The American Senator Part 44

"And, dear aunt, pray excuse me at dinner. I have been so excited, so flurried, and so fatigued, that I fear I should make a fool of myself if I attempted to come down. I should get into a swoon, which would be dreadful. My maid shall bring me a bit of something and a gla.s.s of sherry, and you shall find me in the drawing-room when you come out."

Then the d.u.c.h.ess went, and Arabella was left alone to take another view of the circ.u.mstances of the campaign.

Though there were still infinite dangers, yet she could hardly wish that anything should be altered. Should Lord Rufford disown her, which she knew to be quite possible, there would be a general collapse and the world would crash over her head. But she had known, when she took this business in hand, that as success would open Elysium to her, so would failure involve her in absolute ruin. She was determined that she would mar nothing now by cowardice, and having so resolved, and having fortified herself with perhaps two gla.s.ses of sherry, she went down to the drawing-room a little before nine, and laid herself out upon a sofa till the ladies should come in.

Lord Rufford had gone to bed, as was his wont on such occasions, with orders that he should be called to dress for dinner at half-past seven. But as he laid himself down he made up his mind that, instead of sleeping, he would give himself up to thinking about Arabella Trefoil. The matter was going beyond a joke, and would require some thinking. He liked her well enough, but was certainly not in love with her. I doubt whether men ever are in love with girls who throw themselves into their arms. A man's love, till it has been chastened and fastened by the feeling of duty which marriage brings with it, is instigated mainly by the difficulty of pursuit. "It is hardly possible that anything so sweet as that should ever be mine; and yet, because I am a man, and because it is so heavenly sweet, I will try." That is what men say to themselves, but Lord Rufford had had no opportunity of saying that to himself in regard to Miss Trefoil. The thing had been sweet, but not heavenly sweet; and he had never for a moment doubted the possibility. Now at any rate he would make up his mind. But, instead of doing so, he went to sleep, and when he got up he was ten minutes late, and was forced, as he dressed himself, to think of the Duke's dinner instead of Arabella Trefoil.

The d.u.c.h.ess before dinner submitted herself and all her troubles at great length to the Duke, but the Duke could give her no substantial comfort. Of course it had all been wrong. He supposed that they ought not to have been found walking together in the dark on Sunday afternoon. The hunting should not have been arranged without sanction; and the return home in the hired carriage had no doubt been highly improper. But what could he do? If the marriage came off it would be all well. If not, this niece must not be invited to Mistletoe again. As to speaking to Lord Rufford, he did not quite see how he was to set about it. His own girls had been married in so very different a fas.h.i.+on! He could imagine nothing so disagreeable as to have to ask a gentleman his intentions. Parental duty might make it necessary when a daughter had not known how to keep her own position intact;--but here there was no parental duty. If Lord Rufford would speak to him, then indeed there would be no difficulty. At last he told his wife that, if she could find an opportunity of suggesting to the young Lord that he might perhaps say a word to the young lady's uncle without impropriety,--if she could do this in a light easy way, so as to run no peril of a scene,--she might do so.

When the two d.u.c.h.esses and all the other ladies came out into the drawing-room, Arabella was found upon the sofa. Of course she became the centre of a little interest for a few minutes, and the more so, as her aunt went up to her and made some inquiries. Had she had any dinner? Was she less fatigued? The fact of the improper return home in the postchaise had become generally known, and there were some there who would have turned a very cold shoulder to Arabella had not her aunt noticed her. Perhaps there were some who had envied her Jack, and Lord Rufford's admiration, and even the postchaise. But as long as her aunt countenanced her it was not likely that any one at Mistletoe would be unkind to her. The d.u.c.h.ess of Omnium did indeed remark to Lady Chiltern that she remembered something of the same kind happening to the same girl soon after her own marriage. As the d.u.c.h.ess had now been married a great many years this was unkind;--but it was known that when the d.u.c.h.ess of Omnium did dislike any one, she never scrupled to show it. "Lord Rufford is about the silliest man of his day," she said afterwards to the same lady; "but there is one thing which I do not think even he is silly enough to do."

It was nearly ten o'clock when the gentlemen came into the room and then it was that the d.u.c.h.ess,--Arabella's aunt,--must find the opportunity of giving Lord Rufford the hint of which the Duke had spoken. He was to leave Mistletoe on the morrow and might not improbably do so early. Of all women she was the steadiest, the most tranquil, the least abrupt in her movements. She could not pounce upon a man, and nail him down, and say what she had to say, let him be as unwilling as he might to hear it. At last, however, seeing Lord Rufford standing alone,--he had then just left the sofa on which Arabella was still lying,--without any apparent effort she made her way up to his side. "You had rather a long day," she said.

