"Cruel"
For two or three days after the first scene between the Duke and his
daughter,--that scene in which she was forbidden either to see or
to write to her lover,--not a word was said at Matching about Mr.
Tregear, nor were any steps taken towards curtailing her liberty
of action. She had said she would not write to him without telling
her father, and the Duke was too proud of the honour of his family
to believe it to be possible that she should deceive him. Nor was
it possible. Not only would her own idea of duty prevent her from
writing to her lover, although she had stipulated for the right to do
so in some possible emergency,--but, carried far beyond that in her
sense of what was right and wrong, she felt it now incumbent on her
to have no secret from her father at all. The secret, as long as it
had been a secret, had been a legacy from her mother,--and had been
kept, at her lover's instance, during that period of mourning for
her mother in which it would, she thought, have been indecorous that
there should be any question of love or of giving in marriage. It had
been a burden to her, though a necessary burden. She had been very
clear that the revelation should be made to her father, when it was
made, by her lover. That had been done,--and now it was open to her
to live without any secrecy,--as was her nature. She meant to cling
to her lover. She was quite sure of that. Nothing could divide her
from him but his death or hers,--or falseness on his part. But as
to marriage, that would not be possible till her father had assented.
And as to seeing the man,--ah, yes, if she could do so with her
father's assent! She would not be ashamed to own her great desire to
see him. She would tell her father that all her happiness depended
upon seeing him. She would not be coy in speaking of her love. But
she would obey her father.
She had a strong idea that she would ultimately prevail,--an idea
also that that "ultimately" should not be postponed to some undefined
middle-aged period of her life. As she intended to belong to Frank
Tregear, she thought it expedient that he should have the best of
her days as well as what might be supposed to be the worst; and she
therefore resolved that it would be her duty to make her father
understand that though she would certainly obey him, she would look
to be treated humanely by him, and not to be made miserable for an
indefinite term of years.
The first word spoken between them on the subject,--the first word
after that discussion,--began with him and was caused by his feeling
that her present life at Matching must be sad and lonely. Lady
Cantrip had again written that she would be delighted to take
her;--but Lady Cantrip was in London and must be in London, at any
rate when Parliament should again be sitting. A London life would
perhaps, at present, hardly suit Lady Mary. Then a plan had been
prepared which might be convenient. The Duke had a house at Richmond,
on the river, called The Horns. That should be lent to Lady Cantrip,
and Mary should there be her guest. So it was settled between the
Duke and Lady Cantrip. But as yet Lady Mary knew nothing of the
arrangement.
"I think I shall go up to town to-morrow," said the Duke to his
daughter.
"For long?"
"I shall be gone only one night. It is on your behalf that I am
going."
"On my behalf, papa?"
"I have been writing to Lady Cantrip."
"Not about Mr. Tregear?"
"No;--not about Mr. Tregear," said the father with a mixture of anger
and solemnity in his tone. "It is my desire to regard Mr. Tregear as
though he did not exist."
"That is not possible, papa."
"I have alluded to the inconvenience of your position here."
"Why is it inconvenient?"
"You are too young to be without a companion. It is not fit that you
should be so much alone."
"I do not feel it."
"It is very melancholy for you, and cannot be good for you. They will
go down to The Horns, so that you will not be absolutely in London,
and you will find Lady Cantrip a very nice person."
"I don't care for new people just now, papa," she said. But to
this he paid but little heed; nor was she prepared to say that she
would not do as he directed. When therefore he left Matching, she
understood that he was going to prepare a temporary home for her.
Nothing further was said about Tregear. She was too proud to ask that
no mention of his name should be made to Lady Cantrip. And he when he
left the house did not think that he would find himself called upon
to allude to the subject.
But when Lady Cantrip made some inquiry about the girl and her
habits,--asking what were her ordinary occupations, how she
was accustomed to pass her hours, to what she chiefly devoted
herself,--then at last with much difficulty the Duke did bring
himself to tell the story. "Perhaps it is better you should know it
all," he said as he told it.
"Poor girl! Yes, Duke; upon the whole it is better that I should know
it all," said Lady Cantrip. "Of course he will not come here."
"Oh dear; I hope not."
"Nor to The Horns."
"I hope he will never see her again anywhere," said the Duke.
"Poor girl!"
"Have I not been right? Is it not best to put an end to such a thing
at once?"
"Certainly at once, if it has to be put an end to,--and can be put an
end to."
"It must be put an end to," said the Duke, very decidedly. "Do you
not see that it must be so? Who is Mr. Tregear?"
"I suppose they were allowed to be together."
"He was unfortunately intimate with Silverbridge, who took him over
to Italy. He has nothing; not even a profession." Lady Cantrip could
not but smile when she remembered the immense wealth of the man who
was speaking to her;--and the Duke saw the smile and understood it.
"You will understand what I mean, Lady Cantrip. If this young man
were in other respects suitable, of course I could find an income for
them. But he is nothing; just an idle seeker for pleasure without the
means of obtaining it."
"That is very bad."
"As for rank," continued the Duke energetically, "I do not think
that I am specially wedded to it. I have found myself as willing
to associate with those who are without it as with those who have
it. But for my child, I would wish her to mate with one of her own
class."
"It would be best."
"When a young man comes to me who, though I believe him to be what is
called a gentleman, has neither rank, nor means, nor profession, nor
name, and asks for my daughter, surely I am right to say that such a
marriage shall not be thought of. Was I not right?" demanded the Duke
persistently.
"But it is a pity that it should be so. It is a pity that they should
ever have come together."
"It is indeed, indeed to be lamented,--and I will own at once that
the fault was not hers. Though I must be firm in this, you are not to
suppose that I am angry with her. I have myself been to blame." This
he said with a resolution that,--as he and his wife had been one
flesh,--all faults committed by her should, now that she was dead, be
accepted by him as his faults. "It had not occurred to me that as yet
she would love any man."
