"Nobody meant to conceal anything from you, papa."
"It has been so far concealed. And yet this young man has the self-confidence to come to me and to demand your hand as though it were a matter of course that I should accede to so trivial a request. It is, as a matter of course, quite impossible. You understand that; do you not?" When she did not answer him at once, he repeated the question. "I ask you whether you do not feel that it is altogether impossible?"
"No, papa," she said, in the lowest possible whisper, but still in such a whisper that he could hear the word, and with so much clearness that he could judge from her voice of the obstinacy of her mind.
"Then, Mary, it becomes my duty to tell you that it is quite impossible. I will not have it thought of. There must be an end of it."
"Why, papa?"
"Why! I am astonished that you should ask me why."
"I should not have allowed him, papa, to go to you unless I had,—unless I had loved him."
"Then you must conquer your love. It is disgraceful and must be conquered."
"Disgraceful!"
"Yes. I am sorry to use such a word to my own child, but it is so. If you will promise to be guided by me in this matter, if you will undertake not to see him any more, I will,—if not forget it,—at any rate pardon it, and be silent. I will excuse it because you were young, and were thrown imprudently in his way. There has, I believe, been someone at work in the matter with whom I ought to be more angry than with you. Say that you will obey me, and there is nothing within a father's power that I will not do for you, to make your life happy." It was thus that he strove not to be stern. His heart, indeed, was tender enough, but there was nothing tender in the tone of his voice or in the glance of his eye. Though he was very positive in what he said, yet he was shy and shamefaced even with his own daughter. He, too, had blushed when he told her that she must conquer her love.
That she should be told that she had disgraced herself was terrible to her. That her father should speak of her marriage with this man as an event that was impossible made her very unhappy. That he should talk of pardoning her, as for some great fault, was in itself a misery. But she had not on that account the least idea of giving up her lover. Young as she was, she had her own peculiar theory on that matter, her own code of conduct and honour, from which she did not mean to be driven. Of course she had not expected that her father would yield at the first word. He, no doubt, would wish that she should make a more exalted marriage. She had known that she would have to encounter opposition, though she had not expected to be told that she had disgraced herself. As she sat there she resolved that under no pretence would she give up her lover;—but she was so far abashed that she could not find words to express herself. He, too, had been silent for a few moments before he again asked her for her promise.
"Will you tell me, Mary, that you will not see him again?"
"I don't think that I can say that, papa."
"Why not?"
"Oh papa, how can I, when of all the people in the world I love him the best?"
It is not without a pang that any one can be told that she who is of all the dearest has some other one who to her is the dearest. Such pain fathers and mothers have to bear; and though, I think, the arrow is never so blunted but that it leaves something of a wound behind, there is in most cases, if not a perfect salve, still an ample consolation. The mother knows that it is good that her child should love some man better than all the world beside, and that she should be taken away to become a wife and a mother. And the father, when that delight of his eyes ceases to assure him that he is her nearest and dearest, though he abandon the treasure of that nearestness and dearestness with a soft melancholy, still knows that it is as it should be. Of course that other "him" is the person she loves the best in the world. Were it not so how evil a thing it would be that she should marry him! Were it not so with reference to some "him", how void would her life be! But now, to the poor Duke the wound had no salve, no consolation. When he was told that this young Tregear was the owner of his girl's sweet love, was the treasure of her heart, he shrank as though arrows with sharp points were pricking him all over. "I will not hear of such love," he said.
"What am I to say, papa?"
"Say that you will obey me."
Then she sat silent. "Do you not know that he is not fit to be your husband?"
"No, papa."
"Then you cannot have thought much either of your position or of mine."
"He is a gentleman, papa."
"So is my private secretary. There is not a clerk in one of our public offices who does not consider himself to be a gentleman. The curate of the parish is a gentleman, and the medical man who comes here from Bradstock. The word is too vague to carry with it any meaning that ought to be serviceable to you in thinking of such a matter."
"I do not know any other way of dividing people," said she, showing thereby that she had altogether made up her mind as to what ought to be serviceable to her.
"You are not called upon to divide people. That division requires so much experience that you are bound in this matter to rely upon those to whom your obedience is due. I cannot but think you must have known that you were not entitled to give your love to any man without being assured that the man would be approved of by—by—by me." He was going to say, "your parents," but was stopped by the remembrance of his wife's imprudence.
She saw it all, and was too noble to plead her mother's
authority. But she was not too dutiful to cast a reproach upon him, when he was so stern to her. "You have been so little with me, papa."
"That is true," he said, after a pause. "That is true. It has been a fault, and I will mend it. It is a reason for forgiveness, and I will forgive you. But you must tell me that there shall be an end to this."
"No, papa."
"What do you mean?"
"That as I love Mr. Tregear, and as I have told him so, and as I have promised him, I will be true to him. I cannot let there be an end to it."
"You do not suppose that you will be allowed to see him again?"
"I hope so."
"Most assuredly not. Do you write to him?"
"No, papa."
"Never?"
"Never since we have been back in England."
"You must promise me that you will not write."
She paused a moment before she answered him, and now she was looking him full in the face. "I shall not write to him. I do not think I shall write to him; but I will not promise."
"Not promise me,—your father!"
"No, papa. It might be that—that I should do it."
"You would not wish me so to guard you that you should have no power of sending a letter but by permission?"
"I should not like that."
"But it will have to be so."
"If I do write I will tell you."
"And show me what you write?"
"No, papa; not that; but I will tell you what I have written."
Then it occurred to him that this bargaining was altogether derogatory to his parental authority, and by no means likely to impress upon her mind the conviction that Tregear must be completely banished from her thoughts. He began already to find how difficult it would be for him to have the charge of such a daughter,—how impossible that he should conduct such a charge with sufficient firmness, and yet with sufficient tenderness! At present he had done no good. He had only been made more wretched than ever by her obstinacy. Surely he must pass her over to the charge of some lady,—but of some lady who would be as determined as was he himself that she should not throw herself away by marrying Mr. Tregear.
"There shall be no writing," he said, "no visiting, no communication of any kind. As you refuse to obey me now, you had better go to your room."
