Kitabı oku: «Lady Anna», sayfa 20
CHAPTER XXXIV.
I WILL TAKE YOUR WORD FOR NOTHING
On the Saturday, Daniel was at the Serjeant's chambers early in the morning, – long before the hour at which the Serjeant himself was wont to attend. No time had in fact been named, and the tailor had chosen to suppose that as he had been desired to be early in Bedford Square, so had it also been intended that he should be early in the Temple. For two hours he walked about the passages and the courts, thinking ill of the lawyer for being so late at his business, and endeavouring to determine what he would do with himself. He had not a friend in the world, unless Lady Anna were a friend; – hardly an acquaintance. And yet, remembering what his father had done, what he himself had helped to do, he thought that he ought to have had many friends. Those very persons who were now his bitterest enemies, the Countess and all they who had supported her, should have been bound to him by close ties. Yet he knew that it was impossible that they should not hate him. He could understand their feelings with reference to their own rank, though to him that rank was contemptible. Of course he was alone. Of course he would fail. He was almost prepared to acknowledge as much to the Serjeant. He had heard of a certain vessel that would start in three days for the rising colony called New South Wales, and he almost wished that he had taken his passage in her.
At ten o'clock he had been desired to call at eleven, and as the clock struck eleven he knocked at the Serjeant's door. "Serjeant Bluestone is not here yet," said the clerk, who was disposed to be annoyed by the man's pertinacity.
"He told me to come early in the morning, and this is not early."
"He is not here yet, sir."
"You told me to come at eleven, and it is past eleven."
"It is one minute past, and you can sit down and wait for him if you please." Daniel refused to wait, and was again about to depart in his wrath, when the Serjeant appeared upon the stairs. He introduced himself, and expressed regret that he should have found his visitor there before him. Daniel, muttering something, followed the lawyer into his room, and then the door was closed. He stood till he was invited to sit, and was determined to make himself disagreeable. This man was one of his enemies, – was one who no doubt thought little of him because he was a tailor, who suspected his motives, and was anxious to rob him of his bride. The Serjeant retired for a moment to an inner room, while the tailor girded up his loins and prepared himself for battle.
"Mr. Thwaite," said the Serjeant, as he re-entered the room, "you probably know that I have been counsel for Lady Lovel and her daughter in the late trial." Daniel assented by a nod of his head. "My connection with the Countess would naturally have been then closed. We have gained our cause, and there would be an end of it. But as things have turned out it has been otherwise. Lady Anna Lovel has been staying with Mrs. Bluestone."
"In Bedford Square?"
"Yes, at my house."
"I did not know. The Countess told me she was not in Keppel Street, but refused to inform me where she was staying. I should not have interfered with her ladyship's plans, had she been less secret with me."
"Surely it was unnecessary that she should tell you."
"Quite unnecessary; – but hardly unnatural after all that has occurred. As the Countess is with you only a friend of late date, you are probably unaware of the former friendship which existed between us. There was a time in which I certainly did not think that Lady Lovel would ever decline to speak to me about her daughter. But all this is nothing to you, Serjeant Bluestone."
"It is something to me, Mr. Thwaite, as her friend. Is there no reason why she should have treated you thus? Ask your own conscience."
"My conscience is clear in the matter."
"I have sent for you here, Mr. Thwaite, to ask you whether you cannot yourself understand that this which you have proposed to do must make you an enemy to the Countess, and annul and set aside all that kindness which you have shown her? I put it to your own reason. Do you think it possible that the Countess should be otherwise than outraged at the proposition you have made to her?"
"I have made no proposition to her ladyship."
"Have you made none to her daughter?"
"Certainly I have. I have asked her to be my wife."
"Come, Mr. Thwaite, do not palter with me."
"Palter with you! Who dares to say that I palter? I have never paltered. Paltering is – lying, as I take it. Let the Countess be my enemy. I have not said that she should not be so. She might have answered my letter, I think, when the old man died. In our rank of life we should have done so. It may be different with lords and titled ladies. Let it pass, however. I did not mean to make any complaint. I came here because you sent for me."
