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The Duke's Children

by Anthony Trollope · English · Gutenberg #3622 · 1,216,359 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Duke's Children

Author: Anthony Trollope


        
Release date: January 1, 2003 [eBook #3622]
                Most recently updated: August 20, 2007

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3622

Credits: E-text prepared by Kenneth David Cooper and revised by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUKE'S CHILDREN ***


E-text prepared by Kenneth David Cooper and revised by Joseph E.
Loewenstein, M.D.



THE DUKE'S CHILDREN

by

ANTHONY TROLLOPE

First published in serial form in _All the Year Round_
in 1879 and 1880 and in book form in 1880







CONTENTS

         I. When the Duchess Was Dead
        II. Lady Mary Palliser
       III. Francis Oliphant Tregear
        IV. Park Lane
         V. "It Is Impossible"
        VI. Major Tifto
       VII. Conservative Convictions
      VIII. "He Is a Gentleman"
        IX. "In Medias Res"
         X. "Why Not Like Romeo If I Feel Like Romeo?"
        XI. "Cruel"
       XII. At Richmond
      XIII. The Duke's Injustice
       XIV. The New Member for Silverbridge
        XV. The Duke Receives a Letter,--and Writes One
       XVI. "Poor Boy"
      XVII. The Derby
     XVIII. One of the Results of the Derby
       XIX. "No; My Lord, I Do Not"
        XX. "Then He Will Come Again"
       XXI. Sir Timothy Beeswax
      XXII. The Duke in His Study
     XXIII. Frank Tregear Wants a Friend
      XXIV. "She Must Be Made to Obey"
       XXV. A Family Breakfast-Table
      XXVI. Dinner at the Beargarden
     XXVII. Major Tifto and the Duke
    XXVIII. Mrs. Montacute Jones's Garden-Party
      XXIX. The Lovers Meet
       XXX. What Came of the Meeting
      XXXI. Miss Boncassen's River-Party. No. 1
     XXXII. Miss Boncassen's River-Party. No. 2
    XXXIII. The Langham Hotel
     XXXIV. Lord Popplecourt
      XXXV. "Don't You Think--?"
     XXXVI. Tally-Ho Lodge
    XXXVII. Grex
   XXXVIII. Crummie-Toddie
     XXXIX. Killancodlem
        XL. "And Then!"
       XLI. Ischl
      XLII. Again at Killancodlem
     XLIII. What Happened at Doncaster
      XLIV. How It Was Done
       XLV. "There Shall Not Be Another Word About It"
      XLVI. Lady Mary's Dream
     XLVII. Miss Boncassen's Idea of Heaven
    XLVIII. The Party at Custins Is Broken Up
      XLIX. The Major's Fate
         L. The Duke's Arguments
        LI. The Duke's Guests
       LII. Miss Boncassen Tells the Truth
      LIII. "Then I Am As Proud As a Queen"
       LIV. "I Don't Think She Is a Snake"
        LV. Polpenno
       LVI. The News Is Sent to Matching
      LVII. The Meeting at "The Bobtailed Fox"
     LVIII. The Major Is Deposed
       LIX. No One Can Tell What May Come to Pass
        LX. Lord Gerald in Further Trouble
       LXI. "Bone of My Bone"
      LXII. The Brake Country
     LXIII. "I've Seen 'Em Like That Before"
      LXIV. "I Believe Him to Be a Worthy Young Man"
       LXV. "Do You Ever Think What Money Is?"
      LXVI. The Three Attacks
     LXVII. "He Is Such a Beast"
    LXVIII. Brook Street
      LXIX. "Pert Poppet!"
       LXX. "Love May Be a Great Misfortune"
      LXXI. "What Am I to Say, Sir?"
     LXXII. Carlton Terrace
    LXXIII. "I Have Never Loved You"
     LXXIV. "Let Us Drink a Glass of Wine Together"
      LXXV. The Major's Story
     LXXVI. On Deportment
    LXXVII. "Mabel, Good-Bye"
   LXXVIII. The Duke Returns to Office
     LXXIX. The First Wedding
      LXXX. The Second Wedding




CHAPTER I

When the Duchess Was Dead


No one, probably, ever felt himself to be more alone in the world
than our old friend, the Duke of Omnium, when the Duchess died. When
this sad event happened he had ceased to be Prime Minister. During
the first nine months after he had left office he and the Duchess
remained in England. Then they had gone abroad, taking with them
their three children. The eldest, Lord Silverbridge, had been at
Oxford, but had had his career there cut short by some more than
ordinary youthful folly, which had induced his father to agree with
the college authorities that his name had better be taken off the
college books,--all which had been cause of very great sorrow to
the Duke. The other boy was to go to Cambridge; but his father had
thought it well to give him a twelvemonth's run on the Continent,
under his own inspection. Lady Mary, the only daughter, was the
youngest of the family, and she also had been with them on the
Continent. They remained the full year abroad, travelling with a
large accompaniment of tutors, lady's-maids, couriers, and sometimes
friends. I do not know that the Duchess or the Duke had enjoyed it
much; but the young people had seen something of foreign courts and
much of foreign scenery, and had perhaps perfected their French. The
Duke had gone to work at his travels with a full determination to
create for himself occupation out of a new kind of life. He had
studied Dante, and had striven to arouse himself to ecstatic joy
amidst the loveliness of the Italian lakes. But through it all he
had been aware that he had failed. The Duchess had made no such
resolution,--had hardly, perhaps, made any attempt; but, in truth,
they had both sighed to be back among the war-trumpets. They had both
suffered much among the trumpets, and yet they longed to return. He
told himself from day to day, that though he had been banished from
the House of Commons, still, as a peer, he had a seat in Parliament,
and that, though he was no longer a minister, still he might be
useful as a legislator. She, in her career as a leader of fashion,
had no doubt met with some trouble,--with some trouble but with no
disgrace; and as she had been carried about among the lakes and
mountains, among the pictures and statues, among the counts and
countesses, she had often felt that there was no happiness except in
that dominion which circumstances had enabled her to achieve once,
and might enable her to achieve again--in the realms of London
society.

Then, in the early spring of 187--, they came back to England, having
persistently carried out their project, at any rate in regard to
time. Lord Gerald, the younger son, was at once sent up to Trinity.
For the eldest son a seat was to be found in the House of Commons,
and the fact that a dissolution of Parliament was expected served to
prevent any prolonged sojourn abroad. Lady Mary Palliser was at that
time nineteen, and her entrance into the world was to be her mother's
great care and great delight. In March they spent a few days in
London, and then went down to Matching Priory. When she left town the
Duchess was complaining of cold, sore throat, and debility. A week
after their arrival at Matching she was dead.

Had the heavens fallen and mixed themselves with the earth, had the
people of London risen in rebellion with French ideas of equality,
had the Queen persistently declined to comply with the constitutional
advice of her ministers, had a majority in the House of Commons lost
its influence in the country,--the utter prostration of the bereft
husband could not have been more complete. It was not only that his
heart was torn to pieces, but that he did not know how to look out
into the world. It was as though a man should be suddenly called upon
to live without hands or even arms. He was helpless, and knew himself
to be helpless. Hitherto he had never specially acknowledged to
himself that his wife was necessary to him as a component part of his
life. Though he had loved her dearly, and had in all things consulted
her welfare and happiness, he had at times been inclined to think
that in the exuberance of her spirits she had been a trouble
rather than a support to him. But now it was as though all outside
appliances were taken away from him. There was no one of whom he
could ask a question.

For it may be said of this man that, though throughout his life he
had had many Honourable and Right Honourable friends, and that though
he had entertained guests by the score, and though he had achieved
for himself the respect of all good men and the thorough admiration
of some few who knew him, he had hardly made for himself a single
intimate friend--except that one who had now passed away from him. To
her he had been able to say what he thought, even though she would
occasionally ridicule him while he was declaring his feelings. But
there had been no other human soul to whom he could open himself.
There were one or two whom he loved, and perhaps liked; but his
loving and his liking had been exclusively political. He had so
habituated himself to devote his mind and his heart to the service of
his country, that he had almost risen above or sunk below humanity.
But she, who had been essentially human, had been a link between him
and the world.

There were his three children, the youngest of whom was now nearly
nineteen, and they surely were links! At the first moment of his
bereavement they were felt to be hardly more than burdens. A more
loving father there was not in England, but nature had made him so
undemonstrative that as yet they had hardly known his love. In all
their joys and in all their troubles, in all their desires and all
their disappointments, they had ever gone to their mother. She had
been conversant with everything about them, from the boys' bills
and the girl's gloves to the innermost turn in the heart and the
disposition of each. She had known with the utmost accuracy the
nature of the scrapes into which Lord Silverbridge had precipitated
himself, and had known also how probable it was that Lord Gerald
would do the same. The results of such scrapes she, of course,
deplored; and therefore she would give good counsel, pointing out how
imperative it was that such evil-doings should be avoided; but with
the spirit that produced the scrapes she fully sympathised. The
father disliked the spirit almost worse than the results; and was
therefore often irritated and unhappy.

And the difficulties about the girl were almost worse to bear than
those about the boys. She had done nothing wrong. She had given no
signs of extravagance or other juvenile misconduct. But she was
beautiful and young. How was he to bring her out into the world? How
was he to decide whom she should or whom she should not marry? How
was he to guide her through the shoals and rocks which lay in the
path of such a girl before she can achieve matrimony?

It was the fate of the family that, with a world of acquaintance,
they had not many friends. From all close connection with relatives
on the side of the Duchess they had been dissevered by old feelings
at first, and afterwards by want of any similitude in the habits
of life. She had, when young, been repressed by male and female
guardians with an iron hand. Such repression had been needed, and had
been perhaps salutary, but it had not left behind it much affection.
And then her nearest relatives were not sympathetic with the Duke. He
could obtain no assistance in the care of his girl from that source.
Nor could he even do it from his own cousins' wives, who were his
nearest connections on the side of the Pallisers. They were women
to whom he had ever been kind, but to whom he had never opened his
heart. When, in the midst of the stunning sorrow of the first week,
he tried to think of all this, it seemed to him that there was
nobody.

There had been one lady, a very dear ally, staying in the house with
them when the Duchess died. This was Mrs. Finn, the wife of Phineas
Finn, who had been one of the Duke's colleagues when in office.
How it had come to pass that Mrs. Finn and the Duchess had become
singularly bound together has been told elsewhere. But there had been
close bonds,--so close that when the Duchess on their return from the
Continent had passed through London on her way to Matching, ill at
the time and very comfortless, it had been almost a thing of course,
that Mrs. Finn should go with her. And as she had sunk, and then
despaired, and then died, it was this woman who had always been at
her side, who had ministered to her, and had listened to the fears
and the wishes and hopes she had expressed respecting the children.

At Matching, amidst the ruins of the old Priory, there is a parish
burying-ground, and there, in accordance with her own wish, almost
within sight of her own bedroom-window, she was buried. On the day
of the funeral a dozen relatives came, Pallisers and M'Closkies, who
on such an occasion were bound to show themselves, as members of the
family. With them and his two sons the Duke walked across to the
graveyard, and then walked back; but even to those who stayed the
night at the house he hardly spoke. By noon on the following day they
had all left him, and the only stranger in the house was Mrs. Finn.

On the afternoon of the day after the funeral the Duke and his guest
met, almost for the first time since the sad event. There had been
just a pressure of the hand, just a glance of compassion, just some
murmur of deep sorrow,--but there had been no real speech between
them. Now he had sent for her, and she went down to him in the room
in which he commonly sat at work. He was seated at his table when she
entered, but there was no book open before him, and no pen ready to
his hand. He was dressed of course in black. That, indeed, was usual
with him, but now the tailor by his funereal art had added some
deeper dye of blackness to his appearance. When he rose and turned to
her she thought that he had at once become an old man. His hair was
grey in parts, and he had never accustomed himself to use that skill
in managing his outside person by which many men are able to preserve
for themselves a look, if not of youth, at any rate of freshness.
He was thin, of an adust complexion, and had acquired a habit of
stooping which, when he was not excited, gave him an appearance of
age. All that was common to him; but now it was so much exaggerated
that he who was not yet fifty might have been taken to be over sixty.

He put out his hand to greet her as she came up to him.
"Silverbridge," he said, "tells me that you go back to London
to-morrow."

"I thought it would be best, Duke. My presence here can be of no
comfort to you."

"I will not say that anything can be of comfort. But of course it
is right that you should go. I can have no excuse for asking you to
remain. While there was yet a hope for her--" Then he stopped, unable
to say a word further in that direction, and yet there was no sign of
a tear and no sound of a sob.

"Of course I would stay, Duke, if I could be of any service."

"Mr. Finn will expect you to return to him."

"Perhaps it would be better that I should say that I would stay were
it not that I know that I can be of no real service."

"What do you mean by that, Mrs. Finn?"

"Lady Mary should have with her at such a time some other friend."

"There was none other whom her mother loved as she loved you--none,
none." This he said almost with energy.

"There was no one lately, Duke, with whom circumstances caused
her mother to be so closely intimate. But even that perhaps was
unfortunate."

"I never thought so."

"That is a great compliment. But as to Lady Mary, will it not
be as well that she should have with her, as soon as possible,
someone,--perhaps someone of her own kindred if it be possible, or,
if not that, at least one of her own kind?"

"Who is there? Whom do you mean?"

"I mean no one. It is hard, Duke, to say what I do mean, but perhaps
I had better try. There will be,--probably there have been,--some
among your friends who have regretted the great intimacy which chance
produced between me and my lost friend. While she was with us no such
feeling would have sufficed to drive me from her. She had chosen for
herself, and if others disapproved her choice that was nothing to me.
But as regards Lady Mary, it will be better, I think, that from the
beginning she should be taught to look for friendship and guidance to
those--to those who are more naturally connected with her."

"I was not thinking of any guidance," said the Duke.

"Of course not. But with one so young, where there is intimacy there
will be guidance. There should be somebody with her. It was almost
the last thought that occupied her mother's mind. I could not tell
her, Duke, but I can tell you, that I cannot with advantage to your
girl be that somebody."

"Cora wished it."

"Her wishes, probably, were sudden and hardly fixed."

"Who should it be, then?" asked the father, after a pause.

"Who am I, Duke, that I should answer such a question?"

After that there was another pause, and then the conference was ended
by a request from the Duke that Mrs. Finn would stay at Matching for
yet two days longer. At dinner they all met,--the father, the three
children, and Mrs. Finn. How far the young people among themselves
had been able to throw off something of the gloom of death need not
here be asked; but in the presence of their father they were sad and
sombre, almost as he was. On the next day, early in the morning, the
younger lad returned to his college, and Lord Silverbridge went up to
London, where he was supposed to have his home.

"Perhaps you would not mind reading these letters," the Duke said to
Mrs. Finn, when she again went to him, in compliance with a message
from him asking for her presence. Then she sat down and read two
letters, one from Lady Cantrip, and the other from a Mrs. Jeffrey
Palliser, each of which contained an invitation for his daughter,
and expressed a hope that Lady Mary would not be unwilling to spend
some time with the writer. Lady Cantrip's letter was long, and went
minutely into circumstances. If Lady Mary would come to her, she
would abstain from having other company in the house till her young
friend's spirits should have somewhat recovered themselves. Nothing
could be more kind, or proposed in a sweeter fashion. There had,
however, been present to the Duke's mind as he read it a feeling that
a proposition to a bereaved husband to relieve him of the society
of an only daughter, was not one which would usually be made to
a father. In such a position a child's company would probably
be his best solace. But he knew,--at this moment he painfully
remembered,--that he was not as are other men. He acknowledged the
truth of this, but he was not the less grieved and irritated by the
reminder. The letter from Mrs. Jeffrey Palliser was to the same
effect, but was much shorter. If it would suit Mary to come to them
for a month or six weeks at their place in Gloucestershire, they
would both be delighted.

"I should not choose her to go there," said the Duke, as Mrs. Finn
refolded the latter letter. "My cousin's wife is a very good woman,
but Mary would not be happy with her."

"Lady Cantrip is an excellent friend for her."

"Excellent. I know no one whom I esteem more than Lady Cantrip."

"Would you wish her to go there, Duke?"

There came a wistful piteous look over the father's face. Why should
he be treated as no other father would be treated? Why should it
be supposed that he would desire to send his girl away from him?
But yet he felt that it would be better that she should go. It was
his present purpose to remain at Matching through a portion of the
summer. What could he do to make a girl happy? What comfort would
there be in his companionship?

"I suppose she ought to go somewhere," he said.

"I had not thought of it," said Mrs. Finn.

"I understood you to say," replied the Duke, almost angrily, "that
she ought to go to someone who would take care of her."

"I was thinking of some friend coming to her."

"Who would come? Who is there that I could possibly ask? You will not
stay."

"I certainly would stay, if it were for her good. I was thinking,
Duke, that perhaps you might ask the Greys to come to you."

"They would not come," he said, after a pause.

"When she was told that it was for her sake, she would come, I
think."

Then there was another pause. "I could not ask them," he said; "for
his sake I could not have it put to her in that way. Perhaps Mary had
better go to Lady Cantrip. Perhaps I had better be alone here for a
time. I do not think that I am fit to have any human being here with
me in my sorrow."




CHAPTER II

Lady Mary Palliser


It may as well be said at once that Mrs. Finn knew something of Lady
Mary which was not known to the father, and which she was not yet
prepared to make known to him. The last winter abroad had been passed
at Rome, and there Lady Mary Palliser had become acquainted with a
certain Mr. Tregear,--Francis Oliphant Tregear. The Duchess, who had
been in constant correspondence with her friend, had asked questions
by letter as to Mr. Tregear, of whom she had only known that he
was the younger son of a Cornish gentleman, who had become Lord
Silverbridge's friend at Oxford. In this there had certainly been but
little to recommend him to the intimacy of such a girl as Lady Mary
Palliser. Nor had the Duchess, when writing, ever spoken of him as a
probable suitor for her daughter's hand. She had never connected the
two names together. But Mrs. Finn had been clever enough to perceive
that the Duchess had become fond of Mr. Tregear, and would willingly
have heard something to his advantage. And she did hear something to
his advantage,--something also to his disadvantage. At his mother's
death this young man would inherit a property amounting to about
fifteen hundred a year. "And I am told," said Mrs. Finn, "that he is
quite likely to spend his money before it comes to him." There had
been nothing more written specially about Mr. Tregear; but Mrs. Finn
had feared not only that the young man loved the girl, but that the
young man's love had in some imprudent way been fostered by the
mother.

Then there had been some fitful confidence during those few days
of acute illness. Why should not the girl have the man if he were
lovable? And the Duchess referred to her own early days when she had
loved, and to the great ruin which had come upon her heart when she
had been severed from the man she had loved. "Not but that it has
been all for the best," she had said. "Not but that Plantagenet has
been to me all that a husband should be. Only if she can be spared
what I suffered, let her be spared." Even when these things had been
said to her, Mrs. Finn had found herself unable to ask questions.
She could not bring herself to inquire whether the girl had in truth
given her heart to this young Tregear. The one was nineteen and the
other as yet but two-and-twenty! But though she asked no questions
she almost knew that it must be so. And she knew also that the
father, as yet, was quite in the dark on the matter. How was it
possible that in such circumstances she should assume the part of the
girl's confidential friend and monitress? Were she to do so she must
immediately tell the father everything. In such a position no one
could be a better friend than Lady Cantrip, and Mrs. Finn had already
almost made up her mind that, should Lady Cantrip occupy the place,
she would tell her ladyship all that had passed between herself and
the Duchess on the subject.

Of what hopes she might have, or what fears, about her girl, the
Duchess had said no word to her husband. But when she had believed
that the things of the world were fading away from her, and when he
was sitting by her bedside,--dumb, because at such a moment he knew
not how to express the tenderness of his heart,--holding her hand,
and trying so to listen to her words, that he might collect and
remember every wish, she had murmured something about the ultimate
division of the great wealth with which she herself had been endowed.
"She had never," she said, "even tried to remember what arrangements
had been made by lawyers, but she hoped that Mary might be so
circumstanced, that if her happiness depended on marrying a poor
man, want of money need not prevent it." The Duke suspecting nothing,
believing this to be a not unnatural expression of maternal interest,
had assured her that Mary's fortune would be ample.

