The Way We Live Now Part 18

"And he condescends to get it in this way! I suppose it will make no difference soon whom one knows, and whom one doesn't. Things aren't as they were, of course, and never will be again. Perhaps it's all for the better;--I won't say it isn't. But I should have thought that such a man as Mr. Longestaffe might have kept such another man as Mr.

Melmotte out of his wife's drawing-room." Henrietta became redder than ever. Even Lady Carbury flushed up, as she remembered that Roger Carbury knew that she had taken her daughter to Madame Melmotte's ball. He thought of this himself as soon as the words were spoken, and then tried to make some half apology. "I don't approve of them in London, you know; but I think they are very much worse in the country."

Then there was a movement. The ladies were shown into their rooms, and Roger again went out into the garden. He began to feel that he understood it all. Lady Carbury had come down to his house in order that she might be near the Melmottes! There was something in this which he felt it difficult not to resent. It was for no love of him that she was there. He had felt that Henrietta ought not to have been brought to his house; but he could have forgiven that, because her presence there was a charm to him. He could have forgiven that, even while he was thinking that her mother had brought her there with the object of disposing of her. If it were so, the mother's object would be the same as his own, and such a manoeuvre he could pardon, though he could not approve. His self-love had to some extent been gratified. But now he saw that he and his house had been simply used in order that a vile project of marrying two vile people to each other might be furthered!

As he was thinking of all this, Lady Carbury came out to him in the garden. She had changed her travelling dress, and made herself pretty, as she well knew how to do. And now she dressed her face in her sweetest smiles. Her mind, also, was full of the Melmottes, and she wished to explain to her stern, unbending cousin all the good that might come to her and hers by an alliance with the heiress. "I can understand, Roger," she said, taking his arm, "that you should not like those people."

"What people?"

"The Melmottes."

"I don't dislike them. How should I dislike people that I never saw?

I dislike those who seek their society simply because they have the reputation of being rich."

"Meaning me."

"No; not meaning you. I don't dislike you, as you know very well, though I do dislike the fact that you should run after these people.

I was thinking of the Longestaffes then."

"Do you suppose, my friend, that I run after them for my own gratification? Do you think that I go to their house because I find pleasure in their magnificence; or that I follow them down here for any good that they will do me?"

"I would not follow them at all."

"I will go back if you bid me, but I must first explain what I mean.

You know my son's condition,--better, I fear, than he does himself."

Roger nodded a.s.sent to this, but said nothing. "What is he to do? The only chance for a young man in his position is that he should marry a girl with money. He is good-looking; you can't deny that."

"Nature has done enough for him."

"We must take him as he is. He was put into the army very young, and was very young when he came into possession of his own small fortune.

He might have done better; but how many young men placed in such temptations do well? As it is, he has nothing left."

"I fear not."

"And therefore is it not imperative that he should marry a girl with money?"

"I call that stealing a girl's money, Lady Carbury."

"Oh, Roger, how hard you are!"

"A man must be hard or soft,--which is best?"

"With women I think that a little softness has the most effect. I want to make you understand this about the Melmottes. It stands to reason that the girl will not marry Felix unless she loves him."

"But does he love her?"

"Why should he not? Is a girl to be debarred from being loved because she has money? Of course she looks to be married, and why should she not have Felix if she likes him best? Cannot you sympathise with my anxiety so to place him that he shall not be a disgrace to the name and to the family?"

"We had better not talk about the family, Lady Carbury."

"But I think so much about it."

"You will never get me to say that I think the family will be benefited by a marriage with the daughter of Mr. Melmotte. I look upon him as dirt in the gutter. To me, in my old-fashioned way, all his money, if he has it, can make no difference. When there is a question of marriage, people at any rate should know something of each other.

Who knows anything of this man? Who can be sure that she is his daughter?"

"He would give her her fortune when she married."

"Yes; it all comes to that. Men say openly that he is an adventurer and a swindler. No one pretends to think that he is a gentleman.

There is a consciousness among all who speak of him that he ama.s.ses his money not by honest trade, but by unknown tricks as does a card-sharper. He is one whom we would not admit into our kitchens, much less to our tables, on the score of his own merits. But because he has learned the art of making money, we not only put up with him, but settle upon his carcase as so many birds of prey."

"Do you mean that Felix should not marry the girl, even if they love each other?"

