The Palliser Novels Part 289

"Plantagenet; - but we always call him Silverbridge."

"Plantagenet is very much prettier. I shall always call him Plantagenet. But I recall that. You will not remember that against me?"

"I will remember nothing that you do not wish."

"I mean that if, - if all the grandeurs of all the Pallisers could consent to put up with poor me, if heaven were opened to me with a straight gate, so that I could walk out of our republic into your aristocracy with my head erect, with the stars and stripes waving proudly round me till I had been accepted into the shelter of the Omnium griffins, - then I would call him - "

"There's one Palliser would welcome you."

"Would you, dear? Then I will love you so dearly. May I call you Mary?"

"Of course you may."

"Mary is the prettiest name under the sun. But Plantagenet is so grand! Which of the kings did you branch off from?"

"I know nothing about it. From none of them, I should think. There is some story about a Sir Guy who was a king's friend. I never trouble myself about it. I hate aristocracy."

"Do you, dear?"

"Yes," said Mary, full of her own grievances. "It is an abominable bondage, and I do not see that it does any good at all."

"I think it is so glorious," said the American. "There is no such mischievous nonsense in all the world as equality. That is what father says. What men ought to want is liberty."

"It is terrible to be tied up in a small circle," said the Duke's daughter.

"What do you mean, Lady Mary?"

"I thought you were to call me Mary. What I mean is this. Suppose that Silverbridge loves you better than all the world."

"I hope he does. I think he does."

"And suppose he cannot marry you, because of his - aristocracy?"

"But he can."

"I thought you were saying yourself - "

"Saying what? That he could not marry me! No, indeed! But that under certain circ.u.mstances I would not marry him. You don't suppose that I think he would be disgraced? If so I would go away at once, and he should never again see my face or hear my voice. I think myself good enough for the best man G.o.d ever made. But if others think differently, and those others are so closely concerned with him, and would be so closely concerned with me, as to trouble our joint lives, - then will I neither subject him to such sorrow nor will I encounter it myself."

"It all comes from what you call aristocracy."

"No, dear; - but from the prejudices of an aristocracy. To tell the truth, Mary, the more difficult a place is to get into, the more the right of going in is valued. If everybody could be a d.u.c.h.ess and a Palliser, I should not perhaps think so much about it."

"I thought it was because you loved him."

"So I do. I love him entirely. I have said not a word of that to him; - but I do, if I know at all what love is. But if you love a star, the pride you have in your star will enhance your love. Though you know that you must die of your love, still you must love your star."

And yet Mary could not tell her tale in return. She could not show the reverse picture; - that she being a star was anxious to dispose of herself after the fashion of poor human rushlights. It was not that she was ashamed of her love, but that she could not bring herself to yield altogether in reference to the great descent which Silverbridge would have to make.

On the day after this, - the last day of the Duke's sojourn at Custins, the last also of the Bonca.s.sens' visit, - it came to pa.s.s that the Duke and Mr. Bonca.s.sen, with Lady Mary and Isabel, were all walking in the woods together. And it so happened when they were at a little distance from the house, each of the girls was walking with the other girl's father. Isabel had calculated what she would say to the Duke should a time for speaking come to her. She could not tell him of his son's love. She could not ask his permission. She could not explain to him all her feelings, or tell him what she thought of her proper way of getting into heaven. That must come afterwards if it should ever come at all. But there was something that she could tell. "We are so different from you," she said, speaking of her own country.

"And yet so like," said the Duke, smiling; - "your language, your laws, your habits!"

"But still there is such a difference! I do not think there is a man in the whole Union more respected than father."

"I dare say not."

"Many people think that if he would only allow himself to be put in nomination, he might be the next president."

"The choice, I am sure, would do your country honour."

"And yet his father was a poor labourer who earned his bread among the shipping at New York. That kind of thing would be impossible here."

"My dear young lady, there you wrong us."

