CHAPTER XXIII.
"IN THESE DAYS ONE CAN'T
MAKE A MAN MARRY."
This was going on while Lord Rufford was shooting in the neighbourhood of Dillsborough; and when the letter was being put into its envelope at the lodgings in Orchard Street, his Lordship was just sitting down to dinner with his guests at the Bush. At the same time John Morton was lying ill at Bragton;—a fact of which Arabella was not aware.
The letter from Lord Augustus was put into the post on Saturday evening; but when that line of action was decided upon by Arabella she was aware that she must not trust solely to her father. Various plans were fermenting in her brain; all, or any of which, if carried out at all, must be carried out at the same time and at once. There must be no delay, or that final chance of Patagonia would be gone. The leader of a forlorn hope, though he be ever so resolved to die in the breach, still makes some preparation for his escape. Among her plans the first in order was a resolution to see Lord Mistletoe whom she knew to be in town. Parliament was to meet in the course of the next week and he was to move the address. There had been much said about all this at Mistletoe from which she knew that he was in London preparing himself among the gentlemen at the Treasury. Then she herself would write to the Duke. She thought that she could concoct a letter that would move even his heart. She would tell him that she was a daughter of the house of Trefoil,—and "all that kind of thing." She had it distinctly laid down in her mind. And then there was another move which she would make before she altogether threw up the game. She would force herself into Lord Rufford's presence and throw herself into his arms,—at his feet if need be,—and force him into compliance. Should she fail, then she, too, had an idea what a raging woman could do. But her first step now must be with her cousin Mistletoe. She would not write to the Duke till she had seen her cousin.
Lord Mistletoe when in London lived at the family house in Piccadilly, and thither early on the Sunday morning she sent a note to say that she especially wished to see her cousin and would call at three o'clock on that day. The messenger brought back word that Lord Mistletoe would be at home, and exactly at that hour the hired brougham stopped at the door. Her mother had wished to accompany her but she had declared that if she could not go alone she would not go at all. In that she was right; for whatever favour the young heir to the family honours might retain for his fair cousin, who was at any rate a Trefoil, he had none for his uncle's wife. She was shown into his own sitting-room on the ground floor, and then he immediately joined her. "I wouldn't have you shown upstairs," he said, "because I understand from your note that you want to see me in particular."
"That is so kind of you."
Lord Mistletoe was a young man about thirty, less in stature than his father or uncle, but with the same handsome inexpressive face. Almost all men take to some line in life. His father was known as a manager of estates; his uncle as a whist-player; he was minded to follow the steps of his grandfather and be a statesman. He was eaten up by no high ambition but lived in the hope that by perseverance he might live to become a useful Under Secretary, and perhaps, ultimately, a Privy Seal. As he was well educated and laborious, and had no objection to sitting for five hours together in the House of Commons with nothing to do and sometimes with very little to hear, it was thought by his friends that he would succeed. "And what is it I can do?" he said with that affable smile to which he had already become accustomed as a government politician.
"I am in great trouble," said Arabella, leaving her hand for a moment in his as she spoke.
"I am sorry for that. What sort of trouble?" He knew that his uncle and his aunt's family were always short of money, and was already considering to what extent he would go in granting her petition.
"Do you know Lord Rufford?"
"Lord Rufford! Yes;—I know him; but very slightly. My father knows him very much better than I do."
"I have just been at Mistletoe, and he was there. My story is so hard to tell. I had better out with it at once. Lord Rufford has asked me to be his wife."
"The deuce he has! It's a very fine property and quite unembarrassed."
"And now he repudiates his engagement." Upon hearing this the young lord's face became very long. He also had heard something of the past life of his handsome cousin, though he had always felt kindly to her. "It was not once only."
"Dear me! I should have thought your father would be the proper person."
"Papa has written;—but you know what papa is."
"Does the Duke know of it,—or my mother?"
"It partly went on at Mistletoe. I would tell you the whole story if I knew how." Then she did tell him her story, during the telling of which he sat profoundly silent. She had gone to stay with Lady Penwether at Lord Rufford's house, and then he had first told her of his love. Then they had agreed to meet at Mistletoe, and she had begged her aunt to receive her. She had not told her aunt at once, and her aunt had been angry with her because they had walked together. Then she had told everything to the Duchess and had begged the Duchess to ask the Duke to speak to Lord Rufford. At Mistletoe Lord Rufford had twice renewed his offer,—and she had then accepted him. But the Duke had not spoken to him before he left the place. She owned that she thought the Duchess had been a little hard to her. Of course she did not mean to complain, but the Duchess had been angry with her because she had hunted. And now, in answer to the note from herself, had come a letter from Lord Rufford in which he repudiated the engagement. "I only got it yesterday and I came at once to you. I do not think you will see your cousin treated in that way without raising your hand. You will remember that I have no brother?"
"But what can I do?" asked Lord Mistletoe.
She had taken great trouble with her face, so that she was able to burst out into tears. She had on a veil which partly concealed her. She did not believe in the effect of a pocket handkerchief, but sat with her face half averted. "Tell him what you think about it," she said.
"Such engagements, Arabella," he said, "should always be authenticated by a third party. It is for that reason that a girl generally refers her lover to her father before she allows herself to be considered as engaged."
"Think what my position has been! I wanted to refer him to my uncle and asked the Duchess."
"My mother must have had some reason. I'm sure she must. There isn't a woman in London knows how such things should be done better than my mother. I can write to Lord Rufford and ask him for an explanation; but I do not see what good it would do."
"If you were in earnest about it he would be—afraid of you."
"I don't think he would in the least. If I were to make a noise about it, it would only do you harm. You wouldn't wish all the world to know that he had—"
"Jilted me! I don't care what the world knows. Am I to put up with such treatment as that and do nothing? Do you like to see your cousin treated in that way?"
"I don't like it at all. Lord Rufford is a good sort of man in his way, and has a large property. I wish with all my heart that it had come off all right; but in these days one can't make a man marry. There used to be the alternative of going out and being shot at; but that is over now."
"And a man is to do just as he pleases?"
"I am afraid so. If a man is known to have behaved badly to a girl, public opinion will condemn him."
"Can anything be worse than this treatment of me?" Lord Mistletoe could not tell her that he had alluded to absolute knowledge and that at present he had no more than her version of the story;—or that the world would require more than that before the general condemnation of which he had spoken would come. So he sat in silence and shook his head. "And you think that I should put up with it quietly!"
"I think that your father should see the man." Arabella shook her head contemptuously. "If you wish it I will write to my mother."
"I would rather trust to my uncle."
"I don't know what he could do;—but I will write to him if you please."
"And you won't see Lord Rufford?"
He sat silent for a minute or two during which she pressed him over and over again to have an interview with her recreant lover, bringing up all the arguments that she knew, reminding him of their former affection for each other, telling him that she had no brother of her own, and that her own father was worse than useless in such a matter. A word or two she said of the nature of the prize to be gained, and many words as to her absolute right to regard that prize as her own. But at last he refused. "I am not the person to do it," he said. "Even if I were your brother I should not be so,—unless with the view of punishing him for his conduct;—in which place the punishment to you would be worse than any I could inflict on him. It cannot be good that any young lady should have her name in the mouths of all the lovers of gossip in the country."
