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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The American Senator, by Anthony Trollope
+#33 in our series by Anthony Trollope
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+Title: The American Senator
+
+Author: Anthony Trollope
+
+Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5118]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on May 4, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AMERICAN SENATOR ***
+
+
+
+
+Prepared by tapri@kolumbus.fi (Tapio Riikonen)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE AMERICAN SENATOR
+
+By Anthony Trollope
+
+
+
+
+VOLUME I
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Dillsborough
+
+
+I never could understand why anybody should ever have begun to live
+at Dillsborough, or why the population there should have been at
+any time recruited by new comers. That a man with a family should
+cling to a house in which he has once established himself is
+intelligible. The butcher who supplied Dillsborough, or the baker,
+or the ironmonger, though he might not drive what is called a
+roaring trade, nevertheless found himself probably able to live,
+and might well hesitate before he would encounter the dangers of a
+more energetic locality. But how it came to pass that he first got
+himself to Dillsborough, or his father, or his grandfather before
+him, has always been a mystery to me. The town has no attractions,
+and never had any. It does not stand on a bed of coal and has no
+connection with iron. It has no water peculiarly adapted for beer,
+or for dyeing, or for the cure of maladies. It is not surrounded by
+beauty of scenery strong enough to bring tourists and holiday
+travellers. There is no cathedral there to form, with its bishops,
+prebendaries, and minor canons, the nucleus of a clerical circle.
+It manufactures nothing specially. It has no great horse fair, or
+cattle fair, or even pig market of special notoriety. Every
+Saturday farmers and graziers and buyers of corn and sheep do
+congregate in a sleepy fashion about the streets, but Dillsborough
+has no character of its own, even as a market town. Its chief glory
+is its parish church, which is ancient and inconvenient, having not
+as yet received any of those modern improvements which have of late
+become common throughout England; but its parish church, though
+remarkable, is hardly celebrated. The town consists chiefly of one
+street which is over a mile long, with a square or market-place in
+the middle, round which a few lanes with queer old names are
+congregated, and a second small open space among these lanes, in
+which the church stands. As you pass along the street north-west,
+away from the railway station and from London, there is a steep
+hill, beginning to rise just beyond the market-place. Up to that
+point it is the High Street, thence it is called Bullock's Hill.
+Beyond that you come to Norrington Road,--Norrington being the next
+town, distant from Dillsborough about twelve miles. Dillsborough,
+however, stands in the county of Rufford, whereas at the top of
+Bullock's Hill you enter the county of Ufford, of which Norrington
+is the assize town. The Dillsborough people are therefore divided,
+some two thousand five hundred of them belonging to Rufford, and
+the remaining five hundred to the neighbouring county. This
+accident has given rise to not a few feuds, Ufford being a large
+county, with pottery, and ribbons, and watches going on in the
+farther confines; whereas Rufford is small and thoroughly
+agricultural. The men at the top of Bullock's Hill are therefore
+disposed to think themselves better than their fellow-townsfolks,
+though they are small in number and not specially thriving in their
+circumstances.
+
+At every interval of ten years, when the census is taken, the
+population of Dillsborough is always found to have fallen off in
+some slight degree. For a few months after the publication of the
+figures a slight tinge of melancholy comes upon the town. The
+landlord of the Bush Inn, who is really an enterprising man in his
+way and who has looked about in every direction for new sources of
+business, becomes taciturn for a while and forgets to smile upon
+comers; Mr. Ribbs, the butcher, tells his wife that it is out of
+the question that she and the children should take that
+long-talked-of journey to the sea-coast; and Mr. Gregory Masters,
+the well-known old-established attorney of Dillsborough, whispers
+to some confidential friend that he might as well take down his
+plate and shut up his house. But in a month or two all that is
+forgotten, and new hopes spring up even in Dillsborough; Mr.
+Runciman at the Bush is putting up new stables for hunting-horses,
+that being the special trade for which he now finds that there is
+an opening; Mrs. Ribbs is again allowed to suggest Mare-Slocumb;
+and Mr. Masters goes on as he has done for the last forty years,
+making the best he can of a decreasing business.
+
+Dillsborough is built chiefly of brick, and is, in its own way,
+solid enough. The Bush, which in the time of the present landlord's
+father was one of the best posting inns on the road, is not only
+substantial, but almost handsome. A broad coach way, cut through
+the middle of the house, leads into a spacious, well-kept, clean
+yard, and on each side of the coach way there are bay windows
+looking into the street,--the one belonging to the commercial
+parlour, and the other to the so-called coffee-room. But the
+coffee-room has in truth fallen away from its former purposes, and
+is now used for a farmer's ordinary on market days, and other
+similar purposes. Travellers who require the use of a public
+sitting-room must all congregate in the commercial parlour at the
+Bush. So far the interior of the house has fallen from its past
+greatness. But the exterior is maintained with much care. The
+brickwork up to the eaves is well pointed, fresh, and comfortable
+to look at. In front of the carriage-way swings on two massive
+supports the old sign of the Bush, as to which it may be doubted
+whether even Mr. Runciman himself knows that it has swung there, or
+been displayed in some fashion, since it was the custom for the
+landlord to beat up wine to freshen it before it was given to the
+customers to drink. The church, too, is of brick--though the tower
+and chancel are of stone. The attorney's house is of brick, which
+shall not be more particularly described now as many of the scenes
+which these pages will have to describe were acted there; and
+almost the entire High Street in the centre of the town was brick
+also.
+
+But the most remarkable house in Dillsborough was one standing in a
+short thoroughfare called Hobbs Gate, leading down by the side of
+the Bush Inn from the market-place to Church Square, as it is
+called. As you pass down towards the church this house is on the
+right hand, and it occupies with its garden the whole space between
+the market-place and Church Square. But though the house enjoys the
+privilege of a large garden,--so large that the land being in the
+middle of a town would be of great value were it not that
+Dillsborough is in its decadence,--still it stands flush up to the
+street upon which the front door opens. It has an imposing flight
+of stone steps guarded by iron rails leading up to it, and on each
+side of the door there is a row of three windows, and on the two
+upper stories rows of seven windows. Over the door there is a
+covering, on which there are grotesquely-formed, carved wooden
+faces; and over the centre of each window, let into the brickwork,
+is a carved stone. There are also numerous underground windows,
+sunk below the earth and protected by iron railings. Altogether the
+house is one which cannot fail to attract attention; and in the
+brickwork is clearly marked the date, 1701,--not the very best
+period for English architecture as regards beauty, but one in which
+walls and roofs, ceilings and buttresses, were built more
+substantially than they are to-day. This was the only house in
+Dillsborough which had a name of its own, and it was called Hoppet
+Hall, the Dillsborough chronicles telling that it had been
+originally built for and inhabited by the Hoppet family. The only
+Hoppet now left in Dillsborough is old Joe Hoppet, the ostler at
+the Bush; and the house, as was well known, had belonged to some
+member of the Morton family for the last hundred years at least.
+The garden and ground it stands upon comprise three acres, all of
+which are surrounded by a high brick wall, which is supposed to be
+coeval with the house. The best Ribston pippins,--some people say
+the only real Ribston pippins,--in all Rufford are to be found
+here, and its Burgundy pears and walnuts are almost equally
+celebrated. There are rumours also that its roses beat everything
+in the way of roses for ten miles round. But in these days very few
+strangers are admitted to see the Hoppet Hall roses. The pears and
+apples do make their way out, and are distributed either by Mrs.
+Masters, the attorney's wife, or Mr. Runciman, the innkeeper. The
+present occupier of the house is a certain Mr. Reginald Morton,
+with whom we shall also be much concerned in these pages, but whose
+introduction to the reader shall be postponed for awhile.
+
+The land around Dillsborough is chiefly owned by two landlords, of
+whom the greatest and richest is Lord Rufford. He, however, does
+not live near the town, but away at the other side of the county,
+and is not much seen in these parts unless when the hounds bring
+him here, or when, with two or three friends, he will sometimes
+stay for a few days at the Bush Inn for the sake of shooting the
+coverts. He is much liked by all sporting men, but is not otherwise
+very popular with the people round Dillsborough. A landlord if he
+wishes to be popular should be seen frequently. If he lives among
+his farmers they will swear by him, even though he raises his
+rental every ten or twelve years and never puts a new roof to a
+barn for them. Lord Rufford is a rich man who thinks of nothing but
+sport in all its various shapes, from pigeon-shooting at Hurlingham
+to the slaughter of elephants in Africa; and though he is lenient
+in all his dealings, is not much thought of in the Dillsborough
+side of the county, except by those who go out with the hounds. At
+Rufford, where he generally has a full house for three months in
+the year and spends a vast amount of money, he is more highly
+considered.
+
+The other extensive landlord is Mr. John Morton, a young man, who,
+in spite of his position as squire of Bragton, owner of Bragton
+Park, and landlord of the entire parishes of Bragton and
+Mallingham, the latter of which comes close up to the confines of
+Dillsborough,--was at the time at which our story begins, Secretary
+of Legation at Washington. As he had been an absentee since he came
+of age, soon after which time he inherited the property, he had
+been almost less liked in the neighbourhood than the lord. Indeed,
+no one in Dillsborough knew much about him, although Bragton Hall
+was but four miles from the town, and the Mortons had possessed the
+property and lived on it for the last three centuries. But there
+had been extravagance, as will hereafter have to be told, and there
+had been no continuous residence at Bragton since the death of old
+Reginald Morton, who had been the best known and the best loved of
+all the squires in Rufford, and had for many years been master of
+the Rufford hounds. He had lived to a very great age, and, though
+the great-grandfather of the present man, had not been dead above
+twenty years. He was the man of whom the older inhabitants of
+Dillsborough and the neighbourhood still thought and still spoke
+when they gave vent to their feelings in favour of gentlemen. And
+yet the old squire in his latter days had been able to do little or
+nothing for them,--being sometimes backward as to the payment of
+money he owed among them. But he had lived all his days at Bragton
+Park, and his figure had been familiar to all eyes in the High
+Street of Dillsborough and at the front entrance of the Bush.
+People still spoke of old Mr. Reginald Morton as though his death
+had been a sore loss to the neighbourhood.
+
+And there were in the country round sundry yeomen, as they ought to
+be called,--gentlemen-farmers as they now like to style
+themselves,--men who owned some acres of land, and farmed these
+acres themselves. Of these we may specially mention Mr. Lawrence
+Twentyman, who was quite the gentleman-farmer. He possessed over
+three hundred acres of land, on which his father had built an
+excellent house. The present Mr. Twentyman, Lawrence Twentyman,
+Esquire, as he was called by everybody, was by no means unpopular
+in the neighbourhood. He not only rode well to hounds but paid
+twenty-five pounds annually to the hunt, which entitled him to feel
+quite at home in his red coat. He generally owned a racing colt or
+two, and attended meetings; but was supposed to know what he was
+about, and to have kept safely the five or six thousand pounds
+which his father had left him. And his farming was well done; for
+though he was, out-and-out, a gentleman-farmer, he knew how to get
+the full worth in work done for the fourteen shillings a week which
+he paid to his labourers,--a deficiency in which knowledge is the
+cause why gentlemen in general find farming so expensive an
+amusement. He was a handsome, good-looking man of about thirty, and
+would have been a happy man had he not been too ambitious in his
+aspirations after gentry. He had been at school for three years at
+Cheltenham College, which, together with his money and appearance
+and undoubted freehold property, should, he thought, have made his
+position quite secure to him; but, though he sometimes called young
+Hampton of Hampton Wick "Hampton," and the son of the rector of
+Dillsborough "Mainwaring," and always called the rich young brewers
+from Norrington "Botsey,"--partners in the well-known firm of
+Billbrook & Botsey; and though they in return called him "Larry"
+and admitted the intimacy, still he did not get into their houses.
+And Lord Rufford, when he came into the neighbourhood, never asked
+him to dine at the Bush. And--worst of all,--some of the sporting
+men and others in the neighbourhood, who decidedly were not
+gentlemen, also called him "Larry." Mr. Runciman always did so.
+Twenty or twenty-five years ago Runciman had been his father's
+special friend, before the house had been built and before the days
+at Cheltenham College. Remembering this Lawrence was too good a
+fellow to rebuke Runciman; but to younger men of that class he
+would sometimes make himself objectionable. There was another
+keeper of hunting stables, a younger man, named Stubbings, living
+at Stanton Corner, a great hunting rendezvous about four miles from
+Dillsborough; and not long since Twentyman had threatened to lay
+his whip across Stubbings' shoulders if Stubbings ever called him
+"Larry" again. Stubbings, who was a little man and rode races, only
+laughed at Mr. Twentyman who was six feet high, and told the story
+round to all the hunt. Mr. Twentyman was more laughed at than
+perhaps he deserved. A man should not have his Christian name used
+by every Tom and Dick without his sanction. But the difficulty is
+one to which men in the position of Mr. Lawrence Twentyman are
+often subject.
+
+Those whom I have named, together with Mr. Mainwaring the rector,
+and Mr. Surtees his curate, made up the very sparse aristocracy of
+Dillsborough. The Hamptons of Hampton Wick were Ufford men, and
+belonged, rather to Norrington than Dillsborough. The Botseys, also
+from Norrington, were members of the U.R.U., or Ufford and Rufford
+United Hunt Club; but they did not much affect Dillsborough as a
+town. Mr. Mainwaring, who has been mentioned, lived in another
+brick house behind the church, the old parsonage of St. John's.
+There was also a Mrs. Mainwaring, but she was an invalid. Their
+family consisted of one son, who was at Brasenose at this time. He
+always had a horse during the Christmas vacation, and if rumour did
+not belie him, kept two or three up at Oxford. Mr. Surtees, the
+curate, lived in lodgings in the town. He was a painstaking,
+clever, young man, with aspirations in church matters, which were
+always being checked by his rector. Quieta non movere was the motto
+by which the rector governed his life, and he certainly was not at
+all the man to allow his curate to drive him into activity.
+
+Such, at the time of our story, was the little town of
+Dillsborough.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+The Morton Family
+
+
+I can hardly describe accurately the exact position of the Masters
+family without first telling all that I know about the Morton
+family; and it is absolutely essential that the reader should know
+all the Masters family intimately. Mr. Masters, as I have said in
+the last chapter, was the attorney in Dillsborough, and the Mortons
+had been for centuries past the squires of Bragton.
+
+I need not take the reader back farther than old Reginald Morton.
+He had come to the throne of his family as a young man, and had sat
+upon it for more than half a century. He had been a squire of the
+old times, having no inclination for London seasons, never wishing
+to keep up a second house, quite content with his position as quire
+of Bragton, but with considerable pride about him as to that
+position. He had always liked to have his house full, and had hated
+petty oeconomies. He had for many years hunted the county at his
+own expense, the amusement at first not having been so expensive as
+it afterwards became. When he began the work, it had been considered
+sufficient to hunt twice a week. Now the Rufford and Ufford hounds
+have four days, and sometimes a bye. It went much against Mr.
+Reginald Morton's pride when he was first driven to take a
+subscription.
+
+But the temporary distress into which the family fell was caused
+not so much by his own extravagance as by that of two sons, and by
+his indulgence in regard to them. He had three children, none of
+whom were very fortunate in life. The eldest, John, married the
+daughter of a peer, stood for Parliament, had one son, and died
+before he was forty, owing something over 20,000 pounds. The estate
+was then worth 7,000 pounds a year. Certain lands not lying either
+in Bragton or Mallingham were sold, and that difficulty was
+surmounted, not without a considerable diminution of income.
+In process of time the grandson, who was a second John Morton,
+grew up and married, and became the father of a third John Morton,
+the young man who afterwards became owner of the property and
+Secretary of Legation at Washington. But the old squire outlived
+his son and his grandson, and when he died had three or four
+great-grand-children playing about the lawns of Bragton Park. The
+peer's daughter had lived, and had for many years drawn a dower
+from the Bragton property, and had been altogether a very heavy
+incumbrance.
+
+But the great trial of the old man's life, as also the great
+romance, had arisen from the career of his second son, Reginald. Of
+all his children, Reginald had been the dearest to him. He went to
+Oxford, and had there spent much money; not as young men now spend
+money, but still to an extent that had been grievous to the old
+squire. But everything was always paid for Reginald. It was
+necessary, of course, that he should have a profession, and he took
+a commission in the army. As a young man he went to Canada. This
+was in 1829, when all the world was at peace, and his only
+achievement in Canada was to marry a young woman who is reported to
+have been pretty and good, but who had no advantages either of
+fortune or birth. She was, indeed, the daughter of a bankrupt
+innkeeper in Montreal. Soon after this he sold out and brought his
+wife home to Bragton. It was at this period of the squire's life
+that the romance spoken of occurred. John Morton, the brother with
+the aristocratic wife, was ten or twelve years older than Reginald,
+and at this time lived chiefly at Bragton when he was not in town.
+He was, perhaps, justified in regarding Bragton as almost belonging
+to him, knowing as he did that it must belong to him after his
+father's lifetime, and to his son after him. His anger against his
+brother was hot, and that of his wife still hotter. He himself had
+squandered thousands, but then he was the heir. Reginald, who was
+only a younger brother, had sold his commission. And then he had
+done so much more than this! He had married a woman who was not a
+lady! John was clearly of opinion that at any rate the wife should
+not be admitted into Bragton House. The old squire in those days
+was not a happy man; he had never been very strong-minded, but now
+he was strong enough to declare that his house-door should not be
+shut against a son of his,--or a son's wife, as long as she was
+honest. Hereupon the Honourable Mrs. Morton took her departure, and
+was never seen at Bragton again in the old squire's time. Reginald
+Morton came to the house, and soon afterwards another little
+Reginald was born at Bragton Park. This happened as long ago as
+1835, twenty years before the death of the old squire.
+
+But there had been another child, a daughter, who had come between
+the two sons, still living in these days, who will become known to
+any reader who will have patience to follow these pages to the end.
+She married, not very early in life, a certain Sir William Ushant,
+who was employed by his country in India and elsewhere, but who
+found, soon after his marriage, that the service of his country
+required that he should generally leave his wife at Bragton. As her
+father had been for many years a widower, Lady Ushant became the
+mistress of the house.
+
+But death was very busy with the Mortons. Almost every one died,
+except the squire himself and his daughter, and that honourable
+dowager, with her income and her pride who could certainly very
+well have been spared. When at last, in 1855, the old squire went,
+full of years, full of respect, but laden also with debts and money
+troubles, not only had his son John, and his grandson John, gone
+before him, but Reginald and his wife were both lying in Bragton
+Churchyard.
+
+The elder branch of the family, John the great-grandson, and his
+little sisters, were at once taken away from Bragton by the
+honourable grandmother. John, who was then about seven years old,
+was of course the young squire, and was the owner of the property.
+The dowager, therefore, did not undertake an altogether
+unprofitable burden. Lady Ushant was left at the house, and with
+Lady Ushant, or rather immediately subject to her care, young
+Reginald Morton, who was then nineteen years of age, and who was
+about to go to Oxford. But there immediately sprang up family
+lawsuits, instigated by the honourable lady on behalf of her
+grandchildren, of which Reginald Morton was the object. The old man
+had left certain outlying properties to his grandson Reginald, of
+which Hoppet Hall was a part. For eight or ten years the lawsuit
+was continued, and much money was expended. Reginald was at last
+successful, and became the undoubted owner of Hoppet Hall; but in
+the meantime he went to Germany for his education, instead of to
+Oxford, and remained abroad even after the matter was decided,--
+living, no one but Lady Ushant knew where, or after what fashion.
+
+When the old squire died the children were taken away, and Bragton
+was nearly deserted. The young heir was brought up with every
+caution, and, under the auspices of his grandmother and her family,
+behaved himself very unlike the old Mortons. He was educated at
+Eton, after leaving which he was at once examined for Foreign
+Office employment, and commenced his career with great eclat. He
+had been made to understand clearly that it would be better that he
+should not enter in upon his squirearchy early in life. The estate
+when he came of age had already had some years to recover itself,
+and as he went from capital to capital, he was quite content to
+draw from it an income which enabled him to shine with peculiar
+brilliance among his brethren. He had visited Bragton once since
+the old squire's death, and had found the place very dull and
+uninviting. He had no ambition whatever to be master of the U.R.U.;
+but did look forward to a time when he might be Minister
+Plenipotentiary at some foreign court.
+
+For many years after the old man's death, Lady Ushant, who was then
+a widow, was allowed to live at Bragton. She was herself childless,
+and being now robbed of her great-nephews and nieces, took a little
+girl to live with her, named Mary Masters. It was a very desolate
+house in those days, but the old lady was careful as to the
+education of the child, and did her best to make the home happy for
+her. Some two or three years before the commencement of this story
+there arose a difference between the manager of the property and
+Lady Ushant, and she was made to understand, after some
+half-courteous manner, that Bragton house and park would do better
+without her. There would be no longer any cows kept, and painters
+must come into the house, and there were difficulties about fuel.
+She was not turned out exactly; but she went and established
+herself in lonely lodgings at Cheltenham. Then Mary Masters, who
+had lived for more than a dozen years at Bragton, went back to her
+father's house in Dillsborough.
+
+Any reader with an aptitude for family pedigrees will now
+understand that Reginald, Master of Hoppet Hall, was first cousin
+to the father of the Foreign Office paragon, and that he is
+therefore the paragon's first cousin once removed. The relationship
+is not very distant, but the two men, one of whom was a dozen years
+older than the other, had not seen each other for more than twenty
+years,--at a time when one of them was a big boy, and the other a
+very little one; and during the greater part of that time a lawsuit
+had been carried on between them in a very rigorous manner. It had
+done much to injure both, and had created such a feeling of
+hostility that no intercourse of any kind now existed between them.
+
+It does not much concern us to know how far back should be dated
+the beginning of the connection between the Morton family and that
+of Mr. Masters, the attorney; but it is certain that the first
+attorney of that name in Dillsborough became learned in the law
+through the patronage of some former Morton. The father of the
+present Gregory Masters, and the grandfather, had been thoroughly
+trusted and employed by old Reginald Morton, and the former of the
+two had made his will. Very much of the stewardship and management
+of the property had been in their hands, and they had thriven as
+honest men, but as men with a tolerably sharp eye to their own
+interests. The late Mr. Masters had died a few years before the
+squire, and the present attorney had seemed to succeed to these
+family blessings. But the whole order of things became changed.
+Within a few weeks of the squire's death Mr. Masters found that he
+was to be entrusted no further with the affairs of the property,
+but that, in lieu of such care, was thrown upon him the task of
+defending the will which he had made against the owner of the
+estate. His father and grandfather had contrived between them to
+establish a fairly good business, independently of Bragton, which
+business, of course, was now his. As far as reading went, and
+knowledge, he was probably a better lawyer than either of them; but
+he lacked their enterprise and special genius, and the thing had
+dwindled with him. It seemed to him, perhaps not unnaturally, that
+he had been robbed of an inheritance. He had no title deeds, as had
+the owners of the property; but his ancestors before him, from
+generation to generation, had lived by managing the Bragton
+property. They had drawn the leases, and made the wills, and
+collected the rents, and had taught themselves to believe that a
+Morton could not live on his land without a Masters. Now there was
+a Morton who did not live on his land, but spent his rents
+elsewhere without the aid of any Masters, and it seemed to the old
+lawyer that all the good things of the world had passed away. He
+had married twice, his first wife having, before her marriage, been
+well known at Bragton Park. When she had died, and Mr. Masters had
+brought a second wife home, Lady Ushant took the only child of the
+mother, whom she had known as a girl, into her own keeping, till
+she also had been compelled to leave Bragton. Then Mary Masters had
+returned to her father and stepmother.
+
+The Bragton Park residence is a large, old-fashioned, comfortable
+house, but by no means a magnificent mansion. The greater part of
+it was built one hundred and fifty years ago, and the rooms are
+small and low. In the palmy days of his reign, which is now more
+than half a century since, the old squire made alterations, and
+built new stables and kennels, and put up a conservatory; but what
+he did then has already become almost old-fashioned now. What he
+added he added in stone, but the old house was brick. He was much
+abused at the time for his want of taste, and heard a good deal
+about putting new cloth as patches on old rents; but, as the shrubs
+and ivy have grown up, a certain picturesqueness has come upon the
+place, which is greatly due to the difference of material. The
+place is somewhat sombre, as there is no garden close to the house.
+There is a lawn, at the back, with gravel walks round it; but it is
+only a small lawn; and then divided from the lawn by a ha-ha fence,
+is the park. The place, too, has that sad look which always comes
+to a house from the want of a tenant. Poor Lady Ushant, when she
+was there, could do little or nothing. A gardener was kept, but
+there should have been three or four gardeners. The man grew
+cabbages and onions, which he sold, but cared nothing for the walks
+or borders. Whatever it may have been in the old time, Bragton Park
+was certainly not a cheerful place when Lady Ushant lived there. In
+the squire's time the park itself had always been occupied by deer.
+Even when distress came he would not allow the deer to be sold. But
+after his death they went very soon, and from that day to the time
+of which I am writing, the park has been leased to some butchers or
+graziers from Dillsborough.
+
+The ground hereabouts is nearly level, but it falls away a little
+and becomes broken and pretty where the river Dill runs through the
+park, about half a mile from the house. There is a walk called the
+Pleasance, passing down through shrubs to the river, and then
+crossing the stream by a foot-bridge, and leading across the fields
+towards Dillsborough. This bridge is, perhaps, the prettiest spot
+in Bragton, or, for that matter, anywhere in the county round; but.
+even here there is not much of beauty to be praised. It is here, on
+the side of the river away from the house, that the home meet of
+the hounds used to be held; and still the meet at Bragton Bridge is
+popular in the county.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+The Masters Family
+
+
+At six o'clock one November morning, Mr. Masters, the attorney, was
+sitting at home with his family in the large parlour of his house,
+his office being on the other side of the passage which cut the
+house in two and was formally called the hall. Upstairs, over the
+parlour, was a drawing-room; but this chamber, which was supposed
+to be elegantly furnished, was very rarely used. Mr. and Mrs.
+Masters did not see much company, and for family purposes the
+elegance of the drawing-room made it unfit. It added, however, not
+a little to the glory of Mrs. Masters' life. The house itself was a
+low brick building in the High Street, at the corner where the High
+Street runs into the market-place, and therefore, nearly opposite
+to the Bush. It had none of the elaborate grandeur of the inn nor
+of the simple stateliness of Hoppet Hall, but, nevertheless, it
+maintained the character of the town and was old, substantial,
+respectable, and dark.
+
+"I think it a very spirited thing of him to do, then," said Mrs.
+Masters.
+
+"I don't know, my dear. Perhaps it is only revenge."
+
+"What have you to do with that? What can it matter to a lawyer
+whether it's revenge or anything else? He's got the means, I
+suppose?"
+
+"I don't know, my dear."
+
+"What does Nickem say?"
+
+"I suppose he has the means," said Mr. Masters, who was aware that
+if he told his wife a fib on the matter, she would learn the truth
+from his senior clerk, Mr. Samuel Nickem. Among the professional
+gifts which Mr. Masters possessed, had not been that great gift of
+being able to keep his office and his family distinct from each
+other. His wife always knew what was going on, and was very free
+with her advice; generally tendering it on that side on which money
+was to be made, and doing so with much feminine darkness as to
+right or wrong. His Clerk, Nickem, who was afflicted with no such
+darkness, but who ridiculed the idea of scruple in an attorney,
+often took part against him. It was the wish of his heart to get
+rid of Nickem; but Nickem would have carried business with him and
+gone over to some enemy, or, perhaps have set up in some irregular
+manner on his own bottom; and his wife would have given him no
+peace had he done so, for she regarded Nickem as the mainstay of
+the house.
+
+"What is Lord Rufford to you?" asked Mrs. Masters.
+
+"He has always been very friendly."
+
+"I don't see it at all. You have never had any of his money. I
+don't know that you are a pound richer by him."
+
+"I have always gone with the gentry of the county."
+
+"Fiddlesticks! Gentry! Gentry are very well as long as you can make
+a living out of them. You could afford to stick up for gentry till
+you lost the Bragton property." This was a subject that was always
+sore between Mr. Masters and his wife. The former Mrs. Masters had
+been a lady--the daughter of a neighbouring clergyman; and had been
+much considered by the family at Bragton. The present Mrs. Masters
+was the daughter of an ironmonger at Norrington, who had brought a
+thousand pounds with her, which had been very useful. No doubt Mr.
+Masters' practice had been considerably affected by the lowliness
+of his second marriage. People who used to know the first Mrs.
+Masters, such as Mrs. Mainwaring, and the doctor's wife, and old
+Mrs. Cooper, the wife of the vicar of Mallingham, would not call on
+the second Mrs. Masters. As Mrs. Masters was too high-spirited to
+run after people who did not want her, she took to hating gentry
+instead.
+
+"We have always been on the other side," said the old attorney, "I
+and my father and grandfather before me."
+
+"They lived on it and you can't. If you are going to say that you
+won't have any client that isn't a gentleman, you might as well put
+up your shutters at once."
+
+"I haven't said so. Isn't Runciman my client?" "He always goes with
+the gentry. He a'most thinks he's one of them himself."
+
+"And old Nobbs, the greengrocer. But it's all nonsense. Any man is
+my client, or any woman, Who can come and pay me for business that
+is fit for me to do."
+
+"Why isn't this fit to be done? If the man's been damaged, why
+shouldn't he be paid?"
+
+"He's had money offered him."
+
+"If he thinks it ain't enough, who's to say that it is,--unless a
+jury?" said Mrs. Masters, becoming quite eloquent. "And how's a
+poor man to get a jury to say that, unless he comes to a lawyer? Of
+course, if you won't have it, he'll go to Bearside. Bearside won't
+turn him away." Bearside was another attorney, an interloper of
+about ten years' standing, whose name was odious to Mr. Masters.
+
+"You don't know anything about it, my dear," said he, aroused at
+last to anger.
+
+"I know you're letting anybody who likes take the bread out of the
+children's mouths." The children, so called, were sitting round the
+table and could not but take an interest in the matter. The eldest
+was that Mary Masters, the daughter of the former wife, whom Lady
+Ushant had befriended, a tall girl, with dark brown hair, so dark
+as almost to be black, and large, soft, thoughtful grey eyes. We
+shall have much to say of Mary Masters, and can hardly stop to give
+an adequate description of her here. The others were Dolly and
+Kate, two girls aged sixteen and fifteen. The two younger
+"children" were eating bread and butter and jam in a very healthy
+manner, but still had their ears wide open to the conversation that
+was being held. The two younger girls sympathised strongly with
+their mother. Mary, who had known much about the Mortons, and was
+old enough to understand the position which her grandfather had
+held in reference to the family, of course leaned in her heart to
+her father's side. But she was wiser than her father, and knew that
+in such discussions her mother often showed a worldly wisdom which,
+in their present circumstances, they could hardly afford to
+disregard, unpalatable through it might be.
+
+Mr. Masters disliked these discussions altogether, but he disliked
+them most of all in presence of his children. He looked round upon
+them in a deprecatory manner, making a slight motion with his hand
+and bringing his head down on one side, and then he gave a long
+sigh. If it was his intention to convey some subtle warning to his
+wife, some caution that she alone should understand, he was
+deceived. The "children" all knew what he meant quite as well as
+did their mother.
+
+"Shall we go out, mamma?" asked Dolly. "Finish your teas, my
+dears," said Mr. Masters, who wished to stop the discussion rather
+than to carry it on before a more select audience.
+
+"You've got to make up your mind to-night," said Mrs. Masters, "and
+you'll be going over to the Bush at eight"
+
+"No, I needn't. He is to come on Monday. I told Nickem I wouldn't
+see him to-night; nor, of course, to-morrow."
+
+"Then he'll go to Bearside."
+
+"He may go to Bearside and be --! Oh, Lord! I do wish you'd let me
+drop the business for a few minutes when I am in here. You don't
+know anything about it. How should you?"
+
+"I know that if I didn't speak you'd let everything slip through
+your fingers. There's Mr. Twentyman. Kate, open the door."
+
+Kate, who was fond of Mr. Twentyman, rushed up, and opened the
+front door at once. In saying so much of Kate, I do not mean it to
+be understood that any precocious ideas of love were troubling that
+young lady's bosom. Kate Masters was a jolly bouncing schoolgirl of
+fifteen, who was not too proud to eat toffy, and thought herself
+still a child. But she was very fond of Lawrence Twentyman, who had
+a pony that she could ride, and who was always good-natured to her.
+All the family liked Mr. Twentyman,--unless it might be Mary, who
+was the one that he specially liked himself. And Mary was not
+altogether averse to him, knowing him to be good-natured, manly,
+and straightforward. But Mr. Twentyman had proposed to her, and she
+had certainly not accepted him. This, however, had broken none of
+the family friendship. Every one in the house, unless it might be
+Mary herself, hoped that Mr. Twentyman might prevail at last. The
+man was worth six or seven hundred a year, and had a good house,
+and owed no one a shilling. He was handsome, and about the
+best-tempered fellow known. Of course they all desired that he
+should prevail with Mary. "I wish that I were old enough, Larry,
+that's all!" Kate had said to him once, laughing. "I wouldn't have
+you, if you were ever laughing." "I wouldn't have you, if you were
+ever so old," Larry had replied; "you'd want to be out hunting
+every day." That will show the sort of terms that Larry was on with
+his friend Kate. He called at the house every Saturday with the
+declared object of going over to the club that was held that
+evening in the parlour at the Bush, whither Mr. Masters also always
+went. It was understood at home that Mr. Masters should attend this
+club every Saturday from eight till eleven, but that he was not at
+any other time to give way to the fascinations of the Bush. On this
+occasion, and we may say on almost every Saturday night, Mr.
+Twentyman arrived a full hour before the appointed time. The reason
+of his doing so was of course well understood, and was quite
+approved by Mrs. Masters. She was not, at any rate as yet, a cruel
+stepmother; but still, if the girl could be transferred to so
+eligible a home as that which Mr. Twentyman could give her, it
+would be well for all parties.
+
+When he took his seat he did not address himself specially to the
+lady of his love. I don't know how a gentleman is to do so in the
+presence of her father, and mother, and sisters. Saturday after
+Saturday he probably thought that some occasion would arise; but,
+if his words could have been counted, it would have been found that
+he addressed fewer to her than to any one in the room.
+
+"Larry," said his special friend Kate, "am I to have the pony at
+the Bridge meet?"
+
+"How very free you are, Miss!" said her mother.
+
+"I don't know about that," said Larry. "When is there to be a meet
+at the Bridge? I haven't heard."
+
+"But I have. Tony Tuppett told me that they would be there this day
+fortnight." Tony Tuppett was the huntsman of the U.R.U.
+
+"That's more than Tony can know. He may have guessed it."
+
+"Shall I have the pony if he has guessed right?"
+
+Then the pony was promised; and Kate, trusting in Tony Tuppett's
+sagacity, was happy.
+
+"Have you heard of all this about Dillsborough Wood?" asked Mrs.
+Masters. The attorney shrank at the question, and shook himself
+uneasily in his chair.
+
+"Yes; I've heard about it," said Larry.
+
+"And what do you think about it? I don't see why Lord Rufford is to
+ride over everybody because he's a lord." Mr. Twentyman scratched
+his head. Though a keen sportsman himself, he did not specially
+like Lord Rufford,--a fact which had been very well known to Mrs.
+Masters. But, nevertheless, this threatened action against the
+nobleman was distasteful to him. It was not a hunting affair, or
+Mr. Twentyman could not have doubted for a moment. It was a
+shooting difficulty, and as Mr. Twentyman had never been asked to
+fire a gun on the Rufford preserves, it was no great sorrow to him
+that there should be such a difficulty. But the thing threatened
+was an attack upon the country gentry and their amusements, and Mr.
+Twentyman was a country gentleman who followed sport. Upon the
+whole his sympathies were with Lord Rufford.
+
+"The man is an utter blackguard, you know," said Larry. "Last year
+he threatened to shoot the foxes in Dillsborough Wood."
+
+"No!" said Kate, quite horrified.
+
+"I'm afraid he's a bad sort of fellow all round," said the
+attorney.
+
+"I don't see why he shouldn't claim what he thinks due to him,"
+said Mrs. Masters.
+
+"I'm told that his lordship offered him seven-and-six an acre for
+the whole of the two fields," said the gentleman-farmer.
+
+"Goarly declares," said Mrs. Masters, "that the pheasants didn't
+leave him four bushels of wheat to the acre."
+
+Goarly was the man who had proposed himself as a client to Mr.
+Masters, and who was desirous of claiming damages to the amount of
+forty shillings an acre for injury, done to the crops on two fields
+belonging to himself which lay adjacent to Dillsborough Wood, a
+covert belonging to Lord Rufford, about four miles from the town,
+in which both pheasants and foxes were preserved with great care.
+
+"Has Goarly been to you?" asked Twentyman.
+
+Mr. Masters nodded his head. "That's just it," said Mrs. Masters.
+"I don't see why a man isn't to go to law if he pleases--that
+is, if he can afford to pay for it. I have nothing to say against
+gentlemen's sport; but I do say that they should run the same
+chance as others. And I say it's a shame if they're to band
+themselves together and make the county too hot to hold any one as
+doesn't like to have his things ridden over, and his crops
+devoured, and his fences knocked to Jericho. I think there's a
+deal of selfishness in sport and a deal of tyranny."
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Masters!" exclaimed Larry.
+
+"Well, I do. And if a poor man,--or a man whether he's poor or no,"
+added Mrs. Masters, correcting herself, as she thought of the money
+which this man ought to have in order that he might pay for his
+lawsuit,--"thinks himself injured, it's nonsense to tell me that
+nobody should take up his case. It's just as though the butcher
+wouldn't sell a man a leg of mutton because Lord Rufford had a
+spite against him. Who's Lord Rufford?"
+
+"Everybody knows that I care very little for his lordship," said'
+Mr. Twentyman.
+
+"Nor I; and I don't see why Gregory should. If Goarly isn't
+entitled to what he wants he won't get it; that's all. But let it
+be tried fairly."
+
+Hereupon Mr. Masters took up his hat and left the room, and Mr.
+Twentyman followed him, not having yet expressed any positive
+opinion on the delicate matter submitted to his judgment. Of
+course, Goarly was a brute. Had he not threatened to shoot foxes?
+But, then, an attorney must live by lawsuits, and it seemed to Mr.
+Twentyman that an attorney should not stop to inquire whether a new
+client is a brute or not.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+The Dillsborough Club
+
+The club, so called at Dillsborough, was held every Saturday
+evening in a back parlour at the Bush, and was attended generally
+by seven or eight members. It was a very easy club. There was no
+balloting, and no other expense attending it other than that of
+paying for the liquor which each man chose to drink. Sometimes,
+about ten o'clock, there was a little supper, the cost of which was
+defrayed by subscription among those who partook of it. It was one
+rule of the club, or a habit, rather, which had grown to be a rule,
+that Mr. Runciman might introduce into it any one he pleased. I do
+not know that a similar privilege was denied to any one else; but
+as Mr. Runciman had a direct pecuniary advantage in promoting the
+club, the new-comers were generally ushered in by him. When the
+attorney and Twentyman entered the room Mr. Runciman was seated as
+usual in an arm-chair at the corner of the fire nearest to the
+door, with the bell at his right hand. He was a hale, good-looking
+man about fifty, with black hair, now turning grey at the edges,
+and a clean-shorn chin. He had a pronounced strong face of his own,
+one capable of evincing anger and determination when necessary, but
+equally apt for smiles or, on occasion, for genuine laughter. He
+was a masterful but a pleasant man, very civil to customers and to
+his friends generally while they took him the right way; but one
+who could be a Tartar if he were offended, holding an opinion that
+his position as landlord of an inn was one requiring masterdom. And
+his wife was like him in everything,--except in this, that she
+always submitted to him. He was a temperate man in the main; but on
+Saturday nights he would become jovial, and sometimes a little
+quarrelsome. When this occurred the club would generally break
+itself up and go home to bed, not in the least offended. Indeed Mr.
+Runciman was the tyrant of the club, though it was held at his
+house expressly with the view of putting money into his pocket.
+Opposite to his seat was another arm-chair,--not so big as Mr.
+Runciman's, but still a soft and easy chair, which was always left
+for the attorney. For Mr. Masters was a man much respected through
+all Dillsborough, partly on his own account, but more perhaps for
+the sake of his father and grandfather. He was a round-faced,
+clean-shorn man, with straggling grey hair, who always wore black
+clothes and a white cravat. There was something in his appearance
+which recommended him among his neighbours, who were disposed to
+say he "looked the gentleman;" but a stranger might have thought
+his cheeks to be flabby and his mouth to be weak.
+
+Making a circle, or the beginning of a circle, round the fire, were
+Nupper, the doctor,--a sporting old bachelor doctor who had the
+reputation of riding after the hounds in order that he might be
+ready for broken bones and minor accidents; next to him, in another
+arm-chair, facing the fire, was Ned Botsey, the younger of the two
+brewers from Norrington, who was in the habit during the hunting
+season of stopping from Saturday to Monday at the Bush, partly
+because the Rufford hounds hunted on Saturday and Monday and on
+those days seldom met in the Norrington direction, and partly
+because he liked the sporting conversation of the Dillsborough
+Club. He was a little man, very neat in his attire, who liked to be
+above his company, and fancied that he was so in Mr. Runciman's
+parlour. Between him and the attorney's chair was Harry Stubbings,
+from Stanton Corner, the man who let out hunters, and whom
+Twentyman had threatened to thrash. His introduction to the club
+had taken place lately, not without some opposition; but Runciman
+had set his foot upon that, saying that it was "all d-- nonsense."
+He had prevailed, and Twentyman had consented to meet the man; but
+there was no great friendship between them. Seated back on the sofa
+was Mr. Ribbs, the butcher, who was allowed into the society as
+being a specially modest man. His modesty, perhaps, did not hinder
+him in an affair of sheep or bullocks, nor yet in the collection of
+his debts; but at the club he understood his position, and rarely
+opened his mouth to speak. When Twentyman followed the attorney
+into the room there was a vacant chair between Mr. Botsey and Harry
+Stubbings; but he would not get into it, preferring to seat himself
+on the table at Botsey's right hand.
+
+"So Goarly was with you, Mr. Masters," Mr. Runciman began as soon
+as the attorney was seated. It was clear that they had all been
+talking about Goarly and his law-suit, and that Goarly and the
+law-suit would be talked about very generally in Dillsborough.
+
+"He was over at my place this evening," said the attorney.
+
+"You are not going to take his case up for him, Mr. Masters?" said
+young Botsey. "We expect something better from you than that."
+
+Now Ned Botsey was rather an impudent young man, and Mr. Masters,
+though he was mild enough at home, did not like impudence from the
+world at large. "I suppose, Mr. Botsey," said he, "that if Goarly
+were to go to you for a barrel of beer you'd sell it to him?"
+
+"I don't know whether I should or not. I dare say my people would.
+But that's a different thing."
+
+"I don't see any difference at all. You're not very particular as
+to your customers, and I don't ask you any questions about them.
+Ring the bell, Runciman, please." The bell was rung, and the two
+newcomers ordered their liquor.
+
+It was quite right that Ned Botsey should be put down. Every one in
+the room felt that. But there was something in the attorney's tone
+which made the assembled company feel that he had undertaken
+Goarly's case; whereas, in the opinion of the company, Goarly was a
+scoundrel with whom Mr. Masters should have had nothing to do. The
+attorney had never been a sporting man himself, but he had always
+been, as it were, on that side.
+
+"Goarly is a great fool for his pains," said the doctor. "He has
+had a very fair offer made him, and, first or last, it'll cost him
+forty pounds."
+
+"He has got it into his head," said the landlord, "that he can sue
+Lord Rufford for his fences. Lord Rufford is not answerable for his
+fences."
+
+"It's the loss of crop he's going for," said Twentyman.
+
+"How can there be pheasants to that amount in Dillsborough Wood,"
+continued the landlord, "when everybody knows that foxes breed
+there every year? There isn't a surer find for a fox in the whole
+county. Everybody knows that Lord Rufford never lets his game stand
+in the way of foxes."
+
+Lord Rufford was Mr. Runciman's great friend and patron and best
+customer, and not a word against Lord Rufford was allowed in that
+room, though elsewhere in Dillsborough ill-natured things were
+sometimes said of his lordship. Then there came on that well-worn
+dispute among sportsmen, whether foxes and pheasants are or are not
+pleasant companions to each other. Every one was agreed that, if
+not, then the pheasants should suffer, and that any country
+gentleman who allowed his gamekeeper to entrench on the privileges
+of foxes in order that pheasants might be more abundant, was a
+"brute" and a "beast," and altogether unworthy to live in England.
+Larry Twentyman and Ned Botsey expressed an opinion that pheasants
+were predominant in Dillsborough Wood, while Mr. Runciman, the
+doctor, and Harry Stubbings declared loudly that everything that
+foxes could desire was done for them in that Elysium of sport.
+
+"We drew the wood blank last time we were there," said Larry.
+"Don't you remember, Mr. Runciman, about the end of last March?"
+
+"Of course I remember," said the landlord. "Just the end of the
+season, when two vixens had litters in the wood! You don't suppose
+Bean was going to let that old butcher, Tony, find a fox in
+Dillsborough at that time." Bean was his lordship's head gamekeeper
+in that part of the country. "How many foxes had we found there
+during the season?"
+
+"Two or three," suggested Botsey.
+
+"Seven!" said the energetic landlord; "seven, including
+cub-hunting,--and killed four! If you kill four foxes out of an
+eighty-acre wood, and have two litters at the end of the season,
+I don't think you have much to complain of."
+
+"If they all did as well as Lord Rufford, you'd have more foxes
+than you'd know what to do with," said the doctor.
+
+Then this branch of the conversation was ended by a bet of a new
+hat between Botsey and the landlord as to the finding of a fox in
+Dillsborough Wood when it should next be drawn; as to which, when
+the speculation was completed, Harry Stubbings offered Mr. Runciman
+ten shillings down for his side of the bargain.
+
+But all this did not divert the general attention from the
+important matter of Goarly's attack. "Let it be how it will," said
+Mr. Runciman, "a fellow like that should be put down." He did not
+address himself specially to Mr. Masters, but that gentleman felt
+that he was being talked at.
+
+"Certainly he ought," said Dr. Nupper. "If he didn't feel satisfied
+with what his lordship offered him, why couldn't he ask his
+lordship to refer the matter to a couple of farmers who understood
+it?"
+
+"It's the spirit of the thing," said Mr. Ribbs, from his place on
+the sofa. "It's a hodious spirit."
+
+"That's just it, Mr. Ribbs," said Harry Stubbings. "It's all meant
+for opposition. Whether it's shooting or whether it's hunting, it's
+all one. Such a chap oughtn't to be allowed to have land. I'd take
+it away from him by Act of Parliament. It's such as him as is
+destroying the country."
+
+"There ain't many of them hereabouts, thank God!" said the
+landlord.
+
+"Now, Mr. Twentyman," said Stubbings, who was anxious to make
+friends with the gentleman-farmer, "you know what land can do, and
+what land has done, as well as any man. What would you say was the
+real damage done to them two wheat-fields by his lordship's game
+last autumn? You saw the crops as they were growing, and you know
+what came off the land."
+
+"I wouldn't like to say."
+
+"But if you were on your oath, Mr. Twentyman?
+
+"Was there more than seven-and-sixpence an acre lost?"
+
+"No, nor five shillings," said Runciman.
+
+"I think Goarly ought to take his lordship's offer--if you mean
+that," said Twentyman.
+
+Then there was a pause, during which more drink was brought in, and
+pipes were re-lighted. Everybody wished that Mr. Masters might be
+got to say that he would not take the case, but there was a
+delicacy about asking him. "If I remember right he was in Rufford
+Gaol once," said Runciman.
+
+"He was let out on bail and then the matter was hushed up somehow,"
+said the attorney.
+
+"It was something about a woman," continued Runciman. "I know that
+on that occasion he came out an awful scoundrel."
+
+"Don't you remember," asked Botsey, "how he used to walk up and
+down the covert-side with a gun, two years ago, swearing he would
+shoot the fox if he broke over his land?"
+
+"I heard him say it, Botsey," said Twentyman. "It wouldn't have
+been the first fox he's murdered," said the doctor.
+
+"Not by many," said the landlord.
+
+"You remember that old woman near my place?" said Stubbings. "It
+was he that put her up to tell all them lies about her turkeys. I
+ran it home to him! A blackguard like that! Nobody ought to take
+him up."
+
+"I hope you won't, Mr. Masters;" said the doctor. The doctor was as
+old as the attorney, and had known him for many years. No one else
+could dare to ask the question.
+
+"I don't suppose I shall, Nupper," said the attorney from his
+chair. It was the first word he had spoken since he had put down
+young Botsey. "It wouldn't just suit me; but a man has to judge of
+those things for himself."
+
+Then there was a general rejoicing, and Mr. Runciman stood broiled
+bones, and ham and eggs, and bottled stout for the entire club; one
+unfortunate effect of which unwonted conviviality was that Mr.
+Masters did not get home till near twelve o'clock. That was sure to
+cause discomfort; and then he had pledged himself to decline
+Goarly's business.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Reginald Morton
+
+
+We will now go back to Hoppet Hall and its inhabitants. When the
+old squire died he left by his will Hoppet Hall and certain other
+houses in Dillsborough, which was all that he could leave, to his
+grandson Reginald Morton. Then there arose a question whether this
+property also was not entailed. The former Mr. Masters, and our
+friend of the present day, had been quite certain of the squire's
+power to do what he liked with it; but others had been equally
+certain on the other side, and there had been a lawsuit. During
+that time Reginald Morton had been forced to live on a very small
+allowance. His aunt, Lady Ushant, had done what little she could
+for him, but it had been felt to be impossible that he should
+remain at Bragton, which was the property of the cousin who was at
+law with him. From the moment of his birth the Honourable Mrs.
+Morton, who was also his aunt by marriage, had been his bitter
+enemy. He was the son of an innkeeper's daughter, and according to
+her theory of life, should never even have been noticed by the real
+Mortons. And this honourable old lady was almost equally adverse to
+Lady Ushant, whose husband had simply been a knight, and who had
+left nothing behind him. Thus Reginald Morton had been friendless
+since his grandfather died, and had lived in Germany, nobody quite
+knew how. During the entire period of this law-suit Hoppet Hall had
+remained untenanted.
+
+When the property was finally declared to belong to Reginald
+Morton, the Hall, before it could be used, required considerable
+repair. But there was other property. The Bush Inn belonged to
+Reginald Morton, as did the house in which Mr. Masters lived, and
+sundry other smaller tenements in the vicinity. There was an income
+from these of about five hundred pounds a year. Reginald, who was
+then nearly thirty years of age, came over to England, and stayed
+for a month or two at Bragton with his aunt, to the infinite
+chagrin of the old dowager. The management of the town property was
+entrusted to Mr. Masters, and Hoppet Hall was repaired. At this
+period Mr. Mainwaring had just come to Dillsborough, and having a
+wife with some money and perhaps quite as much pretension, had
+found the rectory too small, and had taken the Hall on a lease for
+seven years. When this was arranged Reginald Morton again went to
+Germany, and did not return till the lease had run out. By that
+time Mr. Mainwaring, having spent a little money, found that the
+rectory would be large enough for his small family. Then the Hall
+was again untenanted for awhile, till, quite suddenly, Reginald
+Morton returned to Dillsborough, and took up his permanent
+residence in his own house.
+
+It soon became known that the new-comer would not add much to the
+gaiety of the place. The only people whom he knew in Dillsborough
+were his own tenants, Mr. Runciman and Mr. Masters, and the
+attorney's eldest daughter. During those months which he had spent
+with Lady Ushant at Bragton, Mary had been living there, then a
+child of twelve years old; and, as a child, had become his fast
+friend. With his aunt he had, continually corresponded, and partly
+at her instigation, and partly from feelings of his own, he had at
+once gone to the attorney's house. This was now two years since,
+and he had found in his old playmate a beautiful young woman, in
+his opinion very unlike the people with whom she lived. For the
+first twelvemonths he saw her occasionally,--though not indeed very
+often. Once or twice he had drunk tea at the attorney's house, on
+which occasions the drawing-room upstairs had been almost as grand
+as it was uncomfortable. Then the attentions of Larry Twentyman
+began to make themselves visible, infinitely to Reginald Morton's
+disgust. Up to that time he had no idea of falling in love with the
+girl himself. Since he had begun to think on such subjects at all
+he had made up his mind that he would not marry. He was almost the
+more proud of his birth by his father's side, because he had been
+made to hear so much of his mother's low position. He had told
+himself a hundred times that under no circumstances could he marry
+any other than a lady of good birth. But his own fortune was small,
+and he knew himself well enough to be sure that he would not marry
+for money. He was now nearly forty years of age and had never yet
+been thrown into the society of any one that had attracted him. He
+was sure that he would not marry. And yet when he saw that Mr.
+Twentyman was made much of and flattered by the whole Masters
+family, apparently because he was regarded as an eligible husband
+for Mary, Reginald Morton was not only disgusted, but personally
+offended. Being a most unreasonable man he conceived a bitter
+dislike to poor Larry, who, at any rate, was truly in love, and was
+not looking too high in desiring to marry the portionless daughter
+of the attorney. But Morton thought that the man ought to be kicked
+and horsewhipped, or, at any rate, banished into some speechless
+exile for his presumption.
+
+With Mr. Runciman he had dealings, and in some sort friendship.
+There were two meadows attached to Hoppet Hall, fields lying close
+to the town, which were very suitable for the landlord's purposes.
+Mr. Mainwaring had held them in his own hands, taking them up from
+Mr. Runciman, who had occupied them while the house was untenanted,
+in a manner which induced Mr. Runciman to feel that it was useless
+to go to church to hear such sermons as those preached by the
+rector. But Morton had restored the fields, giving them rent free,
+on condition that he should be supplied with milk and butter. Mr.
+Runciman, no doubt, had the best of the bargain, as he generally
+had in all bargains; but he was a man who liked to be generous when
+generously treated. Consequently he almost overdid his neighbour
+with butter and cream, and occasionally sent in quarters of lamb
+and sweetbreads to make up the weight. I don't know that the
+offerings were particularly valued; but friendship was engendered.
+Runciman, too, had his grounds for quarrelling with those who had
+taken up the management of the Bragton property after the squire's
+death, and had his own antipathy to the Honourable Mrs. Morton and
+her grandson, the Secretary of Legation. When the law-suit was
+going on he had been altogether on Reginald Morton's side. It was
+an affair of sides, and quite natural that Runciman and the
+attorney should be friendly with the new-comer at Hoppet Hall,
+though there were very few points of personal sympathy between
+them.
+
+Reginald Morton was no sportsman, nor was he at all likely to
+become a member of the Dillsborough Club. It was currently reported
+of him in the town that he had never sat on a horse or fired off a
+gun. As he had been brought up as a boy by the old squire this was
+probably an exaggeration, but it is certain that at this period of
+his life he had given up any aptitudes in that direction for which
+his early training might have suited him. He had brought back with
+him to Hoppet Hall many cases of books which the ignorance of
+Dillsborough had magnified into an enormous library, and he was
+certainly a sedentary, reading man. There was already a report in
+the town that he was engaged in some stupendous literary work, and
+the men and women generally looked upon him as a disagreeable
+marvel of learning. Dillsborough of itself was not bookish, and
+would have regarded any one known to have written an article in a
+magazine almost as a phenomenon.
+
+He seldom went to church, much to the sorrow of Mr. Surtees, who
+ventured to call at the house and remonstrate with him. He never
+called again. And though it was the habit of Mr. Surtees' life to
+speak as little ill as possible of any one, he was not able to say
+any good of Mr. Morton. Mr. Mainwaring, who would never have
+troubled himself though his parishioner had not entered a place of
+worship once in a twelvemonth, did say many severe things against
+his former landlord. He hated people who were unsocial and averse
+to dining out, and who departed from the ways of living common
+among English country gentlemen. Mr. Mainwaring was, upon the
+whole, prepared to take the other side.
+
+Reginald Morton, though he was now nearly forty, was a young
+looking handsome man, with fair hair, cut short, and a light beard,
+which was always clipped. Though his mother had been an innkeeper's
+daughter in Montreal he had the Morton blue eyes and the handsome
+well-cut Morton nose. He was nearly six feet high, and strongly
+made, and was known to be a much finer man than the Secretary of
+Legation, who was rather small, and supposed to be not very robust.
+
+Our lonely man was a great walker, and had investigated every lane
+and pathway, and almost every hedge within ten miles of
+Dillsborough before he had resided there two years; but his
+favourite rambles were all in the neighbourhood of Bragton. As
+there was no one living in the house,--no one but the old
+housekeeper who had lived there always,--he was able to wander
+about the place as he pleased. On the Tuesday afternoon, after
+the meeting of the Dillsborough Club which has been recorded, he
+was seated, about three o'clock, on the rail of the foot-bridge
+over the Dil, with a long German pipe hanging from his mouth. He
+was noted throughout the whole country for this pipe, or for others
+like it, such a one usually being in his mouth as he wandered
+about. The amount of tobacco which he had smoked since his return
+to these parts, exactly in that spot, was considerable, for there
+he might have been found at some period of the afternoon at least
+three times a week. He would sit on this rail for half an hour
+looking down at the sluggish waters of the little river, rolling
+the smoke out of his mouth at long intervals, and thinking perhaps
+of the great book which he was supposed to be writing. As he sat
+there now, he suddenly heard voices and laughter, and presently
+three girls came round the corner of the hedge, which, at this
+spot, hid the Dillsborough path,--and he saw the attorney's three
+daughters.
