"Not that, I think," said his lordship, who knew pretty well the nature of Hampstead's political feelings.
"Indeed he is. Why, he encourages his sister! He would not mind her marrying a shoeblack if only he could debase his own family. Think what I must feel, I, with my darling boys!"
"Is not he kind to them?"
"I would prefer that he should never see them!"
"I don't see that at all," said the angry lord.
But she altogether misunderstood him. "When I think of what he is, and to what he will reduce the whole family should he live, I cannot bear to see him touch them. Think of the blood of the Traffords, of the blood of the Mountressors, of the blood of the Hautevilles;—think of your own blood, which is now to be connected with theirs, and that all this is to be defiled because this man chooses to bring about a disreputable, disgusting marriage with the expressed purpose of degrading us all."
"I beg your pardon, Lady Kingsbury; I shall be in no way degraded."
"Think of us; think of my children."
"Nor will they. It may be a misfortune, but will be no degradation. Honour can only be impaired by that which is dishonourable. I wish that Lady Frances had given her heart elsewhere, but I feel sure that the name of her family is safe in her hands. As for Hampstead, he is a young man for whose convictions I have no sympathy,—but I am sure that he is a gentleman."
"I would that he were dead," said Lady Kingsbury in her wrath.
"Lady Kingsbury!"
"I would that he were dead!"
"I can only say," said Lord Llwddythlw, rising from his chair, "that you have made your confidence most unfortunately. Lord Hampstead is a young nobleman whom I should be proud to call my friend. A man's politics are his own. His honour, his integrity, and even his conduct belong in a measure to his family. I do not think that his father, or his brothers, or, if I may say so, his stepmother, will ever have occasion to blush for anything that he may do." With this he bowed to the Marchioness, and stalked out of the room with a grand manner, which those who saw him shuffling his feet in the House of Commons would hardly have thought belonged to him.
The dinner on that day was very quiet, and Lady Kingsbury retired to bed earlier even than usual. The conversation at the dinner was dull, and turned mostly on Church subjects. Mr. Greenwood endeavoured to be sprightly, and the parson, and the parson's wife, and the parson's daughter were uncomfortable. Lord Llwddythlw was almost dumb. Lady Amaldina, having settled the one matter of interest to her, was simply contented. On the next morning her lover took his departure by an earlier train than he had intended. It was, he said, necessary that he should look into some matters at Denbigh before he made his speech. He contrived to get a compartment to himself, and there he practised his lesson till he felt that further practice would only confuse him.
"You had Fanny at the Castle the other day," Lady Kingsbury said the next morning to her niece.
"Mamma thought it would be good-natured to ask them both."
"They did not deserve it. Their conduct has been such that I am forced to say that they deserve nothing from my family. Did she speak about this marriage of hers?"
"She did mention it."
"Well!"
"Oh, there was nothing. Of course there was much more to say about mine. She was saying that she would be glad to be a bridesmaid."
"Pray don't have her."
"Why not, aunt?"
"I could not possibly be there if you did. I have been compelled to divorce her from my heart."
"Poor Fanny!"
"But she was not ashamed of what she is doing?"
"I should say not. She is not one of those that are ever ashamed."
"No, no. Nothing would make her ashamed. All ideas of propriety she has banished from her,—as though they didn't exist. I expect to hear that she disregards marriage altogether."
"Aunt Clara!"
"What can you expect from doctrines such as those which she and her brother share? Thank God, you have never been in the way of hearing of such things. It breaks my heart when I think of what my own darlings will be sure to hear some of these days,—should their half-brother and half-sister still be left alive. But, Amaldina, pray do not have her for one of your bridesmaids." Lady Amaldina, remembering that her cousin was very handsome, and also that there might be a difficulty in making up the twenty titled virgins, gave her aunt no promise.
When the matter was mentioned to George Roden by his mother he could see no reason why she should not dine at Hendon Hall. He himself was glad to have an opportunity of getting over that roughness of feeling which had certainly existed between him and his friend when they parted with each other on the road. As to his mother, it would be well that she should so far return to the usages of the world as to dine at the house of her son's friend. "It is only going back to what you used to be," he said.
"You know nothing of what I used to be," she replied, almost angrily.
"I ask no questions, and have endeavoured so to train myself that I should care but little about it. But I knew it was so." Then after a pause he went back to the current of his thoughts. "Had my father been a prince I think that I should take no pride in it."
"It is well to have been born a gentleman," she said.
"It is well to be a gentleman, and if the good things which are generally attendant on high birth will help a man in reaching noble feelings and grand resolves, so it may be that to have been well born will be an assistance. But if a man derogates from his birth,—as so many do,—then it is a crime."
"All that has to be taken for granted, George."
"But it is not taken for granted. Though the man himself be knave, and fool, and coward, he is supposed to be ennobled because the blood of the Howards run in his veins. And worse again: though he has gifts of nobility beyond compare he can hardly dare to stand upright before lords and dukes because of his inferiority."
"That is all going away."
"Would that it could be made to go a little faster. It may be helped in its going. It may be that in these days the progress shall be accelerated. But you will let me write to Hampstead and say that you will come." She assented, and so that part of the little dinner-party was arranged.
After that she herself contrived to see the Quaker one evening on his return home. "Yes," said Mr. Fay; "I have heard thy proposition from Marion. Why should the young lord desire such a one as I am to sit at his table?"
"He is George's intimate friend."
