The Way We Live Now Part 24

"If she is firm, of course her father will give way at last. Fathers always do give way when the girl is firm. Why should he oppose it?"

"I don't know that he will."

"You are a man of rank, with a t.i.tle of your own. I suppose what he wants is a gentleman for his girl. I don't see why he should not be perfectly satisfied. With all his enormous wealth a thousand a year or so can't make any difference. And then he made you one of the Directors at his Board. Oh Felix;--it is almost too good to be true."

"I ain't quite sure that I care very much about being married, you know."

"Oh, Felix, pray don't say that. Why shouldn't you like being married? She is a very nice girl, and we shall all be so fond of her!

Don't let any feeling of that kind come over you; pray don't. You will be able to do just what you please when once the question of her money is settled. Of course you can hunt as often as you like, and you can have a house in any part of London you please. You must understand by this time how very disagreeable it is to have to get on without an established income."

"I quite understand that."

"If this were once done you would never have any more trouble of that kind. There would be plenty of money for everything as long as you live. It would be complete success. I don't know how to say enough to you, or to tell you how dearly I love you, or to make you understand how well I think you have done it all." Then she caressed him again, and was almost beside herself in an agony of mingled anxiety and joy.

If, after all, her beautiful boy, who had lately been her disgrace and her great trouble because of his poverty, should shine forth to the world as a baronet with 20,000 a year, how glorious would it be!

She must have known,--she did know,--how poor, how selfish a creature he was. But her gratification at the prospect of his splendour obliterated the sorrow with which the vileness of his character sometimes oppressed her. Were he to win this girl with all her father's money, neither she nor his sister would be the better for it, except in this, that the burden of maintaining him would be taken from her shoulders. But his magnificence would be established. He was her son, and the prospect of his fortune and splendour was sufficient to elate her into a very heaven of beautiful dreams. "But, Felix,"

she continued, "you really must stay and go to the Longestaffes'

to-morrow. It will only be one day. And now were you to run away--"

"Run away! What nonsense you talk."

"If you were to start back to London at once I mean, it would be an affront to her, and the very thing to set Melmotte against you. You should lay yourself out to please him;--indeed you should."

"Oh, bother!" said Sir Felix. But nevertheless he allowed himself to be persuaded to remain. The matter was important even to him, and he consented to endure the almost unendurable nuisance of spending another day at the Manor House. Lady Carbury, almost lost in delight, did not know where to turn for sympathy. If her cousin were not so stiff, so pig-headed, so wonderfully ignorant of the affairs of the world, he would have at any rate consented to rejoice with her.

Though he might not like Felix,--who, as his mother admitted to herself, had been rude to her cousin,--he would have rejoiced for the sake of the family. But, as it was, she did not dare to tell him. He would have received her tidings with silent scorn. And even Henrietta would not be enthusiastic. She felt that though she would have delighted to expatiate on this great triumph, she must be silent at present. It should now be her great effort to ingratiate herself with Mr. Melmotte at the dinner party at Caversham.

During the whole of that evening Roger Carbury hardly spoke to his cousin Hetta. There was not much conversation between them till quite late, when Father Barham came in for supper. He had been over at Bungay among his people there, and had walked back, taking Carbury on the way. "What did you think of our bishop?" Roger asked him, rather imprudently.

"Not much of him as a bishop. I don't doubt that he makes a very nice lord, and that he does more good among his neighbours than an average lord. But you don't put power or responsibility into the hands of any one sufficient to make him a bishop."

"Nine-tenths of the clergy in the diocese would be guided by him in any matter of clerical conduct which might come before him."

"Because they know that he has no strong opinion of his own, and would not therefore desire to dominate theirs. Take any of your bishops that has an opinion,--if there be one left,--and see how far your clergy consent to his teaching!" Roger turned round and took up his book. He was already becoming tired of his pet priest. He himself always abstained from saying a word derogatory to his new friend's religion in the man's hearing; but his new friend did not by any means return the compliment. Perhaps also Roger felt that were he to take up the cudgels for an argument he might be worsted in the combat, as in such combats success is won by practised skill rather than by truth. Henrietta was also reading, and Felix was smoking elsewhere,--wondering whether the hours would ever wear themselves away in that castle of dulness, in which no cards were to be seen, and where, except at meal-times, there was nothing to drink. But Lady Carbury was quite willing to allow the priest to teach her that all appliances for the dissemination of religion outside his own Church must be naught.

"I suppose our bishops are sincere in their beliefs," she said with her sweetest smile.

"I'm sure I hope so. I have no possible reason to doubt it as to the two or three whom I have seen,--nor indeed as to all the rest whom I have not seen."

"They are so much respected everywhere as good and pious men!"

"I do not doubt it. Nothing tends so much to respect as a good income. But they may be excellent men without being excellent bishops. I find no fault with them, but much with the system by which they are controlled. Is it probable that a man should be fitted to select guides for other men's souls because he has succeeded by infinite labour in his vocation in becoming the leader of a majority in the House of Commons?"

"Indeed, no," said Lady Carbury, who did not in the least understand the nature of the question put to her.

"And when you've got your bishop, is it likely that a man should be able to do his duty in that capacity who has no power of his own to decide whether a clergyman under him is or is not fit for his duty?"

