why should you kneel there? You do not love me." She put her hand upon his forehead, and pushed back his hair, and looked into his face. "I wonder whether that other woman loves you. I do not want an answer, Paul. I suppose you had better go." She took his hand and pressed it to her breast. "Tell me one thing. When you spoke of compensation, did you mean - money?" "No; indeed no." "I hope not. Well, go. You shall be troubled no more with Winifrid Hurtle." She took the sheet of paper which contained the threat of the horsewhip and tore it into scraps. "Am I to keep the other?" he asked. "No. Why? To prove my weakness? That also shall be destroyed." But she took it and restored it to her pocket-book. "Good-bye, my friend," he said. "No farewells. Go, and let there be no other word spoken." So he went. As soon as the front door was closed behind him she rang the bell and begged Ruby to ask Mrs. Pipkin to come to her. "Mrs. Pipkin," she said, as soon as the woman had entered the room; "everything is over between me and Mr. Montague." She was standing upright in the middle of the room, and as she spoke there was a smile on her face. "Lord a' mercy," said Mrs. Pipkin, holding up both her hands. "As I have told you that I was to be married to him, I think it right now to tell you that I'm not going to be married to him." "Why not? and he such a nice young man, and quiet too." "As to the why not, I don't know that I am prepared to speak about that. But I'm no longer engaged to him. That's all." "Dearie me! and you going down to Lowestoft with him, and all." Mrs. Pipkin could not bear to think that she should hear no more of such an interesting story. "We did go down to Lowestoft together, and we came back - not together. And there's an end of it." "I'm sure it's not your fault, Mrs. Hurtle. When a marriage doesn't come off, it never is the lady's fault." "If you please, Mrs. Pipkin, we won't say anything more about it." "Are you going to leave, ma'am?" said Mrs. Pipkin, alarmed. Where should she get such another lodger as Mrs. Hurtle, who had never questioned an item in a bill since she had been in the house! "We'll say nothing about that yet, Mrs. Pipkin." Then Mrs. Pipkin gave her so many assurances of sympathy and help that it almost seemed that she would guarantee her lodger another lover, in place of the one who was now dismissed.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 51: Which Shall It Be?

Mr. Squercum all this time was in a perfect fever of hard work and anxiety. It may be said of him that he had been quite sharp enough to perceive the whole truth. He did really know it all,--if he could prove that which he knew. He had extended his enquiries in the city till he had convinced himself that, whatever wealth Melmotte might have had twelve months ago, there was not enough of it left at present to cover the liabilities. Squercum was quite sure that Melmotte was not a falling, but a fallen star,--perhaps not giving sufficient credence to the recuperative powers of modern commerce. Squercum told a certain stockbroker in the City, who was his specially confidential friend, that Melmotte was a "gone coon." The stockbroker made also some few enquiries, and on that evening agreed with Squercum that Melmotte was a "gone coon." If such were the case it would positively be the making of Squercum if it could be so managed that he should appear as the destroying angel of this offensive dragon. So Squercum raged among the Bideawhiles, who were unable altogether to shut their doors against him. They could not dare to bid defiance to Squercum,--feeling that they had themselves blundered, and feeling also that they must be careful not to seem to screen a fault by a falsehood. "I suppose you give it up about the letter having been signed by my client," said Squercum to the elder of the two younger Bideawhiles. "I give up nothing and I assert nothing," said the superior attorney. "Whether the letter be genuine or not we had no reason to believe it to be otherwise. The young gentleman's signature is never very plain, and this one is about as like any other as that other would be like the last." "Would you let me look at it again, Mr. Bideawhile?" Then the letter which had been very often inspected during the last ten days was handed to Mr. Squercum. "It's a stiff resemblance;--such as he never could have written had he tried it ever so." "Perhaps not, Mr. Squercum. We are not generally on the lookout for forgeries in letters from our clients or our clients' sons." "Just so, Mr. Bideawhile. But then Mr. Longestaffe had already told you that his son would not sign the letter." "How is one to know when and how and why a young man like that will change his purpose?" "Just so, Mr. Bideawhile. But you see after such a declaration as that on the part of my client's father, the letter,--which is in itself a little irregular perhaps--" "I don't know that it's irregular at all." "Well;--it didn't reach you in a very confirmatory manner. We'll just say that. What Mr. Longestaffe can have been at to wish to give up his title-deeds without getting anything for them--" "Excuse me, Mr. Squercum, but that's between Mr. Longestaffe and us." "Just so;--but as Mr. Longestaffe and you have jeopardised my client's property it is natural that I should make a few remarks. I think you'd have made a few remarks yourself, Mr. Bideawhile, if the case had been reversed. I shall bring the matter before the Lord Mayor, you know." To this Mr. Bideawhile said not a word. "And I think I understand you now that you do not intend to insist on the signature as being genuine." "I say nothing about it, Mr. Squercum. I think you'll find it very hard to prove that it's not genuine." "My client's oath, Mr. Bideawhile." "I'm afraid your client is not always very clear as to what he does." "I don't know what you mean by that, Mr. Bideawhile. I fancy that if I were to speak in that way of your client you would be very angry with me. Besides, what does it all amount to? Will the old gentleman say that he gave the letter into his son's hands, so that, even if such a freak should have come into my client's head, he could have signed it and sent it off? If I understand, Mr. Longestaffe says that he locked the letter up in a drawer in the very room which Melmotte occupied, and that he afterwards found the drawer open. It won't, I suppose, be alleged that my client knew so little what he was about that he broke open the drawer in order that he might get at the letter. Look at it whichever way you will, he did not sign it, Mr. Bideawhile." "I have never said he did. All I say is that we had fair ground for supposing that it was his letter. I really don't know that I can say anything more." "Only that we are to a certain degree in the same boat together in this matter." "I won't admit even that, Mr. Squercum." "The difference being that your client by his fault has jeopardised his own interests and those of my client, while my client has not been in fault at all. I shall bring the matter forward before the Lord Mayor to-morrow, and as at present advised shall ask for an investigation with reference to a charge of fraud. I presume you will be served with a subpoena to bring the letter into court." "If so you may be sure that we shall produce it." Then Mr. Squercum took his leave and went straight away to Mr. Bumby, a barrister well known in the City. The game was too powerful to be hunted down by Mr. Squercum's unassisted hands. He had already seen Mr. Bumby on the matter more than once. Mr. Bumby was inclined to doubt whether it might not be better to get the money, or some guarantee for the money. Mr. Bumby thought that if a bill at three months could be had for Dolly's share of the property it might be expedient to take it. Mr. Squercum suggested that the property itself might be recovered, no genuine sale having been made. Mr. Bumby shook his head. "Title-deeds give possession, Mr. Squercum. You don't suppose that the company which has lent money to Melmotte on the title-deeds would have to lose it. Take the bill; and if it is dishonoured run your chance of what you'll get out of the property. There must be assets." "Every rap will have been made over," said Mr. Squercum. This took place on the Monday, the day on which Melmotte had offered his full confidence to his proposed son-in-law. On the following Wednesday three gentlemen met together in the study in the house in Bruton Street from which it was supposed that the letter had been abstracted. There were Mr. Longestaffe, the father, Dolly Longestaffe, and Mr. Bideawhile. The house was still in Melmotte's possession, and Melmotte and Mr. Longestaffe were no longer on friendly terms. Direct application for permission to have this meeting in this place had been formally made to Mr. Melmotte, and he had complied. The meeting took place at eleven o'clock--a terribly early hour. Dolly had at first hesitated as to placing himself as he thought between the fire of two enemies, and Mr. Squercum had told him that as the matter would probably soon be made public, he could not judiciously refuse to meet his father and the old family lawyer. Therefore Dolly had attended, at great personal inconvenience to himself. "By George, it's hardly worth having if one is to take all this trouble about it," Dolly had said to Lord Grasslough, with whom he had fraternised since the quarrel with Nidderdale. Dolly entered the room last, and at that time neither Mr. Longestaffe nor Mr. Bideawhile had touched the drawer, or even the table, in which the letter had been deposited. "Now, Mr. Longestaffe," said Mr. Bideawhile, "perhaps you will show us where you think you put the letter." "I don't think at all," said he. "Since the matter has been discussed the whole thing has come back upon my memory." "I never signed it," said Dolly, standing with his hands in his pockets and interrupting his father. "Nobody says you did, sir," rejoined the father with an angry voice. "If you will condescend to listen we may perhaps arrive at the truth." "But somebody has said that I did. I've been told that Mr. Bideawhile says so." "No, Mr. Longestaffe; no. We have never said so. We have only said that we had no reason for supposing the letter to be other than genuine. We have never gone beyond that." "Nothing on earth would have made me sign it," said Dolly. "Why should I have given my property up before I got my money? I never heard such a thing in my life." The father looked up at the lawyer and shook his head, testifying as to the hopelessness of his son's obstinacy. "Now, Mr. Longestaffe," continued the lawyer, "let us see where you put the letter." Then the father very slowly, and with much dignity of deportment, opened the drawer,--the second drawer from the top, and took from it a bundle of papers very carefully folded and docketed. "There," said he, "the letter was not placed in the envelope but on the top of it, and the two were the two first documents in the bundle." He went on to say that as far as he knew no other paper had been taken away. He was quite certain that he had left the drawer locked. He was very particular in regard to that particular drawer, and he remembered that about this time Mr. Melmotte had been in the room with him when he had opened it, and,--as he was certain,--had locked it again. At that special time there had been, he said, considerable intimacy between him and Melmotte. It was then that Mr. Melmotte had offered him a seat at the Board of the Mexican railway. "Of course he picked the lock, and stole the letter," said Dolly. "It's as plain as a pike-staff. It's clear enough to hang any man." "I am afraid that it falls short of evidence, however strong and just may be the suspicion induced," said the lawyer. "Your father for a time was not quite certain about the letter." "He thought that I had signed it," said Dolly. "I am quite certain now," rejoined the father angrily. "A man has to collect his memory before he can be sure of anything." "I am thinking you know how it would go to a jury." "What I want to know is how we are to get the money," said Dolly. "I should like to see him hung,--of course; but I'd sooner have the money. Squercum says--" "Adolphus, we don't want to know here what Mr. Squercum says." "I don't know why what Mr. Squercum says shouldn't be as good as what Mr. Bideawhile says. Of course Squercum doesn't sound very aristocratic." "Quite as much so as Bideawhile, no doubt," said the lawyer laughing. "No; Squercum isn't aristocratic, and Fetter Lane is a good deal lower than Lincoln's Inn. Nevertheless Squercum may know what he's about. It was Squercum who was first down upon Melmotte in this matter, and if it wasn't for Squercum we shouldn't know as much about it as we do at present." Squercum's name was odious to the elder Longestaffe. He believed, probably without much reason, that all his family troubles came to him from Squercum, thinking that if his son would have left his affairs in the hands of the old Slows and the old Bideawhiles, money would never have been scarce with him, and that he would not have made this terrible blunder about the Pickering property. And the sound of Squercum, as his son knew, was horrid to his ears. He hummed and hawed, and fumed and fretted about the room, shaking his head and frowning. His son looked at him as though quite astonished at his displeasure. "There's nothing more to be done here, sir, I suppose," said Dolly putting on his hat. "Nothing more," said Mr. Bideawhile. "It may be that I shall have to instruct counsel, and I thought it well that I should see in the presence of both of you exactly how the thing stood. You speak so positively, Mr. Longestaffe, that there can be no doubt?" "There is no doubt." "And now perhaps you had better lock the drawer in our presence. Stop a moment--I might as well see whether there is any sign of violence having been used." So saying Mr. Bideawhile knelt down in front of the table and began to examine the lock. This he did very carefully and satisfied himself that there was "no sign of violence." "Whoever has done it, did it very well," said Bideawhile. [Illustration: "I might as well see whether there is any sign of violence having been used."] "Of course Melmotte did it," said Dolly Longestaffe standing immediately over Bideawhile's shoulder. At that moment there was a knock at the door,--a very distinct, and, we may say, a formal knock. There are those who knock and immediately enter without waiting for the sanction asked. Had he who knocked done so on this occasion Mr. Bideawhile would have been found still on his knees, with his nose down to the level of the keyhole. But the intruder did not intrude rapidly, and the lawyer jumped on to his feet, almost upsetting Dolly with the effort. There was a pause, during which Mr. Bideawhile moved away from the table,--as he might have done had he been picking a lock;--and then Mr. Longestaffe bade the stranger come in with a sepulchral voice. The door was opened, and Mr. Melmotte appeared. Now Mr. Melmotte's presence certainly had not been expected. It was known that it was his habit to be in the City at this hour. It was known also that he was well aware that this meeting was to be held in this room at this special hour,--and he might well have surmised with what view. There was now declared hostility between both the Longestaffes and Mr. Melmotte, and it certainly was supposed by all the gentlemen concerned that he would not have put himself out of the way to meet them on this occasion. "Gentlemen," he said, "perhaps you think that I am intruding at the present moment." No one said that he did not think so. The elder Longestaffe simply bowed very coldly. Mr. Bideawhile stood upright and thrust his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets. Dolly, who at first forgot to take his hat off, whistled a bar, and then turned a pirouette on his heel. That was his mode of expressing his thorough surprise at the appearance of his debtor. "I fear that you do think I am intruding," said Melmotte, "but I trust that what I have to say will be held to excuse me. I see, sir," he said, turning to Mr. Longestaffe, and glancing at the still open drawer, "that you have been examining your desk. I hope that you will be more careful in locking it than you were when you left it before." "The drawer was locked when I left it," said Mr. Longestaffe. "I make no deductions and draw no conclusions, but the drawer was locked." "Then I should say it must have been locked when you returned to it." "No, sir, I found it open. I make no deductions and draw no conclusions,--but I left it locked and I found it open." "I should make a deduction and draw a conclusion," said Dolly; "and that would be that somebody else had opened it." "This can answer no purpose at all," said Bideawhile. "It was but a chance remark," said Melmotte. "I did not come here out of the City at very great personal inconvenience to myself to squabble about the lock of the drawer. As I was informed that you three gentlemen would be here together, I thought the opportunity a suitable one for meeting you and making you an offer about this unfortunate business." He paused a moment; but neither of the three spoke. It did occur to Dolly to ask them to wait while he should fetch Squercum; but on second thoughts he reflected that a great deal of trouble would have to be taken, and probably for no good. "Mr. Bideawhile, I believe," suggested Melmotte; and the lawyer bowed his head. "If I remember rightly I wrote to you offering to pay the money due to your clients--" "Squercum is my lawyer," said Dolly. "That will make no difference." "It makes a deal of difference," said Dolly. "I wrote," continued Melmotte, "offering my bills at three and six months' date." "They couldn't be accepted, Mr. Melmotte." "I would have allowed interest. I never have had my bills refused before." "You must be aware, Mr. Melmotte," said the lawyer, "that the sale of a property is not like an ordinary mercantile transaction in which bills are customarily given and taken. The understanding was that money should be paid in the usual way. And when we learned, as we did learn, that the property had been at once mortgaged by you, of course we became,--well, I think I may be justified in saying more than suspicious. It was a most,--most--unusual proceeding. You say you have another offer to make, Mr. Melmotte." "Of course I have been short of money. I have had enemies whose business it has been for some time past to run down my credit, and, with my credit, has fallen the value of stocks in which it has been known that I have been largely interested. I tell you the truth openly. When I purchased Pickering I had no idea that the payment of such a sum of money could inconvenience me in the least. When the time came at which I should pay it, stocks were so depreciated that it was impossible to sell. Very hostile proceedings are threatened against me now. Accusations are made, false as hell,"--Mr. Melmotte as he spoke raised his voice and looked round the room,--"but which at the present crisis may do me most cruel damage. I have come to say that, if you will undertake to stop proceedings which have been commenced in the City, I will have fifty thousand pounds,--which is the amount due to these two gentlemen,--ready for payment on Friday at noon." "I have taken no proceedings as yet," said Bideawhile. "It's Squercum," says Dolly. "Well, sir," continued Melmotte addressing Dolly, "let me assure you that if these proceedings are stayed the money will be forthcoming;--but if not, I cannot produce the money. I little thought two months ago that I should ever have to make such a statement in reference to such a sum as fifty thousand pounds. But so it is. To raise that money by Friday, I shall have to cripple my resources frightfully. It will be done at a terrible cost. But what Mr. Bideawhile says is true. I have no right to suppose that the purchase of this property should be looked upon as an ordinary commercial transaction. The money should have been paid,--and, if you will now take my word, the money shall be paid. But this cannot be done if I am made to appear before the Lord Mayor to-morrow. The accusations brought against me are damnably false. I do not know with whom they have originated. Whoever did originate them, they are damnably false. But unfortunately, false as they are, in the present crisis, they may be ruinous to me. Now gentlemen, perhaps you will give me an answer." Both the father and the lawyer looked at Dolly. Dolly was in truth the accuser through the mouthpiece of his attorney Squercum. It was at Dolly's instance that these proceedings were being taken. "I, on behalf of my client," said Mr. Bideawhile, "will consent to wait till Friday at noon." "I presume, Adolphus, that you will say as much," said the elder Longestaffe. Dolly Longestaffe was certainly not an impressionable person, but Melmotte's eloquence had moved even him. It was not that he was sorry for the man, but that at the present moment he believed him. Though he had been absolutely sure that Melmotte had forged his name or caused it to be forged,--and did not now go so far into the matter as to abandon that conviction,--he had been talked into crediting the reasons given for Melmotte's temporary distress, and also into a belief that the money would be paid on Friday. Something of the effect which Melmotte's false confessions had had upon Lord Nidderdale, they now also had on Dolly Longestaffe. "I'll ask Squercum, you know," he said. "Of course Mr. Squercum will act as you instruct him," said Bideawhile. "I'll ask Squercum. I'll go to him at once. I can't do any more than that. And upon my word, Mr. Melmotte, you've given me a great deal of trouble." Melmotte with a smile apologized. Then it was settled that they three should meet in that very room on Friday at noon, and that the payment should then be made,--Dolly stipulating that as his father would be attended by Bideawhile, so would he be attended by Squercum. To this Mr. Longestaffe senior yielded with a very bad grace.

Dolly's lawyer Mr. Squercum was all this time in a perfect fever of hard work and anxiety. He had been quite sharp enough to perceive the whole truth - he needed only to prove it. His enquiries in the city had convinced him that Melmotte did not have enough money to cover his liabilities. Squercum was quite sure that Melmotte was not a falling, but a fallen star. If such were the case, it would be the making of Squercum if he could appear as Melmotte's destroying angel. So Squercum raged among the Bideawhiles, who did not dare defy him - feeling that they had themselves blundered. "I suppose you give it up about the letter having been signed by my client," said Squercum to one of the Bideawhiles. "I give up nothing and I assert nothing," said he. "Whether the letter be genuine or not we had no reason to believe it to be otherwise. The young gentleman's signature is never very plain, and this one is about as alike as any other." "Would you let me look at it again, Mr. Bideawhile?" The letter was handed over. "He never could have written it had he tried ever so." "We are not generally on the lookout for forgeries in letters from our clients or our clients' sons." "Just so, Mr. Bideawhile. But Mr. Longestaffe had already told you that his son would not sign the letter. And after such a declaration as that, the letter - which is in itself a little irregular-" "I don't know that it's irregular at all." "Well, it didn't reach you direct from Mr. Longstaffe. And why he would wish to give up his title-deeds without getting anything for them-" "Excuse me, Mr. Squercum, but that's between Mr. Longestaffe and us." "Just so; but as Mr. Longestaffe and you have jeopardised my client's property it is natural that I should make a few remarks. I understand that you now do not insist that the signature is genuine." "I say nothing, Mr. Squercum. I think you'll find it very hard to prove that it's not genuine." "My client's oath, Mr. Bideawhile. And Mr. Longestaffe says that he locked the letter up in a drawer in the room which Melmotte occupied, and afterwards found the drawer open. I shall bring the matter before the Lord Mayor tomorrow, you know, and ask for an investigation into fraud." Then Mr. Squercum left and went straight to Mr. Bumby, a barrister well known in the City. Mr. Bumby thought that if a bill at three months could be had for Dolly's share of the property it might be better to take it. When Mr. Squercum suggested that the property itself might be recovered, no genuine sale having been made, Mr. Bumby shook his head. "Title-deeds give possession, Mr. Squercum. The company which has lent money to Melmotte on the title-deeds will not give them up. Take the bill; and if it is dishonoured run your chance of what you'll get out of the property." Two days later, three gentlemen met together in the study of the house in Bruton Street from which it was supposed that the letter had been taken. They were Mr. Longestaffe senior, Dolly Longestaffe, and Mr. Bideawhile. The house was still in Melmotte's possession, and although he and Mr. Longestaffe were no longer on friendly terms, he had agreed to a formal request for this meeting. It took place at eleven o'clock - a terribly early hour for Dolly. "By George, it's hardly worth having if one is to take all this trouble about it," Dolly had said to Lord Grasslough. He was the last to enter the room: neither Mr. Longestaffe nor Mr. Bideawhile had touched the drawer, or even the table. "Now, Mr. Longestaffe," said Mr. Bideawhile, "show us where you think you put the letter." "I don't think at all," said he. "I remember it." "I never signed it," said Dolly. "Nobody says you did, sir," rejoined the father angrily. "If you will condescend to listen we may perhaps arrive at the truth." "Now, Mr. Longestaffe," continued the lawyer, "let us see where you put the letter." The father very slowly opened the second drawer from the top, and took from it a bundle of folded papers. "There," said he, "the letter was on top of the envelope and they were the two first documents in the bundle." He added that he was quite certain that he had left the drawer locked. He also remembered that about this time Mr. Melmotte had been in the room with him when he had opened it, and locked it again. It was at that time that Mr. Melmotte had offered him a seat on the Board of the Mexican railway. "Of course he picked the lock, and stole the letter," said Dolly. "It's as plain as a pike-staff." "I am afraid that it falls short of evidence, however strong the suspicion may be," said the lawyer. "I am thinking how it would go before a jury." "What I want to know is how we are to get the money," said Dolly. "Squercum says-" "Adolphus, we don't want to know what Mr. Squercum says." "I don't see why not. Squercum knows what he's about. If it wasn't for Squercum we shouldn't know as much about it as we do." Squercum's name was odious to the elder Longestaffe. He hummed and hawed, and fumed and fretted about the room, shaking his head. "There's nothing more to be done here, sir, I suppose," said Dolly, putting on his hat. "Nothing more," said Mr. Bideawhile. "I thought it well that I should see in the presence of both of you exactly how the thing stood. I will see whether there is any sign of violence having been used." So saying he knelt down and carefully examined the lock. There was no "sign of violence." "Whoever has done it, did it very well," said Bideawhile. "Of course Melmotte did it," said Dolly. At that moment there was a knock at the door. The lawyer jumped on to his feet and moved away from the table. Mr. Longestaffe bade the stranger come in with a sepulchral voice; and Mr. Melmotte appeared. His presence had not been expected; he was usually in the City at this hour. "Gentlemen," he said, "perhaps you think that I am intruding." The elder Longestaffe bowed very coldly. Mr. Bideawhile thrust his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets. Dolly whistled a bar, and then turned a pirouette on his heel, as his way of expressing his surprise at the appearance of his debtor. "I trust that what I have to say will excuse me. I see, sir," said Melmotte, glancing at the still open drawer, "that you have been examining your desk. I hope that you will be more careful in locking it than you were when you left it before." "The drawer was locked when I left it," said Mr. Longestaffe. "Then I should say it must have been locked when you returned to it." "No, sir, I found it open. I make no deductions and draw no conclusions - but I left it locked and I found it open." "I should make a deduction and draw a conclusion," said Dolly; "and that would be that somebody else had opened it." "I did not come here out of the City at very great personal inconvenience to squabble about the lock," said Melmotte. "I thought this a good opportunity for meeting you and making you an offer about this unfortunate business." He paused a moment, but no one spoke. "Mr Bideawhile; if I remember rightly I wrote to you offering to pay the money due to your clients-" "Squercum is my lawyer," said Dolly. "That will make no difference." "It makes a deal of difference," said Dolly. "I wrote," continued Melmotte, "offering my bills at three and six months' date." "They couldn't be accepted, Mr. Melmotte." "I would have allowed interest. I have never had my bills refused before." "You must be aware, Mr. Melmotte," said the lawyer, "that the sale of a property is not like an ordinary mercantile transaction. The understanding was that money should be paid in the usual way. And when we learned that the property had been at once mortgaged by you, of course we became - well, I think I may be justified in saying more than suspicious. It was a most unusual proceeding." "Of course I have been short of money. I have had enemies whose business it has been to run down my credit, and with my credit has fallen the value of stocks in which I have invested. I tell you the truth openly. When I purchased Pickering I had no idea that the payment of such a sum could inconvenience me in the least. When the time came to pay, stocks were so depreciated that it was impossible to sell. Hostile proceedings are threatened against me now. Accusations are made, false as hell," - Mr. Melmotte raised his voice - "which may do me most cruel damage. I have come to say that, if you will stop proceedings which have been commenced in the City, I will have fifty thousand pounds ready for payment on Friday at noon." "I have taken no proceedings as yet," said Bideawhile. "It's Squercum," said Dolly. "Well, sir," continued Melmotte, addressing Dolly, "let me assure you that if these proceedings are stopped the money will be forthcoming; but if not, I cannot produce the money. I little thought two months ago that I should ever have to say that about such a small sum as fifty thousand pounds. But so it is. To raise that money by Friday, I shall have to cripple my resources frightfully. It will be done at a terrible cost. But the money shall be paid. But this cannot be done if I am made to appear before the Lord Mayor tomorrow. The accusations against me are damnably false; but, false as they are, they may be ruinous to me. Now gentlemen, perhaps you will give me an answer." Both the father and the lawyer looked at Dolly. "I, on behalf of my client," said Mr. Bideawhile, "will consent to wait till Friday at noon." "I presume, Adolphus, that you will agree," said the elder Longestaffe. Dolly Longestaffe had been moved by Melmotte's eloquence. It was not that he was sorry for the man: he was still sure that Melmotte had forged his name or caused it to be forged - but he had been talked into a belief that the money would be paid on Friday. "I'll ask Squercum, you know," he said. "Mr. Squercum will act as you instruct him," said Bideawhile. "I'll ask Squercum. I'll go to him at once. I can't do any more than that. And upon my word, Mr. Melmotte, you've given me a great deal of trouble." Melmotte with a smile apologized. It was settled that they three should meet in that very room on Friday at noon, and that the payment should then be made - Dolly stipulating that Squercum should also attend. To this Mr. Longestaffe senior yielded with a very bad grace.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 75: In Bruton Street

Ten days had passed since the meeting narrated in the last chapter,--ten days, during which Hetta's letter had been sent to her lover, but in which she had received no reply,--when two gentlemen met each other in a certain room in Liverpool, who were seen together in the same room in the early part of this chronicle. These were our young friend Paul Montague, and our not much older friend Hamilton K. Fisker. Melmotte had died on the 18th of July, and tidings of the event had been at once sent by telegraph to San Francisco. Some weeks before this Montague had written to his partner, giving his account of the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway Company,--describing its condition in England as he then believed it to be,--and urging Fisker to come over to London. On receipt of a message from his American correspondent he had gone down to Liverpool, and had there awaited Fisker's arrival, taking counsel with his friend Mr. Ramsbottom. In the mean time Hetta's letter was lying at the Beargarden, Paul having written from his club and having omitted to desire that the answer should be sent to his lodgings. Just at this moment things at the Beargarden were not well managed. They were indeed so ill managed that Paul never received that letter,--which would have had for him charms greater than those of any letter ever before written. "This is a terrible business," said Fisker, immediately on entering the room in which Montague was waiting him. "He was the last man I'd have thought would be cut up in that way." "He was utterly ruined." "He wouldn't have been ruined,--and couldn't have thought so if he'd known all he ought to have known. The South Central would have pulled him through a'most anything if he'd have understood how to play it." "We don't think much of the South Central here now," said Paul. "Ah;--that's because you've never above half spirit enough for a big thing. You nibble at it instead of swallowing it whole,--and then, of course, folks see that you're only nibbling. I thought that Melmotte would have had spirit." "There is, I fear, no doubt that he had committed forgery. It was the dread of detection as to that which drove him to destroy himself." "I call it dam clumsy from beginning to end;--dam clumsy. I took him to be a different man, and I feel more than half ashamed of myself because I trusted such a fellow. That chap Cohenlupe has got off with a lot of swag. Only think of Melmotte allowing Cohenlupe to get the better of him!" "I suppose the thing will be broken up now at San Francisco," suggested Paul. "Bu'st up at Frisco! Not if I know it. Why should it be bu'st up? D'you think we're all going to smash there because a fool like Melmotte blows his brains out in London?" "He took poison." "Or p'ison either. That's not just our way. I'll tell you what I'm going to do; and why I'm over here so uncommon sharp. These shares are at a'most nothing now in London. I'll buy every share in the market. I wired for as many as I dar'd, so as not to spoil our own game, and I'll make a clean sweep of every one of them. Bu'st up! I'm sorry for him because I thought him a biggish man;--but what he's done 'll just be the making of us over there. Will you get out of it, or will you come back to Frisco with me?" In answer to this Paul asserted most strenuously that he would not return to San Francisco, and, perhaps too ingenuously, gave his partner to understand that he was altogether sick of the great railway, and would under no circumstances have anything more to do with it. Fisker shrugged his shoulders, and was not displeased at the proposed rupture. He was prepared to deal fairly,--nay, generously,--by his partner, having recognised the wisdom of that great commercial rule which teaches us that honour should prevail among associates of a certain class; but he had fully convinced himself that Paul Montague was not a fit partner for Hamilton K. Fisker. Fisker was not only unscrupulous himself, but he had a thorough contempt for scruples in others. According to his theory of life, nine hundred and ninety-nine men were obscure because of their scruples, whilst the thousandth man predominated and cropped up into the splendour of commercial wealth because he was free from such bondage. He had his own theories, too, as to commercial honesty. That which he had promised to do he would do, if it was within his power. He was anxious that his bond should be good, and his word equally so. But the work of robbing mankind in gross by magnificently false representations, was not only the duty, but also the delight and the ambition of his life. How could a man so great endure a partnership with one so small as Paul Montague? "And now what about Winifrid Hurtle?" asked Fisker. "What makes you ask? She's in London." "Oh yes, I know she's in London, and Hurtle's at Frisco, swearing that he'll come after her. He would, only he hasn't got the dollars." "He's not dead then?" muttered Paul. "Dead!--no, nor likely to die. She'll have a bad time of it with him yet." "But she divorced him." "She got a Kansas lawyer to say so, and he's got a Frisco lawyer to say that there's nothing of the kind. She hasn't played her game badly neither, for she's had the handling of her own money, and has put it so that he can't get hold of a dollar. Even if it suited other ways, you know, I wouldn't marry her myself till I saw my way clearer out of the wood." "I'm not thinking of marrying her,--if you mean that." "There was a talk about it in Frisco;--that's all. And I have heard Hurtle say when he was a little farther gone than usual that she was here with you, and that he meant to drop in on you some of these days." To this Paul made no answer, thinking that he had now both heard enough and said enough about Mrs. Hurtle. On the following day the two men, who were still partners, went together to London, and Fisker immediately became immersed in the arrangement of Melmotte's affairs. He put himself into communication with Mr. Brehgert, went in and out of the offices in Abchurch Lane and the rooms which had belonged to the Railway Company, cross-examined Croll, mastered the books of the Company as far as they were to be mastered, and actually summoned both the Grendalls, father and son, up to London. Lord Alfred, and Miles with him, had left London a day or two before Melmotte's death,--having probably perceived that there was no further occasion for their services. To Fisker's appeal Lord Alfred was proudly indifferent. Who was this American that he should call upon a director of the London Company to appear? Does not every one know that a director of a company need not direct unless he pleases? Lord Alfred, therefore, did not even condescend to answer Fisker's letter;--but he advised his son to run up to town. "I should just go, because I'd taken a salary from the d---- Company," said the careful father, "but when there I wouldn't say a word." So Miles Grendall, obeying his parent, reappeared upon the scene. But Fisker's attention was perhaps most usefully and most sedulously paid to Madame Melmotte and her daughter. Till Fisker arrived no one had visited them in their solitude at Hampstead, except Croll, the clerk. Mr. Brehgert had abstained, thinking that a widow, who had become a widow under such terrible circumstances, would prefer to be alone. Lord Nidderdale had made his adieux, and felt that he could do no more. It need hardly be said that Lord Alfred had too much good taste to interfere at such a time, although for some months he had been domestically intimate with the poor woman, or that Sir Felix would not be prompted by the father's death to renew his suit to the daughter. But Fisker had not been two days in London before he went out to Hampstead, and was admitted to Madame Melmotte's presence;--and he had not been there four days before he was aware that in spite of all misfortunes, Marie Melmotte was still the undoubted possessor of a large fortune. In regard to Melmotte's effects generally the Crown had been induced to abstain from interfering,--giving up the right to all the man's plate and chairs and tables which it had acquired by the finding of the coroner's verdict,--not from tenderness to Madame Melmotte, for whom no great commiseration was felt, but on behalf of such creditors as poor Mr. Longestaffe and his son. But Marie's money was quite distinct from this. She had been right in her own belief as to this property, and had been right, too, in refusing to sign those papers,--unless it may be that that refusal led to her father's act. She herself was sure that it was not so, because she had withdrawn her refusal, and had offered to sign the papers before her father's death. What might have been the ultimate result had she done so when he first made the request, no one could now say. That the money would have gone there could be no doubt. The money was now hers,--a fact which Fisker soon learned with that peculiar cleverness which belonged to him. Poor Madame Melmotte felt the visits of the American to be a relief to her in her misery. The world makes great mistakes as to that which is and is not beneficial to those whom Death has bereaved of a companion. It may be, no doubt sometimes it is the case, that grief shall be so heavy, so absolutely crushing, as to make any interference with it an additional trouble, and this is felt also in acute bodily pain, and in periods of terrible mental suffering. It may also be, and, no doubt, often is the case, that the bereaved one chooses to affect such overbearing sorrow, and that friends abstain, because even such affectation has its own rights and privileges. But Madame Melmotte was neither crushed by grief nor did she affect to be so crushed. She had been numbed by the suddenness and by the awe of the catastrophe. The man who had been her merciless tyrant for years, who had seemed to her to be a very incarnation of cruel power, had succumbed, and shown himself to be powerless against his own misfortunes. She was a woman of very few words, and had spoken almost none on this occasion even to her own daughter; but when Fisker came to her, and told her more than she had ever known before of her husband's affairs, and spoke to her of her future life, and mixed for her a small glass of brandy-and-water warm, and told her that Frisco would be the fittest place for her future residence, she certainly did not find him to be intrusive. And even Marie liked Fisker, though she had been wooed and almost won both by a lord and a baronet, and had understood, if not much, at least more than her mother, of the life to which she had been introduced. There was something of real sorrow in her heart for her father. She was prone to love,--though, perhaps, not prone to deep affection. Melmotte had certainly been often cruel to her, but he had also been very indulgent. And as she had never been specially grateful for the one, so neither had she ever specially resented the other. Tenderness, care, real solicitude for her well-being, she had never known, and had come to regard the unevenness of her life, vacillating between knocks and knick-knacks, with a blow one day and a jewel the next, as the condition of things which was natural to her. When her father was dead she remembered for a while the jewels and the knick-knacks, and forgot the knocks and blows. But she was not beyond consolation, and she also found consolation in Mr. Fisker's visits. "I used to sign a paper every quarter," she said to Fisker, as they were walking together one evening in the lanes round Hampstead. "You'll have to do the same now, only instead of giving the paper to any one you'll have to leave it in a banker's hands to draw the money for yourself." "And can that be done over in California?" "Just the same as here. Your bankers will manage it all for you without the slightest trouble. For the matter of that I'll do it, if you'll trust me. There's only one thing against it all, Miss Melmotte." "And what's that?" "After the sort of society you've been used to here, I don't know how you'll get on among us Americans. We're a pretty rough lot, I guess. Though, perhaps, what you lose in the look of the fruit, you'll make up in the flavour." This Fisker said in a somewhat plaintive tone, as though fearing that the manifest substantial advantages of Frisco would not suffice to atone for the loss of that fashion to which Miss Melmotte had been used. "I hate swells," said Marie, flashing round upon him. "Do you now?" "Like poison. What's the use of 'em? They never mean a word that they say,--and they don't say so many words either. They're never more than half awake, and don't care the least about anybody. I hate London." "Do you now?" "Oh, don't I?" "I wonder whether you'd hate Frisco?" "I rather think it would be a jolly sort of place." "Very jolly I find it. And I wonder whether you'd hate--me?" "Mr. Fisker, that's nonsense. Why should I hate anybody?" "But you do. I've found out one or two that you don't love. If you do come to Frisco, I hope you won't just hate me, you know." Then he took her gently by the arm;--but she, whisking herself away rapidly, bade him behave himself. Then they returned to their lodgings, and Mr. Fisker, before he went back to London, mixed a little warm brandy-and-water for Madame Melmotte. I think that upon the whole Madame Melmotte was more comfortable at Hampstead than she had been either in Grosvenor Square or Bruton Street, although she was certainly not a thing beautiful to look at in her widow's weeds. "I don't think much of you as a book-keeper, you know," Fisker said to Miles Grendall in the now almost deserted Board-room of the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway. Miles, remembering his father's advice, answered not a word, but merely looked with assumed amazement at the impertinent stranger who dared thus to censure his performances. Fisker had made three or four remarks previous to this, and had appealed both to Paul Montague and to Croll, who were present. He had invited also the attendance of Sir Felix Carbury, Lord Nidderdale, and Mr. Longestaffe, who were all Directors;--but none of them had come. Sir Felix had paid no attention to Fisker's letter. Lord Nidderdale had written a short but characteristic reply. "Dear Mr. Fisker,--I really don't know anything about it. Yours, Nidderdale." Mr. Longestaffe, with laborious zeal, had closely covered four pages with his reasons for non-attendance, with which the reader shall not be troubled, and which it may be doubted whether even Fisker perused to the end. "Upon my word," continued Fisker, "it's astonishing to me that Melmotte should have put up with this kind of thing. I suppose you understand something of business, Mr. Croll?" "It vas not my department, Mr. Fisker," said the German. "Nor anybody else's either," said the domineering American. "Of course it's on the cards, Mr. Grendall, that we shall have to put you into a witness-box, because there are certain things we must get at." Miles was silent as the grave, but at once made up his mind that he would pass his autumn at some pleasant but economical German retreat, and that his autumnal retirement should be commenced within a very few days;--or perhaps hours might suffice. But Fisker was not in earnest in his threat. In truth the greater the confusion in the London office, the better, he thought, were the prospects of the Company at San Francisco. Miles underwent purgatory on this occasion for three or four hours, and when dismissed had certainly revealed none of Melmotte's secrets. He did, however, go to Germany, finding that a temporary absence from England would be comfortable to him in more respects than one,--and need not be heard of again in these pages. When Melmotte's affairs were ultimately wound up there was found to be nearly enough of property to satisfy all his proved liabilities. Very many men started up with huge claims, asserting that they had been robbed, and in the confusion it was hard to ascertain who had been robbed, or who had simply been unsuccessful in their attempts to rob others. Some, no doubt, as was the case with poor Mr. Brehgert, had speculated in dependence on Melmotte's sagacity, and had lost heavily without dishonesty. But of those who, like the Longestaffes, were able to prove direct debts, the condition at last was not very sad. Our excellent friend Dolly got his money early in the day, and was able, under Mr. Squercum's guidance, to start himself on a new career. Having paid his debts, and with still a large balance at his bankers', he assured his friend Nidderdale that he meant to turn over an entirely new leaf. "I shall just make Squercum allow me so much a month, and I shall have all the bills and that kind of thing sent to him, and he will do everything, and pull me up if I'm getting wrong. I like Squercum." "Won't he rob you, old fellow?" suggested Nidderdale. "Of course he will;--but he won't let any one else do it. One has to be plucked, but it's everything to have it done on a system. If he'll only let me have ten shillings out of every sovereign I think I can get along." Let us hope that Mr. Squercum was merciful, and that Dolly was enabled to live in accordance with his virtuous resolutions. But these things did not arrange themselves till late in the winter,--long after Mr. Fisker's departure for California. That, however, was protracted till a day much later than he had anticipated before he had become intimate with Madame Melmotte and Marie. Madame Melmotte's affairs occupied him for a while almost exclusively. The furniture and plate were of course sold for the creditors, but Madame Melmotte was allowed to take whatever she declared to be specially her own property;--and, though much was said about the jewels, no attempt was made to recover them. Marie advised Madame Melmotte to give them up, assuring the old woman that she should have whatever she wanted for her maintenance. But it was not likely that Melmotte's widow would willingly abandon any property, and she did not abandon her jewels. It was agreed between her and Fisker that they were to be taken to New York. "You'll get as much there as in London, if you like to part with them; and nobody 'll say anything about it there. You couldn't sell a locket or a chain here without all the world talking about it." In all these things Madame Melmotte put herself into Fisker's hands with the most absolute confidence,--and, indeed, with a confidence that was justified by its results. It was not by robbing an old woman that Fisker intended to make himself great. To Madame Melmotte's thinking, Fisker was the finest gentleman she had ever met,--so infinitely pleasanter in his manner than Lord Alfred even when Lord Alfred had been most gracious, with so much more to say for himself than Miles Grendall, understanding her so much better than any man had ever done,--especially when he supplied her with those small warm beakers of sweet brandy-and-water. "I shall do whatever he tells me," she said to Marie. "I'm sure I've nothing to keep me here in this country." "I'm willing to go," said Marie. "I don't want to stay in London." "I suppose you'll take him if he asks you?" "I don't know anything about that," said Marie. "A man may be very well without one's wanting to marry him. I don't think I'll marry anybody. What's the use? It's only money. Nobody cares for anything else. Fisker's all very well; but he only wants the money. Do you think Fisker'd ask me to marry him if I hadn't got anything? Not he! He ain't slow enough for that." "I think he's a very nice young man," said Madame Melmotte.

Ten days had passed since the meeting narrated in the last chapter - ten days, during which Hetta's letter had been sent to her lover, but to which she had received no reply - when two gentlemen met each other in Liverpool. These were our young friend Paul Montague, and our not much older friend Hamilton K. Fisker. News of Melmotte's death had been sent by telegraph to San Francisco. Some weeks earlier, Montague had written to Fisker about the condition of the Railway Company in England, urging him to come to London. On receiving a reply he had gone to Liverpool, taking counsel with his friend Mr. Ramsbottom, and had awaited Fisker's arrival. In the meantime Hetta's letter was lying at the Beargarden. Just at this moment things at the Beargarden were not well managed. They were indeed so ill managed that Paul never received that letter. "This is a terrible business," said Fisker, immediately on entering the room. "He was the last man I'd have thought would be cut up in that way." "He was utterly ruined." "The South Central would have pulled him through a'most anything if he'd understood how to play it." "We don't think much of the South Central here now," said Paul. "Ah; that's because you don't have spirit enough for a big thing. You nibble at it instead of swallowing it whole. I thought that Melmotte would have had spirit." "He had committed forgery. It was the dread of detection which drove him to kill himself." "I call it damn clumsy from beginning to end. Only think of Melmotte allowing Cohenlupe to get the better of him!" "I suppose the thing will be broken up now at San Francisco," suggested Paul. "Not if I know it. Why should it be? I'll tell you what I'm going to do. These shares are at a'most nothing now in London. I'll buy every share in the market. I'm sorry for him; but what he's done'll just be the making of us over there. Will you get out of it, or will you come back to Frisco with me?" Paul asserted that he would not return to San Francisco, that he was altogether sick of the great railway, and would have nothing more to do with it. Fisker shrugged his shoulders, and was not displeased. He had convinced himself that Paul Montague was not a fit partner. Fisker had a thorough contempt for scruples in others. The work of robbing mankind was not only the duty, but also the delight and the ambition of his life. "And what about Winifrid Hurtle?" he asked. "What makes you ask? She's in London." "Yes, I know; and Hurtle's at Frisco, swearing that he'll come after her, only he hasn't got the money." "He's not dead then?" muttered Paul. "Dead! no. She'll have a bad time of it with him yet." "But she divorced him." "She got a Kansas lawyer to say so, and he's got a Frisco lawyer to say that there's nothing of the kind. She hasn't played her game badly, for she's put it so that he can't get hold of a dollar. But I wouldn't marry her myself till I saw my way clearer out of the wood." "I'm not thinking of marrying her." "There was talk about it in Frisco; that's all. And I heard Hurtle say that he meant to drop in on you one of these days." On the following day the two men went together to London, and Fisker immediately became immersed in the arrangement of Melmotte's affairs. He talked to Mr. Brehgert, went in and out of the offices in Abchurch Lane, cross-examined Croll, mastered the books of the Company as far as they were to be mastered, and actually summoned both the Grendalls, father and son, up to London. Lord Alfred ignored the appeal, but advised his son to run up to town. "You should go, because you took a salary from the Company," said the careful father, "but don't say a word." So Miles Grendall reappeared upon the scene. But Fisker's attention was perhaps most usefully paid to Madame Melmotte and her daughter. No one had visited them in their solitude at Hampstead, except Croll, the clerk. Mr. Brehgert had abstained, thinking that the widow would prefer to be alone. Lord Nidderdale had made his adieux. But Fisker had not been two days in London before he was admitted to Madame Melmotte's presence; and he had not been there four days before he was aware that in spite of all misfortunes, Marie Melmotte was still the possessor of a large fortune. Marie's money had been found to be quite distinct from Melmotte's. She had been right in refusing to sign those papers - unless that refusal led to her father's act. She was sure that it was not so, because she had offered to sign the papers before her father's death. But the money was now hers. Poor Madame Melmotte felt the visits of the American to be a relief in her misery. She was not crushed by grief, but numbed by the suddenness and awe of the catastrophe. The man who had been her merciless tyrant for years had proved powerless against his own misfortunes. She was a woman of very few words; but when Fisker spoke to her of her husband's affairs, and her future life, and mixed her a small glass of brandy-and-water, and told her that Frisco would be the fittest place for her future residence, she did not find him to be intrusive. And even Marie liked Fisker, though she had been wooed and almost won both by a lord and a baronet. There was real sorrow in her heart for her father. She was prone to love, though, perhaps, not prone to deep affection. Melmotte had been often cruel to her, but he had also been very indulgent. She had never known real tenderness and care, and had come to regard a blow one day and a jewel the next as the natural condition of things. When her father was dead she remembered for a while the jewels, and forgot the blows. But she also found consolation in Mr. Fisker's visits. "I used to sign a paper every quarter," she said to Fisker, as they were walking together one evening in the lanes round Hampstead. "You'll have to do the same now, only leave it in a banker's hands to draw the money for yourself." "And can that be done over in California?" "Just the same as here. Your bankers will manage it for you without the slightest trouble. There's only one thing against it all, Miss Melmotte." "And what's that?" "After the sort of society you've been used to here, I don't know how you'll get on among us Americans. We're a pretty rough lot, I guess." "I hate swells," said Marie, flashing round upon him. "They never mean a word that they say. They're never more than half awake, and don't care the least about anybody. I hate London." "Do you now? I wonder whether you'd hate Frisco?" "I think it would be a jolly sort of place." "Very jolly I find it. And I wonder whether you'd hate - me?" "Mr. Fisker, that's nonsense. Why should I hate anybody?" "But if you come to Frisco, I hope you won't hate me, you know." He took her gently by the arm; but she bade him behave himself. Then they returned to their lodgings. "I don't think much of your book-keeping," Fisker said to Miles Grendall in the deserted Board-room of the Mexican Railway. Miles, remembering his father's advice, answered not a word, but merely looked with assumed amazement at the impertinent stranger. Fisker had made three or four remarks before this, and had appealed to Paul Montague and Croll, who were present. He had also invited Sir Felix Carbury, Lord Nidderdale, and Mr. Longestaffe, as Directors; but none of them had come. "Upon my word," continued Fisker, "it's astonishing that Melmotte should have put up with this kind of thing. I suppose you understand something of business, Mr. Croll?" "It vas not my department, Mr. Fisker," said the German. "Nor anybody else's either," said the American. "Of course it's on the cards, Mr. Grendall, that we shall have to put you into a witness-box, because there are certain things we must get at." Miles was silent as the grave, but at once made up his mind that he would pass his autumn at some pleasant but economical German retreat, and that this retirement should begin within a very few days; or perhaps hours. But Fisker was not in earnest. The greater the confusion in the London office, he thought, the better were the prospects of the Company at San Francisco. When Melmotte's affairs were ultimately wound up there was found to be nearly enough property to pay all his debts. It was hard to work out who had been robbed, or who had simply been unsuccessful in their attempts to rob others. Some, like poor Mr. Brehgert, had lost heavily without dishonesty. But those who, like the Longestaffes, were able to prove debts, were better off. Dolly got his money, and assured his friend Nidderdale that he meant to turn over a new leaf. "I shall just make Squercum allow me so much a month, and I shall have all the bills sent to him, and he will do everything, and pull me up if I'm getting wrong. I like Squercum." "Won't he rob you, old fellow?" suggested Nidderdale. "Of course he will; but he won't let anyone else do it." But these things did not arrange themselves till long after Mr. Fisker's departure for California. That was delayed while Madame Melmotte's affairs occupied him. The furniture and plate were sold, but Madame Melmotte was allowed to take whatever she declared to be her own property; and no attempt was made to recover the jewels. It was agreed with Fisker that they were to be taken to New York. "You'll get as much for them there as in London, if you like to part with them," he told her. In fact Madame Melmotte put herself into Fisker's hands with absolute confidence; and her confidence was justified. It was not by robbing an old woman that Fisker intended to make himself great. Madame Melmotte thought he was the finest gentleman she had ever met. "I shall do whatever he tells me," she said to Marie. "I'm sure I've nothing to keep me in this country." "I'm willing to go," said Marie. "I don't want to stay in London." "I suppose you'll marry him if he asks you?" "I don't know about that," said Marie. "I don't think I'll marry anybody. What's the use? It's only money. Nobody cares for anything else. Fisker's all very well; but he only wants the money." "I think he's a very nice young man," said Madame Melmotte.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 92: Hamilton K. Fisker Again

Mr. Alf's central committee-room was in Great George Street, and there the battle was kept alive all the day. It had been decided, as the reader has been told, that no direct advantage should be taken of that loud blast of accusation which had been heard throughout the town on the previous afternoon. There had not been sufficient time for inquiry as to the truth of that blast. If there were just ground for the things that had been said, Mr. Melmotte would no doubt soon be in gaol, or would be--wanted. Many had thought that he would escape as soon as the dinner was over, and had been disappointed when they heard that he had been seen walking down towards his own committee-room on the following morning. Others had been told that at the last moment his name would be withdrawn,--and a question arose as to whether he had the legal power to withdraw his name after a certain hour on the day before the ballot. An effort was made to convince a portion of the electors that he had withdrawn, or would have withdrawn, or should have withdrawn. When Melmotte was at Covent Garden, a large throng of men went to Whitehall Place with the view of ascertaining the truth. He certainly had made no attempt at withdrawal. They who propagated this report certainly damaged Mr. Alf's cause. A second reaction set in, and there grew a feeling that Mr. Melmotte was being ill-used. Those evil things had been said of him,--many at least so declared,--not from any true motive, but simply to secure Mr. Alf's return. Tidings of the speech in Covent Garden were spread about at the various polling places, and did good service to the so-called Conservative cause. Mr. Alf's friends, hearing all this, instigated him also to make a speech. Something should be said, if only that it might be reported in the newspapers, to show that they had behaved with generosity, instead of having injured their enemy by false attacks. Whatever Mr. Alf might say, he might at any rate be sure of a favourable reporter. About two o'clock in the day, Mr. Alf did make a speech,--and a very good speech it was, if correctly reported in the "Evening Pulpit." Mr. Alf was a clever man, ready at all points, with all his powers immediately at command, and, no doubt, he did make a good speech. But in this speech, in which we may presume that it would be his intention to convince the electors that they ought to return him to Parliament, because, of the two candidates, he was the fittest to represent their views, he did not say a word as to his own political ideas, not, indeed, a word that could be accepted as manifesting his own fitness for the place which it was his ambition to fill. He contented himself with endeavouring to show that the other man was not fit;--and that he and his friends, though solicitous of proving to the electors that Mr. Melmotte was about the most unfit man in the world, had been guilty of nothing shabby in their manner of doing so. "Mr. Melmotte," he said, "comes before you as a Conservative, and has told us, by the mouths of his friends,--for he has not favoured us with many words of his own,--that he is supported by the whole Conservative party. That party is not my party, but I respect it. Where, however, are these Conservative supporters? We have heard, till we are sick of it, of the banquet which Mr. Melmotte gave yesterday. I am told that very few of those whom he calls his Conservative friends could be induced to attend that banquet. It is equally notorious that the leading merchants of the City refused to grace the table of this great commercial prince. I say that the leaders of the Conservative party have at last found their candidate out, have repudiated him;--and are seeking now to free themselves from the individual shame of having supported the candidature of such a man by remaining in their own houses instead of clustering round the polling booths. Go to Mr. Melmotte's committee-room and inquire if those leading Conservatives be there. Look about, and see whether they are walking with him in the streets, or standing with him in public places, or taking the air with him in the parks. I respect the leaders of the Conservative party; but they have made a mistake in this matter, and they know it." Then he ended by alluding to the rumours of yesterday. "I scorn," said he, "to say anything against the personal character of a political opponent, which I am not in a position to prove. I make no allusion, and have made no allusion, to reports which were circulated yesterday about him, and which I believe were originated in the City. They may be false or they may be true. As I know nothing of the matter, I prefer to regard them as false, and I recommend you to do the same. But I declared to you long before these reports were in men's mouths, that Mr. Melmotte was not entitled by his character to represent you in parliament, and I repeat that assertion. A great British merchant, indeed! How long, do you think, should a man be known in this city before that title be accorded to him? Who knew aught of this man two years since,--unless, indeed, it be some one who had burnt his wings in trafficking with him in some continental city? Ask the character of this great British merchant in Hamburg and Vienna; ask it in Paris;--ask those whose business here has connected them with the assurance companies of foreign countries, and you will be told whether this is a fit man to represent Westminster in the British parliament!" There was much more yet; but such was the tone of the speech which Mr. Alf made with the object of inducing the electors to vote for himself. At two or three o'clock in the day, nobody knew how the matter was going. It was supposed that the working-classes were in favour of Melmotte, partly from their love of a man who spends a great deal of money, partly from the belief that he was being ill-used,--partly, no doubt, from that occult sympathy which is felt for crime, when the crime committed is injurious to the upper classes. Masses of men will almost feel that a certain amount of injustice ought to be inflicted on their betters, so as to make things even, and will persuade themselves that a criminal should be declared to be innocent, because the crime committed has had a tendency to oppress the rich and pull down the mighty from their seats. Some few years since, the basest calumnies that were ever published in this country, uttered by one of the basest men that ever disgraced the country, levelled, for the most part, at men of whose characters and services the country was proud, were received with a certain amount of sympathy by men not themselves dishonest, because they who were thus slandered had received so many good things from Fortune, that a few evil things were thought to be due to them. There had not as yet been time for the formation of such a feeling generally, in respect of Mr. Melmotte. But there was a commencement of it. It had been asserted that Melmotte was a public robber. Whom had he robbed? Not the poor. There was not a man in London who caused the payment of a larger sum in weekly wages than Mr. Melmotte. About three o'clock, the editor of the "Morning Breakfast Table" called on Lady Carbury. "What is it all about?" she asked, as soon as her friend was seated. There had been no time for him to explain anything at Madame Melmotte's reception, and Lady Carbury had as yet failed in learning any certain news of what was going on. "I don't know what to make of it," said Mr. Broune. "There is a story abroad that Mr. Melmotte has forged some document with reference to a purchase he made,--and hanging on to that story are other stories as to moneys that he has raised. I should say that it was simply an electioneering trick, and a very unfair trick, were it not that all his own side seem to believe it." "Do you believe it?" "Ah,--I could answer almost any question sooner than that." "Then he can't be rich at all." "Even that would not follow. He has such large concerns in hand that he might be very much pressed for funds, and yet be possessed of immense wealth. Everybody says that he pays all his bills." "Will he be returned?" she asked. "From what we hear, we think not. I shall know more about it in an hour or two. At present I should not like to have to publish an opinion; but were I forced to bet, I would bet against him. Nobody is doing anything for him. There can be no doubt that his own party are ashamed of him. As things used to be, this would have been fatal to him at the day of election; but now, with the ballot, it won't matter so much. If I were a candidate, at present, I think I would go to bed on the last day, and beg all my committee to do the same as soon as they had put in their voting papers." "I am glad Felix did not go to Liverpool," said Lady Carbury. "It would not have made much difference. She would have been brought back all the same. They say Lord Nidderdale still means to marry her." "I saw him talking to her last night." "There must be an immense amount of property somewhere. No one doubts that he was rich when he came to England two years ago, and they say everything has prospered that he has put his hand to since. The Mexican Railway shares had fallen this morning, but they were at 15 premium yesterday morning. He must have made an enormous deal out of that." But Mr. Broune's eloquence on this occasion was chiefly displayed in regard to the presumption of Mr. Alf. "I shouldn't think him such a fool if he had announced his resignation of the editorship when he came before the world as a candidate for parliament. But a man must be mad who imagines that he can sit for Westminster and edit a London daily paper at the same time." "Has it never been done?" "Never, I think;--that is, by the editor of such a paper as the 'Pulpit.' How is a man who sits in parliament himself ever to pretend to discuss the doings of parliament with impartiality? But Alf believes that he can do more than anybody else ever did, and he'll come to the ground. Where's Felix now?" "Do not ask me," said the poor mother. "Is he doing anything?" "He lies in bed all day, and is out all night." "But that wants money." She only shook her head. "You do not give him any?" "I have none to give." "I should simply take the key of the house from him,--or bolt the door if he will not give it up." "And be in bed, and listen while he knocks,--knowing that he must wander in the streets if I refuse to let him in? A mother cannot do that, Mr. Broune. A child has such a hold upon his mother. When her reason has bade her to condemn him, her heart will not let her carry out the sentence." Mr. Broune never now thought of kissing Lady Carbury; but when she spoke thus, he got up and took her hand, and she, as she pressed his hand, had no fear that she would be kissed. The feeling between them was changed. Melmotte dined at home that evening with no company but that of his wife and daughter. Latterly one of the Grendalls had almost always joined their party when they did not dine out. Indeed, it was an understood thing, that Miles Grendall should dine there always, unless he explained his absence by some engagement,--so that his presence there had come to be considered as a part of his duty. Not unfrequently "Alfred" and Miles would both come, as Melmotte's dinners and wines were good, and occasionally the father would take the son's place,--but on this day they were both absent. Madame Melmotte had not as yet said a word to any one indicating her own apprehension of any evil. But not a person had called to-day,--the day after the great party,--and even she, though she was naturally callous in such matters, had begun to think that she was deserted. She had, too, become so used to the presence of the Grendalls, that she now missed their company. She thought that on this day, of all days, when the world was balloting for her husband at Westminster, they would both have been with him to discuss the work of the day. "Is not Mr. Grendall coming?" she asked, as she took her seat at the table. "No, he is not," said Melmotte. "Nor Lord Alfred?" "Nor Lord Alfred." Melmotte had returned home much comforted by the day's proceedings. No one had dared to say a harsh word to his face. Nothing further had reached his ears. After leaving the bank he had gone back to his office, and had written letters,--just as if nothing had happened; and, as far as he could judge, his clerks had plucked up courage. One of them, about five o'clock, came into him with news from the west, and with second editions of the evening papers. The clerk expressed his opinion that the election was going well. Mr. Melmotte, judging from the papers, one of which was supposed to be on his side and the other of course against him, thought that his affairs altogether were looking well. The Westminster election had not the foremost place in his thoughts; but he took what was said on that subject as indicating the minds of men upon the other matter. He read Alf's speech, and consoled himself with thinking that Mr. Alf had not dared to make new accusations against him. All that about Hamburgh and Vienna and Paris was as old as the hills, and availed nothing. His whole candidature had been carried in the face of that. "I think we shall do pretty well," he said to the clerk. His very presence in Abchurch Lane of course gave confidence. And thus, when he came home, something of the old arrogance had come back upon him, and he could swagger at any rate before his wife and servants. "Nor Lord Alfred," he said with scorn. Then he added more. "The father and son are two d---- curs." This of course frightened Madame Melmotte, and she joined this desertion of the Grendalls to her own solitude all the day. "Is there anything wrong, Melmotte?" she said afterwards, creeping up to him in the back parlour, and speaking in French. "What do you call wrong?" "I don't know;--but I seem to be afraid of something." "I should have thought you were used to that kind of feeling by this time." "Then there is something." "Don't be a fool. There is always something. There is always much. You don't suppose that this kind of thing can be carried on as smoothly as the life of an old maid with 400 a year paid quarterly in advance." "Shall we have to--move again?" she asked. "How am I to tell? You haven't much to do when we move, and may get plenty to eat and drink wherever you go. Does that girl mean to marry Lord Nidderdale?" Madame Melmotte shook her head. "What a poor creature you must be when you can't talk her out of a fancy for such a reprobate as young Carbury. If she throws me over, I'll throw her over. I'll flog her within an inch of her life if she disobeys me. You tell her that I say so." "Then he may flog me," said Marie, when so much of the conversation was repeated to her that evening. "Papa does not know me if he thinks that I'm to be made to marry a man by flogging." No such attempt was at any rate made that night, for the father and husband did not again see his wife or daughter. Early the next day a report was current that Mr. Alf had been returned. The numbers had not as yet been counted, or the books made up;--but that was the opinion expressed. All the morning newspapers, including the "Breakfast Table," repeated this report,--but each gave it as the general opinion on the matter. The truth would not be known till seven or eight o'clock in the evening. The Conservative papers did not scruple to say that the presumed election of Mr. Alf was owing to a sudden declension in the confidence originally felt in Mr. Melmotte. The "Breakfast Table," which had supported Mr. Melmotte's candidature, gave no reason, and expressed more doubt on the result than the other papers. "We know not how such an opinion forms itself," the writer said;--"but it seems to have been formed. As nothing as yet is really known, or can be known, we express no opinion of our own upon the matter." Mr. Melmotte again went into the City, and found that things seemed to have returned very much into their usual grooves. The Mexican Railway shares were low, and Mr. Cohenlupe was depressed in spirits and unhappy;--but nothing dreadful had occurred or seemed to be threatened. If nothing dreadful did occur, the railway shares would probably recover, or nearly recover, their position. In the course of the day, Melmotte received a letter from Messrs. Slow and Bideawhile, which, of itself, certainly contained no comfort;--but there was comfort to be drawn even from that letter, by reason of what it did not contain. The letter was unfriendly in its tone and peremptory. It had come evidently from a hostile party. It had none of the feeling which had hitherto prevailed in the intercourse between these two well-known Conservative gentlemen, Mr. Adolphus Longestaffe and Mr. Augustus Melmotte. But there was no allusion in it to forgery; no question of criminal proceedings; no hint at aught beyond the not unnatural desire of Mr. Longestaffe and Mr. Longestaffe's son to be paid for the property at Pickering which Mr. Melmotte had purchased. "We have to remind you," said the letter, in continuation of paragraphs which had contained simply demands for the money, "that the title-deeds were delivered to you on receipt by us of authority to that effect from the Messrs. Longestaffe, father and son, on the understanding that the purchase-money was to be at once paid to us by you. We are informed that the property has been since mortgaged by you. We do not state this as a fact. But the information, whether true or untrue, forces upon us the necessity of demanding that you should at once pay to us the purchase-money,--80,000,--or else return to us the title-deeds of the estate." This letter, which was signed Slow and Bideawhile, declared positively that the title-deeds had been given up on authority received by them from both the Longestaffes,--father and son. Now the accusation brought against Melmotte, as far as he could as yet understand it, was that he had forged the signature to the young Mr. Longestaffe's letter. Messrs. Slow and Bideawhile were therefore on his side. As to the simple debt, he cared little comparatively about that. Many fine men were walking about London who owed large sums of money which they could not pay. As he was sitting at his solitary dinner this evening,--for both his wife and daughter had declined to join him, saying that they had dined early,--news was brought to him that he had been elected for Westminster. He had beaten Mr. Alf by something not much less than a thousand votes. It was very much to be member for Westminster. So much had at any rate been achieved by him who had begun the world without a shilling and without a friend,--almost without education! Much as he loved money, and much as he loved the spending of money, and much as he had made and much as he had spent, no triumph of his life had been so great to him as this. Brought into the world in a gutter, without father or mother, with no good thing ever done for him, he was now a member of the British Parliament, and member for one of the first cities in the empire. Ignorant as he was he understood the magnitude of the achievement, and dismayed as he was as to his present position, still at this moment he enjoyed keenly a certain amount of elation. Of course he had committed forgery;--of course he had committed robbery. That, indeed, was nothing, for he had been cheating and forging and stealing all his life. Of course he was in danger of almost immediate detection and punishment. He hardly hoped that the evil day would be very much longer protracted, and yet he enjoyed his triumph. Whatever they might do, quick as they might be, they could hardly prevent his taking his seat in the House of Commons. Then if they sent him to penal servitude for life, they would have to say that they had so treated the member for Westminster! He drank a bottle of claret, and then got some brandy-and-water. In such troubles as were coming upon him now, he would hardly get sufficient support from wine. He knew that he had better not drink;--that is, he had better not drink, supposing the world to be free to him for his own work and his own enjoyment. But if the world were no longer free to him, if he were really coming to penal servitude and annihilation,--then why should he not drink while the time lasted? An hour of triumphant joy might be an eternity to a man, if the man's imagination were strong enough to make him so regard his hour. He therefore took his brandy-and-water freely, and as he took it he was able to throw his fears behind him, and to assure himself that, after all, he might even yet escape from his bondages. No;--he would drink no more. This he said to himself as he filled another beaker. He would work instead. He would put his shoulder to the wheel, and would yet conquer his enemies. It would not be so easy to convict a member for Westminster,--especially if money were spent freely. Was he not the man who, at his own cost, had entertained the Emperor of China? Would not that be remembered in his favour? Would not men be unwilling to punish the man who had received at his own table all the Princes of the land, and the Prime Minister, and all the Ministers? To convict him would be a national disgrace. He fully realised all this as he lifted the glass to his mouth, and puffed out the smoke in large volumes through his lips. But money must be spent! Yes;--money must be had! Cohenlupe certainly had money. Though he squeezed it out of the coward's veins he would have it. At any rate, he would not despair. There was a fight to be fought yet, and he would fight it to the end. Then he took a deep drink, and slowly, with careful and almost solemn steps, he made his way up to his bed.

