The Duke's Children Part 75

"Then it's a lady. It's the American girl!"

"Don't I tell you I don't want to talk about it? I'm going. I've told Lady Cantrip that my mother wasn't well and wants to see me. You'll stop your time out, I suppose?"

"I don't know."

"You've got it all square, no doubt. I wish I'd a handle to my name.

I never cared for it before."

"I'm sorry you're so down in the mouth. Why don't you try again? The thing is to stick to 'em like wax. If ten times of asking won't do, go in twenty times."

Dolly shook his head despondently. "What can you do when a girl walks out of the room and slams the door in your face? She'll get it hot and heavy before she has done. I know what she's after. She might as well cry for the moon." And so Dolly got into the trap and went to Bridport, and slept that night at the hotel at Dorchester.

Lord Popplecourt, though he could give such excellent advice to his friend, had been able as yet to do very little in his own case. He had been a week at Custins, and had said not a word to denote his pa.s.sion. Day after day he had prepared himself for the encounter, but the lady had never given him the opportunity. When he sat next to her at dinner she would be very silent. If he stayed at home on a morning she was not visible. During the short evenings he could never get her attention. And he made no progress with the Duke. The Duke had been very courteous to him at Richmond, but here he was monosyllabic and almost sullen.

Once or twice Lord Popplecourt had a little conversation with Lady Cantrip. "Dear girl!" said her ladys.h.i.+p. "She is so little given to seeking admiration."

"I dare say."

"Girls are so different, Lord Popplecourt. With some of them it seems that a gentleman need have no trouble in explaining what it is that he wishes."

"I don't think Lady Mary is like that at all."

"Not in the least. Any one who addresses her must be prepared to explain himself fully. Nor ought he to hope to get much encouragement at first. I do not think that Lady Mary will bestow her heart till she is sure she can give it with safety." There was an amount of falsehood in this which was proof at any rate of very strong friends.h.i.+p on the part of Lady Cantrip.

After a few days Lady Mary became more intimate with the American and his daughter than with any others of the party. Perhaps she liked to talk about the Scandinavian poets, of whom Mr. Bonca.s.sen was so fond. Perhaps she felt sure that her transatlantic friend would not make love to her. Perhaps it was that she yielded to the various allurements of Miss Bonca.s.sen. Miss Bonca.s.sen saw the Duke of Omnium for the first time at Custins, and there had the first opportunity of asking herself how such a man as that would receive from his son and heir such an announcement as Lord Silverbridge would have to make him should she at the end of three months accept his offer. She was quite aware that Lord Silverbridge need not repeat the offer unless he were so pleased. But she thought that he would come again. He had so spoken that she was sure of his love; and had so spoken as to obtain hers. Yes;--she was sure that she loved him. She had never seen anything like him before;--so glorious in his beauty, so gentle in his manhood, so powerful and yet so little imperious, so great in condition, and yet so little confident in his own greatness, so bolstered up with external advantages, and so little apt to trust anything but his own heart and his own voice. In asking for her love he had put forward no claim but his own love. She was glad he was what he was. She counted at their full value all his natural advantages. To be an English d.u.c.h.ess! Oh--yes; her ambition understood it all! But she loved him, because in the expression of his love no hint had fallen from him of the greatness of the benefits which he could confer upon her. Yes, she would like to be a d.u.c.h.ess; but not to be a d.u.c.h.ess would she become the wife of a man who should begin his courts.h.i.+p by a.s.suming a superiority.

Now the chances of society had brought her into the company of his nearest friends. She was in the house with his father and with his sister. Now and again the Duke spoke a few words to her, and always did so with a peculiar courtesy. But she was sure that the Duke had heard nothing of his son's courts.h.i.+p. And she was equally sure that the matter had not reached Lady Mary's ears. She perceived that the Duke and her father would often converse together. Mr. Bonca.s.sen would discuss republicanism generally, and the Duke would explain that theory of monarchy as it prevails in England, which but very few Americans have ever been made to understand. All this Miss Bonca.s.sen watched with pleasure. She was still of opinion that it would not become her to force her way into a family which would endeavour to repudiate her. She would not become this young man's wife if all connected with the young man were resolved to reject the contact. But if she could conquer them,--then,--then she thought that she could put her little hand into that young man's grasp with a happy heart.

