began to ask himself whether he might not upon the whole congratulate
himself as to the end to which that piece of business had been
brought. When he had first resolved to offer his hand to the young
lady, he had certainly imagined that that hand would not be empty.
Clara was no doubt "a fine girl," but not quite so young as she was
once. And she had a temper of her own. Matrimony, too, was often
followed by many troubles. Paradise Row would no doubt utter jeers,
but he need not go there to hear them. He was not quite sure but that
the tearing of the papers would in the long run be beneficial to him.
CHAPTER XVI.
PEGWELL BAY.
July had come and nearly gone before Lord Hampstead again saw Marion
Fay. He had promised not to go to Pegwell Bay,--hardly understanding
why such a promise had been exacted from him, but still acceding to
it when it had been suggested to him by Mrs. Roden, at the request,
as she said, of the Quaker. It was understood that Marion would soon
return to Holloway, and that on that account the serenity of Pegwell
Bay need not be disturbed by the coming of so great a man as Lord
Hampstead. Hampstead had of course ridiculed the reason, but had
complied with the request,--with the promise, however, that Marion
should return early in the summer. But the summer weeks had passed
by, and Marion did not return.
Letters passed between them daily in which Marion attempted always
to be cheerful. Though she had as yet invented no familiar name for
her noble lover, yet she had grown into familiarity with him, and was
no longer afraid of his nobility. "You oughtn't to stay there," she
said, "wasting your life and doing nothing, because of a sick girl.
You've got your yacht, and are letting all the summer weather go by."
In answer to this he wrote to her, saying that he had sold his yacht.
"Could you have gone with me, I would have kept it," he wrote. "Would
you go with me I would have another ready for you, before you would
be ready. I will make no assurance as to my future life. I cannot
even guess what may become of me. It may be that I shall come to live
on board some ship so that I may be all alone. But with my heart as
it is now I cannot bear the references which others make to me about
empty pleasures." At the same time he sold his horses, but he said
nothing to her as to that.
Gradually he did acknowledge to himself that it was her doom to
die early,--almost acknowledged to himself that she was dying.
Nevertheless he still thought that it would have been fit that they
should be married. "If I knew that she were my own even on her
deathbed," he once said to Mrs. Roden, "there would be a comfort
to me in it." He was so eager in this that Mrs. Roden was almost
convinced. The Quaker was willing that it should be so,--but willing
also that it should not be so. He would not even try to persuade his
girl as to anything. It was his doom to see her go, and he, having
realized that, could not bring himself to use a word in opposition
to her word. But Marion herself was sternly determined against the
suggestion. It was unfitting, she said, and would be wicked. It was
not the meaning of marriage. She could not bring herself to disturb
the last thoughts of her life, not only by the empty assumption of
a grand name, but by the sounding of that name in her ears from the
eager lips of those around her. "I will be your love to the end,"
she said, "your own Marion. But I will not be made a Countess, only
in order that a vain name may be carved over my grave." "God has
provided a bitter cup for your lips, my love," she wrote again,
"in having put it into your head to love one whom you must lose so
soon. And mine is bitter because yours is bitter. But we cannot rid
ourselves of the bitterness by pretences. Would it make your heart
light to see me dressed up for a bridal ceremony, knowing, as you
would know, that it was all for nothing? My lord, my love, let us
take it as God has provided it. It is only because you grieve that I
grieve;--for you and my poor father. If you could only bring yourself
to be reconciled, then it would be so much to me to have had you to
love me in my last moments,--to love me and to be loved."
He could not but accept her decision. Her father and Mrs. Roden
accepted it, and he was forced to do so also. He acknowledged to
himself now that there was no appeal from it. Her very weakness gave
her a strength which dominated him. There was an end of all his
arguments and his strong phrases. He was aware that they had been of
no service to him,--that her soft words had been stronger than all
his reasonings. But not on that account did he cease to wish that it
might be as he had once wished, since he had first acknowledged to
himself his love. "Of course I will not drive her," he said to Mrs.
Roden, when that lady urged upon him the propriety of abstaining from
a renewal of his request. "Had I any power of driving her, as you
say, I would not do so. I think it would be better. That is all. Of
course it must be as she shall decide."
"It would be a comfort to her to think that you and she thought alike
about all things," said Mrs. Roden.
"There are points on which I cannot alter my convictions even for
her comfort," he answered. "She bids me love some other woman. Can
I comfort her by doing that? She bids me seek another wife. Can I do
that;--or say that I will do it at some future time? It would comfort
her to know that I have no wound,--that I am not lame and sick and
sore and weary. It would comfort her to know that my heart is not
broken. How am I to do that for her?"
"No;"--said Mrs. Roden--"no."
"There is no comfort. Her imagination paints for her some future
bliss, which shall not be so far away as to be made dim by
distance,--in enjoying which we two shall be together, as we are
here, with our hands free to grasp each other, and our lips free to
kiss;--a heaven, but still a heaven of this world, in which we can
hang upon each other's necks and be warm to each other's hearts. That
is to be, to her, the reward of her innocence, and in the ecstacy of
her faith she believes in it, as though it were here. I do think,--I
do think,--that if I told her that it should be so, that I trusted to
renew my gaze upon her beauty after a few short years, then she would
be happy entirely. It would be for an eternity, and without the fear
of separation."
"Then why not profess as she does?"
"A lie? As I know her truth when she tells me her creed, so would she
know my falsehood, and the lie would be vain."
"Is there then to be no future world, Lord Hampstead?"
"Who has said so? Certainly not I. I cannot conceive that I shall
perish altogether. I do not think that if, while I am here, I can
tame the selfishness of self, I shall reach a step upwards in
that world which shall come next after this. As to happiness,
I do not venture to think much of it. If I can only be somewhat
nobler,--somewhat more like the Christ whom we worship,--that will
be enough without happiness. If there be truth in this story, He was
not happy. Why should I look for happiness,--unless it be when the
struggle of many worlds shall have altogether purified my spirit? But
thinking like that,--believing like that,--how can I enter into the
sweet Epicurean Paradise which that child has prepared for herself?"
"Is it no better than that?"
"What can be better, what can be purer,--if only it be true? And
though it be false to me, it may be true to her. It is for my sake
that she dreams of her Paradise,--that my wounds may be made whole,
that my heart may be cured. Christ's lesson has been so learned by
her that no further learning seems necessary. I fancy sometimes that
I can see the platform raised just one step above the ground on which
I stand,--and look into the higher world to which I am ascending. It
may be that it is given to her to look up the one rung of the ladder
by mounting which she shall find herself enveloped in the full glory
of perfection."
In conversations such as these Mrs. Roden was confounded by the depth
of the man's love. It became impossible to bid him not be of a broken
heart, or even to allude to those fresh hopes which Time would bring.
He spoke to her often of his future life, always speaking of a life
from which Marion would have been withdrawn by death, and did so with
a cold, passionless assurance which showed her that he had almost
resolved as to the future. He would see all lands that were to be
seen, and converse with all people. The social condition of God's
creatures at large should be his study. The task would be endless,
and, as he said, an endless task hardly admits of absolute misery.
"If I die there will be an end of it. If I live till old age
shall have made me powerless to carry on my work, time will then
probably have done something to dim the feeling." "I think," he said
again;--"I feel that could I but remember her as my wife--"
"It is impossible," said Mrs. Roden.
"But if it were so! It would be no more than a thin threadbare cloak
over a woman's shivering shoulders. It is not much against the cold;
but it would be very cruel to take that little from her." She looked
at him with her eyes flooded with tears, but she could only shake her
head in sign that it was impossible.
At last, just at the end of July, there came a request that he would
go down to Pegwell Bay. "It is so long since we have seen each
other," she wrote, "and, perhaps, it is better that you should come
than that I should go. The doctor is fidgety, and says so. But my
darling will be good to me;--will he not? When I have seen a tear in
your eyes it has gone near to crush me. That a woman, or even a man,
should weep at some unexpected tidings of woe is natural. But who
cries for spilt milk? Tell me that God's hand, though it be heavy to
you, shall be borne with reverence and obedience and love."
He did not tell her this, but he resolved that if possible she should
see no tears. As for that cheerfulness, that reconciliation to his
fate which she desired, he knew it to be impossible. He almost
brought himself to believe as he travelled down to Pegwell Bay that
it would be better that they should not meet. To thank the Lord for
all His mercies was in her mind. To complain with all the bitterness
of his heart of the cruelty with which he was treated was in his.
He had told Mrs. Roden that according to his creed there would be
a better world to come for him if he could succeed in taming the
selfishness of self. But he told himself now that the struggle to do
so had hitherto been vain. There had been but the one thing which had
ever been to him supremely desirable. He had gone through the years
of his early life forming some Utopian ideas,--dreaming of some
perfection in politics, in philanthropy, in social reform, and the
like,--something by devoting himself to which he could make his life
a joy to himself. Then this girl had come across him, and there had
suddenly sprung up within him a love so strong that all these other
things faded into littlenesses. They should not be discarded. Work
would be wanted for his life, and for hers. But here he had found
the true salt by which all his work would be vivified and preserved
and made holy and happy and glorious. There had come a something
to him that was all that he wanted it to be. And now the something
was fading from him,--was already all but gone. In such a state how
should he tame the selfishness of self? He abandoned the attempt, and
told himself that difficulties had been prepared for him greater than
any of which he had dreamed when he had hoped that that taming might
be within his power. He could not even spare her in his selfishness.
He declared to himself that it was so, and almost owned that it would
be better that he should not go to her.
"Yes," she said, when he sat down beside her on her sofa, at an open
window looking out on the little bay, "put your hand on mine, dear,
and leave it there. To have you with me, to feel the little breeze,
and to see you and to touch you is absolute happiness."
"Why did you so often tell me not to come?"
"Ah, why? But I know why it was, my lord." There was something half
of tenderness, half pleasantry in the mode of address, and now he had
ceased to rebel against it.
"Why should I not come if it be a joy to you?"
"You must not be angry now."
"Certainly not angry."
"We have got through all that,--you and I have for ourselves;--but
there is a sort of unseemliness in your coming down here to see a
poor Quaker's daughter."
"Marion!"
"But there is. We had got through all that in Paradise Row. Paradise
Row had become used to you, and I could bear it. But here-- They will
all be sure to know who you are."
"Who cares?"
"That Marion Fay should have a lover would of itself make a stir in
this little place;--but that she should have a lord for her lover!
One doesn't want to be looked at as a miracle."
"The follies of others should not ruffle you and me."
"That's very well, dear;--but what if one is ruffled? But I won't be
ruffled, and you shall come. When I thought that I should go again
to our own house, then I thought we might perhaps dispense with the
ruffling;--that was all."
There was a something in these words which he could not stand,--which
he could not bear and repress that tear which, as she had said, would
go near to crush her if she saw it. Had she not plainly intimated her
conviction that she would never again return to her old home? Here,
here in this very spot, the doom was to come, and to come quickly.
He got up and walked across the room, and stood a little behind her,
where she could not see his face.
"Do not leave me," she said. "I told you to stay and let your hand
rest on mine." Then he returned, and laying his hand once again upon
her lap turned his face away from her. "Bear it," she said. "Bear
it." His hand quivered where it lay as he shook his head. "Call upon
your courage and bear it."
"I cannot bear it," he said, rising suddenly from his chair, and
hurrying out of the room. He went out of the room and from the house,
on to the little terrace which ran in front of the sea. But his
escape was of no use to him; he could not leave her. He had come out
without his hat, and he could not stand there in the sun to be stared
at. "I am a coward," he said, going back to her and resuming his
chair. "I own it. Let there be no more said about it. When a trouble
comes to me, it conquers me. Little troubles I think I could bear. If
it had been all else in all the world,--if it had been my life before
my life was your life, I think that no one would have seen me blench.
