Mr. Scarborough's Family Part 41

"Most certainly I do, or I will never be married; and as he is poor now, and I must have my own money when I am twenty-four, I suppose I shall have to wait till then."

"Will your mother's word go for nothing with you?"

"Poor mamma! I do believe that mamma is very unhappy, because she makes me unhappy. What may take place between me and mamma I am not bound, I think, to tell you. We shall be away soon, and I shall be left to mamma alone."

And mamma would be left alone to her daughter, Lady Mountjoy thought.

The visit must be prolonged so that at last Mr. Anderson might be enabled to prevail.

The visit had been originally intended for a month, but was now prolonged indefinitely. After that conversation between Lady Mountjoy and her niece two or three things happened, all bearing upon our story.

Florence at once wrote her letter. If things were going badly in England with Harry Annesley, Harry should at any rate have the comfort of knowing what were her feelings,--if there might be comfort to him in that. "Perhaps, after all, he won't mind what I may say," she thought to herself; but only pretended to think it, and at once flatly contradicted her own "perhaps." Then she told him most emphatically not to reply. It was very important that she should write. He was to receive her letter, and there must be an end of it. She was quite sure that he would understand her. He would not subject her to the trouble of having to tell her own people that she was maintaining a correspondence, for it would amount to that. But still when the time came for the answer she had counted it up to the hour. And when Sir Magnus sent for her and handed to her the letter,--having discussed that question with her mother,--she fully expected it, and felt properly grateful to her uncle.

She wanted a little comfort, too, and when she had read the letter she knew that she had received it.

There had been a few words spoken between the two elder ladies after the interview between Florence and Lady Mountjoy. "She is a most self-willed young woman," said Lady Mountjoy.

"Of course she loves her lover," said Mrs. Mountjoy, desirous of making some excuse for her own daughter. The girl was very troublesome, but not the less her daughter. "I don't know any of them that don't who are worth anything."

"If you regard it in that light, Sarah, she'll get the better of you. If she marries him she will be lost; that is the way you have got to look at it. It is her future happiness you must think of--and respectability.

She is a headstrong young woman, and has to be treated accordingly."

"What would you do?"

"I would be very severe."

"But what am I to do? I can't beat her; I can't lock her up in her room."

"Then you mean to give it up?"

"No, I don't. You shouldn't be so cross to me," said poor Mrs. Mountjoy.

When it had reached this the two ladies had become intimate. "I don't mean to give it up at all; but what am I to do?"

"Remain here for the next month, and--and worry her; let Mr. Anderson have his chance with her. When she finds that everything will smile with her if she accepts him, and that her life will be made a burden to her if she still sticks to her Harry Annesley, she'll come round, if she be like other girls. Of course a girl can't be made to marry a man, but there are ways and means." By this Lady Mountjoy meant that the utmost cruelty should be used which would be compatible with a good breakfast, dinner, and bedroom. Now, Mrs. Mountjoy knew herself to be incapable of this, and knew also, or thought that she knew, that it would not be efficacious.

"You stay here,--up to Christmas, if you like it," said Sir Magnus to his sister-in-law. "She can't but see Anderson every day, and that goes a long way. She, of course, puts on a resolute air as well as she can.

They all know how to do that. Do you be resolute in return. The deuce is in it if we can't have our way with her among us. When you talk of ill usage n.o.body wants you to put her in chains. There are different ways of killing a cat. You get friends to write to you from England about young Annesley, and I'll do the same. The truth, of course, I mean."

"Nothing can be worse than the truth," said Mrs. Mountjoy, shaking her head, sorrowfully.

"Just so," said Sir Magnus, who was not at all sorrowful to hear so bad an account of the favored suitor. "Then we'll read her the letters. She can't help hearing them. Just the true facts, you know. That's fair; n.o.body can call that cruel. And then, when she breaks down and comes to our call, we'll all be as soft as mother's milk to her. I shall see her going about the boulevards with a pair of ponies yet." Mrs. Mountjoy felt that when Sir Magnus spoke of Florence coming to his call he did not know her daughter. But she had nothing better to do than to obey Sir Magnus. Therefore she resolved to stay at Brussels another period of six weeks and told Florence that she had so resolved. Just at present Brussels and Cheltenham would be all the same to Florence.