"That thy son should choose his friend well, I surely believe, because I see him to be a prudent and wise young man, who does not devote himself over-much to riotous amusements." George did occasionally go to a theatre, thereby offending the Quaker's judgment, justifying the "overmuch," and losing his claim to a full measure of praise. "Therefore I will not quarrel with him that he has chosen his friend from among the great ones of the earth. But like to like is a good motto. I fancy that the weary draught-horse, such as I am, should not stable himself with hunters and racers."
"This young man affects the society of such as yourself and George, rather than that of others nobly born as himself."
"I do not know that he shows his wisdom the more."
"You should give him credit at any rate for good endeavours."
"It is not for me to judge him one way or the other. Did he ask that Marion should also go to his house?"
"Certainly. Why should not the child see something of the world that may amuse her?"
"Little good can come to my Marion from such amusements, Mrs. Roden; but something, perhaps, of harm. Wilt thou say that such recreation must necessarily be of service to a girl born to perform the hard duties of a strict life?"
"I would trust Marion in anything," said Mrs. Roden, eagerly.
"So would I; so would I. She hath ever been a good girl."
"But do you not distrust her if you shut her up, and are afraid to allow her even to sit at table in a strange house?"
"I have never forbidden her to sit at thy table," said the Quaker.
"And you should let her go specially as a kindness to me. For my son's sake I have promised to be there, and it would be a comfort to me to have another woman with me."
"Then you will hardly need me," said Mr. Fay, not without a touch of jealousy.
"He specially pressed his request that you would come. It is among such as you that he would wish to make himself known. Moreover, if Marion is to be there, you, I am sure, will choose to accompany her. Would you not wish to see how the child bears herself on such an occasion?"
"On all occasions, at all places, at all hours, I would wish to have my child with me. There is nothing else left to me in all the world on which my eye can rest with pleasure. But I doubt whether it may be for her good." Then he took his departure, leaving the matter still undecided, speaking of it with words which seemed to imply that he must ultimately refuse, but impressing Mrs. Roden with a conviction that he would at last accept the invitation.
"Doest thou wish it thyself?" he said to his daughter before retiring to rest that night.
"If you will go, father, I should like it."
"Why shouldst thou like it? What doest thou expect? Is it because the young man is a lord, and that there will be something of the gilded grandeur of the grand ones of the earth to be seen about his house and his table?"
"It is not for that, father."
"Or is it because he is young and comely, and can say soft things as such youths are wont to say, because he will smell sweetly of scents and lavender, because his hand will be soft to the touch, with rings on his fingers, and jewels perhaps on his bosom like a woman?"
"No, father; it is not for that."
"The delicacies which he will give thee to eat and to drink; the sweetmeats and rich food cannot be much to one nurtured as thou hast been."
"Certainly not, father; they can be nothing to me.
"Then why is it that thou wouldst go to his house?"
"It is that I may hear you, father, speak among men."
"Nay," said he, laughing, "thou mayst hear me better speak among men at King's Court in the City. There I can hold my own well enough, but with these young men over their wine, I shall have but little to say, I fancy. If thou hast nothing to gain but to hear thy old father talk, the time and money will be surely thrown away."
"I would hear him talk, father."
"The young lord?"
"Yes; the young lord. He is bright and clever, and, coming from another world than our world, can tell me things that I do not know."
"Can he tell thee aught that is good?"
"From what I hear of him from our friend he will tell me, I think, naught that is bad. You will be there to hear, and to arrest his words if they be evil. But I think him to be one from whose mouth no guile or folly will be heard."
"Who art thou, my child, that thou shouldst be able to judge whether words of guile are likely to come from a young man's lips?" But this he said smiling and pressing her hand while he seemed to rebuke her.
"Nay, father; I do not judge. I only say that I think it might be so. They are not surely all false and wicked. But if you wish it otherwise I will not utter another syllable to urge the request."
"We will go, Marion. Thy friend urged that it is not good that thou shouldst always be shut up with me alone. And, though I may distrust the young lord as not knowing him, my confidence in thee is such that I think that nothing will ever shake it." And so it was settled that they should all go. He would send to a livery stable and hire a carriage for this unusual occasion. There should be no need for the young lord to send them home. Though he did not know, as he said, much of the ways of the outside world, it was hardly the custom for the host to supply carriages as well as viands. When he dined, as he did annually, with the elder Mr. Pogson, Mr. Pogson sent him home in no carriage. He would sit at the lord's table, but he would go and come as did other men.
On the Friday named the two ladies and the two men arrived at Hendon Hall in something more than good time. Hampstead hopped and skipped about as though he were delighted as a boy might have been at their coming. It may be possible that there was something of guile even in this, and that he had calculated that he might thus best create quickly that intimacy with the Quaker and his daughter which he felt to be necessary for his full enjoyment of the evening. If the Quaker himself expected much of that gilding of which he had spoken he was certainly disappointed. The garniture of Hendon Hall had always been simple, and now had assumed less even of aristocratic finery than it used to show when prepared for the use of the Marchioness. "I'm glad you've come in time," said he, "because you can get comfortably warm before dinner." Then he fluttered about round Mrs. Roden, paying her attention much rather than Marion Fay,—still with some guile, as knowing that he might thus best prepare for the coming of future good things. "I suppose you found it awfully cold," he said.
"I do not know that we were awed, my lord," said the Quaker. "But the winter has certainly set in with some severity."
"Oh, father!" said Marion, rebuking him.
"Everything is awful now," said Hampstead, laughing. "Of course the word is absurd, but one gets in the way of using it because other people do."
"Nay, my lord, I crave pardon if I seemed to criticize thy language. Being somewhat used to a sterner manner of speaking, I took the word in its stricter sense."
"It is but slang from a girl's school, after all," said Roden.
"Now, Master George, I am not going to bear correction from you," said Hampstead, "though I put up with it from your elders. Miss Fay, when you were at school did they talk slang?"
