LADY FRANCES.
There is something so sad in the condition of a girl who is known to
be in love, and has to undergo the process of being made ashamed of
it by her friends, that one wonders that any young woman can bear it.
Most young women cannot bear it, and either give up their love or say
that they do. A young man who has got into debt, or been plucked,--or
even when he has declared himself to be engaged to a penniless young
lady, which is worse,--is supposed merely to have gone after his
kind, and done what was to be expected of him. The mother never
looks at him with that enduring anger by which she intends to wear
out the daughter's constancy. The father frets and fumes, pays the
debts, prepares the way for a new campaign, and merely shrugs his
shoulders about the proposed marriage, which he regards simply as
an impossibility. But the girl is held to have disgraced herself.
Though it is expected of her, or at any rate hoped, that she will get
married in due time, yet the falling in love with a man,--which is,
we must suppose, a preliminary step to marriage,--is a wickedness.
Even among the ordinary Joneses and Browns of the world we see that
it is so. When we are intimate enough with the Browns to be aware
of Jane Brown's passion, we understand the father's manner and the
mother's look. The very servants about the house are aware that
she has given way to her feelings, and treat her accordingly. Her
brothers are ashamed of her. Whereas she, if her brother be in love
with Jemima Jones, applauds him, sympathizes with him, and encourages
him.
There are heroines who live through it all, and are true to the end.
There are many pseudo-heroines who intend to do so, but break down.
The pseudo-heroine generally breaks down when young Smith,--not so
very young,--has been taken in as a partner by Messrs. Smith and
Walker, and comes in her way, in want of a wife. The persecution is,
at any rate, so often efficacious as to make fathers and mothers feel
it to be their duty to use it. It need not be said here how high
above the ways of the Browns soared the ideas of the Marchioness of
Kingsbury. But she felt that it would be her duty to resort to the
measures which they would have adopted, and she was determined that
the Marquis should do the same. A terrible evil, an incurable evil,
had already been inflicted. Many people, alas, would know that Lady
Frances had disgraced herself. She, the Marchioness, had been unable
to keep the secret from her own sister, Lady Persiflage, and Lady
Persiflage would undoubtedly tell it to others. Her own lady's
maid knew it. The Marquis himself was the most indiscreet of men.
Hampstead would see no cause for secrecy. Roden would, of course,
boast of it all through the Post Office. The letter-carriers who
attended upon Park Lane would have talked the matter over with the
footmen at the area gate. There could be no hope of secrecy. All the
young marquises and unmarried earls would know that Lady Frances
Trafford was in love with the "postman." But time, and care, and
strict precaution might prevent the final misery of a marriage.
Then, if the Marquis would be generous, some young Earl, or at least
a Baron, might be induced to forget the "postman," and to take
the noble lily, soiled, indeed, but made gracious by gilding. Her
darlings must suffer. Any excess of money given would be at their
cost. But anything would be better than a Post Office clerk for a
brother-in-law.
Such were the views as to their future life with which the
Marchioness intended to accompany her stepdaughter to their Saxon
residence. The Marquis, with less of a fixed purpose, was inclined in
the same way. "I quite agree that they should be separated;--quite,"
he said. "It mustn't be heard of;--certainly not; certainly not. Not
a shilling,--unless she behaves herself properly. Of course she will
have her fortune, but not to bestow it in such a manner as that."
His own idea was to see them all settled in the château, and then, if
possible, to hurry back to London before the season was quite at an
end. His wife laid strong injunctions on him as to absolute secrecy,
having forgotten, probably, that she herself had told the whole
story to Lady Persiflage. The Marquis quite agreed. Secrecy was
indispensable. As for him, was it likely that he should speak of a
matter so painful and so near to his heart! Nevertheless he told
it all to Mr. Greenwood, the gentleman who acted as tutor, private
secretary, and chaplain in the house.
Lady Frances had her own ideas, as to this going away and living
abroad, very strongly developed in her mind. They intended to
persecute her till she should change her purpose. She intended to
persecute them till they should change theirs. She knew herself too
well, she thought, to have any fear as to her own persistency. That
the Marchioness should persuade, or even persecute, her out of an
engagement to which she had assented, she felt to be quite out of the
question. In her heart she despised the Marchioness,--bearing with
her till the time should come in which she would be delivered from
the nuisance of surveillance under such a woman. In her father she
trusted much, knowing him to be affectionate, believing him to be
still opposed to those aristocratic dogmas which were a religion to
the Marchioness,--feeling probably that in his very weakness she
would find her best strength. If her stepmother should in truth
become cruel, then her father would take her part against his wife.