"Do I?"

"Certainly! A Prime Minister with us might as easily come from the same cla.s.s."

"Here you think so much of rank. You are - a Duke."

"But a Prime Minister can make a Duke; and if a man can raise himself by his own intellect to that position, no one will think of his father or his grandfather. The sons of merchants have with us been Prime Ministers more than once, and no Englishmen ever were more honoured among their countrymen. Our peerage is being continually recruited from the ranks of the people, and hence it gets its strength."

"Is it so?"

"There is no greater mistake than to suppose that inferiority of birth is a barrier to success in this country."

She listened to this and to much more on the same subject with attentive ears, - not shaken in her ideas as to the English aristocracy in general, but thinking that she was perhaps learning something of his own individual opinions. If he were more liberal than others, on that liberality might perhaps be based her own happiness and fortune.

He, in all this, was quite unconscious of the working of her mind. Nor in discussing such matters generally did he ever mingle his own private feelings, his own pride of race and name, his own ideas of what was due to his ancient rank with the political creed by which his conduct in public life was governed. The peer who sat next to him in the House of Lords, whose grandmother had been a washerwoman and whose father an innkeeper, was to him every whit as good a peer as himself. And he would as soon sit in counsel with Mr. Monk, whose father had risen from a mechanic to be a merchant, as with any n.o.bleman who could count ancestors against himself. But there was an inner feeling in his bosom as to his own family, his own name, his own children, and his own personal self, which was kept altogether apart from his grand political theories. It was a subject on which he never spoke; but the feeling had come to him as a part of his birthright. And he conceived that it would pa.s.s through him to his children after the same fashion. It was this which made the idea of a marriage between his daughter and Tregear intolerable to him, and which would operate as strongly in regard to any marriage which his son might contemplate. Lord Grex was not a man with whom he would wish to form any intimacy. He was, we may say, a wretched unprincipled old man, bad all round; and such the Duke knew him to be. But the blue blood and the rank were there; and as the girl was good herself, he would have been quite contented that his son should marry the daughter of Lord Grex. That one and the same man should have been in one part of himself so unlike the other part, - that he should have one set of opinions so contrary to another set, - poor Isabel Bonca.s.sen did not understand.

CHAPTER XLIX.

The Major's Fate The affair of Prime Minister and the nail was not allowed to fade away into obscurity. Through September and October it was made matter for pungent inquiry. The Jockey Club was alive. Mr. Pook was very instant, - with many Pookites anxious to free themselves from suspicion. Sporting men declared that the honour of the turf required that every detail of the case should be laid open. But by the end of October, though every detail had been surmised, nothing had in truth been discovered. n.o.body doubted but that Tifto had driven the nail into the horse's foot, and that Green and Gilbert Villiers had shared the bulk of the plunder. They had gone off on their travels together, and the fact that each of them had been in possession of about twenty thousand pounds was proved. But then there is no law against two gentlemen having such a sum of money. It was notorious that Captain Green and Mr. Gilbert Villiers had enriched themselves to this extent by the failure of Prime Minister. But yet nothing was proved!

That the Major had either himself driven in the nail or seen it done, all racing men were agreed. He had been out with the horse in the morning and had been the first to declare that the animal was lame. And he had been with the horse till the farrier had come. But he had concocted a story for himself. He did not dispute that the horse had been lamed by the machinations of Green and Villiers, - with the a.s.sistance of the groom. No doubt, he said, these men, who had been afraid to face an inquiry, had contrived and had carried out the iniquity. How the lameness had been caused he could not pretend to say. The groom who was at the horse's head, and who evidently knew how these things were done, might have struck a nerve in the horse's foot with his boot. But when the horse was got into the stable he, Tifto, - so he declared, - at once ran out to send for the farrier. During the minutes so occupied the operation must have been made with the nail. That was Tifto's story, - and as he kept his ground, there were some few who believed it.