"Where I was at school, Lord Hampstead," Marion answered, "we were kept in strict leading-strings. Fancy, father, what Miss Watson would have said if we had used any word in a sense not used in a dictionary."
"Miss Watson was a sensible woman, my dear, and understood well, and performed faithfully, the duties which she had undertaken. I do not know that as much can be said of all those who keep fashionable seminaries for young ladies at the West End."
"Miss Watson had a red face, and a big cap, and spectacles;—had she not?" said Hampstead, appealing to Marion Fay.
"Miss Watson," said Mrs. Roden, "whom I remember to have seen once when Marion was at school with her, was a very little woman, with bright eyes, who wore her own hair, and always looked as though she had come out of a bandbox."
"She was absolutely true to her ideas of life, as a Quaker should be," said Mr. Fay, "and I only hope that Marion will follow her example. As to language, it is, I think, convenient that to a certain extent our mode of speech should consort with our mode of living. You would not expect to hear from a pulpit the phrases which belong to a racecourse, nor would the expressions which are decorous, perhaps, in aristocratic drawing-rooms befit the humble parlours of clerks and artisans."
"I never will say that anything is awful again," said Lord Hampstead, as he gave his arm to Mrs. Roden, and took her in to dinner.
"I hope he will not be angry with father," whispered Marion Fay to George Roden, as they walked across the hall together.
"Not in the least. Nothing of that kind could anger him. If your father were to cringe or to flatter him then he would be disgusted."
"Father would never do that," said Marion, with confidence.
The dinner went off very pleasantly, Hampstead and Roden taking between them the weight of the conversation. The Quaker was perhaps a little frightened by the asperity of his own first remark, and ate his good things almost in silence. Marion was quite contented to listen, as she had told her father was her purpose; but it was perhaps to the young lord's words that she gave attention rather than to those of his friends. His voice was pleasant to her ears. There was a certain graciousness in his words, as to which she did not suppose that their softness was specially intended for her hearing. Who does not know the way in which a man may set himself at work to gain admission into a woman's heart without addressing hardly a word to herself? And who has not noted the sympathy with which the woman has unconsciously accepted the homage? That pressing of the hand, that squeezing of the arm, that glancing of the eyes, which are common among lovers, are generally the developed consequences of former indications which have had their full effect, even though they were hardly understood, and could not have been acknowledged, at the time. But Marion did, perhaps, feel that there was something of worship even in the way in which her host looked towards her with rapid glances from minute to minute, as though to see that if not with words, at any rate with thoughts, she was taking her share in the conversation which was certainly intended for her delight. The Quaker in the mean time ate his dinner very silently. He was conscious of having shown himself somewhat of a prig about that slang phrase, and was repenting himself. Mrs. Roden every now and then would put in a word in answer rather to her son than to the host, but she was aware of those electric sparks which, from Lord Hampstead's end of the wire, were being directed every moment against Marion Fay's heart.
"Now just for the fashion of the thing you must sit here for a quarter of an hour, while we are supposed to be drinking our wine." This was said by Lord Hampstead when he took the two ladies into the drawing-room after dinner.
"Don't hurry yourselves," said Mrs. Roden. "Marion and I are old friends, and will get on very well."
"Oh yes," said Marion. "It will be pleasure enough to me just to sit here and look around me." Then Hampstead knelt down between them, pretending to doctor up the fire, which certainly required no doctoring. They were standing, one on one side and the other on the other, looking down upon him.
"You are spoiling that fire, Lord Hampstead," said Mrs. Roden.
"Coals were made to be poked. I feel sure of that. Do take the poker and give them one blow. That will make you at home in the house for ever, you know." Then he handed the implement to Marion. She could hardly do other than take it in her hand. She took it, blushed up to the roots of her hair, paused a moment, and then gave the one blow to the coals that had been required of her. "Thanks," said he, nodding at her as he still knelt at her feet and took the poker from her; "thanks. Now you are free of Hendon Hall for ever. I wouldn't have any one but a friend poke my fire." Upon that he got up and walked slowly out of the room.
"Oh, Mrs. Roden," said Marion, "I wish I hadn't done it."
"It doesn't matter. It was only a joke."
"Of course it was a joke! but I wish I hadn't done it. It seemed at the moment that I should look to be cross if I didn't do as he bade me. But when he had said that about being at home—! Oh, Mrs. Roden, I wish I had not done it."
"He will know that it was nothing, my dear. He is good-humoured and playful, and likes the feeling of making us feel that we are not strangers." But Marion knew that Lord Hampstead would not take it as meaning nothing. Though she could see no more than his back as he walked out of the room, she knew that he was glowing with triumph.
"Now, Mr. Fay, here is port if you like, but I recommend you to stick to the claret."
"I have pretty well done all the sticking, my lord, of which I am competent," said the Quaker. "A little wine goes a long way with me, as I am not much used to it."
"Wine maketh glad the heart of man," said Roden.
"True enough, Mr. Roden. But I doubt whether it be good that a man's heart should be much gladdened. Gladness and sorrow counterbalance each other too surely. An even serenity is best fitted to human life, if it can be reached."
"A level road without hills," said Hampstead. "They say that horses are soonest tired by such travelling."
"They would hardly tell you so themselves if they could give their experience after a long day's journey." Then there was a pause, but Mr. Fay continued to speak. "My lord, I fear I misbehaved myself in reference to that word 'awful' which fell by chance from thy mouth."
"Oh, dear no; nothing of the kind."