She was going to burst out at him in her anger, but before the words were out of her mouth she remembered herself. She could not afford to make enemies and certainly not an enemy of him. "Perhaps, then," she said, "you had better tell your mother all that I have told you. I will write to the Duke myself."
And so she left him, and as she returned to Orchard Street in the brougham, she applied to him every term of reproach she could bring to mind. He was selfish, and a coward, and utterly devoid of all feeling of family honour. He was a prig, and unmanly, and false. A real cousin would have burst out into a passion and have declared himself ready to seize Lord Rufford by the throat and shake him into instant matrimony. But this man, through whose veins water was running instead of blood, had no feeling, no heart, no capability for anger! Oh, what a vile world it was! A little help,—so very little,—would have made everything straight for her! If her aunt had only behaved at Mistletoe as aunts should behave, there would have been no difficulty. In her misery she thought that the world was more cruel to her than to any other person in it.
On her arrival at home, she was astounded by a letter that she found
there,—a letter of such a nature that it altogether drove out of her
head the purpose which she had of writing to the Duke on that
evening. The letter was from John Morton and now reached her through
the lawyer to whom it had been sent by private hand for immediate
delivery. It ran as follows:
Dearest Arabella,
I am very ill,—so ill that Dr. Fanning who has come down from London, has, I think, but a poor opinion of my case. He does not say that it is hopeless,—and that is all. I think it right to tell you this, as my affection for you is what it always has been. If you wish to see me, you and your mother had better come to Bragton at once. You can telegraph. I am too weak to write more.
Yours most affectionately,
John Morton.
There is nothing infectious.
"John Morton is dying," she almost screamed out to her mother.
"Dying!"
"So he says. Oh, what an unfortunate wretch I am! Everything that touches me comes to grief." Then she burst out into a flood of true unfeigned tears.
"It won't matter so much," said Lady Augustus, "if you mean to write to the Duke, and go on with this other—affair."
"Oh, mamma, how can you talk in that way?"
"Well; my dear; you know—"
"I am heartless. I know that. But you are ten times worse. Think how I have treated him!"
"I don't want him to die, my dear; but what can I say? I can't do him any good. It is all in God's hands, and if he must die—why, it won't make so much difference to you. I have looked upon all that as over for a long time."
"It is not over. After all he has liked me better than any of them. He wants me to go to Bragton."
"That of course is out of the question."
"It is not out of the question at all. I shall go."
"Arabella!"
"And you must go with me, mamma."
"I will do no such thing," said Lady Augustus, to whom the idea of Bragton was terrible.
"Indeed you must. He has asked me to go, and I shall do it. You can hardly let me go alone."
"And what will you say to Lord Rufford?"
"I don't care for Lord Rufford. Is he to prevent my going where I please?"
"And your father,—and the Duke,—and the Duchess! How can you go there after all that you have been doing since you left?"
"What do I care for the Duke and the Duchess. It has come to that, that I care for no one. They are all throwing me over. That little wretch Mistletoe will do nothing. This man really loved me. He has never treated me badly. Whether he live or whether he die, he has been true to me." Then she sat and thought of it all. What would Lord Rufford care for her father's letter? If her cousin Mistletoe would not stir in her behalf what chance had she with her uncle? And, though she had thoroughly despised her cousin, she had understood and had unconsciously believed much that he had said to her. "In these days one can't make a man marry!" What horrid days they were! But John Morton would marry her to-morrow if he were well,—in spite of all her ill usage! Of course he would die and so she would again be overwhelmed;—but yet she would go and see him. As she determined to do so there was something even in her hard callous heart softer than the love of money and more human than the dream of an advantageous settlement in life.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE SENATOR'S SECOND LETTER.
In the mean time our friend the Senator, up in London, was much distracted in his mind, finding no one to sympathise with him in his efforts, conscious of his own rectitude of purpose, always brave against others, and yet with a sad doubt in his own mind whether it could be possible that he should always be right and everybody around him wrong.
Coming away from Mr. Mainwaring's dinner he had almost quarrelled with John Morton, or rather John Morton had altogether quarrelled with him. On their way back from Dillsborough to Bragton the minister elect to Patagonia had told him, in so many words, that he had misbehaved himself at the clergyman's house. "Did I say anything that was untrue?" asked the Senator—"Was I inaccurate in my statements? If so no man alive will be more ready to recall what he has said and to ask for pardon." Mr. Morton endeavoured to explain to him that it was not his statements which were at fault so much as the opinions based on them and the language in which those opinions were given. But the Senator could not be made to understand that a man had not a right to his opinions, and a right also to the use of forcible language as long as he abstained from personalities. "It was extremely personal,—all that you said about the purchase of livings," said Morton. "How was I to know that?" rejoined the Senator. "When in private society I inveigh against pickpockets I cannot imagine, sir, that there should be a pickpocket in the company." As the Senator said this he was grieving in his heart at the trouble he had occasioned, and was almost repenting the duties he had imposed on himself; but, yet, his voice was bellicose and antagonistic. The conversation was carried on till Morton found himself constrained to say that though he entertained great personal respect for his guest he could not go with him again into society. He was ill at the time,—though neither he himself knew it nor the Senator. On the next morning Mr. Gotobed returned to London without seeing his host, and before the day was over Mr. Nupper was at Morton's bedside. He was already suffering from gastric fever.
The Senator was in truth unhappy as he returned to town. The intimacy between him and the late Secretary of Legation at his capital had arisen from a mutual understanding between them that each was to be allowed to see the faults and to admire the virtues of their two countries, and that conversation between them was to be based on the mutual system. But nobody can, in truth, endure to be told of shortcomings,—either on his own part or on that of his country. He himself can abuse himself, or his country; but he cannot endure it from alien lips. Mr. Gotobed had hardly said a word about England which Morton himself might not have said,—but such words coming from an American had been too much even for the guarded temper of an unprejudiced and phlegmatic Englishman. The Senator as he returned alone to London understood something of this,—and when a few days later he heard that the friend who had quarrelled with him was ill, he was discontented with himself and sore at heart.
