The Palliser Novels Part 258

"Oh, certainly," said Silverbridge.

CHAPTER VIII.

"He Is a Gentleman"

The Duke returned to Matching an almost broken-hearted man. He had intended to go down into Ba.r.s.etshire, in reference to the coming elections; - not with the view of interfering in any unlordly, or rather unpeerlike fashion, but thinking that if his eldest son were to stand for the county in a proper const.i.tutional spirit, as the eldest son of so great a county magnate ought to do, his presence at Gatherum Castle, among his own people, might probably be serviceable, and would certainly be gracious. There would be no question of entertainment. His bereavement would make that impossible. But there would come from his presence a certain savour of proprietorship, and a sense of power, which would be beneficial to his son, and would not, as the Duke thought, be contrary to the spirit of the const.i.tution. But all this was now at an end. He told himself that he did not care how the elections might go; - that he did not care much how anything might go. Silverbridge might stand for Silverbridge if he so pleased. He would give neither a.s.sistance nor obstruction, either in the county or in the borough. He wrote to this effect to his agent, Mr. Morton; - but at the same time desired that gentleman to pay Lord Silverbridge's electioneering expenses, feeling it to be his duty as a father to do so much for his son.

But though he endeavoured to engage his thoughts in these parliamentary matters, though he tried to make himself believe that this political apostasy was the trouble which vexed him, in truth that other misery was so crushing, as to make the affairs of his son insignificant. How should he express himself to her? That was the thought present to his mind as he went down to Matching. Should he content himself with simply telling her that such a wish on her part was disgraceful, and that it could never be fulfilled; or should he argue the matter with her, endeavouring as he did so to persuade her gently that she was wrong to place her affections so low, and so to obtain from her an a.s.surance that the idea should be abandoned?

The latter course would be infinitely the better, - if only he could accomplish it. But he was conscious of his own hardness of manner, and was aware that he had never succeeded in establishing confidence between himself and his daughter. It was a thing for which he had longed, - as a plain girl might long to possess the charms of an acknowledged beauty; - as a poor little fellow, five feet in height, might long to have a cubit added to his stature.

Though he was angry with her, how willingly would he take her into his arms and a.s.sure her of his forgiveness! How anxious he would be to make her understand that nothing should be spared by him to add beauty and grace to her life! Only, as a matter of course, Mr. Tregear must be abandoned. But he knew of himself that he would not know how to begin to be tender and forgiving. He knew that he would not know how not to be stern and hard.

But he must find out the history of it all. No doubt the man had been his son's friend, and had joined his party in Italy at his son's instance. But yet he had come to entertain an idea that Mrs. Finn had been the great promoter of the sin, and he thought that Tregear had told him that that lady had been concerned with the matter from the beginning. In all this there was a craving in his heart to lessen the amount of culpable responsibility which might seem to attach itself to the wife he had lost.

He reached Matching about eight, and ordered his dinner to be brought to him in his own study. When Lady Mary came to welcome him, he kissed her forehead and bade her come to him after his dinner. "Shall I not sit with you, papa, whilst you are eating it?" she asked; but he merely told her that he would not trouble her to do that. Even in saying this he was so unusually tender to her that she a.s.sured herself that her lover had not as yet told his tale.

The Duke's meals were not generally feasts for a Lucullus. No man living, perhaps, cared less what he ate, or knew less what he drank. In such matters he took what was provided for him, making his dinner off the first bit of meat that was brought, and simply ignoring anything offered to him afterwards. And he would drink what wine the servant gave him, mixing it, whatever it might be, with seltzer water. He had never been much given to the pleasures of the table; but this habit of simplicity had grown on him of late, till the d.u.c.h.ess used to tell him that his wants were so few that it was a pity he was not a hermit, vowed to poverty.

Very shortly a message was brought to Lady Mary, saying that her father wished to see her. She went at once, and found him seated on a sofa, which stood close along the bookshelves on one side of the room. The table had already been cleared, and he was alone. He not only was alone, but had not even a pamphlet or newspaper in his hand.

Then she knew that Tregear must have told the story. As this occurred to her, her legs almost gave way under her. "Come and sit down, Mary," he said, pointing to the seat on the sofa beside himself.

She sat down and took one of his hands within her own. Then, as he did not begin at once, she asked a question. "Will Silverbridge stand for the county, papa?"

"No, my dear."

"But for the town?"

"Yes, my dear."

"And he won't be a Liberal?"

"I am afraid not. It is a cause of great unhappiness to me; but I do not know that I should be justified in any absolute opposition. A man is ent.i.tled to his own opinion, even though he be a very young man."

"I am so sorry that it should be so, papa, because it vexes you."

"I have many things to vex me; - things to break my heart."

"Poor mamma!" she exclaimed.

"Yes; that above all others. But life and death are in G.o.d's hands, and even though we may complain we can alter nothing. But whatever our sorrows are while we are here, we must do our duty."

"I suppose he may be a good Member of Parliament, though he has turned Conservative."