Mr. Alf's central committee-room was in Great George Street, and there the battle was kept alive all day. It had been decided that no direct advantage should be taken of the rumour, for there had not been enough time to ascertain its truth. If it was true, Mr. Melmotte would no doubt soon be in jail. Many had thought that he would escape as soon as the dinner was over, and had been disappointed when they heard that he had been seen walking towards his own committee-room on the following morning. An effort was made to convince some electors that he had withdrawn. When Melmotte was at Covent Garden, a large throng of men went to Whitehall Place to inquire, and found that he had made no attempt at withdrawal. They who propagated this report certainly damaged Mr. Alf's cause. A feeling grew that Mr. Melmotte was being ill-used. Those evil things had been said - many declared - simply to secure Mr. Alf's success in the election. News of the speech in Covent Garden spread, and did good service to the Conservative cause. Mr. Alf's friends, hearing this, urged him also to make a speech. Something should be said, if only that it might be reported in the newspapers, to show that they had behaved generously to their enemy. At about two o'clock, Mr. Alf did make a speech - and a very good speech it was, if correctly reported in the Evening Pulpit. But in this speech he did not say a word about his own political ideas, nor even about his own fitness to be a Member of Parliament. Instead, he tried to show that the other man was not fit; and that he and his friends, in wishing to prove Mr. Melmotte's unfitness, had been guilty of nothing shabby. "Mr. Melmotte," he said, "comes before you as a Conservative, and has told us that he is supported by the whole Conservative party. Where, however, are these Conservative supporters? We have heard, till we are sick of it, of the banquet which Mr. Melmotte gave yesterday. I am told that very few of his Conservative friends could be induced to attend that banquet. The leading merchants of the City refused to grace his table. I say that the leaders of the Conservative party are ashamed of this candidate. Where are they? Look about, and see whether they are walking with him in the streets, or standing with him in public places. They have made a mistake, and they know it." He ended by alluding to the rumours of yesterday. "I make no allusion to reports which circulated yesterday, and which I believe originated in the City. They may be false or they may be true. But I declared to you long ago that Melmotte was not fit to represent you in parliament. A great British merchant, indeed! Who knew anything of this man two years ago? Ask about him in Hamburg or Vienna or Paris; and you will be told whether this is a fit man to represent Westminster in the British parliament!" This was the tone of Mr. Alf's speech. At two or three o'clock, nobody knew how the ballot was going. It was supposed that the working-classes were in favour of Melmotte, partly from their love of a man who spends a great deal of money, partly from the belief that he was being ill-used by the upper classes. It had been asserted that Melmotte was a public robber. Whom had he robbed? Not the poor. There was not a man in London who caused the payment of a larger sum in weekly wages than Mr. Melmotte. About three o'clock, the editor of the Morning Breakfast Table called on Lady Carbury. "What is it all about?" she asked. "I don't know what to make of it," said Mr. Broune. "There is a story abroad that Mr. Melmotte has forged some document - and there are other stories about money that he has raised. I should say that it was simply an unfair electioneering trick, were it not that all his own side seem to believe it." "Do you believe it?" "I don't know." "Then he can't be rich at all." "Even that would not follow. He has such large concerns in hand that he might be very much pressed for funds, and yet be possessed of immense wealth. Everybody says that he pays all his bills." "Will he be elected?" she asked. "At present I would bet against him. Nobody is doing anything for him. There can be no doubt that his own party are ashamed of him." "I am glad Felix did not go to Liverpool," said Lady Carbury. "It would not have made much difference. She would have been brought back all the same. They say Lord Nidderdale still means to marry her. There must be an immense amount of property somewhere. No one doubts that he was rich when he came to England two years ago, and the Mexican Railway shares were at 15 premium yesterday morning, though they have fallen since. He must have made an enormous amount out of that." But Mr. Broune was more scathing about Mr. Alf. "A man must be mad who imagines that he can sit for Westminster and edit a London daily paper at the same time. A man who sits in parliament cannot pretend to discuss the doings of parliament with impartiality. Where is Felix now?" "Do not ask me," said the poor mother. "He lies in bed all day, and is out all night." "You do not give him any money?" "I have none to give." "I should simply take the key of the house from him, or bolt the door if he will not give it up." "Knowing that he must wander in the streets if I refuse to let him in? A mother cannot do that, Mr. Broune. A child has a hold upon his mother." Mr. Broune never now thought of kissing Lady Carbury; but when she spoke thus, he got up and took her hand. She pressed it with no fear that she would be kissed. The feeling between them was changed. Melmotte dined at home that evening with only his wife and daughter. Madame Melmotte had not as yet said a word to anyone about her own fears. But not a single person had called today - the day after the great party; and she thought that the Grendalls would have been with her husband today of all days, during the ballot. "Is not Mr. Grendall coming?" she asked, as she took her seat at the table. "No, he is not," said Melmotte. "Nor Lord Alfred?" "Nor Lord Alfred." Melmotte had returned home much comforted by the day's proceedings. No one had dared to say a harsh word to his face. After leaving the bank he had gone back to his office, and had written letters, just as if nothing had happened. A clerk brought him the evening papers, and expressed his opinion that the election was going well. Mr. Melmotte read Alf's speech, and consoled himself with thinking that Mr. Alf had not dared to make new accusations against him. All that about Hamburg and Vienna and Paris was as old as the hills. "I think we shall do pretty well," he said to the clerk. His very presence in Abchurch Lane gave confidence. And thus when he came home, something of the old arrogance had returned, and he could swagger before his wife and servants. "The Grendall's are two d___ curs," he said. His wife afterwards crept up to him in the back parlour. "Is there anything wrong, Melmotte?" "What do you call wrong?" "I don't know; but I seem to be afraid of something." "I should have thought you were used to that by this time." "Then there is something." "Don't be a fool. There is always something." "Shall we have to move again?" she asked. "How am I to tell? Does that girl mean to marry Lord Nidderdale?" Madame Melmotte shook her head. "I'll flog her within an inch of her life if she disobeys me. You tell her that I say so." "Then he may flog me," said Marie, when so much of the conversation was repeated to her that evening. "Papa does not know me if he thinks that I'm to be made to marry a man by flogging." No such attempt was at any rate made that night. Early the next day a report was current that Mr. Alf had been elected, although the numbers had not yet been counted, and the truth would not be known till seven or eight o'clock in the evening. Mr. Melmotte again went into the City, and found that things seemed to have returned very much into their usual grooves. The Mexican Railway shares were low, and Mr. Cohenlupe was unhappy; but nothing dreadful had occurred. If nothing dreadful did occur, the railway shares would probably recover. In the course of the day, Melmotte received a letter from Messrs. Slow and Bideawhile, which, of itself, contained no comfort - yet there was comfort to be drawn from it, because of what it did not contain. The letter was unfriendly in its tone, but there was no allusion in it to forgery or criminal proceedings; no hint at anything beyond the not unnatural desire of Mr. Longestaffe and his son to be paid for the property at Pickering. "We have to remind you," said the letter, after demands for the money, "that the title-deeds were delivered to you on our receipt of authority from the Messrs. Longestaffe, on the understanding that the purchase-money was to be at once paid by you. We are informed that the property has since been mortgaged by you. This information forces upon us the necessity of demanding that you should at once pay to us the purchase-money, 80,000; or else return to us the title-deeds of the estate." This letter declared positively that the title-deeds had been given up on authority received by the lawyers from both the Longestaffes - father and son. Now the accusation brought against Melmotte was that he had forged the signature to the young Mr. Longestaffe's letter. Slow and Bideawhile were therefore on his side. As to the simple debt, he cared little about that. Many fine men were walking about London who owed large sums of money which they could not pay. As Melmotte was sitting at his solitary dinner this evening - for both his wife and daughter had dined early - news was brought to him that he had been elected for Westminster. He had beaten Mr. Alf by almost a thousand votes. This was a great achievement for someone who had begun the world without a shilling and without a friend - almost without education! Much as he loved money, no triumph of his life had been so great to him as this. Brought into the world in a gutter, without parents, with no good thing ever done for him, he was now a member of the British Parliament for Westminster. At this moment he enjoyed keenly a certain amount of elation. Of course he had committed forgery; of course he had committed robbery. That was nothing, for he had been cheating and forging and stealing all his life. Of course he was in danger of almost immediate detection and punishment - yet he enjoyed his triumph. They could hardly prevent his taking his seat in the House of Commons. Then if they sent him to penal servitude for life, they would have to say that they had so treated the member for Westminster! He drank a bottle of claret, and then had some brandy-and-water. He knew that he had better not drink; but why should he not drink while the time lasted? He therefore took his brandy-and-water freely, until he was able to throw his fears behind him, and to assure himself that, after all, he might yet escape. He would drink no more, he said to himself as he filled another beaker. He would work instead. He would put his shoulder to the wheel, and conquer his enemies. It would not be easy to convict a member for Westminster. Was he not the man who had entertained the Emperor of China? Had he not received at his own table all the Princes of the land, and the Prime Minister? To convict him would be a national disgrace. At any rate, he would not despair. There was a fight to be fought yet, and he would fight it to the end. He drank deeply, and then with careful and almost solemn steps, he made his way to bed.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 64: The Election

Hetta Carbury, out of the fulness of her heart, having made up her mind that she had been unjust to her lover, wrote to him a letter full of penitence, full of love, telling him at great length all the details of her meeting with Mrs. Hurtle, and bidding him come back to her, and bring the brooch with him. But this letter she had unfortunately addressed to the Beargarden, as he had written to her from that club; and partly through his own fault, and partly through the demoralisation of that once perfect establishment, the letter never reached his hands. When, therefore, he returned to London he was justified in supposing that she had refused even to notice his appeal. He was, however, determined that he would still make further struggles. He had, he felt, to contend with many difficulties. Mrs. Hurtle, Roger Carbury, and Hetta's mother were, he thought, all inimical to him. Mrs. Hurtle, though she had declared that she would not rage as a lioness, could hardly be his friend in the matter. Roger had repeatedly declared his determination to regard him as a traitor. And Lady Carbury, as he well knew, had always been and always would be opposed to the match. But Hetta had owned that she loved him, had submitted to his caresses, and had been proud of his admiration. And Paul, though he did not probably analyze very carefully the character of his beloved, still felt instinctively that, having so far prevailed with such a girl, his prospects could not be altogether hopeless. And yet how should he continue the struggle? With what weapons should he carry on the fight? The writing of letters is but a one-sided, troublesome proceeding, when the person to whom they are written will not answer them; and the calling at a door at which the servant has been instructed to refuse a visitor admission, becomes, disagreeable,--if not degrading,--after a time. But Hetta had written a second epistle,--not to her lover, but to one who received his letters with more regularity. When she rashly and with precipitate wrath quarrelled with Paul Montague, she at once communicated the fact to her mother, and through her mother to her cousin Roger. Though she would not recognise Roger as a lover, she did acknowledge him to be the head of her family, and her own special friend, and entitled in some special way to know all that she herself did, and all that was done in regard to her. She therefore wrote to her cousin, telling him that she had made a mistake about Paul, that she was convinced that Paul had always behaved to her with absolute sincerity, and, in short, that Paul was the best, and dearest, and most ill-used of human beings. In her enthusiasm she went on to declare that there could be no other chance of happiness for her in this world than that of becoming Paul's wife, and to beseech her dearest friend and cousin Roger not to turn against her, but to lend her an aiding hand. There are those whom strong words in letters never affect at all,--who, perhaps, hardly read them, and take what they do read as meaning no more than half what is said. But Roger Carbury was certainly not one of these. As he sat on the garden wall at Carbury, with his cousin's letter in his hand, her words had their full weight with him. He did not try to convince himself that all this was the verbiage of an enthusiastic girl, who might soon be turned and trained to another mode of thinking by fitting admonitions. To him now, as he read and re-read Hetta's letter sitting on the wall, there was not at any rate further hope for himself. Though he was altogether unchanged himself, though he was altogether incapable of change,--though he could not rally himself sufficiently to look forward to even a passive enjoyment of life without the girl whom he had loved,--yet he told himself what he believed to be the truth. At last he owned directly and plainly that, whether happy or unhappy, he must do without her. He had let time slip by with him too fast and too far before he had ventured to love. He must now stomach his disappointment, and make the best he could of such a broken, ill-conditioned life as was left to him. But, if he acknowledged this,--and he did acknowledge it,--in what fashion should he in future treat the man and woman who had reduced him so low? At this moment his mind was tuned to high thoughts. If it were possible he would be unselfish. He could not, indeed, bring himself to think with kindness of Paul Montague. He could not say to himself that the man had not been treacherous to him, nor could he forgive the man's supposed treason. But he did tell himself very plainly that in comparison with Hetta the man was nothing to him. It could hardly be worth his while to maintain a quarrel with the man if he were once able to assure Hetta that she, as the wife of another man, should still be dear to him as a friend might be dear. He was well aware that such assurance, such forgiveness, must contain very much. If it were to be so, Hetta's child must take the name of Carbury, and must be to him as his heir,--as near as possible his own child. In her favour he must throw aside that law of primogeniture which to him was so sacred that he had been hitherto minded to make Sir Felix his heir in spite of the absolute unfitness of the wretched young man. All this must be changed, should he be able to persuade himself to give his consent to the marriage. In such case Carbury must be the home of the married couple, as far as he could induce them to make it so. There must be born the future infant to whose existence he was already looking forward with some idea that in his old age he might there find comfort. In such case, though he should never again be able to love Paul Montague in his heart of hearts, he must live with him for her sake on affectionate terms. He must forgive Hetta altogether,--as though there had been no fault; and he must strive to forgive the man's fault as best he might. Struggling as he was to be generous, passionately fond as he was of justice, yet he did not know how to be just himself. He could not see that he in truth had been to no extent ill-used. And ever and again, as he thought of the great prayer as to the forgiveness of trespasses, he could not refrain from asking himself whether it could really be intended that he should forgive such trespass as that committed against him by Paul Montague! Nevertheless, when he rose from the wall he had resolved that Hetta should be pardoned entirely, and that Paul Montague should be treated as though he were pardoned. As for himself,--the chances of the world had been unkind to him, and he would submit to them! Nevertheless he wrote no answer to Hetta's letter. Perhaps he felt, with some undefined but still existing hope, that the writing of such a letter would deprive him of his last chance. Hetta's letter to himself hardly required an immediate answer,--did not, indeed, demand any answer. She had simply told him that, whereas she had for certain reasons quarrelled with the man she had loved, she had now come to the conclusion that she would quarrel with him no longer. She had asked for her cousin's assent to her own views, but that, as Roger felt, was to be given rather by the discontinuance of opposition than by any positive action. Roger's influence with her mother was the assistance which Hetta really wanted from him, and that influence could hardly be given by the writing of any letter. Thinking of all this, Roger determined that he would again go up to London. He would have the vacant hours of the journey in which to think of it all again, and tell himself whether it was possible for him to bring his heart to agree to the marriage;--and then he would see the people, and perhaps learn something further from their manner and their words, before he finally committed himself to the abandonment of his own hopes and the completion of theirs. He went up to town, and I do not know that those vacant hours served him much. To a man not accustomed to thinking there is nothing in the world so difficult as to think. After some loose fashion we turn over things in our mind and ultimately reach some decision, guided probably by our feelings at the last moment rather than by any process of ratiocination;--and then we think that we have thought. But to follow out one argument to an end, and then to found on the base so reached the commencement of another, is not common to us. Such a process was hardly within the compass of Roger's mind,--who when he was made wretched by the dust, and by a female who had a basket of objectionable provisions opposite to him, almost forswore his charitable resolutions of the day before; but who again, as he walked lonely at night round the square which was near to his hotel, looking up at the bright moon with a full appreciation of the beauty of the heavens, asked himself what was he that he should wish to interfere with the happiness of two human beings much younger than himself, and much fitter to enjoy the world. But he had had a bath, and had got rid of the dust, and had eaten his dinner. The next morning he was in Welbeck Street at an early hour. When he knocked he had not made up his mind whether he would ask for Lady Carbury or her daughter, and did at last inquire whether "the ladies" were at home. The ladies were reported as being at home, and he was at once shown into the drawing-room, where Hetta was sitting. She hurried up to him, and he at once took her in his arms and kissed her. He had never done such a thing before. He had never even kissed her hand. Though they were cousins and dear friends, he had never treated her after that fashion. Her instinct told her immediately that such a greeting from him was a sign of affectionate compliance with her wishes. That this man should kiss her as her best and dearest relation, as her most trusted friend, as almost her brother, was certainly to her no offence. She could cling to him in fondest love,--if he would only consent not to be her lover. "Oh, Roger, I am so glad to see you," she said, escaping gently from his arms. "I could not write an answer, and so I came." "You always do the kindest thing that can be done." "I don't know. I don't know that I can do anything now,--kind or unkind. It is all done without any aid from me. Hetta, you have been all the world to me." "Do not reproach me," she said. "No;--no. Why should I reproach you? You have committed no fault. I should not have come had I intended to reproach any one." "I love you so much for saying that." "Let it be as you wish it,--if it must. I have made up my mind to bear it, and there shall be an end of it." As he said this he took her by the hand, and she put her head upon his shoulder and began to weep. "And still you will be all the world to me," he continued, with his arm round her waist. "As you will not be my wife, you shall be my daughter." "I will be your sister, Roger." "My daughter rather. You shall be all that I have in the world. I will hurry to grow old that I may feel for you as the old feel for the young. And if you have a child, Hetta, he must be my child." As he thus spoke her tears were renewed. "I have planned it all out in my mind, dear. There! If there be anything that I can do to add to your happiness, I will do it. You must believe this of me,--that to make you happy shall be the only enjoyment of my life." It had been hardly possible for her to tell him as yet that the man to whom he was thus consenting to surrender her had not even condescended to answer the letter in which she had told him to come back to her. And now, sobbing as she was, overcome by the tenderness of her cousin's affection, anxious to express her intense gratitude, she did not know how first to mention the name of Paul Montague. "Have you seen him?" she said in a whisper. "Seen whom?" "Mr. Montague." "No;--why should I have seen him? It is not for his sake that I am here." "But you will be his friend?" "Your husband shall certainly be my friend;--or, if not, the fault shall not be mine. It shall all be forgotten, Hetta,--as nearly as such things may be forgotten. But I had nothing to say to him till I had seen you." At that moment the door was opened and Lady Carbury entered the room, and, after her greeting with her cousin, looked first at her daughter and then at Roger. "I have come up," said he, "to signify my adhesion to this marriage." Lady Carbury's face fell very low. "I need not speak again of what were my own wishes. I have learned at last that it could not have been so." "Why should you say so?" exclaimed Lady Carbury. "Pray, pray, mamma--," Hetta began, but was unable to find words with which to go on with her prayer. "I do not know that it need be so at all," continued Lady Carbury. "I think it is very much in your own hands. Of course it is not for me to press such an arrangement, if it be not in accord with your own wishes." "I look upon her as engaged to marry Paul Montague," said Roger. "Not at all," said Lady Carbury. "Yes; mamma,--yes," cried Hetta boldly. "It is so. I am engaged to him." "I beg to let your cousin know that it is not so with my consent,--nor, as far as I can understand at present, with the consent of Mr. Montague himself." "Mamma!" "Paul Montague!" ejaculated Roger Carbury. "The consent of Paul Montague! I think I may take upon myself to say that there can be no doubt as to that." "There has been a quarrel," said Lady Carbury. "Surely he has not quarrelled with you, Hetta?" "I wrote to him,--and he has not answered me," said Hetta piteously. Then Lady Carbury gave a full and somewhat coloured account of what had taken place, while Roger listened with admirable patience. "The marriage is on every account objectionable," she said at last. "His means are precarious. His conduct with regard to that woman has been very bad. He has been sadly mixed up with that wretched man who destroyed himself. And now, when Henrietta has written to him without my sanction,--in opposition to my express commands,--he takes no notice of her. She, very properly, sent him back a present that he made her, and no doubt he has resented her doing so. I trust that his resentment may be continued." Hetta was now seated on a sofa hiding her face and weeping. Roger stood perfectly still, listening with respectful silence till Lady Carbury had spoken her last word. And even then he was slow to answer, considering what he might best say. "I think I had better see him," he replied. "If, as I imagine, he has not received my cousin's letter, that matter will be set at rest. We must not take advantage of such an accident as that. As to his income,--that I think may be managed. His connection with Mr. Melmotte was unfortunate, but was due to no fault of his." At this moment he could not but remember Lady Carbury's great anxiety to be closely connected with Melmotte, but he was too generous to say a word on that head. "I will see him, Lady Carbury, and then I will come to you again." Lady Carbury did not dare to tell him that she did not wish him to see Paul Montague. She knew that if he really threw himself into the scale against her, her opposition would weigh nothing. He was too powerful in his honesty and greatness of character,--and had been too often admitted by herself to be the guardian angel of the family,--for her to stand against him. But she still thought that had he persevered, Hetta would have become his wife. It was late that evening before Roger found Paul Montague, who had only then returned from Liverpool with Fisker,--whose subsequent doings have been recorded somewhat out of their turn. "I don't know what letter you mean," said Paul. "You wrote to her?" "Certainly I wrote to her. I wrote to her twice. My last letter was one which I think she ought to have answered. She had accepted me, and had given me a right to tell my own story when she unfortunately heard from other sources the story of my journey to Lowestoft with Mrs. Hurtle." Paul pleaded his own case with indignant heat, not understanding at first that Roger had come to him on a friendly mission. "She did answer your letter." "I have not had a line from her;--not a word!" "She did answer your letter." "What did she say to me?" "Nay,--you must ask her that." "But if she will not see me?" "She will see you. I can tell you that. And I will tell you this also;--that she wrote to you as a girl writes to the lover whom she does wish to see." "Is that true?" exclaimed Paul, jumping up. "I am here especially to tell you that it is true. I should hardly come on such a mission if there were a doubt. You may go to her, and need have nothing to fear,--unless, indeed, it be the opposition of her mother." "She is stronger than her mother," said Paul. "I think she is. And now I wish you to hear what I have to say." "Of course," said Paul, sitting down suddenly. Up to this moment Roger Carbury, though he had certainly brought glad tidings, had not communicated them as a joyous, sympathetic messenger. His face had been severe, and the tone of his voice almost harsh; and Paul, remembering well the words of the last letter which his old friend had written him, did not expect personal kindness. Roger would probably say very disagreeable things to him, which he must bear with all the patience which he could summon to his assistance. "You know what my feelings have been," Roger began, "and how deeply I have resented what I thought to be an interference with my affections. But no quarrel between you and me, whatever the rights of it may be--" "I have never quarrelled with you," Paul began. "If you will listen to me for a moment it will be better. No anger between you and me, let it arise as it might, should be allowed to interfere with the happiness of her whom I suppose we both love better than all the rest of the world put together." "I do," said Paul. "And so do I;--and so I always shall. But she is to be your wife. She shall be my daughter. She shall have my property,--or her child shall be my heir. My house shall be her house,--if you and she will consent to make it so. You will not be afraid of me. You know me, I think, too well for that. You may now count on any assistance you could have from me were I a father giving you a daughter in marriage. I do this because I will make the happiness of her life the chief object of mine. Now good night. Don't say anything about it at present. By-and-by we shall be able to talk about these things with more equable temper." Having so spoken he hurried out of the room, leaving Paul Montague bewildered by the tidings which had been announced to him.

Hetta Carbury, having made up her mind that she had been unjust to her lover, wrote to him a letter full of penitence and love, bidding him come back to her. But unfortunately she addressed it to the Beargarden, as he had written to her from that club; and the letter never reached him. When he returned to London he supposed that she had refused even to notice his appeal. He was, however, determined that he would still make further struggles, even though Mrs. Hurtle, Roger Carbury, and Hetta's mother were, he thought, all hostile to him. But Hetta had owned that she loved him, and Paul still felt instinctively that his prospects could not be altogether hopeless. Yet how should he carry on the fight? The writing of letters is a one-sided, troublesome proceeding, when the person to whom they are written will not answer. But Hetta had written a second letter, not to her lover. As Roger was the head of her family, and her friend, and entitled in some special way to know all that she did, she wrote to him. She told him that she had made a mistake about Paul, that she was convinced that Paul had always behaved to her with absolute sincerity, and, in short, that Paul was the dearest and most ill-used of human beings. In her enthusiasm she declared that there could be no other chance of happiness for her than that of becoming Paul's wife, and beseeched her dearest friend Roger not to turn against her, but to lend her aid. As Roger sat on the garden wall at Carbury, with his cousin's letter in his hand, her words affected him heavily. There was no hope for himself. Though he was incapable of change - though he could not look forward to even a passive enjoyment of life without the girl whom he loved - yet he told himself directly and plainly that he must do without her. He had let time slip by too fast and too far before he had ventured to love, and must now make the best he could of such a broken life as was left to him. But how should he treat the man and woman who had reduced him so low? If possible he would be unselfish. He could not, indeed, think kindly of Paul Montague; he could not forgive the man's supposed treason. But he did tell himself that in comparison with Hetta the man was nothing to him. He wanted to be able to assure Hetta that she should still be dear to him as a friend. Hetta's child must take the name of Carbury, and must be his heir - as near as possible his own child, in place of the wretched Felix, In such a case Carbury must be the home of the married couple, if he could induce them to make it so. Though he should never again be able to love Paul Montague, he must live with him for her sake on affectionate terms. He must forgive Hetta altogether, as though there had been no fault; and strive to forgive the man's fault as best he might. Passionately fond as he was of justice, yet he did not know how to be just himself. He could not see that in truth he had not been betrayed. Nevertheless, when he rose from the wall he had resolved that Paul Montague should be treated as though he were pardoned. However, he wrote no answer to Hetta's letter - perhaps feeling that it would deprive him of his last chance. Her letter did not require an immediate answer; she had simply told him how things now stood. Roger's influence with her mother was the assistance which Hetta really wanted, and that could hardly be done by writing. Roger determined that he would again go up to London. He would think it all over on the journey, and then see the people themselves, before he finally committed himself to the abandonment of his own hopes. He went up to town, and I do not know that hours of thinking helped him much. To follow an argument to an end is not easy or common, and it was hardly within Roger's capabilities. As he walked that night round the square near his hotel, looking up at the bright moon, he asked himself why he should wish to interfere with the happiness of two much younger human beings. But he had had a bath by then, and had eaten his dinner. The next morning he was in Welbeck Street early. He was at once shown into the drawing-room, where Hetta was sitting. She hurried up to him, and he took her in his arms and kissed her. He had never done such a thing before. He had never even kissed her hand. Her instinct told her immediately that such a greeting was a sign of affectionate compliance with her wishes. "Oh, Roger, I am so glad to see you," she said, escaping gently from his arms. "I could not write an answer, so I came." "You always do the kindest thing." "I don't know that I can do anything now. It is all done. Hetta, you have been all the world to me." "Do not reproach me," she said. "No. Why should I reproach you? You have committed no fault. I should not have come had I intended to reproach anyone." "I love you so much for saying that." "Let it be as you wish, if it must. I have made up my mind to bear it, and there shall be an end of it." As he said this he took her hand, and she put her head upon his shoulder and began to weep. "And still you will be all the world to me," he continued, with his arm round her waist. "As you will not be my wife, you shall be my daughter." "I will be your sister, Roger." "My daughter rather. I will hurry to grow old so that I may feel for you as the old feel for the young. And if you have a child, Hetta, he must be as my child. There! If there is anything that I can do to add to your happiness, I will do it. You must believe that to make you happy shall be the only enjoyment of my life." It had been hardly possible for her to tell him that the man to whom he was surrendering her had not even condescended to answer her letter. And now, overcome by the tenderness of her cousin's affection, she did not know how to mention Paul's name. "Have you seen him?" she whispered. "No; it is not for his sake that I am here." "But you will be his friend?" "Your husband shall certainly be my friend." At that moment the door was opened. Lady Carbury entered and looked first at her daughter and then at Roger. "I have come," said he, "to signify my agreement to this marriage." Lady Carbury's face fell very low. "I need not speak again of what were my own wishes. I have learned at last that it could not have been so." "Why should you say so?" exclaimed Lady Carbury. "Pray, mamma-," Hetta began. "I do not know that it need be so at all," continued Lady Carbury. "I look upon her as engaged to marry Paul Montague," said Roger. "Not at all," said Lady Carbury. "Yes; mamma, yes," cried Hetta boldly. "It is so. I am engaged to him." "It is not so with my consent - nor, as far as I can understand at present, with the consent of Mr. Montague himself." "Mamma!" "The consent of Paul Montague!" exclaimed Roger. "I think there can be no doubt as to that." "There has been a quarrel," said Lady Carbury. "Surely he has not quarrelled with you, Hetta?" "I wrote to him - and he has not answered me," said Hetta piteously. Then Lady Carbury gave a full and somewhat coloured account of what had taken place, while Roger listened with admirable patience. "The marriage is on every account objectionable," she said at last. "His conduct with regard to that woman has been very bad. He has been sadly mixed up with that wretched man who killed himself. And now, when Henrietta has written to him in opposition to my express commands, he takes no notice of her." Hetta was now seated on a sofa hiding her face and weeping. Roger stood perfectly still, listening with respectful silence till Lady Carbury had finished. Then he was slow to answer. "I think I had better see him," he replied. "If, as I imagine, he has not received my cousin's letter, that matter will be set at rest. As to his income, that I think may be managed. His connection with Mr. Melmotte was unfortunate, but was due to no fault of his." He was too generous to say a word about Felix and Marie Melmotte. "I will see him, Lady Carbury, and then I will come to you again." It was late that evening before Roger found Paul Montague, who had just returned from Liverpool. "I don't know what letter you mean," said Paul. "You wrote to her?" "Certainly. I wrote to her twice. My last letter was one which I think she ought to have answered. But I have not had a line from her - not a word!" "She did answer your letter." "What did she say to me?" "You must ask her that. But I can tell you this; that she wrote to you as a girl writes to the lover whom she wishes to see." "Is that true?" exclaimed Paul, jumping up. "I am here to tell you that it is true. You may go to her, and need have nothing to fear. And now I wish you to hear what I have to say." "Of course," said Paul, sitting down suddenly. Up to this moment Roger had not appeared as a joyous, sympathetic messenger. His face had been severe, and the tone of his voice almost harsh. Paul thought he would probably say very disagreeable things to him, which he must bear as patiently as he could. "You know what my feelings have been," Roger began, "and how deeply I have resented what I thought to be an interference with my affections. But no quarrel between us-" "I have never quarrelled with you." "Listen to me for a moment. No anger between us should be allowed to interfere with the happiness of her whom I suppose we both love better than all the rest of the world put together." "I do," said Paul. "And so do I; and I always shall. But she is to be your wife. She shall be my daughter. Her child shall be my heir. My house shall be her house, if you and she agree. You may now count on my assistance as if I were a father giving you a daughter in marriage. I do this because I will make the happiness of her life the chief object of mine. Now good night. Don't say anything just now." Having so spoken he hurried out of the room, leaving Paul Montague bewildered by the news.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 93: A True Lover

"You have been a guest in his house. Then, I guess, the thing's about as good as done." These words were spoken with a fine, sharp, nasal twang by a brilliantly-dressed American gentleman in one of the smartest private rooms of the great railway hotel at Liverpool, and they were addressed to a young Englishman who was sitting opposite to him. Between them there was a table covered with maps, schedules, and printed programmes. The American was smoking a very large cigar, which he kept constantly turning in his mouth, and half of which was inside his teeth. The Englishman had a short pipe. Mr. Hamilton K. Fisker, of the firm of Fisker, Montague, and Montague, was the American, and the Englishman was our friend Paul, the junior member of that firm. "But I didn't even speak to him," said Paul. "In commercial affairs that matters nothing. It quite justifies you in introducing me. We are not going to ask your friend to do us a favour. We don't want to borrow money." "I thought you did." "If he'll go in for the thing he'd be one of us, and there would be no borrowing then. He'll join us if he's as clever as they say, because he'll see his way to making a couple of million of dollars out of it. If he'd take the trouble to run over and show himself in San Francisco, he'd make double that. The moneyed men would go in with him at once, because they know that he understands the game and has got the pluck. A man who has done what he has by financing in Europe,--by George! there's no limit to what he might do with us. We're a bigger people than any of you and have more room. We go after bigger things, and don't stand shilly-shally on the brink as you do. But Melmotte pretty nigh beats the best among us. Anyway he should come and try his luck, and he couldn't have a bigger thing or a safer thing than this. He'd see it immediately if I could talk to him for half an hour." "Mr. Fisker," said Paul mysteriously, "as we are partners, I think I ought to let you know that many people speak very badly of Mr. Melmotte's honesty." Mr. Fisker smiled gently, turned his cigar twice round in his mouth, and then closed one eye. "There is always a want of charity," he said, "when a man is successful." The scheme in question was the grand proposal for a South Central Pacific and Mexican railway, which was to run from the Salt Lake City, thus branching off from the San Francisco and Chicago line,--and pass down through the fertile lands of New Mexico and Arizona, into the territory of the Mexican Republic, run by the city of Mexico, and come out on the gulf at the port of Vera Cruz. Mr. Fisker admitted at once that it was a great undertaking, acknowledged that the distance might be perhaps something over 2,000 miles, acknowledged that no computation had or perhaps could be made as to the probable cost of the railway; but seemed to think that questions such as these were beside the mark and childish. Melmotte, if he would go into the matter at all, would ask no such questions. But we must go back a little. Paul Montague had received a telegram from his partner, Hamilton K. Fisker, sent on shore at Queenstown from one of the New York liners, requesting him to meet Fisker at Liverpool immediately. With this request he had felt himself bound to comply. Personally he had disliked Fisker,--and perhaps not the less so because when in California he had never found himself able to resist the man's good humour, audacity, and cleverness combined. He had found himself talked into agreeing with any project which Mr. Fisker might have in hand. It was altogether against the grain with him, and yet by his own consent, that the flour-mill had been opened at Fiskerville. He trembled for his money and never wished to see Fisker again; but still, when Fisker came to England, he was proud to remember that Fisker was his partner, and he obeyed the order and went down to Liverpool. If the flour-mill had frightened him, what must the present project have done! Fisker explained that he had come with two objects,--first to ask the consent of the English partner to the proposed change in their business, and secondly to obtain the co-operation of English capitalists. The proposed change in the business meant simply the entire sale of the establishment at Fiskerville, and the absorption of the whole capital in the work of getting up the railway. "If you could realise all the money it wouldn't make a mile of the railway," said Paul. Mr. Fisker laughed at him. The object of Fisker, Montague, and Montague was not to make a railway to Vera Cruz, but to float a company. Paul thought that Mr. Fisker seemed to be indifferent whether the railway should ever be constructed or not. It was clearly his idea that fortunes were to be made out of the concern before a spadeful of earth had been moved. If brilliantly printed programmes might avail anything, with gorgeous maps, and beautiful little pictures of trains running into tunnels beneath snowy mountains and coming out of them on the margin of sunlit lakes, Mr. Fisker had certainly done much. But Paul, when he saw all these pretty things, could not keep his mind from thinking whence had come the money to pay for them. Mr. Fisker had declared that he had come over to obtain his partner's consent, but it seemed to that partner that a great deal had been done without any consent. And Paul's fears on this hand were not allayed by finding that on all these beautiful papers he himself was described as one of the agents and general managers of the company. Each document was signed Fisker, Montague, and Montague. References on all matters were to be made to Fisker, Montague, and Montague,--and in one of the documents it was stated that a member of the firm had proceeded to London with the view of attending to British interests in the matter. Fisker had seemed to think that his young partner would express unbounded satisfaction at the greatness which was thus falling upon him. A certain feeling of importance, not altogether unpleasant, was produced, but at the same time there was another conviction forced upon Montague's mind, not altogether pleasant, that his money was being made to disappear without any consent given by him, and that it behoved him to be cautious lest such consent should be extracted from him unawares. "What has become of the mill?" he asked. "We have put an agent into it." "Is not that dangerous? What check have you on him?" "He pays us a fixed sum, sir. But, my word! when there is such a thing as this on hand a trumpery mill like that is not worth speaking of." "You haven't sold it?" "Well;--no. But we've arranged a price for a sale." "You haven't taken the money for it?" "Well;--yes; we have. We've raised money on it, you know. You see you weren't there, and so the two resident partners acted for the firm. But Mr. Montague, you'd better go with us. You had indeed." "And about my own income?" "That's a flea-bite. When we've got a little ahead with this it won't matter, sir, whether you spend twenty thousand or forty thousand dollars a year. We've got the concession from the United States Government through the territories, and we're in correspondence with the President of the Mexican Republic. I've no doubt we've an office open already in Mexico and another at Vera Cruz." "Where's the money to come from?" "Money to come from, sir? Where do you suppose the money comes from in all these undertakings? If we can float the shares, the money'll come in quick enough. We hold three million dollars of the stock ourselves." "Six hundred thousand pounds!" said Montague. "We take them at par, of course,--and as we sell we shall pay for them. But of course we shall only sell at a premium. If we can run them up even to 110, there would be three hundred thousand dollars. But we'll do better than that. I must try and see Melmotte at once. You had better write a letter now." "I don't know the man." "Never mind. Look here--I'll write it, and you can sign it." Whereupon Mr. Fisker did write the following letter:-- Langham Hotel, London. March 4, 18--. DEAR SIR,--I have the pleasure of informing you that my partner, Mr. Fisker,--of Fisker, Montague, and Montague, of San Francisco,--is now in London with the view of allowing British capitalists to assist in carrying out perhaps the greatest work of the age,--namely, the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway, which is to give direct communication between San Francisco and the Gulf of Mexico. He is very anxious to see you upon his arrival, as he is aware that your co-operation would be desirable. We feel assured that with your matured judgment in such matters you would see at once the magnificence of the enterprise. If you will name a day and an hour, Mr. Fisker will call upon you. I have to thank you and Madame Melmotte for a very pleasant evening spent at your house last week. Mr. Fisker proposes returning to New York. I shall remain here, superintending the British interests which may be involved. I have the honour to be, Dear Sir, Most faithfully yours, ---- ----. "But I have never said that I would superintend the interests," said Montague. "You can say so now. It binds you to nothing. You regular John Bull Englishmen are so full of scruples that you lose as much of life as should serve to make an additional fortune." After some further conversation Paul Montague recopied the letter and signed it. He did it with doubt,--almost with dismay. But he told himself that he could do no good by refusing. If this wretched American, with his hat on one side and rings on his fingers, had so far got the upper hand of Paul's uncle as to have been allowed to do what he liked with the funds of the partnership, Paul could not stop it. On the following morning they went up to London together, and in the course of the afternoon Mr. Fisker presented himself in Abchurch Lane. The letter written at Liverpool, but dated from the Langham Hotel, had been posted at the Euston Square Railway Station at the moment of Fisker's arrival. Fisker sent in his card, and was asked to wait. In the course of twenty minutes he was ushered into the great man's presence by no less a person than Miles Grendall. It has been already said that Mr. Melmotte was a big man with large whiskers, rough hair, and with an expression of mental power on a harsh vulgar face. He was certainly a man to repel you by his presence unless attracted to him by some internal consideration. He was magnificent in his expenditure, powerful in his doings, successful in his business, and the world around him therefore was not repelled. Fisker, on the other hand, was a shining little man,--perhaps about forty years of age, with a well-twisted moustache, greasy brown hair, which was becoming bald at the top, good-looking if his features were analysed, but insignificant in appearance. He was gorgeously dressed, with a silk waistcoat and chains, and he carried a little stick. One would at first be inclined to say that Fisker was not much of a man; but after a little conversation most men would own that there was something in Fisker. He was troubled by no shyness, by no scruples, and by no fears. His mind was not capacious, but such as it was it was his own, and he knew how to use it. Abchurch Lane is not a grand site for the offices of a merchant prince. Here, at a small corner house, there was a small brass plate on a swing door, bearing the words "Melmotte & Co." Of whom the Co. was composed no one knew. In one sense Mr. Melmotte might be said to be in company with all the commercial world, for there was no business to which he would refuse his co-operation on certain terms. But he had never burthened himself with a partner in the usual sense of the term. Here Fisker found three or four clerks seated at desks, and was desired to walk up-stairs. The steps were narrow and crooked, and the rooms were small and irregular. Here he stayed for a while in a small dark apartment in which "The Daily Telegraph" was left for the amusement of its occupant till Miles Grendall announced to him that Mr. Melmotte would see him. The millionaire looked at him for a moment or two, just condescending to touch with his fingers the hand which Fisker had projected. "I don't seem to remember," he said, "the gentleman who has done me the honour of writing to me about you." "I dare say not, Mr. Melmotte. When I'm at home in San Francisco, I make acquaintance with a great many gents whom I don't remember afterwards. My partner I think told me that he went to your house with his friend, Sir Felix Carbury." "I know a young man called Sir Felix Carbury." "That's it. I could have got any amount of introductions to you if I had thought this would not have sufficed." Mr. Melmotte bowed. "Our account here in London is kept with the City and West End Joint Stock. But I have only just arrived, and as my chief object in coming to London is to see you, and as I met my partner, Mr. Montague, in Liverpool, I took a note from him and came on straight." "And what can I do for you, Mr. Fisker?" Then Mr. Fisker began his account of the Great South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway, and exhibited considerable skill by telling it all in comparatively few words. And yet he was gorgeous and florid. In two minutes he had displayed his programme, his maps, and his pictures before Mr. Melmotte's eyes, taking care that Mr. Melmotte should see how often the names of Fisker, Montague, and Montague, reappeared upon them. As Mr. Melmotte read the documents, Fisker from time to time put in a word. But the words had no reference at all to the future profits of the railway, or to the benefit which such means of communication would confer upon the world at large; but applied solely to the appetite for such stock as theirs, which might certainly be produced in the speculating world by a proper manipulation of the affairs. [Illustration: Then Mr. Fisker began his account.] "You seem to think you couldn't get it taken up in your own country," said Melmotte. "There's not a doubt about getting it all taken up there. Our folk, sir, are quick enough at the game; but you don't want me to teach you, Mr. Melmotte, that nothing encourages this kind of thing like competition. When they hear at St. Louis and Chicago that the thing is alive in London, they'll be alive there. And it's the same here, sir. When they know that the stock is running like wildfire in America, they'll make it run here too." "How far have you got?" "What we've gone to work upon is a concession for making the line from the United States Congress. We're to have the land for nothing, of course, and a grant of one thousand acres round every station, the stations to be twenty-five miles apart." "And the land is to be made over to you,--when?" "When we have made the line up to the station." Fisker understood perfectly that Mr. Melmotte did not ask the question in reference to any value that he might attach to the possession of such lands, but to the attractiveness of such a prospectus in the eyes of the outside world of speculators. "And what do you want me to do, Mr. Fisker?" "I want to have your name there," he said. And he placed his finger down on a spot on which it was indicated that there was, or was to be, a chairman of an English Board of Directors, but with a space for the name, hitherto blank. "Who are to be your directors here, Mr. Fisker?" "We should ask you to choose them, sir. Mr. Paul Montague should be one, and perhaps his friend Sir Felix Carbury might be another. We could get probably one of the Directors of the City and West End. But we would leave it all to you,--as also the amount of stock you would like to take yourself. If you gave yourself to it, heart and soul, Mr. Melmotte, it would be the finest thing that there has been out for a long time. There would be such a mass of stock!" "You have to back that with a certain amount of paid-up capital?" "We take care, sir, in the West not to cripple commerce too closely by old-fashioned bandages. Look at what we've done already, sir, by having our limbs pretty free. Look at our line, sir, right across the continent, from San Francisco to New York. Look at--" "Never mind that, Mr. Fisker. People wanted to go from New York to San Francisco, and I don't know that they do want to go to Vera Cruz. But I will look at it, and you shall hear from me." The interview was over, and Mr. Fisker was contented with it. Had Mr. Melmotte not intended at least to think of it he would not have given ten minutes to the subject. After all, what was wanted from Mr. Melmotte was little more than his name, for the use of which Mr. Fisker proposed that he should receive from the speculative public two or three hundred thousand pounds. At the end of a fortnight from the date of Mr. Fisker's arrival in London, the company was fully launched in England, with a body of London directors, of whom Mr. Melmotte was the chairman. Among the directors were Lord Alfred Grendall, Sir Felix Carbury, Samuel Cohenlupe, Esq., Member of Parliament for Staines, a gentleman of the Jewish persuasion, Lord Nidderdale, who was also in Parliament, and Mr. Paul Montague. It may be thought that the directory was not strong, and that but little help could be given to any commercial enterprise by the assistance of Lord Alfred or Sir Felix;--but it was felt that Mr. Melmotte was himself so great a tower of strength that the fortune of the company,--as a company,--was made.

"You have been a guest in his house. Then, I guess, the thing's about as good as done." These words were spoken with a fine nasal twang by a brilliantly-dressed American gentleman in the great railway hotel at Liverpool. They were addressed to a young Englishman sitting opposite him. Between them there was a table covered with maps and printed sheets. The American was smoking a very large cigar, which he kept constantly turning in his mouth. He was Mr. Hamilton K. Fisker, of the firm of Fisker, Montague, and Montague, and the Englishman was Paul, the junior member of that firm. "But I didn't even speak to him," said Paul. "That doesn't matter. It justifies you in introducing me. We don't want to borrow money off him." "I thought you did." "If he'll go in for the thing he'd be one of us, and there would be no borrowing. He'll join us if he's as clever as they say, because he'll see his way to making a couple of million dollars. If he'd take the trouble to go over to San Francisco, he'd make double that. The moneyed men would go in with him at once, because they know that he understands the game. By George! there's no limit to what he might do with us. We're a bigger people than you; we go after bigger things, and don't shilly-shally on the brink as you do. But Melmotte pretty nigh beats us. Anyway he couldn't have a bigger or a safer thing than this. He'd see it immediately if I could talk to him for half an hour." "Mr. Fisker," said Paul mysteriously, "as we are partners, I think I ought to let you know that many people speak very badly of Mr. Melmotte's honesty." Mr. Fisker smiled gently, turned his cigar round in his mouth, and closed one eye. "There is always a lack of charity," he said, "when a man is successful." The scheme in question was the grand proposal for a South Central Pacific and Mexican railway, which was to run from Salt Lake City, branching off from the San Francisco and Chicago line, and pass down through New Mexico and Arizona, into the Mexican Republic, coming out on the gulf at the port of Vera Cruz. Mr. Fisker admitted that it was a great undertaking - something over 2,000 miles - and its probable cost could not be calculated; but he seemed to think that these questions were beside the point and childish. Melmotte would ask no such questions. But we must go back a little. Paul Montague had received a telegram from Hamilton K. Fisker, sent from a New York liner, asking him to meet Fisker at Liverpool. He had felt bound to comply. Personally he disliked Fisker, although in California he had never been able to resist the man's good humour, audacity, and cleverness. He had found himself agreeing with any project which Mr. Fisker might have in hand. It was altogether against the grain with him, and yet with his consent, that the flour-mill had been opened at Fiskerville. He trembled for his money and never wished to see Fisker again; but still, when Fisker came to England, he obeyed the order and went to Liverpool. If the flour-mill had frightened him, what must the present project have done! Fisker explained that he had come with two aims: firstly, to ask Paul's consent to the proposed change in their business, and secondly to obtain the co-operation of English capitalists. The proposed change in the business meant selling the property at Fiskerville. "That wouldn't pay for a mile of the railway," said Paul. Mr. Fisker laughed. The object was not to make a railway to Vera Cruz, but to float a company. He seemed to be indifferent whether the railway should ever be constructed or not. It was clearly his idea that fortunes were to be made out of the concern before a spadeful of earth had been moved. If brilliantly printed programmes might avail anything, with gorgeous maps, and beautiful little pictures of trains running into tunnels beneath snowy mountains and coming out on the margin of sunlit lakes, Mr. Fisker had certainly done much. But Paul, when he saw these pretty things, could not help thinking whence had come the money to pay for them. It seemed that a great deal had been done without any consent. His fears were not allayed by finding that on all these beautiful papers he was described as one of the general managers of the company. Each document was signed Fisker, Montague, and Montague; and in one it was stated that a member of the firm had gone to London to attend to British interests in the matter. This gave Paul a certain feeling of importance, not altogether unpleasant; but he also had the less pleasant conviction that his money was being spent without his consent, and that he should be cautious lest such consent should be extracted from him unawares. "What has become of the mill?" he asked. "We have put an agent into it. But, my word! when there is such a thing as this on hand, that trumpery mill is not worth speaking of." "You haven't sold it?" "Well; no. We've arranged a price for a sale." "You haven't taken the money for it?" "Well; yes; we have. We've raised money on it, you know. You see you weren't there, and so the two resident partners acted for the firm. But Mr. Montague, you'd better go with us. You had indeed." "And my own income?" "That's a flea-bite. When we've got a little ahead with this it won't matter, sir, whether you spend twenty thousand or forty thousand dollars a year. We've got the concession from the United States Government through the territories, and we're in correspondence with the President of Mexico." "Where's the money to come from?" "Where do you suppose the money comes from in these undertakings? If we can float the shares, the money'll come in quick enough. We hold three million dollars of the stock ourselves. As we sell we shall pay for them. But of course we shall only sell at a premium. If we can run them up even to 110, there would be three hundred thousand dollars. But we'll do better than that. I must try and see Melmotte at once. You had better write a letter now." "I don't know the man." "Never mind. I'll write it, and you can sign it." Whereupon Mr. Fisker wrote the following letter: Dear Sir, I have the pleasure of informing you that my partner, Mr. Fisker, of Fisker, Montague, and Montague, of San Francisco, is now in London with the view of allowing British capitalists to assist in carrying out perhaps the greatest work of the age: namely, the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway, which is to give direct communication between San Francisco and the Gulf of Mexico. He is very anxious to see you upon his arrival, as he is aware that your co-operation would be desirable. We feel assured that with your matured judgment in such matters you would see at once the magnificence of the enterprise. If you will name a day and an hour, Mr. Fisker will call upon you. I have to thank you and Madame Melmotte for a very pleasant evening spent at your house last week. Mr. Fisker proposes returning to New York. I shall remain here, superintending the British interests which may be involved. I have the honour to be, Dear Sir, Most faithfully yours. "But I have never said that I would superintend the interests," said Montague. "You can say so now. It binds you to nothing. You Englishmen are so full of scruples!" Paul Montague copied the letter and signed it, with doubt - almost with dismay. But he told himself that he could do no good by refusing. If this wretched American had got the upper hand of Paul's uncle so as to do what he liked with the funds of the partnership, Paul could not stop it. On the following morning they went up to London together, and Mr. Fisker presented himself in Abchurch Lane. This was not a grand site for the offices of a merchant prince. A small corner house had a brass plate on a door, bearing the words "Melmotte & Co." Who the Co. was, no one knew. Mr. Melmotte had never burdened himself with a business partner. Here Fisker found three or four clerks seated at desks, and was asked to walk up narrow, crooked stairs. He waited in a small dark apartment till Miles Grendall announced that Mr. Melmotte would see him. It has been already said that Mr. Melmotte was a big man with an expression of mental power on a harsh, vulgar face. He was certainly a man to repel you by his presence; yet he was magnificent in his expenditure, powerful in his doings, successful in his business, and the world around him therefore was not repelled. Fisker, on the other hand, was a shining little man - perhaps forty years of age, with a well-twisted moustache and greasy brown hair. He was insignificant in appearance, but gorgeously dressed, with a silk waistcoat. One would at first say that Fisker was not much of a man; but after a little conversation one would own that there was something in him. He had no shyness, no scruples, and no fears. His mind was not capacious, but he knew how to use it. The millionaire looked at him for a moment or two, just condescending to touch with his fingers the hand which Fisker offered. "I don't seem to remember," he said, "the gentleman who has done me the honour of writing to me about you." "I dare say not, Mr. Melmotte. When I'm at home in San Francisco, I meet a great many gents whom I don't remember afterwards. My partner told me that he went to your house with his friend, Sir Felix Carbury." "I know a young man called Sir Felix Carbury." "That's it. I have only just arrived, and as my chief object in coming to London is to see you, I met my partner, Mr. Montague, in Liverpool, took a note from him and came on straight." "And what can I do for you, Mr. Fisker?" Then Mr. Fisker began his account of the Great South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway, and exhibited considerable skill by telling it all in comparatively few words. And yet he was gorgeous and florid. In two minutes he had displayed his programme, his maps, and his pictures. As Mr. Melmotte read the documents, Fisker from time to time put in a word - not about the benefits of the railway, but solely about the appetite for such stock as theirs, which might certainly be produced in the speculating world by a proper manipulation of the affairs. "You seem to think you couldn't get it taken up in your own country," said Melmotte. "There's not a doubt about getting it taken up there. Our folk, sir, are quick enough at the game; but you don't want me to teach you, Mr. Melmotte, that nothing encourages this kind of thing like competition. When they hear at St. Louis and Chicago that the thing is alive in London, they'll be alive there. And when they know that the stock is running like wildfire in America, they'll make it run here too." "How far have you got?" "We've got a concession for making the line from the United States Congress. We're to have the land for nothing, of course, and a grant of one thousand acres round every station, the stations to be twenty-five miles apart." "And the land is to be made over to you - when?" "When we have made the line up to the station." Fisker understood perfectly that Mr. Melmotte did not ask the question in reference to any value such land might have, but to the attractiveness of such a prospectus to speculators. "And what do you want me to do, Mr. Fisker?" "I want to have your name there," he said. And he placed his finger on a spot where it was indicated that there was to be a chairman of an English Board of Directors, but with a blank space for the name. "Who are to be your directors here, Mr. Fisker?" "We should ask you to choose them, sir. Mr. Paul Montague should be one, and perhaps his friend Sir Felix Carbury might be another. But we would leave it all to you - as also the amount of stock you would like to take yourself. If you gave yourself to it, heart and soul, Mr. Melmotte, it would be the finest thing that there has been for a long time. There would be such a mass of stock!" "You have to back that with a certain amount of paid-up capital?" "We take care, sir, in the West not to cripple commerce too closely by old-fashioned bandages. Look at what we've done already, sir, by having our limbs pretty free. Look at our line, sir, right across the continent, from San Francisco to New York. Look at-" "Never mind that, Mr. Fisker. People wanted to go from New York to San Francisco, and I don't know that they want to go to Vera Cruz. But I will look at it, and you shall hear from me." The interview was over, and Mr. Fisker was contented. If Mr. Melmotte did not intend at least to think of it he would not have given ten minutes to the subject. After all, what was wanted from Mr. Melmotte was his name, for the use of which Mr. Fisker proposed that he should receive from the speculative public two or three hundred thousand pounds. A fortnight later, the company was fully launched in England, with a body of London directors, of whom Mr. Melmotte was the chairman. Among the directors were Lord Alfred Grendall, Sir Felix Carbury, Samuel Cohenlupe, Esq., Member of Parliament for Staines, Lord Nidderdale, who was also in Parliament, and Mr. Paul Montague. It may be thought that the board of directors was not strong, and that little help could be given to any commercial enterprise by Lord Alfred or Sir Felix; but it was felt that Mr. Melmotte was himself so great a tower of strength that the company's fortune was made.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 9: The Great Railway to Vera Cruz

On that Thursday afternoon it was known everywhere that there was to be a general ruin of all the Melmotte affairs. As soon as Cohenlupe had gone, no man doubted. The City men who had not gone to the dinner prided themselves on their foresight, as did also the politicians who had declined to meet the Emperor of China at the table of the suspected Financier. They who had got up the dinner and had been instrumental in taking the Emperor to the house in Grosvenor Square, and they also who had brought him forward at Westminster and had fought his battle for him, were aware that they would have to defend themselves against heavy attacks. No one now had a word to say in his favour, or a doubt as to his guilt. The Grendalls had retired altogether out of town, and were no longer even heard of. Lord Alfred had not been seen since the day of the dinner. The Duchess of Albury, too, went into the country some weeks earlier than usual, quelled, as the world said, by the general Melmotte failure. But this departure had not as yet taken place at the time at which we have now arrived. When the Speaker took his seat in the House, soon after four o'clock, there were a great many members present, and a general feeling prevailed that the world was more than ordinarily alive because of Melmotte and his failures. It had been confidently asserted throughout the morning that he would be put upon his trial for forgery in reference to the purchase of the Pickering property from Mr. Longestaffe, and it was known that he had not as yet shown himself anywhere on this day. People had gone to look at the house in Grosvenor Square,--not knowing that he was still living in Mr. Longestaffe's house in Bruton Street, and had come away with the impression that the desolation of ruin and crime was already plainly to be seen upon it. "I wonder where he is," said Mr. Lupton to Mr. Beauchamp Beauclerk in one of the lobbies of the House. "They say he hasn't been in the City all day. I suppose he's in Longestaffe's house. That poor fellow has got it heavy all round. The man has got his place in the country and his house in town. There's Nidderdale. I wonder what he thinks about it all." "This is awful;--ain't it?" said Nidderdale. "It might have been worse, I should say, as far as you are concerned," replied Mr. Lupton. "Well, yes. But I'll tell you what, Lupton. I don't quite understand it all yet. Our lawyer said three days ago that the money was certainly there." "And Cohenlupe was certainly here three days ago," said Lupton;--"but he isn't here now. It seems to me that it has just happened in time for you." Lord Nidderdale shook his head and tried to look very grave. "There's Brown," said Sir Orlando Drought, hurrying up to the commercial gentleman whose mistakes about finance Mr. Melmotte on a previous occasion had been anxious to correct. "He'll be able to tell us where he is. It was rumoured, you know, an hour ago, that he was off to the continent after Cohenlupe." But Mr. Brown shook his head. Mr. Brown didn't know anything. But Mr. Brown was very strongly of opinion that the police would know all that there was to be known about Mr. Melmotte before this time on the following day. Mr. Brown had been very bitter against Melmotte since that memorable attack made upon him in the House. Even ministers as they sat to be badgered by the ordinary question-mongers of the day were more intent upon Melmotte than upon their own defence. "Do you know anything about it?" asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the Secretary of State for the Home Department. "I understand that no order has been given for his arrest. There is a general opinion that he has committed forgery; but I doubt whether they've got their evidence together." "He's a ruined man, I suppose," said the Chancellor. "I doubt whether he ever was a rich man. But I'll tell you what;--he has been about the grandest rogue we've seen yet. He must have spent over a hundred thousand pounds during the last twelve months on his personal expenses. I wonder how the Emperor will like it when he learns the truth." Another minister sitting close to the Secretary of State was of opinion that the Emperor of China would not care half so much about it as our own First Lord of the Treasury. At this moment there came a silence over the House which was almost audible. They who know the sensation which arises from the continued hum of many suppressed voices will know also how plain to the ear is the feeling caused by the discontinuance of the sound. Everybody looked up, but everybody looked up in perfect silence. An Under-Secretary of State had just got upon his legs to answer a most indignant question as to an alteration of the colour of the facings of a certain regiment, his prepared answer to which, however, was so happy as to allow him to anticipate quite a little triumph. It is not often that such a Godsend comes in the way of an under-secretary; and he was intent upon his performance. But even he was startled into momentary oblivion of his well-arranged point. Augustus Melmotte, the member for Westminster, was walking up the centre of the House. He had succeeded by this time in learning so much of the forms of the House as to know what to do with his hat,--when to wear it, and when to take it off,--and how to sit down. As he entered by the door facing the Speaker, he wore his hat on one side of his head, as was his custom. Much of the arrogance of his appearance had come from this habit, which had been adopted probably from a conviction that it added something to his powers of self-assertion. At this moment he was more determined than ever that no one should trace in his outer gait or in any feature of his face any sign of that ruin which, as he well knew, all men were anticipating. Therefore, perhaps, his hat was a little more cocked than usual, and the lapels of his coat were thrown back a little wider, displaying the large jewelled studs which he wore in his shirt; and the arrogance conveyed by his mouth and chin was specially conspicuous. He had come down in his brougham, and as he had walked up Westminster Hall and entered the House by the private door of the members, and then made his way in across the great lobby and between the doorkeepers,--no one had spoken a word to him. He had of course seen many whom he had known. He had indeed known nearly all whom he had seen;--but he had been aware, from the beginning of this enterprise of the day, that men would shun him, and that he must bear their cold looks and colder silence without seeming to notice them. He had schooled himself to the task, and he was now performing it. It was not only that he would have to move among men without being noticed, but that he must endure to pass the whole evening in the same plight. But he was resolved, and he was now doing it. He bowed to the Speaker with more than usual courtesy, raising his hat with more than usual care, and seated himself, as usual, on the third opposition-bench, but with more than his usual fling. He was a big man, who always endeavoured to make an effect by deportment, and was therefore customarily conspicuous in his movements. He was desirous now of being as he was always, neither more nor less demonstrative;--but, as a matter of course, he exceeded; and it seemed to those who looked at him that there was a special impudence in the manner in which he walked up the House and took his seat. The Under-Secretary of State, who was on his legs, was struck almost dumb, and his morsel of wit about the facings was lost to Parliament for ever. That unfortunate young man, Lord Nidderdale, occupied the seat next to that on which Melmotte had placed himself. It had so happened three or four times since Melmotte had been in the House, as the young lord, fully intending to marry the Financier's daughter, had resolved that he would not be ashamed of his father-in-law. He had understood that countenance of the sort which he as a young aristocrat could give to the man of millions who had risen no one knew whence, was part of the bargain in reference to the marriage, and he was gifted with a mingled honesty and courage which together made him willing and able to carry out his idea. He had given Melmotte little lessons as to ordinary forms of the House, and had done what in him lay to earn the money which was to be forthcoming. But it had become manifest both to him and to his father during the last two days,--very painfully manifest to his father,--that the thing must be abandoned. And if so,--then why should he be any longer gracious to Melmotte? And, moreover, though he had been ready to be courteous to a very vulgar and a very disagreeable man, he was not anxious to extend his civilities to one who, as he was now assured, had been certainly guilty of forgery. But to get up at once and leave his seat because Melmotte had placed himself by his side, did not suit the turn of his mind. He looked round to his neighbour on the right, with a half-comic look of misery, and then prepared himself to bear his punishment, whatever it might be. "Have you been up with Marie to-day?" said Melmotte. "No;--I've not," replied the lord. "Why don't you go? She's always asking about you now. I hope we shall be in our own house again next week, and then we shall be able to make you comfortable." Could it be possible that the man did not know that all the world was united in accusing him of forgery? "I'll tell you what it is," said Nidderdale. "I think you had better see my governor again, Mr. Melmotte." "There's nothing wrong, I hope." "Well;--I don't know. You'd better see him. I'm going now. I only just came down to enter an appearance." He had to cross Melmotte on his way out, and as he did so Melmotte grasped him by the hand. "Good night, my boy," said Melmotte quite aloud,--in a voice much louder than that which members generally allow themselves for conversation. Nidderdale was confused and unhappy; but there was probably not a man in the House who did not understand the whole thing. He rushed down through the gangway and out through the doors with a hurried step, and as he escaped into the lobby he met Lionel Lupton, who, since his little conversation with Mr. Beauclerk, had heard further news. "You know what has happened, Nidderdale?" "About Melmotte, you mean?" "Yes, about Melmotte," continued Lupton. "He has been arrested in his own house within the last half-hour on a charge of forgery." "I wish he had," said Nidderdale, "with all my heart. If you go in you'll find him sitting there as large as life. He has been talking to me as though everything were all right." "Compton was here not a moment ago, and said that he had been taken under a warrant from the Lord Mayor." "The Lord Mayor is a member and had better come and fetch his prisoner himself. At any rate he's there. I shouldn't wonder if he wasn't on his legs before long." Melmotte kept his seat steadily till seven, at which hour the House adjourned till nine. He was one of the last to leave, and then with a slow step,--with almost majestic steps,--he descended to the dining-room and ordered his dinner. There were many men there, and some little difficulty about a seat. No one was very willing to make room for him. But at last he secured a place, almost jostling some unfortunate who was there before him. It was impossible to expel him,--almost as impossible to sit next him. Even the waiters were unwilling to serve him;--but with patience and endurance he did at last get his dinner. He was there in his right, as a member of the House of Commons, and there was no ground on which such service as he required could be refused to him. It was not long before he had the table all to himself. But of this he took no apparent notice. He spoke loudly to the waiters and drank his bottle of champagne with much apparent enjoyment. Since his friendly intercourse with Nidderdale no one had spoken to him, nor had he spoken to any man. They who watched him declared among themselves that he was happy in his own audacity;--but in truth he was probably at that moment the most utterly wretched man in London. He would have better studied his personal comfort had he gone to his bed, and spent his evening in groans and wailings. But even he, with all the world now gone from him, with nothing before him but the extremest misery which the indignation of offended laws could inflict, was able to spend the last moments of his freedom in making a reputation at any rate for audacity. It was thus that Augustus Melmotte wrapped his toga around him before his death! He went from the dining-room to the smoking-room, and there, taking from his pocket a huge case which he always carried, proceeded to light a cigar about eight inches long. Mr. Brown, from the City, was in the room, and Melmotte, with a smile and a bow, offered Mr. Brown one of the same. Mr. Brown was a short, fat, round little man, over sixty, who was always endeavouring to give to a somewhat commonplace set of features an air of importance by the contraction of his lips and the knitting of his brows. It was as good as a play to see Mr. Brown jumping back from any contact with the wicked one, and putting on a double frown as he looked at the impudent sinner. "You needn't think so much, you know, of what I said the other night. I didn't mean any offence." So spoke Melmotte, and then laughed with a loud, hoarse laugh, looking round upon the assembled crowd as though he were enjoying his triumph. He sat after that and smoked in silence. Once again he burst out into a laugh, as though peculiarly amused with his own thoughts;--as though he were declaring to himself with much inward humour that all these men around him were fools for believing the stories which they had heard; but he made no further attempt to speak to any one. Soon after nine he went back again into the House, and again took his old place. At this time he had swallowed three glasses of brandy and water, as well as the champagne, and was brave enough almost for anything. There was some debate going on in reference to the game laws,--a subject on which Melmotte was as ignorant as one of his own housemaids,--but, as some speaker sat down, he jumped up to his legs. Another gentleman had also risen, and when the House called to that other gentleman Melmotte gave way. The other gentleman had not much to say, and in a few minutes Melmotte was again on his legs. Who shall dare to describe the thoughts which would cross the august mind of a Speaker of the House of Commons at such a moment? Of Melmotte's villainy he had no official knowledge. And even could he have had such knowledge it was not for him to act upon it. The man was a member of the House, and as much entitled to speak as another. But it seemed on that occasion that the Speaker was anxious to save the House from disgrace;--for twice and thrice he refused to have his "eye caught" by the member for Westminster. As long as any other member would rise he would not have his eye caught. But Melmotte was persistent, and determined not to be put down. At last no one else would speak, and the House was about to negative the motion without a division,--when Melmotte was again on his legs, still persisting. The Speaker scowled at him and leaned back in his chair. Melmotte standing erect, turning his head round from one side of the House to another, as though determined that all should see his audacity, propping himself with his knees against the seat before him, remained for half a minute perfectly silent. He was drunk,--but better able than most drunken men to steady himself, and showing in his face none of those outward signs of intoxication by which drunkenness is generally made apparent. But he had forgotten in his audacity that words are needed for the making of a speech, and now he had not a word at his command. He stumbled forward, recovered himself, then looked once more round the House with a glance of anger, and after that toppled headlong forward over the shoulders of Mr. Beauchamp Beauclerk, who was now sitting in front of him. He might have wrapped his toga around him better perhaps had he remained at home, but if to have himself talked about was his only object, he could hardly have taken a surer course. The scene, as it occurred, was one very likely to be remembered when the performer should have been carried away into enforced obscurity. There was much commotion in the House. Mr. Beauclerk, a man of natural good nature, though at the moment put to considerable personal inconvenience, hastened, when he recovered his own equilibrium, to assist the drunken man. But Melmotte had by no means lost the power of helping himself. He quickly recovered his legs, and then reseating himself, put his hat on, and endeavoured to look as though nothing special had occurred. The House resumed its business, taking no further notice of Melmotte, and having no special rule of its own as to the treatment to be adopted with drunken members. But the member for Westminster caused no further inconvenience. He remained in his seat for perhaps ten minutes, and then, not with a very steady step, but still with capacity sufficient for his own guidance, he made his way down to the doors. His exit was watched in silence, and the moment was an anxious one for the Speaker, the clerks, and all who were near him. Had he fallen some one,--or rather some two or three,--must have picked him up and carried him out. But he did not fall either there or in the lobbies, or on his way down to Palace Yard. Many were looking at him, but none touched him. When he had got through the gates, leaning against the wall he hallooed for his brougham, and the servant who was waiting for him soon took him home to Bruton Street. That was the last which the British Parliament saw of its new member for Westminster. Melmotte as soon as he reached home got into his own sitting-room without difficulty, and called for more brandy and water. Between eleven and twelve he was left there by his servant with a bottle of brandy, three or four bottles of soda-water, and his cigar-case. Neither of the ladies of the family came to him, nor did he speak of them. Nor was he so drunk then as to give rise to any suspicion in the mind of the servant. He was habitually left there at night, and the servant as usual went to his bed. But at nine o'clock on the following morning the maid-servant found him dead upon the floor. Drunk as he had been,--more drunk as he probably became during the night,--still he was able to deliver himself from the indignities and penalties to which the law might have subjected him by a dose of prussic acid.

On that Thursday afternoon it was known everywhere that Melmotte was ruined. As soon as Cohenlupe had gone, no man doubted it. No one now had a word to say in his favour. The Grendalls had disappeared; Lord Alfred had not been seen since the day of the dinner. When the Speaker took his seat in the House, soon after four o'clock, there were many members present, and a general feeling that the world was more than ordinarily alive because of Melmotte and his failures. It had been confidently asserted throughout the morning that he would be put upon trial for forgery, and it was known that he had not yet shown himself anywhere that day. "I wonder where he is," said Mr. Lupton to Mr. Beauchamp Beauclerk in one of the lobbies of the House. "They say he hasn't been in the City all day. I suppose he's in Longestaffe's house. There's Nidderdale. I wonder what he thinks about it all." "This is awful; ain't it?" said Nidderdale. "It might have been worse, I should say, as far as you are concerned," replied Mr. Lupton. "Well, yes. But I'll tell you what, Lupton. I don't quite understand it all yet. Our lawyer said three days ago that the money was certainly there." "And Cohenlupe was certainly here three days ago," said Lupton; "but he isn't here now." Lord Nidderdale shook his head and tried to look very grave. Even ministers were more intent upon Melmotte than upon their own business. "Do you know anything about it?" asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the Home Secretary. "I understand that no order has been given for his arrest. I doubt whether they've got their evidence together." "He's a ruined man, I suppose," said the Chancellor. "He has been about the grandest rogue we've seen yet. He must have spent over a hundred thousand pounds during the last twelve months on his personal expenses." At this moment there came a silence over the House which was almost audible. Everybody looked up. An Under-Secretary of State who had just stood up to speak was startled into momentary forgetfulness of his point. Augustus Melmotte, the member for Westminster, was walking up the centre of the House. He had learnt by this time what to do with his hat in the House. As he entered he wore it on one side of his head, as was his custom. Much of the arrogance of his appearance had come from this habit. He was more determined than ever that no one should see in his face or manner any sign of that ruin which, as he well knew, all men were anticipating. Therefore, perhaps, his hat was a little more cocked than usual, and the lapels of his coat were thrown back a little wider, displaying the large jewelled studs in his shirt. When he had come through the hall, no one had spoken a word to him. He had known that men would shun him; but he was resolved to endure it. He bowed to the Speaker with more than usual courtesy, raising his hat with care, and seated himself on the third opposition-bench, with more than his usual fling. He was a big man, and always conspicuous in his movements; but there seemed to be a special impudence in the manner in which he took his seat. The Under-Secretary of State who was on his legs was struck almost dumb. Lord Nidderdale occupied the seat next to Melmotte's. Previously the young lord, fully intending to marry the Financier's daughter, had resolved that he would not be ashamed of his father-in-law, and with honesty and courage he had given Melmotte little lessons as to customs of the House. But it had become obvious during the last two days that the marriage must be abandoned. Why should he any longer be gracious to Melmotte? But he found it hard to get up at once and leave his seat because Melmotte had placed himself by his side. "Have you been with Marie today?" said Melmotte. "No - I've not," replied the lord. "Why don't you go? She's always asking about you now. I hope we shall be in our own house again next week, and then we shall be able to make you comfortable." Could it be possible that the man did not know that all the world was united in accusing him of forgery? "I think you had better see my governor again, Mr. Melmotte." "There's nothing wrong, I hope." "Well - I don't know. You'd better see him. I'm going now. I only came down to make an appearance." He had to cross Melmotte on his way out, and as he did so Melmotte grasped him by the hand. "Good night, my boy," said Melmotte, quite loudly. Nidderdale was confused and unhappy; and rushed down through the gangway and out through the doors with a hurried step. As he escaped into the lobby he met Lionel Lupton. "You know what has happened, Nidderdale?" "About Melmotte, you mean?" "Yes - he has been arrested in his own house within the last half-hour." "I wish he had," said Nidderdale. "If you go in you'll find him sitting there as large as life. He has been talking to me as though everything were all right." Melmotte kept his seat steadily till seven, when the House adjourned till nine. He was one of the last to leave, and then, almost majestically, he descended to the dining-room and ordered his dinner. There were many men there, and no one was very willing to make room for him. But at last he secured a place. Even the waiters were unwilling to serve him; but with patience and endurance he did eventually get his dinner. He was there in his right, as a member of the House of Commons, and such service could not be refused to him. It was not long before he had the table to himself. But of this he took no apparent notice. He spoke loudly to the waiters and drank his bottle of champagne with evident enjoyment. He looked happy enough; but in truth he was probably the most utterly wretched man in London. Yet, with all the world now gone from him, with nothing before him but extreme misery, he was able to spend the last moments of his freedom in making a reputation for audacity. He went from the dining-room to the smoking-room, and lit a long cigar. Mr. Brown, who had been corrected by Melmotte in his first speech, was in the room, and Melmotte, with a smile and a bow, offered a cigar to him. It was as good as a play to see Mr. Brown jumping back from any contact with the wicked one, and frowning at his impudence. "You needn't think so much, you know, of what I said the other night. I didn't mean any offence." So spoke Melmotte, and then laughed with a loud, hoarse laugh. He sat after that and smoked in silence. Once again he burst out into a laugh, as though peculiarly amused with his own thoughts. Soon after nine he went back again into the House, and took his old place. At this time he had swallowed three glasses of brandy and water, as well as the champagne, and was brave enough almost for anything. There was some debate going on about the game laws - a subject on which Melmotte was as ignorant as one of his own housemaids - but he jumped on to his feet. What thoughts must have crossed the mind of the Speaker of the House of Commons? He had no official knowledge of Melmotte's villainy. The man was a member of the House, and as much entitled to speak as another. But it seemed that the Speaker was anxious to save the House from disgrace; for he refused to have his "eye caught" by the member for Westminster. However, Melmotte was persistent, and determined not to be put down. At last no one else would speak, and Melmotte was again on his legs. The Speaker scowled at him and leaned back in his chair. Melmotte, standing erect, turning his head round from one side of the House to another, remained for half a minute perfectly silent. He was drunk, but better able than most drunken men to steady himself, and showing in his face no outward signs of intoxication. But he had forgotten that words are needed for the making of a speech, and now he had not a word at his command. He stumbled forward, recovered himself, glanced round the House with anger, and then toppled headlong over the shoulders of Mr. Beauchamp Beauclerk, who was sitting in front of him. There was much commotion in the House. Mr. Beauclerk hastened, when he regained his own balance, to assist the drunken man. But Melmotte quickly recovered his legs, and reseating himself, put his hat on, and tried to look as though nothing special had occurred. The House resumed its business. He remained in his seat for perhaps ten minutes, and then, somewhat unsteadily, he made his way down to the doors. His exit was watched in anxious silence. Had he fallen, some one - or rather some two or three - must have picked him up and carried him out. But he did not fall, and no one touched him. When he had got out through the gates, leaning against the wall he hallooed for his carriage, and was taken home to Bruton Street. That was the last which the British Parliament saw of its new member for Westminster. As soon as he reached home Melmotte went to his sitting-room, and called for more brandy and water. Between eleven and twelve he was left there by his servant with a bottle of brandy, three or four bottles of soda-water, and his cigar-case. He was not so drunk as to give rise to any suspicion in the servant's mind; and the servant went to bed. But at nine o'clock on the following morning the maid-servant found him dead upon the floor. Drunk as he had been, more drunk as he probably became during the night - still he was able to deliver himself from the indignities and penalties of the law, by swallowing a dose of prussic acid.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 83: Melmotte Again at the House

Lady Carbury's house in Welbeck Street was a modest house enough,--with no pretensions to be a mansion, hardly assuming even to be a residence; but, having some money in her hands when she first took it, she had made it pretty and pleasant, and was still proud to feel that in spite of the hardness of her position she had comfortable belongings around her when her literary friends came to see her on her Tuesday evenings. Here she was now living with her son and daughter. The back drawing-room was divided from the front by doors that were permanently closed, and in this she carried on her great work. Here she wrote her books and contrived her system for the inveigling of editors and critics. Here she was rarely disturbed by her daughter, and admitted no visitors except editors and critics. But her son was controlled by no household laws, and would break in upon her privacy without remorse. She had hardly finished two galloping notes after completing her letter to Mr. Ferdinand Alf, when Felix entered the room with a cigar in his mouth and threw himself upon the sofa. "My dear boy," she said, "pray leave your tobacco below when you come in here." "What affectation it is, mother," he said, throwing, however, the half-smoked cigar into the fire-place. "Some women swear they like smoke, others say they hate it like the devil. It depends altogether on whether they wish to flatter or snub a fellow." "You don't suppose that I wish to snub you?" "Upon my word I don't know. I wonder whether you can let me have twenty pounds?" "My dear Felix!" "Just so, mother;--but how about the twenty pounds?" [Illustration: "Just so, mother;--but how about the twenty pounds?"] "What is it for, Felix?" "Well;--to tell the truth, to carry on the game for the nonce till something is settled. A fellow can't live without some money in his pocket. I do with as little as most fellows. I pay for nothing that I can help. I even get my hair cut on credit, and as long as it was possible I had a brougham, to save cabs." "What is to be the end of it, Felix?" "I never could see the end of anything, mother. I never could nurse a horse when the hounds were going well in order to be in at the finish. I never could pass a dish that I liked in favour of those that were to follow. What's the use?" The young man did not say "carpe diem," but that was the philosophy which he intended to preach. "Have you been at the Melmottes' to-day?" It was now five o'clock on a winter afternoon, the hour at which ladies are drinking tea, and idle men playing whist at the clubs,--at which young idle men are sometimes allowed to flirt, and at which, as Lady Carbury thought, her son might have been paying his court to Marie Melmotte the great heiress. "I have just come away." "And what do you think of her?" "To tell the truth, mother, I have thought very little about her. She is not pretty, she is not plain; she is not clever, she is not stupid; she is neither saint nor sinner." "The more likely to make a good wife." "Perhaps so. I am at any rate quite willing to believe that as wife she would be 'good enough for me.'" "What does the mother say?" "The mother is a caution. I cannot help speculating whether, if I marry the daughter, I shall ever find out where the mother came from. Dolly Longestaffe says that somebody says that she was a Bohemian Jewess; but I think she's too fat for that." "What does it matter, Felix?" "Not in the least." "Is she civil to you?" "Yes, civil enough." "And the father?" "Well, he does not turn me out, or anything of that sort. Of course there are half-a-dozen after her, and I think the old fellow is bewildered among them all. He's thinking more of getting dukes to dine with him than of his daughter's lovers. Any fellow might pick her up who happened to hit her fancy." "And why not you?" "Why not, mother? I am doing my best, and it's no good flogging a willing horse. Can you let me have the money?" "Oh, Felix, I think you hardly know how poor we are. You have still got your hunters down at the place!" "I have got two horses, if you mean that; and I haven't paid a shilling for their keep since the season began. Look here, mother; this is a risky sort of game, I grant, but I am playing it by your advice. If I can marry Miss Melmotte, I suppose all will be right. But I don't think the way to get her would be to throw up everything and let all the world know that I haven't got a copper. To do that kind of thing a man must live a little up to the mark. I've brought my hunting down to a minimum, but if I gave it up altogether there would be lots of fellows to tell them in Grosvenor Square why I had done so." There was an apparent truth in this argument which the poor woman was unable to answer. Before the interview was over the money demanded was forthcoming, though at the time it could be but ill afforded, and the youth went away apparently with a light heart, hardly listening to his mother's entreaties that the affair with Marie Melmotte might, if possible, be brought to a speedy conclusion. Felix, when he left his mother, went down to the only club to which he now belonged. Clubs are pleasant resorts in all respects but one. They require ready money, or even worse than that in respect to annual payments,--money in advance; and the young baronet had been absolutely forced to restrict himself. He, as a matter of course, out of those to which he had possessed the right of entrance, chose the worst. It was called the Beargarden, and had been lately opened with the express view of combining parsimony with profligacy. Clubs were ruined, so said certain young parsimonious profligates, by providing comforts for old fogies who paid little or nothing but their subscriptions, and took out by their mere presence three times as much as they gave. This club was not to be opened till three o'clock in the afternoon, before which hour the promoters of the Beargarden thought it improbable that they and their fellows would want a club. There were to be no morning papers taken, no library, no morning-room. Dining-rooms, billiard-rooms, and card-rooms would suffice for the Beargarden. Everything was to be provided by a purveyor, so that the club should be cheated only by one man. Everything was to be luxurious, but the luxuries were to be achieved at first cost. It had been a happy thought, and the club was said to prosper. Herr Vossner, the purveyor, was a jewel, and so carried on affairs that there was no trouble about anything. He would assist even in smoothing little difficulties as to the settling of card accounts, and had behaved with the greatest tenderness to the drawers of cheques whose bankers had harshly declared them to have "no effects." Herr Vossner was a jewel, and the Beargarden was a success. Perhaps no young man about town enjoyed the Beargarden more thoroughly than did Sir Felix Carbury. The club was in the close vicinity of other clubs, in a small street turning out of St. James's Street, and piqued itself on its outward quietness and sobriety. Why pay for stone-work for other people to look at;--why lay out money in marble pillars and cornices, seeing that you can neither eat such things, nor drink them, nor gamble with them? But the Beargarden had the best wines,--or thought that it had,--and the easiest chairs, and two billiard-tables than which nothing more perfect had ever been made to stand upon legs. Hither Sir Felix wended on that January afternoon as soon as he had his mother's cheque for 20 in his pocket. He found his special friend, Dolly Longestaffe, standing on the steps with a cigar in his mouth, and gazing vacantly at the dull brick house opposite. "Going to dine here, Dolly?" said Sir Felix. "I suppose I shall, because it's such a lot of trouble to go anywhere else. I'm engaged somewhere, I know; but I'm not up to getting home and dressing. By George! I don't know how fellows do that kind of thing. I can't." "Going to hunt to-morrow?" "Well, yes; but I don't suppose I shall. I was going to hunt every day last week, but my fellow never would get me up in time. I can't tell why it is that things are done in such a beastly way. Why shouldn't fellows begin to hunt at two or three, so that a fellow needn't get up in the middle of the night?" "Because one can't ride by moonlight, Dolly." "It isn't moonlight at three. At any rate I can't get myself to Euston Square by nine. I don't think that fellow of mine likes getting up himself. He says he comes in and wakes me, but I never remember it." "How many horses have you got at Leighton, Dolly?" "How many? There were five, but I think that fellow down there sold one; but then I think he bought another. I know he did something." "Who rides them?" "He does, I suppose. That is, of course, I ride them myself, only I so seldom get down. Somebody told me that Grasslough was riding two of them last week. I don't think I ever told him he might. I think he tipped that fellow of mine; and I call that a low kind of thing to do. I'd ask him, only I know he'd say that I had lent them. Perhaps I did when I was tight, you know." "You and Grasslough were never pals." "I don't like him a bit. He gives himself airs because he is a lord, and is devilish ill-natured. I don't know why he should want to ride my horses." "To save his own." "He isn't hard up. Why doesn't he have his own horses? I'll tell you what, Carbury, I've made up my mind to one thing, and, by Jove, I'll stick to it. I never will lend a horse again to anybody. If fellows want horses let them buy them." "But some fellows haven't got any money, Dolly." "Then they ought to go tick. I don't think I've paid for any of mine I've bought this season. There was somebody here yesterday--" "What! here at the club?" "Yes; followed me here to say he wanted to be paid for something! It was horses, I think, because of the fellow's trousers." "What did you say?" "Me! Oh, I didn't say anything." "And how did it end?" "When he'd done talking I offered him a cigar, and while he was biting off the end I went up-stairs. I suppose he went away when he was tired of waiting." "I'll tell you what, Dolly; I wish you'd let me ride two of yours for a couple of days,--that is, of course, if you don't want them yourself. You ain't tight now, at any rate." "No; I ain't tight," said Dolly, with melancholy acquiescence. "I mean that I wouldn't like to borrow your horses without your remembering all about it. Nobody knows as well as you do how awfully done up I am. I shall pull through at last, but it's an awful squeeze in the meantime. There's nobody I'd ask such a favour of except you." "Well, you may have them;--that is, for two days. I don't know whether that fellow of mine will believe you. He wouldn't believe Grasslough, and told him so. But Grasslough took them out of the stables. That's what somebody told me." "You could write a line to your groom." "Oh, my dear fellow, that is such a bore; I don't think I could do that. My fellow will believe you, because you and I have been pals. I think I'll have a little drop of curaoa before dinner. Come along and try it. It'll give us an appetite." It was then nearly seven o'clock. Nine hours afterwards the same two men, with two others,--of whom young Lord Grasslough, Dolly Longestaffe's peculiar aversion, was one,--were just rising from a card-table in one of the up-stairs rooms of the club. For it was understood that, though the Beargarden was not to be open before three o'clock in the afternoon, the accommodation denied during the day was to be given freely during the night. No man could get a breakfast at the Beargarden, but suppers at three o'clock in the morning were quite within the rule. Such a supper, or rather succession of suppering, there had been to-night, various devils and broils and hot toasts having been brought up from time to time first for one and then for another. But there had been no cessation of gambling since the cards had first been opened about ten o'clock. At four in the morning Dolly Longestaffe was certainly in a condition to lend his horses and to remember nothing about it. He was quite affectionate with Lord Grasslough, as he was also with his other companions,--affection being the normal state of his mind when in that condition. He was by no means helplessly drunk, and was, perhaps, hardly more silly than when he was sober; but he was willing to play at any game whether he understood it or not, and for any stakes. When Sir Felix got up and said he would play no more, Dolly also got up, apparently quite contented. When Lord Grasslough, with a dark scowl on his face, expressed his opinion that it was not just the thing for men to break up like that when so much money had been lost, Dolly as willingly sat down again. But Dolly's sitting down was not sufficient. "I'm going to hunt to-morrow," said Sir Felix,--meaning that day,--"and I shall play no more. A man must go to bed at some time." "I don't see it at all," said Lord Grasslough. "It's an understood thing that when a man has won as much as you have he should stay." "Stay how long?" said Sir Felix, with an angry look. "That's nonsense; there must be an end of everything, and there's an end of this for me to-night." "Oh, if you choose," said his lordship. "I do choose. Good night, Dolly; we'll settle this next time we meet. I've got it all entered." The night had been one very serious in its results to Sir Felix. He had sat down to the card-table with the proceeds of his mother's cheque, a poor 20, and now he had,--he didn't at all know how much in his pockets. He also had drunk, but not so as to obscure his mind. He knew that Longestaffe owed him over 800, and he knew also that he had received more than that in ready money and cheques from Lord Grasslough and the other player. Dolly Longestaffe's money, too, would certainly be paid, though Dolly did complain of the importunity of his tradesmen. As he walked up St. James's Street, looking for a cab, he presumed himself to be worth over 700. When begging for a small sum from Lady Carbury, he had said that he could not carry on the game without some ready money, and had considered himself fortunate in fleecing his mother as he had done. Now he was in the possession of wealth,--of wealth that might, at any rate, be sufficient to aid him materially in the object he had in hand. He never for a moment thought of paying his bills. Even the large sum of which he had become so unexpectedly possessed would not have gone far with him in such a quixotic object as that; but he could now look bright, and buy presents, and be seen with money in his hands. It is hard even to make love in these days without something in your purse. He found no cab, but in his present frame of mind was indifferent to the trouble of walking home. There was something so joyous in the feeling of the possession of all this money that it made the night air pleasant to him. Then, of a sudden, he remembered the low wail with which his mother had spoken of her poverty when he demanded assistance from her. Now he could give her back the 20. But it occurred to him sharply, with an amount of carefulness quite new to him, that it would be foolish to do so. How soon might he want it again? And, moreover, he could not repay the money without explaining to her how he had gotten it. It would be preferable to say nothing about his money. As he let himself into the house and went up to his room he resolved that he would not say anything about it. On that morning he was at the station at nine, and hunted down in Buckinghamshire, riding two of Dolly Longestaffe's horses,--for the use of which he paid Dolly Longestaffe's "fellow" thirty shillings.