Perhaps the method of rushing at once "in medias res" is, of all the ways of beginning a story, or a separate branch of a story, the least objectionable. The reader is made to think that the gold lies so near the surface that he will be required to take very little trouble in digging for it. And the writer is enabled,—at any rate for a time, and till his neck has become, as it were, warm to the collar,—to throw off from him the difficulties and dangers, the tedium and prolixity, of description. This rushing "in medias res" has doubtless the charm of ease. "Certainly, when I threw her from the garret window to the stony pavement below, I did not anticipate that she would fall so far without injury to life or limb." When a story has been begun after this fashion, without any prelude, without description of the garret or of the pavement, or of the lady thrown, or of the speaker, a great amount of trouble seems to have been saved. The mind of the reader fills up the blanks,—if erroneously, still satisfactorily. He knows, at least, that the heroine has encountered a terrible danger, and has escaped from it with almost incredible good fortune; that the demon of the piece is a bold demon, not ashamed to speak of his own iniquity, and that the heroine and the demon are so far united that they have been in a garret together. But there is the drawback on the system,—that it is almost impossible to avoid the necessity of doing, sooner or later, that which would naturally be done at first. It answers, perhaps, for half-a-dozen chapters;—and to carry the reader pleasantly for half-a-dozen chapters is a great matter!—but after that a certain nebulous darkness gradually seems to envelope the characters and the incidents. "Is all this going on in the country, or is it in town,—or perhaps in the Colonies? How old was she? Was she tall? Is she fair? Is she heroine-like in her form and gait? And, after all, how high was the garret window?" I have always found that the details would insist on being told at last, and that by rushing "in medias res" I was simply presenting the cart before the horse. But as readers like the cart the best, I will do it once again,—trying it only for a branch of my story,—and will endeavour to let as little as possible of the horse be seen afterwards.
"And so poor Frank has been turned out of heaven?" said Lady Mabel Grex to young Lord Silverbridge.
"Who told you that? I have said nothing about it to anybody."
"Of course he told me himself," said the young beauty. I am aware that, in the word beauty, and perhaps, also, in the word young, a little bit of the horse is appearing; and I am already sure that I shall have to show his head and neck, even if not his very tail. "Poor Frank! Did you hear it all?"
"I heard nothing, Lady Mab, and know nothing."
"You know that your awful governor won't let him stay any longer in Carlton Terrace?"
"Yes, I know that."
"And why not?"
"Would Lord Grex allow Percival to have his friends living here?" Earl Grex was Lady Mabel's father, Lord Percival was the Earl's son;—and the Earl lived in Belgrave Square. All these are little bits of the horse.
"Certainly not. In the first place, I am here."
"That makes a difference, certainly."
"Of course it makes a difference. They would be wanting to make love to me."
"No doubt. I should, I know."
"And therefore it wouldn't do for you to live here; and then papa is living here himself. And then the permission never has been given. I suppose Frank did not go there at first without the Duke knowing it."
"I daresay that I had mentioned it."
"You might as well tell me all about it. We are cousins, you know." Frank Tregear, through his mother's family, was second cousin to Lady Mabel; as was also Lord Silverbridge, one of the Grexes having, at some remote period, married a Palliser. This is another bit of the horse.
"The governor merely seemed to think that he would like to have his own house to himself—like other people. What an ass Tregear was to say anything to you about it."
"I don't think he was an ass at all. Of course he had to tell us that he was changing his residence. He says that he is going to take a back bedroom somewhere near the Seven Dials."
"He has got very nice rooms in Duke Street."
"Have you seen him, then?"
"Of course I have."
"Poor fellow! I wish he had a little money; he is so nice. And now, Lord Silverbridge, do you mean to say that there is not something in the wind about Lady Mary?"
"If there were I should not talk about it," said Lord Silverbridge.
"You are a very innocent young gentleman."
"And you are a very interesting young lady."
"You ought to think me so, for I interest myself very much about you. Was the Duke very angry about your not standing for the county?"
"He was vexed."
"I do think it is so odd that a man should be expected to be this or that in politics because his father happened to be so before him! I don't understand how he should expect that you should remain with a party so utterly snobbish and down in the world as the Radicals. Everybody that is worth anything is leaving them."
"He has not left them."
"No, I don't suppose he could; but you have."
"I never belonged to them, Lady Mab."
"And never will, I hope. I always told papa that you would certainly be one of us." All this took place in the drawing-room of Lord Grex's house. There was no Lady Grex alive, but there lived with the Earl a certain elderly lady, reported to be in some distant way a cousin of the family, named Miss Cassewary, who, in the matter of looking after Lady Mab, did what was supposed to be absolutely necessary. She now entered the room with her bonnet on, having just returned from church. "What was the text?" asked Lady Mab at once.
"If you had gone to church, as you ought to have done, my dear, you would have heard it."
"But as I didn't?"
"I don't think the text alone will do you any good."
"And probably you forget it."
"No, I don't, my dear. How do you do, Lord Silverbridge?"
"He is a Conservative, Miss Cass."
"Of course he is. I am quite sure that a young nobleman of so much taste and intellect would take the better side."
"You forget that all you are saying is against my father and my family, Miss Cassewary."
"I dare say it was different when your father was a young man. And your father, too, was, not very long since, at the head of a government which contained many Conservatives. I don't look upon your father as a Radical, though perhaps I should not be justified in calling him a Conservative."
"Well; certainly not, I think."
"But now it is necessary that all noblemen in England should rally to the defence of their order." Miss Cassewary was a great politician, and was one of those who are always foreseeing the ruin of their country. "My dear, I will go and take my bonnet off. Perhaps you will have tea when I come down."
"Don't you go," said Lady Mabel, when Silverbridge got up to take his departure.
"I always do when tea comes."
"But you are going to dine here?"
"Not that I know of. In the first place, nobody has asked me. In the second place, I am engaged. Thirdly, I don't care about having to talk politics to Miss Cass; and fourthly, I hate family dinners on Sunday."
"In the first place, I ask you. Secondly, I know you were going to dine with Frank Tregear, at the club. Thirdly, I want you to talk to me, and not to Miss Cass. And fourthly, you are an uncivil young—young,—young,—I should say cub if I dared, to tell me that you don't like dining with me any day of the week."
"Of course you know what I mean is, that I don't like troubling your father."
"Leave that to me. I shall tell him you are coming, and Frank too. Of course you can bring him. Then he can talk to me when papa goes down to his club, and you can arrange your politics with Miss Cass." So it was settled, and at eight o'clock Lord Silverbridge reappeared in Belgrave Square with Frank Tregear.
Earl Grex was a nobleman of very ancient family, the Grexes having held the parish of Grex, in Yorkshire, from some time long prior to the Conquest. In saying all this, I am, I know, allowing the horse to appear wholesale;—but I find that he cannot be kept out. I may as well go on to say that the present Earl was better known at Newmarket and the Beaufort,—where he spent a large part of his life in playing whist,—than in the House of Lords. He was a grey-haired, handsome, worn-out old man, who through a long life of pleasure had greatly impaired a fortune which, for an earl, had never been magnificent, and who now strove hard, but not always successfully, to remedy that evil by gambling. As he could no longer eat and drink as he had used to do, and as he cared no longer for the light that lies in a lady's eye, there was not much left to him in the world but cards and racing. Nevertheless he was a handsome old man, of polished manners, when he chose to use them; a staunch Conservative and much regarded by his party, for whom in his early life he had done some work in the House of Commons.
