PRIDE CONQUERS LOVE.
Except the awful, the inexorable blank that Death leaves in the heart
of the mourner, there is no vacancy of mind more agonizing than that
which follows the defeat of a lover and the sudden cessation of an
adored companionship. To Kilrush the whole world seemed of one dull
grey after he had lost Antonia. The town, the company of which he had
long been weary, now became actually hateful, and his only desire was
to rush to some remote spot of earth where the very fact of distance
might help him to forget the woman he loved. A man of a softer nature
would have yielded to his charmer's objections, and sacrificed his
pride to his love; but with Kilrush, pride--long-cherished pride of
race and name--and a certain stubborn power of will prevailed over
inclination. He suffered, but was resolute. He told himself that
Antonia was cold and calculating, and unworthy of a generous passion
like his. She counted, perhaps, on conquering his resolve, and making
him marry her; and he took a vindictive pleasure in the thought of her
vexation as the days went by without bringing him to her feet.
"Farewell for ever," she had cried, yet had hoped, perhaps, to see him
return to her to-morrow, like some small country squire, who thinks all
England will be outraged if he marry beneath his rural importance, yet
yields to an irresistible love for the miller's daughter or the village
barmaid.
"I have lived through too many fevers to die of this one," Kilrush
thought, and braced his nerves to go on living, though all the colour
seemed washed out of his life.
While his heart was being lacerated by anger and regret, he was
surprised by the appearance of his cousin, the _ci-devant_ captain
of Dragoons, of whose existence he had taken no account since his
afternoon visit to Clapham. He was in his library, a large room at the
back of the house, looking into a small garden shadowed by an old brick
wall, and overlooked by the back windows of Pall Mall, which looked
down into it as into a green well. The room was lined with bookshelves
from floor to ceiling, and the favourite calf binding of those days
made a monotone of sombre brown, suggestive of gloom, even on a summer
day, when the scent of stocks and mignonette was blown in through the
open windows.
Kilrush received his kinsman with cold civility.
Not even in the splendour of his court uniform had George Stobart
looked handsomer than to-day in his severely cut grey cloth coat
and black silk waistcoat. There was a light in his eyes, a buoyant
youthfulness in his aspect, which Kilrush observed with a pang of envy.
Ah, had he been as young, Fate and Antonia might have been kinder.
George put down his hat, and took the chair his cousin indicated,
chilled somewhat by so distant a greeting.
"I saw in _Lloyd's Evening Post_ that your lordship intended starting
for the Continent," he began, "and I thought it my duty to wait upon
you before you left town."
"You are very good--and Lloyd is very impertinent--to take so much
trouble about my movements. Yes, George, I am leaving England."
"Do you go far, sir?"
"Paris will be the first stage of my journey."
"And afterwards?"
"And afterwards? Kamschatka, perhaps, or--hell! I am fixed on nothing
but to leave a town I loathe."
George looked inexpressibly shocked.
"I fear your lordship is out of health," he faltered.
"Fear nothing, hope nothing about me, sir; I am inclined to detest my
fellow-men. If you take that for a symptom of sickness, why then I am
indeed out of health."
"I am sorry I do not find you in happier spirits, sir, for I had a
double motive in waiting on you."
"So have most men--in all they do. Well, sir?"
Kilrush threw himself back in his chair, and waited his cousin's
communication with no more interest in his countenance or manner than
if he were awaiting a petition from one of his footmen.
Nothing could be more marked than the contrast between the two men,
though their features followed the same lines, and the hereditary mark
of an ancient race was stamped indelibly on each. A life of passionate
excitement, self-will, pride, had wasted the form and features of the
elder, and made him look older than his actual years. Yet in those
attenuated features there was such exquisite refinement, in that
almost colourless complexion such a high-bred delicacy, that for most
women the elder face would have been the more attractive. There was a
pathetic appeal in the countenance of the man who had lived his life,
who had emptied the cup of earthly joys, and for whom nothing remained
but decay.