Mrs. Finn made the proposition to Lady Mary in respect to Lady
Cantrip's invitation. Lady Mary was very like her mother, especially
in having exactly her mother's tone of voice, her quick manner of
speech, and her sharp intelligence. She had also her mother's eyes,
large and round, and almost blue, full of life and full of courage,
eyes which never seemed to quail, and her mother's dark brown hair,
never long but very copious in its thickness. She was, however,
taller than her mother, and very much more graceful in her movement.
And she could already assume a personal dignity of manner which had
never been within her mother's reach. She had become aware of a
certain brusqueness of speech in her mother, a certain aptitude to
say sharp things without thinking whether the sharpness was becoming
to the position which she held, and, taking advantage of the example,
the girl had already learned that she might gain more than she would
lose by controlling her words.

"Papa wants me to go to Lady Cantrip," she said.

"I think he would like it,--just for the present, Lady Mary."

Though there had been the closest possible intimacy between the
Duchess and Mrs. Finn, this had hardly been so as to the intercourse
between Mrs. Finn and the children. Of Mrs. Finn it must be
acknowledged that she was, perhaps fastidiously, afraid of appearing
to take advantage of her friendship with the Duke's family. She would
tell herself that though circumstances had compelled her to be the
closest and nearest friend of a Duchess, still her natural place was
not among dukes and their children, and therefore in her intercourse
with the girl she did not at first assume the manner and bearing
which her position in the house would have seemed to warrant. Hence
the "Lady Mary."

"Why does he want to send me away, Mrs. Finn?"

"It is not that he wants to send you away, but that he thinks it will
be better for you to be with some friend. Here you must be so much
alone."

"Why don't you stay? But I suppose Mr. Finn wants you to be back in
London."

"It is not that only, or, to speak the truth, not that at all. Mr.
Finn could come here if it were suitable. Or for a week or two he
might do very well without me. But there are other reasons. There is
no one whom your mother respected more highly than Lady Cantrip."

"I never heard her speak a word of Lady Cantrip."

"Both he and she are your father's intimate friends."

"Does papa want to be--alone here?"

"It is you, not himself, of whom he is thinking."

"Therefore I must think of him, Mrs. Finn. I do not wish him to be
alone. I am sure it would be better that I should stay with him."

"He feels that it would not be well that you should live without the
companionship of some lady."

"Then let him find some lady. You would be the best, because he knows
you so well. I, however, am not afraid of being alone. I am sure he
ought not to be here quite by himself. If he bids me go, I must go,
and then of course I shall go where he sends me; but I won't say that
I think it best that I should go, and certainly I do not want to go
to Lady Cantrip." This she said with great decision, as though the
matter was one on which she had altogether made up her mind. Then she
added, in a lower voice: "Why doesn't papa speak to me about it?"

"He is thinking only of what may be best for you."

"It would be best for me to stay near him. Whom else has he got?"

All this Mrs. Finn repeated to the Duke as closely as she could, and
then of course the father was obliged to speak to his daughter.

"Don't send me away, papa," she said at once.

"Your life here, Mary, will be inexpressibly sad."

"It must be sad anywhere. I cannot go to college, like Gerald, or
live anywhere just as I please, like Silverbridge."

"Do you envy them that?"

"Sometimes, papa. Only I shall think more of poor mamma by being
alone, and I should like to be thinking of her always." He shook his
head mournfully. "I do not mean that I shall always be unhappy, as I
am now."

"No, my dear; you are too young for that. It is only the old who
suffer in that way."

"You will suffer less if I am with you; won't you, papa? I do not
want to go to Lady Cantrip. I hardly remember her at all."

"She is very good."

"Oh yes. That is what they used to say to mamma about Lady
Midlothian. Papa, pray do not send me to Lady Cantrip."

Of course it was decided that she should not go to Lady Cantrip at
once, or to Mrs. Jeffrey Palliser, and, after a short interval of
doubt, it was decided also that Mrs. Finn should remain at Matching
for at least a fortnight. The Duke declared that he would be glad
to see Mr. Finn, but she knew that in his present mood the society
of any one man to whom he would feel himself called upon to devote
his time, would be a burden to him, and she plainly said that Mr.
Finn had better not come to Matching at present. "There are old
associations," she said, "which will enable you to bear with me as
you will with your butler or your groom, but you are not as yet quite
able to make yourself happy with company." This he bore with perfect
equanimity, and then, as it were, handed over his daughter to Mrs.
Finn's care.

Very quickly there came to be close intimacy between Mrs. Finn
and Lady Mary. For a day or two the elder woman, though the place
she filled was one of absolute confidence, rather resisted than
encouraged the intimacy. She always remembered that the girl was the
daughter of a great duke, and that her position in the house had
sprung from circumstances which would not, perhaps, in the eyes of
the world at large, have recommended her for such friendship. She
knew--the reader may possibly know--that nothing had ever been
purer, nothing more disinterested than her friendship. But she knew
also,--no one knew better,--that the judgment of men and women
does not always run parallel with facts. She entertained, too, a
conviction in regard to herself, that hard words and hard judgments
were to be expected from the world,--were to be accepted by her
without any strong feeling of injustice,--because she had been
elevated by chance to the possession of more good things than she
had merited. She weighed all this with a very fine balance, and even
after the encouragement she had received from the Duke, was intent on
confining herself to some position about the girl inferior to that
which such a friend as Lady Cantrip might have occupied. But the
girl's manner, and the girl's speech about her own mother, overcame
her. It was the unintentional revelation of the Duchess's constant
reference to her,--the way in which Lady Mary would assert that
"Mamma used always to say this of you; mamma always knew that you
would think so and so; mamma used to say that you had told her." It
was the feeling thus conveyed, that the mother who was now dead had
in her daily dealings with her own child spoken of her as her nearest
friend, which mainly served to conquer the deference of manner which
she had assumed.

Then gradually there came confidences,--and at last absolute
confidence. The whole story about Mr. Tregear was told. Yes; she
loved Mr. Tregear. She had given him her heart, and had told him so.

"Then, my dear, your father ought to know it," said Mrs. Finn.

"No; not yet. Mamma knew it."

"Did she know all that you have told me?"

"Yes; all. And Mr. Tregear spoke to her, and she said that papa ought
not to be told quite yet."

Mrs. Finn could not but remember that the friend she had lost was
not, among women, the one best able to give a girl good counsel in
such a crisis.

"Why not yet, dear?"

"Well, because--. It is very hard to explain. In the first place,
because Mr. Tregear himself does not wish it."

"That is a very bad reason; the worst in the world."

"Of course you will say so. Of course everybody would say so. But
when there is one person whom one loves better than all the rest,
for whom one would be ready to die, to whom one is determined that
everything shall be devoted, surely the wishes of a person so dear as
that ought to have weight."

"Not in persuading you to do that which is acknowledged to be wrong."

"What wrong? I am going to do nothing wrong."

"The very concealment of your love is wrong, after that love has been
not only given but declared. A girl's position in such matters is so
delicate, especially that of such a girl as you!"

"I know all about that," said Lady Mary, with something almost
approaching to scorn in her tone. "Of course I have to be--delicate.
I don't quite know what the word means. I am not a bit ashamed of
being in love with Mr. Tregear. He is a gentleman, highly educated,
very clever, of an old family,--older, I believe, than papa's. And he
is manly and handsome; just what a young man ought to be. Only he is
not rich."

"If he be all that you say, ought you not to trust your papa? If he
approve of it, he could give you money."

"Of course he must be told; but not now. He is nearly broken-hearted
about dear mamma. He could not bring himself to care about anything
of that kind at present. And then it is Mr. Tregear that should speak
to him first."

"Not now, Mary."

"How do you mean not now?"

"If you had a mother you would talk to her about it."

"Mamma knew."

"If she were still living she would tell your father."

"But she didn't tell him though she did know. She didn't mean to tell
him quite yet. She wanted to see Mr. Tregear here in England first.
Of course I shall do nothing till papa does know."

"You will not see him?"

"How can I see him here? He will not come here, if you mean that."

"You do not correspond with him?" Here for the first time the girl
blushed. "Oh, Mary, if you are writing to him your father ought to
know it."

"I have not written to him; but when he heard how ill poor mamma was,
then he wrote to me--twice. You may see his letters. It is all about
her. No one worshipped mamma as he did."

Gradually the whole story was told. These two young persons
considered themselves to be engaged, but had agreed that their
engagement should not be made known to the Duke till something had
occurred, or some time had arrived, as to which Mr. Tregear was to be
the judge. In Mrs. Finn's opinion nothing could be more unwise, and
she said much to induce the girl to confess everything to her father
at once. But in all her arguments she was opposed by the girl's
reference to her mother. "Mamma knew it." And it did certainly seem
to Mrs. Finn as though the mother had assented to this imprudent
concealment. When she endeavoured, in her own mind, to make excuse
for her friend, she felt almost sure that the Duchess, with all
her courage, had been afraid to propose to her husband that their
daughter should marry a commoner without an income. But in thinking
of all that, there could now be nothing gained. What ought she to
do--at once? The girl, in telling her, had exacted no promise of
secrecy, nor would she have given any such promise; but yet she did
not like the idea of telling the tale behind the girl's back. It was
evident that Lady Mary had considered herself to be safe in confiding
her story to her mother's old friend. Lady Mary no doubt had had her
confidences with her mother,--confidences from which it had been
intended by both that the father should be excluded; and now she
seemed naturally to expect that this new ally should look at this
great question as her mother had looked at it. The father had been
regarded as a great outside power, which could hardly be overcome,
but which might be evaded, or made inoperative by stratagem. It was
not that the daughter did not love him. She loved him and venerated
him highly,--the veneration perhaps being stronger than the love. The
Duchess, too, had loved him dearly,--more dearly in late years than
in her early life. But her husband to her had always been an outside
power which had in many cases to be evaded. Lady Mary, though she did
not express all this, evidently thought that in this new friend she
had found a woman whose wishes and aspirations for her would be those
which her mother had entertained.

But Mrs. Finn was much troubled in her mind, thinking that it was her
duty to tell the story to the Duke. It was not only the daughter who
had trusted her, but the father also; and the father's confidence had
been not only the first but by far the holier of the two. And the
question was one so important to the girl's future happiness! There
could be no doubt that the peril of her present position was very
great.

"Mary," she said one morning, when the fortnight was nearly at an
end, "your father ought to know all this. I should feel that I had
betrayed him were I to go away leaving him in ignorance."

"You do not mean to say that you will tell?" said the girl, horrified
at the idea of such treachery.

"I wish that I could induce you to do so. Every day that he is kept
in the dark is an injury to you."

"I am doing nothing. What harm can come? It is not as though I were
seeing him every day."

"This harm will come; your father of course will know that you became
engaged to Mr. Tregear in Italy, and that a fact so important to him
has been kept back from him."

"If there is anything in that, the evil has been done already. Of
course poor mamma did mean to tell him."

"She cannot tell him now, and therefore you ought to do what she
would have done."

"I cannot break my promise to him." "Him" always meant Mr. Tregear.
"I have told him that I would not do so till I had his consent, and I
will not."

This was very dreadful to Mrs. Finn, and yet she was most unwilling
to take upon herself the part of a stern elder, and declare that
under the circumstances she must tell the tale. The story had been
told to her under the supposition that she was not a stern elder,
that she was regarded as the special friend of the dear mother who
was gone, that she might be trusted to assist against the terrible
weight of parental authority. She could not endure to be regarded at
once as a traitor by this young friend who had sweetly inherited the
affection with which the Duchess had regarded her. And yet if she
were to be silent how could she forgive herself? "The Duke certainly
ought to know at once," said she, repeating her words merely that she
might gain some time for thinking, and pluck up courage to declare
her purpose, should she resolve on betraying the secret.

"If you tell him now, I will never forgive you," said Lady Mary.

"I am bound in honour to see that your father knows a thing which is
of such vital importance to him and to you. Having heard all this
I have no right to keep it from him. If Mr. Tregear really loves
you"--Lady Mary smiled at the doubt implied by this suggestion--"he
ought to feel that for your sake there should be no secret from your
father." Then she paused a moment to think. "Will you let me see Mr.
Tregear myself, and talk to him about it?"

To this Lady Mary at first demurred, but when she found that in no
other way could she prevent Mrs. Finn from going at once to the
Duke and telling him everything, she consented. Under Mrs. Finn's
directions she wrote a note to her lover, which Mrs. Finn saw,
and then undertook to send it, with a letter from herself, to Mr.
Tregear's address in London. The note was very short, and was indeed
dictated by the elder lady, with some dispute, however, as to certain
terms, in which the younger lady had her way. It was as follows:


   DEAREST FRANK,

   I wish you to see Mrs. Finn, who, as you know, was dear
   mamma's most particular friend. Please go to her, as she
   will ask you to do. When you hear what she says I think
   you ought to do what she advises.

   Yours for ever and always,

   M. P.


This Mrs. Finn sent enclosed in an envelope, with a few words from
herself, asking the gentleman to call upon her in Park Lane, on a day
and at an hour fixed.




CHAPTER III

Francis Oliphant Tregear


Mr. Francis Oliphant Tregear was a young man who might not improbably
make a figure in the world, should circumstances be kind to him,
but as to whom it might be doubted whether circumstances would be
sufficiently kind to enable him to use serviceably his unquestionable
talents and great personal gifts. He had taught himself to regard
himself as a young English gentleman of the first water, qualified
by his birth and position to live with all that was most noble and
most elegant; and he could have lived in that sphere naturally
and gracefully were it not that the part of the "sphere" which he
specially affected requires wealth as well as birth and intellect.
Wealth he had not, and yet he did not abandon the sphere. As a
consequence of all this, it was possible that the predictions of his
friends as to that figure which he was to make in the world might be
disappointed.

He had been educated at Eton, from whence he had been sent to Christ
Church; and both at school and at college had been the most intimate
friend of the son and heir of a great and wealthy duke. He and Lord
Silverbridge had been always together, and they who were interested
in the career of the young nobleman had generally thought he had
chosen his friend well. Tregear had gone out in honours, having
been a second-class man. His friend Silverbridge, we know, had been
allowed to take no degree at all; but the terrible practical joke
by which the whole front of the Dean's house had been coloured
scarlet in the middle of the night, had been carried on without any
assistance from Tregear. The two young men had then been separated
for a year; but immediately after taking his degree, Tregear, at the
invitation of Lord Silverbridge, had gone to Italy, and had there
completely made good his footing with the Duchess,--with what effect
on another member of the Palliser family the reader already knows.

The young man was certainly clever. When the Duchess found that he
could talk without any shyness, that he could speak French fluently,
and that after a month in Italy he could chatter Italian, at any rate
without reticence or shame; when she perceived that all the women
liked the lad's society and impudence, and that all the young men
were anxious to know him, she was glad to find that Silverbridge
had chosen so valuable a friend. And then he was beautiful to look
at,--putting her almost in mind of another man on whom her eyes had
once loved to dwell. He was dark, with hair that was almost black,
but yet was not black; with clear brown eyes, a nose as regular as
Apollo's, and a mouth in which was ever to be found that expression
of manliness, which of all characteristics is the one which women
love the best. He was five feet ten in height. He was always well
dressed, and yet always so dressed as to seem to show that his
outside garniture had not been matter of trouble to him. Before the
Duchess had dreamed what might take place between this young man and
her daughter she had been urgent in her congratulations to her son as
to the possession of such a friend.

For though she now and then would catch a glimpse of the outer man,
which would remind her of that other beautiful one whom she had
known in her youth, and though, as these glimpses came, she would
remember how poor in spirit and how unmanly that other one had
been, though she would confess to herself how terrible had been the
heart-shipwreck which that other one had brought upon herself; still
she was able completely to assure herself that this man, though not
superior in external grace, was altogether different in mind and
character. She was old enough now to see all this and to appreciate
it. Young Tregear had his own ideas about the politics of the day,
and they were ideas with which she sympathised, though they were
antagonistic to the politics of her life. He had his ideas about
books too, as to manners of life, as to art, and even ethics. Whether
or no in all this there was not much that was superficial only, she
was not herself deep enough to discover. Nor would she have been
deterred from admiring him had she been told that it was tinsel. Such
were the acquirements, such the charms, that she loved. Here was a
young man who dared to speak, and had always something ready to be
spoken; who was not afraid of beauty, nor daunted by superiority of
rank; who, if he had not money, could carry himself on equal terms
among those who had. In this way he won the Duchess's heart, and
having done that, was it odd that he should win the heart of the
daughter also?

His father was a Cornwall squire of comfortable means, having joined
the property of his wife to his own for the period of his own life.
She had possessed land also in Cornwall, supposed to be worth fifteen
hundred a year, and his own paternal estate at Polwenning was said
to be double that value. Being a prudent man, he lived at home as a
country gentleman, and thus was able in his county to hold his head
as high as richer men. But Frank Tregear was only his second son; and
though Frank would hereafter inherit his mother's fortune, he was by
no means now in a position to assume the right of living as an idle
man. Yet he was idle. The elder brother, who was considerably older
than Frank, was an odd man, much addicted to quarrelling with his
family, and who spent his time chiefly in travelling about the world.
Frank's mother, who was not the mother of the heir also, would
sometimes surmise, in Frank's hearing, that the entire property must
ultimately come to him. That other Tregear, who was now supposed to
be investigating the mountains of Crim Tartary, would surely never
marry. And Frank was the favourite also with his father, who paid
his debts at Oxford with not much grumbling; who was proud of his
friendship with a future duke; who did not urge, as he ought to have
urged, that vital question of a profession; and who, when he allowed
his son four hundred pounds a year, was almost content with that
son's protestations that he knew how to live as a poor man among rich
men, without chagrin and without trouble.

Such was the young man who now, in lieu of a profession, had taken
upon himself the responsibility of an engagement with Lady Mary
Palliser. He was tolerably certain that, should he be able to
overcome the parental obstacles which he would no doubt find in his
path, money would be forthcoming sufficient for the purposes of
matrimonial life. The Duke's wealth was fabulous, and as a great
part of it, if not the greater, had come from his wife, there would
probably be ample provision for the younger children. And when the
Duchess had found out how things were going, and had yielded to her
daughter, after an opposition which never had the appearance even of
being in earnest, she had taken upon herself to say that she would
use her influence to prevent any great weight of trouble from
pecuniary matters. Frank Tregear, young and bright, and full of
hearty ambitions, was certainly not the man to pursue a girl simply
because of her fortune; nor was he weak enough to be attracted simply
by the glitter of rank; but he was wise enough with worldly wisdom
to understand thoroughly the comforts of a good income, and he was
sufficiently attached to high position to feel the advantage of
marrying a daughter of the Duke of Omnium.

When the Duchess was leaving Italy, it had been her declared purpose
to tell her husband the story as soon as they were at home in
England. And it was on this understanding that Frank Tregear had
explained to the girl that he would not as yet ask her father for
his permission to be received into the family as a suitor. Everyone
concerned had felt that the Duke would not easily be reconciled to
such a son-in-law, and that the Duchess should be the one to bell the
cat.

There was one member of the family who had hitherto been half-hearted
in the matter. Lord Silverbridge had vacillated between loyalty to
his friend and a certain feeling as to the impropriety of such a
match for his sister. He was aware that something very much better
should be expected for her, and still was unable to explain his
objections to Tregear. He had not at first been admitted into
confidence, either by his sister or by Tregear, but had questioned
his friend when he saw what was going on. "Certainly I love your
sister," Tregear had said; "do you object?" Lord Silverbridge was the
weaker of the two, and much subject to the influence of his friend;
but he could on occasion be firm, and he did at first object. But he
did not object strongly, and allowed himself at last to be content
with declaring that the Duke would never give his consent.

While Tregear was with his love, or near her, his hopes and fears
were sufficient to occupy his mind; and immediately on his return,
all the world was nothing to him, except as far as the world was
concerned with Lady Mary Palliser. He had come back to England
somewhat before the ducal party, and the pleasures and occupations
of London life had not abated his love, but enabled him to feel that
there was something in life over and beyond his love; whereas to
Lady Mary, down at Matching, there had been nothing over and beyond
her love--except the infinite grief and desolation produced by her
mother's death.

