The American Senator Part 75

Lord Rufford had seen him approaching for some time, and had made one or two futile attempts to meet him. Arabella's back had been turned to the house, and she had not heard the steps or observed the direction of her companion's eyes. He came so near before he was seen that he heard her concluding words. Then Lord Rufford with a ghastly attempt at pleasantry introduced them. "George," he said, "I do not think you know Miss Trefoil. Sir George Penwether;--Miss Trefoil."

The interview had been watched from the house and the husband had been sent down by his wife to mitigate the purgatory which she knew that her brother must be enduring. "My wife," said Sir George, "has sent me to ask Miss Trefoil whether she will not come into lunch."

"I believe it is Lord Rufford's house," said Arabella.

"If Miss Trefoil's frame of mind will allow her to sit at table with me I shall be proud to see her," said Lord Rufford.

"Miss Trefoil's frame of mind will not allow her to eat or to drink with such a dastard," said she turning away in the direction of the park gates. "Perhaps, Sir George, you will be kind enough to direct the man who brought me here to pick me up at the lodge." And so she walked away--a mile across the park,--neither of them caring to follow her.

It seemed to her as she stood at the lodge gate, having obstinately refused to enter the house, to be an eternity before the fly came to her. When it did come she felt as though her strength would barely enable her to climb into it. And when she was there she wept, with bitter throbbing woe, all the way to Rufford. It was over now at any rate. Now there was not a possible chance on which a gleam of hope might be made to settle. And how handsome he was, and how beautiful the place, and how perfect would have been the triumph could she have achieved it! One more word,--one other pressure of the hand in the post-chaise, might have done it! Had he really promised her marriage she did not even now think that he would have gone back from his word. If that heavy stupid duke would have spoken to him that night at Mistletoe, all would have been well! But now,--now there was nothing for her but weeping and gnashing of teeth. He was gone, and poor Morton was gone; and all those others, whose memories rose like ghosts before her;--they were all gone. And she wept as she thought that she might perhaps have made a better use of the gifts which Providence had put in her way.

When Mounser Green met her at the station she was beyond measure weary. Through the whole journey she had been struggling to restrain her sobs so that her maid should neither hear nor see them. "Don't mind me, Mr. Green; I am only tired,--so tired," she said as she got into the carriage which he had brought.

He had with him a long, formal-looking letter addressed to herself.

But she was too weary to open it that night. It was the letter conveying the tidings of the legacy which Morton had made in her favour.

CHAPTER XIV.

LORD RUFFORD'S MODEL FARM.

At this time Senator Gotobed was paying a second visit to Rufford Hall. In the matter of Goarly and Scrobby he had never given way an inch. He was still strongly of opinion that a gentleman's pheasants had no right to eat his neighbour's corn, and that if damage were admitted, the person committing the injury should not take upon himself to a.s.sess the damage. He also thought,--and very often declared his thoughts,--that Goarly was justified in shooting not only foxes but hounds also when they came upon his property, and in moments of excitement had gone so far as to say that not even horses should be held sacred. He had, however, lately been driven to admit that Goarly himself was not all that a man should be, and that Mrs.

Goarly's goose was an impostor. It was the theory,--the principle for which he combated, declaring that the evil condition of the man himself was due to the evil inst.i.tutions among which he had been reared. By degrees evidence had been obtained of Scrobby's guilt in the matter of the red herrings, and he was to be tried for the offence of putting down poison. Goarly was to be the princ.i.p.al witness against his brother conspirator. Lord Rufford, instigated by his brother-in-law, and liking the spirit of the man, had invited the Senator to stay at the Hall while the case was being tried at the Rufford Quarter Sessions. I am afraid the invitation was given in a spirit of triumph over the Senator rather than with genuine hospitality. It was thought well that the American should be made to see in public the degradation of the abject creature with whom he had sympathised. Perhaps there were some who thought that in this way they would get the Senator's neck under their heels. If there were such they were likely to be mistaken, as the Senator was not a man p.r.o.ne to submit himself to such treatment.