Lady Carbury's house in Welbeck Street was modest; but she had made it pretty and pleasant, and was proud to feel that she had comfortable belongings around her when her literary friends came to see her on Tuesday evenings. The door to the back drawing-room was permanently closed; it was here that she carried on her great work of writing. Here she was rarely disturbed by her daughter, although her son would break in upon her privacy without remorse. Soon after she had completed her letter to Mr. Alf, Felix entered the room with a cigar in his mouth and threw himself upon the sofa. "My dear boy," she said, "pray leave your tobacco behind when you come in here." "Some women swear they like smoke, mother," he said, throwing the half-smoked cigar into the fire-place. "I wonder whether you can let me have twenty pounds?" "My dear Felix! What is it for?" "Well, a fellow can't live without some money in his pocket. I do with as little as most fellows. I even get my hair cut on credit." "What is to be the end of it, Felix?" "I never could see the end of anything, mother. I never could pass a dish that I liked in favour of those to follow. What's the use?" "Have you been at the Melmottes' today?" It was now five o'clock on a winter afternoon, and Lady Carbury thought her son might have been paying his court to Marie Melmotte the great heiress. "I have just come away." "And what do you think of her?" "To tell the truth, mother, I have thought very little about her. She is not pretty, she is not plain; she is not clever, she is not stupid; she is neither saint nor sinner." "The more likely to make a good wife." "Perhaps. Good enough, at any rate." "What does the mother say?" "The mother is a caution. Dolly Longestaffe says that somebody says that she was a Bohemian Jewess; but I think she's too fat for that." "What does it matter, Felix? Is she civil to you?" "Yes, civil enough." "And the father?" "Well, he does not turn me out. Of course there are half-a-dozen after her, and I think the old fellow is bewildered among them all. He's thinking more of getting dukes to dine with him than of his daughter's lovers. Any fellow might pick her up who happened to hit her fancy." "And why not you?" "I am doing my best, mother. Can you let me have the money?" "Oh, Felix, I think you hardly know how poor we are. You have still got your hunters!" "I have got two horses, if you mean that; and I haven't paid a shilling for their keep since the season began. Look here, mother; this is a risky game, but I am playing it by your advice. If I can marry Miss Melmotte, I suppose all will be right. But I don't think the way to get her is to let all the world know that I haven't got a copper. If I gave up my hunting there would be lots of fellows to tell them in Grosvenor Square." The poor woman was unable to argue against this. The money was handed over, and the youth went away with a light heart, hardly listening to his mother's entreaties that the affair with Marie Melmotte might be brought to a speedy conclusion. Felix, when he left his mother, went down to the only club to which he now belonged. Clubs require money; and the young baronet, forced to restrict himself to one, chose the worst. It was called the Beargarden, and had been lately opened with the express view of combining parsimony with profligacy. This club did not open till three o'clock in the afternoon. There were no morning papers taken, no library, no morning-room. Dining-rooms, billiard-rooms, and card-rooms would suffice for the Beargarden. Everything was luxurious, and the club was said to prosper. Herr Vossner, the purveyor, carried on affairs so that there was no trouble about anything, smoothing any little difficulties in the settling of accounts. Perhaps no young man about town enjoyed the Beargarden more thoroughly than Sir Felix Carbury. The club was close to other clubs, in a small street off St. James's Street, and outwardly sober. Why pay for marble pillars and cornices, when you can neither eat such things, nor drink them, nor gamble with them? But the Beargarden had the best wines - or thought that it had - and the easiest chairs, and two perfect billiard-tables. Hither Sir Felix went with his mother's cheque for 20 in his pocket. He found his friend, Adolphus "Dolly" Longestaffe, standing on the steps with a cigar in his mouth, and gazing vacantly at the brick house opposite. "Going to dine here, Dolly?" said Sir Felix. "I suppose I shall, because it's such a lot of trouble to go anywhere else. I'm engaged somewhere, I know; but I'm not up to getting home and dressing." "Going to hunt tomorrow?" "Well, yes; but I don't suppose I shall. I was going to hunt every day last week, but my fellow never would get me up in time. Why can't fellows hunt at two or three, so that a fellow needn't get up in the middle of the night? I can't get myself to Euston Square by nine. That fellow of mine says he comes in and wakes me, but I never remember it." "How many horses have you got at Leighton, Dolly?" "There were five, but I think that fellow down there sold one; but maybe he bought another. I know he did something." "Who rides them?" "He does, I suppose. Somebody told me that Grasslough was riding two of them last week. I think he tipped that fellow of mine; I call that a low thing to do. I'd ask him, only I know he'd say that I had lent them. Perhaps I did when I was tight, you know." "You and Grasslough were never pals." "I don't like him. He gives himself airs, and he isn't hard up. Why doesn't he have his own horses? I'll tell you what, Carbury, I've made up my mind, by Jove. I never will lend a horse again to anybody. If fellows want horses let them buy them." "But some fellows haven't got any money, Dolly." "Then they ought to go on tick. I don't think I've paid for any of mine I've bought this season. There was somebody here yesterday - followed me here to say he wanted to be paid for something! It was horses, I think, because of the fellow's trousers." "What did you say?" "Oh, I didn't say anything. I offered him a cigar, and went upstairs. I suppose he left when he was tired of waiting." "I'll tell you what, Dolly;" said Sir Felix, "I wish you'd let me ride two of yours for a couple of days - that is, if you don't want them yourself. You know how awfully done up I am. I shall pull through, but it's an awful squeeze in the meantime." "Well, you may have them for two days. I don't know whether that fellow of mine will believe you. He wouldn't believe Grasslough, but Grasslough took them anyway." "You could write a line to your groom." "Oh, my dear fellow, that is such a bore; I don't think I could do that. My fellow will believe you, because you and I have been pals. I think I'll have a little drop of curaao before dinner. Come and try it." It was then nearly seven o'clock. Nine hours afterwards the same two men, with two others - including Lord Grasslough - were just rising from a card-table in one of the upstairs rooms of the club. For while no man could get a breakfast at the Beargarden, suppers at three o'clock in the morning were quite within the rule. At four in the morning Dolly Longestaffe was certainly in a condition to lend his horses and to remember nothing about it. He was quite affectionate with Lord Grasslough and his other companions. He was by no means helplessly drunk, and was, perhaps, hardly more silly than when he was sober; but he was willing to play at any game whether he understood it or not, and for any stakes. When Sir Felix got up and said he would play no more, Dolly also got up. Lord Grasslough, with a dark scowl, said that it was not the thing for men to stop when so much money had been lost; at which Dolly as willingly sat down again. "I'm going to hunt tomorrow," said Sir Felix - meaning that day - "and I shall play no more. A man must go to bed at some time." "When a man has won as much as you have, he should stay," said Lord Grasslough. "Stay how long?" said Sir Felix angrily. "That's nonsense. There's an end of this for me tonight." "Oh, if you choose," said his lordship. "I do choose. Good night, Dolly; we'll settle next time we meet. I've got it all entered." Sir Felix had sat down to the card-table with his mother's 20, and now he had - he didn't know how much. He knew that Dolly Longestaffe owed him over 800, and he had received more than that in ready money and cheques from Lord Grasslough and the other player. As Sir Felix walked up St. James's Street, looking for a cab, he presumed himself to be worth over 700. Now that he was in the possession of wealth, he never for a moment thought of paying his bills. Even the large sum which he now so unexpectedly possessed would not have gone far in that; but he could now look bright, and buy presents. It is hard to make love without something in your purse. He found no cab, but there was something so joyous in possessing all this money that it made walking in the night air pleasant. Suddenly he remembered the low wail with which his mother had spoken of her poverty. Now he could give her back the 20. But it occurred to him that it would be foolish to do so. How soon might he want it again? Moreover, he could not repay the money without explaining to her how he had got it. As he let himself into the house he resolved that he would not say anything about it. That morning he was at the station at nine, and went hunting down in Buckinghamshire, riding two of Dolly Longestaffe's horses - for the use of which he paid Dolly's "fellow" thirty shillings.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 3: The Beargarden

It was a long time now since Lady Carbury's great historical work on the Criminal Queens of the World had been completed and given to the world. Any reader careful as to dates will remember that it was as far back as in February that she had solicited the assistance of certain of her literary friends who were connected with the daily and weekly press. These gentlemen had responded to her call with more or less zealous aid, so that the "Criminal Queens" had been regarded in the trade as one of the successful books of the season. Messrs. Leadham and Loiter had published a second, and then, very quickly, a fourth and fifth edition; and had been able in their advertisements to give testimony from various criticisms showing that Lady Carbury's book was about the greatest historical work which had emanated from the press in the present century. With this object a passage was extracted even from the columns of the "Evening Pulpit,"--which showed very great ingenuity on the part of some young man connected with the establishment of Messrs. Leadham and Loiter. Lady Carbury had suffered something in the struggle. What efforts can mortals make as to which there will not be some disappointment? Paper and print cannot be had for nothing, and advertisements are very costly. An edition may be sold with startling rapidity, but it may have been but a scanty edition. When Lady Carbury received from Messrs. Leadham and Loiter their second very moderate cheque, with the expression of a fear on their part that there would not probably be a third,--unless some unforeseen demand should arise,--she repeated to herself those well-known lines from the satirist,-- "Oh, Amos Cottle, for a moment think What meagre profits spread from pen and ink." But not on that account did she for a moment hesitate as to further attempts. Indeed she had hardly completed the last chapter of her "Criminal Queens" before she was busy on another work; and although the last six months had been to her a period of incessant trouble, and sometimes of torture, though the conduct of her son had more than once forced her to declare to herself that her mind would fail her, still she had persevered. From day to day, with all her cares heavy upon her, she had sat at her work, with a firm resolve that so many lines should be always forthcoming, let the difficulty of making them be what it might. Messrs. Leadham and Loiter had thought that they might be justified in offering her certain terms for a novel,--terms not very high indeed, and those contingent on the approval of the manuscript by their reader. The smallness of the sum offered, and the want of certainty, and the pain of the work in her present circumstances, had all been felt by her to be very hard. But she had persevered, and the novel was now complete. It cannot with truth be said of her that she had had any special tale to tell. She had taken to the writing of a novel because Mr. Loiter had told her that upon the whole novels did better than anything else. She would have written a volume of sermons on the same encouragement, and have gone about the work exactly after the same fashion. The length of her novel had been her first question. It must be in three volumes, and each volume must have three hundred pages. But what fewest number of words might be supposed sufficient to fill a page? The money offered was too trifling to allow of very liberal measure on her part. She had to live, and if possible to write another novel,--and, as she hoped, upon better terms,--when this should be finished. Then what should be the name of her novel; what the name of her hero; and above all what the name of her heroine? It must be a love story of course; but she thought that she would leave the complications of the plot to come by chance,--and they did come. "Don't let it end unhappily, Lady Carbury," Mr. Loiter had said, "because though people like it in a play, they hate it in a book. And whatever you do, Lady Carbury, don't be historical. Your historical novel, Lady Carbury, isn't worth a--" Mr. Loiter stopping himself suddenly, and remembering that he was addressing himself to a lady, satisfied his energy at last by the use of the word "straw." Lady Carbury had followed these instructions with accuracy. The name for the story had been the great thing. It did not occur to the authoress that, as the plot was to be allowed to develop itself and was, at this moment when she was perplexed as to the title, altogether uncreated, she might as well wait to see what appellation might best suit her work when its purpose should have declared itself. A novel, she knew well, was most unlike a rose, which by any other name will smell as sweet. "The Faultless Father," "The Mysterious Mother," "The Lame Lover,"--such names as that she was aware would be useless now. "Mary Jane Walker," if she could be very simple, would do, or "Blanche De Veau," if she were able to maintain throughout a somewhat high-stilted style of feminine rapture. But as she considered that she could best deal with rapid action and strange coincidences, she thought that something more startling and descriptive would better suit her purpose. After an hour's thought a name did occur to her, and she wrote it down, and with considerable energy of purpose framed her work in accordance with her chosen title, "The Wheel of Fortune!" She had no particular fortune in her mind when she chose it, and no particular wheel;--but the very idea conveyed by the words gave her the plot which she wanted. A young lady was blessed with great wealth, and lost it all by an uncle, and got it all back by an honest lawyer, and gave it all up to a distressed lover, and found it all again in the third volume. And the lady's name was Cordinga, selected by Lady Carbury as never having been heard before either in the world of fact or in that of fiction. And now with all her troubles thick about her,--while her son was still hanging about the house in a condition that would break any mother's heart, while her daughter was so wretched and sore that she regarded all those around her as her enemies, Lady Carbury finished her work, and having just written the last words in which the final glow of enduring happiness was given to the young married heroine whose wheel had now come full round, sat with the sheets piled at her right hand. She had allowed herself a certain number of weeks for the task, and had completed it exactly in the time fixed. As she sat with her hand near the pile, she did give herself credit for her diligence. Whether the work might have been better done she never asked herself. I do not think that she prided herself much on the literary merit of the tale. But if she could bring the papers to praise it, if she could induce Mudie to circulate it, if she could manage that the air for a month should be so loaded with "The Wheel of Fortune," as to make it necessary for the reading world to have read or to have said that it had read the book,--then she would pride herself very much upon her work. As she was so sitting on a Sunday afternoon, in her own room, Mr. Alf was announced. According to her habit, she expressed warm delight at seeing him. Nothing could be kinder than such a visit just at such a time,--when there was so very much to occupy such a one as Mr. Alf! Mr. Alf, in his usual mildly satirical way, declared that he was not peculiarly occupied just at present. "The Emperor has left Europe at last," he said. "Poor Melmotte poisoned himself on Friday, and the inquest sat yesterday. I don't know that there is anything of interest to-day." Of course Lady Carbury was intent upon her book, rather even than on the exciting death of a man whom she had herself known. Oh, if she could only get Mr. Alf! She had tried it before, and had failed lamentably. She was well aware of that; and she had a deep-seated conviction that it would be almost impossible to get Mr. Alf. But then she had another deep-seated conviction, that that which is almost impossible may possibly be done. How great would be the glory, how infinite the service! And did it not seem as though Providence had blessed her with this special opportunity, sending Mr. Alf to her just at the one moment at which she might introduce the subject of her novel without seeming premeditation? "I am so tired," she said, affecting to throw herself back as though stretching her arms out for ease. "I hope I am not adding to your fatigue," said Mr. Alf. "Oh dear no. It is not the fatigue of the moment, but of the last six months. Just as you knocked at the door, I had finished the novel at which I have been working, oh, with such diligence!" "Oh,--a novel! When is it to appear, Lady Carbury?" "You must ask Leadham and Loiter that question. I have done my part of the work. I suppose you never wrote a novel, Mr. Alf?" "I? Oh dear no; I never write anything." "I have sometimes wondered whether I have hated or loved it the most. One becomes so absorbed in one's plot and one's characters! One loves the loveable so intensely, and hates with such fixed aversion those who are intended to be hated. When the mind is attuned to it, one is tempted to think that it is all so good. One cries at one's own pathos, laughs at one's own humour, and is lost in admiration at one's own sagacity and knowledge." "How very nice!" "But then there comes the reversed picture, the other side of the coin. On a sudden everything becomes flat, tedious, and unnatural. The heroine who was yesterday alive with the celestial spark is found to-day to be a lump of motionless clay. The dialogue that was so cheery on the first perusal is utterly uninteresting at a second reading. Yesterday I was sure that there was my monument," and she put her hand upon the manuscript; "to-day I feel it to be only too heavy for a gravestone!" "One's judgment about one's-self always does vacillate," said Mr. Alf in a tone as phlegmatic as were the words. "And yet it is so important that one should be able to judge correctly of one's own work! I can at any rate trust myself to be honest, which is more perhaps than can be said of all the critics." "Dishonesty is not the general fault of the critics, Lady Carbury,--at least not as far as I have observed the business. It is incapacity. In what little I have done in the matter, that is the sin which I have striven to conquer. When we want shoes we go to a professed shoemaker; but for criticism we have certainly not gone to professed critics. I think that when I gave up the 'Evening Pulpit,' I left upon it a staff of writers who are entitled to be regarded as knowing their business." "You given up the 'Pulpit'? asked Lady Carbury with astonishment, readjusting her mind at once, so that she might perceive whether any and if so what advantage might be taken of Mr. Alf's new position. He was no longer editor, and therefore his heavy sense of responsibility would no longer exist;--but he must still have influence. Might he not be persuaded to do one act of real friendship? Might she not succeed if she would come down from her high seat, sink on the ground before him, tell him the plain truth, and beg for a favour as a poor struggling woman? "Yes, Lady Carbury, I have given it up. It was a matter of course that I should do so when I stood for Parliament. Now that the new member has so suddenly vacated his seat, I shall probably stand again." "And you are no longer an editor?" "I have given it up, and I suppose I have now satisfied the scruples of those gentlemen who seemed to think that I was committing a crime against the Constitution in attempting to get into Parliament while I was managing a newspaper. I never heard such nonsense. Of course I know where it came from." "Where did it come from?" "Where should it come from but the 'Breakfast Table'? Broune and I have been very good friends, but I do think that of all the men I know he is the most jealous." "That is so little," said Lady Carbury. She was really very fond of Mr. Broune, but at the present moment she was obliged to humour Mr. Alf. "It seems to me that no man can be better qualified to sit in Parliament than an editor of a newspaper,--that is if he is capable as an editor." "No one, I think, has ever doubted that of you." "The only question is whether he be strong enough for the double work. I have doubted about myself, and have therefore given up the paper. I almost regret it." "I dare say you do," said Lady Carbury, feeling intensely anxious to talk about her own affairs instead of his. "I suppose you still retain an interest in the paper?" "Some pecuniary interest;--nothing more." "Oh, Mr. Alf,--you could do me such a favour!" "Can I? If I can, you may be sure I will." False-hearted, false-tongued man! Of course he knew at the moment what was the favour Lady Carbury intended to ask, and of course he had made up his mind that he would not do as he was asked. "Will you?" And Lady Carbury clasped her hands together as she poured forth the words of her prayer. "I never asked you to do anything for me as long as you were editing the paper. Did I? I did not think it right, and I would not do it. I took my chance like others, and I am sure you must own that I bore what was said of me with a good grace. I never complained. Did I?" "Certainly not." "But now that you have left it yourself,--if you would have the 'Wheel of Fortune' done for me,--really well done!" "The 'Wheel of Fortune'!" "That is the name of my novel," said Lady Carbury, putting her hand softly upon the manuscript. "Just at this moment it would be the making of a fortune for me! And, oh, Mr. Alf, if you could but know how I want such assistance!" "I have nothing further to do with the editorial management, Lady Carbury." "Of course you could get it done. A word from you would make it certain. A novel is different from an historical work, you know. I have taken so much pains with it." "Then no doubt it will be praised on its own merits." "Don't say that, Mr. Alf. The 'Evening Pulpit' is like,--oh, it is like,--like,--like the throne of heaven! Who can be justified before it? Don't talk about its own merits, but say that you will have it done. It couldn't do any man any harm, and it would sell five hundred copies at once,--that is if it were done really con amore." Mr. Alf looked at her almost piteously, and shook his head. "The paper stands so high, it can't hurt it to do that kind of thing once. A woman is asking you, Mr. Alf. It is for my children that I am struggling. The thing is done every day of the week, with much less noble motives." "I do not think that it has ever been done by the 'Evening Pulpit.'" "I have seen books praised." "Of course you have." "I think I saw a novel spoken highly of." Mr. Alf laughed. "Why not? You do not suppose that it is the object of the 'Pulpit' to cry down novels?" "I thought it was; but I thought you might make an exception here. I would be so thankful;--so grateful." "My dear Lady Carbury, pray believe me when I say that I have nothing to do with it. I need not preach to you sermons about literary virtue." "Oh, no," she said, not quite understanding what he meant. "The sceptre has passed from my hands, and I need not vindicate the justice of my successor." "I shall never know your successor." "But I must assure you that on no account should I think of meddling with the literary arrangement of the paper. I would not do it for my sister." Lady Carbury looked greatly pained. "Send the book out, and let it take its chance. How much prouder you will be to have it praised because it deserves praise, than to know that it has been eulogised as a mark of friendship." "No, I shan't," said Lady Carbury. "I don't believe that anything like real selling praise is ever given to anybody, except to friends. I don't know how they manage it, but they do." Mr. Alf shook his head. "Oh yes; that is all very well from you. Of course you have been a dragon of virtue; but they tell me that the authoress of the 'New Cleopatra' is a very handsome woman." Lady Carbury must have been worried much beyond her wont, when she allowed herself so far to lose her temper as to bring against Mr. Alf the double charge of being too fond of the authoress in question, and of having sacrificed the justice of his columns to that improper affection. [Illustration: "Of course you have been a dragon of virtue."] "At this moment I do not remember the name of the lady to whom you allude," said Mr. Alf, getting up to take his leave; "and I am quite sure that the gentleman who reviewed the book,--if there be any such lady and any such book,--had never seen her!" And so Mr. Alf departed. Lady Carbury was very angry with herself, and very angry also with Mr. Alf. She had not only meant to be piteous, but had made the attempt and then had allowed herself to be carried away into anger. She had degraded herself to humility, and had then wasted any possible good result by a foolish fit of chagrin. The world in which she had to live was almost too hard for her. When left alone she sat weeping over her sorrows; but when from time to time she thought of Mr. Alf and his conduct, she could hardly repress her scorn. What lies he had told her! Of course he could have done it had he chosen. But the assumed honesty of the man was infinitely worse to her than his lies. No doubt the "Pulpit" had two objects in its criticisms. Other papers probably had but one. The object common to all papers, that of helping friends and destroying enemies, of course prevailed with the "Pulpit." There was the second purpose of enticing readers by crushing authors,--as crowds used to be enticed to see men hanged when executions were done in public. But neither the one object nor the other was compatible with that Aristidean justice which Mr. Alf arrogated to himself and to his paper. She hoped with all her heart that Mr. Alf would spend a great deal of money at Westminster, and then lose his seat. On the following morning she herself took the manuscript to Messrs. Leadham and Loiter, and was hurt again by the small amount of respect which seemed to be paid to the collected sheets. There was the work of six months; her very blood and brains,--the concentrated essence of her mind,--as she would say herself when talking with energy of her own performances; and Mr. Leadham pitched it across to a clerk, apparently perhaps sixteen years of age, and the lad chucked the parcel unceremoniously under a counter. An author feels that his work should be taken from him with fast-clutching but reverential hands, and held thoughtfully, out of harm's way, till it be deposited within the very sanctum of an absolutely fireproof safe. Oh, heavens, if it should be lost!--or burned!--or stolen! Those scraps of paper, so easily destroyed, apparently so little respected, may hereafter be acknowledged to have had a value greater, so far greater, than their weight in gold! If "Robinson Crusoe" had been lost! If "Tom Jones" had been consumed by flames! And who knows but that this may be another "Robinson Crusoe,"--a better than "Tom Jones"? "Will it be safe there?" asked Lady Carbury. "Quite safe,--quite safe," said Mr. Leadham, who was rather busy, and who perhaps saw Lady Carbury more frequently than the nature and amount of her authorship seemed to him to require. "It seemed to be,--put down there,--under the counter!" "That's quite right, Lady Carbury. They're left there till they're packed." "Packed!" "There are two or three dozen going to our reader this week. He's down in Skye, and we keep them till there's enough to fill the sack." "Do they go by post, Mr. Leadham?" "Not by post, Lady Carbury. There are not many of them would pay the expense. We send them by long sea to Glasgow, because just at this time of the year there is not much hurry. We can't publish before the winter." Oh, heavens! If that ship should be lost on its journey by long sea to Glasgow! That evening, as was now almost his daily habit, Mr. Broune came to her. There was something in the absolute friendship which now existed between Lady Carbury and the editor of the "Morning Breakfast Table," which almost made her scrupulous as to asking from him any further literary favour. She fully recognised,--no woman perhaps more fully,--the necessity of making use of all aid and furtherance which might come within reach. With such a son, with such need for struggling before her, would she not be wicked not to catch even at every straw? But this man had now become so true to her, that she hardly knew how to beg him to do that which she, with all her mistaken feelings, did in truth know that he ought not to do. He had asked her to marry him, for which,--though she had refused him,--she felt infinitely grateful. And though she had refused him, he had lent her money, and had supported her in her misery by his continued counsel. If he would offer to do this thing for her she would accept his kindness on her knees,--but even she could not bring herself to ask to have this added to his other favours. Her first word to him was about Mr. Alf. "So he has given up the paper?" "Well, yes;--nominally." "Is that all?" "I don't suppose he'll really let it go out of his own hands. Nobody likes to lose power. He'll share the work, and keep the authority. As for Westminster, I don't believe he has a chance. If that poor wretch Melmotte could beat him when everybody was already talking about the forgeries, how is it likely that he should stand against such a candidate as they'll get now?" "He was here yesterday." "And full of triumph, I suppose?" "He never talks to me much of himself. We were speaking of my new book,--my novel. He assured me most positively that he had nothing further to do with the paper." "He did not care to make you a promise, I dare say." "That was just it. Of course I did not believe him." "Neither will I make a promise, but we'll see what we can do. If we can't be good-natured, at any rate we will say nothing ill-natured. Let me see,--what is the name?" "'The Wheel of Fortune.'" Lady Carbury as she told the title of her new book to her old friend seemed to be almost ashamed of it. "Let them send it early,--a day or two before it's out, if they can. I can't answer, of course, for the opinion of the gentleman it will go to, but nothing shall go in that you would dislike. Good-bye. God bless you." And as he took her hand, he looked at her almost as though the old susceptibility were returning to him. As she sat alone after he had gone, thinking over it all,--thinking of her own circumstances and of his kindness,--it did not occur to her to call him an old goose again. She felt now that she had mistaken her man when she had so regarded him. That first and only kiss which he had given her, which she had treated with so much derision, for which she had rebuked him so mildly and yet so haughtily, had now a somewhat sacred spot in her memory. Through it all the man must have really loved her! Was it not marvellous that such a thing should be? And how had it come to pass that she in all her tenderness had rejected him when he had given her the chance of becoming his wife?

It was a long time now since Lady Carbury's great historical work had been given to the world. Criminal Queens had been one of the more successful books of the season. Messrs. Leadham and Loiter had already published fourth and fifth editions, with advertisements aiming to show that Lady Carbury's book was the greatest historical work of the century. However, editions can be scanty, and advertisements are very costly. Lady Carbury received from Messrs. Leadham and Loiter a very moderate second cheque, with the warning that there would probably not be a third. Nonetheless, she did not hesitate as to further attempts. Indeed she had hardly completed the last chapter of her Criminal Queens before she was busy on another work; and although the last six months had been a period of trouble, still she had persevered. Every day she had sat at her desk with a firm resolve. Messrs. Leadham and Loiter had offered her certain terms for a novel - terms not very high indeed, and dependent on the approval of the manuscript by their reader. But she had persevered, and the novel was now complete. It cannot with truth be said that she had any special tale to tell. She had written a novel because Mr. Loiter had told her that novels did better than anything else. She would have written a volume of sermons with the same encouragement, and would have gone about the work in exactly the same fashion. The novel had to be in three volumes, and each volume must have three hundred pages. But what was the fewest number of words needed to fill a page? The money offered was too trifling to allow of much effort on her part. It must be a love story of course; but she thought that she would leave the complications of the plot to come by chance. The title for the story had been the great thing. It did not occur to her to wait to see what name might best suit her work once it was written. A novel, she knew, was most unlike a rose, which by any name will smell as sweet. "The Faultless Father" or "The Mysterious Mother" would be useless. "Mary Jane Walker" would do, or "Blanche De Veau," if she were more high-flown. But she thought that something more startling and descriptive would better suit her purpose. After an hour's thought a name did occur to her, and she wrote down "The Wheel of Fortune." She had no particular fortune in mind, and no particular wheel; but the words gave her the plot she needed. A young lady was blessed with great wealth, and lost it all through an uncle, and got it all back by an honest lawyer, and gave it all up to a distressed lover, and found it again in the third volume. And the lady's name was Cordinga, selected by Lady Carbury as unique in fiction, and in life. And now with all her troubles thick about her, Lady Carbury finished her work, and having just written the last words in which enduring happiness was given to the young heroine, sat with the sheets piled at her hand. She had allowed herself a certain number of weeks for the task, and had completed it in exactly that time. She gave herself credit for diligence, although she did not pride herself much on the literary merit of the tale. But if she could get the papers to praise it, if she could induce Mudie's Library to circulate it, if she could make it necessary for the reading world to have read the book - then she would pride herself very much upon her work. As she was sitting there, in her own room, Mr. Alf was announced. She expressed warm delight at seeing him. Nothing could be kinder than such a visit, she said, when there was so much to occupy him! Mr. Alf, in his usual mildly satirical way, declared that he was not particularly occupied just at present. "The Emperor has left Europe at last," he said. "Poor Melmotte poisoned himself on Friday, and the inquest sat yesterday." Of course Lady Carbury was intent upon her book, rather than even that exciting death. Oh, if she could only get Mr. Alf to praise it! She had tried that before, and had failed lamentably. But perhaps it could be done. It did seem that Providence had sent Mr. Alf to her just at this opportune moment. "I am so tired," she said, throwing herself back as though stretching her arms out for ease. "I hope I am not adding to your fatigue," said Mr. Alf. "Oh dear, no. It is not the fatigue of the moment, but of the last six months. Just as you knocked at the door, I had finished the novel at which I have been working." "Oh - a novel! When is it to appear, Lady Carbury?" "You must ask Leadham and Loiter that question. I suppose you never wrote a novel, Mr. Alf?" "I? Oh dear no; I never write anything." "I have sometimes wondered whether I have hated or loved it the most. One becomes so absorbed in it! When the mind is attuned to it, one is tempted to think that it is all so good. One cries at one's own pathos, laughs at one's own humour, and is lost in admiration at one's own wisdom." "How very nice!" "But then there comes the other side of the coin. Suddenly everything seems flat, tedious, and unnatural. The heroine who was yesterday alive is found today to be a lump of motionless clay." "One's judgment about oneself always does vacillate," said Mr. Alf. "And yet it is so important to judge one's own work correctly! I can at any rate trust myself to be honest, which is more perhaps than can be said of all the critics." "Dishonesty is not the general fault of critics, Lady Carbury, but incapacity. That is the sin which I have striven to conquer. When I gave up the Evening Pulpit, I left upon it a staff of writers who know their business." "You have given up the Pulpit?" asked Lady Carbury with astonishment, readjusting her mind at once. Mr. Alf was no longer editor - but he must still have influence. Should she sink on the ground before him, and beg for a favour? "Yes, Lady Carbury, I gave it up when I stood for Parliament. Now that the new member has so suddenly vacated his seat, I shall probably stand again. Some gentlemen seemed to think that I was committing a crime against the Constitution in standing for Parliament while managing a newspaper. I never heard such nonsense. Of course I know where it came from." "Where?" "Where else but the Breakfast Table? Broune and I have been very good friends, but I do think that he is the most jealous of men. No man can be better qualified to sit in Parliament than a newspaper editor - that is, if he is a capable editor." "No one has ever doubted that of you." "The only question is whether he is strong enough for the double work. I doubted about myself, and have therefore given up the paper." "I suppose you still retain an interest in it?" asked Lady Carbury. "Some financial interest; nothing more." "Oh, Mr. Alf - you could do me such a favour!" "If I can, you may be sure I will." False-tongued man! Of course he knew at once what the favour was, and had made up his mind that he would not do it. "Will you?" Lady Carbury clasped her hands together as if praying. "I never asked you to do anything for me as long as you were editing the paper. I took my chance like others, and I bore what was said of me with a good grace. I never complained, did I?" "Certainly not." "But now that you have left - if you would have The Wheel of Fortune done for me, really well done!" "The Wheel of Fortune?" "That is the name of my novel," said Lady Carbury, putting her hand softly upon the manuscript. "Oh, Mr. Alf! a word from you would make it certain. Say that you will have it done. It couldn't do any harm, and it would sell five hundred copies at once." Mr. Alf shook his head. "A woman is asking you, Mr. Alf. It is for my children that I am struggling. The thing is done every day of the week, with much less noble motives." "Not by the Evening Pulpit." "I thought you might make an exception. I would be so grateful." "My dear Lady Carbury, pray believe me when I say that I have nothing to do with it. On no account should I think of meddling with the literary arrangement of the paper. I would not even do it for my sister. Send the book out, and let it take its chance. How much prouder you will be to have it praised because it deserves praise." "No, I shan't," said Lady Carbury. "I don't believe that praise is ever given to anybody, except friends." Mr. Alf shook his head. "Oh yes; that is all very well. Of course you have been a dragon of virtue; but they tell me that the authoress of The New Cleopatra is a very handsome woman." Lady Carbury must have been worried indeed, when she allowed herself to imply that Mr. Alf was too fond of the authoress in question to criticise her in his columns. "I do not remember the name of the lady to whom you allude," said Mr. Alf, getting up; "and I am quite sure that the gentleman who reviewed the book - if there be any such lady and any such book - had never seen her!" And he departed. Lady Carbury was very angry with herself, and with Mr. Alf. She had allowed herself to be carried away, and had wasted any possible good result. The world was hard. She sat weeping over her sorrows; but when she thought of Mr. Alf she could hardly repress her scorn. What lies he had told her! Of course he could have done it had he chosen. She hoped with all her heart that Mr. Alf would spend a great deal of money at Westminster, and then lose his seat. Next morning she took the manuscript to Messrs. Leadham and Loiter, and was hurt again by the small amount of respect they paid to her sheets. There was the work of six months; her very blood and brains; and Mr. Leadham pitched it across to a clerk of about sixteen years of age, who chucked the parcel unceremoniously under a counter. An author feels that his work should be taken from him with reverential hands, and placed in an absolutely fireproof safe. Oh, heavens, if it should be lost! or burned! or stolen! "Will it be safe there?" asked Lady Carbury. "Quite safe," said Mr. Leadham, who was rather busy. "Down there, under the counter?" "That's quite right, Lady Carbury. They're left there till they're packed." "Packed!" "There are two or three dozen going to our reader this week. He's in Skye, and we keep them till there's enough to fill the sack. We send them by sea to Glasgow, because at this time of the year there is not much hurry." Oh, heavens! If that ship should be lost on its journey to Glasgow! That evening, as was now almost his daily habit, Mr. Broune came to see Lady Carbury. Now that they were friends, she had scruples about asking him for any further literary favour. This man had now become so true to her, that she hardly knew how to beg him to do anything which she knew he ought not to do. He had asked her to marry him, for which she felt infinitely grateful. And he had lent her money, and had advised her in her misery. Her first word to him was about Mr. Alf. "So he has given up the paper?" "Well, yes; nominally. I don't suppose he'll really let it go out of his own hands. As for Westminster, I don't believe he has a chance. If that poor wretch Melmotte could beat him when everybody was already talking about the forgeries, how could he win now?" "He was here yesterday. We were speaking of my new book, my novel, and he assured me most positively that he had nothing to do with the paper." "He did not care to make you a promise, I dare say. Neither will I make a promise, but we'll see what we can do. At any rate we will say nothing ill-natured. What is the title?" "The Wheel of Fortune." "Let them send it a day or two before it's out. I can't answer for the opinion of the reviewer, but nothing shall go in that you would dislike. Good-bye. God bless you." As he took her hand, he looked at her almost as though the old susceptibility were returning to him. But after he had gone, it did not occur to her to call him an old goose again. She felt that she had mistaken him back then. That first and only kiss, which she had treated with such derision, had now a somewhat sacred spot in her memory. The man must have really loved her! Was it not marvellous that such a thing should be? And how had it come to pass that she had rejected him when he had given her the chance of becoming his wife?

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 89: "The Wheel of Fortune"

After leaving Melmotte's house on Sunday morning Paul Montague went to Roger Carbury's hotel and found his friend just returning from church. He was bound to go to Islington on that day, but had made up his mind that he would defer his visit till the evening. He would dine early and be with Mrs. Hurtle about seven o'clock. But it was necessary that Roger should hear the news about Ruby Ruggles. "It's not so bad as you thought," said he, "as she is living with her aunt." "I never heard of such an aunt." "She says her grandfather knows where she is, and that he doesn't want her back again." "Does she see Felix Carbury?" "I think she does," said Paul. "Then it doesn't matter whether the woman's her aunt or not. I'll go and see her and try to get her back to Bungay." "Why not send for John Crumb?" Roger hesitated for a moment, and then answered, "He'd give Felix such a thrashing as no man ever had before. My cousin deserves it as well as any man ever deserved a thrashing; but there are reasons why I should not like it. And he could not force her back with him. I don't suppose the girl is all bad,--if she could see the truth." "I don't think she's bad at all." "At any rate I'll go and see her," said Roger. "Perhaps I shall see your widow at the same time." Paul sighed, but said nothing more about his widow at that moment. "I'll walk up to Welbeck Street now," said Roger, taking his hat. "Perhaps I shall see you to-morrow." Paul felt that he could not go to Welbeck Street with his friend. He dined in solitude at the Beargarden, and then again made that journey to Islington in a cab. As he went he thought of the proposal that had been made to him by Melmotte. If he could do it with a clear conscience, if he could really make himself believe in the railway, such an expedition would not be displeasing to him. He had said already more than he had intended to say to Hetta Carbury; and though he was by no means disposed to flatter himself, yet he almost thought that what he had said had been well received. At the moment they had been disturbed, but she, as she heard the sound of her mother coming, had at any rate expressed no anger. He had almost been betrayed into breaking a promise. Were he to start now on this journey, the period of the promise would have passed by before his return. Of course he would take care that she should know that he had gone in the performance of a duty. And then he would escape from Mrs. Hurtle, and would be able to make those inquiries which had been suggested to him. It was possible that Mrs. Hurtle should offer to go with him,--an arrangement which would not at all suit him. That at any rate must be avoided. But then how could he do this without a belief in the railway generally? And how was it possible that he should have such belief? Mr. Ramsbottom did not believe in it, nor did Roger Carbury. He himself did not in the least believe in Fisker, and Fisker had originated the railway. Then, would it not be best that he should take the Chairman's offer as to his own money? If he could get his 6,000 back and have done with the railway, he would certainly think himself a lucky man. But he did not know how far he could with honesty lay aside his responsibility; and then he doubted whether he could put implicit trust in Melmotte's personal guarantee for the amount. This at any rate was clear to him,--that Melmotte was very anxious to secure his absence from the meetings of the Board. Now he was again at Mrs. Pipkin's door, and again it was opened by Ruby Ruggles. His heart was in his mouth as he thought of the things he had to say. "The ladies have come back from Southend, Miss Ruggles?" "Oh yes, sir, and Mrs. Hurtle is expecting you all the day." Then she put in a whisper on her own account. "You didn't tell him as you'd seen me, Mr. Montague?" "Indeed I did, Miss Ruggles." "Then you might as well have left it alone, and not have been ill-natured,--that's all," said Ruby as she opened the door of Mrs. Hurtle's room. Mrs. Hurtle got up to receive him with her sweetest smile,--and her smile could be very sweet. She was a witch of a woman, and, as like most witches she could be terrible, so like most witches she could charm. "Only fancy," she said, "that you should have come the only day I have been two hundred yards from the house, except that evening when you took me to the play. I was so sorry." "Why should you be sorry? It is easy to come again." "Because I don't like to miss you, even for a day. But I wasn't well, and I fancied that the house was stuffy, and Mrs. Pipkin took a bright idea and proposed to carry me off to Southend. She was dying to go herself. She declared that Southend was Paradise." "A cockney Paradise." "Oh, what a place it is! Do your people really go to Southend and fancy that that is the sea?" "I believe they do. I never went to Southend myself,--so that you know more about it than I do." "How very English it is,--a little yellow river,--and you call it the sea! Ah;--you never were at Newport!" "But I've been at San Francisco." "Yes; you've been at San Francisco, and heard the seals howling. Well; that's better than Southend." "I suppose we do have the sea here in England. It's generally supposed we're an island." "Of course;--but things are so small. If you choose to go to the west of Ireland, I suppose you'd find the Atlantic. But nobody ever does go there for fear of being murdered." Paul thought of the gentleman in Oregon, but said nothing;--thought, perhaps, of his own condition, and remembered that a man might be murdered without going either to Oregon or the west of Ireland. "But we went to Southend, I, and Mrs. Pipkin and the baby, and upon my word I enjoyed it. She was so afraid that the baby would annoy me, and I thought the baby was so much the best of it. And then we ate shrimps, and she was so humble. You must acknowledge that with us nobody would be so humble. Of course I paid. She has got all her children, and nothing but what she can make out of these lodgings. People are just as poor with us;--and other people who happen to be a little better off, pay for them. But nobody is humble to another, as you are here. Of course we like to have money as well as you do, but it doesn't make so much difference." "He who wants to receive, all the world over, will make himself as agreeable as he can to him who can give." "But Mrs. Pipkin was so humble. However we got back all right yesterday evening, and then I found that you had been here,--at last." "You knew that I had to go to Liverpool." "I'm not going to scold. Did you get your business done at Liverpool?" "Yes;--one generally gets something done, but never anything very satisfactorily. Of course it's about this railway." "I should have thought that that was satisfactory. Everybody talks of it as being the greatest thing ever invented. I wish I was a man that I might be concerned with a really great thing like that. I hate little peddling things. I should like to manage the greatest bank in the world, or to be Captain of the biggest fleet, or to make the largest railway. It would be better even than being President of a Republic, because one would have more of one's own way. What is it that you do in it, Paul?" "They want me now to go out to Mexico about it," said he slowly. "Shall you go?" said she, throwing herself forward and asking the question with manifest anxiety. "I think not." "Why not? Do go. Oh, Paul, I would go with you. Why should you not go? It is just the thing for such a one as you to do. The railway will make Mexico a new country, and then you would be the man who had done it. Why should you throw away such a chance as that? It will never come again. Emperors and kings have tried their hands at Mexico and have been able to do nothing. Emperors and kings never can do anything. Think what it would be to be the regenerator of Mexico!" "Think what it would be to find one's self there without the means of doing anything, and to feel that one had been sent there merely that one might be out of the way." "I would make the means of doing something." "Means are money. How can I make that?" "There is money going. There must be money where there is all this buying and selling of shares. Where does your uncle get the money with which he is living like a prince at San Francisco? Where does Fisker get the money with which he is speculating in New York? Where does Melmotte get the money which makes him the richest man in the world? Why should not you get it as well as the others?" "If I were anxious to rob on my own account perhaps I might do it." "Why should it be robbery? I do not want you to live in a palace and spend millions of dollars on yourself. But I want you to have ambition. Go to Mexico, and chance it. Take San Francisco in your way, and get across the country. I will go every yard with you. Make people there believe that you are in earnest, and there will be no difficulty about the money." He felt that he was taking no steps to approach the subject which he should have to discuss before he left her,--or rather the statement which he had resolved that he would make. Indeed every word which he allowed her to say respecting this Mexican project carried him farther away from it. He was giving reasons why the journey should not be made; but was tacitly admitting that if it were to be made she might be one of the travellers. The very offer on her part implied an understanding that his former abnegation of his engagement had been withdrawn, and yet he shrunk from the cruelty of telling her, in a side-way fashion, that he would not submit to her companionship either for the purpose of such a journey or for any other purpose. The thing must be said in a solemn manner, and must be introduced on its own basis. But such preliminary conversation as this made the introduction of it infinitely more difficult. "You are not in a hurry?" she said. "Oh no." "You're going to spend the evening with me like a good man? Then I'll ask them to let us have tea." She rang the bell and Ruby came in, and the tea was ordered. "That young lady tells me that you are an old friend of hers." "I've known about her down in the country, and was astonished to find her here yesterday." "There's some lover, isn't there;--some would-be husband whom she does not like?" "And some won't-be husband, I fear, whom she does like." "That's quite of course, if the other is true. Miss Ruby isn't the girl to have come to her time of life without a preference. The natural liking of a young woman for a man in a station above her, because he is softer and cleaner and has better parts of speech,--just as we keep a pretty dog if we keep a dog at all,--is one of the evils of the inequality of mankind. The girl is content with the love without having the love justified, because the object is more desirable. She can only have her love justified with an object less desirable. If all men wore coats of the same fabric, and had to share the soil of the work of the world equally between them, that evil would come to an end. A woman here and there might go wrong from fantasy and diseased passions, but the ever-existing temptation to go wrong would be at an end." "If men were equal to-morrow and all wore the same coats, they would wear different coats the next day." "Slightly different. But there would be no more purple and fine linen, and no more blue woad. It isn't to be done in a day of course, nor yet in a century,--nor in a decade of centuries; but every human being who looks into it honestly will see that his efforts should be made in that direction. I remember; you never take sugar; give me that." Neither had he come here to discuss the deeply interesting questions of women's difficulties and immediate or progressive equality. But having got on to these rocks,--having, as the reader may perceive, been taken on to them wilfully by the skill of the woman,--he did not know how to get his bark out again into clear waters. But having his own subject before him, with all its dangers, the wild-cat's claws, and the possible fate of the gentleman in Oregon, he could not talk freely on the subjects which she introduced, as had been his wont in former years. "Thanks," he said, changing his cup. "How well you remember!" "Do you think I shall ever forget your preferences and dislikings? Do you recollect telling me about that blue scarf of mine, that I should never wear blue?" She stretched herself out towards him, waiting for an answer, so that he was obliged to speak. "Of course I do. Black is your colour;--black and grey; or white,--and perhaps yellow when you choose to be gorgeous; crimson possibly. But not blue or green." "I never thought much of it before, but I have taken your word for gospel. It is very good to have an eye for such things,--as you have, Paul. But I fancy that taste comes with, or at any rate forbodes, an effete civilisation." "I am sorry that mine should be effete," he said smiling. "You know what I mean, Paul. I speak of nations, not individuals. Civilisation was becoming effete, or at any rate men were, in the time of the great painters; but Savanarola and Galileo were individuals. You should throw your lot in with a new people. This railway to Mexico gives you the chance." "Are the Mexicans a new people?" "They who will rule the Mexicans are. All American women I dare say have bad taste in gowns,--and so the vain ones and rich ones send to Paris for their finery; but I think our taste in men is generally good. We like our philosophers; we like our poets; we like our genuine workmen;--but we love our heroes. I would have you a hero, Paul." He got up from his chair and walked about the room in an agony of despair. To be told that he was expected to be a hero at the very moment in his life in which he felt more devoid of heroism, more thoroughly given up to cowardice than he had ever been before, was not to be endured! And yet, with what utmost stretch of courage,--even though he were willing to devote himself certainly and instantly to the worst fate that he had pictured to himself,--could he immediately rush away from these abstract speculations, encumbered as they were with personal flattery, into his own most unpleasant, most tragic matter! It was the unfitness that deterred him and not the possible tragedy. Nevertheless, through it all, he was sure,--nearly sure,--that she was playing her game, and playing it in direct antagonism to the game which she knew that he wanted to play. Would it not be better that he should go away and write another letter? In a letter he could at any rate say what he had to say;--and having said it he would then strengthen himself to adhere to it. "What makes you so uneasy?" she asked; still speaking in her most winning way, caressing him with the tones of her voice. "Do you not like me to say that I would have you be a hero?" "Winifrid," he said, "I came here with a purpose, and I had better carry it out." "What purpose?" She still leaned forward, but now supported her face on her two hands with her elbows resting on her knees, looking at him intently. But one would have said that there was only love in her eyes;--love which might be disappointed, but still love. The wild cat, if there, was all within, still hidden from sight. Paul stood with his hands on the back of a chair, propping himself up and trying to find fitting words for the occasion. "Stop, my dear," she said. "Must the purpose be told to-night?" "Why not to-night?" "Paul, I am not well;--I am weak now. I am a coward. You do not know the delight to me of having a few words of pleasant talk to an old friend after the desolation of the last weeks. Mrs. Pipkin is not very charming. Even her baby cannot supply all the social wants of my life. I had intended that everything should be sweet to-night. Oh, Paul, if it was your purpose to tell me of your love, to assure me that you are still my dear, dear friend, to speak with hope of future days, or with pleasure of those that are past,--then carry out your purpose. But if it be cruel, or harsh, or painful; if you had come to speak daggers;--then drop your purpose for to-night. Try and think what my solitude must have been to me, and let me have one hour of comfort." Of course he was conquered for that night, and could only have that solace which a most injurious reprieve could give him. "I will not harass you, if you are ill," he said. "I am ill. It was because I was afraid that I should be really ill that I went to Southend. The weather is hot, though of course the sun here is not as we have it. But the air is heavy,--what Mrs. Pipkin calls muggy. I was thinking if I were to go somewhere for a week, it would do me good. Where had I better go?" Paul suggested Brighton. "That is full of people; is it not?--a fashionable place?" "Not at this time of the year." "But it is a big place. I want some little place that would be pretty. You could take me down; could you not? Not very far, you know;--not that any place can be very far from here." Paul, in his John Bull displeasure, suggested Penzance, telling her, untruly, that it would take twenty-four hours. "Not Penzance then, which I know is your very Ultima Thule;--not Penzance, nor yet Orkney. Is there no other place,--except Southend?" "There is Cromer in Norfolk,--perhaps ten hours." "Is Cromer by the sea?" "Yes;--what we call the sea." "I mean really the sea, Paul?" "If you start from Cromer right away, a hundred miles would perhaps take you across to Holland. A ditch of that kind wouldn't do perhaps." "Ah,--now I see you are laughing at me. Is Cromer pretty?" "Well, yes;--I think it is. I was there once, but I don't remember much. There's Ramsgate." "Mrs. Pipkin told me of Ramsgate. I don't think I should like Ramsgate." "There's the Isle of Wight. The Isle of Wight is very pretty." "That's the Queen's place. There would not be room for her and me too." "Or Lowestoft. Lowestoft is not so far as Cromer, and there is a railway all the distance." "And sea?" "Sea enough for anything. If you can't see across it, and if there are waves, and wind enough to knock you down, and shipwrecks every other day, I don't see why a hundred miles isn't as good as a thousand." "A hundred miles is just as good as a thousand. But, Paul, at Southend it isn't a hundred miles across to the other side of the river. You must admit that. But you will be a better guide than Mrs. Pipkin. You would not have taken me to Southend when I expressed a wish for the ocean;--would you? Let it be Lowestoft. Is there an hotel?" "A small little place." "Very small? uncomfortably small? But almost any place would do for me." "They make up, I believe, about a hundred beds; but in the States it would be very small." "Paul," said she, delighted to have brought him back to this humour, "if I were to throw the tea things at you, it would serve you right. This is all because I did not lose myself in awe at the sight of the Southend ocean. It shall be Lowestoft." Then she rose up and came to him, and took his arm. "You will take me down, will you not? It is desolate for a woman to go into such a place all alone. I will not ask you to stay. And I can return by myself." She had put both hands on one arm, and turned herself round, and looked into his face. "You will do that for old acquaintance sake?" For a moment or two he made no answer, and his face was troubled, and his brow was black. He was endeavouring to think;--but he was only aware of his danger, and could see no way through it. "I don't think you will let me ask in vain for such a favour as that," she said. "No;" he replied. "I will take you down. When will you go?" He had cockered himself up with some vain idea that the railway carriage would be a good place for the declaration of his purpose, or perhaps the sands at Lowestoft. "When will I go? when will you take me? You have Boards to attend, and shares to look to, and Mexico to regenerate. I am a poor woman with nothing on hand but Mrs. Pipkin's baby. Can you be ready in ten minutes?--because I could." Paul shook his head and laughed. "I've named a time and that doesn't suit. Now, sir, you name another, and I'll promise it shall suit." Paul suggested Saturday, the 29th. He must attend the next Board, and had promised to see Melmotte before the Board day. Saturday of course would do for Mrs. Hurtle. Should she meet him at the railway station? Of course he undertook to come and fetch her. Then, as he took his leave, she stood close against him, and put her cheek up for him to kiss. There are moments in which a man finds it utterly impossible that he should be prudent,--as to which, when he thought of them afterwards, he could never forgive himself for prudence, let the danger have been what it may. Of course he took her in his arms, and kissed her lips as well as her cheeks.

After leaving Melmotte on Sunday morning Paul Montague went to Roger Carbury's hotel and found his friend just returning from church. He had made up his mind not to visit Mrs. Hurtle till seven o'clock that evening. But it was necessary that Roger should hear the news about Ruby Ruggles. "It's not so bad as you thought," said he, "as she is living with her aunt." "I never heard of such an aunt." "She says her grandfather knows where she is, and that he doesn't want her back." "Does she see Felix Carbury?" "I think she does," said Paul. "Then it doesn't matter whether the woman's her aunt or not. I'll go and see her and try to get her back to Bungay." "Why not send for John Crumb?" Roger hesitated for a moment, and then answered, "He'd give Felix a thrashing. My cousin deserves it; but I should not like it. And he could not force her back with him. I don't suppose the girl is all bad - if she could see the truth." "I don't think she's bad at all." "I'll go and see her," said Roger. "Perhaps I shall see your widow at the same time." Paul sighed, but said nothing. "I'll walk up to Welbeck Street now," said Roger, taking his hat. Paul dined in solitude at the Beargarden, and then went to Islington in a cab. As he went he thought of Melmotte's proposal. If he could do it with a clear conscience, if he could really make himself believe in the railway, such an expedition would be welcome to him. He had already said more than he had intended to say to Hetta Carbury; and she had expressed no anger. He had almost been betrayed into breaking a promise. Were he to start now on this journey, the period of the promise would have ended before his return. And he would escape from Mrs. Hurtle, and would be able to make inquiries about her. However, Mrs. Hurtle might offer to go with him - which would not suit him at all. But how could he go without a belief in the railway? And how could he have such belief? Mr. Ramsbottom did not believe in it; nor did Roger Carbury. Would it not be best to take the Chairman's offer as to his own money? If he could get his 6,000 back and have done with the railway, he would think himself a lucky man. But he did not know how far he could with honesty lay aside his responsibility; and he doubted whether he could trust Melmotte's guarantee for the amount. At any rate, it was clear to him that Melmotte was very anxious to secure his absence from the meetings of the Board. Now he was again at Mrs. Pipkin's door, and again it was opened by Ruby Ruggles. "The ladies have come back from Southend, Miss Ruggles?" "Oh yes, sir, and Mrs. Hurtle is expecting you." Then she whispered, "You didn't tell him as you'd seen me, Mr. Montague?" "Indeed I did, Miss Ruggles." "Then you might have left it alone, that's all," said Ruby as she opened the door of Mrs. Hurtle's room. Mrs. Hurtle received him with her sweetest smile - and her smile could be very sweet. Like most witches she could be terrible, and like most witches she could charm. "Only fancy," she said, "that you should have come the only day I have been away from the house. I was so sorry. But I wasn't well, and I fancied that the house was stuffy, and Mrs. Pipkin proposed to carry me off to Southend. She declared that Southend was Paradise." "A cockney Paradise." "Oh, what a place it is! How very English - a little yellow river, and you call it the sea!" "I suppose we do have the sea here in England. It's generally supposed we're an island." "Of course; but things are so small. But upon my word I enjoyed Southend. We ate shrimps, and Mrs. Pipkin was so humble. Of course I paid. She has got all those children, and nothing but what she can earn from these lodgings. We got back yesterday evening, and then I found that you had been here, at last." "You knew that I had to go to Liverpool." "I'm not going to scold. Did you get your business done at Liverpool?" "Yes; of course it's about this railway." "Everybody talks of it as being the greatest thing ever invented. I wish I was a man so that I might be involved with a great thing like that. What is it that you do in it, Paul?" "They want me to go out to Mexico about it," said he slowly. "Shall you go?" "I think not." "Why not? Do go. Oh, Paul, I would go with you. It is just the thing for you to do. The railway will make Mexico a new country, and you would be the man who had done it. Why should you throw away such a chance as that? Think what it would be to be the regenerator of Mexico!" "Think what it would be to find one's self there without the means of doing anything, and to feel that one had been sent there merely to be out of the way." "I would make the means of doing something." "Means are money. How can I make that?" "There must be money where there is all this buying and selling of shares. Where does Fisker get his money? Where does Melmotte get his money? Why should not you get it as well as the others?" "If I wanted to rob I might do it." "Why should it be robbery? I do not want you to live in a palace. But I want you to have ambition. Go to Mexico, and chance it. I will go every yard with you." He felt that he was taking no steps towards the statement which he had resolved to make. Indeed every word about this Mexican project carried him farther away from it. He was tacitly admitting that if he went, she might travel with him. The very offer on her part implied that they were still engaged, and yet he shrunk from the cruelty of telling her that he would not have her as a companion for such a journey or for any other purpose. The thing must be said; but this conversation made it infinitely more difficult. "You are not in a hurry?" she said. "Oh no." "You're going to spend the evening with me like a good man? I'll ask them to let us have tea." She rang the bell and Ruby brought tea. "That young lady tells me that you are an old friend of hers." "I've met her down in the country, and was astonished to find her here yesterday." "There's some lover, isn't there; some would-be husband whom she does not like?" "And some won't-be husband, I fear, whom she does like." "Of course. The natural liking of a young woman for a man in a station above her, because he is softer and cleaner and speaks better, is one of the evils of the inequality of mankind. If all men wore coats of the same fabric, and all worked equally, that evil would come to an end." "If men were equal tomorrow and all wore the same coats, they would wear different coats the next day." "But there would be no more purple and fine linen," said she. "It isn't to be done in a day, of course, nor yet in a century. I remember, you never take sugar; give me that." "Thanks," he said, changing his cup. "How well you remember!" "Do you think I shall ever forget your preferences? Do you recollect telling me about that blue scarf of mine, that I should never wear blue?" She waited for an answer, so that he was obliged to speak. "Of course I do. Black is your colour; black and grey; or white, and perhaps yellow when you choose to be gorgeous; crimson possibly. But not blue or green." "I never thought much of it before, but I have taken your word for gospel. It is very good to have an eye for such things, as you have, Paul. You should throw your lot in with a new people. This railway to Mexico gives you the chance. I would have you a hero, Paul." He got up from his chair and walked about the room in an agony of despair. To be told that he was expected to be a hero at the very moment when he felt more of a coward than ever before, was not to be endured! And yet how could he immediately rush away from these flattering speculations to his own unpleasant, tragic matter! Nevertheless, through it all, he was sure - nearly sure - that she was playing her game, in direct opposition to the game which she knew that he wanted to play. Would it not be better to go away and write another letter? In a letter he could say what he had to say. "What makes you so uneasy?" she asked in her most caressing way. "Do you not like me to say that I would have you be a hero?" "Winifrid," he said, "I came here with a purpose, and I had better carry it out." "What purpose?" She leaned forward, looking at him intently. But there seemed to be only love in her eyes; the wild cat, if there, was hidden from sight. Paul stood with his hands on the back of a chair, propping himself up and trying to find fitting words. "Stop, my dear," she said. "Must the purpose be told tonight?" "Why not tonight?" "Paul, I am not well; and I am a coward. You do not know the delight of having a few words of pleasant talk to an old friend after the desolation of the last weeks. Oh, Paul, if it was your purpose to tell me of your love, to assure me that you are still my dear, dear friend, to speak with hope of future days, then do so. But if you had come to speak cruel daggers, then drop your purpose for tonight, and let me have one hour of comfort." Of course he was conquered for that night. "I will not harass you, if you are ill," he said. "I am ill. That is why I went to Southend. The air is heavy; what Mrs. Pipkin calls muggy. I was thinking if I were to go away somewhere for a week, it would do me good. Where had I better go?" Paul suggested Brighton. "That is full of people; is it not?" "Not at this time of the year." "But it is a big place. I want some little, pretty place. You could take me - not very far, you know. Is there no other place, except Southend?" "There is Cromer in Norfolk, perhaps ten hours away." "Is Cromer by the sea?" "Yes; what we call the sea. It is a hundred miles to Holland. A ditch of that kind wouldn't do perhaps." "Ah, now you are laughing at me. Is Cromer pretty?" "Well, yes; I think it is. I was there once, but I don't remember much. Then there's Lowestoft. It is not so far as Cromer, and there is a railway all the distance, and sea enough for anything." "You will be a better guide than Mrs. Pipkin. You would not have taken me to Southend when I expressed a wish for the ocean, would you? Let it be Lowestoft. Is there an hotel?" "A small place." "Very small?" "They have about a hundred beds; but in the States it would be very small." "Paul," said she, delighted to have brought him back to this humour, "if I were to throw the tea things at you, it would serve you right. This is because I did not lose myself in awe at the sight of the Southend ocean. It shall be Lowestoft." Then she rose up and took his arm. "You will take me, will you not? It is desolate for a woman to travel to such a place all alone. I will not ask you to stay. And I can return by myself. You will do that for old acquaintance sake?" For a moment he made no answer, and his face was troubled. He was trying to think; he was aware of his danger, and could see no way through it. "I will take you down. When will you go?" He had some idea that the railway carriage would be a good place for the declaration of his purpose, or perhaps the sands at Lowestoft. "When will you take me? You have Boards to attend, and Mexico to regenerate. I am a poor woman with nothing on hand. Can you be ready in ten minutes? - because I could." Paul shook his head and laughed, before suggesting Saturday, the 29th. He must attend the next Board, and had promised to see Melmotte before the Board day. Should she meet him at the railway station? Of course he undertook to come and fetch her. Then, as he took his leave, she put her cheek up for him to kiss. There are moments when a man finds it utterly impossible to be prudent, let the danger be what it may. Of course he took her in his arms, and kissed her lips as well as her cheeks.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 42: "Can You be Ready in Ten Minutes?"

When the little conversation took place between Lady Monogram and Miss Longestaffe, as recorded in the last chapter, Mr. Melmotte was in all his glory, and tickets for the entertainment were very precious. Gradually their value subsided. Lady Monogram had paid very dear for hers,--especially as the reception of Mr. Brehgert must be considered. But high prices were then being paid. A lady offered to take Marie Melmotte into the country with her for a week; but this was before the elopement. Mr. Cohenlupe was asked out to dinner to meet two peers and a countess. Lord Alfred received various presents. A young lady gave a lock of her hair to Lord Nidderdale, although it was known that he was to marry Marie Melmotte. And Miles Grendall got back an I. O. U. of considerable nominal value from Lord Grasslough, who was anxious to accommodate two country cousins who were in London. Gradually the prices fell;--not at first from any doubt in Melmotte, but through that customary reaction which may be expected on such occasions. But at eight or nine o'clock on the evening of the party the tickets were worth nothing. The rumour had then spread itself through the whole town from Pimlico to Marylebone. Men coming home from clubs had told their wives. Ladies who had been in the park had heard it. Even the hairdressers had it, and ladies' maids had been instructed by the footmen and grooms who had been holding horses and seated on the coach-boxes. It had got into the air, and had floated round dining-rooms and over toilet-tables. I doubt whether Sir Damask would have said a word about it to his wife as he was dressing for dinner, had he calculated what might be the result to himself. But he came home open-mouthed, and made no calculation. "Have you heard what's up, Ju?" he said, rushing half-dressed into his wife's room. [Illustration: "Have you heard what's up, Ju?"] "What is up?" "Haven't you been out?" "I was shopping, and that kind of thing. I don't want to take that girl into the Park. I've made a mistake in having her here, but I mean to be seen with her as little as I can." "Be good-natured, Ju, whatever you are." "Oh, bother! I know what I'm about. What is it you mean?" "They say Melmotte's been found out." "Found out!" exclaimed Lady Monogram, stopping her maid in some arrangement which would not need to be continued in the event of her not going to the reception. "What do you mean by found out?" "I don't know exactly. There are a dozen stories told. It's something about that place he bought of old Longestaffe." "Are the Longestaffes mixed up in it? I won't have her here a day longer if there is anything against them." "Don't be an ass, Ju. There's nothing against him except that the poor old fellow hasn't got a shilling of his money." "Then he's ruined,--and there's an end of them." "Perhaps he will get it now. Some say that Melmotte has forged a receipt, others a letter. Some declare that he has manufactured a whole set of title-deeds. You remember Dolly?" "Of course I know Dolly Longestaffe," said Lady Monogram, who had thought at one time that an alliance with Dolly might be convenient. "They say he has found it all out. There was always something about Dolly more than fellows gave him credit for. At any rate, everybody says that Melmotte will be in quod before long." "Not to-night, Damask!" "Nobody seems to know. Lupton was saying that the policemen would wait about in the room like servants till the Emperor and the Princes had gone away." "Is Mr. Lupton going?" "He was to have been at the dinner, but hadn't made up his mind whether he'd go or not when I saw him. Nobody seems to be quite certain whether the Emperor will go. Somebody said that a Cabinet Council was to be called to know what to do." "A Cabinet Council!" "Why, you see it's rather an awkward thing, letting the Prince go to dine with a man who perhaps may have been arrested and taken to gaol before dinner-time. That's the worst part of it. Nobody knows." Lady Monogram waved her attendant away. She piqued herself upon having a French maid who could not speak a word of English, and was therefore quite careless what she said in the woman's presence. But, of course, everything she did say was repeated down-stairs in some language that had become intelligible to the servants generally. Lady Monogram sat motionless for some time, while her husband, retreating to his own domain, finished his operations. "Damask," she said, when he reappeared, "one thing is certain;--we can't go." "After you've made such a fuss about it!" "It is a pity,--having that girl here in the house. You know, don't you, she's going to marry one of these people?" "I heard about her marriage yesterday. But Brehgert isn't one of Melmotte's set. They tell me that Brehgert isn't a bad fellow. A vulgar cad, and all that, but nothing wrong about him." "He's a Jew,--and he's seventy years old, and makes up horribly." "What does it matter to you if he's eighty? You are determined, then, you won't go?" But Lady Monogram had by no means determined that she wouldn't go. She had paid her price, and with that economy which sticks to a woman always in the midst of her extravagances, she could not bear to lose the thing that she had bought. She cared nothing for Melmotte's villainy, as regarded herself. That he was enriching himself by the daily plunder of the innocent she had taken for granted since she had first heard of him. She had but a confused idea of any difference between commerce and fraud. But it would grieve her greatly to become known as one of an awkward squad of people who had driven to the door, and perhaps been admitted to some wretched gathering of wretched people,--and not, after all, to have met the Emperor and the Prince. But then, should she hear on the next morning that the Emperor and the Princes, that the Princesses, and the Duchesses, with the Ambassadors, Cabinet Ministers, and proper sort of world generally, had all been there,--that the world, in short, had ignored Melmotte's villainy,--then would her grief be still greater. She sat down to dinner with her husband and Miss Longestaffe, and could not talk freely on the matter. Miss Longestaffe was still a guest of the Melmottes, although she had transferred herself to the Monograms for a day or two. And a horrible idea crossed Lady Monogram's mind. What should she do with her friend Georgiana if the whole Melmotte establishment were suddenly broken up? Of course, Madame Melmotte would refuse to take the girl back if her husband were sent to gaol. "I suppose you'll go," said Sir Damask as the ladies left the room. "Of course we shall,--in about an hour," said Lady Monogram as she left the room, looking round at him and rebuking him for his imprudence. "Because, you know--" and then he called her back. "If you want me I'll stay, of course; but if you don't, I'll go down to the club." "How can I say, yet? You needn't mind the club to-night." "All right;--only it's a bore being here alone." Then Miss Longestaffe asked what "was up." "Is there any doubt about our going to-night?" "I can't say. I'm so harassed that I don't know what I'm about. There seems to be a report that the Emperor won't be there." "Impossible!" "It's all very well to say impossible, my dear," said Lady Monogram; "but still that's what people are saying. You see Mr. Melmotte is a very great man, but perhaps--something else has turned up, so that he may be thrown over. Things of that kind do happen. You had better finish dressing. I shall. But I shan't make sure of going till I hear that the Emperor is there." Then she descended to her husband, whom she found forlornly consoling himself with a cigar. "Damask," she said, "you must find out." "Find out what?" "Whether the Prince and the Emperor are there." "Send John to ask," suggested the husband. "He would be sure to make a blunder about it. If you'd go yourself you'd learn the truth in a minute. Have a cab,--just go into the hall and you'll soon know how it all is;--I'd do it in a minute if I were you." Sir Damask was the most good-natured man in the world, but he did not like the job. "What can be the objection?" asked his wife. "Go to a man's house and find out whether a man's guests are come before you go yourself! I don't just see it, Ju." "Guests! What nonsense! The Emperor and all the Royal Family! As if it were like any other party. Such a thing, probably, never happened before, and never will happen again. If you don't go, Damask, I must; and I will." Sir Damask, after groaning and smoking for half a minute, said that he would go. He made many remonstrances. It was a confounded bore. He hated emperors and he hated princes. He hated the whole box and dice of that sort of thing! He "wished to goodness" that he had dined at his club and sent word up home that the affair was to be off. But at last he submitted, and allowed his wife to leave the room with the intention of sending for a cab. The cab was sent for and announced, but Sir Damask would not stir till he had finished his big cigar. It was past ten when he left his own house. On arriving in Grosvenor Square he could at once see that the party was going on. The house was illuminated. There was a concourse of servants round the door, and half the square was already blocked up with carriages. It was not without delay that he got to the door, and when there he saw the royal liveries. There was no doubt about the party. The Emperor and the Princes and the Princesses were all there. As far as Sir Damask could then perceive, the dinner had been quite a success. But again there was a delay in getting away, and it was nearly eleven before he could reach home. "It's all right," said he to his wife. "They're there, safe enough." "You are sure that the Emperor is there." "As sure as a man can be without having seen him." Miss Longestaffe was present at this moment, and could not but resent what appeared to be a most unseemly slur cast upon her friends. "I don't understand it at all," she said. "Of course the Emperor is there. Everybody has known for the last month that he was coming. What is the meaning of it, Julia?" "My dear, you must allow me to manage my own little affairs my own way. I dare say I am absurd. But I have my reason. Now, Damask, if the carriage is there we had better start." The carriage was there, and they did start, and with a delay which seemed unprecedented, even to Lady Monogram, who was accustomed to these things, they reached the door. There was a great crush in the hall, and people were coming down-stairs. But at last they made their way into the room above, and found that the Emperor of China and all the Royalties had been there,--but had taken their departure. Sir Damask put the ladies into the carriage and went at once to his club.