"Silverbridge is all very well," he had said; "but I don't see why that young Tregear is to dine here every night of his life."
"This is the second time since he has been up in town, papa."
"He was here last week, I know."
"Silverbridge wouldn't come without him."
"That'sd––––nonsense," said the Earl. Miss Cassewary gave a start,—not, we may presume, because she was shocked, for she could not be much shocked, having heard the same word from the same lips very often; but she thought it right always to enter a protest. Then the two young men were announced.
Frank Tregear, having been known by the family as a boy, was Frank to all of them,—as was Lady Mabel, Mabel to him, somewhat to the disgust of the father and not altogether with the approbation of Miss Cass. But Lady Mabel had declared that she would not be guilty of the folly of changing old habits. Silverbridge, being Silverbridge to all his own people, hardly seemed to have a Christian name;—his godfathers and godmothers had indeed called him Plantagenet;—but having only become acquainted with the family since his Oxford days he was Lord Silverbridge to Lady Mabel. Lady Mabel had not as yet become Mabel to him, but, as by her very intimate friends she was called Mab, had allowed herself to be addressed by him as Lady Mab. There was thus between them all considerable intimacy.
"I'm deuced glad to hear it," said the Earl when dinner was announced. For, though he could not eat much, Lord Grex was always impatient when the time of eating was at hand. Then he walked down alone. Lord Silverbridge followed with his daughter, and Frank Tregear gave his arm to Miss Cassewary. "If that woman can't clear her soup better than that, she might as well go to thed––––,"said the Earl;—upon which remark no one in the company made any observation. As there were two men-servants in the room when it was made the cook probably had the advantage of it. It may be almost unnecessary to add that though the Earl had polished manners for certain occasions he would sometimes throw them off in the bosom of his own family.
"My Lord," said Miss Cassewary—she always called him "My Lord"—"Lord Silverbridge is going to stand for the Duke's borough in the Conservative interest."
"I didn't know the Duke had a borough," said the Earl.
"He had one till he thought it proper to give it up," said the son, taking his father's part.
"And you are going to pay him off for what he has done by standing against him. It's just the sort of thing for a son to do in these days. If I had a borough Percival would go down and make radical speeches there."
"There isn't a better Conservative in England than Percival," said Lady Mabel, bridling up.
"Nor a worse son," said the father. "I believe he would do anything he could lay his hand on to oppose me." During the past week there had been some little difference of opinion between the father and the son as to the signing of a deed.
"My father does not take it in bad part at all," said Silverbridge.
"Perhaps he's ratting himself," said the Earl. "When a man lends himself to a coalition he is as good as half gone."
"I do not think that in all England there is so thorough a Liberal as my father," said Lord Silverbridge. "And when I say that he doesn't take this badly, I don't mean that it doesn't vex him. I know it vexes him. But he doesn't quarrel with me. He even wrote down to Barsetshire to say that all my expenses at Silverbridge were to be paid."
"I call that very bad politics," said the Earl.
"It seems to me to be very grand," said Frank.
"Perhaps, sir, you don't know what is good or what is bad in politics," said the Earl, trying to snub his guest.
But it was difficult to snub Frank. "I know a gentleman when I see him, I think," he said. "Of course Silverbridge is right to be a Conservative. Nobody has a stronger opinion about that than I have. But the Duke is behaving so well that if I were he I should almost regret it."
"And so I do," said Silverbridge.
When the ladies were gone the old Earl turned himself round to the fire, having filled his glass and pushed the bottles away from him, as though he meant to leave the two young men to themselves. He sat leaning with his head on his hand, looking the picture of woe. It was now only nine o'clock, and there would be no whist at the Beaufort till eleven. There was still more than an hour to be endured before the brougham would come to fetch him. "I suppose we shall have a majority," said Frank, trying to rouse him.
"Who does 'We' mean?" asked the Earl.
"The Conservatives, of whom I take the liberty to call myself one."
"It sounded as though you were a very influential member of the party."
"I consider myself to be one of the party, and so I say 'We.'"
Upstairs in the drawing-room Miss Cassewary did her duty loyally. It was quite right that young ladies and young gentlemen should be allowed to talk together, and very right indeed that such a young gentleman as Lord Silverbridge should be allowed to talk to such a young lady as Lady Mabel. What could be so nice as a marriage between the heir of the house of Omnium and Lady Mabel Grex? Lady Mabel looked indeed to be the elder,—but they were in truth the same age. All the world acknowledged that Lady Mabel was very clever and very beautiful and fit to be a Duchess. Even the Earl, when Miss Cassewary hinted at the matter to him, grunted an assent. Lady Mabel had already refused one or two not ineligible offers, and it was necessary that something should be done. There had been at one time a fear in Miss Cassewary's bosom lest her charge should fall too deeply in love with Frank Tregear;—but Miss Cassewary knew that whatever danger there might have been in that respect had passed away. Frank was willing to talk to her, while Mabel and Lord Silverbridge were in a corner together.
"I shall be on tenterhooks now till I know how it is to be at Silverbridge," said the young lady.
"It is very good of you to feel so much interest."
"Of course I feel an interest. Are not you one of us? When is it to be?"
"They say that the elections will be over before the Derby."
"And which do you care for the most?"
"I should like to pull off the Derby, I own."
"From what papa says, I should think the other event is the more probable."
"Doesn't the Earl stand to win on Prime Minister?"
"I never know anything about his betting. But,—you know his way,—he said you were going to drop a lot of money like a— I can't quite tell you what he likened you to."
"The Earl may be mistaken."
"You are not betting much, I hope."
"Not plunging. But I have a little money on."
"Don't get into a way of betting."
"Why:—what difference does it make,—to you?"
"Is that kind, Lord Silverbridge?"
"I meant to say that if I did make a mess of it you wouldn't care about it."
"Yes, I should. I should care very much. I dare say you could lose a great deal of money and care nothing about it."
"Indeed I could not."
"What would be a great deal of money to me. But you would want to get it back again. And in that way you would be regularly on the turf."
"And why not?"
"I want to see better things from you."
"You ought not to preach against the turf, Lady Mab."