Tregear, when he received the note from Mrs. Finn, was staying at
the Duke's house in Carlton Terrace. Silverbridge was there, and, on
leaving Matching, had asked the Duke's permission to have his friend
with him. The Duke at that time was not well pleased with his son
as to a matter of politics, and gave his son's friend credit for
the evil counsel which had produced this displeasure. But still
he had not refused his assent to this proposition. Had he done so,
Silverbridge would probably have gone elsewhere; and though there
was a matter in respect to Tregear of which the Duke disapproved, it
was not a matter, as he thought, which would have justified him in
expelling the young man from his house. The young man was a strong
Conservative; and now Silverbridge had declared his purpose of
entering the House of Commons, if he did enter it, as one of the
Conservative party.

This had been a terrible blow to the Duke; and he believed that it
all came from this young Tregear. Still he must do his duty, and not
more than his duty. He knew nothing against Tregear. That a Tregear
should be a Conservative was perhaps natural enough--at any rate, was
not disgraceful; that he should have his political creed sufficiently
at heart to be able to persuade another man, was to his credit.
He was a gentleman, well educated, superior in many things to
Silverbridge himself. There were those who said that Silverbridge
had redeemed himself from contempt--from that sort of contempt which
might be supposed to await a young nobleman who had painted scarlet
the residence of the Head of his college--by the fact of his having
chosen such a friend. The Duke was essentially a just man; and
though, at the very moment in which the request was made, his heart
was half crushed by his son's apostasy, he gave the permission asked.

"You know Mrs. Finn?" Tregear said to his friend one morning at
breakfast.

"I remember her all my life. She used to be a great deal with my
grandfather. I believe he left her a lot of diamonds and money, and
that she wouldn't have them. I don't know whether the diamonds are
not locked up somewhere now, so that she can take them when she
pleases."

"What a singular woman!"

"It was odd; but she had some fad about it. What makes you ask about
Mrs. Finn?"

"She wants me to go and see her."

"What about?"

"I think I have heard your mother speak of her as though she loved
her dearly," said Tregear.

"I don't know about loving her dearly. They were intimate, and Mrs.
Finn used to be with her very much when she was in the country. She
was at Matching just now, when my poor mother died. Why does she want
to see you?"

"She has written to me from Matching. She wants to see me--"

"Well?"

"To tell you the truth, I do not know what she has to say to me;
though I can guess."

"What do you guess?"

"It is something about your sister."

"You will have to give that up, Tregear."

"I think not."

"Yes, you will; my father will never stand it."

"I don't know what there is to stand. I am not noble, nor am I rich;
but I am as good a gentleman as he is."

"My dear fellow," said the young lord, "you know very well what I
think about all that. A fellow is not any better to me because he
has got a title, nor yet because he owns half a county. But men have
their ideas and feelings about it. My father is a rich man, and of
course he'll want his daughter to marry a rich man. My father is
noble, and he'll want his daughter to marry a nobleman. You can't
very well marry Mary without his permission, and therefore you had
better let it alone."

"I haven't even asked his permission as yet."

"Even my mother was afraid to speak to him about it, and I never knew
her to be afraid to say anything else to him."

"I shall not be afraid," said Tregear, looking grimly.

"I should. That's the difference between us."

"He can't very well eat me."

"Nor even bite you;--nor will he abuse you. But he can look at you,
and he can say a word or two which you will find it very hard to
bear. My governor is the quietest man I know, but he has a way
of making himself disagreeable when he wishes, that I never saw
equalled."

"At any rate, I had better go and see your Mrs. Finn." Then Tregear
wrote a line to Mrs. Finn, and made his appointment.




CHAPTER IV

Park Lane


From the beginning of the affair Tregear had found the necessity
of bolstering himself up inwardly in his great attempt by mottoes,
proverbs, and instigations to courage addressed to himself. "None but
the brave deserve the fair." "De l'audace, et encore de l'audace, et
toujours de l'audace." He was a man naturally of good heart in such
matters, who was not afraid of his brother-men, nor yet of women,
his sisters. But in this affair he knew very much persistence would
be required of him, and that even with such persistence he might
probably fail, unless he should find a more than ordinary constancy
in the girl. That the Duke could not eat him, indeed that nobody
could eat him as long as he carried himself as an honest man and a
gentleman, was to him an inward assurance on which he leaned much.
And yet he was conscious, almost with a feeling of shame, that in
Italy he had not spoken to the Duke about his daughter because he was
afraid lest the Duke might eat him. In such an affair he should have
been careful from the first to keep his own hands thoroughly clean.
Had it not been his duty as a gentleman to communicate with the
father, if not before he gained the girl's heart, at any rate as soon
as he knew he had done so? He had left Italy thinking that he would
certainly meet the Duchess and her daughter in London, and that then
he might go to the Duke as though this love of his had arisen from
the sweetness of those meetings in London. But all these ideas had
been dissipated by the great misfortune of the death of Lady Mary's
mother. From all this he was driven to acknowledge to himself that
his silence in Italy had been wrong, that he had been weak in
allowing himself to be guided by the counsel of the Duchess, and that
he had already armed the Duke with one strong argument against him.

He did not doubt but that Mrs. Finn would be opposed to him. Of
course he could not doubt but that all the world would now be opposed
to him,--except the girl herself. He would find no other friend so
generous, so romantic, so unworldly as the Duchess had been. It was
clear to him that Lady Mary had told the story of her engagement to
Mrs. Finn, and that Mrs. Finn had not as yet told it to the Duke.
From this he was justified in regarding Mrs. Finn as the girl's
friend. The request made was that he should at once do something
which Mrs. Finn was to suggest. He could hardly have been so
requested, and that in terms of such warm affection, had it been Mrs.
Finn's intention to ask him to desist altogether from his courtship.
This woman was regarded by Lady Mary as her mother's dearest friend.
It was therefore incumbent on him now to induce her to believe in him
as the Duchess had believed.

He knocked at the door of Mrs. Finn's little house in Park Lane a
few minutes before the time appointed, and found himself alone when
he was shown into the drawing-room. He had heard much of this lady
though he had never seen her, and had heard much also of her husband.
There had been a kind of mystery about her. People did not quite
understand how it was that she had been so intimate with the Duchess,
nor why the late Duke had left to her an enormous legacy, which as
yet had never been claimed. There was supposed, too, to have been
something especially romantic in her marriage with her present
husband. It was believed also that she was very rich. The rumours of
all these things together had made her a person of note, and Tregear,
when he found himself alone in the drawing-room, looked round about
him as though a special interest was to be attached to the belongings
of such a woman. It was a pretty room, somewhat dark, because the
curtains were almost closed across the windows, but furnished with
a pretty taste, and now, in these early April days, filled with
flowers.

"I have to apologise, Mr. Tregear, for keeping you waiting," she said
as she entered the room.

"I fear I was before my time."

"I know that I am after mine,--a few minutes," said the lady.

He told himself that though she was not a young woman, yet she was
attractive. She was dark, and still wore her black hair in curls,
such as are now seldom seen with ladies. Perhaps the reduced light of
the chamber had been regulated with some regard to her complexion and
to her age. The effect, however, was good, and Frank Tregear felt at
once interested in her.

"You have just come up from Matching?" he said.

"Yes; only the day before yesterday. It is very good of you to come
to me so soon."

"Of course I came when you sent for me. I am afraid the Duke felt his
loss severely."

"How should he not, such a loss as it was? Few people knew how much
he trusted her, and how dearly he loved her."

"Silverbridge has told me that he is awfully cut up."

"You have seen Lord Silverbridge then?"

"Just at present I am living with him, at Carlton Terrace."

"In the Duke's house?" she asked, with some surprise.

"Yes; in the Duke's house. Silverbridge and I have been very
intimate. Of course the Duke knows that I am there. Is there any
chance of his coming to town?"

"Not yet, I fear. He is determined to be alone. I wish it were
otherwise, as I am sure he would better bear his sorrow, if he would
go about among other men."

"No doubt he would suffer less," said Tregear. Then there was a
pause. Each wished that the other should introduce the matter which
both knew was to be the subject of their conversation. But Tregear
would not begin. "When I left them all at Florence," he said, "I
little thought that I should never see her again."

"You had been intimate with them, Mr. Tregear?"

"Yes; I think I may say I have been intimate with them. I had been at
Eton and at Christ Church with Silverbridge, and we have always been
much together."

"I have understood that. Have you and the Duke been good friends?"

"We have never been enemies."

"I suppose not that."

"The Duke, I think, does not much care about young people. I hardly
know what he used to do with himself. When I dined with them, I saw
him, but I did not often do that. I think he used to read a good
deal, and walk about alone. We were always riding."

"Lady Mary used to ride?"

"Oh yes; and Lord Silverbridge and Lord Gerald. And the Duchess used
to drive. One of us would always be with her."

"And so you became intimate with the whole family?"

"So I became intimate with the whole family."

"And especially so with Lady Mary?" This she said in her sweetest
possible tone, and with a most gracious smile.

"Especially so with Lady Mary," he replied.

"It will be very good of you, Mr. Tregear, if you endure and forgive
all this cross-questioning from me, who am a perfect stranger to
you."

"But you are not a perfect stranger to her."

"That is it, of course. Now, if you will allow me, I will explain to
you exactly what my footing with her is. When the Duchess returned,
and when I found her to be so ill as she passed through London, I
went down with her into the country,--quite as a matter of course."

"So I understand."

"And there she died,--in my arms. I will not try to harass you by
telling you what those few days were; how absolutely he was struck to
the ground, how terrible was the grief of the daughter, how the boys
were astonished by the feeling of their loss. After a few days they
went away. It was, I think, their father's wish that they should go.
And I too was going away,--and had felt, indeed, directly her spirit
had parted from her, that I was only in the way in his house. But I
stayed at his request, because he did not wish his daughter to be
alone."

"I can easily understand that, Mrs. Finn."

"I wanted her to go to Lady Cantrip who had invited her, but she
would not. In that way we were thrown together in the closest
intercourse, for two or three weeks. Then she told me the story of
your engagement."

"That was natural, I suppose."

"Surely so. Think of her position, left as she is without a mother!
It was incumbent on her to tell someone. There was, however, one
other person in whom it would have been much better that she should
have confided."

"What person?"

"Her father."

"I rather fancy that it is I who ought to tell him."

"As far as I understand these things, Mr. Tregear,--which, indeed, is
very imperfectly,--I think it is natural that a girl should at once
tell her mother when a gentleman has made her understand that he
loves her."

"She did so, Mrs. Finn."

"And I suppose that generally the mother would tell the father."

"She did not."

"No; and therefore the position of the young lady is now one of great
embarrassment. The Duchess has gone from us, and we must now make up
our minds as to what had better be done. It is out of the question
that Lady Mary should be allowed to consider herself to be engaged,
and that the father should be kept in ignorance of her position." She
paused for his reply, but as he said nothing, she continued: "Either
you must tell the Duke, or she must do so, or I must do so."

"I suppose she told you in confidence."

"No doubt. She told it me presuming that I would not betray her; but
I shall,--if that be a betrayal. The Duke must know it. It will be
infinitely better that he should know it through you, or through her,
than through me. But he must be told."

"I can't quite see why," said Tregear.

"For her sake,--whom I suppose you love."

"Certainly I love her."

"In order that she may not suffer. I wonder you do not see it, Mr.
Tregear. Perhaps you have a sister."

"I have no sister as it happens."

"But you can imagine what your feelings would be. Should you like to
think of a sister as being engaged to a man without the knowledge of
any of her family?"

"It was not so. The Duchess knew it. The present condition of things
is altogether an accident."

"It is an accident that must be brought to an end."

"Of course it must be brought to an end. I am not such a fool as to
suppose that I can make her my wife without telling her father."

"I mean at once, Mr. Tregear."

"It seems to me that you are rather dictating to me, Mrs. Finn."

"I owe you an apology, of course, for meddling in your affairs at
all. But as it will be more conducive to your success that the Duke
should hear this from you than from me, and as I feel that I am bound
by my duty to him and to Lady Mary to see that he be not left in
ignorance, I think that I am doing you a service."

"I do not like to have a constraint put upon me."

"That, Mr. Tregear, is what gentlemen, I fancy, very often feel in
regard to ladies. But the constraint of which you speak is necessary
for their protection. Are you unwilling to see the Duke?"

He was very unwilling, but he would not confess so much. He gave
various reasons for delay, urging repeatedly that the question of his
marriage was one which he could not press upon the Duke so soon after
the death of the Duchess. And when she assured him that this was a
matter of importance so great, that even the death of the man's wife
should not be held by him to justify delay, he became angry, and for
awhile insisted that he must be allowed to follow his own judgment.
But he gave her a promise that he would see the Duke before a week
was over. Nevertheless he left the house in dudgeon, having told Mrs.
Finn more than once that she was taking advantage of Lady Mary's
confidence. They hardly parted as friends, and her feeling was, on
the whole, hostile to him and to his love. It could not, she thought,
be for the happiness of such a one as Lady Mary that she should give
herself to one who seemed to have so little to recommend him.

He, when he had left her, was angry with his own weakness. He had not
only promised that he would make his application to the Duke, but
that he would do so within the period of a week. Who was she that she
should exact terms from him after this fashion, and prescribe days
and hours? And now, because this strange woman had spoken to him, he
was compelled to make a journey down to the Duke's country house, and
seek an interview in which he would surely be snubbed!

This occurred on a Wednesday, and he resolved that he would go down
to Matching on the next Monday. He said nothing of his plan to any
one, and not a word passed between him and Lord Silverbridge about
Lady Mary during the first two or three days. But on the Saturday
Silverbridge appeared at breakfast with a letter in his hand. "The
governor is coming up to town," he said.

"Immediately?"

"In the course of next week. He says that he thinks he shall be here
on Wednesday."

It immediately struck Tregear that this sudden journey must have some
reference to Lady Mary and her engagement. "Do you know why he is
coming?"

"Because of these vacancies in Parliament."

"Why should that bring him up?"

"I suppose he hopes to be able to talk me into obedience. He wants me
to stand for the county--as a Liberal, of course. I intend to stand
for the borough as a Conservative, and I have told them so down
at Silverbridge. I am very sorry to annoy him, and all that kind
of thing. But what the deuce is a fellow to do? If a man has got
political convictions of his own, of course, he must stick to them."
This the young Lord said with a good deal of self-assurance, as
though he, by the light of his own reason, had ascertained on which
side the truth lay in political contests of the day.

"There is a good deal to be said on both sides of the question, my
boy." At this particular moment Tregear felt that the Duke ought to
be propitiated.

"You wouldn't have me give up my convictions!"

"A seat in Parliament is a great thing."

"I can probably secure that, whichever side I take. I thought you
were so devilish hot against the Radicals."

"So I am. But then you are, as it were, bound by family allegiance."

"I'll be shot if I am. One never knows how to understand you
nowadays. It used to be a great doctrine with you, that nothing
should induce a man to vote against his political opinions."

"So it is,--if he has really got any. However, as your father is
coming to London, I need not go down to Matching."

"You don't mean to say that you were going to Matching?"

"I had intended to beard the lion in his country den; but now the
lion will find me in his own town den, and I must beard him here."

Then Tregear wrote a most chilling note to Mrs. Finn, informing her
with great precision, that, as the Duke of Omnium intended to be in
town one day next week, he would postpone the performance of his
promise for a day or two beyond the allotted time.




CHAPTER V

"It Is Impossible"


Down at Matching Lady Mary's life was very dull after Mrs. Finn had
left her. She had a horse to ride, but had no one to ride with her.
She had a carriage in which to be driven, but no one to be driven
with her, and no special places whither to go. Her father would walk
daily for two hours, and she would accompany him when he encouraged
her to do so; but she had an idea that he preferred taking his walks
alone, and when they were together there was no feeling of confidence
between them. There could be none on her part, as she knew that she
was keeping back information which he was entitled to possess. On
this matter she received two letters from Mrs. Finn, in the first of
which she was told that Mr. Tregear intended to present himself at
Matching within a few days, and was advised in the same letter not to
endeavour to see her lover on that occasion; and then, in the second
she was informed that this interview with her father was to be sought
not at Matching but in London. From this latter letter there was of
course some disappointment, though some feeling of relief. Had he
come there she might possibly have seen him after the interview.
But she would have been subjected to the immediate sternness of her
father's anger. That she would now escape. She would not be called
on to meet him just when the first blow had fallen upon him. She was
quite sure that he would disapprove of the thing. She was quite sure
that he would be very angry. She knew that he was a peculiarly just
man, and yet she thought that in this he would be unjust. Had she
been called upon to sing the praises of her father she would have
insisted above all things on the absolute integrity of his mind, and
yet, knowing as she did that he would be opposed to her marriage with
Mr. Tregear, she assured herself every day and every hour that he
had no right to make any such objection. The man she loved was a
gentleman, and an honest man, by no means a fool, and subject to no
vices. Her father had no right to demand that she should give her
heart to a rich man, or to one of high rank. Rank! As for rank, she
told herself that she had the most supreme contempt for it. She
thought that she had seen it near enough already to be sure that it
ought to have no special allurements. What was it doing for her?
Simply restraining her choice among comparatively a few who seemed to
her by no means the best endowed of God's creatures.

Of one thing she was very sure, that under no pressure whatsoever
would she abandon her engagement with Mr. Tregear. That to her had
become a bond almost as holy as matrimony itself could be. She had
told the man that she loved him, and after that there could be no
retreat. He had kissed her, and she had returned his caress. He had
told her that she was his, as his arm was round her; and she had
acknowledged that it was so, that she belonged to him, and could not
be taken away from him. All this was to her a compact so sacred that
nothing could break it but a desire on his part to have it annulled.
No other man had ever whispered a word of love to her, of no other
man had an idea entered her mind that it could be pleasant to join
her lot in life with his. With her it had been all new and all
sacred. Love with her had that religion which nothing but freshness
can give it. That freshness, that bloom, may last through a long
life. But every change impairs it, and after many changes it has
perished for ever. There was no question with her but that she
must bear her father's anger, should he be angry; put up with his
continued opposition, should he resolutely oppose her; bear all that
the countesses of the world might say to her;--for it was thus that
she thought of Lady Cantrip now. Any retrogression was beyond her
power.

She was walking with her father when she first heard of his intended
visit to London. At that time she had received Mrs. Finn's first
letter, but not the second. "I suppose you'll see Silverbridge," she
said. She knew then that Frank Tregear was living with her brother.

"I am going up on purpose to see him. He is causing me much
annoyance."

"Is he extravagant?"

"It is not that--at present." He winced even as he said this, for he
had in truth suffered somewhat from demands made upon him for money,
which had hurt him not so much by their amount as by their nature.
Lord Silverbridge had taken upon himself to "own a horse or two,"
very much to his father's chagrin, and was at this moment part
proprietor of an animal supposed to stand well for the Derby. The
fact was not announced in the papers with his lordship's name, but
his father was aware of it, and did not like it the better because
his son held the horse in partnership with a certain Major Tifto, who
was well known in the sporting world.

"What is it, papa?"

"Of course he ought to go into Parliament."

"I think he wishes it himself."

"Yes, but how? By a piece of extreme good fortune, West Barsetshire
is open to him. The two seats are vacant together. There is hardly
another agricultural county in England that will return a Liberal,
and I fear I am not asserting too much in saying that no other
Liberal could carry the seat but one of our family."

"You used to sit for Silverbridge, papa."

"Yes, I did. In those days the county returned four Conservatives.
I cannot explain it all to you, but it is his duty to contest the
county on the Liberal side."

"But if he is a Conservative himself, papa?" asked Lady Mary, who had
had some political ideas suggested to her own mind by her lover.

"It is all rubbish. It has come from that young man Tregear, with
whom he has been associating."

"But, papa," said Lady Mary, who felt that even in this matter she
was bound to be firm on what was now her side of the question, "I
suppose it is as--as--as respectable to be a Conservative as a
Liberal."

"I don't know that at all," said the Duke angrily.

"I thought that--the two sides were--"

She was going to express an opinion that the two parties might be
supposed to stand as equal in the respect of the country, when he
interrupted her. "The Pallisers have always been Liberal. It will be
a blow to me, indeed, if Silverbridge deserts his colours. I know
that as yet he himself has had no deep thoughts on the subject, that
unfortunately he does not give himself much to thinking, and that in
this matter he is being talked over by a young man whose position in
life has hardly justified the great intimacy which has existed."

This was very far from being comfortable to her, but of course she
said nothing in defence of Tregear's politics. Nor at present was she
disposed to say anything as to his position in life, though at some
future time she might not be so silent. A few days later they were
again walking together, when he spoke to her about herself. "I cannot
bear that you should be left here alone while I am away," he said.