But he had his task to perform, and he meant to perform it to the best of his ability. In his own country he had heard vehement abuse of the old land from the lips of politicians, and had found at the same time almost on all sides great social admiration for the people so abused. He had observed that every Englishman of distinction was received in the States as a demigod, and that some who were not very great in their own land had been converted into heroes in his. English books were read there; English laws were obeyed there; English habits were cultivated, often at the expense of American comfort. And yet it was the fashion among orators to speak of the English as a worn-out, stupid and enslaved people. He was a thoughtful man and all this had perplexed him;—so that he had obtained leave from his State and from Congress to be absent during a part of a short Session, and had come over determined to learn as much as he could. Everything he heard and almost everything he saw offended him at some point. And, yet in the midst of it all, he was conscious that he was surrounded by people who claimed and made good their claims to superiority. What was a lord, let him be ever so rich and have ever so many titles? And yet, even with such a popinjay as Lord Rufford, he himself felt the lordship. When that old farmer at the hunt breakfast had removed himself and his belongings to the other side of the table the Senator, though aware of the justice of his cause, had been keenly alive to the rebuke. He had expressed himself very boldly at the rector's house at Dillsborough, and had been certain that not a word of real argument had been possible in answer to him. But yet he left the house with a feeling almost of shame, which had grown into real penitence before he reached Bragton. He knew that he had already been condemned by Englishmen as ill-mannered, ill-conditioned and absurd. He was as much alive as any man to the inward distress of heart which such a conviction brings with it to all sensitive minds. And yet he had his purpose and would follow it out. He was already hard at work on the lecture which he meant to deliver somewhere in London before he went back to his home duties, and had made it known to the world at large that he meant to say some sharp things of the country he was visiting.
Soon after his return to town he was present at the opening of Parliament, Mr. Mounser Green of the Foreign Office having seen that he was properly accommodated with a seat. Then he went down to the election of a member of Parliament in the little borough of Quinborough. It was unfortunate for Great Britain, which was on its trial, and unpleasant also for the poor Senator who had appointed himself judge, that such a seat should have fallen vacant at that moment. Quinborough was a little town of 3,000 inhabitants clustering round the gates of a great Whig Marquis, which had been spared,—who can say why?—at the first Reform Bill, and having but one member had come out scatheless from the second. Quinborough still returned its one member with something less than 500 constituents, and in spite of household suffrage and the ballot had always returned the member favoured by the Marquis. This nobleman, driven no doubt by his conscience to make some return to the country for the favour shown to his family, had always sent to Parliament some useful and distinguished man who without such patronage might have been unable to serve his country. On the present occasion a friend of the people,—so called,—an unlettered demagogue such as is in England in truth distasteful to all classes, had taken himself down to Quinborough as a candidate in opposition to the nobleman's nominee. He had been backed by all the sympathies of the American Senator who knew nothing of him or his unfitness, and nothing whatever of the patriotism of the Marquis. But he did know what was the population and what the constituency of Liverpool, and also what were those of Quinborough. He supposed that he knew what was the theory of representation in England, and he understood correctly that hitherto the member for Quinborough had been the nominee of that great lord. These things were horrid to him. There was to his thinking a fiction,—more than fiction, a falseness,—about all this which not only would but ought to bring the country prostrate to the dust. When the working-man's candidate, whose political programme consisted of a general disbelief in all religions, received—by ballot!—only nine votes from those 500 voters, the Senator declared to himself that the country must be rotten to the core. It was not only that Britons were slaves,—but that they "hugged their chains." To the gentleman who assured him that the Right Honble. —— —— would make a much better member of Parliament than Tom Bobster the plasterer from Shoreditch he in vain tried to prove that the respective merits of the two men had nothing to do with the question. It had been the duty of those 500 voters to show to the world that in the exercise of a privilege entrusted to them for the public service they had not been under the dictation of their rich neighbour. Instead of doing so they had, almost unanimously, grovelled in the dust at their rich neighbour's feet. "There are but one or two such places left in all England," said the gentleman. "But those one or two," answered the Senator, "were wilfully left there by the Parliament which represented the whole nation."
Then, quite early in the Session, immediately after the voting of the address, a motion had been made by the Government of the day for introducing household suffrage into the counties. No one knew the labour to which the Senator subjected himself in order that he might master all these peculiarities,—that he might learn how men became members of Parliament, and how they ceased to be so, in what degree the House of Commons was made up of different elements, how it came to pass, that though there was a House of Lords, so many lords sat in the lower chamber. All those matters which to ordinary educated Englishmen are almost as common as the breath of their nostrils, had been to him matter of long and serious study. And as the intent student, who has zealously buried himself for a week among commentaries and notes, feels himself qualified to question Porson and to Be-Bentley Bentley, so did our Senator believe, while still he was groping among the rudiments, that he had all our political intricacies at his fingers' ends. When he heard the arguments used for a difference of suffrage in the towns and counties, and found that even they who were proposing the change were not ready absolutely to assimilate the two and still held that rural ascendancy,—feudalism as he called it,—should maintain itself by barring a fraction of the House of Commons from the votes of the majority, he pronounced the whole thing to be a sham. The intention was, he said, to delude the people. "It is all coming," said the gentleman who was accustomed to argue with him in those days. He spoke in a sad vein, which was in itself distressing to the Senator. "Why should you be in such a hurry?" The Senator suggested that if the country delayed much longer this imperative task of putting its house in order, the roof would have fallen in before the repairs were done. Then he found that this gentleman too, avoided his company, and declined to sit with him any more in the Gallery of the House of Commons.
Added to all this was a private rankling sore in regard to Goarly and Bearside. He had now learned nearly all the truth about Goarly, and had learned also that Bearside had known the whole when he had last visited that eminent lawyer's office. Goarly had deserted his supporters and had turned evidence against Scrobby, his partner in iniquity. That Goarly was a rascal the Senator had acknowledged. So far the general opinion down in Rufford had been correct. But he could get nobody to see,—or at any rate could get nobody to acknowledge,—that the rascality of Goarly had had nothing to do with the question as he had taken it up. The man's right to his own land,—his right to be protected from pheasants and foxes, from horses and hounds,—was not lessened by the fact that he was a poor ignorant squalid dishonest wretch. Mr. Gotobed had now received a bill from Bearside for £42 7s. 9d. for costs in the case, leaving after the deduction of £15 already paid a sum of £27 7s. 9d. stated to be still due. And this was accompanied by an intimation that as he, Mr. Gotobed, was a foreigner soon about to leave the country, Mr. Bearside must request that his claim might be settled quite at once. No one could be less likely than our Senator to leave a foreign country without paying his bills. He had quarrelled with Morton,—who also at this time was too ill to have given him much assistance. Though he had become acquainted with half Dillsborough, there was nobody there to whom he could apply. Thus he was driven to employ a London attorney, and the London attorney told him that he had better pay Bearside;—the Senator remembering at the time that he would also have to pay the London attorney for his advice. He gave this second lawyer authority to conclude the matter, and at last Bearside accepted £20. When the London attorney refused to take anything for his trouble, the Senator felt such conduct almost as an additional grievance. In his existing frame of mind he would sooner have expended a few more dollars than be driven to think well of anything connected with English law.
It was immediately after he had handed over the money in liquidation
of Bearside's claim that he sat down to write a further letter to his
friend and correspondent Josiah Scroome. His letter was not written
in the best of tempers; but still, through it all, there was a desire
to be just, and an anxiety to abstain from the use of hard phrases.
