DANIEL THWAITE COMES TO KEPPEL STREET.
Even the Bluestones were now convinced that Lady Anna Lovel must be
allowed to marry the Keswick tailor, and that it would be expedient
that no further impediment should be thrown in her way. Mrs.
Bluestone had been told, while walking to Keppel Street with the
young lady, of the purport of the letter and of the invitation given
to Daniel Thwaite. The Serjeant at once declared that the girl must
have her own way,--and the Solicitor-General, who also heard of it,
expressed himself very strongly. It was absurd to oppose her. She was
her own mistress. She had shown herself competent to manage her own
affairs. The Countess must be made to understand that she had better
yield at once with what best grace she could. Then it was that he
made that prophecy to the Earl as to the future success of the
fortunate tailor, and then too he wrote at great length to the
Countess, urging many reasons why her daughter should be allowed to
receive Mr. Daniel Thwaite. "Your ladyship has succeeded in very
much," wrote the Solicitor-General, "and even in respect of this
marriage you will have the satisfaction of feeling that the man is in
every way respectable and well-behaved. I hear that he is an educated
man, with culture much higher than is generally found in the state of
life which he has till lately filled, and that he is a man of high
feeling and noble purpose. The manner in which he has been persistent
in his attachment to your daughter is in itself evidence of this. And
I think that your ladyship is bound to remember that the sphere of
life in which he has hitherto been a labourer, would not have been so
humble in its nature had not the means which should have started him
in the world been applied to support and succour your own cause. I am
well aware of your feelings of warm gratitude to the father; but I
think you should bear in mind, on the son's behalf, that he has been
what he has been because his father was so staunch a friend to your
ladyship." There was very much more of it, all expressing the opinion
of Sir William that the Countess should at once open her doors to
Daniel Thwaite.
The reader need hardly be told that this was wormwood to the
Countess. It did not in the least touch her heart and had but little
effect on her purpose. Gratitude;--yes! But if the whole result of
the exertion for which the receiver is bound to be grateful, is to
be neutralised by the greed of the conferrer of the favour,--if all
is to be taken that has been given, and much more also,--what ground
will there be left for gratitude? If I save a man's purse from a
thief, and then demand for my work twice what that purse contained,
the man had better have been left with the robbers. But she was told,
not only that she ought to accept the tailor as a son-in-law, but
also that she could not help herself. They should see whether she
could not help herself. They should be made to acknowledge that she
at any rate was in earnest in her endeavours to preserve pure and
unspotted the honour of the family.
But what should she do? That she should put on a gala dress and a
smiling face and be carried off to church with a troop of lawyers and
their wives to see her daughter become the bride of a low journeyman,
was of course out of the question. By no act, by no word, by no
sign would she give aught of a mother's authority to nuptials so
disgraceful. Should her daughter become Lady Anna Thwaite, they two,
mother and daughter, would never see each other again. Of so much at
any rate she was sure. But could she be sure of nothing beyond that?
She could at any rate make an effort.
Then there came upon her a mad idea,--an idea which was itself
evidence of insanity,--of the glory which would be hers if by any
means she could prevent the marriage. There would be a halo round her
name were she to perish in such a cause, let the destruction come
upon her in what form it might. She sat for hours meditating,--and at
every pause in her thoughts she assured herself that she could still
make an effort.
She received Sir William's letter late on the Tuesday,--and during
that night she did not lie down or once fall asleep. The man, as she
knew, had been told to come at one on that day, and she had been
prepared; but he did not come, and she then thought that the letter,
which had been addressed to his late residence, had failed to reach
him. During the night she wrote a very long answer to Sir William
pleading her own cause, expatiating on her own feelings, and
palliating any desperate deed which she might be tempted to perform.
But, when the letter had been copied and folded, and duly sealed with
the Lovel arms, she locked it in her desk, and did not send it on its
way even on the following morning. When the morning came, shortly
after eight o'clock, Mrs. Richards brought up the message which
Daniel had left at the door. "Be we to let him in, my lady?" said
Mrs. Richards with supplicating hands upraised. Her sympathies were
all with Lady Anna, but she feared the Countess, and did not dare
in such a matter to act without the mother's sanction. The Countess
begged the woman to come to her in an hour for further instructions,
and at the time named Mrs. Richards, full of the importance of her
work, divided between terror and pleasurable excitement, again
toddled up-stairs. "Be we to let him in, my lady? God, he knows it's
hard upon the likes of me, who for the last three months doesn't know
whether I'm on my head or heels." The Countess very quietly requested
that when Mr. Thwaite should call he might be shown into the parlour.