"Not particularly, d.u.c.h.ess."

"You had to come home so far!"

"About the average distance. Did you think it a hard day, Maurice?"

Then he called to his aid a certain Lord Maurice St. John, a hard-riding and hard-talking old friend of the Trefoil family who gave the d.u.c.h.ess a very clear account of all the performance, during which Lord Rufford fell into an interesting conversation with Mrs.

Mulready, the wife of the neighbouring bishop.

After that the d.u.c.h.ess made another attempt. "Lord Rufford," she said, "we should be so glad if you would come back to us the first week in February. The Prices will be here and the Mackenzies, and--."

"I am pledged to stay with my sister till the fifth, and on the sixth Surbiton and all his lot come to me. Battersby, is it not the sixth that you and Surbiton come to Rufford?"

"I rather think it is," said Battersby.

"I wish it were possible. I like Mistletoe so much. It's so central."

"Very well for hunting,--is it not, Lord Rufford?" But that horrid Captain Battersby did not go out of the way.

"I wonder whether Lady Chiltern would do me a favour," said Lord Rufford stepping across the room in search of that lady. He might be foolish, but when the d.u.c.h.ess of Omnium declared him to be the silliest man of the day I think she used a wrong epithet. The d.u.c.h.ess was very patient and intended to try again, but on that evening she got no opportunity.

Captain Battersby was Lord Rufford's particular friend on this occasion and had come over with him from Mr. Surbiton's house. "Bat,"

he said as they were sitting close to each other in the smoking-room that night, "I mean to make an early start to-morrow."

"What;--to get to Surbiton's?"

"I've got something to do on the way. I want to look at a horse at Stamford."

"I'll be off with you."

"No;--don't do that. I'll go in my own cart. I'll make my man get hold of my groom and manage it somehow. I can leave my things and you can bring them. Only say to-morrow that I was obliged to go."

"I understand."

"Heard something, you know, and all that kind of thing. Make my apologies to the d.u.c.h.ess. In point of fact I must be in Stamford at ten."

"I'll manage it all," said Captain Battersby, who made a very shrewd guess at the cause which drew his friend to such an uncomfortable proceeding. After that Lord Rufford went to his room and gave a good deal of trouble that night to some of the servants in reference to the steps which would be necessary to take him out of harm's way before the d.u.c.h.ess would be up on the morrow.

Arabella when she heard of the man's departure on the following morning, which she luckily did from her own maid, was for some time overwhelmed by it. Of course the man was running away from her. There could be no doubt of it. She had watched him narrowly on the previous evening, and had seen that her aunt had tried in vain to speak to him. But she did not on that account give up the game. At any rate they had not found her out at Mistletoe. That was something. Of course it would have been infinitely better for her could he have been absolutely caught and nailed down before he left the house; but that was perhaps more than she had a right to expect. She could still pursue him; still write to him;--and at last, if necessary, force her father to do so. But she must trust now chiefly to her own correspondence.

"He told me, aunt, the last thing last night that he was going," she said.

"Why did you not mention it?"

"I thought he would have told you. I saw him speaking to you. He had received some telegram about a horse. He's the most flighty man in the world about such things. I am to write to him before I leave this to-morrow." Then the d.u.c.h.ess did not believe a word of the engagement. She felt at any rate certain that if there was an engagement, Lord Rufford did not mean to keep it.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE SENATOR IS BADLY TREATED.

While these great efforts were being made by Arabella Trefoil at Mistletoe, John Morton was vacillating in an unhappy mood between London and Bragton. It may be remembered that an offer was made to him as to the purchase of Chowton Farm. At that time the Mistletoe party was broken up, and Miss Trefoil was staying with her mother at the Connop Greens. By the morning post on the next day he received a note from the Senator in which Mr. Gotobed stated that business required his presence at Dillsborough and suggested that he should again become a guest at Bragton for a few days. Morton was so sick of his own company and so tired of thinking of his own affairs that he was almost glad to welcome the Senator. At any rate he had no means of escaping, and the Senator came. The two men were alone at the house and the Senator was full of his own wrongs as well as those of Englishmen in general. Mr. Bearside had written to him very cautiously, but pressing for an immediate remittance of 25, and explaining that the great case could not be carried on without that sum of money. This might have been very well as being open to the idea that the Senator had the option of either paying the money or of allowing the great case to be abandoned, but that the attorney in the last paragraph of his letter intimated that the Senator would be of course aware that he was liable for the whole cost of the action be it what it might. He had asked a legal friend in London his opinion, and the legal friend had seemed to think that perhaps he was liable.