"I am not thinking about your brother. I am thinking about you." The poor girl gave a little start on the sofa. "Do you know - Mr. Tregear?" he added.

"Yes, papa; of course I know him. You used to see him in Italy."

"I believe I did; I understand that he was there as a friend of Silverbridge."

"His most intimate friend, papa."

"I dare say. He came to me, in London yesterday, and told me - ! Oh Mary, can it be true?"

"Yes, papa," she said, covered up to her forehead with blushes, and with her eyes turned down. In the ordinary affairs of life she was a girl of great courage, who was not given to be shaken from her constancy by the pressure of any present difficulty; but now the terror inspired by her father's voice almost overpowered her.

"Do you mean to tell me that you have engaged yourself to that young man without my approval?"

"Of course you were to have been asked, papa."

"Is that in accordance with your idea of what should be the conduct of a young lady in your position?"

"n.o.body meant to conceal anything from you, papa."

"It has been so far concealed. And yet this young man has the self-confidence to come to me and to demand your hand as though it were a matter of course that I should accede to so trivial a request. It is, as a matter of course, quite impossible. You understand that; do you not?" When she did not answer him at once, he repeated the question. "I ask you whether you do not feel that it is altogether impossible?"

"No, papa," she said, in the lowest possible whisper, but still in such a whisper that he could hear the word, and with so much clearness that he could judge from her voice of the obstinacy of her mind.

"Then, Mary, it becomes my duty to tell you that it is quite impossible. I will not have it thought of. There must be an end of it."

"Why, papa?"

"Why! I am astonished that you should ask me why."

"I should not have allowed him, papa, to go to you unless I had, - unless I had loved him."

"Then you must conquer your love. It is disgraceful and must be conquered."

"Disgraceful!"

"Yes. I am sorry to use such a word to my own child, but it is so. If you will promise to be guided by me in this matter, if you will undertake not to see him any more, I will, - if not forget it, - at any rate pardon it, and be silent. I will excuse it because you were young, and were thrown imprudently in his way. There has, I believe, been someone at work in the matter with whom I ought to be more angry than with you. Say that you will obey me, and there is nothing within a father's power that I will not do for you, to make your life happy." It was thus that he strove not to be stern. His heart, indeed, was tender enough, but there was nothing tender in the tone of his voice or in the glance of his eye. Though he was very positive in what he said, yet he was shy and shamefaced even with his own daughter. He, too, had blushed when he told her that she must conquer her love.

That she should be told that she had disgraced herself was terrible to her. That her father should speak of her marriage with this man as an event that was impossible made her very unhappy. That he should talk of pardoning her, as for some great fault, was in itself a misery. But she had not on that account the least idea of giving up her lover. Young as she was, she had her own peculiar theory on that matter, her own code of conduct and honour, from which she did not mean to be driven. Of course she had not expected that her father would yield at the first word. He, no doubt, would wish that she should make a more exalted marriage. She had known that she would have to encounter opposition, though she had not expected to be told that she had disgraced herself. As she sat there she resolved that under no pretence would she give up her lover; - but she was so far abashed that she could not find words to express herself. He, too, had been silent for a few moments before he again asked her for her promise.

"Will you tell me, Mary, that you will not see him again?"

"I don't think that I can say that, papa."

"Why not?"

"Oh papa, how can I, when of all the people in the world I love him the best?"

It is not without a pang that any one can be told that she who is of all the dearest has some other one who to her is the dearest. Such pain fathers and mothers have to bear; and though, I think, the arrow is never so blunted but that it leaves something of a wound behind, there is in most cases, if not a perfect salve, still an ample consolation. The mother knows that it is good that her child should love some man better than all the world beside, and that she should be taken away to become a wife and a mother. And the father, when that delight of his eyes ceases to a.s.sure him that he is her nearest and dearest, though he abandon the treasure of that nearestness and dearestness with a soft melancholy, still knows that it is as it should be. Of course that other "him" is the person she loves the best in the world. Were it not so how evil a thing it would be that she should marry him! Were it not so with reference to some "him", how void would her life be! But now, to the poor Duke the wound had no salve, no consolation. When he was told that this young Tregear was the owner of his girl's sweet love, was the treasure of her heart, he shrank as though arrows with sharp points were p.r.i.c.king him all over. "I will not hear of such love," he said.

"What am I to say, papa?"

"Say that you will obey me."

Then she sat silent. "Do you not know that he is not fit to be your husband?"

"No, papa."

"Then you cannot have thought much either of your position or of mine."

"He is a gentleman, papa."

"So is my private secretary. There is not a clerk in one of our public offices who does not consider himself to be a gentleman. The curate of the parish is a gentleman, and the medical man who comes here from Bradstock. The word is too vague to carry with it any meaning that ought to be serviceable to you in thinking of such a matter."

"I do not know any other way of dividing people," said she, showing thereby that she had altogether made up her mind as to what ought to be serviceable to her.