"Hardly, indeed."

"The English people, or some of them,--that some being the richest, and, at present, the most powerful,--like to play at having a Church, though there is not sufficient faith in them to submit to the control of a Church."

"Do you think men should be controlled by clergymen, Mr. Barham?"

"In matters of faith I do; and so, I suppose, do you; at least you make that profession. You declare it to be your duty to submit yourself to your spiritual pastors and masters."

"That, I thought, was for children," said Lady Carbury. "The clergyman, in the catechism, says, 'My good child.'"

"It is what you were taught as a child before you had made profession of your faith to a bishop, in order that you might know your duty when you had ceased to be a child. I quite agree, however, that the matter, as viewed by your Church, is childish altogether, and intended only for children. As a rule, adults with you want no religion."

"I am afraid that is true of a great many."

"It is marvellous to me that, when a man thinks of it, he should not be driven by very fear to the comforts of a safer faith,--unless, indeed, he enjoy the security of absolute infidelity."

"That is worse than anything," said Lady Carbury with a sigh and a shudder.

"I don't know that it is worse than a belief which is no belief,"

said the priest with energy;--"than a creed which sits so easily on a man that he does not even know what it contains, and never asks himself as he repeats it, whether it be to him credible or incredible."

"That is very bad," said Lady Carbury.

"We're getting too deep, I think," said Roger, putting down the book which he had in vain been trying to read.

"I think it is so pleasant to have a little serious conversation on Sunday evening," said Lady Carbury. The priest drew himself back into his chair and smiled. He was quite clever enough to understand that Lady Carbury had been talking nonsense, and clever enough also to be aware of the cause of Roger's uneasiness. But Lady Carbury might be all the easier converted because she understood nothing and was fond of ambitious talking; and Roger Carbury might possibly be forced into conviction by the very feeling which at present made him unwilling to hear arguments.

"I don't like hearing my Church ill-spoken of," said Roger.

"You wouldn't like me if I thought ill of it and spoke well of it,"

said the priest.

"And, therefore, the less said the sooner mended," said Roger, rising from his chair. Upon this Father Barham look his departure and walked away to Beccles. It might be that he had sowed some seed. It might be that he had, at any rate, ploughed some ground. Even the attempt to plough the ground was a good work which would not be forgotten.

The following morning was the time on which Roger had fixed for repeating his suit to Henrietta. He had determined that it should be so, and though the words had been almost on his tongue during that Sunday afternoon, he had repressed them because he would do as he had determined. He was conscious, almost painfully conscious, of a certain increase of tenderness in his cousin's manner towards him.

All that pride of independence, which had amounted almost to roughness, when she was in London, seemed to have left her. When he greeted her morning and night, she looked softly into his face. She cherished the flowers which he gave her. He could perceive that if he expressed the slightest wish in any matter about the house she would attend to it. There had been a word said about punctuality, and she had become punctual as the hand of the clock. There was not a glance of her eye, nor a turn of her hand, that he did not watch, and calculate its effect as regarded himself. But because she was tender to him and observant, he did not by any means allow himself to believe that her heart was growing into love for him. He thought that he understood the working of her mind. She could see how great was his disgust at her brother's doings; how fretted he was by her mother's conduct. Her grace, and sweetness, and sense, took part with him against those who were nearer to herself, and therefore,--in pity,--she was kind to him. It was thus he read it, and he read it almost with exact accuracy.

"Hetta," he said after breakfast, "come out into the garden awhile."

"Are not you going to the men?"

"Not yet, at any rate. I do not always go to the men as you call it."

She put on her hat and tripped out with him, knowing well that she had been summoned to hear the old story. She had been sure, as soon as she found the white rose in her room, that the old story would be repeated again before she left Carbury;--and, up to this time, she had hardly made up her mind what answer she would give to it. That she could not take his offer, she thought she did know. She knew well that she loved the other man. That other man had never asked her for her love, but she thought that she knew that he desired it. But in spite of all this there had in truth grown up in her bosom a feeling of tenderness towards her cousin so strong that it almost tempted her to declare to herself that he ought to have what he wanted, simply because he wanted it. He was so good, so n.o.ble, so generous, so devoted, that it almost seemed to her that she could not be justified in refusing him. And she had gone entirely over to his side in regard to the Melmottes. Her mother had talked to her of the charm of Mr.

Melmotte's money, till her very heart had been sickened. There was nothing n.o.ble there; but, as contrasted with that, Roger's conduct and bearing were those of a fine gentleman who knew neither fear nor shame. Should such a one be doomed to pine for ever because a girl could not love him,--a man born to be loved, if n.o.bility and tenderness and truth were lovely!

"Hetta," he said, "put your arm here." She gave him her arm. "I was a little annoyed last night by that priest. I want to be civil to him, and now he is always turning against me."

"He doesn't do any harm, I suppose?"

"He does do harm if he teaches you and me to think lightly of those things which we have been brought up to revere." So, thought Henrietta, it isn't about love this time; it's only about the Church.

"He ought not to say things before my guests as to our way of believing, which I wouldn't under any circ.u.mstances say as to his. I didn't quite like your hearing it."

"I don't think he'll do me any harm. I'm not at all that way given. I suppose they all do it. It's their business."