But though the story was so far good, he had at moments been imprudent, and had talked when he should have been silent. The whole matter had been a torment to him. In the first place his conscience made him miserable. As long as it had been possible to prevent the evil he had hoped to make a clean breast of it to Lord Silverbridge. Up to this period of his life everything had been "square" with him. He had betted "square," and had ridden "square," and had run horses "square." He had taken a pride in this, as though it had been a great virtue. It was not without great inward grief that he had deprived himself of the consolations of these reflections! But when he had approached his n.o.ble partner, his n.o.ble partner snubbed him at every turn, - and he did the deed.

His reward was to be three thousand pounds, - and he got his money. The money was very much to him, - would perhaps have been almost enough to comfort him in his misery, had not those other rascals got so much more. When he heard that the groom's fee was higher than his own, it almost broke his heart. Green and Villiers, men of infinitely lower standing, - men at whom the Beargarden would not have looked, - had absolutely netted fortunes on which they could live in comfort. No doubt they had run away while Tifto still stood his ground; - but he soon began to doubt whether to have run away with twenty thousand pounds was not better than to remain with such small plunder as had fallen to his lot, among such faces as those which now looked upon him! Then when he had drunk a few gla.s.ses of whisky-and-water, he said something very foolish as to his power of punishing that swindler Green.

An attempt had been made to induce Silverbridge to delay the payment of his bets; - but he had been very eager that they should be paid. Under the joint auspices of Mr. Lupton and Mr. Moreton the horses were sold, and the establishment was annihilated, - with considerable loss, but with great despatch. The Duke had been urgent. The Jockey Club, and the racing world, and the horsey fraternity generally, might do what seemed to them good, - so that Silverbridge was extricated from the matter. Silverbridge was extricated, - and the Duke cared nothing for the rest.

But Silverbridge could not get out of the mess quite so easily as his father wished. Two questions arose about Major Tifto, outside the racing world, but within the domain of the world of sport and pleasure generally, as to one of which it was impossible that Silverbridge should not express an opinion. The first question had reference to the Mastership of the Runnymede hounds. In this our young friend was not bound to concern himself. The other affected the Beargarden Club; and, as Lord Silverbridge had introduced the Major, he could hardly forbear from the expression of an opinion.

There was a meeting of the subscribers to the hunt in the last week of October. At that meeting Major Tifto told his story. There he was, to answer any charge which might be brought against him. If he had made money by losing the race, - where was it and whence had it come? Was it not clear that a conspiracy might have been made without his knowledge; - and clear also that the real conspirators had levanted? He had not levanted! The hounds were his own. He had undertaken to hunt the country for this season, and they had undertaken to pay him a certain sum of money. He should expect and demand that sum of money. If they chose to make any other arrangement for the year following they could do so. Then he sat down and the meeting was adjourned, - the secretary having declared that he would not act in that capacity any longer, nor collect the funds. A farmer had also a.s.serted that he and his friends had resolved that Major Tifto should not ride over their fields. On the next day the Major had his hounds out, and some of the London men, with a few of the neighbours, joined him. Gates were locked; but the hounds ran, and those who chose to ride managed to follow them. There are men who will stick to their sport though Apollyon himself should carry the horn. Who cares whether the lady who fills a theatre be or be not a moral young woman, or whether the bandmaster who keeps such excellent time in a ball has or has not paid his debts? There were men of this sort who supported Major Tifto; - but then there was a general opinion that the Runnymede hunt would come to an end unless a new Master could be found.

Then in the first week in November a special meeting was called at the Beargarden, at which Lord Silverbridge was asked to attend. "It is impossible that he should be allowed to remain in the club." This was said to Lord Silverbridge by Mr. Lupton. "Either he must go or the club must be broken up."