"You are not called upon to divide people. That division requires so much experience that you are bound in this matter to rely upon those to whom your obedience is due. I cannot but think you must have known that you were not ent.i.tled to give your love to any man without being a.s.sured that the man would be approved of by - by - by me." He was going to say, "your parents," but was stopped by the remembrance of his wife's imprudence.

She saw it all, and was too n.o.ble to plead her mother's authority. But she was not too dutiful to cast a reproach upon him, when he was so stern to her. "You have been so little with me, papa."

"That is true," he said, after a pause. "That is true. It has been a fault, and I will mend it. It is a reason for forgiveness, and I will forgive you. But you must tell me that there shall be an end to this."

"No, papa."

"What do you mean?"

"That as I love Mr. Tregear, and as I have told him so, and as I have promised him, I will be true to him. I cannot let there be an end to it."

"You do not suppose that you will be allowed to see him again?"

"I hope so."

"Most a.s.suredly not. Do you write to him?"

"No, papa."

"Never?"

"Never since we have been back in England."

"You must promise me that you will not write."

She paused a moment before she answered him, and now she was looking him full in the face. "I shall not write to him. I do not think I shall write to him; but I will not promise."

"Not promise me, - your father!"

"No, papa. It might be that - that I should do it."

"You would not wish me so to guard you that you should have no power of sending a letter but by permission?"

"I should not like that."

"But it will have to be so."

"If I do write I will tell you."

"And show me what you write?"

"No, papa; not that; but I will tell you what I have written."

Then it occurred to him that this bargaining was altogether derogatory to his parental authority, and by no means likely to impress upon her mind the conviction that Tregear must be completely banished from her thoughts. He began already to find how difficult it would be for him to have the charge of such a daughter, - how impossible that he should conduct such a charge with sufficient firmness, and yet with sufficient tenderness! At present he had done no good. He had only been made more wretched than ever by her obstinacy. Surely he must pa.s.s her over to the charge of some lady, - but of some lady who would be as determined as was he himself that she should not throw herself away by marrying Mr. Tregear.

"There shall be no writing," he said, "no visiting, no communication of any kind. As you refuse to obey me now, you had better go to your room."

CHAPTER IX.

"In Medias Res"

Perhaps the method of rushing at once "in medias res" is, of all the ways of beginning a story, or a separate branch of a story, the least objectionable. The reader is made to think that the gold lies so near the surface that he will be required to take very little trouble in digging for it. And the writer is enabled, - at any rate for a time, and till his neck has become, as it were, warm to the collar, - to throw off from him the difficulties and dangers, the tedium and prolixity, of description. This rushing "in medias res" has doubtless the charm of ease. "Certainly, when I threw her from the garret window to the stony pavement below, I did not antic.i.p.ate that she would fall so far without injury to life or limb." When a story has been begun after this fashion, without any prelude, without description of the garret or of the pavement, or of the lady thrown, or of the speaker, a great amount of trouble seems to have been saved. The mind of the reader fills up the blanks, - if erroneously, still satisfactorily. He knows, at least, that the heroine has encountered a terrible danger, and has escaped from it with almost incredible good fortune; that the demon of the piece is a bold demon, not ashamed to speak of his own iniquity, and that the heroine and the demon are so far united that they have been in a garret together. But there is the drawback on the system, - that it is almost impossible to avoid the necessity of doing, sooner or later, that which would naturally be done at first. It answers, perhaps, for half-a-dozen chapters; - and to carry the reader pleasantly for half-a-dozen chapters is a great matter! - but after that a certain nebulous darkness gradually seems to envelope the characters and the incidents. "Is all this going on in the country, or is it in town, - or perhaps in the Colonies? How old was she? Was she tall? Is she fair? Is she heroine-like in her form and gait? And, after all, how high was the garret window?" I have always found that the details would insist on being told at last, and that by rushing "in medias res" I was simply presenting the cart before the horse. But as readers like the cart the best, I will do it once again, - trying it only for a branch of my story, - and will endeavour to let as little as possible of the horse be seen afterwards.

"And so poor Frank has been turned out of heaven?" said Lady Mabel Grex to young Lord Silverbridge.

"Who told you that? I have said nothing about it to anybody."

"Of course he told me himself," said the young beauty. I am aware that, in the word beauty, and perhaps, also, in the word young, a little bit of the horse is appearing; and I am already sure that I shall have to show his head and neck, even if not his very tail. "Poor Frank! Did you hear it all?"

"I heard nothing, Lady Mab, and know nothing."

"You know that your awful governor won't let him stay any longer in Carlton Terrace?"

"Yes, I know that."

"And why not?"

"Would Lord Grex allow Percival to have his friends living here?" Earl Grex was Lady Mabel's father, Lord Percival was the Earl's son; - and the Earl lived in Belgrave Square. All these are little bits of the horse.

"Certainly not. In the first place, I am here."

"That makes a difference, certainly."

"Of course it makes a difference. They would be wanting to make love to me."