LADY ANNA.
The idea of this further compromise, of this something more than
compromise, of this half acknowledgment of their own weakness, came
from Mr. Flick, of the firm of Norton and Flick, the solicitors who
were employed in substantiating the Earl's position. When Mr. Flick
mentioned it to Sir William Patterson, the great barrister, who was
at that time Solicitor-General and leading counsel on behalf of Lord
Lovel, Sir William Patterson stood aghast and was dismayed. Sir
William intended to make mince-meat of the Countess. It was said of
him that he intended to cross-examine the Countess off her legs,
right out of her claim, and almost into her grave. He certainly did
believe her to be an impostor, who had not thought herself to be
entitled to her name when she first assumed it.
"I should be sorry, Mr. Flick, to be driven to think that anything of
that kind could be expedient."
"It would make sure of the fortune to the family," said Mr. Flick.
"And what about our friend, the Countess?"
"Let her call herself Countess Lovel, Sir William. That will break no
bones. As to the formality of her own marriage, there can be no doubt
about that."
"We can prove by Grogram that she was told that another wife was
living," said Sir William. Grogram was an old butler who had been in
the old Earl's service for thirty years.
"I believe we can, Sir William; but--. It is quite clear that we
shall never get the other wife to come over and face an English jury.
It is of no use blinking it. The gentleman whom we have sent over
doubts her altogether. That there was a marriage is certain, but
he fears that this woman is not the old Countess. There were two
sisters, and it may be that this was the other sister."
Sir William was a good deal dismayed, but he recovered himself. The
stakes were so high that it was quite possible that the gentleman who
had been sent over might have been induced to open his eyes to the
possibility of such personation by overtures from the other side. Sir
William was of opinion that Mr. Flick himself should go to Sicily. He
was not sure that he, Sir William, her Majesty's Solicitor-General,
would not make the journey in person. He was by no means disposed to
give way. "They tell me that the girl is no better than she should
be," he said to Mr. Flick.
"I don't think so bad as that of her," said Mr. Flick.
"Is she a lady,--or anything like a lady?"
"I am told she is very beautiful."
"I dare say;--and so was her mother before her. I never saw a
handsomer woman of her age than our friend the Countess. But I could
not recommend the young lord to marry an underbred, bad girl, and a
bastard who claims to be his cousin,--and support my proposition
merely on the ground of her looks."
"Thirty-five thousand a year, Sir William!" pleaded the attorney.
"I hope we can get the thirty-five thousand a year for our client
without paying so dear for them."
It had been presumed that the real Countess, the original Countess,
the Italian lady whom the Earl had married in early life, would be
brought over, with properly attested documentary evidence in her
pocket, to prove that she was the existing Countess, and that any
other Countess must be either an impostor or a deluded dupe. No doubt
the old Earl had declared, when first informing Josephine Murray
that she was not his wife, that his real wife had died during the
few months which had intervened since his mock marriage; but it was
acknowledged on all sides, that the old Earl had been a villain and a
liar. It was no part of the duty of the young Earl, or of those who
acted for him, to defend the character of the old Earl. To wash that
blackamoor white, or even to make him whity-brown, was not necessary
to anybody. No one was now concerned to account for his crooked
courses. But if it could be shown that he had married the lady in
Italy,--as to which there was no doubt,--and that the lady was still
alive, or that she had been alive when the second marriage took
place, then the Lady Anna could not inherit the property which had
been freed from the grasp of the Italian mistress. But it seemed that
the lady, if she lived, could not be made to come. Mr. Flick did go
to Sicily, and came back renewing his advice to Sir William that Lord
Lovel should be advised to marry the Lady Anna.
At this time the Countess, with her daughter, had moved their
residence from Keswick up to London, and was living in very humble
lodgings in a small street turning out of the New Road, near the
Yorkshire Stingo. Old Thomas Thwaite had accompanied them from
Cumberland, but the rooms had been taken for them by his son, Daniel
Thwaite, who was at this time foreman to a somewhat celebrated
tailor who carried on his business in Wigmore Street; and he, Daniel
Thwaite, had a bedroom in the house in which the Countess lodged. The
arrangement was not a wise one, as reports had already been spread
abroad as to the partiality of the Lady Anna for the young tailor.