When that little conversation took place between Lady Monogram and Miss Longestaffe, Mr. Melmotte was in all his glory, and tickets for the entertainment were very precious. High prices were being paid. Mr. Cohenlupe was asked out to dinner to meet two peers and a countess. Lord Alfred received various presents. A young lady gave a lock of her hair to Lord Nidderdale, although it was known that he was to marry Marie Melmotte. But gradually the prices fell; and by eight or nine o'clock on the evening of the party the tickets were worth nothing. The rumour had spread through the whole town from Pimlico to Marylebone. Men coming home from clubs had told their wives. Ladies who had been in the park had heard it. Even the hairdressers had heard it, and ladies' maids and footmen and grooms. It had got into the air. I doubt whether Sir Damask would have said a word about it to his wife, if he had calculated what the result might be. But he made no calculation. "Have you heard what's up, Ju?" he said when he came home, rushing half-dressed into his wife's room. "What is up?" "They say Melmotte's been found out." "Found out!" exclaimed Lady Monogram. "What do you mean?" "I don't know exactly. There are a dozen stories told. It's something about that place he bought off old Longestaffe." "Are the Longestaffes mixed up in it? I won't have her here a day longer if there is anything against them." "Don't be an ass, Ju. There's nothing against them except that the poor old fellow hasn't got a shilling of his money." "Then he's ruined - and there's an end of them." "Perhaps he will get it now. Some say that Melmotte has forged a receipt, or maybe a letter, or maybe a whole set of title-deeds. They say Dolly Longstaffe has found it all out. There was always more about Dolly than fellows gave him credit for. At any rate, everybody says that Melmotte will be arrested before long." "Not tonight, Damask!" "Nobody seems to know. Lupton was saying that the policemen would wait till the Emperor and the Princes had gone away." "Is Mr. Lupton going?" "He hadn't made up his mind when I saw him. Nobody seems to be quite certain whether the Emperor will go. Somebody said that a Cabinet Council was to be called. It's rather an awkward thing, letting the Prince go to dine with a man who may be arrested before dinner-time. That's the worst part of it. Nobody knows." Lady Monogram waved her maid away. She piqued herself upon having a French maid who could not speak a word of English, and was therefore quite careless in the woman's presence. But, of course, everything she said was repeated downstairs. Lady Monogram sat motionless for some time, while her husband finished dressing for dinner. "Damask," she said, "we can't go." "After you've made such a fuss about it!" "It is a pity, having that girl here in the house. You know she's going to marry one of these people?" "But Brehgert isn't one of Melmotte's set. They tell me that Brehgert isn't a bad fellow. A vulgar cad, and all that, but nothing wrong about him." "He's a Jew, and he's seventy." "What does it matter to you if he's eighty? You are determined, then, you won't go?" But Lady Monogram had by no means decided. She had paid her price, and she could not bear to lose the thing that she had bought. She cared nothing for Melmotte's villainy: she had taken it for granted since she had first heard of him, and had only a confused idea of any difference between commerce and fraud. It would grieve her greatly to become known as one who had driven to the door, and had not, after all, met the Emperor and the Prince. But then, should she hear the next morning that the Emperor and the Princes and Princesses, and the world generally, had all been there when she had not - then her grief would be still greater. She sat down to dinner with her husband and Miss Longestaffe, and could not talk freely on the matter. Miss Longestaffe was still a guest of the Melmottes, although she was visiting the Monograms for a day or two. "I suppose you'll go," said Sir Damask as the ladies left the room. "Of course we shall - in about an hour," said Lady Monogram, looking at him in rebuke him for his imprudence. "Because if you want me I'll stay, of course; but if you don't, I'll go down to the club." Then Miss Longestaffe asked, "Is there any doubt about our going tonight?" "There seems to be a report that the Emperor won't be there." "Impossible!" "It's all very well to say impossible, my dear," said Lady Monogram; "but that's what people are saying. You see Mr. Melmotte is a very great man, but perhaps - something has turned up. Things of that kind do happen. You had better finish dressing. But I shan't make sure of going till I hear that the Emperor is there." Then she descended to her husband. "Damask," she said, "you must find out whether the Prince and the Emperor are there." "Send John to ask," suggested the husband. "If you'd go yourself you'd learn the truth in a minute. Take a cab." Sir Damask did not like the job. "Go to a man's house and find out whether a man's guests are come! I just don't see it, Ju." "If you don't go, Damask, I must; and I will." Sir Damask, after groaning and smoking for half a minute, said that he would go, though it was a confounded bore. He hated emperors and princes. But at last he submitted, and the cab was sent for. It was past ten when he left his own house. On arriving in Grosvenor Square he could at once see that the party was going on. The house was illuminated, and half the square was already blocked up with carriages. When he got to the door, he saw the royal liveries. There was no doubt. The Emperor and the Princes and the Princesses were all there. But it was nearly eleven before he could reach home. "It's all right," said he to his wife. "They're there, safe enough." "You are sure that the Emperor is there?" "As sure as a man can be without having seen him." Miss Longestaffe was present, and resented the slur cast upon her friends. "I don't understand it at all," she said. "Of course the Emperor is there. Everybody has known for the last month that he was coming. What is the meaning of it, Julia?" "My dear, you must allow me to manage my own little affairs my own way. I dare say I am absurd. But I have my reason. Now, Damask, if the carriage is there we had better start." The carriage was there, and they did start. When they reached the house, there was a great crush in the hall. But at last they made their way into the room above, and found that the Emperor of China and all the Royalties had been there - and had departed. Sir Damask put the ladies into the carriage and went at once to his club.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 61: Lady Monogram Prepares for the Party

All this time Mr. Longestaffe was necessarily detained in London while the three ladies of his family were living forlornly at Caversham. He had taken his younger daughter home on the day after his visit to Lady Monogram, and in all his intercourse with her had spoken of her suggested marriage with Mr. Brehgert as a thing utterly out of the question. Georgiana had made one little fight for her independence at the Jermyn Street Hotel. "Indeed, papa, I think it's very hard," she said. "What's hard? I think a great many things are hard; but I have to bear them." "You can do nothing for me." "Do nothing for you! Haven't you got a home to live in, and clothes to wear, and a carriage to go about in,--and books to read if you choose to read them? What do you expect?" "You know, papa, that's nonsense." "How do you dare to tell me that what I say is nonsense?" "Of course there's a house to live in and clothes to wear; but what's to be the end of it? Sophia, I suppose, is going to be married." "I am happy to say she is,--to a most respectable young man and a thorough gentleman." "And Dolly has his own way of going on." "You have nothing to do with Adolphus." "Nor will he have anything to do with me. If I don't marry what's to become of me? It isn't that Mr. Brehgert is the sort of man I should choose." "Do not mention his name to me." "But what am I to do? You give up the house in town, and how am I to see people? It was you sent me to Mr. Melmotte." "I didn't send you to Mr. Melmotte." "It was at your suggestion I went there, papa. And of course I could only see the people he had there. I like nice people as well as anybody." "There's no use talking any more about it." "I don't see that. I must talk about it, and think about it too. If I can put up with Mr. Brehgert I don't see why you and mamma should complain." "A Jew!" "People don't think about that as they used to, papa. He has a very fine income, and I should always have a house in--" Then Mr. Longestaffe became so furious and loud, that he stopped her for that time. "Look here," he said, "if you mean to tell me that you will marry that man without my consent, I can't prevent it. But you shall not marry him as my daughter. You shall be turned out of my house, and I will never have your name pronounced in my presence again. It is disgusting,--degrading,--disgraceful!" And then he left her. On the next morning before he started for Caversham he did see Mr. Brehgert; but he told Georgiana nothing of the interview, nor had she the courage to ask him. The objectionable name was not mentioned again in her father's hearing, but there was a sad scene between herself, Lady Pomona, and her sister. When Mr. Longestaffe and his younger daughter arrived, the poor mother did not go down into the hall to meet her child,--from whom she had that morning received the dreadful tidings about the Jew. As to these tidings she had as yet heard no direct condemnation from her husband. The effect upon Lady Pomona had been more grievous even than that made upon the father. Mr. Longestaffe had been able to declare immediately that the proposed marriage was out of the question, that nothing of the kind should be allowed, and could take upon himself to see the Jew with the object of breaking off the engagement. But poor Lady Pomona was helpless in her sorrow. If Georgiana chose to marry a Jew tradesman she could not help it. But such an occurrence in the family would, she felt, be to her as though the end of all things had come. She could never again hold up her head, never go into society, never take pleasure in her powdered footmen. When her daughter should have married a Jew, she didn't think that she could pluck up the courage to look even her neighbours Mrs. Yeld and Mrs. Hepworth in the face. Georgiana found no one in the hall to meet her, and dreaded to go to her mother. She first went with her maid to her own room, and waited there till Sophia came to her. As she sat pretending to watch the process of unpacking, she strove to regain her courage. Why need she be afraid of anybody? Why, at any rate, should she be afraid of other females? Had she not always been dominant over her mother and sister? "Oh, Georgey," said Sophia, "this is wonderful news!" "I suppose it seems wonderful that anybody should be going to be married except yourself." "No;--but such a very odd match!" "Look here, Sophia. If you don't like it, you need not talk about it. We shall always have a house in town, and you will not. If you don't like to come to us, you needn't. That's about all." "George wouldn't let me go there at all," said Sophia. "Then--George--had better keep you at home at Toodlam. Where's mamma? I should have thought somebody might have come and met me to say a word to me, instead of allowing me to creep into the house like this." "Mamma isn't at all well; but she's up and in her own room. You mustn't be surprised, Georgey, if you find mamma very--very much cut up about this." Then Georgiana understood that she must be content to stand all alone in the world, unless she made up her mind to give up Mr. Brehgert. "So I've come back," said Georgiana, stooping down and kissing her mother. "Oh, Georgiana; oh, Georgiana!" said Lady Pomona, slowly raising herself and covering her face with one of her hands. "This is dreadful. It will kill me. It will indeed. I didn't expect it from you." "What is the good of all that, mamma?" "It seems to me that it can't be possible. It's unnatural. It's worse than your wife's sister. I'm sure there's something in the Bible against it. You never would read your Bible, or you wouldn't be going to do this." "Lady Julia Start has done just the same thing,--and she goes everywhere." "What does your papa say? I'm sure your papa won't allow it. If he's fixed about anything, it's about the Jews. An accursed race;--think of that, Georgiana;--expelled from Paradise." "Mamma, that's nonsense." "Scattered about all over the world, so that nobody knows who anybody is. And it's only since those nasty Radicals came up that they have been able to sit in Parliament." "One of the greatest judges in the land is a Jew," said Georgiana, who had already learned to fortify her own case. "Nothing that the Radicals can do can make them anything else but what they are. I'm sure that Mr. Whitstable, who is to be your brother-in-law, will never condescend to speak to him." Now, if there was anybody whom Georgiana Longestaffe had despised from her youth upwards it was George Whitstable. He had been a laughing-stock to her when they were children, had been regarded as a lout when he left school, and had been her common example of rural dullness since he had become a man. He certainly was neither beautiful nor bright;--but he was a Conservative squire born of Tory parents. Nor was he rich,--having but a moderate income, sufficient to maintain a moderate country house and no more. When first there came indications that Sophia intended to put up with George Whitstable, the more ambitious sister did not spare the shafts of her scorn. And now she was told that George Whitstable would not speak to her future husband! She was not to marry Mr. Brehgert lest she should bring disgrace, among others, upon George Whitstable! This was not to be endured. "Then Mr. Whitstable may keep himself at home at Toodlam and not trouble his head at all about me or my husband. I'm sure I shan't trouble myself as to what a poor creature like that may think about me. George Whitstable knows as much about London as I do about the moon." "He has always been in county society," said Sophia, "and was staying only the other day at Lord Cantab's." "Then there were two fools together," said Georgiana, who at this moment was very unhappy. "Mr. Whitstable is an excellent young man, and I am sure he will make your sister happy; but as for Mr. Brehgert,--I can't bear to have his name mentioned in my hearing." "Then, mamma, it had better not be mentioned. At any rate it shan't be mentioned again by me." Having so spoken, Georgiana bounced out of the room and did not meet her mother and sister again till she came down into the drawing-room before dinner. Her position was one very trying both to her nerves and to her feelings. She presumed that her father had seen Mr. Brehgert, but did not in the least know what had passed between them. It might be that her father had been so decided in his objection as to induce Mr. Brehgert to abandon his intention,--and if this were so, there could be no reason why she should endure the misery of having the Jew thrown in her face. Among them all they had made her think that she would never become Mrs. Brehgert. She certainly was not prepared to nail her colours upon the mast and to live and die for Brehgert. She was almost sick of the thing herself. But she could not back out of it so as to obliterate all traces of the disgrace. Even if she should not ultimately marry the Jew, it would be known that she had been engaged to a Jew,--and then it would certainly be said afterwards that the Jew had jilted her. She was thus vacillating in her mind, not knowing whether to go on with Brehgert or to abandon him. That evening Lady Pomona retired immediately after dinner, being "far from well." It was of course known to them all that Mr. Brehgert was her ailment. She was accompanied by her elder daughter, and Georgiana was left with her father. Not a word was spoken between them. He sat behind his newspaper till he went to sleep, and she found herself alone and deserted in that big room. It seemed to her that even the servants treated her with disdain. Her own maid had already given her notice. It was manifestly the intention of her family to ostracise her altogether. Of what service would it be to her that Lady Julia Goldsheiner should be received everywhere, if she herself were to be left without a single Christian friend? Would a life passed exclusively among the Jews content even her lessened ambition? At ten o'clock she kissed her father's head and went to bed. Her father grunted less audibly than usual under the operation. She had always given herself credit for high spirits, but she began to fear that her courage would not suffice to carry her through sufferings such as these. On the next day her father returned to town, and the three ladies were left alone. Great preparations were going on for the Whitstable wedding. Dresses were being made and linen marked, and consultations held,--from all which things Georgiana was kept quite apart. The accepted lover came over to lunch, and was made as much of as though the Whitstables had always kept a town house. Sophy loomed so large in her triumph and happiness, that it was not to be borne. All Caversham treated her with a new respect. And yet if Toodlam was a couple of thousand a year, it was all it was;--and there were two unmarried sisters! Lady Pomona went half into hysterics every time she saw her younger daughter, and became in her way a most oppressive parent. Oh, heavens;--was Mr. Brehgert with his two houses worth all this? A feeling of intense regret for the things she was losing came over her. Even Caversham, the Caversham of old days which she had hated, but in which she had made herself respected and partly feared by everybody about the place,--had charms for her which seemed to her delightful now that they were lost for ever. Then she had always considered herself to be the first personage in the house,--superior even to her father;--but now she was decidedly the last. Her second evening was worse even than the first. When Mr. Longestaffe was not at home the family sat in a small dingy room between the library and the dining-room, and on this occasion the family consisted only of Georgiana. In the course of the evening she went up-stairs and calling her sister out into the passage demanded to be told why she was thus deserted. "Poor mamma is very ill," said Sophy. "I won't stand it if I'm to be treated like this," said Georgiana. "I'll go away somewhere." "How can I help it, Georgey? It's your own doing. Of course you must have known that you were going to separate yourself from us." On the next morning there came a dispatch from Mr. Longestaffe,--of what nature Georgey did not know as it was addressed to Lady Pomona. But one enclosure she was allowed to see. "Mamma," said Sophy, "thinks you ought to know how Dolly feels about it." And then a letter from Dolly to his father was put into Georgey's hands. The letter was as follows:-- MY DEAR FATHER,-- Can it be true that Georgey is thinking of marrying that horrid vulgar Jew, old Brehgert? The fellows say so; but I can't believe it. I'm sure you wouldn't let her. You ought to lock her up. Yours affectionately, A. LONGESTAFFE. Dolly's letters made his father very angry, as, short as they were, they always contained advice or instruction, such as should come from a father to a son, rather than from a son to a father. This letter had not been received with a welcome. Nevertheless the head of the family had thought it worth his while to make use of it, and had sent it to Caversham in order that it might be shown to his rebellious daughter. And so Dolly had said that she ought to be locked up! She'd like to see somebody do it! As soon as she had read her brother's epistle she tore it into fragments and threw it away in her sister's presence. "How can mamma be such a hypocrite as to pretend to care what Dolly says? Who doesn't know that he's an idiot? And papa has thought it worth his while to send that down here for me to see! Well, after that I must say that I don't much care what papa does." "I don't see why Dolly shouldn't have an opinion as well as anybody else," said Sophy. "As well as George Whitstable? As far as stupidness goes they are about the same. But Dolly has a little more knowledge of the world." "Of course we all know, Georgiana," rejoined the elder sister, "that for cuteness and that kind of thing one must look among the commercial classes, and especially among a certain sort." "I've done with you all," said Georgey rushing out of the room. "I'll have nothing more to do with any one of you." But it is very difficult for a young lady to have done with her family! A young man may go anywhere, and may be lost at sea; or come and claim his property after twenty years. A young man may demand an allowance, and has almost a right to live alone. The young male bird is supposed to fly away from the paternal nest. But the daughter of a house is compelled to adhere to her father till she shall get a husband. The only way in which Georgey could "have done" with them all at Caversham would be by trusting herself to Mr. Brehgert, and at the present moment she did not know whether Mr. Brehgert did or did not consider himself as engaged to her. That day also passed away with ineffable tedium. At one time she was so beaten down by ennui that she almost offered her assistance to her sister in reference to the wedding garments. In spite of the very bitter words which had been spoken in the morning she would have done so had Sophy afforded her the slightest opportunity. But Sophy was heartlessly cruel in her indifference. In her younger days she had had her bad things, and now,--with George Whitstable by her side,--she meant to have good things, the goodness of which was infinitely enhanced by the badness of her sister's things. She had been so greatly despised that the charm of despising again was irresistible. And she was able to reconcile her cruelty to her conscience by telling herself that duty required her to show implacable resistance to such a marriage as this which her sister contemplated. Therefore Georgiana dragged out another day, not in the least knowing what was to be her fate.

Mr. Longestaffe had taken his younger daughter home on the day after his visit to Lady Monogram, and had spoken of her suggested marriage with Mr. Brehgert as utterly out of the question. Georgiana had made one little fight for her independence at the Jermyn Street Hotel. "Indeed, papa, I think it's very hard," she said. "I think a great many things are hard; but I have to bear them." "You can do nothing for me." "Do nothing for you! Haven't you got a home to live in, and clothes to wear, and a carriage to go about in? What do you expect?" "You know, papa, that's nonsense. If I don't marry what's to become of me? It isn't that Mr. Brehgert is the sort of man I should choose." "Do not mention his name to me." "But what am I to do? It was you that sent me to Mr. Melmotte." "I didn't send you to Mr. Melmotte." "It was at your suggestion I went there, papa. And of course I could only see the people he had there." "There's no use talking any more about it." "I must talk about it, and think about it too. If I can put up with Mr. Brehgert I don't see why you and mamma should complain." "A Jew!" "People don't think about that as they used to, papa. He has a very fine income, and I should always have a house in-" Then Mr. Longestaffe became furious and loud. "If you mean to tell me that you will marry that man without my consent, I can't prevent it. But you shall not marry him as my daughter. You shall be turned out of my house, and I will never have your name pronounced in my presence again. It is disgusting - degrading - disgraceful!" And then he left her. On the next morning before he started for Caversham he saw Mr. Brehgert; but he did not tell Georgiana what was said, and she did not have the courage to ask him. Then there was a sad scene with her mother, Lady Pomona. When they arrived, the poor mother did not go into the hall to meet her child, from whom she had that morning received the dreadful tidings about the Jew. She was helpless in her sorrow. If Georgiana chose to marry a Jew tradesman she could not stop it; but she felt as though the end of all things had come. She could never again hold up her head, never go into society. When her daughter should have married a Jew, she didn't think that she could pluck up the courage to look her neighbours in the face. Georgiana, finding no one in the hall, went with her maid to her own room, and waited there till Sophia came to her. She strove to regain her courage. Why need she be afraid of anybody? Had she not always been dominant over her mother and sister? "Oh, Georgey," said Sophia, "this is wonderful news! Such a very odd match!" "Look here, Sophia, if you don't like it, you need not talk about it. We shall always have a house in town, and you will not. If you don't like to come to us, you needn't. That's all." "George wouldn't let me go there," said Sophia. "Then he had better keep you at home at Toodlam. Where's mamma?" "Mamma isn't at all well; she's in her own room. She is very much cut up about this." As she sought her mother, Georgiana understood that she must stand alone in the world, unless she gave up Mr. Brehgert. "I've come back," she said, stooping and kissing her mother. "Oh, Georgiana!" Lady Pomona slowly raised herself, covering her face with her hand. "This is dreadful. It will kill me." "What is the good of all that, mamma?" "It can't be possible. It's unnatural. I'm sure there's something in the Bible against it." "Lady Julia Start has done just the same thing - and she goes everywhere." "What does your papa say? I'm sure he won't allow it. If he's fixed about anything, it's Jews. An accursed race - expelled from Paradise." "Mamma, that's nonsense." "Scattered about all over the world, so that nobody knows who anybody is." "One of the greatest judges in the land is a Jew," said Georgiana, who had already learned to fortify her own case. "I'm sure that Mr. Whitstable, who is to be your brother-in-law, will never condescend to speak to him." Now, if there was anybody whom Georgiana Longestaffe had despised from her youth it was George Whitstable. He had been regarded as a lout when he left school, and had been her common example of rural dullness. He certainly was neither beautiful nor bright; he was a Conservative squire, able to maintain a moderate country house and no more. And now she was told she was not to marry Mr. Brehgert lest she should bring disgrace upon George Whitstable! This was not to be endured. "Then Mr. Whitstable may keep himself at home at Toodlam and not trouble his head about us. I'm sure I shan't trouble myself as to what a poor creature like that may think about me. George Whitstable knows as much about London as I do about the moon." "Mr. Whitstable is an excellent young man, and I am sure he will make your sister happy; but as for Mr. Brehgert - I can't bear to hear his name mentioned." "Then it shan't be mentioned again by me." Georgiana bounced out of the room and did not meet her mother and sister again till she came down before dinner. Her position was very trying. She presumed that her father had seen Mr. Brehgert, but did not know what had passed between them. It might be that her father had induced Mr. Brehgert to abandon his intention. They had all made her think that she would never become Mrs. Brehgert. She certainly was not prepared to nail her colours upon the mast and to live and die for Brehgert. She was almost sick of the thing herself. But even if she were to back out, it would be known that she had been engaged to a Jew - and then it would be said that the Jew had jilted her. She was thus vacillating, not knowing whether to go on with Brehgert or to abandon him. That evening Lady Pomona retired immediately after dinner, being "far from well," and Sophia went with her. Georgiana was left with her father. Not a word was spoken. He sat behind his newspaper till he went to sleep, and she found herself alone and deserted in that big room. It seemed to her that even the servants treated her with disdain. Her own maid had already given her notice. It seemed the family intended to ostracise her altogether. What would it be like to be left without a single Christian friend? At ten o'clock she kissed her father's head and went to bed. Her father grunted less audibly than usual, and she began to fear that her courage would not carry her through sufferings such as these. On the next day her father returned to town, and the three ladies were left alone. Great preparations were going on for the Whitstable wedding, from which Georgiana was kept apart. George Whitstable came over to lunch, and was made much of. Sophy's triumph was not to be borne. All Caversham treated her with a new respect. And yet Toodlam was barely a couple of thousand a year - and there were two unmarried sisters! Lady Pomona went half into hysterics every time she saw her younger daughter. Was Mr. Brehgert with his two houses worth all this? A feeling of intense regret for the things she was losing came over her. Even Caversham, which in old days she had hated, had charms for her now that they were lost for ever. Then she had always considered herself to be the first personage in the house; but now she was decidedly the last. Her second evening was worse even than the first. When Mr. Longestaffe was not at home the family sat in a small dingy room next to the dining-room, and on this occasion the family consisted only of Georgiana. She went upstairs, and calling her sister, demanded to be told why she was thus deserted. "Poor mamma is very ill," said Sophy. "I won't stand it if I'm to be treated like this," said Georgiana. "I'll go away somewhere." "How can I help it, Georgey? It's your own doing." On the next morning there came a letter from Mr. Longestaffe, addressed to Lady Pomona. It contained an enclosure she was allowed to see. It was a letter from Dolly, as follows: My dear Father,- Can it be true that Georgey is thinking of marrying that horrid vulgar Jew, old Brehgert? The fellows say so; but I can't believe it. I'm sure you wouldn't let her. You ought to lock her up. Yours affectionately, A. Longestaffe. Dolly's letters made his father very angry, as, short as they were, they always contained advice such as should come from a father to a son, rather than from a son to a father. Nevertheless the head of the family had thought it worth his while to send it to Caversham to be shown to his rebellious daughter. So Dolly said that she ought to be locked up! As soon as she had read her brother's letter she tore it into fragments and threw it away. "How can mamma pretend to care what Dolly says? Who doesn't know that he's an idiot?" "I don't see why Dolly shouldn't have an opinion as well as anybody else," said Sophy. "As well as George Whitstable? As far as stupidness goes they are about the same. I've done with you all. I'll have nothing more to do with any of you." But it is very difficult for a young lady to have done with her family! A young man may go anywhere; but the daughter of a house is compelled to adhere to her father till she shall get a husband. The only way in which Georgey could "have done" with them all at Caversham would be by trusting herself to Mr. Brehgert, and she did not know whether Mr. Brehgert still considered himself as engaged to her. That day was so tedious she almost offered to help her sister with the wedding garments. She would have done so had Sophy afforded her the slightest opportunity. But Sophy was heartlessly cruel in her indifference. She had been so greatly despised that the charm of despising in her turn was irresistible. Therefore Georgiana dragged out another day, not knowing what was to be her fate.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 78: Miss Longstaffe Again at Caversham

Two, three, four, and even five o'clock still found Sir Felix Carbury in bed on that fatal Thursday. More than once or twice his mother crept up to his room, but on each occasion he feigned to be fast asleep and made no reply to her gentle words. But his condition was one which only admits of short snatches of uneasy slumber. From head to foot, he was sick and ill and sore, and could find no comfort anywhere. To lie where he was, trying by absolute quiescence to soothe the agony of his brows and to remember that as long as he lay there he would be safe from attack by the outer world, was all the solace within his reach. Lady Carbury sent the page up to him, and to the page he was awake. The boy brought him tea. He asked for soda and brandy; but there was none to be had, and in his present condition he did not dare to hector about it till it was procured for him. The world surely was now all over to him. He had made arrangements for running away with the great heiress of the day, and had absolutely allowed the young lady to run away without him. The details of their arrangement had been such that she absolutely would start upon her long journey across the ocean before she could find out that he had failed to keep his appointment. Melmotte's hostility would be incurred by the attempt, and hers by the failure. Then he had lost all his money,--and hers. He had induced his poor mother to assist in raising a fund for him,--and even that was gone. He was so cowed that he was afraid even of his mother. And he could remember something, but no details, of some row at the club,--but still with a conviction on his mind that he had made the row. Ah,--when would he summon courage to enter the club again? When could he show himself again anywhere? All the world would know that Marie Melmotte had attempted to run off with him, and that at the last moment he had failed her. What lie could he invent to cover his disgrace? And his clothes! All his things were at the club;--or he thought that they were, not being quite certain whether he had not made some attempt to carry them off to the Railway Station. He had heard of suicide. If ever it could be well that a man should cut his own throat, surely the time had come for him now. But as this idea presented itself to him he simply gathered the clothes around him and tried to sleep. The death of Cato would hardly have for him persuasive charms. Between five and six his mother again came up to him, and when he appeared to sleep, stood with her hand upon his shoulder. There must be some end to this. He must at any rate be fed. She, wretched woman, had been sitting all day,--thinking of it. As regarded her son himself, his condition told his story with sufficient accuracy. What might be the fate of the girl she could not stop to enquire. She had not heard all the details of the proposed scheme; but she had known that Felix had proposed to be at Liverpool on the Wednesday night, and to start on Thursday for New York with the young lady; and with the view of aiding him in his object she had helped him with money. She had bought clothes for him, and had been busy with Hetta for two days preparing for his long journey,--having told some lie to her own daughter as to the cause of her brother's intended journey. He had not gone, but had come, drunk and degraded, back to the house. She had searched his pockets with less scruple than she had ever before felt, and had found his ticket for the vessel and the few sovereigns which were left to him. About him she could read the riddle plainly. He had stayed at his club till he was drunk, and had gambled away all his money. When she had first seen him she had asked herself what further lie she should now tell to her daughter. At breakfast there was instant need for some story. "Mary says that Felix came back this morning, and that he has not gone at all," Hetta exclaimed. The poor woman could not bring herself to expose the vices of the son to her daughter. She could not say that he had stumbled into the house drunk at six o'clock. Hetta no doubt had her own suspicions. "Yes; he has come back," said Lady Carbury, broken-hearted by her troubles. "It was some plan about the Mexican railway I believe, and has broken through. He is very unhappy and not well. I will see to him." After that Hetta had said nothing during the whole day. And now, about an hour before dinner, Lady Carbury was standing by her son's bedside, determined that he should speak to her. "Felix," she said,--"speak to me, Felix.--I know that you are awake." He groaned, and turned himself away from her, burying himself, further under the bedclothes. "You must get up for your dinner. It is near six o'clock." "All right," he said at last. "What is the meaning of this, Felix? You must tell me. It must be told sooner or later. I know you are unhappy. You had better trust your mother." "I am so sick, mother." "You will be better up. What were you doing last night? What has come of it all? Where are your things?" "At the club.--You had better leave me now, and let Sam come up to me." Sam was the page. "I will leave you presently; but, Felix, you must tell me about this. What has been done?" "It hasn't come off." "But how has it not come off?" "I didn't get away. What's the good of asking?" "You said this morning when you came in, that Mr. Melmotte had discovered it." "Did I? Then I suppose he has. Oh, mother, I wish I could die. I don't see what's the use of anything. I won't get up to dinner. I'd rather stay here." "You must have something to eat, Felix." "Sam can bring it me. Do let him get me some brandy and water. I'm so faint and sick with all this that I can hardly bear myself. I can't talk now. If he'll get me a bottle of soda water and some brandy, I'll tell you all about it then." "Where is the money, Felix?" "I paid it for the ticket," said he, with both his hands up to his head. Then his mother again left him with the understanding that he was to be allowed to remain in bed till the next morning; but that he was to give her some further explanation when he had been refreshed and invigorated after his own prescription. The boy went out and got him soda water and brandy, and meat was carried up to him, and then he did succeed for a while in finding oblivion from his misery in sleep. "Is he ill, mamma?" Hetta asked. "Yes, my dear." "Had you not better send for a doctor?" "No, my dear. He will be better to-morrow." "Mamma, I think you would be happier if you would tell me everything." "I can't," said Lady Carbury, bursting out into tears. "Don't ask. What's the good of asking? It is all misery and wretchedness. There is nothing to tell,--except that I am ruined." "Has he done anything, mamma?" "No. What should he have done? How am I to know what he does? He tells me nothing. Don't talk about it any more. Oh, God,--how much better it would be to be childless!" "Oh, mamma, do you mean me?" said Hetta, rushing across the room, and throwing herself close to her mother's side on the sofa. "Mamma, say that you do not mean me." "It concerns you as well as me and him. I wish I were childless." "Oh, mamma, do not be cruel to me! Am I not good to you? Do I not try to be a comfort to you?" "Then marry your cousin, Roger Carbury, who is a good man, and who can protect you. You can, at any rate, find a home for yourself, and a friend for us. You are not like Felix. You do not get drunk and gamble,--because you are a woman. But you are stiff-necked, and will not help me in my trouble." "Shall I marry him, mamma, without loving him?" "Love! Have I been able to love? Do you see much of what you call love around you? Why should you not love him? He is a gentleman, and a good man,--soft-hearted, of a sweet nature, whose life would be one effort to make yours happy. You think that Felix is very bad." "I have never said so." "But ask yourself whether you do not give as much pain, seeing what you could do for us if you would. But it never occurs to you to sacrifice even a fantasy for the advantage of others." Hetta retired from her seat on the sofa, and when her mother again went up-stairs she turned it all over in her mind. Could it be right that she should marry one man when she loved another? Could it be right that she should marry at all, for the sake of doing good to her family? This man, whom she might marry if she would,--who did in truth worship the ground on which she trod,--was, she well knew, all that her mother had said. And he was more than that. Her mother had spoken of his soft heart, and his sweet nature. But Hetta knew also that he was a man of high honour and a noble courage. In such a condition as was hers now he was the very friend whose advice she could have asked,--had he not been the very lover who was desirous of making her his wife. Hetta felt that she could sacrifice much for her mother. Money, if she had it, she could have given, though she left herself penniless. Her time, her inclinations, her very heart's treasure, and, as she thought, her life, she could give. She could doom herself to poverty, and loneliness, and heart-rending regrets for her mother's sake. But she did not know how she could give herself into the arms of a man she did not love. [Illustration: "Can I marry the man I do not love?"] "I don't know what there is to explain," said Felix to his mother. She had asked him why he had not gone to Liverpool, whether he had been interrupted by Melmotte himself, whether news had reached him from Marie that she had been stopped, or whether,--as might have been possible,--Marie had changed her own mind. But he could not bring himself to tell the truth, or any story bordering on the truth. "It didn't come off," he said, "and of course that knocked me off my legs. Well; yes. I did take some champagne when I found how it was. A fellow does get cut up by that kind of thing. Oh, I heard it at the club,--that the whole thing was off. I can't explain anything more. And then I was so mad, I can't tell what I was after. I did get the ticket. There it is. That shows I was in earnest. I spent the 30 in getting it. I suppose the change is there. Don't take it, for I haven't another shilling in the world." Of course he said nothing of Marie's money, or of that which he had himself received from Melmotte. And as his mother had heard nothing of these sums she could not contradict what he said. She got from him no further statement, but she was sure that there was a story to be told which would reach her ears sooner or later. That evening, about nine o'clock, Mr. Broune called in Welbeck Street. He very often did call now, coming up in a cab, staying for a cup of tea, and going back in the same cab to the office of his newspaper. Since Lady Carbury had, so devotedly, abstained from accepting his offer, Mr. Broune had become almost sincerely attached to her. There was certainly between them now more of the intimacy of real friendship than had ever existed in earlier days. He spoke to her more freely about his own affairs, and even she would speak to him with some attempt at truth. There was never between them now even a shade of love-making. She did not look into his eyes, nor did he hold her hand. As for kissing her,--he thought no more of it than of kissing the maid-servant. But he spoke to her of the things that worried him,--the unreasonable exactions of proprietors, and the perilous inaccuracy of contributors. He told her of the exceeding weight upon his shoulders, under which an Atlas would have succumbed. And he told her something too of his triumphs;--how he had had this fellow bowled over in punishment for some contradiction, and that man snuffed out for daring to be an enemy. And he expatiated on his own virtues, his justice and clemency. Ah,--if men and women only knew his good nature and his patriotism;--how he had spared the rod here, how he had made the fortune of a man there, how he had saved the country millions by the steadiness of his adherence to some grand truth! Lady Carbury delighted in all this and repaid him by flattery, and little confidences of her own. Under his teaching she had almost made up her mind to give up Mr. Alf. Of nothing was Mr. Broune more certain than that Mr. Alf was making a fool of himself in regard to the Westminster election and those attacks on Melmotte. "The world of London generally knows what it is about," said Mr. Broune, "and the London world believes Mr. Melmotte to be sound. I don't pretend to say that he has never done anything that he ought not to do. I am not going into his antecedents. But he is a man of wealth, power, and genius, and Alf will get the worst of it." Under such teaching as this, Lady Carbury was almost obliged to give up Mr. Alf. Sometimes they would sit in the front room with Hetta, to whom also Mr. Broune had become attached; but sometimes Lady Carbury would be in her own sanctum. On this evening she received him there, and at once poured forth all her troubles about Felix. On this occasion she told him everything, and almost told him everything truly. He had already heard the story. "The young lady went down to Liverpool, and Sir Felix was not there." "He could not have been there. He has been in bed in this house all day. Did she go?" "So I am told;--and was met at the station by the senior officer of the police at Liverpool, who brought her back to London without letting her go down to the ship at all. She must have thought that her lover was on board;--probably thinks so now. I pity her." "How much worse it would have been, had she been allowed to start," said Lady Carbury. "Yes; that would have been bad. She would have had a sad journey to New York, and a sadder journey back. Has your son told you anything about money?" "What money?" "They say that the girl entrusted him with a large sum which she had taken from her father. If that be so he certainly ought to lose no time in restoring it. It might be done through some friend. I would do it for that matter. If it be so,--to avoid unpleasantness,--it should be sent back at once. It will be for his credit." This Mr. Broune said with a clear intimation of the importance of his advice. It was dreadful to Lady Carbury. She had no money to give back, nor, as she was well aware, had her son. She had heard nothing of any money. What did Mr. Broune mean by a large sum? "That would be dreadful," she said. "Had you not better ask him about it?" Lady Carbury was again in tears. She knew that she could not hope to get a word of truth from her son. "What do you mean by a large sum?" "Two or three hundred pounds, perhaps." "I have not a shilling in the world, Mr. Broune." Then it all came out,--the whole story of her poverty, as it had been brought about by her son's misconduct. She told him every detail of her money affairs from the death of her husband, and his will, up to the present moment. "He is eating you up, Lady Carbury." Lady Carbury thought that she was nearly eaten up already, but she said nothing. "You must put a stop to this." "But how?" "You must rid yourself of him. It is dreadful to say so, but it must be done. You must not see your daughter ruined. Find out what money he got from Miss Melmotte and I will see that it is repaid. That must be done;--and we will then try to get him to go abroad. No;--do not contradict me. We can talk of the money another time. I must be off now, as I have stayed too long. Do as I bid you. Make him tell you, and send me word down to the office. If you could do it early to-morrow, that would be best. God bless you." And so he hurried off. Early on the following morning a letter from Lady Carbury was put into Mr. Broune's hands, giving the story of the money as far as she had been able to extract it from Sir Felix. Sir Felix declared that Mr. Melmotte had owed him 600, and that he had received 250 out of this from Miss Melmotte,--so that there was still a large balance due to him. Lady Carbury went on to say that her son had at last confessed that he had lost this money at play. The story was fairly true; but Lady Carbury in her letter acknowledged that she was not justified in believing it because it was told to her by her son.

Five o'clock still found Sir Felix Carbury in bed on that fatal Thursday. When his mother crept up to his room, he feigned to be fast asleep. But he had only short snatches of uneasy slumber. He was sick and sore, and could find no comfort anywhere. To lie quiet, trying to soothe the agony of his head, and to remember that as long as he lay there he would be safe from attack by the outer world, was all he could do. A servant brought him tea. He asked for soda and brandy; but there was none to be had. All was surely now over. He had allowed the heiress to run away without him. She would have started her long journey across the ocean before she could discover that he had failed to be there. He had lost all his money, and hers, and even his mother's. And he could vaguely remember starting some row at the club. When would he summon courage to enter the club again? When could he show himself again anywhere? All the world would know that Marie Melmotte had attempted to run off with him, and that he had failed her. What lie could he invent to cover his disgrace? If ever a man ought to cut his own throat, surely the time had come for him now. But he simply gathered the bedclothes around him and tried to sleep. Between five and six his mother again came to him, and when he appeared to sleep, stood with her hand upon his shoulder, thinking. She had bought clothes for him, and had been busy with Hetta for two days preparing for his long journey - having told some lie to her own daughter as to its cause. When he came, drunk and degraded, back to the house, she had searched his pockets with less scruple than she had ever before felt. She had found his ticket for the vessel and the little money he had left. She could read the riddle plainly. He had stayed at his club till he was drunk, and had gambled away all his money. What lie should she now tell her daughter? At breakfast she said, "Felix is back. Some plan about the Mexican railway has fallen through, I believe. He is very unhappy and not well. I will see to him." After that Hetta had said nothing all day. And now, an hour before dinner, Lady Carbury stood by her son's bedside. "Felix," she said, "speak to me. I know you are awake." He groaned, and turned away, burying himself further under the bedclothes. "You must get up for your dinner. It is near six o'clock." "All right." "What is the meaning of this, Felix? You must tell me. You had better trust your mother." "I am so sick, mother." "You will be better up. What were you doing last night? Where are your things?" "At the club." "Felix, you must tell me. What has been done?" "It hasn't come off. I didn't get away." "You said this morning when you came in, that Mr. Melmotte had discovered it." "Did I? Then I suppose he has. Oh, mother, I wish I could die. I don't see what's the use of anything. I won't get up to dinner. I'd rather stay here." "You must have something to eat, Felix." "Sam can bring it me. Do let him get me some brandy and water. I'm so faint and sick that I can't talk. If he'll get me some soda water and brandy, I'll tell you all about it then." "Where is the money, Felix?" "I paid it for the ticket," said he. Then his mother again left him. The boy went out and got him soda water and brandy, and meat was carried up to him, and then he did sleep for a while. "Is he ill, mamma?" Hetta asked. "Yes, my dear." "Had you not better send for a doctor?" "No, my dear. He will be better tomorrow." "Mamma, I think you would be happier if you told me everything." "I can't," said Lady Carbury, bursting into tears. "Don't ask. What's the good of asking? It is all misery and wretchedness. There is nothing to tell - except that I am ruined. Don't talk about it any more. Oh, God, how much better it would be to be childless!" "Oh, mamma, do you mean me?" said Hetta, rushing to her mother's side. "Mamma, say that you do not mean me." "It concerns you as well. I wish I were childless." "Oh, mamma, do not be cruel to me! Am I not good to you? Do I not try to be a comfort to you?" "Then marry your cousin, Roger Carbury, who is a good man, and can protect you. You can, at any rate, find a home for yourself, and a friend for us. You are not like Felix. You do not get drunk and gamble. But you are stiff-necked, and will not help me in my trouble." "Shall I marry him, mamma, without loving him?" "Love! Have I been able to love? Why should you not love him? He is a gentleman, and a good, sweet-natured man, who would try to make you happy. Ask yourself whether you do not give as much pain as Felix. It never occurs to you to sacrifice a fantasy for the advantage of others." Hetta moved away, and when her mother went upstairs she turned it over in her mind. Could it be right to marry one man when she loved another? Could it be right to marry at all, for the sake of doing good to her family? She knew that Roger had a sweet nature, and also high honour and a noble courage. He was the very friend whose advice she could have asked - had he not wished to make her his wife. Hetta felt that she could sacrifice much for her mother. Her time, her inclinations, her very heart's treasure, she could give. She could doom herself to poverty, and loneliness, and heart-rending regrets for her mother's sake. But she did not know how she could give herself into the arms of a man she did not love. "I don't know what there is to explain," said Felix to his mother. She had asked him why he had not gone to Liverpool, whether he had been interrupted by Melmotte, or whether Marie had changed her mind. But he could not bring himself to tell the truth. "It didn't come off," he said, "and of course I did take some champagne when I found how it was. A fellow gets cut up by that kind of thing. Oh, I heard it at the club - that the whole thing was off. I can't explain any more. I got the ticket. There it is. That shows I was in earnest. I spent the 30 in getting it. I suppose the change is there. I haven't another shilling in the world." Of course he said nothing of Marie's money, or of that which he had received from Melmotte. And as his mother knew nothing of these sums she could not contradict him; but she was sure there was a story to be told which would reach her ears sooner or later. That evening Mr. Broune called in Welbeck Street. He often called now, coming in a cab, staying for a cup of tea, and going back in the same cab to the newspaper office. Since Lady Carbury had refused his offer, Mr. Broune had become almost sincerely attached to her. There was certainly more real friendship between them than had ever existed earlier. He spoke to her more freely about his affairs, and she would speak to him with some attempt at honesty. There was no love-making between them. But he talked of the things that worried him, and also of his editorial triumphs; how he had saved the country millions by telling some grand truth! Lady Carbury delighted in all this and repaid him by little confidences of her own. She had almost made up her mind to give up Mr. Alf. Mr. Broune thought that Mr. Alf was making a fool of himself with the Westminster election and those attacks on Melmotte. "London believes Mr. Melmotte to be sound," he said. "I don't pretend that he has never done anything that he ought not to. But he is a man of wealth, power, and genius, and Alf will get the worst of it." On this evening Lady Carbury at once poured forth all her troubles about Felix. She told him everything. He had already heard the story. "The young lady went down to Liverpool, and Sir Felix was not there." "Did she go, then?" "So I am told; and was met at the station by a police officer, who brought her back to London. She probably still thinks her lover was on board the ship. I pity her." "How much worse it would have been, had she gone on board," said Lady Carbury. "Yes; she would have had a sad journey to New York, and a sadder journey back. Has your son told you anything about money?" "What money?" "They say the girl entrusted him with a large sum which she had taken from her father. If that is so he certainly ought to lose no time in returning it. It might be done through some friend. I would do it. But to avoid unpleasantness, it should be sent back at once." This was dreadful to Lady Carbury. She had no money to give back, nor, as she knew, had her son. "What do you mean by a large sum?" she said, in tears. "Two or three hundred pounds, perhaps." "I have not a shilling in the world, Mr. Broune." Then it all came out - the whole story of her poverty, caused by her son's misconduct. She told him every detail of her money affairs from her husband's death up to the present. "He is eating you up, Lady Carbury. You must put a stop to this." "But how?" "You must rid yourself of him. It is dreadful to say so, but it must be done. You must not see your daughter ruined. Find out what money he got from Miss Melmotte and I will see that it is repaid. Then we will try to get him to go abroad. No; do not contradict me. We can talk of the money another time. I must be off now, but do as I bid you. Send me word of the sum down to the office. God bless you." And so he hurried off. Early the following morning Mr. Broune received a letter from Lady Carbury, giving the story of the money as far as she had been able to extract it from Sir Felix. Sir Felix declared that Mr. Melmotte had owed him 600, and that he had received 250 out of this from Miss Melmotte. Lady Carbury added that her son had at last confessed that he had lost this money at play. Although this was true, she admitted that she could not safely believe anything told to her by her son.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 52: The Results of Love and Wine

"You shall be troubled no more with Winifrid Hurtle." So Mrs. Hurtle had said, speaking in perfect good faith to the man whom she had come to England with the view of marrying. And then when he had said good-bye to her, putting out his hand to take hers for the last time, she declined that. "Nay," she had said; "this parting will bear no farewell." Having left her after that fashion Paul Montague could not return home with very high spirits. Had she insisted on his taking that letter with the threat of the horsewhip as the letter which she intended to write to him,--that letter which she had shown him, owning it to be the ebullition of her uncontrolled passion, and had then destroyed,--he might at any rate have consoled himself with thinking that, however badly he might have behaved, her conduct had been worse than his. He could have made himself warm and comfortable with anger, and could have assured himself that under any circumstances he must be right to escape from the clutches of a wild cat such as that. But at the last moment she had shown that she was no wild cat to him. She had melted, and become soft and womanly. In her softness she had been exquisitely beautiful; and as he returned home he was sad and dissatisfied with himself. He had destroyed her life for her,--or, at least, had created a miserable episode in it which could hardly be obliterated. She had said that she was all alone, and had given up everything to follow him,--and he had believed her. Was he to do nothing for her now? She had allowed him to go, and after her fashion had pardoned him the wrong he had done her. But was that to be sufficient for him,--so that he might now feel inwardly satisfied at leaving her, and make no further inquiry as to her fate? Could he pass on and let her be as the wine that has been drunk,--as the hour that has been enjoyed,--as the day that is past? But what could he do? He had made good his own escape. He had resolved that, let her be woman or wild cat, he would not marry her, and in that he knew he had been right. Her antecedents, as now declared by herself, unfitted her for such a marriage. Were he to return to her he would be again thrusting his hand into the fire. But his own selfish coldness was hateful to him when he thought that there was nothing to be done but to leave her desolate and lonely in Mrs. Pipkin's lodgings. During the next three or four days, while the preparations for the dinner and the election were going on, he was busy in respect to the American railway. He again went down to Liverpool, and at Mr. Ramsbottom's advice prepared a letter to the board of directors, in which he resigned his seat, and gave his reasons for resigning it; adding that he should reserve to himself the liberty of publishing his letter, should at any time the circumstances of the railway company seem to him to make such a course desirable. He also wrote a letter to Mr. Fisker, begging that gentleman to come to England, and expressing his own wish to retire altogether from the firm of Fisker, Montague, and Montague upon receiving the balance of money due to him,--a payment which must, he said, be a matter of small moment to his two partners, if, as he had been informed, they had enriched themselves by the success of the railway company in San Francisco. When he wrote these letters at Liverpool the great rumour about Melmotte had not yet sprung up. He returned to London on the day of the festival, and first heard of the report at the Beargarden. There he found that the old set had for the moment broken itself up. Sir Felix Carbury had not been heard of for the last four or five days,--and then the whole story of Miss Melmotte's journey, of which he had read something in the newspapers, was told to him. "We think that Carbury has drowned himself," said Lord Grasslough, "and I haven't heard of anybody being heartbroken about it." Lord Nidderdale had hardly been seen at the club. "He's taken up the running with the girl," said Lord Grasslough. "What he'll do now, nobody knows. If I was at it, I'd have the money down in hard cash before I went into the church. He was there at the party yesterday, talking to the girl all the night;--a sort of thing he never did before. Nidderdale is the best fellow going, but he was always an ass." Nor had Miles Grendall been seen in the club for three days. "We've got into a way of play the poor fellow doesn't like," said Lord Grasslough; "and then Melmotte won't let him out of his sight. He has taken to dine there every day." This was said during the election,--on the very day on which Miles deserted his patron; and on that evening he did dine at the club. Paul Montague also dined there, and would fain have heard something from Grendall as to Melmotte's condition; but the secretary, if not faithful in all things, was faithful at any rate in his silence. Though Grasslough talked openly enough about Melmotte in the smoking-room Miles Grendall said never a word. On the next day, early in the afternoon, almost without a fixed purpose, Montague strolled up to Welbeck Street, and found Hetta alone. "Mamma has gone to her publisher's," she said. "She is writing so much now that she is always going there. Who has been elected, Mr. Montague?" Paul knew nothing about the election, and cared very little. At that time, however, the election had not been decided. "I suppose it will make no difference to you whether your chairman be in Parliament or not?" Paul said that Melmotte was no longer a chairman of his. "Are you out of it altogether, Mr. Montague?" Yes;--as far as it lay within his power to be out of it, he was out of it. He did not like Mr. Melmotte, nor believe in him. Then with considerable warmth he repudiated all connection with the Melmotte party, expressing deep regret that circumstances had driven him for a time into that alliance. "Then you think that Mr. Melmotte is--?" "Just a scoundrel;--that's all." "You heard about Felix?" "Of course I heard that he was to marry the girl, and that he tried to run off with her. I don't know much about it. They say that Lord Nidderdale is to marry her now." "I think not, Mr. Montague." "I hope not, for his sake. At any rate, your brother is well out of it." "Do you know that she loves Felix? There is no pretence about that. I do think she is good. The other night at the party she spoke to me." "You went to the party, then?" "Yes;--I could not refuse to go when mamma chose to take me. And when I was there she spoke to me about Felix. I don't think she will marry Lord Nidderdale. Poor girl;--I do pity her. Think what a downfall it will be if anything happens." But Paul Montague had certainly not come there with the intention of discussing Melmotte's affairs, nor could he afford to lose the opportunity which chance had given him. He was off with one love, and now he thought that he might be on with the other. "Hetta," he said, "I am thinking more of myself than of her,--or even of Felix." "I suppose we all do think more of ourselves than of other people," said Hetta, who knew from his voice at once what it was in his mind to do. "Yes;--but I am not thinking of myself only. I am thinking of myself, and you. In all my thoughts of myself I am thinking of you too." "I do not know why you should do that." "Hetta, you must know that I love you." "Do you?" she said. Of course she knew it. And of course she thought that he was equally sure of her love. Had he chosen to read signs that ought to have been plain enough to him, could he have doubted her love after the few words that had been spoken on that night when Lady Carbury had come in with Roger and interrupted them? She could not remember exactly what had been said; but she did remember that he had spoken of leaving England for ever in a certain event, and that she had not rebuked him;--and she remembered also how she had confessed her own love to her mother. He, of course, had known nothing of that confession; but he must have known that he had her heart! So at least she thought. She had been working some morsel of lace, as ladies do when ladies wish to be not quite doing nothing. She had endeavoured to ply her needle, very idly, while he was speaking to her, but now she allowed her hands to fall into her lap. She would have continued to work at the lace had she been able, but there are times when the eyes will not see clearly, and when the hands will hardly act mechanically. "Yes,--I do. Hetta, say a word to me. Can it be so? Look at me for one moment so as to let me know." Her eyes had turned downwards after her work. "If Roger is dearer to you than I am, I will go at once." "Roger is very dear to me." "Do you love him as I would have you love me?" She paused for a time, knowing that his eyes were fixed upon her, and then she answered the question in a low voice, but very clearly. "No," she said;--"not like that." "Can you love me like that?" He put out both his arms as though to take her to his breast should the answer be such as he longed to hear. She raised her hand towards him, as if to keep him back, and left it with him when he seized it. "Is it mine?" he said. "If you want it." Then he was at her feet in a moment, kissing her hands and her dress, looking up into her face with his eyes full of tears, ecstatic with joy as though he had really never ventured to hope for such success. "Want it!" he said. "Hetta, I have never wanted anything but that with real desire. Oh, Hetta, my own. Since I first saw you this has been my only dream of happiness. And now it is my own." She was very quiet, but full of joy. Now that she had told him the truth she did not coy her love. Having once spoken the word she did not care how often she repeated it. She did not think that she could ever have loved anybody but him,--even if he had not been fond of her. As to Roger,--dear Roger, dearest Roger,--no; it was not the same thing. "He is as good as gold," she said,--"ever so much better than you are, Paul," stroking his hair with her hand and looking into his eyes. "Better than anybody I have ever known," said Montague with all his energy. "I think he is;--but, ah, that is not everything. I suppose we ought to love the best people best; but I don't, Paul." "I do," said he. "No,--you don't. You must love me best, but I won't be called good. I do not know why it has been so. Do you know, Paul, I have sometimes thought I would do as he would have me, out of sheer gratitude. I did not know how to refuse such a trifling thing to one who ought to have everything that he wants." "Where should I have been?" "Oh, you! Somebody else would have made you happy. But do you know, Paul, I think he will never love any one else. I ought not to say so, because it seems to be making so much of myself. But I feel it. He is not so young a man, and yet I think that he never was in love before. He almost told me so once, and what he says is true. There is an unchanging way with him that is awful to think of. He said that he never could be happy unless I would do as he would have me,--and he made me almost believe even that. He speaks as though every word he says must come true in the end. Oh, Paul, I love you so dearly,--but I almost think that I ought to have obeyed him." Paul Montague of course had very much to say in answer to this. Among the holy things which did exist to gild this every-day unholy world, love was the holiest. It should be soiled by no falsehood, should know nothing of compromises, should admit no excuses, should make itself subject to no external circumstances. If Fortune had been so kind to him as to give him her heart, poor as his claim might be, she could have no right to refuse him the assurance of her love. And though his rival were an angel, he could have no shadow of a claim upon her,--seeing that he had failed to win her heart. It was very well said,--at least so Hetta thought,--and she made no attempt at argument against him. But what was to be done in reference to poor Roger? She had spoken the word now, and, whether for good or bad, she had given herself to Paul Montague. Even though Roger should have to walk disconsolate to the grave, it could not now be helped. But would it not be right that it should be told? "Do you know I almost feel that he is like a father to me," said Hetta, leaning on her lover's shoulder. Paul thought it over for a few minutes, and then said that he would himself write to Roger. "Hetta, do you know, I doubt whether he will ever speak to me again." "I cannot believe that." "There is a sternness about him which it is very hard to understand. He has taught himself to think that as I met you in his house, and as he then wished you to be his wife, I should not have ventured to love you. How could I have known?" "That would be unreasonable." "He is unreasonable--about that. It is not reason with him. He always goes by his feelings. Had you been engaged to him--" "Oh, then, you never could have spoken to me like this." "But he will never look at it in that way;--and he will tell me that I have been untrue to him and ungrateful." "If you think, Paul--" "Nay; listen to me. If it be so I must bear it. It will be a great sorrow, but it will be as nothing to that other sorrow, had that come upon me. I will write to him, and his answer will be all scorn and wrath. Then you must write to him afterwards. I think he will forgive you, but he will never forgive me." Then they parted, she having promised that she would tell her mother directly Lady Carbury came home, and Paul undertaking to write to Roger that evening. And he did, with infinite difficulty, and much trembling of the spirit. Here is his letter:-- MY DEAR ROGER,-- I think it right to tell you at once what has occurred to-day. I have proposed to Miss Carbury and she has accepted me. You have long known what my feelings were, and I have also known yours. I have known, too, that Miss Carbury has more than once declined to take your offer. Under these circumstances I cannot think that I have been untrue to friendship in what I have done, or that I have proved myself ungrateful for the affectionate kindness which you have always shown me. I am authorised by Hetta to say that, had I never spoken to her, it must have been the same to you. This was hardly a fair representation of what had been said, but the writer, looking back upon his interview with the lady, thought that it had been implied. I should not say so much by way of excusing myself, but that you once said, that should such a thing occur there must be a division between us ever after. If I thought that you would adhere to that threat, I should be very unhappy and Hetta would be miserable. Surely, if a man loves he is bound to tell his love, and to take the chance. You would hardly have thought it manly in me if I had abstained. Dear friend, take a day or two before you answer this, and do not banish us from your heart if you can help it. Your affectionate friend, PAUL MONTAGUE. Roger Carbury did not take a single day,--or a single hour to answer the letter. He received it at breakfast, and after rushing out on the terrace and walking there for a few minutes, he hurried to his desk and wrote his reply. As he did so, his whole face was red with wrath, and his eyes were glowing with indignation. There is an old French saying that he who makes excuses is his own accuser. You would not have written as you have done, had you not felt yourself to be false and ungrateful. You knew where my heart was, and there you went and undermined my treasure, and stole it away. You have destroyed my life, and I will never forgive you. You tell me not to banish you both from my heart. How dare you join yourself with her in speaking of my feelings! She will never be banished from my heart. She will be there morning, noon, and night, and as is and will be my love to her, so shall be my enmity to you. ROGER CARBURY. It was hardly a letter for a Christian to write; and, yet, in those parts Roger Carbury had the reputation of being a good Christian. Henrietta told her mother that morning, immediately on her return. "Mamma, Mr. Paul Montague has been here." "He always comes here when I am away," said Lady Carbury. "That has been an accident. He could not have known that you were going to Messrs. Leadham and Loiter's." "I'm not so sure of that, Hetta." "Then, mamma, you must have told him yourself, and I don't think you knew till just before you were going. But, mamma, what does it matter? He has been here, and I have told him--" "You have not accepted him?" "Yes, mamma." "Without even asking me?" "Mamma, you knew. I will not marry him without asking you. How was I not to tell him when he asked me whether I--loved him?" "Marry him! How is it possible you should marry him? Whatever he had got was in that affair of Melmotte's, and that has gone to the dogs. He is a ruined man, and for aught I know may be compromised in all Melmotte's wickedness." "Oh, mamma, do not say that!" "But I do say it. It is hard upon me. I did think that you would try to comfort me after all this trouble with Felix. But you are as bad as he is;--or worse, for you have not been thrown into temptation like that poor boy! And you will break your cousin's heart. Poor Roger! I feel for him;--he that has been so true to us! But you think nothing of that." "I think very much of my cousin Roger." "And how do you show it;--or your love for me? There would have been a home for us all. Now we must starve, I suppose. Hetta, you have been worse to me even than Felix." Then Lady Carbury, in her passion, burst out of the room, and took herself to her own chamber.

"You shall be troubled no more with Winifrid Hurtle." So Mrs. Hurtle had said in perfect good faith to Paul Montague. And when he had said good-bye to her, putting out his hand for the last time, she declined it. Paul returned home in low spirits. If she had insisted on his taking that letter with the threat of the horsewhip, he might at least have consoled himself with thinking that, however badly he had behaved, her conduct had been worse. He could have made himself warm and comfortable with anger, and could have assured himself that he was right to escape from the clutches of such a wild cat. But at the last moment she had been no wild cat to him. She had melted, and become soft and womanly, and exquisitely beautiful; and he returned home sad and dissatisfied with himself. He had destroyed her life. She had said that she was all alone, and had given up everything to follow him. Was he to do nothing for her now? Yet what could he do? He had made good his escape. He had resolved that he would not marry her, and he knew he had been right. Were he to return to her he would again be thrusting his hand into the fire. But his own selfish coldness was hateful to him when he thought of her left desolate and lonely in Mrs. Pipkin's lodgings. During the next three or four days, while the preparations for the dinner and the election were going on, he was busy in regard to the American railway. He again went to Liverpool, and at Mr. Ramsbottom's advice prepared a letter to the board of directors, in which he resigned his seat. He also wrote a letter to Mr. Fisker, begging that gentleman to come to England, and expressing his own wish to retire altogether from the firm of Fisker, Montague, and Montague, upon receiving the balance of money due to him. When he wrote these letters at Liverpool the great rumour about Melmotte had not yet sprung up. He returned to London on the day of the festival, and first heard of the report at the Beargarden. The old set there had broken up. Sir Felix Carbury had not been heard of for the last four or five days; and then the whole story of Miss Melmotte's journey was told to him. Lord Nidderdale had hardly been seen at the club. "He's taken up the running with the girl," said Lord Grasslough. "He was there at the party yesterday, talking to her all night - a sort of thing he never did before. Nidderdale is the best fellow going, but he was always an ass." Nor had Miles Grendall been seen in the club for three days. On the next afternoon, almost without a fixed purpose, Paul strolled up to Welbeck Street, and found Hetta alone. "Mamma has gone to her publisher's," she said. "Who has been elected, Mr. Montague?" Paul knew nothing about the election, and cared very little. He said that Melmotte was no longer his chairman. "Are you out of it altogether, Mr. Montague?" Yes; as far as it lay within his power, he was out of it. With considerable warmth he repudiated all connection with Melmotte, expressing deep regret that circumstances had driven him for a time into that alliance. "Then you think that Mr. Melmotte is-?" "A scoundrel; that's all." "You heard about Felix?" "I heard that he tried to run off with the girl. I don't know much about it. They say that Lord Nidderdale is to marry her now." "I think not, Mr. Montague." "I hope not, for his sake. At any rate, your brother is well out of it." "Do you know that she truly loves Felix? I do think she is good. The other night at the party she spoke to me. Poor girl; I do pity her. Think what a downfall it will be if anything happens." But Paul Montague had not come to discuss Melmotte's affairs. He was off with one love, and now he thought that he might be on with the other. "Hetta," he said, "I am thinking more of myself than of her." "I suppose we all do think more of ourselves than of other people," said Hetta, who knew from his voice at once what he intended. "Yes; but I am thinking of myself and of you. Hetta, you must know that I love you." "Do you?" she said. Of course she knew it. And she thought that he was equally sure of her love. Could he have doubted her love after the few words that had been spoken on that night when Lady Carbury had interrupted them? He must have known that he had her heart! So at least she thought. She had been sewing some morsel of lace, as ladies do when they wish to be not quite doing nothing. Now she allowed her hands to fall into her lap. "Yes, I do. Hetta, say a word to me. Can it be so? Look at me for one moment." Her eyes had turned downwards to her work. "If Roger is dearer to you than I am, I will go at once." "Roger is very dear to me." "Do you love him as I would have you love me?" She paused for a time, knowing that his eyes were fixed upon her, and then she answered the question in a low voice, but very clearly. "No," she said; "not like that." "Can you love me like that?" He put out both his arms. She raised her hand as if to keep him back, and left it with him when he seized it. "Is it mine?" he said. "If you want it." Then he was at her feet in a moment, kissing her hands and her dress, looking up into her face with his eyes full of tears, ecstatic with joy. "Want it!" he said. "Hetta, I have never wanted anything but that. Oh, Hetta, my own. Since I first saw you this has been my only dream of happiness. And now it is my own." She was very quiet, but full of joy. She did not think that she could ever have loved anybody but him. As to Roger - dear Roger - no; it was not the same thing. "He is as good as gold," she said, "ever so much better than you are, Paul," stroking his hair with her hand and looking into his eyes. "Better than anybody I have ever known," said Montague. "I think he is; but that is not everything. I suppose we ought to love the best people best; but I don't, Paul." "I do," said he. "No, you don't. I won't be called good. Do you know, Paul, I have sometimes thought I would accept him, out of sheer gratitude." "Where should I have been?" "Oh, you! Somebody else would have made you happy. But, Paul, I think he will never love anyone else. I ought not to say so, because it seems to be making so much of myself. But I feel it. He is not young, and yet I think that he never was in love before. There is an unchanging way with him that is awful to think of. He said that he could never be happy unless I would marry him. Oh, Paul, I love you so dearly - but I almost think that I ought to have obeyed him." Paul Montague of course had very much to say in answer to this. Even if Roger were an angel, he could have no claim upon her, since he had failed to win her heart. But what was to be done about poor Roger? Whether for good or bad, Hetta had now given herself to Paul Montague. Should he not be told? "Do you know, I almost feel that he is like a father to me," said Hetta, leaning on her lover's shoulder. Paul thought it over, and then said that he would himself write to Roger. "Hetta, I doubt whether he will ever speak to me again." "I cannot believe that." "There is a sternness about him. He has taught himself to think that as I met you in his house, and as he wished you to be his wife, I should not have ventured to love you. He will tell me that I have been untrue to him and ungrateful - and I must bear it, though it will be a great sorrow. I will write to him, and his answer will be all scorn and wrath. You must write to him afterwards. I think he will forgive you, but he will never forgive me." Then they parted, she having promised that she would tell her mother directly Lady Carbury came home, and Paul undertaking to write to Roger that evening. And he did, with infinite difficulty, and much trembling of the spirit. Here is his letter: My dear Roger, I think it right to tell you at once what has occurred today. I have proposed to Miss Carbury and she has accepted me. You have long known what my feelings were, and I have also known yours. I have known, too, that Miss Carbury has more than once declined to take your offer. Under these circumstances I cannot think that I have been untrue to our friendship, or that I have proved myself ungrateful for the affectionate kindness which you have always shown me. I am authorised by Hetta to say that, even if I had never spoken to her, it must have been the same to you. (This was hardly what had been said, but the writer, looking back upon his interview with the lady, thought that it had been implied.) You once said, that should such a thing occur there must be a division between us ever after. If I thought that you would keep to that threat, I should be very unhappy and Hetta would be miserable. Surely, if a man loves he is bound to tell his love, and to take the chance. You would hardly have thought it manly in me if I had abstained. Dear friend, take a day or two before you answer this, and do not banish us from your heart if you can help it. Your affectionate friend, Paul Montague. Roger Carbury did not take a single day, or a single hour to answer the letter. He received it at breakfast, and after rushing out on the terrace and walking there for a few minutes, he hurried to his desk and wrote his reply, his face red with wrath, and his eyes glowing with indignation. You would not have written as you have done, had you not felt yourself to be false and ungrateful. You knew where my heart was, and there you went and undermined my treasure, and stole it away. You have destroyed my life, and I will never forgive you. You tell me not to banish you both from my heart. How dare you join yourself with her in speaking of my feelings! She will never be banished from my heart. She will be there morning, noon, and night, and as is my love to her, so shall be my enmity to you. Roger Carbury. Henrietta told her mother that morning. "Mamma, Mr. Paul Montague has been here, and I have told him-" "You have not accepted him?" "Yes, mamma." "Without even asking me?" "Mamma, you knew. I will not marry him without asking you." "Marry him! How is it possible you should marry him? He is a ruined man, and for all I know he may be compromised in Melmotte's wickedness." "Oh, mamma, do not say that!" "But I do say it. I did think that you would try to comfort me after all this trouble with Felix. But you are as bad as he is! And you will break your cousin's heart. Poor Roger! he has been so true to us! But you think nothing of that." "I think very much of my cousin Roger." "And how do you show it? Now we must starve, I suppose. Hetta, you have been even worse to me than Felix." Then Lady Carbury burst out of the room, and took herself to her own chamber.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 66: "So Shall be my Enmity."