"Yes; – I did send for you," said the Serjeant, wishing with all his heart that he had never been persuaded to take a step which imposed upon him so great a difficulty. "I did send for you. Lady Anna Lovel has expressed a wish to see you, before she leaves London."
"I will wait upon Lady Anna Lovel."
"I need hardly tell you that her wish has been opposed by her friends."
"No doubt it was."
"But she has said with so much earnestness that she cannot consider herself to be absolved from the promise which she made to you when she was a child – "
"She was no child when she made it."
"It does not signify. She cannot be absolved from the promise which I suppose she did make – "
"She certainly made it, Serjeant Bluestone."
"Will you allow me to continue my statement? It will not occupy you long. She assures her mother that she cannot consider herself to be absolved from that promise without your sanction. She has been living in my house for some weeks, and I do not myself doubt in the least that were she thus freed an alliance would soon be arranged between her and her cousin."
"I have heard of that – alliance."
"It would be in every respect a most satisfactory and happy marriage. The young Earl has behaved with great consideration and forbearance in abstaining from pushing his claims."
"In abstaining from asking for that which he did not believe to be his own."
"You had better hear me to the end, Mr. Thwaite. All the friends of the two young people desire it. The Earl himself is warmly attached to his cousin."
"So am I, – and have been for many years."
"We all believe that she loves him."
"Let her say so to me, Serjeant Bluestone, and there shall be an end of it all. It seems to me that Lord Lovel and I have different ideas about a woman. I would not take the hand of a girl who told me that she loved another man, even though she was as dear to me, as, – as Lady Anna is dear to me now. And as for what she might have in her hand, it would go for naught with me, though I might have to face beggary without her. It seems to me that Lord Lovel is less particular in this matter."
"I do not see that you and I have anything to do with that," replied the Serjeant, hardly knowing what to say.
"I have nothing to do with Lord Lovel, certainly, – nor has he with me. As to his cousin, – it is for her to choose."
"We think, – I am only telling you what we think; – but we think, Mr. Thwaite, that the young lady's affections are fixed on her cousin. It is natural that they should be so; and watching her as closely as we can, we believe such to be the case. I will be quite on the square with you, Mr. Thwaite."
"With me and with everybody else, I hope, Serjeant Bluestone."
"I hope so," said the Serjeant, laughing; "but at any rate I will be so with you now. We have been unable to get from Lady Anna any certain reply, – any assurance of her own wishes. She has told her mother that she cannot accept Lord Lovel's addresses till she has seen you." The Serjeant in this was not quite on the square, as Lady Anna had never said so. "We believe that she considers it necessary, to her conscience, to be made free by your permission, before she can follow her own inclinations and accede to those of all her friends."
"She shall have my permission in a moment, – if she will ask for it."
"Could you not be more generous even than that?"
"How more generous, Serjeant Bluestone?"
"Offer it to her unasked. You have already said that you would not accept her hand if you did not believe that you had her heart also, – and the sentiment did you honour. Think of her condition, and be generous to her."
"Generous to her! You mean generous to Lady Lovel, – generous to Lord Lovel, – generous to all the Lovels except her. It seems to me that all the generosity is to be on one side."
"By no means. We can be generous too."
"If that be generosity, I will be generous. I will offer her that permission. I will not wait till she asks for it. I will beg her to tell me if it be true that she loves this cousin, and if she can say that it is true, she shall want no permission from me to be free. She shall be free."
"It is not a question, you see, between yourself and Lord Lovel. It is quite out of the question that she should in any event become your wife. Even had she power to do it – "
"She has the power."