"You will not be long gone, I suppose?"

"Only for three or four days now."

"I shall not mind that, papa."

"But very probably I may have to go into Barsetshire. Would you not
be happier if you would let me write to Lady Cantrip, and tell her
that you will go to her?"

"No, papa, I think not. There are times when one feels that one ought
to be almost alone. Don't you feel that?"

"I do not wish you to feel it, nor would you do so long if you had
other people around you. With me it is different. I am an old man,
and cannot look for new pleasures in society. It has been the fault
of my life to be too much alone. I do not want to see my children
follow me in that."

"It is so very short a time as yet," said she, thinking of her
mother's death.

"But I think that you should be with somebody,--with some woman who
would be kind to you. I like to see you with books, but books alone
should not be sufficient at your age." How little, she thought, did
he know of the state either of her heart or mind! "Do you dislike
Lady Cantrip?"

"I do not know her. I can't say that I dislike a person whom I don't
think I ever spoke to, and never saw above once or twice. But how can
I say that I like her?" She did, however, know that Lady Cantrip was
a countess all over, and would be shocked at the idea of a daughter
of a Duke of Omnium marrying the younger son of a country squire.
Nothing further was then said on the matter, and when the Duke went
to town Lady Mary was left quite alone, with an understanding that if
he went into Barsetshire he should come back and take her with him.

He arrived at his own house in Carlton Terrace about five o'clock
in the afternoon, and immediately went to his study, intending to
dine and spend the evening there alone. His son had already pleaded
an engagement for that afternoon, but had consented to devote the
following morning to his father's wishes. Of the other sojourner in
his house the Duke had thought nothing; but the other sojourner had
thought very much of the Duke. Frank Tregear was fully possessed of
that courage which induces a man who knows that he must be thrown
over a precipice, to choose the first possible moment for his fall.
He had sounded Silverbridge about this change in his politics, and
had found his friend quite determined not to go back to the family
doctrine. Such being the case, the Duke's ill-will and hardness and
general severity would probably be enhanced by his interview with
his son. Tregear, therefore, thinking that nothing could be got by
delay, sent his name in to the Duke before he had been an hour in the
house, and asked for an interview. The servant brought back word that
his Grace was fatigued, but would see Mr. Tregear if the matter in
question was one of importance. Frank's heart quailed for a moment,
but only for a moment. He took up a pen and wrote a note.


   MY DEAR DUKE OF OMNIUM,

   If your Grace can spare a moment, I think you will find
   that what I have to say will justify the intrusion.

   Your very faithful servant,

   F. O. TREGEAR.


Of course the Duke admitted him. There was but one idea in his head
as to what was coming. His son had taken this way of making some
communication to him respecting his political creed. Some overture or
some demand was to be preferred through Tregear. If so, it was proof
of a certain anxiety as to the matter on his son's part which was not
displeasing to him. But he was not left long in this mistake after
Tregear had entered the room. "Sir," he said, speaking quite at once,
as soon as the door was closed behind him, but still speaking very
slowly, looking beautiful as Apollo as he stood upright before his
wished-for father-in-law--"Sir, I have come to you to ask you to give
me the hand of your daughter." The few words had been all arranged
beforehand, and were now spoken without any appearance of fear
or shame. No one hearing them would have imagined that an almost
penniless young gentleman was asking in marriage the daughter of the
richest and greatest nobleman in England.

"The hand of my daughter!" said the Duke, rising from his chair.

"I know how very great is the prize," said Frank, "and how unworthy I
am of it. But--as she thinks me worthy--"

"She! What she?"

"Lady Mary."

"She think you worthy!"

"Yes, your Grace."

"I do not believe it." On hearing this, Frank simply bowed his head.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Tregear. I do not mean to say that I do not
believe you. I never yet gave the lie to a gentleman, and I hope
I never may be driven to do so. But there must be some mistake in
this."

"I am complying with Lady Mary's wishes in asking your permission to
enter your house as her suitor." The Duke stood for a moment biting
his lips in silence. "I cannot believe it," he said at last. "I
cannot bring myself to believe it. There must be some mistake. My
daughter! Lady Mary Palliser!" Again the young man bowed his head.
"What are your pretensions?"

"Simply her regard."

"Of course it is impossible. You are not so ignorant but that you
must have known as much when you came to me."

There was so much scorn in his words, and in the tone in which they
were uttered, that Tregear in his turn was becoming angry. He had
prepared himself to bow humbly before the great man, before the Duke,
before the Croesus, before the late Prime Minister, before the man
who was to be regarded as certainly one of the most exalted of the
earth; but he had not prepared himself to be looked at as the Duke
looked at him. "The truth, my Lord Duke, is this," he said, "that
your daughter loves me, and that we are engaged to each other,--as
far as that engagement can be made without your sanction as her
father."

"It cannot have been made at all," said the Duke.

"I can only hope,--we can both of us only hope that a little time may
soften--"

"It is out of the question. There must be an end of this altogether.
You must neither see her, nor hear from her, nor in any way
communicate with her. It is altogether impossible. I believe, sir,
that you have no means?"

"Very little at present, Duke."

"How did you think you were to live? But it is altogether unnecessary
to speak of such a matter as that. There are so many reasons to make
this impossible, that it would be useless to discuss one as being
more important than others. Has any other one of my family known of
this?" This he added, wishing to ascertain whether Lord Silverbridge
had disgraced himself by lending his hand to such a disposition of
his sister.

"Oh yes," said Tregear.

"Who has known it?"

"The Duchess, sir. We had all her sympathy and approval."

"I do not believe a word of it," said the Duke, becoming extremely
red in the face. He was forced to do now that which he had just
declared that he had never done in his life,--driven by the desire of
his heart to acquit the wife he had lost of the terrible imprudence,
worse than imprudence, of which she was now accused.

"That is the second time, my Lord, that you have found it necessary
to tell me that you have not believed direct assertions which I made
you. But, luckily for me, the two assertions are capable of the
earliest and most direct proof. You will believe Lady Mary, and she
will confirm me in the one and the other."

The Duke was almost beside himself with emotion and grief. He did
know,--though now at this moment he was most loath to own to himself
that it was so,--that his dear wife had been the most imprudent of
women. And he recognised in her encouragement of this most pernicious
courtship,--if she had encouraged it,--a repetition of that romantic
folly by which she had so nearly brought herself to shipwreck in
her own early life. If it had been so,--even whether it had been so
or not,--he had been wrong to tell the man that he did not believe
him. And the man had rebuked him with dignity. "At any rate it is
impossible," he repeated.

"I cannot allow that it is impossible."

"That is for me to judge, sir."

"I trust that you will excuse me when I say that I also must hold
myself to be in some degree a judge in the matter. If you were in my
place, you would feel--"

"I could not possibly be in your place."

"If your Grace were in my place you would feel that as long as you
were assured by the young lady that your affection was valued by her
you would not be deterred by the opposition of her father. That you
should yield to me, of course I do not expect; that Lady Mary should
be persistent in her present feelings, when she knows your mind,
perhaps I have no right to hope; but should she be so persistent as
to make you feel that her happiness depends, as mine does, on our
marriage, then I shall believe that you will yield at last."

"Never!" said the Duke. "Never! I shall never believe that my
daughter's happiness can be assured by a step which I should regard
as disgraceful to her."

"Disgraceful is a violent word, my Lord."

"It is the only word that will express my meaning."

"And one which I must be bold enough to say you are not justified
in using. Should she become my wife to-morrow, no one in England
would think she had disgraced herself. The Queen would receive her
on her marriage. All your friends would hold out their hands to
us,--presuming that we had your goodwill."

"But you would not have it."

"Her disgrace would not depend upon that, my Lord. Should your
daughter so dispose of herself, as to disgrace herself,--which I
think to be impossible,--your countenance could not set her right.
Nor can the withdrawal of your countenance condemn her before the
world if she does that with herself which any other lady might do and
remain a lady."

The Duke, when he heard this, even in the midst of his wrath, which
was very violent, and in the midst of his anger, which was very
acute, felt that he had to deal with a man,--with one whom he could
not put off from him into the gutter, and there leave as buried in
the mud. And there came, too, a feeling upon him, which he had no
time to analyse, but of which he was part aware, that this terrible
indiscretion on the part of his daughter and of his late wife was
less wonderful than it had at first appeared to be. But not on that
account was he the less determined to make the young man feel that
his parental opposition would be invincible.

"It is quite impossible, sir. I do not think that I need say anything
more." Then, while Tregear was meditating whether to make any reply,
the Duke asked a question which had better have been left unasked.
The asking of it diminished somewhat from that ducal, grand-ducal,
quasi-archducal, almost godlike superiority which he had assumed, and
showed the curiosity of a mere man. "Has anybody else been aware of
this?" he said, still wishing to know whether he had cause for anger
against Silverbridge in the matter.

"Mrs. Finn is aware of it," answered Tregear.

"Mrs. Finn!" exclaimed the Duke, as though he had been stung by an
adder.

This was the woman whom he had prayed to remain awhile with his
daughter after his wife had been laid in her grave, in order that
there might be someone near whom he could trust! And this very woman
whom he had so trusted,--whom, in his early associations with her,
he had disliked and distrusted, but had taught himself both to
like and to trust because his wife had loved her,--this woman was
the she-Pandarus who had managed matters between Tregear and his
daughter! His wife had been too much subject to her influence. That
he had always known. And now, in this last act of her life, she
had allowed herself to be persuaded to give up her daughter by the
baneful wiles of this most pernicious woman. Such were the workings
of the Duke's mind when the young man told him that Mrs. Finn was
acquainted with the whole affair. As the reader is aware, nothing
could have been more unjust.

"I mentioned her name," said Tregear, "because I thought she had been
a friend of the family."

"That will do, sir. I have been greatly pained as well as surprised
by what I have heard. Of the real state of the case I can form no
opinion till I see my daughter. You, of course, will hold no further
intercourse with her." He paused as though for a promise, but Tregear
did not feel himself called upon to say a word in one direction or in
the other. "It will be my care that you shall not do so.
Good-morning, sir."

Tregear, who during the interview had been standing, then bowed,
turned upon his heel, and left the room.

The Duke seated himself, and, crossing his arms upon his chest, sat
for an hour looking up at the ceiling. Why was it that, for him, such
a world of misery had been prepared? What wrong had he done, of what
imprudence had he been guilty, that, at every turn of life, something
should occur so grievous as to make him think himself the most
wretched of men? No man had ever loved his wife more dearly than he
had done; and yet now, in that very excess of tenderness which her
death had occasioned, he was driven to accuse her of a great sin
against himself, in that she had kept from him her knowledge of this
affair;--for, when he came to turn the matter over in his mind, he
did believe Tregear's statement as to her encouragement. Then, too,
he had been proud of his daughter. He was a man so reticent and
undemonstrative in his manner that he had never known how to make
confidential friends of his children. In his sons hitherto he had
not taken pride. They were gallant, well-grown, handsome boys, with
a certain dash of cleverness,--more like their mother than their
father; but they had not as yet done anything as he would have had
them do it. But the girl, in the perfection of her beauty, in the
quiescence of her manner, in the nature of her studies, and in the
general dignity of her bearing, had seemed to be all that he had
desired. And now she had engaged herself, behind his back, to the
younger son of a little county squire!

But his anger against Mrs. Finn was hotter than his anger against any
one in his own family.




CHAPTER VI

Major Tifto


Major Tifto had lately become a member of the Beargarden Club, under
the auspices of his friend Lord Silverbridge. It was believed, by
those who had made some inquiry into the matter, that the Major had
really served a campaign as a volunteer in the Carlist army in the
north of Spain. When, therefore, it was declared by someone that
he was not a major at all, his friends were able to contradict the
assertion, and to impute it to slander. Instances were brought
up,--declared by these friends to be innumerable, but which did, in
truth, amount to three or four,--of English gentlemen who had come
home from a former Carlist war, bearing the title of colonel, without
any contradiction or invidious remark. Had this gallant officer
appeared as Colonel Tifto, perhaps less might have been said about
it. There was a little lack of courage in the title which he did
choose. But it was accepted at last, and, as Major Tifto, he was
proposed, seconded, and elected at the Beargarden.

But he had other points in his favour besides the friendship of Lord
Silverbridge,--points which had probably led to that friendship. He
was, without doubt, one of the best horsemen in England. There were
some who said that, across country, he was the very best, and that,
as a judge of a hunter, few excelled him. Of late years he had crept
into credit as a betting-man. No one supposed that he had much
capital to work with; but still, when he lost a bet he paid it.

Soon after his return from Spain, he was chosen as Master of the
Runnymede Fox-Hounds, and was thus enabled to write the letters
M.F.H. after his name. The gentlemen who rode with the Runnymede were
not very liberal in their terms, and had lately been compelled to
change their Master rather more frequently than was good for that
quasi-suburban hunt; but now they had fitted themselves well. How he
was to hunt the country five days a fortnight, finding servants and
horses, and feeding the hounds, for eight hundred pounds a year, no
one could understand. But Major Tifto not only undertook to do it,
but did it. And he actually succeeded in obtaining for the Runnymede
a degree of popularity which for many years previous it had not
possessed. Such a man,--even though no one did know anything of his
father or mother, though no one had ever heard him speak of a brother
or a sister, though it was believed that he had no real income,--was
felt by many to be the very man for the Beargarden; and when his name
was brought up at the committee, Lord Silverbridge was able to say so
much in his favour that only two blackballs were given against him.
Under the mild rule of the club, three would have been necessary to
exclude him; and therefore Major Tifto was now as good a member as
any one else.

He was a well-made little man, good-looking for those who like such
good looks. He was light-haired and blue-eyed, with regular and
yet not inexpressive features. But his eyes were small and never
tranquil, and rarely capable of looking at the person who was
speaking to him. He had small well-trimmed, glossy whiskers, with the
best-kept moustache, and the best-kept tuft on his chin which were to
be seen anywhere. His face still bore the freshness of youth, which
was a marvel to many, who declared that, from facts within their
knowledge, Tifto must be far on the wrong side of forty. At a first
glance you would hardly have called him thirty. No doubt, when, on
close inspection, you came to look into his eyes, you could see the
hand of time. Even if you believed the common assertion that he
painted,--which it was very hard to believe of a man who passed the
most of his time in the hunting-field or on a race-course,--yet the
paint on his cheeks would not enable him to move with the elasticity
which seemed to belong to all his limbs. He rode flat races and
steeple chases,--if jump races may still be so called; and with his
own hounds and with the Queen's did incredible things on horseback.
He could jump over chairs too,--the backs of four chairs in a
dining-room after dinner,--a feat which no gentleman of forty-five
could perform, even though he painted himself ever so.

So much in praise of Major Tifto honesty has compelled the present
chronicler to say. But there were traits of character in which he
fell off a little, even in the estimation of those whose pursuits
endeared him to them. He could not refrain from boasting,--and
especially from boasting about women. His desire for glory in that
direction knew no bounds, and he would sometimes mention names, and
bring himself into trouble. It was told of him that at one period of
his life, when misfortune had almost overcome him, when sorrow had
produced prostration, and prostration some expression of truth, he
had owned to a friend his own conviction that could he have kept
his tongue from talking of women, he might have risen to prosperity
in his profession. From these misfortunes he had emerged, and, no
doubt, had often reflected on what he himself had then said. But
we know that the drunkard, though he hates drunkenness, cannot but
drink,--that the gambler cannot keep from the dice. Major Tifto still
lied about women, and could not keep his tongue from the subject. He
would boast, too, about other matters,--much to his own disadvantage.
He was, too, very "deep", and some men, who could put up with his
other failings, could not endure that. Whatever he wanted to do he
would attempt round three corners. Though he could ride straight,
he could do nothing else straight. He was full of mysteries. If he
wanted to draw Charter Wood he would take his hounds out of the
street at Egham directly in the other direction. If he had made up
his mind to ride Lord Pottlepot's horse for the great Leamington
handicap, he would be sure to tell even his intimate friends that he
was almost determined to take the "baronet's" offer of a mount. This
he would do even where there was no possible turn in the betting to
be affected by such falsehood. So that his companions were apt to
complain that there was no knowing where to have Tifto. And then,
they who were old enough in the world to have had some experience in
men, had perceived that peculiar quality of his eyes, which never
allowed him to look any one in the face.

That Major Tifto should make money by selling horses was, perhaps, a
necessity of his position. No one grumbled at him because he did so,
or thought that such a pursuit was incompatible with his character as
a sporting gentleman. But there were some who considered that they
had suffered unduly under his hands, and in their bargains with
him had been made to pay more than a proper amount of tax for the
advantages of his general assistance. When a man has perhaps made
fifty pounds by using a "straight tip" as to a horse at Newmarket,
in doing which he had of course encountered some risks, he feels
he ought not to be made to pay the amount back into the pockets of
the "tipper," and at the same time to find himself saddled with the
possession of a perfectly useless animal. In this way there were
rocks in the course through which Tifto was called on to steer his
bark. Of course he was anxious, when preying upon his acquaintances,
to spare those who were useful friends to him. Now and again he would
sell a serviceable animal at a fair price, and would endeavour to
make such sale in favour of someone whose countenance would be a rock
to him. He knew his business well, but yet there would be mistakes.

Now, at this very moment, was the culmination of the Major's life. He
was Master of the Runnymede Hounds, he was partner with the eldest
son of a Duke in the possession of that magnificent colt, the Prime
Minister, and he was a member of the Beargarden. He was a man who
had often been despondent about himself, but was now disposed to
be a little triumphant. He had finished his season well with the
Runnymede, and were it not that, let him work as he would, his
expenses always exceeded his means, he would have been fairly
comfortable.

At eight o'clock Lord Silverbridge and his friend met in the
dining-room of the Beargarden. "Have you been here before?" asked the
Lord.

"Not in here, my Lord. I just looked in at the smoking-room last
night. Glasslough and Nidderdale were there. I thought we should have
got up a rubber, but they didn't seem to see it."

"There is whist here generally. You'll find out all about it before
long. Perhaps they are a little afraid of you."

"I'm the worst hand at cards, I suppose, in England. A dash at loo
for about an hour, and half-a-dozen cuts at blind hookey,--that's
about my form. I know I drop more than I pick up. If I knew what I
was about I should never touch a card."

"Horses; eh, Tifto?"

"Horses, yes. They've pretty good claret, here, eh, Silverbridge?" He
could never hit off his familiarity quite right. He had my-Lorded his
young friend at first, and now brought out the name with a hesitating
twang, which the young nobleman appreciated. But then the young
nobleman was quite aware that the Major was a friend for club
purposes, and sporting purposes, and not for home use.

"Everything of that kind is pretty good here," said the Lord.

"You were saying--horses."

"I dare say you do better with them than with cards."

"If I didn't I don't know where I should be, seeing what a lot pass
through my hands in the year. Any one of our fellows who has a horse
to sell thinks that I am bound to buy him. And I do buy 'em. Last May
I had forty-two hunters on my hands."

"How many of them have you got now?"

"Three. Three of that lot,--though a goodish many have come up since.
But what does it amount to? When I have anything that is very good,
some fellow that I like gets him from me."

"After paying for him."

"After paying for him! Yes; I don't mean that I make a fellow a
present. But the man who buys has a deal the best of it. Did you ever
get anything better than that spotted chestnut in your life?"

"What, old Sarcinet?"

"You had her for one hundred and sixty pounds. Now, if you were on
your oath, what is she worth?"

"She suits me, Major, and of course I shouldn't sell her."

"I rather think not. I knew what that mare was, well enough. A dealer
would have had three hundred and fifty pounds for her. I could have
got the money easily if I had taken her down into the shires, and
ridden her a day or two myself."

"I gave you what you asked."

"Yes, you did. It isn't often that I take less than I ask. But the
fact is, about horses, I don't know whether I shouldn't do better if
I never owned an animal at all but those I want for my own use. When
I am dealing with a man I call a friend, I can't bear to make money
of him. I don't think fellows give me all the credit they should do
for sticking to them."

The Major, as he said this, leaned back in his chair, put his hand up
to his moustache, and looked sadly away into the vacancy of the room,
as though he was meditating sorrowfully on the ingratitude of the
world.

"I suppose it's all right about Cream Cheese?" asked the Lord.