Silverbridge was very unhappy on the occasion. He had at last been reasoned into believing that the horse had been made the victim of foul play; but he persisted in saying that there was no conclusive evidence against Tifto. The matter was argued with him. Tifto had laid bets against the horse; Tifto had been hand-and-glove with Green; Tifto could not have been absent from the horse above two minutes; the thing could not have been arranged without Tifto. As he had brought Tifto into the club, and had been his partner on the turf, it was his business to look into the matter. "But for all that," said he, "I'm not going to jump on a man when he's down, unless I feel sure that he's guilty."

Then the meeting was held, and Tifto himself appeared. When the accusation was made by Mr. Lupton, who proposed that he should be expelled, he burst into tears. The whole story was repeated, - the nail, and the hammer, and the lameness; and the moments were counted up, and poor Tifto's bets and friendship with Green were made apparent, - and the case was submitted to the club. An old gentleman who had been connected with the turf all his life, and who would not have scrupled, by square betting, to rob his dearest friend of his last shilling, seconded the proposition, - telling all the story over again. Then Major Tifto was asked whether he wished to say anything.

"I've got to say that I'm here," said Tifto, still crying, "and if I'd done anything of that kind, of course I'd have gone with the rest of 'em. I put it to Lord Silverbridge to say whether I'm that sort of fellow." Then he sat down.

Upon this there was a pause, and the club was manifestly of opinion that Lord Silverbridge ought to say something. "I think that Major Tifto should not have betted against the horse," said Silverbridge.

"I can explain that," said the Major. "Let me explain that. Everybody knows that I'm a man of small means. I wanted to 'edge, I only wanted to 'edge."

Mr. Lupton shook his head. "Why have you not shown me your book?"

"I told you before that it was stolen. Green got hold of it. I did win a little. I never said I didn't. But what has that to do with hammering a nail into a horse's foot? I have always been true to you, Lord Silverbridge, and you ought to stick up for me now."

"I will have nothing further to do with the matter," said Silverbridge, "one way or the other," and he walked out of the room, - and out of the club. The affair was ended by a magnanimous declaration on the part of Major Tifto that he would not remain in a club in which he was suspected, and by a consent on the part of the meeting to receive the Major's instant resignation.

CHAPTER L.

The Duke's Arguments The Duke before he left Custins had an interview with Lady Cantrip, at which that lady found herself called upon to speak her mind freely. "I don't think she cares about Lord Popplecourt," Lady Cantrip said.

"I am sure I don't know why she should," said the Duke, who was often very aggravating even to his friend.

"But as we had thought - "

"She ought to do as she is told," said the Duke, remembering how obedient his Glencora had been. "Has he spoken to her?"

"I think not."

"Then how can we tell?"

"I asked her to see him, but she expressed so much dislike that I could not press it. I am afraid, Duke, that you will find it difficult to deal with her."

"I have found it very difficult!"

"As you have trusted me so much - "

"Yes; - I have trusted you, and do trust you. I hope you understand that I appreciate your kindness."

"Perhaps then you will let me say what I think."

"Certainly, Lady Cantrip."

"Mary is a very peculiar girl, - with great gifts, - but - "

"But what?"

"She is obstinate. Perhaps it would be fairer to say that she has great firmness of character. It is within your power to separate her from Mr. Tregear. It would be foreign to her character to - to - leave you, except with your approbation."

"You mean, she will not run away."

"She will do nothing without your permission. But she will remain unmarried unless she be allowed to marry Mr. Tregear."

"What do you advise then?"

"That you should yield. As regards money, you could give them what they want. Let him go into public life. You could manage that for him."

"He is Conservative!"

"What does that matter when the question is one of your daughter's happiness? Everybody tells me that he is clever and well conducted."

