The Duke's Children Part 18

"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 d.u.c.h.ess, 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 Ca.s.sewary. She contrived to find herself alone with Miss Ca.s.sewary, and asked some further questions about Mr.

Tregear. "He is a cousin of my Lord's," said Miss Ca.s.s.

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

Then Miss Ca.s.sewary spoke her opinion very plainly. "If Lord Silverbridge had n.o.body 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 Ca.s.sewary 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 gra.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses 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 gra.s.s 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 d.u.c.h.ess and Lady Cantrip had been friends,--after a fas.h.i.+on. 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 d.u.c.h.ess,--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 embarra.s.sment. 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."