MARION FAY.
A Novel.
by
ANTHONY TROLLOPE,
Author of
"Framley Parsonage," "Orley Farm," "The Way We Live Now," etc., etc.
In Three Volumes.
VOL. I.
London:
Chapman & Hall, Limited, 11, Henrietta St.
1882
[All Rights reserved.]
Bungay:
Clay and Taylor, Printers.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.
I. THE MARQUIS OF KINGSBURY.
II. LORD HAMPSTEAD.
III. THE MARCHIONESS.
IV. LADY FRANCES.
V. MRS. RODEN.
VI. PARADISE ROW.
VII. THE POST OFFICE.
VIII. MR. GREENWOOD.
IX. AT KÖNIGSGRAAF.
X. "NOBLESSE OBLIGE."
XI. LADY PERSIFLAGE.
XII. CASTLE HAUTBOY.
XIII. THE BRAESIDE HARRIERS.
XIV. COMING HOME FROM HUNTING.
XV. MARION FAY AND HER FATHER.
XVI. THE WALK BACK TO HENDON.
XVII. LORD HAMPSTEAD'S SCHEME.
XVIII. HOW THEY LIVED AT TRAFFORD PARK.
XIX. LADY AMALDINA'S LOVER.
XX. THE SCHEME IS SUCCESSFUL.
XXI. WHAT THEY ALL THOUGHT AS THEY WENT HOME.
XXII. AGAIN AT TRAFFORD.
MARION FAY.
CHAPTER I.
THE MARQUIS OF KINGSBURY.
When Mr. Lionel Trafford went into Parliament for the Borough of
Wednesbury as an advanced Radical, it nearly broke the heart of his
uncle, the old Marquis of Kingsbury. Among Tories of his day the
Marquis had been hyper-Tory,--as were his friends, the Duke of
Newcastle, who thought that a man should be allowed to do what he
liked with his own, and the Marquis of Londonderry, who, when some
such falling-off in the family politics came near him, spoke with
indignation of the family treasure which had been expended in
defending the family seat. Wednesbury had never been the Marquis's
own; but his nephew was so in a peculiar sense. His nephew was
necessarily his heir,--the future Marquis,--and the old Marquis never
again, politically, held up his head. He was an old man when this
occurred, and luckily for him he did not live to see the worse things
which came afterwards.
The Member for Wednesbury became Marquis and owner of the large
family property, but still he kept his politics. He was a Radical
Marquis, wedded to all popular measures, not ashamed of his Charter
days, and still clamorous for further Parliamentary reform, although
it was regularly noted in Dod that the Marquis of Kingsbury was
supposed to have strong influence in the Borough of Edgeware. It
was so strong that both he and his uncle had put in whom they
pleased. His uncle had declined to put him in because of his
renegade theories, but he revenged himself by giving the seat to a
glib-mouthed tailor, who, to tell the truth, had not done much credit
to his choice.
But it came to pass that the shade of his uncle was avenged, if it
can be supposed that such feelings will affect the eternal rest of a
dead Marquis. There grew up a young Lord Hampstead, the son and heir
of the Radical Marquis, promising in intelligence and satisfactory
in externals, but very difficult to deal with as to the use of his
thoughts. They could not keep him at Harrow or at Oxford, because
he not only rejected, but would talk openly against, Christian
doctrines; a religious boy, but determined not to believe in
revealed mysteries. And at twenty-one he declared himself a
Republican,--explaining thereby that he disapproved altogether of
hereditary honours. He was quite as bad to this Marquis as had been
this Marquis to the other. The tailor kept his seat because Lord
Hampstead would not even condescend to sit for the family borough.
He explained to his father that he had doubts about a Parliament of
which one section was hereditary, but was sure that at present he was
too young for it. There must surely have been gratification in this
to the shade of the departed Marquis.
