VICTORY.
Mr. Guyon was not troubled with sensitive feelings, and bashfulness or
hesitation in the carrying out of any project on whose execution he
had decided were completely foreign to his character. He possessed a
happy mixture of hardness and effrontery, which enabled him to do very
cruel things with charming lightness of heart and an engaging
unconsciousness of demeanour, which had occasionally even deluded his
victims themselves into thinking his intentions more harmless than his
acts. He was a man whom even remorse, the evil form of repentance, had
never visited, and who had never believed in any agency more
supernatural than _luck_. He had been accustomed to watch the
variations of that divinity pretty closely, and had arrived at a sort
of scheme of its operations; and just now he regarded good fortune as
in the ascendant--a conviction which received signal confirmation by
the success of his interview with Streightley. He had not distinctly
acknowledged to himself that he dreaded finding an obstacle in
Robert's conscientiousness; he had rather put his apprehensions to the
score of the "City man's" pride.
"I can't pretend that she likes him, or that she does not like Frere,"
he had said over and over again, as he turned the hopeful project,
which had succeeded so perfectly, in his mind. "He is not quite such a
flat as to believe any thing of that sort. It all depends on his being
satisfied to have the girl at any price; and he knows so little of the
world and of women, that I do believe he'll be idiot enough to take
her against her will. A pretty life she'll lead him; but that's no
business of mine."
Mr. Guyon possessed one trivial and negative virtue--he never tried to
deceive himself. Perhaps one reason why his hypocrisy had frequently
been crowned with success was, that he reserved it entirely for his
transactions, sternly extruding it from his meditations. _Vis-à-vis_
Ned Guyon, he was the soul of candour. True to this characteristic,
when screwing up his courage to the inevitable interview with his
daughter, which was the next performance in his programme, Mr. Guyon
did not try to persuade himself, as a more shallow scoundrel would
have done, that he was in reality doing the very best thing within his
power for her, and establishing, in truth, a clear claim to her
gratitude. He did not repeat that the man she loved was a frivolous
fellow, who could never fill the heart and the intellect of such a
woman, and was unworthy of her affection. He said nothing to himself
of all he had said to Robert Streightley. He knew nothing, and he
cared nothing about Frere's character; and the consideration of
Katharine's unhappiness did not concern him in the least.
"She will be very rich," he thought; "and if that does not make her
happy, she is a greater fool than I take her for--a greater fool even
than Streightley."
Callous and unhesitating as he was, nevertheless Mr. Guyon felt
considerable apprehension about the impending explanation with
Katharine. No material disagreement had ever taken place between his
daughter and himself. He had always had a sense of Katharine's
intellectual superiority which had governed him in certain respects;
and an unexpressed unwillingness to rouse a temper which he felt a
tacit conviction he could not rule had restrained him from opposing
her unnecessarily; so that his daughter had always given him credit
for much more amiability and complaisance than he actually possessed.
He was not afraid of her in any actively restraining sense, or he
would not have entertained such a design as that he was now
prosecuting against her; but he was afraid of a war of words with her;
he was afraid that her keenness might lead her to suspicion; above
all, he dreaded her girlish ignorance, her disregard of wealth, when
wealth only was what he had to urge upon her acceptance.
The announcement of Gordon Frere's departure was the cause of almost
as profound an emotion to Mr. Guyon as to his daughter. To her it
meant the extinction of hope, the blighting of joy, the outraging of
love and pride, the awakening of passionate anger and agonising grief.
To him it meant the termination of a period of most unpleasant
suspense, during which he did not dare to take a step towards the
furtherance of his plans, lest at any moment they might collapse, and
defeat insure detection. But all had turned out rightly for him; he
was safe; the young man--"the biggest fool of the lot" Mr. Guyon
called him, with coarse contempt for the pliability of his victim--had
received his sentence in silence and without protest, and had left
England; a circumstance beyond Mr. Guyon's hopes, which had extended
only to his keeping out of Katharine's way until the scheme should
have succeeded.
