The Duke's Children Part 5

"It was not so. The d.u.c.h.ess 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 d.u.c.h.ess. And when she a.s.sured 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 fas.h.i.+on, 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 pa.s.sed between him and Lord Silverbridge about Lady Mary during the first two or three days. But on the Sat.u.r.day 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-a.s.surance, 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 ent.i.tled 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 a.s.sured 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 G.o.d'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 lords.h.i.+p's name, but his father was aware of it, and did not like it the better because his son held the horse in partners.h.i.+p 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 Ba.r.s.ets.h.i.+re 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 a.s.serting 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 a.s.sociating."