It was in this frame of mind that she laid herself out not unsuccessfully to win the esteem of Lady Mary Palliser. "I do not know whether you approve it," Lady Cantrip said to the Duke; "but Mary has become very intimate with our new American friend." At this time Lady Cantrip had become very nervous,--so as almost to wish that Lady Mary's difficulties might be unravelled elsewhere than at Custins.

"They seem to be sensible people," said the Duke. "I don't know when I have met a man with higher ideas on politics than Mr. Bonca.s.sen."

"His daughter is popular with everybody."

"A nice ladylike girl," said the Duke, "and appears to have been well educated."

It was now near the end of October, and the weather was peculiarly fine. Perhaps in our climate, October would of all months be the most delightful if something of its charms were not detracted from by the feeling that with it will depart the last relics of the delights of summer. The leaves are still there with their gorgeous colouring, but they are going. The last rose still lingers on the bush, but it is the last. The woodland walks are still pleasant to the feet, but caution is heard on every side as to the coming winter.

The park at Custins, which was s.p.a.cious, had many woodland walks attached to it, from which, through vistas of the timber, distant glimpses of the sea were caught. Within half a mile of the house the woods were reached, and within a mile the open sea was in sight,--and yet the wanderers might walk for miles without going over the same ground. Here, without other companions, Lady Mary and Miss Bonca.s.sen found themselves one afternoon, and here the latter told her story to her lover's sister. "I so long to tell you something," she said.

"Is it a secret?" asked Lady Mary.

"Well; yes; it is,--if you will keep it so. I would rather you should keep it a secret. But I will tell you." Then she stood still, looking into the other's face. "I wonder how you will take it."

"What can it be?"

"Your brother has asked me to be his wife."

"Silverbridge!"

"Yes;--Lord Silverbridge. You are astonished."

Lady Mary was very much astonished,--so much astonished that words escaped from her, which she regretted afterwards. "I thought there was someone else."

"Who else?"

"Lady Mabel Grex. But I know nothing."

"I think not," said Miss Bonca.s.sen slowly. "I have seen them together and I think not. There might be somebody, though I think not her. But why do I say that? Why do I malign him, and make so little of myself?

There is no one else, Lady Mary. Is he not true?"

"I think he is true."

"I am sure he is true. And he has asked me to be his wife."

"What did you say?"

"Well;--what do you think? What is it probable that such a girl as I would say when such a man as your brother asks her to be his wife? Is he not such a man as a girl would love?"

"Oh yes."

"Is he not handsome as a G.o.d?" Mary stared at her with all her eyes.

"And sweeter than any G.o.d those pagan races knew? And is he not good-tempered, and loving; and has he not that perfection of manly dash without which I do not think I could give my heart to any man?"

"Then you have accepted him?"

"And his rank and his wealth! The highest position in all the world in my eyes."

"I do not think you should take him for that."

"Does it not all help? Can you put yourself in my place? Why should I refuse him? No, not for that. I would not take him for that. But if I love him,--because he is all that my imagination tells me that a man ought to be;--if to be his wife seems to me to be the greatest bliss that could happen to a woman; if I feel that I could die to serve him, that I could live to wors.h.i.+p him, that his touch would be sweet to me, his voice music, his strength the only support in the world on which I would care to lean,--what then?"

"Is it so?"

"Yes, it is so. It is after that fas.h.i.+on that I love him. He is my hero;--and not the less so because there is none higher than he among the n.o.bles of the greatest land under the sun. Would you have me for a sister?" Lady Mary could not answer all at once. She had to think of her father;--and then she thought of her own lover. Why should not Silverbridge be as well ent.i.tled to his choice as she considered herself to be? And yet how would it be with her father? Silverbridge would in process of time be the head of the family. Would it be proper that he should marry an American?

"You would not like me for a sister?"

"I was thinking of my father. For myself I like you."

"Shall I tell you what I said to him?"

"If you will."

"I told him that he must ask his friends;--that I would not be his wife to be rejected by them all. Nor will I. Though it be heaven I will not creep there through a hole. If I cannot go in with my head upright, I will not go even there." Then she turned round as though she were prepared in her emotion to walk back to the house alone. But Lady Mary ran after her, and having caught her, put her arm round her waist and kissed her.

"I at any rate will love you," said Lady Mary.

"I will do as I have said," continued Miss Bonca.s.sen. "I will do as I have said. Though I love your brother down to the ground he shall not marry me without his father's consent." Then they returned arm-in-arm close together; but very little more was said between them.