On his return from the dinner at Greenwich, which had been rather
tedious, and during which Robert Streightley's abstracted look and
dispirited manner had excited Mr. Guyon's scorn and apprehension,
inducing him to think that if there were much delay Robert might
become troublesome and scrupulous after all, he, too, read in the
evening journals the announcement which had come upon his daughter
like the stroke of doom. Unmixed satisfaction was rapidly succeeded by
a determination to act at once. He had seen as little as possible of
Katharine for some time, pleading engagements and business when the
rapid "thinning" of London prevented his procuring the presence of a
third person to insure him against a _tête-à-tête_. But he had watched
her; he had observed her restlessness, her anxiety, her abstraction
and indifference. He had noted the shadow on her beauty, he had heard
the harsh tone which now sounded in her voice, the unreal ring of her
laugh,--had noted them without one touch of pity or hesitation, and
been satisfied with the result. He recognised grief in all these
symptoms, but he saw still more anger, pride, and defiance. Every
thing that he observed gave him encouragement; and Lady Henmarsh, who
did not know the whole truth, but had guessed at something very like
it, had made satisfactory reports. She understood Katharine much
better than her father understood her, and had played the irritating
game, in his interests, with a charming air of unconsciousness, and
complete success. The first thing to be done was to see Lady Henmarsh;
and as she was going to take Sir Timothy out of town in a day or two,
no time was to be lost. Mr. Guyon could be an early man when it suited
his convenience, and it happened to do so just then. He presented
himself at Lady Henmarsh's breakfast-table, much to the surprise and a
little to the confusion of "cousin Hetty," who had never quite lost
the habit of liking to look well for "cousin Ned," and was conscious
that she might have looked better than on this occasion. But "cousin
Ned" had neither time nor inclination for the revival of _ci-devant_
sentiment, and Lady Henmarsh soon perceived that "business" engrossed
him wholly.
"My dearest Kate," said Lady Henmarsh, as, three hours later, she
entered Miss Guyon's room, and found her up and dressed, indeed, but
sitting icily by her bedroom-window, and looking as though a month's
illness had robbed her eyes of their lustre and her cheek of its
bloom,--"what is wrong with you? Clarke tried to prevent my coming
upstairs, but of course I knew you would see _me_. My dear girl, you
look shockingly!"
"Do I?" said Katharine, forcing a smile; "I feel wretched enough. It
is only the heat, I suppose, and the season. It is time for every one
to leave town."
"Every one seems to think so," returned Lady Henmarsh; "except
yourself and ourselves, almost every one is gone. I had such a number
of callers yesterday, I was quite sick of them. So sorry you could not
come round, dear; but you did quite right to keep quiet, if you did
not feel well. By the way, Mr. Mostyn--I must not say your admirer, I
suppose; but the gentleman who kindly permits you to admire him--came
in while the Daventrys were there, and he looked quite sentimental
when your message came. He actually condescended to ask why you did
not go to Mrs. Tresillian's ball, and to say, but for Miss Guyon's
absence, he should have pronounced it the best ball of the season. You
know his formal way. I am sorry you missed it, Kate; they all agreed
that it was a brilliant affair; and Lily Daventry was in ecstasies
about it. To be sure she's new to balls; but how she did go on about
Coote and Tinney's band and Gordon Frere's waltzing!"
Katharine winced. Lady Henmarsh played with a ring-stand, took up the
rings one by one and examined them, keeping a close watch on the girl
as she talked on.
"What a goose that girl is, to be sure, but so pretty! and if the men
admire her so much, though she has not any sense, she is as well
without it. What a flirt she is too! It amused me to watch her trying
her ringlets and her attitudes upon Mr. Mostyn. Now that Gordon
Frere--as great a flirt as herself--is out of the way, she tries her
hand upon him; and he is so horribly vain, that though he was at the
Tresillians' and saw her flirtation with Frere, he actually believes
she is quite captivated. Why do you wear an opal ring, Kate? you were
not born in October; it's unlucky, my dear."
"Is it?" said Katharine languidly. "I did not know. Are the Daventrys
going to Leyton?"
"Yes, they start to-morrow. By the bye, I was so surprised at Gordon
Frere's appointment; weren't you? I never heard him mention it, and
yet it appears it had been settled a long time. I am sorry I did not
see him when he called."