But how should she not have been partial both to the father and to
the son, feeling as she did that they were the only two men who
befriended her cause and her mother's? As to the Countess herself,
she, perhaps, alone of all those who interested themselves in her
daughter's cause, had heard no word of these insinuations against her
child. To her both Thomas and Daniel Thwaite were dear friends, to
repay whom for their exertions with lavish generosity,--should the
means to do so ever come within her reach,--was one of the dreams
of her existence. But she was an ambitious woman, thinking much
of her rank, thinking much even of the blood of her own ancestors,
constantly urgent with her daughter in teaching her the duties
and privileges of wealth and rank. For the Countess never doubted
that she would at last attain success. That the Lady Anna should
throw herself away upon Daniel Thwaite did not occur to her as a
possibility. She had not even dreamed that Daniel Thwaite would
aspire to her daughter's hand. And yet every shop-boy and every
shop-girl in Keswick had been so saying for the last twelvemonth,
and rumours which had hitherto been confined to Keswick and its
neighbourhood, were now common in London. For the case was becoming
one of the celebrated causes of the age, and all the world was
talking of the Countess and her daughter. No momentary suspicion had
crossed the mind of the Countess till after their arrival in London;
and then when the suspicion did touch her it was not love that she
suspected,--but rather an unbecoming familiarity which she attributed
to her child's ignorance of the great life which awaited her. "My
dear," she said one day when Daniel Thwaite had left them, "you
should be less free in your manner with that young man."
"What do you mean, mamma?" said the daughter, blushing.
"You had better call him Mr. Thwaite."
"But I have called him Daniel ever since I was born."
"He always calls you Lady Anna."
"Sometimes he does, mamma."
"I never heard him call you anything else," said the Countess, almost
with indignation. "It is all very well for the old man, because he is
an old man and has done so much for us."
"So has Daniel;--quite as much, mamma. They have both done
everything."
"True; they have both been warm friends; and if ever I forget them
may God forget me. I trust that we may both live to show them that
they are not forgotten. But it is not fitting that there should exist
between you and him the intimacy of equal positions. You are not and
cannot be his equal. He has been born to be a tailor, and you are the
daughter and heiress of an Earl."
These last words were spoken in a tone that was almost awful to
the Lady Anna. She had heard so much of her father's rank and her
father's wealth,--rank and wealth which were always to be hers,
but which had never as yet reached her, which had been a perpetual
trouble to her, and a crushing weight upon her young life, that she
had almost learned to hate the title and the claim. Of course it was
a part of the religion of her life that her mother had been duly
married to her father. It was beyond a doubt to her that such was the
case. But the constant battling for denied rights, the assumption of
a position which could not be attained, the use of titles which were
simply ridiculous in themselves as connected with the kind of life
which she was obliged to lead,--these things had all become odious
to her. She lacked the ambition which gave her mother strength, and
would gladly have become Anna Murray or Anna Lovel, with a girl's
ordinary privilege of loving her lover, had such an easy life been
possible to her.
In person she was very lovely, less tall and robust than her mother
had been, but with a sweeter, softer face. Her hair was less dark,
and her eyes were neither blue nor bold. But they were bright and
soft and very eloquent, and when laden with tears would have softened
the heart,--almost of her father. She was as yet less powerful than
her mother, both in body and mind, but probably better calculated to
make a happy home for a husband and children. She was affectionate,
self-denying, and feminine. Had that offer of compromise for thirty,
twenty, or for ten thousand pounds been made to her, she would have
accepted it willingly,--caring little for her name, little even for
fame, so that she might have been happy and quiet, and at liberty to
think of a lover as are other girls. In her present condition, how
could she have any happy love? She was the Lady Anna Lovel, heir to
a ducal fortune,--but she lived in small close lodgings in Wyndham
Street, New Road. She did not believe in the good time coming as did
her mother. Their enemy was an undoubted Earl, undoubtedly owner of
Lovel Grange of which she had heard all her life. Would it not be
better to take what the young lord chose to give them and to be at
rest? But she did not dare to express such thoughts to her mother.
Her mother would have crushed her with a look.
"I have told Mr. Thwaite," the mother said to her daughter, "what we
were saying this morning."
"About his son?"
"Yes,--about his son."
"Oh, mamma!"
"I was bound to do so."
"And what did he say, mamma?"
"He did not like it, and told me that he did not like it;--but he
admitted that it was true. He admitted that his son was no fitting
intimate for Lady Anna Lovel."
"What should we have done without him?"
"Badly indeed; but that cannot change his duty, or ours. He is
helping us to struggle for that which is our own; but he would mar
his generosity if he put a taint on that which he is endeavouring to
restore to us."
"Put a taint, mamma!"
"Yes;--a taint would rest upon your rank if you as Lady Anna Lovel
were familiar with Daniel Thwaite as with an equal. His father
understands it, and will speak to him."
"Mamma, Daniel will be very angry."
"Then will he be very unreasonable;--but, Anna, I will not have you
call him Daniel any more."