"Because of papa? But I am not preaching against the turf. If I were such as you are I would have a horse or two myself. A man in your position should do a little of everything. You should hunt and have a yacht, and stalk deer and keep your own trainer at Newmarket."
"I wish you'd say all that to my father."
"Of course I mean if you can afford it. I like a man to like pleasure. But I despise a man who makes a business of his pleasures. When I hear that this man is the best whist-player in London, and that man the best billiard-player, I always know that they can do nothing else, and then I despise them."
"You needn't despise me, because I do nothing well," said he, as he got up to take his leave.
"I do so hope you'll get the seat,—and win the Derby."
These were her last words to him as she wished him good-night.
"That's nonsense, Miss Cass, and I shall," said Lady Mabel. They were together, on the morning after the little dinner-party described in the last chapter, in a small back sitting-room which was supposed to be Lady Mabel's own, and the servant had just announced the fact that Mr. Tregear was below.
"Then I shall go down too," said Miss Cassewary.
"You'll do nothing of the kind. Will you please to tell me what it is you are afraid of? Do you think that Frank is going to make love to me again?"
"No."
"Or that if I chose that he should I would let you stop me? He is in love with somebody else,—and perhaps I am too. And we are two paupers."
"My lord would not approve of it."
"If you know what my lord approves of and what he disapproves you understand him a great deal better than I do. And if you mind what he approves or disapproves, you care for his opinion a great deal more than I do. My cousin is here now to talk to me,—about his own affairs, and I mean to see him,—alone." Then she left the little room, and went down to that in which Frank was waiting for her, without the company of Miss Cassewary.
"Do you really mean," she said after they had been together for some minutes, "that you had the courage to ask the Duke for his daughter's hand?"
"Why not?"
"I believe you would dare do anything."
"I couldn't very well take it without asking him."
"As I am not acquainted with the young lady I don't know how that might be."
"And if I took her so, I should have to take her empty-handed."
"Which wouldn't suit;—would it?"
"It wouldn't suit for her,—whose comforts and happiness are much more to me than my own."
"No doubt! Of course you are terribly in love."
"Very thoroughly in love, I think, I am."
"For the tenth time, I should say."
"For the second only. I don't regard myself as a monument of constancy, but I think I am less fickle than some other people."
"Meaning me!"
"Not especially."
"Frank, that is ill-natured, and almost unmanly,—and false also. When have I been fickle? You say that there was one before with you. I say that there has never really been one with me at all. No one knows that better than yourself. I cannot afford to be in love till I am quite sure that the man is fit to be, and will be, my husband."
"I doubt sometimes whether you are capable of being in love with any one."
"I think I am," she said, very gently. "But I am at any rate capable of not being in love till I wish it. Come, Frank; do not quarrel with me. You know,—you ought to know,—that I should have loved you had it not been that such love would have been bad for both of us."
"It is a kind of self-restraint I do not understand."
"Because you are not a woman."
"Why did you twit me with changing my love?"
"Because I am a woman. Can't you forgive as much as that to me?"
"Certainly. Only you must not think that I have been false because I now love her so dearly."
"I do not think you are false. I would do anything to help you if there were anything I could do. But when you spoke so like a Romeo of yourlove—"
"Why not like a Romeo, if I feel like a Romeo?"
"But I doubt whether Romeo talked much to Rosaline of his love for Juliet. But you shall talk to me of yours for Lady Mary, and I will listen to you patiently and encourage you, and will not even think of those former vows."
"The former vows were foolish."
"Oh,—of course."
"You at least used to say so."
"I say so now, and they shall be as though they had been never spoken. So you bearded the Duke in his den, and asked him for Lady Mary's hand,—just as though you had been a young Duke yourself and owned half a county?"
"Just the same."
"And what did he say?"
"He swore that it was impossible.—Of course I knew all that before."
"How will it be now? You will not give it up?"
"Certainly not."
"And Lady Mary?"
"One human being can perhaps never answer for another with perfect security."
"But you feel sure of her?"
"I do."
"He, I should think, can be very imperious."
"And so can she. The Pallisers are all obstinate."
"Is Silverbridge obstinate?" she asked.
"Stiff-necked as a bull if he takes it into his head to be so."
"I shouldn't have thought it."
"No;—because he is so soft in his manner, and often finds it easier to be led by others than to direct himself."
Then she remained silent for a few seconds. They were both thinking of the same thing, and both wishing to speak of it. But the words came to her first. "I wonder what he thinks of me." Whereupon Tregear only smiled. "I suppose he has spoken to you about me?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Why!"
"And why should I tell you? Suppose he should have said to me in the confidence of friendship that he thinks you ugly and stupid."
"I am sure he has not said that. He has eyes to see and ears to hear. But, though I am neither ugly nor stupid, he needn't like me."
"Do you want him to like you?"
"Yes, I do. Oh yes; you may laugh; but if I did not think that I could be a good wife to him I would not take his hand even to become Duchess of Omnium."
"Do you mean that you love him, Mabel?"
"No; I do not mean that. But I would learn to love him. You do not believe that?" Here he smiled again and shook his head. "It is as I said before, because you are not a woman, and do not understand how women are trammelled. Do you think ill of me because I say this?"
"No, indeed."
"Do not think ill of me if you can help it, because you are almost the only friend that I can trust. I almost trust dear old Cass, but not quite. She is old-fashioned and I shock her. As for other women, there isn't one anywhere to whom I would say a word. Only think how a girl such as I am is placed; or indeed any girl. You, if you see a woman that you fancy, can pursue her, can win her and triumph, or lose her and gnaw your heart;—at any rate you can do something. You can tell her that you love her; can tell her so again and again even though she should scorn you. You can set yourself about the business you have taken in hand and can work hard at it. What can a girl do?"
"Girls work hard too sometimes."
"Of course they do;—but everybody feels that they are sinning against their sex. Of love, such as a man's is, a woman ought to know nothing. How can she love with passion when she should never give her love till it has been asked, and not then unless her friends tell her that the thing is suitable? Love such as that to me is out of the question. But, as it is fit that I should be married, I wish to be married well."
"And you will love him after a fashion?"
"Yes;—after a very sterling fashion. I will make his wishes my wishes, his ways my ways, his party my party, his home my home, his ambition my ambition,—his honour my honour." As she said this she stood up with her hands clenched and head erect, and her eyes flashing. "Do you not know me well enough to be sure that I should be loyal to him?"
"Yes;—I think that you would be loyal."
"Whether I loved him or not, he should love me."
"And you think that Silverbridge would do?"
"Yes, I think that Silverbridge would do. You, no doubt, will say that I am flying high?"