"I will see Mr. Thwaite myself, Mrs. Richards; but it will be better
that my daughter should not be disturbed by any intimation of his
coming."
Then there was a consultation below stairs as to what should be done.
There had been many such consultations, but they had all ended in
favour of the Countess. Mrs. Richards from fear, and the lady's-maid
from favour, were disposed to assist the elder lady. Poor Lady Anna
throughout had been forced to fight her battles with no friend near
her. Now she had many friends,--many who were anxious to support her,
even the Bluestones, who had been so hard upon her while she was
along with them;--but they who were now her friends were never near
her to assist her with a word.
So it came to pass that when Daniel Thwaite called at the house
exactly at one o'clock Lady Anna was not expecting him. On the
previous day at that hour she had sat waiting with anxious ears for
the knock at the door which might announce his coming. But she had
waited in vain. From one to two,--even till seven in the evening, she
had waited. But he had not come, and she had feared that some scheme
had been used against her. The people at the Post Office had been
bribed,--or the women in Wyndham Street had been false. But she would
not be hindered. She would go out alone and find him,--if he were to
be found in London.
When he did come, she was not thinking of his coming. He was shown
into the dining-room, and within a minute afterwards the Countess
entered with stately step. She was well dressed, even to the
adjustment of her hair; and she was a woman so changed that he would
hardly have known her as that dear and valued friend whose slightest
word used to be a law to his father,--but who in those days never
seemed to waste a thought upon her attire. She had been out that
morning walking through the streets, and the blood had mounted to her
cheeks He acknowledged to himself that she looked like a noble and
high-born dame. There was a fire in her eye, and a look of scorn
about her mouth and nostrils, which had even for him a certain
fascination,--odious to him as were the pretensions of the so-called
great. She was the first to speak. "You have called to see my
daughter," she said.
"Yes, Lady Lovel,--I have."
"You cannot see her."
"I came at her request."
"I know you did, but you cannot see her. You can be hardly so
ignorant of the ways of the world, Mr. Thwaite, as to suppose that a
young lady can receive what visitors she pleases without the sanction
of her guardians."
"Lady Anna Lovel has no guardian, my lady. She is of age, and is at
present her own guardian."
"I am her mother, and shall exercise the authority of a mother over
her. You cannot see her. You had better go."
"I shall not be stopped in this way, Lady Lovel."
"Do you mean that you will force your way up to her? To do so you
will have to trample over me;--and there are constables in the
street. You cannot see her. You had better go."
"Is she a prisoner?"
"That is between her and me, and is no affair of yours. You are
intruding here, Mr. Thwaite, and cannot possibly gain anything by
your intrusion." Then she strode out in the passage, and motioned him
to the front door. "Mr. Thwaite, I will beg you to leave this house,
which for the present is mine. If you have any proper feeling you
will not stay after I have told you that you are not welcome."
But Lady Anna, though she had not expected the coming of her lover,
had heard the sound of voices, and then became aware that the man was
below. As her mother was speaking she rushed down-stairs and threw
herself into her lover's arms. "It shall never be so in my presence,"
said the Countess, trying to drag the girl from his embrace by the
shoulders.
"Anna;--my own Anna," said Daniel in an ecstacy of bliss. It was not
only that his sweetheart was his own, but that her spirit was so
high.
"Daniel!" she said, still struggling in his arms.
By this time they were all in the parlour, whither the Countess
had been satisfied to retreat to escape the eyes of the women who
clustered at the top of the kitchen stairs. "Daniel Thwaite," said
the Countess, "if you do not leave this, the blood which will be shed
shall rest on your head," and so saying, she drew nigh to the window
and pulled down the blind. She then crossed over and did the same to
the other blind, and having done so, took her place close to a heavy
upright desk, which stood between the fireplace and the window. When
the two ladies first came to the house they had occupied only the
first and second floors;--but, since the success of their cause, the
whole had been taken, including the parlour in which this scene was
being acted; and the Countess spent many hours daily sitting at the
heavy desk in this dark gloomy chamber.
"Whose blood shall be shed?" said Lady Anna, turning to her mother.
"It is the raving of madness," said Daniel.