"Practically she has no such power, Mr. Thwaite. A young person such as Lady Anna Lovel is and must be under the control of her natural guardian. She is so altogether. Her mother could not, – and would not, – constrain her to any marriage; but has quite sufficient power over her to prevent any marriage. Lady Anna has never for a moment supposed that she could become your wife since she learned what were the feelings of her mother and her family." The Serjeant certainly did not keep his promise of being "on the square." "But your generosity is necessary to enable Lady Lovel to bring to a happy termination all those sufferings with which her life has been afflicted."
"I do not owe much to the Countess; but if it be generous to do as I have said I would do, – I will be generous. I will tell her daughter, without any question asked from her, that she is free to marry her cousin if she wishes."
So far the Serjeant, though he had not been altogether as truthful as he had promised, had been discreet. He had said nothing to set the tailor vehemently against the Lovel interest, and had succeeded in obtaining a useful pledge. But, in his next attempt, he was less wise. "I think, you know, Mr. Thwaite, that the Countess also has been generous."
"As how?"
"You have received £9,000 already, I believe."
"I have received what I presume to be my own. If I have had more it shall be refunded."
"No; – no; by no means. Taking a liberal view of the matter, as the Countess was bound to do in honour, she was, I think, right in paying you what she has paid."
"I want nothing from her in what you call honour. I want nothing liberal. If the money be not mine in common honesty she shall have it back again. I want nothing but my own."
"I think you are a little high flown, Mr. Thwaite."
"I dare say I may be, – to the thinking of a lawyer."
"The Countess, who is in truth your friend, – and will always be your friend if you will only be amenable to reason, – has been delighted to think that you are now in possession of a sum of money which will place you above want."
"The Countess is very kind."
"And I can say more than that. She and all her friends are aware how much is due to your father's son. If you will only aid us in our present project, if you will enable Lady Anna to become the wife of her cousin the Earl, much more shall be done than the mere payment of the debt which was due to you. It has been proposed to settle on you for life an annuity of four hundred pounds a year. To this the Countess, Earl Lovel, and Lady Anna will all agree."
"Has the consent of Lady Anna been asked?" demanded the tailor, in a voice which was low, but which the Serjeant felt at the moment to be dangerous.
"You may take my word that it shall be forthcoming," said the Serjeant.
"I will take your word for nothing, Serjeant Bluestone. I do not think that among you all, you would dare to make such a proposition to Lady Anna Lovel, and I wonder that you should dare to make it to me. What have you seen in me to lead you to suppose that I would sell myself for a bribe? And how can you have been so unwise as to offer it after I have told you that she shall be free, – if she chooses to be free? But it is all one. You deal in subterfuges till you think it impossible that a man should be honest. You mine underground, till your eyes see nothing in the open daylight. You walk crookedly, till a straight path is an abomination to you. Four hundred a year is nothing to me for such a purpose as this, – would have been nothing to me even though no penny had been paid to me of the money which is my own. I can easily understand what it is that makes the Earl so devoted a lover. His devotion began when he had been told that the money was hers and not his, – and that in no other way could he get it. Mine began when no one believed that she would ever have a shilling for her fortune, – when all who bore her name and her mother's ridiculed their claim. Mine was growing when my father first asked me whether I grudged that he should spend all that he had in their behalf. Mine came from giving. His springs from the desire to get. Make the four hundred, four thousand; – make it eight thousand, Serjeant Bluestone, and offer it to him. I also will agree. With him you may succeed. Good morning, Serjeant Bluestone. On Monday next I will not be worse than my word, – even though you have offered me a bribe."