While these things were being done in Bruton Street and Grosvenor Square horrid rumours were prevailing in the City and spreading from the City westwards to the House of Commons, which was sitting this Monday afternoon with a prospect of an adjournment at seven o'clock in consequence of the banquet to be given to the Emperor. It is difficult to explain the exact nature of this rumour, as it was not thoroughly understood by those who propagated it. But it is certainly the case that the word forgery was whispered by more than one pair of lips. Many of Melmotte's staunchest supporters thought that he was very wrong not to show himself that day in the City. What good could he do pottering about among the chairs and benches in the banqueting room? There were people to manage that kind of thing. In such an affair it was his business to do simply as he was told, and to pay the bill. It was not as though he were giving a little dinner to a friend, and had to see himself that the wine was brought up in good order. His work was in the City; and at such a time as this and in such a crisis as this, he should have been in the City. Men will whisper forgery behind a man's back who would not dare even to think it before his face. Of this particular rumour our young friend Dolly Longestaffe was the parent. With unhesitating resolution, nothing awed by his father, Dolly had gone to his attorney, Mr. Squercum, immediately after that Friday on which Mr. Longestaffe first took his seat at the Railway Board. Dolly was possessed of fine qualities, but it must be owned that veneration was not one of them. "I don't know why Mr. Melmotte is to be different from anybody else," he had said to his father. "When I buy a thing and don't pay for it, it is because I haven't got the tin, and I suppose it's about the same with him. It's all right, no doubt, but I don't see why he should have got hold of the place till the money was paid down." "Of course it's all right," said the father. "You think you understand everything, when you really understand nothing at all." "Of course I'm slow," said Dolly. "I don't comprehend these things. But then Squercum does. When a fellow is stupid himself, he ought to have a sharp fellow to look after his business." "You'll ruin me and yourself too, if you go to such a man as that. Why can't you trust Mr. Bideawhile? Slow and Bideawhile have been the family lawyers for a century." Dolly made some remark as to the old family advisers which was by no means pleasing to the father's ears, and went his way. The father knew his boy, and knew that his boy would go to Squercum. All he could himself do was to press Mr. Melmotte for the money with what importunity he could assume. He wrote a timid letter to Mr. Melmotte, which had no result; and then, on the next Friday, again went into the City and there encountered perturbation of spirit and sheer loss of time,--as the reader has already learned. Squercum was a thorn in the side of all the Bideawhiles. Mr. Slow had been gathered to his fathers, but of the Bideawhiles there were three in the business, a father and two sons, to whom Squercum was a pest and a musquito, a running sore and a skeleton in the cupboard. It was not only in reference to Mr. Longestaffe's affairs that they knew Squercum. The Bideawhiles piqued themselves on the decorous and orderly transaction of their business. It had grown to be a rule in the house that anything done quickly must be done badly. They never were in a hurry for money, and they expected their clients never to be in a hurry for work. Squercum was the very opposite to this. He had established himself, without predecessors and without a partner, and we may add without capital, at a little office in Fetter Lane, and had there made a character for getting things done after a marvellous and new fashion. And it was said of him that he was fairly honest, though it must be owned that among the Bideawhiles of the profession this was not the character which he bore. He did sharp things no doubt, and had no hesitation in supporting the interests of sons against those of their fathers. In more than one case he had computed for a young heir the exact value of his share in a property as compared to that of his father, and had come into hostile contact with many family Bideawhiles. He had been closely watched. There were some who, no doubt, would have liked to crush a man who was at once so clever, and so pestilential. But he had not as yet been crushed, and had become quite in vogue with elder sons. Some three years since his name had been mentioned to Dolly by a friend who had for years been at war with his father, and Squercum had been quite a comfort to Dolly. He was a mean-looking little man, not yet above forty, who always wore a stiff light-coloured cotton cravat, an old dress coat, a coloured dingy waistcoat, and light trousers of some hue different from his waistcoat. He generally had on dirty shoes and gaiters. He was light haired, with light whiskers, with putty-formed features, a squat nose, a large mouth, and very bright blue eyes. He looked as unlike the normal Bideawhile of the profession as a man could be; and it must be owned, though an attorney, would hardly have been taken for a gentleman from his personal appearance. He was very quick, and active in his motions, absolutely doing his law work himself, and trusting to his three or four juvenile clerks for little more than scrivener's labour. He seldom or never came to his office on a Saturday, and many among his enemies said that he was a Jew. What evil will not a rival say to stop the flow of grist to the mill of the hated one? But this report Squercum rather liked, and assisted. They who knew the inner life of the little man declared that he kept a horse and hunted down in Essex on Saturday, doing a bit of gardening in the summer months;--and they said also that he made up for this by working hard all Sunday. Such was Mr. Squercum,--a sign, in his way, that the old things are being changed. Squercum sat at a desk, covered with papers in chaotic confusion, on a chair which moved on a pivot. His desk was against the wall, and when clients came to him, he turned himself sharp round, sticking out his dirty shoes, throwing himself back till his body was an inclined plane, with his hands thrust into his pockets. In this attitude he would listen to his client's story, and would himself speak as little as possible. It was by his instructions that Dolly had insisted on getting his share of the purchase money for Pickering into his own hands, so that the incumbrance on his own property might be paid off. He now listened as Dolly told him of the delay in the payment. "Melmotte's at Pickering?" asked the attorney. Then Dolly informed him how the tradesmen of the great financier had already half knocked down the house. Squercum still listened, and promised to look to it. He did ask what authority Dolly had given for the surrender of the title-deeds. Dolly declared that he had given authority for the sale, but none for the surrender. His father, some time since, had put before him, for his signature, a letter, prepared in Mr. Bideawhile's office, which Dolly said that he had refused even to read, and certainly had not signed. Squercum again said that he'd look to it, and bowed Dolly out of his room. "They've got him to sign something when he was tight," said Squercum to himself, knowing something of the habits of his client. "I wonder whether his father did it, or old Bideawhile, or Melmotte himself?" Mr. Squercum was inclined to think that Bideawhile would not have done it, that Melmotte could have had no opportunity, and that the father must have been the practitioner. "It's not the trick of a pompous old fool either," said Mr. Squercum, in his soliloquy. He went to work, however, making himself detestably odious among the very respectable clerks in Mr. Bideawhile's office,--men who considered themselves to be altogether superior to Squercum himself in professional standing. [Illustration: Mr. Squercum in his office.] And now there came this rumour which was so far particular in its details that it inferred the forgery, of which it accused Mr. Melmotte, to his mode of acquiring the Pickering property. The nature of the forgery was of course described in various ways,--as was also the signature said to have been forged. But there were many who believed, or almost believed, that something wrong had been done,--that some great fraud had been committed; and in connection with this it was ascertained,--by some as a matter of certainty,--that the Pickering estate had been already mortgaged by Melmotte to its full value at an assurance office. In such a transaction there would be nothing dishonest; but as this place had been bought for the great man's own family use, and not as a speculation, even this report of the mortgage tended to injure his credit. And then, as the day went on, other tidings were told as to other properties. Houses in the East-end of London were said to have been bought and sold, without payment of the purchase money as to the buying, and with receipt of the purchase money as to the selling. It was certainly true that Squercum himself had seen the letter in Mr. Bideawhile's office which conveyed to the father's lawyer the son's sanction for the surrender of the title-deeds, and that that letter, prepared in Mr. Bideawhile's office, purported to have Dolly's signature. Squercum said but little, remembering that his client was not always clear in the morning as to anything he had done on the preceding evening. But the signature, though it was scrawled as Dolly always scrawled it, was not like the scrawl of a drunken man. The letter was said to have been sent to Mr. Bideawhile's office with other letters and papers, direct from old Mr. Longestaffe. Such was the statement made at first to Mr. Squercum by the Bideawhile party, who at that moment had no doubt of the genuineness of the letter or of the accuracy of their statement. Then Squercum saw his client again, and returned to the charge at Bideawhile's office, with the positive assurance that the signature was a forgery. Dolly, when questioned by Squercum, quite admitted his propensity to be "tight." He had no reticence, no feeling of disgrace on such matters. But he had signed no letter when he was tight. "Never did such a thing in my life, and nothing could make me," said Dolly. "I'm never tight except at the club, and the letter couldn't have been there. I'll be drawn and quartered if I ever signed it. That's flat." Dolly was intent on going to his father at once, on going to Melmotte at once, on going to Bideawhile's at once, and making there "no end of a row,"--but Squercum stopped him. "We'll just ferret this thing out quietly," said Squercum, who perhaps thought that there would be high honour in discovering the peccadillos of so great a man as Mr. Melmotte. Mr. Longestaffe, the father, had heard nothing of the matter till the Saturday after his last interview with Melmotte in the City. He had then called at Bideawhile's office in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and had been shown the letter. He declared at once that he had never sent the letter to Mr. Bideawhile. He had begged his son to sign the letter and his son had refused. He did not at that moment distinctly remember what he had done with the letter unsigned. He believed he had left it with the other papers; but it was possible that his son might have taken it away. He acknowledged that at the time he had been both angry and unhappy. He didn't think that he could have sent the letter back unsigned,--but he was not sure. He had more than once been in his own study in Bruton Street since Mr. Melmotte had occupied the house,--by that gentleman's leave,--having left various papers there under his own lock and key. Indeed it had been matter of agreement that he should have access to his own study when he let the house. He thought it probable that he would have kept back the unsigned letter, and have kept it under lock and key, when he sent away the other papers. Then reference was made to Mr. Longestaffe's own letter to the lawyer, and it was found that he had not even alluded to that which his son had been asked to sign; but that he had said, in his own usually pompous style, that Mr. Longestaffe, junior, was still prone to create unsubstantial difficulties. Mr. Bideawhile was obliged to confess that there had been a want of caution among his own people. This allusion to the creation of difficulties by Dolly, accompanied, as it was supposed to have been, by Dolly's letter doing away with all difficulties, should have attracted notice. Dolly's letter must have come in a separate envelope; but such envelope could not be found, and the circumstance was not remembered by the clerk. The clerk who had prepared the letter for Dolly's signature represented himself as having been quite satisfied when the letter came again beneath his notice with Dolly's well-known signature. Such were the facts as far as they were known at Messrs. Slow and Bideawhile's office,--from whom no slightest rumour emanated; and as they had been in part collected by Squercum, who was probably less prudent. The Bideawhiles were still perfectly sure that Dolly had signed the letter, believing the young man to be quite incapable of knowing on any day what he had done on the day before. Squercum was quite sure that his client had not signed it. And it must be owned on Dolly's behalf that his manner on this occasion was qualified to convince. "Yes," he said to Squercum; "it's easy saying that I'm lack-a-daisical. But I know when I'm lack-a-daisical and when I'm not. Awake or asleep, drunk or sober, I never signed that letter." And Mr. Squercum believed him. It would be hard to say how the rumour first got into the City on this Monday morning. Though the elder Longestaffe had first heard of the matter only on the previous Saturday, Mr. Squercum had been at work for above a week. Mr. Squercum's little matter alone might hardly have attracted the attention which certainly was given on this day to Mr. Melmotte's private affairs;--but other facts coming to light assisted Squercum's views. A great many shares of the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway had been thrown upon the market, all of which had passed through the hands of Mr. Cohenlupe;--and Mr. Cohenlupe in the City had been all to Mr. Melmotte as Lord Alfred had been at the West End. Then there was the mortgage of this Pickering property, for which the money certainly had not been paid; and there was the traffic with half a street of houses near the Commercial Road, by which a large sum of money had come into Mr. Melmotte's hands. It might, no doubt, all be right. There were many who thought that it would all be right. There were not a few who expressed the most thorough contempt for these rumours. But it was felt to be a pity that Mr. Melmotte was not in the City. This was the day of the dinner. The Lord Mayor had even made up his mind that he would not go to the dinner. What one of his brother aldermen said to him about leaving others in the lurch might be quite true; but, as his lordship remarked, Melmotte was a commercial man, and as these were commercial transactions it behoved the Lord Mayor of London to be more careful than other men. He had always had his doubts, and he would not go. Others of the chosen few of the City who had been honoured with commands to meet the Emperor resolved upon absenting themselves unless the Lord Mayor went. The affair was very much discussed, and there were no less than six declared City defaulters. At the last moment a seventh was taken ill and sent a note to Miles Grendall excusing himself, which was thrust into the secretary's hands just as the Emperor arrived. But a reverse worse than this took place;--a defalcation more injurious to the Melmotte interests generally even than that which was caused either by the prudence or by the cowardice of the City Magnates. The House of Commons, at its meeting, had heard the tidings in an exaggerated form. It was whispered about that Melmotte had been detected in forging the deed of conveyance of a large property, and that he had already been visited by policemen. By some it was believed that the Great Financier would lie in the hands of the Philistines while the Emperor of China was being fed at his house. In the third edition of the "Evening Pulpit" came out a mysterious paragraph which nobody could understand but they who had known all about it before. "A rumour is prevalent that frauds to an enormous extent have been committed by a gentleman whose name we are particularly unwilling to mention. If it be so it is indeed remarkable that they should have come to light at the present moment. We cannot trust ourselves to say more than this." No one wishes to dine with a swindler. No one likes even to have dined with a swindler,--especially to have dined with him at a time when his swindling was known or suspected. The Emperor of China no doubt was going to dine with this man. The motions of Emperors are managed with such ponderous care that it was held to be impossible now to save the country from what would doubtless be felt to be a disgrace if it should hereafter turn out that a forger had been solicited to entertain the imperial guest of the country. Nor was the thing as yet so far certain as to justify such a charge, were it possible. But many men were unhappy in their minds. How would the story be told hereafter if Melmotte should be allowed to play out his game of host to the Emperor, and be arrested for forgery as soon as the Eastern Monarch should have left his house? How would the brother of the Sun like the remembrance of the banquet which he had been instructed to honour with his presence? How would it tell in all the foreign newspapers, in New York, in Paris, and Vienna, that this man who had been cast forth from the United States, from France, and from Austria had been selected as the great and honourable type of British Commerce? There were those in the House who thought that the absolute consummation of the disgrace might yet be avoided, and who were of opinion that the dinner should be "postponed." The leader of the Opposition had a few words on the subject with the Prime Minister. "It is the merest rumour," said the Prime Minister. "I have inquired, and there is nothing to justify me in thinking that the charges can be substantiated." "They say that the story is believed in the City." "I should not feel myself justified in acting upon such a report. The Prince might probably find it impossible not to go. Where should we be if Mr. Melmotte to-morrow were able to prove the whole to be a calumny, and to show that the thing had been got up with a view of influencing the election at Westminster? The dinner must certainly go on." "And you will go yourself?" "Most assuredly," said the Prime Minister. "And I hope that you will keep me in countenance." His political antagonist declared with a smile that at such a crisis he would not desert his honourable friend;--but he could not answer for his followers. There was, he admitted, a strong feeling among the leaders of the Conservative party of distrust in Melmotte. He considered it probable that among his friends who had been invited there would be some who would be unwilling to meet even the Emperor of China on the existing terms. "They should remember," said the Prime Minister, "that they are also to meet their own Prince, and that empty seats on such an occasion will be a dishonour to him." "Just at present I can only answer for myself," said the leader of the Opposition.--At that moment even the Prime Minister was much disturbed in his mind; but in such emergencies a Prime Minister can only choose the least of two evils. To have taken the Emperor to dine with a swindler would be very bad; but to desert him, and to stop the coming of the Emperor and all the Princes on a false rumour, would be worse.

While these things were happening, horrid rumours were spreading from the City westwards to the House of Commons, which was sitting this Monday afternoon with a prospect of adjourning at seven o'clock because of the banquet for the Emperor. It is difficult to explain the exact nature of this rumour, as it was not thoroughly understood by those who spread it. But certainly the word 'forgery' was whispered by more than one pair of lips. Many of Melmotte's staunchest supporters thought that he was wrong not to show himself that day in the City. What good could he do pottering about in the banqueting room? There were people to manage that kind of thing. In such a crisis as this, he should have been in the City. Men will whisper forgery behind a man's back who would not dare even to think it before his face. Of this particular rumour our young friend Dolly Longestaffe was the parent. Unawed by his father, Dolly had gone to his attorney, Mr. Squercum, immediately after Mr. Longestaffe first took his seat at the Railway Board. "I don't know why Mr. Melmotte is to be different from anybody else," he had said to his father. "When I buy a thing and don't pay for it, it is because I haven't got the tin, and I suppose it's the same with him. I don't see why he should have got hold of the place till the money was paid down." "Of course it's all right," said the father. "You understand nothing at all." "Of course I'm slow," said Dolly. "I don't comprehend these things. But Squercum does." "You'll ruin me and yourself too, if you go to such a man as that. Why can't you trust Mr. Bideawhile? Slow and Bideawhile have been the family lawyers for a century." But Dolly made some disparaging remark, and went his way. The father knew that his boy would go to Squercum. All he could do was to press Mr. Melmotte for the money; but in vain, as the reader has already learned. Squercum was a thorn in the side of all the Bideawhiles, who piqued themselves on the decorous and orderly transaction of their business. It was their rule that anything done quickly must be done badly. They were never in a hurry. Squercum was the very opposite to this. He had established himself, without a partner, at a little office in Fetter Lane, and had there made a name for getting things done in a new and marvellous fashion. It was said that he was fairly honest, though he did sharp things, no doubt, and had no hesitation in supporting the interests of sons against those of their fathers. He was a mean-looking little man, about forty, who always wore an old dress coat, a dingy waistcoat, and light trousers of some different hue. He generally had on dirty shoes and gaiters. He had putty-formed features, a squat nose, a large mouth, and bright blue eyes. He was very quick and active, doing his law work himself, and trusting to his three or four juvenile clerks for little more than copying. Squercum sat at a desk covered with papers in chaotic confusion, on a swivel chair. When clients came to him, he turned himself sharp round, sticking out his dirty shoes, and throwing himself back with his hands thrust into his pockets. In this attitude he would listen to his client's story, and would himself speak as little as possible. He now listened as Dolly told him of the delay in the payment for Pickering. "Melmotte's at Pickering?" asked the attorney. Dolly informed him how tradesmen had already half knocked down the house. Squercum asked what authority Dolly had given for the surrender of the title-deeds. Dolly declared that he had given authority for the sale, but none for the surrender. Some time ago his father had put before him, for his signature, a letter prepared in Mr. Bideawhile's office, which Dolly said that he had refused even to read, and certainly had not signed. Squercum said that he'd look into it, and bowed Dolly out of his room. "They've got him to sign something when he was drunk," said Squercum to himself, knowing something of his client's habits. "I expect his father did it, not that pompous old fool Bideawhile." He went to work, however, making himself detestably odious among the very respectable clerks in Mr. Bideawhile's office. And now there came this rumour which accused Mr. Melmotte of forgery in his mode of acquiring the Pickering property. The nature of the forgery was described in various ways. But there were many who believed that some great fraud had been committed; and it was ascertained that the Pickering estate had already been mortgaged by Melmotte to its full value - a report which injured his credit. As the day went on, other news was told about other properties. Houses in the East-end of London were said to have been bought and sold, without payment of the purchase money when buying, and with receipt of the purchase money when selling. Squercum himself saw the letter in Mr. Bideawhile's office which gave the son's permission for the surrender of the title-deeds. That letter purported to have Dolly's signature. Squercum knew that his client was not always clear in the morning as to anything he had done on the preceding evening. But the signature, though it was scrawled as Dolly always scrawled it, was not like the scrawl of a drunken man. The letter was said to have been sent to Mr. Bideawhile's office with other letters and papers, direct from old Mr. Longestaffe. Such was the statement made at first by the Bideawhiles, who had no doubt of the genuineness of the letter or of the accuracy of their statement. Then Squercum saw his client again, and returned to the charge at Bideawhile's office, with the positive assurance that the signature was a forgery. Dolly had insisted that he had signed no letter when he was tight. "Never did such a thing in my life, and nothing could make me," said Dolly. "I'm never tight except at the club, and the letter couldn't have been there. I never signed it. That's flat." Dolly was intent on going at once to his father, or Melmotte or Bideawhile's, and making "no end of a row," but Squercum stopped him. "We'll just ferret this thing out quietly," he said. Mr. Longestaffe, the father, had heard nothing of the matter till the Saturday after his last interview with Melmotte in the City. He had then called at Bideawhile's office, and was shown the letter. He declared at once that he had never sent the letter to Mr. Bideawhile. He had begged his son to sign it and his son had refused. He did not distinctly remember what he had done with the unsigned letter. He believed he had left it with the other papers; but it was possible that his son might have taken it away. He acknowledged that at the time he had been both angry and unhappy. He had more than once been in his own study in Bruton Street since Mr. Melmotte had occupied the house, having left various papers there under his own lock and key. It had been agreed when he let the house that he should have access to his study. He thought it probable that he would have kept the unsigned letter locked up there, when he sent away the other papers. On looking at Mr. Longestaffe's own letter to the lawyer, it was found that he had not even alluded to that which his son had been asked to sign; but that he had said that his son was still creating difficulties. Mr. Bideawhile was obliged to confess that there had been a lack of caution among his own people. This allusion to the creation of difficulties by Dolly, accompanied by Dolly's supposed letter doing away with all difficulties, should have attracted notice. Dolly's letter must have come in a separate envelope; but the envelope could not be found. Such were the facts as far as they were known at Slow and Bideawhile's office. The Bideawhiles were still perfectly sure that Dolly had signed the letter, believing the young man to be quite incapable of knowing on any day what he had done on the day before. Squercum was quite sure that his client had not signed it. And certainly Dolly's manner on this occasion was convincing. "Yes," he said to Squercum; "I'm lack-a-daisical. But I know when I'm lack-a-daisical and when I'm not. Awake or asleep, drunk or sober, I never signed that letter." And Mr. Squercum believed him. It would be hard to say how the rumour first got into the City on this Monday morning. Mr. Squercum's little matter alone might hardly have attracted any attention; but other facts were coming to light about Melmotte's affairs. A great many shares of the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway had been thrown upon the market, all of which had passed through the hands of Mr. Cohenlupe. Then there was the mortgage of this Pickering property, for which the money certainly had not been paid; and there was the sale of half a street of houses near the Commercial Road, by which a large sum of money had come into Mr. Melmotte's hands. It might, no doubt, all be right. There were many who thought that it would all be right, and expressed contempt for these rumours. But it was felt to be a pity that Mr. Melmotte was not in the City. This was the day of the dinner. The Lord Mayor had made up his mind that he would not go, feeling that he needed to be more careful than other men. Others of the chosen few of the City who had been honoured with invitations resolved to absent themselves unless the Lord Mayor went. The affair was much discussed, and six City men defaulted. A seventh was taken ill and sent a note to Miles Grendall excusing himself. But there was a reverse worse than this, and more injurious to Melmotte. The House of Commons had heard the tidings in an exaggerated form. It was whispered that Melmotte had been detected in forging the deed of conveyance of a large property, and that he had already been visited by policemen. The Evening Pulpit contained a mysterious paragraph: "A rumour is prevalent that enormous frauds have been committed by a gentleman whose name we are unwilling to mention. If it be so it is remarkable that they should have come to light at the present moment." No one wishes to dine with a swindler. The Emperor of China no doubt was going to dine with this man. The motions of Emperors are managed with such ponderous care that it was held to be impossible now to save the country from the disgrace that would be felt if it turned out that he had been entertained by a forger. The thing was far from certain; but many men were unhappy. How would the story be told hereafter if Melmotte should be arrested for forgery as soon as the Eastern Monarch had left his house? How would it be told in all the foreign newspapers, that this man had been selected as the great and honourable type of British Commerce? There were those in the House who thought that disgrace might yet be avoided, and that the dinner should be "postponed." The leader of the Opposition had a few words on the subject with the Prime Minister. "It is the merest rumour," said the Prime Minister. "They say that the story is believed in the City." "I should not feel myself justified in acting upon such a report. The Prince might not go. Where should we be if Mr. Melmotte tomorrow were able to prove the whole thing was a calumny, got up to influence the election at Westminster? The dinner must certainly go on." "And you will go?" "Assuredly," said the Prime Minister. "And I hope that you will too." His political antagonist declared with a smile that he would not desert his honourable friend; but he could not answer for his followers. He admitted that many leaders of the Conservative party distrusted Melmotte, and would be unwilling to go, even to meet the Emperor of China. "They should remember," said the Prime Minister, "that they are also to meet their own Prince, and that empty seats will be a dishonour to him." "I can only answer for myself," said the leader of the Opposition. The Prime Minister was much disturbed; but he could only choose the lesser of two evils. To have taken the Emperor to dine with a swindler would be very bad; but to stop the coming of the Emperor on a false rumour, would be worse.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 58: Mr. Squercum is Employed

It was very generally said in the city about this time that the Great South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway was the very best thing out. It was known that Mr. Melmotte had gone into it with heart and hand. There were many who declared,--with gross injustice to the Great Fisker,--that the railway was Melmotte's own child, that he had invented it, advertised it, agitated it, and floated it; but it was not the less popular on that account. A railway from Salt Lake City to Mexico no doubt had much of the flavour of a castle in Spain. Our far-western American brethren are supposed to be imaginative. Mexico has not a reputation among us for commercial security, or that stability which produces its four, five, or six per cent. with the regularity of clockwork. But there was the Panama railway, a small affair which had paid twenty-five per cent.; and there was the great line across the continent to San Francisco, in which enormous fortunes had been made. It came to be believed that men with their eyes open might do as well with the Great South Central as had ever been done before with other speculations, and this belief was no doubt founded on Mr. Melmotte's partiality for the enterprise. Mr. Fisker had "struck 'ile" when he induced his partner, Montague, to give him a note to the great man. Paul Montague himself, who cannot be said to have been a man having his eyes open, in the city sense of the word, could not learn how the thing was progressing. At the regular meetings of the Board, which never sat for above half an hour, two or three papers were read by Miles Grendall. Melmotte himself would speak a few slow words, intended to be cheery, and always indicative of triumph, and then everybody would agree to everything, somebody would sign something, and the "Board" for that day would be over. To Paul Montague this was very unsatisfactory. More than once or twice he endeavoured to stay the proceedings, not as disapproving, but "simply as desirous of being made to understand;" but the silent scorn of his chairman put him out of countenance, and the opposition of his colleagues was a barrier which he was not strong enough to overcome. Lord Alfred Grendall would declare that he "did not think all that was at all necessary." Lord Nidderdale, with whom Montague had now become intimate at the Beargarden, would nudge him in the ribs and bid him hold his tongue. Mr. Cohenlupe would make a little speech in fluent but broken English, assuring the Committee that everything was being done after the approved city fashion. Sir Felix, after the first two meetings, was never there. And thus Paul Montague, with a sorely burdened conscience, was carried along as one of the Directors of the Great South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway Company. I do not know whether the burden was made lighter to him or heavier, by the fact that the immediate pecuniary result was certainly very comfortable. The Company had not yet been in existence quite six weeks,--or at any rate Melmotte had not been connected with it above that time,--and it had already been suggested to him twice that he should sell fifty shares at 112 10_s_. He did not even yet know how many shares he possessed, but on both occasions he consented to the proposal, and on the following day received a cheque for 625,--that sum representing the profit over and above the original nominal price of 100 a share. The suggestion was made to him by Miles Grendall, and when he asked some questions as to the manner in which the shares had been allocated, he was told that all that would be arranged in accordance with the capital invested and must depend on the final disposition of the Californian property. "But from what we see, old fellow," said Miles, "I don't think you have anything to fear. You seem to be about the best in of them all. Melmotte wouldn't advise you to sell out gradually, if he didn't look upon the thing as a certain income as far as you are concerned." Paul Montague understood nothing of all this, and felt that he was standing on ground which might be blown from under his feet at any moment. The uncertainty, and what he feared might be the dishonesty, of the whole thing, made him often very miserable. In those wretched moments his conscience was asserting itself. But again there were times in which he also was almost triumphant, and in which he felt the delight of his wealth. Though he was snubbed at the Board when he wanted explanations, he received very great attention outside the board-room from those connected with the enterprise. Melmotte had asked him to dine two or three times. Mr. Cohenlupe had begged him to go down to his little place at Rickmansworth,--an entreaty with which Montague had not as yet complied. Lord Alfred was always gracious to him, and Nidderdale and Carbury were evidently anxious to make him one of their set at the club. Many other houses became open to him from the same source. Though Melmotte was supposed to be the inventor of the railway, it was known that Fisker, Montague, and Montague were largely concerned in it, and it was known also that Paul Montague was one of the Montagues named in that firm. People, both in the City and the West End, seemed to think that he knew all about it, and treated him as though some of the manna falling from that heaven were at his disposition. There were results from this which were not unpleasing to the young man. He only partially resisted the temptation; and though determined at times to probe the affair to the bottom, was so determined only at times. The money was very pleasant to him. The period would now soon arrive before which he understood himself to be pledged not to make a distinct offer to Henrietta Carbury; and when that period should have been passed, it would be delightful to him to know that he was possessed of property sufficient to enable him to give a wife a comfortable home. In all his aspirations, and in all his fears, he was true to Hetta Carbury, and made her the centre of his hopes. Nevertheless, had Hetta known everything, it may be feared that she would have at any rate endeavoured to dismiss him from her heart. There was considerable uneasiness in the bosoms of others of the Directors, and a disposition to complain against the Grand Director, arising from a grievance altogether different from that which afflicted Montague. Neither had Sir Felix Carbury nor Lord Nidderdale been invited to sell shares, and consequently neither of them had received any remuneration for the use of their names. They knew well that Montague had sold shares. He was quite open on the subject, and had told Felix, whom he hoped some day to regard as his brother-in-law, exactly what shares he had sold, and for how much;--and the two men had endeavoured to make the matter intelligible between themselves. The original price of the shares being 100 each, and 12 10_s._ a share having been paid to Montague as the premium, it was to be supposed that the original capital was re-invested in other shares. But each owned to the other that the matter was very complicated to him, and Montague could only write to Hamilton K. Fisker at San Francisco asking for explanation. As yet he had received no answer. But it was not the wealth flowing into Montague's hands which embittered Nidderdale and Carbury. They understood that he had really brought money into the concern, and was therefore entitled to take money out of it. Nor did it occur to them to grudge Melmotte his more noble pickings, for they knew how great a man was Melmotte. Of Cohenlupe's doings they heard nothing; but he was a regular city man, and had probably supplied funds. Cohenlupe was too deep for their inquiry. But they knew that Lord Alfred had sold shares, and had received the profit; and they knew also how utterly impossible it was that Lord Alfred should have produced capital. If Lord Alfred Grendall was entitled to plunder, why were not they? And if their day for plunder had not yet come, why had Lord Alfred's? And if there was so much cause to fear Lord Alfred that it was necessary to throw him a bone, why should not they also make themselves feared? Lord Alfred passed all his time with Melmotte,--had, as these young men said, become Melmotte's head valet,--and therefore had to be paid. But that reason did not satisfy the young men. "You haven't sold any shares;--have you?" This question Sir Felix asked Lord Nidderdale at the club. Nidderdale was constant in his attendance at the Board, and Felix was not a little afraid that he might be jockied also by him. "Not a share." "Nor got any profits?" "Not a shilling of any kind. As far as money is concerned my only transaction has been my part of the expense of Fisker's dinner." "What do you get then, by going into the city?" asked Sir Felix. "I'm blessed if I know what I get. I suppose something will turn up some day." "In the meantime, you know, there are our names. And Grendall is making a fortune out of it." "Poor old duffer," said his lordship. "If he's doing so well, I think Miles ought to be made to pay up something of what he owes. I think we ought to tell him that we shall expect him to have the money ready when that bill of Vossner's comes round." "Yes, by George; let's tell him that. Will you do it?" "Not that it will be the least good. It would be quite unnatural to him to pay anything." "Fellows used to pay their gambling debts," said Sir Felix, who was still in funds, and who still held a considerable assortment of I. O. U.'s. "They don't now,--unless they like it. How did a fellow manage before, if he hadn't got it?" "He went smash," said Sir Felix, "and disappeared and was never heard of any more. It was just the same as if he'd been found cheating. I believe a fellow might cheat now and nobody'd say anything!" "I shouldn't," said Lord Nidderdale. "What's the use of being beastly ill-natured? I'm not very good at saying my prayers, but I do think there's something in that bit about forgiving people. Of course cheating isn't very nice: and it isn't very nice for a fellow to play when he knows he can't pay; but I don't know that it's worse than getting drunk like Dolly Longestaffe, or quarrelling with everybody as Grasslough does,--or trying to marry some poor devil of a girl merely because she's got money. I believe in living in glass houses, but I don't believe in throwing stones. Do you ever read the Bible, Carbury?" "Read the Bible! Well;--yes;--no;--that is, I suppose, I used to do." "I often think I shouldn't have been the first to pick up a stone and pitch it at that woman. Live and let live;--that's my motto." "But you agree that we ought to do something about these shares?" said Sir Felix, thinking that this doctrine of forgiveness might be carried too far. "Oh, certainly. I'll let old Grendall live with all my heart; but then he ought to let me live too. Only, who's to bell the cat?" "What cat?" "It's no good our going to old Grendall," said Lord Nidderdale, who had some understanding in the matter, "nor yet to young Grendall. The one would only grunt and say nothing, and the other would tell every lie that came into his head. The cat in this matter I take to be our great master, Augustus Melmotte." This little meeting occurred on the day after Felix Carbury's return from Suffolk, and at a time at which, as we know, it was the great duty of his life to get the consent of old Melmotte to his marriage with Marie Melmotte. In doing that he would have to put one bell on the cat, and he thought that for the present that was sufficient. In his heart of hearts he was afraid of Melmotte. But then, as he knew very well, Nidderdale was intent on the same object. Nidderdale, he thought, was a very queer fellow. That talking about the Bible, and the forgiving of trespasses, was very queer; and that allusion to the marrying of heiresses very queer indeed. He knew that Nidderdale wanted to marry the heiress, and Nidderdale must also know that he wanted to marry her. And yet Nidderdale was indelicate enough to talk about it! And now the man asked who should bell the cat! "You go there oftener than I do, and perhaps you could do it best," said Sir Felix. "Go where?" "To the Board." "But you're always at his house. He'd be civil to me, perhaps, because I'm a lord: but then, for the same reason, he'd think I was the bigger fool of the two." "I don't see that at all," said Sir Felix. "I ain't afraid of him, if you mean that," continued Lord Nidderdale. "He's a wretched old reprobate, and I don't doubt but he'd skin you and me if he could make money off our carcasses. But as he can't skin me, I'll have a shy at him. On the whole I think he rather likes me, because I've always been on the square with him. If it depended on him, you know, I should have the girl to-morrow." "Would you?" Sir Felix did not at all mean to doubt his friend's assertion, but felt it hard to answer so very strange a statement. "But then she don't want me, and I ain't quite sure that I want her. Where the devil would a fellow find himself if the money wasn't all there?" Lord Nidderdale then sauntered away, leaving the baronet in a deep study of thought as to such a condition of things as that which his lordship had suggested. Where the--mischief would he, Sir Felix Carbury, be, if he were to marry the girl, and then to find that the money was not all there? On the following Friday, which was the Board day, Nidderdale went to the great man's offices in Abchurch Lane, and so contrived that he walked with the great man to the Board meeting. Melmotte was always very gracious in his manner to Lord Nidderdale, but had never, up to this moment, had any speech with his proposed son-in-law about business. "I wanted just to ask you something," said the lord, hanging on the chairman's arm. "Anything you please, my lord." "Don't you think that Carbury and I ought to have some shares to sell?" "No, I don't,--if you ask me." "Oh;--I didn't know. But why shouldn't we as well as the others?" "Have you and Sir Felix put any money into it?" "Well, if you come to that, I don't suppose we have. How much has Lord Alfred put into it?" "_I_ have taken shares for Lord Alfred," said Melmotte, putting very heavy emphasis on the personal pronoun. "If it suits me to advance money to Lord Alfred Grendall, I suppose I may do so without asking your lordship's consent, or that of Sir Felix Carbury." "Oh, certainly. I don't want to make inquiry as to what you do with your money." "I'm sure you don't, and, therefore, we won't say anything more about it. You wait awhile, Lord Nidderdale, and you'll find it will come all right. If you've got a few thousand pounds loose, and will put them into the concern, why, of course you can sell; and, if the shares are up, can sell at a profit. It's presumed just at present that, at some early day, you'll qualify for your directorship by doing so, and till that is done, the shares are allocated to you, but cannot be transferred to you." "That's it, is it," said Lord Nidderdale, pretending to understand all about it. "If things go on as we hope they will between you and Marie, you can have pretty nearly any number of shares that you please;--that is, if your father consents to a proper settlement." "I hope it'll all go smooth, I'm sure," said Nidderdale. "Thank you; I'm ever so much obliged to you, and I'll explain it all to Carbury."

It was said in the city at this time that the Great South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway was the very best thing out. Mexico has not a reputation for commercial security, or stability. But the Panama railway had paid twenty-five per cent; and in the great line across the continent to San Francisco, enormous fortunes had been made. It was believed that the Great South Central might be just as successful, and this belief was no doubt founded on Mr. Melmotte's support for the enterprise. Paul Montague, however, could not learn how the thing was progressing. At the regular half-hour meetings of the Board, two or three papers were read by Miles Grendall; Melmotte would speak a few slow words, indicative of triumph, and then everybody would agree to everything, somebody would sign something, and the "Board" for that day would be over. To Paul Montague this was very unsatisfactory. More than once he tried to halt the proceedings, "simply as wishing to understand;" but the silent scorn of his chairman and the opposition of his colleagues were barriers which he was not strong enough to overcome. Lord Alfred Grendall would declare that he "did not think that was at all necessary." Lord Nidderdale would nudge him and bid him hold his tongue. Mr. Cohenlupe would make a little speech in fluent but broken English, assuring the Committee that everything was being done in the approved city fashion. Sir Felix, after the first two meetings, was never there. And thus Paul Montague, with a sorely burdened conscience, was carried along. I do not know whether the burden was made lighter to him, or heavier, by the fact that the immediate financial result was certainly very comfortable. The Company had only existed six weeks, and it had already been suggested to him twice that he should sell fifty shares at 112 10s. He did not even know how many shares he possessed, but on both occasions he consented, and on the following day received a cheque for 625 - representing the profit above the original price of 100 a share. When he asked Miles Grendall how the shares had been allocated, he was told it would be arranged in accordance with the capital invested and must depend on the final disposition of the Californian property. "But from what we see, old fellow," said Miles, "I don't think you have anything to fear. You seem to be about the best in of them all. Melmotte wouldn't advise you to sell out gradually, if he didn't see it as a certain income as far as you are concerned." Paul Montague understood nothing of all this, and felt that he was standing on ground which might be blown from under his feet at any moment. The uncertainty, and what he feared might be the dishonesty, of the whole thing, made him often very miserable. But there were times in which he also felt the delight of his wealth. Though he was snubbed at the Board when he wanted explanations, outside the Board-room the Directors were attentive. Melmotte had asked him to dine two or three times. Mr. Cohenlupe had begged him to go down to his little place at Rickmansworth. Lord Alfred was gracious, and Nidderdale and Carbury were evidently anxious to make him one of their set at the Beargarden. Certainly the money was very pleasant to him. The time would soon arrive before which he had promised not to make an offer to Henrietta Carbury; and when it did, it would be delightful to him to know that he possessed enough property to give a wife a comfortable home. In all his aspirations and fears, he was true to Hetta Carbury, and made her the centre of his hopes. Nevertheless, had Hetta known everything, she might have tried to dismiss him from her heart. The other Directors, however, had a grievance against Melmotte. Neither Sir Felix Carbury nor Lord Nidderdale had been invited to sell shares, and consequently neither of them had received any money. Montague had told Felix, whom he hoped some day would be his brother-in-law, exactly what shares he had sold, and for how much. The original price of the shares being 100 each, and 12 10s. a share having been paid to Montague, it was supposed that the original capital was re-invested in other shares. But they agreed that the matter was very complicated, and Montague wrote to Hamilton K. Fisker at San Francisco asking for an explanation. As yet he had received no answer. But it was not the wealth flowing into Montague's hands which embittered Nidderdale and Carbury. They understood that he had really brought money into the concern, and was therefore entitled to take money out of it. Nor did it occur to them to grudge Melmotte his pickings, and of Cohenlupe's doings they heard nothing. Cohenlupe was too deep for their inquiry. But they knew that Lord Alfred had sold shares, and had received the profit; and they knew how utterly impossible it was that Lord Alfred should have produced capital. If Lord Alfred Grendall was entitled to plunder, why were not they? And if their day for plunder had not yet come, why had Lord Alfred's? "You haven't sold any shares, have you?" Sir Felix asked Lord Nidderdale at the club. "Not a share." "Nor got any profits?" "Not a shilling. I suppose something will turn up some day." "In the meantime, you know, Grendall is making a fortune out of it." "If he's doing so well, I think Miles ought to pay up something of what he owes. I think we ought to tell him that we shall expect him to have the money ready when that bill of Vossner's comes round." "Yes, by George." "Not that it will be the least good," said Nidderdale. "Fellows used to pay their gambling debts," said Sir Felix, who still held a considerable assortment of I.O.U.'s. "Otherwise a fellow went smash, and disappeared and was never heard of any more. It was just the same if he was found cheating. I believe a fellow might cheat now and nobody'd say anything!" "I shouldn't," said Lord Nidderdale. "What's the use of being beastly ill-natured? Live and let live - that's my motto." "But you agree that we ought to do something about these shares?" said Sir Felix. "Oh, certainly. It's no good our going to old Grendall," said Lord Nidderdale. "We should go to our master, Augustus Melmotte." This meeting occurred on the day after Felix Carbury's return from Suffolk, when it was the great duty of his life to get Melmotte's consent to his marriage with Marie. In his heart of hearts he was afraid of Melmotte. "You go to the Board oftener than I do, and perhaps you could do it best," said Sir Felix. "But you're always at his house. He'd be civil to me, perhaps, because I'm a lord: but for the same reason, he'd think I was a bigger fool." "I don't see that at all," said Sir Felix. "I ain't afraid of him," continued Lord Nidderdale. "He's a wretched old reprobate, but I'll have a go at him. On the whole I think he rather likes me, because I've always been square with him. If it depended on him, you know, I should have the girl tomorrow." "Would you?" "But she don't want me, and I ain't quite sure that I want her. Where the devil would a fellow find himself if the money wasn't there?" Lord Nidderdale then sauntered away, leaving the baronet deep in thought. Where would he, Sir Felix Carbury, be, if he were to marry the girl, and then find that the money was not there? On the following Friday, which was the Board day, Nidderdale went to the great man's offices in Abchurch Lane, and contrived to walk with the great man to the meeting. Melmotte was always very gracious to Lord Nidderdale, but had never spoken to him about business. "I just wanted to ask you something," said Nidderdale. "Don't you think that Carbury and I ought to have some shares to sell?" "No, I don't." "But why shouldn't we as well as the others?" "Have you and Sir Felix put any money into it?" "Well, I don't suppose we have. How much has Lord Alfred put into it?" "I have taken shares for Lord Alfred," said Melmotte, with heavy emphasis. "If it suits me to advance money to Lord Alfred Grendall, I suppose I may do so without your consent, or Sir Felix Carbury's." "Oh, certainly. I don't want to ask what you do with your money." "I'm sure you don't, and, therefore, we won't say anything more about it. Wait awhile, Lord Nidderdale, and you'll find it will come all right. If you've got a few thousand pounds loose, and put them into the concern, why, of course you can sell; and, if the shares are up, you can sell at a profit. It's presumed that, at some early day, you'll qualify for your directorship by doing so, and till that is done, the shares are allocated to you, but cannot be transferred to you." "That's it, is it," said Lord Nidderdale, pretending to understand. "If things go on as we hope between you and Marie, you can have pretty nearly any number of shares that you please; that is, if your father consents to a proper settlement." "I hope it'll all go smooth, I'm sure," said Nidderdale. "Thank you; I'm ever so much obliged to you, and I'll explain it all to Carbury."

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 22: Lord Nidderdale's Morality

When the news of her husband's death was in some very rough way conveyed to Madame Melmotte, it crushed her for the time altogether. Marie first heard that she no longer had a living parent as she stood by the poor woman's bedside, and she was enabled, as much perhaps by the necessity incumbent upon her of attending to the wretched woman as by her own superior strength of character, to save herself from that prostration and collapse of power which a great and sudden blow is apt to produce. She stared at the woman who first conveyed to her tidings of the tragedy, and then for a moment seated herself at the bedside. But the violent sobbings and hysterical screams of Madame Melmotte soon brought her again to her feet, and from that moment she was not only active but efficacious. No;--she would not go down to the room; she could do no good by going thither. But they must send for a doctor. They should send for a doctor immediately. She was then told that a doctor and an inspector of police were already in the rooms below. The necessity of throwing whatever responsibility there might be on to other shoulders had been at once apparent to the servants, and they had sent out right and left, so that the house might be filled with persons fit to give directions in such an emergency. The officers from the police station were already there when the woman who now filled Didon's place in the house communicated to Madame Melmotte the fact that she was a widow. It was afterwards said by some of those who had seen her at the time, that Marie Melmotte had shown a hard heart on the occasion. But the condemnation was wrong. Her feeling for her father was certainly not that which we are accustomed to see among our daughters and sisters. He had never been to her the petted divinity of the household, whose slightest wish had been law, whose little comforts had become matters of serious care, whose frowns were horrid clouds, whose smiles were glorious sunshine, whose kisses were daily looked for, and if missed would be missed with mourning. How should it have been so with her? In all the intercourses of her family, since the first rough usage which she remembered, there had never been anything sweet or gracious. Though she had recognised a certain duty, as due from herself to her father, she had found herself bound to measure it, so that more should not be exacted from her than duty required. She had long known that her father would fain make her a slave for his own purposes, and that if she put no limits to her own obedience he certainly would put none. She had drawn no comparison between him and other fathers, or between herself and other daughters, because she had never become conversant with the ways of other families. After a fashion she had loved him, because nature creates love in a daughter's heart; but she had never respected him, and had spent the best energies of her character on a resolve that she would never fear him. "He may cut me into pieces, but he shall not make me do for his advantage that which I do not think he has a right to exact from me." That had been the state of her mind towards her father; and now that he had taken himself away with terrible suddenness, leaving her to face the difficulties of the world with no protector and no assistance, the feeling which dominated her was no doubt one of awe rather than of broken-hearted sorrow. Those who depart must have earned such sorrow before it can be really felt. They who are left may be overwhelmed by the death--even of their most cruel tormentors. Madame Melmotte was altogether overwhelmed; but it could not probably be said of her with truth that she was crushed by pure grief. There was fear of all things, fear of solitude, fear of sudden change, fear of terrible revelations, fear of some necessary movement she knew not whither, fear that she might be discovered to be a poor wretched impostor who never could have been justified in standing in the same presence with emperors and princes, with duchesses and cabinet ministers. This and the fact that the dead body of the man who had so lately been her tyrant was lying near her, so that she might hardly dare to leave her room lest she should encounter him dead, and thus more dreadful even than when alive, utterly conquered her. Feelings of the same kind, the same fears, and the same awe were powerful also with Marie;--but they did not conquer her. She was strong and conquered them; and she did not care to affect a weakness to which she was in truth superior. In such a household the death of such a father after such a fashion will hardly produce that tender sorrow which comes from real love. She soon knew it all. Her father had destroyed himself, and had doubtless done so because his troubles in regard to money had been greater than he could bear. When he had told her that she was to sign those deeds because ruin was impending, he must indeed have told her the truth. He had so often lied to her that she had had no means of knowing whether he was lying then or telling her a true story. But she had offered to sign the deeds since that, and he had told her that it would be of no avail,--and at that time had not been angry with her as he would have been had her refusal been the cause of his ruin. She took some comfort in thinking of that. But what was she to do? What was to be done generally by that over-cumbered household? She and her pseudo-mother had been instructed to pack up their jewellery, and they had both obeyed the order. But she herself at this moment cared but little for any property. How ought she to behave herself? Where should she go? On whose arm could she lean for some support at this terrible time? As for love, and engagements, and marriage,--that was all over. In her difficulty she never for a moment thought of Sir Felix Carbury. Though she had been silly enough to love the man because he was pleasant to look at, she had never been so far gone in silliness as to suppose that he was a staff upon which any one might lean. Had that marriage taken place, she would have been the staff. But it might be possible that Lord Nidderdale would help her. He was good-natured and manly, and would be efficacious,--if only he would come to her. He was near, and she thought that at any rate she would try. So she had written her note and sent it by the butler,--thinking as she did so of the words she would use to make the young man understand that all the nonsense they had talked as to marrying each other was, of course, to mean nothing now. It was past eleven when he reached the house, and he was shown up-stairs into one of the sitting-rooms on the first-floor. As he passed the door of the study, which was at the moment partly open, he saw the dress of a policeman within, and knew that the body of the dead man was still lying there. But he went by rapidly without a glance within, remembering the look of the man as he had last seen his burly figure, and that grasp of his hand, and those odious words. And now the man was dead,--having destroyed his own life. Surely the man must have known when he uttered those words what it was that he intended to do! When he had made that last appeal about Marie, conscious as he was that everyone was deserting him, he must even then have looked his fate in the face and have told himself that it was better that he should die! His misfortunes, whatever might be their nature, must have been heavy on him then with all their weight; and he himself and all the world had known that he was ruined. And yet he had pretended to be anxious about the girl's marriage, and had spoken of it as though he still believed that it would be accomplished! Nidderdale had hardly put his hat down on the table before Marie was with him. He walked up to her, took her by both hands, and looked into her face. There was no trace of a tear, but her whole countenance seemed to him to be altered. She was the first to speak. "I thought you would come when I sent for you." "Of course I came." "I knew you would be a friend, and I knew no one else who would. You won't be afraid, Lord Nidderdale, that I shall ever think any more of all those things which he was planning?" She paused a moment, but he was not ready enough to have a word to say in answer to this. "You know what has happened?" "Your servant told us." "What are we to do? Oh, Lord Nidderdale, it is so dreadful! Poor papa! Poor papa! When I think of all that he must have suffered I wish that I could be dead too." "Has your mother been told?" "Oh yes. She knows. No one tried to conceal anything for a moment. It was better that it should be so;--better at last. But we have no friends who would be considerate enough to try to save us from sorrow. But I think it was better. Mamma is very bad. She is always nervous and timid. Of course this has nearly killed her. What ought we to do? It is Mr. Longestaffe's house, and we were to have left it to-morrow." "He will not mind that now." "Where must we go? We can't go back to that big place in Grosvenor Square. Who will manage for us? Who will see the doctor and the policemen?" "I will do that." "But there will be things that I cannot ask you to do. Why should I ask you to do anything?" "Because we are friends." "No," she said, "no. You cannot really regard me as a friend. I have been an impostor. I know that. I had no business to know a person like you at all. Oh, if the next six months could be over! Poor papa;--poor papa!" And then for the first time she burst into tears. "I wish I knew what might comfort you," he said. "How can there be any comfort? There never can be comfort again! As for comfort, when were we ever comfortable? It has been one trouble after another,--one fear after another! And now we are friendless and homeless. I suppose they will take everything that we have." "Your papa had a lawyer, I suppose?" "I think he had ever so many,--but I do not know who they were. His own clerk, who had lived with him for over twenty years, left him yesterday. I suppose they will know something in Abchurch Lane; but now that Herr Croll has gone I am not acquainted even with the name of one of them. Mr. Miles Grendall used to be with him." "I do not think that he could be of much service." "Nor Lord Alfred? Lord Alfred was always with him till very lately." Nidderdale shook his head. "I suppose not. They only came because papa had a big house." The young lord could not but feel that he was included in the same rebuke. "Oh, what a life it has been! And now,--now it's over." As she said this it seemed that for the moment her strength failed her, for she fell backwards on the corner of the sofa. He tried to raise her, but she shook him away, burying her face in her hands. He was standing close to her, still holding her arm, when he heard a knock at the front door, which was immediately opened, as the servants were hanging about in the hall. "Who are they?" said Marie, whose sharp ears caught the sound of various steps. Lord Nidderdale went out on to the head of the stairs, and immediately heard the voice of Dolly Longestaffe. Dolly Longestaffe had on that morning put himself early into the care of Mr. Squercum, and it had happened that he with his lawyer had met his father with Mr. Bideawhile at the corner of the square. They were all coming according to appointment to receive the money which Mr. Melmotte had promised to pay them at this very hour. Of course they had none of them as yet heard of the way in which the Financier had made his last grand payment, and as they walked together to the door had been intent only in reference to their own money. Squercum, who had heard a good deal on the previous day, was very certain that the money would not be forthcoming, whereas Bideawhile was sanguine of success. "Don't we wish we may get it?" Dolly had said, and by saying so had very much offended his father, who had resented the want of reverence implied in the use of that word "we." They had all been admitted together, and Dolly had at once loudly claimed an old acquaintance with some of the articles around him. "I knew I'd got a coat just like that," said Dolly, "and I never could make out what my fellow had done with it." This was the speech which Nidderdale had heard, standing on the top of the stairs. The two lawyers had at once seen, from the face of the man who had opened the door and from the presence of three or four servants in the hall, that things were not going on in their usual course. Before Dolly had completed his buffoonery the butler had whispered to Mr. Bideawhile that Mr. Melmotte--"was no more." "Dead!" exclaimed Mr. Bideawhile. Squercum put his hands into his trowsers pockets and opened his mouth wide. "Dead!" muttered Mr. Longestaffe senior. "Dead!" said Dolly. "Who's dead?" The butler shook his head. Then Squercum whispered a word into the butler's ear, and the butler thereupon nodded his head. "It's about what I expected," said Squercum. Then the butler whispered the word to Mr. Longestaffe, and whispered it also to Mr. Bideawhile, and they all knew that the millionaire had swallowed poison during the night. It was known to the servants that Mr. Longestaffe was the owner of the house, and he was therefore, as having authority there, shown into the room where the body of Melmotte was lying on a sofa. The two lawyers and Dolly of course followed, as did also Lord Nidderdale, who had now joined them from the lobby above. There was a policeman in the room who seemed to be simply watching the body, and who rose from his seat when the gentlemen entered. Two or three of the servants followed them, so that there was almost a crowd round the dead man's bier. There was no further tale to be told. That Melmotte had been in the House on the previous night, and had there disgraced himself by intoxication, they had known already. That he had been found dead that morning had been already announced. They could only stand round and gaze on the square, sullen, livid features of the big-framed man, and each lament that he had ever heard the name of Melmotte. "Are you in the house here?" said Dolly to Lord Nidderdale in a whisper. "She sent for me. We live quite close, you know. She wanted somebody to tell her something. I must go up to her again now." "Had you seen him before?" "No indeed. I only came down when I heard your voices. I fear it will be rather bad for you;--won't it?" "He was regularly smashed, I suppose?" asked Dolly. "I know nothing myself. He talked to me about his affairs once, but he was such a liar that not a word that he said was worth anything. I believed him then. How it will go, I can't say." "That other thing is all over of course," suggested Dolly. Nidderdale intimated by a gesture of his head that the other thing was all over, and then returned to Marie. There was nothing further that the four gentlemen could do, and they soon departed from the house;--not, however, till Mr. Bideawhile had given certain short injunctions to the butler concerning the property contained in Mr. Longestaffe's town residence. "They had come to see him," said Lord Nidderdale in a whisper. "There was some appointment. He had told them to be all here at this hour." "They didn't know, then?" asked Marie. "Nothing,--till the man told them." "And did you go in?" "Yes; we all went into the room." Marie shuddered, and again hid her face. "I think the best thing I can do," said Nidderdale, "is to go to Abchurch Lane, and find out from Smith who is the lawyer whom he chiefly trusted. I know Smith had to do with his own affairs, because he has told me so at the Board; and if necessary I will find out Croll. No doubt I can trace him. Then we had better employ the lawyer to arrange everything for you." "And where had we better go to?" "Where would Madame Melmotte wish to go?" "Anywhere, so that we could hide ourselves. Perhaps Frankfort would be the best. But shouldn't we stay till something has been done here? And couldn't we have lodgings, so as to get away from Mr. Longestaffe's house?" Nidderdale promised that he himself would look for lodgings, as soon as he had seen the lawyer. "And now, my lord, I suppose that I never shall see you again," said Marie. "I don't know why you should say that." "Because it will be best. Why should you? All this will be trouble enough to you when people begin to say what we are. But I don't think it has been my fault." "Nothing has ever been your fault." "Good-bye, my lord. I shall always think of you as one of the kindest people I ever knew. I thought it best to send to you for different reasons, but I do not want you to come back." "Good-bye, Marie. I shall always remember you." And so they parted. After that he did go into the City, and succeeded in finding both Mr. Smith and Herr Croll. When he reached Abchurch Lane, the news of Melmotte's death had already been spread abroad; and more was known, or said to be known, of his circumstances than Nidderdale had as yet heard. The crushing blow to him, so said Herr Croll, had been the desertion of Cohenlupe,--that and the sudden fall in the value of the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway shares, consequent on the rumours spread about the City respecting the Pickering property. It was asserted in Abchurch Lane that had he not at that moment touched the Pickering property, or entertained the Emperor, or stood for Westminster, he must, by the end of the autumn, have been able to do any or all of those things without danger, simply as the result of the money which would then have been realised by the railway. But he had allowed himself to become hampered by the want of comparatively small sums of ready money, and in seeking relief had rushed from one danger to another, till at last the waters around him had become too deep even for him, and had overwhelmed him. As to his immediate death, Herr Croll expressed not the slightest astonishment. It was just the thing, Herr Croll said, that he had been sure that Melmotte would do, should his difficulties ever become too great for him. "And dere vas a leetle ting he lay himself open by de oder day," said Croll, "dat vas nasty,--very nasty." Nidderdale shook his head, but asked no questions. Croll had alluded to the use of his own name, but did not on this occasion make any further revelation. Then Croll made a further statement to Lord Nidderdale, which I think he must have done in pure good-nature. "My lor," he said, whispering very gravely, "de money of de yong lady is all her own." Then he nodded his head three times. "Nobody can toch it, not if he vas in debt millions." Again he nodded his head. "I am very glad to hear it for her sake," said Lord Nidderdale as he took his leave.

When the news of her husband's death was conveyed to Madame Melmotte, it crushed her altogether. Marie's superior strength of character, and the need to attend to Madame Melmotte, saved her from prostration. Amidst the hysterical sobbings and screams of Madame Melmotte, she was active and effective. She said the servants must send for a doctor, and was told that a doctor and an inspector of police were already in the rooms below. It was afterwards said by some that Marie Melmotte had shown a hard heart. But the condemnation was wrong. Her feeling for her father had certainly not been affectionate. How could it have been? He had never been sweet or gracious. She had recognised her duty to her father, and had not gone beyond it. She had long known that her father would make her a slave for his own purposes if he could. She had never compared him to other fathers, because she had never known any other families well. After a fashion she had loved him; but she had never respected him, and had spent much of her energy on a resolve never to fear him. Now that her father had taken himself away with terrible suddenness, leaving her no protector, she felt awe rather than sorrow. Madame Melmotte was altogether overwhelmed; probably not by grief, but by fear of solitude, fear of sudden change, fear of terrible revelations. The same fears were powerful also with Marie; but they did not conquer her. She was strong and conquered them. She soon knew it all. Her father had destroyed himself, doubtless because his financial troubles had been greater than he could bear. When he had told her to sign the deeds because ruin was impending, he must indeed have told her the truth. He had so often lied to her that she had had no means of knowing whether he was lying then or not. But she had offered to sign the deeds since, and he had told her that it would be of no use - and he had not been angry. She took some comfort in thinking of that. But what was she to do? She and her pseudo-mother had packed up their jewellery, as instructed. But where should she go? On whose arm could she lean for some support at this terrible time? As for love, and engagements - that was all over. She never for a moment thought of Sir Felix Carbury. But it might be possible that Lord Nidderdale would help her. He was good-natured and manly; so she had written her note and sent it by the butler, thinking of how she would tell the young man that all that nonsense about marrying each other was, of course, to mean nothing now. When he reached the house, he was shown upstairs into one of the sitting-rooms. As he passed the study door, which was partly open, he saw a policeman within, and knew that the dead man's body was still lying there. He went by rapidly, remembering the look of the man as he had last seen him, and that grasp of his hand, and those odious words. Surely the man must have known when he uttered those words what he intended to do! And yet he had pretended to be anxious about the girl's marriage! Nidderdale had hardly put his hat down before Marie was with him. He took her by both hands, and looked into her face. There was no trace of a tear, but her whole countenance seemed to him to be altered. She was the first to speak. "I thought you would come when I sent for you." "Of course I came." "I knew you would be a friend, and I knew no one else who would. You won't be afraid, Lord Nidderdale, that I shall ever think any more of that engagement?" She paused a moment, but he had no answer ready. "You know what has happened? Oh, Lord Nidderdale, it is so dreadful! Poor papa! When I think of all that he must have suffered I wish that I could be dead too." "Has your mother been told?" "Oh yes. But Mamma is always nervous and timid, and this has nearly killed her. What ought we to do? This is Mr. Longestaffe's house, and we were to have left it tomorrow." "He will not mind that now." "Where must we go? We can't go back to Grosvenor Square. Who will manage for us? Who will see the doctor and the policemen?" "I will do that." "But there will be things that I cannot ask you to do. Why should I ask you to do anything?" "Because we are friends." "No," she said, "not really. I have been an impostor. I had no business to know a person like you at all. Oh, if the next six months could be over! Poor papa!" And for the first time she burst into tears. "I wish I knew what might comfort you," he said. "When were we ever comfortable? It has been one trouble after another, one fear after another! And now we are friendless and homeless. I suppose they will take everything that we have." "Your papa had a lawyer, I suppose?" "I think he had many, but I do not know who they were. His clerk, who had been with him for twenty years, left him yesterday. I suppose they will know something in Abchurch Lane; but now that Herr Croll has gone I do not know the name of any of them. Oh, what a life it has been! And now it's over." As she said this it seemed that her strength failed her, for she fell back on the sofa and buried her face in her hands. There was a knock at the front door, which was opened by the servants in the hall. Lord Nidderdale went out to the top of the stairs, and heard the voice of Dolly Longestaffe. Dolly and his lawyer Mr. Squercum had that morning met his father with Mr. Bideawhile at the corner of the square. They were all coming to receive the money which Mr. Melmotte had promised to pay them, having heard nothing of Mr. Melmotte's final payment. Squercum was very certain that the money would not be forthcoming, whereas Bideawhile was confident of success. The two lawyers at once saw, from the face of the man who had opened the door, that things were not going on in their usual course. The butler whispered to Mr. Bideawhile that Mr. Melmotte "was no more." "Dead!" exclaimed Mr. Bideawhile. Squercum opened his mouth wide. "Dead!" muttered Mr. Longestaffe senior. "Dead!" said Dolly. "Who's dead?" Then the butler whispered that Melmotte had swallowed poison during the night. "It's about what I expected," said Squercum. As the owner of the house, Mr. Longestaffe was shown into the room where Melmotte's body lay on a sofa. The two lawyers and Dolly followed, as did Lord Nidderdale, and two or three servants. A policeman who was watching the body rose from his seat when the gentlemen entered. They stood round and gazed on the sullen, livid features of the big man, and each lamented that he had ever heard the name of Melmotte. "Why are you here?" murmured Dolly to Lord Nidderdale. "She sent for me. We live quite close, you know. I fear it will be rather bad for you; won't it? He talked to me about his affairs once, but he was such a liar that not a word he said was worth anything." "That other thing is all over of course," suggested Dolly. Nidderdale nodded, and returned to Marie. There was nothing that the four gentlemen could do, and they soon departed - once Mr. Bideawhile had given orders to the butler concerning the property in the house. "They had come by appointment to see him," said Lord Nidderdale to Marie. "They didn't know, then?" "Nothing, till the man told them. I think the best thing I can do," said Nidderdale, "is to go to Abchurch Lane, and find out who is the lawyer whom he chiefly trusted. If necessary I will find Croll. Then we had better employ the lawyer to arrange everything for you." "And where should we go to?" "Where would Madame Melmotte wish to go?" "Anywhere we could hide ourselves. Perhaps Frankfurt. But shouldn't we stay till something has been done here? And couldn't we have lodgings, so as to get away from the house?" Nidderdale promised that he himself would look for lodgings, as soon as he had seen the lawyer. "And now, my lord, I suppose that I never shall see you again," said Marie. "I don't know why you should say that." "Because it will be best. Why should you? All this will be trouble enough to you. But I don't think it has been my fault." "Nothing has been your fault." "Good-bye, my lord. I shall always think of you as one of the kindest people I ever knew. I thought it best to send to you, but I do not want you to come back." "Good-bye, Marie. I shall always remember you." And so they parted. After that he did go into the City, and succeeded in finding both Melmotte's lawyer and Herr Croll. The news of Melmotte's death had already spread; the crushing blow to him, so said Herr Croll, had been the desertion of Cohenlupe - that and the sudden fall in value of the Mexican Railway shares, after the rumours spread about the Pickering property. It was asserted in Abchurch Lane that Melmotte had allowed himself to become hampered by the want of comparatively small sums of ready money, and in seeking relief had rushed from one danger to another, till at last the waters around him had become too deep even for him, and had overwhelmed him. As to his death, Herr Croll said that he had been sure that was what Melmotte would do, should his difficulties ever become too great. And he mentioned some other danger involving the use of his own name, but did not elaborate. Croll added, with grave good-nature, "My lor, de money of de yong lady is all her own. Nobody can toch it." And he nodded. "I am very glad to hear it for her sake," said Lord Nidderdale as he left.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 86: The Meeting in Bruton Street

It has been told how the gambling at the Beargarden went on one Sunday night. On the following Monday Sir Felix did not go to the club. He had watched Miles Grendall at play, and was sure that on more than one or two occasions the man had cheated. Sir Felix did not quite know what in such circumstances it would be best for him to do. Reprobate as he was himself, this work of villainy was new to him and seemed to be very terrible. What steps ought he to take? He was quite sure of his facts, and yet he feared that Nidderdale and Grasslough and Longestaffe would not believe him. He would have told Montague, but Montague had, he thought, hardly enough authority at the club to be of any use to him. On the Tuesday again he did not go to the club. He felt severely the loss of the excitement to which he had been accustomed, but the thing was too important to him to be slurred over. He did not dare to sit down and play with the man who had cheated him without saying anything about it. On the Wednesday afternoon life was becoming unbearable to him and he sauntered into the building at about five in the afternoon. There, as a matter of course, he found Dolly Longestaffe drinking sherry and bitters. "Where the blessed angels have you been?" said Dolly. Dolly was at that moment alert with the sense of a duty performed. He had just called on his sister and written a sharp letter to his father, and felt himself to be almost a man of business. "I've had fish of my own to fry," said Felix, who had passed the last two days in unendurable idleness. Then he referred again to the money which Dolly owed him, not making any complaint, not indeed asking for immediate payment, but explaining with an air of importance that if a commercial arrangement could be made, it might, at this moment, be very serviceable to him. "I'm particularly anxious to take up those shares," said Felix. "Of course you ought to have your money." "I don't say that at all, old fellow. I know very well that you're all right. You're not like that fellow, Miles Grendall." "Well; no. Poor Miles has got nothing to bless himself with. I suppose I could get it, and so I ought to pay." "That's no excuse for Grendall," said Sir Felix, shaking his head. "A chap can't pay if he hasn't got it, Carbury. A chap ought to pay of course. I've had a letter from our lawyer within the last half hour--here it is." And Dolly pulled a letter out of his pocket which he had opened and read indeed within the last hour, but which had been duly delivered at his lodgings early in the morning. "My governor wants to sell Pickering, and Melmotte wants to buy the place. My governor can't sell without me, and I've asked for half the plunder. I know what's what. My interest in the property is greater than his. It isn't much of a place, and they are talking of 50,000, over and above the debt upon it. 25,000 would pay off what I owe on my own property, and make me very square. From what this fellow says I suppose they're going to give in to my terms." "By George, that'll be a grand thing for you, Dolly." "Oh yes. Of course I want it. But I don't like the place going. I'm not much of a fellow, I know. I'm awfully lazy and can't get myself to go in for things as I ought to do; but I've a sort of feeling that I don't like the family property going to pieces. A fellow oughtn't to let his family property go to pieces." "You never lived at Pickering." "No;--and I don't know that it is any good. It gives us 3 per cent. on the money it's worth, while the governor is paying 6 per cent., and I'm paying 25, for the money we've borrowed. I know more about it than you'd think. It ought to be sold, and now I suppose it will be sold. Old Melmotte knows all about it, and if you like I'll go with you to the city to-morrow and make it straight about what I owe you. He'll advance me 1,000, and then you can get the shares. Are you going to dine here?" Sir Felix said that he would dine at the club, but declared, with considerable mystery in his manner, that he could not stay and play whist afterwards. He acceded willingly to Dolly's plan of visiting Abchurch Lane on the following day, but had some difficulty in inducing his friend to consent to fix on an hour early enough for city purposes. Dolly suggested that they should meet at the club at 4 P.M. Sir Felix had named noon, and promised to call at Dolly's lodgings. They split the difference at last and agreed to start at two. They then dined together, Miles Grendall dining alone at the next table to them. Dolly and Grendall spoke to each other frequently, but in that conversation the young baronet would not join. Nor did Grendall ever address himself to Sir Felix. "Is there anything up between you and Miles?" said Dolly, when they had adjourned to the smoking-room. "I can't bear him." "There never was any love between you two, I know. But you used to speak, and you've played with him all through." "Played with him! I should think I have. Though he did get such a haul last Sunday he owes me more than you do now." "Is that the reason you haven't played the last two nights?" Sir Felix paused a moment. "No;--that is not the reason. I'll tell you all about it in the cab to-morrow." Then he left the club, declaring that he would go up to Grosvenor Square and see Marie Melmotte. He did go up to the Square, and when he came to the house he would not go in. What was the good? He could do nothing further till he got old Melmotte's consent, and in no way could he so probably do that as by showing that he had got money wherewith to buy shares in the railway. What he did with himself during the remainder of the evening the reader need not know, but on his return home at some comparatively early hour, he found this note from Marie. Wednesday Afternoon. DEAREST FELIX, Why don't we see you? Mamma would say nothing if you came. Papa is never in the drawing-room. Miss Longestaffe is here of course, and people always come in in the evening. We are just going to dine out at the Duchess of Stevenage's. Papa, and mamma and I. Mamma told me that Lord Nidderdale is to be there, but you need not be a bit afraid. I don't like Lord Nidderdale, and I will never take any one but the man I love. You know who that is. Miss Longestaffe is so angry because she can't go with us. What do you think of her telling me that she did not understand being left alone? We are to go afterwards to a musical party at Lady Gamut's. Miss Longestaffe is going with us, but she says that she hates music. She is such a set-up thing! I wonder why papa has her here. We don't go anywhere to-morrow evening, so pray come. And why haven't you written me something and sent it to Didon? She won't betray us. And if she did, what matters? I mean to be true. If papa were to beat me into a mummy I would stick to you. He told me once to take Lord Nidderdale, and then he told me to refuse him. And now he wants me to take him again. But I won't. I'll take no one but my own darling. Yours for ever and ever, MARIE. Now that the young lady had begun to have an interest of her own in life, she was determined to make the most of it. All this was delightful to her, but to Sir Felix it was simply "a bother." Sir Felix was quite willing to marry the girl to-morrow,--on condition of course that the money was properly arranged; but he was not willing to go through much work in the way of love-making with Marie Melmotte. In such business he preferred Ruby Ruggles as a companion. On the following day Felix was with his friend at the appointed time, and was only kept an hour waiting while Dolly ate his breakfast and struggled into his coat and boots. On their way to the city Felix told his dreadful story about Miles Grendall. "By George!" said Dolly. "And you think you saw him do it!" "It's not thinking at all. I'm sure I saw him do it three times. I believe he always had an ace somewhere about him." Dolly sat quite silent thinking of it. "What had I better do?" asked Sir Felix. "By George;--I don't know." "What should you do?" "Nothing at all. I shouldn't believe my own eyes. Or if I did, should take care not to look at him." "You wouldn't go on playing with him?" "Yes I should. It'd be such a bore breaking up." "But Dolly,--if you think of it!" "That's all very fine, my dear fellow, but I shouldn't think of it." "And you won't give me your advice." "Well;--no; I think I'd rather not. I wish you hadn't told me. Why did you pick me out to tell me? Why didn't you tell Nidderdale?" "He might have said, why didn't you tell Longestaffe?" "No, he wouldn't. Nobody would suppose that anybody would pick me out for this kind of thing. If I'd known that you were going to tell me such a story as this I wouldn't have come with you." "That's nonsense, Dolly." "Very well. I can't bear these kind of things. I feel all in a twitter already." "You mean to go on playing just the same?" "Of course I do. If he won anything very heavy I should begin to think about it, I suppose. Oh; this is Abchurch Lane, is it? Now for the man of money." The man of money received them much more graciously than Sir Felix had expected. Of course nothing was said about Marie and no further allusion was made to the painful subject of the baronet's "property." Both Dolly and Sir Felix were astonished by the quick way in which the great financier understood their views and the readiness with which he undertook to comply with them. No disagreeable questions were asked as to the nature of the debt between the young men. Dolly was called upon to sign a couple of documents, and Sir Felix to sign one,--and then they were assured that the thing was done. Mr. Adolphus Longestaffe had paid Sir Felix Carbury a thousand pounds, and Sir Felix Carbury's commission had been accepted by Mr. Melmotte for the purchase of railway stock to that amount. Sir Felix attempted to say a word. He endeavoured to explain that his object in this commercial transaction was to make money immediately by reselling the shares,--and to go on continually making money by buying at a low price and selling at a high price. He no doubt did believe that, being a Director, if he could once raise the means of beginning this game, he could go on with it for an unlimited period;--buy and sell, buy and sell;--so that he would have an almost regular income. This, as far as he could understand, was what Paul Montague was allowed to do,--simply because he had become a Director with a little money. Mr. Melmotte was cordiality itself, but he could not be got to go into particulars. It was all right. "You will wish to sell again, of course;--of course. I'll watch the market for you." When the young men left the room all they knew, or thought that they knew, was, that Dolly Longestaffe had authorised Melmotte to pay a thousand pounds on his behalf to Sir Felix, and that Sir Felix had instructed the same great man to buy shares with the amount. "But why didn't he give you the scrip?" said Dolly on his way westwards. "I suppose it's all right with him," said Sir Felix. "Oh yes;--it's all right. Thousands of pounds to him are only like half-crowns to us fellows. I should say it's all right. All the same, he's the biggest rogue out, you know." Sir Felix already began to be unhappy about his thousand pounds.