+
+"It's Mr. Morton," said Dolly in a whisper.
+
+"He's always walking about Bragton," said Kate in another whisper.
+"Tony Tuppett says that he's the Bragton ghost"
+
+"Kate," said Mary, also in a low voice, "you shouldn't talk so much
+about what you hear from Tony Tuppett."
+
+"Bosh!" said Kate, who knew that she could not be scolded in the
+presence of Mr. Morton.
+
+He came forward and shook hands with them all, and took off his hat
+to Mary. "You've walked a long way, Miss Masters," he said.
+
+"We don't think it far. I like sometimes to come and look at the
+old place."
+
+"And so do I. I wonder whether you remember how often I've sat you
+on this rail and threatened to throw you into the river?"
+
+"I remember very well that you did threaten me once, and that I
+almost believed that you would throw me in."
+
+"What had she done that was naughty, Mr. Morton?" asked Kate.
+
+"I don't think she ever did anything naughty in those days. I don't
+know whether she has changed for the worse since."
+
+"Mary is never naughty now," said Dolly. "Kate and I are naughty,
+and it's very much better fun than being good."
+
+"The world has found out that long ago, Miss Dolly; only the world
+is not quite so candid in owning it as you are. Will you come and
+walk round the house, Miss Masters? I never go in, but I have no
+scruples about the paths and park."
+
+At the end of the bridge leading into the shrubbery there was a
+stile, high indeed, but made commodiously with steps, almost like a
+double stair case, so that ladies could pass it without trouble.
+Mary had given her assent to the proposed walk, and was in the act
+of putting out her hand to be helped over the stile, when Mr.
+Twentyman appeared at the other side of it.
+
+"If here isn't Larry!" said Kate.
+
+Morton's face turned as black as thunder, but he immediately went
+back across the bridge, leading Mary with him. The other girls, who
+had followed him on to the bridge, had of course to go back also.
+
+Mary was made very unhappy by the meeting. Mr. Morton would of
+course think that it had been planned, whereas by Mary herself it
+had been altogether unexpected. Kate, when the bridge was free,
+rushed over it and whispered something to Larry. The meeting had
+indeed been planned between her and Dolly and the lover, and this
+special walk had been taken at the request of the two younger
+girls.
+
+Morton stood stock still, as though he expected that Twentyman
+would pass by. Larry hurried over the bridge, feeling sure that the
+meeting with Morton had been accidental and thinking that he would
+pass on towards the house.
+
+Larry was not at all ashamed of his purpose, nor was he inclined to
+give way and pass on. He came up boldly to his love, and shook
+hands with her with a pleasant smile. "If you are walking back to
+Dillsborough," he said, "maybe you'll let me go a little way with
+you?"
+
+"I was going round the house with Mr. Morton," she said timidly.
+
+"Perhaps I can join you?" said he, bobbing his head at the other
+man.
+
+"If you intended to walk back with Mr. Twentyman--," began Morton.
+
+"But I didn't," said the poor girl, who in truth understood more of
+it all than did either of the two men. "I didn't expect him, and I
+didn't expect you. It's a pity I can't go both ways, isn't it?" she
+added, attempting to appear cheerful.
+
+"Come back, Mary," said Kate; "we've had walking enough, and shall
+be awfully tired before we get home."
+
+Mary had thought that she would like extremely to go round the
+house with her old friend and have a hundred incidents of her early
+life called to her memory. The meeting with Reginald Morton had
+been altogether pleasant to her. She had often felt how much she
+would have liked it had the chance of her life enabled her to see
+more frequently one whom as a child she had so intimately known.
+But at the moment she lacked the courage to walk boldly across the
+bridge, and thus to rid herself of Lawrence Twentyman. She had
+already perceived that Morton's manner had rendered it impossible
+that her lover should follow them. "I am afraid I must go home,"
+she said. It was the very thing she did not want to do,--this
+going home with Lawrence Twentyman; and yet she herself said that
+she must do it,--driven to say so by a nervous dread of showing
+herself to be fond of the other man's company.
+
+"Good afternoon to you," said Morton very gloomily, waving his hat
+and stalking across the bridge.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+Not in Love
+
+
+Reginald Morton, as he walked across the bridge towards the house,
+was thoroughly disgusted with all the world. He was very angry with
+himself, feeling that he had altogether made a fool of himself by
+his manner. He had shown himself to be offended, not only by Mr.
+Twentyman, but by Miss Masters also, and he was well aware, as he
+thought of it all, that neither of them had given him any cause of
+offence. If she chose to make an appointment for a walk with Mr.
+Lawrence Twentyman and to keep it, what was that to him? His anger
+was altogether irrational, and he knew that it was so. What right
+had he to have an opinion about it if Mary Masters should choose to
+like the society of Mr. Twentyman? It was an affair between her and
+her father and mother in which he could have no interest; and yet
+he had not only taken offence, but was well aware that he had shown
+his feeling.
+
+Nevertheless, as to the girl herself, he could not argue himself
+out of his anger. It was grievous to him that he should have gone
+out of his way to ask her to walk with him just at the moment when
+she was expecting this vulgar lover,--for that she had expected him
+he felt no doubt. Yet he had heard her disclaim any intention of
+walking with the man! But girls are sly, especially when their
+lovers are concerned. It made him sore at heart to feel that this
+girl should be sly, and doubly sore to think that she should have
+been able to love such a one as Lawrence Twentyman.
+
+As he roamed about among the grounds this idea troubled him much.
+He assured himself that he was not in love with her himself, and
+that he had no idea of falling in love with her; but it sickened
+him to think that a girl who had been brought up by his aunt, who
+had been loved at Bragton, whom he had liked, who looked so like a
+lady, should put herself on a par with such a wretch as that. In
+all this he was most unjust to both of them. He was specially
+unjust to poor Larry, who was by no means a wretch. His costume was
+not that to which Morton had been accustomed in Germany, nor would
+it have passed without notice in Bond Street. But it was rational
+and clean. When he came to the bridge to meet his sweetheart he had
+on a dark-green shooting coat, a billicock hat, brown breeches, and
+gaiters nearly up to his knees. I don't know that a young man in
+the country could wear more suitable attire. And he was a well-made
+man, just such a one as, in this dress, would take the eye of a
+country girl. There was a little bit of dash about him, just a
+touch of swagger, which better breeding might have prevented. But
+it was not enough to make him odious to an unprejudiced observer. I
+could fancy that an old lady from London, with an eye in her head
+for manly symmetry, would have liked to look at Larry, and would
+have thought that a girl in Mary's position would be happy in
+having such a lover, providing that his character was good and his
+means adequate. But Reginald Morton was not an old woman, and to
+his eyes the smart young farmer with his billicock hat, not quite
+straight on his head, was an odious thing to behold. He exaggerated
+the swagger, and took no notice whatever of the well-made limbs.
+And then this man had proposed to accompany him, had wanted to join
+his party, had thought it possible that a flirtation might be
+carried on in his presence! He sincerely hated the man. But what
+was he to think of such a girl as Mary Masters when she could bring
+herself to like the attentions of such a lover?
+
+He was very cross with himself because he knew how unreasonable was
+his anger. Of one thing only could he assure himself,--that he
+would never again willingly put himself in Mary's company. What was
+Dillsborough and the ways of its inhabitants to him? Why should he
+so far leave the old fashions of his life as to fret himself about
+an attorney's daughter in a little English town? And yet he did
+fret himself, walking rapidly, and smoking his pipe a great deal
+quicker than was his custom.
+
+When he was about to return home he passed the front of the house,
+and there, standing at the open door, he saw Mrs. Hopkins, the
+housekeeper, who had in truth been waiting for him. He said a
+good-natured word to her, intending to make his way on without
+stopping, but she called him back. "Have you heard the news,
+Mr. Reginald?" she said.
+
+"I haven't heard any news this twelvemonth," he replied.
+
+"Laws, that is so like you, Mr. Reginald. The young squire is to be
+here next week."
+
+"Who is the young squire? I didn't know there was any squire now."
+
+"Mr. Reginald!"
+
+"A squire as I take it, Mrs. Hopkins, is a country gentleman who
+lives on his own property. Since my grandfather's time no such
+gentleman has lived at Bragton."
+
+"That's true, too, Mr. Reginald. Any way Mr. Morton is coming down
+next week."
+
+"I thought he was in America."
+
+"He has come home, for a turn like,--and is staying up in town with
+the old lady." The old lady always meant the Honourable Mrs.
+Morton.
+
+"And is the old lady coming down with him?"
+
+"I fancy she is, Mr. Reginald. He didn't say as much, but only that
+there would be three or four, a couple of ladies he said, and
+perhaps more. So I am getting the east bedroom, with the
+dressing-room, and the blue room for her ladyship." People about
+Bragton had been accustomed to call Mrs. Morton her ladyship.
+"That's where she always used to be. Would you come in and see,
+Mr. Reginald?"
+
+"Certainly not, Mrs. Hopkins. If you were asking me into a house of
+your own, I would go in and see all the rooms and chat with you for
+an hour; but I don't suppose I shall ever go into this house again
+unless things change very much indeed."
+
+"Then I'm sure I hope they will change, Mr. Reginald." Mrs. Hopkins
+had known Reginald Morton as a boy growing up into manhood, had
+almost been present at his birth, and had renewed her friendship
+while he was staying with Lady Ushant; but of the present squire,
+as she called him, she had seen almost nothing, and what she had
+once remembered of him had now been obliterated by an absence of
+twenty years. Of course she was on Reginald's side in the family
+quarrel, although she was the paid servant of the Foreign Office
+paragon.
+
+"And they are to be here next week. What day next week, Mrs.
+Hopkins?" Mrs. Hopkins didn't know on what day she was to expect
+the visitors, nor how long they intended to stay. Mr. John Morton
+had said in his letter that he would send his own man down two days
+before his arrival, and that was nearly all that he had said.
+
+Then Morton started on his return walk to Dillsborough, again
+taking the path across the bridge. "Ah!" he said to himself with a
+shudder as he crossed the stile, thinking of his own softened
+feelings as he had held out his hand to help Mary Masters, and then
+of his revulsion of feeling when she declared her purpose of
+walking home with Mr. Twentyman. And he struck the rail of the
+bridge with his stick as though he were angry with the place
+altogether. And he thought to himself that he would never come
+there any more, that he hated the place, and that he would never
+cross that bridge again.
+
+Then his mind reverted to the tidings he had heard from Mrs.
+Hopkins. What ought he to do when his cousin arrived? Though there
+had been a long lawsuit, there had been no actual declared quarrel
+between him and the heir. He had, indeed, never seen the heir for
+the last twenty years, nor had they ever interchanged letters.
+There had been no communication whatever between them, and
+therefore there could hardly be a quarrel. He disliked his cousin;
+nay, almost hated him; he was quite aware of that. And he was sure
+also that he hated that Honourable old woman worse than any one
+else in the world, and that he always would do so. He knew that the
+Honourable old woman had attempted to drive his own mother from
+Bragton, and of course he hated her. But that was no reason why he
+should not call on his cousin. He was anxious to do what was right.
+He was specially anxious that blame should not be attributed to
+him. What he would like best would be that he might call, might
+find nobody at home,--and that then John Morton should not return
+the courtesy. He did not want to go to Bragton as a guest; he did
+not wish to be in the wrong himself; but he was by no means equally
+anxious that his cousin should keep himself free from reproach.
+
+The bridge path came out on the Dillsborough road just two miles
+from the town, and Morton, as he got over the last stile, saw
+Lawrence Twentyman coming towards him on the road. The man, no
+doubt, had gone all the way into Dillsborough with the girls, and
+was now returning home. The parish of Bragton lies to the left of
+the high road as you go into the town from Rufford and the
+direction of London, whereas Chowton Farm, the property of Mr.
+Twentyman, is on the right of the road, but in the large parish of
+St. John's, Dillsborough. Dillsborough Wood lies at the back of
+Larry Twentyman's land, and joining on to Larry's land and also to
+the wood is the patch of ground owned by "that scoundrel Goarly".
+Chowton Farm gate opens on to the high road, so that Larry was now
+on his direct way home. As soon as he saw Morton he made up his
+mind to speak to him. He was quite sure from what had passed
+between him and the girls, on the road home, that he had done
+something wrong. He was convinced that he had interfered in some
+ill-bred way, though he did not at all know how. Of Reginald Morton
+he was not in the least jealous. He, too, was of a jealous
+temperament, but it had never occurred to him to join Reginald
+Morton and Mary Masters together. He was very much in love with
+Mary, but had no idea that she was in any way above the position
+which she might naturally hold as daughter of the Dillsborough
+attorney. But of Reginald Morton's attributes and scholarship and
+general standing he had a mystified appreciation which saved him
+from the pain of thinking that such a man could be in love with his
+sweetheart. As he certainly did not wish to quarrel with Morton,
+having always taken Reginald's side in the family disputes, he
+thought that he would say a civil word in passing, and, if
+possible, apologise. When Morton came up he raised his hand to his
+head and did open his mouth, though not pronouncing any word very
+clearly. Morton looked at him as grim as death, just raised his
+hand, and then passed on with a quick step. Larry was displeased;
+but the other was so thoroughly a gentleman,--one of the Mortons,
+and a man of property in the county,--that he didn't even yet wish
+to quarrel with him. "What the deuce have I done?" said he to
+himself as he walked on--"I didn't tell her not to go up to the
+house. If I offered to walk with her what was that to him?" It must
+be remembered that Lawrence Twentyman was twelve years younger than
+Reginald Morton, and that a man of twenty-eight is apt to regard a
+man of forty as very much too old for falling in love. It is a
+mistake which it will take him fully ten years to rectify, and then
+he will make a similar mistake as to men of fifty. With his awe for
+Morton's combined learning and age, it never occurred to him to be
+jealous.
+
+Morton passed on rapidly, almost feeling that he had been a brute.
+But what business had the objectionable man to address him? He
+tried to excuse himself, but yet he felt that he had been a brute,
+and had so demeaned himself in reference to the daughter of the
+Dillsborough attorney! He would teach himself to do all he could to
+promote the marriage. He would give sage advice to Mary Masters as
+to the wisdom of establishing herself,--having not an hour since
+made up his mind that he would never see her again! He would
+congratulate the attorney and Mrs. Masters. He would conquer the
+absurd feeling which at present was making him wretched. He would
+cultivate some sort of acquaintance with the man, and make the
+happy pair a wedding present. But, yet, what "a beast" the man was,
+with that billicock hat on one side of his head, and those tight
+leather gaiters.
+
+As he passed through the town towards his own house, he saw Mr.
+Runciman standing in front of the hotel. His road took him up Hobbs
+gate, by the corner of the Bush; but Runciman came a little out of
+the way to meet him. "You have heard the news?" said the innkeeper.
+
+"I have heard one piece of news."
+
+"What's that, sir?"
+
+"Come,--you tell me yours first"
+
+"The young squire is coming down to Bragton next week."
+
+"That's my news too. It is not likely that there should be two
+matters of interest in Dillsborough on the same day."
+
+"I don't know why Dillsborough should be worse off than any other
+place, Mr. Morton; but at any rate the squire's coming."
+
+"So Mrs. Hopkins told me. Has he written to you?"
+
+"His coachman or his groom has; or perhaps he keeps what they call
+an ekkery. He's much too big a swell to write to the likes of me.
+Lord bless me,--when I think of it, I wonder how many dozen of
+orders I've had from Lord Rufford under his own hand. 'Dear
+Runcimam, dinner at eight; ten of us; won't wait a moment. Yours
+R.' I suppose Mr. Morton would think that his lordship had let
+himself down by anything of that sort?"
+
+"What does my cousin want?"
+
+"Two pair of horses,--for a week certain, and perhaps longer, and
+two carriages. How am I to let anyone have two pair of horses for a
+week certain,--and perhaps longer? What are other customers to do?
+I can supply a gentleman by the month and buy horses to suit; or I
+can supply him by the job. But I guess Mr. Morton don't well know
+how things are managed in this country. He'll have to learn.
+
+"What day does he come?"
+
+"They haven't told me that yet, Mr. Morton."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+The Walk Home
+
+
+Mary Masters, when Reginald Morton had turned his back upon her at
+the bridge, was angry with herself and with him, which was
+reasonable; and very angry also with Larry Twentyman, which was
+unreasonable. As she had at once acceded to Morton's proposal that
+they should walk round the house together, surely he should not
+have deserted her so soon. It had not been her fault that the other
+man had come up. She had not wanted him. But she was aware that
+when the option had in some sort been left to herself, she had
+elected to walk back with Larry. She knew her own motives and her
+own feelings, but neither of the men would understand them. Because
+she preferred the company of Mr. Morton, and had at the moment
+feared that her sisters would have deserted her had she followed
+him, therefore she had declared her purpose of going back to
+Dillsborough, in doing which she knew that Larry and the girls
+would accompany her. But of course Mr, Morton would think that she
+had preferred the company of her recognised admirer. It was pretty
+well known in Dillsborough that Larry was her lover. Her stepmother
+had spoken of it very freely; and Larry himself was a man who did
+not keep his lights hidden under a bushel. "I hope I've not been in
+the way, Mary," said Mr. Twentyman, as soon as Morton was out of
+hearing.
+
+"In the way of what?"
+
+"I didn't think there was any harm in offering to go up to the
+house with you if you were going."
+
+"Who has said there was any harm?" The path was only broad enough
+for one and she was walking first. Larry was following her and the
+girls were behind him.
+
+"I think that Mr. Morton is a very stuck-up fellow," said Kate, who
+was the last.
+
+"Hold your tongue, Kate," said Mary. "You don't know what you are
+talking about"
+
+"I know as well as any one when a person is good-natured. What made
+him go off in that hoity-toity fashion? Nobody had said anything to
+him."
+
+"He always looks as though he were going to eat somebody," said
+Dolly.
+
+"He shan't eat me," said Kate.
+
+Then there was a pause, during which they all went along quickly,
+Mary leading the way. Larry felt that he was wasting his
+opportunity; and yet hardly knew how to use it, feeling that the
+girl was angry with him.
+
+"I wish you'd say, Mary, whether you think that I did anything
+wrong?"
+
+"Nothing wrong to me, Mr. Twentyman."
+
+"Did I do anything wrong to him?"
+
+"I don't know how far you may be acquainted with him. He was
+proposing to go somewhere, and you offered to go with him."
+
+"I offered to go with you," said Larry, sturdily. "I suppose I'm
+sufficiently acquainted with you."
+
+"Quite so," said Mary.
+
+"Why should he be so proud? I never said an uncivil word to him.
+He's nothing to me. If he can do without me, I'm sure that I can do
+without him."
+
+"Very well indeed, I should think."
+
+"The truth is, Mary--"
+
+"There has been quite enough said about it, Mr. Twentyman."
+
+"The truth is, Mary, I came on purpose to have a word with you."
+Hearing this, Kate rushed on and pulled Larry by the tail of his
+coat.
+
+"How did you know I was to be there?" demanded Mary sharply.
+
+"I didn't know. I had reason to think you perhaps might be there.
+The girls I knew had been asking you to come as far as the bridge.
+At any rate I took my chance. I'd seen him some time before, and
+then I saw you."
+
+"If I'm to be watched about in that way," said Mary angrily, "I
+won't go out at all."
+
+"Of course I want to see you. Why shouldn't I? I'm all fair and
+above board;--ain't I? Your father and mother know all about it. It
+isn't as though I were doing anything clandestine." He paused for a
+reply, but Mary walked on in silence. She knew quite well that he
+was warranted in seeking her, and that nothing but a very positive
+decision on her part could put an end to his courtship. At the
+present moment she was inclined to be very positive, but he had
+hardly as yet given her an opportunity of speaking out. "I think
+you know, Mary, what it is that I want." They were now at a rough
+stile which enabled him to come close up to her and help her. She
+tripped over the stile with a light step and again walked on
+rapidly. The field they were in enabled him to get up to her side,
+and now if ever was his opportunity. It was a long straggling
+meadow which he knew well, with the Dill running by it all the
+way,--or rather two meadows with an open space where there had once
+been a gate. He had ridden through the gap a score of times, and
+knew that at the further side of the second meadow they would come
+upon the high road. The fields were certainly much better for his
+purpose than the road. "Don't you think, Mary, you could say a kind
+word to me?"
+
+"I never said anything unkind."
+
+"You can't think ill of me for loving you better than all the
+world."
+
+"I don't think ill of you at all. I think very well of you."
+
+"That's kind."
+
+"So I do. How can I help thinking well of you, when I've never
+heard anything but good of you?"
+
+"Then why shouldn't you say at once that you'll have me, and make
+me the happiest man in all the county?"
+
+"Because--"
+
+"Well!"
+
+"I told you before, Mr. Twentyman, and that ought to have been
+enough. A young woman doesn't fall in love with every man that she
+thinks well of. I should like you as well as all the rest of the
+family if you would only marry some other girl,"
+
+"I shall never do that."
+
+"Yes you will;--some day."
+
+"Never. I've set my heart upon it, and I mean to stick to it. I'm
+not the fellow to turn about from one girl to another. What I want
+is the girl I love. I've money enough and all that kind of thing of
+my own."
+
+"I'm sure you're disinterested, Mr. Twentyman."
+
+"Yes, I am. Ever since you've been home from Bragton it has been
+the same thing, and when I felt that it was so, I spoke up to your
+father honestly. I haven't been beating about the bush, and I
+haven't done anything that wasn't honourable." They were very near
+the last stile now. "Come, Mary, if you won't make me a promise,
+say that you'll think of it"
+
+"I have thought of it, Mr. Twentyman, and I can't make you any
+other answer. I dare say I'm very foolish."
+
+"I wish you were more foolish. Perhaps then you wouldn't be so hard
+to please."
+
+"Whether I'm wise or foolish, indeed, indeed, it's no good your
+going on. Now we're on the road. Pray go back home, Mr. Twentyman."
+
+"It'll be getting dark in a little time."
+
+"Not before we're in Dillsborough. If it were ever so dark we could
+find our way home by ourselves. Come along, Dolly."
+
+Over the last stile he had stayed a moment to help the younger
+girl, and as he did so Kate whispered a word in his ear. "She's
+angry because she couldn't go up to the house with that stuck-up
+fellow." It was a foolish word; but then Kate Masters had not
+had much experience in the world. Whether overcome by Mary's
+resolute mode of speaking, or aware that the high road would not
+suit his purpose, he did turn back as soon as he had seen them a
+little way on their return towards the town. He had not gone half a
+mile before he met Morton, and had been half-minded to make some
+apology to him. But Morton had denied him the opportunity, and he
+had walked on to his own house,--low in spirits indeed, but still
+with none of that sorest of agony which comes to a lover from the
+feeling that his love loves some one else. Mary had been very
+decided with him,--more so he feared than before; but still he saw
+no reason why he should not succeed at last. Mrs. Masters had told
+him that Mary would certainly give a little trouble in winning, but
+would be the more worth the winner's trouble when won. And she had
+certainly shown no preference for any other young man about the
+town. There had been a moment when he had much dreaded Mr. Surtees.
+Young clergymen are apt to be formidable rivals, and Mr. Surtees
+had certainly made some overtures of friendship to Mary Masters.
+But Larry had thought that he had seen that these overtures had not
+led to much, and then that fear had gone from him. He did believe
+that Mary was now angry because she had not been allowed to walk
+about Bragton with her old friend Mr. Morton. It had been natural
+that she should like to do so. It was the pride of Mary's life that
+she had been befriended by the Mortons and Lady Ushant. But it did
+not occur to him that he ought to be jealous of Mr. Morton,--though
+it had occurred to Kate Masters.
+
+There was very little said between the sisters on their way back to
+the town. Mary was pretty sure now that the two girls had made the
+appointment with Larry, but she was unwilling to question them on
+the subject. Immediately on their arrival at home they heard the
+great news. John Morton was coming to Bragton with a party of
+ladies and gentlemen. Mrs. Hopkins had spoken of four persons. Mrs.
+Masters told Mary that there were to be a dozen at least, and that
+four or five pairs of horses and half a dozen carriages had been
+ordered from Mr. Runciman. "He means to cut a dash when he does
+begin," said Mrs. Masters.
+
+"Is he going to stay, mother?"
+
+"He wouldn't come down in that way if it was only for a few days I
+suppose. But what they will do for furniture I don't know."
+
+"There's plenty of furniture, mother."
+
+"A thousand years old. Or for wine, or fruit, or plate."
+
+"The old plate was there when Lady Ushant left."
+
+"People do things now in a very different way from what they used.
+A couple of dozen silver forks made quite a show on the old
+squire's table. Now they change the things so often that ten dozen
+is nothing. I don't suppose there's a bottle of wine in the
+cellar."
+
+"They can get wine from Cobbold, mother."
+
+"Cobbold's wine won't go down with them I fancy. I wonder what
+servants they're bringing."
+
+When Mr. Masters came in from his office the news was corroborated.
+Mr. John Morton was certainly coming to Bragton. The attorney had
+still a small unsettled and disputed claim against the owner of the
+property, and he had now received by the day mail an answer to a
+letter which he had written to Mr. Morton, saying that that
+gentleman would see him in the course of the next fortnight.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+The Paragon's Party at Bragton
+
+
+There was certainly a great deal of fuss made about John Morton's
+return to the home of his ancestors,--made altogether by himself
+and those about him, and not by those who were to receive him. On
+the Thursday in the week following that of which we have been
+speaking, two carriages from the Bush met the party at the Railway
+Station and took them to Bragton. Mr. Runciman, after due
+consideration, put up with the inconsiderate nature of the order
+given, and supplied the coaches and horses as required,--consoling
+himself no doubt with the reflection that he could charge for the
+unreasonableness of the demand in the bill. The coachman and butler
+had come down two days before their master, so that things might be
+in order. Mrs. Hopkins learned from the butler that though the
+party would at first consist only of three, two other very august
+persons were to follow on the Saturday,--no less than Lady Augustus
+Trefoil and her daughter Arabella. And Mrs. Hopkins was soon led to
+imagine, though no positive information was given to her on the
+subject, that Miss Trefoil was engaged to be married to their
+Master. "Will he live here altogether, Mr, Tankard?" Mrs. Hopkins
+asked. To this question Mr. Tankard was able to give a very
+definite answer. He was quite sure that Mr. Morton would not live
+anywhere altogether. According to Mr. Tankard's ideas, the whole
+foreign policy of England depended on Mr. John Morton's presence in
+some capital, either in Europe, Asia, or America,--upon Mr.
+Morton's presence, and of course upon his own also. Mr. Tankard
+thought it not improbable that they might soon be wanted at Hong
+Kong, or some very distant place, but in the meantime they were
+bound to be back at Washington very shortly. Tankard had himself
+been at Washington, and also before that at Lisbon, and could tell
+Mrs. Hopkins how utterly unimportant had been the actual ministers
+at those places, and how the welfare of England had depended
+altogether on the discretion and general omniscience of his young
+master,--and of himself. He, Tankard, had been the only person in
+Washington who had really known in what order Americans should go
+out to dinner one after another. Mr. Elias Gotobed, who was coming,
+was perhaps the most distinguished American of the day, and was
+Senator for Mickewa.
+
+"Mickey war!" said poor Mrs. Hopkins,--"that's been one of them
+terrible American wars we used to hear of." Then Tankard explained
+to her that Mickewa was one of the Western States and Mr. Elias
+Gotobed was a great Republican, who had very advanced opinions of
+his own respecting government, liberty, and public institutions in
+general. With Mr. Morton and the Senator was coming the Honourable
+Mrs. Morton. The lady had her lady's maid,--and Mr, Morton had his
+own man; so that there would be a great influx of persons.
+
+Of course there was very much perturbation of spirit. Mrs. Hopkins,
+after that first letter, the contents of which she had communicated
+to Reginald Morton, had received various despatches and been asked
+various questions. Could she find a cook? Could she find two
+housemaids? And all these were only wanted for a time. In her
+distress she went to Mrs. Runciman, and did get assistance. "I
+suppose he thinks he's to have the cook out of my kitchen?"
+Runciman had said. Somebody, however, was found who said she could
+cook, and two girls who professed that they knew how to make beds.
+And in this way an establishment was ready before the arrival of
+the Secretary of Legation and the great American Senator. Those
+other. questions of wine and plate and vegetables had, no doubt,
+settled themselves after some fashion.
+
+John Morton had come over to England on leave of absence for four
+months, and had brought with him the Senator from Mickewa. The
+Senator had never been in England before, and was especially
+anxious to study the British Constitution and to see the ways of
+Britons with his own eyes. He had only been a fortnight in London
+before this journey down to the county had been planned. Mr.
+Gotobed wished to see English country life and thought that he
+could not on his first arrival have a better opportunity. It must
+be explained also that there was another motive, for this English
+rural sojourn. Lady Augustus Trefoil, who was an adventurous lady,
+had been travelling in the United States with her daughter, and had
+there fallen in with Mr. John Morton. Arabella Trefoil was a
+beauty, and a woman of fashion, and had captivated the Paragon. An
+engagement had been made, subject to various stipulations; the
+consent of Lord Augustus in the first place,--as to which John
+Morton who only understood foreign affairs was not aware, as he
+would have been had he lived in England, that Lord Augustus was
+nobody. Lady Augustus had spoken freely as to settlements, value of
+property, life insurance and such matters; and had spoken firmly,
+as well as freely, expressing doubt as to the expediency of such an
+engagement;--all of which had surprised Mr. Morton considerably,
+for the young lady had at first been left in his hands with almost
+American freedom. And now Lady Augustus and her daughter were
+coming down on a visit of inspection. They had been told, as had
+the Senator, that things would be in the rough. The house had not
+been properly inhabited for nearly a quarter of a century. The
+Senator had expressed himself quite contented. Lady Augustus had
+only hoped that everything would be made as comfortable as possible
+for her daughter. I don't know what more could have been done at so
+short a notice than to order two carriages, two housemaids, and a
+cook.
+
+A word or two must also be said of the old lady who made one of the
+party. The Honourable Mrs. Morton was now seventy, but no old lady
+ever showed less signs of advanced age. It is not to be understood
+from this that she was beautiful;---but that she was very strong.
+What might be the colour of her hair, or whether she had any, no
+man had known for many years. But she wore so perfect a front that
+some people were absolutely deluded. She was very much wrinkled;--
+but as there are wrinkles which seem to come from the decay of
+those muscles which should uphold the skin, so are there others
+which seem to denote that the owner has simply got rid of the
+watery weaknesses of juvenility. Mrs. Morton's wrinkles were strong
+wrinkles. She was thin, but always carried herself bolt upright,
+and would never even lean back in her chair. She had a great idea
+of her duty, and hated everybody who differed from her with her
+whole heart. She was the daughter of a Viscount, a fact which she
+never forgot for a single moment, and which she thought gave her
+positive superiority to all women who were not the daughters of
+Dukes or Marquises, or of Earls. Therefore, as she did not live
+much in the fashionable world, she rarely met any one above
+herself. Her own fortune on her marriage had been small, but now
+she was a rich woman. Her husband had been dead nearly half a
+century and during the whole of that time she had been saving
+money. To two charities she gave annually five pounds per annum
+each. Duty demanded it, and the money was given. Beyond that she
+had never been known to spend a penny in charity. Duty, she had
+said more than once, required of her that she do something to
+repair the ravages made on the Morton property by the preposterous
+extravagance of the old squire in regard to the younger son, and
+that son's--child. In her anger she had not hesitated on different
+occasions to call the present Reginald a bastard, though the
+expression was a wicked calumny for which there was no excuse.
+Without any aid of hers the Morton property had repaired itself.
+There had been a minority of thirteen or fourteen years, and since
+that time the present owner had not spent his income. But John
+Morton was not himself averse to money, and had always been careful
+to maintain good relations with his grandmother. She had now been
+asked down to Bragton in order that she might approve, if possible,
+of the proposed wife. It was not likely that she should approve
+absolutely of anything; but to have married without an appeal to
+her would have been to have sent the money flying into the hands of
+some of her poor paternal cousins. Arabella Trefoil was the
+granddaughter of a duke, and a step had so far been made in the
+right direction. But Mrs. Morton knew that Lord Augustus was
+nobody, that there would be no money, and that Lady Augustus had
+been the daughter of a banker, and that her fortune had been nearly
+squandered.
+
+The Paragon was not in the least afraid of his American visitor,
+nor, as far as the comforts of his house were concerned, of his
+grandmother. Of the beauty, and her mother he did stand in awe;--
+but he had two days in which to look to things before they would
+come. The train reached the Dillsborough Station at half-past
+three, and the two carriages were there to meet them. "You will
+understand, Mr. Gotobed," said the old lady, "that my grandson has
+nothing of his own established here as yet." This little excuse was
+produced by certain patches and tears in the cushions and linings
+of the carriages. Mr. Gotobed smiled and bowed and declared that
+everything was "fixed convenient" Then the Senator followed the old
+lady into one carriage; Mr. Morton followed alone into the other;
+and they were driven away to Bragton.
+
+When Mrs. Hopkins had taken the old lady up to her room Mr. Morton
+asked the Senator to walk round the grounds. Mr. Gotobed, lighting
+an enormous cigar of which he put half down his throat for more
+commodious and quick consumption, walked on to the middle of the
+drive, and turning back looked up at the house, "Quite a pile," he
+said, observing that the offices and outhouses extended a long way
+to the left till they almost joined other buildings in which were
+the stables and coach-house.
+
+"It's a good-sized house;"--said the owner; "nothing very
+particular, as houses are built now-a-days."
+
+"Damp; I should say?"
+
+"I think not. I have never lived here much myself; but I have not
+heard that it is considered so."
+
+"I guess it's damp. Very lonely;--isn't it?"
+
+"We like to have our society inside, among ourselves, in the
+country."
+
+"Keep a sort of hotel-like?" suggested Mr. Gotobed. "Well, I don't
+dislike hotel life, especially when there are no charges. How many
+servants do you want to keep up such a house as that?"
+
+Mr. Morton explained that at present he knew very little about it
+himself, then led him away by the path over the bridge, and turning
+to the left showed him the building which had once been the kennels
+of the Rufford hounds, "All that for dogs!" exclaimed Mr. Gotobed.
+
+"All for dogs," said Morton. "Hounds, we generally call them."
+
+"Hounds are they? Well; I'll remember; though 'dogs' seems to me
+more civil. How many used there to be?"
+
+"About fifty couple, I think."
+
+"A hundred dogs! No wonder your country gentlemen burst up so
+often. Wouldn't half-a-dozen do as well,--except for the show of
+the thing?"
+
+"Half-a-dozen hounds couldn't hunt a fox, Mr. Gotobed."
+
+"I guess half-a-dozen would do just as well, only for the show.
+What strikes me, Mr. Morton, on visiting this old country is that
+so much is done for show."
+
+"What do you say to New York, Mr. Gotobed?"
+
+"There certainly are a couple of hundred fools in New York, who,
+having more money than brains, amuse themselves by imitating
+European follies. But you won't find that through the country, Mr.
+Morton. You won't find a hundred dogs at an American planter's
+house when ten or twelve would do as well."
+
+"Hunting is not one of your amusements."
+
+"Yes it is. I've been a hunter myself. I've had nothing to eat but
+what I killed for a month together. That's more than any of your
+hunters can say. A hundred dogs to kill one fox!"
+
+"Not all at the same time, Mr. Gotobed."
+
+"And you have got none now?"
+
+"I don't hunt myself."
+
+"And does nobody hunt the foxes about here at present?" Then Morton
+explained that on the Saturday following the U.R.U. hounds, under
+the mastership of that celebrated sportsman Captain Glomax, would
+meet at eleven o'clock exactly at the spot on which they were then
+standing, and that if Mr. Gotobed would walk out after breakfast he
+should see the whole paraphernalia, including about half a hundred
+"dogs," and perhaps a couple of hundred men on horseback. "I shall
+be delighted to see any institution of this great country," said
+Mr. Gotobed, "however much opposed it may be to my opinion either
+of utility or rational recreation." Then, having nearly eaten up
+one cigar, he lit another preparatory to eating it, and sauntered
+back to the house.
+
+Before dinner that evening there were a few words between the
+Paragon and his grandmother. "I'm afraid you won't like my American
+friend," he said.
+
+"He is all very well, John. Of course an American member of
+Congress can't be an English gentleman. You, in your position, have
+to be civil to such people. I dare say I shall get on very well
+with Mr. Gotobed."
+
+"I must get somebody to meet him."
+
+"Lady Augustus and her daughter are coming."
+
+"They knew each other in Washington. And there will be so many
+ladies."
+
+"You could ask the Coopers from Mallingham," suggested the lady.
+
+"I don't think they would dine out. He's getting very old."
+
+"And I'm told the Mainwarings at Dillsborough are very nice
+people," said Mrs. Morton, who knew that Mr. Mainwaring at any rate
+came from a good family.
+
+"I suppose they ought to call first. I never saw them in my life.
+Reginald Morton, you know, is living at Hoppet Hall in
+Dillsborough."
+
+"You don't mean to say you wish to ask him to this house?"
+
+"I think I ought. Why should I take upon myself to quarrel with a
+man I have not seen since I was a child, and who certainly is my
+cousin?"
+
+"I do not know that he is your cousin; nor do you."
+
+John Morton passed by the calumny which he had heard before, and
+which he knew that it was no good for him to attempt to subvert.
+"He was received here as one of the family, ma'am."
+
+"I know he was; and with what result?"
+
+"I don't think that I ought to turn my back upon him because my
+great-grandfather left property away from me to him. It would give
+me a bad name in the county. It would be against me when I settle
+down to live here. I think quarrelling is the most foolish thing a
+man can do,--especially with his own relations."
+
+"I can only say this, John;--let me know if he is coming, so that I
+may not be called upon to meet him. I will not eat at table with
+Reginald Morton." So saying the old lady, in a stately fashion,
+stalked out of the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+The Old Kennels
+
+
+On the next morning Mrs. Morton asked her grandson what he meant to
+do with reference to his suggested invitation to Reginald. "As you
+will not meet him of course I have given up the idea," he said. The
+"of course" had been far from true. He had debated the matter very
+much with himself. He was an obstinate man, with something of
+independence in his spirit. He liked money, but he liked having his
+own way too. The old lady looked as though she might live to be a
+hundred,--and though she might last only for ten years longer, was
+it worth his while to be a slave for that time? And he was by no
+means sure of her money, though he should be a slave. He almost
+made up his mind that he would ask Reginald Morton. But then the
+old lady would be in her tantrums, and there would be the
+disagreeable necessity of making an explanation to that
+inquisitive gentleman Mr. Elias Gotobed.
+
+"I couldn't have met him, John; I couldn't indeed. I remember so
+well all that occurred when your poor infatuated great-grandfather
+would have that woman into the house! I was forced to have my meals
+in my bedroom, and to get myself taken away as soon as I could get
+a carriage and horses. After all that I ought not to be asked to
+meet the child."
+
+"I was thinking of asking old Mr. Cooper on Monday. I know she
+doesn't go out. And perhaps Mr. Mainwaring wouldn't take it amiss.
+Mr. Puttock, I know, isn't at home; but if he were, he couldn't
+come." Mr. Puttock was the rector of Bragton, a very rich living,
+but was unfortunately afflicted with asthma.
+
+"Poor man. I heard of that; and he's only been here about six
+years. I don't see why Mr. Mainwaring should take it amiss at all.
+You can explain that you are only here a few days. I like to meet
+clergymen. I think that it is the duty of a country gentleman to
+ask them to his house. It shows a proper regard for religion.
+By-the-bye, John, I hope that you'll see that they have a fire in
+the church on Sunday." The Honourable Mrs. Morton always went to
+church, and had no doubt of her own sincerity when she reiterated
+her prayer that as she forgave others their trespasses, so might
+she be forgiven hers. As Reginald Morton had certainly never
+trespassed against her perhaps there was no reason why her thoughts
+should be carried to the necessity of forgiving him.
+
+The Paragon wrote two very diplomatic notes, explaining his
+temporary residence and expressing his great desire to become
+acquainted with his neighbours. Neither of the two clergymen were
+offended, and both of them promised to eat his dinner on Monday.
+Mr. Mainwaring was very fond of dining out, and would have gone
+almost to any gentleman's house. Mr. Cooper had been enough in the
+neighbourhood to have known the old squire, and wrote an
+affectionate note expressing his gratification at the prospect of
+renewing his acquaintance with the little boy whom he remembered.
+So the party was made up for Monday. John Morton was very nervous
+on the matter, fearing that Lady Augustus would think the land to
+be barren.
+
+The Friday passed by without much difficulty. The Senator was
+driven about, and everything was inquired into. One or two farm
+houses were visited, and the farmers' wives were much disturbed by
+the questions asked them. "I don't think they'd get a living in the
+States," was the Senator's remark after leaving one of the
+homesteads in which neither the farmer nor his wife had shown much
+power of conversation. "Then they're right to stay where they are,"
+replied Mr. Morton, who in spite of his diplomacy could not save
+himself from being nettled. "They seem to get a very good living
+here, and they pay their rent punctually."
+
+On the Saturday morning the hounds met at the "Old Kennels," as the
+meet was always called, and here was an excellent opportunity of
+showing to Mr. Gotobed one of the great institutions of the
+country. It was close to the house and therefore could be reached
+without any trouble, and as it was held on Morton's own ground, he
+could do more towards making his visitor understand the thing than
+might have been possible elsewhere. When the hounds moved the
+carriage would be ready to take them about the roads, and show them
+as much as could be seen on wheels.
+
+Punctually at eleven John Morton and his American guest were on the
+bridge, and Tony Tuppett was already occupying his wonted place,
+seated on a strong grey mare that had done a great deal of work,
+but would live,--as Tony used to say,--to do a great deal more.
+Round him the hounds were clustered,--twenty-three couple in all,--
+some seated on their haunches, some standing obediently still,
+while a few moved about restlessly, subject to the voices and on
+one or two occasions to a gentle administration of thong from the
+attendant whips. Four or five horsemen were clustering round, most
+of them farmers, and were talking to Tony. Our friend Mr. Twentyman
+was the only man in a red coat who had yet arrived, and with him,
+on her brown pony, was Kate Masters, who was listening with all her
+ears to every word that Tony said.
+
+"That, I guess, is the Captain you spoke of," said the Senator
+pointing to Tony Tuppett.
+
+"Oh no;--that's the huntsman. Those three men in caps are the
+servants who do the work."
+
+"The dogs can't be brought out without servants to mind them!
+They're what you call gamekeepers." Morton was explaining that the
+men were not gamekeepers when Captain Glomax himself arrived,
+driving a tandem. There was no road up to the spot, but on hunt
+mornings,--or at any rate when the meet was at the old kennels,--
+the park-gates were open so that vehicles could come up on the
+green sward.
+
+"That's Captain Glomax, I suppose," said Morton. "I don't know him,
+but from the way he's talking to the huntsman you may be sure of
+it"
+
+"He is the great man, is he? All these dogs belong to him?"
+
+"Either to him or the hunt"
+
+"And he pays for those servants?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"He is a very rich man, I suppose." Then Mr. Morton endeavoured to
+explain the position of Captain Glomax. He was not rich. He was no one
+in particular--except that he was Captain Glomax; and his one attribute
+was a knowledge of hunting. He didn't keep the "dogs" out of his own
+pocket. He received 2,000 pounds a year from the gentlemen of the
+county, and he himself only paid anything which the hounds and horses
+might cost over that. "He's a sort of upper servant then?" asked the
+Senator.
+
+"Not at all. He's the greatest man in the county on hunting days."
+
+"Does he live out of it?"
+
+"I should think not."
+
+"It's a deal of trouble, isn't it?"
+
+"Full work for an active man's time, I should say." A great many
+more questions were asked and answered, at the end of which the
+Senator declared that he did not quite understand it, but that as
+far as he saw he did not think very much of Captain Glomax.
+
+"If he could make a living out of it I should respect him," said
+the Senator;--" though it's like knife-grinding or handling
+arsenic, an unwholesome sort of profession."
+
+"I think they look very nice," said Morton, as one or two
+well-turned-out young men rode up to the place.
+
+"They seem to me to have thought more about their breeches than
+anything else," said the Senator. "But if they're going to hunt why
+don't they hunt? Have they got a fox with them?" Then there was a
+further explanation.
+
+At this moment there was a murmur as of a great coming arrival, and
+then an open carriage with four post-horses was brought at a quick
+trot into the open space. There were four men dressed for hunting
+inside, and two others on the box. They were all smoking, and all
+talking. It was easy to see that they did not consider themselves
+the least among those who were gathered together on this occasion.
+The carriage was immediately surrounded by grooms and horses, and
+the ceremony of disencumbering themselves of great coats and
+aprons, of putting on spurs and fastening hat-strings was
+commenced. Then there were whispered communications from the
+grooms, and long faces under some of the hats. This horse hadn't
+been fit since last Monday's run, and that man's hack wasn't as it
+should be. A muttered curse might have been heard from one
+gentleman as he was told, on jumping from the box, that Harry
+Stubbings hadn't sent him any second horse to ride. "I didn't hear
+nothing about it till yesterday, Captain," said Harry Stubbings,
+"and every foot I had fit to come out was bespoke." The groom,
+however, who heard this was quite aware that Mr. Stubbings did not
+wish to give unlimited credit to the Captain, and he knew also that
+the second horse was to have carried his master the whole day, as
+the animal which was brought to the meet had been ridden hard on
+the previous Wednesday. At all this the Senator looked with curious
+eyes, thinking that he had never in his life seen brought together
+a set of more useless human beings.
+
+"That is Lord Rufford," said Morton, pointing to a stout,
+ruddy-faced, handsome man of about thirty, who was the owner of the
+carriage.
+
+"Oh, a lord. Do the lords hunt, generally?"
+
+"That's as they like it."
+
+"Senators with us wouldn't have time for that," said the Senator.
+
+"But you are paid to do your work."
+
+"Everybody from whom work is expected should be paid. Then the work
+will be done, or those who pay will know the reason why."
+
+"I must speak to Lord Rufford," said Morton. "If you'll come with
+me, I'll introduce you." The Senator followed willingly enough and
+the introduction was made while his lordship was still standing by
+his horse. The two men had known each other in London, and it was
+natural that Morton, as owner of the ground, should come out and
+speak to the only man who knew him. It soon was spread about that
+the gentleman talking to Lord Rufford was John Morton, and many who
+lived in the county came up to shake hands with him, To some of
+these the Senator was introduced and the conversation for a few
+minutes seemed to interrupt the business on hand. "I am sorry you
+should be on foot, Mr. Gotobed," said the lord.
+
+"And I am sorry that I cannot mount him," said Mr. Morton.
+
+"We can soon get over that difficulty if he will allow me to offer
+him a horse."
+
+The Senator looked as though he would almost like it, but he didn't
+quite like it. "Perhaps your horse might kick me off, my lord."
+
+"I can't answer for that; but he isn't given to kicking, and there
+he is, if you'll get on him." But the Senator felt that the
+exhibition would suit neither his age nor position, and refused.
+
+"We'd better be moving," said Captain Glomax. "I suppose, Lord
+Rufford, we might as well trot over to Dillsborough Wood at once. I
+saw Bean as I came along and he seemed to wish we should draw the
+wood first." Then there was a little whispering between his
+lordship and the Master and Tony Tuppett. His lordship thought that
+as Mr. Morton was there the hounds might as well be run through the
+Bragton spinnies. Tony made a wry face and shook his head. He knew
+that though the Old Kennels might be a very good place for meeting
+there was no chance of finding a fox at Bragton. And Captain
+Glomax, who, being an itinerary master, had no respect whatever for
+a country gentleman who didn't preserve, also made a long face and
+also shook his head. But Lord Rufford, who knew the wisdom of
+reconciling a newcomer in the county to foxhunting, prevailed and
+the hounds and men were taken round a part of Bragton Park.
+
+"What if t' old squire 've said if he'd 've known there hadn't been
+a fox at Bragton for more nor ten year?" This remark was made by
+Tuppett to Mr. Runciman who was riding by him. Mr. Runciman replied
+that there was a great difference in people. "You may say that, Mr.
+Runciman. It's all changes. His lordship's father couldn't bear the
+sight of a hound nor a horse and saddle. Well;--I suppose I needn't
+gammon any furder. We'll just trot across to the wood at once"
+
+"They haven't begun yet as far as I can see," said Mr. Gotobed
+standing up in the carriage.
+
+"They haven't found as yet," replied Morton.
+
+"They must go on till they find a fox? They never bring him with
+them?" Then there was an explanation as to bagged foxes, Morton not
+being very conversant with the subject he had to explain. "And if
+they shouldn't find one all day?"
+
+"Then it'll be a blank."
+
+"And these hundred gentlemen will go home quite satisfied with
+themselves?"
+
+"No; they'll go home quite dissatisfied."
+
+"And have paid their money and given their time for nothing? Do you
+know it doesn't seem to me the most heart-stirring thing in the
+world. Don't they ride faster than that?" At this moment Tony with
+the hounds at his heels was trotting across the park at a
+huntsman's usual pace from covert to covert. The Senator was
+certainly ungracious. Nothing that he saw produced from him a
+single word expressive of satisfaction.
+
+Less than a mile brought them to the gate and road leading up to
+Chowton Farm. They passed close by Larry Twentyman's door, and not
+a few, though it was not yet more than half-past eleven, stopped to
+have a glass of Larry's beer. When the hounds were in the
+neighbourhood Larry's beer was always ready. But Tony and his
+attendants trotted by with eyes averted, as though no thought of
+beer was in their minds. Nothing had been done, and a huntsman is
+not entitled to beer till he has found a fox. Captain Glomax
+followed with Lord Rufford and a host of others. There was plenty
+of way here for carriages, and half a dozen vehicles passed through
+Larry's farmyard. Immediately behind the house was a meadow, and at
+the bottom of the meadow a stubble field, next to which was the
+ditch and bank which formed the bounds of Dillsborough Wood. Just
+at this side of the gate leading into the stubble-field there was
+already a concourse of people when Tony arrived near it with the
+hounds, and immediately there was a holloaing and loud screeching
+of directions, which was soon understood to mean that the hounds
+were at once to be taken away! The Captain rode on rapidly, and
+then sharply gave his orders. Tony was to take the hounds back to
+Mr. Twentyman's farmyard as fast as he could, and shut them up in a
+barn. The whips were put into violent commotion. Tony was eagerly
+at work. Not a hound was to be allowed near the gate. And then, as
+the crowd of horsemen and carriages came on, the word "poison" was
+passed among them from mouth to mouth!
+
+"What does all this mean?" said the Senator.
+
+"I don't at all know. I'm afraid there's something wrong," replied
+Morton.
+
+"I heard that man say `poison'. They have taken the dogs back
+again." Then the Senator and Morton got out of the carriage and
+made their way into the crowd. The riders who had grooms on second
+horses were soon on foot, and a circle was made, inside which there
+was some object of intense interest. In the meantime the hounds had
+been secured in one of Mr. Twentyman's barns.
+
+What was that object of interest shall be told in the next chapter.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Goarly's Revenge
+
+
+The Senator and Morton followed close on the steps of Lord Rufford
+and Captain Glomax and were thus able to make their way into the
+centre of the crowd. There, on a clean sward of grass, laid out as
+carefully as though he were a royal child prepared for burial,
+was--a dead fox. "It's pi'son, my lord; it's pi'son to a moral,"
+said Bean, who as keeper of the wood was bound to vindicate himself,
+and his master, and the wood. "Feel of him, how stiff he is." A
+good many did feel, but Lord Rufford stood still and looked at the
+poor victim in silence. "It's easy knowing how he come by it," said
+Bean.
+
+The men around gazed into each other's faces with a sad tragic air,
+as though the occasion were one which at the first blush was too
+melancholy for many words. There was whispering here and there and
+one young farmer's son gave a deep sigh, like a steam-engine
+beginning to work, and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.
+"There ain't nothin' too bad,--nothin," said another,--leaving his
+audience to imagine whether he were alluding to the wretchedness of
+the world in general or to the punishment which was due to the
+perpetrator of this nefarious act. The dreadful word "vulpecide"
+was heard from various lips with an oath or two before it. "It
+makes me sick of my own land, to think it should be done so near,"
+said Larry Twentyman, who had just come up. Mr. Runciman declared
+that they must set their wits to work not only to find the criminal
+but to prove the crime against him, and offered to subscribe a
+couple of sovereigns on the spot to a common fund to be raised for
+the purpose. "I don't know what is to be done with a country like
+this," said Captain Glomax, who, as an itinerant, was not averse to
+cast a slur upon the land of his present sojourn.
+
+"I don't remember anything like it on my property before," said the
+lord, standing up for his own estate and the county at large.
+
+"Nor in the hunt," said young Hampton. "Of course such a thing may
+happen anywhere. They had foxes poisoned in the Pytchley last
+year."
+
+"It shows a d-- bad feeling somewhere," said the Master.
+
+"We know very well where the feeling is," said Bean who had by this
+time taken up the fox, determined not to allow it to pass into any
+hands less careful than his own.
+
+"It's that scoundrel, Goarly," said one of the Botseys. Then there
+was an indignant murmur heard, first of all from two or three and
+then running among the whole crowd. Everybody knew as well as
+though he had seen it that Goarly had baited meat with strychnine
+and put it down in the wood. "Might have pi'soned half the pack!"
+said Tony Tuppett, who had come up on foot from the barn where
+the hounds were still imprisoned, and had caught hold in an
+affectionate manner of a fore pad of the fox which Bean had
+clutched by the two hind legs. Poor Tony Tuppett almost shed tears
+as he looked at the dead animal, and thought what might have been
+the fate of the pack. "It's him, my lord," he said, "as we run
+through Littleton gorse Monday after Christmas last, and up to
+Impington Park where he got away from us in a hollow tree. He's
+four year old," added Tony, looking at the animal's mouth, "and
+there warn't a finer dog fox in the county."
+
+"Do they know all the foxes?" asked the Senator. In answer to this,
+Morton only shook his head, not feeling quite sure himself how far
+a huntsman's acquaintance in that line might go, and being also too
+much impressed by the occasion for speculative conversation.
+
+"It's that scoundrel Goarly" had been repeated again and again; and
+then on a sudden Goarly himself was seen standing on the further
+hedge of Larry's field with a gun in his hand. He was not at this
+time above two hundred yards from them, and was declared by one of
+the young farmers to be grinning with delight. The next field was
+Goarly's, but the hedge and ditch belonged to Twentyman. Larry
+rushed forward as though determined to thrash the man, and two or
+three followed him. But Lord Rufford galloped on and stopped them.
+"Don't get into a row with a fellow like that," he said to
+Twentyman.
+
+"He's on my land, my lord," said Larry impatiently.
+
+"I'm on my own now, and let me see who'll dare to touch me," said
+Goarly jumping down.
+
+"You've put poison down in that wood," said Larry.
+
+"No I didn't; but I knows who did. It ain't I as am afeard for my
+young turkeys" Now it was well known that old Mrs. Twentyman,
+Larry's mother, was fond of young turkeys, and that her
+poultry-yard had suffered. Larry, in his determination to be a
+gentleman, had always laughed at his mother's losses. But now to be
+accused in this way was terrible to his feelings! He made a rush as
+though to jump over the hedge, but Lord Rufford again intercepted
+him. "I didn't think, Mr. Twentyman, that you'd care for what such
+a fellow as that might say." By this time Lord Rufford was off his
+horse, and had taken hold of Larry.
+
+"I'll tell you all what it is," screamed Goarly, standing just at
+the edge of his own field,--"if a hound comes out of the wood on to
+my land, I'll shoot him. I don't know nothing about p'isoning,
+though I dare say Mr. Twentyman does. But if a hound comes on my
+land, I'll shoot him,--open, before you all" There was, however, no
+danger of such a threat being executed on this day, as of course no
+hound would be allowed to go into Dillsborough Wood.
+
+Twentyman was reluctantly brought back into the meadow where the
+horses were standing, and then a consultation was held as to what
+they should do next. There were some who thought that the hounds
+should be taken home for the day. It was as though some special
+friend of the U.R.U. had died that morning, and that the spirits of
+the sportsmen were too dejected for their sport. Others, with
+prudent foresight, suggested that the hounds might run back from
+some distant covert to Dillsborough, and that there should be no
+hunting till the wood had been thoroughly searched. But the
+strangers, especially those who had hired horses, would not hear of
+this; and after considerable delay it was arranged that the hounds
+should be trotted off as quickly as possible to Impington Gorse,
+which was on the other side of Impington Park, and fully five miles
+distant. And so they started, leaving the dead fox in the hands of
+Bean the gamekeeper.
+
+"Is this the sort of thing that occurs every day?" asked the
+Senator as he got back into the carriage.
+
+"I should fancy not," answered Morton. "Somebody has poisoned a
+fox, and I don't think that that is very often done about here."
+
+"Why did he poison him?"
+
+"To save his fowls I suppose."
+
+"Why shouldn't he poison him if the fox takes his fowls? Fowls are
+better than foxes."
+
+"Not in this country," said Morton.
+
+"Then I'm very glad I don't live here," said Mr. Gotobed. "These
+friends of yours are dressed very nicely and look very well,--but a
+fox is a nasty animal. It was that man standing up on the bank;--
+wasn't it?" continued the Senator, who was determined to understand
+it all to the very bottom, in reference to certain lectures which
+he intended to give on his return to the States,--and perhaps also
+in the old country before he left it.
+
+"They suspect him."
+
+"That man with the gun! One man against two hundred! Now I respect
+that man;--I do with all my heart."
+
+"You'd better not say so here, Mr. Gotobed."
+
+"I know how full of prejudice you all air',--but I do respect him.
