THE FUTURE LADY PETERBOROUGH.
"If you have not sold yourself for British gold, and for British
acres, and for British rank, I have nothing to say against it,"
said Miss Wallachia Petrie that same evening to her friend Caroline
Spalding.
"You know that I have not sold myself, as you call it," said
Caroline. There had been a long friendship between these two ladies,
and the younger one knew that it behoved her to bear a good deal
from the elder. Miss Petrie was honest, clever, and in earnest. We
in England are not usually favourably disposed to women who take a
pride in a certain antagonism to men in general, and who are anxious
to shew the world that they can get on very well without male
assistance; but there are many such in America who have noble
aspirations, good intellects, much energy, and who are by no means
unworthy of friendship. The hope in regard to all such women,--the
hope entertained not by themselves, but by those who are solicitous
for them,--is that they will be cured at last by a husband and
half-a-dozen children. In regard to Wallachia Petrie there was not,
perhaps, much ground for such hope. She was so positively wedded to
women's rights in general, and to her own rights in particular, that
it was improbable that she should ever succumb to any man;--and where
would be the man brave enough to make the effort? From circumstances
Caroline Spalding had been the beloved of her heart since Caroline
Spalding was a very little girl; and she had hoped that Caroline
would through life have borne arms along with her in that contest
which she was determined to wage against man, and which she always
waged with the greatest animosity against men of the British race.
She hated rank; she hated riches; she hated monarchy;--and with
a true woman's instinct in battle, felt that she had a specially
strong point against Englishmen, in that they submitted themselves
to dominion from a woman monarch. And now the chosen friend of her
youth,--the friend who had copied out all her poetry, who had learned
by heart all her sonnets, who had, as she thought, reciprocated all
her ideas, was going to be married,--and to be married to an English
lord! She had seen that it was coming for some time, and had spoken
out very plainly, hoping that she might still save the brand from
the burning. Now the evil was done; and Caroline Spalding, when she
told her news, knew well that she would have to bear some heavy
reproaches.
"How many of us are there who never know whether we sell ourselves
or not?" said Wallachia. "The senator who longs for office, and who
votes this way instead of that in order that he may get it, thinks
that he is voting honestly. The minister who calls himself a teacher
of God's word, thinks that it is God's word that he preaches when
he strains his lungs to fill his church. The question is this,
Caroline;--would you have loved the same man had he come to you with
a woodman's axe in his hand or a clerk's quill behind his ear? I
guess not."
"As to the woodman's axe, Wally, it is very well in theory; but--"
"Things good in theory, Caroline, will be good also when practised.
You may be sure of that. We dislike theory simply because our
intelligences are higher than our wills. But we will let that pass."
"Pray let it pass, Wally. Do not preach me sermons to-night. I am so
happy, and you ought to wish me joy."
"If wishing you joy would get you joy, I would wish it you while I
lived. I cannot be happy that you should be taken from us whither I
shall never see you again."
"But you are to come to us. I have told him so, and it is settled."
"No, dear; I shall not do that. What should I be in the glittering
halls of an English baron? Could there be any visiting less fitting,
any admixture less appropriate? Could I who have held up my voice
in the Music Hall of Lacedaemon, amidst the glories of the West, in
the great and free State of Illinois, against the corruption of an
English aristocracy,--could I, who have been listened to by two
thousand of my countrywomen,--and men,--while I spurned the unmanly,
inhuman errors of primogeniture,--could I, think you, hold my tongue
beneath the roof of a feudal lord!" Caroline Spalding knew that her
friend could not hold her tongue, and hesitated to answer. There had
been that fatal triumph of a lecture on the joint rights of men and
women, and it had rendered poor Wallachia Petrie unfit for ordinary
society.
"You might come there without talking politics, Wally," said
Caroline.
"No, Caroline; no. I will go into the house of no man in which the
free expression of my opinion is debarred me. I will not sit even
at your table with a muzzled tongue. When you are gone, Caroline,
I shall devote myself to what, after all, must be the work of my
life, and I shall finish the biographical history of our great
hero in verse,--which I hope may at least be not ephemeral. From
month to month I shall send you what I do, and you will not refuse
me your friendly criticism,--and, perhaps, some slight meed of
approbation,--because you are dwelling beneath the shade of a throne.
Oh, Caroline, let it not be a upas tree!"