It has been told how the gambling at the Beargarden went on one Sunday night. On the Monday Sir Felix did not go to the club. He was sure that Miles Grendall had cheated at cards; and he did not quite know what to do. Reprobate as he was himself, this type of villainy was new to him and seemed very terrible. He was quite sure of his facts, and yet he feared that Nidderdale and Grasslough and Longestaffe would not believe him. He might have told Montague, but Montague had hardly any authority at the club. On the Tuesday again he did not go to the club. He felt severely the loss of his usual excitement, but he did not dare to sit down and play with the man who had cheated him without saying anything about it. On the Wednesday afternoon life was becoming unbearable to him and he sauntered into the building at about five in the afternoon. He found Dolly Longestaffe drinking sherry and bitters. "Where the blessed angels have you been?" said Dolly, who had just called on his sister and written a sharp letter to his father, and at that moment felt himself to be almost a man of business. "I've had fish to fry," said Felix, who had passed the last two days in unendurable idleness. Then he mentioned the money which Dolly owed him, not complaining, but explaining with an air of importance that if a commercial arrangement could be made, it might be very useful to him. "I'm particularly anxious to take up those shares," he said. "Of course you ought to have your money." "I know that you're all right, old fellow. You're not like Miles Grendall." "Well; no. Poor Miles has got nothing to bless himself with." "That's no excuse," said Sir Felix, shaking his head. "A chap can't pay if he hasn't got it, Carbury. He ought to pay of course. Here, I've just had a letter from our lawyer." And Dolly pulled a letter out of his pocket. "My governor wants to sell Pickering to Melmotte. He can't sell without me, and I've asked for half the plunder. I know what's what. It isn't much of a place, and they are talking of 50,000, over and above the debt upon it. 25,000 would pay off what I owe on my own property, and make me very square. From what this fellow says I suppose they're going to give in to my terms." "By George, that'll be a grand thing for you, Dolly." "Oh yes. Of course I want it. But I don't like selling the place. I'm not much of a fellow, I know. I'm awfully lazy; but I've a sort of feeling that I don't like the family property going to pieces." "You never lived at Pickering." "No; and it doesn't bring in much income. Old Melmotte knows all about it, and if you like I'll go with you to the city tomorrow and make it straight about what I owe you. He'll advance me 1,000, and then you can get the shares. Are you going to dine here?" Sir Felix said that he would dine at the club, but declared, in a mysterious manner, that he could not stay and play whist afterwards. They agreed to meet at two the next day. They dined together, Miles Grendall dining alone at the table next to them. Though Dolly and Grendall spoke to each other frequently, Felix and Grendall did not address each other at all. "Is there anything up between you and Miles?" said Dolly, when they had adjourned to the smoking-room. "I can't bear him." "There never was any love between you two, I know. But you've played with him." "Played with him! I should think I have." Sir Felix paused a moment. "I'll tell you all about it in the cab tomorrow." Then he left, declaring that he would go up to Grosvenor Square and see Marie Melmotte. He did go up to the Square, but when he came to the house he did not go in. What was the good? He could do nothing without old Melmotte's consent, and the best way to get that was by showing that he had enough money to buy shares in the railway. On his return home, he found this note from Marie. Dearest Felix, Why don't we see you? Papa is never in the drawing-room. Miss Longestaffe is here of course, and people always come in the evening. We are just going out to dine at the Duchess of Stevenage's. Mamma told me that Lord Nidderdale is to be there, but you need not be a bit afraid. I don't like Lord Nidderdale, and I will never take anyone but the man I love. You know who that is. Miss Longestaffe is so angry because she can't go with us. She is coming with us afterwards to a musical party at Lady Gamut's, but she says she hates music. She is such a stuck-up thing! I wonder why papa has her here. We don't go anywhere tomorrow evening, so pray come. Why haven't you written me something and sent it to Didon? She won't betray us. In any case, I mean to be true. If papa were to beat me I would stick to you. He wants me to take Lord Nidderdale again. But I won't. I'll take no one but my own darling. Yours for ever and ever, Marie. Now that the young lady had begun to have an interest in life, she was determined to make the most of it. All this was delightful to her, but to Sir Felix it was simply "a bother." He was quite willing to marry the girl tomorrow, if the money was properly arranged; but he was not willing to go through much work in the way of love-making. In such business he preferred Ruby Ruggles as a companion. On the following day Felix was with Dolly at the appointed time, and was only kept waiting an hour while Dolly ate his breakfast and struggled into his coat and boots. On their way to the city Felix told his dreadful story about Miles Grendall. "By George!" said Dolly. "And you think you saw him do it?" "I'm sure I saw him do it three times. I believe he always had an ace somewhere about him. What had I better do?" "By George; I don't know." "What would you do?" "Nothing at all. I wouldn't believe my own eyes." "You wouldn't go on playing with him?" "Yes, I would. It'd be such a bore breaking up." "But Dolly - think of it!" "I wish you hadn't told me. If I'd known that you were going to tell me such a story I wouldn't have come with you." "That's nonsense, Dolly." "Maybe. I can't bear these kind of things. I feel all in a twitter." "You mean to go on playing just the same?" "Of course I do. If he won anything very heavy I should begin to think about it, I suppose. Oh; this is Abchurch Lane, is it? Now for the man of money." Melmotte received them much more graciously than Sir Felix had expected. Of course nothing was said about Marie. Both Dolly and Sir Felix were astonished by the quick way in which the great financier understood their wishes and the readiness with which he complied with them. No disagreeable questions were asked about the nature of the debt between the young men. Dolly was called upon to sign a couple of documents, and Sir Felix to sign one - and then they were assured that the thing was done. Mr. Adolphus Longestaffe had paid Sir Felix Carbury a thousand pounds, and Sir Felix Carbury's commission had been accepted by Mr. Melmotte for the purchase of railway stock to that amount. Sir Felix attempted to explain that he wanted to make money immediately by reselling the shares, and to go on continually making money by buying at a low price and selling at a high price. This, as far as he could understand, was what Paul Montague was allowed to do, as a Director with a little money. Mr. Melmotte was cordiality itself, but he did not go into particulars. "You will wish to sell again, of course; of course. I'll watch the market for you." When the young men left the room all they knew, or thought that they knew, was, that Dolly Longestaffe had authorised Melmotte to pay a thousand pounds on his behalf to Sir Felix, and that Sir Felix had instructed the same great man to buy shares with the amount. "But why didn't he give you the scrip?" said Dolly. "I suppose it's all right with him," said Sir Felix. "Oh yes; it's all right. Thousands of pounds to him are like half-crowns to us fellows. All the same, he's the biggest rogue out, you know." Sir Felix already began to be unhappy about his thousand pounds.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 28: Dolly Longestaffe goes into the City

There is no duty more certain or fixed in the world than that which calls upon a brother to defend his sister from ill-usage; but, at the same time, in the way we live now, no duty is more difficult, and we may say generally more indistinct. The ill-usage to which men's sisters are most generally exposed is one which hardly admits of either protection or vengeance,--although the duty of protecting and avenging is felt and acknowledged. We are not allowed to fight duels, and that banging about of another man with a stick is always disagreeable and seldom successful. A John Crumb can do it, perhaps, and come out of the affair exulting; but not a Sir Felix Carbury, even if the Sir Felix of the occasion have the requisite courage. There is a feeling, too, when a girl has been jilted,--thrown over, perhaps, is the proper term,--after the gentleman has had the fun of making love to her for an entire season, and has perhaps even been allowed privileges as her promised husband, that the less said the better. The girl does not mean to break her heart for love of the false one, and become the tragic heroine of a tale for three months. It is her purpose again to --trick her beams, and with new-spangled ore Flame in the forehead of the morning sky. Though this one has been false, as were perhaps two or three before, still the road to success is open. Uno avulso non deficit alter. But if all the notoriety of cudgels and cutting whips be given to the late unfortunate affair, the difficulty of finding a substitute will be greatly increased. The brother recognises his duty, and prepares for vengeance. The injured one probably desires that she may be left to fight her own little battles alone. "Then, by heaven, he shall answer it to me," Sir Felix had said very grandly, when his sister had told him that she was engaged to a man who was, as he thought he knew, engaged also to marry another woman. Here, no doubt, was gross ill-usage, and opportunity at any rate for threats. No money was required and no immediate action,--and Sir Felix could act the fine gentleman and the dictatorial brother at very little present expense. But Hetta, who ought perhaps to have known her brother more thoroughly, was fool enough to believe him. On the day but one following, no answer had as yet come from Roger Carbury,--nor could as yet have come. But Hetta's mind was full of her trouble, and she remembered her brother's threat. Felix had forgotten that he had made a threat,--and, indeed, had thought no more of the matter since his interview with his sister. "Felix," she said, "you won't mention that to Mr. Montague!" "Mention what? Oh! about that woman, Mrs. Hurtle? Indeed I shall. A man who does that kind of thing ought to be crushed;--and, by heavens, if he does it to you, he shall be crushed." "I want to tell you, Felix. If it is so, I will see him no more." "If it is so! I tell you I know it." "Mamma has written to Roger. At least I feel sure she has." "What has she written to him for? What has Roger Carbury to do with our affairs?" "Only you said he knew! If he says so, that is, if you and he both say that he is to marry that woman,--I will not see Mr. Montague again. Pray do not go to him. If such a misfortune does come, it is better to bear it and to be silent. What good can be done?" "Leave that to me," said Sir Felix, walking out of the room with much fraternal bluster. Then he went forth, and at once had himself driven to Paul Montague's lodgings. Had Hetta not been foolish enough to remind him of his duty, he would not now have undertaken the task. He too, no doubt, remembered as he went that duels were things of the past, and that even fists and sticks are considered to be out of fashion. "Montague," he said, assuming all the dignity of demeanour that his late sorrows had left to him, "I believe I am right in saying that you are engaged to marry that American lady, Mrs. Hurtle." "Then let me tell you that you were never more wrong in your life. What business have you with Mrs. Hurtle?" "When a man proposes to my sister, I think I've a great deal of business," said Sir Felix. "Well;--yes; I admit that fully. If I answered you roughly, I beg your pardon. Now as to the facts. I am not going to marry Mrs. Hurtle. I suppose I know how you have heard her name;--but as you have heard it, I have no hesitation in telling you so much. As you know where she is to be found you can go and ask her if you please. On the other hand, it is the dearest wish of my heart to marry your sister. I trust that will be enough for you." "You were engaged to Mrs. Hurtle?" "My dear Carbury, I don't think I'm bound to tell you all the details of my past life. At any rate, I don't feel inclined to do so in answer to hostile questions. I dare say you have heard enough of Mrs. Hurtle to justify you, as your sister's brother, in asking me whether I am in any way entangled by a connection with her. I tell you that I am not. If you still doubt, I refer you to the lady herself. Beyond that, I do not think I am called on to go; and beyond that I won't go,--at any rate, at present." Sir Felix still blustered, and made what capital he could out of his position as a brother; but he took no steps towards positive revenge. "Of course, Carbury," said the other, "I wish to regard you as a brother; and if I am rough to you, it is only because you are rough to me." Sir Felix was now in that part of town which he had been accustomed to haunt,--for the first time since his misadventure,--and, plucking up his courage, resolved that he would turn into the Beargarden. He would have a glass of sherry, and face the one or two men who would as yet be there, and in this way gradually creep back to his old habits. But when he arrived there, the club was shut up. "What the deuce is Vossner about?" said he, pulling out his watch. It was nearly five o'clock. He rang the bell, and knocked at the door, feeling that this was an occasion for courage. One of the servants, in what we may call private clothes, after some delay, drew back the bolts, and told him the astounding news;--The club was shut up! "Do you mean to say I can't come in?" said Sir Felix. The man certainly did mean to tell him so, for he opened the door no more than a foot, and stood in that narrow aperture. Mr. Vossner had gone away. There had been a meeting of the Committee, and the club was shut up. Whatever further information rested in the waiter's bosom he declined to communicate to Sir Felix Carbury. "By George!" The wrong that was done him filled the young baronet's bosom with indignation. He had intended, he assured himself, to dine at his club, to spend the evening there sportively, to be pleasant among his chosen companions. And now the club was shut up, and Vossner had gone away! What business had the club to be shut up? What right had Vossner to go away? Had he not paid his subscription in advance? Throughout the world, the more wrong a man does, the more indignant is he at wrong done to him. Sir Felix almost thought that he could recover damages from the whole Committee. He went direct to Mrs. Pipkin's house. When he made that half promise of marriage in Mrs. Pipkin's hearing, he had said that he would come again on the morrow. This he had not done; but of that he thought nothing. Such breaches of faith, when committed by a young man in his position, require not even an apology. He was admitted by Ruby herself, who was of course delighted to see him. "Who do you think is in town?" she said. "John Crumb; but though he came here ever so smart, I wouldn't so much as speak to him, except to tell him to go away." Sir Felix, when he heard the name, felt an uncomfortable sensation creep over him. "I don't know I'm sure what he should come after me for, and me telling him as plain as the nose on his face that I never want to see him again." "He's not of much account," said the baronet. "He would marry me out and out immediately, if I'd have him," continued Ruby, who perhaps thought that her honest old lover should not be spoken of as being altogether of no account. "And he has everything comfortable in the way of furniture, and all that. And they do say he's ever so much money in the bank. But I detest him," said Ruby, shaking her pretty head, and inclining herself towards her aristocratic lover's shoulder. This took place in the back parlour, before Mrs. Pipkin had ascended from the kitchen prepared to disturb so much romantic bliss with wretched references to the cold outer world. "Well, now, Sir Felix," she began, "if things is square, of course you're welcome to see my niece." "And what if they're round, Mrs. Pipkin?" said the gallant, careless, sparkling Lothario. "Well, or round either, so long as they're honest." "Ruby and I are both honest;--ain't we, Ruby? I want to take her out to dinner, Mrs. Pipkin. She shall be back before late;--before ten; she shall indeed." Ruby inclined herself still more closely towards his shoulder. "Come, Ruby, get your hat and change your dress, and we'll be off. I've ever so many things to tell you." Ever so many things to tell her! They must be to fix a day for the marriage, and to let her know where they were to live, and to settle what dress she should wear,--and perhaps to give her the money to go and buy it! Ever so many things to tell her! She looked up into Mrs. Pipkin's face with imploring eyes. Surely on such an occasion as this an aunt would not expect that her niece should be a prisoner and a slave. "Have it been put in writing, Sir Felix Carbury?" demanded Mrs. Pipkin with cruel gravity. Mrs. Hurtle had given it as her decided opinion that Sir Felix would not really mean to marry Ruby Ruggles unless he showed himself willing to do so with all the formality of a written contract. "Writing be bothered," said Sir Felix. "That's all very well, Sir Felix. Writing do bother, very often. But when a gentleman has intentions, a bit of writing shows it plainer nor words. Ruby don't go no where to dine unless you puts it into writing." "Aunt Pipkin!" exclaimed the wretched Ruby. "What do you think I'm going to do with her?" asked Sir Felix. "If you want to make her your wife, put it in writing. And if it be as you don't, just say so, and walk away,--free." "I shall go," said Ruby. "I'm not going to be kept here a prisoner for any one. I can go when I please. You wait, Felix, and I'll be down in a minute." The girl, with a nimble spring, ran upstairs, and began to change her dress without giving herself a moment for thought. "She don't come back no more here, Sir Felix," said Mrs. Pipkin, in her most solemn tones. "She ain't nothing to me, no more than she was my poor dear husband's sister's child. There ain't no blood between us, and won't be no disgrace. But I'd be loth to see her on the streets." "Then why won't you let me bring her back again?" "'Cause that'd be the way to send her there. You don't mean to marry her." To this Sir Felix said nothing. "You're not thinking of that. It's just a bit of sport,--and then there she is, an old shoe to be chucked away, just a rag to be swept into the dust-bin. I've seen scores of 'em, and I'd sooner a child of mine should die in a workus', or be starved to death. But it's all nothing to the likes o' you." "I haven't done her any harm," said Sir Felix, almost frightened. "Then go away, and don't do her any. That's Mrs. Hurtle's door open. You go and speak to her. She can talk a deal better nor me." "Mrs. Hurtle hasn't been able to manage her own affairs very well." "Mrs. Hurtle's a lady, Sir Felix, and a widow, and one as has seen the world." As she spoke, Mrs. Hurtle came downstairs, and an introduction, after some rude fashion, was effected between her and Sir Felix. Mrs. Hurtle had heard often of Sir Felix Carbury, and was quite as certain as Mrs. Pipkin that he did not mean to marry Ruby Ruggles. In a few minutes Felix found himself alone with Mrs. Hurtle in her own room. He had been anxious to see the woman since he had heard of her engagement with Paul Montague, and doubly anxious since he had also heard of Paul's engagement with his sister. It was not an hour since Paul himself had referred him to her for corroboration of his own statement. "Sir Felix Carbury," she said, "I am afraid you are doing that poor girl no good, and are intending to do her none." It did occur to him very strongly that this could be no affair of Mrs. Hurtle's, and that he, as a man of position in society, was being interfered with in an unjustifiable manner. Aunt Pipkin wasn't even an aunt; but who was Mrs. Hurtle? "Would it not be better that you should leave her to become the wife of a man who is really fond of her?" He could already see something in Mrs. Hurtle's eye which prevented his at once bursting into wrath;--but who was Mrs. Hurtle, that she should interfere with him? "Upon my word, ma'am," he said, "I'm very much obliged to you, but I don't quite know to what I owe the honour of your--your--" "Interference you mean." "I didn't say so, but perhaps that's about it." "I'd interfere to save any woman that God ever made," said Mrs. Hurtle with energy. "We're all apt to wait a little too long, because we're ashamed to do any little good that chance puts in our way. You must go and leave her, Sir Felix." "I suppose she may do as she pleases about that." "Do you mean to make her your wife?" asked Mrs. Hurtle sternly. "Does Mr. Paul Montague mean to make you his wife?" rejoined Sir Felix with an impudent swagger. He had struck the blow certainly hard enough, and it had gone all the way home. She had not surmised that he would have heard aught of her own concerns. She only barely connected him with that Roger Carbury who, she knew, was Paul's great friend, and she had as yet never heard that Hetta Carbury was the girl whom Paul loved. Had Paul so talked about her that this young scamp should know all her story? She thought awhile,--she had to think for a moment,--before she could answer him. "I do not see," she said, with a faint attempt at a smile, "that there is any parallel between the two cases. I, at any rate, am old enough to take care of myself. Should he not marry me, I am as I was before. Will it be so with that poor girl if she allows herself to be taken about the town by you at night?" She had desired in what she said to protect Ruby rather than herself. What could it matter whether this young man was left in a belief that she was, or that she was not, about to be married? "If you'll answer me, I'll answer you," said Sir Felix. "Does Mr. Montague mean to make you his wife?" "It does not concern you to know," said she, flashing upon him. "The question is insolent." "It does concern me,--a great deal more than anything about Ruby can concern you. And as you won't answer me, I won't answer you." "Then, sir, that girl's fate will be upon your head." "I know all about that," said the baronet. "And the young man who has followed her up to town will probably know where to find you," added Mrs. Hurtle. To such a threat as this, no answer could be made, and Sir Felix left the room. At any rate, John Crumb was not there at present. And were there not policemen in London? And what additional harm would be done to John Crumb, or what increase of anger engendered in that true lover's breast, by one additional evening's amusement? Ruby had danced with him so often at the Music Hall that John Crumb could hardly be made more bellicose by the fact of her dining with him on this evening. When he descended, he found Ruby in the hall, all arrayed. "You don't come in here again to-night," said Mrs. Pipkin, thumping the little table which stood in the passage, "if you goes out of that there door with that there young man." "Then I shall," said Ruby linking herself on to her lover's arm. "Baggage! Slut!" said Mrs. Pipkin; "after all I've done for you, just as one as though you were my own flesh and blood." "I've worked for it, I suppose;--haven't I?" rejoined Ruby. "You send for your things to-morrow, for you don't come in here no more. You ain't nothing to me no more nor no other girl. But I'd 've saved you, if you'd but a' let me. As for you,"--and she looked at Sir Felix,--"only because I've lodgings to let, and because of the lady upstairs, I'd shake you that well, you'd never come here no more after poor girls." I do not think that she need have feared any remonstrance from Mrs. Hurtle, even had she put her threat into execution. Sir Felix, thinking that he had had enough of Mrs. Pipkin and her lodger, left the house with Ruby on his arm. For the moment, Ruby had been triumphant, and was happy. She did not stop to consider whether her aunt would or would not open her door when she should return tired, and perhaps repentant. She was on her lover's arm, in her best clothes, and going to have a dinner given to her. And her lover had told her that he had ever so many things,--ever so many things to say to her! But she would ask no impertinent questions in the first hour of her bliss. It was so pleasant to walk with him up to Pentonville;--so joyous to turn into a gay enclosure, half public-house and half tea-garden; so pleasant to hear him order the good things, which in his company would be so nice! Who cannot understand that even an urban Rosherville must be an Elysium to those who have lately been eating their meals in all the gloom of a small London underground kitchen? There we will leave Ruby in her bliss. At about nine that evening John Crumb called at Mrs. Pipkin's, and was told that Ruby had gone out with Sir Felix Carbury. He hit his leg a blow with his fist, and glared out of his eyes. "He'll have it hot some day," said John Crumb. He was allowed to remain waiting for Ruby till midnight, and then, with a sorrowful heart, he took his departure.

A brother is duty-bound to defend his sister from ill-usage; but in the way we live now, no duty is more difficult or more indistinct. We are not allowed to fight duels, and banging about another man with a stick is always disagreeable and seldom successful. A John Crumb can do it, perhaps; but not a Sir Felix Carbury. There is a feeling, too, when a girl has been jilted after the gentleman has had the fun of making love to her for an entire season, and has perhaps even been allowed privileges as her promised husband, that the less said the better. The girl does not mean to break her heart. Though this one has been false, the road to success is still open. But if the affair is made notorious by a fight, the difficulty of finding a substitute will be greatly increased. Sir Felix had vowed to avenge his sister for her ill-usage by Paul Montague. And Hetta was fool enough to believe him. Two days later, no answer had yet come from Roger Carbury. Hetta's mind was full of her trouble, and she remembered her brother's threat, which Felix had forgotten. "Felix," she said, "you won't mention that to Mr. Montague!" "Mention what? Oh! about that woman, Mrs. Hurtle? Indeed I shall. A man who does that kind of thing ought to be crushed; and, by heavens, if he does it to you, he shall be crushed." "Felix, if it is so, I will see him no more." "If it is so!" "Mamma has written to Roger. If you and he both say that he is to marry that woman, I will not see Mr. Montague again. Pray do not go to him." "Leave that to me," said Sir Felix, walking out of the room with much fraternal bluster. Then he had himself driven to Paul Montague's lodgings. Had Hetta not been foolish enough to remind him of his duty, he would not have done it. "Montague," he said, with all the dignity that his late sorrows had left to him, "I believe I am right in saying that you are engaged to marry that American lady, Mrs. Hurtle." "You were never more wrong in your life. What business have you with Mrs. Hurtle?" "When a man proposes to my sister, I think I've a great deal of business," said Sir Felix. "Well; yes; I admit that. I beg your pardon. But I am not going to marry Mrs. Hurtle. You can go and ask her if you please. On the other hand, it is the dearest wish of my heart to marry your sister." "You were engaged to Mrs. Hurtle?" "My dear Carbury, I don't think I'm bound to tell you all the details of my past life. I tell you that I am not connected with Mrs. Hurtle. If you still doubt, I refer you to the lady herself. Beyond that, I won't go. Of course, Carbury," said Paul, "I wish to regard you as a brother." Sir Felix blustered, but took no steps towards revenge. Instead he left. He was now near his old haunts, and for the first time since his misadventure, resolved to go to the Beargarden for a glass of sherry, and in this way gradually creep back to his old habits. But when he arrived there, the club was shut up. "What the deuce is Vossner about?" said he. He rang the bell, and knocked at the door. One of the servants eventually drew back the bolts, and told him the astounding news: Mr. Vossner had gone away; there had been a meeting of the Committee, and the club was shut. "By George!" The young baronet was filled with indignation. What business had the club to be shut? Had he not paid his subscription in advance? He went direct to Mrs. Pipkin's house. He was admitted by Ruby herself, who was of course delighted to see him. "Who do you think is in town?" she said. "John Crumb; but though he came here ever so smart, I wouldn't so much as speak to him, except to tell him to go away." Sir Felix felt an uncomfortable sensation creep over him. "I don't know what he should come after me for, when I told him as plain as the nose on his face that I never want to see him again." "He's not of much account," said the baronet. "He would marry me immediately, if I'd have him," continued Ruby, who perhaps thought that her honest old lover should not be spoken of as being of no account. "And he has everything comfortable in his house, and they say he's ever so much money in the bank. But I detest him," said Ruby, shaking her pretty head, and leaning on her aristocratic lover's shoulder. This took place in the back parlour. Then Mrs. Pipkin ascended from the kitchen prepared to disturb the romantic bliss with wretched references to the cold outer world. "Well, now, Sir Felix," she began, "if things is square, of course you're welcome to see my niece." "And what if they're round, Mrs. Pipkin?" said the gallant Lothario. "Well, or round either, so long as they're honest." "Ruby and I are both honest; ain't we, Ruby? I want to take her out to dinner, Mrs. Pipkin. She shall be back before ten. Come, Ruby, get your hat and we'll be off. I've ever so many things to tell you." Ever so many things to tell her! They must be to fix a day for the marriage, and to let her know where they were to live, and to settle what dress she should wear - and perhaps to give her the money to go and buy it! Ever so many things to tell her! Ruby looked up into Mrs. Pipkin's face with imploring eyes. "Have it been put in writing, Sir Felix?" demanded Mrs. Pipkin with cruel gravity. "Writing be bothered," said Sir Felix. "That's all very well, Sir Felix. Writing do bother, very often. But when a gentleman has intentions, a bit of writing shows it plainer nor words. Ruby don't go out to dine unless you puts it into writing." "Aunt Pipkin!" exclaimed the wretched Ruby. "What do you think I'm going to do with her?" asked Sir Felix. "If you want to make her your wife, put it in writing. And if you don't, just say so, and walk away, free." "I shall go," said Ruby. "I'm not going to be kept here a prisoner. I can go when I please. You wait, Felix, and I'll be down in a minute." The girl ran nimbly upstairs, and began to change her dress. "She don't come back here no more, Sir Felix," said Mrs. Pipkin, in her most solemn tones. "But I'd be loth to see her on the streets." "Then why won't you let me bring her back again?" "'Cause that'd be the way to send her there. You don't mean to marry her." To this Sir Felix said nothing. "You're not thinking of that. It's just a bit of sport - she's an old shoe to be chucked away, a rag to be swept into the dust-bin. I've seen scores of 'em. But it's all nothing to the likes o' you." "I haven't done her any harm," said Sir Felix, almost frightened. "Then go away, and don't do her any." As she spoke, Mrs. Hurtle came downstairs, and was introduced to Sir Felix. Mrs. Hurtle had heard often of Sir Felix Carbury, and was quite as certain as Mrs. Pipkin that he did not mean to marry Ruby Ruggles. In a few minutes Felix found himself alone with Mrs. Hurtle in her own room. He had been anxious to see her since he had heard of her engagement with Paul Montague. "Sir Felix Carbury," she said, "I am afraid you are doing that poor girl no good, and are intending to do her none. Would it not be better that you should leave her to marry a man who is really fond of her?" He could already see something in Mrs. Hurtle's eye which prevented his at once bursting into wrath; but who was Mrs. Hurtle, that she should interfere with him? "Upon my word, ma'am," he said, "I'm very much obliged to you, but I don't quite know to what I owe the honour of your - your-" "Interference. I'd interfere to save any woman that God ever made," said Mrs. Hurtle with energy. "You must leave her, Sir Felix." "She may do as she pleases." "Do you mean to make her your wife?" asked Mrs. Hurtle sternly. "Does Mr. Paul Montague mean to make you his wife?" rejoined Sir Felix with an impudent swagger. He had certainly struck the blow hard enough, and it went all the way home. She had not thought that he would have heard anything of her own concerns. She did not know that Hetta Carbury was the girl whom Paul loved. Had Paul talked about her so that this young scamp knew all her story? She thought awhile before she could answer him. "I do not see," she said, "that there is any parallel between the two cases. I am old enough to take care of myself. Should he not marry me, I am as I was before. Will it be so with that poor girl if she allows herself to be taken about the town by you at night?" "If you'll answer me, I'll answer you," said Sir Felix. "Does Mr. Montague mean to make you his wife?" "It does not concern you," said she, flashing upon him. "The question is insolent." "It does concern me a great deal. And as you won't answer me, I won't answer you." "Then, sir, that girl's fate will be upon your head." "I know all about that," said the baronet. "And the young man who has followed her up to town will probably know where to find you," added Mrs. Hurtle. Without answering, Sir Felix left the room. At any rate, John Crumb was not there at present. When he descended, he found Ruby in the hall, all arrayed. "You don't come in here again tonight," said Mrs. Pipkin, "if you goes out of that there door with that there young man." "Then I shall," said Ruby, linking herself on to her lover's arm. "Baggage! Slut!" said Mrs. Pipkin; "after all I've done for you, just as though you were my own flesh and blood." "I've worked for it, haven't I?" rejoined Ruby. "You send for your things tomorrow, for you don't come here no more. As for you," - and she looked at Sir Felix - "I'd like to shake you." Sir Felix left the house with Ruby on his arm. For the moment, she was triumphant and happy. She did not stop to consider whether her aunt would open her door when she returned. She was on her lover's arm, in her best clothes, and going to dinner. And her lover had told her that he had ever so many things to say to her! But she would ask no impertinent questions in the first hour of her bliss. It was so pleasant to walk with him up to Pentonville, and turn into a gay tea-garden; so pleasant to hear him order good things! So there we will leave Ruby in her bliss. At about nine that evening John Crumb called at Mrs. Pipkin's, and was told that Ruby had gone out with Sir Felix Carbury. "He'll have it hot some day," said John Crumb, glaring. He was allowed to remain waiting for Ruby till midnight, and then, with a sorrowful heart, he departed.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 70: Sir Felix Meddles with Many Matters

Lady Carbury had allowed herself two days for answering Mr. Broune's proposition. It was made on Tuesday night and she was bound by her promise to send a reply some time on Thursday. But early on the Wednesday morning she had made up her mind; and at noon on that day her letter was written. She had spoken to Hetta about the man, and she had seen that Hetta had disliked him. She was not disposed to be much guided by Hetta's opinion. In regard to her daughter she was always influenced by a vague idea that Hetta was an unnecessary trouble. There was an excellent match ready for her if she would only accept it. There was no reason why Hetta should continue to add herself to the family burden. She never said this even to herself,--but she felt it, and was not therefore inclined to consult Hetta's comfort on this occasion. But nevertheless, what her daughter said had its effect. She had encountered the troubles of one marriage, and they had been very bad. She did not look upon that marriage as a mistake,--having even up to this day a consciousness that it had been the business of her life, as a portionless girl, to obtain maintenance and position at the expense of suffering and servility. But that had been done. The maintenance was, indeed, again doubtful, because of her son's vices; but it might so probably be again secured,--by means of her son's beauty! Hetta had said that Mr. Broune liked his own way. Had not she herself found that all men liked their own way? And she liked her own way. She liked the comfort of a home to herself. Personally she did not want the companionship of a husband. And what scenes would there be between Felix and the man! And added to all this there was something within her, almost amounting to conscience, which told her that it was not right that she should burden any one with the responsibility and inevitable troubles of such a son as her son Felix. What would she do were her husband to command her to separate herself from her son? In such circumstances she would certainly separate herself from her husband. Having considered these things deeply, she wrote as follows to Mr. Broune:-- DEAREST FRIEND, I need not tell you that I have thought much of your generous and affectionate offer. How could I refuse such a prospect as you offer me without much thought? I regard your career as the most noble which a man's ambition can achieve. And in that career no one is your superior. I cannot but be proud that such a one as you should have asked me to be his wife. But, my friend, life is subject to wounds which are incurable, and my life has been so wounded. I have not strength left me to make my heart whole enough to be worthy of your acceptance. I have been so cut and scotched and lopped by the sufferings which I have endured that I am best alone. It cannot all be described;--and yet with you I would have no reticence. I would put the whole history before you to read, with all my troubles past and still present, all my hopes, and all my fears,--with every circumstance as it has passed by and every expectation that remains, were it not that the poor tale would be too long for your patience. The result of it would be to make you feel that I am no longer fit to enter in upon a new home. I should bring showers instead of sunshine, melancholy in lieu of mirth. I will, however, be bold enough to assure you that could I bring myself to be the wife of any man I would now become your wife. But I shall never marry again. Nevertheless, I am your most affectionate friend, MATILDA CARBURY. About six o'clock in the afternoon she sent this letter to Mr. Broune's rooms in Pall Mall East, and then sat for awhile alone,--full of regrets. She had thrown away from her a firm footing which would certainly have served her for her whole life. Even at this moment she was in debt,--and did not know how to pay her debts without mortgaging her life income. She longed for some staff on which she could lean. She was afraid of the future. When she would sit with her paper before her, preparing her future work for the press, copying a bit here and a bit there, inventing historical details, dovetailing her chronicle, her head would sometimes seem to be going round as she remembered the unpaid baker, and her son's horses, and his unmeaning dissipation, and all her doubts about the marriage. As regarded herself, Mr. Broune would have made her secure,--but that now was all over. Poor woman! This at any rate may be said for her,--that had she accepted the man her regrets would have been as deep. Mr. Broune's feelings were more decided in their tone than those of the lady. He had not made his offer without consideration, and yet from the very moment in which it had been made he repented it. That gently sarcastic appellation by which Lady Carbury had described him to herself when he had kissed her best explained that side of Mr. Broune's character which showed itself in this matter. He was a susceptible old goose. Had she allowed him to kiss her without objection, the kissing might probably have gone on; and, whatever might have come of it, there would have been no offer of marriage. He had believed that her little manoeuvres had indicated love on her part, and he had felt himself constrained to reciprocate the passion. She was beautiful in his eyes. She was bright. She wore her clothes like a lady; and,--if it was written in the Book of the Fates that some lady was to sit at the top of his table,--Lady Carbury would look as well there as any other. She had repudiated the kiss, and therefore he had felt himself bound to obtain for himself the right to kiss her. The offer had no sooner been made than he met her son reeling in, drunk, at the front door. As he made his escape the lad had insulted him. This, perhaps, helped to open his eyes. When he woke the next morning, or rather late in the next day, after his night's work, he was no longer able to tell himself that the world was all right with him. Who does not know that sudden thoughtfulness at waking, that first matutinal retrospection, and pro-spection, into things as they have been and are to be; and the lowness of heart, the blankness of hope which follows the first remembrance of some folly lately done, some word ill-spoken, some money misspent,--or perhaps a cigar too much, or a glass of brandy and soda-water which he should have left untasted? And when things have gone well, how the waker comforts himself among the bedclothes as he claims for himself to be whole all over, teres atque rotundus,--so to have managed his little affairs that he has to fear no harm, and to blush inwardly at no error! Mr. Broune, the way of whose life took him among many perils, who in the course of his work had to steer his bark among many rocks, was in the habit of thus auditing his daily account as he shook off sleep about noon,--for such was his lot, that he seldom was in bed before four or five in the morning. On this Wednesday he found that he could not balance his sheet comfortably. He had taken a very great step and he feared that he had not taken it with wisdom. As he drank the cup of tea with which his servant supplied him while he was yet in bed, he could not say of himself, teres atque rotundus, as he was wont to do when things were well with him. Everything was to be changed. As he lit a cigarette he bethought himself that Lady Carbury would not like him to smoke in her bedroom. Then he remembered other things. "I'll be d---- if he shall live in my house," he said to himself. And there was no way out of it. It did not occur to the man that his offer could be refused. During the whole of that day he went about among his friends in a melancholy fashion, saying little snappish uncivil things at the club, and at last dining by himself with about fifteen newspapers around him. After dinner he did not speak a word to any man, but went early to the office of the newspaper in Trafalgar Square at which he did his nightly work. Here he was lapped in comforts,--if the best of chairs, of sofas, of writing tables, and of reading lamps can make a man comfortable who has to read nightly thirty columns of a newspaper, or at any rate to make himself responsible for their contents. He seated himself to his work like a man, but immediately saw Lady Carbury's letter on the table before him. It was his custom when he did not dine at home to have such documents brought to him at his office as had reached his home during his absence;--and here was Lady Carbury's letter. He knew her writing well, and was aware that here was the confirmation of his fate. It had not been expected, as she had given herself another day for her answer,--but here it was, beneath his hand. Surely this was almost unfeminine haste. He chucked the letter, unopened, a little from him, and endeavoured to fix his attention on some printed slip that was ready for him. For some ten minutes his eyes went rapidly down the lines, but he found that his mind did not follow what he was reading. He struggled again, but still his thoughts were on the letter. He did not wish to open it, having some vague idea that, till the letter should have been read, there was a chance of escape. The letter would not become due to be read till the next day. It should not have been there now to tempt his thoughts on this night. But he could do nothing while it lay there. "It shall be a part of the bargain that I shall never have to see him," he said to himself, as he opened it. The second line told him that the danger was over. When he had read so far he stood up with his back to the fire-place, leaving the letter on the table. Then, after all, the woman wasn't in love with him! But that was a reading of the affair which he could hardly bring himself to look upon as correct. The woman had shown her love by a thousand signs. There was no doubt, however, that she now had her triumph. A woman always has a triumph when she rejects a man,--and more especially when she does so at a certain time of life. Would she publish her triumph? Mr. Broune would not like to have it known about among brother editors, or by the world at large, that he had offered to marry Lady Carbury and that Lady Carbury had refused him. He had escaped; but the sweetness of his present safety was not in proportion to the bitterness of his late fears. He could not understand why Lady Carbury should have refused him! As he reflected upon it, all memory of her son for the moment passed away from him. Full ten minutes had passed, during which he had still stood upon the rug, before he read the entire letter. "'Cut and scotched and lopped!' I suppose she has been," he said to himself. He had heard much of Sir Patrick, and knew well that the old general had been no lamb. "I shouldn't have cut her, or scotched her, or lopped her." When he had read the whole letter patiently there crept upon him gradually a feeling of admiration for her, greater than he had ever yet felt,--and, for awhile, he almost thought that he would renew his offer to her. "'Showers instead of sunshine; melancholy instead of mirth,'" he repeated to himself. "I should have done the best for her, taking the showers and the melancholy if they were necessary." He went to his work in a mixed frame of mind, but certainly without that dragging weight which had oppressed him when he entered the room. Gradually, through the night, he realised the conviction that he had escaped, and threw from him altogether the idea of repeating his offer. Before he left he wrote her a line-- Be it so. It need not break our friendship. N. B. This he sent by a special messenger, who returned with a note to his lodgings long before he was up on the following morning. No;--no; certainly not. No word of this will ever pass my mouth. M. C. Mr. Broune thought that he was very well out of the danger, and resolved that Lady Carbury should never want anything that his friendship could do for her.

Lady Carbury had allowed herself two days for answering Mr. Broune's proposal. It was made on Tuesday night and she had promised to send a reply on Thursday. But early on the Wednesday morning she had made up her mind; and by noon her letter was written. She had spoken to Hetta about him, and had seen that Hetta disliked him. She was not usually much guided by Hetta's opinion. There was an excellent match ready for Hetta if she would only accept it; and she was not therefore inclined to consult Hetta's comfort on this occasion. But nevertheless, what her daughter said had its effect. She had encountered the troubles of one marriage, and they had been very bad. Hetta had said that Mr. Broune liked his own way. Had not she herself found that all men liked their own way? And she liked her own way. She liked the comfort of a home to herself. Personally she did not want the companionship of a husband. And what scenes would there be between Felix and the man! Added to all this, something within her, almost amounting to conscience, told her that it was not right to burden any one with the inevitable troubles of such a son as Felix. What would she do were her husband to command her to separate herself from her son? In that case she would certainly separate herself from her husband. Having considered these things deeply, she wrote as follows to Mr. Broune: Dearest Friend, I need not tell you that I have thought much of your generous offer. How could I refuse such a prospect without much thought? I regard your career as noble; and in that career no one is your superior. I am proud that you should have asked me to be your wife. But, my friend, my life has been wounded. I have not strength left me to make my heart whole enough to be worthy of your acceptance. I have been so cut and lopped by my sufferings that I am best alone. I would put the whole sorrowful history before you to read, were it not that the poor tale would be too long for your patience. You would then understand that I am no longer fit to enter in upon a new home. I should bring showers instead of sunshine, melancholy instead of mirth. I will, however, be bold enough to assure you that could I marry any man it would be you. But I shall never marry again. Your most affectionate friend, Matilda Carbury. She sent this letter to Mr. Broune's rooms in Pall Mall East, and then sat for a while alone, full of regrets. She had thrown away a firm footing. Even at this moment she was in debt - and did not know how to pay her debts without mortgaging her life income. She longed for some staff to lean on. She was afraid of the future. When she was trying to write, her head would sometimes seem to be full of the unpaid baker, and her son's horses, and his dissipation. Mr. Broune would have made her secure - but that was all over. Yet if she had accepted him she would now be feeling equal regret. Mr. Broune's feelings were more decided than Lady Carbury's. From the moment he had made his proposal he had repented it. He was indeed what Lady Carbury had called him: a susceptible old goose. Had she allowed him to kiss her without objection, there would have been no offer of marriage. He had believed that her little manuvres had indicated love on her part, and he had felt himself obliged to return it. She was beautiful in his eyes, she was bright, and she wore her clothes like a lady. When she had repudiated the kiss, he had felt himself bound to obtain the right to kiss her. The offer had no sooner been made than he met her son reeling in, drunk, at the front door. When he woke the next day, he no longer felt that the world was all right with him. Who does not know that sudden thoughtfulness at waking; the lowness of heart, the blankness of hope at the remembrance of some folly? On this Wednesday Mr. Broune found himself uncomfortable. He had taken a very great step and he feared that he had not taken it wisely. As he lit a cigarette he thought that Lady Carbury would not like him to smoke in her bedroom. Then he remembered other things. "I'll be d____ if he shall live in my house," he said to himself. There was no way out of it. It did not occur to the man that his offer could be refused. During that day he went about in a melancholy fashion, saying snappish things at the club, and dining by himself with about fifteen newspapers around him. After dinner he went early to the office of the newspaper in Trafalgar Square where he did his nightly work - and immediately saw Lady Carbury's letter on the table before him. He knew her writing well, and was aware that here was the confirmation of his fate a day earlier than promised. She had accepted him with unseemly haste. He pushed the letter away, and tried to read for some ten minutes, but he found that his mind did not follow what he was reading. He struggled again, but he could do nothing while the letter lay there. "It shall be a part of the bargain that I shall never have to see Felix," he said to himself, as he opened it. The second line told him that the danger was over. At once he stood up, leaving the letter on the table. Then, after all, the woman wasn't in love with him! But she had shown her love by a thousand signs. There was no doubt, however, that she now had her triumph. A woman always has a triumph when she rejects a man. Would she publish it? Mr. Broune would not like to have it known among his brother editors that he had offered to marry Lady Carbury and that she had refused him. He had escaped; but the sweetness of his present safety was not in proportion to the bitterness of his late fears. He could not understand why Lady Carbury should have refused him! He reflected upon it for full ten minutes, before he read the entire letter. "'Cut and lopped!' I suppose she has been," he said to himself. He had heard much of Sir Patrick. "I shouldn't have cut or lopped her." When he had read the whole letter there crept upon him gradually a feeling of admiration for her so great that, for a while, he almost thought that he would renew his offer. "'Showers instead of sunshine; melancholy instead of mirth,'" he repeated to himself. "I should have done the best for her, taking the showers and the melancholy." He went to his work in a mixed frame of mind, but certainly without that dragging weight which had oppressed him when he entered the room. Gradually, he realised that he had escaped, and rejected the idea of repeating his offer. Before he left he wrote her a line: Be it so. It need not break our friendship. N. B. This he sent by a special messenger, who returned with a note to his lodgings. No; certainly not. No word of this will ever pass my mouth. M. C. Mr. Broune thought that he was very well out of the danger, and resolved that Lady Carbury should never lack anything that his friendship could do for her.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 36: Mr. Broune's Perils

We must now go back a little in our story,--about three weeks,--in order that the reader may be told how affairs were progressing at the Beargarden. That establishment had received a terrible blow in the defection of Herr Vossner. It was not only that he had robbed the club, and robbed every member of the club who had ventured to have personal dealings with him. Although a bad feeling in regard to him was no doubt engendered in the minds of those who had suffered deeply, it was not that alone which cast an almost funereal gloom over the club. The sorrow was in this,--that with Herr Vossner all their comforts had gone. Of course Herr Vossner had been a thief. That no doubt had been known to them from the beginning. A man does not consent to be called out of bed at all hours in the morning to arrange the gambling accounts of young gentlemen without being a thief. No one concerned with Herr Vossner had supposed him to be an honest man. But then as a thief he had been so comfortable that his absence was regretted with a tenderness almost amounting to love even by those who had suffered most severely from his rapacity. Dolly Longestaffe had been robbed more outrageously than any other member of the club, and yet Dolly Longestaffe had said since the departure of the purveyor that London was not worth living in now that Herr Vossner was gone. In a week the Beargarden collapsed,--as Germany would collapse for a period if Herr Vossner's great compatriot were suddenly to remove himself from the scene; but as Germany would strive to live even without Bismarck, so did the club make its new efforts. But here the parallel must cease. Germany no doubt would at last succeed, but the Beargarden had received a blow from which it seemed that there was no recovery. At first it was proposed that three men should be appointed as trustees,--trustees for paying Vossner's debts, trustees for borrowing more money, trustees for the satisfaction of the landlord who was beginning to be anxious as to his future rent. At a certain very triumphant general meeting of the club it was determined that such a plan should be arranged, and the members assembled were unanimous. It was at first thought that there might be a little jealousy as to the trusteeship. The club was so popular and the authority conveyed by the position would be so great, that A, B, and C might feel aggrieved at seeing so much power conferred on D, E, and F. When at the meeting above mentioned one or two names were suggested, the final choice was postponed, as a matter of detail to be arranged privately, rather from this consideration than with any idea that there might be a difficulty in finding adequate persons. But even the leading members of the Beargarden hesitated when the proposition was submitted to them with all its honours and all its responsibilities. Lord Nidderdale declared from the beginning that he would have nothing to do with it,--pleading his poverty openly. Beauchamp Beauclerk was of opinion that he himself did not frequent the club often enough. Mr. Lupton professed his inability as a man of business. Lord Grasslough pleaded his father. The club from the first had been sure of Dolly Longestaffe's services;--for were not Dolly's pecuniary affairs now in process of satisfactory arrangement, and was it not known by all men that his courage never failed him in regard to money? But even he declined. "I have spoken to Squercum," he said to the Committee, "and Squercum won't hear of it. Squercum has made inquiries and he thinks the club very shaky." When one of the Committee made a remark as to Mr. Squercum which was not complimentary,--insinuated indeed that Squercum without injustice might be consigned to the infernal deities,--Dolly took the matter up warmly. "That's all very well for you, Grasslough; but if you knew the comfort of having a fellow who could keep you straight without preaching sermons at you you wouldn't despise Squercum. I've tried to go alone and I find that does not answer. Squercum's my coach, and I mean to stick pretty close to him." Then it came to pass that the triumphant project as to the trustees fell to the ground, although Squercum himself advised that the difficulty might be lessened if three gentlemen could be selected who lived well before the world and yet had nothing to lose. Whereupon Dolly suggested Miles Grendall. But the Committee shook its heads, not thinking it possible that the club could be re-established on a basis of three Miles Grendalls. Then dreadful rumours were heard. The Beargarden must surely be abandoned. "It is such a pity," said Nidderdale, "because there never has been anything like it." "Smoke all over the house!" said Dolly. "No horrid nonsense about closing," said Grasslough, "and no infernal old fogies wearing out the carpets and paying for nothing." "Not a vestige of propriety, or any beastly rules to be kept! That's what I liked," said Nidderdale. "It's an old story," said Mr. Lupton, "that if you put a man into Paradise he'll make it too hot to hold him. That's what you've done here." "What we ought to do," said Dolly, who was pervaded by a sense of his own good fortune in regard to Squercum, "is to get some fellow like Vossner, and make him tell us how much he wants to steal above his regular pay. Then we could subscribe that among us. I really think that might be done. Squercum would find a fellow, no doubt." But Mr. Lupton was of opinion that the new Vossner might perhaps not know, when thus consulted, the extent of his own cupidity. One day, before the Whitstable marriage, when it was understood that the club would actually be closed on the 12th August unless some new heaven-inspired idea might be forthcoming for its salvation, Nidderdale, Grasslough, and Dolly were hanging about the hall and the steps, and drinking sherry and bitters preparatory to dinner, when Sir Felix Carbury came round the neighbouring corner and, in a creeping, hesitating fashion, entered the hall door. He had nearly recovered from his wounds, though he still wore a bit of court plaster on his upper lip, and had not yet learned to look or to speak as though he had not had two of his front teeth knocked out. He had heard little or nothing of what had been done at the Beargarden since Vossner's defection. It was now a month since he had been seen at the club. His thrashing had been the wonder of perhaps half nine days, but latterly his existence had been almost forgotten. Now, with difficulty, he had summoned courage to go down to his old haunt, so completely had he been cowed by the latter circumstances of his life; but he had determined that he would pluck up his courage, and talk to his old associates as though no evil thing had befallen him. He had still money enough to pay for his dinner and to begin a small rubber of whist. If fortune should go against him he might glide into I. O. U.'s;--as others had done before, so much to his cost. "By George, here's Carbury!" said Dolly. Lord Grasslough whistled, turned his back, and walked up-stairs; but Nidderdale and Dolly consented to have their hands shaken by the stranger. "Thought you were out of town," said Nidderdale. "Haven't seen you for the last ever so long." "I have been out of town," said Felix,--lying; "down in Suffolk. But I'm back now. How are things going on here?" "They're not going at all;--they're gone," said Dolly. "Everything is smashed," said Nidderdale. "We shall all have to pay, I don't know how much." "Wasn't Vossner ever caught?" asked the baronet. "Caught!" ejaculated Dolly. "No;--but he has caught us. I don't know that there has ever been much idea of catching Vossner. We close altogether next Monday, and the furniture is to be gone to law for. Flatfleece says it belongs to him under what he calls a deed of sale. Indeed, everything that everybody has seems to belong to Flatfleece. He's always in and out of the club, and has got the key of the cellar." "That don't matter," said Nidderdale, "as Vossner took care that there shouldn't be any wine." "He's got most of the forks and spoons, and only lets us use what we have as a favour." "I suppose one can get a dinner here?" "Yes; to-day you can, and perhaps to-morrow." "Isn't there any playing?" asked Felix with dismay. "I haven't seen a card this fortnight," said Dolly. "There hasn't been anybody to play. Everything has gone to the dogs. There has been the affair of Melmotte, you know;--though, I suppose, you do know all about that." "Of course I know he poisoned himself." "Of course that had effect," said Dolly, continuing his history. "Though why fellows shouldn't play cards because another fellow like that takes poison, I can't understand. Last year the only day I managed to get down in February, the hounds didn't come because some old cove had died. What harm could our hunting have done him? I call that rot." "Melmotte's death was rather awful," said Nidderdale. "Not half so awful as having nothing to amuse one. And now they say the girl is going to be married to Fisker. I don't know how you and Nidderdale like that. I never went in for her myself. Squercum never seemed to see it." "Poor dear!" said Nidderdale. "She's welcome for me, and I dare say she couldn't do better with herself. I was very fond of her;--I'll be shot if I wasn't." "And Carbury too, I suppose," said Dolly. "No; I wasn't. If I'd really been fond of her I suppose it would have come off. I should have had her safe enough to America, if I'd cared about it." This was Sir Felix's view of the matter. "Come into the smoking-room, Dolly," said Nidderdale. "I can stand most things, and I try to stand everything; but, by George, that fellow is such a cad that I cannot stand him. You and I are bad enough,--but I don't think we're so heartless as Carbury." "I don't think I'm heartless at all," said Dolly. "I'm good-natured to everybody that is good-natured to me,--and to a great many people who ain't. I'm going all the way down to Caversham next week to see my sister married, though I hate the place and hate marriages, and if I was to be hung for it I couldn't say a word to the fellow who is going to be my brother-in-law. But I do agree about Carbury. It's very hard to be good-natured to him." But, in the teeth of these adverse opinions Sir Felix managed to get his dinner-table close to theirs and to tell them at dinner something of his future prospects. He was going to travel and see the world. He had, according to his own account, completely run through London life and found that it was all barren. "In life I've rung all changes through, Run every pleasure down, 'Midst each excess of folly too, And lived with half the town." Sir Felix did not exactly quote the old song, probably having never heard the words. But that was the burden of his present story. It was his determination to seek new scenes, and in search of them to travel over the greater part of the known world. "How jolly for you!" said Dolly. "It will be a change, you know." "No end of a change. Is any one going with you?" "Well;--yes. I've got a travelling companion;--a very pleasant fellow, who knows a lot, and will be able to coach me up in things. There's a deal to be learned by going abroad, you know." "A sort of a tutor," said Nidderdale. "A parson, I suppose," said Dolly. "Well;--he is a clergyman. Who told you?" "It's only my inventive genius. Well;--yes; I should say that would be nice,--travelling about Europe with a clergyman. I shouldn't get enough advantage out of it to make it pay, but I fancy it will just suit you." "It's an expensive sort of thing;--isn't it?" asked Nidderdale. "Well;--it does cost something. But I've got so sick of this kind of life;--and then that railway Board coming to an end, and the club smashing up, and--" "Marie Melmotte marrying Fisker," suggested Dolly. "That too, if you will. But I want a change, and a change I mean to have. I've seen this side of things, and now I'll have a look at the other." "Didn't you have a row in the street with some one the other day?" This question was asked very abruptly by Lord Grasslough, who, though he was sitting near them, had not yet joined in the conversation, and who had not before addressed a word to Sir Felix. "We heard something about it, but we never got the right story." Nidderdale glanced across the table at Dolly, and Dolly whistled. Grasslough looked at the man he addressed as one does look when one expects an answer. Mr. Lupton, with whom Grasslough was dining, also sat expectant. Dolly and Nidderdale were both silent. It was the fear of this that had kept Sir Felix away from the club. Grasslough, as he had told himself, was just the fellow to ask such a question,--ill-natured, insolent, and obtrusive. But the question demanded an answer of some kind. "Yes," said he; "a fellow attacked me in the street, coming behind me when I had a girl with me. He didn't get much the best of it though." "Oh;--didn't he?" said Grasslough. "I think, upon the whole, you know, you're right about going abroad." "What business is it of yours?" asked the baronet. "Well;--as the club is being broken up, I don't know that it is very much the business of any of us." "I was speaking to my friends, Lord Nidderdale and Mr. Longestaffe, and not to you." "I quite appreciate the advantage of the distinction," said Lord Grasslough, "and am sorry for Lord Nidderdale and Mr. Longestaffe." "What do you mean by that?" said Sir Felix, rising from his chair. His present opponent was not horrible to him as had been John Crumb, as men in clubs do not now often knock each others' heads or draw swords one upon another. "Don't let's have a quarrel here," said Mr. Lupton. "I shall leave the room if you do." "If we must break up, let us break up in peace and quietness," said Nidderdale. "Of course, if there is to be a fight, I'm good to go out with anybody," said Dolly. "When there's any beastly thing to be done, I've always got to do it. But don't you think that kind of thing is a little slow?" "Who began it?" said Sir Felix, sitting down again. Whereupon Lord Grasslough, who had finished his dinner, walked out of the room. "That fellow is always wanting to quarrel." "There's one comfort, you know," said Dolly. "It wants two men to make a quarrel." "Yes; it does," said Sir Felix, taking this as a friendly observation; "and I'm not going to be fool enough to be one of them." "Oh, yes, I meant it fast enough," said Grasslough afterwards up in the card-room. The other men who had been together had quickly followed him, leaving Sir Felix alone, and they had collected themselves there not with the hope of play, but thinking that they would be less interrupted than in the smoking-room. "I don't suppose we shall ever any of us be here again, and as he did come in I thought I would tell him my mind." "What's the use of taking such a lot of trouble?" said Dolly. "Of course he's a bad fellow. Most fellows are bad fellows in one way or another." "But he's bad all round," said the bitter enemy. "And so this is to be the end of the Beargarden," said Lord Nidderdale with a peculiar melancholy. "Dear old place! I always felt it was too good to last. I fancy it doesn't do to make things too easy;--one has to pay so uncommon dear for them! And then, you know, when you've got things easy, then they get rowdy;--and, by George, before you know where you are, you find yourself among a lot of blackguards. If one wants to keep one's self straight, one has to work hard at it, one way or the other. I suppose it all comes from the fall of Adam." "If Solomon, Solon, and the Archbishop of Canterbury were rolled into one, they couldn't have spoken with more wisdom," said Mr. Lupton. "Live and learn," continued the young lord. "I don't think anybody has liked the Beargarden so much as I have, but I shall never try this kind of thing again. I shall begin reading blue books to-morrow, and shall dine at the Carlton. Next session I shan't miss a day in the House, and I'll bet anybody a fiver that I make a speech before Easter. I shall take to claret at 20_s._ a dozen, and shall go about London on the top of an omnibus." "How about getting married?" asked Dolly. "Oh;--that must be as it comes. That's the governor's affair. None of you fellows will believe me, but, upon my word, I liked that girl; and I'd 've stuck to her at last,--only that there are some things a fellow can't do. He was such a thundering scoundrel!" After a while Sir Felix followed them up-stairs, and entered the room as though nothing unpleasant had happened below. "We can make up a rubber;--can't we?" said he. "I should say not," said Nidderdale. "I shall not play," said Mr. Lupton. "There isn't a pack of cards in the house," said Dolly. Lord Grasslough didn't condescend to say a word. Sir Felix sat down with his cigar in his mouth, and the others continued to smoke in silence. "I wonder what has become of Miles Grendall," asked Sir Felix. But no one made any answer, and they smoked on in silence. "He hasn't paid me a shilling yet of the money he owes me." Still there was not a word. "And I don't suppose he ever will." There was another pause. "He is the biggest scoundrel I ever met," said Sir Felix. "I know one as big," said Lord Grasslough,--"or, at any rate, as little." There was another pause of a minute, and then Sir Felix left the room muttering something as to the stupidity of having no cards;--and so brought to an end his connection with his associates of the Beargarden. From that time forth he was never more seen by them,--or, if seen, was never known. The other men remained there till well on into the night, although there was not the excitement of any special amusement to attract them. It was felt by them all that this was the end of the Beargarden, and, with a melancholy seriousness befitting the occasion, they whispered sad things in low voices, consoling themselves simply with tobacco. "I never felt so much like crying in my life," said Dolly, as he asked for a glass of brandy-and-water at about midnight. "Good-night, old fellows; good-bye. I'm going down to Caversham, and I shouldn't wonder if I didn't drown myself." How Mr. Flatfleece went to law, and tried to sell the furniture, and threatened everybody, and at last singled out poor Dolly Longestaffe as his special victim; and how Dolly Longestaffe, by the aid of Mr. Squercum, utterly confounded Mr. Flatfleece, and brought that ingenious but unfortunate man, with his wife and small family, to absolute ruin, the reader will hardly expect to have told to him in detail in this chronicle.

We must now go back about three weeks in our story, so that the reader may be told how affairs were progressing at the Beargarden. That establishment had received a terrible blow in the defection of Herr Vossner. It was not only that he had robbed the club, and robbed every member of the club who had had personal dealings with him. The sorrow was also in this - that with Herr Vossner all their comforts had gone. Of course Herr Vossner had been a thief. No one had supposed him to be an honest man. But as a thief he had been so comfortable that his absence was regretted with a tenderness almost amounting to love. Dolly Longestaffe had been robbed more outrageously than any other member of the club, and yet Dolly said that London was not worth living in now that Herr Vossner was gone. The Beargarden had received a blow from which it seemed that there was no recovery. At first it was proposed that trustees should be appointed to pay Vossner's debts and borrow more money. But the members of the Beargarden hesitated at these honours and responsibilities. Lord Nidderdale declared that he would have nothing to do with it. Mr. Lupton professed his inability as a man of business. Lord Grasslough pleaded his father. Even Dolly Longestaffe declined. "I have spoken to Squercum," he said to the Committee, "and Squercum won't hear of it. What we ought to do is to get some fellow like Vossner, and make him tell us how much he wants to steal above his regular pay. Then we could subscribe that among us." But Mr. Lupton was of the opinion that the new Vossner might perhaps not know, when thus consulted, the extent of his own cupidity. The club would therefore be closed on the 12th August unless some new heaven-inspired idea might be forthcoming for its salvation. One day, Nidderdale, Grasslough, and Dolly were hanging about the steps, drinking sherry and bitters before dinner, when Sir Felix Carbury came creeping round the corner and, in a hesitating manner, entered the door. He had nearly recovered from his wounds, though he had not yet learned to look or speak as though he had not had two of his front teeth knocked out. He had heard little of the Beargarden lately; it was a month since he had been seen at the club. His thrashing had been the wonder of a few days, and then he had been almost forgotten. Now, with difficulty, he had summoned courage to go down to his old haunt and talk to his associates as though nothing had happened to him. "By George, here's Carbury!" said Dolly. Lord Grasslough whistled, turned his back, and walked upstairs; but Nidderdale and Dolly shook hands with him. "Thought you were out of town," said Nidderdale. "Haven't seen you for ever so long." "I have been down in Suffolk," lied Felix. "How are things going on here?" "They're not going at all; they're gone," said Dolly. "Everything is smashed," said Nidderdale. "We shall all have to pay, I don't know how much." "Wasn't Vossner ever caught?" asked the baronet. "Caught!" said Dolly. "No. We close altogether next Monday. Flatfleece says the furniture belongs to him under what he calls a deed of sale. Indeed, everything seems to belong to Flatfleece. He's always in and out of the club, and has got the key of the cellar." "That don't matter," said Nidderdale, "as Vossner took care that there shouldn't be any wine." "I suppose one can get dinner here?" "Yes; today you can, and perhaps tomorrow." "Isn't there any playing?" asked Felix with dismay. "I haven't seen a card this fortnight," said Dolly. "There hasn't been anybody to play. Everything has gone to the dogs. There has been the affair of Melmotte, you know; though why fellows shouldn't play cards because another fellow takes poison, I can't understand." "Melmotte's death was rather awful," said Nidderdale. "Not half so awful as having nothing to amuse one. And now they say the girl is going to be married to Fisker." "Poor dear!" said Nidderdale. "I was very fond of her." "And Carbury too, I suppose," said Dolly. "No; I wasn't. If I'd really been fond of her I should have had her safe to America," said Sir Felix. "Come into the smoking-room, Dolly," said Nidderdale. "I can stand most things, but, by George, that fellow is such a cad that I cannot stand him. You and I are bad enough, but I don't think we're so heartless as Carbury." "I don't think I'm heartless at all," said Dolly. "I'm good-natured to everybody that is good-natured to me. But I do agree about Carbury. It's very hard to be good-natured to him." Even so, Sir Felix managed to get his dinner-table close to theirs and to tell them something of his future prospects. He was going to travel and see the world. He had, according to his own account, completely run through London life and found it barren. He would seek new scenes. "How jolly for you!" said Dolly. "Is anyone going with you?" "Well; yes. I've got a travelling companion; a very pleasant fellow, who knows a lot, and will be able to coach me up in things. There's a deal to be learned by going abroad, you know." "A parson, I suppose," said Dolly. "Well; he is a clergyman. Who told you?" "I guessed. That should be nice - travelling about Europe with a clergyman. I shouldn't care for it, but I fancy it will just suit you." "It's an expensive sort of thing, isn't it?" asked Nidderdale. "Well - it does cost something. But I want a change." "Didn't you have a row in the street with someone the other day?" This question was asked very abruptly by Lord Grasslough, who was sitting near them. Nidderdale glanced across the table at Dolly, who whistled, and then was silent. Grasslough looked as if he expected an answer. It was the fear of this that had kept Sir Felix away from the club. "Yes," said he; "a fellow attacked me in the street, coming up behind me when I had a girl with me. He didn't get the best of it though." "Oh; didn't he?" said Grasslough. "I think, upon the whole, you're right to go abroad." "What business is it of yours?" asked the baronet. "I was speaking to my friends, and not to you." "I quite appreciate the distinction," said Lord Grasslough, "and am sorry for Lord Nidderdale and Mr. Longestaffe." "What do you mean by that?" said Sir Felix, rising from his chair. His present opponent was not as horrible to him as John Crumb had been, as men in clubs do not often knock each others' heads. "Don't let's have a quarrel here," said Mr. Lupton. "If we must break up, let us break up in peace and quietness," said Nidderdale. "Who began it?" said Sir Felix, sitting down again. Whereupon Lord Grasslough walked out of the room. "That fellow is always wanting to quarrel." "It takes two men to make a quarrel," said Dolly. "Yes; it does," said Sir Felix, taking this as a friendly observation; "and I'm not fool enough to be one of them." "Oh, yes, I meant it," said Grasslough afterwards up in the card-room. The other men had quickly followed him, leaving Sir Felix alone. "I don't suppose any of us shall ever be here again, so I thought I would tell him my mind." "What's the use?" said Dolly. "Of course he's a bad fellow. Most fellows are bad in one way or another." "But he's bad all round." "And so this is to be the end of the Beargarden," said Lord Nidderdale with a peculiar melancholy. "Dear old place! I always felt it was too good to last. I don't think anybody has liked the Beargarden so much as I have, but I shall never try this kind of thing again. Tomorrow I shall dine at the Carlton. Next session I shan't miss a day in the House, and I'll bet anybody a fiver that I make a speech before Easter. I shall take to claret at 20 shillings a dozen, and go about London on the top of an omnibus." "How about getting married?" asked Dolly. "Oh; that's the governor's affair. None of you fellows will believe me, but, upon my word, I liked that girl; and I'd have stuck to her - only there are some things a fellow can't do." After a while Sir Felix followed them upstairs, as though nothing unpleasant had happened below. "We can make up a rubber, can't we?" said he. "I should say not," said Nidderdale. "I shall not play," said Mr. Lupton. "There isn't a pack of cards in the house," said Dolly. Lord Grasslough didn't say a word. Sir Felix sat down with his cigar in his mouth, and the others continued to smoke in silence. "I wonder what has become of Miles Grendall?" asked Sir Felix. "He hasn't paid me a shilling of the money he owes me." No one spoke. "And I don't suppose he ever will. He is the biggest scoundrel I ever met," said Sir Felix. "I know one as big," said Lord Grasslough, "or, at any rate, as little." There was another pause, and then Sir Felix left the room muttering something as to the stupidity of having no cards. From that time forth he was never more seen by his associates at the Beargarden. The other men remained there till well into the night. It was felt by them all that this was the end of the Beargarden, and they whispered sad things in low voices. "I never felt so much like crying in my life," said Dolly. "Good-night, old fellows; good-bye. I'm going down to Caversham, and I shouldn't wonder if I didn't drown myself." How Mr. Flatfleece went to law, and threatened everybody, and singled out poor Dolly Longestaffe as his special victim; and how Dolly Longestaffe, by the aid of Mr. Squercum, utterly confounded Mr. Flatfleece, and brought that ingenious but unfortunate man to ruin, the reader will hardly expect to have told to him in detail.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 96: Where "The Wild Asses Quench Their Thirst"

When Mr. Melmotte made his promise to Mr. Longestaffe and to Dolly, in the presence of Mr. Bideawhile, that he would, on the next day but one, pay to them a sum of fifty thousand pounds, thereby completing, satisfactorily as far as they were concerned, the purchase of the Pickering property, he intended to be as good as his word. The reader knows that he had resolved to face the Longestaffe difficulty,--that he had resolved that at any rate he would not get out of it by sacrificing the property to which he had looked forward as a safe haven when storms should come. But, day by day, every resolution that he made was forced to undergo some change. Latterly he had been intent on purchasing a noble son-in-law with this money,--still trusting to the chapter of chances for his future escape from the Longestaffe and other difficulties. But Squercum had been very hard upon him; and in connexion with this accusation as to the Pickering property, there was another, which he would be forced to face also, respecting certain property in the East of London, with which the reader need not much trouble himself specially, but in reference to which it was stated that he had induced a foolish old gentleman to consent to accept railway shares in lieu of money. The old gentleman had died during the transaction, and it was asserted that the old gentleman's letter was hardly genuine. Melmotte had certainly raised between twenty and thirty thousand pounds on the property, and had made payments for it in stock which was now worth--almost nothing at all. Melmotte thought that he might face this matter successfully if the matter came upon him single-handed;--but in regard to the Longestaffes he considered that now, at this last moment, he had better pay for Pickering. The property from which he intended to raise the necessary funds was really his own. There could be no doubt about that. It had never been his intention to make it over to his daughter. When he had placed it in her name, he had done so simply for security,--feeling that his control over his only daughter would be perfect and free from danger. No girl apparently less likely to take it into her head to defraud her father could have crept quietly about a father's house. Nor did he now think that she would disobey him when the matter was explained to her. Heavens and earth! That he should be robbed by his own child,--robbed openly, shamefully, with brazen audacity! It was impossible. But still he had felt the necessity of going about this business with some little care. It might be that she would disobey him if he simply sent for her and bade her to affix her signature here and there. He thought much about it and considered that it would be wise that his wife should be present on the occasion, and that a full explanation should be given to Marie, by which she might be made to understand that the money had in no sense become her own. So he gave instructions to his wife when he started into the city that morning; and when he returned, for the sake of making his offer to the Longestaffes, he brought with him the deeds which it would be necessary that Marie should sign, and he brought also Mr. Croll, his clerk, that Mr. Croll might witness the signature. When he left the Longestaffes and Mr. Bideawhile he went at once to his wife's room. "Is she here?" he asked. "I will send for her. I have told her." "You haven't frightened her?" "Why should I frighten her? It is not very easy to frighten her, Melmotte. She is changed since these young men have been so much about her." "I shall frighten her if she does not do as I bid her. Bid her come now." This was said in French. Then Madame Melmotte left the room, and Melmotte arranged a lot of papers in order upon a table. Having done so, he called to Croll, who was standing on the landing-place, and told him to seat himself in the back drawing-room till he should be called. Melmotte then stood with his back to the fire-place in his wife's sitting-room, with his hands in his pockets, contemplating what might be the incidents of the coming interview. He would be very gracious,--affectionate if it were possible,--and, above all things, explanatory. But, by heavens, if there were continued opposition to his demand,--to his just demand,--if this girl should dare to insist upon exercising her power to rob him, he would not then be affectionate,--nor gracious! There was some little delay in the coming of the two women, and he was already beginning to lose his temper when Marie followed Madame Melmotte into the room. He at once swallowed his rising anger--with an effort. He would put a constraint upon himself. The affection and the graciousness should be all there,--as long as they might secure the purpose in hand. "Marie," he began, "I spoke to you the other day about some property which for certain purposes was placed in your name just as we were leaving Paris." "Yes, papa." "You were such a child then,--I mean when we left Paris,--that I could hardly explain to you the purpose of what I did." "I understood it, papa." "You had better listen to me, my dear. I don't think you did quite understand it. It would have been very odd if you had, as I never explained it to you." "You wanted to keep it from going away if you got into trouble." This was so true that Melmotte did not know how at the moment to contradict the assertion. And yet he had not intended to talk of the possibility of trouble. "I wanted to lay aside a large sum of money which should not be liable to the ordinary fluctuations of commercial enterprise." "So that nobody could get at it." "You are a little too quick, my dear." "Marie, why can't you let your papa speak?" said Madame Melmotte. "But of course, my dear," continued Melmotte, "I had no idea of putting the money beyond my own reach. Such a transaction is very common; and in such cases a man naturally uses the name of some one who is very near and dear to him, and in whom he is sure that he can put full confidence. And it is customary to choose a young person, as there will then be less danger of the accident of death. It was for these reasons, which I am sure that you will understand, that I chose you. Of course the property remained exclusively my own." "But it is really mine," said Marie. "No, miss; it was never yours," said Melmotte, almost bursting out into anger, but restraining himself. "How could it become yours, Marie? Did I ever make you a gift of it?" "But I know that it did become mine,--legally." "By a quibble of law,--yes; but not so as to give you any right to it. I always draw the income." "But I could stop that, papa,--and if I were married, of course it would be stopped." Then, quick as a flash of lightning, another idea occurred to Melmotte, who feared that he already began to see that this child of his might be stiff-necked. "As we are thinking of your marriage," he said, "it is necessary that a change should be made. Settlements must be drawn for the satisfaction of Lord Nidderdale and his father. The old Marquis is rather hard upon me, but the marriage is so splendid that I have consented. You must now sign these papers in four or five places. Mr. Croll is here, in the next room, to witness your signature, and I will call him." "Wait a moment, papa." "Why should we wait?" "I don't think I will sign them." "Why not sign them? You can't really suppose that the property is your own. You could not even get it if you did think so." "I don't know how that may be; but I had rather not sign them. If I am to be married, I ought not to sign anything except what he tells me." "He has no authority over you yet. I have authority over you. Marie, do not give more trouble. I am very much pressed for time. Let me call in Mr. Croll." "No, papa," she said. Then came across his brow that look which had probably first induced Marie to declare that she would endure to be "cut to pieces," rather than to yield in this or that direction. The lower jaw squared itself, and the teeth became set, and the nostrils of his nose became extended,--and Marie began to prepare herself to be "cut to pieces." But he reminded himself that there was another game which he had proposed to play before he resorted to anger and violence. He would tell her how much depended on her compliance. Therefore he relaxed the frown,--as well as he knew how, and softened his face towards her, and turned again to his work. "I am sure, Marie, that you will not refuse to do this when I explain to you its importance to me. I must have that property for use in the city to-morrow, or--I shall be ruined." The statement was very short, but the manner in which he made it was not without effect. "Oh!" shrieked his wife. "It is true. These harpies have so beset me about the election that they have lowered the price of every stock in which I am concerned, and have brought the Mexican Railway so low that they cannot be sold at all. I don't like bringing my troubles home from the city; but on this occasion I cannot help it. The sum locked up here is very large, and I am compelled to use it. In point of fact it is necessary to save us from destruction." This he said, very slowly, and with the utmost solemnity. "But you told me just now you wanted it because I was going to be married," rejoined Marie. A liar has many points in his favour,--but he has this against him, that unless he devote more time to the management of his lies than life will generally allow, he cannot make them tally. Melmotte was thrown back for a moment, and almost felt that the time for violence had come. He longed to be at her that he might shake the wickedness and the folly, and the ingratitude out of her. But he once more condescended to argue and to explain. "I think you misunderstood me, Marie. I meant you to understand that settlements must be made, and that of course I must get my own property back into my own hands before anything of that kind can be done. I tell you once more, my dear, that if you do not do as I bid you, so that I may use that property the first thing to-morrow, we are all ruined. Everything will be gone." "This can't be gone," said Marie, nodding her head at the papers. "Marie,--do you wish to see me disgraced and ruined? I have done a great deal for you." "You turned away the only person I ever cared for," said Marie. "Marie, how can you be so wicked? Do as your papa bids you," said Madame Melmotte. "No!" said Melmotte. "She does not care who is ruined, because we saved her from that reprobate." "She will sign them now," said Madame Melmotte. "No;--I will not sign them," said Marie. "If I am to be married to Lord Nidderdale as you all say, I am sure I ought to sign nothing without telling him. And if the property was once made to be mine, I don't think I ought to give it up again because papa says that he is going to be ruined. I think that's a reason for not giving it up again." "It isn't yours to give. It's mine," said Melmotte gnashing his teeth. "Then you can do what you like with it without my signing," said Marie. He paused a moment, and then laying his hand gently upon her shoulder, he asked her yet once again. His voice was changed, and was very hoarse. But he still tried to be gentle with her. "Marie," he said, "will you do this to save your father from destruction?" But she did not believe a word that he said to her. How could she believe him? He had taught her to regard him as her natural enemy, making her aware that it was his purpose to use her as a chattel for his own advantage, and never allowing her for a moment to suppose that aught that he did was to be done for her happiness. And now, almost in a breath, he had told her that this money was wanted that it might be settled on her and the man to whom she was to be married, and then that it might be used to save him from instant ruin. She believed neither one story nor the other. That she should have done as she was desired in this matter can hardly be disputed. The father had used her name because he thought that he could trust her. She was his daughter and should not have betrayed his trust. But she had steeled herself to obstinacy against him in all things. Even yet, after all that had passed, although she had consented to marry Lord Nidderdale, though she had been forced by what she had learned to despise Sir Felix Carbury, there was present to her an idea that she might escape with the man she really loved. But any such hope could depend only on the possession of the money which she now claimed as her own. Melmotte had endeavoured to throw a certain supplicatory pathos into the question he had asked her; but, though he was in some degree successful with his voice, his eyes and his mouth and his forehead still threatened her. He was always threatening her. All her thoughts respecting him reverted to that inward assertion that he might "cut her to pieces" if he liked. He repeated his question in the pathetic strain. "Will you do this now,--to save us all from ruin?" But his eyes still threatened her. "No;" she said, looking up into his face as though watching for the personal attack which would be made upon her; "no, I won't." "Marie!" exclaimed Madame Melmotte. She glanced round for a moment at her pseudo-mother with contempt. "No;" she said. "I don't think I ought,--and I won't." "You won't!" shouted Melmotte. She merely shook her head. "Do you mean that you, my own child, will attempt to rob your father just at the moment you can destroy him by your wickedness?" She shook her head but said no other word. "Nec pueros coram populo Medea trucidet." "Let not Medea with unnatural rage Slaughter her mangled infants on the stage." Nor will I attempt to harrow my readers by a close description of the scene which followed. Poor Marie! That cutting her up into pieces was commenced after a most savage fashion. Marie crouching down hardly uttered a sound. But Madame Melmotte frightened beyond endurance screamed at the top of her voice,--"Ah, Melmotte, tu la tueras!" And then she tried to drag him from his prey. "Will you sign them now?" said Melmotte, panting. At that moment Croll, frightened by the screams, burst into the room. It was perhaps not the first time that he had interfered to save Melmotte from the effects of his own wrath. "Oh, Mr. Melmotte, vat is de matter?" asked the clerk. Melmotte was out of breath and could hardly tell his story. Marie gradually recovered herself, and crouched, cowering, in a corner of a sofa, by no means vanquished in spirit, but with a feeling that the very life had been crushed out of her body. Madame Melmotte was standing weeping copiously, with her handkerchief up to her eyes. "Will you sign the papers?" Melmotte demanded. Marie, lying as she was, all in a heap, merely shook her head. "Pig!" said Melmotte,--"wicked, ungrateful pig." "Ah, Ma'am-moiselle," said Croll, "you should oblige your fader." [Illustration: "Ah, Ma'am-moiselle," said Croll, "you should oblige your fader."] "Wretched, wicked girl!" said Melmotte, collecting the papers together. Then he left the room, and followed by Croll descended to the study, whence the Longestaffes and Mr. Bideawhile had long since taken their departure. Madame Melmotte came and stood over the girl, but for some minutes spoke never a word. Marie lay on the sofa, all in a heap, with her hair dishevelled and her dress disordered, breathing hard, but uttering no sobs and shedding no tears. The stepmother,--if she might so be called,--did not think of attempting to persuade where her husband had failed. She feared Melmotte so thoroughly, and was so timid in regard to her own person, that she could not understand the girl's courage. Melmotte was to her an awful being, powerful as Satan,--whom she never openly disobeyed, though she daily deceived him, and was constantly detected in her deceptions. Marie seemed to her to have all her father's stubborn, wicked courage, and very much of his power. At the present moment she did not dare to tell the girl that she had been wrong. But she had believed her husband when he had said that destruction was coming, and had partly believed him when he declared that the destruction might be averted by Marie's obedience. Her life had been passed in almost daily fear of destruction. To Marie the last two years of splendour had been so long that they had produced a feeling of security. But to the elder woman the two years had not sufficed to eradicate the remembrance of former reverses, and never for a moment had she felt herself to be secure. At last she asked the girl what she would like to have done for her. "I wish he had killed me," Marie said, slowly dragging herself up from the sofa, and retreating without another word to her own room. In the meantime another scene was being acted in the room below. Melmotte after he reached the room hardly made a reference to his daughter,--merely saying that nothing would overcome her wicked obstinacy. He made no allusion to his own violence, nor had Croll the courage to expostulate with him now that the immediate danger was over. The Great Financier again arranged the papers, just as they had been laid out before,--as though he thought that the girl might be brought down to sign them there. And then he went on to explain to Croll what he had wanted to have done,--how necessary it was that the thing should be done, and how terribly cruel it was to him that in such a crisis of his life he should be hampered, impeded,--he did not venture to his clerk to say ruined,--by the ill-conditioned obstinacy of a girl! He explained very fully how absolutely the property was his own, how totally the girl was without any right to withhold it from him! How monstrous in its injustice was the present position of things! In all this Croll fully agreed. Then Melmotte went on to declare that he would not feel the slightest scruple in writing Marie's signature to the papers himself. He was the girl's father and was justified in acting for her. The property was his own property, and he was justified in doing with it as he pleased. Of course he would have no scruple in writing his daughter's name. Then he looked up at the clerk. The clerk again assented,--after a fashion, not by any means with the comfortable certainty with which he had signified his accordance with his employer's first propositions. But he did not, at any rate, hint any disapprobation of the step which Melmotte proposed to take. Then Melmotte went a step farther, and explained that the only difficulty in reference to such a transaction would be that the signature of his daughter would be required to be corroborated by that of a witness before he could use it. Then he again looked up at Croll;--but on this occasion Croll did not move a muscle of his face. There certainly was no assent. Melmotte continued to look at him; but then came upon the old clerk's countenance a stern look which amounted to very strong dissent. And yet Croll had been conversant with some irregular doings in his time, and Melmotte knew well the extent of Croll's experience. Then Melmotte made a little remark to himself. "He knows that the game is pretty well over." "You had better return to the city now," he said aloud. "I shall follow you in half an hour. It is quite possible that I may bring my daughter with me. If I can make her understand this thing I shall do so. In that case I shall want you to be ready." Croll again smiled, and again assented, and went his way. But Melmotte made no further attempt upon his daughter. As soon as Croll was gone he searched among various papers in his desk and drawers, and having found two signatures, those of his daughter and of this German clerk, set to work tracing them with some thin tissue paper. He commenced his present operation by bolting his door and pulling down the blinds. He practised the two signatures for the best part of an hour. Then he forged them on the various documents;--and, having completed the operation, refolded them, placed them in a little locked bag of which he had always kept the key in his purse, and then, with the bag in his hand, was taken in his brougham into the city.