But now I find that when I am really tried, I fail."
"It is in God's hands, dearest."
"Yes;--it is in God's hands. There is some power, no doubt, that
makes you strong in spirit, but frail in body; while I am strong to
live but weak of heart. But how will that help me?"
"Oh, Lord Hampstead, I do so wish you had never seen me."
"You should not say that, Marion; you shall not think it. I am
ungrateful; because, were it given me to have it all back again, I
would not sell what I have had of you, though the possession has been
so limited, for all other imaginable treasures. I will bear it. Oh,
my love, I will bear it. Do not say again that you wish you had not
seen me."
"For myself, dear,--for myself--"
"Do not say it for me. I will struggle to make a joy of it, a joy in
some degree, though my heart bleeds at the widowhood that is coming
on it. I will build up for myself a memory in which there shall be
much to satisfy me. I shall have been loved by her to have possessed
whose love has been and shall be a glory to me."
"Loved indeed, my darling."
"Though there might have been such a heaven of joy, even that shall
be counted as much. It shall be to me during my future life as though
when wandering through the green fields in some long-past day, I had
met a bright angel from another world; and the angel had stopped to
speak to me, and had surrounded me with her glorious wings, and had
given me of her heavenly light, and had spoken to me with the music
of the spheres, and I had thought that she would stay with me for
ever. But there had come a noise of the drums and a sound of the
trumpets, and she had flown away from me up to her own abode. To have
been so favoured, though it had been but for an hour, should suffice
for a man's life. I will bear it, though it be in solitude."
"No, darling; not in solitude."
"It will be best so for me. The light and the music and the azure of
the wings will so remain with me the purer and the brighter. Oh,--if
it had been! But I will bear it. No ear shall again hear a sound of
complaint. Not yours even, my darling, my own, mine for so short a
time, but yet my very own for ever and ever." Then he fell on his
knees beside her, and hid his face in her dress, while the fingers
of both her hands rambled through his hair. "You are going," he said,
when he rose up to his feet, "you are going whither I cannot go."
"You will come; you will come to me."
"You are going now, now soon, and I doubt not that you are going to
joys inexpressible. I cannot go till some chance may take me. If it
be given to you in that further world to see those and to think of
those whom you have left below, then, if my heart be true to your
heart, keep your heart true to mine. If I can fancy that, if I
can believe that it is so, then shall I have that angel with me,
and though my eyes may not see the tints, my ears will hear the
music;--and though the glory be not palpable as is the light of
heaven, there will be an inner glory in which my soul will be
sanctified." After that there were not many words spoken between
them, though he remained there till he was disturbed by the Quaker's
coming. Part of the time she slept with her hand in his, and when
awake she was contented to feel his touch as he folded the scarf
close round her neck and straightened the shawl which lay across
her feet, and now and again stroked her hair and put it back behind
her ears as it strayed upon her forehead. Ever and again she would
murmur a word or two of love as she revelled in the perception of
his solicitude. What was there for her to regret, for her to whom
was given the luxury of such love? Was not a month of it more than
a whole life without it? Then, when the father came, Hampstead took
his leave. As he kissed her lips, something seemed to tell him that
it would be for the last time. It was not good, the Quaker had said,
that she should be disturbed. Yes; he could come again; but not quite
yet.
At the very moment when the Quaker so spoke she was pressing her lips
to his. "God keep you and take you, my darling," she whispered to
him, "and bring you to me in heaven." She noticed not at all at the
moment the warm tears that were running on to her own face; nor did
the Quaker seem to notice it when Lord Hampstead left the house
without saying to him a word of farewell.
CHAPTER XVII.
LADY AMALDINA'S WEDDING.
The time came round for Lady Amaldina's marriage, than which nothing
more august, nothing more aristocratic, nothing more truly savouring
of the hymeneal altar, had ever been known or was ever to be known
in the neighbourhood of Hanover Square. For it was at last decided
that the marriage should take place in London before any of the
aristocratic assistants at the ceremony should have been whirled away
into autumnal spaces. Lord Llwddythlw himself knew but very little
about it,--except this, that nothing would induce him so to hurry on
the ceremony as to interfere with his Parliamentary duties. A day in
August had been mentioned in special reference to Parliament. He was
willing to abide by that, or to go to the sacrifice at any earlier
day of which Parliament would admit. Parliament was to sit for the
last time on Wednesday, 12th August, and the marriage was fixed for
the 13th. Lady Amaldina had prayed for the concession of a week.
Readers will not imagine that she based her prayers on the impatience
of love. Nor could a week be of much significance in reference to
that protracted and dangerous delay to which the match had certainly
been subjected. But the bevy might escape. How were twenty young
ladies to be kept together in the month of August when all the young
men were rushing off to Scotland? Others were not wedded to their
duties as was Lord Llwddythlw. Lady Amaldina knew well how completely
Parliament became a mere affair of Governmental necessities during
the first weeks of August. "I should have thought that just on this
one occasion you might have managed it," she said to him, trying to
mingle a tone of love with the sarcasm which at such a crisis was
natural to her. He simply reminded her of the promise which he had
made to her in the spring. He thought it best not to break through
arrangements which had been fixed. When she told him of one very
slippery member of the bevy,--slippery, not as to character, but
in reference to the movements of her family,--he suggested that no
one would know the difference if only nineteen were to be clustered
round the bride's train. "Don't you know that they must be in pairs?"
"Will not nine pairs suffice?" he asked. "And thus make one of them
an enemy for ever by telling her that I wish to dispense with her
services!"
But it was of no use. "Dispense with them altogether," he said,
looking her full in the face. "The twenty will not quarrel with
you. My object is to marry you, and I don't care twopence for the
bridesmaids." There was something so near to a compliment in this,
that she was obliged to accept it. And she had, too, begun to
perceive that Lord Llwddythlw was a man not easily made to change
his mind. She was quite prepared for this in reference to her future
life. A woman, she thought, might be saved much trouble by having
a husband whom she was bound to obey. But in this matter of her
marriage ceremony,--this last affair in which she might be presumed
to act as a free woman,--she did think it hard that she might not
be allowed to have her own way. The bridegroom, however, was firm.
If Thursday, the 13th, did not suit her, he would be quite ready on
Thursday, the 20th. "There wouldn't be one of them left in London,"
said Lady Amaldina. "What on earth do you think that they are to do
with themselves?"
But all the bevy were true to her. Lady Amelia Beaudesert was a
difficulty. Her mother insisted on going to a far-away Bavarian
lake on which she had a villa;--but Lady Amelia at the last moment
surrendered the villa rather than break up the bevy, and consented
to remain with a grumpy old aunt in Essex till an opportunity should
offer. It may be presumed, therefore, that it was taken to be a great
thing to be one of the bevy. It is, no doubt, a pleasant thing for
a girl to have it asserted in all the newspapers that she is, by
acknowledgment, one of the twenty most beautiful unmarried ladies in
Great Britain.
Lady Frances was of course one of the bevy. But there was a member of
the family,--a connection rather,--whom no eloquence could induce to
show himself either in the church or at the breakfast. This was Lord
Hampstead. His sister came to him and assured him that he ought to be
there. "Sorrows," she said, "that have declared themselves before the
world are held as sufficient excuse; but a man should not be hindered
from his duties by secret grief."
"I make no secret of it. I do not talk about my private affairs. I do
not send a town-crier to Charing Cross to tell the passers-by that
I am in trouble. But I care not whether men know or not that I am
unfitted for joining in such festivities. My presence is not wanted
for their marriage."
"It will be odd."
"Let it be odd. I most certainly shall not be there." But he
remembered the occasion, and showed that he did so by sending to the
bride the handsomest of all the gems which graced her exhibition of
presents, short of the tremendous set of diamonds which had come from
the Duke of Merioneth.
This collection was supposed to be the most gorgeous thing that had
ever as yet been arranged in London. It would certainly not be too
much to say that the wealth of precious toys brought together would,
if sold at its cost price, have made an ample fortune for a young
newly-married couple. The families were noble and wealthy, and the
richness of the wedding presents was natural. It might perhaps have
been better had not the value of the whole been stated in one of the
newspapers of the day. Who was responsible for the valuation was
never known, but it seemed to indicate that the costliness of the
gifts was more thought of than the affection of the givers; and it
was undoubtedly true that, in high circles and among the clubs, the
cost of the collection was much discussed. The diamonds were known to
a stone, and Hampstead's rubies were spoken of almost as freely as
though they were being exhibited in public. Lord Llwddythlw when he
heard of all this muttered to his maiden sister a wish that a gnome
would come in the night and run away with everything. He felt himself
degraded by the publicity given to his future wife's ornaments. But
the gnome did not come, and the young men from Messrs. Bijou and
Carcanet were allowed to arrange the tables and shelves for the
exhibition.
The breakfast was to take place at the Foreign Office, at which
the bride's father was for the time being the chief occupant. Lord
Persiflage had not at first been willing that it should be so,
thinking that his own more modest house might suffice for the
marriage of his own daughter. But grander counsels had been allowed
to prevail. With whom the idea first arose Lord Persiflage never
knew. It might probably have been with some of the bevy, who had felt
that an ordinary drawing-room would hardly suffice for so magnificent
an array of toilets. Perhaps the thought had first occurred to
Messrs. Bijou and Carcanet, who had foreseen the glory of spreading
out all that wealth in the magnificent saloon intended for the
welcoming of ambassadors. But it travelled from Lady Amaldina to her
mother, and was passed on from Lady Persiflage to her husband. "Of
course the Ambassadors will all be there," the Countess had said,
"and, therefore, it will be a public occasion." "I wish we could be
married at Llanfihangel," Lord Llwddythlw said to his bride. Now
Llanfihangel church was a very small edifice, with a thatched roof,
among the mountains in North Wales, with which Lady Amaldina had been
made acquainted when visiting the Duchess, her future mother-in-law.
But Llwddythlw was not to have his way in everything, and the
preparations at the Foreign Office were continued.
The beautifully embossed invitations were sent about among a large
circle of noble and aristocratic friends. All the Ambassadors and all
the Ministers, with all their wives and daughters, were, of course,
asked. As the breakfast was to be given in the great Banqueting Hall
at the Foreign Office it was necessary that the guests should be
many. It is sometimes well in a matter of festivals to be saved from
extravagance by the modest size of one's rooms. Lord Persiflage told
his wife that his daughter's marriage would ruin him. In answer to
this she reminded him that Llwddythlw had asked for no fortune. Lord
Llwddythlw was one of those men who prefer giving to taking. He had
a feeling that a husband should supply all that was wanted, and that
a wife should owe everything to the man she marries. The feeling is
uncommon just at present,--except with the millions who neither have
nor expect other money than what they earn. If you are told that
the daughter of an old man who has earned his own bread is about to
marry a young man in the same condition of life, it is spoken of as a
misfortune. But Lord Llwddythlw was old-fashioned, and had the means
of acting in accordance with his prejudices. Let the marriage be ever
so gorgeous, it would not cost the dowry which an Earl's daughter
might have expected. That was the argument used by Lady Persiflage,
and it seemed to have been effectual.
As the day drew near it was observed that the bridegroom became
more sombre and silent even than usual. He never left the House of
Commons as long as it was open to him as a refuge. His Saturdays and
his Sundays and his Wednesdays he filled up with work so various
and unceasing that there was no time left for those pretty little
attentions which a girl about to be married naturally expects. He
did call, perhaps, every other day at his bride's house, but never
remained there above two minutes. "I am afraid he is not happy," the
Countess said to her daughter.