The Miss Petries of the world have this advantage,--an advantage
which rarely if ever falls to the lot of a man,--that they are never
convinced of error. Men, let them be ever so much devoted to their
closets, let them keep their work ever so closely veiled from public
scrutiny, still find themselves subjected to criticism, and under
the necessity of either defending themselves or of succumbing. If,
indeed, a man neither speaks, nor writes,--if he be dumb as regards
opinion,--he passes simply as one of the crowd, and is in the way
neither of convincing nor of being convinced; but a woman may speak,
and almost write, as she likes, without danger of being wounded by
sustained conflict. Who would have the courage to begin with such a
one as Miss Petrie, and endeavour to prove to her that she is wrong
from the beginning? A little word of half-dissent, a smile, a shrug,
and an ambiguous compliment which is misunderstood, are all the forms
of argument which can be used against her. Wallachia Petrie, in
her heart of hearts, conceived that she had fairly discussed her
great projects from year to year with indomitable eloquence and
unanswerable truth,--and that none of her opponents had had a leg
to stand upon. And this she believed because the chivalry of men
had given to her sex that protection against which her life was one
continued protest.
"Here he is," said Caroline, as Mr. Glascock came up to them. "Try
and say a civil word to him, if he speaks about it. Though he is to
be a lord, still he is a man and a brother."
"Caroline," said the stern monitress, "you are already learning to
laugh at principles which have been dear to you since you left your
mother's breast. Alas, how true it is, 'You cannot touch pitch and
not be defiled.'"
The further progress of these friendly and feminine amenities was
stopped by the presence of the gentleman who had occasioned them.
"Miss Petrie," said the hero of the hour, "Caroline was to tell you
of my good fortune, and no doubt she has done so."
"I cannot wait to hear the pretty things he has to say," said
Caroline, "and I must look after my aunt's guests. There is poor
Signor Buonarosci without a soul to say a syllable to him, and I must
go and use my ten Italian words."
"You are about to take with you to your old country, Mr. Glascock,"
said Miss Petrie, "one of the brightest stars in our young American
firmament." There could be no doubt, from the tone of Miss Petrie's
voice, that she now regarded this star, however bright, as one of a
sort which is subjected to falling.
"I am going to take a very nice young woman," said Mr. Glascock.
"I hate that word woman, sir, uttered with the half-hidden sneer
which always accompanies its expression from the mouth of a man."
"Sneer, Miss Petrie!"
"I quite allow that it is involuntary, and not analysed or understood
by yourselves. If you speak of a dog, you intend to do so with
affection, but there is always contempt mixed with it. The so-called
chivalry of man to woman is all begotten in the same spirit. I want
no favour, but I claim to be your equal."
"I thought that American ladies were generally somewhat exacting as
to those privileges which chivalry gives them."
"It is true, sir, that the only rank we know in our country is in
that precedence which man gives to woman. Whether we maintain that,
or whether we abandon it, we do not intend to purchase it at the
price of an acknowledgment of intellectual inferiority. For myself, I
hate chivalry;--what you call chivalry. I can carry my own chair, and
I claim the right to carry it whithersoever I may please."
Mr. Glascock remained with her for some time, but made no opportunity
for giving that invitation to Monkhams of which Caroline had spoken.
As he said afterwards, he found it impossible to expect her to attend
to any subject so trivial; and when, afterwards, Caroline told him,
with some slight mirth,--the capability of which on such a subject
was coming to her with her new ideas of life,--that, though he was
partly saved as a man and a brother, still he was partly the reverse
as a feudal lord, he began to reflect that Wallachia Petrie would be
a guest with whom he would find it very difficult to make things go
pleasant at Monkhams. "Does she not bully you horribly?" he asked.
"Of course she bullies me," Caroline answered; "and I cannot expect
you to understand as yet how it is that I love her and like her; but
I do. If I were in distress to-morrow, she would give everything she
has in the world to put me right."
"So would I," said he.
"Ah, you;--that is a matter of course. That is your business now.
And she would give everything she has in the world to set the world
right. Would you do that?"
"It would depend on the amount of my faith. If I could believe in the
result, I suppose I should do it."
"She would do it on the slightest hope that such giving would have
any tendency that way. Her philanthropy is all real. Of course she is
a bore to you."
"I am very patient."
"I hope I shall find you so,--always. And, of course, she is
ridiculous--in your eyes. I have learned to see it, and to regret it;
but I shall never cease to love her."
"I have not the slightest objection. Her lessons will come from over
the water, and mine will come from--where shall I say?--over the
table. If I can't talk her down with so much advantage on my side, I
ought to be made a woman's-right man myself."
