"Not in the least. That might probably be the idea with some young n.o.bleman who would wish to marry into his own cla.s.s, and to improve his fortune at the same time. With such a one that would be fair enough. He would give and take. With George that would not be honest;--nor would such accusation be true. The position, as you call it, he would feel to be burdensome. As to money, he does not know whether Frances has a shilling or not."
"Not a shilling,--unless I give it to her."
"He would not think of such a matter."
"Then he must be a very imprudent young man, and unfit to have a wife at all."
"I cannot admit that,--but suppose he is?"
"And yet you think--?"
"I think, sir, that it is unfortunate. I have said so ever since I first heard it. I shall tell him exactly what I think. You will have Frances with you, and will of course express your own opinion."
The Marquis was far from satisfied with his son, but did not dare to go on further with the argument. In all such discussions he was wont to feel that his son was "talking the hind legs off a dog." His own ideas on concrete points were clear enough to him,--as this present idea that his daughter, Lady Frances Trafford, would outrage all propriety, all fitness, all decency, if she were to give herself in marriage to George Roden, the Post Office clerk. But words were not plenty with him,--or, when plenty, not efficacious,--and he was p.r.o.ne to feel, when beaten in argument, that his opponent was taking an unfair advantage. Thus it was that he often thought, and sometimes said, that those who oppressed him with words would "talk the hind legs off a dog."
The Marchioness also expressed her opinion to Hampstead. She was a lady stronger than her husband;--stronger in this, that she never allowed herself to be worsted in any encounter. If words would not serve her occasion at the moment, her countenance would do so,--and if not that, her absence. She could be very eloquent with silence, and strike an adversary dumb by the way in which she would leave a room. She was a tall, handsome woman, with a sublime gait.--"Vera incessu patuit Dea." She had heard, if not the words, then some translation of the words, and had taken them to heart, and borne them with her as her secret motto. To be every inch an aristocrat, in look as in thought, was the object of her life. That such was her highest duty was quite fixed in her mind. It had pleased G.o.d to make her a Marchioness,--and should she derogate from G.o.d"s wish? It had been her one misfortune that G.o.d should not also have made her the mother of a future Marquis. Her face, though handsome, was quite impa.s.sive, showing nothing of her sorrows or her joys; and her voice was equally under control. No one had ever imagined, not even her husband, that she felt acutely that one blow of fortune. Though Hampstead"s politics had been to her abominable, treasonable, blasphemous, she treated him with an extreme courtesy. If there were anything that he wished about the house she would have it done for him. She would endeavour to interest herself about his hunting. And she would pay him a great respect,--to him most onerous,--as being second in all things to the Marquis. Though a Republican blasphemous rebel,--so she thought of him,--he was second to the Marquis. She would fain have taught her little boys to respect him,--as the future head of the family,--had he not been so accustomed to romp with them, to pull them out of their little beds, and toss them about in their night-shirts, that they loved him much too well for respect. It was in vain that their mother strove to teach them to call him Hampstead.
Lady Frances had never been specially in her way, but to Lady Frances the stepmother had been perhaps harder than to the stepson, of whose presence as an absolute block to her ambition she was well aware.
Lady Frances had no claim to a respect higher than that which was due to her own children. Primogeniture had done nothing for her. She was a Marquis"s daughter, but her mother had been only the offspring of a commoner. There was perhaps something of conscience in her feelings towards the two. As Lord Hampstead was undoubtedly in her way, it occurred to her to think that she should not on that account be inimical to him. Lady Frances was not in her way,--and therefore was open to depreciation and dislike without wounds to her conscience; and then, though Hampstead was abominable because of his Republicanism, his implied treason, and blasphemy, yet he was ent.i.tled to some excuse as being a man. These things were abominable no doubt in him, but more pardonably abominable than they would be in a woman. Lady Frances had never declared herself to be a Republican or a disbeliever, much less a rebel,--as, indeed, had neither Lord Hampstead. In the presence of her stepmother she was generally silent on matters of political or religious interest. But she was supposed to sympathise with her brother, and was known to be far from properly alive to aristocratic interests. There was never quarrelling between the two, but there was a lack of that friendship which may subsist between a stepmother of thirty-eight and a stepdaughter of twenty-one. Lady Frances was tall and slender, with quiet speaking features, dark in colour, with blue eyes, and hair nearly black.
In appearance she was the very opposite of her stepmother, moving quickly and achieving grace as she did so, without a thought, by the natural beauty of her motions. The dignity was there, but without a thought given to it. Not even did the little lords, her brothers, chuck their books and toys about with less idea of demeanour. But the Marchioness never arranged a scarf or b.u.t.toned a glove without feeling that it was her duty to b.u.t.ton her glove and arrange her scarf as became the Marchioness of Kingsbury.
The stepmother wished no evil to Lady Frances,--only that she should be married properly and taken out of the way. Any stupid Earl or mercurial Viscount would have done, so long as the blood and the money had been there. Lady Frances had been felt to be dangerous, and the hope was that the danger might be got rid of by a proper marriage. But not by such a marriage as this!