"Oh, yes, mamma, he is."
"Then why does he go on like that?"
"Oh, mamma, you do not know him."
"Do you?"
"I think so. My belief is that there isn't a man in London so anxious
to be married as Llwddythlw."
"I am glad of that."
"He has lost so much time that he knows it ought to be got through
and done with without further delay. If he could only go to sleep and
wake up a married man of three months' standing, he would be quite
happy. If it could be administered under chloroform it would be so
much better! It is the doing of the thing, and the being talked about
and looked at, that is so odious to him."
"Then why not have had it done quietly, my dear?"
"Because there are follies, mamma, to which a woman should never give
way. I will not have myself made humdrum. If I had been going to
marry a handsome young man so as to have a spice of romance out of
it all, I would have cared nothing about the bridesmaids and the
presents. The man then would have stood for everything. Llwddythlw is
not young, and is not handsome."
"But he is thoroughly noble."
"Quite so. He's as good as gold. He will always be somebody in
people's eyes because he's great and grand and trustworthy all round.
But I want to be somebody in people's eyes, too, mamma. I'm all very
well to look at, but nothing particular. I'm papa's daughter, which
is something,--but not enough. I mean to begin and be magnificent. He
understands it all, and I don't think he'll oppose me when once this
exhibition day is over. I've thought all about it, and I think that I
know what I'm doing."
At any rate, she had her way, and thoroughly enjoyed the task she had
on hand. When she had talked of a possible romance with a handsome
young lover she had not quite known herself. She might have made the
attempt, but it would have been a failure. She could fall in love
with a Master of Ravenswood in a novel, but would have given herself
by preference,--after due consideration,--to the richer, though less
poetical, suitor. Of good sterling gifts she did know the value, and
was therefore contented with her lot. But this business of being
married, with all the most extravagant appurtenances of the hymeneal
altar, was to her taste.
That picture in one of the illustrated papers which professed to give
the hymeneal altar at St. George's, with the Bishop and the Dean and
two Queen's Chaplains officiating, and the bride and the bridegroom
in all their glory, with a Royal Duke and a Royal Duchess looking
on, with all the Stars and all the Garters from our own and other
Courts, and especially with the bevy of twenty, standing in ten
distinct pairs, and each from a portrait, was manifestly a work of
the imagination. I was there, and to tell the truth, it was rather
a huddled matter. The spaces did not seem to admit of majestic
grouping, and as three of these chief personages had the gout, the
sticks of these lame gentlemen were to my eyes very conspicuous. The
bevy had not room enough, and the ladies in the crush seemed to feel
the intense heat. Something had made the Bishop cross. I am told that
Lady Amaldina had determined not to be hurried, while the Bishop was
due at an afternoon meeting at three. The artist, in creating the
special work of art, had soared boldly into the ideal. In depicting
the buffet of presents and the bridal feast, he may probably have
been more accurate. I was not myself present. The youthful appearance
of the bridegroom as he rose to make his speech may probably be
attributed to a poetic license, permissible, nay laudable, nay
necessary on such an occasion. The buffet of presents no doubt was
all there; though it may be doubted whether the contributions from
Royalty were in truth so conspicuous as they were made to appear.
There were speeches spoken by two or three Foreign Ministers, and
one by the bride's father. But the speech which has created most
remark was from the bridegroom. "I hope we may be as happy as your
kind wishes would have us," said he;--and then he sat down. It was
declared afterwards that these were the only words which passed his
lips on the occasion. To those who congratulated him he merely gave
his hand and bowed, and yet he looked to be neither fluttered nor ill
at ease. We know how a brave man will sit and have his tooth taken
out, without a sign of pain on his brow,--trusting to the relief
which is to come to him. So it was with Lord Llwddythlw. It might,
perhaps, have saved pain if, as Lady Amaldina had said, chloroform
could have been used.
"Well, my dear, it is done at last," Lady Persiflage said to her
daughter, when the bride was taken into some chamber for the
readjustment of her dress.
"Yes, mamma, it is done now."
"And are you happy?"
"Certainly I am. I have got what I wanted."
"And you can love him?" Coming from Lady Persiflage this did seem to
be romantic; but she had been stirred up to some serious thoughts as
she remembered that she was now surrendering to a husband the girl
whom she had made, whom she had tutored, whom she had prepared either
for the good or for the evil performance of the duties of life.
"Oh, yes, mamma," said Lady Amaldina. It is so often the case that
the pupils are able to exceed the teaching of their tutors! It was so
in this case. The mother, as she saw her girl given up to a silent
middle-aged unattractive man, had her misgivings; but not so the
daughter herself. She had looked at it all round, and had resolved
that she could do her duty--under certain stipulations which she
thought would be accorded to her. "He has more to say for himself
than you think;--only he won't trouble himself to make assertions.
And if he is not very much in love, he likes me better than anybody
else, which goes a long way." Her mother blessed her, and led her
away into a room where she joined her husband in order that she might
be then taken down to the carriage.
The bride herself had not quite understood what was to take place,
and was surprised to find herself quite alone for a moment with her
husband. "My wife," he said; "now kiss me."
She ran into his arms and put up her face to him. "I thought you were
going to forget that," she said, as he held her for a moment with his
arm round her waist.
"I could not dare," he said, "to handle all that gorgeous drapery of
lace. You were dressed up then for an exhibition. You look now as my
wife ought to look."
"It had to be done, Llwddythlw."
"I make no complaint, dearest. I only say that I like you better
as you are, as a girl to kiss, and to embrace, and to talk to, and
to make my own." Then she curtsied to him prettily, and kissed
him again; and after that they walked out arm-in-arm down to the
carriage.
There were many carriages drawn up within the quadrangle of which the
Foreign Office forms a part, but the carriage which was to take the
bride and the bridegroom away was allowed a door to itself,--at any
rate till such time as they should have been taken away. An effort
had been made to keep the public out of the quadrangle; but as the
duties of the four Secretaries of State could not be suspended, and
as the great gates are supposed to make a public thoroughfare, this
could only be done to a certain extent. The crowd, no doubt, was
thicker out in Downing Street, but there were very many standing
within the square. Among these there was one, beautifully arrayed
in frock coat and yellow gloves, almost as though he himself was
prepared for his own wedding. When Lord Llwddythlw brought Lady
Amaldina out from the building and handed her into the carriage, and
when the husband and wife had seated themselves, the well-dressed
individual raised his hat from his head, and greeted them. "Long life
and happiness to the bride of Castle Hautboy!" said he at the top of
his voice. Lady Amaldina could not but see the man, and, recognizing
him, she bowed.
It was Crocker,--the irrepressible Crocker. He had been also in the
church. The narrator and he had managed to find standing room in a
back pew under one of the galleries. Now would he be able to say with
perfect truth that he had been at the wedding, and had received a
parting salute from the bride; whom he had known through so many
years of her infancy. He probably did believe that he was entitled to
count the future Duchess of Merioneth among his intimate friends.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CROCKER'S TALE.
A thing difficult to get is the thing mostly prized, not the thing
that is valuable. Two or three additional Kimberley mines found
somewhere among the otherwise uninteresting plains of South Africa
would bring down the price of diamonds amazingly. It could hardly
have been the beauty, or the wit, or the accomplishments of Clara
Demijohn which caused Mr. Tribbledale to triumph so loudly and with
so genuine an exultation, telling all Broad Street of his success,
when he had succeeded in winning the bride who had once promised
herself to Crocker. Were it not that she had all but slipped through
his fingers he would never surely have thought her to be worthy
of such a pæan. Had she come to his first whistle he might have
been contented enough,--as are other ordinary young men with their
ordinary young women. He would probably have risen to no enthusiasm
of passion. But as things had gone he was as another Paris who had
torn a Helen from her Menelaus,--only in this case an honest Paris,
with a correct Helen, and from a Menelaus who had not as yet made
good his claim. But the subject was worthy of another Iliad, to be
followed by another Æneid. By his bow and his spear he had torn
her from the arms of a usurping lover, and now made her all his
own. Another man would have fainted and abandoned the contest, when
rejected as he had been. But he had continued the fight, even when
lying low on the dust of the arena. He had nailed his flag to the
mast when all his rigging had been cut away;--and at last he had won
the battle. Of course his Clara was doubly dear to him, having been
made his own after such difficulties as these.
"I'm not one of those who easily give way in an affair of the heart,"
he said to Mr. Littlebird, the junior partner in the firm, when he
told that gentleman of his engagement.
"So I perceive, Mr. Tribbledale."
"When a man has set his affection on a young lady,--that is, his
real affection,--he ought to stick to it,--or die." Mr. Littlebird,
who was the happy father of three or four married and marriageable
daughters, opened his eyes with surprise. The young men who had come
after his young ladies had been pressing enough, but they had not
died. "Or die!" repeated Tribbledale. "It is what I should have done.
Had she become Mrs. Crocker, I should never again have been seen in
the Court,"--"the Court" was the little alley in which Pogson and
Littlebird's office was held,--"unless they had brought my dead body
here to be identified." He was quite successful in his enthusiasm.
Though Mr. Littlebird laughed when he told the story to Mr. Pogson,
not the less did they agree to raise his salary to £160 on and from
the day of his marriage.
"Yes, Mr. Fay," he said to the poor old Quaker, who had lately been
so broken by his sorrow as hardly to be as much master of Tribbledale
as he used to be, "I have no doubt I shall be steady now. If anything
can make a young man steady it is--success in love."
"I hope thou wilt be happy, Mr. Tribbledale."
"I shall be happy enough now. My heart will be more in the
business,--what there isn't of it at any rate with that dear creature
in our mutual home at Islington. It was lucky about his having taken
those lodgings, because Clara had got as it were used to them. And
there are one or two things, such as a clock and the like, which need
not be moved. If anything ever should happen to you, Mr. Fay, Pogson
and Littlebird will find me quite up to the business."
"Something will happen some day, no doubt," said the Quaker.
On one occasion Lord Hampstead was in the Court having a word to say
to Marion's father, or, perhaps, a word to hear. "I'm sure you'll
excuse me, my lord," said Tribbledale, following him out of the
office.
"Oh, yes," said Hampstead, with a smile,--for he had been there often
enough to have made some acquaintance with the junior clerk. "If
there be anything I can do for you, I will do it willingly."
"Only just to congratulate me, my lord. You have heard of--Crocker?"
Lord Hampstead owned that he had heard of Crocker. "He has been
interfering with me in the tenderest of parts." Lord Hampstead looked
serious. "There is a young woman"--the poor victim frowned, he knew
not why; but remitted his frown and smiled again; "who had promised
herself to me. Then that rude assailant came and upset all my joy."
Here, as the narrator paused, Lord Hampstead owned to himself that
he could not deny the truth of the description. "Perhaps," continued
Tribbledale,--"perhaps you have seen Clara Demijohn." Lord Hampstead
could not remember having been so fortunate. "Because I am aware that
your steps have wandered in the way of Paradise Row." Then there came
the frown again,--and then the smile. "Well;--perhaps it may be that
a more perfect form of feminine beauty may be ascribed to another."
This was intended as a compliment, more civil than true, paid to
Marion Fay on Lord Hampstead's behalf. "But for a combination of
chastity and tenderness I don't think you can easily beat Clara
Demijohn." Lord Hampstead bowed, as showing his readiness to believe
such a statement coming from so good a judge. "For awhile the
interloper prevailed. Interlopers do prevail;--such is the female
heart. But the true rock shows itself always at last. She is the true
rock on which I have built the castle of my happiness."
"Then I may congratulate you, Mr. Tribbledale."
