A GENTLEMAN COMES TO NUNCOMBE PUTNEY.
It soon became known to them all as they remained clustered in the
hall that Mr. Glascock was in the house. Mrs. Stanbury came out to
them and informed them that he had been at Nuncombe Putney for the
last five hours, and that he had asked for Mrs. Trevelyan when he
called. It became evident as the affairs of the evening went on, that
Mrs. Stanbury had for a few minutes been thrown into a terrible state
of amazement, thinking that "the Colonel" had appeared. The strange
gentleman, however, having obtained admittance, explained who he was,
saying that he was very desirous of seeing Mrs. Trevelyan,--and Miss
Rowley. It may be presumed that a glimmer of light did make its way
into Mrs. Stanbury's mind on the subject; but up to the moment at
which the three travellers arrived, she had been in doubt on the
subject. Mr. Glascock had declared that he would take a walk, and
in the course of the afternoon had expressed high approval of Mrs.
Crocket's culinary skill. When Mrs. Crocket heard that she had
entertained the son of a lord, she was very loud in her praise of the
manner in which he had eaten two mutton chops and called for a third.
He had thought it no disgrace to apply himself to the second half
of an apple pie, and had professed himself to be an ardent admirer
of Devonshire cream. "It's them counter-skippers as turns up their
little noses at the victuals as is set before them," said Mrs.
Crocket.
After his dinner Mr. Glascock had returned to the Clock House, and
had been sitting there for an hour with Mrs. Stanbury, not much to
her delight or to his, when the carriage was driven up to the door.
"He is to go back to Lessboro' to-night," said Mrs. Stanbury in a
whisper.
"Of course you must see him before he goes," said Mrs. Trevelyan to
her sister. There had, as was natural, been very much said between
the two sisters about Mr. Glascock. Nora had abstained from asserting
in any decided way that she disliked the man, and had always
absolutely refused to allow Hugh Stanbury's name to be mixed up with
the question. Whatever might be her own thoughts about Hugh Stanbury
she had kept them even from her sister. When her sister had told her
that she had refused Mr. Glascock because of Hugh, she had shown
herself to be indignant, and had since that said one or two fine
things as to her capacity to refuse a brilliant offer simply because
the man who had made it was indifferent to her. Mrs. Trevelyan had
learned from her that her suitor had declared his intention to
persevere; and here was perseverance with a vengeance! "Of course you
must see him,--at once," said Mrs. Trevelyan. Nora for a few seconds
had remained silent, and then had run up to her room. Her sister
followed her instantly.
"What is the meaning of it all?" said Priscilla to her mother.
"I suppose he is in love with Miss Rowley," said Mrs. Stanbury.
"But who is he?"
Then Mrs. Stanbury told all that she knew. She had seen from his
card that he was an Honourable Mr. Glascock. She had collected from
what he had said that he was an old friend of the two ladies. Her
conviction was strong in Mr. Glascock's favour,--thinking, as she
expressed herself, that everything was right and proper,--but she
could hardly explain why she thought so.
"I do wish that they had never come," said Priscilla, who could not
rid herself of an idea that there must be danger in having to do with
women who had men running after them.
"Of course I'll see him," said Nora to her sister. "I have not
refused to see him. Why do you scold me?"
"I have not scolded you, Nora; but I do want you to think how
immensely important this is."
"Of course it is important."
"And so much the more so because of my misfortunes! Think how good he
must be, how strong must be his attachment, when he comes down here
after you in this way."
"But I have to think of my own feelings."
"You know you like him. You have told me so. And only fancy what
mamma will feel! Such a position! And the man so excellent! Everybody
says that he hasn't a fault in any way."
"I hate people without faults."
"Oh, Nora, Nora, that is foolish! There, there; you must go down.
Pray,--pray do not let any absurd fancy stand in your way, and
destroy everything. It will never come again, Nora. And, only think;
it is all now your own, if you will only whisper one word."
"Ah!--one word,--and that a falsehood!"
"No,--no. Say you will try to love him, and that will be enough. And
you do love him?"
"Do I?"
"Yes, you do. It is only the opposition of your nature that makes you
fight against him. Will you go now?"
"Let me be for two minutes by myself," said Nora, "and then I'll come
down. Tell him that I'm coming." Mrs. Trevelyan stooped over her,
kissed her, and then left her.
