"It will make people think that the things are true which have been said."
"And will they hang him because I love him? I do love him. Violet knows how well I have always loved him." Lord Chiltern turned his angry face upon his wife. Lady Chiltern put her arm round her sister-in-law"s waist, and whispered some words into her ear. "What is that to me?" continued the half-frantic woman. "I do love him. I have always loved him. I shall love him to the end. He is all my life to me."
"Shame should prevent your telling it," said Lord Chiltern.
"I feel no shame. There is no disgrace in love. I did disgrace myself when I gave the hand for which he asked to another man, because,--because--" But she was too n.o.ble to tell her brother even then that at the moment of her life to which she was alluding she had married the rich man, rejecting the poor man"s hand, because she had given up all her fortune to the payment of her brother"s debts. And he, though he had well known what he had owed to her, and had never been easy till he had paid the debt, remembered nothing of all this now. No lending and paying back of money could alter the nature either of his feelings or his duty in such an emergency as this.
"And, mind you," she continued, turning to her sister-in-law, "there is no place for the shame of which he is thinking," and she pointed her finger out at her brother. "I love him,--as a mother might love her child, I fancy; but he has no love for me; none;--none. When I am with him, I am only a trouble to him. He comes to me, because he is good; but he would sooner be with you. He did love me once;--but then I could not afford to be so loved."
"You can do no good by seeing him," said her brother.
"But I will see him. You need not scowl at me as though you wished to strike me. I have gone through that which makes me different from other women, and I care not what they say of me. Violet understands it all;--but you understand nothing."
"Be calm, Laura," said her sister-in-law, "and Oswald will do all that can be done."
"But they will hang him."
"Nonsense!" said her brother. "He has not been as yet committed for his trial. Heaven knows how much has to be done. It is as likely as not that in three days" time he will be out at large, and all the world will be running after him just because he has been in Newgate."
"But who will look after him?"
"He has plenty of friends. I will see that he is not left without everything that he wants."
"But he will want money."
"He has plenty of money for that. Do you take it quietly, and not make a fool of yourself. If the worst comes to the worst--"
"Oh, heavens!"
"Listen to me, if you can listen. Should the worst come to the worst, which I believe to be altogether impossible,--mind, I think it next to impossible, for I have never for a moment believed him to be guilty,--we will,--visit him,--together. Good-bye now. I am going to see that friend of his, Mr. Low." So saying Lord Chiltern went, leaving the two women together.
"Why should he be so savage with me?" said Lady Laura.
"He does not mean to be savage."
"Does he speak to you like that? What right has he to tell me of shame? Has my life been so bad, and his so good? Do you think it shameful that I should love this man?" She sat looking into her friend"s face, but her friend for a while hesitated to answer. "You shall tell me, Violet. We have known each other so well that I can bear to be told by you. Do not you love him?"
"I love him!--certainly not."
"But you did."
"Not as you mean. Who can define love, and say what it is? There are so many kinds of love. We say that we love the Queen."
"Psha!"
"And we are to love all our neighbours. But as men and women talk of love, I never at any moment of my life loved any man but my husband.
Mr. Finn was a great favourite with me,--always."
"Indeed he was."
"As any other man might be,--or any woman. He is so still, and with all my heart I hope that this may be untrue."
"It is false as the Devil. It must be false. Can you think of the man,--his sweetness, the gentle nature of him, his open, free speech, and courage, and believe that he would go behind his enemy and knock his brains out in the dark? I can conceive it of myself, that I should do it, much easier than of him."
"Oswald says it is false."
"But he says it as partly believing that it is true. If it be true I will hang myself. There will be nothing left among men or women fit to live for. You think it shameful that I should love him."
"I have not said so."
"But you do."
"I think there is cause for shame in your confessing it."
"I do confess it."
"You ask me, and press me, and because we have loved one another so well I must answer you. If a woman, a married woman,--be oppressed by such a feeling, she should lay it down at the bottom of her heart, out of sight, never mentioning it, even to herself."
"You talk of the heart as though we could control it."
"The heart will follow the thoughts, and they may be controlled. I am not pa.s.sionate, perhaps, as you are, and I think I can control my heart. But my fortune has been kind to me, and I have never been tempted. Laura, do not think I am preaching to you."
"Oh no;--but your husband; think of him, and think of mine! You have babies."
"May G.o.d make me thankful. I have every good thing on earth that G.o.d can give."
