Kitabı oku: «Marion Fay: A Novel», sayfa 4

But this refers to a time in which nothing was known at Holloway as to Lady Frances. Very little had been said of the family between the mother and son. Of the Marquis George Roden had wished to think well, but had hardly succeeded. Of the stepmother he had never even wished to do so. She had from the first been known to him as a woman thoroughly wedded to aristocratic prejudices, – who regarded herself as endowed with certain privileges which made her altogether superior to other human beings. Hampstead himself could not even pretend to respect her. Of her Roden had said very little to his mother, simply speaking of her as the Marchioness, who was in no way related to Hampstead. Of Lady Frances he had simply said that there was a girl there endowed with such a spirit, that of all girls of her class she must surely be the best and noblest. Then his mother had shuddered inwardly, thinking that here too there might be possible danger; but she had shrunk from speaking of the special danger even to her son.

"How has the visit gone?" Mrs. Roden asked, when her son had already been some hours in the house. This was after that last visit to Hendon Hall, in which Lady Frances had promised to become his wife.

"Pretty well, taking it altogether."

"I know that something has disappointed you."

"No, indeed, nothing. I have been somewhat abashed."

"What have they said to you?" she asked.

"Very little but what was kind, – just one word at the last."

"Something, I know, has hurt you," said the mother.

"Lady Kingsbury has made me aware that she dislikes me thoroughly. It is very odd how one person can do that to another almost without a word spoken."

"I told you, George, that there would be danger in going there."

"There would be no danger in that if there were nothing more."

"What more is there then?"

"There would be no danger in that if Lady Kingsbury was simply Hampstead's stepmother."

"What more is she?"

"She is stepmother also to Lady Frances. Oh, mother!"

"George, what has happened?" she asked.

"I have asked Lady Frances to be my wife."

"Your wife?"

"And she has promised."

"Oh, George!"

"Yes, indeed, mother. Now you can perceive that she indeed may be a danger. When I think of the power of tormenting her stepdaughter which may rest in her hands I can hardly forgive myself for doing as I have done."

"And the Marquis?" asked the mother.

"I know nothing as yet as to what his feelings may be. I have had no opportunity of speaking to him since the little occurrence took place. A word escaped me, an unthought-of word, which her ladyship overheard, and for which she rebuked me. Then I left the house."

"What word?"

"Just a common word of greeting, a word that would be common among dear friends, but which, coming from me to her, told all the story. I forgot the prefix which was due from such a one as I am to such as she is. I can understand with what horror I must henceforward be regarded by Lady Kingsbury."

"What will the Marquis say?"

"I shall be a horror to him also, – an unutterable horror. The idea of contact so vile will cure him at once of all his little Radical longings."

"And Hampstead?"

"Nothing, I think, can cure Hampstead of his convictions; – but even he is not well pleased."

"Has he quarrelled with you?"

"No, not that. He is too noble to quarrel on such offence. He is too noble even to take offence on such a cause. But he refuses to believe that good will come of it. And you, mother?"

"Oh, George, I doubt, I doubt."

"You will not congratulate me?"

"What am I to say? I fear more than I can hope."

"When I tell you that she is noble at all points, noble in heart, noble in beauty, noble in that dignity which a woman should always carry with her, that she is as sweet a creature as God ever created to bless a man with, will you not then congratulate me?"

"I would her birth were other than it is," said the mother.

"I would have her altered in nothing," said the son. "Her birth is the smallest thing about her, but such as she is I would have her altered in nothing."

CHAPTER VI

PARADISE ROW

About a fortnight after George Roden's return to Holloway, – a fortnight passed by the mother in meditation as to her son's glorious but dangerous love, – Lord Hampstead called at No. 11, Paradise Row. Mrs. Roden lived at No. 11, and Mrs. Demijohn lived at No. 10, the house opposite. There had already been some discussion in Holloway about Lord Hampstead, but nothing had as yet been discovered. He might have been at the house on various previous occasions, but had come in so unpretending a manner as hardly to have done more than to cause himself to be regarded as a stranger in Holloway. He was known to be George's friend, because he had been first seen coming with George on a Saturday afternoon. He had also called on a Sunday and walked away, down the Row, with George. Mrs. Demijohn concluded that he was a brother clerk in the Post Office, and had expressed an opinion that "it did not signify," meaning thereby to imply that Holloway need not interest itself about the stranger. A young Government clerk would naturally have another young Government clerk for his friend. Twice Lord Hampstead had come down in an omnibus from Islington; on which occasion it was remarked that as he did not come on Saturday there must be something wrong. A clerk, with Saturday half-holidays, ought not to be away from his work on Mondays and Tuesdays. Mrs. Duffer, who was regarded in Paradise Row as being very inferior to Mrs. Demijohn, suggested that the young man might, perhaps, not be a Post Office clerk. This, however, was ridiculed. Where should a Post Office clerk find his friends except among Post Office clerks? "Perhaps he is coming after the widow," suggested Mrs. Duffer. But this also was received with dissent. Mrs. Demijohn declared that Post Office clerks knew better than to marry widows with no more than two or three hundred a year, and old enough to be their mothers. "But why does he come on a Tuesday?" asked Mrs. Duffer; "and why does he come alone?" "Oh you dear old Mrs. Duffer!" said Clara Demijohn, the old lady's niece, naturally thinking that it might not be unnatural that handsome young men should come to Paradise Row.