He betrayed nothing by his face as this was said to him. But as he got into the carriage he was a miserable man. It is very well to tell a man that he should yield, but there is nothing so wretched to a man as yielding. Young people and women have to yield, - but for such a man as this, to yield is in itself a misery. In this matter the Duke was quite certain of the propriety of his judgment. To yield would be not only to mortify himself, but to do wrong at the same time. He had convinced himself that the Popplecourt arrangement would come to nothing. Nor had he and Lady Cantrip combined been able to exercise over her the sort of power to which Lady Glencora had been subjected. If he persevered, - and he still was sure, almost sure, that he would persevere, - his object must be achieved after a different fashion. There must be infinite suffering, - suffering both to him and to her. Could she have been made to consent to marry someone else, terrible as the rupture might have been, she would have reconciled herself at last to her new life. So it had been with his Glencora, after a time. Now the misery must go on from day to day beneath his eyes, with the knowledge on his part that he was crushing all joy out of her young life, and the conviction on her part that she was being treated with continued cruelty by her father! It was a terrible prospect! But if it was manifestly his duty to act after this fashion, must he not do his duty?

If he were to find that by persevering in this course he would doom her to death, or perchance to madness, - what then? If it were right, he must still do it. He must still do it, if the weakness incident to his human nature did not rob him of the necessary firmness. If every foolish girl were indulged, all restraint would be lost, and there would be an end to those rules as to birth and position by which he thought his world was kept straight. And then, mixed with all this, was his feeling of the young man's arrogance in looking for such a match. Here was a man without a shilling, whose manifest duty it was to go to work so that he might earn his bread, who instead of doing so, had hoped to raise himself to wealth and position by entrapping the heart of an unwary girl! There was something to the Duke's thinking base in this, and much more base because the unwary girl was his own daughter. That such a man as Tregear should make an attack upon him and select his rank, his wealth, and his child as the stepping-stones by which he intended to rise! What could be so mean as that a man should seek to live by looking out for a wife with money? But what so impudent, so arrogant, so unblushingly disregardful of propriety, as that he should endeavour to select his victim from such a family as that of the Pallisers, and that he should lay his impious hand on the very daughter of the Duke of Omnium?

But together with all this there came upon him moments of ineffable tenderness. He felt as though he longed to take her in his arms and tell her, that if she were unhappy, so would he be unhappy too, - to make her understand that a hard necessity had made this sorrow common to them both. He thought that, if she would only allow it, he could speak of her love as a calamity which had befallen them, as from the hand of fate, and not as a fault. If he could make a partnership in misery with her, so that each might believe that each was acting for the best, then he could endure all that might come. But, as he was well aware, she regarded him as being simply cruel to her. She did not understand that he was performing an imperative duty. She had set her heart upon a certain object, and having taught herself that in that way happiness might be reached, had no conception that there should be something in the world, some idea of personal dignity, more valuable to her than the fruition of her own desires! And yet every word he spoke to her was affectionate. He knew that she was bruised, and if it might be possible he would pour oil into her wounds, - even though she would not recognise the hand which relieved her.

They slept one night in town, - where they encountered Silverbridge soon after his retreat from the Beargarden. "I cannot quite make up my mind, sir, about that fellow Tifto," he said to his father.

"I hope you have made up your mind that he is no fit companion for yourself."

"That's over. Everybody understands that, sir."

"Is anything more necessary?"

"I don't like feeling that he has been ill-used. They have made him resign the club, and I fancy they won't have him at the hunt."

"He has lost no money by you?"

"Oh no."

"Then I think you may be indifferent. From all that I hear I think he must have won money, - which will probably be a consolation to him."

"I think they have been hard upon him," continued Silverbridge. "Of course he is not a good man, nor a gentleman, nor possessed of very high feelings. But a man is not to be sacrificed altogether for that. There are so many men who are not gentlemen, and so many gentlemen who are bad fellows."

"I have no doubt Mr. Lupton knew what he was about," replied the Duke.

On the next morning the Duke and Lady Mary went down to Matching, and as they sat together in the carriage after leaving the railway the father endeavoured to make himself pleasant to his daughter. "I suppose we shall stay at Matching now till Christmas," he said.