"And what have I? To see that man prosper in life, who they tell me is a murderer; that man who is now in a felon"s gaol,--whom they will hang for ought we know,--to see him go forward and justify my thoughts of him! that yesterday was all I had. To-day I have nothing,--except the shame with which you and Oswald say that I have covered myself."
"Laura, I have never said so."
"I saw it in your eye when he accused me. And I know that it is shameful. I do know that I am covered with shame. But I can bear my own disgrace better than his danger." After a long pause,--a silence of probably some fifteen minutes,--she spoke again. "If Robert should die,--what would happen then?"
"It would be--a release, I suppose," said Lady Chiltern in a voice so low, that it was almost a whisper.
"A release indeed;--and I would become that man"s wife the next day, at the foot of the gallows;--if he would have me. But he would not have me."
CHAPTER LII
Mr. Kennedy"s Will
Mr. Kennedy had fired a pistol at Phineas Finn in Macpherson"s Hotel with the manifest intention of blowing out the brains of his presumed enemy, and no public notice had been taken of the occurrence. Phineas himself had been only too willing to pa.s.s the thing by as a trifling accident, if he might be allowed to do so, and the Macphersons had been by far too true to their great friend to think of giving him in charge to the police. The affair had been talked about, and had come to the knowledge of reporters and editors. Most of the newspapers had contained paragraphs giving various accounts of the matter; and one or two had followed the example of _The People"s Banner_ in demanding that the police should investigate the matter. But the matter had not been investigated. The police were supposed to know nothing about it,--as how should they, no one having seen or heard the shot but they who were determined to be silent? Mr. Quintus Slide had been indignant all in vain, so far as Mr. Kennedy and his offence had been concerned. As soon as the pistol had been fired and Phineas had escaped from the room, the unfortunate man had sunk back in his chair, conscious of what he had done, knowing that he had made himself subject to the law, and expecting every minute that constables would enter the room to seize him. He had seen his enemy"s hat lying on the floor, and, when n.o.body would come to fetch it, had thrown it down the stairs. After that he had sat waiting for the police, with the pistol, still loaded in every barrel but one, lying by his side,--hardly repenting the attempt, but trembling for the result,--till Macpherson, the landlord, who had been brought home from chapel, knocked at his door. There was very little said between them; and no positive allusion was made to the shot that had been fired; but Macpherson succeeded in getting the pistol into his possession,--as to which the unfortunate man put no impediment in his way, and he managed to have it understood that Mr. Kennedy"s cousin should be summoned on the following morning. "Is anybody else coming?" Robert Kennedy asked, when the landlord was about to leave the room. "Naebody as I ken o", yet, laird," said Macpherson, "but likes they will." n.o.body, however, did come, and the "laird" had spent the evening by himself in very wretched solitude.
On the following day the cousin had come, and to him the whole story was told. After that, no difficulty was found in taking the miserable man back to Loughlinter, and there he had been for the last two months in the custody of his more wretched mother and of his cousin.
No legal steps had been taken to deprive him of the management either of himself or of his property,--so that he was in truth his own master. And he exercised his mastery in acts of petty tyranny about his domain, becoming more and more close-fisted in regard to money, and desirous, as it appeared, of starving all living things about the place,--cattle, sheep, and horses, so that the value of their food might be saved. But every member of the establishment knew that the laird was "nae just himself", and consequently his orders were not obeyed. And the laird knew the same of himself, and, though he would give the orders not only resolutely, but with imperious threats of penalties to follow disobedience, still he did not seem to expect compliance. While he was in this state, letters addressed to him came for a while into his own hands, and thus more than one reached him from Lord Brentford"s lawyer, demanding that rest.i.tution should be made of the interest arising from Lady Laura"s fortune. Then he would fly out into bitter wrath, calling his wife foul names, and swearing that she should never have a farthing of his money to spend upon her paramour. Of course it was his money, and his only. All the world knew that. Had she not left his roof, breaking her marriage vows, throwing aside every duty, and bringing him down to his present state of abject misery? Her own fortune! If she wanted the interest of her wretched money, let her come to Loughlinter and receive it there. In spite of all her wickedness, her cruelty, her misconduct, which had brought him,--as he now said,--to the verge of the grave, he would still give her shelter and room for repentance. He recognised his vows, though she did not. She should still be his wife, though she had utterly disgraced both herself and him. She should still be his wife, though she had so lived as to make it impossible that there should be any happiness in their household.
It was thus he spoke when first one and then another letter came from the Earl"s lawyer, pointing out to him the injustice to which Lady Laura was subjected by the loss of her fortune. No doubt these letters would not have been written in the line a.s.sumed had not Mr.