+If I comprehend the matter rightly, he was on his own land when we
+saw him."
+
+"Yes;--that was his own field."
+
+"And they meant to ride across it whether he liked it or no?"
+
+"Everybody rides across everybody's land out hunting."
+
+"Would they ride across your park, Mr. Morton, if you didn't let
+them?"
+
+"Certainly they would,--and break down all my gates if I had them
+locked, and pull down my park palings to let the hounds through."
+
+"And you could get no compensation?"
+
+"Practically I could get none. And certainly I should not try. The
+greatest enemy to hunting in the whole county would not be foolish
+enough to make the attempt"
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"He would get no satisfaction, and everybody would hate him."
+
+"Then I respect that man the more. What is that man's name?" Morton
+hadn't heard the name, or had forgotten it. "I shall find that man
+out, and have some conversation with him, Mr. Morton. I respect
+that man, Mr. Morton. He's one against two hundred, and he insists
+upon his rights. Those men standing round and wiping their eyes,
+and stifled with grief because a fox had been poisoned, as though
+some great patriot had died among them in the service of his
+country, formed one of the most remarkable phenomena, Sir, that
+ever I beheld in any country. When I get among my own people in
+Mickewa and tell them that, they won't believe me, sir."
+
+In the meantime the cavalcade was hurrying away to Impington
+Gorse, and John Morton, feeling that he had not had an opportunity
+as yet of showing his American friend the best side of hunting,
+went with them. The five miles were five long miles, and as the
+pace was not above seven miles an hour, nearly an hour was
+occupied. There was therefore plenty of opportunity for the Senator
+to inquire whether the gentlemen around him were as yet enjoying
+their sport. There was an air of triumph about him as to the
+misfortunes of the day, joined to a battery of continued raillery,
+which made it almost impossible for Morton to keep his temper. He
+asked whether it was not at any rate better than trotting a pair of
+horses backwards and forwards over the same mile of road for half
+the day, as is the custom in the States. But the Senator, though he
+did not quite approve of trotting matches, argued that there was
+infinitely more of skill and ingenuity in the American pastime.
+"Everybody is so gloomy," said the Senator, lighting his third
+cigar. "I've been watching that young man in pink boots for the
+last half hour, and he hasn't spoken a word to any one."
+
+"Perhaps he's a stranger," said Morton.
+
+"And that's the way you treat him!"
+
+It was past two when the hounds were put into the gorse, and
+certainly no one was in a very good humour. A trot of five miles is
+disagreeable, and two o'clock in November is late for finding a
+first fox; and then poisoning is a vice that may grow into a habit!
+There was a general feeling that Goarly ought to be extinguished,
+but an idea that it might be difficult to extinguish him. The
+whips, nevertheless, cantered on to the corner of the covert, and
+Tony put in his hounds with a cheery voice. The Senator remarked
+that the gorse was a very little place,--for as they were on the
+side of an opposite hill they could see it all. Lord Rufford, who
+was standing by the carriage, explained to him that it was a
+favourite resort of foxes, and difficult to draw as being very
+close. "Perhaps they've poisoned him too," said the Senator. It was
+evident from his voice that had such been the case, he would not
+have been among the mourners. "The blackguards are not yet thick
+enough in our country for that," said Lord Rufford, meaning to be
+sarcastic.
+
+Then a whimper was heard from a hound,--at first very low, and then
+growing into a fuller sound. "There he is," said young Hampton.
+"For heaven's sake get those fellows away from that side, Glomax."
+This was uttered with so much vehemence that the Senator looked up
+in surprise. Then the Captain galloped round the side of the
+covert, and, making use of some strong language, stopped the ardour
+of certain gentlemen who were in a hurry to get away on what they
+considered good terms. Lord Rufford, Hampton, Larry Twentyman and
+others sat stock-still on their horses, watching the gorse. Ned
+Botsey urged himself a little forward down the hill, and was
+creeping on when Captain Glomax asked him whether he would be so--
+--obliging kind as to remain where he was for half a minute. Fred
+took the observations in good part and stopped his horse. "Does he
+do all that cursing and swearing for the 2,000 pounds?" asked the
+Senator.
+
+The fox traversed the gorse back from side to side and from corner
+to corner again and again. There were two sides certainly at which
+he might break, but though he came out more than once he could not
+be got to go away.
+
+"They'll kill him now before he breaks," said the elder Botsey.
+
+"Brute!" exclaimed his brother.
+
+"They're hot on him now," said Hampton. At this time the whole side
+of the hill was ringing with the music of the hounds.
+
+"He was out then, but Dick turned him," said Larry. Dick was one of
+the whips.
+
+"Will you be so kind, Mr. Morton," asked the Senator, "as to tell
+me whether they're hunting yet? They've been at it for three hours
+and a half, and I should like to know when they begin to amuse
+themselves."
+
+Just as he had spoken there came from Dick a cry that he was away.
+Tony, who had been down at the side of the gorse, at once jumped
+into it, knowing the passage through. Lord Rufford, who for the
+last five or six minutes had sat perfectly still on his horse,
+started down the hill as though he had been thrown from a catapult.
+There was a little hand-gate through which it was expedient to
+pass, and in a minute a score of men were jostling for the way,
+among whom were the two Botseys, our friend Runciman, and Larry
+Twentyman, with Kate Masters on the pony close behind him. Young
+Hampton jumped a very nasty fence by the side of the wicket, and
+Lord Rufford followed him. A score of elderly men, with some young
+men among them too, turned back into a lane behind them, having
+watched long enough to see that they were to take the lane to the
+left, and not the lane to the right. After all there was time
+enough, for when the men had got through the hand-gate the hounds
+were hardly free of the covert, and Tony, riding up the side of the
+hill opposite, was still blowing his horn. But they were off at
+last, and the bulk of the field got away on good terms with the
+hounds. "Now they are hunting," said Mr. Morton to the Senator.
+
+"They all seemed to be very angry with each other at that narrow
+gate"
+
+"They were in a hurry, I suppose."
+
+"Two of them jumped over the hedge. Why didn't they all jump? How
+long will it be now before they catch him?"
+
+"Very probably they may not catch him at all."
+
+"Not catch him after all that! Then the man was certainly right to
+poison that other fox in the wood. How long will they go on?"
+
+"Half an hour perhaps."
+
+"And you call that hunting! Is it worth the while of all those men
+to expend all that energy for such a result? Upon the whole, Mr.
+Morton, I should say that it is one of the most incomprehensible
+things that I have ever seen in the course of a rather long and
+varied life. Shooting I can understand, for you have your birds.
+Fishing I can understand, as you have your fish. Here you get a fox
+to begin with, and are all broken-hearted. Then you come across
+another, after riding about all day, and the chances are you can't
+catch him!"
+
+"I suppose," said Mr. Morton angrily, "the habits of one country
+are incomprehensible to the people of another. When I see Americans
+loafing about in the bar-room of an hotel, I am lost in amazement."
+
+"There is not a man you see who couldn't give a reason for his
+being there. He has an object in view, though perhaps it may be no
+better than to rob his neighbour. But here there seems to be no
+possible motive."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+From Impington Gorse
+
+
+The fox ran straight from the covert through his well-known haunts
+to Impington Park, and as the hounds were astray there for two or
+three minutes there was a general idea that he too had got up into
+a tree,--which would have amused the Senator very much had the
+Senator been there. But neither had the country nor the pace been
+adapted to wheels, and the Senator and the Paragon were now
+returning along the road towards Bragton. The fox had tried his old
+earths at Impington High wood, and had then skulked back along the
+outside of the covert. Had not one of the whips seen him he would
+have been troubled no further on that day, a fact, which if it
+could have been explained to the Senator in all its bearings, would
+greatly have added to his delight. But Dick viewed him; and with
+many holloas and much blowing of horns, and prayers from Captain
+Glomax that gentlemen would only be so good as to hold their
+tongues, and a full-tongued volley of abuse from half the field
+against an unfortunate gentleman who rode after the escaping fox
+before a hound was out of the covert, they settled again to their
+business. It was pretty to see the quiet ease and apparent
+nonchalance and almost affected absence of bustle of those who knew
+their work,--among whom were especially to be named young Hampton,
+and the elder Botsey, and Lord Rufford, and, above all, a
+dark-visaged, long-whiskered, sombre, military man who had been in
+the carriage with Lord Rufford, and who had hardly spoken a word to
+any one the whole day. This was the celebrated Major Caneback, known
+to all the world as one of the dullest men and best riders across
+country that England had ever produced. But he was not so dull but
+that he knew how to make use of his accomplishment, so as always to
+be able to get a mount on a friend's horses. If a man wanted to
+make a horse, or to try a horse, or to sell a horse, or to buy a
+horse, he delighted to put Major Caneback up. The Major was
+sympathetic and made his friend's horses, and tried them, and sold
+them. Then he would take his two bottles of wine,--of course from
+his friend's cellar,--and when asked about the day's sport would be
+oracular in two words, "Rather slow," "Quick spurt," "Goodish
+thing," "Regularly mulled," and such like. Nevertheless it was a
+great thing to have Major Caneback with you. To the list of those
+who rode well and quietly must in justice be added our friend Larry
+Twentyman, who was in truth a good horseman. And he had three
+things to do which it was difficult enough to combine. He had a
+young horse which he would have liked to sell; he had to coach Kate
+Masters on his pony; and he desired to ride like Major Caneback.
+
+From Impington Park they went in a straight line to Littleton Gorse
+skirting certain small woods which the fox disdained to enter. Here
+the pace was very good, and the country was all grass. It was the
+very cream of the U.R.U; and could the Senator have read the
+feelings of the dozen leading men in the run, he would have owned
+that they were for the time satisfied with their amusement. Could
+he have read Kate Master's feelings he would have had to own that
+she was in an earthly Paradise. When the pony paused at the big
+brook, brought his four legs steadily down on the brink as though
+he were going to bathe, then with a bend of his back leaped to the
+other side, dropping his hind legs in and instantly recovering
+them, and when she saw that Larry had waited just a moment for her,
+watching to see what might be her fate, she was in heaven. "Wasn't
+it a big one, Larry?" she asked in her triumph. "He did go in
+behind!" "Those cats of things always do it somehow," Larry replied
+darting forward again and keeping the Major well in his eye. The
+brook had stopped one or two, and tidings came up that Ned Botsey
+had broken his horse's back. The knowledge of the brook had sent
+some round by the road,--steady riding men such as Mr. Runciman and
+Doctor Nupper. Captain Glomax had got into it and came up
+afterwards wet through, with temper by no means improved. But the
+glory of the day had been the way in which Lord Rufford's young bay
+mare, who had never seen a brook before, had flown over it with the
+Major on her back, taking it, as Larry afterwards described, "just
+in her stride, without condescending to look at it. I was just
+behind the Major, and saw her do it" Larry understood that a man
+should never talk of his own place in a run, but he didn't quite
+understand that neither should he talk of having been close to
+another man who was supposed to have had the best of it. Lord
+Rufford, who didn't talk much of these things, quite understood
+that he had received full value for his billet and mount in the
+improved character of his mare.
+
+Then there, was a little difficulty at the boundary fence of
+Impington Hall Farm. The Major who didn't know the ground, tried it
+at an impracticable place, and brought his mare down. But she fell
+at the right side, and he was quick enough in getting away from
+her, not to fall under her in the ditch. Tony Tuppet, who knew
+every foot of that double ditch and bank, and every foot in the
+hedge above, kept well to the left and crept through a spot where
+one ditch ran into the other, intersecting of the fence. Tony, like
+a knowing huntsman as he was, rode always for the finish and not
+for immediate glory. Both Lord Rufford and Hampton, who in spite of
+their affected nonchalance were in truth rather riding against one
+another, took it all in a fly, choosing a lighter spot than that
+which the Major had encountered. Larry had longed to follow them,
+or rather to take it alongside of them, but was mindful at last of
+Kate and hurried down the ditch to the spot which Tony had chosen
+and which was now crowded by horsemen. "He would have done it as
+well as the best of them," said Kate, panting for breath.
+
+"We're all right," said Larry. "Follow me. Don't let them hustle
+you out. Now, Mat, can't you make way for a lady half a minute?"
+Mat growled, quite understanding the use which was being made of
+Kate Masters; but he did give way and was rewarded with a gracious
+smile. "You are going uncommon well, Miss Kate," said Mat, "and I
+won't stop you." "I am so much obliged to you, Mr. Ruggles," said
+Kate, not scrupling for a moment to take the advantage offered her.
+The fox had turned a little to the left, which was in Larry's
+favour, and the Major was now close to him, covered on one side
+with mud, but still looking as though the mud were all right. There
+are some men who can crush their hats, have their boots and
+breeches full of water, and be covered with dirt from their faces
+downwards, and yet look as though nothing were amiss, while, with
+others, the marks of a fall are always provocative either of pity
+or ridicule. "I hope you're not hurt, Major Caneback," said Larry,
+glad of the occasion to speak to so distinguished an individual.
+The Major grunted as he rode on, finding no necessity here even for
+his customary two words. Little accidents, such as that, were the
+price he paid for his day's entertainment.
+
+As they got within view of Littleton Gorse Hampton, Lord Rufford,
+and Tony had the best of it, though two or three farmers were very
+close to them. At this moment Tony's mind was much disturbed, and
+he looked round more than once for Captain Glomax. Captain Glomax
+had got into the brook, and had then ridden down to the high road
+which ran here near to them and which, as he knew, ran within one
+field of the gorse. He had lost his place and had got a ducking and
+was a little out of humour with things in general. It had not been
+his purpose to go to Impington on this day, and he was still, in
+his mind, saying evil things of the U.R.U. respecting that poisoned
+fox. Perhaps he was thinking, as itinerant masters often must
+think, that it was very hard to have to bear so many unpleasant
+things for a poor 2,000 pounds a year, and meditating, as he had
+done for the last two seasons, a threat that unless the money were
+increased, he wouldn't hunt the country more than three times a
+week. As Tony got near to the gorse and also near to the road he
+managed with infinite skill to get the hounds off the scent, and to
+make a fictitious cast to the left as though he thought the fox had
+traversed that way. Tony knew well enough that the fox was at that
+moment in Littleton Gorse;--but he knew also that the gorse was
+only six acres, that such a fox as he had before him wouldn't stay
+there two minutes after the first hound was in it, and that
+Dillsborough Wood, which to his imagination was full of poison,--
+would then be only a mile and a half before him. Tony, whose fault
+was a tendency to mystery,--as is the fault of most huntsmen,--
+having accomplished his object in stopping the hounds, pretended to
+cast about with great diligence. He crossed the road and was down
+one side of a field and along another, looking anxiously for the
+Captain. "The fox has gone on to the gorse," said the elder Botsey;
+"what a stupid old pig he is;"--meaning that Tony Tuppet was the
+pig.
+
+"He was seen going on," said Larry, who had come across a man
+mending a drain.
+
+"It would be his run of course," said Hampton, who was generally up
+to Tony's wiles, but who was now as much in the dark as others.
+Then four or five rode up to the huntsman and told him that the fox
+had been seen heading for the gorse. Tony said not a word but bit
+his lips and scratched his head and bethought himself what fools
+men might be even though they did ride well to hounds. One word of
+explanation would have settled it all, but he would not speak that
+word till he whispered it to Captain Glomax.
+
+In the meantime there was a crowd in the road waiting to see the
+result of Tony's manoeuvres. And then, as is usual on such
+occasions, a little mild repartee went about,--what the sportsmen
+themselves would have called "chaff." Ned Botsey came up, not
+having broken his horse's back as had been rumoured, but having had
+to drag the brute out of the brook with the help of two countrymen,
+and the Major was asked about his fall till he was forced to open
+his mouth. "Double ditch; mare fell; matter of course." And then he
+got himself out of the crowd, disgusted with the littleness of
+mankind. Lord Rufford had been riding a very big chestnut horse,
+and had watched the anxious struggles of Kate Masters to hold her
+place. Kate, though fifteen, and quite up to that age in
+intelligence and impudence, was small and looked almost a child.
+"That's a nice pony of yours, my dear," said the Lord. Kate, who
+didn't quite like being called "my dear," but who knew that a lord
+has privileges, said that it was a very good pony. "Suppose we
+change," said his lordship. "Could you ride my horse?" "He's very
+big," said Kate. "You'd look like a tom-tit on a haystack," said
+his lordship. "And if you got on my pony, you'd look like a
+haystack on a tom-tit," said Kate. Then it was felt that Kate
+Masters had had the best of that little encounter. "Yes;--I got one
+there," said Lord Rufford, while his friends were laughing at him.
+
+At length Captain Glomax was seen in the road and Tony was with him
+at once, whispering in his ear that the hounds if allowed to go on
+would certainly run into Dillsborough Wood. "D-- the hounds,"
+muttered the Captain; but he knew too well what he was about to
+face so terrible a danger. "They're going home," he said as soon as
+he had joined Lord Rufford and the crowd.
+
+"Going home!" exclaimed a pink-coated young rider of a hired horse
+which had been going well with him; and as he said so he looked at
+his watch.
+
+"Unless you particularly wish me to take the hounds to some covert
+twenty miles off," answered the sarcastic Master.
+
+"The fox certainly went on to Littleton," said the elder Botsey.
+
+"My dear fellow," said the Captain, "I can tell you where the fox
+went quite as well as you can tell me. Do allow a man to know what
+he's about some times."
+
+"It isn't generally the custom here to take the hounds off a
+running fox," continued Botsey, who subscribed 50 pounds, and did
+not like being snubbed.
+
+"And it isn't generally the custom to have fox-coverts poisoned,"
+said the Captain, assuming to himself the credit due to Tony's
+sagacity. "If you wish to be Master of these hounds I haven't the
+slightest objection, but while I'm responsible you must allow me to
+do my work according to my own judgment" Then the thing was
+understood and Captain Glomax was allowed to carry off the hounds
+and his ill-humour without another word.
+
+But just at that moment, while the hounds and the master, and Lord
+Rufford and his friends, were turning back in their own direction,
+John Morton came up with his carriage and the Senator. "Is it all
+over?" asked the Senator.
+
+"All over for to-day," said Lord Rufford. "Did you catch the
+animal?"
+
+"No, Mr. Gotobed; we couldn't catch him. To tell the truth we
+didn't try; but we had a nice little skurry for four or five
+miles."
+
+"Some of you look very wet" Captain Glomax and Ned Botsey were
+standing near the carriage; but the Captain as soon as he heard
+this, broke into a trot and followed the hounds.
+
+"Some of us are very wet," said Ned. "That's part of the fun."
+
+"Oh;--that's part of the fun. You found one fox dead and you didn't
+kill another because you didn't try. Well; Mr. Morton, I don't
+think I shall take to fox hunting even though they should introduce
+it in Mickewa. "What's become of the rest of the men?"
+
+"Most of them are in the brook," said Ned Botsey as he rode on
+towards Dillsborough.
+
+Mr. Runciman was also there and trotted on homewards with Botsey,
+Larry, and Kate Masters. "I think I've won my bet," said the
+hotel-keeper.
+
+"I don't see that at all. We didn't find in Dillsborough Wood."
+
+"I say we did find in Dillsborough Wood. We found a fox though
+unfortunately the poor brute was dead."
+
+"The bet's off I should say. What do you say, Larry?"
+
+Then Runciman argued his case at great length and with much
+ability. It had been intended that the bet should be governed by
+the fact whether Dillsborough Wood did or did not contain a fox on
+that morning. He himself had backed the wood, and Botsey had been
+strong in his opinion against the wood. Which of them had been
+practically right? Had not the presence of the poisoned fox shown
+that he was right? "I think you ought to pay," said Larry.
+
+"All right," said Botsey riding on, and telling himself that that
+was what came from making a bet with a man who was not a gentleman.
+
+"He's as unhappy about that hat," said Runciman, "as though beer
+had gone down a penny a gallon."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+Arabella Trefoil
+
+
+On the Sunday the party from Bragton went to the parish church,--
+and found it very cold. The duty was done by a young curate who
+lived in Dillsborough, there being no house in Bragton for him. The
+rector himself had not been in the church for the last six months,
+being an invalid. At present he and his wife were away in London,
+but the vicarage was kept up for his use. The service was certainly
+not alluring. It was a very wet morning and the curate had ridden
+over from Dillsborough on a little pony which the rector kept for
+him in addition to the 100 pounds per annum paid for his services.
+That he should have got over his service quickly was not a matter
+of surprise,--nor was it wonderful that there should have been no
+soul-stirring matter in his discourse as he had two sermons to
+preach every week and to perform single-handed all the other
+clerical duties of a parish lying four miles distant from his
+lodgings. Perhaps had he expected the presence of so distinguished
+a critic as the Senator from Mickewa he might have done better. As
+it was, being nearly wet through and muddy up to his knees, he did
+not do the work very well. When Morton and his friends left the
+church and got into the carriage for their half-mile drive home
+across the park, Mrs. Morton was the first to speak. "John," she
+said, "that church is enough to give any woman her death. I won't
+go there any more."
+
+"They don't understand warming a church in the country," said John
+apologetically.
+
+"Is it not a little too large for the congregation?" asked the
+Senator.
+
+The church was large and straggling and ill arranged, and on this
+particular Sunday had been almost empty. There was in it an
+harmonium which Mrs. Puttock played when she was at home, but in
+her absence the attempt made by a few rustics to sing the hymns had
+not been a musical success. The whole affair had been very sad, and
+so the Paragon had felt it who knew,--and was remembering through
+the whole service, how these things are done in transatlantic
+cities.
+
+"The weather kept the people away I suppose," said Morton.
+
+"Does that gentleman generally draw large congregations?" asked the
+persistent Senator.
+
+"We don't go in for drawing congregations here." Under the
+cross-examination of his guest the Secretary of Legation almost
+lost his diplomatic good temper. "We have a church in every parish
+for those who choose to attend it"
+
+"And very few do choose," said the Senator. "I can't say that
+they're wrong." There seemed at the moment to be no necessity to
+carry the disagreeable conversation any further as they had now
+reached the house. Mrs. Morton immediately went up-stairs, and the
+two gentlemen took themselves to the fire in the so-called library,
+which room was being used as more commodious than the big
+drawing-room. Mr. Gotobed placed himself on the rug with his back
+to the fire and immediately reverted to the Church. "That gentleman
+is paid by tithes I suppose."
+
+"He's not the rector. He's a curate."
+
+"Ah;--just so. He looked like a curate. Doesn't the rector do
+anything?"
+
+Then Morton, who was by this time heartily sick of explaining,
+explained the unfortunate state of Mr. Puttock's health, and the
+conversation was carried on till gradually the Senator learned that
+Mr. Puttock received 800 pounds a year and a house for doing
+nothing, and that he paid his deputy 100 pounds a year with the use
+of a pony. "And how long will that be allowed to go on, Mr.
+Morton?" asked the Senator.
+
+To all these inquiries Morton found himself compelled not only to
+answer, but to answer the truth. Any prevarication or attempt at
+mystification fell to the ground at once under the Senator's
+tremendous powers of inquiry. It had been going on for four years,
+and would probably go on now till Mr. Puttock died. "A man of his
+age with the asthma may live for twenty years," said the Senator
+who had already learned that Mr. Puttock was only fifty. Then he
+ascertained that Mr. Puttock had not been presented to, or selected
+for the living on account of any peculiar fitness;--but that he had
+been a fellow of Rufford at Oxford till he was forty-five, when he
+had thought it well to marry and take a living. "But he must have
+been asthmatic then?" said the Senator.
+
+"He may have had all the ailments endured by the human race for
+anything I know," said the unhappy host.
+
+"And for anything the bishop cared as far as I can see," said the
+Senator. "Well now, I guess, that couldn't occur in our country. A
+minister may turn out badly with us as well as with you. But we
+don't appoint a man without inquiry as to his fitness,--and if a
+man can't do his duty he has to give way to some one who can.
+If the sick man took the small portion of the stipend and the
+working man the larger, would not better justice be done, and the
+people better served?"
+
+"Mr. Puttock has a freehold in the parish."
+
+"A freehold possession of men's souls! The fact is, Mr. Morton,
+that the spirit of conservatism in this country is so strong that
+you cannot bear to part with a shred of the barbarism of the middle
+ages. And when a rag is sent to the winds you shriek with agony at
+the disruption, and think that the wound will be mortal." As Mr.
+Gotobed said this he extended his right hand and laid his left on
+his breast as though he were addressing the Senate from his own
+chair. Morton, who had offered to entertain the gentleman for ten
+days, sincerely wished that he were doing so.
+
+On the Monday afternoon the Trefoils arrived. Mr. Morton, with his
+mother and both the carriages, went down to receive them,--with a
+cart also for luggage, which was fortunate, as Arabella Trefoil's
+big box was very big indeed, and Lady Augustus, though she was
+economical in most things, had brought a comfortable amount of
+clothes. Each of them had her own lady's maid, so that the two
+carriages were necessary. How it was that these ladies lived so
+luxuriously was a mystery to their friends, as for some time past
+they had enjoyed no particular income of their own. Lord Augustus
+had spent everything that came to his hand, and the family owned no
+house at all. Nevertheless Arabella Trefoil was to be seen at all
+parties magnificently dressed, and never stirred anywhere without
+her own maid. It would have been as grievous to her to be called on
+to live without food as to go without this necessary appendage. She
+was a big, fair girl whose copious hair was managed after such a
+fashion that no one could guess what was her own and what was
+purchased. She certainly had fine eyes, though I could never
+imagine how any one could look at them and think it possible that
+she should be in love. They were very large, beautifully blue, but
+never bright; and the eyebrows over them were perfect. Her cheeks
+were somewhat too long and the distance from her well-formed nose,
+to her upper lip too great. Her mouth was small and her teeth
+excellent. But the charm of which men spoke the most was the
+brilliance of her complexion. If, as the ladies said, it was all
+paint, she, or her maid, must have been a great artist. It never
+betrayed itself to be paint. But the beauty on which she prided
+herself was the grace of her motion. Though she was tall and big
+she never allowed an awkward movement to escape from her. She
+certainly did it very well. No young woman could walk across an
+archery ground with a finer step, or manage a train with more
+perfect ease, or sit upon her horse with a more complete look of
+being at home there. No doubt she was slow, but though slow she
+never seemed to drag. Now she was, after a certain fashion, engaged
+to marry John Morton and perhaps she was one of the most unhappy
+young persons in England.
+
+She had long known that it was her duty to marry, and especially
+her duty to marry well. Between her and her mother there had been
+no reticence on this subject. With worldly people in general,
+though the worldliness is manifest enough and is taught by plain
+lessons from parents to their children, yet there is generally some
+thin veil even among themselves, some transparent tissue of lies,
+which, though they never quite hope to deceive each other, does
+produce among them something of the comfort of deceit. But between
+Lady Augustus and her daughter there had for many years been
+nothing of the kind. The daughter herself had been too honest for
+it. "As for caring about him, mamma," she had once said, speaking
+of a suitor, "of course I don't. He is nasty, and odious in every
+way. But I have got to do the best I can, and what is the use of
+talking about such trash as that?" Then there had been no more
+trash between them.
+
+It was not John Morton whom Arabella Trefoil had called nasty and
+odious. She had had many lovers, and had been engaged to not a few,
+and perhaps she liked John Morton as well as any of them, except
+one. He was quiet, and looked like a gentleman, and was reputed for
+no vices. Nor did she quarrel with her fate in that he himself was
+not addicted to any pleasures. She herself did not care much for
+pleasure. But she did care to be a great lady,--one who would be
+allowed to swim out of rooms before others, one who could snub
+others, one who could show real diamonds when others wore paste,
+one who might be sure to be asked everywhere even by the people who
+hated her. She rather liked being hated by women and did not want
+any man to be in love with her,--except as far as might be
+sufficient for the purpose of marriage. The real diamonds and the
+high rank would not be hers with John Morton. She would have to be
+content with such rank as is accorded to Ministers at the Courts at
+which they are employed. The fall would be great from what she had
+once expected,--and therefore she was miserable. There had been a
+young man, of immense wealth, of great rank, whom at one time she
+really had fancied that she had loved; but just as she was landing
+her prey, the prey had been rescued from her by powerful friends,
+and she had been all but broken-hearted. Mr. Morton's fortune was
+in her eyes small, and she was beginning to learn that he knew how
+to take care of his own money. Already there had been difficulties
+as to settlements, difficulties as to pin-money, difficulties as to
+residence, Lady Augustus having been very urgent. John Morton, who
+had really been captivated by the beauty of Arabella, was quite in
+earnest; but there were subjects on which he would not give way. He
+was anxious to put his best leg foremost so that the beauty might
+be satisfied and might become his own, but there was a limit beyond
+which he would not go. Lady Augustus had more than once said to her
+daughter that it would not do; and then there would be all the
+weary work to do again!
+
+Nobody seeing the meeting on the platform would have imagined that Mr.
+Morton and Miss Trefoil were lovers,--and as for Lady Augustus it would
+have been thought that she was in some special degree offended with the
+gentleman who had come to meet her. She just gave him the tip of her
+fingers and then turned away to her maid and called for the porters and
+made herself particular and disagreeable. Arabella vouchsafed a cold
+smile, but then her smiles were always cold. After that she stood still
+and shivered. "Are you cold?" asked Morton. She shook her head and
+shivered again. "Perhaps you are tired?" Then she nodded her head. When
+her maid came to her in some trouble about the luggage, she begged that
+she "might not be bothered;" saying that no doubt her mother knew all
+about it. "Can I do anything?" asked Morton. "Nothing at all I should
+think," said Miss Trefoil. In the meantime old Mrs. Morton was standing
+by as black as thunder--for the Trefoil ladies had hardly noticed her.
+
+The luggage turned up all right at last,--as luggage always does,
+and was stowed away in the cart. Then came the carriage
+arrangement. Morton had intended that the two elder ladies should
+go together with one of the maids, and that he should put his love
+into the other, which having a seat behind could accommodate the
+second girl without disturbing them in the carriage. But Lady
+Augustus had made some exception to this and had begged that her
+daughter might be seated with herself. It was a point which Morton
+could not contest out there among the porters and drivers, so that
+at last he and his grandmother had the phaeton together with the
+two maids in the rumble. "I never saw such manners in all my life,"
+said the Honourable Mrs. Morton, almost bursting with passion.
+
+"They are cold and tired, ma'am."
+
+"No lady should be too cold or too tired to conduct herself with
+propriety. No real lady is ever so."
+
+"The place is strange to them, you know."
+
+"I hope with all my heart that it may never be otherwise than
+strange to them."
+
+When they arrived at the house the strangers were carried into the
+library and tea was of course brought to them. The American Senator
+was there, but the greetings were very cold. Mrs. Morton took her
+place and offered her hospitality in the most frigid manner. There
+had not been the smallest spark of love's flame shown as yet, nor
+did the girl as she sat sipping her tea seem to think that any such
+spark was wanted. Morton did get a seat beside her and managed to
+take away her muff and one of her shawls, but she gave them to him
+almost as she might have done to a servant. She smiled indeed, but
+she smiled as some women smile at everybody who has any intercourse
+with them. "I think perhaps Mrs. Morton will let us go up-stairs,"
+said Lady Augustus. Mrs. Morton immediately rang the bell and
+prepared to precede the ladies to their chambers. Let them be as
+insolent as they would she would do what she conceived to be her
+duty. Then Lady Augustus stalked out of the room and her daughter
+swum after her. "They don't seem to be quite the same as they were
+in Washington," said the Senator.
+
+John Morton got up and left the room without making any reply. He
+was thoroughly unhappy. What was he to do for a week with such a
+houseful of people? And then, what was he to do for all his life if
+the presiding spirit of the house was to be such a one as this? She
+was very beautiful--certainly. So he told himself; and yet as he
+walked round the park he almost repented of what he had done. But
+after twenty minutes fast walking he was able to convince himself
+that all the fault on this occasion lay with the mother. Lady
+Augustus had been fatigued with her journey and had therefore made
+everybody near her miserable.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+At Bragton
+
+
+When the ladies went up-stairs the afternoon was not half over and
+they did not dine till past seven. As Morton returned to the house
+in the dusk he thought that perhaps Arabella might make some
+attempt to throw herself in his way. She had often done so when
+they were not engaged, and surely she might do so now. There was
+nothing to prevent her coming down to the library when she had got
+rid of her travelling clothes, and in this hope he looked into the
+room. As soon as the door was open the Senator, who was preparing
+his lecture in his mind, at once asked whether no one in England
+had an apparatus for warming rooms such as was to be found in every
+well-built house in the States. The Paragon hardly vouchsafed him a
+word of reply, but escaped up-stairs trusting that he might meet
+Miss Trefoil on the way. He was a bold man and even ventured to
+knock at her door;--but there was no reply, and, fearing the
+Senator, he had to betake himself to his own privacy. Miss Trefoil
+had migrated to her mother's room, and there, over the fire, was
+holding a little domestic conversation. "I never saw such a barrack
+in my life," said Lady Augustus.
+
+"Of course, mamma, we knew that we should find the house such as it
+was left a hundred years ago. He told us that himself."
+
+"He should have put something in it to make it at any rate decent
+before we came in."
+
+"What's the use if he's to live always at foreign courts?"
+
+"He intends to come home sometimes, I suppose, and, if he didn't,
+you would." Lady Augustus was not going to let her daughter marry a
+man who could not give her a home for at any rate a part of the
+year. "Of course he must furnish the place and have an immense deal
+done before he can marry. I think it is a piece of impudence to
+bring one to such a place as this."
+
+"That's nonsense, mamma, because he told us all about it"
+
+"The more I see of it all, Arabella, the more sure I am that it
+won't do."
+
+"It must do, mamma."
+
+"Twelve hundred a year is all that he offers, and his lawyer says
+that he will make no stipulation whatever as to an allowance."
+
+"Really, mamma, you might leave that to me."
+
+"I like to have everything fixed, my dear,--and certain."
+
+"Nothing really ever is certain. While there is anything to get you
+may be sure that I shall have my share. As far as money goes I'm
+not a bit afraid of having the worst of it,--only there will be so
+very little between us."
+
+"That's just it."
+
+"There's no doubt about the property, mamma."
+
+"A nasty beggarly place!"
+
+"And from what everybody says he's sure to be a minister or
+ambassador or something of that sort."
+
+"I've no doubt he will. And where'll he have to go to? To Brazil,
+or the West Indies, or some British Colony," said her ladyship
+showing her ignorance of the Foreign Office service. "That might be
+very well. You could stay at home. Only where would you live? He
+wouldn't keep a house in town for you. Is this the sort of place
+you'd like?"
+
+"I don't think it makes any difference where one is," said Arabella
+disgusted.
+
+"But I do,--a very great difference. It seems to me that he's
+altogether under the control of that hideous old termagant.
+Arabella, I think you'd better make up your mind that it won't do."
+
+"It must do," said Arabella.
+
+"You're very fond of him it seems."
+
+"Mamma, how you do delight to torture me;--as if my life weren't
+bad enough without your making it worse."
+
+"I tell you, my dear, what I'm bound to. tell you--as your mother.
+I have my duty to do whether it's painful or not."
+
+"That's nonsense, mamma. You know it is. That might have been all
+very well ten years ago."
+
+"You were almost in your cradle, my dear."
+
+"Psha! cradle! I'll tell you what it is, mamma. I've been at it
+till I'm nearly broken down. I must settle somewhere;--or else
+die;--or else run away. I can't stand this any longer and I won't.
+Talk of work,--men's work! What man ever has to work as I do? I
+wonder which was the hardest part of that work, the hairdressing
+and painting and companionship of the lady's maid or the continual
+smiling upon unmarried men to whom she had nothing to say and for
+whom she did not in the least care! I can't do it any more, and I
+won't. As for Mr. Morton, I don't care that for him. You know I
+don't. I never cared much for anybody, and shall never again care
+at all."
+
+"You'll find that will come all right after you are married."
+
+"Like you and papa, I suppose."
+
+"My dear, I had no mother to take care of me, or I shouldn't have
+married your father."
+
+"I wish you hadn't, because then I shouldn't be going to marry Mr.
+Morton. But, as I have got so far, for heaven's sake let it go on.
+If you break with him I'll tell him everything and throw myself
+into his hands." Lady Augustus sighed deeply. "I will, mamma. It
+was you spotted this man, and when you said that you thought it
+would do, I gave way. He was the last man in the world I should
+have thought of myself."
+
+"We had heard so much about Bragton!"
+
+"And Bragton is here. The estate is not out of elbows."
+
+"My dear, my opinion is that we've made a mistake. He's not the
+sort of man I took him to be. He's as hard as a file."
+
+"Leave that to me, mammal"
+
+"You are determined then?"
+
+"I think I am. At any rate let me look about me. Don't give him an
+opportunity of breaking off till I have made up my mind. I can
+always break off if I like it. No one in London has heard of the
+engagement yet. Just leave me alone for this week to see what I
+think about it" Then Lady Augustus threw herself back in her chair
+and went to sleep, or pretended to do so.
+
+A little after half-past seven she and her daughter, dressed for
+dinner, went down to the library together. The other guests were
+assembled there, and Mrs. Morton was already plainly expressing her
+anger at the tardiness of her son's guests. The Senator had got
+hold of Mr. Mainwaring and was asking pressing questions as to
+church patronage,--a subject not very agreeable to the rector of
+St. John's, as his living had been bought for him with his wife's
+money during the incumbency of an old gentleman of seventy-eight.
+Mr. Cooper, who was himself nearly that age and who was vicar of
+Mallingham, a parish which ran into Dillsborough and comprehended a
+part of its population, was listening to these queries with awe,
+and perhaps with some little gratification, as he had been
+presented to his living by the bishop after a curacy of many years.
+"This kind of things, I believe, can be bought and sold in the
+market," said the Senator, speaking every word with absolute
+distinctness. But as he paused for an answer the two ladies came in
+and the conversation was changed. Both the clergymen were
+introduced to Lady Augustus and her daughter, and Mr. Mainwaring at
+once took refuge under the shadow of the ladies' title.
+
+Arabella did not sit down, so that Morton had an opportunity of
+standing near to his love. "I suppose you are very tired," he said.
+
+"Not in the least." She smiled her sweetest as she answered him,--
+but yet it was not very sweet. "Of course we were tired and cross
+when we got out of the train. People always are; aren't they?"
+
+"Perhaps ladies are."
+
+"We were. But all that about the carriages, Mr. Morton, wasn't my
+doing. Mamma had been talking to me so much that I didn't know
+whether I was on my head or my heels. It was very good of you to
+come and meet us, and I ought to have been more gracious." In this
+way she made her peace, and as she was quite in earnest,--doing a
+portion of the hard work of her life,--she continued to smile as
+sweetly as she could. Perhaps he liked it;--but any man endowed
+with that power of appreciation which we call sympathy, would have
+felt it to be as cold as though it had come from a figure on a
+glass window.
+
+The dinner was announced. Mr. Morton was honoured with the hand of
+Lady Augustus. The Senator handed the old lady into the dining-room
+and Mr. Mainwaring the younger lady,--so that Arabella was sitting
+next to her lover. It had all been planned by Morton and acceded to
+by his grandmother. Mr. Gotobed throughout the dinner had the best
+of the conversation, though Lady Augustus had power enough to snub
+him on more than one occasion. "Suppose we were to allow at once,"
+she said, "that everything is better in the United States than
+anywhere else, shouldn't we get along easier?"
+
+"I don't know that getting along easy is what we have particularly
+got in view," said Mr. Gotobed, who was certainly in quest of
+information.
+
+"But it is what I have in view, Mr. Gotobed;--so if you please
+we'll take the pre-eminence of your country for granted." Then she
+turned to Mr. Mainwaring on the other side. Upon this the Senator
+addressed himself for a while to the table at large and had soon
+forgotten altogether the expression of the lady's wishes.
+
+"I believe you have a good many churches about here," said Lady
+Augustus trying to make conversation to her neighbour.
+
+"One in every parish, I fancy," said Mr. Mainwaring, who preferred
+all subjects to clerical subjects. "I suppose London is quite empty
+now."
+
+"We came direct from the Duke's," said Lady Augustus, "and did not
+even sleep in town;--but it is empty." The Duke was the brother of
+Lord Augustus, and a compromise had been made with Lady Augustus,
+by which she and her daughter should be allowed a fortnight every
+year at the Duke's place in the country, and a certain amount of
+entertainment in town.
+
+"I remember the Duke at Christchurch," said the parson. "He and I
+were of the same par. He was Lord Mistletoe then. Dear me, that was
+a long time ago. I wonder whether he remembers being upset out of a
+trap with me one day after dinner. I suppose we had dined in
+earnest. He has gone his way, and I have gone mine, and I've never
+seen him since. Pray remember me to him." Lady Augustus said she
+would, and did entertain some little increased respect for the
+clergyman who could boast that he had been tipsy in company with
+her worthy brother-in-law.
+
+Poor Mr. Cooper did not get on very well with Mrs. Morton. All his
+remembrances of the old squire were eulogistic and affectionate.
+Hers were just the reverse. He had a good word to say for Reginald
+Morton,--to which she would not even listen. She was willing enough
+to ask questions about the Mallingham tenants;--but Mr. Cooper
+would revert back to the old days, and so conversation was at an
+end.
+
+Morton tried to make himself agreeable to his left-hand neighbour,
+trying also very hard to make himself believe that he was happy in
+his immediate position. How often in the various amusements of the
+world is one tempted to pause a moment and ask oneself whether one
+really likes it! He was conscious that he was working hard,
+struggling to be happy, painfully anxious to be sure that he was
+enjoying the luxury of being in love. But he was not at all
+contented. There she was, and very beautiful she looked; and he
+thought that he could be proud of her if she sat at the end of his
+table;--and he knew that she was engaged to be his wife. But he
+doubted whether she was in love with him; and he almost doubted
+sometimes whether he was very much in love with her. He asked her
+in so many words what he should do to amuse her. Would she like to
+ride with him, as if so he would endeavour to get saddle-horses.
+Would she like to go out hunting? Would she be taken round to see
+the neighbouring towns, Rufford and Norrington? "Lord Rufford lives
+somewhere near Rufford?" she asked. Yes; he lived at Rufford Hall,
+three or four miles from the town. Did Lord Rufford hunt? Morton
+believed that he was greatly given to hunting. Then he asked
+Arabella whether she knew the young lord. She had just met him, she
+said, and had only asked the question because of the name. "He is
+one of my neighbours down here," said Morton;--"but being always
+away of course I see nothing of him." After that Arabella consented
+to be taken out on horseback to see a meet of the hounds although
+she could not hunt. "We must see what we can do about horses," he
+said. She however professed her readiness to go in the carriage if
+a saddle-horse could not be found.
+
+The dinner party I fear was very dull. Mr. Mainwaring perhaps liked
+it because he was fond of dining anywhere away from home. Mr.
+Cooper was glad once more to see his late old friend's old
+dining-room. Mr. Gotobed perhaps obtained some information. But
+otherwise the affair was dull. "Are we to have a week of this?"
+said Lady Augustus when she found herself up-stairs.
+
+"You must, mamma, if we are to stay till we go to the Gores. Lord
+Rufford is here in the neighbourhood."
+
+"But they don't know each other."
+
+"Yes they do;--slightly. I am to go to the meet someday and he'll
+be there."
+
+"It might be dangerous."
+
+"Nonsense, mamma! And after all you've been saying about dropping
+Mr. Morton!"
+
+"But there is nothing so bad as a useless flirtation."
+
+"Do I ever flirt? Oh, mamma, that after so many years you shouldn't
+know me! Did you ever see me yet making myself happy in any way?
+What nonsense you talk!" Then without waiting for, or making, any
+apology, she walked off to her own room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+The Dillsborough Feud
+
+
+"It's that nasty, beastly, drunken club," said Mrs. Masters to her
+unfortunate husband on the Wednesday morning. It may perhaps be
+remembered that the poisoned fox was found on the Saturday, and it
+may be imagined that Mr. Goarly had risen in importance since that
+day. On the Saturday Bean with a couple of men employed by Lord
+Rufford, had searched the wood, and found four or five red herrings
+poisoned with strychnine. There had been no doubt about the
+magnitude of the offence. On the Monday a detective policeman,
+dressed of course in rustic disguise but not the less known to
+every one in the place, was wandering about between Dillsborough
+and Dillsborough Wood and making futile inquiries as to the
+purchase of strychnine,--and also as to the purchase of red
+herrings. But every one knew, and such leading people as Runciman
+and Dr. Nupper were not slow to declare, that Dillsborough was the
+only place in England in which one might be sure that those
+articles had not been purchased. And on the Tuesday it began to be
+understood that Goarly had applied to Bearside, the other attorney,
+in reference to his claim against Lord Rufford's pheasants. He had
+contemptuously refused the 7s. 6d. an acre offered him, and put his
+demand at 40s. As to the poisoned fox and the herrings and the
+strychnine Goarly declared that he didn't care if there were twenty
+detectives in the place. He stated it to be his opinion that Larry
+Twentyman had put down the poison. It was all very well, Goarly
+said, for Larry to be fond of gentlemen and to ride to hounds, and
+make pretences;--but Larry liked his turkeys as well as anybody
+else, and Larry had put down the poison. In this matter Goarly
+overreached himself. No one in Dillsborough could be brought to
+believe that. Even Harry Stubbings was ready to swear that he
+should suspect himself as soon. But nothing was clearer than
+this,--that Goarly was going to make a stand against the hunt and
+especially against Lord Rufford. He had gone to Bearside and
+Bearside had taken up the matter in a serious way. Then it became
+known very quickly that Bearside had already received money, and it
+was surmised that Goarly had some one at his back. Lord Rufford had
+lately ejected from a house of his on the other side of the county
+a discontented litigious retired grocer from Rufford, who had made
+some money and had set himself up in a pretty little residence with
+a few acres of land. The man had made himself objectionable and had
+been dispossessed. The man's name was Scrobby; and hence had come
+these sorrows. This was the story that had already made itself
+known in Dillsborough on the Tuesday evening. But up to that time
+not a tittle of evidence had come to light as to the purchase of
+the red herrings or the strychnine. All that was known was the fact
+that had not Tony Tuppett stopped the hounds before they reached
+the wood, there must have been a terrible mortality. "It's that
+nasty, beastly, drunken club," said Mrs. Masters to her husband. Of
+course it was at this time known to the lady that her husband had
+thrown away Goarly's business and that it had been transferred to
+Bearside. It was also surmised by her, as it was by the town in
+general, that Goarly's business would come to considerable
+dimensions;--just the sort of case as would have been sure to bring
+popularity if carried through, as Nickem, the senior clerk, would
+have carried it. And as soon as Scrobby's name was heard by Mrs.
+Masters, there was no end to the money in the lady's imagination to
+which this very case might not have amounted.
+
+"The club had nothing to do with it, my dear."
+
+"What time did you come home on Saturday night;--or Sunday morning
+I mean? Do you mean to tell me you didn't settle it there?"
+
+"There was no nastiness, and no beastliness, and no drunkenness
+about it. I told you before I went that I wouldn't take it"
+
+"No;--you didn't. How on earth are you to go on if you chuck the
+children's bread out of their mouths in that way?"
+
+"You won't believe me. Do you ask Twentyman what sort of a man
+Goarly is." The attorney knew that Larry was in great favour with
+his wife as being the favoured suitor for Mary's hand, and had
+thought that this argument would be very strong.
+
+"I don't want Mr. Twentyman to teach me what is proper for my
+family,--nor yet to teach you your business. Mr. Twentyman has his
+own way of living. He brought home Kate the other day with hardly a
+rag of her sister's habit left. She don't go out hunting any more."
+
+"Very well, my dear."
+
+"Indeed for the matter of that I don't see how any of them are to
+do anything. What'll Lord Rufford do for you?"
+
+"I don't want Lord Rufford to do anything for me." The attorney was
+beginning to have his spirit stirred within him.
+
+"You don't want anybody to do anything, and yet you will do nothing
+yourself, just because a set of drinking fellows in a tap-room,
+which you call a club--"
+
+"It isn't a tap-room."
+
+"It's worse, because nobody can see what you're doing. I know how
+it was. You hadn't the pluck to hold to your own when Runciman told
+you not" There was a spice of truth in this which made it all the
+more bitter. "Runciman knows on which side his bread is buttered.
+He can make his money out of these swearing-tearing fellows. He can
+send in his bills, and get them paid too. And it's all very well
+for Larry Twentyman to be hobbing and nobbing with the likes of
+them Botseys. But for a father of a family like you to be put off
+his business by what Mr. Runciman says is a shame."
+
+"I shall manage my business as I think fit," said the attorney.
+
+"And when we're all in the poor-house what'll you do then?" said
+Mrs. Masters,--with her handkerchief out at the spur of the moment.
+Whenever she roused her husband to a state of bellicose ire by her
+taunts she could always reduce him again by her tears. Being well
+aware of this he would bear the taunts as long as he could, knowing
+that the tears would be still worse. He was so soft-hearted that
+when she affected to be miserable, he could not maintain the
+sternness of his demeanour and leave her in her misery. "When
+everything has gone away from us, what are we to do? My little bit
+of money has disappeared ever so long." Then she sat herself down
+in her chair and had a great cry. It was useless for him to remind
+her that hitherto she had never wanted anything for herself or her
+children. She was resolved that everything was going to the dogs
+because Goarly's case had been refused. "And what will all those
+sporting men do for you?" she repeated. "I hate the very name of a
+gentleman;--so I do. I wish Goarly had killed all the foxes in the
+county. Nasty vermin! What good are the likes of them?"
+
+Nickem, the senior clerk, was at first made almost as unhappy as
+Mrs. Masters by the weak decision to which his employer had come,
+and had in the first flush of his anger resolved to leave the
+office. He was sure that the case was one which would just have
+suited him. He would have got up the evidence as to the fertility
+of the land, the enormous promise of crop, and the ultimate
+absolute barrenness, to a marvel. He would have proved clouds of
+pheasants. And then Goarly's humble position, futile industry, and
+general poverty might have been contrasted beautifully with Lord
+Rufford's wealth, idleness, and devotion to sport. Anything above
+the 7s. 6d. an acre obtained against the lord would have been a
+triumph, and he thought that if the thing had been well managed,
+they might probably have got 15s. And then, in such a case, Lord
+Rufford could hardly have taxed the costs. It was really suicide
+for an attorney to throw away business so excellent as this. And
+now it had gone to Bearside whom Nickem remembered as a junior to
+himself when they were both young hobbledehoys at Norrington,--a
+dirty, blear-eyed, pimply-faced boy who was suspected of purloining
+halfpence out of coat-pockets. The thing was very trying to Nat
+Nickem. But suddenly, before that Wednesday was over, another idea
+had occurred to him, and he was almost content. He knew Goarly, and
+he had heard of Scrobby and Scrobby's history in regard to the
+tenement at Rufford. As he could not get Goarly's case why should
+he not make something of the case against Goarly? That detective
+was merely eking out his time and having an idle week among the
+public-houses. If he could set himself up as an amateur detective
+he thought that he might perhaps get to the bottom of it all. It is
+not a bad thing to be concerned on the same side with a lord when
+the lord is in earnest. Lord Rufford was very angry about the
+poison in the covert and would probably be ready to pay very
+handsomely for having the criminal found and punished. The criminal
+of course was Goarly. Nickem did not doubt that for a moment, and
+would not have doubted it whichever side he might have taken.
+Nickem did not suppose that any one for a moment really doubted
+Goarly's guilt. But to his eyes such certainty amounted to nothing,
+if evidence of the crime were not forthcoming. He probably felt
+within his own bosom that the last judgment of all would depend in
+some way on terrestrial evidence, and was quite sure that it was by
+such that a man's conscience should be affected. If Goarly had so
+done the deed as to be beyond the possibility of detection, Nickem
+could not have brought himself to regard Goarly as a sinner. As it
+was he had considerable respect for Goarly;--but might it not be
+possible to drop down upon Scrobby? Bearside with his case against
+the lord would be nowhere, if Goarly could be got to own that he
+had been suborned by Scrobby to put down the poison. Or, if in
+default of this, any close communication could be proved between
+Goarly and Scrobby,--Scrobby's injury and spirit of revenge being
+patent,--then too Bearside would not have much of a case. A jury
+would look at that question of damages with a very different eye if
+Scrobby's spirit of revenge could be proved at the trial, and also
+the poisoning, and also machinations between Scrobby and Goarly.
+
+Nickem was a little red-haired man about forty, who wrote a good
+flourishing hand, could endure an immense amount of work, and drink
+a large amount of alcohol without being drunk. His nose and face
+were all over blotches, and he looked to be dissipated and
+disreputable. But, as he often boasted, no one could say that
+"black was the white of his eye;"--by which he meant to insinuate
+that he had not been detected in anything dishonest and that he was
+never too tipsy to do his work. He was a married man and did not
+keep his wife and children in absolute comfort; but they lived, and
+Mr. Nickem in some fashion paid his way.
+
+There was another clerk in the office, a very much younger man,
+named Sundown, and Nickem could not make his proposition to Mr.
+Masters till Sundown had left the office. Nickem himself had only
+matured his plans at dinner time and was obliged to be reticent,
+till at six o'clock Sundown took himself off. Mr. Masters was, at
+the moment, locking his own desk, when Nickem winked at him to
+stay. Mr. Masters did stay, and Sundown did at last leave the
+office.
+
+"You couldn't let me leave home for three days?" said Nickem.
+"There ain't much a doing."
+
+"What do you want it for?"
+
+"That Goarly is a great blackguard, Mr. Masters."
+
+"Very likely. Do you know anything about him?"
+
+Nickem scratched his head and rubbed his chin. "I think I could
+manage to know something."
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"I don't think I'm quite prepared to say, sir. I shouldn't use your
+name of course. But they're down upon Lord Rufford, and if you
+could lend me a trifle of 30s., sir, I think I could get to the
+bottom of it. His lordship would be awful obliged to any one who
+could hit it off"
+
+Mr. Masters did give his clerk leave for three days, and did
+advance him the required money. And when he suggested in a whisper
+that perhaps the circumstance need not be mentioned to Mrs.
+Masters, Nickem winked again and put his fore-finger to the side of
+his big carbuncled nose.
+
+That evening Larry Twentyman came in, but was not received with any
+great favour by Mrs. Masters. There was growing up at this moment
+in Dillsborough the bitterness of real warfare between the friends
+and enemies of sport in general, and Mrs. Masters was ranking
+herself thereby among the enemies. Larry was of course one of the
+friends. But unhappily there was a slight difference of sentiment
+even in Larry's own house, and on this very morning old Mrs.
+Twentyman had expressed to Mrs. Masters a feeling of wrong which
+had gradually risen from the annual demolition of her pet broods of
+turkeys. She declared that for the last three years every turkey
+poult had gone, and that at last she was beginning to feel it.
+"It's over a hundred of 'em they've had, and it is wearing," said
+the old woman. Larry had twenty times begged her to give up the
+rearing turkeys, but her heart had been too high for that. "I don't
+know why Lord Rufford's foxes are to be thought of always, and
+nobody is to think about your poor mother's poultry," said Mrs.
+Masters, lugging the subject in neck and heels.
+
+"Has she been talking to you, Mrs. Masters, about her turkeys?"
+
+"Your mother may speak to me I suppose if she likes it, without
+offence to Lord Rufford."
+
+"Lord Rufford has got nothing to do with it"
+
+"The wood belongs to him," said Mrs. Masters.
+
+"Foxes are much better than turkeys anyway," said Kate Masters.
+
+"If you don't hold your tongue, miss, you'll be sent to bed. The
+wood belongs to his lordship, and the foxes are a nuisance."
+
+"He keeps the foxes for the county, and where would the county be
+without them?" began Larry. "What is it brings money into such a
+place as this?"
+
+"To Runciman's stables and Harry Stubbings and the like of them.
+What money does it bring in to steady honest people?"
+
+"Look at all the grooms," said Larry.
+
+"The impudentest set of young vipers about the place," said the
+lady.
+
+"Look at Grice's business." Grice was the saddler.
+
+"Grice indeed! What's Grice?"
+
+"And the price of horses?"
+
+"Yes;--making everything dear that ought to be cheap. I don't see
+and I never shall see and I never will see any good in extravagant
+idleness. As for Kate she shall never go out hunting again. She has
+torn Mary's habit to pieces. And shooting is worse. Why is a man to
+have a flock of voracious cormorants come down upon his corn
+fields? I'm The American Senator, all in favour of Goarly, and so,
+I tell you, Mr. Twentyman." After this poor Larry went away,
+finding that he had no opportunity for saying a word to Mary
+Masters.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+A fit Companion,--for me and my Sisters
+
+
+On that same Wednesday Reginald Morton had called at the attorney's
+house, had asked for Miss Masters, and had found her alone. Mrs.
+Masters at the time had been out, picking up intelligence about the
+great case, and the two younger girls had been at school. Reginald,
+as he walked home from Bragton all alone on that occasion when
+Larry had returned with Mary, was quite sure that he would never
+willingly go into Mary's presence again. Why should he disturb his
+mind about such a girl,--one who could rush into the arms of such a
+man as Larry Twentyman? Or, indeed, why disturb his mind about any
+girl? That was not the manner of life which he planned for himself.
+After that he shut himself up for a few days and was not much seen
+by any of the Dillsborough folk. But on this Wednesday he received
+a letter, and,--as he told himself, merely in consequence of that
+letter,--he called at the attorney's house and asked for Miss
+Masters.
+
+He was shown up into the beautiful drawing-room, and in a few
+minutes Mary came to him. "I have brought you a letter from my
+aunt," he said.
+
+"From Lady Ushant? I am so glad."
+
+"She was writing to me and she put this under cover. I know what it
+contains. She wants you to go to her at Cheltenham for a month."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Morton!"
