The Palliser Novels Part 261

"Has she got money?"

"I believe she will have a great deal."

"Then she is a great fool for her pains," said the Earl, shambling off again.

Lady Mabel spent the greater part of the afternoon alone, endeavouring to recall to her mind all that she had said to Frank Tregear, and questioning herself as to the wisdom and truth of her own words. She had intended to tell the truth, - but hardly perhaps the whole truth. The life which was before her, - which it was necessary that she should lead, - seemed to her to be so difficult! She could not clearly see her way to be pure and good and feminine, and at the same time wise. She had been false now; - so far false that she had told her friend that she had never been in love. But she was in love; - in love with him, Frank Tregear. She knew it as thoroughly as it was possible for her to know anything; - and had acknowledged it to herself a score of times.

But she could not marry him. And it was expected, nay, almost necessary that she should marry someone. To that someone, how good she would be! How she would strive by duty and attention, and if possible by affection, to make up for that misfortune of her early love!

And so I hope that I have brought my cart in to its appointed place in the front, without showing too much of the horse.

CHAPTER XI.

"Cruel"

For two or three days after the first scene between the Duke and his daughter, - that scene in which she was forbidden either to see or to write to her lover, - not a word was said at Matching about Mr. Tregear, nor were any steps taken towards curtailing her liberty of action. She had said she would not write to him without telling her father, and the Duke was too proud of the honour of his family to believe it to be possible that she should deceive him. Nor was it possible. Not only would her own idea of duty prevent her from writing to her lover, although she had stipulated for the right to do so in some possible emergency, - but, carried far beyond that in her sense of what was right and wrong, she felt it now inc.u.mbent on her to have no secret from her father at all. The secret, as long as it had been a secret, had been a legacy from her mother, - and had been kept, at her lover's instance, during that period of mourning for her mother in which it would, she thought, have been indecorous that there should be any question of love or of giving in marriage. It had been a burden to her, though a necessary burden. She had been very clear that the revelation should be made to her father, when it was made, by her lover. That had been done, - and now it was open to her to live without any secrecy, - as was her nature. She meant to cling to her lover. She was quite sure of that. Nothing could divide her from him but his death or hers, - or falseness on his part. But as to marriage, that would not be possible till her father had a.s.sented. And as to seeing the man, - ah, yes, if she could do so with her father's a.s.sent! She would not be ashamed to own her great desire to see him. She would tell her father that all her happiness depended upon seeing him. She would not be coy in speaking of her love. But she would obey her father.

She had a strong idea that she would ultimately prevail, - an idea also that that "ultimately" should not be postponed to some undefined middle-aged period of her life. As she intended to belong to Frank Tregear, she thought it expedient that he should have the best of her days as well as what might be supposed to be the worst; and she therefore resolved that it would be her duty to make her father understand that though she would certainly obey him, she would look to be treated humanely by him, and not to be made miserable for an indefinite term of years.

The first word spoken between them on the subject, - the first word after that discussion, - began with him and was caused by his feeling that her present life at Matching must be sad and lonely. Lady Cantrip had again written that she would be delighted to take her; - but Lady Cantrip was in London and must be in London, at any rate when Parliament should again be sitting. A London life would perhaps, at present, hardly suit Lady Mary. Then a plan had been prepared which might be convenient. The Duke had a house at Richmond, on the river, called The Horns. That should be lent to Lady Cantrip, and Mary should there be her guest. So it was settled between the Duke and Lady Cantrip. But as yet Lady Mary knew nothing of the arrangement.

"I think I shall go up to town to-morrow," said the Duke to his daughter.

"For long?"

"I shall be gone only one night. It is on your behalf that I am going."

"On my behalf, papa?"

"I have been writing to Lady Cantrip."

"Not about Mr. Tregear?"

"No; - not about Mr. Tregear," said the father with a mixture of anger and solemnity in his tone. "It is my desire to regard Mr. Tregear as though he did not exist."

"That is not possible, papa."

"I have alluded to the inconvenience of your position here."