Nora, as soon as she was alone, stood upright in the middle of the
room and held her hands up to her forehead. She had been far from
thinking, when she was considering the matter easily among the
hillocks, that the necessity for an absolute decision would come upon
her so instantaneously. She had told herself only this morning that
it would be wise to accept the man, if he should ever ask a second
time;--and he had come already. He had been waiting for her in the
village while she had been thinking whether he would ever come across
her path again. She thought that it would have been easier for her
now to have gone down with a "yes" in her mouth, if her sister had
not pressed her so hard to say that "yes." The very pressure from her
sister seemed to imply that such pressure ought to be resisted. Why
should there have been pressure, unless there were reasons against
her marrying him? And yet, if she chose to take him, who would have
a right to complain of her? Hugh Stanbury had never spoken to her a
word that would justify her in even supposing that he would consider
himself to be ill-used. All others of her friends would certainly
rejoice, would applaud her, pat her on the back, cover her with
caresses, and tell her that she had been born under a happy star. And
she did like the man. Nay;--she thought she loved him. She withdrew
her hands from her brow, assured herself that her lot in life was
cast, and with hurrying fingers attempted to smooth her hair and to
arrange her ribbons before the glass. She would go to the encounter
boldly and accept him honestly. It was her duty to do so. What might
she not do for brothers and sisters as the wife of Lord Peterborough
of Monkhams? She saw that that arrangement before the glass could be
of no service, and she stepped quickly to the door. If he did not
like her as she was, he need not ask her. Her mind was made up, and
she would do it. But as she went down the stairs to the room in which
she knew that he was waiting for her, there came over her a cold
feeling of self-accusation,--almost of disgrace. "I do not care,"
she said. "I know that I'm right." She opened the door quickly, that
there might be no further doubt, and found that she was alone with
him.
"Miss Rowley," he said, "I am afraid you will think that I am
persecuting you."
"I have no right to think that," she answered.
"I'll tell you why I have come. My dear father, who has always been
my best friend, is very ill. He is at Naples, and I must go to him.
He is very old, you know,--over eighty; and will never live to come
back to England. From what I hear, I think it probable that I may
remain with him till everything is over."
"I did not know that he was so old as that."
"They say that he can hardly live above a month or two. He will never
see my wife,--if I can have a wife; but I should like to tell him, if
it were possible,--that,--that--"
"I understand you, Mr. Glascock."
"I told you that I should come to you again, and as I may possibly
linger at Naples all the winter, I could not go without seeing you.
Miss Rowley, may I hope that you can love me?"
She did not answer him a word, but stood looking away from him with
her hands clasped together. Had he asked her whether she would be his
wife, it is possible that the answer which she had prepared would
have been spoken. But he had put the question in another form. Did
she love him? If she could only bring herself to say that she could
love him, she might be lady of Monkhams before the next summer had
come round.
"Nora," he said, "do you think that you can love me?"
"No," she said, and there was something almost of fierceness in the
tone of her voice as she answered him.
"And must that be your final answer to me?"
"Mr. Glascock, what can I say?" she replied. "I will tell you the
honest truth:--I will tell you everything. I came into this room
determined to accept you. But you are so good, and so kind, and so
upright, that I cannot tell you a falsehood. I do not love you. I
ought not to take what you offer me. If I did, it would be because
you are rich, and a lord; and not because I love you. I love some one
else. There;--pray, pray do not tell of me; but I do." Then she flung
away from him and hid her face in a corner of the sofa out of the
light.
Her lover stood silent, not knowing how to go on with the
conversation, not knowing how to bring it to an end. After what
she had now said to him it was impossible that he should press her
further. It was almost impossible that he should wish to do so. When
a lady is frank enough to declare that her heart is not her own to
give, a man can hardly wish to make further prayer for the gift. "If
so," he said, "of course I have nothing to hope."
She was sobbing, and could not answer him. She was half repentant,
partly proud of what she had done,--half repentant in that she had
lost what had seemed to her to be so good, and full of remorse in
that she had so unnecessarily told her secret.
"Perhaps," said he, "I ought to assure you that what you have told me
shall never be repeated by my lips."
She thanked him for this by a motion of her head and hand, not by
words;--and then he was gone. How he managed to bid adieu to Mrs.
Stanbury and her sister, or whether he saw them as he left the house,
she never knew. In her corner of the sofa, weeping in the dark,
partly proud and partly repentant, she remained till her sister came
to her. "Emily," she said, jumping up, "say nothing about it; not
a word. It is of no use. The thing is done and over, and let it
altogether be forgotten."
"It is done and over, certainly," said Mrs. Trevelyan.
"Exactly;--and I suppose a girl may do what she likes with herself in
that way. If I choose to decline to take anything that is pleasant,
and nice, and comfortable, nobody has a right to scold me. And I
won't be scolded."
"But, my child, who is scolding you?"
"You mean to scold me. But it is of no use. The man has gone, and
there is an end of it. Nothing that you can say or I can think will
bring him back again. I don't want anybody to tell me that it would
be better to be Lady Peterborough, with everything that the world has
to give, than to live here without a soul to speak to, and to have to
go back to those horrible islands next year. You can't think that I
am very comfortable."
"But what did you say to him, Nora?"
"What did I say to him? What could I say to him? Why didn't he ask me
to be his wife without saying anything about love? He asked me if I
loved him. Of course I don't love him. I would have said I did, but
it stuck in my throat. I am willing enough, I believe, to sell myself
to the devil, but I don't know how to do it. Never mind. It's done,
and now I'll go to bed."