All this, however, had been as nothing to what occurred in the Row on the occasion which is now about to be described.

"Aunt Jemima," exclaimed Clara Demijohn, looking out of the window, "there's that young man come again to Number Eleven, riding on horseback, with a groom behind to hold him!"

"Groom to hold him!" exclaimed Mrs. Demijohn, jumping, with all her rheumatism, quickly from her seat, and trotting to the window.

"You look if there aint, – with boots and breeches."

"It must be another," said Mrs. Demijohn, after a pause, during which she had been looking intently at the empty saddle of the horse which the groom was leading slowly up and down the Row.

"It's the same that came with young Roden that Saturday," said Clara; "only he hadn't been walking, and he looked nicer than ever."

"You can hire them all, horses and groom," said Mrs. Demijohn; "but he'd never make his money last till the end of the month if he went on in that way."

"They aint hired. They're his own," said Clara.

"How do you know, Miss?"

"By the colour of his boots, and the way he touched his hat, and because his gloves are clean. He aint a Post Office clerk at all, Aunt Jemima."

"I wonder whether he can be coming after the widow," said Mrs. Demijohn. After this Clara escaped out of the room, leaving her aunt fixed at the window. Such a sight as that groom and those two horses moving up and down together had never been seen in the Row before. Clara put on her hat and ran across hurriedly to Mrs. Duffer, who lived at No. 15, next door but one to Mrs. Roden. But she was altogether too late to communicate the news as news.

"I knew he wasn't a Post Office clerk," said Mrs. Duffer, who had seen Lord Hampstead ride up the street; "but who he is, or why, or wherefore, it is beyond me to conjecture. But I never will give up my opinion again, talking to your aunt. I suppose she holds out still that he's a Post Office clerk."

"She thinks he might have hired them."

"Oh my! Hired them!"

"But did you ever see anything so noble as the way he got off his horse? As for hire, that's nonsense. He's been getting off that horse every day of his life." Thus it was that Paradise Row was awe-stricken by this last coming of George Roden's friend.

It was an odd thing to do, – this riding down to Holloway. No one else would have done it, either lord or Post Office clerk; – with a hired horse or with private property. There was a hot July sunshine, and the roads across from Hendon Hall consisted chiefly of paved streets. But Lord Hampstead always did things as others would not do them. It was too far to walk in the midday sun, and therefore he rode. There would be no servant at Mrs. Roden's house to hold his horse, and therefore he brought one of his own. He did not see why a man on horseback should attract more attention at Holloway than at Hyde Park Corner. Had he guessed the effect which he and his horse would have had in Paradise Row he would have come by some other means.

Mrs. Roden at first received him with considerable embarrassment, – which he probably observed, but in speaking to her seemed not to observe. "Very hot, indeed," he said; – "too hot for riding, as I found soon after I started. I suppose George has given up walking for the present."

"He still walks home, I think."

"If he had declared his purpose of doing so, he'd go on though he had sunstroke every afternoon."

"I hope he is not so obstinate as that, my lord."

"The most obstinate fellow I ever knew in my life! Though the world were to come to an end, he'd let it come rather than change his purpose. It's all very well for a man to keep his purpose, but he may overdo it."

"Has he been very determined lately in anything?"

"No; – nothing particular. I haven't seen him for the last week. I want him to come over and dine with me at Hendon one of these days. I'm all alone there." From this Mrs. Roden learnt that Lord Hampstead at any rate did not intend to quarrel with her son, and she learnt also that Lady Frances was no longer staying at the Hall. "I can send him home," continued the lord, "if he can manage to come down by the railway or the omnibus."

"I will give him your message, my lord."

"Tell him I start on the 21st. My yacht is at Cowes, and I shall go down there on that morning. I shall be away Heaven knows how long; – probably for a month. Vivian will be with me, and we mean to bask away our time in the Norway and Iceland seas, till he goes, like an idiot that he is, to his grouse-shooting. I should like to see George before I start. I said that I was all alone; but Vivian will be with me. George has met him before, and as they didn't cut each other's throats then I suppose they won't now."

