That night Mrs. Wortle felt herself constrained to tell the whole story to her husband. It was indeed impossible for her to keep any secret from her husband. When Mary, in her younger years, had torn her frock or cut her finger, that was always told to the Doctor. If a gardener was seen idling his time, or a housemaid flirting with the groom, that certainly would be told to the Doctor. What comfort does a woman get out of her husband unless she may be allowed to talk to him about everything? When it had been first proposed that Lord Carstairs should come into the house as a private pupil she had expressed her fear to the Doctor,—because of Mary. The Doctor had ridiculed her fears, and this had been the result. Of course she must tell the Doctor. "Oh, dear," she said, "what do you think has happened while we were up in London?"
"Carstairs was here."
"Oh, yes; he was here. He came on purpose to make a regular declaration of love to Mary."
"Nonsense."
"But he did, Jeffrey."
"How do you know he came on purpose."
"He told her so."
"I did not think the boy had so much spirit in him," said the Doctor. This was a way of looking at it which Mrs. Wortle had not expected. Her husband seemed rather to approve than otherwise of what had been done. At any rate, he had expressed none of that loud horror which she had expected. "Nevertheless," continued the Doctor, "he's a stupid fool for his pains."
"I don't know that he is a fool," said Mrs. Wortle.
"Yes; he is. He is not yet twenty, and he has all Oxford before him. How did Mary behave?"
"Like an angel," said Mary's mother.
"That's of course. You and I are bound to believe so. But what did she do, and what did she say?"
"She told him that it was simply impossible."
"So it is,—I'm afraid. She at any rate was bound to give him no encouragement."
"She gave him none. She feels quite strongly that it is altogether impossible. What would Lord Bracy say?"
"If Carstairs were but three or four years older," said the Doctor, proudly, "Lord Bracy would have much to be thankful for in the attachment on the part of his son, if it were met by a return of affection on the part of my daughter. What better could he want?"
"But he is only a boy," said Mrs. Wortle.
"No; that's where it is. And Mary was quite right to tell him that it is impossible. It is impossible. And I trust, for her sake, that his words have not touched her young heart."
"Oh, no," said Mrs. Wortle.
"Had it been otherwise how could we have been angry with the child?"
Now this did seem to the mother to be very much in contradiction to that which the Doctor had himself said when she had whispered to him that Lord Carstairs's coming might be dangerous. "I was afraid of it, as you know," said she.
"His character has altered during the last twelve months."
"I suppose when boys grow into men it is so with them."
"Not so quickly," said the Doctor. "A boy when he leaves Eton is not generally thinking of these things."
"A boy at Eton is not thrown into such society," said Mrs. Wortle.
"I suppose his being here and seeing Mary every day has done it. Poor Mary!"
"I don't think she is poor at all," said Mary's mother.
"I am afraid she must not dream of her young lover."
"Of course she will not dream of him. She has never entertained any idea of the kind. There never was a girl with less nonsense of that kind than Mary. When Lord Carstairs spoke to her to-day I do not suppose she had thought about him more than any other boy that has been here."
"But she will think now."
"No;—not in the least. She knows it is impossible."
"Nevertheless she will think about it. And so will you."
"I!"
"Yes,—why not? Why should you be different from other mothers? Why should I not think about it as other fathers might do? It is impossible. I wish it were not. For Mary's sake, I wish he were three or four years older. But he is as he is, and we know that it is impossible. Nevertheless, it is natural that she should think about him. I only hope that she will not think about him too much." So saying he closed the conversation for that night.
Mary did not think very much about "it" in such a way as to create disappointment. She at once realised the impossibilities, so far as to perceive that the young lord was the top brick of the chimney as far as she was concerned. The top brick of the chimney may be very desirable, but one doesn't cry for it, because it is unattainable. Therefore Mary did not in truth think of loving her young lover. He had been to her a very nice boy; and so he was still; that;—that, and nothingmore.Then had come this little episode in her life which seemed to lend it a gentle tinge of romance. But had she inquired of her bosom she would have declared that she had not been in love. With her mother there was perhaps something of regret. But it was exactly the regret which may be felt in reference to the top brick. It would have been so sweet had it been possible; but then it was so evidently impossible.
With the Doctor the feeling was somewhat different. It was not quite so manifest to him that this special brick was altogether unattainable, nor even that it was quite at the top of the chimney. There was no reason why his daughter should not marry an earl's son and heir. No doubt the lad had been confided to him in trust. No doubt it would have been his duty to have prevented anything of the kind, had anything of the kind seemed to him to be probable. Had there been any moment in which the duty had seemed to him to be a duty, he would have done it, even though it had been necessary to caution the Earl to take his son away from Bowick. But there had been nothing of the kind. He had acted in the simplicity of his heart, and this had been the result. Of course it was impossible. He acknowledged to himself that it was so, because of the necessity of those Oxford studies and those long years which would be required for the taking of the degree. But to his thinking there was no other ground for saying that it was impossible. The thing must stand as it was. If this youth should show himself to be more constant than other youths,—which was not probable,—and if, at the end of three or four years, Mary should not have given her heart to any other lover,—which was also improbable,—why, then, it might come to pass that he should some day find himself father-in-law to the future Earl Bracy. Though Mary did not think of it, nor Mrs. Wortle, he thought of it,—so as to give an additional interest to these disturbed days.
Thepossible glory of Mary's future career did not deter the Doctor from thinking of his troubles,—and especially that trouble with the Bishop which was at present heavy on his hand. He had determined not to go on with his action, and had so resolved because he had felt, in his more sober moments, that in bringing the Bishop to disgrace, he would be as a bird soiling its own nest. It was that conviction, and not any idea as to the sufficiency or insufficiency, as to the truth or falsehood, of the editor's apology, which had actuated him. As he had said to his lawyer, he did not in the least care for the newspaper people. He could not condescend to be angry with them. The abominable joke as to the two verbs was altogether in their line. As coming from them, they were no more to him than the ribald words of boys which he might hear in the street. The offence to him had come from the Bishop,—and he resolved to spare the Bishop because of the Church. But yet something must be done. He could not leave the man to triumph overhim. If nothing further were done in the matter, the Bishop would have triumphed over him. As he could not bring himself to expose the Bishop, he must see whether he could not reach the man by means of his own power of words;—so he wrote asfollows;—
"MY DEAR LORD,—I have to own that this letter is written with feelings which have been very much lacerated by what your lordship has done. I must tell you, in the first place, that I have abandoned my intention of bringing an action against the proprietors of the scurrilous newspaper which your lordship sent me, because I am unwilling to bring to public notice the fact of a quarrel between a clergyman of the Church of England and his Bishop. I think that, whatever may be the difficulty between us, it should be arranged without bringing down upon either of us adverse criticism from the public press. I trust your lordship will appreciate my feeling in this matter. Nothing less strong could have induced me to abandon what seems to be the most certain means by which I could obtain redress.