"Yes;--and not only that, my lord. But Crocker is nowhere. You must
own that there is a triumph in that. There was a time! Oh! how I felt
it. There was a time when he triumphed; when he talked of 'my Clara,'
as though I hadn't a chance. He's up a tree now, my lord. I thought
I'd just tell you as you are so friendly, coming among us, here, my
lord!" Lord Hampstead again congratulated him, and expressed a hope
that he might be allowed to send the bride a small present.
"Oh, my lord," said Tribbledale, "it shall go with the clock and the
harmonium, and shall be the proudest moment of my life."
When Miss Demijohn heard that the salary of Pogson and Littlebird's
clerk,--she called it "Dan's screw" in speaking of the matter to her
aunt,--had been raised to £160 per annum, she felt that there could
be no excuse for a further change. Up to that moment it had seemed
to her that Tribbledale had obtained his triumph by a deceit which
it still might be her duty to frustrate. He had declared positively
that those fatal words had been actually written in the book,
"Dismissal--B. B." But she had learned that the words had not been
written as yet. All is fair in love and war. She was not in the least
angry with Tribbledale because of his little ruse. A lie told in such
a cause was a merit. But not on that account need she be led away
by it from her own most advantageous course. In spite of the little
quarrel which had sprung up between herself and Crocker, Crocker,
still belonging to Her Majesty's Civil Service, must be better than
Tribbledale. But when she found that Tribbledale's statement as to
the £160 was true, and when she bethought herself that Crocker would
probably be dismissed sooner or later, then she determined to be
firm. As to the £160, old Mrs. Demijohn herself went to the office,
and learned the truth from Zachary Fay. "I think he is a good young
man," said the Quaker, "and he will do very well if he will cease to
think quite so much of himself." To this Mrs. Demijohn remarked that
half-a-dozen babies might probably cure that fault.
So the matter was settled, and it came to pass that Daniel
Tribbledale and Clara Demijohn were married at Holloway on that very
Thursday which saw completed the alliance which had been so long
arranged between the noble houses of Powell and De Hauteville. There
were two letters written on the occasion which shall be given here
as showing the willingness to forget and forgive which marked the
characters of the two persons. A day or two before the marriage the
following invitation was sent;--
DEAR SAM,--
I hope you will quite forget what is past, at any rate
what was unpleasant, and come to our wedding on Thursday.
There is to be a little breakfast here afterwards, and
I am sure that Dan will be very happy to shake your hand.
I have asked him, and he says that as he is to be the
bridegroom he would be proud to have you as best man.
Your old sincere friend,
CLARA DEMIJOHN,--for the present.
The answer was as follows:--
DEAR CLARA,--
There's no malice in me. Since our little tiff I have been
thinking that, after all, I'm not the man for matrimony.
To sip the honey from many flowers is, perhaps, after
all my line of life. I should have been happy to be Dan
Tribbledale's bottle-holder, but that there is another
affair coming off which I must attend. Our Lady Amaldina
is to be married, and I must be there. Our families have
been connected, as you know, for a great many years, and
I could not forgive myself if I did not see her turned
off. No other consideration would have prevented me from
accepting your very kind invitation.
Your loving old friend,
SAM CROCKER.
There did come a pang of regret across Clara's heart, as she read
this as to the connection of the families. Of course Crocker was
lying. Of course it was an empty boast. But there was a savour of
aristocracy even in the capability of telling such a lie. Had she
made Crocker her husband she also would have been able to drag Castle
Hautboy into her daily conversations with Mrs. Duffer.
At the time of these weddings, the month of August, Æolus had not
even yet come to a positive and actual decision as to Crocker's fate.
Crocker had been suspended;--by which act he had been temporarily
expelled from the office, so that his time was all his own to do
what he pleased with it. Whether when suspended he would receive his
salary, no one knew as a certainty. The presumption was that a man
suspended would be dismissed,--unless he could succeed in explaining
away or diminishing the sin of which he had been supposed to be
guilty. Æolus himself could suspend, but it required an act on the
part of the senior officer to dismiss,--or even to deprive the sinner
of any part of his official emoluments. There had been no explanation
possible. No diminishing of the sin had been attempted. It was
acknowledged on all sides that Crocker had,--as Miss Demijohn
properly described it,--destroyed Her Majesty's Mail papers. In
order that unpardonable delay and idleness might not be traced home
to him, he had torn into fragments a bundle of official documents.
His character was so well known that no one doubted his dismissal.
Mr. Jerningham had spoken of it as a thing accomplished. Bobbin and
Geraghty had been congratulated on their rise in the department.
"Dismissal--B. B." had been recorded, if not in any official book, at
any rate in all official minds. But B. B. himself had as yet decided
nothing. When Crocker attended Lady Amaldina's wedding in his best
coat and gloves he was still under suspension; but trusting to the
conviction that after so long a reprieve capital punishment would not
be carried out.
Sir Boreas Bodkin had shoved the papers on one side, and, since that,
nothing further had been said on the matter. Weeks had passed, but
no decision had been made public. Sir Boreas was a man whom the
subordinates nearest to him did not like to remind as to any such
duty as this. When a case was "shoved on one side" it was known to
be something unpalateable. And yet, as Mr. Jerningham whispered to
George Roden, it was a thing that ought to be settled. "He can't come
back, you know," he said.
"I dare say he will," said the Duca.
"Impossible! I look upon it as impossible!" This Mr. Jerningham said
very seriously.
"There are some people, you know," rejoined the other, "whose bark is
so much worse than their bite."
"I know there are, Mr. Roden, and Sir Boreas is perhaps one of them;
but there are cases in which to pardon the thing done seems to be
perfectly impossible. This is one of them. If papers are to be
destroyed with impunity, what is to become of the Department? I for
one should not know how to go on with my duties. Tearing up papers!
Good Heavens! When I think of it I doubt whether I am standing on my
head or my heels."
This was very strong language for Mr. Jerningham, who was not
accustomed to find fault with the proceedings of his superiors.
He went about the office all these weeks with a visage of woe and
the air of a man conscious that some great evil was at hand. Sir
Boreas had observed it, and knew well why that visage was so long.
Nevertheless when his eyes fell on that bundle of papers,--on the
Crocker bundle of papers,--he only pushed it a little further out of
sight than it was before.
Who does not know how odious a letter will become by being shoved
on one side day after day? Answer it at the moment, and it will be
nothing. Put it away unread, or at least undigested, for a day, and
it at once begins to assume ugly proportions. When you have been weak
enough to let it lie on your desk, or worse again, hidden in your
breast-pocket, for a week or ten days, it will have become an enemy
so strong and so odious that you will not dare to attack it. It
throws a gloom over all your joys. It makes you cross to your wife,
severe to the cook, and critical to your own wine-cellar. It becomes
the Black Care which sits behind you when you go out a riding. You
have neglected a duty, and have put yourself in the power of perhaps
some vulgar snarler. You think of destroying it and denying it,
dishonestly and falsely,--as Crocker did the mail papers. And yet you
must bear yourself all the time as though there were no load lying
near your heart. So it was with our Æolus and the Crocker papers. The
papers had become a great bundle. The unfortunate man had been called
upon for an explanation, and had written a blundering long letter
on a huge sheet of foolscap paper,--which Sir Boreas had not read,
and did not mean to read. Large fragments of the torn "mail papers"
had been found, and were all there. Mr. Jerningham had written a
well-worded lengthy report,--which never certainly would be read.
There were former documents in which the existence of the papers
had been denied. Altogether the bundle was big and unholy and
distasteful. Those who knew our Æolus well were sure that he would
never even undo the tape by which the bundle was tied. But something
must be done. One month's pay-day had already passed since the
suspension, and the next was at hand. "Can anything be settled about
Mr. Crocker?" asked Mr. Jerningham, one day about the end of August.
Sir Boreas had already sent his family to a little place he had in
the West of Ireland, and was postponing his holiday because of this
horrid matter. Mr. Jerningham could never go away till Æolus went.
Sir Boreas knew all this, and was thoroughly ashamed of himself.
"Just speak to me about it to-morrow and we'll settle the matter," he
said, in his blandest voice. Mr. Jerningham retreated from the room
frowning. According to his thinking there ought to be nothing to
settle. "D---- the fellow," said Sir Boreas, as soon as the door was
closed; and he gave the papers another shove which sent them off the
huge table on to the floor. Whether it was Mr. Jerningham or Crocker
who was damned, he hardly knew himself. Then he was forced to stoop
to the humility of picking up the bundle.
That afternoon he roused himself. About three o'clock he sent, not
for Mr. Jerningham, but for the Duca. When Roden entered the room the
bundle was before him, but not opened. "Can you send for this man and
get him here to-day?" he asked. The Duca promised that he would do
his best. "I can't bring myself to recommend his dismissal," he said.
The Duca only smiled. "The poor fellow is just going to be married,
you know." The Duca smiled again. Living in Paradise Row himself, he
knew that the lady, _née_ Clara Demijohn, was already the happy wife
of Mr. Tribbledale. But he knew also that after so long an interval
Crocker could not well be dismissed, and he was not ill-natured
enough to rob his chief of so good an excuse. He left the room,
therefore, declaring that he would cause Crocker to be summoned
immediately.
Crocker was summoned, and came. Had Sir Boreas made up his mind
briefly to dismiss the man, or briefly to forgive him, the interview
would have been unnecessary. As things now were the man could not
certainly be dismissed. Sir Boreas was aware of that. Nor could he
be pardoned without further notice. Crocker entered the room with
that mingling of the bully and the coward in his appearance which is
generally the result when a man who is overawed attempts to show that
he is not afraid. Sir Boreas passed his fingers through the hairs
on each side of his head, frowned hard, and, blowing through his
nostrils, became at once the Æolus that he had been named;
Assumes the god,
Affects to nod,
And seems to shake the spheres.
"Mr. Crocker," said the god, laying his hand on the bundle of papers
still tied up in a lump. Then he paused and blew the wrath out of his
nostrils.
"Sir Boreas, no one can be more sorry for an accident than I am for
that."
"An accident!"
"Well, Sir Boreas; I am afraid I shall not make you understand it
all."
"I don't think you will."
"The first paper I did tear up by accident, thinking it was something
done with."
"Then you thought you might as well send the others after it."
"One or two were torn by accident. Then--"
"Well!"
"I hope you'll look it over this time, Sir Boreas."
"I have done nothing but look it over, as you call it, since you came
into the Department. You've been a disgrace to the office. You're of
no use whatsoever. You give more trouble than all the other clerks
put together. I'm sick of hearing your name."
"If you'll try me again I'll turn over a new leaf, Sir Boreas."
"I don't believe it for a moment. They tell me you're just going to
be married." Crocker was silent. Could he be expected to cut the
ground from under his own feet at such a moment? "For the young
lady's sake, I don't like turning you adrift on the world at such
a time. I only wish that she had a more secure basis for her
happiness."
"She'll be all right," said Crocker. He will probably be thought to
have been justified in carrying on the delusion at such a crisis of
his life.
"But you must take my assurance of this," said Æolus, looking
more like the god of storms, "that no wife or baby,--no joy or
trouble,--shall save you again if you again deserve dismissal."
Crocker with his most affable smile thanked Sir Boreas and withdrew.
It was said afterwards that Sir Boreas had seen and read that smile
on Roden's face, had put two and two together in regard to him, and
had become sure that there was to be no marriage. But, had he lost
that excuse, where should he find another?
CHAPTER XIX.
"MY MARION."