"Not too high. Why should you not fly high? If I can justify myself, surely I cannot accuse you."
"It is hardly the same thing, Frank. Of course, there is not a girl in London to whom Lord Silverbridge would not be the best match that she could make. He has the choice of us all."
"Most girls would think twice before refusing him."
"Very few would think twice before accepting him. Perhaps he wishes to add to his wealth by marrying richly,—as his father did."
"No thought on that subject will ever trouble him. That will be all as it happens. As soon as he takes a sufficient fancy to a girl he will ask her straight off. I do not say that he might not change afterwards, but he would mean it at the time."
"If he had once said the word to me, he should not change. But then what right have I to expect it? What has he ever said about me?"
"Very little. But had he said much I should not tell you."
"You are my friend,—but you are his too; and he, perhaps, is more to you than I am. As his friend it may be your duty to tell him all that I am saying. If so, I have been wrong."
"Do you think that I shall do that, Mabel?"
"I do not know. Men are so strong in their friendships."
"Mine with you is the older, and the sweeter. Though we may not be more than friends, I will say that it is the more tender. In my heart of hearts I do not think that Silverbridge could do better."
"Thanks for that, Frank."
"I shall tell him nothing of you that can set him against you."
"And you would be glad to see me his wife?" she said.
"As you must be somebody's wife, and not mine."
"I cannot be yours, Frank; can I?"
"And not mine," he repeated. "I will endeavour to be glad. Who can explain his feelings in such a matter? Though I most truly love the girl I hope to marry, yet my heart goes back to former things and opens itself to past regrets."
"I know it all," she whispered.
"But you and I must be too wise to permit ourselves to be tormented by such foolish melancholy." As he said this he took her hand, half with the purpose of bidding her good-bye, but partly with the idea of giving some expression to the tenderness of his feelings. But as he did so, the door was opened, and the old Earl shambled into the room.
"What the deuce are you doing here?" he said.
"I have been talking to Lady Mabel."
"For about an hour."
"Indeed I do not know for how long."
"Papa, he is going to be married." When she said this Frank Tregear turned round and looked at her almost in anger.
"Going to be married, is he? Who is the fortunate woman?"
"I don't think he will let me tell you."
"Not yet, I think," said Frank, gloomily. "There is nothing settled."
The old Earl looked puzzled, but Lady Mabel's craft had been successful. If this objectionable young second-cousin had come there to talk about his marriage with another young woman, the conversation must have been innocent. "Where is Miss Cassewary?" asked the Earl.
"I asked her not to come down with me because Frank wished to speak to me about his own affairs. You have no objection to his coming, papa?"
There had been objections raised to any intimacy with Frank Tregear; but all that was now nearly two years since. He had been assured over and over again by Miss Cassewary that he need not be afraid of Frank Tregear, and had in a sort of way assented to the young man's visits. "I think he might find something better to do with his time than hanging about here all day." Frank, shrugging his shoulders, and having shaken hands both with the daughter and father, took his hat and departed. "Who is the girl?" asked the Earl.
"You heard him say that I was not to tell."
"Has she got money?"
"I believe she will have a great deal."
"Then she is a great fool for her pains," said the Earl, shambling off again.
Lady Mabel spent the greater part of the afternoon alone, endeavouring to recall to her mind all that she had said to Frank Tregear, and questioning herself as to the wisdom and truth of her own words. She had intended to tell the truth,—but hardly perhaps the whole truth. The life which was before her,—which it was necessary that she should lead,—seemed to her to be so difficult! She could not clearly see her way to be pure and good and feminine, and at the same time wise. She had been false now;—so far false that she had told her friend that she had never been in love. But she was in love;—in love with him, Frank Tregear. She knew it as thoroughly as it was possible for her to know anything;—and had acknowledged it to herself a score of times.
But she could not marry him. And it was expected, nay, almost necessary that she should marry someone. To that someone, how good she would be! How she would strive by duty and attention, and if possible by affection, to make up for that misfortune of her early love!
And so I hope that I have brought my cart in to its appointed place in the front, without showing too much of the horse.
For two or three days after the first scene between the Duke and his daughter,—that scene in which she was forbidden either to see or to write to her lover,—not a word was said at Matching about Mr. Tregear, nor were any steps taken towards curtailing her liberty of action. She had said she would not write to him without telling her father, and the Duke was too proud of the honour of his family to believe it to be possible that she should deceive him. Nor was it possible. Not only would her own idea of duty prevent her from writing to her lover, although she had stipulated for the right to do so in some possible emergency,—but, carried far beyond that in her sense of what was right and wrong, she felt it now incumbent on her to have no secret from her father at all. The secret, as long as it had been a secret, had been a legacy from her mother,—and had been kept, at her lover's instance, during that period of mourning for her mother in which it would, she thought, have been indecorous that there should be any question of love or of giving in marriage. It had been a burden to her, though a necessary burden. She had been very clear that the revelation should be made to her father, when it was made, by her lover. That had been done,—and now it was open to her to live without any secrecy,—as was her nature. She meant to cling to her lover. She was quite sure of that. Nothing could divide her from him but his death or hers,—or falseness on his part. But as to marriage, that would not be possible till her father had assented. And as to seeing the man,—ah, yes, if she could do so with her father's assent! She would not be ashamed to own her great desire to see him. She would tell her father that all her happiness depended upon seeing him. She would not be coy in speaking of her love. But she would obey her father.
She had a strong idea that she would ultimately prevail,—an idea also that that "ultimately" should not be postponed to some undefined middle-aged period of her life. As she intended to belong to Frank Tregear, she thought it expedient that he should have the best of her days as well as what might be supposed to be the worst; and she therefore resolved that it would be her duty to make her father understand that though she would certainly obey him, she would look to be treated humanely by him, and not to be made miserable for an indefinite term of years.
The first word spoken between them on the subject,—the first word after that discussion,—began with him and was caused by his feeling that her present life at Matching must be sad and lonely. Lady Cantrip had again written that she would be delighted to take her;—but Lady Cantrip was in London and must be in London, at any rate when Parliament should again be sitting. A London life would perhaps, at present, hardly suit Lady Mary. Then a plan had been prepared which might be convenient. The Duke had a house at Richmond, on the river, called The Horns. That should be lent to Lady Cantrip, and Mary should there be her guest. So it was settled between the Duke and Lady Cantrip. But as yet Lady Mary knew nothing of the arrangement.
"I think I shall go up to town to-morrow," said the Duke to his daughter.
"For long?"
"I shall be gone only one night. It is on your behalf that I am going."
"On my behalf, papa?"
"I have been writing to Lady Cantrip."