"I had seen the paper which your lordship sent to me before it came to me from the palace. The scurrilous, unsavoury, and vulgar words which it contained did not matter to me much. I have lived long enough to know that, let a man's own garments be as clean as they may be, he cannot hope to walk through the world without rubbing against those who are dirty. It was only when those words came to me from your lordship,—when I found that the expressions which I found in that paper were those to which your lordship had before alluded as being criticisms on my conduct in the metropolitan press,—criticisms so grave as to make your lordship think it necessary to admonish me respecting them,—it was only then, I say, that I considered them to be worthy of my notice. When your lordship, in admonishing me, found it necessary to refer me to the metropolitan press, and to caution me to look to my conduct because the metropolitan press had expressed its dissatisfaction, it was, I submit to you, natural for me to ask you where I should find that criticism which had so strongly affected your lordship's judgment. There are perhaps half a score of newspapers published in London whose animadversions I, as a clergyman, might have reason to respect,—even if I did not fear them. Was I not justified in thinking that at least some two or three of these had dealt with my conduct, when your lordship held the metropolitan pressin terroremover my head? I applied to your lordship for the names of these newspapers, and your lordship, when pressed for a reply, sent to me—that copy of 'Everybody's Business.'
"I ask your lordship to ask yourself whether, so far, I have overstated anything. Did not that paper come to me as the only sample you were able to send me of criticism made on my conduct in the metropolitan press? No doubt my conduct was handled there in very severe terms. No doubt the insinuations, if true,—or if of such kind as to be worthy of credit with your lordship, whether true or false,—were severe, plain-spoken, and damning. The language was so abominable, so vulgar, so nauseous, that I will not trust myself to repeat it. Your lordship, probably, when sending me one copy, kept another. Now, I must ask your lordship,—and I must beg of your lordship for a reply,—whether the periodical itself has such a character as to justify your lordship in founding a complaint against a clergyman on its unproved statements, and also whether the facts of the case, as they were known to you, were not such as to make your lordship well aware that the insinuations were false. Before these ribald words were printed, your lordship had heard all the facts of the case from my own lips. Your lordship had known me and my character for, I think, a dozen years. You know the character that I bear among others as a clergyman, a schoolmaster, and a gentleman. You have been aware how great is the friendship I have felt for the unfortunate gentleman whose career is in question, and for the lady who bears his name. When you read those abominable words did they induce your lordship to believe that I had been guilty of the inexpressible treachery of making love to the poor lady whose misfortunes I was endeavouring to relieve, and of doing so almost in my wife's presence?
"I defy you to have believed them. Men are various, and their minds work in different ways,—but the same causes will produce the same effects. You have known too much of me to have thought it possible that I should have done as I was accused. I should hold a man to be no less than mad who could so have believed, knowing as much as your lordship knew. Then how am I to reconcile to my idea of your lordship's character the fact that you should have sent me that paper? What am I to think of the process going on in your lordship's mind when your lordship could have brought yourself to use a narrative which you must have known to be false, made in a newspaper which you knew to be scurrilous, as the ground for a solemn admonition to a clergyman of my age and standing? You wrote to me, as is evident from the tone and context of your lordship's letter, because you found that the metropolitan press had denounced my conduct. And this was the proof you sent to me that such had been the case!
"It occurred to me at once that, as the paper in question had vilely slandered me, I could redress myself by an action of law, and that I could prove the magnitude of the evil done me by showing the grave importance which your lordship had attached to the words. In this way I could have forced an answer from your lordship to the questions which I now put to you. Your lordship would have been required to state on oath whether you believed those insinuations or not; and, if so, why you believed them. On grounds which I have already explained I have thought it improper to do so. Having abandoned that course, I am unable to force any answer from your lordship. But I appeal to your sense of honour and justice whether you should not answer my questions;—and I also ask from your lordship an ample apology, if, on consideration, you shall feel that you have done me an undeserved injury.—I have the honour to be, my lord, your lordship's most obedient, very humble servant,
"Jeffrey Wortle."
He was rather proud of this letter as he read it to himself, and yet a little afraid of it, feeling that he had addressed his Bishop in very strong language. It might be that the Bishop should send him no answer at all, or some curt note from his chaplain in which it would be explained that the tone of the letter precluded the Bishop from answering it. What should he do then? It was not, he thought, improbable, that the curt note from the chaplain would be all that he might receive. He let the letter lie by him for four-and-twenty hours after he had composed it, and then determined that not to send it would be cowardly. He sent it, and then occupied himself for an hour or two in meditating the sort of letter he would write to the Bishop when that curt reply had come from the chaplain.
That further letter must be one which must make all amicable intercourse between him and the Bishop impossible. And it must be so written as to be fit to meet the public eye if he should be ever driven by the Bishop's conduct to put it in print. A great wrong had been done him;—a great wrong! The Bishop had been induced by influences which should have had no power over him to use his episcopal rod and to smite him,—him Dr. Wortle! He would certainly show the Bishop that he should have considered beforehand whom he was about to smite. "'Amo'in the cool of the evening!" And that given as an expression of opinion from the metropolitan press in general! He had spared the Bishop as far as that action was concerned, but he would not spare him should he be driven to further measures by further injustice. In this way he lashed himself again into a rage. Whenever those odious words occurred to him he was almost mad with anger against the Bishop.
When the letter had been two days sent, so that he might have had a reply had a reply come to him by return of post, he put a copy of it into his pocket and rode off to call on Mr. Puddicombe. He had thought of showing it to Mr. Puddicombe before he sent it, but his mind had revolted from such submission to the judgment of another. Mr. Puddicombe would no doubt have advised him not to send it, and then he would have been almost compelled to submit to such advice. But the letter was gone now. The Bishop had read it, and no doubt re-read it two or three times. But he was anxious that some other clergyman should see it,—that some other clergyman should tell him that, even if inexpedient, it had still been justified. Mr. Puddicombe had been made acquainted with the former circumstances of the affair; and now, with his mind full of his own injuries, he went again to Mr. Puddicombe.
"It is just the sort of letter that you would write, as a matter of course," said Mr. Puddicombe.
"Then I hope that you think it is a good letter?"
"Good as being expressive, and good also as being true, I do think it."
"But not good as being wise?"
"Had I been in your case I should have thought it unnecessary. But you are self-demonstrative, and cannot control your feelings."
"I do not quite understand you."
"What did it all matter? The Bishop did a foolish thing in talking of the metropolitan press. But he had only meant to put you on your guard."
"I do not choose to be put on my guard in that way," said the Doctor.
