IT IS STILL TRUE.
On Sunday they all went to church, and not a word was said about the
tailor. Alice Bluestone was tender and valedictory; Mrs. Bluestone
was courteous and careful; the Serjeant was solemn and civil. Before
the day was over Lady Anna was quite sure that it was not intended
that she should come back to Bedford Square. Words were said by the
two girls, and by Sarah the waiting-maid, which made it certain that
the packing up was to be a real packing up. No hindrance was offered
to her when she busied herself about her own dresses and folded up
her stock of gloves and ribbons. On Monday morning after breakfast,
Mrs. Bluestone nearly broke down. "I am sure, my dear," she said,
"we have liked you very much, and if there has been anything
uncomfortable it has been from unfortunate circumstances." The
Serjeant bade God bless her when he walked off half an hour before
the carriage came to take her, and she knew that she was to sit no
longer as a guest at the Serjeant's table. She kissed the girls, was
kissed by Mrs. Bluestone, got into the carriage with the maid, and in
her heart said good-bye to Bedford Square for ever.
It was but three minutes' drive from the Serjeant's house to that in
which her mother lived, and in that moment of time she was hardly
able to realise the fact that within half an hour she would be once
more in the presence of Daniel Thwaite. She did not at present at all
understand why this thing was to be done. When last she had seen her
mother, the Countess had solemnly declared, had almost sworn, that
they two should never see each other again. And now the meeting was
so close at hand that the man must already be near her. She put up
her face to the carriage window as though she almost expected to
see him on the pavement. And how would the meeting be arranged?
Would her mother be present? She took it for granted that her
mother would be present. She certainly anticipated no pleasure from
the meeting,--though she would be glad, very glad, to see Daniel
Thwaite once again. Before she had time to answer herself a question
the carriage had stopped, and she could see her mother at the
drawing-room window. She trembled as she went up-stairs, and hardly
could speak when she found herself in her mother's presence. If her
mother had worn the old brown gown it would have been better, but
there she was, arrayed in black silk,--in silk that was new and stiff
and broad and solemn,--a parent rather than a mother, and every inch
a Countess. "I am so glad to be with you again, mamma."
"I shall not be less glad to have you with me, Anna,--if you will
behave yourself with propriety."
"Give me a kiss, mamma." Then the Countess bent her head and allowed
her daughter's lips to touch her cheeks. In old days,--days that were
not so very old,--she would kiss her child as though such embraces
were the only food that nourished her.
"Come up-stairs, and I will show you your room." Then the daughter
followed the mother in solemn silence. "You have heard that Mr.
Daniel Thwaite is coming here, to see you, at your own request. It
will not be many minutes before he is here. Take off your bonnet."
Again Lady Anna silently did as she was bid. "It would have been
better,--very much better,--that you should have done as you were
desired without subjecting me to this indignity. But as you have
taken into your head an idea that you cannot be absolved from an
impossible engagement without his permission, I have submitted. Do
not let it be long, and let me hear then that all this nonsense is
over. He has got what he desires, as a very large sum of money has
been paid to him." Then there came a knock at the door from Sarah,
who just showed her face to say that Mr. Thwaite was in the room
below. "Now go down. In ten minutes I shall expect to see you here
again;--or, after that, I shall come down to you." Lady Anna took her
mother by the hand, looking up with beseeching eyes into her mother's
face. "Go, my dear, and let this be done as quickly as possible. I
believe that you have too great a sense of propriety to let him do
more than speak to you. Remember,--you are the daughter of an earl;
and remember also all that I have done to establish your right for
you."
"Mamma, I do not know what to do. I am afraid."
"Shall I go with you, Anna?"
"No, mamma;--it will be better without you. You do not know how good
he is."
"If he will abandon this madness he shall be my friend of friends."