"Well; it ought to be." And now the Major spoke like an oracle,
leaning forward on the table, uttering his words in a low voice,
but very plainly, so that not a syllable might be lost. "When you
remember how he ran at the Craven with 9 st. 12 lb. on him, that it
took Archbishop all he knew to beat him with only 9 st. 2 lb., and
what the lot at Chester are likely to be, I don't think that there
can be seven to one against him. I should be very glad to take it off
your hands, only the figures are a little too heavy for me."

"I suppose Sunflower'll be the best animal there?"

"Not a doubt of it, if he's all right, and if his temper will stand.
Think what a course Chester is for an ill-conditioned brute like
that! And then he's the most uncertain horse in training. There are
times he won't feed. From what I hear, I shouldn't wonder if he don't
turn up at all."

"Solomon says he's all right."

"You won't get Solomon to take four to one against him, nor yet four
and a half. I suppose you'll go down, my Lord?"

"Well, yes; if there's nothing else doing just then. I don't know how
it may be about this electioneering business. I shall go and smoke
upstairs."

At the Beargarden there were,--I was going to say, two smoking-rooms;
but in truth the house was a smoking-room all over. It was, however,
the custom of those who habitually played cards, to have their cigars
and coffee upstairs. Into this sanctum Major Tifto had not yet been
introduced, but now he was taken there under Lord Silverbridge's
wing. There were already four or five assembled, among whom was Mr.
Adolphus Longstaff, a young man of about thirty-five years of age,
who spent very much of his time at the Beargarden. "Do you know my
friend Tifto?" said the Lord. "Tifto, this is Mr. Longstaff, whom men
within the walls of this asylum sometimes call Dolly." Whereupon the
Major bowed and smiled graciously.

"I have heard of Major Tifto," said Dolly.

"Who has not?" said Lord Nidderdale, another middle-aged young man,
who made one of the company. Again the Major bowed.

"Last season I was always intending to get down to your country and
have a day with the Tiftoes," said Dolly. "Don't they call your
hounds the Tiftoes?"

"They shall be called so if you like," said the Major. "And why
didn't you come?"

"It always was such a grind."

"Train down from Paddington every day at half-past ten."

"That's all very well if you happen to be up. Well, Silverbridge,
how's the Prime Minister?"

"How is he, Tifto?" asked the noble partner.

"I don't think there's a man in England just at present enjoying a
very much better state of health," said the Major pleasantly.

"Safe to run?" asked Dolly.

"Safe to run! Why shouldn't he be safe to run?"

"I mean sure to start."

"I think we mean him to start, don't we, Silverbridge?" said the
Major.

There was something perhaps in the tone in which the last remark was
made which jarred a little against the young lord's dignity. At any
rate he got up and declared his purpose of going to the opera. He
should look in, he said, and hear a song from Mdlle Stuffa. Mdlle
Stuffa was the nightingale of the season, and Lord Silverbridge, when
he had nothing else to do, would sometimes think that he was fond of
music. Soon after he was gone Major Tifto had some whisky-and-water,
lit his third cigar, and began to feel the glory of belonging to
the Beargarden. With Lord Silverbridge, to whom it was essentially
necessary that he should make himself agreeable at all times, he
was somewhat overweighted as it were. Though he attempted an easy
familiarity, he was a little afraid of Lord Silverbridge. With
Dolly Longstaff he felt that he might be comfortable,--not, perhaps,
understanding that gentleman's character. With Lord Nidderdale he had
previously been acquainted, and had found him to be good-natured. So,
as he sipped his whisky, he became confidential and comfortable.

"I never thought so much about her good looks," he said. They were
talking of the singer, the charms of whose voice had carried Lord
Silverbridge away.

"Did you ever see her off the stage?" asked Nidderdale.

"Oh dear yes."

"She does not go about very much, I fancy," said someone.

"I dare say not," said Tifto. "But she and I have had a day or two
together, for all that."

"You must have been very much favoured," said Dolly.

"We've been pals ever since she has been over here," said Tifto, with
an enormous lie.

"How do you get on with her husband?" asked Dolly,--in the simplest
voice, as though not in the least surprised at his companion's
statement.

"Husband!" exclaimed the Major; who was not possessed of sufficient
presence of mind to suppress all signs of his ignorance.

"Ah," said Dolly; "you are not probably aware that your pal has been
married to Mr. Thomas Jones for the last year and a half." Soon after
that Major Tifto left the club,--with considerably enhanced respect
for Mr. Longstaff.




CHAPTER VII

Conservative Convictions


Lord Silverbridge had engaged himself to be with his father the next
morning at half-past nine, and he entered the breakfast-room a very
few minutes after that hour. He had made up his mind as to what he
would say to his father. He meant to call himself a Conservative, and
to go into the House of Commons under that denomination. All the men
among whom he lived were Conservatives. It was a matter on which,
as he thought, his father could have no right to control him. Down
in Barsetshire, as well as up in London, there was some little
difference of opinion in this matter. The people of Silverbridge
declared that they would prefer to have a Conservative member, as
indeed they had one for the last Session. They had loyally returned
the Duke himself while he was a commoner, but they had returned him
as being part and parcel of the Omnium appendages. That was all over
now. As a constituency they were not endowed with advanced views, and
thought that a Conservative would suit them best. That being so, and
as they had been told that the Duke's son was a Conservative, they
fancied that by electing him they would be pleasing everybody. But,
in truth, by so doing they would by no means please the Duke. He
had told them on previous occasions that they might elect whom they
pleased, and felt no anger because they had elected a Conservative.
They might send up to Parliament the most antediluvian old Tory
they could find in England if they wished, only not his son, not a
Palliser as a Tory or Conservative. And then, though the little town
had gone back in the ways of the world, the county, or the Duke's
division of the county, had made so much progress, that a Liberal
candidate recommended by him would almost certainly be returned. It
was just the occasion on which a Palliser should show himself ready
to serve his country. There would be an expense, but he would think
nothing of expense in such a matter. Ten thousand pounds spent on
such an object would not vex him. The very contest would have given
him new life. All this Lord Silverbridge understood, but had said to
himself and to all his friends that it was a matter in which he did
not intend to be controlled.

The Duke had passed a very unhappy night. He had told himself that
any such marriage as that spoken of was out of the question. He
believed that the matter might be so represented to his girl as to
make her feel that it was out of the question. He hardly doubted but
that he could stamp it out. Though he should have to take her away
into some further corner of the world, he would stamp it out. But
she, when this foolish passion of hers should have been thus stamped
out, could never be the pure, the bright, the unsullied, unsoiled
thing, of the possession of which he had thought so much. He had
never spoken of his hopes about her even to his wife, but in the
silence of his very silent life he had thought much of the day when
he would give her to some noble youth,--noble with all gifts of
nobility, including rank and wealth,--who might be fit to receive
her. Now, even though no one else should know it,--and all would
know it,--she would be the girl who had condescended to love young
Tregear.

His own Duchess, she whose loss to him now was as though he had lost
half his limbs,--had not she in the same way loved a Tregear, or
worse than a Tregear, in her early days? Ah yes! And though his Cora
had been so much to him, had he not often felt, had he not been
feeling all his days, that Fate had robbed him of the sweetest joy
that is given to man, in that she had not come to him loving him with
her early spring of love, as she had loved that poor ne'er-do-well?
How infinite had been his regrets. How often had he told himself
that, with all that Fortune had given him, still Fortune had been
unjust to him because he had been robbed of that. Not to save his
life could he have whispered a word of this to any one, but he had
felt it. He had felt it for years. Dear as she had been, she had not
been quite what she should have been but for that. And now this girl
of his, who was so much dearer to him than anything else left to him,
was doing exactly as her mother had done. The young man might be
stamped out. He might be made to vanish as that other young man had
vanished. But the fact that he had been there, cherished in the
girl's heart,--that could not be stamped out.

He struggled gallantly to acquit the memory of his wife. He could
best do that by leaning with the full weight of his mind on the
presumed iniquity of Mrs. Finn. Had he not known from the first that
the woman was an adventuress? And had he not declared to himself over
and over again that between such a one and himself there should be no
intercourse, no common feeling? He had allowed himself to be talked
into an intimacy, to be talked almost into an affection. And this was
the result!

And how should he treat this matter in his coming interview with his
son;--or should he make an allusion to it? At first it seemed as
though it would be impossible for him to give his mind to that other
subject. How could he enforce the merits of political Liberalism,
and the duty of adhering to the old family party, while his mind was
entirely preoccupied with his daughter? It had suddenly become almost
indifferent to him whether Silverbridge should be a Conservative or a
Liberal. But as he dressed he told himself that, as a man, he ought
to be able to do a plain duty, marked out for him as this had been by
his own judgment, without regard to personal suffering. The hedger
and ditcher must make his hedge and clean his ditch even though he be
tormented by rheumatism. His duty by his son he must do, even though
his heart were torn to pieces.

During breakfast he tried to be gracious, and condescended to ask his
son a question about Prime Minister. Racing was an amusement to which
English noblemen had been addicted for many ages, and had been held
to be serviceable rather than disgraceful, if conducted in a noble
fashion. He did not credit Tifto with much nobility. He knew but
little about the Major. He would much have preferred that his son
should have owned a horse alone, if he must have anything to do with
ownership. "Would it not be better to buy the other share?" asked the
Duke.

"It would take a deal of money, sir. The Major would ask a couple of
thousand, I should think."

"That is a great deal."

"And then the Major is a very useful man. He thoroughly understands
the turf."

"I hope he doesn't live by it?"

"Oh no; he doesn't live by it. That is, he has a great many irons in
the fire."

"I do not mind a young man owning a horse, if he can afford the
expense,--as you perhaps can do; but I hope you don't bet."

"Nothing to speak of."

"Nothing to speak of is so apt to grow into that which has to be
spoken of." So much the father said at breakfast, hardly giving his
mind to the matter discussed,--his mind being on other things. But
when their breakfast was eaten, then it was necessary that he should
begin. "Silverbridge," he said, "I hope you have thought better of
what we were talking about as to these coming elections."

"Well, sir;--of course I have thought about it."

"And you can do as I would have you?"

"You see, sir, a man's political opinion is a kind of thing he can't
get rid of."

"You can hardly as yet have any very confirmed political opinion.
You are still young, and I do not suppose that you have thought much
about politics."

"Well, sir; I think I have. I've got my own ideas. We've got to
protect our position as well as we can against the Radicals and
Communists."

"I cannot admit that at all, Silverbridge. There is no great
political party in this country anxious either for Communism or for
revolution. But, putting all that aside for the present, do you think
that a man's political opinions should be held in regard to his own
individual interests, or to the much wider interests of others, whom
we call the public?"

"To his own interest," said the young man with decision.

"It is simply self-protection then?"

"His own and his class. The people will look after themselves, and we
must look after ourselves. We are so few and they are so many, that
we shall have quite enough to do."

Then the Duke gave his son a somewhat lengthy political lecture,
which was intended to teach him that the greatest benefit of the
greatest number was the object to which all political studies should
tend. The son listened to it with attention, and when it was over,
expressed his opinion that there was a great deal in what his father
had said. "I trust, if you will consider it," said the Duke, "that
you will not find yourself obliged to desert the school of politics
in which your father has not been an inactive supporter, and to which
your family has belonged for many generations."

"I could not call myself a Liberal," said the young politician.

"Why not?"

"Because I am a Conservative."

"And you won't stand for the county on the Liberal interest?"

"I should be obliged to tell them that I should always give a
Conservative vote."

"Then you refuse to do what I ask?"

"I do not know how I can help refusing. If you wanted me to grow a
couple of inches taller I couldn't do it, even though I should be
ever so anxious to oblige you."

"But a very young man, as you are, may have so much deference for his
elders as to be induced to believe that he has been in error."

"Oh yes; of course."

"You cannot but be aware that the political condition of the country
is the one subject to which I have devoted the labour of my life."

"I know that very well; and, of course, I know how much they all
think of you."

"Then my opinion might go for something with you?"

"So it does, sir; I shouldn't have doubted at all only for that
little. Still, you see, as the thing is,--how am I to help myself?"

"You believe that you must be right,--you, who have never given an
hour's study to the subject!"

"No, sir. In comparison with a great many men, I know that I am a
fool. Perhaps it is because I know that, that I am a Conservative.
The Radicals are always saying that a Conservative must be a fool.
Then a fool ought to be a Conservative."

Hereupon the father got up from his chair and turned round, facing
the fire, with his back to his son. He was becoming very angry, but
endeavoured to restrain his anger. The matter in dispute between them
was of so great importance, that he could hardly be justified in
abandoning it in consequence of arguments so trifling in themselves
as these which his son adduced. As he stood there for some minutes
thinking of it all, he was tempted again and again to burst out in
wrath and threaten the lad,--to threaten him as to money, as to his
amusements, as to the general tenure of his life. The pity was so
great that the lad should be so stubborn and so foolish! He would
never ask his son to be a slave to the Liberal party, as he had been.
But that a Palliser should not be a Liberal,--and his son, as the
first recreant Palliser,--was wormwood to him! As he stood there
he more than once clenched his fist in eager desire to turn upon
the young man; but he restrained himself, telling himself that in
justice he should not be angry for such offence as this. To become a
Conservative, when the path to Liberalism was so fairly open, might
be the part of a fool, but could not fairly be imputed as a crime. To
endeavour to be just was the study of his life, and in no condition
of life can justice be more imperatively due than from a father to
his son.

"You mean to stand for Silverbridge?" he said at last.

"Not if you object, sir."

This made it worse. It became now still more difficult for him to
scold the young man.

"You are aware that I should not meddle in any way."

"That was what I supposed. They will return a Conservative at any
rate."

"It is not that I care about," said the Duke sadly.

"Upon my word, sir, I am very sorry to vex you; but what would you
have me do? I will give up Parliament altogether, if you say that you
wish it."

"No; I do not wish that."

"You wouldn't have me tell a lie?"

"No."

"What can I do then?"

"Learn what there is to learn from some master fit to teach you."

"There are so many masters."

"I believe it to be that most arrogant ill-behaved young man who was
with me yesterday who has done this evil."

"You mean Frank Tregear?"

"I do mean Mr. Tregear."

"He's a Conservative, of course; and of course he and I have been
much together. Was he with you yesterday, sir?"

"Yes, he was."

"What was that about?" asked Lord Silverbridge, in a voice that
almost betrayed fear, for he knew very well what cause had produced
the interview.

"He has been speaking to me--" When the Duke had got so far as this
he paused, finding himself to be hardly able to declare the disgrace
which had fallen upon himself and his family. As he did tell the
story, both his face and his voice were altered, so that the son, in
truth, was scared. "He has been speaking to me about your sister. Did
you know of this?"

"I knew there was something between them."

"And you encouraged it?"

"No, sir; just the contrary. I have told him that I was quite sure it
would never do."

"And why did you not tell me?"

"Well, sir; that was hardly my business, was it?"

"Not to guard the honour of your sister?"

"You see, sir, how many things have happened all at once."

"What things?"

"My dear mother, sir, thought well of him." The Duke uttered a deep
sigh and turned again round to the fire. "I always told him that you
would never consent."

"I should think not."

"It has come so suddenly. I should have spoken to you about it as
soon as--as soon as--" He had meant to say as soon as the husband's
grief for the loss of his wife had been in some degree appeased, but
he could not speak the words. The Duke, however, perfectly understood
him. "In the meantime, they were not seeing each other."

"Nor writing?"

"I think not."

"Mrs. Finn has known it all."

"Mrs. Finn!"

"Certainly. She has known it all through."

"I do not see how it can have been so."

"He told me so himself," said the Duke, unwittingly putting words
into Tregear's mouth which Tregear had never uttered. "There must be
an end of this. I will speak to your sister. In the meantime, the
less, I think, you see of Mr. Tregear the better. Of course it is out
of the question he should be allowed to remain in this house. You
will make him understand that at once, if you please."

"Oh, certainly," said Silverbridge.




CHAPTER VIII

"He Is a Gentleman"


The Duke returned to Matching an almost broken-hearted man. He had
intended to go down into Barsetshire, in reference to the coming
elections;--not with the view of interfering in any unlordly, or
rather unpeerlike fashion, but thinking that if his eldest son were
to stand for the county in a proper constitutional spirit, as the
eldest son of so great a county magnate ought to do, his presence at
Gatherum Castle, among his own people, might probably be serviceable,
and would certainly be gracious. There would be no question of
entertainment. His bereavement would make that impossible. But there
would come from his presence a certain savour of proprietorship,
and a sense of power, which would be beneficial to his son, and
would not, as the Duke thought, be contrary to the spirit of the
constitution. But all this was now at an end. He told himself that he
did not care how the elections might go;--that he did not care much
how anything might go. Silverbridge might stand for Silverbridge
if he so pleased. He would give neither assistance nor obstruction,
either in the county or in the borough. He wrote to this effect to
his agent, Mr. Morton;--but at the same time desired that gentleman
to pay Lord Silverbridge's electioneering expenses, feeling it to be
his duty as a father to do so much for his son.

But though he endeavoured to engage his thoughts in these
parliamentary matters, though he tried to make himself believe that
this political apostasy was the trouble which vexed him, in truth
that other misery was so crushing, as to make the affairs of his son
insignificant. How should he express himself to her? That was the
thought present to his mind as he went down to Matching. Should he
content himself with simply telling her that such a wish on her part
was disgraceful, and that it could never be fulfilled; or should he
argue the matter with her, endeavouring as he did so to persuade her
gently that she was wrong to place her affections so low, and so to
obtain from her an assurance that the idea should be abandoned?

The latter course would be infinitely the better,--if only he could
accomplish it. But he was conscious of his own hardness of manner,
and was aware that he had never succeeded in establishing confidence
between himself and his daughter. It was a thing for which he had
longed,--as a plain girl might long to possess the charms of an
acknowledged beauty;--as a poor little fellow, five feet in height,
might long to have a cubit added to his stature.

Though he was angry with her, how willingly would he take her into
his arms and assure her of his forgiveness! How anxious he would
be to make her understand that nothing should be spared by him to
add beauty and grace to her life! Only, as a matter of course, Mr.
Tregear must be abandoned. But he knew of himself that he would not
know how to begin to be tender and forgiving. He knew that he would
not know how not to be stern and hard.

But he must find out the history of it all. No doubt the man had been
his son's friend, and had joined his party in Italy at his son's
instance. But yet he had come to entertain an idea that Mrs. Finn had
been the great promoter of the sin, and he thought that Tregear had
told him that that lady had been concerned with the matter from the
beginning. In all this there was a craving in his heart to lessen the
amount of culpable responsibility which might seem to attach itself
to the wife he had lost.

He reached Matching about eight, and ordered his dinner to be brought
to him in his own study. When Lady Mary came to welcome him, he
kissed her forehead and bade her come to him after his dinner. "Shall
I not sit with you, papa, whilst you are eating it?" she asked; but
he merely told her that he would not trouble her to do that. Even
in saying this he was so unusually tender to her that she assured
herself that her lover had not as yet told his tale.

The Duke's meals were not generally feasts for a Lucullus. No man
living, perhaps, cared less what he ate, or knew less what he drank.
In such matters he took what was provided for him, making his dinner
off the first bit of meat that was brought, and simply ignoring
anything offered to him afterwards. And he would drink what wine
the servant gave him, mixing it, whatever it might be, with seltzer
water. He had never been much given to the pleasures of the table;
but this habit of simplicity had grown on him of late, till the
Duchess used to tell him that his wants were so few that it was a
pity he was not a hermit, vowed to poverty.

Very shortly a message was brought to Lady Mary, saying that her
father wished to see her. She went at once, and found him seated on
a sofa, which stood close along the bookshelves on one side of the
room. The table had already been cleared, and he was alone. He not
only was alone, but had not even a pamphlet or newspaper in his hand.

Then she knew that Tregear must have told the story. As this occurred
to her, her legs almost gave way under her. "Come and sit down,
Mary," he said, pointing to the seat on the sofa beside himself.

She sat down and took one of his hands within her own. Then, as he
did not begin at once, she asked a question. "Will Silverbridge stand
for the county, papa?"

"No, my dear."

"But for the town?"

"Yes, my dear."

"And he won't be a Liberal?"

"I am afraid not. It is a cause of great unhappiness to me; but I do
not know that I should be justified in any absolute opposition. A man
is entitled to his own opinion, even though he be a very young man."

"I am so sorry that it should be so, papa, because it vexes you."

"I have many things to vex me;--things to break my heart."