"No; exactly. And he should have known you better than to suppose you would bear it. Then you pressed him, and he found himself compelled to send you that stupid newspaper. Of course he had made a mistake. But don't you think that the world goes easier when mistakes are forgiven?"
"I did forgive it, as far as foregoing the action."
"That, I think, was a matter of course. If you had succeeded in putting the poor Bishop into a witness-box you would have had every sensible clergyman in England against you. You felt that yourself."
"Not quite that," said the Doctor.
"Something very near it; and therefore you withdrew. But you cannot get the sense of the injury out of your mind, and, therefore, you have persecuted the Bishop with that letter."
"Persecuted?"
"He will think so. And so should I, had it been addressed to me. As I said before, all your arguments are true,—only I think you have made so much more of the matter than was necessary! He ought not to have sent you that newspaper, nor ought he to have talked about the metropolitan press. But he did you no harm; nor had he wished to do you harm;—and perhaps it might have been as well to pass it over."
"Could you have done so?"
"I cannot imagine myself in such a position. I could not, at any rate, have written such a letter as that, even if I would; and should have been afraid to write it if I could. I value peace and quiet too greatly to quarrel with my bishop,—unless, indeed, he should attempt to impose upon my conscience. There was nothing of that kind here. I think I should have seen that he had made a mistake, and have passed it over."
The Doctor, as he rode home, was, on the whole, better pleased with his visit than he had expected to be. He had been told that his letter was argumentative and true, and that in itself had been much.
At the end of the week he received a reply from the Bishop, and found that it was not, at any rate, written by the chaplain.
"My dear Dr. Wortle," said the reply; "your letter has pained me exceedingly, because I find that I have caused you a degree of annoyance which I am certainly very sorry I have inflicted. When I wrote to you in my letter,—which I certainly did not intend as an admonition,—about the metropolitan press, I only meant to tell you, for your own information, that the newspapers were making reference to your affair with Mr. Peacocke. I doubt whether I knew anything of the nature of 'Everybody's Business.' I am not sure even whether I had ever actually read the words to which you object so strongly. At any rate, they had had no weight with me. If I had read them,—which I probably did very cursorily,—they did not rest on my mind at all when I wrote to you. My object was to caution you, not at all as to your own conduct, but as to others who were speaking evil of you.
"As to the action of which you spoke so strongly when I had the pleasure of seeing you here, I am very glad that you abandoned it, for your own sake and for mine, and the sake of all us generally to whom the peace of the Church is dear.
"As to the nature of the language in which you have found yourself compelled to write to me, I must remind you that it is unusual as coming from a clergyman to a bishop. I am, however, ready to admit that the circumstances of the case were unusual, and I can understand that you should have felt the matter severely. Under these circumstances, I trust that the affair may now be allowed to rest without any breach of those kind feelings which have hitherto existed between us.—Yours very faithfully,
"C. Broughton."
"It is a beastly letter," the Doctor said to himself, when he had read it, "a beastly letter;" and then he put it away without saying any more about it to himself or to any one else. It had appeared to him to be a "beastly letter," because it had exactly the effect which the Bishop had intended. It did not eat "humble pie;" it did not give him the full satisfaction of a complete apology; and yet it left no room for a further rejoinder. It had declared that no censure had been intended, and expressed sorrow that annoyance had been caused. But yet to the Doctor's thinking it was an unmanly letter. "Not intended as an admonition!" Then why had the Bishop written in that severely affectionate and episcopal style? He had intended it as an admonition, and the excuse was false. So thought the Doctor, and comprised all his criticism in the one epithet given above. After that he put the letter away, and determined to think no more about it.
"Will you come in and see Mrs. Peacocke after lunch?" the Doctor said to his wife the next morning. They paid their visit together; and after that, when the Doctor called on the lady, he was generally accompanied by Mrs. Wortle. So much had been effected by'Everybody's Business,'and its abominations.
Wewill now follow Mr. Peacocke for a while upon his journey. He began his close connection with Robert Lefroy by paying the man's bill at the inn before he left Broughton, and after that found himself called upon to defray every trifle of expense incurred as they went along. Lefroy was very anxious to stay for a week in town. It would, no doubt, have been two weeks or a month had his companion given way;—but on this matter a line of conduct had been fixed by Mr. Peacocke in conjunction with the Doctor from which he never departed. "If you will not be guided by me, I will go without you," Mr. Peacocke had said, "and leave you to follow your own devices on your own resources."
"And what can you do by yourself?"
"Most probably I shall be able to learn all that I want to learn. It may be that I shall fail to learn anything either with you or without you. I am willing to make the attempt with you if you will come along at once;—but I will not be delayed for a single day. I shall go whether you go or stay." Then Lefroy had yielded, and had agreed to be put on board a German steamer starting from Southampton to New York.
But an hour or two before the steamer started he made a revelation. "This is all gammon, Peacocke," he said, when on board.
"What is all gammon?"
"My taking you across to theStates."
"Why is it gammon?"
"Because Ferdinand died more than a year since;—almost immediately after you took her off."
"Why did you not tell me that at Bowick?"
"Because you were so uncommon uncivil. Was it likely I should have told you that when you cut up so uncommon rough?"
"An honest man would have told me the very moment that he saw me."
"When one's poor brother has died, one does not blurt it like that all at once."
"Your poor brother!"
"Why not my poor brother as well as anybody else's? And her husband too! How was I to let it out in that sort of way? At any rate he is dead as Julius Cæsar. I saw him buried,—right away at 'Frisco."
"Did he go to San Francisco?"
"Yes,—we both went there right away from St. Louis. When we got up to St. Louis we were on our way with them other fellows. Nobody meant to disturb you; but Ferdy got drunk, and would go and have a spree, as he called it."
"A spree, indeed!"
"But we were off by train to Kansas at five o'clock the next morning. The devil wouldn't keep him sober, and he died of D.T. the day after we got him to 'Frisco. So there's the truth of it, and you needn't go to New York at all. Hand me the dollars. I'll be off to the States; and you can go back and marry the widow,—or leave her alone, just as you please."
They were down below when this story was told, sitting on their portmanteaus in the little cabin in which they were to sleep. The prospect of the journey certainly had no attraction for Mr. Peacocke. His companion was most distasteful to him; the ship was abominable; the expense was most severe. How glad would he avoid it all if it were possible! "You know it all as well as if you were there," said Robert, "and were standing on his grave." He did believe it. The man in all probability had at the last moment told the true story. Why not go back and be married again? The Doctor could be got to believe it.
But then if it were not true? It was only for a moment that he doubted. "I must go to 'Frisco all the same," he said.
"Why so?"
"Because I must in truth stand upon his grave. I must have proof that he has been buried there."