There must be a period of discomfort,--say, six months; and then
would come the time in which she would be able to say, "I have tried
myself, and know my own mind, and I intend to go home and get myself
married." She would take care that her declaration to this effect
should not come as a sudden blow. The six months should be employed
in preparing for it. The Marchioness might be persistent in preaching
her views during the six months, but so would Lady Frances be
persistent in preaching hers.
She had not accepted the man's love when he had offered it, without
thinking much about it. The lesson which she had heard in her earlier
years from her mother had sunk deep into her very soul,--much more
deeply than the teacher of those lessons had supposed. That teacher
had never intended to inculcate as a doctrine that rank is a mistake.
No one had thought more than she of the incentives provided by rank
to high duty. "Noblesse oblige." The lesson had been engraved on her
heart, and might have been read in all the doings of her life. But
she had endeavoured to make it understood by her children that they
should not be over-quick to claim the privileges of rank. Too many
such would be showered on them,--too many for their own welfare.
Let them never be greedy to take with outstretched hands those good
things of which Chance had provided for them so much more than their
fair share. Let them remember that after all there was no virtue in
having been born a child to a Marquis. Let them remember how much
more it was to be a useful man, or a kind woman. So the lessons had
been given,--and had gone for more than had been intended. Then all
the renown of their father's old politics assisted,--the re-election
of the drunken tailor,--the jeerings of friends who were high enough
and near enough to dare to jeer,--the convictions of childhood
that it was a fine thing, because peculiar for a Marquis and his
belongings, to be Radical;--and, added to this, there was contempt
for the specially noble graces of their stepmother. Thus it was that
Lord Hampstead was brought to his present condition of thinking,--and
Lady Frances.
Her convictions were quite as strong as his, though they did
not assume the same form. With a girl, at an early age, all her
outlookings into the world have something to do with love and its
consequences. When a young man takes his leaning either towards
Liberalism or Conservatism he is not at all actuated by any feeling
as to how some possible future young woman may think on the subject.
But the girl, if she entertains such ideas at all, dreams of them as
befitting the man whom she may some day hope to love. Should she, a
Protestant, become a Roman Catholic and then a nun, she feels that
in giving up her hope for a man's love she is making the greatest
sacrifice in her power for the Saviour she is taking to her heart.
If she devotes herself to music, or the pencil, or to languages,
the effect which her accomplishments may have on some beau ideal
of manhood is present to her mind. From the very first she is
dressing herself unconsciously in the mirror of a man's eyes. Quite
unconsciously, all this had been present to Lady Frances as month
after month and year after year she had formed her strong opinions.
She had thought of no man's love,--had thought but little of loving
any man,--but in her meditations as to the weaknesses and vanity of
rank there had always been present that idea,--how would it be with
her if such a one should ask for her hand, such a one as she might
find among those of whom she dreamed as being more noble than Dukes,
even though they were numbered among the world's proletaries? Then
she had told herself that if any such a one should come,--if at
any time any should be allowed by herself to come,--he should be
estimated by his merits, whether Duke or proletary. With her mind
in such a state she had of course been prone to receive kindly the
overtures of her brother's friend.
What was there missing in him that a girl should require? It was
so that she had asked herself the question. As far as manners were
concerned, this man was a gentleman. She was quite sure of that.
Whether proletary or not, there was nothing about him to offend the
taste of the best-born of ladies. That he was better educated than
any of the highly-bred young men she saw around her, she was quite
sure. He had more to talk about than others. Of his birth and family
she knew nothing, but rather prided herself in knowing nothing,
because of that doctrine of hers that a man is to be estimated only
by what he is himself, and not at all by what he may derive from
others. Of his personal appearance, which went far with her, she was
very proud. He was certainly a handsome young man, and endowed with
all outward gifts of manliness: easy in his gait, but not mindful of
it, with motions of his body naturally graceful but never studied,
with his head erect, with a laugh in his eye, well-made as to his
hands and feet. Neither his intellect nor his political convictions
would have recommended a man to her heart, unless there had been
something in the outside to please her eye, and from the first moment
in which she had met him he had never been afraid of her,--had
ventured when he disagreed from her to laugh at her, and even to
scold her. There is no barrier in a girl's heart so strong against
love as the feeling that the man in question stands in awe of her.
She had taken some time before she had given him her answer, and had
thought much of the perils before her. She had known that she could
not divest herself of her rank. She had acknowledged to herself that,
whether it was for good or bad, a Marquis's daughter could not be
like another girl. She owed much to her father, much to her brothers,
something even to her stepmother. But was the thing she proposed to
do of such a nature as to be regarded as an evil to her family? She
could see that there had been changes in the ways of the world during
the last century,--changes continued from year to year. Rank was not
so high as it used to be,--and in consequence those without rank not
so low. The Queen's daughter had married a subject. Lords John and
Lords Thomas were every day going into this and the other business.
There were instances enough of ladies of title doing the very thing
which she proposed to herself. Why should a Post Office clerk be
lower than another?