"I was bethinking me that I was among the young men in our court in Great Broad Street, who will indulge sometimes in a manner of language not befitting their occupation at the time, or perhaps their station in life. I am wont then to remind them that words during business hours should be used in their strict sense. But, my lord, if you will take a farm horse from his plough you cannot expect from him that he should prance upon the green."
"It is because I think that there should be more mixing between what you call plough horses and animals used simply for play, that I have been so proud to make you welcome here. I hope it may not be by many the last time that you will act as a living dictionary for me. If you won't have any more wine we will go to them in the drawing-room."
Mrs. Roden very soon declared it necessary that they should start back to Holloway. Hampstead himself did not attempt to delay them. The words that had absolutely passed between him and Marion had hardly been more than those which have been here set down, but yet he felt that he had accomplished not only with satisfaction but with some glory to himself the purpose for which he had specially invited his guests. His scheme had been carried out with perfect success. After the manner in which Marion had obeyed his behest about the fire, he was sure that he was justified in regarding her as a friend.
Lord Hampstead had come to the door to help them into the carriage. "Lord Hampstead," said Mrs. Roden, "you will catch your death of cold. It is freezing, and you have nothing on your head."
"I am quite indifferent about those things," he said, as for a moment he held Marion's hand while he helped her into the carriage.
"Do go in," she whispered. Her lips as she spoke were close to his ear,—but that simply came from the position in which chance had placed her. Her hand was still in his,—but that, too, was the accident of the situation. But there is, I think, an involuntary tendency among women to make more than necessary use of assistance when the person tendering it has made himself really welcome. Marion had certainly no such intention. Had the idea come to her at the moment she would have shrank from his touch. It was only when his fingers were withdrawn, when the feeling of the warmth of this proximity had passed away, that she became aware that he had been so close to her, and that now they were separated.
Then her father entered the carriage, and Roden.
"Good-night, my lord," said the Quaker. "I have passed my evening very pleasantly. I doubt whether I may not feel the less disposed for my day's work to-morrow."
"Not at all, Mr. Fay; not at all. You will be like a giant refreshed. There is nothing like a little friendly conversation for bracing up the mind. I hope it will not be long before you come and try it again." Then the carriage was driven off, and Lord Hampstead went in to warm himself before the fire which Marion Fay had poked.
He had not intended to fall in love with her. Was there ever a young man who, when he first found a girl to be pleasant to him, has intended to fall in love with her? Girls will intend to fall in love, or, more frequently perhaps, to avoid it; but men in such matters rarely have a purpose. Lord Hampstead had found her, as he thought, to be an admirable specimen of excellence in that class of mankind which his convictions and theories induced him to extol. He thought that good could be done by mixing the racers and plough-horses,—and as regarded the present experiment, Marion Fay was a plough-horse. No doubt he would not have made this special attempt had she not pleased his eye, and his ear, and his senses generally. He certainly was not a philosopher to whom in his search after wisdom an old man such as Zachary Fay could make himself as acceptable as his daughter. It may be acknowledged of him that he was susceptible to female influences. But it had not at first occurred to him that it would be a good thing to fall in love with Marion Fay. Why should he not be on friendly terms with an excellent and lovely girl without loving her? Such had been his ideas after first meeting Marion at Mrs. Roden's house. Then he had determined that friends could not become friends without seeing each other, and he had concocted his scheme without being aware of the feelings which she had excited. The scheme had been carried out; he had had his dinner-party; Marion Fay had poked his fire; there had been one little pressure of the hand as he helped her into the carriage, one little whispered word, which had it not been whispered would have been as nothing; one moment of consciousness that his lips were close to her cheek; and then he returned to the warmth of his fire, quite conscious that he was in love.
What was to come of it? When he had argued both with his sister and with Roden that their marriage would be unsuitable because of their difference in social position, and had justified his opinion by declaring it to be impossible that any two persons could, by their own doing, break through the conventions of the world without ultimate damage to themselves and to others, he had silently acknowledged to himself that he also was bound by the law which he was teaching. That such conventions should gradually cease to be, would be good; but no man is strong enough to make a new law for his own governing at the spur of the moment;—and certainly no woman. The existing distances between man and man were radically bad. This was the very gist of his doctrine; but the instant abolition of such distances had been proved by many experiments to be a vain dream, and the diminution of them must be gradual and slow. That such diminution would go on till the distances should ultimately disappear in some future millennium was to him a certainty. The distances were being diminished by the increasing wisdom and philanthropy of mankind. To him, born to high rank and great wealth, it had been given to do more perhaps than another. In surrendering there is more efficacy, as there is also more grace, than in seizing. What of his grandeur he might surrender without injury to others to whom he was bound, he would surrender. Of what exact nature or kind should be the woman whom it might please him to select as his wife, he had formed no accurate idea; but he would endeavour so to marry that he would make no step down in the world that might be offensive to his family, but would yet satisfy his own convictions by drawing himself somewhat away from aristocratic blood. His father had done the same when choosing his first wife, and the happiness of his choice would have been perfect had not death interfered. Actuated by such reasoning as this, he had endeavoured in a mild way to separate his sister from her lover, thinking that they who were in love should be bound by the arguments which seemed good to him who was not in love. But now he also was in love, and the arguments as they applied to himself fell into shreds and tatters as he sat gazing at his fire, holding the poker in his hand.