"Then you may go by yourself," said Robert Lefroy. He had said this more than once or twice already, and had been made to change his tone. He could go or stay as he pleased, but no money would be paid to him until Peacocke had in his possession positive proof of Ferdinand Lefroy's death. So the two made their unpleasant journey to New York together. There was complaining on the way, even as to the amount of liquor that should be allowed. Peacocke would pay for nothing that he did not himself order. Lefroy had some small funds of his own, and was frequently drunk while on board. There were many troubles; but still they did at last reach New York.
Then there was a great question whether they would go on direct from thence to San Francisco, or delay themselves three or four days by going round bySt. Louis. Lefroy was anxious to go to St. Louis,—and on that account Peacocke was almost resolved to take tickets direct through for San Francisco. Why should Lefroy wish to go to St. Louis? But then, if the story were altogether false, some truth might be learned at St. Louis; and it was at last decided that thither they would go. As they went on from town to town, changing carriages first at one place and then at another, Lefroy's manner became worse and worse, and his language more and more threatening. Peacocke was asked whether he thought a man was to be brought all that distance without being paid for his time. "You will be paid when you have performed your part of the bargain," said Peacocke.
"I'll see some part of the money at St. Louis," said Lefroy, "or I'll know the reason why. A thousand dollars! What are a thousand dollars? Hand out the money." This was said as they were sitting together in a corner or separated portion of the smoking-room of a little hotel at which they were waiting for a steamer which was to take them down the Mississippi to St. Louis. Peacocke looked round and saw that they were alone.
"I shall hand out nothing till I see your brother's grave," said Peacocke.
"You won't?"
"Not a dollar! What is the good of your going on like that? You ought to know me well enough by this time."
"But you do not know me well enough. You must have taken me for a very tame sort o' critter."
"Perhaps I have."
"Maybe you'll change your mind."
"Perhaps I shall. It is quite possible that you should murder me. But you will not get any money by that."
"Murder you. You ain't worth murdering." Then they sat in silence, waiting another hour and a half till the steamboat came. The reader will understand that it must have been a bad time for Mr. Peacocke.
They were on the steamer together for about twenty-four hours, during which Lefroy hardly spoke a word. As far as his companion could understand he was out of funds, because he remained sober during the greater part of the day, taking only what amount of liquor was provided for him. Before, however, they reached St. Louis, which they did late at night, he had made acquaintance with certain fellow-travellers, and was drunk and noisy when they got out upon the quay. Mr. Peacocke bore his position as well as he could, and accompanied him up to the hotel. It was arranged that they should remain two days at St. Louis, and then start for San Francisco by the railway which runs across the State of Kansas. Before he went to bed Lefroy insisted on going into the large hall in which, as is usual in American hotels, men sit and loafe and smoke and read the newspapers. Here, though it was twelve o'clock, there was still a crowd; and Lefroy, after he had seated himself and lit his cigar, got up from his seat and addressed all the men around him.
"Here's a fellow," said he, "has come out from England to find out what's become of Ferdinand Lefroy."
"I knew Ferdinand Lefroy," said one man, "and I know you too, Master Robert."
"What has become of Ferdinand Lefroy?" asked Mr. Peacocke.
"He's gone where all the good fellows go," said another.
"You mean that he is dead?" asked Peacocke.
"Of course he's dead," said Robert. "I've been telling him so ever since we left England; but he is such ad––––unbelieving infidel that he wouldn't credit the man's own brother. He won't learn much here about him."
"Ferdinand Lefroy," said the first man, "died on the way as he was going out West. I was over the road the day after."
"You know nothing about it," said Robert. "He died at 'Frisco two days after we'd got him there."
"He died at Ogden Junction, where you turn down to Utah City."
"You didn't see him dead," said the other.
"If I remember right," continued the first man, "they'd taken him away to bury him somewhere just there in the neighbourhood. I didn't care much about him, and I didn't ask any particular questions. He was a drunken beast,—better dead than alive."
"You've been drunk as often as him, I guess," said Robert.
"I never gave nobody the trouble to bury me at any rate," said the other.
"Do you mean to say positively of your own knowledge," asked Peacocke, "that Ferdinand Lefroy died at that station?"
"Ask him; he's his brother, and he ought to know best."
"I tell you," said Robert, earnestly, "that we carried him on to 'Frisco, and there he died. If you think you know best, you can go to Utah City and wait there till you hear all about it. I guess they'll make you one of their elders if you wait long enough." Then they all went to bed.
It was now clear to Mr. Peacocke that the man as to whose life or death he was so anxious had really died. The combined evidence of these men, which had come out without any preconcerted arrangement, was proof to his mind. But there was no evidence which he could take back with him to England and use there as proof in a court of law, or even before the Bishop and Dr. Wortle. On the next morning, before Robert Lefroy was up, he got hold of the man who had been so positive that death had overtaken the poor wretch at the railway station which is distant from San Francisco two days' journey. Had the man died there, and been buried there, nothing would be known of him in San Francisco. The journey to San Francisco would be entirely thrown away, and he would be as badly off as ever.
"I wouldn't like to say for certain," said the man when he was interrogated. "I only tell you what they told me. As I was passing along somebody said as Ferdy Lefroy had been taken dead out of the cars on to the platform. Now you know as much about it as I do."
He was thus assured that at any rate the journey to San Francisco had not been altogether a fiction. The man had gone "West," as had been said, and nothing more would be known of him at St. Louis. He must still go on upon his journey and make such inquiry as might be possible at the Ogden Junction.
On the day but one following they started again, taking their tickets as far as Leavenworth. They were told by the officials that they would find a train at Leavenworth waiting to take them on across country into the regular San Francisco line. But, as is not unusual with railway officials in that part of the world, they were deceived. At Leavenworth they were forced to remain for four-and-twenty hours, and there they put themselves up at a miserable hotel in which they were obliged to occupy the same room. It was a rough, uncouth place, in which, as it seemed to Mr. Peacocke, the men were more uncourteous to him, and the things around more unlike to what he had met elsewhere, than in any other town of the Union. Robert Lefroy, since the first night at St. Louis, had become sullen rather than disobedient. He had not refused to go on when the moment came for starting, but had left it in doubt till the last moment whether he did or did not intend to prosecute his journey. When the ticket was taken for him he pretended to be altogether indifferent about it, and would himself give no help whatever in any of the usual troubles of travelling. But as far as this little town of Leavenworth he had been carried, and Peacocke now began to think it probable that he might succeed in taking him to San Francisco.
On that night he endeavoured to induce him to go first to bed, but in this he failed. Lefroy insisted on remaining down at the bar, where he had ordered for himself some liquor for which Mr. Peacocke, in spite of all his efforts to the contrary, would have to pay. If the man would get drunk and lie there, he could not help himself. On this he was determined, that whether with or without the man, he would go on by the first train;—and so he took himself to his bed.