"How do you mean that his appointment was settled?" asked Katharine,
with great self-command. Lady Henmarsh turned her head away from the
dressing-table, and looked full at her, as she answered:
"Why, Lord A. had promised to take him as his private secretary, when
his turn should come; you know those diplomatic people have their
regular order of succession; he told Lily Daventry all about it at the
Tresillians' ball. He had been idling through the season, he said, and
amusing himself the best way he could, in anticipation of going to
work in earnest. He rather thought he should have gone a little
earlier; and to tell you the truth, Kate, I wish he had." There was
meaning in the speaker's tone, and Katharine understood it. Her eye
lighted angrily, as she asked, in the coldest possible voice:
"Indeed! may I ask you why Mr. Gordon Frere's movements are of
interest to you, Lady Henmarsh?"
"Come, come, Kate, don't speak like that to me," said her friend; "you
know perfectly well how dear you are to me, and what an interest I
take in every thing that nearly or remotely concerns you. I'm sure you
can't deny that, my dear."
A bend of the head, a softened expression in the face were the sole
answer.
"And I must say," continued Lady Henmarsh, "I am very much mortified
at the way Gordon Frere has set people talking about you."
"About _me?_"
"Yes, my dear, about you. He paid you very marked attention, and you
received it with quite enough complacency to set people talking--don't
be angry, Kate, I don't blame you; you were not to know that he meant
nothing. And then, for you, and me, the nearest friend you had--a
friend standing, in the eyes of the world, in the place of a
mother--to be the only people of his acquaintance, as it appears we
are, ignorant of the fact that he was going abroad immediately. Just
suppose, Kate, you had cared for him as much as he tried to make you,
and as I am very much afraid many people think you do! No, a male
flirt is my abhorrence, and Gordon is one _aux bouts des ongles_.
I assure you, Lady Daventry--and you know she is not at all an
ill-natured woman, or given to scandal--asked some very unpleasant
questions. I really wish I had seen the gentleman; every one else
seems to have seen him. He was in town only three days, and I really
believe he called in person on every one else, though he only left a
card for Sir Timothy. Did he call here?" Lady Henmarsh asked the
question very suddenly; and as Katharine answered it, her cheeks
reddened with a painful blush, which did not fade again during the
interview.
"No, Lady Henmarsh, he did not."
"Ah, I thought so. And now, my dear Kate, let me speak to you, as I
feel, with the affection of a mother and the experience of a woman of
the world. Gordon Frere has treated you very ill; he has exposed you
to comments, very injurious and painful to any girl, still more so to
a girl situated as you are. He might have made you miserable, as well
as ridiculous, if he had succeeded in making you love him. Now you
must defeat his unmanly triumph, and silence all the talk among our
countless dear friends who are amusing themselves at your expense.
Your being ill just now is peculiarly unfortunate; I know they will
say you are shutting yourself up, and doing the _Didone abbandonata_.
You have rather unfortunately good health, Katharine, for this sort of
thing, and have long defied hot suns and iced creams too successfully
to escape suspicion by pleading them now. I really wish, my dear girl,
you would come out for a drive; there are still many people to see
you--take an old woman's advice, Kate, and don't disdain precaution,
because you are not conscious of its need. _No one_ can afford to be
laughed at; and if you are wise, you will reject Mr. Gordon Frere's
legacy of ridicule."
Lady Henmarsh spoke earnestly and with much mental trepidation. She
had ventured very, very far; much farther than, when she entered
Katharine's room, she had believed she would dare to venture, for she
too knew that Katharine had what her father called "a devil of a
temper;" and there were few things she would not have preferred to
rousing it. But the silence of the girl, something of forlornness
under her pride, the patience with which she had borne her first
approaches, had given Lady Henmarsh courage, and Katharine's demeanour
satisfied her that all her suspicions had been more than just, that
she had loved Gordon Frere frankly, fully, and with all the truth and
ardour which were characteristic of her better nature. A moment's
silence ensued when she had ceased speaking, and then Katharine,
stately, cold, and graceful, rose from her chair, and, placing her
hand upon the bell to summon her maid, said:
"I appreciate your kindness and your advice, Lady Henmarsh. If you
will come back for me in half an hour, I will go with you any where
you please. But--this subject must never be spoken of again between
you and me."