Had there ever been anything more graceful than the mock violence with which she had pretended to strike heartily at the coals?—had there ever anything been more lovely than that mingled glance of doubt, of fear, and of friendliness with which she had looked into his face as she did it? She had quite understood his feeling when he made his little request. There had been heart enough in her, spirit enough, intelligence enough, to tell her at once the purport of his demand. Or rather she had not seen it all at once, but had only understood when her hand had gone too far to be withdrawn that something of love as well as friendship had been intended. Before long she should know how much of love had been intended! Whether his purpose was or was not compatible with the wisdom of his theory as to a gradual diminution of distances, his heart had gone too far now for any retracting. As he sat there he at once began to teach himself that the arguments he had used were only good in reference to high-born females, and that they need not necessarily affect himself. Whomever he might marry he would raise to his own rank. For his rank he did not care a straw himself. It was of the prejudices of others he was thinking when he assured himself that Marion would make as good a Countess and as good a Marchioness as any lady in the land. In regard to his sister it was otherwise. She must follow the rank of her husband. It might be that the sores which she would cause to many by becoming the wife of a Post Office clerk ought to be avoided. But there need be no sores in regard to his marriage with Marion Fay.
His present reasoning was, no doubt, bad, but such as it was it was allowed to prevail absolutely. It did not even occur to him that he would make an attempt to enfranchise himself from Marion's charms. Whatever might occur, whatever details there might be which would require his attention in regard to his father or others of the family, everything must give way to his present passion. She had poked his fire, and she must be made to sit at his hearth for the remainder of their joint existence. She must be made to sit there if he could so plead his cause that his love should prevail with her. As to the Quaker father, he thought altogether well of him too,—an industrious, useful, intelligent man, of whose quaint manners and manly bearing he would not be ashamed in any society. She, too, was a Quaker, but that to him was little or nothing. He also had his religious convictions, but they were not of a nature to be affronted or shocked by those of any one who believed that the increasing civilization of the world had come from Christ's teaching. The simple, earnest purity of the girl's faith would be an attraction to him rather than otherwise. Indeed, there was nothing in his Marion, as he saw her, that was not conducive to feminine excellence.
His Marion! How many words had he spoken to her? How many thoughts had he extracted from her? How many of her daily doings had he ever witnessed? But what did it matter? It is not the girl that the man loves, but the image which imagination has built up for him to fill the outside covering which has pleased his senses. He was quite as sure that the Ten Commandments were as safe in Marion's hands as though she were already a saint, canonized for the perfection of all virtues. He was quite ready to take that for granted; and having so convinced himself, was now only anxious as to the means by which he might make this priceless pearl his own.
There must be some other scheme. He sat, thinking of this, cudgelling his brains for some contrivance by which he and Marion Fay might be brought together again with the least possible delay. His idea of a dinner-party had succeeded beyond all hope. But he could not have another dinner-party next week. Nor could he bring together the guests whom he had to-day entertained after his sister's return. He was bound not to admit George Roden to his house as long as she should be with him. Without George he could hardly hope that Mrs. Roden would come to him, and without Mrs. Roden how could he entice the Quaker and his daughter? His sister would be with him on the following day, and would, no doubt, be willing to assist him with Marion if it were possible. But the giving of such assistance on her part would tacitly demand assistance also from him in her difficulties. Such assistance, he knew, he could not give, having pledged himself to his father in regard to George Roden. He could at the present moment devise no other scheme than the very simple one of going to Mrs. Roden, and declaring his love for the girl.
******
******
The four guests in the carriage were silent throughout their drive home. They all had thoughts of their own sufficient to occupy them. George Roden told himself that this, for a long day, must be his last visit to Hendon Hall. He knew that Lady Frances would arrive on the morrow, and that then his presence was forbidden. He had refused to make any promise as to his assured absence, not caring to subject himself to an absolute bond; but he was quite aware that he was bound in honour not to enter the house in which he could not be made welcome. He felt himself to be safe, with a great security. The girl whom he loved would certainly be true. He was not impatient, as was Hampstead. He did not trouble his mind with schemes which were to be brought to bear within the next few days. He could bide his time, comforting himself with his faith. But still a lover can hardly be satisfied with the world unless he can see some point in his heaven from which light may be expected to break through the clouds. He could not see the point from which the light might be expected.
The Quaker was asking himself many questions. Had he done well to take his girl to this young nobleman's house? Had he done well to take himself there? It had been as it were a sudden disruption in the settled purposes of his life. What had he or his girl to do with lords? And yet he had been pleased. Courtesy always flatters, and flattery is always pleasant. A certain sense of softness had been grateful to him. There came upon him a painful question,—as there does on so many of us, when for a time we make a successful struggle against the world's allurements,—whether in abandoning the delights of life we do in truth get any compensation for them. Would it not after all be better to do as others use? Phœbus as he touches our trembling ear encourages us but with a faint voice. It had been very pleasant,—the soft chairs, the quiet attendance, the well-cooked dinner, the good wines, the bright glasses, the white linen,—and pleasanter than all that silvery tone of conversation to which he was so little accustomed either in King's Court or Paradise Row. Marion indeed was always gentle to him as a dove cooing; but he was aware of himself that he was not gentle in return. Stern truth, expressed shortly in strong language, was the staple of his conversation at home. He had declared to himself all through his life that stern truth and strong language were better for mankind than soft phrases. But in his own parlour in Paradise Row he had rarely seen his Marion bright as she had been at this lord's table. Was it good for his Marion that she should be encouraged to such brightness; and if so, had he been cruel to her to suffuse her entire life with a colour so dark as to admit of no light? Why had her beauty shone so brightly in the lord's presence? He too knew something of love, and had it always present to his mind that the time would come when his Marion's heart would be given to some stranger. He did not think, he would not think, that the stranger had now come;—but would it be well that his girl's future should be affected even as was his own? He argued the points much within himself, and told himself that it could not be well.