He had been there perhaps half-an-hour when his companion came into the room,—certainly not drunk. He seated himself on his bed, and then, pulling to him a large travelling-bag which he used, he unpacked it altogether, laying all the things which it contained out upon the bed. "What are you doing that for?" said Mr. Peacocke; "we have to start from here to-morrow morning at five."
"I'm not going to start to-morrow at five, nor yet to-morrow at all, nor yet next day."
"You are not?"
"Not if I know it. I have had enough of this game. I am not going further West for any one. Hand out the money. You have been told everything about my brother, true and honest, as far as I know it. Hand out the money."
"Not a dollar," said Peacocke. "All that I have heard as yet will be of no service to me. As far as I can see, you will earn it; but you will have to come on a little further yet."
"Not a foot; I ain'ta-goingout of this room to-morrow."
"Then I must go without you;—that's all."
"You may go and be––––. But you'll have to shell out the money first, old fellow."
"Not a dollar."
"You won't?"
"Certainly I will not. How often have I told you so."
"Then I shall take it."
"That you will find very difficult. In the first place, if you were to cut mythroat—"
"Which is just what I intend to do."
"If you were to cut my throat,—which in itself will be difficult,—you would only find the trifle of gold which I have got for our journey as far as 'Frisco. That won't do you much good. The rest is in circular notes, which to you would be of no service whatever."
"My God," said the man suddenly, "I am not going to be done in this way." And with that he drew out a bowie-knife which he had concealed among the things which he had extracted from the bag. "You don't know the sort of country you're in now. They don't think much here of the life of such a skunk as you. If you mean to live till to-morrow morning you must come to terms."
The room was a narrow chamber in which two beds ran along the wall, each with its foot to the other, having a narrow space between them and the other wall. Peacocke occupied the one nearest to the door. Lefroy now got up from the bed in the further corner, and with the bowie-knife in his hand rushed against the door as though to prevent his companion's escape. Peacocke, who was in bed undressed, sat up at once; but as he did so he brought a revolver out from under his pillow. "So you have been and armed yourself, have you?" said Robert Lefroy.
"Yes," said Peacocke;—"if you come nearer me with that knife I shall shoot you. Put it down."
"Likely I shall put it down at your bidding."
With the pistol still held at the other man's head, Peacocke slowly extracted himself from his bed. "Now," said he, "if you don't come away from the door I shall fire one barrel just to let them know in the house what sort of affair is going on. Put the knife down. You know that I shall not hurt you then."
After hesitating for a moment or two, Lefroy did put the knife down. "I didn't mean anything, old fellow," said he. "I only wanted to frighten you."
"Well; you have frightened me. Now, what's to come next?"
"No, I ain't;—not frightened you a bit. A pistol's always better than a knife any day. Well now, I'll tell ye how it all is." Saying this, he seated himself on his own bed, and began a long narration. He would not go further West than Leavenworth. Whether he got his money or whether he lost it, he would not travel a foot further. There were reasons which would make it disagreeable for him to go into California. But he made a proposition. If Peacocke would only give him money enough to support himself for the necessary time, he would remain at Leavenworth till his companion should return there, or would make his way to Chicago, and stay there till Peacocke should come to him. Then he proceeded to explain how absolute evidence might be obtained at San Francisco as to his brother's death. "That fellow was lying altogether," he said, "about my brother dying at the Ogden station. He was very bad there, no doubt, and we thought it was going to be all up with him. He had the horrors there, worse than I ever saw before, and I hope never to see the like again. But we did get him on to San Francisco; and when he was able to walk into the city on his own legs, I thought that, might be, he would rally and come round. However, in two days he died;—and we buried him in the big cemetery just out of the town."
"Did you put a stone over him?"
"Yes; there is a stone as large as life. You'll find the name on it,—Ferdinand Lefroy of Kilbrack, Louisiana. Kilbrack was the name of our plantation, where we should be living now as gentlemen ought, with three hundred niggers of our own, but for these accursed Northern hypocrites."
"How can I find the stone?"
"There's a chap there who knows, I guess, where all them graves are to be found. But it's on the right hand, a long way down, near the far wall at the bottom, just where the ground takes a little dip to the north. It ain't so long ago but what the letters on the stone will be as fresh as if they were cut yesterday."
"Does no one in San Francisco know of his death?"
"There's a chap named Burke at Johnson's, the cigar-shop in Montgomery Street. He was brother to one of our party, and he went out to the funeral. Maybe you'll find him, or, any way, some traces of him."
The two men sat up discussing the matter nearly the whole of the night, and Peacocke, before he started, had brought himself to accede to Lefroy's last proposition. He did give the man money enough to support him for two or three weeks and also to take him to Chicago, promising at the same time that he would hand to him the thousand dollars at Chicago should he find him there at the appointed time, and should he also have found Ferdinand Lefroy's grave at San Francisco in the manner described.
Mrs. Wortle, when she perceived that her husband no longer called on Mrs. Peacocke alone, became herself more assiduous in her visits, till at last she too entertained a great liking for the woman. When Mr. Peacocke had been gone for nearly a month she had fallen into a habit of going across every day after the performance of her own domestic morning duties, and remaining in the school-house for an hour. On one morning she found that Mrs. Peacocke had just received a letter from New York, in which her husband had narrated his adventures so far. He had written from Southampton, but not after the revelation which had been made to him there as to the death of Ferdinand. He might have so done, but the information given to him had, at the spur of the moment, seemed to be so doubtful that he had refrained. Then he had been able to think of it all during the voyage, and from New York he had written at great length, detailing everything. Mrs. Peacocke did not actually read out loud the letter, which was full of such terms of affection as are common between man and wife, knowing that her title to be called a wife was not admitted by Mrs. Wortle; but she read much of it, and told all the circumstances as they were related.
"Then," said Mrs. Wortle, "he certainly is—no more." There came a certain accession of sadness to her voice, as she reflected that, after all, she was talking to this woman of the death of her undoubted husband.
"Yes; he is dead—at last." Mrs. Wortle uttered a deep sigh. It was dreadful to her to think that a woman should speak in that way of the death of her husband. "I know all that is going on in your mind," said Mrs. Peacocke, looking up into her face.
"Do you?"
"Every thought. You are telling yourself how terrible it is that a woman should speak of the death of her husband without a tear in her eye, without a sob,—without one word of sorrow."
"It is very sad."
"Of course it is sad. Has it not all been sad? But what would you have me do? It is not because he was always bad to me,—because he marred all my early life, making it so foul a blotch that I hardly dare to look back upon it from the quietness and comparative purity of these latter days. It is not because he has so treated me as to make me feel that it has been a misfortune to me to be born, that I now receive these tidings with joy. It is because of him who has always been good to me as the other was bad, who has made me wonder at the noble instincts of a man, as the other has made me shudder at his possible meanness."