+
+"Would you like to go?"
+
+"How should I not like to go? Lady Ushant is my dearest, dearest
+friend. It is so very good of her to think of me."
+
+"She talks of the first week in December and wants you to be there
+for Christmas."
+
+"I don't at all know that I can go, Mr. Morton"
+
+"Why not go?"
+
+"I'm afraid mamma will not spare me." There were many reasons. She
+could hardly go on such a visit without some renewal of her scanty
+wardrobe, which perhaps the family funds would not permit. And, as
+she knew very well, Mrs. Masters was not at all favourable to Lady
+Ushant. If the old lady had altogether kept Mary it might have been
+very well; but she had not done so and Mrs. Masters had more than
+once said that that kind of thing must be all over;--meaning that
+Mary was to drop her intimacy with high-born people that were of no
+real use. And then there was Mr. Twentyman and his suit. Mary had
+for some time felt that her step-mother intended her to understand
+that her only escape from home would be by becoming Mrs. Twentyman.
+"I don't think it will be possible, Mr. Morton."
+
+"My aunt will be very sorry."
+
+"Oh,--how sorry shall I be! It is like having another little bit of
+heaven before me."
+
+Then he said what he certainly should not have said. "I thought,
+Miss Masters, that your heaven was all here."
+
+"What do you mean by that, Mr. Morton?" she asked blushing up to
+her hair. Of course she knew what he meant, and of course she was
+angry with him. Ever since that walk her mind had been troubled by
+ideas as to what he would think about her, and now he was telling
+her what he thought.
+
+"I fancied that you were happy here without going to see an old
+woman who after all has not much amusement to offer to you."
+
+"I don't want any amusement."
+
+"At any rate you will answer Lady Ushant?"
+
+"Of course I shall answer her."
+
+"Perhaps you can let me know. She wishes me to take you to
+Cheltenham. I shall go for a couple of days, but I shall not stay
+longer. If you are going perhaps you would allow me to travel with
+you."
+
+"Of course it would be very kind; but I don't suppose that I shall
+go. I am sure Lady Ushant won't believe that I am kept away from
+her by any pleasure of my own here. I can explain it all to her and
+she will understand me." She hardly meant to reproach him. She did
+not mean to assume an intimacy sufficient for reproach. But he felt
+that she had reproached him. "I love Lady Ushant so dearly that I
+would go anywhere to see her if I could."
+
+"Then I think it could be managed. Your father----"
+
+"Papa does not attend much to us girls. It is mamma that manages
+all that. At any rate, I will write to Lady Ushant, and will ask
+papa to let you know"
+
+Then it seemed as though there were nothing else for him but to
+go;--and yet he wanted to say some other word. If he had been cruel
+in throwing Mr. Twentyman in her teeth, surely he ought to
+apologize. "I did not mean to say anything to offend you."
+
+"You have not offended me at all, Mr. Morton."
+
+"If I did think that,--that----"
+
+"It does not signify in the least. I only want Lady Ushant to
+understand that if I could possibly go to her I would rather do
+that than anything else in the world. Because Lady Ushant is kind
+to me I needn't expect other people to be so." Reginald Morton was
+of course the "other people."
+
+Then he paused a moment. "I did so long," he said, "to walk round
+the old place with you the other day before these people came
+there, and I was so disappointed when you would not come with me."
+
+"I was coming."
+
+"But you went back with--that other man"
+
+"Of course I did when you showed so plainly that you didn't want
+him to join you. What was I to do? I couldn't send him away. Mr.
+Twentyman is a very intimate friend of ours, and very kind to Dolly
+and Kate."
+
+"I wished so much to talk to you about the old days."
+
+"And I wish to go for your aunt, Mr. Morton; but we can't all of us
+have what we wish. Of course I saw that you were very angry, but I
+couldn't help that. Perhaps it was wrong in Mr. Twentyman to offer
+to walk with you."
+
+"I didn't say so at all."
+
+"You looked it at any rate, Mr. Morton. And as Mr. Twentyman is a
+friend of ours--"
+
+"You were angry with me."
+
+"I don't say that. But as you were too grand for our friend of
+course you were too grand for us."
+
+"That is a very unkind way of putting it. I don't think I am grand.
+A man may wish to have a little conversation with a very old friend
+without being interrupted, and yet not be grand. I dare say Mr.
+Twentyman is just as good as I am."
+
+"You don't think that, Mr. Morton"
+
+"I believe him to be a great deal better, for he earns his bread,
+and takes care of his mother, and as far as I know does his duty
+thoroughly."
+
+"I know the difference, Mr. Morton, and of course I know how you
+feel it. I don't suppose that Mr. Twentyman is a fit companion for
+any of the Mortons, but for all that he may be a fit companion for
+me,--and my sisters." Surely she must have said this with the
+express object of declaring to him that in spite of the advantages
+of her education she chose to put herself in the ranks of the
+Twentymans, Runcimans and such like. He had come there ardently
+wishing that she might be allowed to go to his aunt, and resolved
+that he would take her himself if it were possible. But now he
+almost thought that she had better not go. If she had made her
+election, she must be allowed to abide by it. If she meant to marry
+Mr. Twentyman what good could she get by associating with his aunt
+or with him? And had she not as good as told him that she meant to
+marry Mr. Twentyman? She had at any rate very plainly declared that
+she regarded Mr. Twentyman as her equal in rank. Then he took his
+leave without any further explanation. Even if she did go to
+Cheltenham he would not take her.
+
+After that he walked straight out to Bragton. He was of course
+altogether unconscious what grand things his cousin John had
+intended to do by him, had not the Honourable old lady interfered;
+but he had made up his mind that duty required him to call at the
+house. So he walked by the path across the bridge and when he came
+out on the gravel road near the front door he found a gentleman
+smoking a cigar and looking around him. It was Mr. Gotobed who had
+just returned from a visit which he had made, the circumstances of
+which must be narrated in the next chapter. The Senator lifted his
+hat and remarked that it was a very fine afternoon. Reginald lifted
+his hat and assented. "Mr. Morton, Sir, I think is out with the
+ladies, taking a drive."
+
+"I will leave a card then."
+
+"The old lady is at home, sir, if you wish to see her," continued
+the Senator following Reginald up to the door.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Reginald, is that you?" said old Mrs. Hopkins taking the
+card. "They are all out,--except herself." As he certainly did not
+wish to see "herself," he greeted the old woman and left his card.
+
+"You live in these parts, sir?" asked the Senator.
+
+"In the town yonder."
+
+"Because Mr. Morton's housekeeper seems to know you."
+
+"She knows me very well as I was brought up in this house. Good
+morning to you."
+
+"Good afternoon to you, sir. Perhaps you can tell me who lives in
+that country residence,--what you call a farm-house,--on the other
+side of the road." Reginald said that he presumed the gentleman was
+alluding to Mr. Twentyman's house.
+
+"Ah, yes,--I dare say. That was the name I heard up there. You are
+not Mr. Twentyman, sir?"
+
+"My name is Morton"
+
+"Morton is it;--perhaps my friend's;--ah--ah,--yes." He didn't like
+to say uncle because Reginald didn't look old enough, and he knew
+he ought not to say brother, because the elder brother in England
+would certainly have had the property.
+
+"I am Mr. John Morton's cousin."
+
+"Oh;--Mr. Morton's cousin. I asked whether you were the owner of
+that farm-house because I intruded just now by passing through the
+yards, and I would have apologized. Good afternoon to you, sir."
+Then Reginald having thus done his duty returned home.
+
+Mary Masters when she was alone was again very angry with herself.
+She knew thoroughly how perverse she had been when she declared
+that Larry Twentyman was a fit companion for herself, and that she
+had said it on purpose to punish the man who was talking to her.
+Not a day passed, or hardly an hour of a day, in which she did not
+tell herself that the education she had received and the early
+associations of her life had made her unfit for the marriage which
+her friends were urging upon her. It was the one great sorrow of
+her life. She even repented of the good things of her early days
+because they had given her a distaste for what might have otherwise
+been happiness and good fortune. There had been moments in which
+she had told herself that she ought to marry Larry Twentyman and
+adapt herself to the surroundings of her life. Since she had seen
+Reginald Morton frequently, she had been less prone to tell herself
+so than before; and yet to this very man she had declared her
+fitness for Larry's companionship!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Mr. Gotobed's Philanthropy
+
+
+Mr. Gotobed, when the persecutions of Goarly were described to him
+at the scene of the dead fox, had expressed considerable admiration
+for the man's character as portrayed by what he then heard. The
+man,--a poor man too and despised in the land, was standing up for
+his rights, all alone, against the aristocracy and plutocracy of
+the county. He had killed the demon whom the aristocracy and
+plutocracy worshipped, and had appeared there in arms ready to
+defend his own territory,--one against so many, and so poor a man
+against men so rich! The Senator had at once said that he would
+call upon Mr. Goarly, and the Senator was a man who always carried
+out his purposes. Afterwards, from John Morton, and from others who
+knew the country better than Morton, he learned further
+particulars. On the Monday and Tuesday he fathomed,--or nearly
+fathomed,--that matter of the 7s. 6d. an acre. He learned at any
+rate that the owner of the wood admitted a damage done by him to
+the corn and had then, himself, assessed the damage without
+consultation with the injured party; and he was informed also that
+Goarly was going to law with the lord for a fuller compensation. He
+liked Goarly for killing the fox, and he liked him more for going
+to law with Lord Rufford.
+
+He declared openly at Bragton his sympathy with the man and his
+intention of expressing it. Morton was annoyed and endeavoured to
+persuade him to leave the man alone; but in vain. No doubt had he
+expressed himself decisively and told his friend that he should be
+annoyed by a guest from his house taking part in such a matter, the
+Senator would have abstained and would merely have made one more
+note as to English peculiarities and English ideas of justice; but
+Morton could not bring himself to do this. "The feeling of the
+country will be altogether against you," he had said, hoping to
+deter the Senator. The Senator had replied that though the feeling
+of that little bit of the country might be against him he did not
+believe that such would be the case with the feeling of England
+generally. The ladies had all become a little afraid of Mr. Gotobed
+and hardly dared to express an opinion. Lady Augustus did say that
+she supposed that Goarly was a low vulgar fellow, which of course
+strengthened the Senator in his purpose.
+
+The Senator on Wednesday would not wait for lunch but started a
+little before one with a crust of bread in his pocket to find his
+way to Goarly's house. There was no difficulty in this as he could
+see the wood as soon as he had got upon the high road. He found
+Twentyman's gate and followed directly the route which the hunting
+party had taken, till he came to the spot on which the crowd had
+been assembled. Close to this there was a hand-gate leading into
+Dillsborough wood, and standing in the gateway was a man. The
+Senator thought that this might not improbably be Goarly himself,
+and asked the question, "Might your name be Mr. Goarly, sir?"
+
+"Me Goarly!" said the man in infinite disgust. "I ain't nothing of
+the kind,--and you knows it" That the man should have been annoyed
+at being taken for Goarly, that man being Bean the gamekeeper who
+would willingly have hung Goarly if he could, and would have
+thought it quite proper that a law should be now passed for hanging
+him at once, was natural enough. But why he should have told the
+Senator that the Senator knew he was not Goarly it might be
+difficult to explain. He probably at once regarded the Senator as
+an enemy, as a man on the other side, and therefore as a cunning
+knave who would be sure to come creeping about on false pretences.
+Bean, who had already heard of Bearside and had heard of Scrobby in
+connection with this matter, looked at the Senator very hard. He
+knew Bearside. The man certainly was not the attorney, and from
+what he had heard of Scrobby be didn't think he was Scrobby. The
+man was not like what in his imagination Scrobby would be. He did
+not know what to make of Mr. Gotobed,--who was a person of an
+imposing appearance, tall and thin, with a long nose and look of
+great acuteness, dressed in black from head to foot, but yet not
+looking quite like an English gentleman. He was a man to whom Bean
+in an ordinary way would have been civil,--civil in a cold guarded
+way; but how was he to be civil to anybody who addressed him as
+Goarly?
+
+"I did not know it," said the Senator. "As Goarly lives near here I
+thought you might be Goarly. When I saw Goarly he had a gun, and
+you have a gun. Can you tell me where Goarly lives?"
+
+"Tother side of the wood," said Bean pointing back with his thumb.
+"He never had a gun like this in his hand in all his born days."
+
+"I dare say not, my friend. I can go through the wood I guess;" for
+Bean had pointed exactly over the gateway.
+
+"I guess you can't then," said Bean. The man who, like other
+gamekeepers, lived much in the company of gentlemen, was ordinarily
+a civil courteous fellow, who knew how to smile and make things
+pleasant. But at this moment he was very much put out. His covert
+had been found full of red herrings and strychnine, and his fox had
+been poisoned. He had lost his guinea on the day of the hunt, the
+guinea which would have been his perquisite had they found a live
+fox in his wood. And all this was being done by such a fellow as
+Goarly! And now this abandoned wretch was bringing an action
+against his Lordship and was leagued with such men as Scrobby and
+Bearside! It was a dreadful state of things! How was it likely that
+he should give a passage through the wood to anybody coming after
+Goarly? "You're on Mr. Twentyman's land now, as I dare say you
+know."
+
+"I don't know anything about it"
+
+"Well; that wood is Lord Rufford's wood."
+
+"I did know as much as that, certainly."
+
+"And you can't go into it."
+
+"How shall I find Mr. Goarly's house?"
+
+"If you'll get over that there ditch you'll be on Mister Goarly's
+land and that's all about it" Bean as he said this put a strongly
+ironical emphasis on the term of respect and then turned back into
+the wood.
+
+The Senator made his way down the fence to the bank on which Goarly
+had stood with his gun, then over into Goarly's field, and so round
+the back of the wood till he saw a small red brick house standing
+perhaps four hundred yards from the covert, just on the elbow of a
+lane. It was a miserable-looking place with a pigsty and a dung
+heap and a small horse-pond or duck-puddle all close around it. The
+stack of chimneys seemed to threaten to fall, and as he approached
+from behind he could see that the two windows opening that way were
+stuffed with rags. There was a little cabbage garden which now
+seemed to be all stalks, and a single goose waddling about the
+duck-puddle. The Senator went to the door, and having knocked, was
+investigated by a woman from behind it. Yes, this was Goarly's
+house. What did the gentleman want? Goarly was at work in the
+field. Then she came out, the Senator having signified his friendly
+intentions, and summoned Goarly to the spot.
+
+"I hope I see you well, sir," said the Senator putting out his hand
+as Goarly came up dragging a dung-York behind him.
+
+Goarly rubbed his hand on his breeches before he gave it to be
+shaken and declared himself to be "pretty tidy, considering."
+
+"I was present the other day, Mr. Goarly, when that dead fox was
+exposed to view."
+
+"Was you, sir?"
+
+"I was given to understand that you had destroyed the brute."
+
+"Don't you believe a word on it then," said the woman interposing.
+"He didn't do nothing of the kind. Who ever seed him a' buying of
+red herrings and p'ison?"
+
+"Hold your jaw," said Goarly,--familiarly. "Let 'em prove it. I
+don't know who you are, sir; but let 'em prove it"
+
+"My name, Mr. Goarly, is Elias Gotobed. I am an American citizen,
+and Senator for the State of Mickewa." Mr. and Mrs. Goarly shook
+their heads at every separate item of information tendered to them.
+"I am on a visit to this country and am at present staying at the
+house of my friend, Mr. John Morton."
+
+"He's the gentl'man from Bragton, Dan."
+
+"Hold your jaw, can't you?" said the husband. Then he touched his
+hat to the Senator intending to signify that the Senator might, if
+he pleased, continue his narrative.
+
+"If you did kill that fox, Mr. Goarly, I think you were quite right
+to kill him." Then Goarly winked at him, "I cannot imagine that
+even the laws of England could justify a man in perpetuating a
+breed of wild animals that are destructive to his neighbours'
+property."
+
+"I could shoot 'un; not a doubt about that, Mister. I could shoot
+'un; and I wull."
+
+"Have a care, Dan," whispered Mrs. Goarly.
+
+"Hold your jaw,--will ye? I could shoot 'un, Mister. I don't
+rightly know about p'ison."
+
+"That fox we saw was poisoned I suppose," said the Senator
+carelessly.
+
+"Have a care, Dan;--have a care!" whispered the wife.
+
+"Allow me to assure both of you," said the Senator, "that you need
+fear nothing from me. I have come quite as a friend."
+
+"Thank 'ee, sir," said Goarly again touching his hat.
+
+"It seems to me," said the Senator, "that in this matter a great
+many men are leagued together against you."
+
+"You may say that, sir. I didn't just catch your name, sir."
+
+"My name is Gotobed;--Gotobed; Elias Gotobed, Senator from the
+State of Mickewa to the United States Congress." Mrs. Goarly who
+understood nothing of all these titles, and who had all along
+doubted, dropped a suspicious curtsey. Goarly, who understood a
+little now, took his hat altogether off. He was very much puzzled
+but inclined to think that if he managed matters rightly, profit
+might be got out of this very strange meeting. "In my country, Mr.
+Goarly, all men are free and equal."
+
+"That's a fine thing, sir."
+
+"It is a fine thing, my friend, if properly understood and properly
+used. Coming from such a country I was shocked to see so many rich
+men banded together against one who I suppose is not rich."
+
+"Very far from it," said the woman.
+
+"It's my own land, you know," said Goarly who was proud of his
+position as a landowner. "No one can't touch me on it, as long as
+the rates is paid. I'm as good a man here,"--and he stamped his
+foot on the ground,--"as his Lordship is in that there wood."
+
+This was the first word spoken by the Goarlys that had pleased the
+Senator, and this set him off again. "Just so;--and I admire a man
+that will stand up for his own rights. I am told that you have
+found his Lordship's pheasants destructive to your corn."
+
+"Didn't leave him hardly a grain last August," said Mrs. Goarly.
+
+"Will you hold your jaw, woman, or will you not?" said the man
+turning round fiercely at her. "I'm going to have the law of his
+Lordship, sir. What's seven and six an acre? There's that quantity
+of pheasants in that wood as'd eat up any mortal thing as ever was
+grooved. Seven and six!"
+
+"Didn't you propose arbitration?"
+
+"I never didn't propose nothin'. I've axed two pound, and my lawyer
+says as how I'll get it. What I sold come off that other bit of
+ground down there. Wonderful crop! And this 'd've been the same.
+His Lordship ain't nothin' to me, Mr. Gotobed."
+
+"You don't approve of hunting, Mr. Goarly."
+
+"Oh, I approves if they'd pay a poor man for what harm they does
+him. Look at that there goose." Mr. Gotobed did look at the goose.
+"There's nine and twenty they've tuk from me, and only left un
+that." Now Mrs. Goarly's goose was well known in those parts. It
+was declared that she was more than a match for any fox in the
+county, but that Mrs. Goarly for the last two years had never owned
+any goose but this one.
+
+"The foxes have eaten there all?" asked the Senator.
+
+"Every mortal one."
+
+"And the gentlemen of the hunt have paid you nothing."
+
+"I had four half-crowns once," said the woman.
+
+"If you don't send the heads you don't get it," said the man, "and
+then they'll keep you waiting months and months, just for their
+pleasures. Who's a going to put up with that? I ain't."
+
+"And now you're going to law?"
+
+"I am,--like a man. His Lordship ain't nothin' to me. I ain't
+afeard of his Lordship."
+
+"Will it cost you much?"
+
+"That's just what it will do, sir," said the woman.
+
+"Didn't I tell you, hold your jaw?"
+
+"The gentleman was going to offer to help us a little, Dan."
+
+"I was going to say that I am interested in the case, and that you
+have all my good wishes. I do not like to offer pecuniary help."
+
+"You're very good, sir; very good. This bit of land is mine; not a
+doubt of it;--but we're poor, sir."
+
+"Indeed we is," said the woman. "What with taxes and rates, and
+them foxes as won't let me rear a head of poultry and them brutes
+of birds as eats up the corn, I often tells him he'd better sell
+the bit o' land and just set up for a public."
+
+"It belonged to my feyther and grandfeyther," said Goarly.
+
+Then the Senator's heart was softened again and he explained at
+great length that he would watch the case and if he saw his way
+clearly, befriend it with substantial aid. He asked about the
+attorney and took down Bearside's address. After that he shook
+hands with both of them, and then made his way back to Bragton
+through Mr. Twentyman's farm.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Goarly were left in a state of great perturbation of
+mind. They could not in the least make out among themselves who the
+gentleman was, or whether he had come for good or evil. That he
+called himself Gotobed Goarly did remember, and also that he had
+said that he was an American. All that which had referred to
+senatorial honours and the State of Mickewa had been lost upon
+Goarly. The question of course arose whether he was not a spy sent
+out by Lord Rufford's man of business, and Mrs. Goarly was clearly
+of opinion that such had been the nature of his employment. Had he
+really been a friend, she suggested, he would have left a sovereign
+behind him. "He didn't get no information from me," said Goarly.
+
+"Only about Mr. Bearside."
+
+"What's the odds of that? They all knows that. Bearside! Why should
+I be ashamed of Bearside? I'll do a deal better with Bearside than
+I would with that old woman, Masters."
+
+"But he took it down in writing, Dan."
+
+"What the d--'s the odds in that?"
+
+"I don't like it when they puts it down in writing."
+
+"Hold your jaw," said Goarly as he slowly shouldered the dung-fork
+to take it back to his work. But as they again discussed the matter
+that night the opinion gained ground upon them that the Senator had
+been an emissary from the enemy.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+Lord Rufford's Invitation
+
+
+On that same Wednesday afternoon when Morton returned with the
+ladies in the carriage he found that a mounted servant had arrived
+from Rufford Hall with a letter and had been instructed to wait for
+an answer. The man was now refreshing himself in the servants'
+hall. Morton, when he had read the letter, found that it required
+some consideration before he could answer it. It was to the
+following purport. Lord Rufford had a party of ladies and gentlemen
+at Rufford Hall, as his sister, Lady Penwether, was staying with
+him. Would Mr. Morton and his guests come over to Rufford Hall on
+Monday and stay till Wednesday? On Tuesday there was to be a dance
+for the people of the neighbourhood. Then he specified, as the
+guests invited, Lady Augustus and her daughter and Mr. Gotobed,--
+omitting the honourable Mrs. Morton of whose sojourn in the county
+he might have been ignorant. His Lordship went on to say that he
+trusted the abruptness of the invitation might be excused on
+account of the nearness of their neighbourhood and the old
+friendship which had existed between their families. He had had, he
+said, the pleasure of being acquainted with Lady Augustus and her
+daughter in London and would be proud to see Mr. Gotobed at his
+house during his sojourn in the county. Then he added in a
+postscript that the hounds met at Rufford Hall on Tuesday and that
+he had a horse that carried a lady well if Miss Trefoil would like
+to ride him. He could also put up a horse for Mr. Morton.
+
+This was all very civil, but there was something in it that was
+almost too civil. There came upon Morton a suspicion, which he did
+not even define to himself, that the invitation was due to
+Arabella's charms. There were many reasons why he did not wish to
+accept it. His grandmother was left out and he feared that she
+would be angry. He did not feel inclined to take the American
+Senator to the lord's house, knowing as he did that the American
+Senator was interfering in a ridiculous manner on behalf of Goarly.
+And he did not particularly wish to be present at Rufford Hall with
+the Trefoil ladies. Hitherto he had received very little
+satisfaction from their visit to Bragton,--so little that he had
+been more than once on the verge of asking Arabella whether she
+wished to be relieved from her engagement. She had never quite
+given him the opportunity. She had always been gracious to him in a
+cold, disagreeable, glassy manner,--in a manner that irked his
+spirit but still did not justify him in expressing anger. Lady
+Augustus was almost uncivil to him, and from time to time said
+little things which were hard to bear; but he was not going to
+marry Lady Augustus, and could revenge himself against her by
+resolving in his own breast that he would have as little as
+possible to do with her after his marriage., That was the condition
+of his mind towards them, and in that condition he did not want to
+take them to Lord Rufford's house. Their visit to him would be over
+on Monday, and it would he thought be better for him that they
+should then go on their way to the Gores as they had proposed.
+
+But he did not like to answer the letter by a refusal without
+saying a word to his guests on the subject. He would not object to
+ignore the Senator, but he was afraid that if nothing were to be
+said to Arabella she would hear of it hereafter and would complain
+of such treatment. He therefore directed that the man might be kept
+waiting while he consulted the lady of his choice. It was with
+difficulty that he found himself alone with her,--and then only by
+sending her maid in quest of her. He did get her at last into his
+own sitting-room and then, having placed her in a chair near the
+fire, gave her Lord Rufford's letter to read. "What can it be,"
+said she looking up into his face with her great inexpressive eyes,
+"that has required all this solemnity?" She still looked up at him
+and did not even open the letter.
+
+"I did not like to answer that without showing it to you. I don't
+suppose you would care to go."
+
+"Go where?"
+
+"It is from Lord Rufford,--for Monday."
+
+"From Lord Rufford!"
+
+"It would break up all your plans and your mother's, and would
+probably be a great bore."
+
+Then she did read the letter, very carefully and very slowly,
+weighing every word of it as she read it. Did it mean more than it
+said? But though she read it slowly and carefully and was long
+before she made him any answer, she had very quickly resolved that
+the invitation should be accepted. It would suit her very well to
+know Lady Penwether. It might possibly suit her still better to
+become intimate with Lord Rufford. She was delighted at the idea of
+riding Lord Rufford's horse. As her eyes dwelt on the paper she,
+too, began to think that the invitation had been chiefly given on
+her account. At any rate she would go. She had understood perfectly
+well from the first tone of her lover's voice that he did not wish
+to subject her to the allurements of Rufford Hall. She was clever
+enough, and could read it all. But she did not mean to throw away a
+chance for the sake of pleasing him. She must not at once displease
+him by declaring her purpose strongly, and therefore, as she slowly
+continued her reading, she resolved that she would throw the burden
+upon her mother. "Had I not better show this to mamma?" she said.
+
+"You can if you please. You are going to the Gores on Monday."
+
+"We could not go earlier; but we might put it off for a couple of
+days if we pleased. Would it bore you?"
+
+"I don't mind about myself. I'm not a very great man for dances."
+
+"You'd sooner write a report,--wouldn't you,--about the products of
+the country?"
+
+"A great deal sooner," said the Paragon.
+
+"But you see we haven't all of us got products to write about. I
+don't care very much about it myself;--but if you don't mind I'll
+ask mamma." Of course he was obliged to consent, and merely
+informed her as she went off with the letter that a servant was
+waiting for an answer.
+
+"To go to Lord Rufford's!" said Lady Augustus.
+
+"From Monday till Wednesday, mamma. Of course we must go:"
+
+"I promised poor Mrs. Gore."
+
+"Nonsense, mamma! The Gores can do very well without us. That was
+only to be a week and we can still stay out our time. Of course
+this has only been sent because we are here."
+
+"I should say so. I don't suppose Lord Rufford would care to know
+Mr. Morton. Lady Penwether goes everywhere; doesn't she?"
+
+"Everywhere. It would suit me to a `t' to get on to Lady
+Penwether's books. But, mamma, of course it's not that. If Lord
+Rufford should say a word it is so much easier to manage down in
+the country than up in London. He has 40,000 pounds a year, if he
+has a penny."
+
+"How many girls have tried the same thing with him! But I don't
+mind. I've always said that John Morton and Bragton would not do?"
+
+"No, mamma; you haven't. You were the first to say they would do."
+
+"I only said that if there were nothing else--"
+
+"Oh, mamma, how can you say such things! Nothing else,--as if he
+were the last man! You said distinctly that Bragton was 7,000
+pounds a year, and that it would do very well. You may change your
+mind if you like; but it's no good trying to back out of your own
+doings."
+
+"Then I have changed my mind."
+
+"Yes,--without thinking what I have to go through. I'm not going to
+throw myself at Lord Rufford's head so as to lose my chance here;--
+but we'll go and see how the land lies. Of course you'll go,
+mamma."
+
+"If you think it is for your advantage, my dear."
+
+"My advantage! It's part of the work to be done and we may as well
+do it. At any rate I'll tell him to accept. We shall have this
+odious American with us, but that can't be helped."
+
+"And the old woman?"
+
+"Lord Rufford doesn't say anything about her. I don't suppose he's
+such a muff but what he can leave his grandmother behind for a
+couple of days." Then she went back to Morton and told him that her
+mother was particularly anxious to make the acquaintance of Lady
+Penwether and that she had decided upon going to Rufford Hall. "It
+will be a very nice opportunity," said she, "for you to become
+acquainted with Lord Rufford."
+
+Then he was almost angry. "I can make plenty of such opportunities
+for myself, when I want them," he said. "Of course if you and Lady
+Augustus like it, we will go. But let it stand on its right
+bottom."
+
+"It may stand on any bottom you please."
+
+"Do you mean to ride the man's horse?"
+
+"Certainly I do. I never refuse a good offer. Why shouldn't I ride
+the man's horse? Did you never hear before of a young lady
+borrowing a gentleman's horse?"
+
+"No lady belonging to me will ever do so, unless the gentleman be a
+very close friend indeed."
+
+"The lady in this case does not belong to you, Mr. Morton, and
+therefore, if you have no other objection, she will ride Lord
+Rufford's horse. Perhaps you will not think it too much trouble to
+signify the lady's acceptance of the mount in your letter." Then
+she swam out of the room knowing that she left him in anger. After
+that he had to find Mr. Gotobed. The going was now decided on as
+far as he was concerned, and it would make very little difference
+whether the American went or not,--except that his letter would
+have been easier to him in accepting the invitation for three
+persons than for four. But the Senator was of course willing. It
+was the Senator's object to see England, and Lord Rufford's house
+would be an additional bit of England. The Senator would be
+delighted to have an opportunity of saying what he thought about
+Goarly at Lord Rufford's table. After that, before this weary
+letter could be written, he was compelled to see his grandmother
+and explain to her that she had been omitted.
+
+"Of course, ma'am, they did not know that you were at Bragton, as
+you were not in the carriage at the 'meet.'"
+
+"That's nonsense, John. Did Lord Rufford suppose that you were
+entertaining ladies here without some one to be mistress of the
+house? Of course he knew that I was here. I shouldn't have gone;--
+you may be sure of that. I'm not in the habit of going to the
+houses of people I don't know. Indeed I think it's an impertinence
+in them to ask in that way. I'm surprised that you would go on such
+an invitation."
+
+"The Trefoils knew them."
+
+"If Lady Penwether knew them why could not Lady Penwether ask them
+independently of us? I don't believe they ever spoke to Lady
+Penwether in their lives. Lord Rufford and Miss Trefoil may very
+likely be London acquaintances. He may admire her and therefore
+choose to have her at his ball. I know nothing about that. As far
+as I am concerned he's quite welcome to keep her."
+
+All this was not very pleasant to John Morton. He knew already that
+his grandmother and Lady Augustus hated each other, and said
+spiteful things not only behind each other's backs, but openly to
+each other's faces. But now he had been told by the girl who was
+engaged to be his wife that she did not belong to him; and by his
+grandmother, who stood to him in the place of his mother, that she
+wished that this girl belonged to some one else! He was not quite
+sure that he did not wish it himself. But, even were it to be so,
+and should there be reason for him to be gratified at the escape,
+still he did not relish the idea of taking the girl himself to the
+other man's house. He wrote the letter, however, and dispatched it.
+But even the writing of it was difficult and disagreeable. When
+various details of hospitality have been offered by a comparative
+stranger a man hardly likes to accept them all. But in this case he
+had to do it. He would be delighted, he said, to stay at Rufford
+Hall from the Monday to the Wednesday;--Lady Augustus and Miss
+Trefoil would also be delighted; and so also would Mr. Gotobed be
+delighted. And Miss Trefoil would be further delighted to accept
+Lord Rufford's offer of a horse for the Tuesday. As for himself, if
+he rode at all, a horse would come for him to the meet. Then he
+wrote another note to Mr. Harry Stubbings, bespeaking a mount for
+the occasion.
+
+On that evening the party at Bragton was not a very pleasant one.
+"No doubt you are intimate with Lady Penwether, Lady Augustus,"
+said Mrs. Morton. Now Lady Penwether was a very fashionable woman
+whom to know was considered an honour.
+
+"What makes you ask, ma'am?" said Lady Augustus.
+
+"Only as you were taking your daughter to her brother's house, and
+as he is a bachelor."
+
+"My dear Mrs. Morton, really you may leave me to take care of
+myself and of my daughter too. You have lived so much out of the
+world for the last thirty years that it is quite amusing."
+
+"There are some persons' worlds that it is a great deal better for
+a lady to be out of," said Mrs. Morton. Then Lady Augustus put up
+her hands, and turned round, and affected to laugh, of all which
+things Mr. Gotobed, who was studying English society, made notes in
+his own mind.
+
+"What sort of position does that man Goarly occupy here?" the
+Senator asked immediately after dinner.
+
+"No position at all," said Morton.
+
+"Every man created holds some position as I take it. The land is
+his own."
+
+"He has I believe about fifty acres."
+
+"And yet he seems to be in the lowest depth of poverty and
+ignorance."
+
+"Of course he mismanages his property and probably drinks."
+
+"I dare say, Mr. Morton. He is proud of his rights, and talked of
+his father and his grandfather, and yet I doubt whether you would
+find a man so squalid and so ignorant in all the States. I suppose
+he is injured by having a lord so near him."
+
+"Quite the contrary if he would be amenable."
+
+"You mean if he would be a creature of the lord's. And why was that
+other man so uncivil to me;--the man who was the lord's
+gamekeeper?"
+
+"Because you went there as a friend of Goarly."
+
+"And that's his idea of English fair play?" asked the Senator with
+a jeer.
+
+"The truth is, Mr. Gotobed," said Morton endeavouring to explain it
+all, "you see a part only and not the whole. That man Goarly is a
+rascal."
+
+"So everybody says."
+
+"And why can't you believe everybody?"
+
+"So everybody says on the lord's side. But before I'm done I'll
+find out what people say on the other side. I can see that he is
+ignorant and squalid; but that very probably is the lord's fault.
+It may be that he is a rascal and that the lord is to blame for
+that too. But if the lord's pheasants have eaten up Goarly's corn,
+the lord ought to pay for the corn whether Goarly be a rascal or
+not" Then John Morton made up his mind that he would never ask
+another American Senator to his house.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+The Attorney's Family is disturbed
+
+
+On that Wednesday evening Mary Masters said nothing to any of her
+family as to the invitation from Lady Ushant. She very much wished
+to accept it. Latterly, for the last month or two, her distaste to
+the kind of life for which her stepmother was preparing her, had
+increased upon her greatly. There bad been days in which she had
+doubted whether it might not be expedient that she should accept
+Mr. Twentyman's offer. She believed no ill of him. She thought him
+to be a fine manly young fellow with a good heart and high
+principles. She never asked herself whether he were or were not a
+gentleman. She had never even inquired of herself whether she
+herself were or were not especially a lady. But with all her
+efforts to like the man,--because she thought that by doing so she
+would relieve and please her father,--yet he was distasteful to
+her; and now, since that walk home with him from Bragton Bridge, he
+was more distasteful than ever. She did not tell herself that a
+short visit, say for a month, to Cheltenham, would prevent his
+further attentions, but she felt that there would be a temporary
+escape. I do not think that she dwelt much on the suggestion that
+Reginald Morton should be her companion on the journey, but the
+idea of such companionship, even for a short time, was pleasant to
+her. If he did this surely then he would forgive her for having
+left him at the bridge. She had much to think of before she could
+resolve how she should tell her tidings. Should she show the letter
+first to her stepmother or to her father? In the ordinary course of
+things in that house the former course would be expected. It was
+Mrs. Masters who managed everything affecting the family. It was
+she who gave permission or denied permission for every indulgence.
+She was generally fair to the three girls, taking special pride to
+herself for doing her duty by her stepdaughter;--but on this very
+account she was the more likely to be angry if Mary passed her by
+on such an occasion as this and went to her father. But should her
+stepmother have once refused her permission, then the matter would
+have been decided against her. It would be quite useless to appeal
+from her stepmother to her father; nor would such an appeal come
+within the scope of her own principles. The Mortons, and especially
+Lady Ushant, had been her father's friends in old days and she
+thought that perhaps she might prevail in this case if she could
+speak to her father first. She knew well what would be the great,
+or rather the real objection. Her mother would not wish that she
+should be removed so long from Larry Twentyman. There might be
+difficulties about her clothes, but her father, she knew would be
+kind to her.
+
+At last she made up her mind that she would ask her father. He was
+always at his office-desk for half an hour in the morning, before
+the clerks had come, and on the following day, a minute or two
+after he had taken his seat, she knocked at the door. He was busy
+reading a letter from Lord Rufford's man of business, asking him
+certain questions about Goarly and almost employing him to get up
+the case on Lord Rufford's behalf. There was a certain triumph to
+him in this. It was not by his means that tidings had reached Lord
+Rufford of his refusal to undertake Goarly's case. But Runciman,
+who was often allowed by his lordship to say a few words to him in
+the hunting-field, had mentioned the circumstance. "A man like Mr.
+Masters is better without such a blackguard as that," the Lord had
+said. Then Runciman had replied, "No doubt, my Lord; no doubt. But
+Dillsborough is a poor place, and business is business, my Lord."
+Then Lord Rufford had remembered it, and the letter which the
+attorney was somewhat triumphantly reading had been the
+consequence.
+
+"Is that you, Mary? What can I do for you, my love?"
+
+"Papa, I want you to read this." Then Mr. Masters read the letter.
+"I should so like to go."
+
+"Should you, my dear?"
+
+"Oh yes! Lady Ushant has been so kind to me, all my life! And I do
+so love her!"
+
+"What does mamma say?"
+
+"I haven't asked mamma."
+
+"Is there any reason why you shouldn't go?"
+
+Of that one reason,--as to Larry Twentyman,--of course she would
+say nothing. She must leave him to discuss that with her mother. "I
+should want some clothes, papa; a dress, and some boots, and a new
+hat, and there would be money for the journey and a few other
+things." The attorney winced, but at the same time remembered that
+something was due to his eldest child in the way of garments and
+relaxation. "I never like to be an expense, papa."
+
+"You are very good about that, my dear. I don't see why you
+shouldn't go. It's very kind of Lady Ushant. I'll talk to mamma."
+Then Mary went away to get the breakfast, fearing that before long
+there would be black looks in the house.
+
+Mr. Masters at once went up to his wife, having given himself a
+minute or two to calculate that he would let Mary have twenty
+pounds for the occasion,--and made his proposition. "I never heard
+of such nonsense in my life," said Mrs. Masters.
+
+"Nonsense,--my dear! Why should it be nonsense?"
+
+"Cocking her up with Lady Ushant! What good will Lady Ushant do
+her? She's not going to live with ladies of quality all her life."
+
+"Why shouldn't she live with ladies?"
+
+"You know what I mean, Gregory. The Mortons have dropped you, for
+any use they were to you, long ago, and you may as well make up
+your mind to drop them. You'll go on hankering after gentlefolks
+till you've about ruined yourself."
+
+When he remembered that he had that very morning received a
+commission from Lord Rufford he thought that this was a little too
+bad. But he was not now in a humour to make known to her this piece
+of good news. "I like to feel that she has got friends," he said,
+going back to Mary's proposed visit.
+
+"Of course she has got friends, if she'll only take up with them as
+she ought to do. Why does she go on shilly-shallying with that
+young man, instead of closing upon it at once? If she did that she
+wouldn't want such friends as Lady Ushant. Why did the girl come to
+you with all this instead of asking me?"
+
+"There would be a little money wanted."
+
+"Money! Yes, I dare say. It's very easy to want money but very hard
+to get it. If you send clients away out of the office with a flea
+in their ear I don't see how she's to have all manner of luxuries.
+She ought to have come to me"
+
+"I don't see that at all, my dear."
+
+"If I'm to look after her she shall be said by me;--that's all.
+I've done for her just as I have for my own and I'm not going to
+have her turn up her nose at me directly she wants anything for
+herself. I know what's fit for Mary, and it ain't fit that she
+should go trapesing away to Cheltenham, doing nothing in that old
+woman's parlour, and losing her chances for life. Who is to suppose
+that Larry Twentyman will go on dangling after her in this way,
+month after month? The young man wants a wife, and of course he'll
+get one."
+
+"You can't make her marry the man if she don't like him."
+
+"Like him! She ought to be made to like him. A young man well off
+as he is, and she without a shilling! All that comes from
+Ushanting." It never occurred to Mrs. Masters that perhaps the very
+qualities that had made poor Larry so vehemently in love with Mary
+had come from her intercourse with Lady Ushant. "If I'm to have my
+way she won't go a yard on the way to Cheltenham."
+
+"I've told her she may go," said Mr. Masters, whose mind was
+wandering back to old days,--to his first wife, and to the time
+when he used to be an occasional guest in the big parlour at
+Bragton. He was always ready to acknowledge to himself that his
+present wife was a good and helpful companion to him and a careful
+mother to his children; but there were moments in which he would
+remember with soft regret a different phase of his life. Just at
+present he was somewhat angry, and resolving in his own mind that
+in this case he would have his own way.
+
+"Then I shall tell her she mayn't," said Mrs. Masters with a look
+of dogged determination.
+
+"I hope you will do nothing of the kind, my dear. I've told her
+that she shall have a few pounds to get what she wants, and I won't
+have her disappointed." After that Mrs. Masters bounced out of the
+room, and made herself very disagreeable indeed over the
+tea-things.
+
+The whole household was much disturbed that day. Mrs. Masters said
+nothing to Mary about Lady Ushant all the morning, but said a great
+deal about other things. Poor Mary was asked whether she was not
+ashamed to treat a young man as she was treating Mr. Twentyman.
+Then again it was demanded of her whether she thought it right that
+all the house should be knocked about for her. At dinner Mrs.
+Masters would hardly speak to her husband but addressed herself
+exclusively to Dolly and Kate. Mr. Masters was not a man who could,
+usually, stand this kind of thing very long and was accustomed to
+give up in despair and then take himself off to the solace of his
+office-chair. But on the present occasion he went through his meal
+like a Spartan, and retired from the room without a sign of
+surrender. In the afternoon about five o'clock Mary watched her
+opportunity and found him again alone. It was incumbent on her to
+reply to Lady Ushant. Would it not be better that she should write
+and say how sorry she was that she could not come? "But I want you
+to go," said he.
+
+"Oh, papa;--I cannot bear to cause trouble."
+
+"No, my dear; no; and I'm sure I don't like trouble myself. But in
+this case I think you ought to go. What day has she named?" Then
+Mary declared that she could not possibly go so soon as Lady Ushant
+had suggested, but that she could be ready by the 18th of December.
+"Then write and tell her so, my dear, and I will let your mother
+know that it is fixed." But Mary still hesitated, desiring to know
+whether she had not better speak to her mother first. "I think you
+had better write your letter first,"--and then he absolutely made
+her write it in the office and give it to him to be posted. After
+that he promised to communicate to Reginald Morton what had been
+done.
+
+The household was very much disturbed the whole of that evening.
+Poor Mary never remembered such a state of things, and when there
+had been any difference of opinion, she had hitherto never been the
+cause of it. Now it was all owing to her! And things were said so
+terrible that she hardly knew how to bear them. Her father had
+promised her the twenty pounds, and it was insinuated that all the
+comforts of the family must be stopped because of this lavish
+extravagance. Her father sat still and bore it, almost without a
+word. Both Dolly and Kate were silent and wretched. Mrs. Masters
+every now and then gurgled in her throat, and three or four times
+wiped her eyes. "I'm better out of the way altogether," she said at
+last, jumping up and walking towards the door as though she were
+going to leave the room,--and the house, for ever.
+
+"Mamma," said Mary, rising from her seat, "I won't go. I'll write
+and tell Lady Ushant that I can't do it."
+
+"You're not to mind me," said Mrs. Masters. "You're to do what your
+papa tells you. Everything that I've been striving at is to be
+thrown away. I'm to be nobody, and it's quite right that your papa
+should tell you so."
+
+"Dear mamma, don't talk like that," said Mary, clinging hold of her
+stepmother.
+
+"Your papa sits there and won't say a word," said Mrs. Masters,
+stamping her foot.
+
+"What's the good of speaking when you go on like that before the
+children?" said Mr. Masters, getting up from his chair. "I say that
+it's a proper thing that the girl should go to see the old friend
+who brought her up and has been always kind to her,--and she shall
+go." Mrs. Masters seated herself on the nearest chair and leaning
+her head against the wall, began to go into hysterics. "Your letter
+has already gone, Mary; and I desire you will write no other
+without letting me know." Then he left the room and the house,--and
+absolutely went over to the Bush. This latter proceeding was,
+however, hardly more than a bravado; for he merely took the
+opportunity of asking Mrs. Runciman a question at the bar, and then
+walked back to his own house, and shut himself up in the office.
+
+On the next morning he called on Reginald Morton and told him that
+his daughter had accepted Lady Ushant's invitation, but could not
+go till the 18th. "I shall be proud to take charge of her," said
+Reginald. "And as for the change in the  day it will suit me all
+the better." So that was settled.
+
+On the next day, Friday, Mrs. Masters did not come down to
+breakfast, but was waited upon up-stairs by her own daughters. This
+with her was a most unusual circumstance. The two maids were of
+opinion that such a thing had never occurred before, and that
+therefore Master must have been out half the night at the
+public-house although they had not known it. To Mary she would
+hardly speak a word. She appeared at dinner and called her husband
+Mr. Masters when she helped him to stew. All the afternoon she
+averred that her head was splitting, but managed to say many very
+bitter things about gentlemen in general, and expressed a vehement
+hope that that poor man Goarly would get at least a hundred pounds.
+It must be owned, however, that at this time she had heard nothing
+of Lord Rufford's commission to her husband. In the evening Larry
+came in and was at once told the terrible news. "Larry," said Kate,
+"Mary is going away for a month."
+
+"Where are you going, Mary?" asked the lover eagerly.
+
+"To Lady Ushant's, Mr. Twentyman."
+
+"For a month!"
+
+"She has asked me for a month," said Mary.
+
+"It's a regular fool's errand," said Mrs. Masters. "It's not done
+with my consent, Mr. Twentyman. I don't think she ought to stir
+from home till things are more settled."
+
+"They can be settled this moment as far as I am concerned," said
+Larry standing up.
+
+"There now," said Mrs. Masters. At this time Mr. Masters was not in
+the room. "If you can make it straight with Mr. Twentyman I won't
+say a word against your going away for a month."
+
+"Mamma, you shouldn't!" exclaimed Mary.
+
+"I hate such nonsense. Mr. Twentyman is behaving honest and
+genteel. What more would you have? Give him an answer like a
+sensible girl."
+
+"I have given him an answer and I cannot say anything more," said
+Mary as she left the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+"Who valued the Geese?"
+
+
+Before the time had come for the visit to Rufford Hall Mr. Gotobed
+had called upon Bearside the attorney and had learned as much as
+Mr. Bearside chose to tell him of the facts of the case. This took
+place on the Saturday morning and the interview was on the whole
+satisfactory to the Senator. But then having a theory of his own in
+his head, and being fond of ventilating his own theories, he
+explained thoroughly to the man the story which he wished to hear
+before the man was called upon to tell his story. Mr. Bearside of
+course told it accordingly. Goarly was a very poor man, and very
+ignorant; was perhaps not altogether so good a member of society as
+he might have been; but no doubt he had a strong case against the
+lord. The lord, so said Mr. Bearside, had fallen into a way of
+paying a certain recompense in certain cases for crops damaged by
+game; and having in this way laid down a rule for himself did not
+choose to have that rule disturbed. "Just feudalism!" said the
+indignant Senator. "No better, nor yet no worse than that, sir,"
+said the attorney who did not in the least know what feudalism was.
+"The strong hand backed by the strong rank and the strong purse
+determined to have its own way!" continued the Senator. "A most
+determined man is his lordship," said the attorney. Then the
+Senator expressed his hope that Mr. Bearside would be able to see
+the poor man through it, and Mr. Bearside explained to the Senator
+that the poor man was a very poor man indeed, who had been so
+unfortunate with his land that he was hardly able to provide bread
+for himself and his children. He went so far as to insinuate that
+he was taking up this matter himself solely on the score of
+charity, adding that as he could not of course afford to be money
+out of pocket for expenses of witnesses, etc, he did not quite see
+how he was to proceed. Then the Senator made certain promises. He
+was, he said, going back to London in the course of next week, but
+he did not mind making himself responsible to the extent of fifty
+dollars if the thing were carried on, bona fide, to a conclusion.
+Mr. Bearside declared that it would of course be bona fide, and
+asked the Senator for his address. Would Mr. Gotobed object to
+putting his name to a little docket certifying to the amount
+promised? Mr. Gotobed gave an address, but thought that in such a
+matter as that his word might be trusted. If it were not trusted
+then the offer might fall to the ground. Mr. Bearside was profuse
+in his apologies and declared that the gentleman's word was as good
+as his bond.
+
+Mr. Gotobed made no secret of his doings. Perhaps he had a feeling
+that he could not justify himself in so strange a proceeding
+without absolute candour. He saw Mr. Mainwaring in the street as he
+left Bearside's office and told him all about it. "I just want,
+sir, to see what'll come of it"
+
+"You'll lose your fifty dollars, Mr. Gotobed, and only cause a
+little vexation to a high-spirited young nobleman."
+
+"Very likely, sir. But neither the loss of my dollars, nor Lord
+Rufford's slight vexation will in the least disturb my rest. I'm not
+a rich man, sir, but I should like to watch the way in which such a
+question will be tried and brought to a conclusion in this
+aristocratic country. I don't quite know what your laws may be,
+Mr. Mainwaring."
+
+"Just the same as your own, Mr. Gotobed, I take it"
+
+"We have no game laws, sir. As I was saying I don't understand your
+laws, but justice is the same everywhere. If this great lord's game
+has eaten up the poor man's wheat the great lord ought to pay for
+it."
+
+"The owners of game pay for the damage they do three times over,"
+said the parson, who was very strongly on that side of the
+question. "Do you think that such men as Goarly would be better off
+if the gentry were never to come into the country at all?"
+
+"Perhaps, Mr. Mainwaring, I may think that there would be no
+Goarlys if there were no Ruffords. That, however, is a great
+question which cannot be argued on this case. All we can hope here
+is that one poor man may have an act of justice done him though in
+seeking for it he has to struggle against so wealthy a magnate as
+Lord Rufford."
+
+"What I hope is that he may be found out," replied Mr. Mainwaring
+with equal enthusiasm, "and then he will be in Rufford gaol before
+long. That's the justice I look for. Who do you think put down the
+poison in Dillsborough wood?"
+
+"How was it that the poor woman lost all her geese?" asked the
+Senator.
+
+"She was paid for a great many more than she lost, Mr. Gotobed."
+
+"That doesn't touch upon the injustice of the proceeding. Who
+assessed the loss, sir? Who valued the geese? Am I to keep a pet
+tiger in my garden, and give you a couple of dollars when he
+destroys your pet dog, and think myself justified because dogs as a
+rule are not worth more than two dollars each? She has a right to
+her own geese on her own ground."
+
+"And Lord Rufford, sir, as I take it," said Runciman, who had been
+allowed to come up and hear the end of the conversation, "has a
+right to his own foxes in his own coverts."
+
+"Yes,--if he could keep them there, my friend. But as it is the
+nature of foxes to wander away and to be thieves, he has no such
+right."
+
+"Of course, sir, begging your pardon," said Runciman, "I was
+speaking of England." Runciman had heard of the Senator Gotobed, as
+indeed had all Dillsborough by this time.
+
+"And I am speaking of justice all the world over," said the Senator
+slapping his hand upon his thigh. "But I only want to see. It may
+be that England is a country in which a poor man should not attempt
+to hold a few acres of land."
+
+On that night the Dillsborough club met as usual and, as a matter
+of course, Goarly and the American Senator were the subjects
+chiefly discussed. Everybody in the room knew,--or thought that he
+knew,--that Goarly was a cheating fraudulent knave, and that Lord
+Rufford was, at any rate, in this case acting properly. They all
+understood the old goose, and were aware, nearly to a bushel, of
+the amount of wheat which the man had sold off those two fields.
+Runciman knew that the interest on the mortgage had been paid, and
+could only have been paid out of the produce; and Larry Twentyman
+knew that if Goarly took his 7s. 6d. an acre he would be better off
+than if the wood had not been there. But yet among them all they
+didn't quite see how they were to confute the Senator's logic. They
+could not answer it satisfactorily, even among themselves; but they
+felt that if Goarly could be detected in some offence, that would
+confute the Senator. Among themselves it was sufficient to repeat
+the well-known fact that Goarly was a rascal; but with reference to
+this aggravating, interfering, and most obnoxious American it would
+be necessary to prove it.
+
+"His Lordship has put it into Masters's hands, I'm told," said the
+doctor. At this time neither the attorney nor Larry Twentyman were
+in the room.
+
+"He couldn't have done better," said Runciman, speaking from behind
+a long clay pipe.
+
+"All the same he was nibbling at Goarly," said Ned Botsey.
+
+"I don't know that he was nibbling at Goarly at all, Mr. Botsey,"
+said the landlord. "Goarly came to him, and Goarly was refused.
+What more would you have?"
+
+"It's all one to me," said Botsey; "only I do think that in a
+sporting county like this the place ought to be made too hot to
+hold a blackguard like that. If he comes out at me with his gun
+I'll ride over him. And I wouldn't mind riding over that American
+too."
+
+"That's just what would suit Goarly's book," said the doctor.
+
+"Exactly what Goarly would like," said Harry Stubbings.
+
+Then Mr. Masters and Larry entered the room. On that evening two
+things had occurred to the attorney. Nickem had returned, and had
+asked for and received an additional week's leave of absence. He
+had declined to explain accurately what he was doing but gave the
+attorney to understand that he thought that he was on the way to
+the bottom of the whole thing. Then, after Nickem had left him, Mr.
+Masters had a letter of instructions from Lord Rufford's steward.
+When he received it, and found that his paid services had been
+absolutely employed on behalf of his Lordship, he almost regretted
+the encouragement he had given to Nickem. In the first place he
+might want Nickem. And then he felt that in his present position he
+ought not to be a party to anything underhand. But Nickem was gone,
+and he was obliged to console himself by thinking that Nickem was
+at any rate employing his intellect on the right side. When he left
+his house with Larry Twentyman he had told his wife nothing about
+Lord Rufford. Up to this time he and his wife had not as yet
+reconciled their difference, and poor Mary was still living in
+misery. Larry, though he had called for the attorney, had not sat
+down in the parlour, and had barely spoken to Mary. "For gracious
+sake, Mr. Twentyman, don't let him stay in that place there half
+the night," said Mrs. Masters. "It ain't fit for a father of a
+family."
+
+"Father never does stay half the night," said Kate, who took more
+liberties in that house than any one else.
+
+"Hold your tongue, miss. I don't know whether it wouldn't be better
+for you, Mr. Twentyman, if you were not there so often yourself."
+ Poor Larry felt this to be hard. He was not even engaged as
+yet, and as far as he could see was not on the way to be engaged.
+In such condition surely his possible mother-in-law could have no
+right to interfere with him. He condescended to make no reply, but
+crossed the passage and carried the attorney off with him.
+
+"You've heard what that American gentleman has been about, Mr.
+Masters?" asked the landlord.
+
+"I'm told he's been with Bearside."
+
+"And has offered to pay his bill for him if he'll carry on the
+business for Goarly. Whoever heard the like of that?"
+
+"What sort of a man is he?" asked the doctor. "A great man in his
+own country everybody says," answered Runciman. "I wish he'd stayed
+there. He comes over here and thinks he understands everything just
+as though he had lived here all his life. Did you say gin cold,
+Larry; and rum for you, Mr. Masters?" Then the landlord gave the
+orders to the girl who had answered the bell.
+
+"But they say he's actually going to Lord Rufford's," said young
+Botsey who would have given one of his fingers to be asked to the
+lord's house.
+
+"They are all going from Bragton," said Runciman.
+
+"The young squire is going to ride one of my horses," said Harry
+Stubbings.
+
+"That'll be an easy three pounds in your pockets, Harry," said the
+doctor. In answer to which Harry remarked that he took all that as
+it came, the heavies and lights together, and that there was not
+much change to be got out of three sovereigns when some gentlemen
+had had a horse out for the day,--particularly when a gentleman
+didn't pay perhaps for twelve months.
+
+"The whole party is going," continued the landlord. "How he is to
+have the cheek to go into his Lordship's house after what he is
+doing is more than I can understand."
+
+"What business is it of his?" said Larry angrily. "That's what I
+want to know. What'd he think if we went and interfered over there?
+I shouldn't be surprised if he got a little rough usage before he's
+out of the county. I'm told he came across Bean when he was
+ferreting about the other day, and that Bean gave him quite as
+good as he brought."
+
+"I say he's a spy," said Ribbs the butcher from his seat on the
+sofa. "I hates a spy."
+
+Soon after that Mr. Masters left the room and Larry Twentyman
+followed him. There was something almost ridiculous in the way the
+young man would follow the attorney about on these Saturday
+evenings,--as though he could make love to the girl by talking to
+the father. But on this occasion he had something special to say.
+"So Mary's going to Cheltenham, Mr. Masters."
+
+"Yes, she is. You don't see any objection to that, I hope."
+
+"Not in the least, Mr. Masters. I wish she might go anywhere to
+enjoy herself. And from all I've heard Lady Ushant is a very good
+sort of lady."
+
+"A very good sort of lady. She won't do Mary any harm, Twentyman."