When that accidental calling of the name was first heard and the following avowal made, the Marchioness declared her immediate feelings by a look. It was so that Arthur may have looked when he first heard that his Queen was sinful,--so that Caesar must have felt when even Brutus struck him. For though Lady Frances had been known to be blind to her own greatness, still this,--this at any rate was not suspected. "You cannot mean it!" the Marchioness had at last said.
"I certainly mean it, mamma." Then the Marchioness, with one hand guarding her raiment, and with the other raised high above her shoulder, in an agony of supplication to those deities who arrange the fates of ducal houses, pa.s.sed slowly out of the room. It was necessary that she should bethink herself before another word was spoken.
For some time after that very few words pa.s.sed between her and the sinner. A dead silence best befitted the occasion;--as, when a child soils her best frock, we put her in the corner with a scolding; but when she tells a fib we quell her little soul within her by a terrible quiescence. To be eloquently indignant without a word is within the compa.s.s of the thoughtfully stolid. It was thus that Lady Frances was at first treated by her stepmother. She was, however, at once taken up to London, subjected to the louder anger of her father, and made to prepare for the Saxon Alps. At first, indeed, her immediate destiny was not communicated to her. She was to be taken abroad;--and, in so taking her, it was felt to be well to treat her as the policeman does his prisoner, whom he thinks to be the last person who need be informed as to the whereabouts of the prison. It did leak out quickly, because the Marquis had a castle or chateau of his own in Saxony;--but that was only an accident.
The Marchioness still said little on the matter,--unless in what she might say to her husband in the secret recesses of marital discussion; but before she departed she found it expedient to express herself on one occasion to Lord Hampstead. "Hampstead," she said, "this is a terrible blow that has fallen upon us."
"I was surprised myself. I do not know that I should call it exactly a blow."
"Not a blow! But of course you mean that it will come to nothing."
"What I meant was, that though I regard the proposition as inexpedient--"
"Inexpedient!"
"Yes;--I think it inexpedient certainly; but there is nothing in it that shocks me."
"Nothing that shocks you!"
"Marriage in itself is a good thing."
"Hampstead, do not talk to me in that way."
"But I think it is. If it be good for a young man to marry it must be good for a young woman also. The one makes the other necessary."
"But not for such as your sister,--and him--together. You are speaking in that way simply to torment me."
"I can only speak as I think. I do agree that it would be inexpedient. She would to a certain extent lose the countenance of her friends--"
"Altogether!"
"Not altogether,--but to some extent. A certain cla.s.s of people,--not the best worth knowing,--might be inclined to drop her. However foolish her own friends may be we owe something--even to their folly."
"Her friends are not foolish,--her proper friends."
"I quite agree with that; but then so many of them are improper."
"Hampstead!"
"I am afraid that I don"t make myself quite clear. But never mind. It would be inexpedient. It would go against the grain with my father, who ought to be consulted."
"I should think so."
"I quite agree with you. A father ought to be consulted, even though a daughter be of age, so as to be enabled by law to do as she likes with herself. And then there would be money discomforts."
"She would not have a shilling."
"Not but what I should think it my duty to put that right if there were any real distress." Here spoke the heir, who was already in possession of much, and upon whom the whole property of the family was entailed. "Nevertheless if I can prevent it,--without quarrelling either with one or the other, without saying a hard word,--I shall do so."
"It will be your bounden duty."
"It is always a man"s bounden duty to do what is right. The difficulty is in seeing the way." After this the Marchioness was silent. What she had gained by speaking was very little,--little or nothing. The nature of the opposition he proposed was almost as bad as a sanction, and the reasons he gave for agreeing with her were as hurtful to her feelings as though they had been advanced on the other side. Even the Marquis was not sufficiently struck with horror at the idea that a daughter of his should have condescended to listen to love from a Post Office clerk!
On the day before they started Hampstead was enabled to be alone with his sister for a few minutes. "What an absurdity it is," she said, laughing,--"this running away."
"It is what you must have expected."
"But not the less absurd. Of course I shall go. Just at the moment I have no alternative; as I should have none if they threatened to lock me up, till I got somebody to take my case in hand. But I am as free to do what I please with myself as is papa."
"He has got money."
"But he is not, therefore, to be a tyrant."
"Yes he is;--over an unmarried daughter who has got none. We cannot but obey those on whom we are dependent."
"What I mean is, that carrying me away can do no good. You don"t suppose, John, that I shall give him up after having once brought myself to say the word! It was very difficult to say;--but ten times harder to be unsaid. I am quite determined,--and quite satisfied."
"But they are not."
"As regards my father, I am very sorry. As to mamma, she and I are so different in all our thinking that I know beforehand that whatever I might do would displease her. It cannot be helped. Whether it be good or bad I cannot be made such as she is. She came too late. You will not turn against me, John?"
"I rather think I shall."
"John!"