The blow came very suddenly at last. About the middle of September
the spirit of Marion Fay flitted away from all its earthly joys and
all its earthly troubles. Lord Hampstead saw her alive for the last
time at that interview which was described a few pages back. Whenever
he proposed to go down again to Pegwell Bay some objection was made,
either by the Quaker or by Mrs. Roden on the Quaker's behalf. The
doctor, it was alleged, had declared that such visits were injurious
to his patient,--or perhaps it was that Marion had herself said that
she was unable to bear the excitement. There was, no doubt, some
truth in this. And Marion had seen that though she herself could
enjoy the boundless love which her lover tendered to her, telling
herself that though it was only for a while, it was very sweet to
have it so, yet for him these meetings were full of agony. But in
addition to this there was, I think, a jealousy on the part of
Zachary Fay as to his daughter. When there was still a question
whether the young lord should be his son-in-law, he had been willing
to give way and to subordinate himself, even though his girl were the
one thing left to him in all the world. While there was an idea that
she should be married, there had accompanied that idea a hope, almost
an expectation, that she might live. But when it was brought home
to him as a fact that her marriage was out of the question because
her life was waning, then unconsciously there grew up in his heart
a feeling that the young lord ought not to rob him of what was left.
Had Marion insisted, he would have yielded. Had Mrs. Roden told him
that it was cruel to separate them, he would have groaned and given
way. As it was, he simply leaned to that view of the matter which
gave him the greatest preponderance with his own child. It may be
that she saw it too, and would not wound him by asking for her
lover's presence.
About the middle of September she died, having written to Hampstead
the very day before her death. Her letters lately had become but a
few words each, which Mrs. Roden would put into an envelope and send
to their destination. He wrote daily, assuring her that he would not
leave his home for a day in order that he might go to her instantly
when she would send for him. To the last she never gave up the idea
of seeing him again;--but at last the little light flickered out
quicker than had been expected.
Mrs. Roden was at Pegwell Bay when the end came; and to her fell
the duty of making it known to Lord Hampstead. She went up to town
immediately, leaving the Quaker in the desolate cottage, and sent
down a note from Holloway to Hendon Hall. "I must see you as soon as
possible. Shall I go to you, or will you come to me?" When she wrote
the words she was sure that he would understand their purport, and
yet it was easier to write so than to tell the cruel truth plainly.
The note was sent down by a messenger, but Lord Hampstead in person
was the answer.
There was no need of any telling. When he stood before her dressed
from head to foot in black, she took him by the two hands and looked
into his face. "It is all over for her," he said,--"the trouble and
the anguish, and the sense of long dull days to come. My Marion! How
infinitely she has the best of it! How glad I ought to be that it is
so."
"You must wait, Lord Hampstead," she said.
"Pray, pray, let me have no consolation. Waiting in the sense you
mean there will be none. For the one relief which will finally come
to me I must of course wait. Did she say any word that you would wish
to tell me!"
"Many, many."
"Were they for my ears?"
"What other words should she have spoken to me? They were prayers for
your health."
"My health needs not her prayers."
"Prayers for your soul's health."
"Such praying will be efficacious there,--or would be were anything
needed to make her fit for those angels among whom she has gone. For
me they can do nothing,--unless it be that in knowing how much she
loved me I may strive to be as she was."
"And for your happiness."
"Psha!" he exclaimed.
"You must let me do her commission, Lord Hampstead. I was to bid you
remember that God in His goodness has ordained that the dead after
awhile shall be remembered only with a softened sorrow. I was to tell
you that as a man you should give your thoughts to other things. It
is not from myself;--it is from her."
"She did not know. She did not understand. As regards good and evil
she was, to my eyes, perfect;--perfect as she was in beauty, in
grace, and feminine tenderness. But the character of others she had
not learned to read. But I need not trouble you as to that, Mrs.
Roden. You have been good to her as though you were her mother, and
I will love you for it while I live." Then he was going away; but
he turned again to ask some question as to the funeral. Might he do
it. Mrs. Roden shook her head. "But I shall be there?" To this she
assented, but explained to him that Zachary Fay would admit of no
interference with that which he considered to be his own privilege
and his own duty.
Lord Hampstead had driven himself over from Hendon Hall, and had
driven fast. When he left Mrs. Roden's house the groom was driving
the dog-cart up and down Paradise Row, waiting for his master. But
the master walked on out of the Row, forgetting altogether the horse
and the cart and the man, not knowing whither he was going.
The blow had come, and though it had been fully expected, though he
had known well that it was coming, it struck him now as hard, almost
harder than if it had not been expected. It seemed to himself that
he was unable to endure his sorrow now because he had been already
weakened by such a load of sorrow. Because he had grieved so much, he
could not now bear this further grief. As he walked on he beat his
hands about, unconscious that he was in the midst of men and women
who were gazing at him in the streets. There was nothing left to
him,--nothing, nothing, nothing! He felt that if he could rid himself
of his titles, rid himself of his wealth, rid himself of the very
clothes upon his back, it would be better for him, so that he
might not seem to himself to think that comfort could be found
in externals. "Marion," he said, over and over again, in little
whispered words, but loud enough for his own ears to hear the sound.
And then he uttered phrases which were almost fantastic in their woe,
but which declared what was and had been the condition of his mind
towards her since she had become so inexpressibly dear to him. "My
wife," he said, "my own one! Mother of my children. My woman; my
countess; my princess. They should have seen. They should have
acknowledged. They should have known whom it was that I had brought
among them;--of what nature should be the woman whom a man should set
in a high place. I had made my choice;--and then that it should come
to this!" "There is no good to be done," he said again. "It all turns
to ashes and to dust. The low things of the world are those which
prevail." "Oh, Marion, that I could be with you! Though it were to
be nowhere,--though the great story should have no pathetic ending,
though the last long eternal chapter should be a blank,--still to
have wandered away with you would have been something." As soon as
he reached his house he walked straight into the drawing-room, and
having carefully closed the door, he took the poker in his hand and
held it clasped there as something precious. "It is the only thing
of mine," he said, "that she has touched. Even then I swore to
myself that this hearth should be her hearth; that here we would
sit together, and be one flesh and one bone." Then surreptitiously
he took the bit of iron away with him, and hid it among his
treasures,--to the subsequent dismay of the housemaid.
There came to him a summons from the Quaker to the funeral, and on
the day named, without saying a word to any one, he took the train
and went down to Pegwell Bay. From the moment on which the messenger
had come from Mrs. Roden he had dressed himself in black, and he now
made no difference in his garments. Poor Zachary said but little to
him; but that little was very bitter. "It has been so with all of
them," he said. "They have all been taken. The Lord cannot strike
me again now." Of the highly-born stranger's grief, or of the cause
which brought him there, he had not a word to say; nor did Lord
Hampstead speak of his own sorrow. "I sympathize and condole with
you," he said to the old man. The Quaker shook his head, and after
that there was silence between them till they parted. To the few
others who were there Lord Hampstead did not address himself, nor did
they to him. From the grave, when the clod of earth had been thrown
on it, he walked slowly away, without a sign on his face of that
agony which was rending his heart. There was a carriage there to take
him to the railway, but he only shook his head when he was invited to
enter it. He walked off and wandered about for hours, till he thought
that the graveyard would be deserted. Then he returned, and when he
found himself alone he stood over the newly heaped-up soil. "Marion,"
he said to himself over and over again, whispering as he stood there.
"Marion,--Marion; my wife; my woman." As he stood by the grave
side, one came softly stealing up to him, and laid a hand upon his
shoulder. He turned round quickly, and saw that it was the bereaved
father. "Mr. Fay," he said, "we have both lost the only thing that
either of us valued."
"What is it to thee, who are young, and hardly knew her twelve months
since?"
"Months make no difference, I think."
"But old age, my lord, and childishness, and solitude--"
"I, too, am alone."
"She was my daughter, my own. Thou hadst seen a pretty face, and that
was all. She had remained with me when those others died. Had thou
not come--"
"Did my coming kill her, Mr. Fay'?"
"I do not say that. Thou hast been good to her, and I would not say a
hard word to thee."
"I did think that nothing could have added to my sorrow."
"No, my lord; no, no. She would have died. She was her dear mother's
child, and she was doomed. Go away, and be thankful that thou, too,
hast not become the father of children born only to perish in your
sight. I will not say an unkind word, but I would wish to have my
girl's grave to myself." Upon this Lord Hampstead walked off, and
went back to his own home, hardly knowing how he reached it.
It was a month after this that he returned to the churchyard, and
might have been seen sitting on the small stone slab which the Quaker
had already caused to be laid over the grave. It was a fine October
evening, and the sombre gloom of the hours was already darkening
everything around. He had crept into the enclosure silently, almost
slily, so as to insure himself that his presence should not be noted;
and now, made confident by the coming darkness, he had seated himself
on the stone. During the long hours that he sat there no word was
formed within his lips, but he surrendered himself entirely to
thoughts of what his life might have been had she been spared to him.
He had come there for a purpose, the very opposite of that; but how
often does it come to pass that we are unable to drive our thoughts
into that channel in which we wish them to flow? He had thought much
of her last words, and was minded to attempt to do something as she
would have had him do it;--not that he might enjoy his life, but that
he might make it useful. But as he sat there, he could not think of
the real future,--not of the future as it might be made to take this
or that form by his own efforts; but of the future as it would have
been had she been with him, of the glorious, bright, beautiful future
which her love, her goodness, her beauty, her tenderness would have
illuminated.
Till he had seen her his heart had never been struck. Ideas,
sufficiently pleasant in themselves, though tinged with a certain
irony and sarcasm, had been frequent with him as to his future
career. He would leave that building up of a future family of
Marquises,--if future Marquises there were to be,--to one of those
young darlings whose bringing-up would manifestly fit them for the
work. For himself he would perhaps philosophize, perhaps do something
that might be of service,--would indulge at any rate his own views as
to humanity;--but he would not burden himself with a Countess and a
nursery full of young lords and ladies. He had often said to Roden,
had often said to Vivian, that her ladyship, his stepmother, need not
trouble herself. He certainly would not be guilty of making either
a Countess or a Marchioness. They, of course, had laughed at him,
and had bid him bide his time. He had bided his time,--as they had
said,--and Marion Fay had been the result.
Yes;--life would have been worth the having if Marion Fay had
remained to him. It was thus he communed with himself as he sat there
on the tomb. From the moment in which he had first seen her in Mrs.
Roden's house he had felt that things were changed with him. There
had come a vision before him which filled him full of delight. As he
learned to know the tones of her voice, and the motion of her limbs,
and to succumb to the feminine charms with which she enveloped him,
all the world was brightened up to his view. Here there was no
pretence of special blood, no assumption of fantastic titles, no
claim to superiority because of fathers and mothers who were in
themselves by no means superior to their neighbours. And yet there
had been all the grace, all the loveliness, all the tenderness,
without which his senses would not have been captivated. He had never
known his want;--but he had in truth wanted one who should be at all
points a lady, and yet not insist on a right to be so esteemed on the
strength of inherited privileges. Chance, good fortune, providence
had sent her to him,--or more probably the eternal fitness of things,
as he had allowed himself to argue when things had fallen out so well
to his liking. Then there had arisen difficulties, which had seemed
to him to be vain and absurd,--though they would not allow themselves
to be at once swept away. They had talked to him of his station and
of hers, making that an obstacle which to him had been a strong
argument in favour of her love. Against this he had done battle with
the resolute purpose which a man has who is sure of his cause. He
would have none of their sophistries, none of their fears, none of
their old-fashioned absurdities. Did she love him? Was her heart to
him as was his to her? That was the one question on which it must
all depend. As he thought of it all, sitting there on the tombstone,
he put out his arm as though to fold her form to his bosom when he
thought of the moment in which he became sure that it was so. There
had been no doubt of the full-flowing current of her love. Then he
had aroused himself, and had shaken his mane like a lion, and had
sworn aloud that this vain obstacle should be no obstacle, even
though it was pleaded by herself. Nature had been strong enough
within him to assure him that he would overcome the obstacle.