The letter was as
follows;—
Fenton's Hotel, St. James' Street, London,
Feb. 12, 187—.My dear Sir,
Since I last wrote I have had much to trouble me and little perhaps to compensate me for my trouble. I told you, I think, in one of my former letters that wherever I went I found myself able to say what I pleased as to the peculiarities of this very peculiar people. I am not now going to contradict what I said then. Wherever I go I do speak out, and my eyes are still in my head and my head is on my shoulders. But I have to acknowledge to myself that I give offence. Mr. Morton, whom you knew at the British Embassy in Washington,—and who I fear is now very ill,—parted from me, when last I saw him, in anger because of certain opinions I had expressed in a clergyman's house, not as being ill-founded but as being antagonistic to the clergyman himself. This I feel to be unreasonable. And in the neighbourhood of Mr. Morton's house, I have encountered the ill will of a great many,—not for having spoken untruth, for that I have never heard alleged,—but because I have not been reticent in describing the things which I have seen.
I told you, I think, that I had returned to Mr. Morton's neighbourhood with the view of defending an oppressed man against the power of the lord who was oppressing him. Unfortunately for me the lord, though a scapegrace, spends his money freely and is a hospitable kindly-hearted honest fellow; whereas the injured victim has turned out to be a wretched scoundrel. Scoundrel though he is, he has still been ill used; and the lord, though good-natured, has been a tyrant. But the poor wretch has thrown me over and sold himself to the other side and I have been held up to ignominy by all the provincial newspapers. I have also had to pay through the nose $175 for my quixotism—a sum which I cannot very well afford. This money I have lost solely with the view of defending the weak, but nobody with whom I have discussed the matter seems to recognise the purity of my object. I am only reminded that I have put myself into the same boat with a rascal.
I feel from day to day how thoroughly I could have enjoyed a sojourn in this country if I had come here without any line of duty laid down for myself. Could I have swum with the stream and have said yes or no as yes or no were expected, I might have revelled in generous hospitality. Nothing can be pleasanter than the houses here if you will only be as idle as the owners of them. But when once you show them that you have an object, they become afraid of you. And industry,—in such houses as I now speak of,—is a crime. You are there to glide through the day luxuriously in the house,—or to rush through it impetuously on horseback or with a gun if you be a sportsman. Sometimes, when I have asked questions about the most material institutions of the country, I have felt that I was looked upon with absolute loathing. This is disagreeable.
And yet I find it more easy in this country to sympathise with the rich than with the poor. I do not here describe my own actual sympathies, but only the easiness with which they might be evoked. The rich are at any rate pleasant. The poor are very much the reverse. There is no backbone of mutiny in them against the oppression to which they are subjected; but only the whining of a dog that knows itself to be a slave and pleads with his soft paw for tenderness from his master;—or the futile growlings of the caged tiger who paces up and down before his bars and has long ago forgotten to attempt to break them. They are a long-suffering race, who only now and then feel themselves stirred up to contest a point against their masters on the basis of starvation. "We won't work but on such and such terms, and, if we cannot get them, we will lie down and die." That I take it is the real argument of a strike. But they never do lie down and die. If one in every parish, one in every county, would do so, then the agricultural labourers of the country might live almost as well as the farmers' pigs.
I was present the other day at the opening of Parliament. It was a very grand ceremony,—though the Queen did not find herself well enough to do her duty in person. But the grandeur was everything. A royal programme was read from the foot of the throne, of which even I knew all the details beforehand, having read them in the newspapers. Two opening speeches were then made by two young lords,—not after all so very young,—which sounded like lessons recited by schoolboys. There was no touch of eloquence,—no approach to it. It was clear that either of them would have been afraid to attempt the idiosyncrasy of passionate expression. But they were exquisitely dressed and had learned their lessons to a marvel. The flutter of the ladies' dresses, and the presence of the peers, and the historic ornamentation of the house were all very pleasant;—but they reminded me of a last year's nut, of which the outside appearance has been mellowed and improved by time,—but the fruit inside has withered away and become tasteless.
Since that I have been much interested with an attempt,—a further morsel of cobbling,—which is being done to improve the representation of the people. Though it be but cobbling, if it be in the right direction one is glad of it. I do not know how far you may have studied the theories and system of the British House of Commons, but, for myself, I must own that it was not till the other day that I was aware that, though it acts together as one whole, it is formed of two distinct parts. The one part is sent thither from the towns by household suffrage; and, this, which may be said to be the healthier of the two as coming more directly from the people, is nevertheless disfigured by a multitude of anomalies. Population hardly bears upon the question. A town with 15,000 inhabitants has two members,—whereas another with 400,000 has only three, and another with 50,000 has one. But there is worse disorder than this. In the happy little village of Portarlington 200 constituents choose a member among them, or have one chosen for them by their careful lord;—whereas in the great city of London something like 25,000 registered electors only send four to Parliament. With this the country is presumed to be satisfied. But in the counties, which by a different system send up the other part of the House, there exists still a heavy property qualification for voting. There is, apparent to all, a necessity for change here;—but the change proposed is simply a reduction of the qualification, so that the rural labourer,—whose class is probably the largest, as it is the poorest, in the country,—is still disfranchised, and will remain so, unless it be his chance to live within the arbitrary line of some so-called borough. For these boroughs, you must know, are sometimes strictly confined to the aggregations of houses which constitute the town, but sometimes stretch out their arms so as to include rural districts. The divisions I am assured were made to suit the aspirations of political magnates when the first Reform Bill was passed! What is to be expected of a country in which such absurdities are loved and sheltered?
I am still determined to express my views on these matters before I leave England, and am with great labour preparing a lecture on the subject. I am assured that I shall not be debarred from my utterances because that which I say is unpopular. I am told that as long as I do not touch Her Majesty or Her Majesty's family, or the Christian religion,—which is only the second Holy of Holies,—I may say anything. Good taste would save me from the former offence, and my own convictions from the latter. But my friend who so informs me doubts whether many will come to hear me. He tells me that the serious American is not popular here, whereas the joker is much run after. Of that I must take my chance. In all this I am endeavouring to do a duty,—feeling every day more strongly my own inadequacy. Were I to follow my own wishes I should return by the next steamer to my duties at home.
Believe me to be,
Dear Sir,
With much sincerity,
Yours truly,Elias Gotobed.
The Honble. Josiah Scroome,
125 Q Street,
Minnesota Avenue,
Washington.
CHAPTER XXV.
PROVIDENCE INTERFERES.
