The Way We Live Now Part 107

"Wretched, wicked girl" said Melmotte, collecting the papers together. Then he left the room, and followed by Croll descended to the study, whence the Longestaffes and Mr. Bideawhile had long since taken their departure.

Madame Melmotte came and stood over the girl, but for some minutes spoke never a word. Marie lay on the sofa, all in a heap, with her hair dishevelled and her dress disordered, breathing hard, but uttering no sobs and shedding no tears. The stepmother,--if she might so be called,--did not think of attempting to persuade where her husband had failed. She feared Melmotte so thoroughly, and was so timid in regard to her own person, that she could not understand the girl's courage. Melmotte was to her an awful being, powerful as Satan,--whom she never openly disobeyed, though she daily deceived him, and was constantly detected in her deceptions. Marie seemed to her to have all her father's stubborn, wicked courage, and very much of his power. At the present moment she did not dare to tell the girl that she had been wrong. But she had believed her husband when he had said that destruction was coming, and had partly believed him when he declared that the destruction might be averted by Marie's obedience.

Her life had been pa.s.sed in almost daily fear of destruction. To Marie the last two years of splendour had been so long that they had produced a feeling of security. But to the elder woman the two years had not sufficed to eradicate the remembrance of former reverses, and never for a moment had she felt herself to be secure. At last she asked the girl what she would like to have done for her. "I wish he had killed me," Marie said, slowly dragging herself up from the sofa, and retreating without another word to her own room.

In the meantime another scene was being acted in the room below.

Melmotte after he reached the room hardly made a reference to his daughter,--merely saying that nothing would overcome her wicked obstinacy. He made no allusion to his own violence, nor had Croll the courage to expostulate with him now that the immediate danger was over. The Great Financier again arranged the papers, just as they had been laid out before,--as though he thought that the girl might be brought down to sign them there. And then he went on to explain to Croll what he had wanted to have done,--how necessary it was that the thing should be done, and how terribly cruel it was to him that in such a crisis of his life he should be hampered, impeded,--he did not venture to his clerk to say ruined,--by the ill-conditioned obstinacy of a girl! He explained very fully how absolutely the property was his own, how totally the girl was without any right to withhold it from him! How monstrous in its injustice was the present position of things! In all this Croll fully agreed. Then Melmotte went on to declare that he would not feel the slightest scruple in writing Marie's signature to the papers himself. He was the girl's father and was justified in acting for her. The property was his own property, and he was justified in doing with it as he pleased. Of course he would have no scruple in writing his daughter's name. Then he looked up at the clerk. The clerk again a.s.sented,--after a fashion, not by any means with the comfortable certainty with which he had signified his accordance with his employer's first propositions. But he did not, at any rate, hint any disapprobation of the step which Melmotte proposed to take. Then Melmotte went a step farther, and explained that the only difficulty in reference to such a transaction would be that the signature of his daughter would be required to be corroborated by that of a witness before he could use it. Then he again looked up at Croll;--but on this occasion Croll did not move a muscle of his face. There certainly was no a.s.sent. Melmotte continued to look at him; but then came upon the old clerk's countenance a stern look which amounted to very strong dissent. And yet Croll had been conversant with some irregular doings in his time, and Melmotte knew well the extent of Croll's experience. Then Melmotte made a little remark to himself. "He knows that the game is pretty well over." "You had better return to the city now," he said aloud. "I shall follow you in half an hour. It is quite possible that I may bring my daughter with me. If I can make her understand this thing I shall do so. In that case I shall want you to be ready." Croll again smiled, and again a.s.sented, and went his way.

But Melmotte made no further attempt upon his daughter. As soon as Croll was gone he searched among various papers in his desk and drawers, and having found two signatures, those of his daughter and of this German clerk, set to work tracing them with some thin tissue paper. He commenced his present operation by bolting his door and pulling down the blinds. He practised the two signatures for the best part of an hour. Then he forged them on the various doc.u.ments;--and, having completed the operation, refolded them, placed them in a locked bag of which he had always kept the key in his purse, and then, with the bag in his hand, was taken in his brougham into the city.

CHAPTER LXXVIII.

MISS LONGESTAFFE AGAIN AT CAVERSHAM.

All this time Mr. Longestaffe was necessarily detained in London while the three ladies of his family were living forlornly at Caversham. He had taken his younger daughter home on the day after his visit to Lady Monogram, and in all his intercourse with her had spoken of her suggested marriage with Mr. Brehgert as a thing utterly out of the question. Georgiana had made one little fight for her independence at the Jermyn Street Hotel. "Indeed, papa, I think it's very hard," she said.

"What's hard? I think a great many things are hard; but I have to bear them."

"You can do nothing for me."

"Do nothing for you! Haven't you got a home to live in, and clothes to wear, and a carriage to go about in,--and books to read if you choose to read them? What do you expect?"

"You know, papa, that's nonsense."

"How do you dare to tell me that what I say is nonsense?"

"Of course there's a house to live in and clothes to wear; but what's to be the end of it? Sophia, I suppose, is going to be married."

"I am happy to say she is,--to a most respectable young man and a thorough gentleman."

"And Dolly has his own way of going on."

"You have nothing to do with Adolphus."