And he had overcome it,--or was overcoming it,--when that other
barrier gradually presented itself, and loomed day by day terribly
large before his affrighted eyes. Even to that he would not
yield,--not only as regarded her but himself also. Had there been
no such barrier, the possession of Marion would have been to him an
assurance of perfect bliss which the prospect of far-distant death
would not have effected. When he began to perceive that her condition
was not as that of other young women, he became aware of a great
danger,--of a danger to himself as well as to her, to himself rather
than to her. This increased rather than diminished his desire for
the possession. As the ardent rider will be more intent to take the
fence when it looms before him large and difficult, so with him the
resolution to make Marion his wife became the stronger when he knew
that there were reasons of prudence, reasons of caution, reasons of
worldly wisdom, why he should not do so. It had become a religion
to him that she should be his one. Then gradually her strength had
become known to him, and slowly he was made aware that he must bow
to her decision. All that he wanted in all the world he must not
have,--not that the love which he craved was wanting, but because she
knew that her own doom was fixed.
She had bade him retrick his beams, and take the light and the
splendour of his sun elsewhere. The light and the splendour of his
sun had all passed from him. She had absorbed them altogether. He,
while he had been boasting to himself of his power and his manliness,
in that he would certainly overcome all the barriers, had found
himself to be weak as water in her hands. She, in her soft feminine
tones, had told him what duty had required of her, and, as she had
said so she had done. Then he had stood on one side, and had remained
looking on, till she had--gone away and left him. She had never
been his. It had not been allowed to him even to write his name, as
belonging also to her, on the gravestone.
But she had loved him. There was nothing in it all but this to which
his mind could revert with any feeling of satisfaction. She had
certainly loved him. If such love might be continued between a
disembodied spirit and one still upon the earth,--if there were any
spirit capable of love after that divorce between the soul and the
body,--her love certainly would still be true to him. Most assuredly
his should be true to her. Whatever he might do towards obeying her
in striving to form some manly purpose for his life, he would never
ask another woman to be his wife, he would never look for other love.
The black coat should be laid aside as soon as might be, so that the
world around him should not have cause for remark; but the mourning
should never be taken from his heart.
Then, when the darkness of night had quite come upon him, he arose
from his seat, and flinging himself on his knees, stretched his arms
wildly across the grave. "Marion," he said; "Marion; oh, Marion, will
you hear me? Though gone from me, art thou not mine?" He looked up
into the night, and there, before his eyes, was her figure, beautiful
as ever, with all her loveliness of half-developed form, with her
soft hair upon her shoulders; and her eyes beamed on him, and a
heavenly smile came across her face, and her lips moved as though she
would encourage him. "My Marion;--my wife!"
Very late that night the servants heard him as he opened the door and
walked across the hall, and made his way up to his own room.
CHAPTER XX.
MR. GREENWOOD'S LAST BATTLE.
During the whole of that long summer nothing was absolutely arranged
as to Roden and Lady Frances, though it was known to all London, and
to a great many persons outside of London, that they were certainly
to become man and wife. The summer was very long to Lord and Lady
Trafford because of the necessity incumbent on them of remaining
through the last dregs of the season on account of Lady Amaldina's
marriage. Had Lady Amaldina thrown herself away on another Roden the
aunt would have no doubt gone to the country; but her niece had done
her duty in life with so much propriety and success that it would
have been indecent to desert her. Lady Kingsbury therefore remained
in Park Lane, and was driven to endure frequently the sight of the
Post Office clerk.
For George Roden was admitted to the house even though it was at last
acknowledged that he must be George Roden, and nothing more. And
it was found also that he must be a Post Office clerk, and nothing
more. Lord Persiflage, on whom Lady Kingsbury chiefly depended for
seeing that her own darlings should not be disgraced by being made
brothers-in-law to anything so low as a clerk in the Post Office,
was angry at last, and declared that it was impossible to help a man
who would not help himself. "It is no use trying to pick a man up
who will lie in the gutter." It was thus he spoke of Roden in his
anger; and then the Marchioness would wring her hands and abuse her
stepdaughter. Lord Persiflage did think that something might be
done for the young man if the young man would only allow himself to
be called a Duke. But the young man would not allow it, and Lord
Persiflage did not see what could be done. Nevertheless there was a
general idea abroad in the world that something would be done. Even
the mysterious savour of high rank which attached itself to the young
man would do something for him.
It may be remembered that the Marquis himself, when first the fact
had come to his ears that his daughter loved the young man, had been
almost as ferociously angry as his wife. He had assented to the
carrying of her away to the Saxon castle. He had frowned upon her.
He had been a party to the expelling her from his own house. But
gradually his heart had become softened towards her; in his illness
he had repented of his harshness; he had not borne her continued
absence easily, and had of late looked about for an excuse for
accepting her lover. When the man was discovered to be a Duke, though
it was only an Italian Duke, of course he accepted him. Now his
wife told him daily that Roden was not a Duke, because he would not
accept his Dukedom,--and ought therefore again to be rejected. Lord
Persiflage had declared that nothing could be done for him, and
therefore he ought to be rejected. But the Marquis clung to his
daughter. As the man was absolutely a Duke, according to the laws of
all the Heralds, and all the Courts, and all the tables of precedency
and usages of peerage in Christendom, he could not de-grade himself
even by any motion of his own. He was the eldest and the legitimate
son of the last Duca di Crinola,--so the Marquis said,--and as such
was a fitting aspirant for the hand of the daughter of an English
peer. "But he hasn't got a shilling," said Lady Kingsbury weeping.
The Marquis felt that it was within his own power to produce some
remedy for this evil, but he did not care to say as much to his wife,
who was tender on that point in regard to the interest of her three
darlings. Roden continued his visits to Park Lane very frequently
all through the summer, and had already arranged for an autumn visit
to Castle Hautboy,--in spite of that angry word spoken by Lord
Persiflage. Everybody knew he was to marry Lady Frances. But when the
season was over, and all the world had flitted from London, nothing
was settled.
Lady Kingsbury was of course very unhappy during all this time; but
there was a source of misery deeper, more pressing, more crushing
than even the Post Office clerk. Mr. Greenwood, the late chaplain,
had, during his last interview with the Marquis, expressed some noble
sentiments. He would betray nothing that had been said to him in
confidence. He would do nothing that could annoy the Marchioness,
because the Marchioness was a lady, and as such, entitled to all
courtesy from him as a gentleman. There were grounds no doubt on
which he could found a claim, but he would not insist on them, as
his doing so would be distasteful to her ladyship. He felt that he
was being ill-treated, almost robbed; but he would put up with that
rather than say a word which would come against his own conscience
as a gentleman. With these high assurances he took his leave of the
Marquis as though he intended to put up with the beggarly stipend
of £200 a year which the Marquis had promised him. Perhaps that had
been his intention;--but before two days were over he had remembered
that though it might be base to tell her ladyship's secrets, the
penny-post was still open to him.
It certainly was the case that Lady Kingsbury had spoken to him with
strong hopes of the death of the heir to the title. Mr. Greenwood, in
discussing the matter with himself, went beyond that, and declared
to himself that she had done so with expectation as well as hope.
Fearful words had been said. So he assured himself. He thanked his
God that nothing had come of it. Only for him something,--he assured
himself,--would have come of it. The whisperings in that up-stairs
sitting-room at Trafford had been dreadful. He had divulged nothing.
He had held his tongue,--like a gentleman. But ought he not to be
paid for holding his tongue? There are so many who act honestly from
noble motives, and then feel that their honesty should be rewarded by
all those gains which dishonesty might have procured for them! About
a fortnight after the visit which Mr. Greenwood made to the Marquis
he did write a letter to the Marchioness. "I am not anxious," he
said, "to do more than remind your ladyship of those peculiarly
confidential discussions which took place between yourself and me at
Trafford during the last winter; but I think you will acknowledge
that they were of a nature to make me feel that I should not be
discarded like an old glove. If you would tell his lordship that
something should be done for me, something would be done." Her
ladyship when she received this was very much frightened. She
remembered the expressions she had allowed herself to use, and did
say a hesitating, halting word to her husband, suggesting that Mr.
Greenwood's pension should be increased. The Marquis turned upon her
in anger. "Did you ever promise him anything?" he asked. No;--she had
promised him nothing. "I am giving him more than he deserves, and
will do no more," said the Marquis. There was something in his voice
which forbade her to speak another word.
Mr. Greenwood's letter having remained for ten days without an
answer, there came another. "I cannot but think that you will
acknowledge my right to expect an answer," he said, "considering
the many years through which I have enjoyed the privilege of your
ladyship's friendship, and the _very confidential terms_ on which
we have been used to discuss matters of the highest interest to
us both." The "matters" had no doubt been the probability of the
accession to the title of her own son through the demise of his elder
brother! She understood now all her own folly, and something of her
own wickedness. To this second appeal she wrote a short answer,
having laid awake over it one entire night.
DEAR MR. GREENWOOD--I have spoken to the Marquis, and he
will do nothing.
Yours truly,
C. KINGSBURY.
This she did without saying a word to her husband.
Then, after the interval of a few days, there came a third letter.
MY DEAR LADY KINGSBURY,--
I cannot allow myself to think that this should be the
end of it all, after so many years of social intimacy and
confidential intercourse. Can you yourself imagine the
condition of a gentleman of my age reduced after a life of
ease and comfort to exist on a miserable pension of £200 a
year? It simply means death,--death! Have I not a right to
expect something better after the devotion of a life?
Who has known as well as I the stumbling-blocks to
your ladyship's ambition which have been found in the
existences of Lord Hampstead and Lady Frances Trafford?
I have sympathized with you no doubt,--partly because of
their peculiarities, partly from sincere affection for
your ladyship. It cannot surely be that your ladyship
should now treat me as an enemy because I could do no more
than sympathize!
Dig I cannot. To beg I am ashamed. You will hardly wish
that I should perish from want. I have not as yet been
driven to open out my sad case to any one but yourself.
Do not force me to it,--for the sake of those darling
children for whose welfare I have ever been so anxious.
Believe me to be,
Your ladyship's most devoted and faithful friend,
THOMAS GREENWOOD.
This epistle so frightened her that she began to consider how she
might best collect together a sufficient sum of money to satisfy
the man. She did succeed in sending him a note for £50. But this
he was too wary to take. He returned it, saying that he could not,
though steeped in poverty, accept chance eleemosynary aid. What he
required.--and had he thought a right to ask,--was an increase to the
fixed stipend allowed him. He must, he thought, again force himself
upon the presence of the Marquis, and explain the nature of the
demand more explicitly.
Upon this Lady Kingsbury showed all the letters to her husband. "What
does he mean by stumbling-blocks?" asked the Marquis in his wrath.
Then there was a scene which was sad enough. She had to confess
that she had spoken very freely to the chaplain respecting her
step-children. "Freely! What does freely mean? Do you want them out
of the way?" What a question for a husband to have to ask his wife!