Mrs. Roden had read it nearly all,—though she could not quite read the simple honesty of the young lord's purpose. The symptoms of love had been plain enough to her eyes, and she had soon told herself that she had done wrong in taking the girl to the young lord's house. She had seen that Hampstead had admired Marion, but she had not dreamed that it would be carried to such a length as this. But when he had knelt on the rug between them, leaning just a little towards the girl, and had looked up into the girl's face, smiling at his own little joke, but with his face full of love;—then she had known. And when Marion had whispered the one word, with her little fingers lingering within the young lord's touch, then she had known. It was not the young lord only who had given way to the softness of the moment. If evil had been done, she had done it; and it seemed as though evil had certainly been done. If much evil had been done, how could she forgive herself?
And what were Marion's thoughts? Did she feel that an evil had been done, an evil for which there could never be a cure found? She would have so assured herself, had she as yet become aware of the full power and depth and mortal nature of the wound she had received. For such a wound, for such a hurt, there is but one cure, and of that she certainly would have entertained no hope. But, as it will sometimes be that a man shall in his flesh receive a fatal injury, of which he shall for awhile think that only some bruise has pained him, some scratch annoyed him; that a little time, with ointment and a plaister, will give him back his body as sound as ever; but then after a short space it becomes known to him that a deadly gangrene is affecting his very life; so will it be with a girl's heart. She did not yet,—not yet,—tell herself that half-a-dozen gentle words, that two or three soft glances, that a touch of a hand, the mere presence of a youth whose comeliness was endearing to the eye, had mastered and subdued all that there was of Marion Fay. But it was so. Not for a moment did her mind run away, as they were taken homewards, from the object of her unconscious idolatry. Had she behaved ill?—that was her regret! He had been so gracious;—that was her joy! Then there came a pang from the wound, though it was not as yet a pang as of death. What right had such a one as she to receive even an idle word of compliment from a man such as was Lord Hampstead? What could he be to her, or she to him? He had his high mission to complete, his great duties to perform, and doubtless would find some noble lady as a fit mother for his children. He had come across her path for a moment, and she could not but remember him for ever! There was something of an idea present to her that love would now be beyond her reach. But the pain necessarily attached to such an idea had not as yet reached her. There came something of a regret that fortune had placed her so utterly beyond his notice;—but she was sure of this, sure of this, that if the chance were offered to her, she would not mar his greatness by accepting the priceless boon of his love. But why,—why had he been so tender to her? Then she thought of what were the ways of men, and of what she had heard of them. It had been bad for her to go abroad thus with her poor foolish softness, with her girl's untried tenderness,—that thus she should be affected by the first chance smile that had been thrown to her by one of those petted darlings of Fortune! And then she was brought round to that same resolution which was at the moment forming itself in her father's mind;—that it would have been better for her had she not allowed herself to be taken to Hendon Hall. Then they were in Paradise Row, and were put down at their separate doors with but few words of farewell to each other.
"They have just come home," said Clara Demijohn, rushing into her mother's bedroom. "You'll find it is quite true. They have been dining with the lord!"
The meeting between Hampstead and his sister was affectionate and, upon the whole, satisfactory, though it was necessary that a few words should be spoken which could hardly be pleasant in themselves. "I had a dinner-party here last night," he said laughing, desirous of telling her something of George Roden,—and something also of Marion Fay.
"Who were the guests?"
"Roden was here." Then there was silence. She was glad that her lover had been one of the guests, but she was not as yet moved to say anything respecting him. "And his mother."
"I am sure I shall like his mother," said Lady Frances.
"I have mentioned it," continued her brother, speaking with unusual care, "because, in compliance with the agreement I made at Trafford, I cannot ask him here again at present."
"I am sorry that I should be in your way, John."
"You are not in my way, as I think you know. Let us say no more than that at present. Then I had a singular old Quaker, named Zachary Fay, an earnest, honest, but humble man, who blew me up instantly for talking slang."
"Where did you pick him up?"
"He comes out of the City," he said, not wishing to refer again to Paradise Row and the neighbourhood of the Rodens,—"and he brought his daughter."
"A young lady?"
"Certainly a young lady."
"Ah, but young,—and beautiful?"
"Young,—and beautiful."
"Now you are laughing. I suppose she is some strong-minded, rather repulsive, middle-aged woman."
"As to the strength of her mind, I have not seen enough to constitute myself a judge," said Hampstead, almost with a tone of offence. "Why you should imagine her to be repulsive because she is a Quaker, or why middle-aged, I do not understand. She is not repulsive to me."
"Oh, John, I am so sorry! Now I know that you have found some divine beauty."
"We sometimes entertain angels unawares. I thought that I had done so when she took her departure."
"Are you in earnest?"