"Poor mamma!" she exclaimed.

"Yes; that above all others. But life and death are in God's hands,
and even though we may complain we can alter nothing. But whatever
our sorrows are while we are here, we must do our duty."

"I suppose he may be a good Member of Parliament, though he has
turned Conservative."

"I am not thinking about your brother. I am thinking about you."
The poor girl gave a little start on the sofa. "Do you know--Mr.
Tregear?" he added.

"Yes, papa; of course I know him. You used to see him in Italy."

"I believe I did; I understand that he was there as a friend of
Silverbridge."

"His most intimate friend, papa."

"I dare say. He came to me, in London yesterday, and told me--! Oh
Mary, can it be true?"

"Yes, papa," she said, covered up to her forehead with blushes, and
with her eyes turned down. In the ordinary affairs of life she was
a girl of great courage, who was not given to be shaken from her
constancy by the pressure of any present difficulty; but now the
terror inspired by her father's voice almost overpowered her.

"Do you mean to tell me that you have engaged yourself to that young
man without my approval?"

"Of course you were to have been asked, papa."

"Is that in accordance with your idea of what should be the conduct
of a young lady in your position?"

"Nobody meant to conceal anything from you, papa."

"It has been so far concealed. And yet this young man has the
self-confidence to come to me and to demand your hand as though it
were a matter of course that I should accede to so trivial a request.
It is, as a matter of course, quite impossible. You understand that;
do you not?" When she did not answer him at once, he repeated the
question. "I ask you whether you do not feel that it is altogether
impossible?"

"No, papa," she said, in the lowest possible whisper, but still
in such a whisper that he could hear the word, and with so much
clearness that he could judge from her voice of the obstinacy of her
mind.

"Then, Mary, it becomes my duty to tell you that it is quite
impossible. I will not have it thought of. There must be an end of
it."

"Why, papa?"

"Why! I am astonished that you should ask me why."

"I should not have allowed him, papa, to go to you unless I
had,--unless I had loved him."

"Then you must conquer your love. It is disgraceful and must be
conquered."

"Disgraceful!"

"Yes. I am sorry to use such a word to my own child, but it is so.
If you will promise to be guided by me in this matter, if you will
undertake not to see him any more, I will,--if not forget it,--at
any rate pardon it, and be silent. I will excuse it because you were
young, and were thrown imprudently in his way. There has, I believe,
been someone at work in the matter with whom I ought to be more
angry than with you. Say that you will obey me, and there is nothing
within a father's power that I will not do for you, to make your
life happy." It was thus that he strove not to be stern. His heart,
indeed, was tender enough, but there was nothing tender in the tone
of his voice or in the glance of his eye. Though he was very positive
in what he said, yet he was shy and shamefaced even with his own
daughter. He, too, had blushed when he told her that she must conquer
her love.

That she should be told that she had disgraced herself was terrible
to her. That her father should speak of her marriage with this man as
an event that was impossible made her very unhappy. That he should
talk of pardoning her, as for some great fault, was in itself a
misery. But she had not on that account the least idea of giving up
her lover. Young as she was, she had her own peculiar theory on that
matter, her own code of conduct and honour, from which she did not
mean to be driven. Of course she had not expected that her father
would yield at the first word. He, no doubt, would wish that she
should make a more exalted marriage. She had known that she would
have to encounter opposition, though she had not expected to be told
that she had disgraced herself. As she sat there she resolved that
under no pretence would she give up her lover;--but she was so far
abashed that she could not find words to express herself. He, too,
had been silent for a few moments before he again asked her for her
promise.

"Will you tell me, Mary, that you will not see him again?"

"I don't think that I can say that, papa."

"Why not?"

"Oh papa, how can I, when of all the people in the world I love him
the best?"

It is not without a pang that any one can be told that she who is of
all the dearest has some other one who to her is the dearest. Such
pain fathers and mothers have to bear; and though, I think, the arrow
is never so blunted but that it leaves something of a wound behind,
there is in most cases, if not a perfect salve, still an ample
consolation. The mother knows that it is good that her child should
love some man better than all the world beside, and that she should
be taken away to become a wife and a mother. And the father, when
that delight of his eyes ceases to assure him that he is her nearest
and dearest, though he abandon the treasure of that nearestness and
dearestness with a soft melancholy, still knows that it is as it
should be. Of course that other "him" is the person she loves the
best in the world. Were it not so how evil a thing it would be that
she should marry him! Were it not so with reference to some "him",
how void would her life be! But now, to the poor Duke the wound had
no salve, no consolation. When he was told that this young Tregear
was the owner of his girl's sweet love, was the treasure of her
heart, he shrank as though arrows with sharp points were pricking him
all over. "I will not hear of such love," he said.

"What am I to say, papa?"

"Say that you will obey me."

Then she sat silent. "Do you not know that he is not fit to be your
husband?"

"No, papa."

"Then you cannot have thought much either of your position or of
mine."

"He is a gentleman, papa."

"So is my private secretary. There is not a clerk in one of our
public offices who does not consider himself to be a gentleman. The
curate of the parish is a gentleman, and the medical man who comes
here from Bradstock. The word is too vague to carry with it any
meaning that ought to be serviceable to you in thinking of such a
matter."

"I do not know any other way of dividing people," said she, showing
thereby that she had altogether made up her mind as to what ought to
be serviceable to her.

"You are not called upon to divide people. That division requires so
much experience that you are bound in this matter to rely upon those
to whom your obedience is due. I cannot but think you must have known
that you were not entitled to give your love to any man without being
assured that the man would be approved of by--by--by me." He was
going to say, "your parents," but was stopped by the remembrance of
his wife's imprudence.

She saw it all, and was too noble to plead her mother's authority.
But she was not too dutiful to cast a reproach upon him, when he was
so stern to her. "You have been so little with me, papa."

"That is true," he said, after a pause. "That is true. It has been a
fault, and I will mend it. It is a reason for forgiveness, and I will
forgive you. But you must tell me that there shall be an end to
this."

"No, papa."

"What do you mean?"

"That as I love Mr. Tregear, and as I have told him so, and as I have
promised him, I will be true to him. I cannot let there be an end to
it."

"You do not suppose that you will be allowed to see him again?"

"I hope so."

"Most assuredly not. Do you write to him?"

"No, papa."

"Never?"

"Never since we have been back in England."

"You must promise me that you will not write."

She paused a moment before she answered him, and now she was looking
him full in the face. "I shall not write to him. I do not think I
shall write to him; but I will not promise."

"Not promise me,--your father!"

"No, papa. It might be that--that I should do it."

"You would not wish me so to guard you that you should have no power
of sending a letter but by permission?"

"I should not like that."

"But it will have to be so."

"If I do write I will tell you."

"And show me what you write?"

"No, papa; not that; but I will tell you what I have written."

Then it occurred to him that this bargaining was altogether
derogatory to his parental authority, and by no means likely to
impress upon her mind the conviction that Tregear must be completely
banished from her thoughts. He began already to find how difficult
it would be for him to have the charge of such a daughter,--how
impossible that he should conduct such a charge with sufficient
firmness, and yet with sufficient tenderness! At present he had
done no good. He had only been made more wretched than ever by
her obstinacy. Surely he must pass her over to the charge of some
lady,--but of some lady who would be as determined as was he himself
that she should not throw herself away by marrying Mr. Tregear.

"There shall be no writing," he said, "no visiting, no communication
of any kind. As you refuse to obey me now, you had better go to your
room."




CHAPTER IX

"In Medias Res"


Perhaps the method of rushing at once "in medias res" is, of all the
ways of beginning a story, or a separate branch of a story, the least
objectionable. The reader is made to think that the gold lies so near
the surface that he will be required to take very little trouble in
digging for it. And the writer is enabled,--at any rate for a time,
and till his neck has become, as it were, warm to the collar,--to
throw off from him the difficulties and dangers, the tedium and
prolixity, of description. This rushing "in medias res" has doubtless
the charm of ease. "Certainly, when I threw her from the garret
window to the stony pavement below, I did not anticipate that she
would fall so far without injury to life or limb." When a story
has been begun after this fashion, without any prelude, without
description of the garret or of the pavement, or of the lady thrown,
or of the speaker, a great amount of trouble seems to have been
saved. The mind of the reader fills up the blanks,--if erroneously,
still satisfactorily. He knows, at least, that the heroine has
encountered a terrible danger, and has escaped from it with almost
incredible good fortune; that the demon of the piece is a bold demon,
not ashamed to speak of his own iniquity, and that the heroine
and the demon are so far united that they have been in a garret
together. But there is the drawback on the system,--that it is almost
impossible to avoid the necessity of doing, sooner or later, that
which would naturally be done at first. It answers, perhaps, for
half-a-dozen chapters;--and to carry the reader pleasantly for
half-a-dozen chapters is a great matter!--but after that a certain
nebulous darkness gradually seems to envelope the characters and
the incidents. "Is all this going on in the country, or is it in
town,--or perhaps in the Colonies? How old was she? Was she tall? Is
she fair? Is she heroine-like in her form and gait? And, after all,
how high was the garret window?" I have always found that the details
would insist on being told at last, and that by rushing "in medias
res" I was simply presenting the cart before the horse. But as
readers like the cart the best, I will do it once again,--trying it
only for a branch of my story,--and will endeavour to let as little
as possible of the horse be seen afterwards.

"And so poor Frank has been turned out of heaven?" said Lady Mabel
Grex to young Lord Silverbridge.

"Who told you that? I have said nothing about it to anybody."

"Of course he told me himself," said the young beauty. I am aware
that, in the word beauty, and perhaps, also, in the word young, a
little bit of the horse is appearing; and I am already sure that I
shall have to show his head and neck, even if not his very tail.
"Poor Frank! Did you hear it all?"

"I heard nothing, Lady Mab, and know nothing."

"You know that your awful governor won't let him stay any longer in
Carlton Terrace?"

"Yes, I know that."

"And why not?"

"Would Lord Grex allow Percival to have his friends living here?"
Earl Grex was Lady Mabel's father, Lord Percival was the Earl's
son;--and the Earl lived in Belgrave Square. All these are little
bits of the horse.

"Certainly not. In the first place, I am here."

"That makes a difference, certainly."

"Of course it makes a difference. They would be wanting to make love
to me."

"No doubt. I should, I know."

"And therefore it wouldn't do for you to live here; and then papa is
living here himself. And then the permission never has been given. I
suppose Frank did not go there at first without the Duke knowing it."

"I daresay that I had mentioned it."

"You might as well tell me all about it. We are cousins, you know."
Frank Tregear, through his mother's family, was second cousin to Lady
Mabel; as was also Lord Silverbridge, one of the Grexes having, at
some remote period, married a Palliser. This is another bit of the
horse.

"The governor merely seemed to think that he would like to have his
own house to himself--like other people. What an ass Tregear was to
say anything to you about it."

"I don't think he was an ass at all. Of course he had to tell us that
he was changing his residence. He says that he is going to take a
back bedroom somewhere near the Seven Dials."

"He has got very nice rooms in Duke Street."

"Have you seen him, then?"

"Of course I have."

"Poor fellow! I wish he had a little money; he is so nice. And now,
Lord Silverbridge, do you mean to say that there is not something in
the wind about Lady Mary?"

"If there were I should not talk about it," said Lord Silverbridge.

"You are a very innocent young gentleman."

"And you are a very interesting young lady."

"You ought to think me so, for I interest myself very much about you.
Was the Duke very angry about your not standing for the county?"

"He was vexed."

"I do think it is so odd that a man should be expected to be this or
that in politics because his father happened to be so before him! I
don't understand how he should expect that you should remain with
a party so utterly snobbish and down in the world as the Radicals.
Everybody that is worth anything is leaving them."

"He has not left them."

"No, I don't suppose he could; but you have."

"I never belonged to them, Lady Mab."

"And never will, I hope. I always told papa that you would certainly
be one of us." All this took place in the drawing-room of Lord Grex's
house. There was no Lady Grex alive, but there lived with the Earl
a certain elderly lady, reported to be in some distant way a cousin
of the family, named Miss Cassewary, who, in the matter of looking
after Lady Mab, did what was supposed to be absolutely necessary. She
now entered the room with her bonnet on, having just returned from
church. "What was the text?" asked Lady Mab at once.

"If you had gone to church, as you ought to have done, my dear, you
would have heard it."

"But as I didn't?"

"I don't think the text alone will do you any good."

"And probably you forget it."

"No, I don't, my dear. How do you do, Lord Silverbridge?"

"He is a Conservative, Miss Cass."

"Of course he is. I am quite sure that a young nobleman of so much
taste and intellect would take the better side."

"You forget that all you are saying is against my father and my
family, Miss Cassewary."

"I dare say it was different when your father was a young man.
And your father, too, was, not very long since, at the head of a
government which contained many Conservatives. I don't look upon your
father as a Radical, though perhaps I should not be justified in
calling him a Conservative."

"Well; certainly not, I think."

"But now it is necessary that all noblemen in England should rally to
the defence of their order." Miss Cassewary was a great politician,
and was one of those who are always foreseeing the ruin of their
country. "My dear, I will go and take my bonnet off. Perhaps you will
have tea when I come down."

"Don't you go," said Lady Mabel, when Silverbridge got up to take his
departure.

"I always do when tea comes."

"But you are going to dine here?"

"Not that I know of. In the first place, nobody has asked me. In the
second place, I am engaged. Thirdly, I don't care about having to
talk politics to Miss Cass; and fourthly, I hate family dinners on
Sunday."

"In the first place, I ask you. Secondly, I know you were going
to dine with Frank Tregear, at the club. Thirdly, I want you to
talk to me, and not to Miss Cass. And fourthly, you are an uncivil
young--young,--young,--I should say cub if I dared, to tell me that
you don't like dining with me any day of the week."

"Of course you know what I mean is, that I don't like troubling your
father."

"Leave that to me. I shall tell him you are coming, and Frank too. Of
course you can bring him. Then he can talk to me when papa goes down
to his club, and you can arrange your politics with Miss Cass." So
it was settled, and at eight o'clock Lord Silverbridge reappeared in
Belgrave Square with Frank Tregear.

Earl Grex was a nobleman of very ancient family, the Grexes having
held the parish of Grex, in Yorkshire, from some time long prior to
the Conquest. In saying all this, I am, I know, allowing the horse to
appear wholesale;--but I find that he cannot be kept out. I may as
well go on to say that the present Earl was better known at Newmarket
and the Beaufort,--where he spent a large part of his life in playing
whist,--than in the House of Lords. He was a grey-haired, handsome,
worn-out old man, who through a long life of pleasure had greatly
impaired a fortune which, for an earl, had never been magnificent,
and who now strove hard, but not always successfully, to remedy that
evil by gambling. As he could no longer eat and drink as he had used
to do, and as he cared no longer for the light that lies in a lady's
eye, there was not much left to him in the world but cards and
racing. Nevertheless he was a handsome old man, of polished manners,
when he chose to use them; a staunch Conservative and much regarded
by his party, for whom in his early life he had done some work in the
House of Commons.

"Silverbridge is all very well," he had said; "but I don't see why
that young Tregear is to dine here every night of his life."

"This is the second time since he has been up in town, papa."

"He was here last week, I know."

"Silverbridge wouldn't come without him."

"That's d---- nonsense," said the Earl. Miss Cassewary gave a
start,--not, we may presume, because she was shocked, for she could
not be much shocked, having heard the same word from the same lips
very often; but she thought it right always to enter a protest. Then
the two young men were announced.

Frank Tregear, having been known by the family as a boy, was Frank
to all of them,--as was Lady Mabel, Mabel to him, somewhat to the
disgust of the father and not altogether with the approbation of Miss
Cass. But Lady Mabel had declared that she would not be guilty of the
folly of changing old habits. Silverbridge, being Silverbridge to
all his own people, hardly seemed to have a Christian name;--his
godfathers and godmothers had indeed called him Plantagenet;--but
having only become acquainted with the family since his Oxford days
he was Lord Silverbridge to Lady Mabel. Lady Mabel had not as yet
become Mabel to him, but, as by her very intimate friends she was
called Mab, had allowed herself to be addressed by him as Lady Mab.
There was thus between them all considerable intimacy.

"I'm deuced glad to hear it," said the Earl when dinner was
announced. For, though he could not eat much, Lord Grex was always
impatient when the time of eating was at hand. Then he walked down
alone. Lord Silverbridge followed with his daughter, and Frank
Tregear gave his arm to Miss Cassewary. "If that woman can't clear
her soup better than that, she might as well go to the d----,"
said the Earl;--upon which remark no one in the company made any
observation. As there were two men-servants in the room when it was
made the cook probably had the advantage of it. It may be almost
unnecessary to add that though the Earl had polished manners for
certain occasions he would sometimes throw them off in the bosom of
his own family.

"My Lord," said Miss Cassewary--she always called him "My
Lord"--"Lord Silverbridge is going to stand for the Duke's borough in
the Conservative interest."

"I didn't know the Duke had a borough," said the Earl.

"He had one till he thought it proper to give it up," said the son,
taking his father's part.

"And you are going to pay him off for what he has done by standing
against him. It's just the sort of thing for a son to do in these
days. If I had a borough Percival would go down and make radical
speeches there."

"There isn't a better Conservative in England than Percival," said
Lady Mabel, bridling up.

"Nor a worse son," said the father. "I believe he would do anything
he could lay his hand on to oppose me." During the past week there
had been some little difference of opinion between the father and the
son as to the signing of a deed.

"My father does not take it in bad part at all," said Silverbridge.

"Perhaps he's ratting himself," said the Earl. "When a man lends
himself to a coalition he is as good as half gone."

"I do not think that in all England there is so thorough a Liberal as
my father," said Lord Silverbridge. "And when I say that he doesn't
take this badly, I don't mean that it doesn't vex him. I know it
vexes him. But he doesn't quarrel with me. He even wrote down to
Barsetshire to say that all my expenses at Silverbridge were to be
paid."

"I call that very bad politics," said the Earl.

"It seems to me to be very grand," said Frank.

"Perhaps, sir, you don't know what is good or what is bad in
politics," said the Earl, trying to snub his guest.

But it was difficult to snub Frank. "I know a gentleman when I see
him, I think," he said. "Of course Silverbridge is right to be a
Conservative. Nobody has a stronger opinion about that than I have.
But the Duke is behaving so well that if I were he I should almost
regret it."

"And so I do," said Silverbridge.

When the ladies were gone the old Earl turned himself round to the
fire, having filled his glass and pushed the bottles away from him,
as though he meant to leave the two young men to themselves. He sat
leaning with his head on his hand, looking the picture of woe. It was
now only nine o'clock, and there would be no whist at the Beaufort
till eleven. There was still more than an hour to be endured before
the brougham would come to fetch him. "I suppose we shall have a
majority," said Frank, trying to rouse him.

"Who does 'We' mean?" asked the Earl.

"The Conservatives, of whom I take the liberty to call myself one."

"It sounded as though you were a very influential member of the
party."

"I consider myself to be one of the party, and so I say 'We.'"

Upstairs in the drawing-room Miss Cassewary did her duty loyally.
It was quite right that young ladies and young gentlemen should be
allowed to talk together, and very right indeed that such a young
gentleman as Lord Silverbridge should be allowed to talk to such a
young lady as Lady Mabel. What could be so nice as a marriage between
the heir of the house of Omnium and Lady Mabel Grex? Lady Mabel
looked indeed to be the elder,--but they were in truth the same
age. All the world acknowledged that Lady Mabel was very clever and
very beautiful and fit to be a Duchess. Even the Earl, when Miss
Cassewary hinted at the matter to him, grunted an assent. Lady Mabel
had already refused one or two not ineligible offers, and it was
necessary that something should be done. There had been at one time a
fear in Miss Cassewary's bosom lest her charge should fall too deeply
in love with Frank Tregear;--but Miss Cassewary knew that whatever
danger there might have been in that respect had passed away. Frank
was willing to talk to her, while Mabel and Lord Silverbridge were in
a corner together.

"I shall be on tenterhooks now till I know how it is to be at
Silverbridge," said the young lady.

"It is very good of you to feel so much interest."

"Of course I feel an interest. Are not you one of us? When is it to
be?"

"They say that the elections will be over before the Derby."

"And which do you care for the most?"

"I should like to pull off the Derby, I own."

"From what papa says, I should think the other event is the more
probable."