"It has been very hard upon you," said Mrs. Wortle.
"And hard upon him, who is dearer to me than my own soul. Think of his conduct to me! How he went away to ascertain the truth when he first heard tidings which made him believe that I was free to become his! How he must have loved me then, when, after all my troubles, he took me to himself at the first moment that was possible! Think, too, what he has done for me since,—and I for him! How I have marred his life, while he has striven to repair mine! Do I not owe him everything?"
"Everything," said Mrs. Wortle,—"except to do what is wrong."
"I did do what was wrong. Would not you have done so under such circumstances? Would not you have obeyed the man who had been to you so true a husband while he believed himself entitled to the name? Wrong! I doubt whether it was wrong. It is hard to know sometimes what is right and what is wrong. What he told me to do, that to me was right. Had he told me to go away and leave him, I should have gone,—and have died. I suppose that would have been right." She paused as though she expected an answer. But the subject was so difficult that Mrs. Wortle was unable to make one. "I have sometimes wished that he had done so. But as I think of it when I am alone, I feel how impossible that would have been to him. He could not have sent me away. That which you call right would have been impossible to him whom I regard as the most perfect of human beings. As far as I know him, he is faultless;—and yet, according to your judgment, he has committed a sin so deep that he must stand disgraced before the eyes of all men."
"I have not said so."
"It comes to that. I know how good you are; how much I owe to you. I know that Dr. Wortle and yourself have been so kind to us, that were I not grateful beyond expression I should be the meanest human creature. Do not suppose that I am angry or vexed with you because you condemn me. It is necessary that you should do so. But how can I condemn myself;—or how can I condemn him?"
"If you are both free now, it may be made right."
"But how about repentance? Will it be all right though I shall not have repented? I will never repent. There are laws in accordance with which I will admit that I have done wrong; but had I not broken those laws when he bade me, I should have hated myself through all my life afterwards."
"It was very different."
"If you could know, Mrs. Wortle, how difficult it would have been to go away and leave him! It was not till he came to me and told me that he was going down to Texas, to see how it had been with my husband, that I ever knew what it was to love a man. He had never said a word. He tried not to look it. But I knew that I had his heart and that he had mine. From that moment I have thought of him day and night. When I gave him my hand then as he parted from me, I gave it him as his own. It has been his to do what he liked with it ever since, let who might live or who might die. Ought I not to rejoice that he is dead?" Mrs. Wortle could not answer the question. She could only shudder. "It was not by any will of my own," continued the eager woman, "that I married Ferdinand Lefroy. Everything in our country was then destroyed. All that we loved and all that we valued had been taken away from us. War had destroyed everything. When I was just springing out of childhood, we were ruined. We had to go, all of us; women as well as men, girls as well as boys;—and be something else than we had been. I was told to marry him."
"That was wrong."
"When everything is in ruin about you, what room is there for ordinary well-doing? It seemed then that he would have some remnant of property. Our fathers had known each other long. The wretched man whom drink afterwards made so vile might have been as good a gentleman as another, if things had gone well with him. He could not have been a hero like him whom I will always call my husband; but it is not given to every man to be a hero."
"Was he bad always from the first?"
"He always drank,—from his wedding-day; and then Robert was with him, who was worse than he. Between them they were very bad. My life was a burden to me. It was terrible. It was a comfort to me even to be deserted and to be left. Then came this Englishman in my way; and it seemed to me, on a sudden, that the very nature of mankind was altered. He did not lie when he spoke. He was never debased by drink. He had other care than for himself. For himself, I think, he never cared. Since he has been here, in the school, have you found any cause of fault in him?"
"No, indeed."
"No, indeed! nor ever will;—unless it be a fault to love a woman as he loves me. See what he is doing now,—where he has gone,—what he has to suffer, coupled as he is with that wretch! And all for my sake!"
"For both your sakes."
"He would have been none the worse had he chosen to part with me. He was in no trouble. I was not his wife; and he need only—bid me go. There would have been no sin with him then,—no wrong. Had he followed out your right and your wrong, and told me that, as we could not be man and wife, we must just part, he would have been in no trouble;—would he?"
"I don't know how it would have been then," said Mrs. Wortle, who was by this time sobbing aloud in tears.
"No; nor I, nor I. I should have been dead;—but he? He is a sinner now, so that he may not preach in your churches, or teach in your schools; so that your dear husband has to be ruined almost because he has been kind to him. He then might have preached in any church,—have taught in any school. What am I to think that God will think of it? Will God condemn him?"
"We must leave that to Him," sobbed Mrs. Wortle.
"Yes; but in thinking of our souls we must reflect a little as to what we believe to be probable. He, you say, has sinned,—is sinning still in calling me his wife. Am I not to believe that if he were called to his long account he would stand there pure and bright, in glorious garments,—one fit for heaven, because he has loved others better than he has loved himself, because he has done to others as he might have wished that they should do to him? I do believe it! Believe! I know it. And if so, what am I to think of his sin, or of my own? Not to obey him, not to love him, not to do in everything as he counsels me,—that, to me, would be sin. To the best of my conscience he is my husband and my master. I will not go into the rooms of such as you, Mrs. Wortle, good and kind as you are; but it is not because I do not think myself fit. It is because I will not injure you in the estimation of those who do not know what is fit and what is unfit. I am not ashamed of myself. I owe it to him to blush for nothing that he has caused me to do. I have but two judges,—the Lord in heaven, and he, my husband, upon earth."
"Nobody has condemned you here."
"Yes;—they have condemned me. But I am not angry at that. You do not think, Mrs. Wortle, that I can be angry with you,—so kind as you have been, so generous, so forgiving;—the more kind because you think that we are determined, headstrong sinners? Oh no! It is natural that you should think so,—but I think differently. Circumstances have so placed me that they have made me unfit for your society. If I had no decent gown to wear, or shoes to my feet, I should be unfit also;—but not on that account disgraced in my own estimation. I comfort myself by thinking that I cannot be altogether bad when a man such as he has loved me and does love me."
The two women, when they parted on that morning, kissed each other, which they had not done before; and Mrs. Wortle had been made to doubt whether, after all, the sin had been so very sinful. She did endeavour to ask herself whether she would not have done the same in the same circumstances. The woman, she thought, must have been right to have married the man whom she loved, when she heard that that first horrid husband was dead. There could, at any rate, have been no sin in that. And then, what ought she to have done when the dead man,—dead as he was supposed to have been,—burst into her room? Mrs. Wortle,—who found it indeed extremely difficult to imagine herself to be in such a position,—did at last acknowledge that, in such circumstances, she certainly would have done whatever Dr. Wortle had told her. She could not bring it nearer to herself than that. She could not suggest to herself two men as her own husbands. She could not imagine that the Doctor had been either the bad husband, who had unexpectedly come to life,—or the good husband, who would not, in truth, be her husband at all; but she did determine, in her own mind, that, however all that might have been, she would clearly have done whatever the Doctor told her. She would have sworn to obey him, even though, when swearing, she should not have really married him. It was terrible to think of,—so terrible that she could not quite think of it; but in struggling to think of it her heart was softened towards this other woman. After that day she never spoke further of the woman's sin.