"Whether it be madness or not, you shall find, sir, that it is
true. Take your hands from her. Would you disgrace the child in the
presence of her mother?"
"There is no disgrace, mamma. He is my own, and I am his. Why should
you try to part us?"
But now they were parted. He was not a man to linger much over the
sweetness of a caress when sterner work was in his hands to be
done. "Lady Lovel," he said, "you must see that this opposition is
fruitless. Ask your cousin, Lord Lovel, and he will tell you that it
is so."
"I care nothing for my cousin. If he be false, I am true. Though all
the world be false, still will I be true. I do not ask her to marry
her cousin. I simply demand that she shall relinquish one who is
infinitely beneath her,--who is unfit to tie her very shoe-string."
"He is my equal in all things," said Lady Anna, "and he shall be my
lord and husband."
"I know of no inequalities such as those you speak of, Lady Lovel,"
said the tailor. "The excellence of your daughter's merits I admit,
and am almost disposed to claim some goodness for myself, finding
that one so good can love me. But, Lady Lovel, I do not wish to
remain here now. You are disturbed."
"I am disturbed, and you had better go."
"I will go at once if you will let me name some early day on which I
may be allowed to meet Lady Anna,--alone. And I tell her here that if
she be not permitted so to see me, it will be her duty to leave her
mother's house, and come to me. There is my address, dear." Then he
handed to her a paper on which he had written the name of the street
and number at which he was now living. "You are free to come and go
as you list, and if you will send to me there, I will find you here
or elsewhere as you may command me. It is but a short five minutes'
walk beyond the house at which you were staying in Bedford Square."
The Countess stood silent for a moment or two, looking at them,
during which neither the girl spoke nor her lover. "You will not
even allow her six months to think of it?" said the Countess.
"I will allow her six years if she says that she requires time to
think of it."
"I do not want an hour,--not a minute," said Lady Anna.
The mother flashed round upon her daughter. "Poor vain, degraded
wretch," she said.
"She is a true woman, honest to the heart's core," said the lover.
"You shall come to-morrow," said the Countess. "Do you hear me,
Anna?--he shall come to-morrow. There shall be an end of this in some
way, and I am broken-hearted. My life is over for me, and I may as
well lay me down and die. I hope God in his mercy may never send upon
another woman,--upon another wife, or another mother,--trouble such
as that with which I have been afflicted. But I tell you this, Anna;
that what evil a husband can do,--even let him be evil-minded as was
your father,--is nothing,--nothing,--nothing to the cruelty of a
cruel child. Go now, Mr. Thwaite; if you please. If you will return
at the same hour to-morrow she shall speak with you--alone. And then
she must do as she pleases."
"Anna, I will come again to-morrow," said the tailor. But Lady Anna
did not answer him. She did not speak, but stayed looking at him till
he was gone.
"To-morrow shall end it all. I can stand this no longer. I have
prayed to you,--a mother to her daughter; I have prayed to you for
mercy, and you will show me none. I have knelt to you."
"Mamma!"
"I will kneel again if it may avail." And the Countess did kneel.
"Will you not spare me?"
"Get up, mamma; get up. What am I doing,--what have I done that you
should speak to me like this?"
"I ask you from my very soul,--lest I commit some terrible crime. I
have sworn that I would not see this marriage,--and I will not see
it."
"If he will consent I will delay it," said the girl trembling.
"Must I beg to him then? Must I kneel to him? Must I ask him to save
me from the wrath to come? No, my child, I will not do that. If it
must come, let it come. When you were a little thing at my knees, the
gentlest babe that ever mother kissed, I did not think that you would
live to be so hard to me. You have your mother's brow, my child, but
you have your father's heart."
"I will ask him to delay it," said Anna.
"No;--if it be to come to that I will have no dealings with you.
What; that he,--he who has come between me and all my peace, he who
with his pretended friendship has robbed me of my all, that he is to
be asked to grant me a few weeks' delay before this pollution comes
upon me,--during which the whole world will know that Lady Anna Lovel
is to be the tailor's wife! Leave me. When he comes to-morrow, you
shall be sent for;--but I will see him first. Leave me, now. I would
be alone."
Lady Anna made an attempt to take her mother's hand, but the Countess
repulsed her rudely. "Oh, mamma!"
"We must be bitter enemies or loving friends, my child. As it is we
are bitter enemies; yes, the bitterest. Leave me now. There is no
room for further words between us." Then Lady Anna slunk up to her
own room.