"Doesn't the Earl stand to win on Prime Minister?"

"I never know anything about his betting. But,--you know his way,--he
said you were going to drop a lot of money like a-- I can't quite
tell you what he likened you to."

"The Earl may be mistaken."

"You are not betting much, I hope."

"Not plunging. But I have a little money on."

"Don't get into a way of betting."

"Why:--what difference does it make,--to you?"

"Is that kind, Lord Silverbridge?"

"I meant to say that if I did make a mess of it you wouldn't care
about it."

"Yes, I should. I should care very much. I dare say you could lose a
great deal of money and care nothing about it."

"Indeed I could not."

"What would be a great deal of money to me. But you would want to get
it back again. And in that way you would be regularly on the turf."

"And why not?"

"I want to see better things from you."

"You ought not to preach against the turf, Lady Mab."

"Because of papa? But I am not preaching against the turf. If I were
such as you are I would have a horse or two myself. A man in your
position should do a little of everything. You should hunt and have a
yacht, and stalk deer and keep your own trainer at Newmarket."

"I wish you'd say all that to my father."

"Of course I mean if you can afford it. I like a man to like
pleasure. But I despise a man who makes a business of his pleasures.
When I hear that this man is the best whist-player in London, and
that man the best billiard-player, I always know that they can do
nothing else, and then I despise them."

"You needn't despise me, because I do nothing well," said he, as he
got up to take his leave.

"I do so hope you'll get the seat,--and win the Derby."

These were her last words to him as she wished him good-night.




CHAPTER X

"Why Not Like Romeo If I Feel Like Romeo?"


"That's nonsense, Miss Cass, and I shall," said Lady Mabel. They were
together, on the morning after the little dinner-party described in
the last chapter, in a small back sitting-room which was supposed to
be Lady Mabel's own, and the servant had just announced the fact that
Mr. Tregear was below.

"Then I shall go down too," said Miss Cassewary.

"You'll do nothing of the kind. Will you please to tell me what it is
you are afraid of? Do you think that Frank is going to make love to
me again?"

"No."

"Or that if I chose that he should I would let you stop me? He is
in love with somebody else,--and perhaps I am too. And we are two
paupers."

"My lord would not approve of it."

"If you know what my lord approves of and what he disapproves you
understand him a great deal better than I do. And if you mind what
he approves or disapproves, you care for his opinion a great deal
more than I do. My cousin is here now to talk to me,--about his own
affairs, and I mean to see him,--alone." Then she left the little
room, and went down to that in which Frank was waiting for her,
without the company of Miss Cassewary.

"Do you really mean," she said after they had been together for some
minutes, "that you had the courage to ask the Duke for his daughter's
hand?"

"Why not?"

"I believe you would dare do anything."

"I couldn't very well take it without asking him."

"As I am not acquainted with the young lady I don't know how that
might be."

"And if I took her so, I should have to take her empty-handed."

"Which wouldn't suit;--would it?"

"It wouldn't suit for her,--whose comforts and happiness are much
more to me than my own."

"No doubt! Of course you are terribly in love."

"Very thoroughly in love, I think, I am."

"For the tenth time, I should say."

"For the second only. I don't regard myself as a monument of
constancy, but I think I am less fickle than some other people."

"Meaning me!"

"Not especially."

"Frank, that is ill-natured, and almost unmanly,--and false also.
When have I been fickle? You say that there was one before with you.
I say that there has never really been one with me at all. No one
knows that better than yourself. I cannot afford to be in love till I
am quite sure that the man is fit to be, and will be, my husband."

"I doubt sometimes whether you are capable of being in love with any
one."

"I think I am," she said, very gently. "But I am at any rate capable
of not being in love till I wish it. Come, Frank; do not quarrel with
me. You know,--you ought to know,--that I should have loved you had
it not been that such love would have been bad for both of us."

"It is a kind of self-restraint I do not understand."

"Because you are not a woman."

"Why did you twit me with changing my love?"

"Because I am a woman. Can't you forgive as much as that to me?"

"Certainly. Only you must not think that I have been false because I
now love her so dearly."

"I do not think you are false. I would do anything to help you if
there were anything I could do. But when you spoke so like a Romeo of
your love--"

"Why not like a Romeo, if I feel like a Romeo?"

"But I doubt whether Romeo talked much to Rosaline of his love for
Juliet. But you shall talk to me of yours for Lady Mary, and I will
listen to you patiently and encourage you, and will not even think of
those former vows."

"The former vows were foolish."

"Oh,--of course."

"You at least used to say so."

"I say so now, and they shall be as though they had been never
spoken. So you bearded the Duke in his den, and asked him for Lady
Mary's hand,--just as though you had been a young Duke yourself and
owned half a county?"

"Just the same."

"And what did he say?"

"He swore that it was impossible.--Of course I knew all that before."

"How will it be now? You will not give it up?"

"Certainly not."

"And Lady Mary?"

"One human being can perhaps never answer for another with perfect
security."

"But you feel sure of her?"

"I do."

"He, I should think, can be very imperious."

"And so can she. The Pallisers are all obstinate."

"Is Silverbridge obstinate?" she asked.

"Stiff-necked as a bull if he takes it into his head to be so."

"I shouldn't have thought it."

"No;--because he is so soft in his manner, and often finds it easier
to be led by others than to direct himself."

Then she remained silent for a few seconds. They were both thinking
of the same thing, and both wishing to speak of it. But the words
came to her first. "I wonder what he thinks of me." Whereupon Tregear
only smiled. "I suppose he has spoken to you about me?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Why!"

"And why should I tell you? Suppose he should have said to me in the
confidence of friendship that he thinks you ugly and stupid."

"I am sure he has not said that. He has eyes to see and ears to hear.
But, though I am neither ugly nor stupid, he needn't like me."

"Do you want him to like you?"

"Yes, I do. Oh yes; you may laugh; but if I did not think that I
could be a good wife to him I would not take his hand even to become
Duchess of Omnium."

"Do you mean that you love him, Mabel?"

"No; I do not mean that. But I would learn to love him. You do not
believe that?" Here he smiled again and shook his head. "It is as I
said before, because you are not a woman, and do not understand how
women are trammelled. Do you think ill of me because I say this?"

"No, indeed."

"Do not think ill of me if you can help it, because you are almost
the only friend that I can trust. I almost trust dear old Cass, but
not quite. She is old-fashioned and I shock her. As for other women,
there isn't one anywhere to whom I would say a word. Only think how
a girl such as I am is placed; or indeed any girl. You, if you see
a woman that you fancy, can pursue her, can win her and triumph, or
lose her and gnaw your heart;--at any rate you can do something. You
can tell her that you love her; can tell her so again and again even
though she should scorn you. You can set yourself about the business
you have taken in hand and can work hard at it. What can a girl do?"

"Girls work hard too sometimes."

"Of course they do;--but everybody feels that they are sinning
against their sex. Of love, such as a man's is, a woman ought to know
nothing. How can she love with passion when she should never give her
love till it has been asked, and not then unless her friends tell her
that the thing is suitable? Love such as that to me is out of the
question. But, as it is fit that I should be married, I wish to be
married well."

"And you will love him after a fashion?"

"Yes;--after a very sterling fashion. I will make his wishes my
wishes, his ways my ways, his party my party, his home my home,
his ambition my ambition,--his honour my honour." As she said this
she stood up with her hands clenched and head erect, and her eyes
flashing. "Do you not know me well enough to be sure that I should be
loyal to him?"

"Yes;--I think that you would be loyal."

"Whether I loved him or not, he should love me."

"And you think that Silverbridge would do?"

"Yes, I think that Silverbridge would do. You, no doubt, will say
that I am flying high?"

"Not too high. Why should you not fly high? If I can justify myself,
surely I cannot accuse you."

"It is hardly the same thing, Frank. Of course, there is not a girl
in London to whom Lord Silverbridge would not be the best match that
she could make. He has the choice of us all."

"Most girls would think twice before refusing him."

"Very few would think twice before accepting him. Perhaps he wishes
to add to his wealth by marrying richly,--as his father did."

"No thought on that subject will ever trouble him. That will be all
as it happens. As soon as he takes a sufficient fancy to a girl he
will ask her straight off. I do not say that he might not change
afterwards, but he would mean it at the time."

"If he had once said the word to me, he should not change. But then
what right have I to expect it? What has he ever said about me?"

"Very little. But had he said much I should not tell you."

"You are my friend,--but you are his too; and he, perhaps, is more to
you than I am. As his friend it may be your duty to tell him all that
I am saying. If so, I have been wrong."

"Do you think that I shall do that, Mabel?"

"I do not know. Men are so strong in their friendships."

"Mine with you is the older, and the sweeter. Though we may not be
more than friends, I will say that it is the more tender. In my heart
of hearts I do not think that Silverbridge could do better."

"Thanks for that, Frank."

"I shall tell him nothing of you that can set him against you."

"And you would be glad to see me his wife?" she said.

"As you must be somebody's wife, and not mine."

"I cannot be yours, Frank; can I?"

"And not mine," he repeated. "I will endeavour to be glad. Who can
explain his feelings in such a matter? Though I most truly love the
girl I hope to marry, yet my heart goes back to former things and
opens itself to past regrets."

"I know it all," she whispered.

"But you and I must be too wise to permit ourselves to be tormented
by such foolish melancholy." As he said this he took her hand, half
with the purpose of bidding her good-bye, but partly with the idea of
giving some expression to the tenderness of his feelings. But as he
did so, the door was opened, and the old Earl shambled into the room.

"What the deuce are you doing here?" he said.

"I have been talking to Lady Mabel."

"For about an hour."

"Indeed I do not know for how long."

"Papa, he is going to be married." When she said this Frank Tregear
turned round and looked at her almost in anger.

"Going to be married, is he? Who is the fortunate woman?"

"I don't think he will let me tell you."

"Not yet, I think," said Frank, gloomily. "There is nothing settled."

The old Earl looked puzzled, but Lady Mabel's craft had been
successful. If this objectionable young second-cousin had come there
to talk about his marriage with another young woman, the conversation
must have been innocent. "Where is Miss Cassewary?" asked the Earl.

"I asked her not to come down with me because Frank wished to speak
to me about his own affairs. You have no objection to his coming,
papa?"

There had been objections raised to any intimacy with Frank Tregear;
but all that was now nearly two years since. He had been assured over
and over again by Miss Cassewary that he need not be afraid of Frank
Tregear, and had in a sort of way assented to the young man's visits.
"I think he might find something better to do with his time than
hanging about here all day." Frank, shrugging his shoulders, and
having shaken hands both with the daughter and father, took his hat
and departed. "Who is the girl?" asked the Earl.

"You heard him say that I was not to tell."

"Has she got money?"

"I believe she will have a great deal."

"Then she is a great fool for her pains," said the Earl, shambling
off again.

Lady Mabel spent the greater part of the afternoon alone,
endeavouring to recall to her mind all that she had said to Frank
Tregear, and questioning herself as to the wisdom and truth of her
own words. She had intended to tell the truth,--but hardly perhaps
the whole truth. The life which was before her,--which it was
necessary that she should lead,--seemed to her to be so difficult!
She could not clearly see her way to be pure and good and feminine,
and at the same time wise. She had been false now;--so far false that
she had told her friend that she had never been in love. But she was
in love;--in love with him, Frank Tregear. She knew it as thoroughly
as it was possible for her to know anything;--and had acknowledged it
to herself a score of times.

But she could not marry him. And it was expected, nay, almost
necessary that she should marry someone. To that someone, how good
she would be! How she would strive by duty and attention, and if
possible by affection, to make up for that misfortune of her early
love!

And so I hope that I have brought my cart in to its appointed place
in the front, without showing too much of the horse.




CHAPTER XI

"Cruel"


For two or three days after the first scene between the Duke and his
daughter,--that scene in which she was forbidden either to see or
to write to her lover,--not a word was said at Matching about Mr.
Tregear, nor were any steps taken towards curtailing her liberty
of action. She had said she would not write to him without telling
her father, and the Duke was too proud of the honour of his family
to believe it to be possible that she should deceive him. Nor was
it possible. Not only would her own idea of duty prevent her from
writing to her lover, although she had stipulated for the right to do
so in some possible emergency,--but, carried far beyond that in her
sense of what was right and wrong, she felt it now incumbent on her
to have no secret from her father at all. The secret, as long as it
had been a secret, had been a legacy from her mother,--and had been
kept, at her lover's instance, during that period of mourning for
her mother in which it would, she thought, have been indecorous that
there should be any question of love or of giving in marriage. It had
been a burden to her, though a necessary burden. She had been very
clear that the revelation should be made to her father, when it was
made, by her lover. That had been done,--and now it was open to her
to live without any secrecy,--as was her nature. She meant to cling
to her lover. She was quite sure of that. Nothing could divide her
from him but his death or hers,--or falseness on his part. But as
to marriage, that would not be possible till her father had assented.
And as to seeing the man,--ah, yes, if she could do so with her
father's assent! She would not be ashamed to own her great desire to
see him. She would tell her father that all her happiness depended
upon seeing him. She would not be coy in speaking of her love. But
she would obey her father.

She had a strong idea that she would ultimately prevail,--an idea
also that that "ultimately" should not be postponed to some undefined
middle-aged period of her life. As she intended to belong to Frank
Tregear, she thought it expedient that he should have the best of
her days as well as what might be supposed to be the worst; and she
therefore resolved that it would be her duty to make her father
understand that though she would certainly obey him, she would look
to be treated humanely by him, and not to be made miserable for an
indefinite term of years.

The first word spoken between them on the subject,--the first word
after that discussion,--began with him and was caused by his feeling
that her present life at Matching must be sad and lonely. Lady
Cantrip had again written that she would be delighted to take
her;--but Lady Cantrip was in London and must be in London, at any
rate when Parliament should again be sitting. A London life would
perhaps, at present, hardly suit Lady Mary. Then a plan had been
prepared which might be convenient. The Duke had a house at Richmond,
on the river, called The Horns. That should be lent to Lady Cantrip,
and Mary should there be her guest. So it was settled between the
Duke and Lady Cantrip. But as yet Lady Mary knew nothing of the
arrangement.

"I think I shall go up to town to-morrow," said the Duke to his
daughter.

"For long?"

"I shall be gone only one night. It is on your behalf that I am
going."

"On my behalf, papa?"

"I have been writing to Lady Cantrip."

"Not about Mr. Tregear?"

"No;--not about Mr. Tregear," said the father with a mixture of anger
and solemnity in his tone. "It is my desire to regard Mr. Tregear as
though he did not exist."

"That is not possible, papa."

"I have alluded to the inconvenience of your position here."

"Why is it inconvenient?"

"You are too young to be without a companion. It is not fit that you
should be so much alone."

"I do not feel it."

"It is very melancholy for you, and cannot be good for you. They will
go down to The Horns, so that you will not be absolutely in London,
and you will find Lady Cantrip a very nice person."

"I don't care for new people just now, papa," she said. But to
this he paid but little heed; nor was she prepared to say that she
would not do as he directed. When therefore he left Matching, she
understood that he was going to prepare a temporary home for her.
Nothing further was said about Tregear. She was too proud to ask that
no mention of his name should be made to Lady Cantrip. And he when he
left the house did not think that he would find himself called upon
to allude to the subject.

But when Lady Cantrip made some inquiry about the girl and her
habits,--asking what were her ordinary occupations, how she
was accustomed to pass her hours, to what she chiefly devoted
herself,--then at last with much difficulty the Duke did bring
himself to tell the story. "Perhaps it is better you should know it
all," he said as he told it.

"Poor girl! Yes, Duke; upon the whole it is better that I should know
it all," said Lady Cantrip. "Of course he will not come here."

"Oh dear; I hope not."

"Nor to The Horns."

"I hope he will never see her again anywhere," said the Duke.

"Poor girl!"

"Have I not been right? Is it not best to put an end to such a thing
at once?"

"Certainly at once, if it has to be put an end to,--and can be put an
end to."

"It must be put an end to," said the Duke, very decidedly. "Do you
not see that it must be so? Who is Mr. Tregear?"

"I suppose they were allowed to be together."

"He was unfortunately intimate with Silverbridge, who took him over
to Italy. He has nothing; not even a profession." Lady Cantrip could
not but smile when she remembered the immense wealth of the man who
was speaking to her;--and the Duke saw the smile and understood it.
"You will understand what I mean, Lady Cantrip. If this young man
were in other respects suitable, of course I could find an income for
them. But he is nothing; just an idle seeker for pleasure without the
means of obtaining it."

"That is very bad."

"As for rank," continued the Duke energetically, "I do not think
that I am specially wedded to it. I have found myself as willing
to associate with those who are without it as with those who have
it. But for my child, I would wish her to mate with one of her own
class."

"It would be best."

"When a young man comes to me who, though I believe him to be what is
called a gentleman, has neither rank, nor means, nor profession, nor
name, and asks for my daughter, surely I am right to say that such a
marriage shall not be thought of. Was I not right?" demanded the Duke
persistently.

"But it is a pity that it should be so. It is a pity that they should
ever have come together."

"It is indeed, indeed to be lamented,--and I will own at once that
the fault was not hers. Though I must be firm in this, you are not to
suppose that I am angry with her. I have myself been to blame." This
he said with a resolution that,--as he and his wife had been one
flesh,--all faults committed by her should, now that she was dead, be
accepted by him as his faults. "It had not occurred to me that as yet
she would love any man."

"Has it gone deep with her, Duke?"

"I fear that all things go deep with her."

"Poor girl!"

"But they shall be kept apart! As long as your great kindness is
continued to her they shall be kept apart!"

"I do not think that I should be found good at watching a young
lady."

"She will require no watching."

"Then of course they will not meet. She had better know that you have
told me."

"She shall know it."

"And let her know also that anything I can do to make her happy shall
be done. But, Duke, there is but one cure."

"Time, you mean."

"Yes; time; but I did not mean time." Then she smiled as she went
on. "You must not suppose that I am speaking against my own sex if I
say that she will not forget Mr. Tregear till someone else has made
himself agreeable to her. We must wait till she can go out a little
into society. Then she will find out that there are others in the
world besides Mr. Tregear. It so often is the case that a girl's love
means her sympathy for him who has chanced to be nearest to her."

The Duke as he went away thought very much of what Lady Cantrip had
said to him;--particularly of those last words. "Till some one else
has made himself agreeable to her." Was he to send his girl into the
world in order that she might find a lover? There was something in
the idea which was thoroughly distasteful to him. He had not given
his mind much to the matter, but he felt that a woman should be
sought for,--sought for and extracted, cunningly, as it were, from
some hiding-place, and not sent out into a market to be exposed as
for sale. In his own personal history there had been a misfortune,--a
misfortune, the sense of which he could never, at any moment, have
expressed to any ears, the memory of which had been always buried in
his own bosom,--but a misfortune in that no such cunning extraction
on his part had won for him the woman to whose hands had been
confided the strings of his heart. His wife had undergone that
process of extraction before he had seen her, and his marriage with
her had been a matter of sagacious bargaining. He was now told that
his daughter must be sent out among young men in order that she might
become sufficiently fond of some special one to be regardless of
Tregear. There was a feeling that in doing so she must lose something
of the freshness of the bloom of her innocence. How was this transfer
of her love to be effected? Let her go here because she will meet the
heir of this wealthy house who may probably be smitten by her charms;
or there because that other young lordling would make a fit husband
for her. Let us contrive to throw her into the arms of this man, or
put her into the way of that man. Was his girl to be exposed to this?
Surely that method of bargaining to which he had owed his own wife
would be better than that. Let it be said,--only he himself most
certainly could not be the person to say it,--let it be said to some
man of rank and means and fairly good character: "Here is a wife for
you with so many thousand pounds, with beauty, as you can see for
yourself, with rank and belongings of the highest; very good in every
respect;--only that as regards her heart she thinks she has given
it to a young man named Tregear. No marriage there is possible; but
perhaps the young lady might suit you?" It was thus he had been
married. There was an absence in it of that romance which, though he
had never experienced it in his own life, was always present to his
imagination. His wife had often ridiculed him because he could only
live among figures and official details; but to her had not been
given the power of looking into a man's heart and feeling all that
was there. Yes;--in such bargaining for a wife, in such bargaining
for a husband, there could be nothing of the tremulous delicacy of
feminine romance; but it would be better than standing at a stall
in the market till the sufficient purchaser should come. It never
occurred to him that the delicacy, the innocence, the romance, the
bloom might all be preserved if he would give his girl to the man
whom she said she loved. Could he have modelled her future course
according to his own wishes, he would have had her live a gentle life
for the next three years, with a pencil perhaps in her hand or a
music-book before her;--and then come forth, cleaned as it were by
such quarantine from the impurity to which she had been subjected.