+
+"I don't suppose she will. But there's one thing I should like to
+know. Why shouldn't she tell me before she goes that she'll have
+me?"
+
+"I wish she would with all my heart."
+
+"And Mrs. Masters is all on my side."
+
+"Quite so."
+
+"And the girls have always been my friends."
+
+"I think we are all your friends, Twentyman. I'm sure Mary is. But
+that isn't marrying; is it?"
+
+"If you would speak to her, Mr. Masters."
+
+"What would you have me say? I couldn't bid my girl to have one man
+or another. I could only tell her what I think, and that she knows
+already."
+
+"If you were to say that you wished it! She thinks so much about
+you:'
+
+"I couldn't tell her that I wished it in a manner that would drive
+her into it.  Of course it would be a very good match. But I have
+only to think of her happiness and I must leave her to judge what
+will make her happy."
+
+"I should like to have it fixed some way before she starts," said
+Larry in an altered tone.
+
+"Of course you are your own master, Twentyman. And you have behaved
+very well"
+
+"This is a kind of thing that a man can't stand," said the young
+farmer sulkily. "Good night, Mr. Masters" Then he walked off home
+to Chowton Farm meditating on his own condition and trying to make
+up his mind to leave the scornful girl and become a free man. But
+he couldn't do it. He couldn't even quite make up his mind that he
+would try to do it. There was a bitterness within as he thought of
+permanent fixed failure which he could not digest. There was a
+craving in his heart which he did not himself quite understand, but
+which made him think that the world would be unfit to be lived in
+if he were to be altogether separated from Mary Masters. He
+couldn't separate himself from her. It was all very well thinking
+of it, talking of it, threatening it; but in truth he couldn't do
+it. There might of course be an emergency in which he must do it.
+She might declare that she loved some one else and she might marry
+that other person. In that event he saw no other alternative but,--
+as he expressed it to himself,--"to run a mucker." Whether the
+"mucker" should be run against Mary, or against the fortunate
+lover, or against himself, he did not at present resolve.
+
+But he did resolve as he reached his own hall door that he would
+make one more passionate appeal to Mary herself before she started
+for Cheltenham, and that he would not make it out on a public path,
+or in the Masters' family parlour before all the Masters' family;--
+but that he would have her secluded, by herself, so that he might
+speak out all that was in him, to the best of his ability.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+There are Convenances
+
+
+Before the Monday came the party to Rufford Hall had become quite a
+settled thing and had been very much discussed. On the Saturday the
+Senator had been driven to the meet, a distance of about ten miles,
+on purpose that he might see Lord Rufford and explain his views
+about Goarly. Lord Rufford had bowed and stared, and laughed, and
+had then told the Senator that he thought he would "find himself in
+the wrong box." "That's quite possible, my Lord. I guess, it won't
+be the first time I've been in the wrong box, my Lord. Sometimes I
+do get right. But I thought I would not enter your lordship's house
+as a guest without telling you what I was doing." Then Lord Rufford
+assured him that this little affair about Goarly would make no
+difference in that respect. Mr. Gotobed again scrutinised the
+hounds and Tony Tuppett, laughed in his sleeve because a fox wasn't
+found in the first quarter of an hour, and after that was driven
+back to Bragton.
+
+The Sunday was a day of preparation for the Trefoils. Of course
+they didn't go to church. Arabella indeed was never up in time for
+church and Lady Augustus only went when her going would be duly
+registered among fashionable people. Mr. Gotobed laughed when he
+was invited and asked whether anybody was ever known to go to
+church two Sundays running at Bragton. "People have been known to
+refuse with less acrimony," said Morton. "I always speak my mind,
+sir," replied the Senator. Poor John Morton, therefore, went to his
+parish church alone.
+
+There were many things to be considered by the Trefoils. There was
+the question of dress. If any good was to be done by Arabella at
+Rufford it must be done with great despatch. There would be the
+dinner on Monday, the hunting on Tuesday, the ball, and then the
+interesting moment of departure. No girl could make better use of
+her time; but then, think of her difficulties! All that she did
+would have to be done under the very eyes of the man to whom she
+was engaged, and to whom she wished to remain engaged,--unless, as
+she said to herself, she could "pull off the other event." A great
+deal must depend on appearance. As she and her mother were out on a
+lengthened cruise among long-suffering acquaintances, going to the
+De Brownes after the Gores, and the Smijthes after the De Brownes,
+with as many holes to run to afterwards as a four-year-old fox,--
+though with the same probability of finding them stopped,--of
+course she had her wardrobe with her. To see her night after night
+one would think that it was supplied with all that wealth would
+give. But there were deficiencies and there were make-shifts, very
+well known to herself and well understood by her maid. She could
+generally supply herself with gloves by bets, as to which she had
+never any scruple in taking either what she did win or did not, and
+in dunning any who might chance to be defaulters. On occasions too,
+when not afraid of the bystanders, she would venture on a hat, and
+though there was difficulty as to the payment, not being able to
+give her number as she did with gloves, so that the tradesmen could
+send the article, still she would manage to get the hat,--and the
+trimmings. It was said of her that she once offered to lay an
+Ulster to a sealskin jacket, but that the young man had coolly said
+that a sealskin jacket was beyond a joke and had asked her whether
+she was ready to "put down" her Ulster. These were little
+difficulties from which she usually knew how to extricate herself
+without embarrassment; but she had not expected to have to marshal
+her forces against such an enemy as Lord Rufford, or to sit down
+for the besieging of such a city this campaign. There were little
+things which required to be done, and the lady's-maid certainly had
+not time to go to church on Sunday.
+
+But there were other things which troubled her even more than her
+clothes. She did not much like Bragton, and at Bragton, in his own
+house, she did not very much like her proposed husband. At
+Washington he had been somebody. She had met him everywhere then,
+and had heard him much talked about. At Washington he had been a
+popular man and had had the reputation of being a rich man also;
+but here, at home, in the country he seemed to her to fall off in
+importance, and he certainly had not made himself pleasant. Whether
+any man could be pleasant to her in the retirement of a country
+house,--any man whom she would have no interest in running down,--
+she did not ask herself. An engagement to her must under any
+circumstances be a humdrum thing,--to be brightened only by wealth.
+But here she saw no signs of wealth. Nevertheless she was not
+prepared to shove away the plank from below her feet, till she was
+sure that she had a more substantial board on which to step. Her
+mother, who perhaps did not see in the character of Morton all the
+charms which she would wish to find in a son-in-law, was anxious to
+shake off the Bragton alliance; but Arabella, as she said so often
+both to herself and to her mother, was sick of the dust of the
+battle and conscious of fading strength. She would make this one
+more attempt, but must make it with great care. When last in town
+this young lord had whispered a word or two to her, which then had
+set her hoping for a couple of days; and now, when chance had
+brought her into his neighbourhood, he had gone out of his way,--
+very much out of his way,--to renew his acquaintance with her. She
+would be mad not to give herself the chance; but yet she could not
+afford to let the plank go from under her feet.
+
+But the part she had to play was one which even she felt to be
+almost beyond her powers. She could perceive that Morton was
+beginning to be jealous,--and that his jealousy was not of that
+nature which strengthens a tie but which is apt to break it
+altogether. His jealousy, if fairly aroused, would not be appeased
+by a final return to himself. She had already given him occasion to
+declare himself off, and if thoroughly angered he would no doubt
+use it. Day by day, and almost hour by hour, he was becoming more
+sombre and hard, and she was well aware that there was reason for
+it. It did not suit her to walk about alone with him through the
+shrubberies. It did not suit her to be seen with his arm round her
+waist. Of course the people of Bragton would talk of the
+engagement, but she would prefer that they should talk of it with
+doubt. Even her own maid had declared to Mrs. Hopkins that she did
+not know whether there was or was not an engagement,--her own maid
+being at the time almost in her confidence. Very few of the
+comforts of a lover had been vouchsafed to John Morton during this
+sojourn at Bragton and very little had been done in accordance with
+his wishes. Even this visit to Rufford, as she well knew, was being
+made in opposition to him. She hoped that her lover would not
+attempt to ride to hounds on the Tuesday, so that she might be near
+the lord unseen by him,--and that he would leave Rufford on the
+Wednesday before herself and her mother. At the ball of course she
+could dance with Lord Rufford, and could keep her eye on her lover
+at the same time.
+
+She hardly saw Morton on the Sunday afternoon, and she was again
+closeted on the Monday till lunch. They were to start at four and
+there would not be much more than time after lunch for her to put
+on her travelling gear, Then, as they all felt, there was a
+difficulty about the carriages. Who was to go with whom? Arabella,
+after lunch, took the bull by the horns. "I suppose," she said as
+Morton followed her out into the hall, "mamma and I had better go
+in the phaeton."
+
+"I was thinking that Lady Augustus might consent to travel with Mr.
+Gotobed and that you and I might have the phaeton."
+
+"Of course it would be very pleasant," she answered smiling.
+
+"Then why not let it be so?"
+
+"There are convenances."
+
+"How would it be if you and I were going without anybody else? Do
+you mean to say that in that case we might not sit in the same
+carriage?"
+
+"I mean to say that in that case I should not go at all. It isn't
+done in England. You have beer in the States so long that you
+forget all our old-fashioned ways."
+
+"I do think that is nonsense." She only smiled and shook her head.
+"Then the Senator shall go in the phaeton, and I will go with you
+and your mother."
+
+"Yes,--and quarrel with mamma all the time as you always do. Let me
+have it my own way this time."
+
+"Upon my word I believe you are ashamed of me," he said leaning
+back upon the hall table. He had shut the dining-room door and she
+was standing close to him.
+
+"What nonsense!"
+
+"You have only got to say so, Arabella, and let there be an end of
+it all."
+
+"If you wish it, Mr. Morton."
+
+"You know I don't wish it. You know I am ready to marry you
+to-morrow."
+
+"You have made ever so many difficulties as far as I can
+understand."
+
+"You have unreasonable people acting for you, Arabella, and of
+course I don't mean to give way to them."
+
+"Pray don't talk to me about money. I know nothing about it and
+have taken no part in the matter. I suppose there must be
+settlements?"
+
+"Of course there must"
+
+"And I can only do what other people tell me. You at any rate have
+something to do with it all, and I have absolutely nothing."
+
+"That is no reason you shouldn't go in the same carriage with me to
+Rufford."
+
+"Are you coming back to that, just like a big child? Do let us
+consider that as settled. I'm sure you'll let mamma and me have the
+use of the phaeton." Of course the little contest was ended in
+the manner proposed by Arabella.
+
+"I do think," said Arabella, when she and her mother were seated in
+the carriage, "that we have treated him very badly."
+
+"Quite as well as he deserves! What a house to bring us to; and
+what people! Did you ever come across such an old woman before! And
+she has him completely under her thumb. Are you prepared to live
+with that harridan?"
+
+"You may let me alone, mamma, for all that. She won't be in my way
+after I'm married, I can tell you."
+
+"You'll have something to do then."
+
+"I ain't a bit afraid of her."
+
+"And to ask us to meet such people as this American!"
+
+"He's going back to Washington and it suited him to have him. I
+don't quarrel with him for that. I wish I were married to him and
+back in the States."
+
+"You do?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"You have given it all up about Lord Rufford then?"
+
+"No;--that's just where it is. I haven't given it up, and I still
+see trouble upon trouble before me. But I know how it will be. He
+doesn't mean anything. He's only amusing himself."
+
+"If he'd once say the word he couldn't get back again. The Duke
+would interfere then."
+
+"What would he care for the Duke? The Duke is no more than anybody
+else nowadays. I shall just fall to the ground between two stools.
+I know it as well as if it were done already. And then I shall have
+to begin again! If it comes to that I shall do something terrible.
+I know I shall." Then they turned in at Lord Rufford's gates; and
+as they were driven up beneath the oaks, through the gloom, both
+mother and daughter thought how charming it would be to be the
+mistress of such a park.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+The first Evening at Rufford Hall
+
+
+The phaeton arrived the first, the driver having been especially
+told by Arabella that he need not delay on the road for the other
+carriage. She had calculated that she might make her entrance with
+better effect alone with her mother than in company with Morton and
+the Senator. It would have been worth the while of any one who had
+witnessed her troubles on that morning to watch the bland serenity
+and happy ease with which she entered the room. Her mother was fond
+of a prominent place but was quite contented on this occasion to
+play a second fiddle for her daughter. She had seen at a glance
+that Rufford Hall was a delightful house. Oh,--if it might become
+the home of her child and her grandchildren,--and possibly a
+retreat for herself! Arabella was certainly very handsome at this
+moment. Never did she look better than when got up with care for
+travelling, especially as seen by an evening light. Her slow
+motions were adapted to heavy wraps, and however she might procure
+her large sealskin jacket she graced it well when she had it. Lord
+Rufford came to the door to meet them and immediately introduced
+them to his sister. There were six or seven people in the room,
+mostly ladies, and tea was offered to the new-comers. Lady
+Penwether was largely made, like her brother; but was a languidly
+lovely woman, not altogether unlike Arabella herself in her figure
+and movements, but with a more expressive face, with less colour,
+and much more positive assurance of high breeding. Lady Penwether
+was said to be haughty, but it was admitted by all people that when
+Lady Penwether had said a thing or had done a thing, it might be
+taken for granted that the way in which she had done or said that
+thing was the right way. The only other gentleman there was Major
+Caneback, who had just come in from hunting with some distant pack
+and who had been brought into the room by Lord Rufford that he
+might give some account of the doings of the day. According to
+Caneback, they had been talking in the Brake country about nothing
+but Goarly and the enormities which had been perpetrated to the
+U.R.U. "By-the-bye, Miss Trefoil," said Lord Rufford, "what have
+you done with your Senator?"
+
+"He's on the road, Lord Rufford, examining English institutions as
+he comes along. He'll be here by midnight."
+
+"Imagine the man coming to me and telling me that he was a friend
+of Goarly's. I rather liked him for it. There was a thorough pluck
+about it. They say he's going to find all the money."
+
+"I thought Mr. Scrobby was to do that?" said Lady Penwether.
+
+"Mr. Scrobby will not have the slightest objection to have that
+part of the work done for him. If all we hear is true Miss
+Trefoil's Senator may have to defend both Scrobby and Goarly."
+
+"My Senator as you call him will be quite up to the occasion."
+
+"You knew him in America, Miss Trefoil?" asked Lady Penwether.
+
+"Oh yes. We used to meet him and Mrs. Gotobed everywhere. But we
+didn't exactly bring him over with us;--though our party down to
+Bragton was made up in Washington," she added, feeling that she
+might in this way account in some degree for her own presence in
+John Morton's house. "It was mamma and Mr. Morton arranged it all."
+
+"Oh my dear it was you and the Senator," said Lady Augustus, ready
+for the occasion.
+
+"Miss Trefoil," said the lord, "let us have it all out at once. Are
+you taking Goarly's part?"
+
+"Taking Goarly's part!" ejaculated the Major. Arabella affected to
+give a little start, as though frightened by the Major's
+enthusiasm. "For heaven's. sake let us know our foes," continued
+Lord Rufford. "You see the effect such an announcement had upon
+Major Caneback. Have you made an appointment before dawn with Mr.
+Scrobby under the elms? Now I look at you I believe in my heart
+you're a Goarlyite,--only without the Senator's courage to tell me
+the truth beforehand."
+
+"I really am very much obliged to Goarly," said Arabella, "because
+it is so nice to have something to talk about."
+
+"That's just what I think, Miss Trefoil," declared a young lady,
+Miss Penge, who was a friend of Lady Penwether. "The gentlemen have
+so much to say about hunting which nobody can understand! But now
+this delightful man has scattered poison all over the country there
+is something that comes home to our understanding. I declare myself
+a Goarlyite at once, Lord Rufford, and shall put myself under the
+Senator's leading directly he comes."
+
+During all this time not a word had been said of John Morton, the
+master of Bragton, the man to whose party these new-comers
+belonged. Lady Augustus and Arabella clearly understood that John
+Morton was only a peg on which the invitation to them had been
+hung. The feeling that it was so grew upon them with every word
+that was spoken,--and also the conviction that he must be treated
+like a peg at Rufford. The sight of the hangings of the room, so
+different to the old-fashioned dingy curtains at Bragton, the
+brilliancy of the mirrors, all the decorations of the place, the
+very blaze from the big grate, forced upon the girl's feelings a
+conviction that this was her proper sphere. Here she was, being
+made much of as a new-comer, and here if possible she must remain.
+Everything smiled on her with gilded dimples, and these were the
+smiles she valued. As the softness of the cushions sank into her
+heart, and mellow nothingnesses from well-trained voices greeted
+her ears, and the air of wealth and idleness floated about her
+cheeks, her imagination rose within her and assured her that she
+could secure something better than Bragton. The cautions with which
+she had armed herself faded away. This, this was the kind of thing
+for which she had been striving. As a girl of spirit was it not
+worth her while to make another effort even though there might be
+danger? Aut Caesar aut nihil. She knew nothing about Caesar; but
+before the tardy wheels which brought the Senator and Mr. Morton
+had stopped at the door she had declared to herself that she would
+be Lady Rufford. The fresh party was of course brought into the
+drawing-room and tea was offered; but Arabella hardly spoke to
+them, and Lady Augustus did not speak to them at all, and they were
+shown up to their bedrooms with very little preliminary
+conversation.
+
+It was very hard to put Mr. Gotobed down;--or it might be more
+correctly said, as there was no effort to put him down,--that it
+was not often that he failed in coming to the surface. He took Lady
+Penwether out to dinner and was soon explaining to her that this
+little experiment of his in regard to Goarly was being tried simply
+with the view of examining the institutions of the country. "We
+don't mind it from you," said Lady Penwether, "because you are in a
+certain degree a foreigner." The Senator declared himself flattered
+by being regarded as a foreigner only "in a certain degree." "You
+see you speak our language, Mr. Gotobed, and we can't help thinking
+you are half-English."
+
+"We are two-thirds English, my lady," said Mr. Gotobed; "but then
+we think the other third is an improvement."
+
+"Very likely."
+
+"We have nothing so nice as this;" as he spoke he waved his right
+hand to the different corners of the room. "Such a dinner-table as
+I am sitting down to now couldn't be fixed in all the United States
+though a man might spend three times as many dollars on it as his
+lordship does."
+
+"That is very often done, I should think."
+
+"But then as we have nothing so well done as a house like this, so
+also have we nothing so ill done as the houses of your poor
+people."
+
+"Wages are higher with you, Mr. Gotobed"
+
+"And public spirit, and the philanthropy of the age, and the
+enlightenment of the people, and the institutions of the country
+all round. They are all higher."
+
+"Canvas-back ducks," said the Major, who was sitting two or three
+off on the other side.
+
+"Yes, sir, we have canvas-back ducks."
+
+"Make up for a great many faults," said the Major.
+
+"Of course, sir, when a man's stomach rises above his intelligence
+he'll have to argue accordingly," said the Senator.
+
+"Caneback, what are you going to ride to-morrow?" asked the lord
+who saw the necessity of changing the conversation, as far at least
+as the Major was concerned.
+
+"Jemima;--mare of Purefoy's; have my neck broken, they tell me."
+
+"It's not improbable," said Sir John Purefoy who was sitting at
+Lady Penwether's left hand. "Nobody ever could ride her yet."
+
+"I was thinking of asking you to let Miss Trefoil try her," said
+Lord Rufford. Arabella was sitting between Sir John Purefoy and the
+Major.
+
+"Miss Trefoil is quite welcome," said Sir John. "It isn't a bad
+idea. Perhaps she may carry a lady, because she has never been
+tried. I know that she objects strongly to carry a man."
+
+"My dear," said Lady Augustus, "you shan't do anything of the
+kind." And Lady Augustus pretended to be frightened.
+
+"Mamma, you don't suppose Lord Rufford wants to kill me at once."
+
+"You shall either ride her, Miss Trefoil, or my little horse Jack.
+But I warn you beforehand that as Jack is the easiest ridden horse
+in the country, and can scramble over anything, and never came down
+in his life, you won't get any honour and glory; but on Jemima you
+might make a character that would stick to you till your dying
+day."
+
+"But if I ride Jemima that dying day might be to-morrow. I think
+I'll take Jack, Lord Rufford, and let Major Caneback have the
+honour. Is Jack fast?" In this way the anger arising between the
+Senator and the Major was assuaged. The Senator still held his own,
+and, before the question was settled between Jack and Jemima, had
+told the company that no Englishman knew how to ride, and that the
+only seat fit for a man on horseback was that suited for the pacing
+horses of California and Mexico. Then he assured Sir John Purefoy
+that eighty miles a day was no great journey for a pacing horse,
+with a man of fourteen stone and a saddle and accoutrements
+weighing four more. The Major's countenance, when the Senator
+declared that no Englishman could ride, was a sight worth seeing.
+
+That evening, even in the drawing-room, the conversation was
+chiefly about horses and hunting, and those terrible enemies Goarly
+and Scrobby. Lady Penwether and Miss Penge who didn't hunt were
+distantly civil to Lady Augustus of whom of course a woman so much
+in the world as Lady Penwether knew something. Lady Penwether had
+shrugged her shoulders when consulted as to these special guests
+and had expressed a hope that Rufford "wasn't going to make a goose
+of himself." But she was fond of her brother and as both Lady
+Purefoy and Miss Penge were special friends of hers, and as she had
+also been allowed to invite a couple of Godolphin's girls to whom
+she wished to be civil, she did as she was asked. The girl, she
+said to Miss Penge that evening, was handsome, but penniless and a
+flirt. The mother she declared to be a regular old soldier. As to
+Lady Augustus she was right; but she had perhaps failed to read
+Arabella's character correctly. Arabella Trefoil was certainly not
+a flirt. In all the horsey conversation Arabella joined, and her
+low, clear, slow voice could be heard now and then as though she
+were really animated with the subject. At Bragton she had never
+once spoken as though any matter had interested her. During this
+time Morton fell into conversation first with Lady Purefoy and then
+with the two Miss Godolphins, and afterwards for a few minutes with
+Lady Penwether who knew that he was a county gentleman and a
+respectable member of the diplomatic profession. But during the
+whole evening his ear was intent on the notes of Arabella's voice;
+and also, during the whole evening, her eye was watching him. She
+would not lose her chance with Lord Rufford for want of any effort
+on her own part. If aught were required from her in her present
+task that might be offensive to Mr. Morton,--anything that was
+peremptorily demanded for the effort,--she would not scruple to
+offend the man. But if it might be done without offence, so much
+the better. Once he came across the room and said a word to her as
+she was talking to Lord Rufford and the Purefoys. "You are really
+in earnest about riding to-morrow."
+
+"Oh dear, yes. Why shouldn't I be in earnest?"
+
+"You are coming out yourself I hope," said the Lord.
+
+"I have no horses here of my own, but I have told that man
+Stubbings to send me something, and as I haven't been at Bragton
+for the last seven years I have nothing proper to wear. I shan't be
+called a Goarlyite I hope if I appear in trowsers."
+
+"Not unless you have a basket of red herrings on your arm," said
+Lord Rufford. Then Morton retired back to the Miss Godolphins
+finding that he had nothing more to say to Arabella.
+
+He was very angry,--though he hardly knew why or with whom. A girl
+when she is engaged is not supposed to talk to no one but her
+recognised lover in a mixed party of ladies and gentlemen, and she
+is especially absolved from such a duty when they chance to meet in
+the house of a comparative stranger. In such a house and among such
+people it was natural that the talk should be about hunting, and as
+the girl had accepted the loan of a horse it was natural that she
+should join in such conversation. She had never sat for a moment
+apart with Lord Rufford. It was impossible to say that she had
+flirted with the man,--and yet Morton felt that he was neglected,
+and felt also that he was only there because this pleasure-seeking
+young Lord had liked to have in his house the handsome girl whom
+he, Morton, intended to marry. He felt thoroughly ashamed of being
+there as it were in the train of Miss Trefoil. He was almost
+disposed to get up and declare that the girl was engaged to marry
+him. He thought that he could put an end to the engagement without
+breaking his heart; but if the engagement was an engagement he
+could not submit to treatment such as this, either from her or from
+others. He would see her for the last time in the country at the
+ball on the following evening,--as of course he would not be near
+her during the hunting,--and then he would make her understand that
+she must be altogether his or altogether cease to be his. And so
+resolving he went to bed, refusing to join the gentlemen in the
+smoking-room.
+
+"Oh, mamma," Arabella said to her mother that evening, "I do so
+wish I could break my arm tomorrow."
+
+"Break your arm, my dear!"
+
+"Or my leg would be better. I wish I could have the courage to
+chuck myself off going over some gate. If I could be laid up here
+now with a broken limb I really think I could do it."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+Jemima
+
+
+As the meet on the next morning was in the park the party at
+Rufford Hall was able to enjoy the luxury of an easy morning
+together with the pleasures of the field. There was no getting up
+at eight o'clock, no hurry and scurry to do twenty miles and yet be
+in time, no necessity for the tardy dressers to swallow their
+breakfasts while their more energetic companions were raving at
+them for compromising the chances of the day by their delay. There
+was a public breakfast down-stairs, at which all the hunting
+farmers of the country were to be seen, and some who, only
+pretended to be hunting farmers on such occasions. But up-stairs
+there was a private breakfast for the ladies and such of the
+gentlemen as preferred tea to champagne and cherry brandy. Lord
+Rufford was in and out of both rooms, making himself generally
+agreeable. In the public room there was a great deal said about
+Goarly, to all of which the Senator listened with eager ears,--for
+the Senator preferred the public breakfast as offering another
+institution to his notice. "He'll swing on a gallows afore he's
+dead," said one energetic farmer who was sitting next to Mr.
+Gotobed,--a fat man with a round head, and a bullock's neck,
+dressed in a black coat with breeches and top-boots. John Runce was
+not a riding man. He was too heavy and short-winded;--too fond of
+his beer and port wine; but he was a hunting man all over, one who
+always had a fox in the springs at the bottom of his big meadows,
+one to whom it was the very breath of his nostrils to shake hands
+with the hunting gentry and to be known as a staunch friend to the
+U.R.U. A man did not live in the county more respected than John
+Runce, or who was better able to pay his way. To his thinking an
+animal more injurious than Goarly to the best interests of
+civilisation could not have been produced by all the evil
+influences of the world combined. "Do you really think," said the
+Senator calmly, "that a man should be hanged for killing a fox?"
+John Runce, who was not very ready, turned round and stared at him.
+"I haven't heard of any other harm that he has done, and perhaps he
+had some provocation for that." Words were wanting to Mr. Runce,
+but not indignation. He collected together his plate and knife and
+fork and his two glasses and his lump of bread, and, looking the
+Senator full in the face, slowly pushed back his chair and,
+carrying his provisions with him, toddled off to the other end of
+the room. When he reached a spot where place was made for him he
+had hardly breath left to speak. "Well," he said, "I never--!" He
+sat a minute in silence shaking his head, and continued to shake
+his head and look round upon his neighbours as he devoured his
+food.
+
+Up-stairs there was a very cosy party who came in by degrees. Lady
+Penwether was there soon after ten with Miss Penge and some of the
+gentlemen, including Morton, who was the only man seen in that room
+in black. Young Hampton, who vas intimate in the house, made his
+way up there and Sir John Purefoy joined the party. Sir John was a
+hunting man who lived in the county and was an old friend of the
+family. Lady Purefoy hunted also, and came in later. Arabella was
+the last,--not from laziness, but aware that in this way the effect
+might be the best. Lord Rufford was in the room when she entered it
+and of course she addressed herself to him. "Which is it to be,
+Lord Rufford, Jack or Jemima?"
+
+"Which ever you like."
+
+"I am quite indifferent. If you'll put me on the mare I'll ride
+her,--or try."
+
+"Indeed you won't," said Lady Augustus.
+
+"Mamma knows nothing about it, Lord Rufford. I believe I could do
+just as well as Major Caneback."
+
+"She never had a lady on her in her life," said Sir John.
+
+"Then it's time for her to begin. But at any rate I must have some
+breakfast first" Then Lord Rufford brought her a cup of tea and Sir
+John gave her a cutlet, and she felt herself to be happy. She was
+quite content with her hat, and though her habit was not exactly a
+hunting habit, it fitted her well. Morton had never before seen her
+in a riding dress and acknowledged that it became her. He struggled
+to think of something special to say to her, but there was nothing.
+He was not at home on such an occasion. His long trowsers weighed
+him down, and his ordinary morning coat cowed him. He knew in his
+heart that she thought no thing of him as he was now. But she said
+a word to him,--with that usual smile of hers. "Of course, Mr.
+Morton, you are coming with us."
+
+"A little way perhaps."
+
+"You'll find that any horse from Stubbings can go," said Lord
+Rufford. "I wish I could say as much of all mine."
+
+"Jack can go, I hope, Lord Rufford." Lord Rufford nodded his head.
+"And I shall expect you to give me a lead." To this he assented,
+though it was perhaps more than he had intended. But on such an
+occasion it is almost impossible to refuse such a request.
+
+At half-past eleven they were all out in the park, and Tony was
+elate as a prince having been regaled with a tumbler of champagne.
+But the great interest of the immediate moment were the frantic
+efforts made by Jemima to get rid of her rider. Once or twice Sir
+John asked the Major to give it up, but the Major swore that the
+mare was a good mare and only wanted riding. She kicked and
+squealed and backed and went round the park with him at a full
+gallop. In the park there was a rail with a ha-ha ditch, and the
+Major rode her at it in a gallop. She went through the timber, fell
+in the ditch, and then was brought up again without giving the man
+a fall. He at once put her back at the same fence, and she took it,
+almost in her stride, without touching it. "Have her like a spaniel
+before the day's over," said the Major, who thoroughly enjoyed
+these little encounters.
+
+Among the laurels at the bottom of the park a fox was found, and
+then there was a great deal of riding about the grounds. All this
+was much enjoyed by the ladies who were on foot,--and by the
+Senator who wandered about the place alone. A gentleman's park is
+not always the happiest place for finding a fox. The animal has
+usually many resources there and does not like to leave it. And
+when he does go away it is not always easy to get after him. But
+ladies in a carriage or on foot on such occasions have their turn
+of the sport. On this occasion it was nearly one before the fox
+allowed himself to be killed, and then he had hardly been outside
+the park palings. There was a good deal of sherry drank before the
+party got away and hunting men such as Major Caneback began to
+think that the day was to be thrown away. As they started off for
+Shugborough Springs, the little covert on John Runce's farm which
+was about four miles from Rufford Hall, Sir John asked the Major to
+get on another animal. "You've had trouble enough with her for one
+day, and given her enough to do." But the Major was not of that way
+of thinking. "Let her have the day's work," said the Major. "Do her
+good. Remember what she's learned." And so they trotted off to
+Shugborough.
+
+While they were riding about the park Morton had kept near to Miss
+Trefoil. Lord Rufford, being on his own place and among his own
+coverts, had had cares on his hand and been unable to devote
+himself to the young lady. She had never for a moment looked up at
+her lover, or tried to escape from him. She had answered all his
+questions, saying, however, very little, and had bided her time.
+The more gracious she was to Morton now the less ground would he
+have for complaining of her when she should leave him by-and-by. As
+they were trotting along the road Lord Rufford came up and
+apologized. "I'm afraid I've been very inattentive, Miss Trefoil;
+but I dare say you've been in better hands."
+
+"There hasn't been much to do;--has there?"
+
+"Very little. I suppose a man isn't responsible for having foxes
+that won't break. Did you see the Senator? He seemed to think it
+was all right. Did you hear of John Runce?" Then he told the story
+of John Runce, which had been told to him.
+
+"What a fine old fellow! I should forgive him his rent"
+
+"He is much better able to pay me double. Your Senator, Mr. Morton,
+is a very peculiar man."
+
+"He is peculiar," said Morton, "and I am sorry to say can make
+himself very disagreeable."
+
+"We might as well trot on as Shugborough is a small place, and a
+fox always goes away from it at once. John Runce knows how to train
+them better than I do. Then they made their way on through the
+straggling horses, and John Morton, not wishing to seem to be
+afraid of his rival, remained alone. "I wish Caneback had left that
+mare behind," said the lord as they went. "It isn't the country for
+her, and she is going very nastily with him. Are you fond of
+hunting, Miss Trefoil?"
+
+"Very fond of it," said Arabella who had been out two or three
+times in her life.
+
+"I like a girl to ride to hounds," said his lordship. "I don't
+think she ever looks so well." Then Arabella determined that come
+what might she would ride to hounds.
+
+At Shugborough Springs a fox was found before half the field was
+up, and he broke almost as soon as he was found. "Follow me through
+the hand gates," said the lord, "and from the third field out it's
+fair riding. Let him have his head, and remember he hangs a moment
+as he comes to his fence. You won't be left behind unless there's
+something out of the way to stop us." Arabella's heart was in her
+mouth, but she was quite resolved. Where he went she would follow.
+As for being left behind she would not care the least for that if
+he were left behind with her. They got well away, having to pause a
+moment while the hounds came up to Tony's horn out of the wood.
+Then there was plain sailing and there were very few before them.
+"He's one of the old sort, my lord," said Tony as he pressed on,
+speaking of the fox. "Not too near me, and you'll go like a bird,"
+said his lordship. "He's a nice little horse, isn't he? When I'm
+going to be married, he'll be the first present I shall make her."
+
+"He'd tempt almost any girl," said Arabella.
+
+It was wonderful how well she went, knowing so little about it as
+she did. The horse was one easily ridden, and on plain ground she
+knew what she was about in a saddle. At any rate she did not
+disgrace herself and when they had already run some three or four
+miles Lord Rufford had nearly the best of it and she had kept with
+him. "You don't know where you are I suppose," he said when they
+came to a check.
+
+"And I don't in the least care, if they'd only go on," said she
+eagerly.
+
+"We're back at Rufford Park. We've left the road nearly a mile to
+our left, but there we are. Those trees are the park."
+
+"But must we stop there?"
+
+"That's as the fox may choose to behave. We shan't stop unless he
+does." Then young Hampton came up, declaring that there was the
+very mischief going on between Major Caneback and Jemima. According
+to Hampton's account, the Major had been down three or four times,
+but was determined to break either the mare's neck or her spirit.
+He had been considerably hurt, so Hampton said, in one shoulder,
+but had insisted on riding on. "That's the worst of him," said Lord
+Rufford. "He never knows when to give up."
+
+Then the hounds were again on the scent and were running very fast
+towards the park. "That's a nasty ditch before us," said the Lord.
+"Come down a little to the left. The hounds are heading that way,
+and there's a gate." Young Hampton in the meantime was going
+straight for the fence. "I'm not afraid," said Arabella.
+
+"Very well. Give him his head and he'll do it"
+
+Just at that moment there was a noise behind them and the Major on
+Jemima rushed up. She was covered with foam and he with dirt, and
+her sides were sliced with the spur. His hat was crushed, and he
+was riding almost altogether with his right hand. He came close to
+Arabella and she could see the rage in his face as the animal
+rushed on with her head almost between her knees. "He'll have
+another fall there," said Lord Rufford.
+
+Hampton who had passed them was the first over the fence, and the
+other three all took it abreast. The Major was to the right, the
+lord to the left and the girl between them. The mare's head was
+perhaps the first. She rushed at the fence, made no leap at all,
+and of course went headlong into the ditch. The Major still stuck
+to her though two or three voices implored him to get off. He
+afterwards declared that he had not strength to lift himself out of
+the saddle. The mare lay for a moment;--then blundered out, rolled
+over him, jumped on to her feet, and lunging out kicked her rider
+on the head as he was rising. Then she went away and afterwards
+jumped the palings into Rufford Park. That evening she was shot.
+
+The man when kicked had fallen back close under the feet of Miss
+Trefoil's horse. She screamed and half-fainting, fell also;--but
+fell without hurting herself. Lord Rufford of course stopped, as
+did also Mr. Hampton and one of the whips, with several others in
+the course of a minute or two. The Major was senseless,--but they
+who understood what they were looking at were afraid that the case
+was very bad. He was picked up and put on a door and within half an
+hour was on his bed in Rufford Hall. But he did not speak for some
+hours and before six o'clock that evening the doctor from Rufford
+had declared that he had mounted his last horse and ridden his last
+hunt!
+
+"Oh Lord Rufford," said Arabella, "I shall never recover that. I
+heard the horse's feet against his head." Lord Rufford shuddered
+and put his hand round her waist to support her. At that time they
+were standing on the ground. "Don't mind me if you can do any good
+to him." But there was nothing that Lord Rufford could do as four
+men were carrying the Major on a shutter. So he and Arabella
+returned together, and when she got off her horse she was only able
+to throw herself into his arms.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+Poor Caneback
+
+
+A closer intimacy will occasionally be created by some accident,
+some fortuitous circumstance, than weeks of ordinary intercourse
+will produce. Walk down Bond Street in a hailstorm of peculiar
+severity and you may make a friend of the first person you meet,
+whereas you would be held to have committed an affront were you to
+speak to the same person in the same place on a fine day. You shall
+travel smoothly to York with a lady and she will look as though she
+would call the guard at once were you so much as to suggest that it
+were a fine day; but if you are lucky enough to break a wheel
+before you get to Darlington, she will have told you all her
+history and shared your sherry by the time you have reached that
+town. Arabella was very much shocked by the dreadful accident she
+had seen. Her nerves had suffered, though it may be doubted whether
+her heart had been affected much. But she was quite conscious when
+she reached her room that the poor Major's misfortune, happening as
+it had done just beneath her horse's feet, had been a godsend to
+her. For a moment the young lord's arm had been round her waist and
+her head had been upon his shoulder. And again when she had slipped
+from her saddle she had felt his embrace. His fervour to her had
+been simply the uncontrolled expression of his feeling at the
+moment,--as one man squeezes another tightly by the hand in any
+crisis of sudden impulse. She knew this; but she knew also that he
+would probably revert to the intimacy which the sudden emotion had
+created. The mutual galvanic shock might be continued at the next
+meeting,--and so on. They had seen the tragedy together and it
+would not fail to be a bond of union. As she told the tragedy to
+her mother, she delicately laid aside her hat and whip and riding
+dress, and then asked whether it was not possible that they might
+prolong their stay at Rufford. "But the Gores, my dear! I put them
+off, you know, for two days only." Then Arabella declared that she
+did not care a straw for the Gores. In such a matter as this what
+would it signify though they should quarrel with a whole generation
+of Gores? For some time she thought that she would not come down
+again that afternoon or even that evening. It might well be that
+the sight of the accident should have made her too ill to appear.
+She felt conscious that in that moment and in the subsequent half
+hour she had carried herself well, and that there would be an
+interest about her were she to own herself compelled to keep her
+room. Were she now to take to her bed they could not turn her out
+on the following day. But at last her mother's counsel put an end
+to that plan. Time was too precious. "I think you might lose more
+than you'd gain," said her mother.
+
+Both Lord Rufford and his sister were very much disturbed as to
+what they should do on the occasion. At half-past six Lord Rufford
+was told that the Major had recovered his senses, but that the case
+was almost hopeless. Of course he saw his guest. "I'm all right,"
+said the Major. The Lord sat there by the bedside, holding the
+man's hand for a few moments, and then got up to leave him. "No
+nonsense about putting off," said the Major in a faint voice;
+"beastly bosh all that!"
+
+But what was to be done? The dozen people who were in the house
+must of course sit down to dinner. And then all the neighbourhood
+for miles round were coming to a ball. It would be impossible to
+send messages to everybody. And there was the feeling too that the
+man was as yet only ill, and that his recovery was possible. A
+ball, with a dead man in one of the bedrooms, would be dreadful.
+With a dying man it was bad enough;--but then a dying man is always
+also a living man! Lord Rufford had already telegraphed for a
+first-class surgeon from London, it having been whispered to him
+that perhaps Old Nokes from Rufford might be mistaken. The surgeon
+could not be there till four o'clock in the morning by which time
+care would have been taken to remove the signs of the ball; but if
+there was reason to send for a London surgeon, then also was there
+reason for hope; and if there were ground for hope, then the
+desirability of putting off the ball was very much reduced. "He's
+at the furthest end of the corridor," the Lord said to his sister,
+"and won't hear a sound of the music."
+
+Though the man were to die why shouldn't the people dance? Had the
+Major been dying three or four miles off, at the hotel at Rufford,
+there would only have been a few sad looks, a few shakings of the
+head, and the people would have danced without any flaw in their
+gaiety. Had it been known at Rufford Hall that he was lying at that
+moment in his mortal agony at Aberdeen, an exclamation or two,--
+"Poor Caneback!"--"Poor Major!"--would have been the extent of the
+wailing, and not the pressure of a lover's hand would have been
+lightened, or the note of a fiddle delayed. And nobody in that
+house really cared much for Caneback. He was not a man worthy of
+much care. He was possessed of infinite pluck, and now that he was
+dying could bear it well. But he had loved no one particularly, had
+been dear to no one in these latter days of his life, had been of
+very little use in the world, and had done very little more for
+society than any other horse-trainer! But nevertheless it is a bore
+when a gentleman dies in your house,--and a worse bore if he dies
+from an accident than if from an illness for which his own body may
+be supposed to be responsible. Though the gout should fly to a
+man's stomach in your best bedroom, the idea never strikes you that
+your burgundy has done it! But here the mare had done the mischief.
+
+Poor Caneback;--and poor Lord Rufford! The Major was quite certain
+that it was all over with himself. He had broken so many of his
+bones and had his head so often cracked that he understood his own
+anatomy pretty well. There he lay quiet and composed, sipping small
+modicums of brandy and water, and taking his outlook into such
+transtygian world as he had fashioned for himself in his dull
+imagination. If he had misgivings he showed them to no bystander.
+If he thought then that he might have done better with his energies
+than devote them to dangerous horses, he never said so. His voice
+was weak, but it never quailed; and the only regret he expressed
+was that he had not changed the bit in Jemima's mouth. Lord
+Rufford's position was made worse by an expression from Sir John
+Purefoy that the party ought to be put off. Sir John was in a
+measure responsible for what his mare had done, and was in a
+wretched state. "If it could possibly affect the poor fellow I
+would do it," said Lord Rufford; "but it would create very great
+inconvenience and disappointment. I have to think of other people."
+"Then I shall send my wife home," said Sir John. And Lady Purefoy
+was sent home. Sir John himself of course could not leave the house
+while the man was alive. Before they all sat down to dinner the
+Major was declared to be a little stronger. That settled the
+question and the ball was not put off.
+
+The ladies came down to dinner in a melancholy guise. They were not
+fully dressed for the evening and were of course inclined to be
+silent and sad. Before Lord Rufford came in Arabella managed to get
+herself on to the sofa next to Lady Penwether, and then to undergo
+some little hysterical manifestation, "Oh Lady Penwether; if you
+had seen it;--and heard it!"
+
+"I am very glad that I was spared anything so horrible."
+
+"And the man's face as he passed me going to the leap! It will
+haunt me to my dying day!" Then she shivered, and gurgled in her
+throat, and turning suddenly round, hid her face on the elbow of
+the couch.
+
+"I've been afraid all the afternoon that she would be ill,"
+whispered Lady Augustus to Miss Penge. "She is so susceptible!"
+
+When Lord Rufford came into the room Arabella at once got up and
+accosted him with a whisper. Either he took her or she took him
+into a distant part of the room where they conversed apart for five
+minutes. And he, as he told her how things were going and what was
+being done, bent over her and whispered also. "What good would it
+do, you know?" she said with affected intimacy as he spoke of his
+difficulty about the ball. "One would do anything if one could be
+of service,--but that would do nothing." She felt completely that
+her presence at the accident had given her a right to have peculiar
+conversations and to be consulted about everything. Of course she
+was very sorry for Major Caneback. But as it had been ordained that
+Major Caneback was to have his head split in two by a kick from a
+horse, and that Lord Rufford was to be there to see it, how great
+had been the blessing which had brought her to the spot at the same
+time!
+
+Everybody there saw the intimacy and most of them understood the
+way in which it was being used. "That girl is very clever,
+Rufford," his sister whispered to him before dinner. "She is very
+much excited rather than clever just at present," he answered;--
+upon which Lady Penwether shook her head. Miss Penge whispered to
+Miss Godolphin that Miss Trefoil was making the most of it; and Mr.
+Morton, who had come into the room while the conversation apart was
+going on, had certainly been of the same opinion.
+
+She had seated herself in an arm-chair away from the others after
+that conversation was over, and as she sat there Morton came up to
+her. He had been so little intimate with the members of the party
+assembled and had found himself so much alone, that he had only
+lately heard the story about Major Caneback, and had now only heard
+it imperfectly. But he did see that an absolute intimacy had been
+effected where two days before there had only been a slight
+acquaintance; and he believed that this sudden rush had been in
+some way due to the accident of which he had been told. "You know
+what has happened?" he said.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Morton; do not talk to me about it."
+
+"Were you not speaking of it to Lord Rufford?"
+
+"Of course I was. We were together."
+
+"Did you see it?" Then she shuddered, put her handkerchief up to
+her eyes, and turned her face away. "And yet the ball is to go on?"
+he asked.
+
+"Pray, pray, do not dwell on it,--unless you wish to force me back
+to my room. When I left it I felt that I was attempting to do too
+much." This might have been all very well had she not been so
+manifestly able to talk to Lord Rufford on the same subject. If
+there is any young man to whom a girl should be able to speak when
+she is in a state of violent emotion, it is the young man to whom
+she is engaged. So at least thought Mr. John Morton.
+
+Then dinner was announced, and the dinner certainly was sombre
+enough. A dinner before a ball in the country never is very much of
+a dinner. The ladies know that there is work before them, and keep
+themselves for the greater occasion. Lady Purefoy had gone, and
+Lady Penwether was not very happy in the prospects for the evening.
+Neither Miss Penge nor either of the two Miss Godolphins had
+entertained personal hopes in regard to Lord Rufford, but
+nevertheless they took badly the great favour shown to Arabella.
+Lady Augustus did not get on particularly well with any of the
+other ladies,--and there seemed during the dinner to be an air of
+unhappiness over them all. They retired as soon as it was possible,
+and then Arabella at once went up to her bedroom.
+
+"Mr. Nokes says he is a little stronger, my Lord," said the butler
+coming into the room. Mr. Nokes had gone home and had returned
+again.
+
+"He might pull through yet," said Mr. Hampton. Lord Rufford shook
+his head. Then Mr. Gotobed told a wonderful story of an American
+who had had his brains knocked almost out of his head and had sat
+in Congress afterwards. "He was the finest horseman I ever saw on a
+horse," said Hampton.
+
+"A little too much temper," said Captain Battersby, who was a very
+old friend of the Major.
+
+"I'd give a good deal that that mare had never been brought to my
+stables," said Lord Rufford. "Purefoy will never get over it, and I
+shan't forget it in a hurry." Sir John at this time was up-stairs
+with the sufferer. Even while drinking their wine they could not
+keep themselves from the subject, and were convivial in a
+cadaverous fashion.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+The Ball
+
+
+The people came of course, but not in such numbers as had been
+expected. Many of those in Rufford had heard of the accident, and
+having been made acquainted with Nokes's report, stayed away.
+Everybody was told that supper would be on the table at twelve, and
+that it was generally understood that the house was to be cleared
+by two. Nokes seemed to think that the sufferer would live at least
+till the morrow, and it was ascertained to a certainty that the
+music could not affect him. It was agreed among the party in the
+house that the ladies staying there should stand up for the first
+dance or two, as otherwise the strangers would be discouraged and
+the whole thing would be a failure. This request was made by Lady
+Penwether because Miss Penge had said that she thought it
+impossible for her to dance. Poor Miss Penge, who was generally
+regarded as a brilliant young woman, had been a good deal eclipsed
+by Arabella and had seen the necessity of striking out some line
+for herself. Then Arabella had whispered a few words to Lord
+Rufford, and the lord had whispered a few words to his sister, and
+Lady Penwether had explained what was to be done to the ladies
+around. Lady Augustus nodded her head and said that it was all
+right. The other ladies of course agreed, and partners were
+selected within the house party. Lord Rufford stood up with
+Arabella and John Morton with Lady Penwether. Mr. Gotobed selected
+Miss Penge, and Hampton and Battersby the two Miss Godolphins. They
+all took their places with a lugubrious but business-like air, as
+aware that they were sacrificing themselves in the performance of a
+sad duty. But Morton was not allowed to dance in the same quadrille
+with the lady of his affections. Lady Penwether explained to him
+that she and her brother had better divide themselves,--for the
+good of the company generally,--and therefore he and Arabella were
+also divided.
+
+A rumour had reached Lady Penwether of the truth in regard to their
+guests from Bragton. Mr. Gotobed had whispered to her that he had
+understood that they certainly were engaged; and, even before that,
+the names of the two lovers had been wafted to her ears from the
+other side of the Atlantic. Both John Morton and Lady Augustus were
+"somebodies," and Lady Penwether generally knew what there was to
+be known of anybody who was anybody. But it was quite clear to
+her,--more so even than to poor John Morton, that the lady was
+conducting herself now as though she were fettered by no bonds, and
+it seemed to Lady Penwether also that the lady was very anxious to
+contract other bonds. She knew her brother well. He was always in
+love with somebody; but as he had hitherto failed of success where
+marriage was desirable, so had he avoided disaster when it was not.
+He was one of those men who are generally supposed to be averse to
+matrimony. Lady Penwether and some other relatives were anxious
+that he should take a wife;--but his sister was by no means anxious
+that he should take such a one as Arabella Trefoil. Therefore she
+thought that she might judiciously ask Mr. Morton a few questions.
+"I believe you knew the Trefoils in Washington?" she said. Morton
+acknowledged that he had seen much of them there. "She is very
+handsome certainly."
+
+"I think so."
+
+"And rides well I suppose."
+
+"I don't know. I never heard much of her riding."
+
+"Has she been staying long at Bragton?" "Just a week."
+
+"Do you know Lord Augustus?" Morton said that he did not know Lord
+Augustus and then answered sundry other questions of the same
+nature in the same uncommunicative way. Though he had once or twice
+almost fancied that he would like to proclaim aloud that the girl
+was engaged to him, yet he did not like to have the fact pumped out
+of him. And if she were such a girl as she now appeared to be,
+might it not be better for him to let her go? Surely her conduct
+here at Rufford Hall was opportunity enough. No doubt she was
+handsome. No doubt he loved her,--after his fashion of loving. But
+to lose her now would not break his heart, whereas to lose her
+after he was married to her, would, he knew well, bring him to the
+very ground. He would ask her a question or two this very night,
+and then come to some resolution. With such thoughts as these
+crossing his mind he certainly was not going to proclaim his
+engagement to Lady Penwether. But Lady Penwether was a determined
+woman. Her smile, when she condescended to smile, was very sweet,--
+lighting up her whole face and flattering for the moment the person
+on whom it shone. It was as though a rose in emitting its perfume
+could confine itself to the nostrils of its one favoured friend.
+And now she smiled on Morton as she asked another question. "I did
+hear," she said, "from one of your Foreign Office young men that
+you and Miss Trefoil were very intimate."
+
+"Who was that, Lady Penwether?"
+
+"Of course I shall mention no name. You might call out the poor lad
+and shoot him, or, worse still, have him put down to the bottom of
+his class. But I did hear it. And then, when I find her staying
+with her mother at your house, of course I believe it to be true."
+
+"Now she is staying at your brother's house,--which is much the
+same thing."
+
+"But I am here."
+
+"And my grandmother is at Bragton."
+
+"That puts me in mind, Mr. Morton. I am so sorry that we did not
+know it, so that we might have asked her."
+
+"She never goes out anywhere, Lady Penwether."
+
+"And there is nothing then in the report that I heard?"
+
+Morton paused a moment before he answered, and during that moment
+collected his diplomatic resources. He was not a weak man, who
+could be made to tell anything by the wiles of a pretty woman. "I
+think," he said, "that when people have anything of that kind which
+they wish to be known, they declare it."
+
+"I beg your pardon. I did not mean to unravel a secret."
+
+"There are secrets, Lady Penwether, which people do like to
+unravel, but which the owners of them sometimes won't abandon."
+Then there was nothing more said on the subject. Lady Penwether did
+not smile again, and left him to go about the room on her business
+as hostess, as soon as the dance was over. But she was sure that
+they were engaged.
+
+In the meantime, the conversation between Lord Rufford and Arabella
+was very different in its tone, though on the same subject. He was
+certainly very much struck with her, not probably ever waiting to
+declare to himself that she was the most beautiful woman he had
+ever seen in his life, but still feeling towards her an attraction
+which for the time was strong. A very clever girl would frighten
+him; a very horsey girl would disgust him; a very quiet girl would
+bore him; or a very noisy girl annoy him. With a shy girl he could
+never be at his ease, not enjoying the labour of overcoming such a
+barrier; and yet he liked to be able to feel that any female
+intimacy which he admitted was due to his own choice and not to
+that of the young woman. Arabella Trefoil was not very clever, but
+she had given all her mind to this peculiar phase of life, and, to
+use a common phrase, knew what she was about. She was quite alive
+to the fact that different men require different manners in a young
+woman; and as she had adapted herself to Mr. Morton at Washington,
+so could she at Rufford adapt herself to Lord Rufford. At the
+present moment the lord was in love with her as much as he was wont
+to be in love. "Doesn't it seem an immense time since we came here
+yesterday?" she said to him. "There has been so much done"
+
+"There has been a great misfortune."
+
+"I suppose that is it. Only for that how very very pleasant it
+would have been!"
+
+"Yes, indeed. It was a nice run, and that little horse carried you
+charmingly. I wish I could see you ride him again" She shook her
+head as she looked up into his face. "Why do you shake your head?"
+
+"Because I am afraid there is no possible chance of such happiness.
+We are going to such a dull house to-morrow! And then to so many
+dull houses afterwards."
+
+"I don't know why you shouldn't come back and have another day or
+two;--when all this sadness has gone by."
+
+"Don't talk about it, Lord Rufford."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I never like to talk about any pleasure because it always vanishes
+as soon as it has come;--and when it has been real pleasure it
+never comes back again. I don't think I ever enjoyed anything so
+much as our ride this morning, till that tragedy came."
+
+"Poor Caneback!"
+
+"I suppose there is no hope?" He shook his head. "And we must go on
+to those Gores to-morrow without knowing anything about it. I
+wonder whether you could send me a line."
+
+"Of course I can, and I will." Then he asked her a question looking
+into her face. "You are not going back to Bragton?"
+
+"Oh dear, no."
+
+"Was Bragton dull?"
+
+"Awfully dull; frightfully dull."
+
+"You know what they say?"
+
+"What who say, Lord Rufford? People say anything,--the more
+ill-natured the better they like it, I think."
+
+"Have you not heard what they say about you and Mr. Morton?"
+
+"Just because mamma made a promise when in Washington to go to
+Bragton with that Mr. Gotobed. Don't you find they marry you to
+everybody?"
+
+"They have married me to a good many people. Perhaps they'll marry
+me to you to-morrow. That would not be so bad."
+
+"Oh, Lord Rufford! Nobody has ever condemned you to anything so
+terrible as that."
+
+"There was no truth in it then, Miss Trefoil?"
+
+"None at all, Lord Rufford. Only I don't know why you should ask
+me."
+
+"Well; I don't know. A man likes sometimes to be sure how the land
+lies. Mr. Morton looks so cross that I thought that perhaps the
+very fact of my dancing with you might be an offence."
+
+"Is he cross?"
+
+"You know him better than I do. Perhaps it's his nature. Now I must
+do one other dance with a native and then my work will be over."
+
+"That isn't very civil, Lord Rufford."
+
+"If you do not know what I meant, you're not the girl I take you to
+be." Then as she walked with him back out of the ball-room into the
+drawing-room she assured him that she did know what he meant, and
+that therefore she was the girl he took her to be.
+
+She had determined that she would not dance again and had resolved
+to herd with the other ladies of the house,--waiting for any
+opportunity that chance might give her for having a last word with
+Lord Rufford before they parted for the night,--when Morton came up
+to her and demanded rather than asked that she would stand up with
+him for a quadrille. "We settled it all among ourselves, you know,"
+she said. "We were to dance only once, just to set the people off."
+He still persisted, but she still refused, alleging that she was
+bound by the general compact; and though he was very urgent she
+would not yield. "I wonder how you can ask me," she said. "You
+don't suppose that after what has occurred I can have any pleasure
+in dancing." Upon this he asked her to take a turn with him through
+the rooms, and to that she found herself compelled to assent. Then
+he spoke out to her. "Arabella," he said, "I am not quite content
+with what has been going on since we came to this house."
+
+"I am sorry for that."
+
+"Nor, indeed, have I been made very happy by all that has occurred
+since your mother and you did me the honour of coming to Bragton."
+
+"I must acknowledge you haven't seemed to be very happy, Mr.
+Morton."
+
+"I don't want to distress you;--and as far as possible I wish to
+avoid distressing myself. If it is your wish that our engagement
+should be over, I will endeavour to bear it. If it is to be
+continued, I expect that your manner to me should be altered"
+
+"What am I to say?"
+
+"Say what you feel."
+
+"I feel that I can't alter my manner, as you call it."
+
+"You do wish the engagement to be over then?"
+
+"I did not say so. The truth is, Mr. Morton, that there is some
+trouble about the lawyers."
+
+"Why do you always call me Mr. Morton?"
+
+"Because I am aware how probable it is that all this may come to
+nothing. I can't walk out of the house and marry you as the
+cook maid does the gardener. I've got to wait till I'm told that
+everything is settled; and at present I'm told that things are not
+settled because you won't agree."
+
+"I'll leave it to anybody to say whether I've been unreasonable."
+
+"I won't go into that. I haven't meddled with it, and I don't know
+anything about it. But until it is all settled as a matter of
+course there must be some little distance between us. It's the
+commonest thing in the world, I should say."