"Not about Mr. Tregear?"
"No;—not about Mr. Tregear," said the father with a mixture of anger and solemnity in his tone. "It is my desire to regard Mr. Tregear as though he did not exist."
"That is not possible, papa."
"I have alluded to the inconvenience of your position here."
"Why is it inconvenient?"
"You are too young to be without a companion. It is not fit that you should be so much alone."
"I do not feel it."
"It is very melancholy for you, and cannot be good for you. They will go down to The Horns, so that you will not be absolutely in London, and you will find Lady Cantrip a very nice person."
"I don't care for new people just now, papa," she said. But to this he paid but little heed; nor was she prepared to say that she would not do as he directed. When therefore he left Matching, she understood that he was going to prepare a temporary home for her. Nothing further was said about Tregear. She was too proud to ask that no mention of his name should be made to Lady Cantrip. And he when he left the house did not think that he would find himself called upon to allude to the subject.
But when Lady Cantrip made some inquiry about the girl and her habits,—asking what were her ordinary occupations, how she was accustomed to pass her hours, to what she chiefly devoted herself,—then at last with much difficulty the Duke did bring himself to tell the story. "Perhaps it is better you should know it all," he said as he told it.
"Poor girl! Yes, Duke; upon the whole it is better that I should know it all," said Lady Cantrip. "Of course he will not come here."
"Oh dear; I hope not."
"Nor to The Horns."
"I hope he will never see her again anywhere," said the Duke.
"Poor girl!"
"Have I not been right? Is it not best to put an end to such a thing at once?"
"Certainly at once, if it has to be put an end to,—and can be put an end to."
"It must be put an end to," said the Duke, very decidedly. "Do you not see that it must be so? Who is Mr. Tregear?"
"I suppose they were allowed to be together."
"He was unfortunately intimate with Silverbridge, who took him over to Italy. He has nothing; not even a profession." Lady Cantrip could not but smile when she remembered the immense wealth of the man who was speaking to her;—and the Duke saw the smile and understood it. "You will understand what I mean, Lady Cantrip. If this young man were in other respects suitable, of course I could find an income for them. But he is nothing; just an idle seeker for pleasure without the means of obtaining it."
"That is very bad."
"As for rank," continued the Duke energetically, "I do not think that I am specially wedded to it. I have found myself as willing to associate with those who are without it as with those who have it. But for my child, I would wish her to mate with one of her own class."
"It would be best."
"When a young man comes to me who, though I believe him to be what is called a gentleman, has neither rank, nor means, nor profession, nor name, and asks for my daughter, surely I am right to say that such a marriage shall not be thought of. Was I not right?" demanded the Duke persistently.
"But it is a pity that it should be so. It is a pity that they should ever have come together."
"It is indeed, indeed to be lamented,—and I will own at once that the fault was not hers. Though I must be firm in this, you are not to suppose that I am angry with her. I have myself been to blame." This he said with a resolution that,—as he and his wife had been one flesh,—all faults committed by her should, now that she was dead, be accepted by him as his faults. "It had not occurred to me that as yet she would love any man."
"Has it gone deep with her, Duke?"
"I fear that all things go deep with her."
"Poor girl!"
"But they shall be kept apart! As long as your great kindness is continued to her they shall be kept apart!"
"I do not think that I should be found good at watching a young lady."
"She will require no watching."
"Then of course they will not meet. She had better know that you have told me."
"She shall know it."
"And let her know also that anything I can do to make her happy shall be done. But, Duke, there is but one cure."
"Time, you mean."
"Yes; time; but I did not mean time." Then she smiled as she went on. "You must not suppose that I am speaking against my own sex if I say that she will not forget Mr. Tregear till someone else has made himself agreeable to her. We must wait till she can go out a little into society. Then she will find out that there are others in the world besides Mr. Tregear. It so often is the case that a girl's love means her sympathy for him who has chanced to be nearest to her."
The Duke as he went away thought very much of what Lady Cantrip had said to him;—particularly of those last words. "Till some one else has made himself agreeable to her." Was he to send his girl into the world in order that she might find a lover? There was something in the idea which was thoroughly distasteful to him. He had not given his mind much to the matter, but he felt that a woman should be sought for,—sought for and extracted, cunningly, as it were, from some hiding-place, and not sent out into a market to be exposed as for sale. In his own personal history there had been a misfortune,—a misfortune, the sense of which he could never, at any moment, have expressed to any ears, the memory of which had been always buried in his own bosom,—but a misfortune in that no such cunning extraction on his part had won for him the woman to whose hands had been confided the strings of his heart. His wife had undergone that process of extraction before he had seen her, and his marriage with her had been a matter of sagacious bargaining. He was now told that his daughter must be sent out among young men in order that she might become sufficiently fond of some special one to be regardless of Tregear. There was a feeling that in doing so she must lose something of the freshness of the bloom of her innocence. How was this transfer of her love to be effected? Let her go here because she will meet the heir of this wealthy house who may probably be smitten by her charms; or there because that other young lordling would make a fit husband for her. Let us contrive to throw her into the arms of this man, or put her into the way of that man. Was his girl to be exposed to this? Surely that method of bargaining to which he had owed his own wife would be better than that. Let it be said,—only he himself most certainly could not be the person to say it,—let it be said to some man of rank and means and fairly good character: "Here is a wife for you with so many thousand pounds, with beauty, as you can see for yourself, with rank and belongings of the highest; very good in every respect;—only that as regards her heart she thinks she has given it to a young man named Tregear. No marriage there is possible; but perhaps the young lady might suit you?" It was thus he had been married. There was an absence in it of that romance which, though he had never experienced it in his own life, was always present to his imagination. His wife had often ridiculed him because he could only live among figures and official details; but to her had not been given the power of looking into a man's heart and feeling all that was there. Yes;—in such bargaining for a wife, in such bargaining for a husband, there could be nothing of the tremulous delicacy of feminine romance; but it would be better than standing at a stall in the market till the sufficient purchaser should come. It never occurred to him that the delicacy, the innocence, the romance, the bloom might all be preserved if he would give his girl to the man whom she said she loved. Could he have modelled her future course according to his own wishes, he would have had her live a gentle life for the next three years, with a pencil perhaps in her hand or a music-book before her;—and then come forth, cleaned as it were by such quarantine from the impurity to which she had been subjected.
When he was back at Matching he at once told his daughter what he had arranged for her, and then there took place a prolonged discussion both as to his view of her future life and as to her own. "You did tell her then about Mr. Tregear?" she asked.
"As she is to have charge of you for a time I thought it best."
"Perhaps it is. Perhaps—you were afraid."