Poor Lady Rowley had watched Miss Petrie and Mr. Glascock during
those moments that they had been together, and had half believed the
rumour, and had half doubted, thinking in the moments of her belief
that Mr. Glascock must be mad, and in the moments of unbelief that
the rumours had been set afloat by the English Minister's wife with
the express intention of turning Mr. Glascock into ridicule. It had
never occurred to her to doubt that Wallachia was the eldest of that
family of nieces. Could it be possible that a man who had known
her Nora, who had undoubtedly loved her Nora,--who had travelled
all the way from London to Nuncombe Putney to ask Nora to be his
wife,--should within twelve months of that time have resolved to
marry a woman whom he must have selected simply as being the most
opposite to Nora of any female human being that he could find? It was
not credible to her; and if it were not true, there might still be a
hope. Nora had met him, and had spoken to him, and it had seemed that
for a moment or two they had spoken as friends. Lady Rowley, when
talking to Mrs. Spalding, had watched them closely; and she had seen
that Nora's eyes had been bright, and that there had been something
between them which was pleasant. Suddenly she found herself close to
Wallachia, and thought that she would trust herself to a word.
"Have you been long in Florence?" asked Lady Rowley in her softest
voice.
"A pretty considerable time, ma'am;--that is, since the fall began."
What a voice;--what an accent;--and what words! Was there a man
living with sufficient courage to take this woman to England, and
shew her to the world as Lady Peterborough?
"Are you going to remain in Italy for the summer?" continued Lady
Rowley.
"I guess I shall;--or, perhaps, locate myself in the purer atmosphere
of the Swiss mountains."
"Switzerland in summer must certainly be much pleasanter."
"I was thinking at the moment of the political atmosphere," said Miss
Petrie; "for although, certainly, much has been done in this country
in the way of striking off shackles and treading sceptres under foot,
still, Lady Rowley, there remains here that pernicious thing,--a
king. The feeling of the dominion of a single man,--and that of a
single woman is, for aught I know, worse,--with me so clouds the air,
that the breath I breathe fails to fill my lungs." Wallachia, as she
said this, put forth her hand, and raised her chin, and extended
her arm. She paused, feeling that justice demanded that Lady Rowley
should have a right of reply. But Lady Rowley had not a word to say,
and Wallachia Petrie went on. "I cannot adapt my body to the sweet
savours and the soft luxuries of the outer world with any comfort to
my inner self, while the circumstances of the society around me are
oppressive to my spirit. When our war was raging all around me I was
light-spirited as the lark that mounts through the morning sky."
"I should have thought it was very dreadful," said Lady Rowley.
"Full of dread, of awe, and of horror, were those fiery days of
indiscriminate slaughter; but they were not days of desolation,
because hope was always there by our side. There was a hope in
which the soul could trust, and the trusting soul is ever light and
buoyant."
"I dare say it is," said Lady Rowley.
"But apathy, and serfdom, and kinghood, and dominion, drain the
fountain of its living springs, and the soul becomes like the plummet
of lead, whose only tendency is to hide itself in subaqueous mud and
unsavoury slush."
Subaqueous mud and unsavoury slush! Lady Rowley repeated the words to
herself as she made good her escape, and again expressed to herself
her conviction that it could not possibly be so. The "subaqueous mud
and unsavoury slush," with all that had gone before it about the
soul was altogether unintelligible to her; but she knew that it was
American buncom of a high order of eloquence, and she told herself
again and again that it could not be so. She continued to keep her
eyes upon Mr. Glascock, and soon saw him again talking to Nora. It
was hardly possible, she thought, that Nora should speak to him
with so much animation, or he to her, unless there was some feeling
between them which, if properly handled, might lead to a renewal of
the old tenderness. She went up to Nora, having collected the other
girls, and said that the carriage was then waiting for them. Mr.
Glascock immediately offered Lady Rowley his arm, and took her
down to the hall. Could it be that she was leaning upon a future
son-in-law? There was something in the thought which made her lay
her weight upon him with a freedom which she would not otherwise
have used. Oh!--that her Nora should live to be Lady Peterborough!