When Mr. Melmotte made his promise to Mr. Longestaffe and Dolly to pay them fifty thousand pounds for the purchase of Pickering, he intended to be as good as his word. The reader knows that he had resolved not to sacrifice the property to which he had looked forward as a safe haven when storms should come. But, day by day, every resolution that he made was forced to undergo some change. In addition to this accusation about the Pickering property, there was another, about certain property in the East of London. It was said that he had induced a foolish old gentleman to accept railway shares in lieu of money. The old gentleman had died, and it was asserted that his letter was not genuine. Melmotte had certainly raised between twenty and thirty thousand pounds on the property, and had paid for it in stock which was now worth almost nothing at all. Melmotte thought that he might face this matter successfully if it came upon him single-handed; but now, at this last moment, he had better pay for Pickering. When he had placed property in his daughter's name, he had done so simply for security. His control over his only daughter was, he thought, free from danger. No girl less likely to defraud her father could have crept quietly about the house. Nor did he now think that she would disobey him when the matter was explained to her. Heavens and earth! That he should be robbed by his own child! It was impossible. But still he felt he needed to go about this business carefully. He decided that his wife should be present, and that a full explanation should be given to Marie, so that she might understand that the money had in no sense become her own. When he returned to Bruton Street, he brought with him the deeds which Marie would need to sign, and he brought also Mr. Croll, his clerk, to witness the signature. He went at once to his wife's room. "Is she here?" he asked. "I will send for her. I have told her." "You haven't frightened her?" "It is not very easy to frighten her, Melmotte. She is changed." "I shall frighten her if she does not do as I say. Bid her come now." Madame Melmotte left the room, and Melmotte arranged papers upon a table. Having done so, he told Croll to wait in the back drawing-room till he should be called. Melmotte then stood with his back to the fire-place in his wife's sitting-room, contemplating the coming interview. He would be very gracious - affectionate, if possible - and above all, explanatory. But, by heavens, if this girl should dare to oppose him, he would not be affectionate, nor gracious! He was already beginning to lose his temper when Marie followed Madame Melmotte into the room. He swallowed his rising anger with an effort. "Marie," he began, "I spoke to you the other day about some property which was placed in your name when we were leaving Paris." "Yes, papa." "You were such a child then that I could hardly explain to you the purpose of what I did." "I understood it, papa." "You had better listen to me, my dear. I don't think you did quite understand it." "You wanted to keep it from going away if you got into trouble." This was so true that Melmotte did not know how to contradict it. And he had not intended to talk of the possibility of trouble. "I wanted to lay aside a large sum of money which should not be liable to the ordinary fluctuations of commercial enterprise." "So that nobody could get at it." "You are a little too quick, my dear. Of course, I had no idea of putting the money beyond my own reach. Such a transaction is very common; and in such cases a man naturally uses the name of someone who is very near and dear to him, and in whom he can put full confidence. This is why I chose you. Of course the property remained exclusively my own." "But it is really mine," said Marie. "No, miss; it was never yours," said Melmotte, almost bursting out into anger, but restraining himself. "How could it become yours, Marie? Did I ever make you a gift of it?" "But it did become mine, legally." "By a quibble of law, yes; but not so as to give you any right to it. I always draw the income." "But I could stop that, papa; and if I were married, of course it would be stopped." Then, quick as a flash of lightning, another idea occurred to Melmotte. "As we are thinking of your marriage," he said, "it is necessary that a change should be made. Settlements must be drawn up for the satisfaction of Lord Nidderdale and his father. The old Marquis is rather hard upon me, but the marriage is so splendid that I have consented. You must now sign these papers in four or five places. Mr. Croll is in the next room, ready to witness your signature." "Wait a moment, papa." "Why?" "I don't think I will sign them. If I am to be married, I ought not to sign anything except what he tells me." "He has no authority over you yet. I have authority over you. Marie, do not give more trouble. I am very much pressed for time. Let me call in Mr. Croll." "No, papa," she said. A frown came across his brow. The lower jaw squared itself, and the teeth became set, and the nostrils extended - and Marie began to prepare herself to be "cut to pieces." But Melmotte relaxed the frown as well as he knew how, and tried again. "I am sure, Marie, that you will not refuse to do this when I explain its importance. I must have that property for use in the city tomorrow, or I shall be ruined." "Oh!" shrieked his wife. "It is true. These harpies have so beset me about the election that they have lowered the price of every stock in which I am concerned. I don't like bringing my troubles home from the city; but on this occasion I cannot help it. The sum locked up here is very large, and I am compelled to use it to save us from destruction." This he said very slowly and solemnly. "But you told me just now you wanted it because I was going to be married," rejoined Marie. Melmotte was thrown back for a moment, and almost felt that the time for violence had come. He longed to shake the wickedness and ingratitude out of her. But he once more condescended to argue and explain. "I think you misunderstood me, Marie. Settlements must be made, and of course I must get my own property back into my own hands before that can be done. I tell you once more, my dear, that if you do not do as I bid you, so that I may use that property the first thing tomorrow, we are all ruined. Everything will be gone." "This can't be gone," said Marie, nodding her head at the papers. "Marie - do you wish to see me disgraced and ruined? I have done a great deal for you." "You turned away the only person I ever cared for," said Marie. "Marie, how can you be so wicked? Do as your papa bids you," said Madame Melmotte. "No," said Marie. "If I am to be married to Lord Nidderdale, I ought to sign nothing without telling him. And if the property was once made to be mine, I don't think I ought to give it up again because papa says that he is going to be ruined. I think that's a reason for not giving it up again." "It isn't yours to give. It's mine," said Melmotte, grinding his teeth. "Then you can do what you like with it without my signing," said Marie. He paused a moment, and then laying his hand gently upon her shoulder, he asked her once again. His voice was changed, and was very hoarse. But he still tried to be gentle. "Marie," he said, "will you do this to save your father from destruction?" But she did not believe a word he said. How could she? He had taught her to regard him as her natural enemy, making her aware that he used her as a chattel for his own advantage, and never allowing her to suppose that he had her happiness in mind. And now he had told her that this money was wanted so that it might be settled on her and her future husband, and at the same time that it might be used to save him from instant ruin. She believed neither story; and she had steeled herself against him in all things. Melmotte had tried to throw pathos into his voice, but his eyes and his face still threatened her. He was always threatening her. He now repeated his question in the pathetic strain. "Will you do this now, to save us all from ruin?" "No," she said. "I won't." "You won't!" shouted Melmotte. "Do you mean that you will attempt to rob your father and destroy him by your wickedness?" She shook her head but said no other word. I will not harrow my readers by a description of the scene which followed. Poor Marie! That cutting her up into pieces was commenced after a most savage fashion. Marie, crouching down, hardly uttered a sound. But Madame Melmotte screamed, "Ah, Melmotte, you will kill her!" And she tried to drag him from his prey. "Will you sign them now?" said Melmotte, panting. At that moment Croll, frightened by the screams, burst into the room. It was perhaps not the first time that he had interfered to save Melmotte from the effects of his own wrath. "Oh, Mr. Melmotte, vat is de matter?" asked the clerk. Melmotte was out of breath and could hardly speak. Marie crouched, cowering, in a corner of a sofa, by no means vanquished in spirit, but feeling that the very life had been crushed out of her body. Madame Melmotte was weeping copiously. "Will you sign the papers?" Melmotte demanded. Marie, lying all in a heap, merely shook her head. "Pig!" said Melmotte, "wicked, ungrateful pig." "Ah, Ma'am-moiselle," said Croll, "you should oblige your fader." "Wretched, wicked girl!" said Melmotte, collecting the papers together. Then he left the room, and with Croll descended to the study. Madame Melmotte came and stood over the girl. Marie lay with her hair dishevelled and her dress disordered, breathing hard, but uttering no sobs and shedding no tears. The stepmother was so timid that she could not understand the girl's courage. Melmotte was to her an awful being, powerful as Satan; she never openly disobeyed him, though she daily deceived him, and was constantly detected in her deceptions. Marie seemed to her to have all her father's stubborn, wicked courage, and much of his power. Madame Melmotte had believed her husband when he had said that destruction was coming. Her life had been passed in almost daily fear of destruction. She remembered former reverses, and never for a moment in the last two years of splendour had she felt herself to be secure. At last she asked the girl what she would like to have done for her. "I wish he had killed me," Marie said, slowly dragging herself up from the sofa, and retreating to her own room. In the meantime, in the room below, Melmotte hardly made a reference to his daughter, merely saying that nothing would overcome her wicked obstinacy. Croll did not have the courage to expostulate with him. Melmotte again laid out the papers, as though he thought that the girl might be brought down to sign them. He explained to Croll how necessary it was that the thing should be done, and how terribly cruel it was that he should be hampered - he did not say ruined to his clerk - by the obstinacy of a girl! He explained how totally the girl was without any right to withhold his own property from him. Then Melmotte declared that he would not feel the slightest scruple in writing Marie's signature himself. He was the girl's father and was justified in acting for her. The property was his own property, and he was justified in doing with it as he pleased. He looked up at the clerk. Croll assented - after a fashion, by no means with comfortable certainty. But he did not hint any disapproval of the step which Melmotte proposed to take. Then Melmotte went a step farther, and explained that the only difficulty would be that his daughter's signature would need to be corroborated by a witness. Then he again looked up at Croll. The old clerk's face took on a stern look which amounted to very strong dissent. And yet Croll had been conversant with some irregular doings in his time. Melmotte thought, "He knows that the game is pretty well over." "You had better return to the city now," he said aloud. "I shall follow you in half an hour. I may bring my daughter with me. In that case I shall want you to be ready." Croll again smiled, and again assented, and went his way. But Melmotte made no further attempt upon his daughter. As soon as Croll was gone he searched among various papers in his desk. Having found two signatures, those of his daughter and of his German clerk, he bolted the door and then set to work tracing them with tissue paper. He practised the two signatures for the best part of an hour. Then he forged them on the various documents; and, having done so, refolded them, placed them in a little locked bag, and then, with the bag in his hand, was taken in his carriage into the city.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 77: Another Scene in Bruton Street

It was on a Friday evening, an inauspicious Friday, that poor Ruby Ruggles had insisted on leaving the security of her Aunt Pipkin's house with her aristocratic and vicious lover, in spite of the positive assurance made to her by Mrs. Pipkin that if she went forth in such company she should not be allowed to return. "Of course you must let her in," Mrs. Hurtle had said soon after the girl's departure. Whereupon Mrs. Pipkin had cried. She knew her own softness too well to suppose it to be possible that she could keep the girl out in the streets all night; but yet it was hard upon her, very hard, that she should be so troubled. "We usen't to have our ways like that when I was young," she said, sobbing. What was to be the end of it? Was she to be forced by circumstances to keep the girl always there, let the girl's conduct be what it might? Nevertheless she acknowledged that Ruby must be let in when she came back. Then, about nine o'clock, John Crumb came; and the latter part of the evening was more melancholy even than the first. It was impossible to conceal the truth from John Crumb. Mrs. Hurtle saw the poor man and told the story in Mrs. Pipkin's presence. "She's headstrong, Mr. Crumb," said Mrs. Hurtle. "She is that, ma'am. And it was along wi' the baro-nite she went?" "It was so, Mr. Crumb." "Baro-nite! Well;--perhaps I shall catch him some of these days;--went to dinner wi' him, did she? Didn't she have no dinner here?" Then Mrs. Pipkin spoke up with a keen sense of offence. Ruby Ruggles had had as wholesome a dinner as any young woman in London,--a bullock's heart and potatoes,--just as much as ever she had pleased to eat of it. Mrs. Pipkin could tell Mr. Crumb that there was "no starvation nor yet no stint in her house." John Crumb immediately produced a very thick and admirably useful blue cloth cloak, which he had brought up with him to London from Bungay, as a present to the woman who had been good to his Ruby. He assured her that he did not doubt that her victuals were good and plentiful, and went on to say that he had made bold to bring her a trifle out of respect. It was some little time before Mrs. Pipkin would allow herself to be appeased;--but at last she permitted the garment to be placed on her shoulders. But it was done after a melancholy fashion. There was no smiling consciousness of the bestowal of joy on the countenance of the donor as he gave it, no exuberance of thanks from the recipient as she received it. Mrs. Hurtle, standing by, declared it to be perfect;--but the occasion was one which admitted of no delight. "It's very good of you, Mr. Crumb, to think of an old woman like me,--particularly when you've such a deal of trouble with a young 'un." "It's like the smut in the wheat, Mrs. Pipkin, or the d'sease in the 'tatoes;--it has to be put up with, I suppose. Is she very partial, ma'am, to that young baro-nite?" This question was asked of Mrs. Hurtle. "Just a fancy for the time, Mr. Crumb," said the lady. "They never thinks as how their fancies may well-nigh half kill a man!" Then he was silent for awhile, sitting back in his chair, not moving a limb, with his eyes fastened on Mrs. Pipkin's ceiling. Mrs. Hurtle had some work in her hand, and sat watching him. The man was to her an extraordinary being,--so constant, so slow, so unexpressive, so unlike her own countrymen,--willing to endure so much, and at the same time so warm in his affections! "Sir Felix Carbury!" he said. "I'll Sir Felix him some of these days. If it was only dinner, wouldn't she be back afore this, ma'am?" "I suppose they've gone to some place of amusement," said Mrs. Hurtle. "Like enough," said John Crumb in a low voice. "She's that mad after dancing as never was," said Mrs. Pipkin. "And where is it as 'em dances?" asked Crumb, getting up from his chair, and stretching himself. It was evident to both the ladies that he was beginning to think that he would follow Ruby to the music hall. Neither of them answered him, however, and then he sat down again. "Does 'em dance all night at them places, Mrs. Pipkin?" "They do pretty nearly all that they oughtn't to do," said Mrs. Pipkin. John Crumb raised one of his fists, brought it down heavily on the palm of his other hand, and then again sat silent for awhile. "I never knowed as she was fond o' dancing," he said. "I'd a had dancing for her down at Bungay,--just as ready as anything. D'ye think, ma'am, it's the dancing she's after, or the baro-nite?" This was another appeal to Mrs. Hurtle. "I suppose they go together," said the lady. Then there was another long pause, at the end of which poor John Crumb burst out with some violence. "Domn him! Domn him! What 'ad I ever dun to him? Nothing! Did I ever interfere wi' him? Never! But I wull. I wull. I wouldn't wonder but I'll swing for this at Bury!" "Oh, Mr. Crumb, don't talk like that," said Mrs. Pipkin. "Mr. Crumb is a little disturbed, but he'll get over it presently," said Mrs. Hurtle. "She's a nasty slut to go and treat a young man as she's treating you," said Mrs. Pipkin. "No, ma'am;--she ain't nasty," said the lover. "But she's crou'll--horrid crou'll. It's no more use my going down about meal and pollard, nor business, and she up here with that baro-nite,--no, no more nor nothin'! When I handles it I don't know whether its middlings nor nothin' else. If I was to twist his neck, ma'am, would you take it on yourself to say as I was wrong?" "I'd sooner hear that you had taken the girl away from him," said Mrs. Hurtle. "I could pretty well eat him,--that's what I could. Half past eleven; is it? She must come some time, mustn't she?" Mrs. Pipkin, who did not want to burn candles all night long, declared that she could give no assurance on that head. If Ruby did come, she should, on that night, be admitted. But Mrs. Pipkin thought that it would be better to get up and let her in than to sit up for her. Poor Mr. Crumb did not at once take the hint, and remained there for another half-hour, saying little, but waiting with the hope that Ruby might come. But when the clock struck twelve he was told that he must go. Then he slowly collected his limbs and dragged them out of the house. "That young man is a good fellow," said Mrs. Hurtle as soon as the door was closed. "A deal too good for Ruby Ruggles," said Mrs. Pipkin. "And he can maintain a wife. Mr. Carbury says as he's as well to do as any tradesman down in them parts." Mrs. Hurtle disliked the name of Mr. Carbury, and took this last statement as no evidence in John Crumb's favour. "I don't know that I think better of the man for having Mr. Carbury's friendship," she said. "Mr. Carbury ain't any way like his cousin, Mrs. Hurtle." "I don't think much of any of the Carburys, Mrs. Pipkin. It seems to me that everybody here is either too humble or too overbearing. Nobody seems content to stand firm on his own footing and interfere with nobody else." This was all Greek to poor Mrs. Pipkin. "I suppose we may as well go to bed now. When that girl comes and knocks, of course we must let her in. If I hear her, I'll go down and open the door for her." Mrs. Pipkin made very many apologies to her lodger for the condition of her household. She would remain up herself to answer the door at the first sound, so that Mrs. Hurtle should not be disturbed. She would do her best to prevent any further annoyance. She trusted Mrs. Hurtle would see that she was endeavouring to do her duty by the naughty wicked girl. And then she came round to the point of her discourse. She hoped that Mrs. Hurtle would not be induced to quit the rooms by these disagreeable occurrences. "I don't mind saying it now, Mrs. Hurtle, but your being here is ever so much to me. I ain't nothing to depend on,--only lodgers, and them as is any good is so hard to get!" The poor woman hardly understood Mrs. Hurtle, who, as a lodger, was certainly peculiar. She cared nothing for disturbances, and rather liked than otherwise the task of endeavouring to assist in the salvation of Ruby. Mrs. Hurtle begged that Mrs. Pipkin would go to bed. She would not be in the least annoyed by the knocking. Another half-hour had thus been passed by the two ladies in the parlour after Crumb's departure. Then Mrs. Hurtle took her candle and had ascended the stairs half way to her own sitting-room, when a loud double knock was heard. She immediately joined Mrs. Pipkin in the passage. The door was opened, and there stood Ruby Ruggles, John Crumb, and two policemen! Ruby rushed in, and casting herself on to one of the stairs began to throw her hands about, and to howl piteously. "Laws a mercy; what is it?" asked Mrs. Pipkin. "He's been and murdered him!" screamed Ruby. "He has! He's been and murdered him!" "This young woman is living here;--is she?" asked one of the policemen. "She is living here," said Mrs. Hurtle. But now we must go back to the adventures of John Crumb after he had left the house. He had taken a bedroom at a small inn close to the Eastern Counties Railway Station which he was accustomed to frequent when business brought him up to London, and thither he proposed to himself to return. At one time there had come upon him an idea that he would endeavour to seek Ruby and his enemy among the dancing saloons of the metropolis; and he had asked a question with that view. But no answer had been given which seemed to aid him in his project, and his purpose had been abandoned as being too complex and requiring more intelligence than he gave himself credit for possessing. So he had turned down a street with which he was so far acquainted as to know that it would take him to the Islington Angel,--where various roads meet, and whence he would know his way eastwards. He had just passed the Angel, and the end of Goswell Road, and was standing with his mouth open, looking about, trying to make certain of himself that he would not go wrong, thinking that he would ask a policeman whom he saw, and hesitating because he feared that the man would want to know his business. Then, of a sudden, he heard a woman scream, and knew that it was Ruby's voice. The sound was very near him, but in the glimmer of the gaslight he could not quite see whence it came. He stood still, putting his hand up to scratch his head under his hat,--trying to think what, in such an emergency, it would be well that he should do. Then he heard the voice distinctly, "I won't;--I won't," and after that a scream. Then there were further words. "It's no good--I won't." At last he was able to make up his mind. He rushed after the sound, and turning down a passage to the right which led back into Goswell Road, saw Ruby struggling in a man's arms. She had left the dancing establishment with her lover; and when they had come to the turn of the passage, there had arisen a question as to her further destiny for the night. Ruby, though she well remembered Mrs. Pipkin's threats, was minded to try her chance at her aunt's door. Sir Felix was of opinion that he could make a preferable arrangement for her; and as Ruby was not at once amenable to his arguments he had thought that a little gentle force might avail him. He had therefore dragged Ruby into the passage. The unfortunate one! That so ill a chance should have come upon him in the midst of his diversion! He had swallowed several tumblers of brandy and water, and was therefore brave with reference to that interference of the police, the fear of which might otherwise have induced him to relinquish his hold of Ruby's arm when she first raised her voice. But what amount of brandy and water would have enabled him to persevere, could he have dreamed that John Crumb was near him? On a sudden he found a hand on his coat, and he was swung violently away, and brought with his back against the railings so forcibly as to have the breath almost knocked out of his body. But he could hear Ruby's exclamation, "If it isn't John Crumb!" Then there came upon him a sense of coming destruction, as though the world for him were all over; and, collapsing throughout his limbs, he slunk down upon the ground. "Get up, you wiper," said John Crumb. But the baronet thought it better to cling to the ground. "You sholl get up," said John, taking him by the collar of his coat and lifting him. "Now, Ruby, he's a-going to have it," said John. Whereupon Ruby screamed at the top of her voice, with a shriek very much louder than that which had at first attracted John Crumb's notice. [Illustration: "Get up, you wiper."] "Don't hit a man when he's down," said the baronet, pleading as though for his life. "I wunt," said John;--"but I'll hit a fellow when 'un's up." Sir Felix was little more than a child in the man's arms. John Crumb raised him, and catching him round the neck with his left arm,--getting his head into chancery as we used to say when we fought at school,--struck the poor wretch some half-dozen times violently in the face, not knowing or caring exactly where he hit him, but at every blow obliterating a feature. And he would have continued had not Ruby flown at him and rescued Sir Felix from his arms. "He's about got enough of it," said John Crumb as he gave over his work. Then Sir Felix fell again to the ground, moaning fearfully. "I know'd he'd have to have it," said John Crumb. Ruby's screams of course brought the police, one arriving from each end of the passage on the scene of action at the same time. And now the cruellest thing of all was that Ruby in the complaints which she made to the policemen said not a word against Sir Felix, but was as bitter as she knew how to be in her denunciations of John Crumb. It was in vain that John endeavoured to make the man understand that the young woman had been crying out for protection when he had interfered. Ruby was very quick of speech and John Crumb was very slow. Ruby swore that nothing so horrible, so cruel, so bloodthirsty had ever been done before. Sir Felix himself when appealed to could say nothing. He could only moan and make futile efforts to wipe away the stream of blood from his face when the men stood him up leaning against the railings. And John, though he endeavoured to make the policemen comprehend the extent of the wickedness of the young baronet, would not say a word against Ruby. He was not even in the least angered by her denunciations of himself. As he himself said sometimes afterwards, he had "dropped into the baro-nite" just in time, and, having been successful in this, felt no wrath against Ruby for having made such an operation necessary. There was soon a third policeman on the spot, and a dozen other persons,--cab-drivers, haunters of the street by night, and houseless wanderers, casuals who at this season of the year preferred the pavements to the poor-house wards. They all took part against John Crumb. Why had the big man interfered between the young woman and her young man? Two or three of them wiped Sir Felix's face, and dabbed his eyes, and proposed this and the other remedy. Some thought that he had better be taken straight to an hospital. One lady remarked that he was "so mashed and mauled" that she was sure he would never "come to" again. A precocious youth remarked that he was "all one as a dead 'un." A cabman observed that he had "'ad it awful 'eavy." To all these criticisms on his condition Sir Felix himself made no direct reply, but he intimated his desire to be carried away somewhere, though he did not much care whither. At last the policemen among them decided upon a course of action. They had learned by the united testimony of Ruby and Crumb that Sir Felix was Sir Felix. He was to be carried in a cab by one constable to Bartholomew Hospital, who would then take his address so that he might be produced and bound over to prosecute. Ruby should be even conducted to the address she gave,--not half a mile from the spot on which they now stood,--and be left there or not according to the account which might be given of her. John Crumb must be undoubtedly locked up in the station-house. He was the offender;--for aught that any of them yet knew, the murderer. No one said a good word for him. He hardly said a good word for himself, and certainly made no objection to the treatment that had been proposed for him. But, no doubt, he was buoyed up inwardly by the conviction that he had thoroughly thrashed his enemy. Thus it came to pass that the two policemen with John Crumb and Ruby came together to Mrs. Pipkin's door. Ruby was still loud with complaints against the ruffian who had beaten her lover,--who, perhaps, had killed her loved one. She threatened the gallows, and handcuffs, and perpetual imprisonment, and an action for damages amidst her lamentations. But from Mrs. Hurtle the policemen did manage to learn something of the truth. Oh yes;--the girl lived there and was--respectable. This man whom they had arrested was respectable also, and was the girl's proper lover. The other man who had been beaten was undoubtedly the owner of a title; but he was not respectable, and was only the girl's improper lover. And John Crumb's name was given. "I'm John Crumb of Bungay," said he, "and I ain't afeared of nothin' nor nobody. And I ain't a been a drinking; no, I ain't. Mauled 'un! In course I've mauled 'un. And I meaned it. That ere young woman is engaged to be my wife." "No, I ain't," shouted Ruby. "But she is," persisted John Crumb. "Well then, I never will," rejoined Ruby. John Crumb turned upon her a look of love, and put his hand on his heart. Whereupon the senior policeman said that he saw at a glance how it all was, but that Mr. Crumb had better come along with him,--just for the present. To this arrangement the unfortunate hero from Bungay made not the slightest objection. "Miss Ruggles," said Mrs. Hurtle, "if that young man doesn't conquer you at last you can't have a heart in your bosom." "Indeed and I have then, and I don't mean to give it him if it's ever so. He's been and killed Sir Felix." Mrs. Hurtle in a whisper to Mrs. Pipkin expressed a wicked wish that it might be so. After that the three women all went to bed.

It was on a Friday evening that this happened. "Of course you must let her in," Mrs. Hurtle had said to Mrs. Pipkin, after the girl's departure. Whereupon Mrs. Pipkin had cried. She knew she could not keep the girl out in the streets all night; yet it was hard upon her to be so troubled. "We usen't to have ways like that when I was young," she said, sobbing. Nevertheless she acknowledged that Ruby must be let in when she came back. Then, about nine o'clock, John Crumb came, and it was impossible to conceal the truth from him. Mrs. Hurtle told the poor man the story. "She's headstrong, Mr. Crumb," said Mrs. Hurtle. "She is that, ma'am. And she went to dinner wi' the Baro-nite, did she? Didn't she have no dinner here?" Mrs. Pipkin spoke up with a keen sense of offence. Ruby Ruggles had had as wholesome a dinner as any young woman in London, for there was "no starvation nor stint in her house." John Crumb immediately produced a very thick and useful blue cloak, which he had brought with him from Bungay, as a present to the woman who had been good to his Ruby. He assured her that he did not doubt that her food was plentiful. It was some little time before Mrs. Pipkin would allow herself to be appeased; but at last she permitted the garment to be placed on her shoulders. But it was done after a melancholy fashion, with no delight. "It's very good of you, Mr. Crumb, to think of an old woman like me, particularly when you've such a deal of trouble with a young 'un." "It's like the smut in the wheat, Mrs. Pipkin - it has to be put up with. Is she very partial, ma'am, to that young baro-nite?" This question was asked of Mrs. Hurtle. "Just a passing fancy, Mr. Crumb," said the lady. "They never thinks as how their fancies may well-nigh half kill a man!" Then he sat silent for a while, his eyes fastened on Mrs. Pipkin's ceiling. Mrs. Hurtle watched him. The man was to her an extraordinary being - so constant, so slow, so unexpressive, so unlike her own countrymen - yet so warm and enduring in his affections! "Sir Felix Carbury!" he said. "I'll Sir Felix him one of these days. Shouldn't she be back by now, ma'am?" "I suppose they've gone to some place of amusement," said Mrs. Hurtle. "Like enough," said John Crumb in a low voice. "She's that mad after dancing," said Mrs. Pipkin. "And where is it they dance?" asked Crumb, getting up from his chair. Neither of them answered, however, and he sat down again. "Does 'em dance all night at them places, Mrs. Pipkin?" "They do pretty nearly all that they oughtn't to do," said Mrs. Pipkin. John Crumb raised one of his fists, brought it down heavily on the palm of his other hand, and then again sat silent. "I never knowed as she was fond o' dancing," he said, "or I'd a had dancing for her down at Bungay. D'ye think, ma'am, it's the dancing she's after, or the baro-nite?" This was another appeal to Mrs. Hurtle. "I suppose they go together," said the lady. Then there was another long pause, at the end of which poor John Crumb burst out with some violence. "Domn him! Domn him! Did I ever interfere wi' him? Never! But I wull. I wull. I'll swing for this at Bury!" "Oh, Mr. Crumb, don't talk like that," said Mrs. Pipkin. "Mr. Crumb is a little disturbed, but he'll get over it presently," said Mrs. Hurtle. "She's a nasty slut to treat a young man as she's treating you," said Mrs. Pipkin. "No, ma'am; she ain't nasty," said the lover. "But she's horrid crou'll. If I was to twist his neck, ma'am, would you say as I was wrong?" "I'd sooner hear that you had taken the girl away from him," said Mrs. Hurtle. "Half past eleven, is it? She must come some time, mustn't she?" Mrs. Pipkin, who did not want to burn candles all night long, declared that she did not know. Poor Mr. Crumb remained there for another half-hour, in the hope that Ruby might come. But when the clock struck twelve he was told that he must go. Then he slowly collected his limbs and dragged them out of the house. "He is a good fellow," said Mrs. Hurtle as soon as the door was closed. "A deal too good for Ruby Ruggles," said Mrs. Pipkin. "Mr. Carbury says as he's as well to do as any tradesman down in them parts." "I don't think much of any of the Carburys, Mrs. Pipkin. I suppose we may as well go to bed now. When that girl knocks, of course we must let her in. If I hear her, I'll go down and open the door for her." Mrs. Pipkin made many apologies to her lodger for the condition of her household. She would stay up herself to answer the door, so that Mrs. Hurtle should not be disturbed. She hoped that Mrs. Hurtle would not be induced to quit the rooms by these disagreeable occurrences. "I don't mind saying it now, Mrs. Hurtle, but your being here is ever so much to me. Good lodgers is so hard to get!" However, Mrs. Hurtle cared nothing for disturbances, and rather liked the task of trying to save Ruby. She begged that Mrs. Pipkin would go to bed. Then Mrs. Hurtle took her candle and was on her way to her own sitting-room, when a loud double knock was heard. The door was opened, and there stood Ruby Ruggles, John Crumb, and two policemen! Ruby rushed in, and casting herself on to the stairs began to howl piteously. "Laws a mercy; what is it?" asked Mrs. Pipkin. "He's been and murdered him!" screamed Ruby. "This young woman is living here, is she?" asked one of the policemen. "She is," said Mrs. Hurtle. But now we must go back to the adventures of John Crumb after he left the house. He had taken a bedroom at a small inn, which he frequented when business brought him up to London, and he set out to return there. He had turned down a street which he knew would take him to the Islington Angel and was standing with his mouth open, looking about, trying to make certain of his direction, and wondering whether to ask a policeman whom he saw. Suddenly he heard a woman scream, and knew that it was Ruby's voice. The sound was very near him, but in the glimmer of the gaslight he could not quite see whence it came. Then he heard the voice distinctly: "I won't; I won't," and after that a scream. He rushed after the sound, and turning down a passage, saw Ruby struggling in a man's arms. She had left the dancing hall with her lover; and there had arisen a question as to her further destiny for the night. Ruby wanted to try her chance at her aunt's door. Sir Felix said that he could make a preferable arrangement for her; and as Ruby was not at once amenable to his arguments he had thought that a little gentle force might help him. He had therefore dragged Ruby into the passage. He had swallowed several tumblers of brandy and water, so he was brave enough to hold on to Ruby's arm even when she raised her voice. But could he have dreamed that John Crumb was near him? Suddenly he found a hand on his coat, and he was swung violently away against the railings so forcibly as to have the breath almost knocked out of his body. He could hear Ruby's exclamation, "If it isn't John Crumb!" Then there came upon him a sense of coming destruction, as though the world for him were all over; and, collapsing, he slunk down upon the ground. "Get up, you viper," said John Crumb. But the baronet thought it better to cling to the ground. "You sholl get up," said John, lifting him by his collar. "Now, Ruby, he's a-going to have it." Whereupon Ruby screamed at the top of her voice, much more loudly than before. "Don't hit a man when he's down," pleaded the baronet. "I wunt," said John; "but I'll hit a fellow when he's up." He raised Sir Felix as if he were a child, and catching him round the neck with his left arm, struck the poor wretch some half-dozen times violently in the face. And he would have continued had not Ruby flown at him and rescued Sir Felix from his arms. "He's about got enough of it," said John Crumb as Sir Felix fell to the ground, moaning fearfully. Ruby's screams of course brought the police. And now the cruellest thing of all was that Ruby in her complaints to the policemen said not a word against Sir Felix, but was bitter in her denunciations of John Crumb. It was in vain that John endeavoured to make them understand that the young woman had been crying out for protection when he had interfered. Ruby was very quick of speech and John Crumb was very slow. Sir Felix himself could say nothing. He could only moan and make futile efforts to wipe away the stream of blood from his face when the men stood him up leaning against the railings. And John would not say a word against Ruby. Having successfully "dropped into the baro-nite", he was not even angered by her denunciations of himself. There was soon a third policeman on the spot, and a dozen other persons, who all took part against John Crumb. Two or three of them wiped Sir Felix's face, and thought that he had better be taken straight to hospital. One lady remarked that he was "so mashed and mauled" that she was sure he would never "come to" again. Sir Felix himself asked to be carried away somewhere, though he did not care whither. At last the policemen decided upon a course of action. They had learned Sir Felix's identity from Ruby and Crumb. He was to be carried in a cab to Bartholomew Hospital by one constable, who would then take his address. Ruby should be conducted to the address she gave. John Crumb must be undoubtedly locked up in the station-house. He was the offender; no one said a good word for him. He made no objection, buoyed up inwardly by the conviction that he had thoroughly thrashed his enemy. Thus the two policemen with John Crumb and Ruby came together to Mrs. Pipkin's door. Ruby was still loud with complaints against John Crumb. She threatened the gallows, and handcuffs, and perpetual imprisonment. But from Mrs. Hurtle the policemen did manage to learn something of the truth. Oh yes; the girl lived there and was respectable. This man whom they had arrested was respectable also, and was the girl's proper lover. The other man who had been beaten was undoubtedly the owner of a title; but he was not respectable, and was only the girl's improper lover. John Crumb's name was given. "I'm John Crumb of Bungay," said he, "and I ain't afeared of nothin' nor nobody. And I ain't a been a drinking. In course I mauled 'un. And I meaned it. That ere young woman is engaged to be my wife." "No, I ain't," shouted Ruby. "But she is," persisted John Crumb. "Well then, I never will," rejoined Ruby. John Crumb turned upon her a look of love, and put his hand on his heart. Whereupon the senior policeman said that he saw how it all was, but that Mr. Crumb had better come along with him, just for the present. To this arrangement he made no objection. "Miss Ruggles," said Mrs. Hurtle, "if that young man doesn't conquer you at last you have no heart." "Indeed and I have, and I don't mean to give it him if it's ever so. He's killed Sir Felix." Mrs. Hurtle in a whisper to Mrs. Pipkin expressed a wicked wish that he had. After that the three women went to bed.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 71: John Crumb Falls into Trouble

The next day there was great surprise at Sheep's Acre farm, which communicated itself to the towns of Bungay and Beccles, and even affected the ordinary quiet life of Carbury Manor. Ruby Ruggles had gone away, and at about twelve o'clock in the day the old farmer became aware of the fact. She had started early, at about seven in the morning; but Ruggles himself had been out long before that, and had not condescended to ask for her when he returned to the house for his breakfast. There had been a bad scene up in the bedroom overnight, after John Crumb had left the farm. The old man in his anger had tried to expel the girl; but she had hung on to the bed-post and would not go; and he had been frightened, when the maid came up crying and screaming murder. "You'll be out o' this to-morrow as sure as my name's Dannel Ruggles," said the farmer panting for breath. But for the gin which he had taken he would hardly have struck her;--but he had struck her, and pulled her by the hair, and knocked her about;--and in the morning she took him at his word and was away. About twelve he heard from the servant girl that she had gone. She had packed a box and had started up the road carrying the box herself. "Grandfather says I'm to go, and I'm gone," she had said to the girl. At the first cottage she had got a boy to carry her box into Beccles, and to Beccles she had walked. For an hour or two Ruggles sat, quiet, within the house, telling himself that she might do as she pleased with herself,--that he was well rid of her, and that from henceforth he would trouble himself no more about her. But by degrees there came upon him a feeling half of compassion and half of fear, with perhaps some mixture of love, instigating him to make search for her. She had been the same to him as a child, and what would people say of him if he allowed her to depart from him after this fashion? Then he remembered his violence the night before, and the fact that the servant girl had heard if she had not seen it. He could not drop his responsibility in regard to Ruby, even if he would. So, as a first step, he sent in a message to John Crumb, at Bungay, to tell him that Ruby Ruggles had gone off with a box to Beccles. John Crumb went open-mouthed with the news to Joe Mixet, and all Bungay soon knew that Ruby Ruggles had run away. After sending his message to Crumb the old man still sat thinking, and at last made up his mind that he would go to his landlord. He held a part of his farm under Roger Carbury, and Roger Carbury would tell him what he ought to do. A great trouble had come upon him. He would fain have been quiet, but his conscience and his heart and his terrors all were at work together,--and he found that he could not eat his dinner. So he had out his cart and horse and drove himself off to Carbury Hall. It was past four when he started, and he found the squire seated on the terrace after an early dinner, and with him was Father Barham, the priest. The old man was shown at once round into the garden, and was not long in telling his story. There had been words between him and his granddaughter about her lover. Her lover had been accepted and had come to the farm to claim his bride. Ruby had behaved very badly. The old man made the most of Ruby's bad behaviour, and of course as little as possible of his own violence. But he did explain that there had been threats used when Ruby refused to take the man, and that Ruby had, this day, taken herself off. "I always thought it was settled they were to be man and wife," said Roger. "It was settled, squoire;--and he war to have five hun'erd pound down;--money as I'd saved myself. Drat the jade." "Didn't she like him, Daniel?" "She liked him well enough till she'd seed somebody else." Then old Daniel paused, and shook his head, and was evidently the owner of a secret. The squire got up and walked round the garden with him,--and then the secret was told. The farmer was of opinion that there was something between the girl and Sir Felix. Sir Felix some weeks since had been seen near the farm and on the same occasion Ruby had been observed at some little distance from the house with her best clothes on. "He's been so little here, Daniel," said the squire. "It goes as tinder and a spark o' fire, that does," said the farmer. "Girls like Ruby don't want no time to be wooed by one such as that, though they'll fall-lall with a man like John Crumb for years." "I suppose she's gone to London." "Don't know nothing of where she's gone, squoire;--only she have gone some'eres. May be it's Lowestoffe. There's lots of quality at Lowestoffe a' washing theyselves in the sea." Then they returned to the priest, who might be supposed to be cognisant of the guiles of the world and competent to give advice on such an occasion as this. "If she was one of our people," said Father Barham, "we should have her back quick enough." "Would ye now?" said Ruggles, wishing at the moment that he and all his family had been brought up as Roman Catholics. "I don't see how you would have more chance of catching her than we have," said Carbury. "She'd catch herself. Wherever she might be she'd go to the priest, and he wouldn't leave her till he'd seen her put on the way back to her friends." "With a flea in her lug," suggested the farmer. "Your people never go to a clergyman in their distress. It's the last thing they'd think of. Any one might more probably be regarded as a friend than the parson. But with us the poor know where to look for sympathy." "She ain't that poor, neither," said the grandfather. "She had money with her?" "I don't know just what she had; but she ain't been brought up poor. And I don't think as our Ruby'd go of herself to any clergyman. It never was her way." "It never is the way with a Protestant," said the priest. "We'll say no more about that for the present," said Roger, who was waxing wroth with the priest. That a man should be fond of his own religion is right; but Roger Carbury was beginning to think that Father Barham was too fond of his religion. "What had we better do? I suppose we shall hear something of her at the railway. There are not so many people leaving Beccles but that she may be remembered." So the waggonette was ordered, and they all prepared to go off to the station together. But before they started John Crumb rode up to the door. He had gone at once to the farm on hearing of Ruby's departure, and had followed the farmer from thence to Carbury. Now he found the squire and the priest and the old man standing around as the horses were being put to the carriage. "Ye ain't a' found her, Mr. Ruggles, ha' ye?" he asked as he wiped the sweat from his brow. "Noa;--we ain't a' found no one yet." "If it was as she was to come to harm, Mr. Carbury, I'd never forgive myself,--never," said Crumb. "As far as I can understand it is no doing of yours, my friend," said the squire. "In one way, it ain't; and in one way it is. I was over there last night a bothering of her. She'd a' come round may be, if she'd a' been left alone. She wouldn't a' been off now, only for our going over to Sheep's Acre. But,--oh!" "What is it, Mr. Crumb?" "He's a coosin o' yours, squoire; and long as I've known Suffolk, I've never known nothing but good o' you and yourn. But if your baronite has been and done this! Oh, Mr. Carbury! If I was to wring his neck round, you wouldn't say as how I was wrong; would ye, now?" Roger could hardly answer the question. On general grounds the wringing of Sir Felix's neck, let the immediate cause for such a performance have been what it might, would have seemed to him to be a good deed. The world would be better, according to his thinking, with Sir Felix out of it than in it. But still the young man was his cousin and a Carbury, and to such a one as John Crumb he was bound to defend any member of his family as far as he might be defensible. "They says as how he was groping about Sheep's Acre when he was last here, a hiding himself and skulking behind hedges. Drat 'em all. They've gals enough of their own,--them fellows. Why can't they let a fellow alone? I'll do him a mischief, Master Roger; I wull;--if he's had a hand in this." Poor John Crumb! When he had his mistress to win he could find no words for himself; but was obliged to take an eloquent baker with him to talk for him. Now in his anger he could talk freely enough. "But you must first learn that Sir Felix has had anything to do with this, Mr. Crumb." "In coorse; in coorse. That's right. That's right. Must l'arn as he did it, afore I does it. But when I have l'arned!"-- And John Crumb clenched his fist as though a very short lesson would suffice for him upon this occasion. They all went to the Beccles Station, and from thence to the Beccles post office,--so that Beccles soon knew as much about it as Bungay. At the railway station Ruby was distinctly remembered. She had taken a second-class ticket by the morning train for London, and had gone off without any appearance of secrecy. She had been decently dressed, with a hat and cloak, and her luggage had been such as she might have been expected to carry, had all her friends known that she was going. So much was made clear at the railway station, but nothing more could be learned there. Then a message was sent by telegraph to the station in London, and they all waited, loitering about the post office, for a reply. One of the porters in London remembered seeing such a girl as was described, but the man who was supposed to have carried her box for her to a cab had gone away for the day. It was believed that she had left the station in a four-wheel cab. "I'll be arter her. I'll be arter her at once," said John Crumb. But there was no train till night, and Roger Carbury was doubtful whether his going would do any good. It was evidently fixed on Crumb's mind that the first step towards finding Ruby would be the breaking of every bone in the body of Sir Felix Carbury. Now it was not at all apparent to the squire that his cousin had had anything to do with this affair. It had been made quite clear to him that the old man had quarrelled with his granddaughter and had threatened to turn her out of his house, not because she had misbehaved with Sir Felix, but on account of her refusing to marry John Crumb. John Crumb had gone over to the farm expecting to arrange it all, and up to that time there had been no fear about Felix Carbury. Nor was it possible that there should have been communication between Ruby and Felix since the quarrel at the farm. Even if the old man were right in supposing that Ruby and the baronet had been acquainted,--and such acquaintance could not but be prejudicial to the girl,--not on that account would the baronet be responsible for her abduction. John Crumb was thirsting for blood and was not very capable in his present mood of arguing the matter out coolly, and Roger, little as he loved his cousin, was not desirous that all Suffolk should know that Sir Felix Carbury had been thrashed within an inch of his life by John Crumb of Bungay. "I'll tell you what I'll do," said he, putting his hand kindly on the old man's shoulder. "I'll go up myself by the first train to-morrow. I can trace her better than Mr. Crumb can do, and you will both trust me." "There's not one in the two counties I'd trust so soon," said the old man. "But you'll let us know the very truth," said John Crumb. Roger Carbury made him an indiscreet promise that he would let him know the truth. So the matter was settled, and the grandfather and lover returned together to Bungay.

The next day there was great surprise at Sheep's Acre farm. Ruby Ruggles had gone away. The old farmer learnt of this from the servant girl at about noon. Ruby had left at seven in the morning; but Ruggles had not asked for her when he had his breakfast. There had been a bad scene up in the bedroom overnight, after John Crumb had left the farm. The old man in his anger had tried to expel the girl; but she had hung on to the bed-post and would not go; and the maid came up crying and screaming murder. "You'll be out tomorrow as sure as my name's Dannel Ruggles," said the farmer, panting for breath. He had been drinking gin, and he struck her, and pulled her by the hair, and knocked her about: and in the morning she took him at his word, packed a box and went. At the first cottage, she had got a boy to carry her box into Beccles, and she had walked. For an hour or two Ruggles sat quietly, telling himself that he was well rid of her, and that he would trouble himself no more about her. But by degrees there came upon him a feeling half of compassion and half of fear. She had been like a child to him, and what would people say if he allowed her to depart like this? Then he remembered his violence the night before, which the servant girl had heard. He could not drop his responsibility for Ruby. So he sent a message to John Crumb, to tell him that Ruby Ruggles had gone off with a box to Beccles. John Crumb went open-mouthed with the news to Joe Mixet, and all Bungay soon knew that Ruby Ruggles had run away. After sending his message the old man sat thinking, and at last made up his mind to go to his landlord. Roger Carbury would tell him what he ought to do. His conscience and his heart and his terrors were all at work together, and he could not eat his dinner. So he drove himself off to Carbury Hall. He found the squire seated on the terrace with Father Barham, the priest. The old man was not long in telling his story. He made the most of Ruby's bad behaviour, and of course as little as possible of his own violence. But he did explain that there had been threats used, and that Ruby had taken herself off. "I thought it was settled they were to marry," said Roger. "Didn't she like him, Daniel?" "She liked him well enough till she'd seed somebody else." Old Daniel paused, and shook his head. Roger took him aside; and at last the secret was told. The farmer thought there was something between the girl and Sir Felix, who had been seen near the farm; and on the same occasion Ruby had been observed away from the house with her best clothes on. "He's been so little here, Daniel," said the squire. "Girls like Ruby don't want no time to be wooed by one such as that," said the farmer. "I suppose she's gone to London." "Don't know, squoire; maybe it's Lowestoffe." They returned to the priest. "If she was one of our people," said Father Barham, "we should have her back quick enough." "I don't see how you would have more chance of catching her than we have," said Carbury. "She'd catch herself. Wherever she might be she'd go to the priest, and he wouldn't leave her till he'd seen her back with her friends." "With a flea in her ear," suggested the farmer. "Your people never go to a clergyman in their distress. It's the last thing they'd think of. But with us the poor know where to look for sympathy." "She ain't that poor, neither," said the grandfather. "And I don't think as our Ruby'd go to any clergyman. It never was her way." "It never is the way with a Protestant," said the priest. "We'll say no more about that now," said Roger, who was growing annoyed. "I suppose we shall hear something of her at the railway station. Not many people leave Beccles, so she may be remembered." He ordered the carriage so that they could go to the station together. But before they started John Crumb rode up. "Ye ain't a' found her, Mr. Ruggles?" he asked, wiping the sweat from his brow. "Not yet." "If she was to come to harm, Mr. Carbury, I'd never forgive myself," said Crumb. "As far as I can understand it is no doing of yours, my friend," said the squire. "It is and it ain't. I was over there last night a bothering of her. She'd a' come round maybe, if she'd a' been left alone. But - oh!" "What is it, Mr. Crumb?" "He's a cousin o' yours, squoire; and I've never known nothing but good o' you and yourn. But if your baronite has done this! Oh, Mr. Carbury! If I was to wring his neck, you wouldn't say as I was wrong; would ye?" Roger could hardly answer the question. On general grounds the wringing of Sir Felix's neck seemed a good idea. The world would be better with Sir Felix out of it. But still the young man was his cousin and a Carbury, and he was bound to defend him. "They says as how he was groping about Sheep's Acre when he was last here, a skulking behind hedges. They've gals enough of their own, them fellows. Why can't they let a fellow alone? If I learn as he did it, I'll do him a mischief, Master Roger; I wull." Poor John Crumb! In his anger he could talk freely enough. They all went to the Beccles Station, where Ruby was distinctly remembered. She had taken a second-class ticket on the train for London, and had gone off without any appearance of secrecy. She had been wearing a hat and cloak, and had some luggage; but nothing more could be learned. Then they went to the post office to send a message by telegraph to the station in London, and waited for a reply. One of the porters in London remembered seeing such a girl, but the man who had carried her box to a cab had gone away for the day. "I'll be arter her at once," said John Crumb. But there was no train till night, and Roger Carbury doubted whether his going would do any good. Crumb evidently felt that the first step towards finding Ruby would be the breaking of every bone in Sir Felix Carbury's body. Now it was not clear to the squire that his cousin had anything to do with this affair. The old man had quarrelled with his granddaughter not because she had misbehaved with Sir Felix, but because she had refused to marry John Crumb. When John Crumb had gone over to the farm to arrange it all, there had been no fear about Felix Carbury. Nor could Ruby have communicated with Felix since the quarrel at the farm. Even if the old man were right in supposing that Ruby and the baronet had met, the baronet had not abducted her. John Crumb was thirsting for blood, and Roger, little as he loved his cousin, did not wish all Suffolk to know that Sir Felix Carbury had been thrashed by John Crumb of Bungay. "I'll tell you what I'll do," said he, putting his hand kindly on the old man's shoulder. "I'll go up myself by the first train tomorrow. I can trace her better than Mr. Crumb can do, and you will both trust me." "But you'll let us know the truth," said John Crumb. Roger Carbury made an indiscreet promise of this. So the matter was settled, and the grandfather and lover returned together to Bungay.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 34: Ruby Ruggles Obeys her Grandfather

Up to this period of his life Sir Felix Carbury had probably felt but little of the punishment due to his very numerous shortcomings. He had spent all his fortune; he had lost his commission in the army; he had incurred the contempt of everybody that had known him; he had forfeited the friendship of those who were his natural friends, and had attached to him none others in their place; he had pretty nearly ruined his mother and sister; but, to use his own language, he had always contrived "to carry on the game." He had eaten and drunk, had gambled, hunted, and diverted himself generally after the fashion considered to be appropriate to young men about town. He had kept up till now. But now there seemed to him to have come an end to all things. When he was lying in bed in his mother's house he counted up all his wealth. He had a few pounds in ready money, he still had a little roll of Mr. Miles Grendall's notes of hand, amounting perhaps to a couple of hundred pounds,--and Mr. Melmotte owed him 600. But where was he to turn, and what was he to do with himself? Gradually he learned the whole story of the journey to Liverpool,--how Marie had gone there and had been sent back by the police, how Marie's money had been repaid to Mr. Melmotte by Mr. Broune, and how his failure to make the journey to Liverpool had become known. He was ashamed to go to his club. He could not go to Melmotte's house. He was ashamed even to show himself in the streets by day. He was becoming almost afraid even of his mother. Now that the brilliant marriage had broken down, and seemed to be altogether beyond hope, now that he had to depend on her household for all his comforts, he was no longer able to treat her with absolute scorn,--nor was she willing to yield as she had yielded. One thing only was clear to him. He must realise his possessions. With this view he wrote both to Miles Grendall and to Melmotte. To the former he said he was going out of town,--probably for some time, and he must really ask for a cheque for the amount due. He went on to remark that he could hardly suppose that a nephew of the Duke of Albury was unable to pay debts of honour to the amount of 200;--but that if such was the case he would have no alternative but to apply to the Duke himself. The reader need hardly be told that to this letter Mr. Grendall vouchsafed no answer whatever. In his letter to Mr. Melmotte he confined himself to one matter of business in hand. He made no allusion whatever to Marie, or to the great man's anger, or to his seat at the board. He simply reminded Mr. Melmotte that there was a sum of 600 still due to him, and requested that a cheque might be sent to him for that amount. Melmotte's answer to this was not altogether unsatisfactory, though it was not exactly what Sir Felix had wished. A clerk from Mr. Melmotte's office called at the house in Welbeck Street, and handed to Felix railway scrip in the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway to the amount of the sum claimed,--insisting on a full receipt for the money before he parted with the scrip. The clerk went on to explain, on behalf of his employer, that the money had been left in Mr. Melmotte's hands for the purpose of buying these shares. Sir Felix, who was glad to get anything, signed the receipt and took the scrip. This took place on the day after the balloting at Westminster, when the result was not yet known,--and when the shares in the railway were very low indeed. Sir Felix had asked as to the value of the shares at the time. The clerk professed himself unable to quote the price,--but there were the shares if Sir Felix liked to take them. Of course he took them;--and hurrying off into the City found that they might perhaps be worth about half the money due to him. The broker to whom he showed them could not quite answer for anything. Yes;--the scrip had been very high; but there was a panic. They might recover,--or, more probably, they might go to nothing. Sir Felix cursed the Great Financier aloud, and left the scrip for sale. That was the first time that he had been out of the house before dark since his little accident. But he was chiefly tormented in these days by the want of amusement. He had so spent his life hitherto that he did not know how to get through a day in which no excitement was provided for him. He never read. Thinking was altogether beyond him. And he had never done a day's work in his life. He could lie in bed. He could eat and drink. He could smoke and sit idle. He could play cards; and could amuse himself with women,--the lower the culture of the women, the better the amusement. Beyond these things the world had nothing for him. Therefore he again took himself to the pursuit of Ruby Ruggles. Poor Ruby had endured a very painful incarceration at her aunt's house. She had been wrathful and had stormed, swearing that she would be free to come and go as she pleased. Free to go, Mrs. Pipkin told her that she was;--but not free to return if she went out otherwise than as she, Mrs. Pipkin, chose. "Am I to be a slave?" Ruby asked, and almost upset the perambulator which she had just dragged in at the hall door. Then Mrs. Hurtle had taken upon herself to talk to her, and poor Ruby had been quelled by the superior strength of the American lady. But she was very unhappy, finding that it did not suit her to be nursemaid to her aunt. After all John Crumb couldn't have cared for her a bit, or he would have come to look after her. While she was in this condition Sir Felix came to Mrs. Pipkin's house, and asked for her at the door. It happened that Mrs. Pipkin herself had opened the door,--and, in her fright and dismay at the presence of so pernicious a young man in her own passage, had denied that Ruby was in the house. But Ruby had heard her lover's voice, and had rushed up and thrown herself into his arms. Then there had been a great scene. Ruby had sworn that she didn't care for her aunt, didn't care for her grandfather, or for Mrs. Hurtle, or for John Crumb,--or for any person or anything. She cared only for her lover. Then Mrs. Hurtle had asked the young man his intentions. Did he mean to marry Ruby? Sir Felix had said that he "supposed he might as well some day." "There," said Ruby, "there!"--shouting in triumph as though an offer had been made to her with the completest ceremony of which such an event admits. Mrs. Pipkin had been very weak. Instead of calling in the assistance of her strong-minded lodger, she had allowed the lovers to remain together for half-an-hour in the dining-room. I do not know that Sir Felix in any way repeated his promise during that time, but Ruby was probably too blessed with the word that had been spoken to ask for such renewal. "There must be an end of this," said Mrs. Pipkin, coming in when the half-hour was over. Then Sir Felix had gone, promising to come again on the following evening. "You must not come here, Sir Felix," said Mrs. Pipkin, "unless you puts it in writing." To this, of course, Sir Felix made no answer. As he went home he congratulated himself on the success of his adventure. Perhaps the best thing he could do when he had realised the money for the shares would be to take Ruby for a tour abroad. The money would last for three or four months,--and three or four months ahead was almost an eternity. That afternoon before dinner he found his sister alone in the drawing-room. Lady Carbury had gone to her own room after hearing the distressing story of Paul Montague's love, and had not seen Hetta since. Hetta was melancholy, thinking of her mother's hard words,--thinking perhaps of Paul's poverty as declared by her mother, and of the ages which might have to wear themselves out before she could become his wife; but still tinting all her thoughts with a rosy hue because of the love which had been declared to her. She could not but be happy if he really loved her. And she,--as she had told him that she loved him,--would be true to him through everything! In her present mood she could not speak of herself to her brother, but she took the opportunity of making good the promise which Marie Melmotte had extracted from her. She gave him some short account of the party, and told him that she had talked with Marie. "I promised to give you a message," she said. "It's all of no use now," said Felix. "But I must tell you what she said. I think, you know, that she really loves you." "But what's the good of it? A man can't marry a girl when all the policemen in the country are dodging her." "She wants you to let her know what,--what you intend to do. If you mean to give her up, I think you should tell her." "How can I tell her? I don't suppose they would let her receive a letter." "Shall I write to her;--or shall I see her?" "Just as you like. I don't care." "Felix, you are very heartless." "I don't suppose I'm much worse than other men;--or for the matter of that, worse than a great many women either. You all of you here put me up to marry her." "I never put you up to it." "Mother did. And now because it did not go off all serene, I am to hear nothing but reproaches. Of course I never cared so very much about her." "Oh, Felix, that is so shocking!" "Awfully shocking I dare say. You think I am as black as the very mischief, and that sugar wouldn't melt in other men's mouths. Other men are just as bad as I am,--and a good deal worse too. You believe that there is nobody on earth like Paul Montague." Hetta blushed, but said nothing. She was not yet in a condition to boast of her lover before her brother, but she did, in very truth, believe that but few young men were as true-hearted as Paul Montague. "I suppose you'd be surprised to hear that Master Paul is engaged to marry an American widow living at Islington." "Mr. Montague--engaged--to marry--an American widow! I don't believe it." "You'd better believe it if it's any concern of yours, for it's true. And it's true too that he travelled about with her for ever so long in the United States, and that he had her down with him at the hotel at Lowestoft about a fortnight ago. There's no mistake about it." "I don't believe it," repeated Hetta, feeling that to say even as much as that was some relief to her. It could not be true. It was impossible that the man should have come to her with such a lie in his mouth as that. Though the words astounded her, though she felt faint, almost as though she would fall in a swoon, yet in her heart of hearts she did not believe it. Surely it was some horrid joke,--or perhaps some trick to divide her from the man she loved. "Felix, how dare you say things so wicked as that to me?" "What is there wicked in it? If you have been fool enough to become fond of the man, it is only right you should be told. He is engaged to marry Mrs. Hurtle, and she is lodging with one Mrs. Pipkin in Islington. I know the house, and could take you there to-morrow, and show you the woman. There," said he, "that's where she is;"--and he wrote Mrs. Hurtle's name down on a scrap of paper. "It is not true," said Hetta, rising from her seat, and standing upright. "I am engaged to Mr. Montague, and I am sure he would not treat me in that way." "Then, by heaven, he shall answer it to me," said Felix, jumping up. "If he has done that, it is time that I should interfere. As true as I stand here, he is engaged to marry a woman called Mrs. Hurtle whom he constantly visits at that place in Islington." "I do not believe it," said Hetta, repeating the only defence for her lover which was applicable at the moment. "By George, this is beyond a joke. Will you believe it if Roger Carbury says it's true? I know you'd believe anything fast enough against me, if he told you." "Roger Carbury will not say so?" "Have you the courage to ask him? I say he will say so. He knows all about it,--and has seen the woman." "How can you know? Has Roger told you?" "I do know, and that's enough. I will make this square with Master Paul. By heaven, yes! He shall answer to me. But my mother must manage you. She will not scruple to ask Roger, and she will believe what Roger tells her." "I do not believe a word of it," said Hetta, leaving the room. But when she was alone she was very wretched. There must be some foundation for such a tale. Why should Felix have referred to Roger Carbury? And she did feel that there was something in her brother's manner which forbade her to reject the whole story as being altogether baseless. So she sat upon her bed and cried, and thought of all the tales she had heard of faithless lovers. And yet why should the man have come to her, not only with soft words of love, but asking her hand in marriage, if it really were true that he was in daily communication with another woman whom he had promised to make his wife? Nothing on the subject was said at dinner. Hetta with difficulty to herself sat at the table, and did not speak. Lady Carbury and her son were nearly as silent. Soon after dinner Felix slunk away to some music hall or theatre in quest probably of some other Ruby Ruggles. Then Lady Carbury, who had now been told as much as her son knew, again attacked her daughter. Very much of the story Felix had learned from Ruby. Ruby had of course learned that Paul was engaged to Mrs. Hurtle. Mrs. Hurtle had at once declared the fact to Mrs. Pipkin, and Mrs. Pipkin had been proud of the position of her lodger. Ruby had herself seen Paul Montague at the house, and had known that he had taken Mrs. Hurtle to Lowestoft. And it had also become known to the two women, the aunt and her niece, that Mrs. Hurtle had seen Roger Carbury on the sands at Lowestoft. Thus the whole story with most of its details,--not quite with all,--had come round to Lady Carbury's ears. "What he has told you, my dear, is true. Much as I disapprove of Mr. Montague, you do not suppose that I would deceive you." "How can he know, mamma?" "He does know. I cannot explain to you how. He has been at the same house." "Has he seen her?" "I do not know that he has, but Roger Carbury has seen her. If I write to him you will believe what he says?" "Don't do that, mamma. Don't write to him." "But I shall. Why should I not write if he can tell me? If this other man is a villain am I not bound to protect you? Of course Felix is not steady. If it came only from him you might not credit it. And he has not seen her. If your cousin Roger tells you that it is true,--tells me that he knows the man is engaged to marry this woman, then I suppose you will be contented." "Contented, mamma!" "Satisfied that what we tell you is true." "I shall never be contented again. If that is true, I will never believe anything. It can't be true. I suppose there is something, but it can't be that." The story was not altogether displeasing to Lady Carbury, though it pained her to see the agony which her daughter suffered. But she had no wish that Paul Montague should be her son-in-law, and she still thought that if Roger would persevere he might succeed. On that very night before she went to bed she wrote to Roger, and told him the whole story. "If," she said, "you know that there is such a person as Mrs. Hurtle, and if you know also that Mr. Montague has promised to make her his wife, of course you will tell me." Then she declared her own wishes, thinking that by doing so she could induce Roger Carbury to give such real assistance in this matter that Paul Montague would certainly be driven away. Who could feel so much interest in doing this as Roger, or who be so closely acquainted with all the circumstances of Montague's life? "You know," she said, "what my wishes are about Hetta, and how utterly opposed I am to Mr. Montague's interference. If it is true, as Felix says, that he is at the present moment entangled with another woman, he is guilty of gross insolence; and if you know all the circumstances you can surely protect us,--and also yourself."

Up to this period of his life Sir Felix Carbury had suffered little from his own shortcomings. He had spent all his fortune; he had lost his commission in the army; he had incurred the contempt of everybody that had known him; he had lost friendships and made no new ones; he had pretty nearly ruined his mother and sister. Yet he had eaten and drunk, gambled, hunted, and diverted himself generally like a young man about town. But now an end seemed to have come. When he was lying in bed in his mother's house he counted up his wealth. He had a few pounds in ready money, and a little roll of Miles Grendall's I.O.U.s, amounting to a couple of hundred pounds - and Mr. Melmotte owed him 600. But what was he to do with himself? Gradually he learned the story of Marie's journey to Liverpool and back, how Marie's money had been repaid by Mr. Broune, and how his own failure to go to Liverpool had become known. He was ashamed to go to his club, or to show himself in the streets. He was becoming almost afraid even of his mother. Now that the brilliant marriage had broken down, and he had to depend on her for all his comforts, he was no longer able to treat her with absolute scorn; nor was she willing to yield as before. One thing was clear to him. He must get his money. With this view he wrote both to Miles Grendall and to Melmotte - making no mention of Marie, but merely asking for the amounts due to him. Mr. Grendall sent him no answer whatever. And Melmotte's answer was not exactly what Sir Felix had wished. A clerk from Mr. Melmotte's office called at the house, and handed Felix a scrip in the Railway to the amount claimed, explaining that the money had been left in Mr. Melmotte's hands for the purpose of buying these shares. Sir Felix, who was glad to get anything, signed a receipt and took the scrip. This took place on the day after the balloting at Westminster, when the result was not yet known, and the shares in the railway were very low indeed. When Sir Felix hurried off into the City he found that they might be worth about half the money due to him. The broker said they might recover; or, more probably, they might go to nothing. Sir Felix cursed the Great Financier aloud, and left the scrip for sale. That was the first time that he had been out of the house before dark since his little accident. But he was chiefly tormented in these days by the lack of amusement. He did not know how to get through a day in which no excitement was provided for him. He never read. Thinking was beyond him. And he had never done a day's work in his life. He could lie in bed; he could eat and drink, smoke and sit idle. He could play cards; and could amuse himself with women. Beyond these things the world had nothing for him. Therefore he again took himself to the pursuit of Ruby Ruggles. Poor Ruby had endured a very painful incarceration at her aunt's house. She had been angry and had stormed, swearing that she would be free to come and go as she pleased. Mrs. Pipkin told her that she was free to go, but that if she did, she was not free to return. Then Mrs. Hurtle talked to her, and poor Ruby was quelled by the American lady's superior strength. But she was very unhappy. John Crumb couldn't have cared for her a bit after all, or he would have come to look after her. At this point Sir Felix came to Mrs. Pipkin's house, and asked for Ruby at the door. Mrs. Pipkin denied that she was there. But Ruby heard her lover's voice, and rushed up and threw herself into his arms. She swore that she didn't care for her aunt, or for John Crumb, or for anything: only for her lover. Mrs. Hurtle asked the young man his intentions. Did he mean to marry Ruby? Sir Felix said that he "supposed he might as well some day." "There," shouted Ruby in triumph, "there!" Mrs. Pipkin weakly allowed the lovers to remain together for half-an-hour in the dining-room; but when the half-hour was over, she said, "There must be an end of this. You must not come here, Sir Felix, unless you puts your intentions in writing." To this, of course, Sir Felix made no answer. As he went home he congratulated himself on the success of his adventure. Perhaps when he had realised the money for the shares he would take Ruby for a tour abroad. The money would last for three or four months; which seemed almost an eternity. Before dinner he found his sister alone in the drawing-room. Lady Carbury had gone to her own room after hearing the distressing story of Paul Montague's love. Hetta was melancholy, thinking of her mother's hard words; yet tinting her thoughts with a rosy hue because of the love which had been declared to her. She gave Felix a short account of the party, and told him that she had talked with Marie. "I promised to give you a message." "It's all of no use now," said Felix. "But I must tell you what she said. I think that she really loves you. She wants you to let her know what you intend to do. If you mean to give her up, I think you should tell her." "How can I tell her? I don't suppose they would let her receive a letter." "Shall I write to her - or see her?" "Just as you like. I don't care." "Felix, you are very heartless." "I don't suppose I'm much worse than other men. All of you here put me up to marry her." "I never put you up to it." "Mother did. And now because it did not go off, I am to hear nothing but reproaches. Of course I never cared so very much about her." "Oh, Felix, that is so shocking!" "I dare say. Other men are just as bad as I am - and a good deal worse too. You believe that there is nobody on earth like Paul Montague." Hetta blushed, but said nothing. "I suppose you'd be surprised to hear that Master Paul is engaged to marry an American widow living at Islington." "Mr. Montague - engaged - to an American widow! I don't believe it." "You'd better believe it, for it's true. He travelled about with her for ever so long in the United States, and he had her down with him at the hotel at Lowestoft about a fortnight ago. There's no mistake about it." "I don't believe it," repeated Hetta. It could not be true. It was impossible that the man should have come to her with such a lie in his mouth as that. Though she felt faint, yet in her heart of hearts she did not believe it. Surely it was some horrid joke, or trick. "Felix, how dare you say such wicked things to me?" "Wicked? If you have been fool enough to become fond of the man, it is only right you should be told. He is engaged to marry Mrs. Hurtle, and she is lodging in Islington. There," said he, "that's where she is;" and he wrote Mrs. Hurtle's name and address down on a scrap of paper. "It is not true," said Hetta, rising from her seat. "I am engaged to Mr. Montague, and I am sure he would not treat me in that way." "Will you believe it if Roger Carbury says it's true?" "Roger Carbury will not say so." "He will. He knows all about it, and has seen the woman. By heaven! Master Paul shall answer to me. But my mother will not scruple to ask Roger, and she will believe what Roger tells her." "I do not believe a word of it," said Hetta, leaving the room. But when she was alone she was very wretched. There must be some foundation for such a tale. She sat upon her bed and cried. Yet why should the man have come to her, asking her hand in marriage, if the tale were really true? At dinner all sat silent. Soon afterwards Felix slunk away to some music hall or theatre in quest probably of some other Ruby Ruggles. Then Lady Carbury again attacked her daughter. Felix had told her what he had learned from Ruby, who had seen Paul Montague at the house, and knew that he had taken Mrs. Hurtle to Lowestoft. Mrs. Pipkin had said they were engaged. "What Felix has told you, my dear, is true. He has been to the house." "Has he seen her?" "I do not know, but Roger Carbury has seen her. If I write to him will you believe what he says?" "Don't write to him, mamma." "Why not? If this other man is a villain am I not bound to protect you? If your cousin Roger tells you that it is true - that the man is engaged to marry this woman, then I suppose you will be contented." "Contented, mamma! I shall never be contented again." The story was not altogether displeasing to Lady Carbury, though her daughter's agony pained her. But she had no wish that Paul Montague should be her son-in-law, and she still thought that Roger might succeed. That night before she went to bed she wrote to him. "If," she said, "you know that there is such a person as Mrs. Hurtle, and that Mr. Montague has promised to make her his wife, of course you will tell me. You know what my wishes are about Hetta, and how utterly opposed I am to Mr. Montague's interference. If it is true, as Felix says, that he is entangled with another woman, he is guilty of gross insolence; and if you know all the circumstances you can surely protect us - and also yourself."