+
+"What is to be the end of it?"
+
+"I do not know. If you think yourself injured you can back out of
+it at once. I've nothing more to say about it."
+
+"And you think I can like the way you're going on here?"
+
+"If you're jealous, Mr. Morton, there's an end of it. I tell you
+fairly once for all, that as long as I'm a single woman I will
+regulate my conduct as I please. You can do the same, and I shall
+not say a word to you." Then she withdrew her arm from him, and,
+leaving him, walked across the room and joined her mother. He went
+off at once to his own room resolving that he would write to her
+from Bragton. He had made his propositions in regard to money which
+he was quite aware were as liberal as was fit. If she would now fix
+a day for their marriage, he would be a happy man. If she would not
+bring herself to do this, then he would have no alternative but to
+regard their engagement as at an end.
+
+At two o'clock the guests were nearly all gone. The Major was
+alive, and likely to live at least for some hours, and the Rufford
+people generally were glad that they had not put off the ball. Some
+of them who were staying in the house had already gone to bed, and
+Lady Penwether, with Miss Penge at her side, was making her last
+adieux in the drawing-room. The ball-room was reached from the
+drawing-room, with a vestibule between them, and opening from this
+was a small chamber, prettily furnished but seldom used, which had
+no peculiar purpose of its own, but in which during the present
+evening many sweet words had probably been spoken. Now, at this
+last moment, Lord Rufford and Arabella Trefoil were there alone
+together. She had just got up from a sofa, and he had taken her
+hand in his. She did not attempt to withdraw it, but stood looking
+down upon the ground. Then he passed his arm round her waist and
+lifting her face to his held her in a close embrace from which she
+made no effort to free herself. As soon as she was released she
+hastened to the door which was all but closed, and as she opened it
+and passed through to the drawing-room said some ordinary word to
+him quite aloud in her ordinary voice. If his action had disturbed
+her she knew very well how to recover her equanimity.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+The last Morning at Rufford Hall
+
+
+"Well, my love?" said Lady Augustus, as soon as her daughter had
+joined her in her bedroom. On such occasions there was always a
+quarter of an hour before going to bed in which the mother and
+daughter discussed their affairs, while the two lady's maids were
+discussing their affairs in the other room. The two maids probably
+did not often quarrel, but the mother and daughter usually did.
+
+"I wish that stupid man hadn't got himself hurt."
+
+"Of course, my dear; we all wish that. But I really don't see that
+it has stood much in your way.
+
+"Yes it has. After all there is nothing like dancing, and we
+shouldn't all have been sent to bed at two o'clock."
+
+"Then it has come to nothing?"
+
+"I didn't say that at all, mamma. I think I have done uncommonly
+well. Indeed I know I have. But then if everything had not been
+upset, I might have done so much better."
+
+"What have you done?" asked Lady Augustus, timidly. She knew
+perfectly well that her daughter would tell her nothing, and yet
+she always asked these questions and was always angry when no
+information was given to her. Any young woman would have found it
+very hard to give the information needed. "When we were alone he
+sat for five minutes with his arm round my waist, and then he
+kissed me. He didn't say much, but then I knew perfectly well that
+he would be on his guard not to commit himself by words. But I've
+got him to promise that he'll write to me, and of course I'll
+answer in such a way that he must write again. I know he'll want to
+see me, and I think I can go very near doing it. But he's an old
+stager and knows what he's about: and of course there'll be ever so
+many people to tell him I'm not the sort of girl he ought to marry.
+He'll hear about Colonel de B--, and Sir C. D--, and Lord E. F--,
+and there are ever so many chances against me. But I've made up my
+mind to try it. It's taking the long odds. I can hardly expect to
+win, but if I do pull it off I'm made for ever!" A daughter can
+hardly say all that to her mother. Even Arabella Trefoil could not
+say it to her mother,--or, at any rate, she would not. "What a
+question that is to ask, mamma?" she did say tossing her head.
+
+"Well, my dear, unless you tell me something how can I help you?"
+
+"I don't know that I want you to help me,--at any rate not in that
+way."
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"Oh, mamma, you are so odd."
+
+"Has he said anything?"
+
+"Yes, he has. He said he liked dry champagne and that he never ate
+supper."
+
+"If you won't tell me how things are going you may fight your own
+battles by yourself."
+
+"That's just what I must do. Nobody else can fight my battles for
+me."
+
+"What are you going to do about Mr. Morton?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"I saw him talking to you and looking as black as thunder."
+
+"He always looks as black as thunder."
+
+"Is that to be all off? I insist upon having an answer to that
+question."
+
+"I believe you fancy, mamma, that a lot of men can be played like a
+parcel of chessmen, and that as soon as a knight is knocked on the
+head you can take him up and put him into the box and have done
+with him."
+
+"You haven't done with Mr. Morton then?"
+
+"Poor Mr. Morton! I do feel he is badly used because he is so
+honest. I sometimes wish that I could afford to be honest too and
+to tell somebody the downright truth. I should like to tell him the
+truth and I almost think I will. `My dear fellow, I did for a time
+think I couldn't do better, and I'm not at all sure now that I can.
+But then you are so very dull, and I'm not certain that I should
+care to be Queen of the English society at the Court of the Emperor
+of Morocco! But if you'll wait for another six months, I shall be
+able to tell you.' That's what I should have to say to him."
+
+"Who is talking nonsense now, Arabella?"
+
+"I am not. But I shan't say it. And now, mamma, I'll tell you what
+we must do."
+
+"You must tell me why also?"
+
+"I can do nothing of the kind. He knows the Duke." The Duke with
+the Trefoils always meant the Duke of Mayfair who was Arabella's
+ducal uncle.
+
+"Intimately?"
+
+"Well enough to go there. There is to be a great shooting at
+Mistletoe,"--Mistletoe was the Duke's place,--"in January. I got
+that from him, and he can go if he likes. He won't go as it is: but
+if I tell him I'm to be there, I think he will."
+
+"What did you tell him?"
+
+"Well;--I told him a tarradiddle of course. I made him understand
+that I could be there if I pleased, and he thinks that I mean to be
+there if he goes."
+
+"But I'm sure the Duchess won't have me again."
+
+"She might let me come."
+
+"And what am I to do?"
+
+"You could go to Brighton with Miss De Groat;--or what does it
+matter for a fortnight? You'll get the advantage when it's done.
+It's as well to have the truth out at once, mamma,--I cannot carry
+on if I'm always to be stuck close to your apron-strings. There are
+so many people won't have you."
+
+"Arabella, I do think you are the most ungrateful, hard-hearted
+creature that ever lived."
+
+"Very well; I don't know what I have to be grateful about, and I
+need to be hard-hearted. Of course I am hard-hearted. The thing
+will be to get papa to see his brother."
+
+"Your papa!"
+
+"Yes; that's what I mean to try. The Duke of course would like me
+to marry Lord Rufford. Do you think that if I were at home here it
+wouldn't make Mistletoe a very different sort of place for you? The
+Duke does like papa in a sort of way, and he's civil enough to me
+when I'm there. He never did like you."
+
+"Everybody is so fond of you! It was what you did when young
+Stranorlar was there which made the Duchess almost turn us out of
+the house."
+
+"What's the good of your saying that, mamma? If you go on like that
+I'll separate myself from you and throw myself on papa."
+
+"Your father wouldn't lift his little finger for you."
+
+"I'll try at any rate. Will you consent to my going there without
+you if I can manage it?"
+
+"What did Lord Rufford say?" Arabella here made a grimace. "You can
+tell me something. What are the lawyers to say to Mr. Morton's
+people?"
+
+"Whatever they like."
+
+"If they come to arrangements do you mean to marry him?"
+
+"Not for the next two months certainly. I shan't see him again now
+heaven knows when. He'll write no doubt,--one of his awfully
+sensible letters, and I shall take my time about answering him. I
+can stretch it out for two months. If I'm to do any good with this
+man it will be all arranged before that time. If the Duke could
+really be made to believe that Lord Rufford was in earnest I'm sure
+he'd have me there. As to her, she always does what he tells her."
+
+"He is going to write to you?"
+
+"I told you that before, mamma. What is the good of asking a lot of
+questions? You know now what my plan is, and if you won't help me I
+must carry it out alone. And, remember, I don't want to start
+to-morrow till after Morton and that American have gone." Then
+without a kiss or wishing her mother good night she went off to her
+own room.
+
+The next morning at about nine Arabella heard from her maid that
+the Major was still alive but senseless. The London surgeon had
+been there and had declared it to be possible that the patient
+should live, but barely possible. At ten they were all at
+breakfast, and the carriage from Bragton was already at the door to
+take back Mr. Morton and his American friend. Lady Augustus had
+been clever enough to arrange that she should have the phaeton to
+take her to the Rufford Station a little later on in the day, and
+had already hinted to one of the servants that perhaps a cart might
+be sent with the luggage. The cart was forthcoming. Lady Augustus
+was very clever in arranging her locomotion and seldom paid for
+much more than her railway tickets.
+
+"I had meant to say a few words to you, my lord, about that man
+Goarly," said the Senator, standing. before the fire in the
+breakfast-room, "but this sad catastrophe has stopped me."
+
+"There isn't much to say about him, Mr. Gotobed."
+
+"Perhaps not; only I would not wish you to think that I would
+oppose you without some cause. If the man is in the wrong according
+to law let him be proved to be so. The cost to you will be nothing.
+To him it might be of considerable importance."
+
+"Just so. Won't you sit down and have some breakfast. If Goarly
+ever makes himself nuisance enough it may be worth my while to buy
+him out at three times the value of his land. But he'll have to be
+a very great nuisance before I shall do that. Dillsborough wood is
+not the only fox covert in the county." After that there was no
+more said about it; but neither did Lord Rufford understand the
+Senator nor did the Senator understand Lord Rufford. John Runce had
+a clearer conviction on his mind than either of them. Goarly ought
+to be hanged, and no American should under any circumstances be
+allowed to put his foot upon British soil. That was Runce's idea of
+the matter.
+
+The parting between Morton and the Trefoils was very chill and
+uncomfortable. "Good-bye, Mr. Morton;--we had such a pleasant time
+at Bragton!" said Lady Augustus. "I shall write to you this
+afternoon," he whispered to Arabella as he took her hand. She
+smiled and murmured a word of adieu, but made him no reply. Then
+they were gone, and as he got into the carriage he told himself
+that in all probability he would never see her again. It might be
+that he would curtail his leave of absence and get back to
+Washington as quickly as possible.
+
+The Trefoils did not start for an hour after this, during which
+Arabella could hardly find an opportunity for a word in private.
+She could not quite appeal to him to walk with her in the grounds,
+or even to take a turn with her round the empty ballroom. She came
+down dressed for walking, thinking that so she might have the best
+chance of getting him for a quarter of an hour to herself, but he
+was either too wary or else the habits of his life prevented it.
+And in what she had to do it was so easy to go beyond the proper
+line! She would wish him to understand that she would like to be
+alone with him after what had passed between them on the previous
+evening, but she must be careful not to let him imagine that she
+was too anxious. And then whatever she did she had to do with so
+many eyes upon her! And when she went, as she would do now in so
+short a time, so many hostile tongues would attack her! He had
+everything to protect him; and she had nothing, absolutely nothing,
+to help her! It was thus that she looked at it; and yet she had
+courage for the battle. Almost at the last moment she did get a
+word with him in the hall. "How is he?"
+
+"Oh, better, decidedly."
+
+"I am so glad. If I could only think that he could live! Well, my
+Lord, we have to say good-bye."
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"You'll write me a line,--about him."
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"I shall be so glad to have a line from Rufford. Maddox Hall, you
+know; Stafford."
+
+"I will remember."
+
+"And dear old Jack. Tell me when you write what Jack has been
+doing." Then she put out her hand and he held it. "I wonder whether
+you will ever remember--" But she did not quite know what to bid
+him remember, and therefore turned away her face and wiped away a
+tear, and then smiled as she turned her back on him. The carriage
+was at the door, and the ladies flocked into the hall, and then not
+another word could be said.
+
+"That's what I call a really nice country house," said Lady
+Augustus as she was driven away. Arabella sat back in the phaeton
+lost in thought and said nothing. "Everything so well done, and yet
+none of all that fuss that there is at Mistletoe." She paused but
+still her daughter did not speak. "If I were beginning the world
+again I would not wish for a better establishment than that. Why
+can't you answer me a word when I speak to you?"
+
+"Of course it's all very nice. What's the good of going on in that
+way? What a shame it is that a man like that should have so much
+and that a girl like me should have nothing at all. I know twice as
+much as he does, and am twice as clever, and yet I've got to treat
+him as though he were a god. He's all very well, but what would
+anybody think of him if he were a younger brother with 300 pounds a
+year." This was a kind of philosophy which Lady Angustus hated. She
+threw herself back therefore in the phaeton and pretended to go to
+sleep.
+
+The wheels were not out of sight of the house before the attack on
+the Trefoils began. "I had heard of Lady Augustus before," said
+Lady Penwether, "but I didn't think that any woman could be so
+disagreeable."
+
+"So vulgar," said Miss Penge.
+
+"Wasn't she the daughter of an ironmonger?" asked the elder Miss
+Godolphin.
+
+"The girl of course is handsome," said Lady Penwether.
+
+"But so self-sufficient," said Miss Godolphin.
+
+"And almost as vulgar as her mother," said Miss Penge.
+
+"She may be clever," said Lady Penwether, "but I do not think I
+should ever like her."
+
+"She is one of those girls whom only gentlemen like," said Miss
+Penge.
+
+"And whom they don't like very long," said Lady Penwether.
+
+"How well I understand all this," said Lord Rufford turning to the
+younger Miss Godolphin. "It is all said for my benefit, and
+considered to be necessary because I danced with the young lady
+last night."
+
+"I hope you are not attributing such a motive to me," said Miss
+Penge.
+
+"Or to me," said Miss Godolphin.
+
+"I look on both of you and Eleanor as all one on the present
+occasion. I am considered to be falling over a precipice, and she
+has got hold of my coat tails. Of course you wouldn't be Christians
+if you didn't both of you seize a foot"
+
+"Looking at it in that light I certainly wish to be understood as
+holding on very fast," said Miss Penge.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+Give me six Months
+
+
+There was a great deal of trouble and some very genuine sorrow in
+the attorney's house at Dillsborough during the first week in
+December. Mr. Masters had declared to his wife that Mary should go
+to Cheltenham and a letter was written to Lady Ushant accepting the
+invitation. The twenty pounds too was forthcoming and the dress and
+the boots and the hat were bought. But while this was going on Mrs.
+Masters took care that there should be no comfort whatever around
+them and made every meal a separate curse to the unfortunate
+lawyer. She told him ten times a day that she had been a mother to
+his daughter, but declared that such a position was no longer
+possible to her as the girl had been taken altogether out of her
+hands. To Mary she hardly spoke at all and made her thoroughly wish
+that Lady Ushant's kindness had been declined. "Mamma," she said
+one day, "I had rather write now and tell her that I cannot come."
+
+"After all the money has been wasted!"
+
+"I have only got things that I must have had very soon."
+
+"If you have got anything to say you had better talk to your
+father. I know nothing about it"
+
+"You break my heart when you say that, mamma."
+
+"You think nothing about breaking mine;--or that young man's who is
+behaving so well to you. What makes me mad is to see you
+shilly-shallying with him."
+
+"Mamma, I haven't shilly-shallied."
+
+"That's what I call it. Why can't you speak him fair and tell him
+you'll have him and settle yourself down properly? You've got some
+idea into your silly head that what you call a gentleman will come
+after you."
+
+"Mamma, that isn't fair."
+
+"Very well, miss. As your father takes your part of course you can
+say what you please to me. I say it is so." Mary knew very well
+what her another meant and was safe at least from any allusion to
+Reginald Morton. There was an idea prevalent in the house, and not
+without some cause, that Mr. Surtees the curate had looked with an
+eye of favour on Mary Masters. Mr. Surtees was certainly a
+gentleman, but his income was strictly limited to the sum of 120
+pounds per annum which he received from Mr. Mainwaring. Now Mrs.
+Masters disliked clergymen, disliked gentlemen, and especially
+disliked poverty; and therefore was not disposed to look upon Mr.
+Surtees as an eligible suitor for her stepdaughter. But as the
+curate's courtship had hitherto been of the coldest kind and as it
+had received no encouragement from the young lady, Mary was
+certainly justified in declaring that the allusion was not fair.
+"What I want to know is this;--are you prepared to marry Lawrence
+Twentyman?" To this question, as Mary could not give a favourable
+answer, she thought it best to make none at all. "There is a man as
+has got a house fit for any woman, and means to keep it; who can
+give a young woman everything that she ought to want;--and a
+handsome fellow too, with some life in him; one who really dotes on
+you,--as men don't often do on young women now as far as I can see.
+I wonder what it is you would have?"
+
+"I want nothing, mamma."
+
+"Yes you do. You have been reading books of poetry till you don't
+know what it is you do want. You've got your head full of claptraps
+and tantrums till you haven't a grain of sense belonging to you. I
+hate such ways. It's a spurning of the gifts of Providence not to
+have such a man as Lawrence Twentyman when he comes in your way.
+Who are you, I wonder, that you shouldn't be contented with such as
+him? He'll go and take some one else and then you'll be fit to
+break your heart, fretting after him, and I shan't pity you a bit.
+It'll serve you right and you'll die an old maid, and what there
+will be for you to live upon God in heaven only knows. You're
+breaking your father's heart, as it is." Then she sat down in a
+rocking-chair and throwing her apron over her eyes gave herself up
+to a deluge of hysterical tears.
+
+This was very hard upon Mary for though she did not believe all the
+horrible things which her stepmother said to her she did believe
+some of them. She was not afraid of the fate of an old maid which
+was threatened, but she did think that her marriage with this man
+would be for the benefit of the family and a great relief to her
+father. And she knew too that he was respectable, and believed him
+to be thoroughly earnest in his love. For such love as that it is
+impossible that a girl should not be grateful. There was nothing to
+allure him, nothing to tempt him to such a marriage, but a simple
+appreciation of her personal merits. And in life he was at any rate
+her equal. She had told Reginald Morton that Larry Twentyman was a
+fit companion for her and for her sisters, and she owned as much to
+herself every day. When she acknowledged all this she was tempted
+to ask herself whether she ought not to accept the man, if not for
+her own sake at least for that of the family.
+
+That same evening her father called her into the office after the
+clerks were gone and spoke to her thus. "Your mamma is very
+unhappy, my dear," he said.
+
+"I'm afraid I have made everybody unhappy by wanting to go to
+Cheltenham."
+
+"It is not only that. That is reasonable enough and you ought to
+go. Mamma would say nothing more about that,--if you would make up
+your mind to one thing."
+
+"What thing, papa?" Of course she knew very well what the thing
+was.
+
+"It is time for you to think of settling in life, Mary. I never
+would put it into a girl's head that she ought to worry herself
+about getting a husband unless the opportunity seemed to come in
+her way. Young women should be quiet and wait till they're sought
+after. But here is a young man seeking you whom we all like and
+approve. A good house is a very good thing when it's fairly come
+by."
+
+"Yes, papa."
+
+"And so is a full house. A girl shouldn't run after money, but
+plenty is a great comfort in this world when it can be had without
+blushing for."
+
+"Yes, papa."
+
+"And so is an honest man's love. I don't like to see any girl
+wearying after some fellow to be always fal-lalling with her. A
+good girl will be able to be happy and contented without that. But
+a lone life is a poor life, and a good husband is about the best
+blessing that a young woman can have." To this proposition Mary
+perhaps agreed in her own mind but she gave no spoken assent. "Now
+this young man that is wanting to marry you has got all these
+things, and as far as I can judge with my experience in the world,
+is as likely to make a good husband as any one I know." He paused
+for an answer but Mary could only lean close upon his arm and be
+silent. "Have you anything to say about it, my dear? You see it has
+been going on now a long time, and of course he'll look to have it
+decided." But still she could say nothing. "Well, now;--he has been
+with me to-day."
+
+"Mr. Twentyman?"
+
+"Yes,---Mr. Twentyman. He knows you're going to Cheltenham and of
+course he has nothing to say against that. No young man such as he
+would be sorry that his sweetheart should be entertained by such a
+lady as Lady Ushant. But he says that he wants to have an answer
+before you go."
+
+"I did answer him, papa."
+
+"Yes,--you refused him. But he hopes that perhaps you may think
+better of it. He has been with me and I have told him that if he
+will come to-morrow you will see him. He is to be here after dinner
+and you had better just take him up-stairs and hear what he has to
+say. If you can make up your mind to like him you will please all
+your family. But if you can't, I won't quarrel with you, my dear."
+
+"Oh papa, you are always so good."
+
+"Of course I am anxious that you should have a home of your own;--
+but let it be how it may I will not quarrel with my child."
+
+All that evening, and almost all the night, and again on the
+following morning Mary turned it over in her mind. She was quite
+sure that she was not in love with Larry Twentyman; but she was by
+no means sure that it might not be her duty to accept him without
+being in love with him. Of course he must know the whole truth; but
+she could tell him the truth and then leave it for him to decide.
+What right had she to stand in the way of her friends, or to be a
+burden to them when such a mode of life was offered to her? She had
+nothing of her own, and regarded herself as being a dead weight on
+the family. And she was conscious in a certain degree of isolation
+in the household,--as being her father's only child by the first
+marriage. She would hardly know how to look her father in the face
+and tell him that she had again refused the man. But yet there was
+something awful to her in the idea of giving herself to a man
+without loving him,--in becoming a man's wife when she would fain
+remain away from him! Would it be possible that she should live
+with him while her feelings were of such a nature? And then she
+blushed as she lay in the dark, with her cheek on her pillow, when
+she found herself forced to inquire within her own heart whether
+she did not love some one else. She would not own it, and yet she
+blushed, and yet she thought of it. If there might be such a man it
+was not the young clergyman to whom her mother had alluded.
+
+Through all that morning she was very quiet, very pale, and in
+truth very unhappy. Her father said no further word to her, and her
+stepmother had been implored to be equally reticent. "I shan't
+speak another word," said Mrs. Masters; "her fortune is in her own
+hands and if she don't choose to take it I've done with her. One
+man may lead a horse to water but a hundred can't make him drink.
+It's just the same with an obstinate pig-headed young woman."
+
+At three o'clock Mr. Twentyman came and was at once desired to go
+up to Mary who was waiting for him in the drawing-room. Mrs.
+Masters smiled and was gracious as she spoke to him, having for the
+moment wreathed herself in good humour so that he might go to his
+wooing in better spirit. He had learned his lesson by heart as
+nearly as he was able and began to recite it as soon as he had
+closed the door. "So you're going to Cheltenham on Thursday?" he
+said.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Twentyman."
+
+"I hope you'll enjoy your visit there. I remember Lady Ushant
+myself very well. I don't suppose she will remember me, but you can
+give her my compliments."
+
+"I certainly will do that."
+
+"And now, Mary, what have you got to say to me?" He looked for a
+moment as though he expected she would say what she had to say at
+once,--without further question from him; but he knew that it could
+not be so and he had prepared his lesson further than that. "I
+think you must believe that I really do love you with all my
+heart."
+
+"I know that you are very good to me, Mr. Twentyman."
+
+"I don't say anything about being good; but I'm true:--that I am.
+I'd take you for my wife tomorrow if you hadn't a friend in the
+world, just for downright love. I've got you so in my heart, Mary,
+that I couldn't get rid of you if I tried ever so. You must know
+that it's true."
+
+"I do know that it's true."
+
+"Well! Don't you think that a fellow like that deserves something
+from a girl?"
+
+"Indeed I do."
+
+"Well!"
+
+"He deserves a great deal too much for any girl to deceive him. You
+wouldn't like a young woman to marry you without loving you. I
+think you deserve a great deal too well of me for that."
+
+He paused a moment before he replied. "I don't know about that," he
+said at last. "I believe I should be glad to take you just anyhow.
+I don't think you can hate me."
+
+"Certainly not. I like you as well, Mr. Twentyman, as one friend
+can like another,--without loving."
+
+"I'll be content with that, Mary, and chance it for the rest. I'll
+be that kind to you that I'll make you love me before twelve months
+are over. You come and try. You shall be mistress of everything.
+Mother isn't one that will want to be in the way."
+
+"It isn't that, Larry," she said.
+
+She hadn't called him Larry for a long time and the sound of his
+own name from her lips gave him infinite hope. "Come and try. Say
+you'll try. If ever a man did his best to please a woman I'll do it
+to please you." Then he attempted to take her in his arms but she
+glided away from him round the table. "I won't ask you not to go to
+Cheltenham, or anything of that. You shall have your own time. By
+George you shall have everything your own way." Still she did not
+answer him but stood looking down upon the table. "Come; say a word
+to a fellow."
+
+Then at last she spoke--"Give me six months to think of it."
+
+"Six months! If you'd say six weeks."
+
+"It is such a serious thing to do."
+
+"It is serious, of course. I'm serious, I know. I shouldn't hunt
+above half as often as I do now; and as for the club,--I don't
+suppose I should go near the place once a month. Say six weeks, and
+then, if you'll let me have one kiss, I'll not trouble you till
+you're back from Cheltenham."
+
+Mary at once perceived that he had taken her doubt almost as a
+complete surrender, and had again to become obdurate. At last she
+promised to give him a final answer in two months, but declared as
+she said so that she was afraid she could not bring herself to do
+as he desired. She declined altogether to comply with that other
+request which he made, and then left him in the room declaring that
+at present she could say nothing further. As she did so she felt
+sure that she would not be able to accept him in two months' time
+whatever she might bring herself to do when the vast abyss of six
+months should have passed by.
+
+Larry made his way down into the parlour with hopes considerably
+raised. There he found Mrs. Masters and when he told her what had
+passed she assured him that the thing was as good as settled.
+Everybody knew, she said, that when a girl doubted she meant to
+yield. And what were two months? The time would have nearly gone by
+the end of her visit to Cheltenham. It was now early in December,
+and they might be married and settled at home before the end of
+April. Mrs. Masters, to give him courage, took out a bottle of
+currant wine and drank his health, and told him that in three
+months' time she would give him a kiss and call him her son. And
+she believed what she said. This, she thought, was merely Mary's
+way of letting herself down without a sudden fall.
+
+Then the attorney came in and also congratulated him. When the
+attorney was told that Mary had taken two months for her decision
+he also felt that the matter was almost as good as settled. This at
+any rate was clear to him,--that the existing misery of his
+household would for the present cease, and that Mary would be
+allowed to go upon her visit without further opposition. He at
+present did not think it wise to say another word to Mary about the
+young man; nor would Mrs. Masters condescend to do so. Mary would
+of course now accept her lover like any other girl, and had been
+such a fool,--so thought Mrs. Masters,--that she had thoroughly
+deserved to lose him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+"Wonderful Bird!"
+
+
+There were but two days between the scenes described in the last
+chapter and the day fixed for Mary's departure, and during these
+two days Larry Twentyman's name was not mentioned in the house.
+Mrs. Masters did not make herself quite pleasant to her
+stepdaughter, having still some grudge against her as to the twenty
+pounds. Nor, though she had submitted to the visit to Cheltenham,
+did she approve of it. It wasn't the way, she said, to make such a
+girl as Mary like her life at Chowton Farm, going and sitting and
+doing nothing in old Lady Ushant's drawing-room. It was cocking her
+up with gimcrack notions about ladies till she'd be ashamed to look
+at her own hands after she had done a day's work with them. There
+was no doubt some truth in this. The woman understood the world and
+was able to measure Larry Twentyman and Lady Ushant and the rest of
+them. Books and pretty needlework and easy conversation would
+consume the time at Cheltenham, whereas at Chowton Farm there would
+be a dairy and a poultry yard,--under difficulties on account of
+the foxes,--with a prospect of baby linen and children's shoes and
+stockings. It was all that question of gentlemen and ladies, and of
+non-gentlemen and non-ladies! They ought, Mrs. Masters thought, to
+be kept distinct. She had never, she said, wanted to put her finger
+into a pie that didn't belong to her. She had never tried to be a
+grand lady. But Mary was perilously near the brink on either side,
+and as it was to be her lucky fate at last to sit down to a
+plentiful but work-a-day life at Chowton Farm she ought to have
+been kept away from the maundering idleness of Lady Ushant's
+lodgings at Cheltenham. But Mary heard nothing of this during these
+two days, Mrs. Masters bestowing the load of her wisdom upon her
+unfortunate husband.
+
+Reginald Morton had been twice over at Mrs. Masters' house with
+reference to the proposed journey. Mrs. Masters was hardly civil to
+him, as he was supposed to be among the enemies;--but she had no
+suspicion that he himself was the enemy of enemies. Had she
+entertained such an idea she might have reconciled herself to it,
+as the man was able to support a wife, and by such a marriage she
+would have been at once relieved from all further charge. In her
+own mind she would have felt very strongly that Mary had chosen the
+wrong man, and thrown herself into the inferior mode of life. But
+her own difficulties in the matter would have been solved. There
+was, however, no dream of such a kind entertained by any of the
+family. Reginald Morton was hardly regarded as a young man, and was
+supposed to be gloomy, misanthropic, and bookish. Mrs. Masters was
+not at all averse to the companionship for the journey, and Mr.
+Masters was really grateful to one of the old family for being kind
+to his girl.
+
+Nor must it be supposed that Mary herself had any expectations or
+even any hopes. With juvenile aptness to make much of the little
+things which had interested her, and prone to think more than was
+reasonable of any intercourse with a man who seemed to her to be so
+superior to others as Reginald Morton, she was anxious for an
+opportunity to set herself right with him about that scene at the
+bridge. She still thought that he was offended and that she had
+given him cause for offence. He had condescended to make her a
+request to which she had acceded,--and she had then not done as she
+had promised. She thought she was sure that this was all she had to
+say to him, and yet she was aware that she was unnaturally excited
+at the idea of spending three or four hours alone with him. The fly
+which was to take him to the railway station called for Mary at the
+attorney's door at ten o'clock, and the attorney handed her in. "It
+is very good of you indeed, Mr. Morton, to take so much trouble
+with my girl," said the attorney, really feeling what he said. "It
+is very good of you to trust her to me," said Reginald, also
+sincerely. Mary was still to him the girl who had been brought up
+by his aunt at Bragton, and not the fit companion for Larry
+Twentyman.
+
+Reginald Morton had certainly not made up his mind to ask Mary
+Masters to be his wife. Thinking of Mary Masters very often as he
+had done during the last two months, he was quite sure that he did
+not mean to marry at all. He did acknowledge to himself that were
+he to allow himself to fall in love with any one it would be with
+Mary Masters,--but for not doing so there were many reasons. He had
+lived so long alone that a married life would not suit him; as a
+married man he would be a poor man; he himself was averse to
+company, whereas most women prefer society. And then, as to this
+special girl, had he not reason for supposing that she preferred
+another man to him, and a man of such a class that the very
+preference showed her to be unfit to mate with him? He also
+cozened himself with an idea that it was well that he should have
+the opportunity which the journey would give him of apologising for
+his previous rudeness to her.
+
+In the carriage they had the compartment to themselves with the
+exception of an old lady at the further end who had a parrot in a
+cage for which she had taken a first-class ticket. "I can't offer
+you this seat," said the old lady, "because it has been booked and
+paid for my bird." As neither of the new passengers had shown
+the slightest wish for the seat the communication was perhaps
+unnecessary. Neither of the two had any idea of separating from the
+other for the sake of the old lady's company.
+
+They had before them a journey of thirty miles on one railway, then
+a stop of half an hour at the Hinxton junction; and then another
+journey of about equal length. In the first hour very little was
+said that might not have been said in the presence of Lady
+Ushant,--or even of Mrs. Masters. There might be a question whether,
+upon the whole, the parrot had not the best of the conversation, as
+the bird, which the old lady declared to be the wonder of his
+species, repeated the last word of nearly every sentence spoken
+either by our friends or by the old lady herself. "Don't you think
+you'd be less liable to cold with that window closed?" the old lady
+said to Mary. "Cosed,--cosed,--cosed," said the bird, and Morton was
+of course constrained to shut the window. "He is a wonderful bird,"
+said the old lady. "Wonderful bird;--wonderful bird;--wonderful
+bird," said the parrot, who was quite at home with this expression.
+"We shall be able to get some lunch at Hinxton," said Reginald.
+"Inxton," screamed the bird--"Caw,--caw--caw." "He's worth a deal
+of money," said the old lady. "Deal o' money, Deal o' money,"
+repeated the bird as he scrambled round the wire cage with a
+tremendous noise, to the great triumph of the old lady.
+
+No doubt the close attention which the bird paid to everything that
+passed, and the presence of the old lady as well, did for a time
+interfere with their conversation. But, after awhile, the old lady was
+asleep, and the bird, having once or twice attempted to imitate the
+somnolent sounds which his mistress was making, seemed also to go to
+sleep himself. Then Reginald, beginning with Lady Ushant and the old
+Morton family generally, gradually got the conversation round to Bragton
+and the little bridge. He had been very stern when he had left her
+there, and he knew also that at that subsequent interview, when he had
+brought Lady Ushant's note to her at her father's house, he had not been
+cordially kind to her. Now they were thrown together for an hour or so
+in the closest companionship, and he wished to make her comfortable and
+happy. "I suppose you remember Bragton?" he said.
+
+"Every path and almost every tree about the place."
+
+"So do I. I called there the other day. Family quarrels are so
+silly, you know."
+
+"Did you see Mr. Morton?"
+
+"No;--and he hasn't returned my visit yet. I don't know whether he
+will,--and I don't much mind whether he does or not. That old woman
+is there, and she is very bitter against me. I don't care about the
+people, but I am sorry that I cannot see the place."
+
+"I ought to have walked with you that day," she said in a very low
+tone. The parrot opened his eyes and looked at them as though he
+were striving to catch his cue.
+
+"Of course you ought." But as he said this he smiled and there was
+no offence in his voice. "I dare say you didn't guess how much I
+thought of it. And then I was a bear to you. I always am a bear
+when I am not pleased."
+
+"Peas, peas, peas," said the parrot.
+
+"I shall be a bear to that brute of a bird before long."
+
+"What a very queer bird he is."
+
+"He is a public nuisance,--and so is the old lady who brought him
+here," This was said quite in a whisper. "It is very odd, Miss
+Masters, but you are literally the only person in all Dillsborough
+in regard to whom I have any genuine feeling of old friendship."
+
+"You must remember a great many."
+
+"But I did not know any well enough. I was too young to have seen
+much of your father. But when I came back at that time you and I
+were always together."
+
+"Gedder, gedder, gedder," said the parrot.
+
+"If that bird goes on like that I'll speak to the guard," said Mr.
+Morton with affected anger. "Polly mustn't talk," said the old lady
+waking up.
+
+"Tok, tok, tok, tok," screamed the parrot. Then the old lady threw
+a shawl over him and again went to sleep.
+
+"If I behaved badly I beg your pardon," said Mary.
+
+"That's just what I wanted to say to you, Miss Masters,--only a man
+never can do those things as well as a lady. I did behave badly,
+and I do beg your pardon. Of course I ought to have asked Mr.
+Twentyman to come with us. I know that he is a very good fellow."
+
+"Indeed he is," said Mary Masters, with all the emphasis in her power.
+"Deedy is, deedy is, deedy is, deedy is," repeated the parrot in a very
+angry voice about a dozen times under his shawl, and while the old lady
+was remonstrating with her too talkative companion their tickets were
+taken and they ran into the Hinxton Station. "If the old lady is going
+on to Cheltenham we'll travel third class before we'll sit in the same
+carriage again with that bird," said Morton laughing as he took Mary
+into the refreshment-room. But the old lady did not get into the same
+compartment as they started, and the last that was heard of the parrot
+at Hinxton was a quarrel between him and the guard as to certain railway
+privileges.
+
+When they had got back into the railway carriage Morton was very
+anxious to ask whether she was in truth engaged to marry the young
+man as to whose good fellowship she and the parrot had spoken up so
+emphatically, but he hardly knew how to put the question. And were
+she to declare that she was engaged to him, what should he say
+then? Would he not be bound to congratulate her? And yet it would
+be impossible that any word of such congratulation should pass his
+lips? "You will stay a month at Cheltenham?" he said.
+
+"Your aunt was kind enough to ask me for so long."
+
+"I shall go back on Saturday. If I were to stay longer I should
+feel myself to be in her way. And I have come to live a sort of
+hermit's life. I hardly know how to sit down and eat my dinner in
+company, and have no idea of seeing a human being before two
+o'clock."
+
+"What do you do with yourself?"
+
+"I rush in and out of the garden and spend my time between my books
+and my flowers and my tobacco pipes."
+
+"Do you mean to live always like that?" she asked, in perfect
+innocency.
+
+"I think so. Sometimes I doubt whether it's wise."
+
+"I don't think it wise at all," said Mary.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"People should live together, I think."
+
+"You mean that I ought to have a wife?"
+
+"No;--I didn't mean that. Of course that must be just as you might
+come to like any one well enough. But a person need not shut
+himself up and be a hermit because he is not married. Lord Rufford
+is not married and he goes everywhere."
+
+"He has money and property and is a man of pleasure."
+
+"And your cousin, Mr. John Morton."
+
+"He is essentially a man of business, which I never could have
+been. And they say he is going to be married to that Miss Trefoil
+who has been staying there. Unfortunately I have never had anything
+that I need do in all my life, and therefore I have shut myself up
+as you call it. I wonder what your life will be." Mary blushed and
+said nothing. "If there were anything to tell I wish I knew it"
+
+"There is nothing to tell."
+
+"Nothing?"
+
+She thought a moment before she answered him and then she said,
+"Nothing. What should I have to tell?" she added trying to laugh.
+
+He remained for a few minutes silent, and then put his head out
+towards her as he spoke. "I was afraid that you might have to tell
+that you were engaged to marry Mr. Twentyman."
+
+"I am not"
+
+"Oh!--I am so glad to hear it"
+
+"I don't know why you should be glad. If I had said I was, it would
+have been very uncivil if you hadn't declared yourself glad to hear
+that"
+
+"Then I must have been uncivil for I couldn't have done it. Knowing
+how my aunt loves you, knowing what she thinks of you and what she
+would think of such a match, remembering myself what I do of you, I
+could not have congratulated you on your engagement to a man whom I
+think so much inferior to yourself in every respect. Now you know
+it all,--why I was angry at the bridge, why I was hardly civil to
+you at your father's house; and, to tell the truth, why I have been
+so anxious to be alone with you for half an hour. If you think it
+an offence that I should take so much interest in you, I will beg
+your pardon for that also."
+
+"Oh, no!"
+
+"I have never spoken to my aunt about it, but I do not think that
+she would have been contented to hear that you were to become the
+wife of Mr. Twentyman."
+
+What answer she was to make to this or whether she was to make any
+she had not decided when they were interrupted by the reappearance
+of the old lady and the bird. She was declaring to the guard at the
+window, that as she had paid for a first-class seat for her parrot
+she would get into any carriage she liked in which there were two
+empty seats. Her bird had been ill-treated by some scurrilous
+ill-conditioned travellers and she had therefore returned to the
+comparative kindness of her former companions. "They threatened to
+put him out of the window, sir," said the old woman to Morton as
+she was forcing her way in. "Windersir, windersir," said the
+parrot.
+
+"I hope he'll behave himself here, ma'am," said Morton.
+
+"Heremam, heremam, heremam," said the parrot.
+
+"Now go to bed like a good bird," said the old lady putting her
+shawl over the cage,--whereupon the parrot made a more diabolical
+noise than ever under the curtain.
+
+Mary felt that there was no more to be said about Mr. Twentyman and
+her hopes and prospects, and for the moment she was glad to be left
+in peace. The old lady and the parrot continued their conversation
+till they had all arrived in Cheltenham;--and Mary as she sat alone
+thinking of it afterwards might perhaps feel a soft regret that
+Reginald Morton had been interrupted by the talkative animal.
+
+
+
+
+VOLUME II
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Mounser Green
+
+
+"So Peter Boyd is to go to Washington in the Paragon's place, and
+Jack Slade goes to Vienna, and young Palliser is to get Slade's
+berth at Lisbon." This information was given by a handsome man,
+known as Mounser Green, about six feet high, wearing a velvet
+shooting coat,--more properly called an office coat from its
+present uses, who had just entered a spacious well-carpeted
+comfortable room in which three other gentlemen were sitting at
+their different tables. This was one of the rooms in the Foreign
+Office and looked out into St. James's Park. Mounser Green was a
+distinguished clerk in that department,--and distinguished also in
+various ways, being one of the fashionable men about town, a great
+adept at private theatricals, remarkable as a billiard player at
+his club, and a contributor to various magazines. At this moment he
+had a cigar in his mouth, and when he entered the room he stood
+with his back to the fire ready for conversation and looking very
+unlike a clerk who intended to do any work. But there was a general
+idea that Mounser Green was invaluable to the Foreign Office. He
+could speak and write two or three foreign languages; he could do a
+spurt of work,--ten hours at a sitting when required; he was ready
+to go through fire and water for his chief; and was a gentleman all
+round. Though still nominally a young man, being perhaps
+thirty-five years of age--he had entered the service before
+competitive examination had assumed its present shape and had
+therefore the gifts which were required for his special position.
+Some critics on the Civil Service were no doubt apt to find fault
+with Mounser Green. When called upon at his office he was never seen
+to be doing anything, and he always had a cigar in his mouth. These
+gentlemen found out too that he never entered his office till
+half-past twelve, perhaps not having also learned that he was
+generally there till nearly seven. No doubt during the time that he
+remained there he read a great many newspapers, and wrote a great
+many private notes,--on official paper! But there may be a question
+whether even these employments did not help to make Mounser Green
+the valuable man he was.
+
+"What a lounge for Jack Slade," said young Hoffmann.
+
+"I'll tell you who it won't be a lounge for, Green," said Archibald
+Currie, the clerk who held the second authority among them. "What
+will Bell Trefoil think of going to Patagonia?"
+
+"That's all off," said Mounser Green.
+
+"I don't think so," said Charley Glossop, one of the numerous
+younger sons of Lord Glossop. "She was staying only the other day
+down at the Paragon's place in Rufford, and they went together to
+my cousin Rufford's house. His sister, that's Lady Penwether, told
+me they were certainly engaged then."
+
+"That was before the Paragon had been named for Patagonia. To tell
+you a little bit of my own private mind,--which isn't scandal,"
+said Mounser Green, "because it is only given as opinion,--I think
+it just possible that the Paragon has taken this very uncomfortable
+mission because it offered him some chance of escape."
+
+"Then he has more sense about him than I gave him credit for," said
+Archibald Currie.
+
+"Why should a man like Morton go to Patagonia?" continued Green.
+"He has an independent fortune and doesn't want the money. He'd
+have been sure to have something comfortable in Europe very soon if
+he had waited, and was much better off as second at a place like
+Washington. I was quite surprised when he took it."
+
+"Patagonia isn't bad at all," said Currie.
+
+"That depends on whether a man has got money of his own. When I
+heard about the Paragon and Bell Trefoil at Washington, I knew
+there had been a mistake made. He didn't know what he was doing.
+I'm a poor man, but I wouldn't take her with 5,000 pounds a year,
+settled on myself." Poor Mounser Green!
+
+"I think she's the handsomest girl in London," said Hoffmann, who
+was a young man of German parentage and perhaps of German taste.
+
+"That may be," continued Green; "but, heaven and earth! what a life
+she would lead a man like the Paragon! He's found it out, and
+therefore thought it well to go to South America. She has declined
+already, I'm told; but he means to stick to the mission." During
+all this time Mounser Green was smoking his cigar with his back to
+the fire, and the other clerks looked as though they had nothing to
+do but talk about the private affairs of ministers abroad and their
+friends. Of course it will be understood that since we last saw
+John Morton the position of Minister Plenipotentiary at Patagonia
+had been offered to him and that he had accepted the place in spite
+of Bragton and of Arabella Trefoil.
+
+At that moment a card was handed to Mounser Green by a messenger
+who was desired to show the gentleman up. "It's the Paragon
+himself," said Green.
+
+We'll make him tell us whether he's going out single or double,"
+said Archibald Currie.
+
+"After what the Rufford people said to me I'm sure he's going to
+marry her," said young Glossop. No doubt Lady Penwether had been
+anxious to make it understood by every one connected with the
+family that if any gossip should be heard about Rufford and
+Arabella Trefoil there was nothing in it.
+
+Then the Paragon was shown into the room and Mounser Green and the
+young men were delighted to see him. Colonial governors at their
+seats of government, and Ministers Plenipotentiary in their
+ambassadorial residences are very great persons indeed; and when
+met in society at home, with the stars and ribbons which are common
+among them now, they are, less indeed, but still something. But at
+the colonial and foreign offices in London, among the assistant
+secretaries and clerks, they are hardly more than common men. All
+the gingerbread is gone there. His Excellency is no more than
+Jones, and the Representative or Alter Ego of Royalty mildly asks
+little favours of the junior clerks.
+
+"Lord Drummond only wants to know what you wish and it shall be
+done," said Mounser Green. Lord Drummond was the Minister for
+Foreign Affairs of the day. "I hope I need hardly say that we were
+delighted that you accepted the offer."
+
+"One doesn't like to refuse a step upward," said Morton; "otherwise
+Patagonia isn't exactly the place one would like."
+
+"Very good climate," said Currie. "Ladies I have known who have
+gone there have enjoyed it very much."
+
+"A little rough I suppose?"
+
+"They didn't seem to say so. Young Bartletot took his wife out
+there, just married. He liked it. There wasn't much society, but
+they didn't care about that just at first"
+
+"Ah;--I'm a single man," said Morton laughing. He was too good a
+diplomate to be pumped in that simple way by such a one as
+Archibald Currie.
+
+"You'll like to see Lord Drummond. He is here and will be glad to
+shake hands with you. Come into my room," Then Mounser Green led
+the way into a small inner sanctum in which it may be presumed that
+he really did his work. It was here at any rate that he wrote the
+notes on official note paper.
+
+"They haven't settled as yet how they're to be off it," said Currie
+in a whisper, as soon as the two men were gone, "but I'll bet a
+five-pound note that Bell Trefoil doesn't go out to Patagonia as
+his wife."
+
+"We know the Senator here well enough." This was said in the inner
+room by Mounser Green to Morton, who had breakfasted with the
+Senator that morning and had made an appointment to meet him at the
+Foreign Office. The Senator wanted to secure a seat for himself at
+the opening of Parliament which was appointed to take place in the
+course of the next month, and being a member of the Committee on
+Foreign Affairs in the American Senate of course thought himself
+entitled to have things done for him by the Foreign Office clerks.
+"Oh yes, I'll see him. Lord Drummond will get him a seat as a
+matter of course. How is he getting on with your neighbour at
+Dillsborough?"
+
+"So you've heard of that."
+
+"Heard of it! who hasn't heard of it?"--At this moment the
+messenger came in again and the Senator was announced. "Lord
+Drummond will manage about the seats in the House of Lords, Mr.
+Gotobed. Of course he'll see you if you wish it; but I'll take a
+note of it"
+
+"If you'll do that, Mr. Green, I shall be fixed up straight. And
+I'd a great deal sooner see you than his lordship."
+
+"That's very flattering, Mr. Gotobed, but I'm sure I don't know
+why."
+
+"Because Lord Drummond always seems to me to have more on hand than
+he knows how to get through, and you never seem to have anything to
+do."
+
+"That's not quite so flattering,--and would be killing, only that I
+feel that your opinion is founded on error. Mens conscia recti, Mr.
+Gotobed."
+
+"Exactly. I understand English pretty well; better as far as I can
+see than some of those I meet around me here; but I don't go beyond
+that, Mr. Green."
+
+"I merely meant to observe, Mr. Gotobed, that as, within my own
+breast, I am conscious of my zeal and diligence in Her Majesty's
+service your shafts of satire pass me by without hurting me. Shall
+I offer you a cigar? A candle burned at both ends is soon
+consumed." It was quite clear that as quickly as the Senator got
+through one end of his cigar by the usual process of burning, so
+quickly did he eat the other end. But he took that which Mounser
+Green offered him without any displeasure at the allusion. "I'm
+sorry to say that I haven't a spittoon," said Mounser Green, "but
+the whole fire-place is at your service." The Senator could hardly
+have heard this, as it made no difference in his practice.
+
+Morton at this moment was sent for by the Secretary of State, and
+the Senator expressed his intention of waiting for him in Mr.
+Green's room. "How does the great Goarly case get on, Mr. Gotobed?"
+asked the clerk.
+
+Well! I don't know that it's getting on very much."
+
+"You are not growing tired of it, Senator?"
+
+"Not by any means. But it's getting itself complicated, Mr. Green.
+I mean to see the end of it, and if I'm beat,--why I can take a
+beating as well as another man."
+
+"You begin to think you will be beat?"
+
+"I didn't say so, Mr. Green. It is very hard to understand all the
+ins and outs of a case like that in a foreign country."
+
+"Then I shouldn't try it, Senator."
+
+"There I differ. It is my object to learn all I can."
+
+"At any rate I shouldn't pay for the lesson as you are like to do.
+What'll the bill be? Four hundred dollars?"
+
+"Never mind, Mr. Green. If you'll take the opinion of a good deal
+older man than yourself and one who has perhaps worked harder,
+you'll understand that there's no knowledge got so thoroughly as
+that for which a man pays." Soon after this Morton came out from
+the great man's room and went away in company with the Senator.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+The Senator's Letter
+
+
+Soon after this Senator Gotobed went down, alone, to Dillsborough
+and put himself up at the Bush Inn. Although he had by no means the
+reputation of being a rich man, he did not seem to care much what
+money he spent in furthering any object he had taken in hand. He
+never knew how near he had been to meeting the direst inhospitality
+at Mr. Runciman's house. That worthy innkeeper, knowing well the
+Senator's sympathy with Goarly, Scrobby and Bearside, and being
+heart and soul devoted to the Rufford interest, had almost refused
+the Senator the accommodation he wanted. It was only when Mrs.
+Runciman represented to him that she could charge ten shillings a
+day for the use of her sitting-room, and also that Lord Rufford
+himself had condescended to entertain the gentleman, that Runciman
+gave way. Mr. Gotobed would, no doubt, have delighted in such
+inhospitality. He would have gone to the second-rate inn, which was
+very second-rate indeed, and have acquired a further insight into
+British manners and British prejudices. As it was, he made himself
+at home in the best upstairs sitting-room at the Bush, and was
+quite unaware of the indignity offered to him when Mr. Runciman
+refused to send him up the best sherry. Let us hope that this
+refusal was remembered by the young woman in the bar when she made
+out the Senator's bill.
+
+He stayed at Dillsborough for three or four days during which he
+saw Goarly once and Bearside on two or three occasions,--and
+moreover handed to that busy attorney three bank notes for five
+pounds each. Bearside was clever enough to make him believe that
+Goarly would certainly obtain serious damages from the lord. With
+Bearside he was fairly satisfied, thinking however that the man was
+much more illiterate and ignorant than the general run of lawyers
+in the United States; but with Goarly he was by no means satisfied.
+Goarly endeavoured to keep out of his way and could not be induced
+to come to him at the Bush. Three times he walked out to the house
+near Dillsborough Wood, on each of which occasions Mrs. Goarly
+pestered him for money, and told him at great length the history of
+her forlorn goose. Scrobby, of whom he had heard, he could not see
+at all; and he found that Bearside was very unwilling to say
+anything about Scrobby. Scrobby, and the red herrings and the
+strychnine and the dead fox were, according to Bearside, to be kept
+quite distinct from the pheasants and the wheat. Bearside declared
+over and over again that there was no evidence to connect his
+client with the demise of the fox. When asked whether he did not
+think that his client had compassed the death of the animal, he
+assured the Senator that in such matters, he never ventured to
+think.
+
+"Let us go by the evidence, Mr. Gotobed," he said.
+
+"But I am paying my money for the sake of getting at the facts."
+
+"Evidence is facts, sir," said the attorney. "Any way let us settle
+about the pheasants first"
+
+The condition of the Senator's mind may perhaps be best made known
+by a letter which he wrote from Dillsborough to his especial and
+well-trusted friend Josiah Scroome, a member of the House of
+Representatives from his own state of Mickewa. Since he had been in
+England he had written constantly to his friend, giving him the
+result of his British experiences.
+
+
+Bush Inn, Dillsborough,
+Ufford County, England,
+December 16, 187-.
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+Since my last I have enjoyed myself very well and I am I trust
+beginning to understand something of the mode of thinking of this
+very peculiar people. That there should be so wide a difference
+between us Americans and these English, from whom we were divided,
+so to say, but the other day, is one of the most peculiar
+physiological phenomena that the history of the world will have
+afforded. As far as I can hear a German or even a Frenchman thinks
+much more as an Englishman thinks than does an American. Nor does
+this come mainly from the greater prevalence with us of democratic
+institutions. I do not think that any one can perceive in half an
+hour's conversation the difference between a Swiss and a German;
+but I fancy, and I may say I flatter. myself, that an American is
+as easily distinguished from an Englishman, as a sheep from a goat
+or a tall man from one who is short.
+
+And yet there is a pleasure in associating with those here of the
+highest rank which I find it hard to describe, and which perhaps I,
+ought to regard as a pernicious temptation to useless luxury. There
+is an ease of manner with them which recalls with unfavourable
+reminiscences the hard self-consciousness of the better class of
+our citizens. There is a story of an old hero who with his
+companions fell among beautiful women and luscious wine, and, but
+that the hero had been warned in time, they would all have been
+turned into filthy animals by yielding to the allurements around
+them. The temptation here is perhaps the same. I am not a hero;
+and, though I too have been warned by the lessons I have learned
+under our happy Constitution, I feel that I might easily become one
+of the animals in question.
+
+And, to give them their due, it is better than merely beautiful
+women and luscious wine. There is a reality about them, and a
+desire to live up to their principles which is very grand. Their
+principles are no doubt bad, utterly antagonistic to all progress,
+unconscious altogether of the demand for progressive equality which
+is made by the united voices of suffering mankind. The man who is
+born a lord and who sees a dozen serfs around him who have been
+born to be half-starved ploughmen, thinks that God arranged it all
+and that he is bound to maintain a state of things so comfortable
+to himself, as being God's vicegerent here on earth. But they do
+their work as vicegerents with an easy grace, and with sweet
+pleasant voices and soft movements, which almost make a roan doubt
+whether the Almighty has not in truth intended that such injustice
+should be permanent. That one man should be rich and another poor
+is a necessity in the present imperfect state of civilisation;--but
+that one man should be born to be a legislator, born to have
+everything, born to be a tyrant,--and should think it all right, is
+to me miraculous. But the greatest miracle of all is that they who
+are not so born, who have been born to suffer the reverse side,--
+should also think it to be all right.
+
+With us it is necessary that a man, to shine in society, should
+have done something, or should at any rate have the capacity of
+doing something. But here the greatest fool that you meet will
+shine, and will be admitted to be brilliant, simply because he has
+possessions. Such a one will take his part in conversation though
+he knows nothing, and, when inquired into, he will own that he
+knows nothing. To know anything is not his line in life. But he can
+move about, and chatter like a child of ten, and amuse himself from
+morning to night with various empty playthings,--and be absolutely
+proud of his life!
+
+I have lately become acquainted with a certain young lord here of
+this class who has treated me with great kindness, although I have
+taken it into my head to oppose him as to a matter in which he is
+much interested. I ventured to inquire of him as to the pursuits of
+his life. He is a lord, and therefore a legislator, but he made no
+scruple to tell me that he never goes near the Chamber in which it
+is his privilege to have a seat. But his party does not lose his
+support. Though he never goes near the place, he can vote, and is
+enabled to trust his vote to some other more ambitious lord who
+does go there. It required the absolute evidence of personal
+information from those who are themselves concerned to make me
+believe that legislation in Great Britain could be carried on after
+such a fashion as this! Then he told me what he does do. All the
+winter he hunts and shoots, going about to other rich men's houses
+when there is no longer sufficient for him to shoot left on his own
+estate. That lasts him from the 1st of September to the end of
+March, and occupies all his time. August he spends in Scotland,
+also shooting other animals. During the other months he fishes, and
+plays cricket and tennis, and attends races, and goes about to
+parties in London. His evenings he spends at a card table when he
+can get friends to play with him. It is the employment of his life
+to fit in his amusements so that he may not have a dull day.
+Wherever he goes he carries his wine with him and his valet and his
+grooms; and if he thinks there is anything to fear, his cook also.
+He very rarely opens a book. He is more ignorant than a boy of
+fifteen with us, and yet he manages to have something to say about
+everything. When his ignorance has been made as clear as the sun at
+noon-day, he is no whit ashamed. One would say that such a life
+would break the heart of any man; but upon my word, I doubt whether
+I ever came across a human being so self-satisfied as this young
+lord.
+
+I have come down here to support the case of a poor man who is I
+think being trampled on by this do-nothing legislator. But I am
+bound to say that the lord in his kind is very much better than the
+poor man in his. Such a wretched, squalid, lying, cowardly creature
+I did not think that even England could produce. And yet the man
+has a property in land on which he ought to be able to live in
+humble comfort. I feel sure that I have leagued myself with a
+rascal, whereas I believe the lord, in spite of his ignorance and
+his idleness, to be honest. But yet the man is being hardly used,
+and has had the spirit, or rather perhaps has been instigated by
+others, to rebel. His crops have been eaten up by the lord's
+pheasants, and the lord, exercising plenary power as though he were
+subject to no laws, will only pay what compensation he himself
+chooses to award. The whole country here is in arms against the
+rebel, thinking it monstrous that a man living in a hovel should
+contest such a point with the owner of half-a-dozen palaces. I have
+come forward to help the man for the sake of seeing how the matter
+will go; and I have to confess that though those under the lord
+have treated me as though I were a miscreant, the lord himself and
+his friends have been civil enough.