Of course she told it all to the Doctor,—not indeed explaining the working of her own mind as to that suggestion that he should have been, in his first condition, a very bad man, and have been reported dead, and have come again, in a second shape, as a good man. She kept that to herself. But she did endeavour to describe the effect upon herself of the description the woman had given her of her own conduct.
"I don't quite know how she could have done otherwise," said Mrs. Wortle.
"Nor I either; I have always said so."
"It would have been so very hard to go away, when he told her not."
"It would have been very hard to go away," said the Doctor, "if he had told her to do so. Where was she to go? What was she to do? They had been brought together by circumstances, in such a manner that it was, so to say, impossible that they should part. It is not often that one comes across events like these, so altogether out of the ordinary course that the common rules of life seem to be insufficient for guidance. To most of us it never happens; and it is better for us that it should not happen. But when it does, one is forced to go beyond the common rules. It is that feeling which has made me give them my protection. It has been a great misfortune; but, placed as I was, I could not help myself. I could not turn them out. It was clearly his duty to go, and almost as clearly mine to give her shelter till he should come back."
"A great misfortune, Jeffrey?"
"I am afraid so. Look at this." Then he handed to her a letter from a nobleman living at a great distance,—at a distance so great that Mrs. Stantiloup would hardly have reached him there,—expressing his intention to withdraw his two boys from the school at Christmas.
"He doesn't give this as a reason."
"No; we are not acquainted with each other personally, and he could hardly have alluded to my conduct in this matter. It was easier for him to give a mere notice such as this. But not the less do I understand it. The intention was that the elder Mowbray should remain for another year, and the younger for two years. Of course he is at liberty to change his mind; nor do I feel myself entitled to complain. A school such as mine must depend on the credit of the establishment. He has heard, no doubt, something of the story which has injured our credit, and it is natural that he should take the boys away."
"Do you think that the school will be put an end to?"
"It looks very like it."
"Altogether?"
"I shall not care to drag it on as a failure. I am too old now to begin again with a new attempt if this collapses. I have no offers to fill up the vacancies. The parents of those who remain, of course, will know how it is going with the school. I shall not be disposed to let it die of itself. My idea at present is to carry it on without saying anything till the Christmas holidays, and then to give notice to the parents that the establishment will be closed at Midsummer."
"Will it make you very unhappy?"
"No doubt it will. A man does not like to fail. I am not sure but what I am less able to bear such failure than most men."
"But you have sometimes thought of giving it up."
"Have I? I have not known it. Why should I give it up? Why should any man give up a profession while he has health and strength to carry it on?"
"You have another."
"Yes; but it is not the one to which my energies have been chiefly applied. The work of a parish such as this can be done by one person. I have always had a curate. It is, moreover, nonsense to say that a man does not care most for that by which he makes his money. I am to give up over £2000 a-year, which I have had not a trouble but a delight in making! It is like coming to the end of one's life."
"Oh, Jeffrey!"
"It has to be looked in the face, you know."
"I wish,—I wish they had never come."
"What is the good of wishing? They came, and according to my way of thinking I did my duty by them. Much as I am grieved by this, I protest that I would do the same again were it again to be done. Do you think that I would be deterred from what I thought to be right by the machinations of a she-dragon such as that?"
"Has she done it?"
"Well, I think so," said the Doctor, after some little hesitation. "I think it has been, in truth, her doing. There has been a grand opportunity for slander, and she has used it with uncommon skill. It was a wonderful chance in her favour. She has been enabled without actual lies,—lies which could be proved to be lies,—to spread abroad reports which have been absolutely damning. And she has succeeded in getting hold of the very people through whom she could injure me. Of course all this correspondence with the Bishop has helped. The Bishop hasn't kept it as a secret. Why should he?"
"The Bishop has had nothing to do with the school," said Mrs. Wortle.
"No; but the things have been mixed up together. Do you think it would have no effect with such a woman as Lady Anne Clifford, to be told that the Bishop had censured my conduct severely? If it had not been for Mrs. Stantiloup, the Bishop would have heard nothing about it. It is her doing. And it pains me to feel that I have to give her credit for her skill and her energy."
"Her wickedness, you mean."
"What does it signify whether she has been wicked or not in this matter?"
"Oh, Jeffrey!"
"Her wickedness is a matter of course. We all knew that beforehand. If a person has to be wicked, it is a great thing for him to be successful in his wickedness. He would have to pay the final penalty even if he failed. To be wicked and to do nothing is to be mean all round. I am afraid that Mrs. Stantiloup will have succeeded in her wickedness."
Theschool and the parish went on through August and September, and up to the middle of October, very quietly. The quarrel between the Bishop and the Doctor had altogether subsided. People in the diocese had ceased to talk continually of Mr. and Mrs. Peacocke. There was still alive a certain interest as to what might be the ultimate fate of the poor lady; but other matters had come up, and she no longer formed the one topic of conversation at all meetings. The twenty boys at the school felt that, as their numbers had been diminished, so also had their reputation. They were less loud, and, as other boys would have said of them, less "cocky" than of yore. But they ate and drank and played, and, let us hope, learnt their lessons as usual. Mrs. Peacocke had from time to time received letters from her husband, the last up to the time of which we speak having been written at the OgdenJunction, at which Mr. Peacocke had stopped for four-and-twenty hours with the object of making inquiry as to the statement made to him at St. Louis. Here he learned enough to convince him that Robert Lefroy had told him the truth in regard to what had there occurred. The people about the station still remembered the condition of the man who had been taken out of the car when suffering from delirium tremens; and remembered also that the man had not died there, but had been carried on by the next train to San Francisco. One of the porters also declared that he had heard a few days afterwards that the sufferer had died almost immediately on his arrival at San Francisco. Information as far as this Mr. Peacocke had sent home to his wife, and had added his firm belief that he should find the man's grave in the cemetery, and be able to bring home with him testimony to which no authority in England, whether social, episcopal, or judicial, would refuse to give credit.
"Of course he will be married again," said Mrs. Wortle to her husband.
"They shall be married here, and I will perform the ceremony. I don't think the Bishop himself would object to that; and I shouldn't care a straw if he did."
"Will he go on with the school?" whispered Mrs. Wortle.