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 67: Sir Felix Protects his Sister

Melmotte did not return home in time to hear the good news that day,--good news as he would regard it, even though, when told to him it should be accompanied by all the extraneous additions with which Marie had communicated her purpose to Madame Melmotte. It was nothing to him what the girl thought of the marriage,--if the marriage could now be brought about. He, too, had cause for vexation, if not for anger. If Marie had consented a fortnight since he might have so hurried affairs that Lord Nidderdale might by this time have been secured. Now there might be,--must be, doubt, through the folly of his girl and the villany of Sir Felix Carbury. Were he once the father-in-law of the eldest son of a marquis, he thought he might almost be safe. Even though something might be all but proved against him,--which might come to certain proof in less august circumstances,--matters would hardly be pressed against a Member for Westminster whose daughter was married to the heir of the Marquis of Auld Reekie! So many persons would then be concerned! Of course his vexation with Marie had been great. Of course his wrath against Sir Felix was unbounded. The seat for Westminster was his. He was to be seen to occupy it before all the world on this very day. But he had not as yet heard that his daughter had yielded in reference to Lord Nidderdale. There was considerable uneasiness felt in some circles as to the manner in which Melmotte should take his seat. When he was put forward as the Conservative candidate for the borough a good deal of fuss had been made with him by certain leading politicians. It had been the manifest intention of the party that his return, if he were returned, should be hailed as a great Conservative triumph, and be made much of through the length and the breadth of the land. He was returned,--but the trumpets had not as yet been sounded loudly. On a sudden, within the space of forty-eight hours, the party had become ashamed of their man. And, now, who was to introduce him to the House? But with this feeling of shame on one side, there was already springing up an idea among another class that Melmotte might become as it were a Conservative tribune of the people,--that he might be the realization of that hitherto hazy mixture of Radicalism and old-fogyism, of which we have lately heard from a political master, whose eloquence has been employed in teaching us that progress can only be expected from those whose declared purpose is to stand still. The new farthing newspaper, "The Mob," was already putting Melmotte forward as a political hero, preaching with reference to his commercial transactions the grand doctrine that magnitude in affairs is a valid defence for certain irregularities. A Napoleon, though he may exterminate tribes in carrying out his projects, cannot be judged by the same law as a young lieutenant who may be punished for cruelty to a few negroes. "The Mob" thought that a good deal should be overlooked in a Melmotte, and that the philanthropy of his great designs should be allowed to cover a multitude of sins. I do not know that the theory was ever so plainly put forward as it was done by the ingenious and courageous writer in "The Mob;" but in practice it has commanded the assent of many intelligent minds. Mr. Melmotte, therefore, though he was not where he had been before that wretched Squercum had set afloat the rumours as to the purchase of Pickering, was able to hold his head much higher than on the unfortunate night of the great banquet. He had replied to the letter from Messrs. Slow and Bideawhile, by a note written in the ordinary way in the office, and only signed by himself. In this he merely said that he would lose no time in settling matters as to the purchase of Pickering. Slow and Bideawhile were of course anxious that things should be settled. They wanted no prosecution for forgery. To make themselves clear in the matter, and their client,--and if possible to take some wind out of the sails of the odious Squercum;--this would suit them best. They were prone to hope that for his own sake Melmotte would raise the money. If it were raised there would be no reason why that note purporting to have been signed by Dolly Longestaffe should ever leave their office. They still protested their belief that it did bear Dolly's signature. They had various excuses for themselves. It would have been useless for them to summon Dolly to their office, as they knew from long experience that Dolly would not come. The very letter written by themselves,--as a suggestion,--and given to Dolly's father, had come back to them with Dolly's ordinary signature, sent to them,--as they believed,--with other papers by Dolly's father. What justification could be clearer? But still the money had not been paid. That was the fault of Longestaffe senior. But if the money could be paid, that would set everything right. Squercum evidently thought that the money would not be paid, and was ceaseless in his intercourse with Bideawhile's people. He charged Slow and Bideawhile with having delivered up the title-deeds on the authority of a mere note, and that a note with a forged signature. He demanded that the note should be impounded. On the receipt by Mr. Bideawhile of Melmotte's rather curt reply Mr. Squercum was informed that Mr. Melmotte had promised to pay the money at once, but that a day or two must be allowed. Mr. Squercum replied that on his client's behalf he should open the matter before the Lord Mayor. But in this way two or three days had passed without any renewal of the accusation before the public, and Melmotte had in a certain degree recovered his position. The Beauclerks and the Luptons disliked and feared him as much as ever, but they did not quite dare to be so loud and confident in condemnation as they had been. It was pretty well known that Mr. Longestaffe had not received his money,--and that was a condition of things tending greatly to shake the credit of a man living after Melmotte's fashion. But there was no crime in that. No forgery was implied by the publication of any statement to that effect. The Longestaffes, father and son, might probably have been very foolish. Whoever expected anything but folly from either? And Slow and Bideawhile might have been very remiss in their duty. It was astonishing, some people said, what things attorneys would do in these days! But they who had expected to see Melmotte behind the bars of a prison before this, and had regulated their conduct accordingly, now imagined that they had been deceived. Had the Westminster triumph been altogether a triumph it would have become the pleasant duty of some popular Conservative to express to Melmotte the pleasure he would have in introducing his new political ally to the House. In such case Melmotte himself would have been walked up the chamber with a pleasurable ovation and the thing would have been done without trouble to him. But now this was not the position of affairs. Though the matter was debated at the Carlton, no such popular Conservative offered his services. "I don't think we ought to throw him over," Mr. Beauclerk said. Sir Orlando Drought, quite a leading Conservative, suggested that as Lord Nidderdale was very intimate with Mr. Melmotte he might do it. But Nidderdale was not the man for such a performance. He was a very good fellow and everybody liked him. He belonged to the House because his father had territorial influence in a Scotch county;--but he never did anything there, and his selection for such a duty would be a declaration to the world that nobody else would do it. "It wouldn't hurt you, Lupton," said Mr. Beauclerk. "Not at all," said Lupton; "but I also, like Nidderdale, am a young man and of no use,--and a great deal too bashful." Melmotte, who knew but little about it, went down to the House at four o'clock, somewhat cowed by want of companionship, but carrying out his resolution that he would be stopped by no phantom fears,--that he would lose nothing by want of personal pluck. He knew that he was a Member, and concluded that if he presented himself he would be able to make his way in and assume his right. But here again fortune befriended him. The very leader of the party, the very founder of that new doctrine of which it was thought that Melmotte might become an apostle and an expounder,--who, as the reader may remember, had undertaken to be present at the banquet when his colleagues were dismayed and untrue to him, and who kept his promise and sat there almost in solitude,--he happened to be entering the House, as his late host was claiming from the door-keeper the fruition of his privilege. "You had better let me accompany you," said the Conservative leader, with something of chivalry in his heart. And so Mr. Melmotte was introduced to the House by the head of his party! When this was seen many men supposed that the rumours had been proved to be altogether false. Was not this a guarantee sufficient to guarantee any man's respectability? Lord Nidderdale saw his father in the lobby of the House of Lords that afternoon and told him what had occurred. The old man had been in a state of great doubt since the day of the dinner party. He was aware of the ruin that would be incurred by a marriage with Melmotte's daughter, if the things which had been said of Melmotte should be proved to be true. But he knew also that if his son should now recede, there must be an end of the match altogether;--and he did not believe the rumours. He was fully determined that the money should be paid down before the marriage was celebrated; but if his son were to secede now, of course no money would be forthcoming. He was prepared to recommend his son to go on with the affair still a little longer. "Old Cure tells me he doesn't believe a word of it," said the father. Cure was the family lawyer of the Marquises of Auld Reekie. "There's some hitch about Dolly Longestaffe's money, sir," said the son. "What's that to us if he has our money ready? I suppose it isn't always easy even for a man like that to get a couple of hundred thousand together. I know I've never found it easy to get a thousand. If he has borrowed a trifle from Longestaffe to make up the girl's money, I shan't complain. You stand to your guns. There's no harm done till the parson has said the word." "You couldn't let me have a couple of hundred;--could you, sir?" suggested the son. "No, I couldn't," replied the father with a very determined aspect. "I'm awfully hard up." "So am I." Then the old man toddled into his own chamber, and after sitting there ten minutes went away home. Lord Nidderdale also got quickly through his legislative duties and went to the Beargarden. There he found Grasslough and Miles Grendall dining together, and seated himself at the next table. They were full of news. "You've heard it, I suppose," said Miles in an awful whisper. "Heard what?" "I believe he doesn't know!" said Lord Grasslough. "By Jove, Nidderdale, you're in a mess like some others." "What's up now?" "Only fancy that they shouldn't have known down at the House! Vossner has bolted!" "Bolted!" exclaimed Nidderdale, dropping the spoon with which he was just going to eat his soup. "Bolted," repeated Grasslough. Lord Nidderdale looked round the room and became aware of the awful expression of dismay which hung upon the features of all the dining members. "Bolted by George! He has sold all our acceptances to a fellow in Great Marlbro' that's called 'Flatfleece.'" "I know him," said Nidderdale shaking his head. "I should think so," said Miles ruefully. "A bottle of champagne!" said Nidderdale, appealing to the waiter in almost a humble voice, feeling that he wanted sustenance in this new trouble that had befallen him. The waiter, beaten almost to the ground by an awful sense of the condition of the club, whispered to him the terrible announcement that there was not a bottle of champagne in the house. "Good G----," exclaimed the unfortunate nobleman. Miles Grendall shook his head. Grasslough shook his head. [Illustration: "Not a bottle of champagne in the house."] "It's true," said another young lord from the table on the other side. Then the waiter, still speaking with suppressed and melancholy voice, suggested that there was some port left. It was now the middle of July. "Brandy?" suggested Nidderdale. There had been a few bottles of brandy, but they had been already consumed. "Send out and get some brandy," said Nidderdale with rapid impetuosity. But the club was so reduced in circumstances that he was obliged to take silver out of his pocket before he could get even such humble comfort as he now demanded. Then Lord Grasslough told the whole story as far as it was known. Herr Vossner had not been seen since nine o'clock on the preceding evening. The head waiter had known for some weeks that heavy bills were due. It was supposed that three or four thousand pounds were owing to tradesmen, who now professed that the credit had been given, not to Herr Vossner but to the club. And the numerous acceptances for large sums which the accommodating purveyor held from many of the members had all been sold to Mr. Flatfleece. Mr. Flatfleece had spent a considerable portion of the day at the club, and it was now suggested that he and Herr Vossner were in partnership. At this moment Dolly Longestaffe came in. Dolly had been at the club before and had heard the story,--but had gone at once to another club for his dinner when he found that there was not even a bottle of wine to be had. "Here's a go," said Dolly. "One thing atop of another! There'll be nothing left for anybody soon. Is that brandy you're drinking, Nidderdale? There was none here when I left." "Had to send round the corner for it, to the public." "We shall be sending round the corner for a good many things now. Does anybody know anything of that fellow Melmotte?" "He's down in the House, as big as life," said Nidderdale. "He's all right I think." "I wish he'd pay me my money then. That fellow Flatfleece was here, and he showed me notes of mine for about 1,500! I write such a beastly hand that I never know whether I've written it or not. But, by George, a fellow can't eat and drink 1,500 in less than six months!" "There's no knowing what you can do, Dolly," said Lord Grasslough. "He's paid some of your card money, perhaps," said Nidderdale. "I don't think he ever did. Carbury had a lot of my I. O. U.'s while that was going on, but I got the money for that from old Melmotte. How is a fellow to know? If any fellow writes D. Longestaffe, am I obliged to pay it? Everybody is writing my name! How is any fellow to stand that kind of thing? Do you think Melmotte's all right?" Nidderdale said that he did think so. "I wish he wouldn't go and write my name then. That's a sort of thing that a man should be left to do for himself. I suppose Vossner is a swindler; but, by Jove, I know a worse than Vossner." With that he turned on his heels and went into the smoking-room. And, after he was gone, there was silence at the table, for it was known that Lord Nidderdale was to marry Melmotte's daughter. In the meantime a scene of a different kind was going on in the House of Commons. Melmotte had been seated on one of the back Conservative benches, and there he remained for a considerable time unnoticed and forgotten. The little emotion that had attended his entrance had passed away, and Melmotte was now no more than any one else. At first he had taken his hat off, but, as soon as he observed that the majority of members were covered, he put it on again. Then he sat motionless for an hour, looking round him and wondering. He had never hitherto been even in the gallery of the House. The place was very much smaller than he had thought, and much less tremendous. The Speaker did not strike him with the awe which he had expected, and it seemed to him that they who spoke were talking much like other people in other places. For the first hour he hardly caught the meaning of a sentence that was said, nor did he try to do so. One man got up very quickly after another, some of them barely rising on their legs to say the few words that they uttered. It seemed to him to be a very common-place affair,--not half so awful as those festive occasions on which he had occasionally been called upon to propose a toast or to return thanks. Then suddenly the manner of the thing was changed, and one gentleman made a long speech. Melmotte by this time, weary of observing, had begun to listen, and words which were familiar to him reached his ears. The gentleman was proposing some little addition to a commercial treaty and was expounding in very strong language the ruinous injustice to which England was exposed by being tempted to use gloves made in a country in which no income tax was levied. Melmotte listened to his eloquence caring nothing about gloves, and very little about England's ruin. But in the course of the debate which followed, a question arose about the value of money, of exchange, and of the conversion of shillings into francs and dollars. About this Melmotte really did know something and he pricked up his ears. It seemed to him that a gentleman whom he knew very well in the city,--and who had maliciously stayed away from his dinner,--one Mr. Brown, who sat just before him on the same side of the House, and who was plodding wearily and slowly along with some pet fiscal theory of his own, understood nothing at all of what he was saying. Here was an opportunity for himself! Here was at his hand the means of revenging himself for the injury done him, and of showing to the world at the same time that he was not afraid of his city enemies! It required some courage certainly,--this attempt that suggested itself to him of getting upon his legs a couple of hours after his first introduction to parliamentary life. But he was full of the lesson which he was now ever teaching himself. Nothing should cow him. Whatever was to be done by brazen-faced audacity he would do. It seemed to be very easy, and he saw no reason why he should not put that old fool right. He knew nothing of the forms of the House;--was more ignorant of them than an ordinary schoolboy;--but on that very account felt less trepidation than might another parliamentary novice. Mr. Brown was tedious and prolix; and Melmotte, though he thought much of his project and had almost told himself that he would do the thing, was still doubting, when, suddenly, Mr. Brown sat down. There did not seem to be any particular end to the speech, nor had Melmotte followed any general thread of argument. But a statement had been made and repeated, containing, as Melmotte thought, a fundamental error in finance; and he longed to set the matter right. At any rate he desired to show the House that Mr. Brown did not know what he was talking about,--because Mr. Brown had not come to his dinner. When Mr. Brown was seated, nobody at once rose. The subject was not popular, and they who understood the business of the House were well aware that the occasion had simply been one on which two or three commercial gentlemen, having crazes of their own, should be allowed to ventilate them. The subject would have dropped;--but on a sudden the new member was on his legs. Now it was probably not in the remembrance of any gentleman there that a member had got up to make a speech within two or three hours of his first entry into the House. And this gentleman was one whose recent election had been of a very peculiar kind. It had been considered by many of his supporters that his name should be withdrawn just before the ballot; by others that he would be deterred by shame from showing himself even if he were elected; and again by another party that his appearance in Parliament would be prevented by his disappearance within the walls of Newgate. But here he was, not only in his seat, but on his legs! The favourable grace, the air of courteous attention, which is always shown to a new member when he first speaks, was extended also to Melmotte. There was an excitement in the thing which made gentlemen willing to listen, and a consequent hum, almost of approbation. As soon as Melmotte was on his legs, and, looking round, found that everybody was silent with the intent of listening to him, a good deal of his courage oozed out of his fingers' ends. The House, which, to his thinking, had by no means been august while Mr. Brown had been toddling through his speech, now became awful. He caught the eyes of great men fixed upon him,--of men who had not seemed to him to be at all great as he had watched them a few minutes before, yawning beneath their hats. Mr. Brown, poor as his speech had been, had, no doubt, prepared it,--and had perhaps made three or four such speeches every year for the last fifteen years. Melmotte had not dreamed of putting two words together. He had thought, as far as he had thought at all, that he could rattle off what he had to say just as he might do it when seated in his chair at the Mexican Railway Board. But there was the Speaker, and those three clerks in their wigs, and the mace,--and worse than all, the eyes of that long row of statesmen opposite to him! His position was felt by him to be dreadful. He had forgotten even the very point on which he had intended to crush Mr. Brown. But the courage of the man was too high to allow him to be altogether quelled at once. The hum was prolonged; and though he was red in the face, perspiring, and utterly confused, he was determined to make a dash at the matter with the first words which would occur to him. "Mr. Brown is all wrong," he said. He had not even taken off his hat as he rose. Mr. Brown turned slowly round and looked up at him. Some one, whom he could not exactly hear, touching him behind, suggested that he should take off his hat. There was a cry of order, which of course he did not understand. "Yes, you are," said Melmotte, nodding his head, and frowning angrily at poor Mr. Brown. [Illustration: Melmotte in Parliament.] "The honourable member," said the Speaker, with the most good-natured voice which he could assume, "is not perhaps as yet aware that he should not call another member by his name. He should speak of the gentleman to whom he alluded as the honourable member for Whitechapel. And in speaking he should address, not another honourable member, but the chair." "You should take your hat off," said the good-natured gentleman behind. In such a position how should any man understand so many and such complicated instructions at once, and at the same time remember the gist of the argument to be produced? He did take off his hat, and was of course made hotter and more confused by doing so. "What he said was all wrong," continued Melmotte; "and I should have thought a man out of the City, like Mr. Brown, ought to have known better." Then there were repeated calls of order, and a violent ebullition of laughter from both sides of the House. The man stood for a while glaring around him, summoning his own pluck for a renewal of his attack on Mr. Brown, determined that he would be appalled and put down neither by the ridicule of those around him, nor by his want of familiarity with the place; but still utterly unable to find words with which to carry on the combat. "I ought to know something about it," said Melmotte sitting down and hiding his indignation and his shame under his hat. "We are sure that the honourable member for Westminster does understand the subject," said the leader of the House, "and we shall be very glad to hear his remarks. The House I am sure will pardon ignorance of its rules in so young a member." But Mr. Melmotte would not rise again. He had made a great effort, and had at any rate exhibited his courage. Though they might all say that he had not displayed much eloquence, they would be driven to admit that he had not been ashamed to show himself. He kept his seat till the regular stampede was made for dinner, and then walked out with as stately a demeanour as he could assume. "Well, that was plucky!" said Cohenlupe, taking his friend's arm in the lobby. "I don't see any pluck in it. That old fool Brown didn't know what he was talking about, and I wanted to tell them so. They wouldn't let me do it, and there's an end of it. It seems to me to be a stupid sort of a place." "Has Longestaffe's money been paid?" said Cohenlupe opening his black eyes while he looked up into his friend's face. "Don't you trouble your head about Longestaffe, or his money either," said Melmotte, getting into his brougham; "do you leave Mr. Longestaffe and his money to me. I hope you are not such a fool as to be scared by what the other fools say. When men play such a game as you and I are concerned in, they ought to know better than to be afraid of every word that is spoken." "Oh, dear; yes;" said Cohenlupe apologetically. "You don't suppose that I am afraid of anything." But at that moment Mr. Cohenlupe was meditating his own escape from the dangerous shores of England, and was trying to remember what happy country still was left in which an order from the British police would have no power to interfere with the comfort of a retired gentleman such as himself. That evening Madame Melmotte told her husband that Marie was now willing to marry Lord Nidderdale;--but she did not say anything as to the crossing-sweeper or the black footman, nor did she allude to Marie's threat of the sort of life she would lead her husband.

Melmotte did not return home in time to hear the good news that day. If he were the father-in-law of the eldest son of a marquis, he thought he might almost be safe: charges would hardly be pressed against a Member for Westminster whose daughter was married to the heir of the Marquis of Auld Reekie! But he had not yet heard that his daughter had yielded in reference to Lord Nidderdale. There was considerable uneasiness felt in some circles as to how Melmotte should take his seat. When he was put forward as the Conservative candidate, the party had intended that his election - if he were elected - should be hailed as a great Conservative triumph. He was elected, but the trumpets had not yet sounded. The party had suddenly become ashamed of their man. But there was already springing up an idea among another class that Melmotte might become a Conservative man of the people. The new farthing newspaper, The Mob, was putting Melmotte forward as a political hero, calling him a Napoleon of the business world who might be forgiven certain irregularities. The Mob thought that a good deal should be overlooked in a Melmotte, and that the philanthropy of his great designs should be allowed to cover his sins. Mr. Melmotte, therefore, was able to hold his head higher than on the unfortunate night of the banquet. He had replied to the letter from Messrs. Slow and Bideawhile with a note, in which he merely said that he would lose no time in settling matters as to the purchase of Pickering. Slow and Bideawhile were of course anxious that things should be settled. They wanted no prosecution for forgery; and they hoped to take some wind out of the sails of the odious Squercum. If Melmotte raised the money, there was no reason why that note purporting to have been signed by Dolly Longestaffe should ever leave their office. They still protested their belief that it did bear Dolly's signature. But still the money had not been paid. Squercum charged Slow and Bideawhile with having delivered up the title-deeds on the authority of a mere note with a forged signature. He demanded that the note should be impounded. He was informed that Mr. Melmotte had promised to pay the money at once, but that a day or two must be allowed. Mr. Squercum replied that on his client's behalf he should open the matter before the Lord Mayor. In this way two or three days had passed without any renewal of the accusation, and Melmotte had partly recovered his position. It was pretty well known that Mr. Longestaffe had not received his money; but there was no crime in that. The Longestaffes, father and son, had probably been very foolish. And Slow and Bideawhile might have been remiss in their duty. But those who had expected to see Melmotte behind bars by now felt that they had been deceived. It would normally have been the pleasant duty of some popular Conservative to introduce Melmotte to the House. But no popular Conservative offered his services. It was suggested that Lord Nidderdale might do it; but though he was a good fellow, he never did anything in Parliament. Melmotte, who knew little about it, went down to the House at four o'clock, carrying out his resolution that he would be stopped by no phantom fears. He knew that he was a Member, and he would assume his right. But fortune befriended him. The very leader of the party happened to be entering the House at the same time. "You had better let me accompany you," said the Conservative leader, with something of chivalry in his heart. And so Mr. Melmotte was introduced to the House by the head of his party! Was not this a guarantee of the man's respectability? Lord Nidderdale saw his father in the lobby of the House of Lords that afternoon and told him what had occurred. The old man had been in a state of great doubt about his son's marriage to Marie. He was aware of the ruin that would follow if the rumours about Melmotte proved to be true. But he did not believe the rumours, though he was fully determined that the money should be paid down before the marriage took place. "Old Cure tells me he doesn't believe a word of it," said the father. Cure was the family lawyer. "There's some hitch about Dolly Longestaffe's money, sir," said the son. "What's that to us if he has our money ready? I suppose it isn't easy even for a man like that to get a couple of hundred thousand together. If he has borrowed a trifle from Longestaffe to make up the girl's money, I shan't complain. You stand to your guns." "You couldn't let me have a couple of hundred, could you, sir?" suggested the son. "No, I couldn't." "I'm awfully hard up." "So am I." The old man toddled away. Lord Nidderdale went to the Beargarden, where he found Grasslough and Miles Grendall dining together, and seated himself at the next table. "You've heard it, I suppose," said Miles in an awful whisper. "Heard what?" "I believe he doesn't know!" said Lord Grasslough. "Vossner has bolted!" "Bolted!" exclaimed Nidderdale, dropping his spoon. "Bolted," repeated Grasslough. Lord Nidderdale looked round the room and became aware of the awful expression of dismay worn by all the members. "He has sold all our acceptances to a fellow in Great Marlbro' called Flatfleece." "I know him," said Nidderdale. "A bottle of champagne!" He appealed to the waiter in almost a humble voice. The waiter whispered the terrible announcement that there was not a bottle of champagne in the house. "Good G___," exclaimed the unfortunate nobleman. The others shook their heads. "Brandy?" suggested Nidderdale. There had been a few bottles of brandy, but they had already been consumed. "Send out and get some brandy," said Nidderdale; but he had to take silver from his pocket before it could be done. Then Lord Grasslough told the whole story as far as it was known. Herr Vossner had not been seen since nine o'clock on the preceding evening. The head waiter had known for some weeks that heavy bills were due. And the numerous I.O.U.s written by the members had all been sold to Mr. Flatfleece. At this moment Dolly Longestaffe came in, having heard the story. "Here's a go," he said. "One thing atop of another! Is that brandy you're drinking, Nidderdale? Does anybody know anything of that fellow Melmotte?" "He's down in the House, as big as life," said Nidderdale. "He's all right, I think." "I wish he'd pay me my money then. That fellow Flatfleece showed me notes of mine for about 1,500! I write such a beastly hand that I never know whether I've written it or not. But, by George, a fellow can't eat and drink 1,500 in less than six months!" "There's no knowing what you can do, Dolly," said Lord Grasslough. "It's some of your card money, perhaps," said Nidderdale. "How is a fellow to know? If any fellow writes D. Longestaffe, am I obliged to pay it? Everybody is writing my name! I wish Melmotte wouldn't go and write my name. Vossner is a swindler; but, by Jove, I know a worse than Vossner." With that he turned on his heels and went into the smoking-room. After he was gone, there was silence at the table, for it was known that Lord Nidderdale was to marry Melmotte's daughter. In the meantime a scene of a different kind was going on in the House of Commons. Melmotte had been seated on one of the back Conservative benches, and there he remained for a time unnoticed. He sat motionless for an hour, looking round him and wondering. He had never until now been even in the gallery of the House. The place was very much smaller than he had thought, and much less tremendous. The Speaker did not strike him with the awe which he had expected. For the first hour he hardly caught the meaning of anything that was said. One man got up very quickly after another, some of them barely rising to say the few words that they uttered. It seemed to him to be a very commonplace affair. Then suddenly the manner of the thing was changed, and one gentleman made a long speech. Melmotte listened: the gentleman was proposing some addition to a commercial treaty and was expounding in very strong language the ruinous injustice to which England was exposed by importing gloves made in a country in which no income tax was levied. Melmotte cared nothing about gloves, and very little about England's ruin. But in the course of the debate which followed, a question arose about the value of money, and of the conversion of shillings into francs and dollars. About this Melmotte really did know something, and he pricked up his ears. It seemed to him that a gentleman, one Mr. Brown, whom he knew very well in the city - and who had maliciously stayed away from his dinner - understood nothing at all of what he was saying. Here was an opportunity for revenge - and for showing the world at the same time that he was not afraid of his city enemies! It required some courage certainly; but he had determined that nothing should cow him. He saw no reason why he should not put the old fool right, although he knew nothing of the forms of the House. Melmotte was still doubting whether to speak, when suddenly Mr. Brown sat down. There did not seem to be any particular end to the speech, nor had Melmotte followed any general thread of argument. But a statement had been made containing, as Melmotte thought, a fundamental error in finance. Nobody at once rose. The subject would have dropped; but on a sudden the new member was on his legs. Not in living memory had a member got up to make a speech within two or three hours of his first entry into the House. And this gentleman was one whose recent election had been of a very peculiar kind. Some had thought that his appearance in Parliament would be prevented by his disappearance within the walls of Newgate Jail. But here he was, standing up! The courteous attention which is always shown to a new member when he first speaks, was extended to Melmotte. As soon as he was on his legs, and found that everybody was silent and listening, a good deal of his courage oozed out of his fingers' ends. He caught the eyes of great men fixed upon him - of men who had not seemed at all great a few minutes before, yawning beneath their hats. Mr. Brown, poor as his speech had been, had, no doubt, prepared it; while Melmotte had not dreamed of putting two words together. He had thought, as far as he had thought at all, that he could rattle off what he had to say just as he might at the Mexican Railway Board. But there was the Speaker, and those three clerks in their wigs, and the mace - and all those eyes! He forgot the very point on which he had intended to crush Mr. Brown. But his courage was too high to allow him to be quelled. Though he was red in the face, perspiring, and utterly confused, he was determined to make a dash at the matter. "Mr. Brown is all wrong," he said. Mr. Brown turned slowly and looked up at him. Some one behind him suggested that he should take off his hat. There was a cry of order, which of course he did not understand. "Yes, you are," said Melmotte, frowning angrily at poor Mr. Brown. "The honourable member," said the Speaker, with the most good-natured voice which he could assume, "is perhaps not yet aware that he should not call another member by his name. He should speak of the gentleman as the honourable member for Whitechapel. And in speaking he should address the chair." "You should take your hat off," said the man behind. Melmotte did take off his hat, and was made more confused by doing so. "What he said was all wrong," he continued; "and I should have thought a man out of the City, like Mr. Brown, ought to have known better." Then there were repeated calls of order, and a violent outburst of laughter from both sides of the House. Melmotte stood for a while glaring around him, summoning his pluck for a renewal of his attack on Mr. Brown, determined not to be put down, but still utterly unable to find words. "I ought to know something about it," he said, sitting down and hiding his indignation and his shame under his hat. "We are sure that the honourable member for Westminster does understand the subject," said the leader of the House, "and we shall be very glad to hear his remarks." But Mr. Melmotte would not rise again. He had at any rate shown his courage, if not much eloquence. He kept his seat till the regular stampede was made for dinner, and then walked out in as stately a way as he could. "Well, that was plucky!" said Cohenlupe, the honourable member for Staines, taking his friend's arm in the lobby. "I don't see any pluck in it. That old fool Brown didn't know what he was talking about, and I wanted to tell them so. It seems to be a stupid sort of place." "Has Longestaffe's money been paid?" said Cohenlupe, looking up into his friend's face. "Don't you trouble your head about Longestaffe," said Melmotte, getting into his carriage; "leave him and his money to me. I hope you are not scared by what fools say." "Oh, dear, no," said Cohenlupe. But he was meditating his own escape from England, and was trying to remember what happy country would not interfere with the comfort of a retired gentleman such as himself. That evening Madame Melmotte told her husband that Marie was now willing to marry Lord Nidderdale; but she did not say anything about Marie's threat of the sort of life she would lead her husband.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 69: Melmotte in Parliament

A few days before that period in our story which we have now reached, Miss Longestaffe was seated in Lady Monogram's back drawing-room, discussing the terms on which the two tickets for Madame Melmotte's grand reception had been transferred to Lady Monogram,--the place on the cards for the names of the friends whom Madame Melmotte had the honour of inviting to meet the Emperor and the Princes, having been left blank; and the terms also on which Miss Longestaffe had been asked to spend two or three days with her dear friend Lady Monogram. Each lady was disposed to get as much and to give as little as possible,--in which desire the ladies carried out the ordinary practice of all parties to a bargain. It had of course been settled that Lady Monogram was to have the two tickets,--for herself and her husband,--such tickets at that moment standing very high in the market. In payment for these valuable considerations, Lady Monogram was to undertake to chaperon Miss Longestaffe at the entertainment, to take Miss Longestaffe as a visitor for three days, and to have one party at her own house during the time, so that it might be seen that Miss Longestaffe had other friends in London besides the Melmotte's on whom to depend for her London gaieties. At this moment Miss Longestaffe felt herself justified in treating the matter as though she were hardly receiving a fair equivalent. The Melmotte tickets were certainly ruling very high. They had just culminated. They fell a little soon afterwards, and at ten P.M. on the night of the entertainment were hardly worth anything. At the moment which we have now in hand, there was a rush for them. Lady Monogram had already secured the tickets. They were in her desk. But, as will sometimes be the case in a bargain, the seller was complaining that as she had parted with her goods too cheap, some make-weight should be added to the stipulated price. "As for that, my dear," said Miss Longestaffe, who, since the rise in Melmotte stock generally, had endeavoured to resume something of her old manners, "I don't see what you mean at all. You meet Lady Julia Goldsheiner everywhere, and her father-in-law is Mr. Brehgert's junior partner." "Lady Julia is Lady Julia, my dear, and young Mr. Goldsheiner has, in some sort of way, got himself in. He hunts, and Damask says that he is one of the best shots at Hurlingham. I never met old Mr. Goldsheiner anywhere." "I have." "Oh, yes, I dare say. Mr. Melmotte, of course, entertains all the City people. I don't think Sir Damask would like me to ask Mr. Brehgert to dine here." Lady Monogram managed everything herself with reference to her own parties; invited all her own guests, and never troubled Sir Damask,--who, again, on his side, had his own set of friends; but she was very clever in the use which she made of her husband. There were some aspirants who really were taught to think that Sir Damask was very particular as to the guests whom he welcomed to his own house. "May I speak to Sir Damask about it?" asked Miss Longestaffe, who was very urgent on the occasion. "Well, my dear, I really don't think you ought to do that. There are little things which a man and his wife must manage together without interference." "Nobody can ever say that I interfered in any family. But really, Julia, when you tell me that Sir Damask cannot receive Mr. Brehgert, it does sound odd. As for City people, you know as well as I do, that that kind of thing is all over now. City people are just as good as West-end people." "A great deal better, I dare say. I'm not arguing about that. I don't make the lines; but there they are; and one gets to know in a sort of way what they are. I don't pretend to be a bit better than my neighbours. I like to see people come here whom other people who come here will like to meet. I'm big enough to hold my own, and so is Sir Damask. But we ain't big enough to introduce new-comers. I don't suppose there's anybody in London understands it better than you do, Georgiana, and therefore it's absurd my pretending to teach you. I go pretty well everywhere, as you are aware; and I shouldn't know Mr. Brehgert if I were to see him." "You'll meet him at the Melmottes', and, in spite of all you said once, you're glad enough to go there." "Quite true, my dear. I don't think that you are just the person to throw that in my teeth; but never mind that. There's the butcher round the corner in Bond Street, or the man who comes to do my hair. I don't at all think of asking them to my house. But if they were suddenly to turn out wonderful men, and go everywhere, no doubt I should be glad to have them here. That's the way we live, and you are as well used to it as I am. Mr. Brehgert at present to me is like the butcher round the corner." Lady Monogram had the tickets safe under lock and key, or I think she would hardly have said this. "He is not a bit like a butcher," said Miss Longestaffe, blazing up in real wrath. "I did not say that he was." "Yes, you did; and it was the unkindest thing you could possibly say. It was meant to be unkind. It was monstrous. How would you like it if I said that Sir Damask was like a hair-dresser?" "You can say so if you please. Sir Damask drives four in hand, rides as though he meant to break his neck every winter, is one of the best shots going, and is supposed to understand a yacht as well as any other gentleman out. And I'm rather afraid that before he was married he used to box with all the prize-fighters, and to be a little too free behind the scenes. If that makes a man like a hair-dresser, well, there he is." "How proud you are of his vices." "He's very good-natured, my dear, and as he does not interfere with me, I don't interfere with him. I hope you'll do as well. I dare say Mr. Brehgert is good-natured." "He's an excellent man of business, and is making a very large fortune." "And has five or six grown-up children, who, no doubt, will be a comfort." "If I don't mind them, why need you? You have none at all, and you find it lonely enough." "Not at all lonely. I have everything that I desire. How hard you are trying to be ill-natured, Georgiana." "Why did you say that he was a--butcher?" "I said nothing of the kind. I didn't even say that he was like a butcher. What I did say was this,--that I don't feel inclined to risk my own reputation on the appearance of new people at my table. Of course, I go in for what you call fashion. Some people can dare to ask anybody they meet in the streets. I can't. I've my own line, and I mean to follow it. It's hard work, I can tell you; and it would be harder still if I wasn't particular. If you like Mr. Brehgert to come here on Tuesday evening, when the rooms will be full, you can ask him; but as for having him to dinner, I--won't--do--it." So the matter was at last settled. Miss Longestaffe did ask Mr. Brehgert for the Tuesday evening, and the two ladies were again friends. Perhaps Lady Monogram, when she illustrated her position by an allusion to a butcher and a hair-dresser, had been unaware that Mr. Brehgert had some resemblance to the form which men in that trade are supposed to bear. Let us at least hope that she was so. He was a fat, greasy man, good-looking in a certain degree, about fifty, with hair dyed black, and beard and moustache dyed a dark purple colour. The charm of his face consisted in a pair of very bright black eyes, which were, however, set too near together in his face for the general delight of Christians. He was stout;--fat all over rather than corpulent,--and had that look of command in his face which has become common to master-butchers, probably by long intercourse with sheep and oxen. But Mr. Brehgert was considered to be a very good man of business, and was now regarded as being, in a commercial point of view, the leading member of the great financial firm of which he was the second partner. Mr. Todd's day was nearly done. He walked about constantly between Lombard Street, the Exchange, and the Bank, and talked much to merchants; he had an opinion too of his own on particular cases; but the business had almost got beyond him, and Mr. Brehgert was now supposed to be the moving spirit of the firm. He was a widower, living in a luxurious villa at Fulham with a family, not indeed grown up, as Lady Monogram had ill-naturedly said, but which would be grown up before long, varying from an eldest son of eighteen, who had just been placed at a desk in the office, to the youngest girl of twelve, who was at school at Brighton. He was a man who always asked for what he wanted; and having made up his mind that he wanted a second wife, had asked Miss Georgiana Longestaffe to fill that situation. He had met her at the Melmottes', had entertained her, with Madame Melmotte and Marie, at Beaudesert, as he called his villa, had then proposed in the square, and two days after had received an assenting answer in Bruton Street. Poor Miss Longestaffe! Although she had acknowledged the fact to Lady Monogram in her desire to pave the way for the reception of herself into society as a married woman, she had not as yet found courage to tell her family. The man was absolutely a Jew;--not a Jew that had been, as to whom there might possibly be a doubt whether he or his father or his grandfather had been the last Jew of the family; but a Jew that was. So was Goldsheiner a Jew, whom Lady Julia Start had married,--or at any rate had been one a very short time before he ran away with that lady. She counted up ever so many instances on her fingers of "decent people" who had married Jews or Jewesses. Lord Frederic Framlinghame had married a girl of the Berrenhoffers; and Mr. Hart had married a Miss Chute. She did not know much of Miss Chute, but was certain that she was a Christian. Lord Frederic's wife and Lady Julia Goldsheiner were seen everywhere. Though she hardly knew how to explain the matter even to herself, she was sure that there was at present a general heaving-up of society on this matter, and a change in progress which would soon make it a matter of indifference whether anybody was Jew or Christian. For herself she regarded the matter not at all, except as far as it might be regarded by the world in which she wished to live. She was herself above all personal prejudices of that kind. Jew, Turk, or infidel was nothing to her. She had seen enough of the world to be aware that her happiness did not lie in that direction, and could not depend in the least on the religion of her husband. Of course she would go to church herself. She always went to church. It was the proper thing to do. As to her husband, though she did not suppose that she could ever get him to church,--nor perhaps would it be desirable,--she thought that she might induce him to go nowhere, so that she might be able to pass him off as a Christian. She knew that such was the Christianity of young Goldsheiner, of which the Starts were now boasting. Had she been alone in the world she thought that she could have looked forward to her destiny with complacency; but she was afraid of her father and mother. Lady Pomona was distressingly old-fashioned, and had so often spoken with horror even of the approach of a Jew,--and had been so loud in denouncing the iniquity of Christians who allowed such people into their houses! Unfortunately, too, Georgiana in her earlier days had re-echoed all her mother's sentiments. And then her father,--if he had ever earned for himself the right to be called a Conservative politician by holding a real opinion of his own,--it had been on that matter of admitting the Jews into parliament. When that had been done he was certain that the glory of England was sunk for ever. And since that time, whenever creditors were more than ordinarily importunate, when Slow and Bideawhile could do nothing for him, he would refer to that fatal measure as though it was the cause of every embarrassment which had harassed him. How could she tell parents such as these that she was engaged to marry a man who at the present moment went to synagogue on a Saturday and carried out every other filthy abomination common to the despised people? That Mr. Brehgert was a fat, greasy man of fifty, conspicuous for hair-dye, was in itself distressing:--but this minor distress was swallowed up in the greater. Miss Longestaffe was a girl possessing considerable discrimination, and was able to weigh her own possessions in just scales. She had begun life with very high aspirations, believing in her own beauty, in her mother's fashion, and her father's fortune. She had now been ten years at the work, and was aware that she had always flown a little too high for her mark at the time. At nineteen and twenty and twenty-one she had thought that all the world was before her. With her commanding figure, regular long features, and bright complexion, she had regarded herself as one of the beauties of the day, and had considered herself entitled to demand wealth and a coronet. At twenty-two, twenty-three, and twenty-four any young peer, or peer's eldest son, with a house in town and in the country, might have sufficed. Twenty-five and six had been the years for baronets and squires; and even a leading fashionable lawyer or two had been marked by her as sufficient since that time. But now she was aware that hitherto she had always fixed her price a little too high. On three things she was still determined,--that she would not be poor, that she would not be banished from London, and that she would not be an old maid. "Mamma," she had often said, "there's one thing certain. I shall never do to be poor." Lady Pomona had expressed full concurrence with her child. "And, mamma, to do as Sophia is doing would kill me. Fancy having to live at Toodlam all one's life with George Whitstable!" Lady Pomona had agreed to this also, though she thought that Toodlam Hall was a very nice home for her elder daughter. "And, mamma, I should drive you and papa mad if I were to stay at home always. And what would become of me when Dolly was master of everything?" Lady Pomona, looking forward as well as she was able to the time at which she should herself have departed, when her dower and dower-house would have reverted to Dolly, acknowledged that Georgiana should provide herself with a home of her own before that time. And how was this to be done? Lovers with all the glories and all the graces are supposed to be plentiful as blackberries by girls of nineteen, but have been proved to be rare hothouse fruits by girls of twenty-nine. Brehgert was rich, would live in London, and would be a husband. People did such odd things now and "lived them down," that she could see no reason why she should not do this and live this down. Courage was the one thing necessary,--that and perseverance. She must teach herself to talk about Brehgert as Lady Monogram did of Sir Damask. She had plucked up so much courage as had enabled her to declare her fate to her old friend,--remembering as she did so how in days long past she and her friend Julia Triplex had scattered their scorn upon some poor girl who had married a man with a Jewish name,--whose grandfather had possibly been a Jew. "Dear me," said Lady Monogram. "Todd, Brehgert, and Goldsheiner! Mr. Todd is--one of us, I suppose." "Yes," said Georgiana boldly, "and Mr. Brehgert is a Jew. His name is Ezekiel Brehgert, and he is a Jew. You can say what you like about it." "I don't say anything about it, my dear." "And you can think anything you like. Things are changed since you and I were younger." "Very much changed, it appears," said Lady Monogram. Sir Damask's religion had never been doubted, though except on the occasion of his marriage no acquaintance of his had probably ever seen him in church. But to tell her father and mother required a higher spirit than she had shown even in her communication to Lady Monogram, and that spirit had not as yet come to her. On the morning before she left the Melmottes in Bruton Street, her lover had been with her. The Melmottes of course knew of the engagement and quite approved of it. Madame Melmotte rather aspired to credit for having had so happy an affair arranged under her auspices. It was some set-off against Marie's unfortunate escapade. Mr. Brehgert, therefore, had been allowed to come and go as he pleased, and on that morning he had pleased to come. They were sitting alone in some back room, and Brehgert was pressing for an early day. "I don't think we need talk of that yet, Mr. Brehgert," she said. "You might as well get over the difficulty and call me Ezekiel at once," he remarked. Georgiana frowned, and made no soft little attempt at the name as ladies in such circumstances are wont to do. "Mrs. Brehgert"--he alluded of course to the mother of his children--"used to call me Ezzy." "Perhaps I shall do so some day," said Miss Longestaffe, looking at her lover, and asking herself why she should not have been able to have the house and the money and the name of the wife without the troubles appertaining. She did not think it possible that she should ever call him Ezzy. "And ven shall it be? I should say as early in August as possible." "In August!" she almost screamed. It was already July. "Vy not, my dear? Ve would have our little holiday in Germany,--at Vienna. I have business there, and know many friends." Then he pressed her hard to fix some day in the next month. It would be expedient that they should be married from the Melmottes' house, and the Melmottes would leave town some time in August. There was truth in this. Unless married from the Melmottes' house, she must go down to Caversham for the occasion,--which would be intolerable. No;--she must separate herself altogether from father and mother, and become one with the Melmottes and the Brehgerts,--till she could live it down and make a position for herself. If the spending of money could do it, it should be done. "I must at any rate ask mamma about it," said Georgiana. Mr. Brehgert, with the customary good-humour of his people, was satisfied with the answer, and went away promising that he would meet his love at the great Melmotte reception. Then she sat silent, thinking how she should declare the matter to her family. Would it not be better for her to say to them at once that there must be a division among them,--an absolute breaking off of all old ties, so that it should be tacitly acknowledged that she, Georgiana, had gone out from among the Longestaffes altogether, and had become one with the Melmottes, Brehgerts, and Goldsheiners?

A few days before the dinner, Miss Longestaffe was seated in Lady Monogram's back drawing-room, discussing the terms on which the two tickets for the grand reception had been given to the Monograms; and the terms also on which Miss Longestaffe had been asked to spend two or three days with her dear friend Lady Monogram. Each lady wanted to get as much and to give as little as possible. In return for the two tickets, Lady Monogram was to chaperon Miss Longestaffe at the entertainment, to take Miss Longestaffe as a visitor for three days, and to have one party at her own house during that time, so that it might be seen that Miss Longestaffe had other friends in London besides the Melmottes. Miss Longestaffe felt that she was hardly receiving a fair price. The Melmotte tickets had reached their height, and there was a rush for them. Lady Monogram already had them in her desk. But the seller was complaining that as she had parted with her goods too cheap, some make-weight should be added to the price. "As for that, my dear," said Miss Longestaffe, who had endeavoured to resume something of her old manners, "I don't see what you mean at all. You meet Lady Julia Goldsheiner everywhere, and her father-in-law is Mr. Brehgert's junior partner." "Lady Julia is Lady Julia, my dear, and young Mr. Goldsheiner hunts, and Damask says that he is one of the best shots at Hurlingham. I don't think Sir Damask would like me to ask Mr. Brehgert to dine here." Sir Damask had nothing to do with the matter; but Lady Monogram was very clever in the use which she made of her husband. "May I speak to Sir Damask about it?" asked Miss Longestaffe. "Well, my dear, I really don't think you ought to do that." "But Julia, when you tell me that Sir Damask cannot receive Mr. Brehgert, it does sound odd. City people are just as good as West-end people." "A great deal better, I dare say. I'm not arguing about that. But we ain't big enough to introduce new-comers. I don't suppose there's anybody in London understands it better than you do, Georgiana, and therefore it's absurd my pretending to teach you. I go pretty well everywhere, as you are aware; and I shouldn't know Mr. Brehgert if I were to see him." "You'll meet him at the Melmottes', and you're glad enough to go there." "Quite true, my dear. And there's the butcher round the corner in Bond Street, or the man who comes to do my hair. If they were suddenly to turn out wonderful men, and go everywhere, no doubt I should be glad to have them here. Mr. Brehgert at present to me is like the butcher round the corner." Lady Monogram had the tickets safe under lock and key, or I think she would hardly have said this. "He is not a bit like a butcher," said Miss Longestaffe, blazing up in real wrath. "I did not say that he was." "Yes, you did; and it was the unkindest thing you could possibly say. It was monstrous. How would you like it if I said that Sir Damask was like a hair-dresser?" "You can say so if you please. Sir Damask drives four in hand, rides as though he meant to break his neck, is one of the best shots going, and is supposed to understand a yacht as well as any other gentleman out. And I'm rather afraid that before he was married he used to box with all the prize-fighters. If that makes a man like a hair-dresser, well, there it is." "How proud you are of his vices." "He's very good-natured, my dear, and as he does not interfere with me, I don't interfere with him. I hope you'll do as well. I dare say Mr. Brehgert is good-natured." "He's an excellent man of business, and is making a very large fortune." "And has five or six grown-up children, who, no doubt, will be a comfort." "If I don't mind them, why need you? You have none at all, and you find it lonely enough." "Not at all lonely. I have everything that I desire. How hard you are trying to be ill-natured, Georgiana." "Why did you say that he was a butcher?" "I said nothing of the kind. What I did say was that I don't care to risk my reputation on the appearance of new people at my table. If you like Mr. Brehgert to come here on Tuesday evening, when the rooms will be full, you can ask him; but as for having him to dinner, I won't do it." So the matter was settled. Miss Longestaffe did ask Mr. Brehgert for the Tuesday evening, and the two ladies were again friends. Perhaps Lady Monogram was aware of Mr. Brehgert's resemblance to a butcher. He was a fat, greasy man, good-looking in a certain degree, about fifty, with hair dyed black, and beard and moustache dyed a dark purple colour. The charm of his face consisted in a pair of very bright black eyes, which were, however, set rather near together. He was stout, and had that look of command in his face which is common to master-butchers. But Mr. Brehgert was considered to be a very good man of business, and was now regarded as being the leading member of the great financial firm of which he was the second partner. Old Mr. Todd's day was nearly done, and Mr. Brehgert was now supposed to be the moving spirit of the firm. He was a widower, living in a luxurious villa at Fulham with a family varying from an eldest son of eighteen, who had just been placed at a desk in the office, to the youngest girl of twelve, who was at school at Brighton. He was a man who always asked for what he wanted; and having made up his mind that he wanted a second wife, had asked Miss Georgiana Longestaffe to fill that situation. He had met her at the Melmottes', had entertained her, with Madame Melmotte and Marie, at his villa, had then proposed, and two days later had received an acceptance. Poor Miss Longestaffe! Although she had told Lady Monogram of her engagement, she had not yet found courage to tell her family. The man was absolutely a Jew; there was no doubt of it. Goldsheiner was also a Jew, whom Lady Julia Start had married; and Georgiana had counted up ever so many instances of "decent people" who had married Jews or Jewesses. Lord Frederic Framlingham had married a Berrenhoffer; and Lord Frederic's wife and Lady Julia Goldsheiner were seen everywhere. She was sure that progress in society would soon make it a matter of indifference whether anybody was Jew or Christian. For herself, she was above all personal prejudices of that kind. Jew, Turk, or infidel was nothing to her. Of course she would go to church. It was the proper thing to do. As to her husband, though she did not suppose that she could ever get him to church, she thought that she might induce him to go nowhere, so that she could pass him off as a Christian. But she was afraid of her father and mother. Lady Pomona was distressingly old-fashioned, and had often spoken with horror even of the approach of a Jew. Unfortunately, Georgiana in her earlier days had echoed her mother's sentiments. And then her father - on the admission of Jews into parliament, he was certain that England's glory was sunk for ever. How could she tell her parents that she was engaged to marry a man who went to synagogue on a Saturday and carried out every other filthy abomination of the despised people? That Mr. Brehgert was a fat, greasy man of fifty, conspicuous for hair-dye, was in itself distressing: but this minor distress was swallowed up in the greater. Miss Longestaffe had begun life with very high aspirations. At nineteen she had thought that all the world was before her. With her commanding figure, regular features, and bright complexion, she had regarded herself as one of the beauties of the day, and had considered herself entitled to demand wealth and a coronet. At twenty-three, any young peer, or peer's eldest son, with a house in town and in the country, might have sufficed. Twenty-five and six had been the years for baronets and squires; and even a leading fashionable lawyer or two had been marked by her as sufficient. But now she was aware that she had always fixed her price a little too high. On three things she was still determined: that she would not be poor, she would not be banished from London, and she would not be an old maid. Yet how was this to be done? Lovers are as plentiful as blackberries for girls of nineteen, but as rare as hothouse fruits for girls of twenty-nine. Brehgert was rich, would live in London, and would be a husband. People did such odd things now and "lived them down"; she could see no reason why she should not do this and live it down. Courage was the one thing necessary; that and perseverance. She had plucked up enough courage to declare her fate to her old friend Julia Monogram, remembering as she did so how in days long past the two had scattered their scorn upon some poor girl who had married a man with a Jewish name. "Dear me," said Lady Monogram. "Todd, Brehgert, and Goldsheiner! Mr. Todd is - one of us, I suppose." "Yes," said Georgiana boldly, "and Mr. Brehgert is a Jew. His name is Ezekiel Brehgert. You can say what you like about it." "I don't say anything about it, my dear." "And you can think anything you like. Things are changed since you and I were younger." "Very much changed, it appears," said Lady Monogram. But to tell her father and mother required a higher spirit, and that spirit had not yet come to Georgiana. On the morning before she left the Melmottes in Bruton Street, her lover had been with her. The Melmottes of course knew of the engagement and quite approved of it. Mr. Brehgert, therefore, had been allowed to come and go as he pleased. On that morning they were sitting alone in some back room, and Brehgert was pressing for an early wedding day. "I don't think we need talk of that yet, Mr. Brehgert," she said. "You might as well call me Ezekiel," he remarked. Georgiana frowned. "Mrs. Brehgert" - he alluded of course to the mother of his children - "used to call me Ezzy." "Perhaps I shall do so some day," said Miss Longestaffe, thinking it impossible that she should ever call him Ezzy. "And ven shall it be? I should say as early in August as possible." "In August!" she almost screamed. It was already July. "Vy not, my dear? Ve would have our little holiday at Vienna. I have business there, and know many friends." Then he pressed her to fix some day in the next month. It would be expedient to be married from the Melmottes' house, and the Melmottes would leave town in August. There was truth in this. Unless married from the Melmottes' house, she must go down to Caversham for the occasion - which would be intolerable. No; she must separate herself altogether from father and mother, and become one with the Melmottes and the Brehgerts - till she could live it down. "I must ask mamma about it," said Georgiana. Mr. Brehgert, with the customary good-humour of his people, was satisfied, and went away promising to meet his love at the great Melmotte reception. Then she sat silent, thinking how she should declare the matter to her family. Would it not be better for her to say at once that there must be a division among them, and acknowledge that she had gone out from among the Longestaffes altogether, and had become one with the Melmottes, Brehgerts, and Goldsheiners?

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 60: Miss Longstaffe's Lover

During these days the intercourse between Lady Carbury and her daughter was constrained and far from pleasant. Hetta, thinking that she was ill-used, kept herself aloof, and would not speak to her mother of herself or of her troubles. Lady Carbury watching her, but not daring to say much, was at last almost frightened at her girl's silence. She had assured herself, when she found that Hetta was disposed to quarrel with her lover and to send him back his brooch, that "things would come round," that Paul would be forgotten quickly,--or laid aside as though he were forgotten,--and that Hetta would soon perceive it to be her interest to marry her cousin. With such a prospect before her, Lady Carbury thought it to be her duty as a mother to show no tendency to sympathise with her girl's sorrow. Such heart-breakings were occurring daily in the world around them. Who were the happy people that were driven neither by ambition, nor poverty, nor greed, nor the cross purposes of unhappy love, to stifle and trample upon their feelings? She had known no one so blessed. She had never been happy after that fashion. She herself had within the last few weeks refused to join her lot with that of a man she really liked, because her wicked son was so grievous a burden on her shoulders. A woman, she thought, if she were unfortunate enough to be a lady without wealth of her own, must give up everything, her body, her heart,--her very soul if she were that way troubled,--to the procuring of a fitting maintenance for herself. Why should Hetta hope to be more fortunate than others? And then the position which chance now offered to her was fortunate. This cousin of hers, who was so devoted to her, was in all respects good. He would not torture her by harsh restraint and cruel temper. He would not drink. He would not spend his money foolishly. He would allow her all the belongings of a fair, free life. Lady Carbury reiterated to herself the assertion that she was manifestly doing a mother's duty by her endeavours to constrain her girl to marry such a man. With a settled purpose she was severe and hard. But when she found how harsh her daughter could be in response to this,--how gloomy, how silent, and how severe in retaliation,--she was almost frightened at what she herself was doing. She had not known how stern and how enduring her daughter could be. "Hetta," she said, "why don't you speak to me?" On this very day it was Hetta's purpose to visit Mrs. Hurtle at Islington. She had said no word of her intention to any one. She had chosen the Friday because on that day she knew her mother would go in the afternoon to her publisher. There should be no deceit. Immediately on her return she would tell her mother what she had done. But she considered herself to be emancipated from control. Among them they had robbed her of her lover. She had submitted to the robbery, but she would submit to nothing else. "Hetta, why don't you speak to me?" said Lady Carbury. "Because, mamma, there is nothing we can talk about without making each other unhappy." "What a dreadful thing to say! Is there no subject in the world to interest you except that wretched young man?" "None other at all," said Hetta obstinately. "What folly it is,--I will not say only to speak like that, but to allow yourself to entertain such thoughts!" "How am I to control my thoughts? Do you think, mamma, that after I had owned to you that I loved a man,--after I had owned it to him and, worst of all, to myself,--I could have myself separated from him, and then not think about it? It is a cloud upon everything. It is as though I had lost my eyesight and my speech. It is as it would be to you if Felix were to die. It crushes me." There was an accusation in this allusion to her brother which the mother felt,--as she was intended to feel it,--but to which she could make no reply. It accused her of being too much concerned for her son to feel any real affection for her daughter. "You are ignorant of the world, Hetta," she said. "I am having a lesson in it now, at any rate." "Do you think it is worse than others have suffered before you? In what little you see around you do you think that girls are generally able to marry the men upon whom they set their hearts?" She paused, but Hetta made no answer to this. "Marie Melmotte was as warmly attached to your brother as you can be to Mr. Montague." "Marie Melmotte!" "She thinks as much of her feelings as you do of yours. The truth is you are indulging a dream. You must wake from it, and shake yourself, and find out that you, like others, have got to do the best you can for yourself in order that you may live. The world at large has to eat dry bread, and cannot get cakes and sweetmeats. A girl, when she thinks of giving herself to a husband, has to remember this. If she has a fortune of her own she can pick and choose, but if she have none she must allow herself to be chosen." "Then a girl is to marry without stopping even to think whether she likes the man or not?" "She should teach herself to like the man, if the marriage be suitable. I would not have you take a vicious man because he was rich, or one known to be cruel and imperious. Your cousin Roger, you know--" "Mamma," said Hetta, getting up from her seat, "you may as well believe me. No earthly inducement shall ever make me marry my cousin Roger. It is to me horrible that you should propose it to me when you know that I love that other man with my whole heart." "How can you speak so of one who has treated you with the utmost contumely?" "I know nothing of any contumely. What reason have I to be offended because he has liked a woman whom he knew before he ever saw me? It has been unfortunate, wretched, miserable; but I do not know that I have any right whatever to be angry with Mr. Paul Montague." Having so spoken she walked out of the room without waiting for a further reply. It was all very sad to Lady Carbury. She perceived now that she had driven her daughter to pronounce an absolution of Paul Montague's sins, and that in this way she had lessened and loosened the barrier which she had striven to construct between them. But that which pained her most was the unrealistic, romantic view of life which pervaded all Hetta's thoughts. How was any girl to live in this world who could not be taught the folly of such idle dreams? That afternoon Hetta trusted herself all alone to the mysteries of the Marylebone underground railway, and emerged with accuracy at King's Cross. She had studied her geography, and she walked from thence to Islington. She knew well the name of the street and the number at which Mrs. Hurtle lived. But when she reached the door she did not at first dare to stand and raise the knocker. She passed on to the end of the silent, vacant street, endeavouring to collect her thoughts, striving to find and to arrange the words with which she would commence her strange petition. And she endeavoured to dictate to herself some defined conduct should the woman be insolent to her. Personally she was not a coward, but she doubted her power of replying to a rough speech. She could at any rate escape. Should the worst come to the worst, the woman would hardly venture to impede her departure. Having gone to the end of the street, she returned with a very quick step and knocked at the door. It was opened almost immediately by Ruby Ruggles, to whom she gave her name. "Oh laws,--Miss Carbury!" said Ruby, looking up into the stranger's face. "Yes;--sure enough she must be Felix's sister." But Ruby did not dare to ask any question. She had admitted to all around her that Sir Felix should not be her lover any more, and that John Crumb should be allowed to return. But, nevertheless, her heart twittered as she showed Miss Carbury up to the lodger's sitting-room. Though it was midsummer Hetta entered the room with her veil down. She adjusted it as she followed Ruby up the stairs, moved by a sudden fear of her rival's scrutiny. Mrs. Hurtle rose from her chair and came forward to greet her visitor, putting out both her hands to do so. She was dressed with the most scrupulous care,--simply, and in black, without an ornament of any kind, without a ribbon or a chain or a flower. But with some woman's purpose at her heart she had so attired herself as to look her very best. Was it that she thought that she would vindicate to her rival their joint lover's first choice, or that she was minded to teach the English girl that an American woman might have graces of her own? As she came forward she was gentle and soft in her movements, and a pleasant smile played round her mouth. Hetta at the first moment was almost dumbfounded by her beauty,--by that and by her ease and exquisite self-possession. "Miss Carbury," she said with that low, rich voice which in old days had charmed Paul almost as much as her loveliness, "I need not tell you how interested I am in seeing you. May I not ask you to lay aside your veil, so that we may look at each other fairly?" Hetta, dumbfounded, not knowing how to speak a word, stood gazing at the woman when she had removed her veil. She had had no personal description of Mrs. Hurtle, but had expected something very different from this! She had thought that the woman would be coarse and big, with fine eyes and a bright colour. As it was they were both of the same complexion, both dark, with hair nearly black, with eyes of the same colour. Hetta thought of all that at the moment,--but acknowledged to herself that she had no pretension to beauty such as that which this woman owned. "And so you have come to see me," said Mrs. Hurtle. "Sit down so that I may look at you. I am glad that you have come to see me, Miss Carbury." [Illustration: "Sit down so that I may look at you."] "I am glad at any rate that you are not angry." "Why should I be angry? Had the idea been distasteful to me I should have declined. I know not why, but it is a sort of pleasure to me to see you. It is a poor time we women have,--is it not,--in becoming playthings to men? So this Lothario that was once mine, is behaving badly to you also. Is it so? He is no longer mine, and you may ask me freely for aid, if there be any that I can give you. If he were an American I should say that he had behaved badly to me;--but as he is an Englishman perhaps it is different. Now tell me;--what can I do, or what can I say?" "He told me that you could tell me the truth." "What truth? I will certainly tell you nothing that is not true. You have quarrelled with him too. Is it not so?" "Certainly I have quarrelled with him." "I am not curious;--but perhaps you had better tell me of that. I know him so well that I can guess that he should give offence. He can be full of youthful ardour one day, and cautious as old age itself the next. But I do not suppose that there has been need for such caution with you. What is it, Miss Carbury?" Hetta found the telling of her story to be very difficult. "Mrs. Hurtle," she said, "I had never heard your name when he first asked me to be his wife." "I dare say not. Why should he have told you anything of me?" "Because,--oh, because--. Surely he ought, if it is true that he had once promised to marry you." "That certainly is true." "And you were here, and I knew nothing of it. Of course I should have been very different to him had I known that,--that,--that--" "That there was such a woman as Winifrid Hurtle interfering with him. Then you heard it by chance, and you were offended. Was it not so?" "And now he tells me that I have been unjust to him and he bids me ask you. I have not been unjust." "I am not so sure of that. Shall I tell you what I think? I think that he has been unjust to me, and that therefore your injustice to him is no more than his due. I cannot plead for him, Miss Carbury. To me he has been the last and worst of a long series of, I think, undeserved misfortune. But whether you will avenge my wrongs must be for you to decide." "Why did he go with you to Lowestoft?" "Because I asked him,--and because, like many men, he cannot be ill-natured although he can be cruel. He would have given a hand not to have gone, but he could not say me nay. As you have come here, Miss Carbury, you may as well know the truth. He did love me, but he had been talked out of his love by my enemies and his own friends long before he had ever seen you. I am almost ashamed to tell you my own part of the story, and yet I know not why I should be ashamed. I followed him here to England--because I loved him. I came after him, as perhaps a woman should not do, because I was true of heart. He had told me that he did not want me;--but I wanted to be wanted, and I hoped that I might lure him back to his troth. I have utterly failed, and I must return to my own country,--I will not say a broken-hearted woman, for I will not admit of such a condition,--but a creature with a broken spirit. He has misused me foully, and I have simply forgiven him; not because I am a Christian, but because I am not strong enough to punish one that I still love. I could not put a dagger into him,--or I would; or a bullet,--or I would. He has reduced me to a nothing by his falseness, and yet I cannot injure him! I, who have sworn to myself that no man should ever lay a finger on me in scorn without feeling my wrath in return, I cannot punish him. But if you choose to do so it is not for me to set you against such an act of justice." Then she paused and looked up to Hetta as though expecting a reply. But Hetta had no reply to make. All had been said that she had come to hear. Every word that the woman had spoken had in truth been a comfort to her. She had told herself that her visit was to be made in order that she might be justified in her condemnation of her lover. She had believed that it was her intention to arm herself with proof that she had done right in rejecting him. Now she was told that however false her lover might have been to this other woman he had been absolutely true to her. The woman had not spoken kindly of Paul,--had seemed to intend to speak of him with the utmost severity; but she had so spoken as to acquit him of all sin against Hetta. What was it to Hetta that her lover had been false to this American stranger? It did not seem to her to be at all necessary that she should be angry with her lover on that head. Mrs. Hurtle had told her that she herself must decide whether she would take upon herself to avenge her rival's wrongs. In saying that Mrs. Hurtle had taught her to feel that there were no other wrongs which she need avenge. It was all done now. If she could only thank the woman for the pleasantness of her demeanour, and then go, she could, when alone, make up her mind as to what she would do next. She had not yet told herself she would submit herself again to Paul Montague. She had only told herself that, within her own breast, she was bound to forgive him. "You have been very kind," she said at last,--speaking only because it was necessary that she should say something. "It is well that there should be some kindness where there has been so much that is unkind. Forgive me, Miss Carbury, if I speak plainly to you. Of course you will go back to him. Of course you will be his wife. You have told me that you love him dearly, as plainly as I have told you the same story of myself. Your coming here would of itself have declared it, even if I did not see your satisfaction at my account of his treachery to me." "Oh, Mrs. Hurtle, do not say that of me!" "But it is true, and I do not in the least quarrel with you on that account. He has preferred you to me, and as far as I am concerned there is an end of it. You are a girl, whereas I am a woman,--and he likes your youth. I have undergone the cruel roughness of the world, which has not as yet touched you; and therefore you are softer to the touch. I do not know that you are very superior in other attractions; but that has sufficed, and you are the victor. I am strong enough to acknowledge that I have nothing to forgive in you;--and am weak enough to forgive all his treachery." Hetta was now holding the woman by the hand, and was weeping, she knew not why. "I am so glad to have seen you," continued Mrs. Hurtle, "so that I may know what his wife was like. In a few days I shall return to the States, and then neither of you will ever be troubled further by Winifrid Hurtle. Tell him that if he will come and see me once before I go, I will not be more unkind to him than I can help." When Hetta did not decline to be the bearer of this message she must have at any rate resolved that she would see Paul Montague again,--and to see him would be to tell him that she was again his own. She now got herself quickly out of the room, absolutely kissing the woman whom she had both dreaded and despised. As soon as she was alone in the street she tried to think of it all. How full of beauty was the face of that American female,--how rich and glorious her voice in spite of a slight taint of the well-known nasal twang;--and above all how powerful and at the same time how easy and how gracious was her manner! That she would be an unfit wife for Paul Montague was certain to Hetta, but that he or any man should have loved her and have been loved by her, and then have been willing to part from her, was wonderful. And yet Paul Montague had preferred herself, Hetta Carbury, to this woman! Paul had certainly done well for his own cause when he had referred the younger lady to the elder. Of her own quarrel of course there must be an end. She had been unjust to the man, and injustice must of course be remedied by repentance and confession. As she walked quickly back to the railway station she brought herself to love her lover more fondly than she had ever done. He had been true to her from the first hour of their acquaintance. What truth higher than that has any woman a right to desire? No doubt she gave to him a virgin heart. No other man had ever touched her lips, or been allowed to press her hand, or to look into her eyes with unrebuked admiration. It was her pride to give herself to the man she loved after this fashion, pure and white as snow on which no foot has trodden. But in taking him, all that she wanted was that he should be true to her now and henceforward. The future must be her own work. As to the "now," she felt that Mrs. Hurtle had given her sufficient assurance. She must at once let her mother know this change in her mind. When she re-entered the house she was no longer sullen, no longer anxious to be silent, very willing to be gracious if she might be received with favour,--but quite determined that nothing should shake her purpose. She went at once into her mother's room, having heard from the boy at the door that Lady Carbury had returned. "Hetta, wherever have you been?" asked Lady Carbury. "Mamma," she said, "I mean to write to Mr. Montague and tell him that I have been unjust to him." "Hetta, you must do nothing of the kind," said Lady Carbury, rising from her seat. "Yes, mamma. I have been unjust, and I must do so." "It will be asking him to come back to you." "Yes, mamma:--that is what I mean. I shall tell him that if he will come, I will receive him. I know he will come. Oh, mamma, let us be friends, and I will tell you everything. Why should you grudge me my love?" "You have sent him back his brooch," said Lady Carbury hoarsely. "He shall give it me again. Hear what I have done. I have seen that American lady." "Mrs. Hurtle!" "Yes;--I have been to her. She is a wonderful woman." "And she has told you wonderful lies." "Why should she lie to me? She has told me no lies. She said nothing in his favour." "I can well believe that. What can any one say in his favour?" "But she told me that which has assured me that Mr. Montague has never behaved badly to me. I shall write to him at once. If you like I will show you the letter." "Any letter to him, I will tear," said Lady Carbury, full of anger. "Mamma, I have told you everything, but in this I must judge for myself." Then Hetta, seeing that her mother would not relent, left the room without further speech, and immediately opened her desk that the letter might be written.

During these days, the relationship between Lady Carbury and her daughter was constrained. Hetta kept herself aloof, until Lady Carbury was almost frightened at her daughter's silence. She had assured herself that Paul would be forgotten quickly, and that Hetta would soon perceive it to be in her interest to marry her cousin. With this prospect, Lady Carbury thought it to be her duty as a mother to show no sympathy with her girl's sorrow. Such heart-breakings occurred daily. She herself had never been happy in love. She had refused to marry a man she really liked, because her wicked son was so grievous a burden. A woman who had no wealth of her own, she thought, must give up everything, her body, heart and soul, to getting a fitting maintenance for herself. And Roger was so good. He would not torture Hetta with a cruel temper. He would not drink. He would give her a fair, free life. Lady Carbury repeated to herself that it was a mother's duty to impel her girl to marry such a man. But when she found how harsh her daughter could be in response - how gloomy, silent and severe - she was almost frightened. "Hetta," she said, "why don't you speak to me?" On this very day it was Hetta's purpose to visit Mrs. Hurtle at Islington. She had said no word of her intention to anyone. On her return she would tell her mother what she had done. But she was not under her mother's control. "Mamma, there is nothing we can talk about without making each other unhappy." "What a dreadful thing to say! Is there no subject in the world to interest you except that wretched young man?" "None at all," said Hetta. "What folly, to allow yourself to entertain such thoughts!" "How am I to control my thoughts? Do you think, mamma, that after I had owned that I loved a man, I could be separated from him, and then not think about it? It is as though I had lost my eyesight and my speech. It is as it would be to you if Felix were to die. It crushes me." There was an accusation in this allusion to her brother which the mother felt, but to which she could make no reply. It accused her of being more concerned for her son than her daughter. "You are ignorant of the world, Hetta," she said. "I am having a lesson in it now, at any rate." "Do you think it is worse than others have suffered? Do you think that girls are generally able to marry the men upon whom they set their hearts? Marie Melmotte was as warmly attached to your brother as you can be to Mr. Montague." "Marie Melmotte!" "The truth is you are indulging a dream. You must wake from it, and shake yourself, and do the best you can for yourself. A girl who has no fortune cannot pick and choose, but must allow herself to be chosen." "Then a girl is to marry without stopping even to think whether she likes the man or not?" "She should teach herself to like the man, if the marriage be suitable. I would not have you take a vicious man. But your cousin Roger-" "Mamma," said Hetta, getting up, "nothing shall ever make me marry my cousin Roger. It is horrible that you should propose it when you know that I love that other man with my whole heart." "One who has treated you so offensively?" "What reason have I to be offended because he has liked a woman whom he knew before he ever saw me? It has been unfortunate, wretched; but I do not know that I have any right to be angry with Mr. Montague." She walked out of the room without waiting for a reply. It was all very sad to Lady Carbury. What pained her most was the unrealistic, romantic view of life which pervaded Hetta's thoughts - the folly of her idle dreams. That afternoon Hetta trusted herself all alone to the mysteries of the Marylebone underground railway, and emerged with accuracy at King's Cross. She walked from there to Islington. She knew the address of Mrs. Hurtle's lodgings. But when she reached the door she did not at first dare to knock. She walked on to the end of the silent street, striving to collect her thoughts, and trying to plan how she would answer if the woman should be rough and insolent. Should the worst come to the worst, the woman would hardly try to stop her leaving. Having gone to the end of the street, she returned quickly and knocked at the door. It was opened by Ruby Ruggles, to whom she gave her name. "Oh laws, Miss Carbury!" said Ruby, looking up into the stranger's face. Her heart twittered as she showed Miss Carbury to the lodger's sitting-room. Hetta put her veil down as she entered the room, moved by a sudden fear of her rival's scrutiny. Mrs. Hurtle came forward to greet her, putting out both her hands. She was dressed with the most scrupulous care - simply, and in black, without any ornament. She had attired herself so as to look her very best. As she came forward she was gentle in her movements, and wore a pleasant smile. Hetta at first was almost dumbfounded by her beauty and her self-possession. "Miss Carbury," she said in her low, rich voice, "May I not ask you to lay aside your veil, so that we may look at each other fairly?" Hetta, removing her veil without a word, stood gazing at her. She had expected something very different from this! She had thought that the woman would be coarse and big, with fine eyes and a bright colour. As it was they were both of the same dark complexion, with hair nearly black; but Hetta acknowledged to herself that she had no beauty such as this woman's. "I am glad that you have come to see me, Miss Carbury." "I am glad at any rate that you are not angry," said Hetta. "Why should I be angry? It is a poor time we women have, is it not, in becoming playthings to men? So this Lothario that was once mine, is behaving badly to you also. Is it so? He is no longer mine, and you may ask me freely for aid, if there is any I can give you. Now tell me; what can I do, or say?" "He told me that you could tell me the truth." "What truth? I will certainly tell you nothing that is not true. You have quarrelled with him too?" "Yes." "Perhaps you had better tell me of that. I know him so well that I can guess that he should give offence. He can be full of youthful ardour one day, and cautious as old age itself the next. What is it, Miss Carbury?" Hetta found the telling of her story to be very difficult. "Mrs. Hurtle," she said, "I had never heard your name when he first asked me to be his wife." "I dare say not. Why should he have told you anything of me?" "Surely he ought, if he had once promised to marry you. I should have been very different to him had I known that - that-" "That there was such a woman as Winifrid Hurtle. Then you heard it by chance, and you were offended. Was it not so?" "And now he tells me that I have been unjust to him. I have not been unjust." "I am not so sure of that. Shall I tell you what I think? I think that he has been unjust to me, and that therefore your injustice to him is no more than his due. I cannot plead for him, Miss Carbury. But whether you will avenge my wrongs must be for you to decide." "Why did he go with you to Lowestoft?" "Because I asked him - and because, like many men, he cannot be ill-natured although he can be cruel. He would have given his hand not to have gone, but he could not refuse. Miss Carbury, you may as well know the truth. He did love me, but he had been talked out of his love by my enemies and his own friends long before he had ever seen you. I followed him here to England because I loved him. He had told me that he did not want me; but I hoped that I might lure him back to his troth. I have utterly failed, and I must return to my own country with a broken spirit. He has misused me foully, and I have simply forgiven him; not because I am a Christian, but because I am not strong enough to punish one that I still love. He has reduced me to a nothing by his falseness, and yet I cannot injure him! But if you choose to punish him it is not for me to stop you." Then she looked at Hetta as though expecting a reply. But Hetta had no reply to make. Every word that the woman had spoken had in truth been a comfort to her. She was told that however false her lover might have been to this other woman, he had been absolutely true to her. The woman had not spoken kindly of Paul, but she had acquitted him of all sin against Hetta. If he had been false to this American stranger, it did not seem to her to be necessary that she should be angry with him for that reason. It was all done now. If she could only thank the woman and then go, she could, when alone, make up her mind as to what she would do next. She had not yet told herself she would submit again to Paul Montague. She had only told herself that, within her heart, she was bound to forgive him. "You have been very kind," she said at last. "It is well that there should be some kindness where there has been so much that is unkind. Forgive me, Miss Carbury, if I speak plainly to you. Of course you will go back to him. Of course you will be his wife. He has preferred you to me, and as far as I am concerned there is an end of it. You are a girl, whereas I am a woman; and he likes your youth. I have undergone the cruel roughness of the world, which has not as yet touched you. I do not know that you are very superior in other attractions; but that has sufficed, and you are the victor. I am strong enough to acknowledge that I have nothing to forgive in you; and am weak enough to forgive his treachery." Hetta was now holding the woman by the hand, and weeping, she knew not why. "I am glad to have seen you," continued Mrs. Hurtle, "so that I may know what his wife was like. In a few days I shall return to the States, and then neither of you will ever be troubled further by me. Tell him that if he will come and see me once before I go, I will not be more unkind to him than I can help." When Hetta did not decline to bear this message she must have resolved that she would see Paul Montague again. She now got herself quickly out of the room, kissing the woman whom she had dreaded and despised. As soon as she was alone in the street she tried to think of it all. How full of beauty was the American woman's face - how rich and glorious her voice - above all, how powerful and yet how easy and how gracious was her manner! That any man should have loved her and have been loved by her, and then have been willing to part from her, was extraordinary. And yet Paul Montague had preferred her, Hetta Carbury, to this woman! Paul had certainly done well for his own cause when he had referred the younger lady to the elder. She had been unjust to Paul, and that must be remedied. As she walked quickly back to the railway station she brought herself to love her lover more fondly than she had ever done. He had been true to her from the first hour of their acquaintance. All she wanted was that he should be true to her now. The future must be her own work. She must at once let her mother know this change in her mind. When she re-entered the house she was no longer sullen, but quite determined that nothing should shake her purpose. She went at once to her mother's room. "Hetta, wherever have you been?" asked Lady Carbury. "Mamma," she said, "I mean to write to Mr. Montague and tell him that I have been unjust to him." "Hetta, you must do nothing of the kind," said Lady Carbury, rising from her seat. "It will be asking him to come back to you." "Yes, mamma: that is what I mean. If he will come, I will receive him. I know he will come. Oh, mamma, let us be friends. Why should you grudge me my love?" "You have sent him back his brooch," said Lady Carbury hoarsely. "He shall give it me again. I have seen that American lady. She is a wonderful woman." "And she has told you wonderful lies." "She has told me no lies. She said nothing in his favour." "I can well believe that. What can anyone say in his favour?" "But what she told me assured me that Mr. Montague has never behaved badly to me. I shall write to him at once. If you like I will show you the letter." "I will tear it up," said Lady Carbury, full of anger. "Mamma, I have told you everything, but in this I must judge for myself." Then Hetta, seeing that her mother would not relent, left the room, and went immediately to write her letter.

The Way We Live Now

Chapter 91: The Rivals