The battle was carried on very fiercely in Mr. Masters' house in Dillsborough, to the misery of all within it; but the conviction gained ground with every one there that Mary was to be sent to Cheltenham for some indefinite time. Dolly and Kate seemed to think that she was to go, never to return. Six months, which had been vaguely mentioned as the proposed period of her sojourn, was to them almost as indefinite as eternity. The two girls had been intensely anxious for the marriage, wishing to have Larry for a brother, looking forward with delight to their share in the unrestricted plenteousness of Chowton Farm, longing to be allowed to consider themselves at home among the ricks and barns and wide fields; but at this moment things had become so tragic that they were cowed and unhappy,—not that Mary should still refuse Larry Twentyman, but that she should be going away for so long a time. They could quarrel with their elder sister while the assurance was still with them that she would be there to forgive them;—but now that she was going away and that it had come to be believed by both of them that poor Lawrence had no chance, they were sad and downhearted. In all that misery the poor attorney had the worst of it. Mary was free from her stepmother's zeal and her stepmother's persecution at any rate at night;—but the poor father was hardly allowed to sleep. For Mrs. Masters never gave up her game as altogether lost. Though she might be driven alternately into towering passion and prostrate hysterics, she would still come again to the battle. A word of encouragement would, she said, bring Larry Twentyman back to his courtship, and that word might be spoken, if Mary's visit to Cheltenham were forbidden. What did the letter signify, or all the girl's protestations? Did not everybody know how self-willed young women were; but how they could be brought round by proper usage? Let Mary once be made to understand that she would not be allowed to be a fine lady, and then she would marry Mr. Twentyman quick enough. But this "Ushanting," this journeying to Cheltenham in order that nothing might be done, was the very way to promote the disease! This Mrs. Masters said in season and out of season, night and day, till the poor husband longed for his daughter's departure, in order that that point might at any rate be settled. In all these disputes he never quite yielded. Though his heart sank within him he was still firm. He would turn his back to his wife and let her run on with her arguments without a word of answer,—till at last he would bounce out of bed and swear that if she did not leave him alone he would go and lock himself into the office and sleep with his head on the office desk.
Mrs. Masters was almost driven to despair;—but at last there came to her a gleam of hope, most unexpectedly. It had been settled that Mary should make her journey on Friday the 12th February and that Reginald Morton was again to accompany her. This in itself was to Mrs. Masters an aggravation of the evil which was being done. She was not in the least afraid of Reginald Morton; but this attendance on Mary was in the eyes of her stepmother a cockering of her up, a making a fine lady of her, which was in itself of all things the most pernicious. If Mary must go to Cheltenham, why could she not go by herself, second class, like any other young woman? "Nobody would eat her,"—Mrs. Masters declared. But Reginald was firm in his purpose of accompanying her. He had no objection whatever to the second class, if Mr. Masters preferred it. But as he meant to make the journey on the same day of course they would go together. Mr. Masters said that he was very much obliged. Mrs. Masters protested that it was all trash from beginning to the end.
Then there came a sudden disruption to all these plans, and a sudden renewal of her hopes to Mrs. Masters which for one half day nearly restored her to good humour. Lady Ushant wrote to postpone the visit because she herself had been summoned to Bragton. Her letter to Mary, though affectionate, was very short. Her grand-nephew John, the head of the family, had expressed a desire to see her, and with that wish she was bound to comply. Of course, she said, she would see Mary at Bragton; or if that were not possible, she herself would come into Dillsborough. She did not know what might be the length of her visit, but when it was over she hoped that Mary would return with her to Cheltenham. The old lady's letter to Reginald was much longer; because in that she had to speak of the state of John Morton's health,—and of her surprise that she should be summoned to his bedside. Of course she would go,—though she could not look forward with satisfaction to a meeting with the Honble. Mrs. Morton. Then she could not refrain from alluding to the fact that if "anything were to happen" to John Morton, Reginald himself would be the Squire of Bragton. Reginald when he received this at once went over to the attorney's house, but he did not succeed in seeing Mary. He learned, however, that they were all aware that the journey had been postponed.
To Mrs. Masters it seemed that all this had been a dispensation of
Providence. Lady Ushant's letter had been received on the Thursday
and Mrs. Masters at once found it expedient to communicate with Larry
Twentyman. She was not excellent herself at the writing of letters,
and therefore she got Dolly to be the scribe. Before the Thursday
evening the following note was sent to Chowton Farm;
Dear Larry,
Pray come and go to the club with father on Saturday. We haven't seen you for so long! Mother has got something to tell you.
Your affectionate friend,
Dolly.
When this was received the poor man was smoking his moody pipe in silence as he roamed about his own farmyard in the darkness of the night. He had not as yet known any comfort and was still firm in his purpose of selling the farm. He had been out hunting once or twice but fancied that people looked at him with peculiar eyes. He could not ride, though he made one or two forlorn attempts to break his neck. He did not care in the least whether they found or not; and when Captain Glomax was held to have disgraced himself thoroughly by wasting an hour in digging out and then killing a vixen, he had not a word to say about it. But, as he read Dolly's note, there came back something of life into his eyes. He had forsworn the club, but would certainly go when thus invited. He wrote a scrawl to Dolly,—"I'll come," and, having sent it off by the messenger, tried to trust that there might yet be ground for hope. Mrs. Masters would not have allowed Dolly to send such a message without good reason.
On the Friday Mrs. Masters could not abstain from proposing that Mary's visit to Cheltenham should be regarded as altogether out of the question. She had no new argument to offer,—except this last interposition of Providence in her favour. Mr. Masters said that he did not see why Mary should not return with Lady Ushant. Various things, however, might happen. John Morton might die, and then who could tell whether Lady Ushant would ever return to Cheltenham? In this way the short-lived peace soon came to an end, especially as Mrs. Masters endeavoured to utilize for general family purposes certain articles which had been purchased with a view to Mary's prolonged residence away from home. This was resented by the attorney, and the peace was short-lived.
On the Saturday Larry came,—to the astonishment of Mr. Masters, who was still in his office at half-past seven. Mrs. Masters at once got hold of him and conveyed him away into the sacred drawing-room. "Mary is not going," she said.
"Not going to Cheltenham!"
"It has all been put off. She shan't go at all if I can help it."
"But why has it been put off, Mrs. Masters?"
"Lady Ushant is coming to Bragton. I suppose that poor man is dying."
"He is very ill certainly."
"And if anything happens there who can say what may happen anywhere else? Lady Ushant will have something else except Mary to think of, if her own nephew comes into all the property."
"I didn't know she was such friends with the Squire as that."
"Well;—there it is. Lady Ushant is coming to Bragton and Mary is not going to Cheltenham."
This she said as though the news must be of vital importance to Larry Twentyman. He stood for awhile scratching his head as he thought of it. At last it appeared to him that Mary's continual residence in Dillsborough would of itself hardly assist him. "I don't see, Mrs. Masters, that that will make her a bit kinder to me.'
"Larry, don't you be a coward,—nor yet soft."
"As for coward, Mrs. Masters, I don't know—"
"I suppose you really do love the girl."
"I do;—I think I've shown that."
"And you haven't changed your mind?"
"Not a bit."
"That's why I speak open to you. Don't you be afraid of her. What's the letter which a girl like that writes? When she gets tantrums into her head of course she'll write a letter."
"But there's somebody else, Mrs. Masters."
"Who says so? I say there ain't nobody;—nobody. If anybody tells you that it's only just to put you off. It's just poetry and books and rubbish. She wants to be a fine lady."
"I'll make her a lady."
"You make her Mrs. Twentyman, and don't you be made by any one to give it up. Go to the club with Mr. Masters now, and come here just the same as usual. Come to-morrow and have a gossip with the girls together and show that you can keep your pluck up. That's the way to win her." Larry did go to the club and did think very much of it as he walked home. He had promised to come on the Sunday afternoon, but he could not bring himself to believe in that theory of books and poetry put forward by Mrs. Masters. Books and poetry would not teach a girl like Mary to reject her suitor if she really loved him.