+
+I say what I think wherever I go, and I do not find it taken in bad
+part. In that respect we might learn something even from
+Englishmen. When a Britisher over in the States says what he thinks
+about us, we are apt to be a little rough with him. I have, indeed,
+known towns in which he couldn't speak out with personal safety.
+Here there is no danger of that kind. I am getting together the
+materials for a lecture on British institutions in general, in
+which I shall certainly speak my mind plainly, and I think I shall
+venture to deliver it in London before I leave for New York in the
+course of next spring. I will, however, write to you again before
+that time comes.
+
+                           Believe me to be,
+                             Dear Sir,
+                               With much sincerity,
+                                 Yours truly,
+                                   Elias Gotobed.
+The Honble. Josiah Scroome,
+25, Q Street,
+Minnesota Avenue,
+Washington.
+
+
+On the morning of the Senator's departure from Dillsborough, Mr.
+Runciman met him standing under the covered way leading from the
+inn yard into the street. He was waiting for the omnibus which was
+being driven about the town, and which was to call for him and take
+him down to the railway station. Mr. Runciman had not as yet spoken
+to him since he had been at the inn, and had not even made himself
+personally known to his guest. "So, Sir, you are going to leave
+us," said the landlord, with a smile which was intended probably as
+a smile of triumph.
+
+"Yes, sir," said the Senator. "It's about time, I guess, that I
+should get back to London."
+
+"I dare say it is, Sir," said the landlord. "I dare say you've seen
+enough of Mr. Goarly by this time."
+
+"That's as may be. I don't know whom I have the pleasure of
+speaking to."
+
+"My name is Runciman, Sir. I'm the landlord here."
+
+"I hope I see you well, Mr. Runciman. I have about come to an end
+of my business here."
+
+"I dare say you have, sir. I should say so. Perhaps I might express
+an opinion that you never came across a greater blackguard than
+Goarly either in this country or your own."
+
+"That's a strong opinion, Mr. Runciman."
+
+"It's the general opinion here, sir. I should have thought you'd
+found it out before this."
+
+"I don't know that I am prepared at this moment to declare all that
+I have found out"
+
+"I thought you'd have been tired of it by this time, Mr. Gotobed."
+
+"Tired of what?"
+
+"Tired of the wrong side, sir."
+
+"I don't know that I am on the wrong side. A man may be in the
+right on one point even though his life isn't all that it ought to
+be."
+
+"That's true, sir; but if they told you all that they know up
+street,"--and Runciman pointed to the part of the town in which
+Bearside's office was situated,--"I should have thought you would
+have understood who was going to win and who was going to lose.
+Good day, sir; I hope you'll have a pleasant journey. Much obliged
+to you for your patronage, sir;" and Runciman, still smiling
+unpleasantly, touched his hat as the Senator got into the omnibus.
+
+The Senator was not very happy as to the Goarly business. He had
+paid some money and had half promised more, and had found out that
+he was in a boat with thoroughly disreputable persons. As he had
+said to the landlord, a man may have the right on his side in an
+action at law though he be a knave or a rascal; and if a lord be
+unjust to a poor man, the poor man should have justice done him,
+even though he be not quite a pattern poor man. But now he was led
+to believe by what the landlord had said to him that he was being
+kept in the dark, and that there were facts generally known that he
+did not know. He had learned something of English manners and
+English institutions by his interference, but there might be a
+question whether he was not paying too dearly for his whistle. And
+there was growing upon him a feeling that before he had done he
+would have to blush for his colleagues.
+
+As the omnibus went away Dr. Nupper joined Mr. Runciman under the
+archway. "I'm blessed if I can understand that man," said Runciman.
+"What is it he's after?"
+
+"Notoriety," said the doctor, with the air of a man who has
+completely solved a difficult question.
+
+"He'll have to pay for it, and that pretty smart," said Runciman.
+"I never heard of such a foolish thing in all my life. What the
+dickens is it to him? One can understand Bearside, and Scrobby too.
+When a fellow has something to get, one does understand it. But why
+an old fellow like that should come down from the moon to pay ever
+so much money for such a man as Goarly, is what I don't
+understand."
+
+"Notoriety," said the doctor.
+
+"He evidently don't know that Nickem has got round Goarly," said
+the landlord.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+At Cheltenham
+
+
+The month at Cheltenham was passed very quietly and would have been
+a very happy month with Mary Masters but that there grew upon her
+from day to day increasing fears of what she would have to undergo
+when she returned to Dillsborough. At the moment when she was
+hesitating with Larry Twentyman, when she begged him to wait six
+months and then at last promised to give him an answer at the end
+of two, she had worked herself up to think that it might possibly
+be her duty to accept her lover for the sake of her family. At any
+rate she had at that moment thought that the question of duty ought
+to be further considered, and therefore she had vacillated. When
+the two months' delay was accorded to her, and within that period
+the privilege of a long absence from Dillsborough, she put the
+trouble aside for a while with the common feeling that the chapter
+of accidents might do something for her. Before she had reached
+Cheltenham the chapter of accidents had done much. When Reginald
+Morton told her that he could not have congratulated her on such
+prospects, and had explained to her why in truth he had been angry
+at the bridge,--how he had been anxious to be alone with her that
+he might learn whether she were really engaged to this man,--then
+she had known that her answer to Larry Twentyman at the end of the
+two months must be a positive refusal.
+
+But as she became aware of this a new trouble arose and harassed
+her very soul. When she had asked for the six months she had not at
+the moment been aware, she had not then felt, that a girl who asks
+for time is supposed to have already surrendered. But since she had
+made that unhappy request the conviction had grown upon her. She
+had read it in every word her stepmother said to her and in her
+father's manner. The very winks and hints and little jokes which
+fell from her younger sisters told her that it was so. She could
+see around her the satisfaction which had come from the settlement
+of that difficult question,--a satisfaction which was perhaps more
+apparent with her father than even with the others. Then she knew
+what she had done, and remembered to have heard that a girl who
+expresses a doubt is supposed to have gone beyond doubting. While
+she was still at Dillsborough there was a feeling that no evil
+would arise from this if she could at last make up her mind to be
+Mrs. Twentyman; but when the settled conviction came upon her,
+after hearing Reginald Morton's words, then she was much troubled.
+
+He stayed only a couple of days at Cheltenham and during that time
+said very little to her. He certainly spoke no word which would
+give her a right to think that he himself was attached to her. He
+had been interested about her, as was his aunt, Lady Ushant,
+because she had been known and her mother had been known by the old
+Mortons. But there was nothing of love in all that. She had never
+supposed that there would be; and yet there was a vague feeling in
+her bosom that as he had been strong in expressing his objection to
+Mr. Twentyman there might have been something more to stir him than
+the memory of those old days at Bragton!
+
+"To my thinking there is a sweetness about her which I have never
+seen equalled in any young woman." This was said by Lady Ushant to
+her nephew after Mary had gone to bed on the night before he left.
+
+"One would suppose," he answered, "that you wanted me to ask her to
+be my wife."
+
+"I never want anything of that kind, Reg. I never make in such
+matters,--or mar if I can help it."
+
+"There is a man at Dillsborough wants to marry her."
+
+"I can easily believe that there should be two or three. Who is the
+man?"
+
+"Do you remember old Twentyman of Chowton?"
+
+"He was our near neighbour. Of course I remember him. I can
+remember well when they bought the land."
+
+"It is his son."
+
+"Surely he can hardly be worthy of her, Reg"
+
+"And yet they say he is very worthy. I have asked about him, and he
+is not a bad fellow. He keeps his money and has ideas of living
+decently. He doesn't drink or gamble. But he's not a gentleman or
+anything like one. I should think he never opens a book. Of course
+it would be a degradation."
+
+"And what does Mary say herself?"
+
+"I fancy she has refused him." Then he added after a pause, "Indeed
+I know she has."
+
+"How should you know? Has she told you?" In answer to this he only
+nodded his head at the old lady. "There must have been close
+friendship, Reg, between you two when she told you that. I hope you
+have not made her give up one suitor by leading her to love another
+who does not mean to ask her."
+
+"I certainly have not done that," said Reg. Men may often do much
+without knowing that they do anything, and such probably had been
+the case with Reginald Morton during the journey from Dillsborough
+to Cheltenham.
+
+"What would her father wish?"
+
+"They all want her to take the man."
+
+"How can she do better?"
+
+"Would you have her marry a man who is not a gentleman, whose wife
+will never be visited by other ladies; in marrying whom she would
+go altogether down into another and a lower world?"
+
+This was a matter on which Lady Ushant and her nephew had conversed
+often, and he thought he knew her to be thoroughly wedded to the
+privileges which she believed to be attached to her birth. With him
+the same feeling was almost the stronger because he was so well
+aware of the blot upon himself caused by the lowness of his own
+father's marriage. But a man, he held, could raise a woman to his
+own rank, whereas a woman must accept the level of her husband.
+
+"Bread and meat and chairs and tables are very serious things,
+Reg."
+
+"You would then recommend her to take this man, and pass altogether
+out of your own sphere?"
+
+"What can I do for her? I am an old woman who will be dead probably
+before the first five years of her married life have passed over
+her. And as for recommending, I do not know enough to recommend
+anything. Does she like the man?"
+
+"I am sure she would feel herself degraded by marrying him."
+
+"I trust she will never live to feel herself degraded. I do not
+believe that she could do anything that she thought would degrade
+her. But I think that you and I had better leave her to herself in
+this matter." Further on in the same evening, or rather late in the
+night,--for they had then sat talking together for hours over the
+fire,--she made a direct statement to him. "When I die, Reg, I have
+but 5,000 pounds to leave behind me, and this I have divided
+between you and her. I shall not tell her because I might do
+more harm than good. But you may know."
+
+"That would make no difference to me," he said.
+
+"Very likely not, but I wish you to know it. What troubles me is
+that she will have to pay so much out of it for legacy duty. I
+might leave it all to you and you could give it her." An honester
+or more religious or better woman than old Lady Ushant there was
+not in Cheltenham, but it never crossed her conscience that it
+would be wrong to cheat the revenue. It may be doubted whether any
+woman has ever been brought to such honesty as that.
+
+On the next morning Morton went away without saying another word in
+private to Mary Masters and she was left to her quiet life with the
+old lady. To an ordinary visitor nothing could have been less
+exciting, for Lady Ushant very seldom went out and never
+entertained company. She was a tall thin old lady with bright eyes
+and grey hair and a face that was still pretty in spite of sunken
+eyes and sunken cheeks and wrinkled brow. There was ever present
+with her an air of melancholy which told a whole tale of the
+sadness of a long life. Her chief excitement was in her two visits
+to church on Sunday and in the letter which she wrote every week to
+her nephew at Dillsborough. Now she had her young friend with her,
+and that too was an excitement to her,--and the more so since she
+had heard the tidings of Larry Twentyman's courtship.
+
+She made up her mind that she would not speak on the subject to her
+young friend unless her young friend should speak to her. In the
+first three weeks nothing was said; but four or five days before
+Mary's departure there came up a conversation about Dillsborough
+and Bragton. There had been many conversations about Dillsborough
+and Bragton, but in all of them the name of Lawrence Twentyman had
+been scrupulously avoided. Each had longed to name him, and yet
+each had determined not to do so. But at length it was avoided no
+longer. Lady Ushant had spoken of Chowton Farm and the widow. Then
+Mary had spoken of the place and its inhabitants. "Mr. Twentyman
+comes a great deal to our house now," she said.
+
+"Has he any reason, my dear?"
+
+"He goes with papa once a week to the club; and he sometimes lends
+my sister Kate a pony. Kate is very fond of riding."
+
+"There is nothing else?"
+
+"He has got to be intimate and I think mamma likes him."
+
+"He is a good young man then?"
+
+"Very good," said Mary with an emphasis.
+
+"And Chowton belongs to him."
+
+"Oh yes;--it belongs to him."
+
+"Some young men make such ducks and drakes of their property when
+they get it"
+
+"They say that he's not like that at all. People say that he
+understands farming very well and that he minds everything
+himself."
+
+"What an excellent young man! There is no other reason for his
+coming to your house, Mary?" Then the sluice-gates were opened and
+the whole story was told. Sitting there late into the night Mary
+told it all as well as she knew how,--all of it except in regard to
+any spark of love which might have fallen upon her in respect of
+Reginald Morton. Of Reginald Morton in her story of course she did
+not speak; but all the rest she declared. She did not love the man.
+She was quite sure of that. Though she thought so well of him there
+was, she was quite sure, no feeling in her heart akin to love. She
+had promised to take time because she had thought that she might
+perhaps be able to bring herself to marry him without loving him,--
+to marry him because her father wished it, and because her going
+from home would be a relief to her stepmother and sisters, because
+it would be well for them all that she should be settled out of the
+way. But since that she had made up her mind,--she thought that she
+had quite made up her mind,--that it would be impossible.
+
+"There is nobody else, Mary?" said Lady Ushant putting her hand on
+to Mary's lap. Mary protested that there was nobody else without
+any consciousness that she was telling a falsehood. "And you are
+quite sure that you cannot do it?"
+
+"Do you think that I ought, Lady Ushant?"
+
+"I should be very sorry to say that, my dear. A young woman in such
+a matter must be governed by her feelings. Only he seems to be a
+deserving young man!" Mary looked askance at her friend,
+remembering at the moment Reginald Morton's assurance that his aunt
+would have disapproved of such an engagement. "But I never would
+persuade a girl to marry a man she did not love. I think it would
+be wicked. I always thought so."
+
+There was nothing about degradation in all this. It was quite clear to
+Mary that had she been able to tell Lady Ushant that she was head over
+ears in love with this young man and that therefore she was going to
+marry him, her old friend would have found no reason to lament such an
+arrangement. Her old friend would have congratulated her. Lady Ushant
+evidently thought Larry Twentyman to be good enough as soon as she heard
+what Mary found herself compelled to say in the young man's favour. Mary
+was almost disappointed; but reconciled herself to it very quickly,
+telling herself that there was yet time for her to decide in favour of
+her lover if she could bring herself to do so.
+
+And she did try that night and all the next day, thinking that if
+she could so make up her mind she would declare her purpose to Lady
+Ushant before she left Cheltenham. But she could not do it, and in
+the struggle with herself at last she learned something of the
+truth. Lady Ushant saw nothing but what was right and proper in a
+marriage with Lawrence Twentyman, but Reginald Morton had declared
+it to be improper, and therefore it was out of her reach. She could
+not do it. She could not bring herself, after what he had said, to
+look him in the face and tell him that she was going to become the
+wife of Larry Twentyman. Then she asked herself the fatal
+question;--was she in love with Reginald Morton? I do not think
+that she answered it in the affirmative, but she became more and
+more sure that she could never marry Larry Twentyman.
+
+Lady Ushant declared herself to have been more than satisfied with
+the visit and expressed a hope that it might be repeated in the
+next year. "I would ask you to come and make your home here while I
+have a home to offer you, only that you would be so much more
+buried here than at Dillsborough: And you have duties there which
+perhaps you ought not to leave. But come again when your papa will
+spare you."
+
+On her journey back she certainly was not very happy. There were
+yet three weeks wanting to the time at which she would be bound to
+give her answer to Larry Twentyman; but why should she keep the man
+waiting for three weeks when her answer was ready? Her stepmother
+she knew would soon force her answer from her, and her father would
+be anxious to know what had been the result of her meditations. The
+real period of her reprieve had been that of her absence at
+Cheltenham, and that period was now come to an, end. At each
+station as she passed them she remembered what Reginald Morton had
+been saying to her, and how their conversation had been
+interrupted,--and perhaps occasionally aided,--by the absurdities
+of the bird. How sweet it had been to be near him and to listen to
+his whispered voice! How great was the difference between him and
+that other young man, the smartness of whose apparel was now
+becoming peculiarly distasteful to her! Certainly it would have
+been better for her not to have gone to Cheltenham if it was to be
+her fate to become Mrs. Twentyman. She was quite sure of that now.
+
+She came up from the Dillsborough Station alone in the Bush
+omnibus. She had not expected any one to meet her. Why should any
+one meet her? The porter put up her box and the omnibus left her at
+the door. But she remembered well how she had gone down with
+Reginald Morton, and how delightful had been every little incident
+of the journey. Even to walk with him up and down the platform
+while waiting for the train had been a privilege. She thought of it
+as she got out of the carriage and remembered that she had felt
+that the train had come too soon.
+
+At her own door her father met her and took her into the parlour
+where the tea-things were spread, and where her sisters were
+already seated. Her stepmother soon came in and kissed her kindly.
+She was asked how she had enjoyed herself, and no disagreeable
+questions were put to her that night. No questions, at least, were
+asked which she felt herself bound to answer. After she was in bed
+Kate came to her and did say a word. "Well, Mary, do tell me. I
+won't tell any one." But Mary refused to speak a word.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+The Rufford Correspondence
+
+
+It might be surmised from the description which Lord Rufford had
+given of his own position to his sister and his sister's two
+friends, when he pictured himself as falling over the edge of the
+precipice while they hung on behind to save him, that he was
+sufficiently aware of the inexpediency of the proposed intimacy
+with Miss Trefoil. Any one hearing him would have said that Miss
+Trefoil's chances in that direction were very poor,--that a man
+seeing his danger so plainly and so clearly understanding the
+nature of it would certainly avoid it. But what he had said was no
+more than Miss Trefoil knew that he would say,---or, at any rate
+would think. Of course she had against her not only all his
+friends,--but the man himself also and his own fixed intentions.
+Lord Rufford was not a marrying man,--which was supposed to signify
+that he intended to lead a life of pleasure till the necessity of
+providing an heir should be forced upon him, when he would take to
+himself a wife out of his own class in life twenty years younger
+than himself for whom he would not care a straw. The odds against
+Miss Trefoil were of course great;--but girls have won even against
+such odds as these. She knew her own powers, and was aware that
+Lord Rufford was fond of feminine beauty and feminine flutter and
+feminine flattery, though he was not prepared to marry. It was
+quite possible that she might be able to dig such a pit for him
+that it would be easier for him to marry her than to get out in any
+other way. Of course she must trust something to his own folly
+at first. Nor did she trust in vain. Before her week was over
+at Mrs. Gore's she received from him a letter, which, with the
+correspondence to which it immediately led, shall be given in this
+chapter.
+
+Letter No. I.
+
+Rufford, Sunday.
+
+My Dear Miss Trefoil,
+
+We have had a sad house since you left us. Poor Caneback got better
+and then worse and then better,--and at last died yesterday
+afternoon. And now; there is to be the funeral! The poor dear old
+boy seems to have had nobody belonging to him and very little in
+the way of possessions. I never knew anything of him except that he
+was, or had been, in the Blues, and that he was about the best man
+in England to hounds on a bad horse. It now turns out that his
+father made some money in India,--a sort of Commissary purveyor,--
+and bought a commission for him twenty-five years ago. Everybody
+knew him but nobody knew anything about, him. Poor old Caneback! I
+wish he had managed to die anywhere else and I don't feel at all
+obliged to Purefoy for sending that brute of a mare here. He said
+something to me about that wretched ball;--not altogether so
+wretched! was it? But I didn't like what he said and told him a bit
+of my mind. Now we're two for a while; and I don't care for how
+long unless he comes round.
+
+I cannot stand a funeral and I shall get away from this. I will pay
+the bill and Purefoy may do the rest. I'm going for Christmas to
+Surbiton's near Melton with a string of horses. Surbiton is a
+bachelor, and as there will be no young ladies to interfere with me
+I shall have the more time to think of you. We shall have a little
+play there instead. I don't know whether it isn't the better of the
+two, as if one does get sat upon, one doesn't feel so confoundedly
+sheep-faced. I have been out with the hounds two or three times
+since you went, as I could do no good staying with that poor fellow
+and there was a time when we thought he would have pulled through.
+I rode Jack one day, but he didn't carry me as well as he did you.
+I think he's more of a lady's horse. If I go to Mistletoe I shall
+have some horses somewhere in the neighbourhood and I'll make them
+take Jack, so that you may have a chance.
+
+I never know how to sign myself to young ladies. Suppose I say that
+I am yours,
+                       Anything you like best,
+                                 R.
+
+This was a much nicer letter than Arabella had expected, as there
+were one or two touches in it, apart from the dead man and the
+horses, which she thought might lead to something,--and there was a
+tone in the letter which seemed to show that he was given to
+correspondence. She took care to answer it so that he should get
+her letter on his arrival at Mr. Surbiton's house. She found out
+Mr. Surbiton's address, and then gave a great deal of time to her
+letter.
+
+Letter No. 2.
+
+Murray's Hotel, Green Street,
+Thursday.
+
+My Dear Lord Rufford,
+
+As we are passing through London on our way from one purgatory with
+the Gores to another purgatory with old Lady De Browne, and as
+mamma is asleep in her chair opposite, and as I have nothing else
+on earth to do, I think I might as well answer your letter. Poor
+old Major! I am sorry for him, because he rode so bravely. I shall
+never forget his face as he passed us, and again as he rose upon
+his knee when that horrid blow came! How very odd that he should
+have been like that, without any friends. What a terrible nuisance
+to you! I think you were quite wise to come away. I am sure I
+should have done so. I can't conceive what right Sir John Purefoy
+can have had to say anything, for after all it was his doing. Do
+you remember when you talked of my riding Jemima? When I think of
+it I can hardly hold myself for shuddering.
+
+It is so kind of you to think of me about Jack. I am never very
+fond of Mistletoe. Don't you be mischievous now and tell the
+Duchess I said so. But with Jack in the neighbourhood I can stand
+even her Grace. I think I shall be there about the middle of
+January but it must depend on all those people mamma is going to. I
+shall have to make a great fight, for mamma thinks that ten days in
+the year at Mistletoe is all that duty requires. But I always stick
+up for my uncle, and mean in this instance to have a little of my
+own way. What are parental commands in opposition to Jack and all
+his glories? Besides mamma does not mean to go herself.
+
+I shall leave it to you to say whether the ball was `altogether
+wretched.' Of course there must have been infinite vexation to you,
+and to us who knew of it all there was a feeling of deep sorrow.
+But perhaps we were able, some of us, to make it a little lighter
+for you. At any rate I shall never forget Rufford, whether the
+memory be more pleasant or more painful. There are moments which
+one never can forget!
+
+Don't go and gamble away your money among a lot of men. Though I
+dare say you have got so much that it doesn't signify whether you
+lose some of it or not. I do think it is such a shame that a man
+like you should have such a quantity, and that a poor girl such as
+I am shouldn't have enough to pay for her hats and gloves. Why
+shouldn't I send a string of horses about just when I please? I
+believe I could make as good a use of them as you do, and then I
+could lend you Jack. I would be so good-natured. You should have
+Jack every day you wanted him.
+
+You must write and tell me what day you will be at Mistletoe. It is
+you that have tempted me and I don't mean to be there without
+you,--or I suppose I ought to say, without the horse. But of course
+you will have understood that. No young lady ever is supposed to
+desire the presence of any young man. It would be very improper of
+course. But a young man's Jack is quite another thing.
+
+So far her pen had flown with her, but then there came the
+necessity for a conclusion which must be worded in some
+peculiar way, as his had been so peculiar. How far might she
+dare to be affectionate without putting him on his guard? Or in
+what way might she be saucy so as best to please him? She tried two
+or three, and at last she ended her letter as follows.
+
+I have not had much experience in signing myself to young gentlemen
+and am therefore quite in as great a difficulty as you were; but,
+though I can't swear that I am everything that you like best, I
+will protest that I am pretty nearly what you ought to like,--as
+far as young ladies go.
+
+                         In the meantime I certainly am,
+                             Yours truly,
+                                 A. T.
+
+P.S. Mind you write--about Jack; and address to Lady Smijth--
+Greenacres Manor--Hastings.
+
+There was a great deal in this letter which was not true. But then
+such ladies as Miss Trefoil can never afford to tell the truth.
+
+The letter was not written from Murray's Hotel, Lady Augustus
+having insisted on staying at certain lodgings in Orchard Street
+because her funds were low. But on previous occasions they had
+stayed at Murray's. And her mamma, instead of being asleep when the
+letter was written, was making up her accounts. And every word
+about Mistletoe had been false. She had not yet secured her
+invitation. She was hard at work on the attempt, having induced her
+father absolutely to beg the favour from his brother. But at the
+present moment she was altogether diffident of success. Should she
+fail she must only tell Lord Rufford that her mother's numerous
+engagements had at the last moment made her happiness impossible.
+That she was going to Lady Smijth's was true, and at Lady Smijth's
+house she received the following note from Lord Rufford. It was
+then January, and the great Mistletoe question was not as yet
+settled.
+
+Letter No. 3.
+
+December 31.
+
+My Dear Miss Trefoil,
+
+Here I am still at Surbiton's and we have had such good sport that
+I'm half inclined to give the Duke the slip. What a pity that you
+can't come here instead. Wouldn't it be nice for you and half a
+dozen more without any of the Dowagers or Duennas? You might win
+some of the money which I lose. I have been very unlucky and, if
+you had won it all, there would be plenty of room for hats and
+gloves,--and for sending two or three Jacks about all the winter
+into the bargain. I never did win yet. I don't care very much about
+it, but I don't know why I should always be so uncommonly unlucky.
+
+We had such a day yesterday,--an hour and ten minutes all in the
+open, and then a kill just as the poor fellow was trying to make a
+drain under the high road. There were only five of us up. Surbiton
+broke his horse's back at a bank, and young De Canute came down on
+to a road and smashed his collar bone. Three or four of the hounds
+were so done that they couldn't be got home. I was riding Black
+Harry and he won't be out again for a fortnight. It was the best
+thing I've seen these two years. We never have it quite like that
+with the U.R.U.
+
+If I don't go to Mistletoe I'll send Jack and a groom if you think
+the Duke would take them in and let you ride the horse. If so I
+shall stay here pretty nearly all January, unless there should be a
+frost. In that case I should go back to Rufford as I have a deal of
+shooting to do. I shall be so sorry not to see you;--but there is
+always a sort of sin in not sticking to hunting when it's good. It
+so seldom is just what it ought to be.
+
+I rather think that after all we shall be down on that fellow who
+poisoned our fox, in spite of your friend the Senator.
+
+                         Yours always faithfully,
+                                     R.
+
+There was a great deal in this letter which was quite terrible to
+Miss Trefoil. In the first place by the time she received it she
+had managed the matter with her uncle. Her father had altogether
+refused to mention Lord Rufford's name, though he had heard the
+very plain proposition which his daughter made to him with perfect
+serenity. But he had said to the Duke that it would be a great
+convenience if Bell could be received at Mistletoe for a few days,
+and the Duke had got the Duchess to assent. Lady Augustus, too, had
+been disposed of, and two very handsome new dresses had been
+acquired. Her habit had been altered with reckless disregard of the
+coming spring and she was fully prepared for her campaign. But what
+would Mistletoe be to her without Lord Rufford? In spite of all
+that had been done she would not go there. Unless she could turn
+him by her entreaties she would pack up everything and start for
+Patagonia, with the determination to throw herself overboard on the
+way there if she could find the courage.
+
+She had to think very much of her next letter. Should she write in
+anger or should she write in love, or should she mingle both? There
+was no need for care now, as there had been at first. She must
+reach him at once, or everything would be over. She must say
+something that would bring him to Mistletoe, whatever that
+something might be. After much thought she determined that mingled
+anger and love would be the best. So she mingled them as follows:
+
+Letter No. 4.
+
+Greenacre Manor, Monday.
+
+Your last letter which I have just got has killed me. You must know
+that I have altered my plans and done it at immense trouble for the
+sake of meeting you at Mistletoe. It will be most unkind,--I might
+say worse,--if you put me off. I don't think you can do it as a
+gentleman. I'm sure you would not if you knew what I have gone
+through with mamma and the whole set of them to arrange it. Of
+course I shan't go if you don't come. Your talk of sending the
+horse there is adding an insult to the injury. You must have meant
+to annoy me or you wouldn't have pretended to suppose that it was
+the horse I wanted to see. I didn't think I could have taken so
+violent a dislike to poor Jack as I did for a moment. Let me tell
+you that I think you are bound to go to Mistletoe though the
+hunting at Melton should be better than was ever known before. When
+the hunting is good in one place of course it is good in another.
+Even I am sportsman enough to know that. I suppose you have been
+losing a lot of money and are foolish enough to think you can win
+it back again.
+
+Please, please come. It was to be the little cream of the year for
+me. It wasn't Jack. There! That ought to bring you. And yet, if you
+come, I will worship Jack. I have not said a word to mamma about
+altering my plans, nor shall I while there is a hope. But to
+Mistletoe I will not go, unless you are to be there. Pray answer
+this by return of post. If we have gone your letter will of course
+follow us. Pray come. Yours if you do come--; what shall I say?
+Fill it as you please.
+                                 A. T.
+
+Lord Rufford when he received the above very ardent epistle was
+quite aware that he had better not go to Mistletoe. He understood
+the matter nearly as well as Arabella did herself. But there was a
+feeling with him that up to that stage of the affair he ought to do
+what he was asked by a young lady, even though there might be
+danger. Though there was danger there would still be amusement. He
+therefore wrote again as follows:
+
+Letter No. 5.
+
+Dear Miss Trefoil,
+
+You shan't be disappointed whether it be Jack or any less useful
+animal that you wish to see. At any rate Jack,--and the other
+animal,--will be at Mistletoe on the 15th. I have written to the
+Duke by this post. I can only hope that you will be grateful. After
+all your abuse about my getting back my money I think you ought to
+be very grateful. I have got it back again, but I can assure you
+that has had nothing to do with it.
+                       Yours ever,
+                            R.
+
+P.S. We had two miserably abortive days last week.
+
+Arabella felt that a great deal of the compliment was taken away by
+the postscript; but still she was grateful and contented.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+"It is a long Way"
+
+
+While the correspondence given in the last chapter was going on
+Miss Trefoil had other troubles besides those there narrated, and
+other letters to answer. Soon after her departure from Rufford she
+received a very serious but still an affectionate epistle from John
+Morton in which he asked her if it was her intention to become his
+wife or not. The letter was very long as well as very serious and
+need not be given here at length. But that was the gist of it; and
+he went on to say that in regard to money he had made the most
+liberal proposition in his power, that he must decline to have any
+further communication with lawyers, and that he must ask her to let
+him know at once,--quite at once,--whether she did or did not
+regard herself as engaged to him. It was a manly letter and ended
+by a declaration that as far as he himself was concerned his
+feelings were not at all altered. This she received while staying
+at the Gores', but, in accordance with her predetermined strategy,
+did not at once send any answer to it. Before she heard again from
+Morton she had received that pleasant first letter from Lord
+Rufford, and was certainly then in no frame of mind to assure Mr.
+Morton that she was ready to declare herself his affianced wife
+before all the world. Then, after ten days, he had written to her
+again and had written much more severely. It wanted at that time
+but a few days to Christmas, and she was waiting for a second
+letter from Lord Rufford. Let what might come of it she could not
+now give up the Rufford chance. As she sat thinking of it, giving
+the very best of her mind to it, she remembered the warmth of that
+embrace in the little room behind the drawing-room, and those
+halcyon minutes in which her head had been on his shoulder, and his
+arm round her waist. Not that they were made halcyon to her by any
+of the joys of love. In giving the girl her due it must be owned
+that she rarely allowed herself to indulge in simple pleasures. If
+Lord Rufford, with the same rank and property, had been personally
+disagreeable to her it would have been the same. Business to her
+had for many years been business, and her business had been so very
+hard that she had never allowed lighter things to interfere with
+it. She had had justice on her side when she rebuked her mother for
+accusing her of flirtations. But could such a man as Lord Rufford--
+with his hands so free,--venture to tell himself that such tokens
+of affection with such a girl would mean nothing? If she might
+contrive to meet him again of course they would be repeated; and
+then he should be forced to say that they did mean something. When
+therefore the severe letter came from Morton,--severe and pressing,
+telling her that she was bound to answer him at once and that were
+she still silent he must in regard to his own honour take that as
+an indication of her intention to break off the match,--she felt
+that she must answer it. The answer must, however, still be
+ambiguous. She would not if possible throw away that stool quite as
+yet, though her mind was intent on ascending to the throne which it
+might be within her power to reach. She wrote to him an ambiguous
+letter, but a letter which certainly was not intended to liberate
+him. "He ought," she said, "to understand that a girl situated as
+she was could not ultimately dispose of herself till her friends
+had told her that she was free to do so. She herself did not
+pretend to have any interest in the affairs as to which her father
+and his lawyers were making themselves busy. They had never even
+condescended to tell her what it was they wanted on her behalf;--
+nor, for the matter of that, had he, Morton, ever told her what it
+was that he refused to do. Of course she could not throw herself
+into his arms till these things were settled."--By that expression
+she had meant a metaphorical throwing of herself, and not such a
+flesh and blood embracing as she had permitted to the lord in the
+little room at Rufford. Then she suggested that he should appeal
+again to her father. It need hardly be said that her father knew
+very little about it, and that the lawyers had long since written
+to Lady Augustus to say that better terms as to settlement could
+not be had from Mr. John Morton.
+
+Morton, when he wrote his second letter, had received the offer of
+the mission to Patagonia and had asked for a few days to think of
+it. After much consideration he had determined that, he would say
+nothing to Arabella of the offer. Her treatment of him gave her no
+right to be consulted. Should she at once write back declaring her
+readiness to become his wife, then he would consult her,--and would
+not only consult her but would be prepared to abandon the mission
+at the expression of her lightest wish. Indeed in that case he
+thought that he would himself advise that it should be abandoned.
+Why should he expatriate himself to such a place with such a wife
+as Arabella Trefoil? He received her answer and at once accepted
+the offer. He accepted it, though he by no means assured himself
+that the engagement was irrevocably annulled. But now, if she came
+to him, she must take her chance. She must be told that he at any
+rate was going to Patagonia, and that unless she could make up her
+mind to do so too, she must remain Arabella Trefoil for him. He
+would not even tell her of his appointment. He had done all that in
+him lay and would prepare himself for his journey as a single man.
+A minister going out to Patagonia would of course have some little
+leave of absence allowed him, and he arranged with his friend
+Mounser Green that he should not start till April.
+
+But when Lord Rufford's second letter reached Miss Trefoil down at
+Greenacre Manor, where she had learned by common report that Mr.
+Morton was to be the new minister at Patagonia,--when she believed
+as she then did that the lord was escaping her, that, seeing and
+feeling his danger, he had determined not to jump into the lion's
+mouth by meeting her at Mistletoe, that her chance there was all
+over; then she remembered her age, her many seasons, the hard work
+of her toilet, those tedious long and bitter quarrels with her
+mother, the ever-renewed trouble of her smiles, the hopelessness of
+her future should she smile in vain to the last, and the countless
+miseries of her endless visitings; and she remembered too the 1200
+pounds a year that Morton had offered to settle on her and the
+assurance of a home of her own though that home should be at
+Bragton. For an hour or two she had almost given up the hope of
+Rufford and had meditated some letter to her other lover which
+might at any rate secure him. But she had collected her courage
+sufficiently to make that last appeal to the lord, which had been
+successful. Three weeks now might settle all that and for three
+weeks it might still be possible so to manage her affairs that she
+might fall back upon Patagonia as her last resource.
+
+About this time Morton returned to Bragton, waiting however till he
+was assured that the Senator had completed his visit to
+Dillsborough. He had been a little ashamed of the Senator in regard
+to the great Goarly conflict and was not desirous of relieving his
+solitude by the presence of the American. On this occasion he went
+quite alone and ordered no carriages from the Bush and no increased
+establishment of servants. He certainly was not happy in his mind.
+The mission to Patagonia was well paid, being worth with house and
+etceteras nearly 3000 pounds a year; and it was great and quick
+promotion for one so young as himself. For one neither a lord nor
+connected with a Cabinet Minister Patagonia was a great place at
+which to begin his career as Plenipotentiary on his own bottom;--
+but it is a long way off and has its drawbacks. He could not look
+to be there for less than four years; and there was hardly reason
+why a man in his position should expatriate himself to such a place
+for so long a time. He felt that he should not have gone but for
+his engagement to Arabella Trefoil, and that neither would he have
+gone had his engagement been solid and permanent. He was going in
+order that he might be rid of that trouble, and a man's feelings in
+such circumstances cannot be satisfactory to himself. However he
+had said that he would go, and he knew enough of himself to be
+certain that having said so he would not alter his mind. But he was
+very melancholy and Mrs. Hopkins declared to old Mrs. Twentyman
+that the young squire was "hipped,"--"along of his lady love," as
+she thought.
+
+His hands had been so full of his visitors when at Bragton before,
+and he had been carried off so suddenly to Rufford, and then had
+hurried up to London in such misery, that he had hardly had time to
+attend to his own business. Mr. Masters had made a claim upon him
+since he had been in England for 127l. 8s. 4d in reference to
+certain long-gone affairs in which the attorney declared he had
+been badly treated by those who had administered the Morton estate.
+John Morton had promised to look into the matter and to see Mr.
+Masters. He had partially looked into it and now felt ashamed that
+he had not fully kept his promise. The old attorney had not had
+much hope of getting his money. It was doubtful to himself whether
+he could make good his claim against the Squire at law, and it was
+his settled purpose to make no such attempt although he was quite
+sure that the money was his due. Indeed if Mr. Morton would not do
+anything further in the matter, neither would he. He was almost too
+mild a man to be a successful lawyer, and had a dislike to asking
+for money. Mr. Morton had promised to see him, but Mr. Morton had
+probably--forgotten it. Some gentlemen seem apt to forget such
+promises.
+
+Mr. Masters was somewhat surprised therefore when he was told one
+morning in his office that Mr. Morton from Bragton wished to see
+him. He thought that it must be Reginald Morton, having not heard
+that the Squire had returned to the country. But John Morton was
+shown into the office, and the old attorney immediately arose from
+his arm-chair. Sundown was there, and was at once sent out of the
+room. Sundown on such occasions was accustomed to retire to some
+settlement seldom visited by the public which was called the back
+office. Nickem was away intent on unravelling the Goarly mystery,
+and the attorney could ask his visitor to take a confidential seat.
+Mr. Morton however had very little to say. He was full of apologies
+and at once handed out a cheque for the sum demanded. The money was
+so much to the attorney that he was flurried by his own success.
+"Perhaps," said Morton, "I ought in fairness to add interest"
+
+"Not at all;--by no means. Lawyers never expect that. Really, Mr.
+Morton, I am very much obliged. It was so long ago that I thought
+that perhaps you might think--"
+
+"I do not doubt that it's all right"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Morton--it is all right. It is quite right. But your
+coming in this way is quite a compliment. I am so proud to see the
+owner of Bragton once more in this house. I respect the family as I
+always did; and as for the money--"
+
+"I am only sorry that it has been delayed so long. Good morning,
+Mr. Masters."
+
+The attorney's affairs were in such a condition that an unexpected
+cheque for 127l. 8s. 4d. sufficed to exhilarate him. It was as
+though the money had come down to him from the very skies. As it
+happened Mary returned from Cheltenham on that same evening and the
+attorney felt that if she had brought back with her an intention to
+be Mrs. Twentyman he could still be a happy and contented man.
+
+And there had been another trouble on John Morton's mind. He had
+received his cousin's card but had not returned the visit while his
+grandmother had been at Bragton. Now he walked on to Hoppet Hall
+and knocked at the door.--Yes;--Mr. Morton was at home, and then he
+was shown into the presence of his cousin whom he had not seen
+since he was a boy. "I ought to have come sooner," said the Squire,
+who was hardly at his ease.
+
+"I heard you had a house full of people at Bragton."
+
+"Just that,--and then I went off rather suddenly to the other side
+of the country; and then I had to go up to London. Now I'm going to
+Patagonia."
+
+"Patagonia! That's a long way off."
+
+"We Foreign Office slaves have to be sent a long way off."
+
+"But we heard, John," said Reginald, who did not feel it to be his
+duty to stand on any ceremony with his younger cousin, "we heard
+that you were going to be married to Miss Trefoil. Are you going to
+take a wife out to Patagonia?"
+
+This was a question which he certainly had not expected. "I don't
+know how that may be," he said frowning.
+
+"We were told here in Dillsborough that it was all settled. I hope
+I haven't asked an improper question."
+
+"Of course people will talk."
+
+"If it's only talk I beg pardon. Whatever concerns Bragton is
+interesting to me, and from the way in which I heard this I thought
+it was a certainty. Patagonia;--well! You don't want an assistant
+private secretary I suppose? I should like to see Patagonia."
+
+"We are not allowed to appoint those gentlemen ourselves."
+
+"And I suppose I should be too old to get in at the bottom. It
+seems a long way off for a man who is the owner of Bragton."
+
+"It is a long way."
+
+"And what will you do with the old place?"
+
+"There's no one to live there. If you were married you might
+perhaps take it" This was of course said in joke, as old Mrs.
+Morton would have thought Bragton to be disgraced for ever, even by
+such a proposition.
+
+"You might let it."
+
+"Who would take such a place for five years? I suppose old Mrs.
+Hopkins will remain, and that it will become more and more desolate
+every year. I mustn't let the old house tumble down; that's all."
+Then the Minister Plenipotentiary to Patagonia took his departure
+and walked back to Bragton thinking of the publicity of his
+engagement. All Dillsborough had heard that he was to be married to
+Miss Trefoil, and this cousin of his had been so sure of the fact
+that he had not hesitated to ask a question about it in the first
+moment of their first interview. Under such circumstances it would
+be better for him to go to Patagonia than to remain in England.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+The Beginning of persecution
+
+
+When Mary Masters got up on the morning after her arrival she knew
+that she would have to endure much on that day. Everybody had
+smiled on her the preceding evening, but the smiles were of a
+nature which declared themselves to be preparatory to some coming
+event. The people around her were gracious on the presumption that
+she was going to do as they wished, and would be quite prepared to
+withdraw their smiles should she prove to be contumacious. Mary, as
+she crept down in the morning, understood all this perfectly. She
+found her stepmother alone in the parlour and was at once attacked
+with the all important question. "My dear, I hope you have made up
+your mind about Mr. Twentyman."
+
+"There were to be two months, mamma."
+
+"That's nonsense, Mary. Of course you must know what you mean to
+tell him." Mary thought that she did know, but was not at the
+present moment disposed to make known her knowledge and therefore
+remained silent. "You should remember how much this is to your papa
+and me and should speak out at once. Of course you need not tell
+Mr. Twentyman till the end of the time unless you like it"
+
+"I thought I was to be left alone for two months."
+
+"Mary, that is wicked. When your papa has so many things to think
+of and so much to provide for, you should be more thoughtful of
+him. Of course he will want to be prepared to give you what things
+will be necessary." Mrs. Masters had not as yet heard of Mr.
+Morton's cheque, and perhaps would not hear of it till her
+husband's bank book fell into her hands. The attorney had lately
+found it necessary to keep such matters to himself when it was
+possible, as otherwise he was asked for explanations which it was
+not always easy for him to give. "You know," continued Mrs.
+Masters, "how hard your father finds it to get money as it is
+wanted."
+
+"I don't want anything, mamma."
+
+"You must want things if you are to be married in March or April."
+
+"But I shan't be married in March or April. Oh, mamma, pray don't."
+
+"In a week's time or so you must tell Larry. After all that has
+passed of course he won't expect to have to wait long, and you
+can't ask him. Kate my dear,"--Kate had just entered the room, "go
+into the office and tell your father to come into breakfast in five
+minutes. You must know, Mary, and I insist on your telling me."
+
+"When I said two months,--only it was he said two months--"
+
+"What difference does it make, my dear?"
+
+"It was only because he asked me to put it off. I knew it could
+make no difference."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me, Mary, that you are going to refuse him
+after all?"
+
+"I can't help it," said Mary, bursting out into tears.
+
+"Can't help it! Did anybody ever see such an idiot since girls were
+first created? Not help it, after having given him as good as a
+promise! You must help it. You must be made to help it"
+
+There was an injustice in this which nearly killed poor Mary. She
+had been persuaded among them to put off her final decision, not
+because she had any doubt in her own mind, but at their request,
+and now she was told that in granting this delay she had "given as
+good as a promise!" And her stepmother also had declared that she
+"must be made to help it,"--or in other words be made to marry Mr.
+Twentyman in opposition to her own wishes! She was quite sure that
+no human being could have such right of compulsion over her. Her
+father would not attempt it, and it was, after all, to her father
+alone, that she was bound by duty. At the moment she could make no
+reply, and then her father with the two girls came in from the
+office.
+
+The attorney was still a little radiant with his triumph about the
+cheque and was also pleased with his own discernment in the matter
+of Goarly. He had learned that morning from Nickem that Goarly had
+consented to take 7s. 6d. an acre from Lord Rufford and was
+prepared to act "quite the honourable part" on behalf of his
+lordship. Nickem had seemed to think that the triumph would not end
+here, but had declined to make any very definite statements. Nickem
+clearly fancied that he had been doing great things himself, and
+that he might be allowed to have a little mystery. But the attorney
+took great credit to himself in that he had rejected Goarly's case,
+and had been employed by Lord Rufford in lieu of Goarly. When he
+entered the parlour he had for the moment forgotten Larry
+Twentyman, and was disposed to greet his girl lovingly;--but he
+found her dissolved in bitter tears. "Mary, my darling, what is it
+ails you?" he said.
+
+"Never mind about your darling now, but come to breakfast. She is
+giving, herself airs,--as usual."
+
+But Mary never did give herself airs and her father could not
+endure the accusation. "She would not be crying," he said, "unless
+she had something to cry for."
+
+"Pray don't make a fuss about things you don't understand," said his
+wife. "Mary, are you coming to the table? If not you had better go
+up-stairs. I hate such ways, and I won't have them. This comes of
+Ushanting! I knew what it would be. The place for girls is to stay at
+home and mind their work,--till they have got houses of their own to
+look after. That's what I intend my girls to do. There's nothing on
+earth so bad for girls as that twiddle-your-thumbs visiting about when
+they think they've nothing to do but to show what sort of ribbons and
+gloves they've got. Now, Dolly, if you've got any hands will you cut the
+bread for your father? Mary's a deal too fine a lady to do anything but
+sit there and rub her eyes." After that the breakfast was eaten in
+silence.
+
+When the meal was over Mary followed her father into the office and
+said that she wanted to speak to him. When Sundown had disappeared
+she told her tale. "Papa," she said, "I am so sorry, but I can't do
+what you want about Mr. Twentyman."
+
+"Is it so, Mary?"
+
+"Don't be angry with me, papa."
+
+"Angry! No;--I won't be angry. I should be very sorry to be angry
+with my girl. But what you tell me will make us all very unhappy;--
+very unhappy indeed. What will you say to Lawrence Twentyman?"
+
+"What I said before, papa."
+
+"But he is quite certain now that you mean to take him. Of course
+we were all certain when you only wanted a few more days to think
+of it." Mary felt this to be the cruellest thing of all. "When he
+asked me I said I wouldn't pledge you, but I certainly had no
+doubt. What is the matter, Mary?"
+
+She could understand that a girl might be asked why she wanted to
+marry a man, and that in such a condition she ought to be able to
+give a reason; but it was she thought very hard that she should be
+asked why she didn't want to marry a man. "I suppose, papa," she
+said after a pause, "I don't like him in that way."
+
+"Your mamma will be sure to say that it is because you went to Lady
+Ushant's."
+
+And so in part it was,--as Mary herself very well knew; though Lady
+Ushant herself had had nothing to do with it. "Lady Ushant," she
+said, "would be very well pleased,--if she thought that I liked him
+well enough."
+
+"Did you tell Lady Ushant?"
+
+"Yes; I told her all about it,--and how you would all be pleased.
+And I did try to bring myself to it. Papa,--pray, pray don't want
+to send me away from you."
+
+"You would be so near to us all at Chowton Farm!"
+
+"I am nearer here, papa." Then she embraced him, and he in a manner
+yielded to her. He yielded to her so far as to part with her at the
+present moment with soft loving words.
+
+Mrs. Masters had a long conversation with her husband on the
+subject that same day, and condescended even to say a few words to
+the two girls. She had her own theory and her own plan in the
+present emergency. According to her theory girls shouldn't be
+indulged in any vagaries, and this rejecting of a highly valuable
+suitor was a most inexcusable vagary. And, if her plan were
+followed, a considerable amount of wholesome coercion would at once
+be exercised towards this refractory young woman. There was in fact
+more than a fortnight wanting to the expiration of Larry's two
+months, and Mrs. Masters was strongly of opinion that if Mary were
+put into a sort of domestic "coventry" during this period, if she
+were debarred from friendly intercourse with the family and made to
+feel that such wickedness as hers, if continued, would make her an
+outcast, then she would come round and accept Larry Twentyman
+before the end of the time. But this plan could not be carried out
+without her husband's co-operation. Were she to attempt it
+single-handed, Mary would take refuge in her father's softness of
+heart and there would simply be two parties in the household. "If
+you would leave her to me and not speak to her, it would be all
+right," Mrs. Masters said to her husband.
+
+"Not speak to her!"
+
+"Not cosset her and spoil her for the next week or two. Just leave
+her to herself and let her feel what she's doing. Think what
+Chowton Farm would be, and you with your business all slipping
+through your fingers."
+
+"I don't know that it's slipping through my fingers at all," said
+the attorney mindful of his recent successes.
+
+"If you mean to say you don't care about it--!"
+
+"I do care about it very much. You know I do. You ought not to talk
+to me in that way."
+
+"Then why won't you be said by me? Of course if you cocker her up,
+she'll think she's to have her own way like a grand lady. She don't
+like him because he works for his bread,--that's what it is; and
+because she's been taught by that old woman to read poetry. I never
+knew that stuff do any good to anybody. I hate them fandangled
+lines that are all cut up short to make pretence. If she wants to
+read why can't she take the cookery book and learn something
+useful? It just comes to this;--if you want her to marry Larry
+Twentyman you had better not notice her for the next fortnight. Let
+her go and come and say nothing to her. She'll think about it, if
+she's left to herself."
+
+The attorney did want his daughter to marry the man and was half
+convinced by his wife. He could not bring himself to be cruel and
+felt that his heart would bleed every hour of the day that he
+separated himself from his girl;--but still he thought that he
+might perhaps best in this way bring about a result which would be
+so manifestly for her advantage. It might be that the books of
+poetry and the modes of thought which his wife described as
+"Ushanting" were of a nature to pervert his girl's mind from the
+material necessities of life and that a little hardship would bring
+her round to a more rational condition. With a very heavy heart he
+consented to do his part,--which was to consist mainly of silence.
+Any words which might be considered expedient were to come from his
+wife.
+
+Three or four days went on in this way, which were days of absolute
+misery to Mary. She soon perceived and partly understood her
+father's silence. She knew at any rate that for the present she was
+debarred from his confidence. Her mother did not say much, but what
+she did say was all founded on the theory that Ushanting and
+softness in general are very bad for young women. Even Dolly and
+Kate were hard to her,--each having some dim idea that Mary was to
+be coerced towards Larry Twentyman and her own good. At the end of
+that time, when Mary had been at home nearly a week, Larry came as
+usual on the Saturday evening. She, well knowing his habit, took
+care to be out of the way. Larry, with a pleasant face, asked after
+her, and expressed a hope that she had enjoyed herself at
+Cheltenham.
+
+"A nasty idle place where nobody does anything as I believe," said
+Mrs. Masters. Larry received a shock from the tone of the lady's
+voice. He had allowed himself to think that all his troubles were
+now nearly over, but the words and the voice frightened him. He had
+told himself that he was not to speak of his love again till the
+two months were over, and like an honourable man he was prepared to
+wait the full time. He would not now have come to the attorney's
+house but that he knew the attorney would wait for him before going
+over to the club. He had no right to draw deductions till the time
+should be up. But he could not help his own feelings and was aware
+that his heart sank within him when he was told that Cheltenham was
+a nasty idle place. Abuse of Cheltenham at the present moment was
+in fact abuse of Mary;--and the one sin which Mary could commit was
+persistence in her rejection of his suit. But he determined to be a
+man as he walked across the street with his old friend, and said
+not a word about his love. "They tell me that Goarly has taken his
+7s. 6d., Mr. Masters."
+
+"Of course he has taken it, Larry. The worse luck for me. If he had
+gone on I might have had a bill against his Lordship as long as my
+arm. Now it won't be worth looking after."
+
+"I'm sure you're very glad, Mr. Masters."
+
+"Well; yes; I am glad. I do hate to see a fellow like that who
+hasn't got a farthing of his own, propped up from behind just to
+annoy his betters."
+
+"They say that Bearside got a lot of money out of that American."
+
+"I suppose he got something."
+
+"What an idiot that man must be. Can you understand it, Mr.
+Masters?"
+
+They now entered the club and Goarly and Nickem and Scrobby were of
+course being discussed. "Is it true, Mr. Masters, that Scrobby is
+to be arrested?" asked Fred Botsey at once.
+
+"Upon my word I can't say, Mr. Botsey; but if you tell me it is so
+I shan't cry my eyes out"
+
+"I thought you would have known"
+
+"A gentleman may know a thing, Mr. Botsey," said the landlord, "and
+not exactly choose to tell it."
+
+"I didn't suppose there was any secret," said the brewer. As Mr.
+Masters made no further remark it was of course conceived that he
+knew all about it and he was therefore treated with some increased
+deference. But there was on that night great triumph in the club as
+it was known as a fact that Goarly had withdrawn his claim, and
+that the American Senator had paid his money for nothing. It was
+moreover very generally believed that Goarly was going to turn
+evidence against Scrobby in reference to the poison.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Mary's Letter
+
+
+The silent system in regard to Mary was carried on in the
+attorney's house for a week, during which her sufferings were very
+great. From the first she made up her mind to oppose her
+stepmother's cruelty by sheer obstinacy. She had been told that she
+must be made to marry Mr. Twentyman, and the injustice of that
+threat had at once made her rebel against her stepmother's
+authority. She would never allow her stepmother to make her marry
+any one. She put herself into a state of general defiance and said
+as little as was said to her. But her father's silence to her
+nearly broke her heart. On one or two occasions, as opportunity
+offered itself to her, she said little soft words to him in
+privacy. Then he would partly relent, would kiss her and bid her be
+a good girl, and would quickly hurry away from her. She could
+understand that he suffered as well as herself, and she perhaps got
+some consolation from the conviction. At last, on the following
+Saturday she watched her opportunity and brought to him when he was
+alone in his office a letter which she had written to Larry
+Twentyman. "Papa," she said, "would you read that?" He took and
+read the letter, which was as follows:--
+
+My Dear Mr. Twentyman,
+
+Something was said about two months which are now very nearly over.
+I think I ought to save you from the trouble of coming to me again
+by telling you in a letter that it cannot be as you would have it.
+I have thought of it a great deal and have of course been anxious
+to do as my friends wish. And I am very grateful to you, and know
+how good and how kind you are. And I would do anything for you,--
+except this. But it never can be. I should not write like this
+unless I were quite certain. I hope you won't be angry with me and
+think that I should have spared you the trouble of doubting so
+long. I know now that I ought not to have doubted at all; but I was
+so anxious not to seem to be obstinate that I became foolish about
+it when you asked me. What I say now is quite certain.
+
+Dear Mr. Twentyman, I shall always think of you with esteem and
+regard, because I know how good you are; and I hope you will come
+to like somebody a great deal better than me who will always love
+you with her whole heart.
+
+                         Yours very truly,
+                           Mary Masters.
+
+P.S. I shall show this letter to papa.
+
+Mr. Masters read it as she stood by him,--and then read it again
+very slowly rubbing one hand over the other as he did so. He was
+thinking what he should do;--or rather what he should say. The idea
+of stopping the letter never occurred to him.
+
+If she chose to refuse the man of course she must do so; and
+perhaps, if she did refuse him, there was no way better than this.
+"Must it be so, Mary?" he said at last.
+
+"Yes, papa."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Because I do not love him as I should have to love any man that I
+wanted to marry. I have tried it, because you wished it, but I
+cannot do it"
+
+"What will mamma say?"
+
+"I am thinking more, papa, of you," she said putting her arm over
+his shoulder. "You have always been so good to me, and so kind!"
+Here his heart misgave him, for he felt that during the last week
+he had not been kind to her. "But you would not wish me to give
+myself to a man and then not to care for him."
+
+"No, my dear."
+
+"I couldn't do it. I should fall down dead first. I have thought so
+much about it,--for your sake; and have tried it with myself. I
+couldn't do it"
+
+"Is there anybody else, Mary?" As he asked the question he held her
+hand beneath his own on the desk, but he did not dare to look into
+her face. He had been told by his wife that there was somebody
+else; that the girl's mind was running upon Mr. Surtees, because
+Mr. Surtees was a gentleman. He was thinking of Mr. Surtees, and
+certainly not of Reginald Morton.
+
+To her the moment was very solemn and when the question was asked
+she felt that she could not tell her father a falsehood. She had
+gradually grown bold enough to assure herself that her heart was
+occupied with that man who had travelled with her to Cheltenham;
+and she felt that that feeling alone must keep her apart from any
+other love. And yet, as she had no hope, as she had assured herself
+that her love was a burden to be borne and could never become a
+source of enjoyment, why should her secret be wrested from her?
+What good would such a violation do? But she could not tell the
+falsehood, and therefore she held her tongue.