"Why is it inconvenient?"

"You are too young to be without a companion. It is not fit that you should be so much alone."

"I do not feel it."

"It is very melancholy for you, and cannot be good for you. They will go down to The Horns, so that you will not be absolutely in London, and you will find Lady Cantrip a very nice person."

"I don't care for new people just now, papa," she said. But to this he paid but little heed; nor was she prepared to say that she would not do as he directed. When therefore he left Matching, she understood that he was going to prepare a temporary home for her. Nothing further was said about Tregear. She was too proud to ask that no mention of his name should be made to Lady Cantrip. And he when he left the house did not think that he would find himself called upon to allude to the subject.

But when Lady Cantrip made some inquiry about the girl and her habits, - asking what were her ordinary occupations, how she was accustomed to pa.s.s her hours, to what she chiefly devoted herself, - then at last with much difficulty the Duke did bring himself to tell the story. "Perhaps it is better you should know it all," he said as he told it.

"Poor girl! Yes, Duke; upon the whole it is better that I should know it all," said Lady Cantrip. "Of course he will not come here."

"Oh dear; I hope not."

"Nor to The Horns."

"I hope he will never see her again anywhere," said the Duke.

"Poor girl!"

"Have I not been right? Is it not best to put an end to such a thing at once?"

"Certainly at once, if it has to be put an end to, - and can be put an end to."

"It must be put an end to," said the Duke, very decidedly. "Do you not see that it must be so? Who is Mr. Tregear?"

"I suppose they were allowed to be together."

"He was unfortunately intimate with Silverbridge, who took him over to Italy. He has nothing; not even a profession." Lady Cantrip could not but smile when she remembered the immense wealth of the man who was speaking to her; - and the Duke saw the smile and understood it. "You will understand what I mean, Lady Cantrip. If this young man were in other respects suitable, of course I could find an income for them. But he is nothing; just an idle seeker for pleasure without the means of obtaining it."

"That is very bad."

"As for rank," continued the Duke energetically, "I do not think that I am specially wedded to it. I have found myself as willing to a.s.sociate with those who are without it as with those who have it. But for my child, I would wish her to mate with one of her own cla.s.s."

"It would be best."

"When a young man comes to me who, though I believe him to be what is called a gentleman, has neither rank, nor means, nor profession, nor name, and asks for my daughter, surely I am right to say that such a marriage shall not be thought of. Was I not right?" demanded the Duke persistently.

"But it is a pity that it should be so. It is a pity that they should ever have come together."

"It is indeed, indeed to be lamented, - and I will own at once that the fault was not hers. Though I must be firm in this, you are not to suppose that I am angry with her. I have myself been to blame." This he said with a resolution that, - as he and his wife had been one flesh, - all faults committed by her should, now that she was dead, be accepted by him as his faults. "It had not occurred to me that as yet she would love any man."

"Has it gone deep with her, Duke?"

"I fear that all things go deep with her."

"Poor girl!"

"But they shall be kept apart! As long as your great kindness is continued to her they shall be kept apart!"

"I do not think that I should be found good at watching a young lady."

"She will require no watching."

"Then of course they will not meet. She had better know that you have told me."

"She shall know it."

"And let her know also that anything I can do to make her happy shall be done. But, Duke, there is but one cure."

"Time, you mean."

"Yes; time; but I did not mean time." Then she smiled as she went on. "You must not suppose that I am speaking against my own s.e.x if I say that she will not forget Mr. Tregear till someone else has made himself agreeable to her. We must wait till she can go out a little into society. Then she will find out that there are others in the world besides Mr. Tregear. It so often is the case that a girl's love means her sympathy for him who has chanced to be nearest to her."