He shook his head in disgust, feeling sure that any idea of love on the part of the young man was a sham and a pretence, not only as regarded him, but also his mother. He could not quite declare this, and yet he desired that she should understand that he thought so. "I have nothing more to say about it," he continued. "Had it gone on in London I should have said nothing. It is no affair of mine. When I am told that the girl is in the neighbourhood, at such a house as Caversham, and that Felix is coming here in order that he may be near to his prey, and when I am asked to be a party to the thing, I can only say what I think. Your son would be welcome to my house, because he is your son and my cousin, little as I approve his mode of life; but I could have wished that he had chosen some other place for the work that he has on hand."

"If you wish it, Roger, we will return to London. I shall find it hard to explain to Hetta;--but we will go."

"No; I certainly do not wish that."

"But you have said such hard things! How are we to stay? You speak of Felix as though he were all bad." She looked at him hoping to get from him some contradiction of this, some retractation, some kindly word; but it was what he did think, and he had nothing to say. She could bear much. She was not delicate as to censure implied, or even expressed. She had endured rough usage before, and was prepared to endure more. Had he found fault with herself, or with Henrietta, she would have put up with it, for the sake of benefits to come,--would have forgiven it the more easily because perhaps it might not have been deserved. But for her son she was prepared to fight. If she did not defend him, who would? "I am grieved, Roger, that we should have troubled you with our visit, but I think that we had better go. You are very harsh, and it crushes me."

"I have not meant to be harsh."

"You say that Felix is seeking for his--prey, and that he is to be brought here to be near--his prey. What can be more harsh than that?

At any rate, you should remember that I am his mother."

She expressed her sense of injury very well. Roger began to be ashamed of himself, and to think that he had spoken unkind words. And yet he did not know how to recall them. "If I have hurt you, I regret it much."

"Of course you have hurt me. I think I will go in now. How very hard the world is! I came here thinking to find peace and sunshine, and there has come a storm at once."

"You asked me about the Melmottes, and I was obliged to speak. You cannot think that I meant to offend you." They walked on in silence till they had reached the door leading from the garden into the house, and here he stopped her. "If I have been over hot with you, let me beg your pardon," She smiled and bowed; but her smile was not one of forgiveness; and then she essayed to pa.s.s on into the house.

"Pray do not speak of going, Lady Carbury."

"I think I will go to my room now. My head aches so that I can hardly stand."

It was late in the afternoon,--about six,--and according to his daily custom he should have gone round to the offices to see his men as they came from their work, but he stood still for a few moments on the spot where Lady Carbury had left him and went slowly across the lawn to the bridge and there seated himself on the parapet. Could it really be that she meant to leave his house in anger and to take her daughter with her? Was it thus that he was to part with the one human being in the world that he loved? He was a man who thought much of the duties of hospitality, feeling that a man in his own house was bound to exercise a courtesy towards his guests sweeter, softer, more gracious than the world required elsewhere. And of all guests those of his own name were the best ent.i.tled to such courtesy at Carbury.

He held the place in trust for the use of others. But if there were one among all others to whom the house should be a house of refuge from care, not an abode of trouble, on whose behalf, were it possible, he would make the very air softer, and the flowers sweeter than their wont, to whom he would declare, were such words possible to his tongue, that of him and of his house, and of all things there, she was the mistress, whether she would condescend to love him or no,--that one was his cousin Hetta. And now he had been told by his guest that he had been so rough to her that she and her daughter must return to London!

And he could not acquit himself. He knew that he had been rough. He had said very hard words. It was true that he could not have expressed his meaning without hard words, nor have repressed his meaning without self-reproach. But in his present mood he could not comfort himself by justifying himself. She had told him that he ought to have remembered that Felix was her son; and as she spoke she had acted well the part of an outraged mother. His heart was so soft that though he knew the woman to be false and the son to be worthless, he utterly condemned himself. Look where he would there was no comfort.

When he had sat half an hour upon the bridge he turned towards the house to dress for dinner,--and to prepare himself for an apology, if any apology might be accepted. At the door, standing in the doorway as though waiting for him, he met his cousin Hetta. She had on her bosom the rose he had placed in her room, and as he approached her he thought that there was more in her eyes of graciousness towards him than he had ever seen there before.

"Mr. Carbury," she said, "mamma is so unhappy!"

"I fear that I have offended her."

"It is not that, but that you should be so--so angry about Felix."

"I am vexed with myself that I have vexed her,--more vexed than I can tell you."

"She knows how good you are."