The young man's highest graces were his air of frankness and high
courage, and his soldierly bearing, which three years among the
Methodists had in no wise lessened. He had, indeed, in those years been
still a soldier of the Church Militant, and had stood by John Wesley's
side on more than one occasion when the missiles of a howling mob flew
thick and fast around that hardy itinerant, and when riot threatened to
end in murder.
"Well, sir, your second motive--your _arrière pensée?_" Kilrush
exclaimed impatiently, the young man having taken up his hat again, and
being engaged in smoothing the beaver with a hand that shook ever so
slightly.
"You told me nearly a year ago, sir," he began, hardening himself
for the encounter, "that you would never forgive me if I married
my inferior--my inferior in the world's esteem, that is to say--an
inferiority which I do not admit."
"Hang your admissions, sir! I perfectly remember what I said to you,
and I hope you took warning by it, and that my aunt found another place
for her housemaid."
"Your warning came too late. I had learnt to esteem Lucy Foreman at her
just value. The housemaid, as your lordship is pleased to call her, is
now my wife."
"Then, sir, since you know my ultimatum, what the devil brings you to
this house?"
"I desired that you should hear what I have done from my lips, not from
the public press."
"You are monstrous civil! Well, I am not going to waste angry words
upon you, but your name will come out of my will before I sleep; and
from to-day we are strangers. I can hold no intercourse with a man who
disgraces his name by a beggarly marriage. By Heaven, sir, if I loved
to distraction, if my happiness, my peace, my power to endure this
wretched life, depended upon my winning the idol of my soul, I would
not give my name to a woman of low birth or discreditable connections!"
He struck his clenched fist upon the table in front of him with a wild
vehemence that took his cousin's breath away; then, recovering his
composure, he asked coldly--
"Does your pious mother approve this folly, sir, and take your
housemaid-wife to her heart?"
"My mother has shown a most unchristian temper. She has forbidden me
her house, and swears to disinherit me. To have forfeited her affection
will be ever my deep regret; but I can support the loss of her fortune."
"Indeed! Are you so vastly rich from other resources?"
"I have two hundred a year in India stock--my Uncle Matthew's bequest,
and Lucy's good management promises to make this income enough for
our home--a cottage near Richmond, where we have a garden and all the
rustic things my Lucy loves."
"Having been reared in an alley near Moorfields! I wonder how long
her love of the country will endure wet days and dark nights, and
remoteness from shops and market? Oh, you are still in your honeymoon,
sir, and your sky is all blue. You must wait a month or two before you
will discover how much you are to be pitied, and that I was your true
friend when I cautioned you against this madness. Good day to you, Mr.
Stobart, and be good enough to forget that we have ever called each
other cousins."
George rose, and bowed his farewell. The porter was in the hall ready
to open the door for him. He looked round the great gloomy hall with a
contemptuous smile as he passed out.
"John Wesley's house at the Foundery is more cheerful than this," he
thought.
Kilrush sat with his elbows on the table and his hands clasped above
his head in a melancholy silence.
"Which is the madman, he or I?" he asked himself.
* * * * *
The preparation for his continental journey occupied Lord Kilrush for
a fortnight, during which time he waited with a passionate longing for
some sign of relenting from Antonia; and in all those empty days his
mind was torn by the strife between inclination and a stubborn resolve.
There were moments in which he asked himself why he did not make this
woman his wife; that unfrocked priest, that tippling bookseller's hack,
his father-in-law? Did anything in this world matter to a man so much
as the joy of this present life, his instant happiness? In the hideous
uncertainty of fate, were it not best to snatch the hour's gladness?
"What if I married her, and she turned wanton after a year of bliss?"
he mused. "At least I should have had my day."
But then there came the dark suspicion that she had played him as the
angler plays his fish, that she flung the glittering fly across his
enraptured gaze, intent on landing a coronet; that her womanly candour,
her almost childlike simplicity, were all so much play-acting. What
could he expect of truth and honour from Thornton's daughter?
