The Duke's Children Part 94

"Did you not say exactly the same about Lady Mabel?"

There was a pause, so that he was driven to reply. "I found her as I thought indifferent, and then--I changed my mind."

"Indifferent! What does she think about it now? Does she know of this? How does it stand between you two at the present moment?"

"She knows that I am engaged to--Miss Bonca.s.sen."

"Does she approve of it?"

"Why should I ask her, sir? I have not asked her."

"Then why did you tell her? She could not but have spoken her mind when you told her. There must have been much between you when this was talked of."

The unfortunate young man was obliged to take some time before he could answer this appeal. He had to own that his father had some justice on his side, but at the same time he could reveal nothing of Mabel's secret. "I told her because we were friends. I did not ask her approval; but she did disapprove. She thought that your son should not marry an American girl without family."

"Of course she would feel that."

"Now I have told you what she said, and I hope you will ask me no further questions about her. I cannot make Lady Mabel my wife;--though, for the matter of that, I ought not to presume that she would take me if I wished it. I had intended to ask you to-day to consent to my marriage with Miss Bonca.s.sen."

"I cannot give you my consent."

"Then I am very unhappy."

"How can I believe as to your unhappiness when you would have said the same about Lady Mabel Grex a few weeks ago?"

"Nearly eight months," said Silverbridge.

"What is the difference? It is not the time, but the disposition of the man! I cannot give you my consent. The young lady sees it in the right light, and that will make your escape easy."

"I do not want to escape."

"She has indicated the cause which will separate you."

"I will not be separated from her," said Silverbridge, who was beginning to feel that he was subjugated to tyranny. If he chose to marry Isabel, no one could have a right to hinder him.

"I can only hope that you will think better of it, and that when next you speak to me on that or any other subject you will answer me with less arrogance."

This rebuke was terrible to the son, whose mind at the present moment was filled with two ideas, that of constancy to Isabel Bonca.s.sen, and then of respect and affection for his father. "Indeed, sir," he said, "I am not arrogant, and if I have answered improperly I beg your pardon. But my mind is made up about this, and I thought you had better know how it is."

"I do not see that I can say anything else to you now."

"I think of going to Harrington this afternoon." Then the Duke, with further very visible annoyance, asked where Harrington was. It was explained that Harrington was Lord Chiltern's seat, Lord Chiltern being the Master of the Brake hounds;--that it was his son's purpose to remain six weeks among the Brake hounds, but that he should stay only a day or two with Lord Chiltern. Then it appeared that Silverbridge intended to put himself up at a hunting inn in the neighbourhood, and the Duke did not at all like the plan. That his son should choose to live at an inn, when the comforts of an English country house were open to him, was distasteful and almost offensive to the Duke. And the matter was not improved when he was made to understand that all this was to be done for the sake of hunting.

There had been the shooting in Scotland; then the racing,--ah, alas!

yes,--the racing, and the betting at Doncaster! Then the shooting at Matching had been made to appear to be the chief reason why he himself had been living in his own house! And now his son was going away to live at an inn in order that more time might be devoted to hunting! "Why can't you hunt here at home, if you must hunt?"

"It is all woodland," said Silverbridge.

"I thought you wanted woods. Lord Chiltern is always troubling me about Trumpington Wood."

This breeze about the hunting enabled the son to escape without any further allusion to Miss Bonca.s.sen. He did escape, and proceeded to turn over in his mind all that had been said. His tale had been told.

A great burden was thus taken off his shoulders. He could tell Isabel so much, and thus free himself from the suspicion of having been afraid to declare his purpose. She should know what he had done, and should be made to understand that he had been firm. He had, he thought, been very firm and gave himself some credit on that head.

His father, no doubt, had been firm too, but that he had expected.

His father had said much. All that about honour and duty had been very good; but this was certain,--that when a young man had promised a young woman he ought to keep his word. And he thought that there were certain changes going on in the management of the world which his father did not quite understand. Fathers never do quite understand the changes which are manifest to their sons. Some years ago it might have been improper that an American girl should be elevated to the rank of an English d.u.c.h.ess; but now all that was altered.

The Duke spent the rest of the day alone, and was not happy in his solitude. All that Silverbridge had told him was sad to him. He had taught himself to think that he could love Lady Mabel as an affectionate father wishes to love his son's wife. He had set himself to wish to like her, and had been successful. Being most anxious that his son should marry he had prepared himself to be more than ordinarily liberal,--to be in every way gracious. His children were now everything to him, and among his children his son and heir was the chief. From the moment in which he had heard from Silverbridge that Lady Mabel was chosen he had given himself up to considering how he might best promote their interests,--how he might best enable them to live, with that dignity and splendour which he himself had unwisely despised. That the son who was to come after him should be worthy of the place a.s.signed to his name had been, of personal objects, the nearest to his heart. There had been failures, but still there had been left room for hope. The boy had been unfortunate at Eton;--but how many unfortunate boys had become great men! He had disgraced himself by his folly at college,--but, though some lads will be men at twenty, others are then little more than children.

The fruit that ripens the soonest is seldom the best. Then had come Tifto and the racing mania. Nothing could be worse than Tifto and race-horses. But from that evil Silverbridge had seemed to be made free by the very disgust which the vileness of the circ.u.mstance had produced. Perhaps Tifto driving a nail into his horse's foot had on the whole been serviceable. That apostasy from the political creed of the Pallisers had been a blow,--much more felt than the loss of the seventy thousand pounds;--but even under that blow he had consoled himself by thinking that a Conservative patriotic n.o.bleman may serve his country,--even as a Conservative. In the midst of this he had felt that the surest resource for his son against evil would be in an early marriage. If he would marry becomingly, then might everything still be made pleasant. If his son would marry becomingly nothing which a father could do should be wanting to add splendour and dignity to his son's life.