But there was worse than this,--infinitely worse. Lord Hampstead
formed a close friendship with a young man, five years older than
himself, who was but a clerk in the Post Office. In George Roden, as
a man and a companion, there was no special fault to be found. There
may be those who think that a Marquis's heir should look for his most
intimate friend in a somewhat higher scale of social rank, and that
he would more probably serve the purposes of his future life by
associating with his equals;--that like to like in friendship is
advantageous. The Marquis, his father, certainly thought so in spite
of his Radicalism. But he might have been pardoned on the score of
Roden's general good gifts,--might have been pardoned even though
it were true, as supposed, that to Roden's strong convictions
Lord Hampstead owed much of the ultra virus of his political
convictions,--might have been pardoned had not there been worse
again. At Hendon Hall, the Marquis's lovely suburban seat, the Post
Office clerk was made acquainted with Lady Frances Trafford, and they
became lovers.
The radicalism of a Marquis is apt to be tainted by special
considerations in regard to his own family. This Marquis, though
he had his exoteric politics, had his esoteric feelings. With him,
Liberal as he was, his own blood possessed a peculiar ichor. Though
it might be well that men in the mass should be as nearly equal as
possible, yet, looking at the state of possibilities and realities as
existent, it was clear to him that a Marquis of Kingsbury had been
placed on a pedestal. It might be that the state of things was matter
for regret. In his grander moments he was certain that it was so. Why
should there be a ploughboy unable to open his mouth because of his
infirmity, and a Marquis with his own voice very resonant in the
House of Lords, and a deputy voice dependent on him in the House of
Commons? He had said so very frequently before his son, not knowing
then what might be the effect of his own teaching. There had been a
certain pride in his heart as he taught these lessons, wrong though
it might be that there should be a Marquis and a ploughboy so far
reversed by the injustice of Fate. There had been a comfort to him
in feeling that Fate had made him the Marquis, and had made some
one else the ploughboy. He knew what it was to be a Marquis down to
the last inch of aristocratic admeasurement. He would fain that his
children should have understood this also. But his lesson had gone
deeper than he had intended, and great grief had come of it.
The Marquis had been first married to a lady altogether unconnected
with noble blood, but whose father had held a position of remarkable
ascendancy in the House of Commons. He had never been a Cabinet
Minister, because he had persisted in thinking that he could better
serve his country by independence. He had been possessed of wealth,
and had filled a great place in the social world. In marrying the
only daughter of this gentleman the Marquis of Kingsbury had indulged
his peculiar taste in regard to Liberalism, and was at the same time
held not to have derogated from his rank. She had been a woman of
great beauty and of many intellectual gifts,--thoroughly imbued with
her father's views, but altogether free from feminine pedantry and
that ambition which begrudges to men the rewards of male labour. Had
she lived, Lady Frances might probably not have fallen in with the
Post Office clerk; nevertheless, had she lived, she would have known
the Post Office clerk to be a worthy gentleman.
But she had died when her son was about sixteen and her daughter no
more than fifteen. Two years afterwards our Marquis had gone among
the dukes, and had found for himself another wife. Perhaps the
freshness and edge of his political convictions had been blunted by
that gradual sinking down among the great peers in general which was
natural to his advanced years. A man who has spouted at twenty-five
becomes tired of spouting at fifty, if nothing special has come from
his spouting. He had been glad when he married Lady Clara Mountressor
to think that circumstances as they had occurred at the last election
would not make it necessary for him to deliver up the borough to the
tailor on any further occasion. The tailor had been drunk at the
hustings, and he ventured to hope that before six months were over
Lord Hampstead would have so far rectified his frontiers as to be
able to take a seat in the House of Commons.