Katharine's maid entered the room, and Lady Henmarsh left it, merely
saying in an assenting tone, "Very well, my dear," and descended the
stairs to the hall. There she met Mr. Guyon, who attended her to her
carriage with great solicitude. A whisper only passed between them,
for they treated servants with systematic caution. It was from Lady
Henmarsh, who said:
"I don't think you will have much trouble, Ned."
Several persons of her acquaintance met Miss Guyon driving in the Park
that afternoon, and had ample leisure to observe her amid the
diminished throng. A few regarded her with curiosity--for though Lady
Henmarsh had grossly exaggerated the facts, she and Gordon Frere had
been "talked of" in their own set--many with admiration, and remarked
that she looked particularly well and blooming, not at all cut up by
the season. None knew that something had gone out of the beautiful
face that was never to return to it--that the woman they admired that
day was not the same they had been accustomed to see and to admire,
but who was now a thing of the past, never more to have any terrene
existence.
"Katharine," said Mr. Guyon to his daughter on the following day, as
she sat opposite him at breakfast, while he furtively watched her
countenance from behind the defence of a convenient newspaper, "I have
something to say to you."
"Have you, papa? What is it?"
She looked at him uninterested and unconcerned. Mr. Guyon threw down
his newspaper, left his chair, and took up a position on the hearthrug
suggestive of wintry weather. He felt and he looked awkward; he
cleared his throat, and pulled at the blue-silk ribbon which encircled
it, as though its pressure incommoded him. His daughter did not move,
and the expression of her face was still uninterested, unconcerned.
"Yes, Katie," he recommenced. "I have indeed, my dear, something very
particular to say to you. I don't often speak seriously to you, you
know, and never bother you about business. So you must not think I
want to bother you now, and you must really attend to me."
"If it's about going out of town, papa, I really don't care where----"
"No, no, Kate, it's not that," said her father, interrupting her;
"it's nothing so easily settled as that. The fact is--Kate," he said
abruptly, and in a changed tone, "what do you think of our friend
Streightley?"
"What do I think of Mr. Streightley, papa? I can hardly tell you; I
don't think I know,--I don't think I have any thoughts about him. But
what has that to do with any thing important or particular that you
want to speak to me about?"
"It has every thing to do with it, Kate. Robert Streightley is the
best friend I have in the world, and he is the best fellow I know."
Katharine looked at her father with surprise. She was very far from
understanding him perfectly; but she certainly had a notion that Mr.
Streightley did not resemble the sort of person to whom she would have
expected her father to apply the favourite epithet, "good-fellow." She
said nothing, however; and Mr. Guyon, watching her more eagerly than
he suffered his features to tell, continued:
"I need not weary you by explaining the services Streightley has
done me in detail, but I must tell you that I have been unfortunate
in money matters in many ways; I have trusted friends, and been
deceived--" again Katharine's face expressed surprise, which she
certainly felt, and yet would have been puzzled to explain. "I have
been speculating, and have been ill-advised; the result has been
disastrous; in short, Katie, I must have gone to the wall had it not
been for Robert Streightley."
Katharine had become exceedingly pale now, and she fixed her eyes on
her father with more steadiness than he liked. He leaned his right
elbow on the chimney-piece, and kept his right hand hovering about his
mouth and chin, ready to cover an undesirable expression of candour or
embarrassment.
"Do you mean that Mr. Streightley has lent you money, papa?" asked
Katharine.
"Yes, my dear, he has, and large sums too; and I have lost so heavily
by those speculations I mentioned, that I cannot pay him without the
greatest inconvenience indeed almost ruin. He does not know how I am
situated; and of course it would be painful and humiliating to me to
tell him, unless I could also tell him the best news he could hear,
Kate----"
"What is that, papa?" she asked, perfectly without suspicion. Mr.
