Marion Fay Part 38

"That I will not promise;--but I will not talk of it. Now, dear Mrs.

Roden, let all then be as though it had never been. I do not mean to mope, or to neglect my work, because a young lord has crossed my path and told me that he loves me. I must send him from me, and then I will be just as I have been always." Having made this promise she went away, leaving Mrs. Roden much more flurried by the interview than was she herself. When the Friday came, holiday as it was, the Quaker took himself off to the City after dinner, without another word as to his daughter's lover.

CHAPTER IV.

LORD HAMPSTEAD IS IMPATIENT.

Hampstead, when he was sent away from Paradise Row, and bade to wait till Friday for an answer, was disappointed, almost cross, and unreasonable in his feelings towards Mrs. Roden. To Mrs. Roden altogether he attributed it that Marion had deferred her reply.

Whether the delay thus enjoined told well or ill for his hopes he could not bring himself to determine. As he drove himself home his mind was swayed now in one direction and now in the other. Unless she loved him somewhat, unless she thought it possible that she should love him, she would hardly have asked for time to think of it all.

And yet, had she really have loved him, why should she have asked for time? He had done for her all that a man could do for a girl, and if she loved him she should not have tormented him by foolish delays,--by coying her love!

It should be said on his behalf that he attributed to himself no preponderance of excellence, either on the score of his money or his rank. He was able so to honour the girl as to think of her that such things would go for nothing with her. It was not that he had put his coronet at her feet, but his heart. It was of that he thought when he reminded himself of all that he had done for her, and told himself angrily that she should not have tormented him. He was as arrogant and impatient of disappointment as any young lord of them all,--but it was not, however, because he was a lord that he thought that Marion's heart was due to him.

"I have been over to Holloway," he said to his sister, almost as soon as he had returned.

Out of the full heart the mouth speaks. "Have you seen George?" asked Lady Frances.

"No; I did not go to see him. He, of course, would be at his office during the day. I went about my own business."

"You need not be so savage with me, John. What was your own business at Holloway?"

"I went to ask Marion Fay to be my wife."

"You did?"

"Yes; I did. Why should I not? It seems the fashion for us all now to marry just those we fancy best."

"And why not? Have I gainsaid you? If this Quaker's daughter be good and honest, and fair to look at--"

"That she is fair to look at I can say certainly. That she is good I believe thoroughly. That she is honest, at any rate to me, I cannot say as yet."

"Not honest?"

"She will not steal or pick a pocket, if you mean that."

"What is it, John? Why do you speak of her in this way?"

"Because I have chosen to tell you. Having made up my mind to do this thing, I would not keep it secret as though I were ashamed of it. How can I say that she is honest till she has answered me honestly?"

"What answer has she made you?" she asked.

"None;--as yet! She has told me to come again another day."

"I like her better for that."

"Why should you like her better? Just because you're a woman, and think that shilly-shallying and pretending not to know your own mind, and keeping a fellow in suspense, is becoming. I am not going to change my mind about Marion; but I do think that mock hesitation is unnecessary, and in some degree dishonest."

"Must it necessarily be mock hesitation? Ought she not to be sure of herself that she can love you?"

"Certainly; or that she should not love me. I am not such a puppy as to suppose that she is to throw herself into my arms just because I ask her. But I think that she must have known something of herself so as to have been able to tell me either to hope or not to hope.

She was as calm as a Minister in the House of Commons answering a question; and she told me to wait till Friday just as those fellows do when they have to find out from the clerks in the office what it is they ought to say."

"You will go again on Friday?" she asked.

"Of course I must. It is not likely that she should come to me. And then if she says that she'd rather not, I must come home once more with my tail between my legs."

"I do not think she will say that."

"How can you tell?"

"It is the nature of a girl, I think," said Lady Frances, "to doubt a little when she thinks that she can love, but not to doubt at all when she feels that she cannot. She may be persuaded afterwards to change her mind, but at first she is certain enough."

"I call that shilly-shally."

"Not at all. The girl I'm speaking of is honest throughout. And Miss Fay will have been honest should she accept you now. It is not often that such a one as you, John, can ask a girl in vain."

"That is mean," he said, angrily. "That is imputing falseness, and greed, and dishonour to the girl I love. If she has liked some fellow clerk in her father's office better than she likes me, shall she accept me merely because I am my father's son?"

"It was not that of which I was thinking. A man may have personal gifts which will certainly prevail with a girl young and unsullied by the world, as I suppose is your Marion Fay."

"Bosh," he said, laughing. "As far as personal gifts are concerned, one fellow is pretty nearly the same as another. A girl has to be good-looking. A man has got to have something to buy bread and cheese with. After that it is all a mere matter of liking and disliking--unless, indeed, people are dishonest, which they very often are."

Up to this period of his life Lord Hampstead had never met any girl whom he had thought it desirable to make his wife. It was now two years since the present Marchioness had endeavoured to arrange an alliance between him and her own niece, Lady Amaldina Hauteville.