The Serjeant let the tailor go without a word further, – not, indeed, having a word to say. He had been insulted in his own chambers, – told that his word was worthless, and his honesty questionable. But he had been so told, that at the moment he had been unable to stop the speaker. He had sat, and smiled, and stroked his chin, and looked at the tailor as though he had been endeavouring to comfort himself with the idea that the man addressing him was merely an ignorant, half-mad, enthusiastic tailor, from whom decent conduct could not be expected. He was still smiling when Daniel Thwaite closed the door, and he almost laughed as he asked his clerk whether that energetic gentleman had taken himself down-stairs. "Oh, yes, sir; he glared at me when I opened the door, and rushed down four steps at a time." But, on the whole, the Serjeant was contented with the interview. It would, no doubt, have been better had he said nothing of the four hundred a year. But in the offering of bribes there is always that danger. One can never be sure who will swallow his douceur at an easy gulp, so as hardly to betray an effort, and who will refuse even to open his lips. And then the latter man has the briber so much at advantage. When the luscious morsel has been refused, it is so easy to be indignant, so pleasant to be enthusiastically virtuous! The bribe had been refused, and so far the Serjeant had failed; – but the desired promise had been made, and the Serjeant felt certain that it would be kept. He did not doubt but that Daniel Thwaite would himself offer the girl her freedom. But there was something in the man, though he was a tailor. He had an eye and a voice, and it might be that freedom offered, as he could offer it, would not be accepted.
Daniel, as he went out into the court from the lawyer's presence, was less satisfied than the lawyer. He had told the lawyer that his word was worth nothing, and yet he had believed much that the lawyer had said to him. The lawyer had told him that the girl loved her cousin, and only wanted his permission to be free that she might give her hand and her heart together to the young lord. Was it not natural that she should wish to do so? Within each hour, almost within each minute, he regarded the matter in lights that were perfectly antagonistic to each other. It was natural that she should wish to be a Countess, and that she should love a young lord who was gentle and beautiful; – and she should have his permission accorded freely. But then, again, it was most unnatural, bestial, and almost monstrous, that a girl should change her love for a man, going from one man to another, simply because the latter man was gilt with gold, and decked with jewels, and sweet with perfume from a hairdresser's. The poet must have been wrong there. If love be anything but a dream, surely it must adhere to the person, and not be liable to change at every offered vantage of name or birth, of rank or wealth.
But she should have the offer. She should certainly have the offer.
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE SERJEANT AND MRS. BLUESTONE AT HOME
Lady Anna was not told till the Saturday that she was to meet her lover, the tailor, on the following Monday. She was living at this time, as it were, in chains, though the chains were gilded. It was possible that she might be off at any moment with Daniel Thwaite, – and now the more possible because he had money at his command. If this should occur, then would the game which the Countess and her friends were playing, be altogether lost. Then would the checkmate have been absolute. The reader will have known that such a step had never been contemplated by the man, and will also have perceived that it would have been altogether opposed to the girl's character; but it is hoped that the reader has looked more closely into the man's motives and the girl's character than even her mother was able to do. The Countess had thought that she had known her daughter. She had been mistaken, and now there was hardly anything of which she could not suspect her girl to be capable. Lady Anna was watched, therefore, during every minute of the four and twenty hours. A policeman was told off to protect the house at night from rope ladders or any other less cumbrous ingenuity. The servants were set on guard. Sarah, the lady's-maid, followed her mistress almost like a ghost when the poor young lady went to her bedroom. Mrs. Bluestone, or one of the girls, was always with her, either indoors or out of doors. Out of doors, indeed, she never went without more guards than one. A carriage had been hired, – a luxury with which Mrs. Bluestone had hitherto dispensed, – and the carriage was always there when Lady Anna suggested that she should like to leave the house. She was warmly invited to go shopping, and made to understand that in the way of ordinary shopping she could buy what she pleased. But her life was inexpressibly miserable. "What does mamma mean to do?" she said to Mrs. Bluestone on the Saturday morning.
"In what way, my dear?"
"Where does she mean to go? She won't live always in Keppel Street?"
"No, – I do not think that she will live always in Keppel Street. It depends a good deal upon you, I think."
"I will go wherever she pleases to take me. The lawsuit is over now, and I don't know why we should stay here. I am sure you can't like it."