In thinking of all this he had by no means regarded his own mode of life with favour. He knew how jejune his life had been,--how devoid of other interests than that of the public service to which he had devoted himself. He was thinking of this when he told his son that he had neither ploughed and sowed or been the owner of sheep or oxen.

He often thought of this, when he heard those around him talking of the sports, which, though he condemned them as the employments of a life, he now regarded wistfully, hopelessly as far as he himself was concerned, as proper recreations for a man of wealth. Silverbridge should have it all, if he could arrange it. The one thing necessary was a fitting wife;--and the fitting wife had been absolutely chosen by Silverbridge himself.

It may be conceived, therefore, that he was again unhappy. He had already been driven to acknowledge that these children of his,--thoughtless, restless, though they seemed to be,--still had a will of their own. In all which how like they were to their mother!

With her, however, his word, though it might be resisted, had never lost its authority. When he had declared that a thing should not be done, she had never persisted in saying that she would do it.

But with his children it was otherwise. What power had he over Silverbridge,--or for the matter of that, even over his daughter?

They had only to be firm and he knew that he must be conquered.

"I thought that you liked her," Silverbridge had said to him. How utterly unconscious, thought the Duke, must the young man have been of all that his position required of him when he used such an argument! Liked her! He did like her. She was clever, accomplished, beautiful, well-mannered,--as far as he knew endowed with all good qualities! Would not many an old Roman have said as much for some favourite Greek slave,--for some freedman whom he would admit to his very heart? But what old Roman ever dreamed of giving his daughter to the son of a Greek bondsman! Had he done so, what would have become of the name of a Roman citizen? And was it not his duty to fortify and maintain that higher, smaller, more precious pinnacle of rank on which Fortune had placed him and his children?

Like her! Yes! he liked her certainly. He had by no means always found that he best liked the companionship of his own order. He had liked to feel around him the free battle of the House of Commons. He liked the power of attack and defence in carrying on which an English politician cares nothing for rank. He liked to remember that the son of any tradesman might, by his own merits, become a peer of Parliament. He would have liked to think that his son should share all these tastes with him. Yes,--he liked Isabel Bonca.s.sen. But how different was that liking from a desire that she should be bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh!

CHAPTER LXII

The Brake Country

"What does your father mean to do about Trumpington Wood?" That was the first word from Lord Chiltern after he had shaken hands with his guest.

"Isn't it all right yet?"

"All right? No! How can a wood like that be all right without a man about the place who knows anything of the nature of a fox? In your grandfather's time--"

"My great-uncle you mean."

"Well;--your great-uncle!--they used to trap the foxes there. There was a fellow named Fothergill who used to come there for shooting.

Now it is worse than ever. n.o.body shoots there because there is nothing to shoot. There isn't a keeper. Every scamp is allowed to go where he pleases, and of course there isn't a fox in the whole place.

My huntsman laughs at me when I ask him to draw it." As the indignant Master of the Brake Hounds said this the very fire flashed from his eyes.

"My dear," said Lady Chiltern expostulating, "Lord Silverbridge hasn't been in the house above half an hour."

"What does that matter? When a thing has to be said it had better be said at once."

Phineas Finn was staying at Harrington with his intimate friends the Chilterns, as were also a certain Mr. and Mrs. Maule, both of whom were addicted to hunting,--the lady, whose maiden name had been Palliser, being a cousin to Lord Silverbridge. On that day also a certain Mr. and Mrs. Spooner dined at Harrington. Mr. and Mrs. Spooner were both very much given to hunting, as seemed to be necessarily the case with everybody admitted to that house. Mr.

Spooner was a gentleman who might be on the wrong side of fifty, with a red nose, very vigorous, and submissive in regard to all things but port-wine. His wife was perhaps something more than half his age, a stout, hard-riding, handsome woman. She had been the penniless daughter of a retired officer,--but yet had managed to ride on whatever animal any one would lend her. Then Mr. Spooner, who had for many years been part and parcel of the Brake hunt, and who was much in want of a wife, had, luckily for her, cast his eyes upon Miss Leatherside. It was thought that upon the whole she made him a good wife. She hunted four days a week, and he could afford to keep horses for her. She never flirted, and wanted no one to open gates. Tom Spooner himself was not always so forward as he used to be; but his wife was always there and would tell him all that he did not see himself. And she was a good housewife, taking care that nothing should be spent lavishly, except upon the stable. Of him, too, and of his health, she was careful, never scrupling to say a word in season when he was likely to hurt himself, either among the fences or among the decanters. "You ain't so young as you were, Tom. Don't think of doing it." This she would say to him with a loud voice when she would find him pausing at a fence. Then she would hop over herself and he would go round. She was "quite a providence to him," as her mother, old Mrs. Leatherside, would say.

She was hardly the woman that one would have expected to meet as a friend in the drawing-room of Lady Chiltern. Lord Chiltern was perhaps a little rough, but Lady Chiltern was all that a mother, a wife, and a lady ought to be. She probably felt that some little apology ought to be made for Mrs. Spooner. "I hope you like hunting,"

she said to Silverbridge.