CHAPTER XXVI.
LADY USHANT AT BRAGTON.
On the Sunday Larry came into Dillsborough and had "his gossip with the girls" according to order;—but it was not very successful. Mrs. Masters who opened the door for him instructed him in a special whisper "to talk away just as though he did not care a fig for Mary." He made the attempt manfully,—but with slight effect. His love was too genuine, too absorbing, to leave with him the power which Mrs. Masters assumed him to have when she gave him such advice. A man cannot walk when he has broken his ankle-bone, let him be ever so brave in the attempt. Larry's heart was so weighed that he could not hide the weight. Dolly and Kate had also received hints and struggled hard to be merry. In the afternoon a walk was suggested, and Mary complied; but when an attempt was made by the younger girls to leave the lover and Mary together, she resented it by clinging closely to Dolly;—and then all Larry's courage deserted him. Very little good was done on the occasion by Mrs. Masters' manœuvres.
On the Monday morning, in compliance with a request made by Lady Ushant, Mary walked over to Bragton to see her old friend. Mrs. Masters had declared the request to be very unreasonable. "Who is to walk five miles and back to see an old woman like that?" To this Mary had replied that the distance across the fields to Bragton was only four miles and that she had often walked it with her sisters for the very pleasure of the walk. "Not in weather like this," said Mrs. Masters. But the day was well enough. Roads in February are often a little wet, but there was no rain falling. "I say it's unreasonable," said Mrs. Masters. "If she can't send a carriage she oughtn't to expect it." This coming from Mrs. Masters, whose great doctrine it was that young women ought not to be afraid of work, was so clearly the effect of sheer opposition that Mary disdained to answer it. Then she was accused of treating her stepmother with contempt.
She did walk to Bragton, taking the path by the fields and over the bridge, and loitering for a few minutes as she leant upon the rail. It was there and there only that she had seen together the two men who between them seemed to cloud all her life,—the man whom she loved and the man who loved her. She knew now,—she thought that she knew quite well,—that her feelings for Reginald Morton were of such a nature that she could not possibly become the wife of any one else. But had she not seen him for those few minutes on this spot, had he not fired her imagination by telling her of his desire to go back with her over the sites which they had seen together when she was a child, she would not, she thought, have been driven to make to herself so grievous a confession. In that case it might have been that she would have brought herself to give her hand to the suitor of whom all her friends approved.
And then with infinite tenderness she thought of all Larry's virtues,—and especially of that great virtue in a woman's eyes, the constancy of his devotion to herself. She did love him,—but with a varied love,—a love which was most earnest in wishing his happiness, which would have been desirous of the closest friendship if only nothing more were required. She swore to herself a thousand times that she did not look down upon him because he was only a farmer, that she did not think herself in any way superior to him. But it was impossible that she should consent to be his wife. And then she thought of the other man,—with feelings much less kind. Why had he thrust himself upon her life and disturbed her? Why had he taught her to think herself unfit to mate with this lover who was her equal? Why had he assured her that were she to do so her old friends would be revolted? Why had he exacted from her a promise,—a promise which was sacred to her,—that she would not so give herself away? Yes;—the promise was certainly sacred; but he had been cold and cruel in forcing it from her lips. What business was it of his? Why should he have meddled with her? In the shallow streamlet of her lowly life the waters might have glided on, slow but smoothly, had he not taught them to be ambitious of a rapider, grander course. Now they were disturbed by mud, and there could be no pleasure in them.
She went on over the bridge, and round by the shrubbery to the hall door which was opened to her by Mrs. Hopkins. Yes, Lady Ushant was there;—but the young Squire was very ill and his aunt was then with him. Mr. Reginald was in the library. Would Miss Masters be shown in there, or would she go up to Lady Ushant's own room? Of course she replied that she would go up-stairs and there wait for Lady Ushant.
When she was found by her friend she was told at length the story of all the circumstances which had brought Lady Ushant to Bragton. When John Morton had first been taken ill,—before any fixed idea of danger had occurred to himself or to others,—his grandmother had come to him. Then, as he gradually became weaker he made various propositions which were all of them terribly distasteful to the old woman. In the first place he had insisted on sending for Miss Trefoil. Up to this period Mary Masters had hardly heard the name of Miss Trefoil, and almost shuddered as she was at once immersed in all these family secrets. "She is to be here to-morrow," said Lady Ushant.
"Oh dear,—how sad!"
"He insists upon it, and she is coming. She was here before, and it now turns out that all the world knew that they were engaged. That was no secret, for everybody had heard it."
"And where is Mrs. Morton now?" Then Lady Ushant went on with her story. The sick man had insisted on making his will and had declared his purpose of leaving the property to his cousin Reginald. As Lady Ushant said, there was no one else to whom he could leave it with any propriety;—but this had become matter for bitter contention between the old woman and her grandson.
"Who did she think should have it?" asked Mary.
"Ah;—that I don't know. That he has never told me. But she has had the wickedness to say,—oh,—such things of Reginald. I knew all that before;—but that she should repeat them now is terrible. I suppose she wanted it for some of her own people. But it was so horrible you know,—when he was so ill! Then he said that he should send for me, so that what is left of the family might be together. After that she went away in anger. Mrs. Hopkins says that she did not even see him the morning she left Bragton."
"She was always high-tempered," said Mary.
"And dictatorial beyond measure. She nearly broke my poor dear father's heart. And then she left the house because he would not shut his doors against Reginald's mother. And now I hardly know what I am to do here, or what I must say to this young lady when she comes to-morrow."
"Is she coming alone?"
"We don't know. She has a mother, Lady Augustus Trefoil,—but whether Lady Augustus will accompany her daughter we have not heard. Reginald says certainly not, or they would have told us so. You have seen Reginald?"
"No, Lady Ushant."
"You must see him. He is here now. Think what a difference it will make to him."
"But Lady Ushant,—is he so bad?"
"Dr. Fanning almost says that there is no hope. This poor young woman that is coming;—what am I to say to her? He has made his will. That was done before I came. I don't know why he shouldn't have sent for your father, but he had a gentleman down from town. I suppose he will leave her something; but it is a great thing that Bragton should remain in the family. Oh dear, oh dear,—if any one but a Morton were to be here it would break my heart. Reginald is the only one left now of the old branch. He's getting old and he ought to marry. It is so serious when there's an old family property."
"I suppose he will—only—"
"Yes; exactly. One can't even think about it while this poor young man is lying so ill. Mrs. Morton has been almost like his mother, and has lived upon the Bragton property,—absolutely lived upon it,—and now she is away from him because he chooses to do what he likes with his own. Is it not awful? And she would not put her foot in the house if she knew that Reginald was here. She told Mrs. Hopkins as much, and she said that she wouldn't so much as write a line to me. Poor fellow; he wrote it himself. And now he thinks so much about it. When Dr. Fanning went back to London yesterday I think he took some message to her."