The Duke as he went away thought very much of what Lady Cantrip had said to him; - particularly of those last words. "Till some one else has made himself agreeable to her." Was he to send his girl into the world in order that she might find a lover? There was something in the idea which was thoroughly distasteful to him. He had not given his mind much to the matter, but he felt that a woman should be sought for, - sought for and extracted, cunningly, as it were, from some hiding-place, and not sent out into a market to be exposed as for sale. In his own personal history there had been a misfortune, - a misfortune, the sense of which he could never, at any moment, have expressed to any ears, the memory of which had been always buried in his own bosom, - but a misfortune in that no such cunning extraction on his part had won for him the woman to whose hands had been confided the strings of his heart. His wife had undergone that process of extraction before he had seen her, and his marriage with her had been a matter of sagacious bargaining. He was now told that his daughter must be sent out among young men in order that she might become sufficiently fond of some special one to be regardless of Tregear. There was a feeling that in doing so she must lose something of the freshness of the bloom of her innocence. How was this transfer of her love to be effected? Let her go here because she will meet the heir of this wealthy house who may probably be smitten by her charms; or there because that other young lordling would make a fit husband for her. Let us contrive to throw her into the arms of this man, or put her into the way of that man. Was his girl to be exposed to this? Surely that method of bargaining to which he had owed his own wife would be better than that. Let it be said, - only he himself most certainly could not be the person to say it, - let it be said to some man of rank and means and fairly good character: "Here is a wife for you with so many thousand pounds, with beauty, as you can see for yourself, with rank and belongings of the highest; very good in every respect; - only that as regards her heart she thinks she has given it to a young man named Tregear. No marriage there is possible; but perhaps the young lady might suit you?" It was thus he had been married. There was an absence in it of that romance which, though he had never experienced it in his own life, was always present to his imagination. His wife had often ridiculed him because he could only live among figures and official details; but to her had not been given the power of looking into a man's heart and feeling all that was there. Yes; - in such bargaining for a wife, in such bargaining for a husband, there could be nothing of the tremulous delicacy of feminine romance; but it would be better than standing at a stall in the market till the sufficient purchaser should come. It never occurred to him that the delicacy, the innocence, the romance, the bloom might all be preserved if he would give his girl to the man whom she said she loved. Could he have modelled her future course according to his own wishes, he would have had her live a gentle life for the next three years, with a pencil perhaps in her hand or a music-book before her; - and then come forth, cleaned as it were by such quarantine from the impurity to which she had been subjected.

When he was back at Matching he at once told his daughter what he had arranged for her, and then there took place a prolonged discussion both as to his view of her future life and as to her own. "You did tell her then about Mr. Tregear?" she asked.

"As she is to have charge of you for a time I thought it best."

"Perhaps it is. Perhaps - you were afraid."

"No; I was not afraid," he said angrily.

"You need not be afraid. I shall do nothing elsewhere that I would not do here, and nothing anywhere without telling you."

"I know I can trust you."

"But, papa, I shall always intend to marry Mr. Tregear."

"No!" he exclaimed.

"Yes; - always. I want you to understand exactly how it is. Nothing you can do can separate me from him."

"Mary, that is very wicked."

"It cannot be wicked to tell the truth, papa. I mean to try to do all that you tell me. I shall not see him, or write to him, - unless there should be some very particular reason. And if I did see him or write to him I would tell you. And of course I should not think of - of marrying without your leave. But I shall expect you to let me marry him."

"Never!"

"Then I shall think you are - cruel; and you will break my heart."

"You should not call your father cruel."

"I hope you will not be cruel."

"I can never permit you to marry this man. It would be altogether improper. I cannot allow you to say that I am cruel because I do what I feel to be my duty. You will see other people."

"A great many perhaps."

"And will learn to, - to, - to forget him."

"Never! I will not forget him. I should hate myself if I thought it possible. What would love be worth if it could be forgotten in that way?" As he heard this he reflected whether his own wife, this girl's mother, had ever forgotten her early love for that Burgo Fitzgerald whom in her girlhood she had wished to marry.

When he was leaving her she called him back again. "There is one other thing I think I ought to say, papa. If Lady Cantrip speaks to me about Mr. Tregear, I can only tell her what I have told you. I shall never give him up." When he heard this he turned angrily from her, almost stamping his foot upon the ground, when she quietly left the room.