Then very quickly there were born three little flaxen-haired
boys,--who became at least flaxen-haired as they emerged from their
cradles,--Lord Frederic, Lord Augustus, and Lord Gregory. That they
must be brought up with ideas becoming the scions of a noble House
there could be no doubt. Their mother was every inch a duke's
daughter. But, alas, not one of them was likely to become Marquis
of Kingsbury. Though born so absolutely in the purple they were but
younger sons. This was a silent sorrow;--but when their half sister
Lady Frances told their mother openly that she had plighted her troth
to the Post Office clerk, that was a sorrow which did not admit of
silence.
When Lord Hampstead had asked permission to bring his friend to the
house there seemed to be no valid reason for refusing him. Low as he
had descended amidst the depths of disreputable opinion, it was not
supposed that even he would countenance anything so horrible as this.
And was there not ground for security in the reticence and dignity
of Lady Frances herself? The idea never presented itself to the
Marchioness. When she heard that the Post Office clerk was coming she
was naturally disgusted. All Lord Hampstead's ideas, doings, and ways
were disgusting to her. She was a woman full of high-bred courtesy,
and had always been gracious to her son-in-law's friends,--but it
had been with a cold grace. Her heart rejected them thoroughly,--as
she did him, and, to tell the truth, Lady Frances also. Lady Frances
had all her mother's dignity, all her mother's tranquil manner, but
something more than her mother's advanced opinions. She, too, had her
ideas that the world should gradually be taught to dispense with the
distances which separate the dukes and the ploughboys,--gradually,
but still with a progressive motion, always tending in that
direction. This to her stepmother was disgusting.
The Post Office clerk had never before been received at Hendon Hall,
though he had been introduced in London by Lord Hampstead to his
sister. The Post Office clerk had indeed abstained from coming,
having urged his own feelings with his friend as to certain
unfitnesses. "A Marquis is as absurd to me as to you," he had said
to Lord Hampstead, "but while there are Marquises they should be
indulged,--particularly Marchionesses. An over-delicate skin is a
nuisance; but if skins have been so trained as not to bear the free
air, veils must be allowed for their protection. The object should be
to train the skin, not to punish it abruptly. An unfortunate Sybarite
Marchioness ought to have her rose leaves. Now I am not a rose leaf."
And so he had stayed away.
But the argument had been carried on between the friends, and the
noble heir had at last prevailed. George Roden was not a rose leaf,
but he was found at Hendon to have flowers of beautiful hues and
with a sweet scent. Had he not been known to be a Post Office
clerk,--could the Marchioness have been allowed to judge of him
simply from his personal appearance,--he might have been taken to be
as fine a rose leaf as any. He was a tall, fair, strongly-built young
man, with short light hair, pleasant grey eyes, an aquiline nose, and
small mouth. In his gait and form and face nothing was discernibly
more appropriate to Post Office clerks than to the nobility at large.
But he was a clerk, and he himself, as he himself declared, knew
nothing of his own family,--remembered no relation but his mother.
It had come to pass that the house at Hendon had become specially the
residence of Lord Hampstead, who would neither have lodgings of his
own in London or make part of the family when it occupied Kingsbury
House in Park Lane. He would sometimes go abroad, would sometimes
appear for a week or two at Trafford Park, the grand seat in
Yorkshire. But he preferred the place, half town half country, in
the neighbourhood of London, and here George Roden came frequently
backwards and forwards after the ice had been broken by a first
visit. Sometimes the Marquis would be there, and with him his
daughter,--rarely the Marchioness. Then came the time when Lady
Frances declared boldly to her stepmother that she had pledged
her troth to the Post Office clerk. That happened in June, when
Parliament was sitting, and when the flowers at Hendon were at their
best. The Marchioness came there for a day or two, and the Post
Office clerk on that morning had left the house for his office work,
not purposing to come back. Some words had been said which had caused
annoyance, and he did not intend to return. When he had been gone
about an hour Lady Frances revealed the truth.
Her brother at that time was two-and-twenty. She was a year younger.