"I am quite in earnest as to the angel. Now I have to consult you as to a project." It may be remembered that Hampstead had spoken to his father as to the expediency of giving up his horses if he found that his means were not sufficient to keep up Hendon Hall, his yacht, and his hunting establishment in Northamptonshire. The Marquis, without saying a word to his son, had settled that matter, and Gorse Hall, with its stables, was continued. The proposition now made to Lady Frances was that she should go down with him and remain there for a week or two till she should find the place too dull. He had intended to fix an almost immediate day; but now he was debarred from this by his determination to see Marion yet once again before he took himself altogether beyond the reach of Holloway. The plan, therefore, though it was fixed as far as his own intention went and the assent of Lady Frances, was left undefined as to time. The more he thought of Holloway, and the difficulties of approaching Paradise Row, the more convinced he became that his only mode of approaching Marion must be through Mrs. Roden. He had taken two or three days to consider what would be the most appropriate manner of going through this operation, when on a sudden he was arrested by a letter from his father, begging his presence down at Trafford. The Marquis was ill, and was anxious to see his son. The letter in which the request was made was sad and plaintive throughout. He was hardly able to write, Lord Kingsbury said, because he was so unwell; but he had no one to write for him. Mr. Greenwood had made himself so disagreeable that he could no longer employ him for such purposes. "Your stepmother is causing me much vexation, which I do not think that I deserve from her." He then added that it would be necessary for him to have his lawyer down at Trafford, but that he wished to see Hampstead first in order that they might settle as to certain arrangements which were required in regard to the disposition of the property. There were some things which Hampstead could not fail to perceive from this letter. He was sure that his father was alarmed as to his own condition, or he would not have thought of sending for the lawyer to Trafford. He had hitherto always been glad to seize an opportunity of running up to London when any matter of business had seemed to justify the journey. Then it occurred to his son that his father had rarely or ever spoken or written to him of his "stepmother." In certain moods the Marquis had been wont to call his wife either the Marchioness or Lady Kingsbury. When in good humour he had generally spoken of her to his son as "your mother." The injurious though strictly legal name now given to her was a certain index of abiding wrath. But things must have been very bad with the Marquis at Trafford when he had utterly discarded the services of Mr. Greenwood,—services to which he had been used for a time to which the memory of his son did not go back. Hampstead of course obeyed his father's injunctions, and went down to Trafford instantly, leaving his sister alone at Hendon Hall. He found the Marquis not in bed indeed, but confined to his own sitting-room, and to a very small bed-chamber which had been fitted up for him close to it. Mr. Greenwood had been anxious to give up his own rooms as being more spacious; but the offer had been peremptorily and almost indignantly refused. The Marquis had been unwilling to accept anything like a courtesy from Mr. Greenwood. Should he make up his mind to turn Mr. Greenwood out of the house,—and he had almost made up his mind to do so,—then he could do what he pleased with Mr. Greenwood's rooms. But he wasn't going to accept the loan of chambers in his own house as a favour from Mr. Greenwood.
Hampstead on arriving at the house saw the Marchioness for a moment before he went to his father. "I cannot tell how he is," said Lady Kingsbury, speaking in evident dudgeon. "He will hardly let me go near him. Doctor Spicer seems to think that we need not be alarmed. He shuts himself up in those gloomy rooms down-stairs. Of course it would be better for him to be off the ground floor, where he would have more light and air. But he has become so obstinate, that I do not know how to deal with him."
"He has always liked to live in the room next to Mr. Greenwood's."
"He has taken an absolute hatred to Mr. Greenwood. You had better not mention the poor old gentleman's name to him. Shut up as I am here, I have no one else to speak a word to, and for that reason, I suppose, he wishes to get rid of him. He is absolutely talking of sending the man away after having had him with him for nearly thirty years." In answer to all this Hampstead said almost nothing. He knew his stepmother, and was aware that he could do no service by telling her what he might find it to be his duty to say to his father as to Mr. Greenwood, or on any other subject. He did not hate his stepmother,—as she hated him. But he regarded her as one to whom it was quite useless to speak seriously as to the affairs of the family. He knew her to be prejudiced, ignorant, and falsely proud,—but he did not suppose her to be either wicked or cruel.
His father began almost instantly about Mr. Greenwood, so that it would have been quite impossible for him to follow Lady Kingsbury's advice on that matter had he been ever so well minded. "Of course I'm ill," he said; "I suffer so much from sickness and dyspepsia that I can eat nothing. Doctor Spicer seems to think that I should get better if I did not worry myself; but there are so many things to worry me. The conduct of that man is abominable."
"What man, sir?" asked Hampstead,—who knew, however, very well what was coming.
"That clergyman," said Lord Kingsbury, pointing in the direction of Mr. Greenwood's room.
"He does not come to you, sir, unless you send for him?"
"I haven't seen him for the last five days, and I don't care if I never see him again."
"How has he offended you, sir?"
"I gave him my express injunctions that he should not speak of your sister either to me or the Marchioness. He gave me his solemn promise, and I know very well that they are talking about her every hour of the day."
"Perhaps that is not his fault."
"Yes, it is. A man needn't talk to a woman unless he likes. It is downright impudence on his part. Your stepmother comes to me every day, and never leaves me without abusing Fanny."
"That is why I thought it better that Fanny should come to me."
"And then, when I argue with her, she always tells me what Mr. Greenwood says about it. Who cares about Mr. Greenwood? What business has Mr. Greenwood to interfere in my family? He does not know how to behave himself, and he shall go."
"He has been here a great many years, sir," said Hampstead, pleading for the old man.
"Too many," said the Marquis. "When you've had a man about you so long as that, he is sure to take liberties."
"You must provide for him, sir, if he goes."
"I have thought of that. He must have something, of course. He has had three hundred a-year for the last ten years, and has had everything found for him down to his washing and his cab fares. For five-and-twenty years he has never paid for a bed or a meal out of his own pocket. What has he done with his money? He ought to be a rich man for his degree."
"What a man does with his money is, I suppose, no concern to those who pay it. It is supposed to have been earned, and there is an end of it as far as they are concerned."
"He shall have a thousand pounds," said the Marquis.
"That would hardly be liberal. I would think twice before I dismissed him, sir."
"I have thought a dozen times."
"I would let him remain," said Hampstead, "if only because he's a comfort to Lady Kingsbury. What does it matter though he does talk of Fanny? Were he to go she would talk to somebody else who might be perhaps less fit to hear her, and he would, of course, talk to everybody."