"No; I was not afraid," he said angrily.
"You need not be afraid. I shall do nothing elsewhere that I would not do here, and nothing anywhere without telling you."
"I know I can trust you."
"But, papa, I shall always intend to marry Mr. Tregear."
"No!" he exclaimed.
"Yes;—always. I want you to understand exactly how it is. Nothing you can do can separate me from him."
"Mary, that is very wicked."
"It cannot be wicked to tell the truth, papa. I mean to try to do all that you tell me. I shall not see him, or write to him,—unless there should be some very particular reason. And if I did see him or write to him I would tell you. And of course I should not think of—of marrying without your leave. But I shall expect you to let me marry him."
"Never!"
"Then I shall think you are—cruel; and you will break my heart."
"You should not call your father cruel."
"I hope you will not be cruel."
"I can never permit you to marry this man. It would be altogether improper. I cannot allow you to say that I am cruel because I do what I feel to be my duty. You will see other people."
"A great many perhaps."
"And will learn to,—to,—to forget him."
"Never! I will not forget him. I should hate myself if I thought it possible. What would love be worth if it could be forgotten in that way?" As he heard this he reflected whether his own wife, this girl's mother, had ever forgotten her early love for that Burgo Fitzgerald whom in her girlhood she had wished to marry.
When he was leaving her she called him back again. "There is one other thing I think I ought to say, papa. If Lady Cantrip speaks to me about Mr. Tregear, I can only tell her what I have told you. I shall never give him up." When he heard this he turned angrily from her, almost stamping his foot upon the ground, when she quietly left the room.
Cruel! She had told him that he would be cruel, if he opposed her love. He thought he knew of himself that he could not be cruel,—even to a fly, even to a political opponent. There could be no cruelty without dishonesty, and did he not always struggle to be honest? Cruel to his own daughter!
The pity of it! The pity of it! It was thus that Lady Cantrip looked at it. From what the girl's father had said to her she was disposed to believe that the malady had gone deep with her. "All things go deep with her," he had said. And she too from other sources had heard something of this girl. She was afraid that it would go deep. It was a thousand pities! Then she asked herself whether the marriage ought to be regarded as impossible. The Duke had been very positive,—had declared again and again that it was quite impossible, had so expressed himself as to make her aware that he intended her to understand that he would not yield whatever the sufferings of the girl might be. But Lady Cantrip knew the world well and was aware that in such matters daughters are apt to be stronger than their fathers. He had declared Tregear to be a young man with very small means, and intent on such pleasures as require great means for their enjoyment. No worse character could be given to a gentleman who had proposed himself as a son-in-law. But Lady Cantrip thought it possible that the Duke might be mistaken in this. She had never seen Mr. Tregear, but she fancied that she had heard his name, and that the name had been connected with a character different from that which the Duke had given him.
Lady Cantrip, who at this time was a young-looking woman, not much above forty, had two daughters, both of whom were married. The younger about a year since had become the wife of Lord Nidderdale, a middle-aged young man who had been long about town, a cousin of the late Duchess, the heir to a marquisate, and a Member of Parliament. The marriage had not been considered to be very brilliant; but the husband was himself good-natured and pleasant, and Lady Cantrip was fond of him. In the first place she went to him for information.
"Oh yes, I know him. He's one of our set at the Beargarden."
"Not your set, now, I hope," she said laughing.
"Well;—I don't see so much of them as I used to do. Tregear is not a bad fellow at all. He's always with Silverbridge. When Silverbridge does what Tregear tells him, he goes along pretty straight. But unfortunately there's another man called Tifto, and when Tifto is in the ascendant then Silverbridge is apt to get a little astray."
"He's not in debt, then?"
"Who?—Tregear? I should think he's the last man in the world to owe a penny to any one."
"Is he a betting man?"
"Oh dear no; quite the other way up. He's a severe, sarcastic, bookish sort of fellow,—a chap who knows everything and turns up his nose at people who know nothing."
"Has he got anything of his own?"
"Not much, I should say. If he had had any money he would have married Lady Mab Grex last year."
Lady Cantrip was inclined from what she now learned to think that the Duke must be wrong about the young man. But before Lady Mary joined her she made further inquiry. She too knew Lady Mabel, and knowing Lady Mabel, she knew Miss Cassewary. She contrived to find herself alone with Miss Cassewary, and asked some further questions about Mr. Tregear. "He is a cousin of my Lord's," said Miss Cass.
"So I thought. I wonder what sort of a young man he is. He is a good deal with Lord Silverbridge."
Then Miss Cassewary spoke her opinion very plainly. "If Lord Silverbridge had nobody worse about him than Mr. Tregear he would not come to much harm."
"I suppose he's not very well off."
"No;—certainly not. He will have a property of some kind, I believe, when his mother dies. I think very well of Mr. Tregear;—only I wish that he had a profession. But why are you asking about him, Lady Cantrip?"
"Nidderdale was talking to me about him and saying that he was so much with Lord Silverbridge. Lord Silverbridge is going into Parliament now, and, as it were, beginning the world, and it would be a thousand pities that he should get into bad hands." It may, however, be doubted whether Miss Cassewary was hoodwinked by this little story.
Early in the second week in May the Duke brought his daughter up to The Horns, and at the same time expressed his intention of remaining in London. When he did so Lady Mary at once asked whether she might not be with him,—but he would not permit it. The house in London would, he said, be more gloomy even than Matching.
"I am quite ashamed of giving you so much trouble," Lady Mary said to her new friend.
"We are delighted to have you, my dear."
"But I know that you have been obliged to leave London because I am with you."
"There is nothing I like so much as this place, which your father has been kind enough to lend us. As for London, there is nothing now to make me like being there. Both my girls are married, and therefore I regard myself as an old woman who has done her work. Don't you think this place very much nicer than London at this time of the year?"
"I don't know London at all. I had only just been brought out when poor mamma went abroad."
The life they led was very quiet, and must probably have been felt to be dull by Lady Cantrip, in spite of her old age and desire for retirement. But the place itself was very lovely. May of all the months of the year is in England the most insidious, the most dangerous, and the most inclement. A greatcoat cannot be endured, and without a greatcoat who can endure a May wind and live? But of all months it is the prettiest. The grasses are then the greenest, and the young foliage of the trees, while it has all the glory and all the colour of spring vegetation, does not hide the form of the branches as do the heavy masses of the larger leaves which come in the advancing summer. And of all villas near London The Horns was the sweetest. The broad green lawn swept down to the very margin of the Thames, which absolutely washed the fringe of grass when the tide was high. And here, along the bank, was a row of flowering ashes, the drooping boughs of which in places touched the water. It was one of those spots which when they are first seen make the beholder feel that to be able to live there and look at it always would be happiness enough for life.