"Nor will he have anything to do with me. If I don't marry what's to become of me? It isn't that Mr. Brehgert is the sort of man I should choose."

"Do not mention his name to me."

"But what am I to do? You give up the house in town, and how am I to see people? It was you sent me to Mr. Melmotte."

"I didn't send you to Mr. Melmotte."

"It was at your suggestion I went there, papa. And of course I could only see the people he had there. I like nice people as well as anybody."

"There's no use talking any more about it."

"I don't see that. I must talk about it, and think about it too. If I can put up with Mr. Brehgert I don't see why you and mamma should complain."

"A Jew!"

"People don't think about that as they used to, papa. He has a very fine income, and I should always have a house in--"

Then Mr. Longestaffe became so furious and loud, that he stopped her for that time. "Look here," he said, "if you mean to tell me that you will marry that man without my consent, I can't prevent it. But you shall not marry him as my daughter. You shall be turned out of my house, and I will never have your name p.r.o.nounced in my presence again. It is disgusting, degrading,--disgraceful!" And then he left her.

On the next morning before he started for Caversham he did see Mr.

Brehgert; but he told Georgiana nothing of the interview, nor had she the courage to ask him. The objectionable name was not mentioned again in her father's hearing, but there was a sad scene between herself, Lady Pomona, and her sister. When Mr. Longestaffe and his younger daughter arrived, the poor mother did not go down into the hall to meet her child,--from whom she had that morning received the dreadful tidings about the Jew. As to these tidings she had as yet heard no direct condemnation from her husband. The effect upon Lady Pomona had been more grievous even than that made upon the father. Mr.

Longestaffe had been able to declare immediately that the proposed marriage was out of the question, that nothing of the kind should be allowed, and could take upon himself to see the Jew with the object of breaking off the engagement. But poor Lady Pomona was helpless in her sorrow. If Georgiana chose to marry a Jew tradesman she could not help it. But such an occurrence in the family would, she felt, be to her as though the end of all things had come. She could never again hold up her head, never go into society, never take pleasure in her powdered footmen. When her daughter should have married a Jew, she didn't think that she could pluck up the courage to look even her neighbours Mrs. Yeld and Mrs. Hepworth in the face. Georgiana found no one in the hall to meet her, and dreaded to go to her mother. She first went with her maid to her own room, and waited there till Sophia came to her. As she sat pretending to watch the process of unpacking, she strove to regain her courage. Why need she be afraid of anybody? Why, at any rate, should she be afraid of other females?

Had she not always been dominant over her mother and sister? "Oh, Georgey," said Sophia, "this is wonderful news!"

"I suppose it seems wonderful that anybody should be going to be married except yourself."

"No;--but such a very odd match!"

"Look here, Sophia. If you don't like it, you need not talk about it.

We shall always have a house in town, and you will not. If you don't like to come to us, you needn't. That's about all."

"George wouldn't let me go there at all," said Sophia.

"Then--George--had better keep you at home at Toodlam. Where's mamma?

I should have thought somebody might have come and met me to say a word to me, instead of allowing me to creep into the house like this."

"Mamma isn't at all well; but she's up in her own room. You mustn't be surprised, Georgey, if you find mamma very--very much cut up about this." Then Georgiana understood that she must be content to stand all alone in the world, unless she made up her mind to give up Mr.

Brehgert.

"So I've come back," said Georgiana, stooping down and kissing her mother.

"Oh, Georgiana; oh, Georgiana!" said Lady Pomona, slowly raising herself and covering her face with one of her hands. "This is dreadful. It will kill me. It will indeed. I didn't expect it from you."

"What is the good of all that, mamma?"

"It seems to me that it can't be possible. It's unnatural. It's worse than your wife's sister. I'm sure there's something in the Bible against it. You never would read your Bible, or you wouldn't be going to do this."

"Lady Julia Start has done just the same thing,--and she goes everywhere."

"What does your papa say? I'm sure your papa won't allow it. If he's fixed about anything, it's about the Jews. An accursed race;--think of that, Georgiana;--expelled from Paradise."

"Mamma, that's nonsense."

"Scattered about all over the world, so that n.o.body knows who anybody is. And it's only since those nasty Radicals came up that they have been able to sit in Parliament."

"One of the greatest judges in the land is a Jew," said Georgiana, who had already learned to fortify her own case.

"Nothing that the Radicals can do can make them anything else but what they are. I'm sure that Mr. Whitstable, who is to be your brother-in-law, will never condescend to speak to him."

Now if there was anybody whom Georgiana Longestaffe had despised from her youth upwards it was George Whitstable. He had been a laughing-stock to her when they were children, had been regarded as a lout when he left school, and had been her common example of rural dullness since he had become a man. He certainly was neither beautiful nor bright;--but he was a Conservative squire born of Tory parents. Nor was he rich;--having but a moderate income, sufficient to maintain a moderate country house and no more. When first there came indications that Sophia intended to put up with George Whitstable, the more ambitious sister did not spare the shafts of her scorn. And now she was told that George Whitstable would not speak to her future husband! She was not to marry Mr. Brehgert lest she should bring disgrace, among others, upon George Whitstable! This was not to be endured.