"I will tell him all that," said Mrs. Roden.

Then there was a pause for a moment, after which Lord Hampstead went on in an altered voice. "Has he said anything to you since he was at Hendon; – as to my family, I mean?"

"He has told me something."

"I was sure he had. I should not have asked unless I had been quite sure. I know that he would tell you anything of that kind. Well?"

"What am I to say, Lord Hampstead?"

"What has he told you, Mrs. Roden?"

"He has spoken to me of your sister."

"But what has he said?"

"That he loves her."

"And that she loves him?"

"That he hopes so."

"He has said more than that, I take it. They have engaged themselves to each other."

"So I understand."

"What do you think of it, Mrs. Roden?"

"What can I think of it, Lord Hampstead? I hardly dare to think of it at all."

"Was it wise?"

"I suppose where love is concerned wisdom is not much considered."

"But people have to consider it. I hardly know how to think of it. To my idea it was not wise. And yet there is no one living whom I esteem so much as your son."

"You are very good, my lord."

"There is no goodness in it, – any more than in his liking for me. But I can indulge my fancy without doing harm to others. Lady Kingsbury thinks that I am an idiot because I do not live exclusively with counts and countesses; but in declining to take her advice I do not injure her much. She can talk about me and my infatuations among her friends with a smile. She will not be tortured by any feeling of disgrace. So with my father. He has an idea that I am out-Heroding Herod, he having been Herod; – but there is nothing bitter in it to him. Those fine young gentlemen, my brothers, who are the dearest little chicks in the world, five and six and seven years old, will be able to laugh pleasantly at their elder brother when they grow up, as they will do, among the other idle young swells of the nation. That their brother and George Roden should be always together will not even vex them. They may probably receive some benefit themselves, may achieve some diminution of the folly natural to their position, by their advantage in knowing him. In looking at it all round, as far as that goes, there is not only satisfaction to me, but a certain pride. I am doing no more than I have a right to do. Whatever counter-influence I may introduce among my own people, will be good and wholesome. Do you understand me, Mrs. Roden?"

"I think so; – very clearly. I should be dull, if I did not."

"But it becomes different when one's sister is concerned. I am thinking of the happiness of other people."

"She, I suppose, will think of her own."

"Not exclusively, I hope."

"No; not that I am sure. But a girl, when she loves – "

"Yes; that is all true. But a girl situated like Frances is bound not to, – not to sacrifice those with whom Fame and Fortune have connected her. I can speak plainly to you, Mrs. Roden, because you know what are my own opinions about many things."

"George has no sister, no girl belonging to him; but if he had, and you loved her, would you abstain from marrying her lest you should sacrifice your – connections?"

"The word has offended you?"

"Not in the least. It is a word true to the purpose in hand. I understand the sacrifice you mean. Lady Kingsbury's feelings would be – sacrificed were her daughter, – even her stepdaughter, – to become my boy's husband. She supposes that her girl's birth is superior to my boy's."

"There are so many meanings to that word 'birth.'"

"I will take it all as you mean, Lord Hampstead, and will not be offended. My boy, as he is, is no match for your sister. Both Lord and Lady Kingsbury would think that there had been – a sacrifice. It might be that those little lords would not in future years be wont to talk at their club of their brother-in-law, the Post Office clerk, as they would of some earl or some duke with whom they might have become connected. Let us pass it by, and acknowledge that there would be – a sacrifice. So there will be should you marry below your degree. The sacrifice would be greater because it would be carried on to some future Marquis of Kingsbury. Would you practise such self-denial as that you demand from your sister?"

Lord Hampstead considered the matter a while, and then answered the question. "I do not think that the two cases would be quite analogous."

"Where is the difference?"

"There is something more delicate, more nice, requiring greater caution in the conduct of a girl than of a man."

"Quite so, Lord Hampstead. Where conduct is in question, the girl is bound to submit to stricter laws. I may explain that by saying that the girl is lost for ever who gives herself up to unlawful love, – whereas, for the man, the way back to the world's respect is only too easy, even should he, on that score, have lost aught of the world's respect. The same law runs through every act of a girl's life, as contrasted with the acts of men. But in this act, – the act now supposed of marrying a gentleman whom she loves, – your sister would do nothing which should exclude her from the respect of good men or the society of well-ordered ladies. I do not say that the marriage would be well-assorted. I do not recommend it. Though my boy's heart is dearer to me than anything else can be in the world, I can see that it may be fit that his heart should be made to suffer. But when you talk of the sacrifice which he and your sister are called on to make, so that others should be delivered from lesser sacrifices, I think you should ask what duty would require from yourself. I do not think she would sacrifice the noble blood of the Traffords more effectually than you would by a similar marriage." As she thus spoke she leant forward from her chair on the table, and looked him full in the face. And he felt, as she did so, that she was singularly handsome, greatly gifted, a woman noble to the eye and to the ear. She was pleading for her son, – and he knew that. But she had condescended to use no mean argument.

