Miss Effingham’s Four Lovers
One morning early in June Lady Laura called at Lady Baldock’s house
and asked for Miss Effingham. The servant was showing her into
the large drawing-room, when she again asked specially for Miss
Effingham. “I think Miss Effingham is there,” said the man, opening
the door. Miss Effingham was not there. Lady Baldock was sitting
all alone, and Lady Laura perceived that she had been caught in
the net which she specially wished to avoid. Now Lady Baldock had
not actually or openly quarrelled with Lady Laura Kennedy or with
Lord Brentford, but she had conceived a strong idea that her niece
Violet was countenanced in all improprieties by the Standish family
generally, and that therefore the Standish family was to be regarded
as a family of enemies. There was doubtless in her mind considerable
confusion on the subject, for she did not know whether Lord Chiltern
or Mr. Finn was the suitor whom she most feared,--and she was aware,
after a sort of muddled fashion, that the claims of these two wicked
young men were antagonistic to each other. But they were both
regarded by her as emanations from the same source of iniquity,
and, therefore, without going deeply into the machinations of Lady
Laura,--without resolving whether Lady Laura was injuring her by
pressing her brother as a suitor upon Miss Effingham, or by pressing
a rival of her brother,--still she became aware that it was her duty
to turn a cold shoulder on those two houses in Portman Square and
Grosvenor Place. But her difficulties in doing this were very great,
and it may be said that Lady Baldock was placed in an unjust and
cruel position. Before the end of May she had proposed to leave
London, and to take her daughter and Violet down to Baddingham,--or
to Brighton, if they preferred it, or to Switzerland. “Brighton in
June!” Violet had exclaimed. “Would not a month among the glaciers be
delightful!” Miss Boreham had said. “Don’t let me keep you in town,
aunt,” Violet replied; “but I do not think I shall go till other
people go. I can have a room at Laura Kennedy’s house.” Then Lady
Baldock, whose position was hard and cruel, resolved that she would
stay in town. Here she had in her hands a ward over whom she had no
positive power, and yet in respect to whom her duty was imperative!
Her duty was imperative, and Lady Baldock was not the woman to
neglect her duty;--and yet she knew that the doing of her duty would
all be in vain. Violet would marry a shoe-black out of the streets if
she were so minded. It was of no use that the poor lady had provided
herself with two strings, two most excellent strings, to her
bow,--two strings either one of which should have contented Miss
Effingham. There was Lord Fawn, a young peer, not very rich
indeed,--but still with means sufficient for a wife, a rising
man, and in every way respectable, although a Whig. And there
was Mr. Appledom, one of the richest commoners in England, a
fine Conservative too, with a seat in the House, and everything
appropriate. He was fifty, but looked hardly more than thirty-five,
and was,--so at least Lady Baldock frequently asserted,--violently in
love with Violet Effingham. Why had not the law, or the executors, or
the Lord Chancellor, or some power levied for the protection of the
proprieties, made Violet absolutely subject to her guardian till she
should be made subject to a husband?
“Yes, I think she is at home,” said Lady Baldock, in answer to Lady
Laura’s inquiry for Violet. “At least, I hardly know. She seldom
tells me what she means to do,--and sometimes she will walk out quite
alone!” A most imprudent old woman was Lady Baldock, always opening
her hand to her adversaries, unable to control herself in the
scolding of people, either before their faces or behind their backs,
even at moments in which such scolding was most injurious to her own
cause. “However, we will see,” she continued. Then the bell was rung,
and in a few minutes Violet was in the room. In a few minutes more
they were up-stairs together in Violet’s own room, in spite of the
openly-displayed wrath of Lady Baldock. “I almost wish she had never
been born,” said Lady Baldock to her daughter. “Oh, mamma, don’t
say that.” “I certainly do wish that I had never seen her.” “Indeed
she has been a grievous trouble to you, mamma,” said Miss Boreham,
sympathetically.
“Brighton! What nonsense!” said Lady Laura.
“Of course it’s nonsense. Fancy going to Brighton! And then they
have proposed Switzerland. If you could only hear Augusta talking in
rapture of a month among the glaciers! And I feel so ungrateful. I
believe they would spend three months with me at any horrible place
that I could suggest,--at Hong Kong if I were to ask it,--so intent
are they on taking me away from metropolitan danger.”
“But you will not go?”
“No!--I won’t go. I know I am very naughty; but I can’t help feeling
that I cannot be good without being a fool at the same time. I must
either fight my aunt, or give way to her. If I were to yield, what a
life I should have;--and I should despise myself after all.”
“And what is the special danger to be feared now?”
“I don’t know;--you, I fancy. I told her that if she went, I should
go to you. I knew that would make her stay.”
“I wish you would come to me,” said Lady Laura.
“I shouldn’t think of it really,--not for any length of time.”
“Why not?”
“Because I should be in Mr. Kennedy’s way.”
“You wouldn’t be in his way in the least. If you would only be down
punctually for morning prayers, and go to church with him on Sunday
afternoon, he would be delighted to have you.”
“What did he say about Madame Max coming?”
“Not a word. I don’t think he quite knew who she was then. I fancy he
has inquired since, by something he said yesterday.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing that matters;--only a word. I haven’t come here to talk
about Madame Max Goesler,--nor yet about Mr. Kennedy.”