To tell the truth, Mrs. Bluestone did not like it at all. Circumstances had made her a gaoler, but by nature she was very ill constituted for that office. The harshness of it was detestable to her, and then there was no reason whatever why she should sacrifice her domestic comfort for the Lovels. The thing had grown upon them, till the Lovels had become an incubus to her. Personally, she liked Lady Anna, but she was unable to treat Lady Anna as she would treat any other girl that she liked. She had told the Serjeant more than once that she could not endure it much longer. And the Serjeant did not like it better than did his wife. It was all a labour of love, and a most unpleasant labour. "The Countess must take her away," the Serjeant had said. And now the Serjeant had been told by the tailor, in his own chambers, that his word was worth nothing!
"To tell you the truth, Lady Anna, we none of us like it, – not because we do not like you, but because the whole thing is disagreeable. You are creating very great misery, my dear, because you are obstinate."
"Because I won't marry my cousin?"
"No, my dear; not because you won't marry your cousin. I have never advised you to marry your cousin, unless you could love him. I don't think girls should ever be told to marry this man or that. But it is very proper that they should be told not to marry this man or that. You are making everybody about you miserable, because you will not give up a most improper engagement, made with a man who is in every respect beneath you."
"I wish I were dead," said Lady Anna.
"It is very easy to say that, my dear; but what you ought to wish is, to do your duty."
"I do wish to do my duty, Mrs. Bluestone."
"It can't be dutiful to stand out against your mother in this way. You are breaking your mother's heart. And if you were to do this thing, you would soon find that you had broken your own. It is downright obstinacy. I don't like to be harsh, but as you are here, in my charge, I am bound to tell you the truth."
"I wish mamma would let me go away," said Lady Anna, bursting into tears.
"She will let you go at once, if you will only make the promise that she asks of you." In saying this, Mrs. Bluestone was hardly more upon the square than her husband had been, for she knew very well, at that moment, that Lady Anna was to go to Keppel Street early on the Monday morning, and she had quite made up her mind that her guest should not come back to Bedford Square. She had now been moved to the special severity which she had shown by certain annoyances of her own to which she had been subjected by the presence of Lady Anna in her house. She could neither entertain her friends nor go out to be entertained by them, and had told the Serjeant more than once that a great mistake had been made in having the girl there at all. But judgment had operated with her as well as feeling. It was necessary that Lady Anna should be made to understand before she saw the tailor that she could not be happy, could not be comfortable, could not be other than very wretched, – till she had altogether dismissed her low-born lover.
"I did not think you would be so unkind to me," sobbed Lady Anna through her tears.
"I do not mean to be unkind, but you must be told the truth. Every minute that you spend in thinking of that man is a disgrace to you."
"Then I shall be disgraced all my life," said Lady Anna, bursting out of the room.
On that day the Serjeant dined at his club, but came home about nine o'clock. It had all been planned so that the information might be given in the most solemn manner possible. The two girls were sitting up in the drawing-room with the guest who, since the conversation in the morning, had only seen Mrs. Bluestone during dinner. First there was the knock at the door, and then, after a quarter of an hour, which was spent up-stairs in perfect silence, there came a message. Would Lady Anna have the kindness to go to the Serjeant in the dining-room. In silence she left the room, and in silence descended the broad staircase. The Serjeant and Mrs. Bluestone were sitting on one side of the fireplace, the Serjeant in his own peculiar arm-chair, and the lady close to the fender, while a seat opposite to them had been placed for Lady Anna. The room was gloomy with dark red curtains and dark flock paper. On the table there burned two candles, and no more. The Serjeant got up and motioned Lady Anna to a chair. As soon as she had seated herself, he began his speech. "My dear young lady, you must be no doubt aware that you are at present causing a great deal of trouble to your best friends."
"I don't want to cause anybody trouble," said Lady Anna, thinking that the Serjeant in speaking of her best friends alluded to himself and his wife. "I only want to go away."