"If you will say that such a law is dominant among your class, and that it is one to which you would submit yourself, I will not repudiate it. But you shall not induce me to consent to it, by even a false idea as to the softer delicacy of the sex. That softer delicacy, with its privileges and duties, shall be made to stand for what it is worth, and to occupy its real ground. If you use it for other mock purposes, then I will quarrel with you." It was thus that she had spoken, and he understood it all.

"I am not brought in question," he said slowly.

"Cannot you put it to yourself as though you were brought in question? You will at any rate admit that my argument is just."

"I hardly know. I must think of it. Such a marriage on my part would not outrage my stepmother, as would that of my sister."

"Outrage! You speak, Lord Hampstead, as though your mother would think that your sister would have disgraced herself as a woman!"

"I am speaking of her feelings, – not of mine. It would be different were I to marry in the same degree."

"Would it? Then I think that perhaps I had better counsel George not to go to Hendon Hall."

"My sister is not there. They are all in Germany."

"He had better not go where your sister will be thought of."

"I would not quarrel with your son for all the world."

"It will be better that you should. Do not suppose that I am pleading for him." That, however, was what he did suppose, and that was what she was doing. "I have told him already that I think that the prejudices will be too hard for him, and that he had better give it up before he adds to his own misery, and perhaps to hers. What I have said has not been in the way of pleading, – but only as showing the ground on which I think that such a marriage would be inexpedient. It is not that we, or our sister, are too bad or too low for such contact; but that you, on your side, are not as yet good enough or high enough."

"I will not dispute that with you, Mrs. Roden. But you will give him my message?"

"Yes; I will give him your message."

Then Lord Hampstead, having spent a full hour in the house, took his departure and rode away.

"Just an hour," said Clara Demijohn, who was still looking out of Mrs. Duffer's window. "What can they have been talking about?"

"I think he must be making up to the widow," said Mrs. Duffer, who was so lost in surprise as to be unable to suggest any new idea.

"He'd never have come with saddle horses to do that. She wouldn't be taken by a young man spending his money in that fashion. She'd like saving ways better. But they're his own horses, and his own man, and he's no more after the widow than he's after me," said Clara, laughing.

"I wish he were, my dear."

"There may be as good as him come yet, Mrs. Duffer. I don't think so much of their having horses and grooms. When they have these things they can't afford to have wives too, – and sometimes they can't afford to pay for either." Then, having seen the last of Lord Hampstead as he rode out of the Row, she went back to her mother's house.

But Mrs. Demijohn had been making use of her time while Clara and Mrs. Duffer had been wasting theirs in mere gazing, and making vain surmises. As soon as she found herself alone the old woman got her bonnet and shawl, and going out slily into the Row, made her way down to the end of the street in the direction opposite to that in which the groom was at that moment walking the horses. There she escaped the eyes of her niece and of the neighbours, and was enabled to wait unseen till the man, in his walking, came down to the spot at which she was standing. "My young man," she said in her most winning voice, when the groom came near her.

"What is it, Mum?"

"You'd like a glass of beer, wouldn't you; – after walking up and down so long?"

"No, I wouldn't, not just at present." He knew whom he served, and from whom it would become him to take beer.

"I'd be happy to pay for a pint," said Mrs. Demijohn, fingering a fourpenny bit so that he might see it.

"Thankye, Mum; no, I takes it reg'lar when I takes it. I'm on dooty just at present."

"Your master's horses, I suppose?"

"Whose else, Mum? His lordship don't ride generally nobody's 'orses but his own."

Here was a success! And the fourpenny bit saved! His lordship! "Of course not," said Mrs. Demijohn. "Why should he?"

"Why, indeed, Mum?"

"Lord – ; Lord – ; – Lord who, is he?"

The groom poked up his hat, and scratched his head, and bethought himself. A servant generally wishes to do what honour he can to his master. This man had no desire to gratify an inquisitive old woman, but he thought it derogatory to his master and to himself to seem to deny their joint name. "'Ampstead!" he said, looking down very serenely on the lady, and then moved on, not wasting another word.

"I knew all along they were something out of the common way," said Mrs. Demijohn as soon as her niece came in.

"You haven't found out who it is, aunt?"

"You've been with Mrs. Duffer, I suppose. You two'd put your heads together for a week, and then would know nothing." It was not till quite the last thing at night that she told her secret. "He was a peer! He was Lord 'Ampstead!"

"A peer!"

"He was Lord 'Ampstead, I tell you," said Mrs. Demijohn.

"I don't believe there is such a lord," said Clara, as she took herself up to bed.