Cruel! She had told him that he would be cruel, if he opposed her love. He thought he knew of himself that he could not be cruel, - even to a fly, even to a political opponent. There could be no cruelty without dishonesty, and did he not always struggle to be honest? Cruel to his own daughter!

CHAPTER XII.

At Richmond The pity of it! The pity of it! It was thus that Lady Cantrip looked at it. From what the girl's father had said to her she was disposed to believe that the malady had gone deep with her. "All things go deep with her," he had said. And she too from other sources had heard something of this girl. She was afraid that it would go deep. It was a thousand pities! Then she asked herself whether the marriage ought to be regarded as impossible. The Duke had been very positive, - had declared again and again that it was quite impossible, had so expressed himself as to make her aware that he intended her to understand that he would not yield whatever the sufferings of the girl might be. But Lady Cantrip knew the world well and was aware that in such matters daughters are apt to be stronger than their fathers. He had declared Tregear to be a young man with very small means, and intent on such pleasures as require great means for their enjoyment. No worse character could be given to a gentleman who had proposed himself as a son-in-law. But Lady Cantrip thought it possible that the Duke might be mistaken in this. She had never seen Mr. Tregear, but she fancied that she had heard his name, and that the name had been connected with a character different from that which the Duke had given him.

Lady Cantrip, who at this time was a young-looking woman, not much above forty, had two daughters, both of whom were married. The younger about a year since had become the wife of Lord Nidderdale, a middle-aged young man who had been long about town, a cousin of the late d.u.c.h.ess, the heir to a marquisate, and a Member of Parliament. The marriage had not been considered to be very brilliant; but the husband was himself good-natured and pleasant, and Lady Cantrip was fond of him. In the first place she went to him for information.

"Oh yes, I know him. He's one of our set at the Beargarden."

"Not your set, now, I hope," she said laughing.

"Well; - I don't see so much of them as I used to do. Tregear is not a bad fellow at all. He's always with Silverbridge. When Silverbridge does what Tregear tells him, he goes along pretty straight. But unfortunately there's another man called Tifto, and when Tifto is in the ascendant then Silverbridge is apt to get a little astray."

"He's not in debt, then?"

"Who? - Tregear? I should think he's the last man in the world to owe a penny to any one."

"Is he a betting man?"

"Oh dear no; quite the other way up. He's a severe, sarcastic, bookish sort of fellow, - a chap who knows everything and turns up his nose at people who know nothing."

"Has he got anything of his own?"

"Not much, I should say. If he had had any money he would have married Lady Mab Grex last year."

Lady Cantrip was inclined from what she now learned to think that the Duke must be wrong about the young man. But before Lady Mary joined her she made further inquiry. She too knew Lady Mabel, and knowing Lady Mabel, she knew Miss Ca.s.sewary. She contrived to find herself alone with Miss Ca.s.sewary, and asked some further questions about Mr. Tregear. "He is a cousin of my Lord's," said Miss Ca.s.s.

"So I thought. I wonder what sort of a young man he is. He is a good deal with Lord Silverbridge."

Then Miss Ca.s.sewary spoke her opinion very plainly. "If Lord Silverbridge had n.o.body worse about him than Mr. Tregear he would not come to much harm."

"I suppose he's not very well off."

"No; - certainly not. He will have a property of some kind, I believe, when his mother dies. I think very well of Mr. Tregear; - only I wish that he had a profession. But why are you asking about him, Lady Cantrip?"

"Nidderdale was talking to me about him and saying that he was so much with Lord Silverbridge. Lord Silverbridge is going into Parliament now, and, as it were, beginning the world, and it would be a thousand pities that he should get into bad hands." It may, however, be doubted whether Miss Ca.s.sewary was hoodwinked by this little story.

Early in the second week in May the Duke brought his daughter up to The Horns, and at the same time expressed his intention of remaining in London. When he did so Lady Mary at once asked whether she might not be with him, - but he would not permit it. The house in London would, he said, be more gloomy even than Matching.