“Whom have you come to talk about?” asked Violet, laughing a little,
with something of increased colour in her cheeks, though she could
not be said to blush.
“A lover of course,” said Lady Laura.
“I wish you would leave me alone with my lovers. You are as bad or
worse than my aunt. She, at any rate, varies her prescription. She
has become sick of poor Lord Fawn because he’s a Whig.”
“And who is her favourite now?”
“Old Mr. Appledom,--who is really a most unexceptionable old party,
and whom I like of all things. I really think I could consent to be
Mrs. Appledom, to get rid of my troubles,--if he did not dye his
whiskers and have his coats padded.”
“He’d give up those little things if you asked him.”
“I shouldn’t have the heart to do it. Besides, this isn’t his time of
the year for making proposals. His love fever, which is of a very low
kind, and intermits annually, never comes on till the autumn. It is a
rural malady, against which he is proof while among his clubs!”
“Well, Violet,--I am like your aunt.”
“Like Lady Baldock?”
“In one respect. I, too, will vary my prescription.”
“What do you mean, Laura?”
“Just this,--that if you like to marry Phineas Finn, I will say that
you are right.”
“Heaven and earth! And why am I to marry Phineas Finn?”
“Only for two reasons; because he loves you, and because--”
“No,--I deny it. I do not.”
“I had come to fancy that you did.”
“Keep your fancy more under control then. But upon my word I can’t
understand this. He was your great friend.”
“What has that to do with it?” demanded Lady Laura.
“And you have thrown over your brother, Laura?”
“You have thrown him over. Is he to go on for ever asking and being
refused?”
“I do not know why he should not,” said Violet, “seeing how very
little trouble it gives him. Half an hour once in six months does it
all for him, allowing him time for coming and going in a cab.”
“Violet, I do not understand you. Have you refused Oswald so often
because he does not pass hours on his knees before you?”
“No, indeed! His nature would be altered very much for the worse
before he could do that.”
“Why do you throw it in his teeth then that he does not give you more
of his time?”
“Why have you come to tell me to marry Mr. Phineas Finn? That is what
I want to know. Mr. Phineas Finn, as far as I am aware, has not a
shilling in the world,--except a month’s salary now due to him from
the Government. Mr. Phineas Finn I believe to be the son of a country
doctor in Ireland,--with about seven sisters. Mr. Phineas Finn is a
Roman Catholic. Mr. Phineas Finn is,--or was a short time ago,--in
love with another lady; and Mr. Phineas Finn is not so much in
love at this moment but what he is able to intrust his cause to an
ambassador. None short of a royal suitor should ever do that with
success.”
“Has he never pleaded his cause to you himself?”
“My dear, I never tell gentlemen’s secrets. It seems that if he has,
his success was so trifling that he has thought he had better trust
some one else for the future.”
“He has not trusted me. He has not given me any commission.”
“Then why have you come?”
“Because,--I hardly know how to tell his story. There have been
things about Oswald which made it almost necessary that Mr. Finn
should explain himself to me.”
“I know it all;--about their fighting. Foolish young men! I am not
a bit obliged to either of them,--not a bit. Only fancy, if my aunt
knew it, what a life she would lead me! Gustavus knows all about it,
and I feel that I am living at his mercy. Why were they so
wrong-headed?”
“I cannot answer that,--though I know them well enough to be sure
that Chiltern was the one in fault.”
“It is so odd that you should have thrown your brother over.”
“I have not thrown my brother over. Will you accept Oswald if he asks
you again?”
“No,” almost shouted Violet.
“Then I hope that Mr. Finn may succeed. I want him to succeed in
everything. There;--you may know it all. He is my Phoebus Apollo.”
“That is flattering to me,--looking at the position in which you
desire to place your Phoebus at the present moment.”
“Come, Violet, I am true to you, and let me have a little truth from
you. This man loves you, and I think is worthy of you. He does not
love me, but he is my friend. As his friend, and believing in his
worth, I wish for his success beyond almost anything else in the
world. Listen to me, Violet. I don’t believe in those reasons which
you gave me just now for not becoming this man’s wife.”
“Nor do I.”
“I know you do not. Look at me. I, who have less of real heart than
you, I who thought that I could trust myself to satisfy my mind and
my ambition without caring for my heart, I have married for what you
call position. My husband is very rich, and a Cabinet Minister, and
will probably be a peer. And he was willing to marry me at a time
when I had not a shilling of my own.”
“He was very generous.”
“He has asked for it since,” said Lady Laura. “But never mind. I have
not come to talk about myself;--otherwise than to bid you not do what
I have done. All that you have said about this man’s want of money
and of family is nothing.”
“Nothing at all,” said Violet. “Mere words,--fit only for such people
as my aunt.”
“Well then?”
“Well?”
“If you love him--!”
“Ah! but if I do not? You are very close in inquiring into my
secrets. Tell me, Laura;--was not this young Crichton once a lover of
your own?”
“Psha! And do you think I cannot keep a gentleman’s secret as well as
you?”
“What is the good of any secret, Laura, when we have been already so
open? He tried his ’prentice hand on you; and then he came to me. Let
us watch him, and see who’ll be the third. I too like him well enough
to hope that he’ll land himself safely at last.”