"I am coming to that directly, my dear. I cannot suppose that you do not understand the extent of the sorrow that you have inflicted on your parent by, – by the declaration which you made to Lord Lovel in regard to Mr. Daniel Thwaite." There is nothing, perhaps, in the way of exhortation and scolding which the ordinary daughter, – or son, – dislikes so much as to be told of her, or his, "parent." "My dear fellow, your father will be annoyed," is taken in good part. "What will mamma say?" is seldom received amiss. But when young people have their "parents" thrown at them, they feel themselves to be aggrieved, and become at once antagonistic. Lady Anna became strongly antagonistic. If her mother, who had always been to her her "own, own mamma," was going to be her parent, there must be an end of all hope of happiness. She said nothing, but compressed her lips together. She would not allow herself to be led an inch any way by a man who talked to her of her parent. "The very idea of such a marriage as this man had suggested to you under the guise of friendship was dreadful to her. It could be no more than an idea; – but that you should have entertained it was dreadful. She has since asked you again and again to repudiate the idea, and hitherto you have refused to obey."
"I can never know what mamma really wants till I go and live with her again."
"I am coming to that, Lady Anna. The Countess has informed Mrs. Bluestone that you had refused to give the desired promise unless you should be allowed to see Mr. Daniel Thwaite, intimating, I presume, that his permission would be necessary to free you from your imaginary bond to him."
"It would be necessary."
"Very well. The Countess naturally felt an abhorrence at allowing you again to be in the presence of one so much beneath you, – who had ventured to address you as he has done. It was a most natural feeling. But it has occurred to Mrs. Bluestone and myself, that as you entertain this idea of an obligation, you should be allowed to extricate yourself from it after your own fashion. You are to meet Mr. Thwaite, – on Monday, – at eleven o'clock, – in Keppel Street."
"And I am not to come back again?"
When one executes the office of gaoler without fee or reward, giving up to one's prisoner one's best bedroom, and having a company dinner, more or less, cooked for one's prisoner every day, one does not like to be told too plainly of the anticipated joys of enfranchisement. Mrs. Bluestone, who had done her best both for the mother and the girl, and had done it all from pure motherly sympathy, was a little hurt. "I am sure, Lady Anna, we shall not wish you to return," she said.
"Oh, Mrs. Bluestone, you don't understand me. I don't think you know how unhappy I am because of mamma."
Mrs. Bluestone relented at once. "If you will only do as your mamma wishes, everything will be made happy for you."
"Mr. Thwaite will be in Keppel Street at eleven o'clock on Monday," continued the Serjeant, "and an opportunity will then be given you of obtaining from him a release from that unfortunate promise which I believe you once made him. I may tell you that he has expressed himself willing to give you that release. The debt due to him, or rather to his late father, has now been paid by the estate, and I think you will find that he will make no difficulty. After that anything that he may require shall be done to forward his views."
"Am I to take my things?" she asked.
"Sarah shall pack them up, and they shall be sent after you if it be decided that you are to stay with Lady Lovel." They then went to bed.
In all this neither the Serjeant nor his wife had been "on the square." Neither of them had spoken truly to the girl. Mrs. Bluestone had let the Countess know that with all her desire to assist her ladyship, and her ladyship's daughter, she could not receive Lady Anna back in Bedford Square. As for that sending of her things upon certain conditions, – it was a simple falsehood. The things would certainly be sent. And the Serjeant, without uttering an actual lie, had endeavoured to make the girl think that the tailor was in pursuit of money, – and of money only, though he must have known that it was not so. The Serjeant no doubt hated a lie, – as most of us do hate lies; and had a strong conviction that the devil is the father of them. But then the lies which he hated, and as to the parentage of which he was quite certain, were lies told to him. Who yet ever met a man who did not in his heart of hearts despise an attempt made by others to deceive – himself? They whom we have found to be gentler in their judgment towards attempts made in another direction have been more than one or two. The object which the Serjeant had in view was so good that it seemed to him to warrant some slight deviation from parallelogrammatic squareness; – though he held it as one of his first rules of life that the end cannot justify the means.