"It will be a dreadful bore having them so long," said poor Lady Mountjoy, piteously, to her husband. For in the presence of Sir Magnus she was by no means the valiant woman that she was with some of her friends.

"You find everything a bore. What's the trouble?"

"What am I to do with them?"

"Take 'em about in the carriage. Lord bless my soul! what have you got a carriage for?"

"Then, with Miss Abbott, there's never room for any one else."

"Leave Miss Abbott at home, then. What's the good of talking to me about Miss Abbott? I suppose it doesn't matter to you whom my brother's daughter marries?" Lady Mountjoy did not think that it did matter much; but she declared that she had already evinced the most tender solicitude. "Then stick to it. The girl doesn't want to go out every day. Leave her alone, where Anderson can get at her."

"He's always out riding with you."

"No, he's not; not always. And leave Miss Abbott at home. Then there'll be room for two others. Don't make difficulties. Anderson will expect that I shall do something for him, of course."

"Because of the money," said Lady Mountjoy, whispering.

"And I've got to do something for her too." Now, there was a spice of honesty about Sir Magnus. He knew that as he could not at once pay back these sums, he was bound to make it up in some other way. The debts would be left the same. But that would remain with Providence.

Then came Harry's letter, and there was a deep consultation. It was known to have come from Harry by the Buntingford post-mark. Mrs.

Mountjoy proposed to consult Lady Mountjoy; but to that Sir Magnus would not agree. "She'd take her skin off her if she could, now that she's angered," said the lady's husband, who no doubt knew the lady well. "Of course she'll learn that the letter has been written, and then she'll throw it in our teeth. She wouldn't believe that it had gone astray in coming here. We should give her a sort of a whip-hand over us." So it was decided that Florence should have her letter.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

FLORENCE'S REQUEST.

Thus it was arranged that Florence should be left in Mr. Anderson's way.

Mr. Anderson, as Sir Magnus had said, was not always out riding. There were moments in which even he was off duty. And Sir Magnus contrived to ride a little earlier than usual so that he should get back while the carriage was still out on its rounds. Lady Mountjoy certainly did her duty, taking Mrs. Mountjoy with her daily, and generally Miss Abbott, so that Florence was, as it were, left to the mercies of Mr. Anderson. She could, of course, shut herself up in her bedroom, but things had not as yet become so bad as that. Mr. Anderson had not made himself terrible to her. She did not, in truth, fear Mr. Anderson at all, who was courteous in his manner and complimentary in his language, and she came at this time to the conclusion that if Mr. Anderson continued his pursuit of her she would tell him the exact truth of the case. As a gentleman, and as a young man, she thought that he would sympathize with her. The one enemy whom she did dread was Lady Mountjoy. She too had felt that her aunt could "take her skin off her," as Sir Magnus had said. She had not heard the words, but she knew that it was so, and her dislike to Lady Mountjoy was in proportion. It cannot be said that she was afraid. She did not intend to leave her skin in her aunt's hands. For every inch of skin taken she resolved to have an inch in return. She was not acquainted with the expressive mode of language which Sir Magnus had adopted, but she was prepared for all such attacks. For Sir Magnus himself, since he had given up the letter to her, she did feel some regard.

Behind the British minister's house, which, though ent.i.tled to no such name, was generally called the Emba.s.sy, there was a large garden, which, though not much used by Sir Magnus or Lady Mountjoy, was regarded as a valuable adjunct to the establishment. Here Florence betook herself for exercise, and here Mr. Anderson, having put off the muddy marks of his riding, found her one afternoon. It must be understood that no young man was ever more in earnest than Mr. Anderson. He, too, looking through the gla.s.s which had been prepared for him by Sir Magnus, thought that he saw in the not very far distant future a Mrs. Hugh Anderson driving a pair of gray ponies along the boulevard and he was much pleased with the sight. It reached to the top of his ambition. Florence was to his eyes really the sort of a girl whom a man in his position ought to marry. A secretary of legation in a small foreign capital cannot do with a dowdy wife, as may a clerk, for instance, in the Foreign Office. A secretary of legation,--the second secretary, he told himself,--was bound, if he married at all, to have a pretty and _distinguee_ wife. He knew all about the intricacies which had fallen in a peculiar way into his own hand. Mr. Blow might have married a South Sea Islander, and would have been none the worse as regarded his official duties. Mr. Blow did not want the services of a wife in discovering and reporting all the secrets of the Belgium iron trade. There was no intricacy in that, no nicety.