Guyon found his change of attitude very useful now, and he critically
examined his boots before he said:
"Well, my dear--I know you will be surprised, and indeed I was
astonished when he mentioned the subject to me. The best news that Mr.
Streightley could hear, Katie, would be that you had consented to
become his wife--" and at the last words he raised his head and looked
at her. Katharine started up, and exclaimed:
"Me! I!--O papa, what are you saying?"
Her father approached her, put one arm round her waist, and took her
hand in his. He seldom caressed his daughter, and she instinctively
shrunk from the encircling arm, as if a danger threatened her; but he
held her firmly, and she stood still and listened.
"I daresay you can't understand it, Kate, but it's quite true for all
that; and you know you are a doosid sensible girl, and doosid lucky
too, I can tell you." Mr. Guyon was recovering himself. "Now look
here. You've always lived like a lady--a long way better than many
ladies, by Jove--and you don't know what difficulties and poverty
mean; and it will be your own fault if you do know now, or ever.
You've no fortune, Kate; and a girl who hasn't can't choose for
herself--that's a fact. Men can't and won't marry without money; and
though you don't know much of the world, except the ball, supper,
promenade, and park side of it, Katie, I daresay you know enough of it
not to deny _that_. You don't know much of Streightley; and I daresay
he's not the sort of fellow you would fancy if you _did_ know ever so
much of him. But then, you see, the sort of fellow you would fancy
can't marry you, because you have no money, or won't, which comes to
the same thing,--at all events doesn't--" Here Katharine released
herself, and sat down. Still she turned her white face and attentive
eyes steadfastly upon him, and showed no sign of emotion, save the
occasional twitching of the hand which she laid upon the table.
Immensely reassured by her quietness, Mr. Guyon went on, quite
cheerily:
"It's all nonsense thinking about love-matches in these days; and
indeed at any time I don't think they turned out well. Now, Kate, this
is the real fact. If you don't marry Streightley, who is a first-rate
fellow, and immensely rich, and ready to do all sorts of generous and
noble things, in addition to giving me time to look about me until I
can pay him the money I owe him, absolute ruin is staring me in the
face, and you too. Don't speak, Kate; don't say any thing in a hurry;
and don't say I ask you to marry Streightley for my sake; but just
listen to the alternative. Well, suppose that you determine not to
accept Streightley;--and remember, beautiful and admired as you are,
he is the first man who has ever asked you to marry him--a pretty
strong proof, I think, of the truth of my statement that men won't
marry without money, especially if you will take the trouble to count
up the number of ugly heiresses married since you have been out, and
to several of your own admirers too;--we all go to smash here; I must
shift for myself the best way I can--get off abroad, and escape
imprisonment; though I can't escape disgrace--and never hope to show
my face in England again. And as for you, Katie, don't think me hard
or cruel--I must tell you the truth; I must tell you the whole truth,
that you may know what you really reject or accept. I see nothing for
you but becoming a companion to a lady--which I take it is the most
infernal kind of white slavery going--or being dependent on the
charity of Lady Henmarsh. You can't live with your aunt, because she
is going to live with her daughter; and you can't come abroad with me,
for many reasons, the chief being that I could not afford to take you.
Cousin Hetty is very pleasant and nice now, and a capital chaperone;
but you are, as I said before, a doosid sensible girl, and I daresay
you can guess what cousin Hetty would be to a poor relation, with a
shady father, living on her charity,--so I won't dwell upon _that_."
He paused a little, but still she did not speak. Still she looked at
him, her face white, her lips firmly closed, and the hand on the table
twitching occasionally. Once or twice there was a sound in her throat
as if she swallowed with difficulty, but she uttered no word. Mr.
Guyon felt exceedingly hot and uncomfortable, but he went on, less
glibly perhaps, and looking rather over than at her.