But she had a door by which she could partly escape. It was not
that she had wanted them out of the way, but that she had been so
horrified by what she had thought to be their very improper ideas as
to their own rank of life. Those marriages which they had intended
had caused her to speak as she had done to the chaplain. When alone
at Trafford she had no doubt opened her mind to the clergyman. She
rested a great deal on the undoubted fact that Mr. Greenwood was
a clergyman. Hampstead and Fanny had been stumbling-blocks to her
ambition because she had desired to see them married properly into
proper families. She probably thought that she was telling the truth
as she said all this. It was at any rate accepted as truth, and
she was condoned. As to Hampstead, it was known by this time that
that marriage could never take place; and as to Lady Frances, the
Marchioness was driven, in her present misery, to confess, that as
the Duca was in truth a Duca, his family must be held to be proper.
But the Marquis sent for Mr. Cumming, his London solicitor, and put
all the letters into his hand,--with such explanation as he thought
necessary to give. Mr. Cumming at first recommended that the pension
should be altogether stopped; but to this the Marquis did not
consent. "It would not suit me that he should starve," said the
Marquis. "But if he continues to write to her ladyship something must
be done."
"Threatening letters to extort money!" said the lawyer confidently.
"I can have him before a magistrate to-morrow, my lord, if it be
thought well." It was, however, felt to be expedient that Mr. Cumming
should in the first case send for Mr. Greenwood, and explain to that
gentleman the nature of the law.
Mr. Cumming no doubt felt himself that it would be well that Mr.
Greenwood should not starve, and well also that application should
not be made to the magistrate, unless as a last resort. He, too,
asked himself what was meant by "stumbling-blocks." Mr. Greenwood was
a greedy rascal, descending to the lowest depth of villany with the
view of making money out of the fears of a silly woman. But the silly
woman, the lawyer thought, must have been almost worse than silly.
It seemed natural to Mr. Cumming that a stepmother should be anxious
for the worldly welfare of her own children;--not unnatural, perhaps,
that she should be so anxious as to have a feeling at her heart
amounting almost to a wish that "chance" should remove the obstacle.
Chance, as Mr. Cumming was aware, could in such a case mean
only--death. Mr. Cumming, when he put this in plain terms to himself,
felt it to be very horrid; but there might be a doubt whether such a
feeling would be criminal, if backed up by no deed and expressed by
no word. But here it seemed that words had been spoken. Mr. Greenwood
had probably invented that particular phrase, but would hardly have
invented it unless something had been said to justify it. It was his
business, however, to crush Mr. Greenwood, and not to expose her
ladyship. He wrote a very civil note to Mr. Greenwood. Would Mr.
Greenwood do him the kindness to call in Bedford Row at such or
such an hour,--or indeed at any other hour that might suit him. Mr.
Greenwood thinking much of it, and resolving in his mind that any
increase to his pension might probably be made through Mr. Cumming,
did as he was bid, and waited upon the lawyer.
Mr. Cumming, when the clergyman was shown in, was seated with the
letters before him,--the various letters which Mr. Greenwood had
written to Lady Kingsbury,--folded out one over another, so that the
visitor's eye might see them and feel their presence; but he did not
intend to use them unless of necessity. "Mr. Greenwood," he said,
"I learn that you are discontented with the amount of a retiring
allowance which the Marquis of Kingsbury has made you on leaving his
service."
"I am, Mr. Cumming; certainly I am.--£200 a year is not--"
"Let us call it £300, Mr. Greenwood."
"Well, yes; Lord Hampstead did say something--"
"And has paid something. Let us call it £300. Not that the amount
matters. The Marquis and Lord Hampstead are determined not to
increase it."
"Determined!"
"Quite determined that under no circumstances will they increase it.
They may find it necessary to stop it."
"Is this a threat?"
"Certainly it is a threat,--as far as it goes. There is another
threat which I may have to make for the sake of coercing you; but I
do not wish to use it if I can do without it."
"Her ladyship knows that I am ill-treated in this matter. She sent
me £50 and I returned it. It was not in that way that I wished to be
paid for my services."
"It was well for you that you did. But for that I could not certainly
have asked you to come and see me here."
"You could not?"
"No;--I could not. You will probably understand what I mean." Here
Mr. Cumming laid his hands upon the letters, but made no other
allusion to them. "A very few words more will, I think, settle all
that there is to be arranged between us. The Marquis, from certain
reasons of humanity,--with which I for one hardly sympathize in
this case,--is most unwilling to stop, or even to lessen, the ample
pension which is paid to you."
"Ample;--after a whole lifetime!"
"But he will do so if you write any further letters to any member of
his family."
"That is tyranny, Mr. Cumming."
"Very well. Then is the Marquis a tyrant. But he will go further than
that in his tyranny. If it be necessary to defend either himself or
any of his family from further annoyance, he will do so by criminal
proceedings. You are probably aware that the doing this would be very
disagreeable to the Marquis. Undoubtedly it would. To such a man as
Lord Kingsbury it is a great trouble to have his own name, or worse,
that of others of his family, brought into a Police Court. But, if
necessary, it will be done. I do not ask you for any assurance, Mr.
Greenwood, because it may be well that you should take a little time
to think of it. But unless you are willing to lose your income, and
to be taken before a police magistrate for endeavouring to extort
money by threatening letters, you had better hold your hand."
"I have never threatened."
"Good morning, Mr. Greenwood."
"Mr. Cumming, I have threatened no one."
"Good morning, Mr. Greenwood." Then the discarded chaplain took his
leave, failing to find the words with which he could satisfactorily
express his sense of the injury which had been done him.
Before that day was over he had made up his mind to take his £300 a
year and be silent. The Marquis, he now found, was not so infirm as
he had thought, nor the Marchioness quite so full of fears. He must
give it up, and take his pittance. But in doing so he continued to
assure himself that he was greatly injured, and did not cease to
accuse Lord Kingsbury of sordid parsimony in refusing to reward
adequately one whose services to the family had been so faithful and
long-enduring.
It may, however, be understood that in the midst of troubles such as
these Lady Kingsbury did not pass a pleasant summer.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE REGISTRAR OF STATE RECORDS.
Although Lord Persiflage had seemed to be very angry with the
recusant Duke, and had made that uncivil speech about the gutter,
still he was quite willing that George Roden should be asked down to
Castle Hautboy. "Of course we must do something for him," he said to
his wife; "but I hate scrupulous men. I don't blame him at all for
making such a girl as Fanny fall in love with him. If I were a Post
Office clerk I'd do the same if I could."
"Not you. You wouldn't have given yourself the trouble."
"But when I had done it I wouldn't have given her friends more
trouble than was necessary. I should have known that they would have
had to drag me up somewhere. I should have looked for that. But I
shouldn't have made myself difficult when chance gave a helping hand.
Why shouldn't he have taken his title?"
"Of course we all wish he would."
"Fanny is as bad as he is. She has caught some of Hampstead's
levelling ideas and encourages the young man. It was all Kingsbury's
fault from the first. He began the world wrong, and now he cannot get
himself right again. A radical aristocrat is a contradiction in
terms. It is very well that there should be Radicals. It would be a
stupid do-nothing world without them. But a man can't be oil and
vinegar at the same time." This was the expression made by Lord
Persiflage of his general ideas on politics in reference to George
Roden and his connection with the Trafford family; but not the less
was George Roden asked down to Castle Hautboy. Lady Frances was not
to be thrown over because she had made a fool of herself,--nor was
George Roden to be left out in the cold, belonging as he did now to
Lady Frances. Lord Persiflage never approved very much of
anybody,--but he never threw anybody over.
It was soon after the funeral of Marion Fay that Roden went down to
Cumberland. During the last two months of Marion's illness Hampstead
and Roden had been very often together. Not that they had lived
together, as Hampstead had declared himself unable to bear continued
society. His hours had been passed alone. But there had not been many
days in which the friends had not seen each other for a few minutes.
It had become a habit with Hampstead to ride over to Paradise Row
when Roden had returned from the office. At first Mrs. Roden also had
been there;--but latterly she had spent her time altogether at
Pegwell Bay. Nevertheless Lord Hampstead would come, and would say a
few words, and would then ride home again. When all was over at
Pegwell Bay, when the funeral was at hand, and during the few days of
absolutely prostrating grief which followed it, nothing was seen of
him;--but on the evening before his friend's journey down to Castle
Hautboy he again appeared in the Row. On this occasion he walked
over, and his friend returned with him a part of the way. "You must
do something with yourself," Roden said to him.
"I see no need of doing anything special. How many men do nothing
with themselves!"
"Men either work or play."
"I do not think I shall play much."
"Not for a time certainly. You used to play; but I can imagine that
the power of doing so will have deserted you."
"I shan't hunt, if you mean that."
"I do not mean that at all," said Roden;--"but that you should do
something. There must be some occupation, or life will be
insupportable."
"It is insupportable," said the young man looking away, so that his
countenance should not be seen.
"But it must be supported. Let the load be ever so heavy, it must be
carried. You would not destroy yourself?"
"No;"--said the other slowly; "no. I would not do that. If any one
would do it for me!"
"No one will do it for you. Not to have some plan of active life,
some defined labour by which the weariness of the time may be
conquered, would be a weakness and a cowardice next door to that of
suicide."
"Roden," said the lord, "your severity is brutal."
"The question is whether it be true. You shall call it what you
like,--or call me what you like; but can you contradict what I say?
Do you not feel that it is your duty as a man to apply what intellect
you have, and what strength, to some purpose?"
Then, by degrees, Lord Hampstead did explain the purpose he had
before him. He intended to have a yacht built, and start alone, and
cruise about the face of the world. He would take books with him, and
study the peoples and the countries which he visited.
"Alone?" asked Roden.
"Yes, alone;--as far as a man may be alone with a crew and a captain
around him. I shall make acquaintances as I go, and shall be able to
bear them as such. They will know nothing of my secret wound. Had I
you with me,--you and my sister let us suppose,--or Vivian, or any
one from here who had known me, I could not even struggle to raise my
head."
"It would wear off."
"I will go alone; and if occasion offers I will make fresh
acquaintances. I will begin another life which shall have no
connection with the old one,--except that which will be continued by
the thread of my own memory. No one shall be near me who may even
think of her name when my own ways and manners are called in
question." He went on to explain that he would set himself to work at
once. The ship must be built, and the crew collected, and the stores
prepared. He thought that in this way he might find employment for
himself till the spring. In the spring, if all was ready, he would
start. Till that time came he would live at Hendon Hall,--still
alone. He so far relented, however, as to say that if his sister was
married before he began his wanderings he would be present at her
marriage.
Early in the course of the evening he had explained to Roden that his
father and he had conjointly arranged to give Lady Frances £40,000 on
her wedding. "Can that be necessary?" asked Roden.
"You must live; and as you have gone into a nest with the drones, you
must live in some sort as the drones do."
"I hope I shall never be a drone."
"You cannot touch pitch and not be defiled. You'll be expected to
wear gloves and drink fine wine,--or, at any rate, to give it to your
friends. Your wife will have to ride in a coach. If she don't people
will point at her, and think she's a pauper, because she has a handle
to her name. They talk of the upper ten thousand. It is as hard to
get out from among them as it is to get in among them. Though you
have been wonderfully stout about the Italian title, you'll find that
it will stick to you." Then it was explained that the money, which
was to be given, would in no wise interfere with the "darlings."
Whatever was to be added to the fortune which would naturally have
belonged to Lady Frances, would come not from her father but from her
brother.
When Roden arrived at Castle Hautboy Lord Persiflage was there,
though he remained but for a day. He was due to be with the Queen for
a month,--a duty which was evidently much to his taste, though he
affected to frown over it as a hardship. "I am sorry, Roden," he
said, "that I should be obliged to leave you and everybody else;--but
a Government hack, you know, has to be a Government hack." This was
rather strong from a Secretary of State to a Clerk in the Post
Office; but Roden had to let it pass lest he should give an opening
to some remark on his own repudiated rank. "I shall be back before
you are gone, I hope, and then perhaps we may arrange something." The
only thing that Roden wished to arrange was a day for his own
wedding, as to which, as far as he knew, Lord Persiflage could have
nothing to say.