Then came the great question, whether it behoved her to ask her
father. Girls in general ask their mother, and send the lover to the
father. She had no mother. She was quite sure that she would not
leave her happiness in the hands of the present Marchioness. Were she
to ask her father she knew that the matter would be at once settled
against her. Her father was too much under the dominion of his wife
to be allowed to have an opinion of his own on such a matter. So she
declared to herself, and then determined that she would act on her
own responsibility. She would accept the man, and then take the first
opportunity of telling her stepmother what she had done. And so it
was. It was only early on that morning that she had given her answer
to George Roden,--and early on that morning she had summoned up her
courage, and told her whole story.
The station to which she was taken was a large German schloss, very
comfortably arranged, with the mountain as a background and the River
Elbe running close beneath its terraces, on which the Marquis had
spent some money, and made it a residence to be envied by the eyes
of all passers-by. It had been bought for its beauty in a freak, but
had never been occupied for more than a week at a time till this
occasion. Under other circumstances Lady Frances would have been as
happy here as the day was long, and had often expressed a desire to
be allowed to stay for a while at Königsgraaf. But now, though she
made an attempt to regard their sojourn in the place as one of the
natural events of their life, she could not shake off the idea of
a prison. The Marchioness was determined that the idea of a prison
should not be shaken off. In the first few days she said not a word
about the objectionable lover, nor did the Marquis. That had been
settled between them. But neither was anything said on any other
subject. There was a sternness in every motion, and a grim silence
seemed to preside in the château, except when the boys were
present,--and an attempt was made to separate her from her brothers
as much as possible, which she was more inclined to resent than
any other ill usage which was adopted towards her. After about
a fortnight it was announced that the Marquis was to return to
London. He had received letters from "the party" which made it quite
necessary that he should be there. When this was told to Lady Frances
not a word was said as to the probable duration of their own stay at
the château.
"Papa," she said, "you are going back to London?"
"Yes, my dear. My presence in town is imperatively necessary."
"How long are we to stay here?"
"How long?"
"Yes, papa. I like Königsgraaf very much. I always thought it the
prettiest place I know. But I do not like looking forward to staying
here without knowing when I am to go away."
"You had better ask your mamma, my dear."
"Mamma never says anything to me. It would be no good my asking her.
Papa, you ought to tell me something before you go away."
"Tell you what?"
"Or let me tell you something."
"What do you want to tell me, Frances?" In saying this he assumed
his most angry tone and sternest countenance,--which, however, were
not very angry or very stern, and had no effect in frightening his
daughter. He did not, in truth, wish to say a word about the Post
Office clerk before he made his escape, and would have been very glad
to frighten her enough to make her silent had that been possible.
"Papa, I want you to know that it will do no good shutting me up
there."
"Nobody shuts you up."
"I mean here in Saxony. Of course I shall stay for some time, but you
cannot expect that I shall remain here always."
"Who has talked about always?"
"I understand that I am brought here to be--out of Mr. Roden's way."
"I would rather not speak of that young man."
"But, papa,--if he is to be my husband--"
"He is not to be your husband."
"It will be so, papa, though I should be kept here ever so long. That
is what I want you to understand. Having given my word,--and so much
more than my word,--I certainly shall not go back from it. I can
understand that you should carry me off here so as to try and wean me
from it--"
"It is quite out of the question; impossible!"
"No, papa. If he choose,--and I choose,--no one can prevent us." As
she said this she looked him full in the face.
"Do you mean to say that you owe no obedience to your parents?"
"To you, papa, of course I owe obedience,--to a certain extent. There
does come a time, I suppose, in which a daughter may use her own
judgment as to her own happiness."
"And disgrace all her family?"
"I do not think that I shall disgrace mine. What I want you to
understand, papa, is this,--that you will not ensure my obedience by
keeping me here. I think I should be more likely to be submissive at
home. There is an idea in enforced control which is hardly compatible
with obedience. I don't suppose you will lock me up."
"You have no right to talk to me in that way."
"I want to explain that our being here can do no good. When you are
gone mamma and I will only be very unhappy together. She won't talk
to me, and will look at me as though I were a poor lost creature. I
don't think that I am a lost creature at all, but I shall be just as
much lost here as though I were at home in England."
"When you come to talking you are as bad as your brother," said the
Marquis as he left her. Only that the expression was considered to be
unfit for female ears, he would have accused her of "talking the hind
legs off a dog."
When he was gone the life at Königsgraaf became very sombre indeed.
Mr. George Roden's name was never mentioned by either of the ladies.
There was the Post Office, no doubt, and the Post Office was at
first left open to her; but there soon came a time in which she
was deprived of this consolation. With such a guardian as the
Marchioness, it was not likely that free correspondence should be
left open to her.