"Why has he not obeyed me?" demanded the Marquis, angrily. "It is I who have employed him. I have been his patron, and now he turns against me." Thus the Marquis went on till his strength would not suffice for any further talking. Hampstead found himself quite unable to bring him to any other subject on that day. He was sore with the injury done him in that he was not allowed to be the master in his own house.
On the next morning Hampstead heard from Dr. Spicer that his father was in a state of health very far from satisfactory. The doctor recommended that he should be taken away from Trafford, and at last went so far as to say that his advice extended to separating his patient from Lady Kingsbury. "It is, of course, a very disagreeable subject," said the doctor, "for a medical man to meddle with; but, my lord, the truth is that Lady Kingsbury frets him. I don't, of course, care to hear what it is, but there is something wrong." Lord Hampstead, who knew very well what it was, did not attempt to contradict him. When, however, he spoke to his father of the expediency of change of air, the Marquis told him that he would rather die at Trafford than elsewhere.
That his father was really thinking of his death was only too apparent from all that was said and done. As to those matters of business, they were soon settled between them. There was, at any rate, that comfort to the poor man that there was no probability of any difference between him and his heir as to the property or as to money. Half-an-hour settled all that. Then came the time which had been arranged for Hampstead's return to his sister. But before he went there were conversations between him and Mr. Greenwood, between him and his stepmother, and between him and his father, to which, for the sake of our story, it may be as well to refer.
"I think your father is ill-treating me," said Mr. Greenwood. Mr. Greenwood had allowed himself to be talked into a thorough contempt and dislike for the young lord; so that he had almost brought himself to believe in those predictions as to the young lord's death in which Lady Kingsbury was always indulging. As a consequence of this, he now spoke in a voice very different from those obsequious tones which he had before been accustomed to use when he had regarded Lord Hampstead as his young patron.
"I am sure my father would never do that," said Hampstead, angrily.
"It looks very like it. I have devoted all the best of my life to his service, and he now talks of dismissing me as though I were no better than a servant."
"Whatever he does, he will, I am sure, have adequate cause for doing."
"I have done nothing but my duty. It is out of the question that a man in my position should submit to orders as to what he is to talk about and what not. It is natural that Lady Kingsbury should come to me in her troubles."
"If you will take my advice," said Lord Hampstead, in that tone of voice which always produces in the mind of the listener a determination that the special advice offered shall not be taken, "you will comply with my father's wishes while it suits you to live in his house. If you cannot do that, it would become you, I think, to leave it." In every word of this there was a rebuke; and Mr. Greenwood, who did not like being rebuked, remembered it.
"Of course I am nobody in this house now," said the Marchioness in her last interview with her stepson. It is of no use to argue with an angry woman, and in answer to this Hampstead made some gentle murmur which was intended neither to assent or to dispute the proposition made to him. "Because I ventured to disapprove of Mr. Roden as a husband for your sister I have been shut up here, and not allowed to speak to any one."
"Fanny has left the house, so that she may no longer cause you annoyance by her presence."
"She has left the house in order that she may be near the abominable lover with whom you have furnished her."
"This is not true," said Hampstead, who was moved beyond his control by the double falseness of the accusation.
"Of course you can be insolent to me, and tell me that I speak falsehoods. It is part of your new creed that you should be neither respectful to a parent, nor civil to a lady."
"I beg your pardon, Lady Kingsbury,"—he had never called her Lady Kingsbury before,—"if I have been disrespectful or uncivil, but your statements were very hard to bear. Fanny's engagement with Mr. Roden has not even received my sanction. Much less was it arranged or encouraged by me. She has not gone to Hendon Hall to be near Mr. Roden, with whom she had undertaken to hold no communication as long as she remains there with me. Both for my own sake and for hers I am bound to repudiate the accusation." Then he went without further adieu, leaving with her a conviction that she had been treated with the greatest contumely by her husband's rebellious heir.
Nothing could be sadder than the last words which the Marquis spoke to his son. "I don't suppose, Hampstead, that we shall ever meet again in this world."
"Oh, father!"
"I don't think Mr. Spicer knows how bad I am."
"Will you have Sir James down from London?"
"No Sir James can do me any good, I fear. It is ill ministering to a mind diseased."
"Why, sir, should you have a mind diseased? With few men can things be said to be more prosperous than with you. Surely this affair of Fanny's is not of such a nature as to make you feel that all things are bitter round you."
"It is not that."
"What then? I hope I have not been a cause of grief to you?"
"No, my boy;—no. It irks me sometimes to think that I should have trained you to ideas which you have taken up too violently. But it is not that."
"My mother—?"
"She has set her heart against me,—against you and Fanny. I feel that a division has been made between my two families. Why should my daughter be expelled from my own house? Why should I not be able to have you here, except as an enemy in the camp? Why am I to have that man take up arms against me, whom I have fed in idleness all his life?"
"I would not let him trouble my thoughts."
"When you are old and weak you will find it hard to banish thoughts that trouble you. As to going, where am I to go to?"
"Come to Hendon."
"And leave her here with him, so that all the world shall say that I am running away from my own wife? Hendon is your house now, and this is mine;—and here I must stay till my time has come."
This was very sad, not as indicating the state of his father's health, as to which he was more disposed to take the doctor's opinion than that of the patient, but as showing the infirmity of his father's mind. He had been aware of a certain weakness in his father's character,—a desire not so much for ruling as for seeming to rule all that were around him. The Marquis had wished to be thought a despot even when he had delighted in submitting himself to the stronger mind of his first wife. Now he felt the chains that were imposed upon him, so that they galled him when he could not throw them off. All this was very sad to Hampstead; but it did not make him think that his father's health had in truth been seriously affected.