"Has it gone deep with her, Duke?"
"I fear that all things go deep with her."
"Poor girl!"
"But they shall be kept apart! As long as your great kindness is
continued to her they shall be kept apart!"
"I do not think that I should be found good at watching a young
lady."
"She will require no watching."
"Then of course they will not meet. She had better know that you have
told me."
"She shall know it."
"And let her know also that anything I can do to make her happy shall
be done. But, Duke, there is but one cure."
"Time, you mean."
"Yes; time; but I did not mean time." Then she smiled as she went
on. "You must not suppose that I am speaking against my own sex if I
say that she will not forget Mr. Tregear till someone else has made
himself agreeable to her. We must wait till she can go out a little
into society. Then she will find out that there are others in the
world besides Mr. Tregear. It so often is the case that a girl's love
means her sympathy for him who has chanced to be nearest to her."
The Duke as he went away thought very much of what Lady Cantrip had
said to him;--particularly of those last words. "Till some one else
has made himself agreeable to her." Was he to send his girl into the
world in order that she might find a lover? There was something in
the idea which was thoroughly distasteful to him. He had not given
his mind much to the matter, but he felt that a woman should be
sought for,--sought for and extracted, cunningly, as it were, from
some hiding-place, and not sent out into a market to be exposed as
for sale. In his own personal history there had been a misfortune,--a
misfortune, the sense of which he could never, at any moment, have
expressed to any ears, the memory of which had been always buried in
his own bosom,--but a misfortune in that no such cunning extraction
on his part had won for him the woman to whose hands had been
confided the strings of his heart. His wife had undergone that
process of extraction before he had seen her, and his marriage with
her had been a matter of sagacious bargaining. He was now told that
his daughter must be sent out among young men in order that she might
become sufficiently fond of some special one to be regardless of
Tregear. There was a feeling that in doing so she must lose something
of the freshness of the bloom of her innocence. How was this transfer
of her love to be effected? Let her go here because she will meet the
heir of this wealthy house who may probably be smitten by her charms;
or there because that other young lordling would make a fit husband
for her. Let us contrive to throw her into the arms of this man, or
put her into the way of that man. Was his girl to be exposed to this?
Surely that method of bargaining to which he had owed his own wife
would be better than that. Let it be said,--only he himself most
certainly could not be the person to say it,--let it be said to some
man of rank and means and fairly good character: "Here is a wife for
you with so many thousand pounds, with beauty, as you can see for
yourself, with rank and belongings of the highest; very good in every
respect;--only that as regards her heart she thinks she has given
it to a young man named Tregear. No marriage there is possible; but
perhaps the young lady might suit you?" It was thus he had been
married. There was an absence in it of that romance which, though he
had never experienced it in his own life, was always present to his
imagination. His wife had often ridiculed him because he could only
live among figures and official details; but to her had not been
given the power of looking into a man's heart and feeling all that
was there. Yes;--in such bargaining for a wife, in such bargaining
for a husband, there could be nothing of the tremulous delicacy of
feminine romance; but it would be better than standing at a stall
in the market till the sufficient purchaser should come. It never
occurred to him that the delicacy, the innocence, the romance, the
bloom might all be preserved if he would give his girl to the man
whom she said she loved. Could he have modelled her future course
according to his own wishes, he would have had her live a gentle life
for the next three years, with a pencil perhaps in her hand or a
music-book before her;--and then come forth, cleaned as it were by
such quarantine from the impurity to which she had been subjected.
When he was back at Matching he at once told his daughter what he had
arranged for her, and then there took place a prolonged discussion
both as to his view of her future life and as to her own. "You did
tell her then about Mr. Tregear?" she asked.
"As she is to have charge of you for a time I thought it best."
"Perhaps it is. Perhaps--you were afraid."
"No; I was not afraid," he said angrily.
"You need not be afraid. I shall do nothing elsewhere that I would
not do here, and nothing anywhere without telling you."
"I know I can trust you."
"But, papa, I shall always intend to marry Mr. Tregear."
"No!" he exclaimed.
"Yes;--always. I want you to understand exactly how it is. Nothing
you can do can separate me from him."
"Mary, that is very wicked."
"It cannot be wicked to tell the truth, papa. I mean to try to do all
that you tell me. I shall not see him, or write to him,--unless there
should be some very particular reason. And if I did see him or write
to him I would tell you. And of course I should not think of--of
marrying without your leave. But I shall expect you to let me marry
him."
"Never!"
"Then I shall think you are--cruel; and you will break my heart."
"You should not call your father cruel."
"I hope you will not be cruel."
"I can never permit you to marry this man. It would be altogether
improper. I cannot allow you to say that I am cruel because I do what
I feel to be my duty. You will see other people."
"A great many perhaps."
"And will learn to,--to,--to forget him."
"Never! I will not forget him. I should hate myself if I thought it
possible. What would love be worth if it could be forgotten in that
way?" As he heard this he reflected whether his own wife, this girl's
mother, had ever forgotten her early love for that Burgo Fitzgerald
whom in her girlhood she had wished to marry.
When he was leaving her she called him back again. "There is one
other thing I think I ought to say, papa. If Lady Cantrip speaks to
me about Mr. Tregear, I can only tell her what I have told you. I
shall never give him up." When he heard this he turned angrily from
her, almost stamping his foot upon the ground, when she quietly left
the room.
Cruel! She had told him that he would be cruel, if he opposed her
love. He thought he knew of himself that he could not be cruel,--even
to a fly, even to a political opponent. There could be no cruelty
without dishonesty, and did he not always struggle to be honest?
Cruel to his own daughter!