"I don't think you ought to be sorry," Lady Frances said to her lover
as they were wandering about on the mountains. He had endeavoured to
explain to her that this large income which was now promised to him
rather impeded than assisted the scheme of life which he had
suggested to himself.
"Not sorry,--but disappointed, if you know the difference."
"Not exactly."
"I had wanted to feel that I should earn my wife's bread."
"So you shall. If a man works honestly for his living, I don't think
he need inquire too curiously what proportion of it may come from his
own labour or from some other source. If I had had nothing we should
have done very well without the coach,--as poor Hampstead calls it.
But if the coach is there I don't see why we shouldn't ride in it."
"I should like to earn the coach too," said Roden.
"This, sir, will be a lesson serviceable in teaching you that you are
not to be allowed to have your own way in everything."
An additional leave of absence for a month had been accorded to
Roden. He had already been absent during a considerable time in the
spring of the year, and in the ordinary course of events would not
have been entitled to this prolonged indulgence. But there were
reasons deemed to be sufficient. He was going to meet a Cabinet
Minister. He was engaged to marry the daughter of a Marquis. And it
was known that he was not simply George Roden, but in truth the Duca
di Crinola. He had suffered some qualms of conscience as to the
favour to be thus shown him, but had quieted them by the idea that
when a man is in love something special ought to be done for him. He
remained, therefore, till the Foreign Secretary returned from his
royal service, and had by that time fixed the period of his marriage.
It was to take place in the cold comfortless month of March. It would
be a great thing, he had said, to have Hampstead present at it, and
it was Hampstead's intention to start on his long travels early in
April. "I don't see why people shouldn't be married in cold weather
as well as in hot," said Vivian. "Brides need not go about always in
muslin."
When Lord Persiflage returned to Castle Hautboy, he had his plan
ready arranged for relieving his future half-nephew-in-law,--if there
be such a relationship,--from the ignominy of the Post Office. "I
have Her Majesty's permission," he said to Roden, "to offer you the
position of Registrar of State Records to the Foreign Office."
"Registrar of State Records to the Foreign Office!"
"Fifteen hundred a year," said his lordship, going off at once to
this one point of true vital importance. "I am bound to say that I
think I could have done better for you had you consented to bear the
title, which is as completely your own, as is that mine by which I am
called."
"Don't let us go back to that, my lord."
"Oh no;--certainly not. Only this; if you could be brought to think
better of it,--if Fanny could be induced to make you think better of
it,--the office now offered to you would, I think, be more
comfortable to you."
"How so?"
"I can hardly explain, but it would. There is no reason on earth why
it should not be held by an Italian. We had an Italian for many years
librarian at the Museum. And as an Italian you would of course be
entitled to call yourself by your hereditary title."
"I shall never be other than an Englishman."
"Very well. One man may lead a horse to water, but a thousand cannot
make him drink. I only tell you what would be the case. The title
would no doubt give a prestige to the new office. It is exactly that
kind of work which would fall readily into the hands of a foreigner
of high rank. One cannot explain these things, but it is so. The
£1500 a year would more probably become £2000 if you submitted to be
called by your own proper name." Everybody knew that Lord Persiflage
understood the Civil Service of his country perfectly. He was a man
who never worked very hard himself, or expected those under him to do
so; but he liked common sense, and hated scruples, and he considered
it to be a man's duty to take care of himself,--of himself first of
all, and then, perhaps, afterwards, of the Service.
Neither did Roden nor did Lady Frances give way a bit the more for
this. They were persistent in clinging to their old comparatively
humble English name. Lady Frances would be Lady Frances to the end,
but she would be no more than Lady Frances Roden. And George Roden
would be George Roden, whether a clerk in the Post Office or
Registrar of State Records to the Foreign Office. So much the next
new bride declared with great energy to the last new bride who had
just returned from her short wedding tour, having been hurried home
so that her husband might be able to lay the first stone of the new
bridge to be built over the Menai Straits. Lady Llwddythlw, with all
the composed manners of a steady matron, was at Castle Hautboy, and
used all her powers of persuasion. "Never mind, my dear, what he
says," Lady Llwddythlw urged. "What you should think of is what will
be good for him. He would be somebody,--almost as good as an Under
Secretary of State,--with a title. He would get to be considered
among the big official swells. There is so much in a name! Of course,
you've got your rank. But you ought to insist on it for his sake."
Lady Frances did not give way in the least, nor did any one venture
to call the Duca by his title, formally or openly. But, as Lord
Hampstead had said, "it stuck to him." The women when they were alone
with him would call him Duca, joking with him; and it was out of the
question that he should be angry with them for their jokes. He became
aware that behind his back he was always spoken of as The Duke, and
that this was not done with any idea of laughing at him. The people
around him believed that he was a Duke and ought to be called a Duke.
Of course it was in joke that Lady Llwddythlw always called Lady
Frances Duchessina when they were together, because Lady Frances had
certainly not as yet acquired her right to the name; but it all
tended to the same point. He became aware that the very servants
around him understood it. They did not call him "your grace" or "my
Lord," or make spoken allusion to his rank; but they looked it. All
that obsequiousness due to an hereditary nobleman, which is dear to
the domestic heart, was paid to him. He found himself called upon by
Lady Persiflage to go into the dining-room out of his proper place.
There was a fair excuse for this while the party was small, and
confined to few beyond the family, as it was expected that the two
declared lovers should sit together. But when this had been done with
a larger party he expostulated with his hostess. "My dear Mr. Roden,"
she said,--"I suppose I must call you so."
"It's my name at any rate."
"There are certain points on which, as far as I can see, a man may be
allowed to have his way,--and certain points on which he may not."
"As to his own name--"
"Yes; on the matter of your name. I do not see my way how to get the
better of you just at present, though on account of my near
connection with Fanny I am very anxious to do so. But as to the fact
of your rank, there it is. Whenever I see you,--and I hope I shall
see you very often,--I shall always suppose that I see an Italian
nobleman of the first class, and shall treat you so." He shrugged his
shoulders, feeling that he had nothing else to do. "If I were to find
myself in the society of some man calling himself by a title to which
I knew that he had no right,--I should probably call him by no name;
but I should be very careful not to treat him as a nobleman, knowing
that he had no right to be so treated. What can I do in your case but
just reverse the position?"
He never went back to the Post Office,--of course. What should a
Registrar of State Records to the Foreign Office do in so humble an
establishment? He never went back for the purposes of work. He called
to bid farewell to Sir Boreas, Mr. Jerningham, Crocker, and others
with whom he had served. "I did not think we should see much more of
you," said Sir Boreas, laughing.
"I intended to live and die with you," said Roden.
"We don't have dukes; or at any rate we don't keep them. Like to like
is a motto which I always find true. When I heard that you were
living with a young lord, and were going to marry the daughter of a
marquis, and had a title of your own which you could use as soon as
you pleased, I knew that I should lose you." Then he added in a
little whisper, "You couldn't get Crocker made a duke, could you,--or
a Registrar of Records?"
Mr. Jerningham was full of smiles and bows, pervaded thoroughly by a
feeling that he was bidding farewell to an august nobleman, though,
for negative reasons, he was not to be allowed to gratify his tongue
by naming the august name. Crocker was a little shy;--but he plucked
up his courage at last. "I shall always know what I know, you know,"
he said, as he shook hands with the friend to whom he had been so
much attached. Bobbin and Geraghty made no allusions to the title,
but they, too, as they were severally greeted, were evidently under
the influence of the nobility of their late brother clerk.
The marriage was duly solemnized when March came in the parish church
of Trafford. There was nothing grand,--no even distant imitation of
Lady Amaldina's glorious cavalcade. Hampstead did come down, and
endeavoured for the occasion to fit himself for the joy of the day.
His ship was ready for him, and he intended to start now in a week or
two. As it happened that the House was not sitting, Lord Llwddythlw,
at the instigation of his wife, was present. "One good turn deserves
another," Lady Llwddythlw had said to him. And the darlings were
there in all their glory, loud, beautiful, and unruly. Lady Kingsbury
was of course present; but was too much in abeyance to be able to
arouse even a sign of displeasure. Since that reference to the
"stumbling blocks" had reached her husband, and since those fears
with which Mr. Greenwood had filled her, she had been awed into
quiescence.
The bridegroom was of course married under the simple name of George
Roden,--and we must part with him under that name; but it is the
belief of the present chronicler that the aristocratic element will
prevail, and that the time will come soon in which the Registrar of
State Records to the Foreign Office will be known in the purlieus of
Downing Street as the Duca di Crinola.
* * * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Volume I, Chapter I, paragraph 9. Trollope refers here and
elsewhere to Lord Hampstead as Lady Kingsbury's son-in-law,
although he is actually her stepson. This is not a example of
carelessness by the author but an archaic use of "son-in-law"
which persisted into the mid-nineteenth century.
Volume I, Chapter XIX, paragraph 1. The astute reader might
wonder how a two-day visit can last from Wednesday to the
following Tuesday, as stated in the sentence: Lady Amaldina
and he were both to arrive there on Wednesday, December 3rd,
and remain till the Tuesday morning.
Specific changes in wording of the text are listed below.
Volume I, Chapter XII, paragraph 42. "On" was changed to
"Oh" in the sentence: "OH, no doubt!
Volume I, Chapter III, paragraph 62. The word "began" was
changed to "begun" in the sentence: In the horror of the
first revelation he had yielded, but had since BEGUN to
feel that too much was being done in withdrawing him from
Parliament.
Volume II, Chapter III, paragraph 82. A comma was changed
to a semi-colon in the sentence: This was on a Tuesday; on
the Wednesday he did not speak to her on the subject.
Volume II, Chapter VI, paragraph 17. The word "live" was
changed to "life" in the sentence: I have had to ask myself,
and I have told myself that I do not dare to love above my
station in LIFE.
Volume II, Chapter VI, paragraph 31. The word "to" was added
to the sentence: It may be that you should drive me away
from you, and TO beg you never to trouble me any further.
Volume II, Chapter XII, paragraph 6. The word "conviction"
was changed to the plural form in the sentence: The
CONVICTIONS of the world since the days of Cain have all
gone in that direction.
Volume II, Chapter XIII, paragraph 47. "Roden" was changed
to "Trafford" in the sentence: I have seen Lady Frances
TRAFFORD.
Volume II, Chapter XV, paragraph 61. "10" was changed to
"11" in the sentence: Marion Fay and her father live at No.
17, Paradise Row, Holloway, and Mrs. Roden and George Roden
live at No. 11. The reader will recall that Mrs. Demijohn
and her niece Clara resided at No. 10.
Volume II, Chapter XX, paragraph 19. "17" was changed to
"15" in the sentence: I hope you'll let me introduce you
to Mrs. Duffer of No. 15. The reader will recall that Mrs.
Duffer lives at No. 15, while No. 17 is the home of Marion
Fay and her father.
Volume III, Chapter III, paragraph 25. The Baron's
name appears eight times in the text; this, the first,
occurrence was spelled "d'Osse," and the other seven
spelled "d'Ossi" or "D'Ossi." "d'Osse" was changed to
"d'Ossi" in the sentence beginning: When Lord Persiflage
spoke of the matter to Baron d'OSSI, the Italian Minister
in London, . . .
Volume III, Chapter VI, paragraph 1. The word "fame" was
changed to "name" in the sentence: As to his mother's NAME,
he said, no one had doubted, and no one would doubt it for
a moment.