When he was back at Matching he at once told his daughter what he had
arranged for her, and then there took place a prolonged discussion
both as to his view of her future life and as to her own. "You did
tell her then about Mr. Tregear?" she asked.

"As she is to have charge of you for a time I thought it best."

"Perhaps it is. Perhaps--you were afraid."

"No; I was not afraid," he said angrily.

"You need not be afraid. I shall do nothing elsewhere that I would
not do here, and nothing anywhere without telling you."

"I know I can trust you."

"But, papa, I shall always intend to marry Mr. Tregear."

"No!" he exclaimed.

"Yes;--always. I want you to understand exactly how it is. Nothing
you can do can separate me from him."

"Mary, that is very wicked."

"It cannot be wicked to tell the truth, papa. I mean to try to do all
that you tell me. I shall not see him, or write to him,--unless there
should be some very particular reason. And if I did see him or write
to him I would tell you. And of course I should not think of--of
marrying without your leave. But I shall expect you to let me marry
him."

"Never!"

"Then I shall think you are--cruel; and you will break my heart."

"You should not call your father cruel."

"I hope you will not be cruel."

"I can never permit you to marry this man. It would be altogether
improper. I cannot allow you to say that I am cruel because I do what
I feel to be my duty. You will see other people."

"A great many perhaps."

"And will learn to,--to,--to forget him."

"Never! I will not forget him. I should hate myself if I thought it
possible. What would love be worth if it could be forgotten in that
way?" As he heard this he reflected whether his own wife, this girl's
mother, had ever forgotten her early love for that Burgo Fitzgerald
whom in her girlhood she had wished to marry.

When he was leaving her she called him back again. "There is one
other thing I think I ought to say, papa. If Lady Cantrip speaks to
me about Mr. Tregear, I can only tell her what I have told you. I
shall never give him up." When he heard this he turned angrily from
her, almost stamping his foot upon the ground, when she quietly left
the room.

Cruel! She had told him that he would be cruel, if he opposed her
love. He thought he knew of himself that he could not be cruel,--even
to a fly, even to a political opponent. There could be no cruelty
without dishonesty, and did he not always struggle to be honest?
Cruel to his own daughter!




CHAPTER XII

At Richmond


The pity of it! The pity of it! It was thus that Lady Cantrip looked
at it. From what the girl's father had said to her she was disposed
to believe that the malady had gone deep with her. "All things go
deep with her," he had said. And she too from other sources had heard
something of this girl. She was afraid that it would go deep. It was
a thousand pities! Then she asked herself whether the marriage ought
to be regarded as impossible. The Duke had been very positive,--had
declared again and again that it was quite impossible, had so
expressed himself as to make her aware that he intended her to
understand that he would not yield whatever the sufferings of the
girl might be. But Lady Cantrip knew the world well and was aware
that in such matters daughters are apt to be stronger than their
fathers. He had declared Tregear to be a young man with very small
means, and intent on such pleasures as require great means for their
enjoyment. No worse character could be given to a gentleman who
had proposed himself as a son-in-law. But Lady Cantrip thought it
possible that the Duke might be mistaken in this. She had never seen
Mr. Tregear, but she fancied that she had heard his name, and that
the name had been connected with a character different from that
which the Duke had given him.

Lady Cantrip, who at this time was a young-looking woman, not much
above forty, had two daughters, both of whom were married. The
younger about a year since had become the wife of Lord Nidderdale, a
middle-aged young man who had been long about town, a cousin of the
late Duchess, the heir to a marquisate, and a Member of Parliament.
The marriage had not been considered to be very brilliant; but the
husband was himself good-natured and pleasant, and Lady Cantrip was
fond of him. In the first place she went to him for information.

"Oh yes, I know him. He's one of our set at the Beargarden."

"Not your set, now, I hope," she said laughing.

"Well;--I don't see so much of them as I used to do. Tregear is not a
bad fellow at all. He's always with Silverbridge. When Silverbridge
does what Tregear tells him, he goes along pretty straight. But
unfortunately there's another man called Tifto, and when Tifto is in
the ascendant then Silverbridge is apt to get a little astray."

"He's not in debt, then?"

"Who?--Tregear? I should think he's the last man in the world to owe
a penny to any one."

"Is he a betting man?"

"Oh dear no; quite the other way up. He's a severe, sarcastic,
bookish sort of fellow,--a chap who knows everything and turns up his
nose at people who know nothing."

"Has he got anything of his own?"

"Not much, I should say. If he had had any money he would have
married Lady Mab Grex last year."

Lady Cantrip was inclined from what she now learned to think that the
Duke must be wrong about the young man. But before Lady Mary joined
her she made further inquiry. She too knew Lady Mabel, and knowing
Lady Mabel, she knew Miss Cassewary. She contrived to find herself
alone with Miss Cassewary, and asked some further questions about Mr.
Tregear. "He is a cousin of my Lord's," said Miss Cass.

"So I thought. I wonder what sort of a young man he is. He is a good
deal with Lord Silverbridge."

Then Miss Cassewary spoke her opinion very plainly. "If Lord
Silverbridge had nobody worse about him than Mr. Tregear he would not
come to much harm."

"I suppose he's not very well off."

"No;--certainly not. He will have a property of some kind, I believe,
when his mother dies. I think very well of Mr. Tregear;--only I wish
that he had a profession. But why are you asking about him, Lady
Cantrip?"

"Nidderdale was talking to me about him and saying that he was
so much with Lord Silverbridge. Lord Silverbridge is going into
Parliament now, and, as it were, beginning the world, and it would
be a thousand pities that he should get into bad hands." It may,
however, be doubted whether Miss Cassewary was hoodwinked by this
little story.

Early in the second week in May the Duke brought his daughter up to
The Horns, and at the same time expressed his intention of remaining
in London. When he did so Lady Mary at once asked whether she might
not be with him,--but he would not permit it. The house in London
would, he said, be more gloomy even than Matching.

"I am quite ashamed of giving you so much trouble," Lady Mary said to
her new friend.

"We are delighted to have you, my dear."

"But I know that you have been obliged to leave London because I am
with you."

"There is nothing I like so much as this place, which your father has
been kind enough to lend us. As for London, there is nothing now to
make me like being there. Both my girls are married, and therefore I
regard myself as an old woman who has done her work. Don't you think
this place very much nicer than London at this time of the year?"

"I don't know London at all. I had only just been brought out when
poor mamma went abroad."

The life they led was very quiet, and must probably have been felt
to be dull by Lady Cantrip, in spite of her old age and desire
for retirement. But the place itself was very lovely. May of all
the months of the year is in England the most insidious, the most
dangerous, and the most inclement. A greatcoat cannot be endured,
and without a greatcoat who can endure a May wind and live? But of
all months it is the prettiest. The grasses are then the greenest,
and the young foliage of the trees, while it has all the glory and
all the colour of spring vegetation, does not hide the form of the
branches as do the heavy masses of the larger leaves which come in
the advancing summer. And of all villas near London The Horns was the
sweetest. The broad green lawn swept down to the very margin of the
Thames, which absolutely washed the fringe of grass when the tide
was high. And here, along the bank, was a row of flowering ashes,
the drooping boughs of which in places touched the water. It was
one of those spots which when they are first seen make the beholder
feel that to be able to live there and look at it always would be
happiness enough for life.

At the end of the week there came a visitor to see Lady Mary. A very
pretty carriage was driven up to the door of The Horns, and the
servant asked for Lady Mary Palliser. The owner of that carriage was
Mrs. Finn. Now it must be explained to the reader that there had
never been any friendship between Mrs. Finn and Lady Cantrip, though
the ladies had met each other. The great political intimacy which had
existed between the Duke and Lord Cantrip had created some intimacy
also between their wives. The Duchess and Lady Cantrip had been
friends,--after a fashion. But Mrs. Finn had never been cordially
accepted by those among whom Lady Cantrip chiefly lived. When
therefore the name was announced, the servant expressly stating that
the visitor had asked for Lady Mary, Lady Cantrip, who was with her
guest, had to bethink herself what she would do. The Duke, who was at
this time very full of wrath against Mrs. Finn, had not mentioned
this lady's name when delivering up the charge of his daughter to
Lady Cantrip. At this moment it occurred to her that not improbably
Mrs. Finn would cease to be included in the intimacies of the
Palliser family from the time of the death of the Duchess,--that the
Duke would not care to maintain the old relations, and that he would
be as little anxious to do it for his daughter as for himself. If so,
could it be right that Mrs. Finn should come down here, to a house
which was now in the occupation of a lady with whom she was not on
inviting terms, in order that she might thus force herself on the
Duke's daughter? Mrs. Finn had not left her carriage, but had sent in
to ask if Lady Mary could see her. In all this there was considerable
embarrassment. She looked round at her guest, who had at once risen
from her chair. "Would you wish to see her?" asked Lady Cantrip.

"Oh yes; certainly."

"Have you seen her since,--since you came home from Italy?"

"Oh dear, yes! She was down at Matching when poor mamma died. And
papa persuaded her to remain afterwards. Of course I will see her."
Then the servant was desired to ask Mrs. Finn to come in;--and while
this was being done Lady Cantrip retired.

Mrs. Finn embraced her young friend, and asked after her welfare, and
after the welfare of the house in which she was staying,--a house
with which Mrs. Finn herself had been well acquainted,--and said
half-a-dozen pretty little things in her own quiet pretty way, before
she spoke of the matter which had really brought her to The Horns on
that day.

"I have had a correspondence with your father, Mary."

"Indeed."

"And unfortunately one that has been far from agreeable to me."

"I am sorry for that, Mrs. Finn."

"So am I, very sorry. I may say with perfect truth that there is no
man in the world, except my own husband, for whom I feel so perfect
an esteem as I do for your father. If it were not that I do not like
to be carried away by strong language I would speak of more than
esteem. Through your dear mother I have watched his conduct closely,
and have come to think that there is perhaps no other man at the same
time so just and so patriotic. Now he is very angry with me,--and
most unjustly angry."

"Is it about me?"

"Yes;--it is about you. Had it not been altogether about you I would
not have troubled you."

"And about--?"

"Yes;--about Mr. Tregear also. When I tell you that there has been a
correspondence I must explain that I have written one long letter to
the Duke, and that in answer I have received a very short one. That
has been the whole correspondence. Here is your father's letter to
me." Then she brought out of her pocket a note, which Lady Mary
read,--covered with blushes as she did so. The note was as follows:


   The Duke of Omnium understands from Mrs. Finn's letter
   that Mrs. Finn, while she was the Duke's guest at
   Matching, was aware of a certain circumstance affecting
   the Duke's honour and happiness,--which circumstance she
   certainly did not communicate to the Duke. The Duke thinks
   that the trust which had been placed in Mrs. Finn should
   have made such a communication imperative. The Duke feels
   that no further correspondence between himself and Mrs.
   Finn on the matter could lead to any good result.


"Do you understand it?" asked Mrs. Finn.

"I think so."

"It simply means this,--that when at Matching he had thought me
worthy of having for a time the charge of you and of your welfare,
that he had trusted me, who was the friend of your dear mother,
to take for a time in regard to you the place which had been so
unhappily left vacant by her death; and it means also that I deceived
him and betrayed that trust by being privy to an engagement on your
part, of which he disapproves, and of which he was not then aware."

"I suppose he does mean that."

"Yes, Lady Mary; that is what he means. And he means further to let
me know that as I did so foully betray the trust which he had placed
in me,--that as I had consented to play the part of assistant to you
in that secret engagement,--therefore he casts me off as altogether
unworthy of his esteem and acquaintance. It is as though he had told
me in so many words that among women he had known none more vile or
more false than I."

"Not that, Mrs. Finn."

"Yes, that;--all of that. He tells me that, and then says that there
shall be no more words spoken or written about it. I can hardly
submit to so stern a judgment. You know the truth, Lady Mary."

"Do not call me Lady Mary. Do not quarrel with me."

"If your father has quarrelled with me, it would not be fit that you
and I should be friends. Your duty to him would forbid it. I should
not have come to you now did I not feel that I am bound to justify
myself. The thing of which I am accused is so repugnant to me, that
I am obliged to do something and to say something, even though the
subject itself be one on which I would so willingly be silent."

"What can I do, Mrs. Finn?"

"It was Mr. Tregear who first told me that your father was angry with
me. He knew what I had done and why, and he was bound to tell me in
order that I might have an opportunity of setting myself right with
the Duke. Then I wrote and explained everything,--how you had told
me of the engagement, and how I had then urged Mr. Tregear that he
should not keep such a matter secret from your father. In answer to
my letter I have received--that."

"Shall I write and tell papa?"

"He should be made to understand that from the moment in which I
heard of the engagement I was urgent with you and with Mr. Tregear
that he should be informed of it. You will remember what passed."

"I remember it all."

"I did not conceive it to be my duty to tell the Duke myself, but I
did conceive it to be my duty to see he should be told. Now he writes
as though I had known the secret from the first, and as though I had
been concealing it from him at the very moment in which he was asking
me to remain at Matching on your behalf. That I consider to be
hard,--and unjust. I cannot deny what he says. I did know of it while
I was at Matching, for it was at Matching that you told me. But he
implies that I knew it before. When you told me your story I did feel
that it was my duty to see that the matter was not kept longer from
him;--and I did my duty. Now your father takes upon himself to rebuke
me,--and takes upon himself at the same time to forbid me to write to
him again!"

"I will tell him all, Mrs. Finn."

"Let him understand this. I do not wish to write to him again. After
what has passed I cannot say I wish to see him again. But I think he
should acknowledge to me that he has been mistaken. He need not then
fear that I shall trouble him with any reply. But I shall know that
he has acquitted me of a fault of which I cannot bear to think I
should be accused." Then she took a somewhat formal though still an
affectionate farewell of the girl.

"I want to see papa as soon as possible," said Lady Mary when she was
again with Lady Cantrip. The reason for her wish was soon given, and
then the whole story told. "You do not think that she should have
gone to papa at once?" Lady Mary asked. It was a point of moral law
on which the elder woman, who had had girls of her own, found it hard
to give an immediate answer. It certainly is expedient that parents
should know at once of any engagement by which their daughters may
seek to contract themselves. It is expedient that they should be able
to prevent any secret contracts. Lady Cantrip felt strongly that
Mrs. Finn having accepted the confidential charge of the daughter
could not, without gross betrayal of trust, allow herself to be the
depositary of such a secret. "But she did not allow herself," said
Lady Mary, pleading for her friend.

"But she left the house without telling him, my dear."

"But it was because of what she did that he was told."

"That is true; but I doubt whether she should have left him an hour
in ignorance."

"But it was I who told her. She would have betrayed me."

"She was not a fit recipient for your confidence, Mary. But I do not
wish to accuse her. She seems to be a high-minded woman, and I think
that your papa has been hard upon her."

"And mamma knew it always," said Mary. To this Lady Cantrip could
give no answer. Whatever cause for anger the Duke might have against
Mrs. Finn, there had been cause for much more against his wife. But
she had freed herself from all accusation by death.

Lady Mary wrote to her father, declaring that she was most
particularly anxious to see him and talk to him about Mrs. Finn.




CHAPTER XIII

The Duke's Injustice


No advantage whatever was obtained by Lady Mary's interview with her
father. He persisted that Mrs. Finn had been untrue to him when she
left Matching without telling him all that she knew of his daughter's
engagement with Mr. Tregear. No doubt by degrees that idea which he
at first entertained was expelled from his head,--the idea that she
had been cognisant of the whole thing before she came to Matching;
but even this was done so slowly that there was no moment at which he
became aware of any lessened feeling of indignation. To his thinking
she had betrayed her trust, and he could not be got by his daughter
to say that he would forgive her. He certainly could not be got to
say that he would apologise for the accusation he had made. It was
nothing less that his daughter asked; and he could hardly refrain
himself from anger when she asked it. "There should not have been
a moment," he said, "before she came to me and told me all." Poor
Lady Mary's position was certainly uncomfortable enough. The great
sin,--the sin which was so great that to have known it for a day
without revealing it was in itself a damning sin on the part of Mrs.
Finn,--was Lady Mary's sin. And she differed so entirely from her
father as to think that this sin of her own was a virtue, and that to
have spoken of it to him would have been, on the part of Mrs. Finn,
a treachery so deep that no woman ought to have forgiven it! When
he spoke of a matter which deeply affected his honour,--she could
hardly refrain from asserting that his honour was quite safe in his
daughter's hands. And when in his heart he declared that it should
have been Mrs. Finn's first care to save him from disgrace, Lady Mary
did break out. "Papa, there could be no disgrace." "That for a moment
shall be laid aside," he said, with that manner by which even his
peers in council had never been able not to be awed, "but if you
communicate with Mrs. Finn at all you must make her understand that I
regard her conduct as inexcusable."

Nothing had been gained, and poor Lady Mary was compelled to write a
few lines which were to her most painful in writing.


   MY DEAR MRS. FINN,

   I have seen papa, and he thinks that you ought to have
   told him when I told you. It occurs to me that that would
   have been a cruel thing to do, and most unfair to Mr.
   Tregear, who was quite willing to go to papa, and had only
   put off doing so because of poor mamma's death. As I had
   told mamma, of course it was right that he should tell
   papa. Then I told you, because you were so kind to me! I
   am so sorry that I have got you into this trouble; but
   what can I do?

   I told him I must write to you. I suppose it is better
   that I should, although what I have to say is so
   unpleasant. I hope it will all blow over in time,
   because I love you dearly. You may be quite sure of one
   thing,--that I shall never change. [In this assurance the
   writer was alluding not to her friendship for her friend
   but her love for her lover,--and so the friend understood
   her.] I hope things will be settled some day, and then we
   may be able to meet.

   Your very affectionate Friend,

   MARY PALLISER.


Mrs. Finn, when she received this, was alone in her house in Park
Lane. Her husband was down in the North of England. On this subject
she had not spoken to him, fearing that he would feel himself bound
to take some steps to support his wife under the treatment she had
received. Even though she must quarrel with the Duke, she was most
anxious that her husband should not be compelled to do so. Their
connection had been political rather than personal. There were many
reasons why there should be no open cause of disruption between them.
But her husband was hot-headed, and, were all this to be told him and
that letter shown to him which the Duke had written, there would be
words between him and the Duke which would probably make impossible
any further connection between them.

It troubled her very much. She was by no means not alive to the
honour of the Duke's friendship. Throughout her intimacy with the
Duchess she had abstained from pressing herself on him, not because
she had been indifferent about him, but that she had perceived that
she might make her way with him better by standing aloof than by
thrusting herself forward. And she had known that she had been
successful. She could tell herself with pride that her conduct
towards him had been always such as would become a lady of high
spirit and fine feeling. She knew that she had deserved well of him,
that in all her intercourse with him, with his uncle, and with his
wife, she had given much and had taken little. She was the last woman
in the world to let a word on such a matter pass her lips; but not
the less was she conscious of her merit towards him. And she had been
led to act as she had done by sincere admiration for the man. In all
their political troubles, she had understood him better than the
Duchess had done. Looking on from a distance she had understood the
man's character as it had come to her both from his wife and from her
own husband.

That he was unjust to her,--cruelly unjust, she was quite sure. He
accused her of intentional privity to a secret which it behoved him
to know, and of being a party to that secrecy. Whereas from the
moment in which she had heard the secret she had determined that it
must be made known to him. She felt that she had deserved his good
opinion in all things, but in nothing more than in the way in which
she had acted in this matter. And yet he had treated her with an
imperious harshness which amounted to insolence. What a letter it was
that he had written to her! The very tips of her ears tingled with
heat as she read it again to herself. None of the ordinary courtesies
of epistle-craft had been preserved either in the beginning or in
the end. It was worse even than if he had called her Madam without
an epithet. "The Duke understands--" "The Duke thinks--" "The Duke
feels--" feels that he should not be troubled with either letters or
conversation; the upshot of it all being that the Duke declared her
to have shown herself unworthy of being treated like a lady! And this
after all that she had done!

She would not bear it. That at present was all that she could say
to herse

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