HARD LINES.
At the time that the murder was attempted Lord Lovel was in
London,--and had seen Daniel Thwaite on that morning; but before any
confirmed rumour had reached his ears he had left London again on his
road to Yoxham. He knew now that he would be endowed with something
like ten thousand a year out of the wealth of the late Earl, but
that he would not have the hand of his fair cousin, the late Earl's
daughter. Perhaps it was as well as it was. The girl had never loved
him, and he could now choose for himself;--and need not choose till
it should be his pleasure to settle himself as a married man. After
all, his marriage with Lady Anna would have been a constrained
marriage,--a marriage which he would have accepted as the means of
making his fortune. The girl certainly had pleased him;--but it
might be that a girl who preferred a tailor would not have continued
to please him. At any rate he could not be unhappy with his
newly-acquired fortune, and he went down to Yoxham to receive the
congratulation of his friends, thinking that it would become him now
to make some exertion towards reconciling his uncle and aunt to the
coming marriage.
"Have you heard anything about Mr. Thwaite?" Mr. Flick said to him
the day before he started. The Earl had heard nothing. "They say that
he has been wounded by a pistol-ball." Lord Lovel stayed some days at
a friend's house on his road into Yorkshire, and when he reached the
rectory, the rector had received news from London. Mr. Thwaite the
tailor had been murdered, and it was surmised that the deed had been
done by the Countess. "I trust the papers were signed before you
left London," said the anxious rector. The documents making over
the property were all right, but the Earl would believe nothing of
the murder. Mr. Thwaite might have been wounded. He had heard so
much before,--but he was quite sure that it had not been done by the
Countess. On the following day further tidings came. Mr. Thwaite was
doing well, but everybody said that the attempt had been made by Lady
Lovel. Thus by degrees some idea of the facts as they had occurred
was received at the rectory.
"You don't mean that you want us to have Mr. Thwaite here?" said the
rector, holding up his hands, upon hearing a proposition made to him
by his nephew a day or two later.
"Why not, uncle Charles?"
"I couldn't do it. I really don't think your aunt could bring herself
to sit down to table with him."
"Aunt Jane?"
"Yes, your aunt Jane,--or your aunt Julia either." Now a quieter lady
than aunt Jane, or one less likely to turn up her nose at any guest
whom her husband should choose to entertain, did not exist.
"May I ask my aunts?"
"What good can it do, Frederic?"
"He's going to marry our cousin. He's not at all such a man as you
seem to think."
"He has been a journeyman tailor all his life."
"You'll find he'll make a very good sort of gentleman. Sir William
Patterson says that he'll be in Parliament before long."
"Sir William! Sir William is always meddling. I have never thought
much about Sir William."
"Come, uncle Charles,--you should be fair. If we had gone on
quarrelling and going to law, where should I have been now? I should
never have got a shilling out of the property. Everybody says so. No
doubt Sir William acted very wisely."
"I am no lawyer. I can't say how it might have been. But I may have
my doubts if I like. I have always understood that Lady Lovel, as you
choose to call her, was never Lord Lovel's wife. For twenty years I
have been sure of it, and I can't change so quickly as some other
people."
"She is Lady Lovel now. The King and Queen would receive her as such
if she went to Court. Her daughter is Lady Anna Lovel."
"It may be so. It is possible."
"If it be not so," said the young lord thumping the table, "where
have I got the money from?" This was an argument that the rector
could not answer;--so he merely shook his head. "I am bound to
acknowledge them after taking her money."
"But not him. You haven't had any of his money. You needn't
acknowledge him."
"We had better make the best of it, uncle Charles. He is going to
marry our cousin, and we should stand by her. Sir William very
strongly advises me to be present at the marriage, and to offer to
give her away."
"The girl you were going to marry yourself!"
"Or else that you should do it. That of course would be better."
The rector of Yoxham groaned when the proposition was made to him.
What infinite vexation of spirit and degradation had come to him from
these spurious Lovels during the last twelve months! He had been made
to have the girl in his house and to give her precedence as Lady
Anna, though he did not believe in her; he had been constrained to
treat her as the desired bride of his august nephew the Earl,--till
she had refused the Earl's hand; after he had again repudiated her
and her mother because of her base attachment to a low-born artisan,
he had been made to re-accept her in spirit, because she had been
generous to his nephew;--and now he was asked to stand at the altar
and give her away to the tailor! And there could come to him neither
pleasure nor profit from the concern. All that he had endured he
had borne simply for the sake of his family and his nephew. "She is
degrading us all,--as far as she belongs to us," said the rector. "I
can't see why I should be asked to give her my countenance in doing
it."
"Everybody says that it is very good of her to be true to the man she
loved when she was poor and in obscurity. Sir William says--"
"---- Sir William!" muttered the rector between his teeth, as he
turned away in disgust. What had been the first word of that minatory
speech Lord Lovel did not clearly hear. He had been brought up as
a boy by his uncle, and had never known his uncle to offend by
swearing. No one in Yoxham would have believed it possible that the
parson of the parish should have done so. Mrs. Grimes would have
given evidence in any court in Yorkshire that it was absolutely
impossible. The archbishop would not have believed it though
his archdeacon had himself heard the word. All the man's known
antecedents since he had been at Yoxham were against the probability.
The entire close at York would have been indignant had such an
accusation been made. But his nephew in his heart of hearts believed
that the rector of Yoxham had damned the Solicitor-General.