He was seated at table with Lady Penwether and Miss Penge when Lord Rufford and his brother-in-law came into the room, after parting with Miss Trefoil in the manner described in the last chapter. Lady Penwether had watched their unwelcome visitor as she took her way across the park and had whispered something to Miss Penge. Miss Penge understood the matter thoroughly, and would not herself have made the slightest allusion to the other young lady. Had the Senator not been there the two gentlemen would have been allowed to take their places without a word on the subject. But the Senator had a marvellous gift of saying awkward things and would never be reticent. He stood for a while at the window in the drawing-room before he went across the hall, and even took up a pair of field-gla.s.ses to scrutinise the lady; and when they were all present he asked whether that was not Miss Trefoil whom he had seen down by the new fence. Lady Penwether, without seeming to look about her, did look about her for a few seconds to see whether the question might be allowed to die away unanswered. She perceived, from the Senator's face, that he intended to have an answer.

"Yes," she said, "that was Miss Trefoil. I am very glad that she is not coming in to disturb us."

"A great blessing," said Miss Penge.

"Where is she staying?" asked the Senator.

"I think she drove over from Rufford," said the elder lady.

"Poor young lady! She was engaged to marry my friend, Mr. John Morton. She must have felt his death very bitterly. He was an excellent young man; rather opinionated and perhaps too much wedded to the traditions of his own country; but, nevertheless, a painstaking, excellent young man. I had hoped to welcome her as Mrs.

Morton in America."

"He was to have gone to Patagonia," said Lord Rufford, endeavouring to come to himself after the sufferings of the morning.

"We should have seen him back in Washington, Sir. Whenever you have anything good in diplomacy you generally send him to us. Poor young lady! Was she talking about him?"

"Not particularly," said his lordship.

"She must have remembered that when she was last here he was of the party, and it was but a few weeks ago,--only a little before Christmas. He struck me as being cold in his manner as an affianced lover. Was not that your idea, Lady Penwether?"

"I don't think I observed him especially."

"I have reason to believe that he was much attached to her. She could be sprightly enough; but at times there seemed to come a cold melancholy upon her too. It is I fancy so with most of your English ladies. Miss Trefoil always gave me the idea of being a good type of the English aristocracy." Lady Penwether and Miss Penge drew themselves up very stiffly. "You admired her, I think, my Lord."

"Very much indeed," said Lord Rufford, filling his mouth with pigeon-pie as he spoke, and not lifting his eyes from his plate.

"Will she be back to dinner?"

"Oh dear no," said Lady Penwether. There was something in her tone which at last startled the Senator into perceiving that Miss Trefoil was not popular at Rufford Hall.

"She only came for a morning call," said Lord Rufford.

"Poor young woman. She has lost her husband, and, I am afraid, now has lost her friends also. I am told that she is not well off;--and from what I see and hear, I fancy that here in England a young lady without a dowry cannot easily replace a lover. I suppose, too, Miss Trefoil is not quite in her first youth."

"If you have done, Caroline," said Lady Penwether to Miss Penge, "I think we'll go into the other room."

That afternoon Sir George asked the Senator to accompany him for a walk. Sir George was held to be responsible for the Senator's presence, and was told by the ladies that he must do something with him. The next day, which was Friday, would be occupied by the affairs of Scrobby and Goarly, and on the Sat.u.r.day he was to return to town.

The two started about three with the object of walking round the park and the home farm--the Senator intent on his duty of examining the ways of English life to the very bottom. "I hope I did not say anything amiss about Miss Trefoil," he remarked, as they pa.s.sed through a shrubbery gate into the park.

"No; I think not."

"I thought your good lady looked as though she did not like the subject."

"I am not sure that Miss Trefoil is very popular with the ladies up there."

"She's a handsome young woman and clever, though, as I said before, given to melancholy, and sometimes fastidious. When we were all here I thought that Lord Rufford admired her, and that poor Mr. Morton was a little jealous."

"I wasn't at Rufford then. Here we get out of the park on to the home farm. Rufford does it very well,--very well indeed."

"Looks after it altogether himself?"

"I cannot quite say that. He has a land-bailiff who lives in the house there."

"With a salary?"

"Oh yes; 120 a year I think the man has."

"And that house?" asked the Senator. "Why, the house and garden are worth 50 a year."

"I dare say they are. Of course it costs money. It's near the park and had to be made ornamental."

"And does it pay?"

"Well, no; I should think not. In point of fact I know it does not.

He loses about the value of the ground."

The Senator asked a great many more questions and then began his lecture. "A man who goes into trade and loses by it, cannot be doing good to himself or to others. You say, Sir George, that it is a model farm;--but it's a model of ruin. If you want to teach a man any other business, you don't specially select an example in which the proprietors are spending all their capital without any return. And if you would not do this in shoemaking, why in farming?"

"The neighbours are able to see how work should be done."