"If she had given herself to me generously, unquestioningly, I might
believe she loved me," he thought. "But if I married her I must for
ever suspect myself her dupe, the victim of a schemer's ambition, the
sport of an artful coquette, to be betrayed at the first assault of a
younger lover."
No token of relenting came from Antonia; but towards the end of the
second week Mr. Thornton called to inquire about his lordship's health,
and, being informed that his lordship was about to leave England for a
considerable time, pressed for an interview, and was admitted to his
dressing-room.
"I am in despair at the prospect of your lordship's departure," he
said, on being bidden to seat himself. "I know not how my daughter and
I will endure our lives in the absence of so valued a friend."
"I do not apprehend that _you_ will suffer much from wanting my
company, Thornton, since you have been generally out-of-doors during my
visits. And as for your daughter, her interest in an elderly proser's
conversation must have been exhausted long ago."
"On my soul, no! She has delighted in your society--as how could she do
otherwise? She has an intellect vastly superior to her age and sex, and
she had suffered a famine of intellectual conversation. I know that she
has already begun to feel the loss of your company, for she has been
strangely dispirited for the last ten days, and that indefatigable pen
of hers now moves without her usual gusto."
"If she is ill, or drooping, I beg you to send for my physician, Sir
Richard Maningham, who will attend her on my account."
"No, no--'tis no case for Æsculapius. She is out of spirits, but not
ill. How far does your lordship design to extend your travels?"
"Oh, I have decided nothing. I shall stay at Fontainebleau till the
cool season, and then go by easy stages to Italy. I may winter in Rome,
and spend next spring in Florence."
"A year's absence! We shall sorely miss your lordship, and I am already
too deeply in your debt to dare venture----"
"To ask me for a further loan," interrupted Kilrush. "We will have done
with loans, and notes of hand"--Thornton turned pale--"I wish to help
you. Above all, I want to prevent your making a slave of your daughter."
"A slave! My dear girl delights in literary work. She would be
miserable if I refused her assistance."
"Well, be sure she does not drudge for you. I hate to think of her
solitary hours mewed in your miserable second-floor parlour, when she
ought to be enjoying the summer air in some rural garden, idle and
without a care. I want to strike a bargain with you, Thornton."
"I am your lordship's obedient----"
"Instead of these petty loans which degrade you and disgust me, I am
willing to give you a small income--say, a hundred pounds a quarter----"
"My dear lord, this is undreamed-of munificence."
"On condition that you remove with your daughter to some pretty cottage
in a rural neighbourhood--Fulham, Barnes, Hampstead, any rustic spot
within reach of your booksellers and editors--and also that you provide
your daughter with a suitable attendant, a woman of unblemished
character, to wait upon her and accompany her in her walks--in a word,
sir, that being the father of the loveliest woman I ever met, you do
not ignore your responsibilities, and neglect her."
"Oh, sir, is this meant for a reproach, because I have suffered Antonia
to receive you alone? Sure, 'twas the knowledge of her virtue and of
your noble character that justified my confidence."
"True, sir, but there may be occasions when you should exercise a
paternal supervision. I shall instruct my lawyer as to the payment
of this allowance, and I expect that you will study your daughter's
convenience and happiness in all your future arrangements. Should
I hear you are neglecting that duty, your income will stop, on the
instant. I must beg, also, that you keep the source of your means a
secret from Miss Thornton, who has a haughtier spirit than yours, and
might dislike being obliged by a friend. And now, as I have a hundred
things to do before I leave town, I must bid you good morning."
"I go, my lord, but not till I have kissed this generous hand."
"Pshaw!"
Kilrush snatched his hand away impatiently, rang for his valet, and
dismissed his grateful friend with a curt nod.
He left St. James's Square next day after his morning chocolate, in his
coach and six, bound for Dover, determined not to return till he had
learnt the lesson of forgetfulness and indifference.