She did go to bed, and Mrs. Trevelyan explained to the two ladies as
much as was necessary of what had occurred. When Mrs. Stanbury came
to understand that the gentleman who had been closeted with her
would, probably, in a few months be a lord himself, that he was a
very rich man, a member of Parliament, and one of those who are
decidedly born with gold spoons in their mouths, and understood also
that Nora Rowley had refused him, she was lost in amazement. Mr.
Glascock was about forty years of age, and appeared to Nora Rowley,
who was nearly twenty years his junior, to be almost an old man.
But to Mrs. Stanbury, who was over sixty, Mr. Glascock seemed to be
quite in the flower of his age. The bald place at the top of his head
simply showed that he had passed his boyhood, and the grey hairs at
the back of his whiskers were no more than outward signs of manly
discretion. She could not understand why any girl should refuse such
an offer, unless the man were himself bad in morals, or in temper.
But Mrs. Trevelyan had told her while Nora and Mr. Glascock were
closeted together, that he was believed by them all to be good and
gentle. Nevertheless she felt a considerable increase of respect for
a young lady who had refused the eldest son of a lord. Priscilla,
when she heard what had occurred, expressed to her mother a moderated
approval. According to her views a girl would much more often be
right to refuse an offer of marriage than to accept it, let him who
made the offer be who he might. And the fact of the man having been
sent away with a refusal somewhat softened Priscilla's anger at his
coming there at all.
"I suppose he is a goose," said she to her mother, "and I hope there
won't be any more of this kind running after them while they are with
us."
Nora, when she was alone, wept till her heart was almost broken. It
was done, and the man was gone, and the thing was over. She had quite
sufficient knowledge of the world to realise perfectly the difference
between such a position as that which had been offered to her, and
the position which in all probability she would now be called upon to
fill. She had had her chance, and Fortune had placed great things at
her disposal. It must be said of her also that the great things which
Fortune had offered to her were treasures very valuable in her eyes.
Whether it be right and wise to covet or to despise wealth and rank,
there was no doubt but that she coveted them. She had been instructed
to believe in them, and she did believe in them. In some mysterious
manner of which she herself knew nothing, taught by some preceptor
the nobility of whose lessons she had not recognised though she had
accepted them, she had learned other things also,--to revere truth
and love, and to be ambitious as regarded herself of conferring the
gift of her whole heart upon some one whom she could worship as a
hero. She had spoken the simple truth when she had told her sister
that she had been willing to sell herself to the devil, but that
she had failed in her attempt to execute the contract. But now as
she lay weeping on her bed, tearing herself with remorse, picturing
to herself in the most vivid colours all that she had thrown away,
telling herself of all that she might have done and all that she
might have been, had she not allowed the insane folly of a moment
to get the better of her, she received little or no comfort from
the reflection that she had been true to her better instincts. She
had told the man that she had refused him because she loved Hugh
Stanbury;--at least, as far as she could remember what had passed,
she had so told him. And how mean it was of her to allow herself to
be actuated by an insane passion for a man who had never spoken to
her of love, and how silly of her afterwards to confess it! Of what
service could such a passion be to her life? Even were it returned,
she could not marry such a one as Hugh Stanbury. She knew enough of
herself to be quite sure that were he to ask her to do so to-morrow,
she would refuse him. Better go and be scorched, and bored to
death, and buried at the Mandarins, than attempt to regulate a poor
household which, as soon as she made one of its number, would be on
the sure road to ruin!
For a moment there came upon her, not a thought, hardly an
idea,--something of a waking dream that she would write to Mr.
Glascock and withdraw all that she had said. Were she to do so he
would probably despise her, and tell her that he despised her;--but
there might be a chance. It was possible that such a declaration
would bring him back to her;--and did it not bring him back to her
she would only be where she was, a poor lost, shipwrecked creature,
who had flung herself upon the rocks and thrown away her only chance
of a prosperous voyage across the ocean of life; her only chance, for
she was not like other girls, who at any rate remain on the scene
of action, and may refit their spars and still win their way. For
there were to be no more seasons in London, no more living in Curzon
Street, no renewed power of entering the ball-rooms and crowded
staircases in which high-born wealthy lovers can be conquered. A
great prospect had been given to her, and she had flung it aside!
That letter of retractation was, however, quite out of the question.
The reader must not suppose that she had ever thought that she could
write it. She thought of nothing but of coming misery and remorse. In
her wretchedness she fancied that she had absolutely disclosed to the
man who loved her the name of him whom she had been mad enough to say
that she loved. But what did it matter? Let it be as it might, she
was destroyed.
The next morning she came down to breakfast pale as a ghost; and they
who saw her knew at once that she had done that which had made her a
wretched woman.