There was much of what, in his lighter moments, Mr. Anderson called "sweat." He did not pretend to much capacity for such duties; but in his own peculiar walk he thought that he was great. But it was very fatiguing, and he was sure that a wife was necessary to him. There were little niceties which none but a wife could perform. He had a great esteem for Sir Magnus. Sir Magnus was well thought of by all the court, and by the foreign minister at Brussels. But Lady Mountjoy was really of no use. The beginning and the end of it all with her was to show herself in a carriage. It was inc.u.mbent upon him, Anderson, to marry.

He was loving enough, and very susceptible. He was too susceptible, and he knew his own fault, and he was always on guard against it,--as behooved a young man with such duties as his. He was always falling in love, and then using his diplomatic skill in avoiding the consequences.

He had found out that though one girl had looked so well under waxlight she did not endure the wear and tear of the day. Another could not be always graceful, or, though she could talk well enough during a waltz, she had nothing to say for herself at three o'clock in the morning. And he was driven to calculate that he would be wrong to marry a girl without a shilling. "It is a kind of thing that a man cannot afford to do unless he's sure of his position," he had said on such an occasion to Montgomery Arbuthnot, alluding especially to his brother's state of health. When Mr. Anderson spoke of not being sure of his position he was always considered to allude to his brother's health. In this way he had nearly got his little boat on to the rocks more than once, and had given some trouble to Sir Magnus. But now he was quite sure. "It's all there all round," he had said to Arbuthnot more than once. Arbuthnot said that it was there--"all round, all round." Waxlight and daylight made no difference to her. She was always graceful. "n.o.body with an eye in his head can doubt that," said Anderson. "I should think not, by Jove!"

replied Arbuthnot. "And for talking,--you never catch her out; never." "I never did, certainly," said Arbuthnot, who, as third secretary, was obedient and kind-hearted. "And then look at her money. Of course a fellow wants something to help him on. My position is so uncertain that I cannot do without it." "Of course not." "Now, with some girls it's so deuced hard to find out. You hear that a girl has got money, but when the time comes it depends on the life of a father who doesn't think of dying;--damme, doesn't think of it."

"Those fellows never do," said Arbuthnot. "But here, you see, I know all about it. When she's twenty-four,--only twenty-four,--she'll have ten thousand pounds of her own. I hate a mercenary fellow." "Oh yes; that's beastly." "n.o.body can say that of me. Circ.u.mstanced as I am, I want something to help to keep the pot boiling. She has got it,--quite as much as I want,--quite, and I know all about it without the slightest doubt in the world." For the small loan of fifteen hundred pounds Sir Magnus paid the full value of the interest and deficient security. "Sir Magnus tells me that if I'll only stick to her I shall be sure to win. There's some fellow in England has just touched her heart,--just touched it, you know." "I understand," said Arbuthnot, looking very wise. "He is not a fellow of very much account," said Anderson; "one of those handsome fellows without conduct and without courage." "I've known lots of 'em,"

said Arbuthnot. "His name is Annesley," said Anderson. "I never saw him in my life, but that's what Sir Magnus says. He has done something awfully disreputable. I don't quite understand what it is, but it's something which ought to make him unfit to be her husband. n.o.body knows the world better than Sir Magnus, and he says that it is so." "n.o.body does know the world better than Sir Magnus," said Arbuthnot. And so that conversation was brought to an end.

One day soon after this he caught her walking in the garden. Her mother and Miss Abbot were still out with Lady Mountjoy in the carriage, and Sir Magnus had retired after the fatigue of his ride to sleep for half an hour before dinner. "All alone, Miss Mountjoy?" he said.

"Yes, alone, Mr. Anderson. I'm never in better company."

"So I think; but then if I were here you wouldn't be all alone, would you?"

"Not if you were with me."

"That's what I mean. But yet two people may be alone, as regards the world at large. Mayn't they?"

"I don't understand the nicety of language well enough to say. We used to have a question among us when we were children whether a wild beast could howl in an empty cavern. It's the same sort of thing."

"Why shouldn't he?"

"Because the cavern would not be empty if the wild beast were in it.