"Oh, mamma, I am afraid. But I had better go." Then, trembling she
left the room and slowly descended the stairs. She had certainly
spoken the truth in saying that she was afraid. Up to this moment
she had not positively made up her mind whether she would or would
not yield to the entreaties of her friends. She had decided upon
nothing,--leaving in fact the arbitrament of her faith in the hands
of the man who had now come to see her. Throughout all that had been
said and done her sympathies had been with him, and had become the
stronger the more her friends had reviled him. She knew that they had
spoken evil of him, not because he was evil,--but with the unholy
view of making her believe what was false. She had seen through all
this, and had been aroused by it to a degree of firmness of which
her mother had not imagined her to be capable. Had they confined
themselves to the argument of present fitness, admitting the truth
and honesty of the man,--and admitting also that his love for her and
hers for him had been the natural growth of the familiar friendship
of their childhood and youth, their chance of moulding her to their
purposes would have been better. As it was they had never argued with
her on the subject without putting forward some statement which she
found herself bound to combat. She was told continually that she had
degraded herself; and she could understand that another Lady Anna
might degrade herself most thoroughly by listening to the suit of
a tailor. But she had not disgraced herself. Of that she was sure,
though she could not well explain to them her reasons when they
accused her. Circumstances, and her mother's mode of living, had
thrown her into intimacy with this man. For all practical purposes
of life he had been her equal,--and being so had become her dearest
friend. To take his hand, to lean on his arm, to ask his assistance,
to go to him in her troubles, to listen to his words and to believe
them, to think of him as one who might always be trusted, had
become a second nature to her. Of course she loved him. And now
the martyrdom through which she had passed in Bedford Square had
changed,--unconsciously as regarded her own thoughts,--but still
had changed her feelings in regard to her cousin. He was not to her
now the bright and shining thing, the godlike Phoebus, which he had
been in Wyndham Street and at Yoxham. In all their lectures to her
about her title and grandeur they had succeeded in inculcating an
idea of the solemnity of rank, but had robbed it in her eyes of all
its grace. She had only been the more tormented because the fact of
her being Lady Anna Lovel had been fully established. The feeling in
her bosom which was most hostile to the tailor's claim upon her was
her pity for her mother.
She entered the room very gently, and found him standing by the
table, with his hands clasped together. "Sweetheart!" he said, as
soon as he saw her, calling her by a name which he used to use when
they were out in the fields together in Cumberland.
"Daniel!" Then he came to her and took her hand. "If you have
anything to say, Daniel, you must be very quick, because mamma will
come in ten minutes."
"Have you anything to say, sweetheart?" She had much to say if she
only knew how to say it; but she was silent. "Do you love me, Anna?"
Still she was silent. "If you have ceased to love me, pray tell me
so,--in all honesty." But yet she was silent. "If you are true to
me,--as I am to you, with all my heart,--will you not tell me so?"
"Yes," she murmured.
He heard her, though no other could have done so.
"A lover's ears will hear the lowest sound
When the suspicious head of theft is stopped."
"If so," said he, again taking her hand, "this story they have told
me is untrue."
"What story, Daniel?" But she withdrew her hand quickly as she asked
him.
"Nay;--it is mine; it shall be mine if you love me, dear. I will
tell you what story. They have said that you love your cousin, Earl
Lovel."
"No;" said she scornfully, "I have never said so. It is not true."
"You cannot love us both." His eye was fixed upon hers, that eye to
which in past years she had been accustomed to look for guidance,
sometimes in joy and sometimes in fear, and which she had always
obeyed. "Is not that true?"
"Oh yes;--that is true of course."
"You have never told him that you loved him."
"Oh, never."
"But you have told me so,--more than once; eh, sweetheart?"
"Yes."
"And it was true?"
She paused a moment, and then gave him the same answer, "Yes."
"And it is still true?"
She repeated the word a third time. "Yes." But she again so spoke
that none but a lover's ear could have heard it.
"If it be so, nothing but the hand of God shall separate us. You
know that they sent for me to come here." She nodded her head. "Do
you know why? In order that I might abandon my claim to your hand.
I will never give it up. But I made them a promise, and I will keep
it. I told them that if you preferred Lord Lovel to me, I would at
once make you free of your promise,--that I would offer to you such
freedom, if it would be freedom. I do offer it to you;--or rather,
Anna, I would have offered it, had you not already answered the
question. How can I offer it now?" Then he paused, and stood
regarding her with fixed eyes. "But there,--there; take back your
word if you will. If you think that it is better to be the wife of a
lord, because he is a lord, though you do not love him, than to lie
upon the breast of the man you do love,--you are free from me." Now
was the moment in which she must obey her mother, and satisfy her
friends, and support her rank, and decide that she would be one of
the noble ladies of England, if such decision were to be made at
all. She looked up into his face, and thought that after all it was
handsomer than that of the young Earl. He stood thus with dilated
nostrils, and fire in his eyes, and his lips just parted, and his
head erect,--a very man. Had she been so minded she would not have
dared to take his offer. They surely had not known the man when they
allowed him to have this interview. He repeated his words. "You are
free if you will say so;--but you must answer me."
"I did answer you, Daniel."
"My noble girl! And now, my heart's only treasure, I may speak out
and tell you what I think. It cannot be good that a woman should
purchase rank and wealth by giving herself to a man she does not
love. It must be bad,--monstrously bad. I never believed it when they
told it me of you. And yet when I did not hear of you or see you for
months--"
"It was not my fault."