At the end of the week there came a visitor to see Lady Mary. A very pretty carriage was driven up to the door of The Horns, and the servant asked for Lady Mary Palliser. The owner of that carriage was Mrs. Finn. Now it must be explained to the reader that there had never been any friendship between Mrs. Finn and Lady Cantrip, though the ladies had met each other. The great political intimacy which had existed between the Duke and Lord Cantrip had created some intimacy also between their wives. The Duchess and Lady Cantrip had been friends,—after a fashion. But Mrs. Finn had never been cordially accepted by those among whom Lady Cantrip chiefly lived. When therefore the name was announced, the servant expressly stating that the visitor had asked for Lady Mary, Lady Cantrip, who was with her guest, had to bethink herself what she would do. The Duke, who was at this time very full of wrath against Mrs. Finn, had not mentioned this lady's name when delivering up the charge of his daughter to Lady Cantrip. At this moment it occurred to her that not improbably Mrs. Finn would cease to be included in the intimacies of the Palliser family from the time of the death of the Duchess,—that the Duke would not care to maintain the old relations, and that he would be as little anxious to do it for his daughter as for himself. If so, could it be right that Mrs. Finn should come down here, to a house which was now in the occupation of a lady with whom she was not on inviting terms, in order that she might thus force herself on the Duke's daughter? Mrs. Finn had not left her carriage, but had sent in to ask if Lady Mary could see her. In all this there was considerable embarrassment. She looked round at her guest, who had at once risen from her chair. "Would you wish to see her?" asked Lady Cantrip.
"Oh yes; certainly."
"Have you seen her since,—since you came home from Italy?"
"Oh dear, yes! She was down at Matching when poor mamma died. And papa persuaded her to remain afterwards. Of course I will see her." Then the servant was desired to ask Mrs. Finn to come in;—and while this was being done Lady Cantrip retired.
Mrs. Finn embraced her young friend, and asked after her welfare, and after the welfare of the house in which she was staying,—a house with which Mrs. Finn herself had been well acquainted,—and said half-a-dozen pretty little things in her own quiet pretty way, before she spoke of the matter which had really brought her to The Horns on that day.
"I have had a correspondence with your father, Mary."
"Indeed."
"And unfortunately one that has been far from agreeable to me."
"I am sorry for that, Mrs. Finn."
"So am I, very sorry. I may say with perfect truth that there is no man in the world, except my own husband, for whom I feel so perfect an esteem as I do for your father. If it were not that I do not like to be carried away by strong language I would speak of more than esteem. Through your dear mother I have watched his conduct closely, and have come to think that there is perhaps no other man at the same time so just and so patriotic. Now he is very angry with me,—and most unjustly angry."
"Is it about me?"
"Yes;—it is about you. Had it not been altogether about you I would not have troubled you."
"And about—?"
"Yes;—about Mr. Tregear also. When I tell you that there has been a correspondence I must explain that I have written one long letter to the Duke, and that in answer I have received a very short one. That has been the whole correspondence. Here is your father's letter to me." Then she brought out of her pocket a note, which Lady Mary read,—covered with blushes as she did so. The note was as follows:
The Duke of Omnium understands from Mrs. Finn's letter that Mrs. Finn, while she was the Duke's guest at Matching, was aware of a certain circumstance affecting the Duke's honour and happiness,—which circumstance she certainly did not communicate to the Duke. The Duke thinks that the trust which had been placed in Mrs. Finn should have made such a communication imperative. The Duke feels that no further correspondence between himself and Mrs. Finn on the matter could lead to any good result.
The Duke of Omnium understands from Mrs. Finn's letter that Mrs. Finn, while she was the Duke's guest at Matching, was aware of a certain circumstance affecting the Duke's honour and happiness,—which circumstance she certainly did not communicate to the Duke. The Duke thinks that the trust which had been placed in Mrs. Finn should have made such a communication imperative. The Duke feels that no further correspondence between himself and Mrs. Finn on the matter could lead to any good result.
"Do you understand it?" asked Mrs. Finn.
"I think so."
"It simply means this,—that when at Matching he had thought me worthy of having for a time the charge of you and of your welfare, that he had trusted me, who was the friend of your dear mother, to take for a time in regard to you the place which had been so unhappily left vacant by her death; and it means also that I deceived him and betrayed that trust by being privy to an engagement on your part, of which he disapproves, and of which he was not then aware."
"I suppose he does mean that."
"Yes, Lady Mary; that is what he means. And he means further to let me know that as I did so foully betray the trust which he had placed in me,—that as I had consented to play the part of assistant to you in that secret engagement,—therefore he casts me off as altogether unworthy of his esteem and acquaintance. It is as though he had told me in so many words that among women he had known none more vile or more false than I."
"Not that, Mrs. Finn."
"Yes, that;—all of that. He tells me that, and then says that there shall be no more words spoken or written about it. I can hardly submit to so stern a judgment. You know the truth, Lady Mary."
"Do not call me Lady Mary. Do not quarrel with me."
"If your father has quarrelled with me, it would not be fit that you and I should be friends. Your duty to him would forbid it. I should not have come to you now did I not feel that I am bound to justify myself. The thing of which I am accused is so repugnant to me, that I am obliged to do something and to say something, even though the subject itself be one on which I would so willingly be silent."
"What can I do, Mrs. Finn?"
"It was Mr. Tregear who first told me that your father was angry with me. He knew what I had done and why, and he was bound to tell me in order that I might have an opportunity of setting myself right with the Duke. Then I wrote and explained everything,—how you had told me of the engagement, and how I had then urged Mr. Tregear that he should not keep such a matter secret from your father. In answer to my letter I have received—that."
"Shall I write and tell papa?"
"He should be made to understand that from the moment in which I heard of the engagement I was urgent with you and with Mr. Tregear that he should be informed of it. You will remember what passed."
"I remember it all."
"I did not conceive it to be my duty to tell the Duke myself, but I did conceive it to be my duty to see he should be told. Now he writes as though I had known the secret from the first, and as though I had been concealing it from him at the very moment in which he was asking me to remain at Matching on your behalf. That I consider to be hard,—and unjust. I cannot deny what he says. I did know of it while I was at Matching, for it was at Matching that you told me. But he implies that I knew it before. When you told me your story I did feel that it was my duty to see that the matter was not kept longer from him;—and I did my duty. Now your father takes upon himself to rebuke me,—and takes upon himself at the same time to forbid me to write to him again!"