We are apt to abuse mothers for wanting high husbands for their
daughters;--but can there be any point in which the true maternal
instinct can shew itself with more affectionate enthusiasm? This poor
mother wanted nothing for herself from Mr. Glascock. She knew very
well that it was her fate to go back to the Mandarins, and probably
to die there. She knew also that such men as Mr. Glascock, when they
marry beneath themselves in rank and fortune, will not ordinarily
trouble themselves much with their mothers-in-law. There was nothing
desired for herself. Were such a match accomplished, she might,
perhaps, indulge herself in talking among the planters' wives of her
daughter's coronet; but at the present moment there was no idea even
of this in her mind. It was of Nora herself, and of Nora's sisters,
that she was thinking,--for them that she was plotting,--that the
one might be rich and splendid, and the others have some path opened
for them to riches and splendour. Husband-hunting mothers may be
injudicious; but surely they are maternal and unselfish. Mr. Glascock
put her into the carriage, and squeezed her hand;--and then he
squeezed Nora's hand. She saw it, and was sure of it. "I am so glad
you are going to be happy," Nora had said to him before this. "As
far as I have seen her, I like her so much." "If you do not come
and visit her in her own house, I shall think you have no spirit of
friendship," he said. "I will," Nora had replied;--"I will." This had
been said up-stairs, just as Lady Rowley was coming to them, and on
this understanding, on this footing, Mr. Glascock had pressed her
hand.
As she went home, Lady Rowley's mind was full of doubt as to the
course which it was best that she should follow with her daughter.
She was not unaware how great was the difficulty before her. Hugh
Stanbury's name had not been mentioned since they left London, but at
that time Nora was obstinately bent on throwing herself away upon the
"penny-a-liner." She had never been brought to acknowledge that such
a marriage would be even inappropriate, and had withstood gallantly
the expression of her father's displeasure. But with such a spirit as
Nora's, it might be easier to prevail by silence than by many words.
Lady Rowley was quite sure of this,--that it would be far better to
say nothing further of Hugh Stanbury. Let the cure come, if it might
be possible, from absence and from her daughter's good sense. The
only question was whether it would be wise to say any word about Mr.
Glascock. In the carriage she was not only forbearing but flattering
in her manner to Nora. She caressed her girl's hand and spoke to
her,--as mothers know how to speak when they want to make much of
their girls, and to have it understood that those girls are behaving
as girls should behave. There was to be nobody to meet them to-night,
as it had been arranged that Sir Marmaduke and Mrs. Trevelyan should
sleep at Siena. Hardly a word had been spoken in the carriage; but
up-stairs, in their drawing-room, there came a moment in which Lucy
and Sophie had left them, and Nora was alone with her mother. Lady
Rowley almost knew that it would be most prudent to be silent;--but a
word spoken in season;--how good it is! And the thing was so near to
her that she could not hold her peace. "I must say, Nora," she began,
"that I do like your Mr. Glascock."
"He is not my Mr. Glascock, mamma," said Nora, smiling.
"You know what I mean, dear." Lady Rowley had not intended to utter a
word that should appear like pressure on her daughter at this moment.
She had felt how imprudent it would be to do so. But now Nora seemed
to be leading the way herself to such discourse. "Of course, he is
not your Mr. Glascock. You cannot eat your cake and have it, nor can
you throw it away and have it."
"I have thrown my cake away altogether, and certainly I cannot have
it." She was still smiling as she spoke, and seemed to be quite merry
at the idea of regarding Mr. Glascock as the cake which she had
declined to eat.
"I can see one thing quite plainly, dear."
"What is that, mamma?"
"That in spite of what you have done, you can still have your cake
whenever you choose to take it."
"Why, mamma, he is engaged to be married!"
"Mr. Glascock?"
"Yes, Mr. Glascock. It's quite settled. Is it not sad?"
"To whom is he engaged?" Lady Rowley's solemnity as she asked this
question was piteous to behold.
"To Miss Spalding,--Caroline Spalding."
"The eldest of those nieces?"
"Yes;--the eldest."
"I cannot believe it."
"Mamma, they both told me so. I have sworn an eternal friendship with
her already."
"I did not see you speaking to her."
"But I did talk to her a great deal."
"And he is really going to marry that dreadful woman?"
"Dreadful, mamma!"
"Perfectly awful! She talked to me in a way that I have read about
in books, but which I did not before believe to be possible. Do you
mean that he is going to be married to that hideous old maid,--that
bell-clapper?"
"Oh, mamma, what slander! I think her so pretty."
"Pretty!"
"Very pretty. And, mamma, ought I not to be happy that he should
have been able to make himself so happy? It was quite, quite, quite
impossible that I should have been his wife. I have thought about it
ever so much, and I am so glad of it! I think she is just the girl
that is fit for him."
Lady Rowley took her candle and went to bed, professing to herself
that she could not understand it. But what did it signify? It was,
at any rate, certain now that the man had put himself out of Nora's
reach, and if he chose to marry a republican virago, with a red nose,
it could now make no difference to Nora. Lady Rowley almost felt
a touch of satisfaction in reflecting on the future misery of his
married life.