"No, sweetheart;--and I tried to find comfort by so saying to myself.
'If she really loves me, she will be true,' I said. And yet who was I
that I should think that you would suffer so much for me? But I will
repay you,--if the truth and service of a life may repay such a debt
as that. At any rate hear this from me;--I will never doubt again."
And as he spoke he was moving towards her, thinking to take her in
his arms, when the door was opened and Countess Lovel was within the
room. The tailor was the first to speak. "Lady Lovel, I have asked
your daughter, and I find that it is her wish to adhere to the
engagement which she made with me in Cumberland. I need hardly say
that it is my wish also."
"Anna! Is this true?"
"Mamma; mamma! Oh, mamma!"
"If it be so I will never speak word to you more."
"You will; you will! Do not look at me like that. You will speak to
me!"
"You shall never again be child of mine." But in saying this she had
forgotten herself, and now she remembered her proper cue. "I do not
believe a word of it. The man has come here and has insulted and
frightened you. He knows,--he must know,--that such a marriage is
impossible. It can never take place. It shall never take place. Mr.
Thwaite, as you are a living man, you shall never live to marry my
daughter."
"My lady, in this matter of marriage your daughter must no doubt
decide for herself. Even now, by all the laws of God,--and I believe
of man too,--she is beyond your control either to give her in
marriage or to withhold her. In a few months she will be as much her
own mistress as you now are yours."
"Sir, I am not asking you about my child. You are insolent."
"I came here, Lady Lovel, because I was sent for."
"And now you had better leave us. You made a promise which you have
broken."
"By heavens, no. I made a promise and I have kept it. I said that I
would offer her freedom, and I have done so. I told her, and I tell
her again now, that if she will say that she prefers her cousin to
me, I will retire." The Countess looked at him and also recognised
the strength of his face, almost feeling that the man had grown in
personal dignity since he had received the money that was due to him.
"She does not prefer the Earl. She has given her heart to me; and
I hold it,--and will hold it. Look up, dear, and tell your mother
whether what I say be true."
"It is true," said Lady Anna.
"Then may the blight of hell rest upon you both!" said the Countess,
rushing to the door. But she returned. "Mr. Thwaite," she said, "I
will trouble you at once to leave the house, and never more to return
to it."
"I will leave it certainly. Good bye, my own love." He attempted
again to take the girl by the hand, but the Countess, with violence,
rushed at them and separated them. "If you but touch him, I will
strike you," she said to her daughter. "As for you, it is her money
that you want. If it be necessary, you shall have, not hers, but
mine. Now go."
"That is a slander, Lady Lovel. I want no one's money. I want the
girl I love,--whose heart I have won; and I will have her. Good
morning, Lady Lovel. Dear, dear Anna, for this time good bye. Do not
let any one make you think that I can ever be untrue to you." The
girl only looked at him. Then he left the room; and the mother and
the daughter were alone together. The Countess stood erect, looking
at her child, while Lady Anna, standing also, kept her eyes fixed
upon the ground. "Am I to believe it all,--as that man says?" asked
the Countess.
"Yes, mamma."
"Do you mean to say that you have renewed your engagement to that
low-born wretch?"
"Mamma,--he is not a wretch."
"Do you contradict me? After all, is it come to this?"
"Mamma,--you, you--cursed me."
"And you will be cursed. Do you think that you will do such
wickedness as this, that you can destroy all that I have done for
you, that you make yourself the cause of ruin to a whole family, and
that you will not be punished for it? You say that you love me."
"You know that I love you, mamma."
"And yet you do not scruple to drive me mad."
"Mamma, it was you who brought us together."
"Ungrateful child! Where else could I take you then?"
"But I was there,--and of course I loved him. I could not cease to
love him because,--because they say that I am a grand lady."
"Listen to me, Anna. You shall never marry him; never. With my own
hands I will kill him first;--or you." The girl stood looking into
her mother's face, and trembling. "Do you understand that?"
"You do not mean it, mamma."
"By the God above me, I do! Do you think that I will stop at anything
now;--after having done so much? Do you think that I will live to see
my daughter the wife of a foul, sweltering tailor? No, by heavens! He
tells you that when you are twenty-one, you will not be subject to my
control. I warn you to look to it. I will not lose my control, unless
when I see you married to some husband fitting your condition in
life. For the present you will live in your own room, as I will live
in mine. I will hold no intercourse whatever with you, till I have
constrained you to obey me."