There was, however, more cause for malediction, and further
provocations to wrath, in store for the rector. The Earl had not as
yet opened all his budget, or let his uncle know the extent of the
sacrifice that was to be demanded from him. Sir William had been very
urgent with the young nobleman to accord everything that could be
accorded to his cousin. "It is not of course for me to dictate," he
had said, "but as I have been allowed so far to give advice somewhat
beyond the scope of my profession, perhaps you will let me say that
in mere honesty you owe her all that you can give. She has shared
everything with you, and need have given nothing. And he, my lord,
had he been so minded, might no doubt have hindered her from doing
what she has done. You owe it to your honour to accept her and her
husband with an open hand. Unless you can treat her with cousinly
regard you should not have taken what has been given to you as a
cousin. She has recognised you to your great advantage as the head of
her family, and you should certainly recognise her as belonging to
it. Let the marriage be held down at Yoxham. Get your uncle and aunt
to ask her down. Do you give her away, and let your uncle marry them.
If you can put me up for a night in some neighbouring farm-house, I
will come and be a spectator. It will be for your honour to treat her
after that fashion." The programme was a large one, and the Earl felt
that there might be some difficulty.
But in the teeth of that dubious malediction he persevered, and his
next attack was upon aunt Julia. "You liked her;--did you not?"
"Yes;--I liked her." The tone implied great doubt. "I liked her, till
I found that she had forgotten herself."
"But she didn't forget herself. She just did what any girl would have
done, living as she was living. She has behaved nobly to me."
"She has behaved no doubt conscientiously."
"Come, aunt Julia! Did you ever know any other woman to give away
ten thousand a-year to a fellow simply because he was her cousin? We
should do something for her. Why should you not ask her down here
again?"
"I don't think my brother would like it."
"He will if you tell him. And we must make a gentleman of him."
"My dear Frederic, you can never wash a blackamoor white."
"Let us try. Don't you oppose it. It behoves me, for my honour, to
show her some regard after what she has done for me."
Aunt Julia shook her head, and muttered to herself some further
remark about negroes. The inhabitants of the Yoxham rectory,--who
were well born, ladies and gentlemen without a stain, who were
hitherto free from all base intermarriages, and had nothing among
their male cousins below soldiers and sailors, parsons and lawyers,
who had successfully opposed an intended marriage between a cousin in
the third degree and an attorney because the alliance was below the
level of the Lovels, were peculiarly averse to any intermingling of
ranks. They were descended from ancient earls, and their chief was
an earl of the present day. There was but one titled young lady now
among them,--and she had only just won her right to be so considered.
There was but one Lady Anna,--and she was going to marry a tailor!
"Duty is duty," said aunt Julia as she hurried away. She meant her
nephew to understand that duty commanded her to shut her heart
against any cousin who could marry a tailor.
The lord next attacked aunt Jane. "You wouldn't mind having her
here?"
"Not if your uncle thought well of it," said Mrs. Lovel.
"I'll tell you what my scheme is." Then he told it all. Lady Anna
was to be invited to the rectory. The tailor was to be entertained
somewhere near on the night preceding his wedding. The marriage was
to be celebrated by his uncle in Yoxham Church. Sir William was to
be asked to join them. And the whole thing was to be done exactly as
though they were all proud of the connection.
"Does your uncle know?" asked Mrs. Lovel, who had been nearly stunned
by the proposition.
"Not quite. I want you to suggest it. Only think, aunt Jane, what
she has done for us all!" Aunt Jane couldn't think that very much
had been done for her. They were not to be enriched by the cousin's
money. They had never been interested in the matter on their own
account. They wanted nothing. And yet they were to be called upon to
have a tailor at their board,--because Lord Lovel was the head of
their family. But the Earl was the Earl; and poor Mrs. Lovel knew how
much she owed to his position. "If you wish it of course I'll tell
him, Frederic."
"I do wish it;--and I'll be so much obliged to you."
The next morning the parson had been told all that was required of
him, and he came down to prayers as black as a thunder-cloud. It had
been before suggested to him that he should give the bride away, and
though he had grievously complained of the request, he knew that he
must do it should the Earl still demand it. He had no power to oppose
the head of the family. But he had never thought then that he would
be asked to pollute his own rectory by the presence of that odious
tailor. While he was shaving that morning very religious ideas had
filled his mind. What a horrible thing was wickedness! All this evil
had come upon him and his because the late Earl had been so very
wicked a man! He had sworn to his wife that he would not bear it.
He had done and was ready to do more almost than any other uncle in
England. But this he could not endure. Yet when he was shaving, and
thinking with religious horror of the iniquities of that iniquitous
old lord, he knew that he would have to yield. "I dare say they
wouldn't come," said aunt Julia. "He won't like to be with us any
more than we shall like to have him." There was some comfort in that
hope; and trusting to it the rector had yielded everything before the
third day was over.
"And I may ask Sir William?" said the Earl.
"Of course we shall be glad to see Sir William Patterson if you
choose to invite him," said the rector, still oppressed by gloom.
"Sir William Patterson is a gentleman no doubt, and a man of high
standing. Of course I and your aunt will be pleased to receive him.
As a lawyer I don't think much of him;--but that has nothing to do
with it." It may be remarked here that though Mr. Lovel lived for a
great many years after the transactions which are here recorded, he
never gave way in reference to the case that had been tried. If the
lawyers had persevered as they ought to have done, it would have been
found out that the Countess was no Countess, that the Lady Anna was
no Lady Anna, and that all the money had belonged by right to the
Earl. With that belief,--with that profession of belief,--he went to
his grave an old man of eighty.
In the meantime he consented that the invitation should be given. The
Countess and her daughter were to be asked to Yoxham;--the use of the
parish church was to be offered for the ceremony; he was to propose
to marry them; the Earl was to give the bride away; and Daniel
Thwaite the tailor was to be asked to dine at Yoxham Rectory on the
day before the marriage! The letters were to be written from the
rectory by aunt Julia, and the Earl was to add what he pleased for
himself. "I suppose this sort of trial is sent to us for our good,"
said the rector to his wife that night in the sanctity of their
bedroom.