The clerk might perhaps be six years older than the young lady. Had
he only been the eldest son of a Marquis, or Earl, or Viscount;
had he been but an embryo Baron, he might have done very well. He
was a well-spoken youth, yet with a certain modesty, such a one as
might easily take the eye of a wished-for though ever so noble a
mother-in-law. The little lords had learned to play with him, and
it had come about that he was at his ease in the house. The very
servants had seemed to forget that he was no more than a clerk, and
that he went off by railway into town every morning that he might
earn ten shillings by sitting for six hours at his desk. Even the
Marchioness had almost trained herself to like him,--as one of those
excrescences which are sometimes to be found in noble families, some
governess, some chaplain or private secretary, whom chance or merit
has elevated in the house, and who thus becomes a trusted friend.
Then by chance she heard the name "Frances" without the prefix
"Lady," and said a word in haughty anger. The Post Office clerk
packed up his portmanteau, and Lady Frances told her story.
Lord Hampstead's name was John. He was the Honourable John Trafford,
called by courtesy Earl of Hampstead. To the world at large he was
Lord Hampstead,--to his friends in general he was Hampstead; to his
stepmother he was especially Hampstead,--as would have been her own
eldest son the moment he was born had he been born to such good luck.
To his father he had become Hampstead lately. In early days there had
been some secret family agreement that in spite of conventionalities
he should be John among them. The Marquis had latterly suggested that
increasing years made this foolish; but the son himself attributed
the change to step-maternal influences. But still he was John to his
sister, and John to some half-dozen sympathising friends,--and among
others to the Post Office clerk.
"He has not said a word to me," the sister replied when she was taxed
by her brother with seeming partiality for their young visitor.
"But he will?"
"No girl will ever admit as much as that, John."
"But if he should?"
"No girl will have an answer ready for such a suggestion."
"I know he will."
"If so, and if you have wishes to express, you should speak to him."
All this made the matter quite clear to her brother. A girl such
as was his sister would not so receive a brother's notice as to a
proposed overture of love from a Post Office clerk, unless she had
brought herself to look at the possibility without abhorrence.
"Would it go against the grain with you, John?" This was what the
clerk said when he was interrogated by his friend.
"There would be difficulties."
"Very great difficulties,--difficulties even with you."
"I did not say so."
"They would come naturally. The last thing that a man can abandon of
his social idolatries is the sanctity of the women belonging to him."
"God forbid that I should give up anything of the sanctity of my
sister."
"No; but the idolatry attached to it! It is as well that even a
nobleman's daughter should be married if she can find a nobleman
or such like to her taste. There is no breach of sanctity in the
love,--but so great a wound to the idolatry in the man! Things have
not changed so quickly that even you should be free from the feeling.
Three hundred years ago, if the man could not be despatched out
of the country or to the other world, the girl at least would be
locked up. Three hundred years hence the girl and the man will stand
together on their own merits. Just in this period of transition it is
very hard for such a one as you to free himself altogether from the
old trammels."
"I make the endeavour."
"Most bravely. But, my dear fellow, let this individual thing stand
separately, away from politics and abstract ideas. I mean to ask your
sister whether I can have her heart, and, as far as her will goes,
her hand. If you are displeased I suppose we shall have to part,--for
a time. Let theories run ever so high, Love will be stronger than
them all." Lord Hampstead at this moment gave no assurance of his
good will; but when it came to pass that his sister had given her
assurance, then he ranged himself on the side of his friend the
clerk.
So it came to pass that there was great trouble in the household of
the Marquis of Kingsbury. The family went abroad before the end of
July, on account of the health of the children. So said the _Morning
Post_. Anxious friends inquired in vain what could have befallen
those flaxen-haired young Herculeses. Why was it necessary that they
should be taken to the Saxon Alps when the beauties and comforts of
Trafford Park were so much nearer and so superior? Lady Frances was
taken with them, and there were one or two noble intimates among the
world of fashion who heard some passing whispers of the truth. When
passing whispers creep into the world of fashion they are heard far
and wide.