Mary remained there till lunch was announced but refused to go down into the parlour, urging that she was expected home for dinner. "And there is no chance for Mr. Twentyman?" asked Lady Ushant. Mary shook her head. "Poor man! I do feel sorry for him as everybody speaks so well of him. Of course, my dear, I have nothing to say about it. I don't think girls should ever be in a hurry to marry, and if you can't love him—"
"Dear Lady Ushant, it is quite settled."
"Poor young man! But you must go and see Reginald." Then she was taken into the library and did see Reginald. Were she to avoid him,—specially,—she would tell her tale almost as plainly as though she were to run after him. He greeted her kindly, almost affectionately, expressing his extreme regret that his visit to Cheltenham should have been postponed and a hope that she would be much at Bragton. "The distance is so great, Reginald," said Lady Ushant.
"I can drive her over. It is a long walk, and I had made up my mind to get Runciman's little phaeton. I shall order it for to-morrow if Miss Masters will come." But Miss Masters would not agree to this. She would walk over again some day as she liked the walk, but no doubt she would only be in the way if she were to come often.
"I have told her about Miss Trefoil," said Lady Ushant. "You know, my dear, I look upon you almost as one of ourselves because you lived here so long. But perhaps you had better postpone coming again till she has gone."
"Certainly, Lady Ushant."
"It might be difficult to explain. I don't suppose she will stay long. Perhaps she will go back the same day. I am sure I shan't know what to say to her. But when anything is fixed I will send you in word by the postman."
Reginald would have walked back with her across the bridge but that he had promised to go to his cousin immediately after lunch. As it was he offered to accompany her a part of the way, but was stopped by his aunt, greatly to Mary's comfort. He was now more beyond her reach than ever,—more utterly removed from her. He would probably become Squire of Bragton, and she, in her earliest days, had heard the late Squire spoken of as though he were one of the potentates of the earth. She had never thought it possible; but now it was less possible than ever. There was something in his manner to her almost protective, almost fatherly,—as though he had some authority over her. Lady Ushant had authority once, but he had none. In every tone of his voice she felt that she heard an expression of interest in her welfare,—but it was the interest which a grown-up person takes in a child, or a superior in an inferior. Of course he was her superior, but yet the tone of his voice was distasteful to her. As she walked back to Dillsborough she told herself that she would not go again to Bragton without assuring herself that he was not there.
When she reached home many questions were asked of her, but she told nothing of the secrets of the Morton family which had been so openly confided to her. She would only say that she was afraid that Mr. John Morton was very ill.
CHAPTER XXVII.
ARABELLA AGAIN AT BRAGTON.
Arabella Trefoil had adhered without flinching to the purpose she had expressed of going down to Bragton to see the sick man. And yet at that very time she was in the midst of her contest with Lord Rufford. She was aware that a correspondence was going on between her father and the young lord and that her father had demanded an interview. She was aware also that the matter had been discussed at the family mansion in Piccadilly, the Duke having come up to London for the purpose, and that the Duke and his brother, who hardly ever spoke to each other, had absolutely had a conference. And this conference had had results. The Duke had not himself consented to interfere, but he had agreed to a compromise proposed by his son. Lord Augustus should be authorised to ask Lord Rufford to meet him in the library of the Piccadilly mansion,—so that there should be some savour of the dukedom in what might be done and said there. Lord Rufford would by the surroundings be made to feel that in rejecting Arabella he was rejecting the Duke and all the Mayfair belongings, and that in accepting her he would be entitled to regard himself as accepting them all. But by allowing thus much the Duke would not compromise himself,—nor the Duchess, nor Lord Mistletoe. Lord Mistletoe, with that prudence which will certainly in future years make him a useful assistant to some minister of the day, had seen all this, and so it had been arranged.
But, in spite of these doings, Arabella had insisted on complying with John Morton's wish that she go down and visit him in his bed at Bragton. Her mother, who in these days was driven almost to desperation by her daughter's conduct, tried her best to prevent the useless journey, but tried in vain. "Then," she said in wrath to Arabella, "I will tell your father, and I will tell the Duke, and I will tell Lord Rufford that they need not trouble themselves any further." "You know, mamma, that you will do nothing of the kind," said Arabella. And the poor woman did do nothing of the kind. "What is it to them whether I see the man or not?" the girl said. "They are not such fools as to suppose that because Lord Rufford has engaged himself to me now I was never engaged to any one before. There isn't one of them doesn't know that you had made up an engagement between us and had afterwards tried to break it off." When she heard this the unfortunate mother raved, but she raved in vain. She told her daughter that she would not supply her with money for the expenses of her journey, but her daughter replied that she would have no difficulty in finding her way to a pawn shop. "What is to be got by it?" asked the unfortunate mother. In reply to this Arabella would say, "Mamma, you have no heart;—absolutely none. You ought to manœuvre better than you do, for your feelings never stand in your way for a moment." All this had to be borne, and the old woman was forced at last not only to yield but to promise that she would accompany her daughter to Bragton. "I know how all this will end," she said to Arabella. "You will have to go your way and I must go mine." "Just so," replied the daughter. "I do not often agree with you, mamma; but I do there altogether."
Lady Augustus was absolutely at a loss to understand what were the motives and what the ideas which induced her daughter to take the journey. If the man were to die no good could come of it. If he were to live then surely that love which had induced him to make so foolish a petition would suffice to ensure the marriage, if the marriage should then be thought desirable. But, at the present moment, Arabella was still hot in pursuit of Lord Rufford;—to whom this journey, as soon as it should be known to him, would give the easiest mode of escape! How would it be possible that they two should get out at the Dillsborough Station and be taken to Bragton without all Rufford knowing it. Of course there would be hymns sung in praise of Arabella's love and constancy, but such hymns would be absolutely ruinous to her. It was growing clear to Lady Augustus that her daughter was giving up the game and becoming frantic as she thought of her age, her failure, and her future. If so it would be well that they should separate.
On the day fixed a close carriage awaited them at the Dillsborough Station. They arrived both dressed in black and both veiled,—and with but one maid between them. This arrangement had been made with some vague idea of escaping scrutiny rather than from economy. They had never hitherto been known to go anywhere without one apiece. There were no airs on the station now as on that former occasion,—no loud talking; not even a word spoken. Lady Augustus was asking herself why,—why she should have been put into so lamentable a position, and Arabella was endeavouring to think what she would say to the dying man.