"Will the school go on? If the school goes on, he will go on, I suppose. About that you had better ask Mrs. Stantiloup."
"I will ask nobody but you," said the wife, putting up her face to kiss him. As this was going on, everything was said to comfort Mrs. Peacocke, and to give her hopes of new life. Mrs. Wortle told her how the Doctor had promised that he himself would marry them as soon as the forms of the Church and the legal requisitions would allow. Mrs. Peacocke accepted all that was said to her quietly and thankfully, but did not again allow herself to be roused to such excitement as she had shown on the one occasion recorded.
It was at this time that the Doctor received a letter which greatly affected his mode of thought at the time. He had certainly become hipped and low-spirited, if not despondent, and clearly showed to his wife, even though he was silent, that his mind was still intent on the injury which that wretched woman had done him by her virulence. But the letter of which we speak for a time removed this feeling, and gave him, as it were, a new life. The letter, which was from Lord Bracy, was asfollows;—
"My dear Doctor Wortle.—Carstairs left us for Oxford yesterday, and before he went, startled his mother and me considerably by a piece of information. He tells us that he is over head and ears in love with your daughter. The communication was indeed made three days ago, but I told him that I should take a day or two to think of it before I wrote to you. He was very anxious, when he told me, to go off at once to Bowick, and to see you and your wife, and of course the young lady;—but this I stopped by the exercise of somewhat peremptory parental authority. Then he informed me that he had been to Bowick, and had found his lady-love at home, you and Mrs. Wortle having by chance been absent at the time. It seems that he declared himself to the young lady, who, in the exercise of a wise discretion, ran away from him and left him planted on the terrace. That is his account of what passed, and I do not in the least doubt its absolute truth. It is at any rate quite clear, from his own showing, that the young lady gave him no encouragement.
"Such having been the case, I do not think that I should have found it necessary to write to you at all had not Carstairs persevered with me till I promised to do so. He was willing, he said, not to go to Bowick on condition that I would write to you on the subject. The meaning of this is, that had he not been very much in earnest, I should have considered it best to let the matter pass on as such matters do, and be forgotten. But he is very much in earnest. However foolish it is,—or perhaps I had better say unusual,—that a lad should be in love before he is twenty, it is, I suppose, possible. At any rate it seems to be the case with him, and he has convinced his mother that it would be cruel to ignore the fact.
"I may at once say that, as far as you and your girl are concerned, I should be quite satisfied that he should choose for himself such a marriage. I value rank, at any rate, as much as it is worth; but that he will have of his own, and does not need to strengthen it by intermarriage with another house of peculiarly old lineage. As far as that is concerned, I should be contented. As for money, I should not wish him to think of it in marrying. If it comes,tant mieux. If not, he will have enough of his own. I write to you, therefore, exactly as I should do if you had happened to be a brother peer instead of a clergyman.
"But I think that long engagements are very dangerous; and you probably will agree with me that they are likely to be more prejudicial to the girl than to the man. It may be that, as difficulties arise in the course of years, he can forget the affair, and that she cannot. He has many things of which to think; whereas she, perhaps, has only that one. She may have made that thing so vital to her that it cannot be got under and conquered; whereas, without any fault or heartlessness on his part, occupation has conquered it for him. In this case I fear that the engagement, if made, could not but be long. I should be sorry that he should not take his degree. And I do not think it wise to send a lad up to the University hampered with the serious feeling that he has already betrothed himself.
"I tell you all just as it is, and I leave it to your wisdom to suggest what had better be done. He wished me to promise that I would undertake to induce you to tell Miss Wortle of his conversation with me. He said that he had a right to demand so much as that, and that, though he would not for the present go to Bowick, he should write to you. The young gentleman seems to have a will of his own,—which I cannot say that I regret. What you will do as to the young lady,—whether you will or will not tell her what I have written,—I must leave to yourself. If you do, I am to send word to her from Lady Bracy to say that she shall be delighted to see her here. She had better, however, come when that inflammatory young gentleman shall be at Oxford. Yours very faithfully,
"Bracy."
This letter certainly did a great deal to invigorate the Doctor, and to console him in his troubles. Even though the debated marriage might prove to be impossible, as it had been declared by the voices of all the Wortles one after another, still there was something in the tone in which it was discussed by the young man's father which was in itself a relief. There was, at any rate, no contempt in the letter. "I may at once say that, as far as you and your girl are concerned, I shall be very well pleased." That, at any rate, was satisfactory. And the more he looked at it the less he thought that it need be altogether impossible. If Lord Bracy liked it, and Lady Bracy liked it,—and young Carstairs, as to whose liking there seemed to be no reason for any doubt,—he did not see why it should be impossible. As to Mary,—he could not conceive that she should make objection if all the others were agreed. How could she possibly fail to love the young man if encouraged to do so? Suitors who are good-looking, rich, of high rank, sweet-tempered, and at the same time thoroughly devoted, are not wont to be discarded. All the difficulty lay in the lad's youth. After all, how many noblemen have done well in the world without taking a degree? Degrees, too, have been taken by married men. And, again, young men have been persistent before now, even to the extent of waiting three years. Long engagements are bad,—no doubt. Everybody has always said so. But a long engagement may be better than none at all.
He at last made up his mind that he would speak to Mary; but he determined that he would consult his wife first. Consulting Mrs. Wortle, on his part, generally amounted to no more than instructing her. He found it sometimes necessary to talk her over, as he had done in that matter of visiting Mrs. Peacocke; but when he set himself to work he rarely failed. She had nowhere else to go for a certain foundation and support. Therefore he hardly doubted much when he began his operation about this suggested engagement.
"I have got that letter this morning from Lord Bracy," he said, handing her the document.
"Oh dear! Has he heard about Carstairs?"
"You had better read it."
"He has told it all," she exclaimed, when she had finished the first sentence.
"He has told it all, certainly. But you had better read the letter through."
Then she seated herself and read it, almost trembling, however, as she went on with it. "Oh dear;—that is very nice what he says about you and Mary."
"It is all very nice as far as that goes. There is no reason why it should not be nice."
"It might have made him so angry!"
"Then he would have been very unreasonable."
"He acknowledges that Mary did not encourage him."
"Of course she did not encourage him. He would have been very unlike a gentleman had he thought so. But in truth, my dear, it is a very good letter. Of course there are difficulties."
"Oh;—it is impossible!"
"I do not see that at all. It must rest very much with him, no doubt;—with Carstairs; and I do not like to think that our girl's happiness should depend on any young man's constancy. But such dangers have to be encountered. You and I were engaged for three years before we were married, and we did not find it so very bad."
"It was very good. Oh, I was so happy at the time."
"Happier than you've been since?"
"Well; I don't know. It was very nice to know that you were my lover."
"Why shouldn't Mary think it very nice to have a lover?"