This, though but two years had pa.s.sed since, seemed to him to have occurred at a distant period of his life. Very much had occurred to him during those two years. His political creed had been strengthened by the convictions of others, especially by those of George Roden, till it had included those advanced opinions which have been described. He had annoyed, and then dismayed, his father by his continued refusal to go into Parliament. He had taken to himself ways of living of his own, which gave to him the manners and appearance of more advanced age. At that period, two years since, his stepmother still conceived high hopes of him, even though he would occasionally utter in her presence opinions which seemed to be terrible. He was then not of age, and there would be time enough for a woman of her tact and intellect to cure all those follies. The best way of curing them, she thought, would be by arranging a marriage between the heir to the Marquisate and the daughter of so distinguished a conservative Peer as her brother-in-law, Lord Persiflage. Having this high object in view, she opened the matter with diplomatic caution to her sister.

Lady Persiflage had at that moment begun to regard Lord Llwddythlw as a possible son-in-law, but was alive to the fact that Lord Hampstead possessed some superior advantages. It was possible that her girl should really love such a one as Lord Hampstead,--hardly possible that there should be anything romantic in a marriage with the heir of the Duke of Merioneth. As far as wealth and rank went there was enough in both compet.i.tors. She whispered therefore to her girl the name of the younger aspirant,--aspirant as he might be hoped to be,--and the girl was not opposed to the idea. Only let there be no falling to the ground between two stools; no starving for want of fodder between two bundles of hay! Lord Llwddythlw had already begun to give symptoms. No doubt he was bald; no doubt he was pre-occupied with Parliament and the county. There was no doubt that his wife would have to encounter that touch of ridicule which a young girl incurs when she marries a man altogether removed beyond the world of romance. But dukes are scarce, and the man of business was known to be a man of high honour. There would be no gambling, no difficulties, no possible question of a want of money. And then his politics were the grandest known in England,--those of an old Tory willing always to work for his party without desiring any of those rewards which the "party" wishes to divide among as select a number as possible. What Lord Hampstead might turn out to be, there was as yet no knowing. He had already declared himself to be a Radical. He was fond of hunting, and it was quite on the cards that he should take to Newmarket. Then, too, his father might live for five-and-twenty years, whereas the Duke of Merioneth was already nearly eighty. But Hampstead was as beautiful as a young Phoebus, and the pair would instantly become famous if only from their good looks alone. The chance was given to Lady Amaldina, but only given on the understanding that she must make very quick work of her time.

Hampstead was coaxed down to Castle Hautboy for a month in September, with an idea that the young lovers might be as romantic as they pleased among the Lakes. Some little romance there was; but at the end of the first week Amaldina wisely told her mother that the thing wouldn't do. She would always be glad to regard Lord Hampstead as a cousin, but as to anything else, there must be an end of it. "I shall some day give up my t.i.tle and abandon the property to Freddy. I shall then go to the United States, and do the best I can there to earn my own bread." This little speech, made by the proposed lover to the girl he was expected to marry, opened Lady Amaldina's eyes to the danger of her situation. Lord Llwddythlw was induced to spend two days in the following month at Castle Hautboy, and then the arrangements for the Welsh alliance were completed.

From that time forth a feeling of ill-will on the part of Lady Kingsbury towards her stepson had grown and become strong from month to month. She had not at first conceived any idea that her Lord Frederic ought to come to the throne. That had come gradually when she perceived, or thought that she perceived, that Hampstead would hardly make a marriage properly aristocratic. Hitherto no tidings of any proposed marriage had reached her ears. She lived at last in daily fear, as any marriage would be the almost sure forerunner of a little Lord Highgate. If something might happen,--something which she had taught herself to regard as beneficent and fitting rather than fatal,--something which might ensure to her little Lord Frederic those prospects which he had almost a right to expect, then in spite of all her sufferings Heaven would have done something for her for which she might be thankful. "What will her ladyship say when she hears of my maid Marion?" said Hampstead to his sister on the Christmas Day before his further visit to Holloway.

"Will it matter much?" asked Lady Frances.

"I think my feelings towards her are softer than yours. She is silly, arrogant, harsh, and insolent to my father, and altogether unprincipled in her expectations and ambitions."

"What a character you give her," said his sister.

"But nevertheless I feel for her to such an extent that I almost think I ought to abolish myself."

"I cannot say that I feel for her."

"It is all for her son that she wants it; and I agree with her in thinking that Freddy will be better fitted than I am for the position in question. I am determined to marry Marion if I can get her; but all the Traffords, unless it be yourself, will be broken-hearted at such a marriage. If once I have a son of my own the matter will be hopeless. If I were to call myself Snooks, and refused to take a shilling from the property, I should do them no good. Marion's boy would be just as much in their way as I am."

"What a way of looking at it."

"How my stepmother will hate her! A Quaker's daughter! A clerk at Pogson and Littlebird's! Living at Paradise Row! Can't you see her!

Is it not hard upon her that we should both go to Paradise Row?" Lady Frances could not keep herself from laughing. "You can't do her any permanent injury, because you are only a girl; but I think she will poison me. It will end in her getting Mr. Greenwood to give me some broth."