The Duke's Children Part 56

"I hear men say that it isn't quite what it used to be," said Silverbridge.

"Nothing will ever be quite what it used to be."

"Changes for the worse, I mean. Men are doing all kinds of things, just because the rules of the House allow them."

"If they be within rule," said the Duke, "I don't know who is to blame them. In my time, if any man stretched a rule too far the House would not put up with it."

"That's just it," said Nidderdale. "The House puts up with anything now. There is a great deal of good feeling no doubt, but there's no earnestness about anything. I think you are more earnest than we; but then you are such horrid bores. And each earnest man is in earnest about something that n.o.body else cares for."

When they were again in the drawing-room, Lord Popplecourt was seated next to Lady Mary. "Where are you going this autumn?" he asked.

"I don't know in the least. Papa said something about going abroad."

"You won't be at Custins?" Custins was Lord Cantrip's country seat in Dorsets.h.i.+re.

"I know nothing about myself as yet. But I don't think I shall go anywhere unless papa goes too."

"Lady Cantrip has asked me to be at Custins in the middle of October.

They say it is about the best pheasant-shooting in England."

"Do you shoot much?"

"A great deal. I shall be in Scotland on the Twelfth. I and Reginald Dobbes have a place together. I shall get to my own partridges on the 1st of September. I always manage that. Popplecourt is in Suffolk, and I don't think any man in England can beat me for partridges."

"What do you do with all you slay?"

"Leadenhall Market. I make it pay,--or very nearly. Then I shall run back to Scotland for the end of the stalking, and I can easily manage to be at Custins by the middle of October. I never touch my own pheasants till November."

"Why are you so abstemious?"

"The birds are heavier and it answers better. But if I thought you would be at Custins it would be much nicer." Lady Mary again told him that as yet she knew nothing of her father's autumn movements.

But at the same time the Duke was arranging his autumn movements, or at any rate those of his daughter. Lady Cantrip had told him that the desirable son-in-law had promised to go to Custins, and suggested that he and Mary should also be there. In his daughter's name he promised, but he would not bind himself. Would it not be better that he should be absent? Now that the doing of this thing was brought nearer to him so that he could see and feel its details, he was disgusted by it. And yet it had answered so well with his wife!

"Is Lord Popplecourt intimate here?" Lady Mabel asked her friend, Lord Silverbridge.

"I don't know. I am not."

"Lady Cantrip seems to think a great deal about him."

"I dare say. I don't."

"Your father seems to like him."

"That's possible too. They're going back to London together in the governor's carriage. My father will talk high politics all the way, and Popplecourt will agree with everything."

"He isn't intended to--to--? You know what I mean."

"I can't say that I do."

"To cut out poor Frank."

"It's quite possible."

"Poor Frank!"

"You had a great deal better say poor Popplecourt!--or poor governor, or poor Lady Cantrip."

"But a hundred countesses can't make your sister marry a man she doesn't like."

"Just that. They don't go the right way about it."

"What would you do?"

"Leave her alone. Let her find out gradually that what she wants can't be done."

"And so linger on for years," said Lady Mabel reproachfully.

"I say nothing about that. The man is my friend."

"And you ought to be proud of him."

"I never knew anybody yet that was proud of his friends. I like him well enough, but I can quite understand that the governor should object."

"Yes, we all know that," said she sadly.

"What would your father say if you wanted to marry someone who hadn't a s.h.i.+lling?"

"I should object myself,--without waiting for my father. But then,--neither have I a s.h.i.+lling. If I had money, do you think I wouldn't like to give it to the man I loved?"

"But this is a case of giving somebody else's money. They won't make her give it up by bringing such a young a.s.s as that down here. If my father has persistency enough to let her cry her eyes out, he'll succeed."

"And break her heart. Could you do that?"

"Certainly not. But then I'm soft. I can't refuse."

"Can't you?"

"Not if the person who asks me is in my good books. You try me."

"What shall I ask for?"

"Anything."

"Give me that ring off your finger," she said. He at once took it off his hand. "Of course you know I am in joke. You don't imagine that I would take it from you?" He still held it towards her. "Lord Silverbridge, I expect that with you I may say a foolish word without being brought to sorrow by it. I know that that ring belonged to your great-uncle,--and to fifty Pallisers before."

"What would it matter?"

"And it would be wholly useless to me, as I could not wear it."