What orders he had given to Bearside he had given without any witness, and at any rate had already paid a certain sum. The legal friend, when he heard all that Mr. Gotobed was able to tell him about Goarly, had advised the Senator to settle with Bearside,--taking a due receipt and having some person with him when he did so. The legal friend had thought that a small sum of money would suffice. "He went so far as to suggest," said the Senator with indignant energy, "that if I contested my liability to the man's charges, the matter would go against me because I had interfered in such a case on the unpopular side. I should think that in this great country I should find justice administered on other terms than that." Morton attempted to explain to him that his legal friend had not been administering justice but only giving advice. He had, so Morton told him, undoubtedly taken up the case of one blackguard, and in urging it had paid his money to another. He had done so as a foreigner,--loudly proclaiming as his reason for such action that the man he supported would be unfairly treated unless he gave his a.s.sistance. Of course he could not expect sympathy. "I want no sympathy," said the Senator;--"I only want justice." Then the two gentlemen had become a little angry with each other. Morton was the last man in the world to have been aggressive on such a matter;--but with the Senator it was necessary either to be prostrate or to fight.

But with Mr. Gotobed such fighting never produced ill blood. It was the condition of his life, and it must be supposed that he liked it.

On the next morning he did not scruple to ask his host's advice as to what he had better do, and they agreed to walk across to Goarly's house and to ascertain from the man himself what he thought or might have to say about his own case. On their way they pa.s.sed up the road leading to Chowton Farm, and at the gate leading into the garden they found Larry Twentyman standing. Morton shook hands with the young farmer and introduced the Senator. Larry was still woe-begone though he endeavoured to shake off his sorrows and to appear to be gay. "I never see much of the man," he said when they told him that they were going across to call upon his neighbour, "and I don't know that I want to."

"He doesn't seem to have much friends.h.i.+p among you all," said the Senator.

"Quite as much as he deserves, Mr. Gotobed," replied Larry. The Senator's name had lately become familiar as a household word in Dillsborough, and was, to tell the truth, odious to such men as Larry Twentyman. "He's a thundering rascal, and the only place fit for him in the county is Rufford gaol. He's like to be there soon, I think."

"That's what provokes me," said the Senator. "You think he's a rascal, Mister."

"I do."

"And because you take upon yourself to think so you'd send him to Rufford gaol! There was one gentleman somewhere about here told me he ought to be hung, and because I would not agree with him he got up and walked away from me at table, carrying his provisions with him. Another man in the next field to this insulted me because I said I was going to see Goarly. The clergyman in Dillsborough and the hotelkeepers were just as hard upon me. But you see, Mister, that what we want to find out is whether Goarly or the Lord has the right of it in this particular case."

"I know which has the right without any more finding out," said Larry. "The shortest way to his house is by the ride through the wood, Mr. Morton. It takes you out on his land on the other side.

But I don't think you'll find him there. One of my men told me that he had made himself scarce." Then he added as the two were going on, "I should like to have just a word with you, Mr. Morton. I've been thinking of what you said, and I know it was kind. I'll take a month over it. I won't talk of selling Chowton till the end of February;--but if I feel about it then as I do now I can't stay."

"That's right, Mr. Twentyman;--and work hard, like a man, through the month. Go out hunting, and don't allow yourself a moment for moping."

"I will," said Larry, as he retreated to the house, and then he gave directions that his horse might be ready for the morrow.

They went in through the wood, and the Senator pointed out the spot at which Bean the gamekeeper had been so insolent to him. He could not understand, he said, why he should be treated so roughly, as these men must be aware that he had nothing to gain himself. "If I were to go into Mickewa," said Morton, "and interfere there with the peculiarities of the people as you have done here, it's my belief that they'd have had the eyes out of my head long before this."

"That only shows that you don't know Mickewa," said the Senator. "Its people are the most law-abiding population on the face of the earth."

They pa.s.sed through the wood, and a couple of fields brought them to Goarly's house. As they approached it by the back the only live thing they saw was the old goose which had been so cruelly deprived of her companions and progeny. The goose was waddling round the dirty pool, and there were to be seen sundry ugly signs of a poor man's habitation, but it was not till they had knocked at the window as well as the door that Mrs. Goarly showed herself. She remembered the Senator at once and curtseyed to him; and when Morton introduced himself she curtseyed again to the Squire of Bragton. When Goarly was asked for she shook her head and declared that she knew nothing about him. He had been gone, she said, for the last week, and had left no word as to whither he was going;--nor had he told her why. "Has he given up his action against Lord Rufford?" asked the Senator.

"Indeed then, sir, I can't tell you a word about it."

"I've been told that he has taken Lord Rufford's money."