"The other side of the medal is this, Katie. You have the opportunity
of marrying a rich man, in an honourable and advancing position, so
desperately in love with you that you may choose your own manner of
life. He is very good-looking and well-bred, and I don't see any
reason why you may not like him quite well enough to get on with him
as happily as any woman gets on with any man. Let me tell you, my
dear, the strength of your position will be incalculably increased by
your not being in love with him; in nine cases out of ten a woman in
love with her husband bores him horribly, and brings out all the bad
points in his temper, which she might never find out, or at all events
might easily manage, otherwise. You will have every material of
reasonable happiness, and the power of indulging your tastes--and they
are not economical, Kate. And now choose for yourself; and remember I
don't play the sentimental parent, and urge you to this for my sake.
We have always been good friends, Katie, but I don't expect a
sacrifice from you; and I don't talk the absurd nonsense of
representing a splendid offer like this, involving advantages which no
girl in London knows better than yourself how to appreciate, as a
fearful trial, affording you an opportunity of performing martyrdom to
filial duty."
There was a coarse sneer in his voice, which he would have done well
to repress, which was dangerous; but his temper was getting the better
of his prudence. Katharine shrunk from the tone, and felt even in that
moment of tumultuous emotion that the love she had for her father was
but a weak affection. It was dying while he spoke, dying as her fresh
knowledge of him was born; it would soon be dead she knew, with that
other love now for ever lost to her; and only the hopeless pain, the
weariness of contempt, would live where the two honest natural
affections had sprung up, to be blighted. Mutual avoidance, something
like mutual fear, was in the faces that looked at each other, and were
so strangely like, now that the expression of each was one of its
worst. With no enviable sensations Mr. Guyon waited for Katharine to
speak. She rose from her seat before she did so; then she said:
"Mr. Streightley does not imagine that I entertain any feeling of
regard for him, I suppose?"
This was a puzzling question, and Mr. Guyon allowed the embarrassment
it caused him to be evident.
"Except as a friend of mine, and--" he stammered.
"I understand," said Katharine, and she bent her head slowly and
emphatically. "And he is willing to purchase me on those terms? It is
well the bargain should be distinctly understood."
If Mr. Guyon had ever understood, had ever cared to understand his
daughter, these words must have taught him how great a change had
passed upon her. They would have been impossible of utterance to the
Katharine of three weeks ago; but a wide gulf, never to be spanned, of
pain and injury lay between that time and the present. He felt afraid
of the girl; but rallying courage for a decisive effort, he said:
"Your answer, Katharine; you see the case as clearly as I do;--what am
I to say to Mr. Streightley?"
"Nothing," she answered, "but that I will see him myself. Tell him to
come here this evening, to-morrow, any time you please,--I will see
him, I will hear what he has to say. There must be no mistake in
_this_ case, no self-deception, no mutual deception. The truth is not
beautiful or holy, but at least it shall be told."
She left the room as soon as she had spoken the last words. Her father
remained as she had left him; an ugly dark shadow had spread itself
over his face. After some minutes he looked up, shrugged his
shoulders, and strolled over to one of the windows. He looked out idly
for a little then roused himself, and went into his own room. There he
wrote two letters, bestowing considerable: time and pains on the
first, which was addressed to Robert Streightley, but scribbling the
other off with careless rapidity. It bore Lady Henmarsh's name upon
the envelope, and contained the following words:
"DEAR HETTY,--I have done my part of this business, and _I think_
things look well. As to my having very little trouble, perhaps if you
had heard and seen, you would have continued to think so; but I should
be devilish sorry to do it over again.--Yours, E. G."
Katharine did not appear at dinner that day, and Mr. Streightley
partook of that meal, for which he had a very moderate appetite,
_tête-à-tête_ with her father. When the two gentlemen adjourned to the
drawing-room, Katharine was seated by the window, and they could
hardly discern her features, so rapidly was the autumn twilight
deepening into darkness. While Mr. Guyon was calling rather angrily
for lights, Robert Streightley advanced towards the motionless figure,
awaiting his greeting; and as Mr. Guyon heard his daughter reply to
the confused and agitated words which Robert addressed to her, he
started at the changed tone of the voice, as if a stranger had spoken.
END OF VOL. I.
LONDON:
ROBSON AND SON, GREAT NORTHERN PRINTING WORKS,
PANCRAS ROAD, N.W.
End of Project Gutenberg's Kissing the Rod. (Vol. 1 of 3), by Edmund Yates