She did think that he was dying. It was not the purport of her present visit to strengthen her position by making certain of the man's hand should he live. When she said that she was not as yet quite so hard-hearted as her mother, she spoke the truth. Something of regret, something of penitence had at times crept over her in reference to her conduct to this man. He had been very unlike others on whom she had played her arts. None of her lovers, or mock lovers, had been serious and stern and uncomfortable as he. There had been no other who had ever attempted to earn his bread. To her the butterflies of the world had been all in all, and the working bees had been a tribe apart with which she was no more called upon to mix than is my lady's spaniel with the kennel hounds. But the chance had come. She had consented to exhibit her allurements before a man of business and the man of business had at once sat at her feet. She had soon repented,—as the reader has seen. The alliance had been distasteful to her. She had found that the man's ways were in no wise like her ways,—and she had found also that were she to become his wife, he certainly would not change. She had looked about for a means of escape,—but as she did so she had recognized the man's truth. No doubt he had been different from the others, less gay in his attire, less jocund in his words, less given to flattery and sport and gems and all the little wickednesses which she had loved. But they,—those others had, one and all, struggled to escape from her. Through all the gems and mirth and flattery there had been the same purpose. They liked the softness of her hand, they liked the flutter of her silk, they liked to have whispered in their ears the bold words of her practised raillery. Each liked for a month or two to be her special friend. But then, after that, each had deserted her as had done the one before; till in each new alliance she felt that such was to be her destiny, and that she was rolling a stone which would never settle itself, straining for waters which would never come lip high. But John Morton, after once saying that he loved her, had never tired, had never wished to escape. He had been so true to his love, so true to his word, that he had borne from her usage which would have fully justified escape had escape been to his taste. But to the last he had really loved her, and now, on his death bed, he had sent for her to come to him. She would not be coward enough to refuse his request. "Should he say anything to you about his will don't refuse to hear him, because it may be of the greatest importance," Lady Augustus whispered to her daughter as the carriage was driven up to the front door.
It was then four o'clock, and it was understood that the two ladies were to stay that one night at Bragton, a letter having been received by Lady Ushant that morning informing her that the mother as well as the daughter was coming. Poor Lady Ushant was almost beside herself,—not knowing what she would do with the two women, and having no one in the house to help her. Something she had heard of Lady Augustus, but chiefly from Mrs. Hopkins who certainly had not admired her master's future mother-in-law. Nor had Arabella been popular; but of her Mrs. Hopkins had only dared to say that she was very handsome and "a little upstartish." How she was to spend the evening with them Lady Ushant could not conceive,—it having been decided, in accordance with the doctor's orders, that the interview should not take place till the next morning. When they were shown in Lady Ushant stood just within the drawing-room door and muttered a few words as she gave her hand to each. "How is he?" asked Arabella, throwing up her veil boldly, as soon as the door was closed. Lady Ushant only shook her head. "I knew it would be so. It is always so with anything I care for."
"She is so distressed, Lady Ushant," said the mother, "that she hardly knows what she does." Arabella shook her head. "It is so, Lady Ushant."
"Am I to go to him now?" said Arabella. Then the old lady explained the doctor's orders, and offered to take them to their rooms. "Perhaps I might say a word to you alone? I will stay here if you will go with mamma." And she did stay till Lady Ushant came down to her. "Do you mean to say it is certain," she asked,—"certain that he must—die?"
"No;—I do not say that."
"It is possible that he may recover?"
"Certainly it is possible. What is not possible with God?"
"Ah;—that means that he will die." Then she sat herself down and almost unconsciously took off her bonnet and laid it aside. Lady Ushant, then looking into her face for the first time, was at a loss to understand what she had heard of her beauty. Could it be the same girl of whom Mrs. Hopkins had spoken and of whose brilliant beauty Reginald had repeated what he had heard? She was haggard, almost old, with black lines round her eyes. There was nothing soft or gracious in the tresses of her hair. When Lady Ushant had been young men had liked hair such as was that of Mary Masters. Arabella's yellow locks,—whencesoever they might have come,—were rough and uncombed. But it was the look of age, and the almost masculine strength of the lower face which astonished Lady Ushant the most. "Has he spoken to you about me?" she said.
"Not to me." Then Lady Ushant went on to explain that though she was there now as the female representative of the family she had never been so intimate with John Morton as to admit of such confidence as that suggested.
"I wonder whether he can love me," said the girl.
"Assuredly he does, Miss Trefoil. Why else should he send for you?"
"Because he is an honest man. I hardly think that he can love me much. He was to have been my husband, but he will escape that. If I thought that he would live I would tell him that he was free."
"He would not want to be—free."
"He ought to want it. I am not fit for him. I have come here, Lady Ushant, because I want to tell him the truth."
"But you love him?" Arabella made no answer, but sat looking steadily into Lady Ushant's face. "Surely you do love him."
"I do not know. I don't think I did love him,—though now I may. It is so horrible that he should die, and die while all this is going on. That softens one you know. Have you ever heard of Lord Rufford?"
"Lord Rufford;—the young man?"
"Yes;—the young man."
"Never particularly. I knew his father."
"But not this man? Mr. Morton never spoke to you of him."
"Not a word."
"I have been engaged to him since I became engaged to your nephew."
"Engaged to Lord Rufford,—to marry him?"
"Yes,—indeed."
"And will you marry him?"
"I cannot say. I tell you this, Lady Ushant, because I must tell somebody in this house. I have behaved very badly to Mr. Morton, and Lord Rufford is behaving as badly to me."
"Did John know of this?"
"No;—but I meant to tell him. I determined that I would tell him had he lived. When he sent for me I swore that I would tell him. If he is dying,—how can I say it?" Lady Ushant sat bewildered, thinking over it, understanding nothing of the world in which this girl had lived, and not knowing now how things could have been as she described them. It was not as yet three months since, to her knowledge, this young woman had been staying at Bragton as the affianced bride of the owner of the house,—staying there with her own mother and his grandmother,—and now she declared that since that time she had become engaged to another man and that that other man had already jilted her! And yet she was here that she might make a deathbed parting with the man who regarded himself as her affianced husband. "If I were sure that he were dying, why should I trouble him?" she said again.
Lady Ushant found herself utterly unable to give any counsel to such a condition of circumstances. Why should she be asked? This young woman had her mother with her. Did her mother know all this, and nevertheless bring her daughter to the house of a man who had been so treated! "I really do not know what to say," she replied at last.
"But I was determined that I would tell some one. I thought that Mrs. Morton would have been here." Lady Ushant shook her head. "I am glad she is not, because she was not civil to me when I was here before. She would have said hard things to me,—though not perhaps harder than I have deserved. I suppose I may still see him to-morrow."
"Oh yes; he expects it."
"I shall not tell him now. I could not tell him if I thought he were dying. If he gets better you must tell him all."
"I don't think I could do that, Miss Trefoil."
"Pray do;—pray do. I call upon you to tell him everything."
"Tell him that you will be married to Lord Rufford?"
"No;—not that. If Mr. Morton were well to-morrow I would have him,—if he chose to take me after what I have told you."
"You do love him then?"
"At any rate I like no one better."
"Not the young lord?"
"No! why should I like him? He does not love me. I hate him. I would marry Mr. Morton to-morrow, and go with him to Patagonia, or anywhere else,—if he would have me after hearing what I have done." Then she rose from her chair; but before she left the room she said a word further. "Do not speak a word to my mother about this. Mamma knows nothing of my purpose. Mamma only wants me to marry Lord Rufford, and to throw Mr. Morton over. Do not tell anyone else, Lady Ushant; but if he is ever well enough then you must tell him." After that she went, leaving Lady Ushant in the room astounded by the story she had heard.