+
+Gradually he looked up into her face, still keeping her hand
+pressed on the desk under his. It was his left hand that so guarded
+her, while she stood by his right shoulder. Then he gently wound
+his right arm round her waist and pressed her to him. "Mary," he
+said, "if it is so, had you not better tell me?" But she was sure
+that she had better not mention that name even to him. It was
+impossible that she should mention it. She would have outraged to
+herself her own maiden modesty by doing so. "Is it,"--he asked very
+softly,--"is it Surtees?"
+
+"Oh no!" she said quickly, almost escaping from the grasp of his
+arm in her start.
+
+Then he was absolutely at a loss. Beyond Mr. Surtees or Larry
+Twentyman he did not know what possible lover Dillsborough could
+have afforded. And yet the very rapidity of her answer when the
+curate's name had been mentioned had convinced him that there was
+some other person,--had increased the strength of that conviction
+which her silence had produced. "Have you nothing that you can tell
+me, Mary?"
+
+"No, papa." Then he gave her back the letter and she left the room
+without another word. Of course his sanction to the letter had now
+been given, and it was addressed to Chowton Farm and posted before
+half an hour was over. She saw him again in the afternoon of the
+same day and asked him to tell her stepmother what she had done.
+"Mamma ought to know," she said.
+
+"But you haven't sent it"
+
+"Yes, papa;--it is in the post"
+
+Then it occurred to him that his wife would tell him that he should
+have prevented the sending of the letter,--that he should have
+destroyed it and altogether taken the matter with a high hand. "You
+can't tell her yourself?" he asked.
+
+"I would rather you did. Mamma has been so hard to me since I came
+home."
+
+He did tell his wife and she overwhelmed him by the violence of her
+reproaches. He could never have been in earnest, or he would not
+have allowed such a letter as that to pass through his hands. He
+must be afraid of his own child. He did not know his own duty. He
+had been deceiving her,--his wife,--from first to last. Then she
+threw herself into a torrent of tears declaring that she had been
+betrayed. There had been a conspiracy between them, and now
+everything might go to the dogs, and she would not lift up her
+hands again to save them. But before the evening came round she was
+again on the alert, and again resolved that she would not even yet
+give way. What was there in a letter more than in a spoken word?
+She would tell Larry to disregard the letter. But first she made a
+futile attempt to clutch the letter from the guardianship of the
+Post Office, and she went to the Postmaster assuring him that there
+had been a mistake in the family, that a wrong letter had been put
+into a wrong envelope, and begging that the letter addressed to Mr.
+Twentyman might be given back to her. The Postmaster, half
+vacillating in his desire to oblige a neighbour, produced the
+letter and Mrs. Masters put out her hand to grasp it; but the
+servant of the public,--who had been thoroughly grounded in his
+duties by one of those trusty guardians of our correspondence who
+inspect and survey our provincial post offices,--remembered himself
+at the last moment and expressing the violence of his regret,
+replaced the letter in the box. Mrs. Masters, in her anger and
+grief, condescended to say very hard things to her neighbour; but
+the man remembered his duty and was firm.
+
+On that evening Larry Twentyman did not attend the Dillsborough
+Club, having in the course of the week notified to the attorney
+that he should be a defaulter. Mr. Masters himself went over
+earlier than usual, his own house having become very uncomfortable
+to him. Mrs. Masters for an hour sat expecting that Larry would
+come, and when the evening passed away without his appearance, she
+was convinced that the unusual absence was a part of the conspiracy
+against her.
+
+Larry did not get his letter till the Monday morning. On the last
+Thursday and Saturday he had consoled himself for his doubts with
+the U.R.U., and was minded to do so on the Monday also. He had not
+gone to the club on Saturday and had moped about Chowton all the
+Sunday in a feverish state because of his doubts. It seemed to him
+that the two months would never be over. On the Monday he was out
+early on the farm and then came down in his boots and breeches, and
+had his red coat ready at the fire while he sat at breakfast. The
+meet was fifteen miles off and he had sent on his hunter, intending
+to travel thither in his dog cart. Just as he was cutting himself a
+slice of beef the postman came, and of course he read his letter.
+He read it with the carving knife in his hand, and then he stood
+gazing at his mother. "What is it, Larry?" she asked; "is anything
+wrong?"
+
+"Wrong,--well; I don't know," he said. "I don't know what you call
+wrong. I shan't hunt; that's all." Then he threw aside the knife
+and pushed away his plate and marched out of the room with the open
+letter in his hand.
+
+Mrs. Twentyman knew very well of his love,--as indeed did nearly
+all Dillsborough; but she had heard nothing of the two months and
+did not connect the letter with Mary Masters. Surely he must have
+lost a large sum of money. That was her idea till she saw him again
+late in the afternoon.
+
+He never went near the hounds that day or near his business. He was
+not then man enough for either. But he walked about the fields,
+keeping out of sight of everybody. It was all over now. It must be
+all over when she wrote to him a letter like that. Why had she
+tempted him to thoughts of happiness and success by that promise of
+two months' grace? He supposed that he was not good enough;--or
+that she thought he was not good enough. Then he remembered his
+acres, and his material comforts, and tried to console himself by
+reflecting that Mary Masters might very well do worse in the world.
+But there was no consolation in it. He had tried his best because
+he had really loved the girl. He had failed, and all the world,--
+all his world, would know that he had failed. There was not a man
+in the club,--hardly a man in the hunt,--who was not aware that he
+had offered to Mary Masters. During the last two months he had not
+been so reticent as was prudent, and had almost boasted to Fred
+Botsey of success. And then how was he to live at Chowton Farm
+without Mary Masters as his wife? As he returned home he almost
+made up his mind that he would not continue to live at Chowton
+Farm.
+
+He came back through Dillsborough Wood; and there, prowling about,
+he met Goarly. "Well, Mr. Twentyman," said the man, "I am making it
+all straight now with his Lordship."
+
+"I don't care what you're doing," said Larry in his misery. "You
+are an infernal blackguard and that's the best of you."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Chowton Farm for Sale.
+
+
+John Morton had returned to town soon after his walk into
+Dillsborough and had there learned from different sources that both
+Arabella Trefoil and Lord Rufford had gone or were going to
+Mistletoe. He had seen Lord Augustus who, though he could tell him
+nothing else about his daughter, had not been slow to inform him
+that she was going to the house of her noble uncle. When Morton had
+spoken to him very seriously about the engagement he declared that
+he knew nothing about it,--except that he had given his consent if
+the settlements were all right. Lady Augustus managed all that.
+Morton had then said that under those circumstances he feared he
+must regard the honour which he had hoped to enjoy as being beyond
+his reach. Lord Augustus had shrugged his shoulders and had gone
+back to his whist, this interview having taken place in the
+strangers' room of his club. That Lord Rufford was also going to
+Mistletoe he heard from young Glossop at the Foreign Office. It was
+quite possible that Glossop had been instructed to make this known
+to Morton by his sister Lady Penwether. Then Morton declared that
+the thing was over and that he would trouble himself no more about
+it. But this resolution did not make him at all contented, and in
+his misery he went again down to his solitude at Bragton.
+
+And now when he might fairly consider himself to be free, and when
+he should surely have congratulated himself on a most lucky escape
+from the great danger into which he had fallen, his love and
+admiration for the girl returned to him in a most wonderful manner.
+He thought of her beauty and her grace, and the manner in which she
+would sit at the head of his table when the time should come for
+him to be promoted to some great capital. To him she had
+fascinations which the reader, who perhaps knows her better than he
+ever did, will not share. He could forgive the coldness of her
+conduct to himself--he himself not being by nature demonstrative or
+impassioned,--if only she were not more kind to any rival. It was
+the fact that she should be visiting at the same house with Lord
+Rufford after what he had seen at Rufford Hall which had angered
+him. But now in his solitude he thought that he might have been
+wrong at Rufford Hall. If it were the case that the girl feared
+that her marriage might be prevented by the operations of lawyers
+and family friends, of course she would be right not to throw
+herself into his arms,--even metaphorically. He was a cold, just
+man who, when he had loved, could not easily get rid of his love,
+and now he would ask himself whether he was not hard upon the girl.
+It was natural that she should be at Mistletoe; but then why should
+Lord Rufford be there with her?
+
+His prospects at Patagonia did not console him much. No doubt it
+was a handsome mission for a man of his age and there were sundry
+Patagonian questions of importance at the present moment which
+would give him a certain weight. Patagonia was repudiating a loan,
+and it was hoped that he might induce a better feeling in the
+Patagonian Parliament. There was the Patagonian railway for joining
+the Straits to the Cape the details of which he was now studying
+with great diligence. And then there was the vital question of
+boundary between Patagonia and the Argentine Republic by settling
+which, should he be happy enough to succeed in doing so, he would
+prevent the horrors of warfare. He endeavoured to fix his mind with
+satisfaction on these great objects as he pored over the reports
+and papers which had been heaped upon him since. he had accepted
+the mission. But there was present to him always a feeling that the
+men at the Foreign Office had been glad to get any respectable
+diplomate to go to Patagonia, and that his brethren in the
+profession had marvelled at his acceptance of such a mission. One
+never likes to be thanked over much for doing anything. It creates
+a feeling that one has given more than was expedient. He knew that
+he must now go to Patagonia, but he repented the alacrity with
+which he had acceded to the proposition. Whether he did marry
+Arabella Trefoil or whether he did not, there was no adequate
+reason for such a banishment. And yet he could not now escape it!
+
+It was on a Monday morning that Larry Twentyman had found himself
+unable to go hunting. On the Tuesday he gave his workmen about the
+farm such a routing as they had not received for many a month.
+There had not been a dung heap or a cowshed which he had not
+visited, nor a fence about the place with which he had not found
+fault. He was at it all day, trying thus to console himself, but in
+vain; and when his mother in the evening said some word of her
+misery in regard to the turkeys he had told her that as far as he
+was concerned Goarly might poison every fox in the county. Then the
+poor woman knew that matters were going badly with her son. On the
+Wednesday, when the hounds met within two miles of Chowton, he
+again stayed at home; but in the afternoon he rode into
+Dillsborough and contrived to see the attorney without being seen
+by any of the ladies of the family. The interview did not seem to
+do him any good. On the Thursday morning he walked across to
+Bragton and with a firm voice asked to see the Squire. Morton who
+was deep in the boundary question put aside his papers and welcomed
+his neighbour.
+
+Now it must be explained that when, in former years, his son's
+debts had accumulated on old Mr. Reginald Morton, so that he had
+been obliged to part with some portion of his unentailed property,
+he had sold that which lay in the parish of St. John's,
+Dillsborough. The lands in Bragton and Mallingham he could not
+sell; but Chowton Farm which was in St. John's had been bought by
+Larry Twentyman's grandfather. For a time there had been some
+bitterness of feeling; but the Twentymans had been well-to-do
+respectable people, most anxious to be good neighbours, and had
+gradually made themselves liked by the owner of Bragton. The
+present Squire had of course known nothing of Chowton as a part of
+the Morton property, and had no more desire for it than for any of
+Lord Rufford's acres which were contiguous to his own. He shook
+hands cordially with his neighbour, as though this visit were the
+most natural thing in the world, and asked some questions about
+Goarly and the hunt.
+
+"I believe that'll all come square, Mr. Morton. I'm not interesting
+myself much about it now." Larry was not dressed like himself. He
+had on a dark brown coat, and dark pantaloons and a chimney-pot
+hat. He was conspicuous generally for light-coloured close-fitting
+garments and for a billycock hat. He was very unlike his usual self
+on the present occasion.
+
+"I thought you were just the man who did interest himself about
+those things."
+
+"Well; yes; once it was so, Mr. Morton. What I've got to say now,
+Mr. Morton, is this. Chowton Farm is in the market! But I wouldn't
+say a word to any one about it till you had had the offer."
+
+"You going to sell Chowton!"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Morton, I am."
+
+"From all I have heard of you I wouldn't have believed it if
+anybody else had told me."
+
+"It's a fact, Mr. Morton. There are three hundred and twenty acres.
+I put the rental at 30s. an acre. You know what you get, Mr.
+Morton, for the land that lies next to it. And I think twenty-eight
+years' purchase isn't more than it's worth. Those are my ideas as
+to price, Mr. Morton. There isn't a halfpenny owing on it--not in
+the way of mortgage."
+
+"I dare say it's worth that"
+
+"Up at auction I might get a turn more, Mr. Morton;--but those are
+my ideas at present"
+
+John Morton who was a man of business went to work at once with his
+pencil and in two minutes had made out a total. "I don't know that
+I could put my hand on 14,000 pounds even if I were minded to make
+the purchase."
+
+"That needn't stand in the way, sir. Any part you please could lie
+on mortgage at 4.5 per cent" Larry in the midst of his distress had
+certain clear ideas about business.
+
+"This is a very serious proposition, Mr. Twentyman."
+
+"Yes, indeed, sir."
+
+"Have you any other views in life?"
+
+"I can't say as I have any fixed. I shan't be idle, Mr. Morton. I
+never was idle. I was thinking perhaps of New Zealand."
+
+"A very fine colony for a young man, no doubt. But, seeing how well
+you are established here--."
+
+"I can't stay here, Mr. Morton. I've made up my mind about that.
+There are things which a man can't bear,--not and live quiet. As
+for hunting, I don't care about it any more than--nothing."
+
+"I am sorry that anything should have made you so unhappy."
+
+"Well;--I am unhappy. That's about the truth of it. And I always
+shall be unhappy here. There's nothing else for it but going away."
+
+"If it's anything sudden, Mr. Twentyman, allow me to say that you
+ought not to sell your property without grave consideration."
+
+"I have considered it,--very grave, Mr. Morton."
+
+"Ah,--but I mean long consideration. Take a year to think of it.
+You can't buy such a place back in a year. I don't know you well
+enough to be justified in inquiring into the circumstances of your
+trouble;--but unless it be something which makes it altogether
+inexpedient, or almost impossible that you should remain in the
+neighbourhood, you should not sell Chowton."
+
+"I'll tell you, Mr. Morton," said Larry almost weeping. Poor Larry
+whether in his triumph or his sorrow had no gift of reticence and
+now told his neighbour the whole story of his love. He was certain
+it had become quite hopeless. He was sure that she would never have
+written him a letter if there had been any smallest chance left.
+According to his ideas a girl might say "no" half-a-dozen times and
+yet not mean much; but when she had committed herself to a letter
+she could not go back from it.
+
+"Is there anybody else?" asked Morton.
+
+"Not as I know. I never saw anything like--like lightness with her,
+with any man. They said something about the curate but I don't
+believe a word of it."
+
+"And the family approve of it?"
+
+"Every one of them,--father and stepmother and sisters and all. My
+own mother too! There ain't a ha'porth against it. I don't want any
+one to give me sixpence in money. And she should live just like a
+lady. I can keep a servant for her to cook and do every mortal
+thing. But it ain't nothing of all that, Mr. Morton."
+
+"What is it then?"
+
+The poor man paused before he made his answer; but when he did, he
+made it plain enough. "I ain't good enough for her! Nor more I
+ain't, Mr. Morton. She was brought up in this house, Mr. Morton, by
+your own grand-aunt."
+
+"So I have heard, Mr. Twentyman."
+
+"And there's more of Bragton than there is of Dillsborough about
+her; that's just where it is. I know what I am and I know what she
+is, and I ain't good enough for her. It should be somebody that can
+talk books to her. I can tell her how to plant a field of wheat or
+how to run a foal;--but I can't sit and read poetry, nor yet be
+read to. There's plenty of 'em would sell themselves because the
+land's all there, and the house, and the things in it. What makes
+me mad is that I should love her all the better because she won't.
+My belief is, Mr. Morton, they're as poor as job. That makes no
+difference to me because I don't want it; but it makes no
+difference to her neither! She's right, Mr. Morton. I'm not good
+enough, and so I'll just cut it as far as Dillsborough is
+concerned. You'll think of what I said of taking the land?"
+
+Mr. Morton said much more to him, walking with him to the gate of
+Chowton Farm. He assured him that the young lady might yet be won.
+He had only, Morton said, to plead his case to her as well as he
+had pleaded up at Bragton and he thought that she would be won. "I
+couldn't speak out free to her,--not if it was to save the whole
+place," said the unfortunate lover. But Morton still continued his
+advice. As to leaving Chowton because a young lady refused him,
+that would be unmanly--"There isn't a bit of a man left about me,"
+said Larry weeping. Morton nevertheless went on. Time would cure
+these wounds; but no time would give him back Chowton should he
+once part with it. If he must leave the place for a time let him
+put a caretaker on the farm, even though by doing so the loss might
+be great. He should do anything rather than surrender his house. As
+to buying the land himself, Morton would not talk about it in the
+present circumstances. Then they parted at Chowton gate with many
+expressions of friendship on each side.
+
+John Morton, as he returned home, could not help thinking that the
+young farmer's condition was after all better than his own. There
+was an honesty about both the persons concerned of which at any
+rate they might be proud. There was real love,--and though that
+love was not at present happy it was of a nature to inspire perfect
+respect. But in his own case he was sure of nothing.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Mistletoe
+
+
+When Arabella Trefoil started from London for Mistletoe, with no
+companion but her own maid, she had given more serious
+consideration to her visit than she had probably ever paid to any
+matter up to that time. She had often been much in earnest but
+never so much in earnest as now. Those other men had perhaps been
+worthy, worthy as far as her ideas went of worth, but none of them
+so worthy as this man. Everything was there if she could only get
+it;--money, rank, fashion, and an appetite for pleasure. And he was
+handsome too, and good-humoured, though these qualities told less
+with her than the others. And now she was to meet him in the house
+of her great relations,--in a position in which her rank and her
+fashion would seem to be equal to his own. And she would meet him
+with the remembrance fresh in his mind as in her own of those
+passages of love at Rufford. It would be impossible that he should
+even seem to forget them. The most that she could expect would be
+four or five days of his company, and she knew that she must be
+upon her mettle. She must do more now than she had ever attempted
+before. She must scruple at nothing that might bind him. She would
+be in the house of her uncle and that uncle a duke, and she thought
+that those facts might help to quell him. And she would be there
+without her mother, who was so often a heavy incubus on her
+shoulders. She thought of it all, and made her plans carefully and
+even painfully. She would be at any rate two days in the house
+before his arrival. During that time she would curry favour with
+her uncle by all her arts, and would if possible reconcile herself
+to her aunt. She thought once of taking her aunt into her full
+confidence and balanced the matter much in her mind. The Duchess,
+she knew, was afraid of her,--or rather afraid of the relationship,
+and would of course be pleased to have all fears set at rest by
+such an alliance. But her aunt was a woman who had never suffered
+hardships, whose own marriage had been easily arranged, and whose
+two daughters had been pleasantly married before they were twenty
+years old. She had had no experience of feminine difficulties, and
+would have no mercy for such labours as those to which her less
+fortunate niece was driven. It would have been a great thing to
+have the cordial co-operation of her aunt; but she could not
+venture to ask for it.
+
+She had stretched her means and her credit to the utmost in regard
+to her wardrobe, and was aware that she had never been so well
+equipped since those early days of her career in which her father
+and mother had thought that her beauty, assisted by a generous
+expenditure, would serve to dispose of her without delay. A
+generous expenditure may be incurred once even by poor people, but
+cannot possibly be maintained over a dozen years. Now she had taken
+the matter into her own hands and had done that which would be
+ruinous if not successful. She was venturing her all upon the
+die,--with the prospect of drowning herself on the way out to
+Patagonia should the chances of the game go against her. She forgot
+nothing. She could hardly hope for more than one day's hunting and
+yet that had been provided for as though she were going to ride with
+the hounds through all the remainder of the season.
+
+When she reached Mistletoe there were people going and coming every
+day, so that an arrival was no event. She was kissed by her uncle
+and welcomed with characteristic coldness by her aunt, then allowed
+to settle in among the other guests as though she had been there
+all the winter. Everybody knew that she was a Trefoil and her
+presence therefore raised no question. The Duchess of Omnium was
+among the guests. The Duchess knew all about her and vouchsafed to
+her the smallest possible recognition. Lady Chiltern had met her
+before, and as Lady Chiltern was always generous, she was gracious
+to Arabella. She was sorry to see Lady Drummond, because she
+connected Lady Drummond with the Foreign Office and feared that the
+conversation might be led to Patagonia and its new minister. She
+contrived to squeeze her uncle's hand and to utter a word of warm
+thanks,--which his grace did not perfectly understand. The girl was
+his niece and the Duke had an idea that he should be kind to the
+family of which he was the head. His brother's wife had become
+objectionable to him, but as to the girl, if she wanted a home for
+a week or two, he thought it to be his duty to give it to her.
+
+Mistletoe is an enormous house with a frontage nearly a quarter of
+a mile long, combining as it does all the offices, coach houses,
+and stables. There is nothing in England more ugly or perhaps more
+comfortable. It stands in a huge park which, as it is quite flat,
+never shows its size and is altogether unattractive. The Duke
+himself was a hospitable, easy man who was very fond of his dinner
+and performed his duties well; but could never be touched by any
+sentiment. He always spent six months in the country, in which he
+acted as landlord to a great crowd of shooting, hunting, and
+flirting visitors, and six in London, in which he gave dinners and
+dined out and regularly took his place in the House of Lords
+without ever opening his mouth. He was a grey-haired comely man of
+sixty, with a large body and a wonderful appetite. By many who
+understood the subject he was supposed to be the best amateur judge
+of wine in England. His son Lord Mistletoe was member for the
+county and as the Duke had no younger sons he was supposed to be
+happy at all points. Lord Mistletoe, who had a large family of his
+own, lived twenty miles off,--so that the father and son could meet
+pleasantly without fear of quarrelling.
+
+During the first evening Arabella did contrive to make herself very
+agreeable. She was much quieter than had been her wont when at
+Mistletoe before, and though there were present two or three very
+well circumstanced young men she took but little notice of them.
+She went out to dinner with Sir Jeffrey Bunker, and made herself
+agreeable to that old gentleman in a remarkable manner. After
+dinner, something having been said of the respectable old game
+called cat's cradle, she played it to perfection with Sir Jeffrey,
+till her aunt thought that she must have been unaware that Sir
+Jeffrey had a wife and family. She was all smiles and all
+pleasantness, and seemed to want no other happiness than what the
+present moment gave her. Nor did she once mention Lord Rufford's
+name.
+
+On the next morning after breakfast her aunt sent for her to come
+up-stairs. Such a thing had never happened to her before. She could
+not recollect that, on any of those annual visits which she had
+made to Mistletoe for more years than she now liked to think of,
+she had ever had five minutes' conversation alone with her aunt. It
+had always seemed that she was to be allowed to come and go by
+reason of her relationship, but that she was to receive no special
+mark of confidence or affection. The message was whispered into her
+ear by her aunt's own woman as she was listening with great
+attention to Lady Drummond's troubles in regard to her nursery
+arrangements. She nodded her head, heard a few more words from Lady
+Drummond, and then, with a pretty apology and a statement made so
+that all should hear her, that her aunt wanted her, followed the
+maid up-stairs. "My dear," said her aunt, when the door was closed,
+"I want to ask you whether you would like me to ask Mr. Morton to
+come here while you are with us?" A thunderbolt at her feet could
+hardly have surprised or annoyed her more. If there was one thing
+that she wanted less than another it was the presence of the
+Paragon at Mistletoe. It would utterly subvert everything and rob
+her of every chance. With a great effort she restrained all emotion
+and simply shook her head. She did it very well, and betrayed
+nothing. "I ask," said the Duchess, "because I have been very glad
+to hear that you are engaged to marry him. Lord Drummond tells me
+that he is a most respectable young man."
+
+"Mr. Morton will be so much obliged to Lord Drummond."
+
+"And I thought that if it were so, you would be glad that he should
+meet you here. I could manage it very well, as the Drummonds are
+here, and Lord Drummond would be glad to meet him."
+
+They had not been above a minute or two together, and Arabella had
+been called upon to expend her energy in suppressing any expression
+of her horror; but still, by the time that she was called on to
+speak, she had fabricated her story. "Thanks, aunt; it is so good
+of you; and if everything was going straight, there would be
+nothing of course that I should like so much."
+
+"You are engaged to him?"
+
+"Well; I was going to tell you. I dare say it is not his fault; but
+papa and mamma and the lawyers think that he is not behaving well
+about money;--settlements and all that. I suppose it will all come
+right; but in the meantime perhaps I had better not meet him."
+
+"But you were engaged to him?"
+
+This had to be answered without pause. "Yes," said Arabella; "I was
+engaged to him."
+
+"And he is going out almost immediately?"
+
+"He is going, I know."
+
+"I suppose you will go with him?"
+
+This was very hard. She could not say that she certainly was not
+going with him. And yet she had to remember that her coming
+campaign with Lord Rufford must be carried on in part beneath her
+aunt's eyes. When she had come to Mistletoe she had fondly hoped
+that none of the family there would know anything about Mr. Morton.
+And now she was called upon to answer these horrid questions
+without a moment's notice! "I don't think I shall go with him,
+aunt; though I am unable to say anything certain just at present.
+If he behaves badly of course the engagement must be off."
+
+"I hope not. You should think of it very seriously. As for money,
+you know, you have none of your own, and I am told that he has a
+very nice property in Rufford. There is a neighbour of his coming
+here to-morrow, and perhaps he knows him."
+
+"Who is the neighbour, aunt?" asked Arabella, innocently.
+
+"Lord Rufford. He is coming to shoot. I will ask him about the
+property."
+
+"Pray don't mention my name, aunt. It would be so unpleasant if
+nothing were to come of it. I know Lord Rufford very well."
+
+"Know Lord Rufford very well!"
+
+"As one does know men that one meets about"
+
+"I thought it might settle everything if we had Mr. Morton here."
+
+"I couldn't meet him, aunt; I couldn't indeed. Mamma doesn't think
+that he is behaving well." To the Duchess condemnation from Lady
+Augustus almost amounted to praise. She felt sure that Mr. Morton
+was a worthy man who would not probably behave badly, and though
+she could not unravel the mystery, and certainly had no suspicion
+in regard to Lord Rufford, she was sure that there was something
+wrong. But there was nothing more to be said at present. After what
+Arabella had told her Mr. Morton could not be asked there to meet
+her niece. But all the slight feeling of kindness to the girl which
+had been created by the tidings of so respectable an engagement
+were at once obliterated from the Duchess's bosom. Arabella, with
+many expressions of thanks and a good-humoured countenance, left
+the room, cursing the untowardness of her fate which would let
+nothing run smooth.
+
+Lord Rufford was to come. That at any rate was now almost certain.
+Up to the present she had doubted, knowing the way in which such
+men will change their engagements at the least caprice. But the
+Duchess expected him on the morrow. She had prepared the way for
+meeting him as an old friend without causing surprise, and had
+gained that step. But should she succeed, as she hoped, in exacting
+continued homage from the man, homage for the four or five days of
+his sojourn at Mistletoe,--this must be carried on with the
+knowledge on the part of many in the house that she was engaged to
+that horrid Patagonian Minister! Was ever a girl called upon to
+risk her entire fate under so many disadvantages?
+
+When she went up to dress for dinner on the day of his expected
+arrival Lord Rufford had not come. Since the interview in her
+aunt's room she had not heard his name mentioned. When she came
+into the drawing-room, a little late, he was not there. "We won't
+wait, Duchess," said the Duke to his wife at three minutes past
+eight. The Duke's punctuality at dinner-time was well known, and
+everybody else was then assembled. Within two minutes after the
+Duke's word dinner was announced, and a party numbering about
+thirty walked away into the dinner-room. Arabella, when they were
+all settled, found that there was a vacant seat next herself. If
+the man were to come, fortune would have favoured her in that.
+
+The fish and soup had already disappeared and the Duke was wakening
+himself to eloquence on the first entree when Lord Rufford entered
+the room. "There never were trains so late as yours, Duchess," he
+said, "nor any part of the world in which hired horses travel so
+slowly. I beg the Duke's pardon, but I suffer the less because I
+know his Grace never waits for anybody."
+
+"Certainly not," said the Duke, "having some regard for my friends'
+dinners."
+
+"And I find myself next to you," said Lord Rufford as he took his
+seat. "Well; that is more than I deserve."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+How Things were arranged
+
+
+"Jack is here," said Lord Rufford, as soon as the fuss of his late
+arrival had worn itself away.
+
+"I shall be proud to renew my acquaintance."
+
+"Can you come to-morrow?"
+
+"Oh yes," said Arabella, rapturously.
+
+"There are difficulties, and I ought to have written to you about
+them. I am going with the Fitzwilliam." Now Mistletoe was in
+Lincolnshire, not very far from Peterborough, not very far from
+Stamford, not very far from Oakham. A regular hunting man like Lord
+Rufford knew how to compass the difficulties of distance in all
+hunting countries. Horses could go by one train or overnight, and
+he could follow by another. And a post chaise could meet him here
+or there. But when a lady is added, the difficulty is often
+increased fivefold.
+
+"Is it very far?" asked Arabella.
+
+"It is a little far. I wonder who are going from here?"
+
+"Heaven only knows. I have passed my time in playing cat's cradle
+with Sir Jeffrey Bunker for the amusement of the company, and in
+confidential communications with my aunt and Lady Drummond. I
+haven't heard hunting mentioned."
+
+"Have you anything on wheels going across to Holcombe Cross
+to-morrow, Duke?" asked Lord Rufford. The Duke said that he did not
+know of anything on wheels going to Holcombe Cross. Then a hunting
+man who had heard the question said that he and another intended to
+travel by train to Oundle. Upon this Lord Rufford turned round and
+looked at Arabella mournfully.
+
+"Cannot I go by train to Oundle?" she asked.
+
+"Nothing on earth so jolly if your pastors and masters and all that
+will let you."
+
+"I haven't got any pastors and masters."
+
+"The Duchess!" suggested Lord Rufford.
+
+"I thought all that kind of nonsense was over," said Arabella.
+
+"I believe a great deal is over. You can do many things that your
+mother and grandmother couldn't do; but absolute freedom,--what you
+may call universal suffrage,--hasn't come yet, I fear. It's twenty
+miles by road, and the Duchess would say something awful if I were
+to propose to take you in a post chaise."
+
+"But the railway!"
+
+"I'm afraid that would be worse. We couldn't ride back, you know,
+as we did at Rufford. At the best it would be rather a rough and
+tumble kind of arrangement. I'm afraid we must put it off. To tell
+you the truth I'm the least bit in the world afraid of the
+Duchess."
+
+"I am not at all," said Arabella angrily.
+
+Then Lord Rufford ate his dinner and seemed to think that that
+matter was settled. Arabella knew that he might have hunted
+elsewhere,--that the Cottesmore would be out in their own county
+within twelve miles of them, and that the difficulty of that ride
+would be very much less. The Duke might have been persuaded to send
+a carriage that distance. But Lord Rufford cared more about the
+chance of a good run than her company! For a while she was sulky;--
+for a little while, till she remembered how ill she could afford to
+indulge in such a feeling. Then she said a demure word or two to
+the gentleman on the other side of her who happened to be a
+clergyman, and did not return to the hunting till Lord Rufford had
+eaten his cheese. "And is that to be the end of Jack as far as I'm
+concerned?"
+
+"I have been thinking about it ever since. This is Thursday."
+
+"Not a doubt about it."
+
+"To-morrow will be Friday and the Duke has his great shooting on
+Saturday. There's nothing within a hundred miles of us on Saturday.
+I shall go with the Pytchley if I don't shoot, but I shall have to
+get up just when other people are going to bed. That wouldn't suit
+you."
+
+"I wouldn't mind if I didn't go to bed at all."
+
+"At any rate it wouldn't suit the Duchess. I had meant to go away
+on Sunday. I hate being anywhere on Sunday except in a railway
+carriage. But if I thought the Duke would keep me till Tuesday
+morning we might manage Peltry on Monday. I meant to have got back
+to Surbiton's on Sunday and have gone from there."
+
+"Where is Peltry?"
+
+"It's a Cottesmore meet,--about five miles this Side of Melton."
+
+"We could ride from here."
+
+"It's rather far for that, but we could talk over the Duke to send
+a carriage. Ladies always like to see a meet, and perhaps we could
+make a party. If not we must put a good face on it and go in
+anything we can get. I shouldn't fear the Duchess so much for
+twelve miles as I should for twenty."
+
+"I don't mean to let the Duchess interfere with me," said Arabella
+in a whisper.
+
+That evening Lord Rufford was very good-natured and managed to
+arrange everything. Lady Chiltern and another lady said that they
+would be glad to go to the meet, and a carriage or carriages were
+organised. But nothing was said as to Arabella's hunting because
+the question would immediately be raised as to her return to
+Mistletoe in the evening. It was, however, understood that she was
+to have a place in the carriage.
+
+Arabella had gained two things. She would have her one day's
+hunting, and she had secured the presence of Lord Rufford at
+Mistletoe for Sunday. With such a man as his lordship it was almost
+impossible to find a moment for confidential conversation. He
+worked so hard at his amusements that he was as bad a lover as a
+barrister who has to be in Court all day,--almost as bad as a
+sailor who is always going round the world. On this evening it was
+ten o'clock before the gentlemen came into the drawing-room, and
+then Lord Rufford's time was spent in arranging the party for the
+meet on Monday. When the ladies went up to bed Arabella had had no
+other opportunity than what Fortune had given her at dinner.
+
+And even then she had been watched. That juxtaposition at the
+dinner-table had come of chance and had been caused by Lord
+Rufford's late arrival. Old Sir Jeffrey should have been her
+neighbour, with the clergyman on the other side, an arrangement
+which Her Grace had thought safe with reference to the rights of
+the Minister to Patagonia. The Duchess, though she was at some
+distance down the table, had seen that her niece and Lord Rufford
+were intimate, and remembered immediately what had been said
+up-stairs. They could not have talked as they were then talking,--
+sometimes whispering as the Duchess could perceive very well,--
+unless there had been considerable former intimacy. She began
+gradually to understand various things;--why Arabella Trefoil had
+been so anxious to come to Mistletoe just at this time, why she had
+behaved so unlike her usual self before Lord Rufford's arrival, and
+why she had been so unwilling to have Mr. Morton invited. The
+Duchess was in her way a clever woman and could see many things.
+She could see that though her niece might be very anxious to marry
+Lord Rufford, Lord Rufford might indulge himself in a close
+intimacy with the girl without any such intention on his part. And,
+as far as the family was concerned, she would have been quite
+contented with the Morton alliance. She would have asked Morton now
+only that it would be impossible that he should come in time to be
+of service. Had she been consulted in the first instance she would
+have put her veto on that drive to the meet: but she had heard
+nothing about it until Lady Chiltern had said that she would go.
+The Duchess of Omnium had since declared that she also would go,
+and there were to be two carriages. But still it never occurred to
+the Duchess that Arabella intended to hunt. Nor did Arabella intend
+that she should know it till the morning came.
+
+The Friday was very dull. The hunting men of course had gone before
+Arabella came down to breakfast. She would willingly have got up at
+seven to pour out Lord Rufford's tea, had that been possible; but,
+as it was, she strolled into the breakfast room at half-past ten.
+She could see by her aunt's eye and hear in her voice that she was
+in part detected; and that she would do herself no further service
+by acting the good girl; and she therefore resolutely determined to
+listen to no more twaddle. She read a French novel which she had
+brought with her, and spent as much of the day as she could in her
+bedroom. She did not see Lord Rufford before dinner, and at dinner
+sat between Sir Jeffrey and an old gentleman out of Stamford who
+dined at Mistletoe that evening. "We've had no such luck to-night,"
+Lord Rufford said to her in the drawing-room.
+
+"The old dragon took care of that," replied Arabella.
+
+"Why should the old dragon think that I'm dangerous?"
+
+"Because--; I can't very well tell you why, but I dare say you
+know."
+
+"And do you think I am dangerous?"
+
+"You're a sort of a five-barred gate," said Arabella laughing. "Of
+course there is a little danger, but who is going to be stopped by
+that?"
+
+He could make no reply to this because the Duchess called him away
+to give some account to Lady Chiltern about Goarly and the U.R.U.,
+Lady Chiltern's husband being a master of hounds and a great
+authority on all matters relating to hunting. "Nasty old dragon!"
+Arabella said to herself when she was thus left alone.
+
+The Saturday was the day of the great shooting and at two o'clock
+the ladies went out to lunch with the gentlemen by the side of the
+wood. Lord Rufford had at last consented to be one of the party.
+With logs of trees, a few hurdles, and other field appliances, a
+rustic banqueting hall was prepared and everything was very nice.
+Tons of game had been killed, and tons more were to be killed after
+luncheon. The Duchess was not there and Arabella contrived so to
+place herself that she could be waited upon by Lord Rufford, or
+could wait upon him. Of course a great many eyes were upon her, but
+she knew how to sustain that. Nobody was present who could dare to
+interfere with her. When the eating and drinking were over she
+walked with him to his corner by the next covert, not heeding the
+other ladies; and she stood with him for some minutes after the
+slaughter had begun. She had come to feel that the time was
+slipping between her fingers and that she must say something
+effective. The fatal word upon which everything would depend must
+be spoken at the very latest on their return home on Monday, and
+she was aware that much must probably be said before that. "Do we
+hunt or shoot tomorrow?" she said.
+
+"To-morrow is Sunday."
+
+"I am quite aware of that, but I didn't know whether you could live
+a day without sport."
+
+"The country is so full of prejudice that I am driven to Sabbatical
+quiescence."
+
+"Take a walk with me to-morrow," said Arabella.
+
+"But the Duchess," exclaimed Lord Rufford in a stage whisper. One
+of the beaters was so near that he could not but have heard;--but
+what does a beater signify?
+
+"H'mh'm the Duchess! You be at the path behind the great
+conservatory at half-past three and we won't mind the Duchess."
+Lord Rufford was forced to ask for many other particulars as to the
+locality and then promised that he would be there at the time
+named.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+"You are so severe"
+
+
+On the next morning Arabella went to church as did of course a
+great many of the party. By remaining at home she could only have
+excited suspicion. The church was close to the house, and the
+family pew consisted of a large room screened off from the rest of
+the church, with a fire-place of its own,--so that the labour of
+attending divine service was reduced to a minimum. At two o'clock
+they lunched, and that amusement lasted nearly an hour. There was
+an afternoon service at three in attending which the Duchess was
+very particular. The Duke never went at that time nor was it
+expected that any of the gentlemen would do so; but women are
+supposed to require more church than men, and the Duchess rather
+made it a point that at any rate the young ladies staying in the
+house should accompany her. Over the other young ladies there her
+authority could only be that of influence, but such authority
+generally sufficed. From her niece it might be supposed that she
+would exact obedience, and in this instance she tried it. "We start
+in five minutes," she said to Arabella as that young lady was
+loitering at the table.
+
+"Don't wait for me; aunt, I'm not going," said Arabella boldly.
+
+"I hope you will come to church with us," said the Duchess sternly.
+
+"Not this afternoon."
+
+"Why not, Arabella?"
+
+"I never do go to church twice on Sundays. Some people do, and some
+people don't. I suppose that's about it."
+
+"I think that all young women ought to go to church on Sunday
+afternoon unless there is something particular to prevent them."
+Arabella shrugged her shoulders and the Duchess stalked angrily
+away.
+
+"That makes me feel so awfully wicked," said the Duchess of Omnium,
+who was the only other lady then left in the room. Then she got up
+and went out and Arabella of course followed her. Lord Rufford had
+heard it all but had stood at the window and said nothing. He had
+not been to church at all, and was quite accustomed to the idea
+that as a young nobleman who only lived for pleasure he was
+privileged to be wicked. Had the Duchess of Mayfair been blessed
+with a third daughter fit for marriage she would not have thought
+of repudiating such a suitor as Lord Rufford because he did not go
+to church.
+
+When the house was cleared Arabella went upstairs and put on her
+hat. It was a bright beautiful winter's day, not painfully cold
+because the air was dry, but still a day that warranted furs and a
+muff. Having prepared herself she made her way alone to a side door
+which led from a branch of the hall on to the garden terrace, and
+up and down that she walked two or three times,--so that any of the
+household that saw her might perceive that she had come out simply
+for exercise. At the end of the third turn instead of coming back
+she went on quickly to the conservatory and took the path which led
+round to the further side. There was a small lawn here fitted for
+garden games, and on the other end of it an iron gate leading to a
+path into the woods. At the further side of the iron gate and
+leaning against it, stood Lord Rufford smoking a cigar. She did not
+pause a moment but hurried across the lawn to join him. He opened
+the gate and she passed through. "I'm not going to be done by a
+dragon," she said as she took her place alongside of him.
+
+"Upon my, word, Miss Trefoil, I don't think I ever knew a human
+being with so much pluck as you have got"
+
+"Girls have to have pluck if they don't mean to be sat upon;--a
+great deal more than men. The idea of telling me that I was to go
+to church as though I were twelve years old!"
+
+"What would she say if she knew that you were walking here with
+me?"
+
+"I don't care what she'd say. I dare say she walked with somebody
+once;--only I should think the somebody must have found it very
+dull."
+
+"Does she know that you're to hunt to-morrow?"
+
+"I haven't told her and don't mean. I shall just come down in my
+habit and hat and say nothing about it. At what time must we
+start?"
+
+"The carriages are ordered for half-past nine. But I'm afraid you
+haven't clearly before your eyes all the difficulties which are
+incidental to hunting."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"It looks as like a black frost as anything I ever saw in my life."
+
+"But we should go?"
+
+"The horses won't be there if there is a really hard frost. Nobody
+would stir. It will be the first question I shall ask the man when
+he comes to me, and if there have been seven or eight degrees of
+frost I shan't get up."
+
+"How am I to know?"
+
+"My man shall tell your maid. But everybody will soon know all
+about it. It will alter everything."
+
+"I think I shall go mad."
+
+"In white satin?"
+
+"No;--in my habit and hat. It will be the hardest thing, after all!
+I ought to have insisted on going to Holcombe Cross on Friday. The
+sun is shining now. Surely it cannot freeze."
+
+"It will be uncommonly ill-bred if it does."
+
+But, after all, the hunting was not the main point. The hunting had
+been only intended as an opportunity; and if that were to be
+lost,--in which case Lord Rufford would no doubt at once leave
+Mistletoe,--there was the more need for using the present hour, the
+more for using even the present minute. Though she had said that
+the sun was shining, it was the setting sun, and in another half
+hour the gloom of the evening would be there. Even Lord Rufford
+would not consent to walk about with her in the dark. "Oh, Lord
+Rufford," she said, "I did so look forward to your giving me
+another lead." Then she put her hand upon his arm and left it
+there.
+
+"It would have been nice," said he, drawing her hand a little on,
+and remembering as he did so his own picture of himself on the
+cliff with his sister holding his coat-tails.
+
+"If you could possibly know," she said, "the condition I am in."
+
+"What condition?"
+
+"I know that I can trust you."
+
+"Oh dear, yes. If you mean about telling, I never tell anything."
+
+"That's what I do mean. You remember that man at your place?"
+
+"What man? Poor Caneback?"
+
+"Oh dear no! I wish they could change places because then he could
+give me no more trouble."
+
+"That's wishing him to be dead, whoever he is."
+
+"Yes. Why should he persecute me? I mean that man we were staying
+with at Bragton."
+
+"Mr. Morton?"
+
+"Of course I do. Don't you remember your asking me about him, and
+my telling you that I was not engaged to him?"
+
+"I remember that"
+
+"Mamma and this horrid old Duchess here want me to marry him.
+They've got an idea that he is going to be ambassador at Pekin or
+something very grand, and they're at me day and night"
+
+"You needn't take him unless you like him."
+
+"They do make me so miserable!" And then she leaned heavily upon
+his arm. He was a man who could not stand such pressure as this
+without returning it. Though he were on the precipice, and though
+he must go over, still he could not stand it. "You remember that
+night after the ball?"
+
+"Indeed I do."
+
+"And you too had asked me whether I cared for that horrid man."
+
+"I didn't see anything horrid. You had been staying at his house
+and people had told me. What was I to think?"
+
+"You ought to have known what to think. There; let me go,"--for now
+he had got his arm round her waist. "You don't care for me a bit. I
+know you don't. It would be all the same to you whom I married;--or
+whether I died."
+
+"You don't think that, Bella?" He fancied that he had heard her
+mother call her Bella, and that the name was softer and easier than
+the full four syllables. It was at any rate something for her to
+have gained.
+
+"I do think it. When I came here on purpose to have a skurry over
+the country with you, you went away to Holcombe Cross though you
+could have hunted here, close in the neighbourhood. And now you
+tell me there will be a frost to-morrow."
+
+"Can I help that, darling?"
+
+"Darling! I ain't your darling. You don't care a bit for me. I
+believe you hope there'll be a frost." He pressed her tighter, but
+laughed as he did so. It was evidently a joke to him;--a pleasant
+joke no doubt. "Leave me alone, Lord Rufford. I won't let you, for
+I know you don't love me." Very suddenly he did leave his hold of
+her and stood erect with his hands in his pockets, for the rustle
+of a dress was heard. It was still daylight, but the light was dim
+and the last morsel of the grandeur of the sun had ceased to be
+visible through the trees. The church-going people had been
+released, and the Duchess having probably heard certain tidings,
+had herself come to take a walk in the shrubbery behind the
+conservatory. Arabella had probably been unaware that she and her
+companion by a turn in the walks were being brought back towards
+the iron gate. As it was they met the Duchess face to face.
+
+Lord Rufford had spoken the truth when he had said that he was a
+little afraid of the Duchess. Such was his fear that at the moment
+he hardly knew what he was to say. Arabella had boasted when she
+had declared that she was not at all afraid of her aunt;--but she
+was steadfastly minded that she would not be cowed by her fears.
+She had known beforehand that she would have occasion for much
+presence of mind, and was prepared to exercise it at a moment's
+notice. She was the first to speak. "Is that you, aunt? you are out
+of church very soon."
+
+"Lord Rufford," said the Duchess, "I don't think this is a proper
+time for walking out."
+
+"Don't you, Duchess? The air is very nice."
+
+"It is becoming dark and my niece had better return to the house
+with me. Arabella, you can come this way. It is just as short as
+the other. If you go on straight, Lord Rufford, it will take you to
+the house." Of course Lord Rufford went on straight and of course
+Arabella had to turn with her aunt. "Such conduct as this is
+shocking," began the Duchess.
+
+"Aunt, let me tell you."
+
+"What can you tell me?"
+
+"I can tell you a great deal if you will let me. Of course I am
+quite prepared to own that I did not intend to tell you anything."
+
+"I can well believe that"
+
+"Because I could hardly hope for your sympathy. You have never
+liked me."
+
+"You have no right to say that"
+
+"I don't do it in the way of finding fault. I don't know why you
+should. But I have been too much afraid of you to tell you my
+secrets. I must do so now because you have found me walking with
+Lord Rufford. I could not otherwise excuse myself."
+
+"Is he engaged to marry you?"
+
+"He has asked me"
+
+"No!"
+
+"But he has, aunt. You must be a little patient and let me tell it
+you all. Mamma did make up an engagement between me and Mr. Morton
+at Washington."
+
+"Did you know Lord Rufford then?"
+
+"I knew him, but did not think he was behaving quite well. It is
+very hard sometimes to know what a man means. I was angry when I
+went to Washington. He has told me since that he loves me,--and has
+offered."
+
+"But you are engaged to marry the other man."
+
+"Nothing on earth shall make me marry Mr. Morton. Mamma did it, and
+mamma now has very nearly broken it off because she says he is very
+shabby about money. Indeed it is broken off. I bad told him so even
+before Lord Rufford had proposed to me."
+
+"When did he propose and where?"
+
+"At Rufford. We were staying there in November."
+
+"And you asked to come here that you might meet him?"
+
+"Just so. Was that strange? Where could I be better pleased to meet
+him than in my uncle's house?"
+
+"Yes;--if you had told us all this before."
+
+"Perhaps I ought; but you are so severe, I did not dare. Do not
+turn against me now. My uncle could not but like that his niece
+should marry Lord Rufford."
+
+"How can I turn against you if it is settled? Lord Rufford can do
+as he pleases. Has he told your father,--or your mother?"
+
+"Mamma knows it."
+
+"But not from him?" asked the Duchess.
+
+Arabella paused a moment but hardly a moment before she answered.
+It was hard upon her that she should have to make up her mind on
+matters of such importance with so little time for consideration.
+"Yes," she said; "mamma knows it from him. Papa is so very
+indifferent about everything that Lord Rufford has not spoken to
+him."
+
+"If so, it will be best that the Duke should speak to him."
+
+There was another pause, but hardly long enough to attract notice.
+"Perhaps so," she said; "but not quite yet. He is so peculiar, so
+touchy. The Duke is not quite like my father and he would think
+himself suspected."
+
+"I cannot imagine that if he is in earnest."
+
+"That is because you do not know him as I do. Only think where I
+should be if I were to lose him!"
+
+"Lose him!"
+
+"Oh, aunt, now that you know it I do hope that you will be my
+friend. It would kill me if he were to throw me over."
+
+"But why should he throw you over if he proposed to you only last
+month?"
+
+"He might do it if he thought that he were interfered with. Of
+course I should like my uncle to speak to him, but not quite
+immediately: If he were to say that he had changed his mind, what
+could I do, or what could my uncle do?"
+
+"That would be very singular conduct."
+
+"Men are so different now, aunt. They give themselves so much more
+latitude. A man has only to say that he has changed his mind and
+nothing ever comes of it."
+
+"I have never been used to such men, my dear."
+
+"At any rate do not ask the Duke to speak to him to-day. I will
+think about it and perhaps you will let me see you to-morrow, after
+we all come in." To this the Duchess gravely assented. "And I hope
+you won't be angry because you found me walking with him, or
+because I did not go to church. It is everything to me. I am sure,
+dear aunt, you will understand that" To this the Duchess made
+no reply, and they both entered the house together. What became of
+Lord Rufford neither of them saw.
+
+Arabella when she regained her room thought that upon the whole
+fortune had favoured her by throwing her aunt in her way. She had,
+no doubt, been driven to tell a series of barefaced impudent
+lies,--lies of such a nature that they almost made her own hair
+stand on end as she thought of them;--but they would matter nothing
+if she succeeded; and if she failed in this matter she did not care
+much what her aunt thought of her. Her aunt might now do her a good
+turn; and some lies she must have told;--such had been the
+emergencies of her position! As she thought of it all she was glad
+that her aunt had met her; and when Lord Rufford was summoned to
+take her out to dinner on that very Sunday,--a matter as to which
+her aunt managed everything herself,--she was immediately aware
+that her lies had done her good service.
+
+"This was more than I expected," Lord Rufford said when they were
+seated.
+
+"She knew that she had overdone it when she sent you away in that
+cavalier way," replied Arabella, "and now she wants to show that
+she didn't mean anything."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+The Day at Peltry
+
+
+The Duchess did tell the Duke the whole story about Lord Rufford
+and Arabella that night,--as to which it may be said that she also
+was false. But according to her conscience there were two ways of
+telling such a secret. As a matter of course she told her husband
+everything. That idle placid dinner-loving man was in truth
+consulted about each detail of the house and family; but the secret
+was told to him with injunctions that he was to say nothing about
+it to any one for twenty-four hours. After that the Duchess was of
+opinion that he should speak to Lord Rufford. "What could I say to
+him?" asked the Duke. "I'm not her father."
+
+"But your brother is so indifferent"
+
+"No doubt. But that gives me no authority. If he does mean to marry
+the girl he must go to her father; or it is possible that he might
+come to me. But if he does not mean it, what can I do?" He
+promised, however, that he would think of it.
+
+It was still dark night, or the morning was dark as night, when
+Arabella got out of bed and opened her window. The coming of a
+frost now might ruin her. The absence of it might give her
+everything in life that she wanted. Lord Rufford had promised her a
+tedious communication through servants as to the state of the
+weather. She was far too energetic, far too much in earnest, to
+wait for that. She opened the window and putting out her hand she
+felt a drizzle of rain. And the air, though the damp from it seemed
+to chill her all through, was not a frosty air. She stood there a
+minute so as to be sure and then retreated to her bed.
+
+Fortune was again favouring her;--but then how would it be if it
+should turn to hard rain? In that case Lady Chiltern and the other
+ladies certainly would not go, and how in such case should she get
+herself conveyed to the meet? She would at any rate go down in her
+hat and habit and trust that somebody would provide for her. There
+might be much that would be disagreeable and difficult, but hardly
+anything could be worse than the necessity of telling such lies as
+those which she had fabricated on the previous afternoon.
+
+She had been much in doubt whether her aunt had or had not believed
+her. That the belief was not a thorough belief she was almost
+certain. But then there was the great fact that after the story had
+been told she had been sent out to dinner leaning on Lord Rufford's
+arm. Unless her aunt had believed something that would not have
+taken place. And then so much of it was true. Surely it would be
+impossible that he should not propose after what had occurred! Her
+aunt was evidently alive to the advantage of the marriage, to the
+advantage which would accrue not to her, Arabella, individually,
+but to the Trefoils generally. She almost thought that her aunt
+would not put spokes in her wheel for this day. She wished now that
+she had told her aunt that she intended to hunt, so that there need
+not be any surprise.
+
+She slept again and again looked out of the window. It rained a
+little but still there were hours in which the rain might cease.
+Again she slept and at eight her maid brought her word that there
+would be hunting. It did rain a little but very little. Of course
+she would dress herself in riding attire.
+
+At nine o'clock she walked into the breakfast parlour properly
+equipped for the day's sport. There were four or five men there in
+red coats and top boots, among whom Lord Rufford was conspicuous.
+They were just seating themselves at the breakfast table, and her
+aunt was already in her place. Lady Chiltern had come into the room
+with herself, and at the door had spoken some good-natured words of
+surprise. "I did not know that you were a sportswoman, Miss
+Trefoil." "I do ride a little when I am well mounted," Arabella had
+said as she entered the room. Then she collected herself, and
+arranged her countenance, and endeavoured to look as though she
+were doing the most ordinary thing in the world. She went round the
+room and kissed her aunt's brow. This she had not done on any other
+morning; but then on other mornings she had been late. "Are you
+going to ride?" said the Duchess.
+
+"I believe so, aunt."
+
+"Who is giving you a horse?"
+
+"Lord Rufford is lending me one. I don't think even his good-nature
+will extend to giving away so perfect an animal. I know him well
+for I rode him when I was at Rufford." This she said so that all
+the room should hear her.
+
+"You need not be afraid, Duchess," said Lord Rufford. "He is quite
+safe"
+
+"And his name is Jack," said Arabella laughing as she took her
+place with a little air of triumph. "Lord Rufford offered to let me
+have him all the time I was here, but I didn't know whether you
+would take me in so attended."
+
+There was not one who heard her who did not feel that she spoke as
+though Lord Rufford were all her own. Lord Rufford felt it himself
+and almost thought he might as well turn himself round and bid his
+sister and Miss Penge let him go. He must marry some day and why
+should not this girl do as well as any one else? The Duchess did
+not approve of young ladies hunting. She certainly would not have
+had her niece at Mistletoe had she expected such a performance. But
+she could not find fault now. There was a feeling in her bosom
+that if there were an engagement it would be cruel to cause
+obstructions. She certainly could not allow a lover in her house
+for her husband's niece without having official authenticated
+knowledge of the respectability of the lover; but the whole thing
+had come upon her so suddenly that she was at a loss what to do or
+what to say. It certainly did not seem to her that Arabella was in
+the least afraid of being found out in any untruth. If the girl
+were about to become Lady Rufford then it would be for Lord Rufford
+to decide whether or no she should hunt. Soon after this the Duke
+came in and he also alluded to his niece's costume and was informed
+that she was to ride one of Lord Rufford's horses. "I didn't hear
+it mentioned before," said the Duke. "He'll carry Miss Trefoil
+quite safely," said Lord Rufford who was at the moment standing
+over a game pie on the sideboard. Then the subject was allowed to
+drop.
+
+At half-past nine there was no rain, and the ladies were so nearly
+punctual that the carriages absolutely started at ten. Some of the
+men rode on; one got a seat on the carriage; and Lord Rufford drove
+himself and a friend in a dog-cart, tandem. The tandem was off
+before the carriages, but Lord Rufford assured them that he would
+get the master to allow them a quarter of an hour. Arabella
+contrived to say one word to him. "If you start without me I'll
+never speak to you again." He nodded and smiled; but perhaps
+thought that if so it might be as well that he should start without
+waiting for her.
+
+At the last moment the Duchess had taken it into her head that she
+too would go to the meet. No doubt she was actuated by some feeling
+in regard to her niece; but it was not till Arabella was absolutely
+getting on to Jack at the side of the carriage,--under the auspices
+of Jack's owner,--that the idea occurred to her Grace that there
+would be a great difficulty as to the return home. "Arabella, how
+do you mean to get back?" she asked.
+
+"That will be all right, aunt," said Arabella.
+
+"I will see to that," said Lord Rufford.
+
+The gracious but impatient master of the hounds had absolutely
+waited full twenty minutes for the Duchess's party; and was not
+minded to wait a minute longer for conversation. The moment that
+the carriages were there the huntsmen had started so that there was
+an excuse for hurry. Lord Rufford as he was speaking got on to his
+own horse, and before the Duchess could expostulate they were away.
+There was a feeling of triumph in Arabella's bosom as she told
+herself that she had at any rate secured her day's hunting in spite
+of such heart-breaking difficulties.
+
+The sport was fairly good. They had twenty minutes in the morning
+and a kill. Then they drew a big wood during which they ate their
+lunch and drank their sherry. In the big wood they found a fox but
+could not do anything with him. After that they came on a third in
+a stubble field and ran him well for half an hour, when he went to
+ground. It was then three o'clock; and as the days were now at the
+shortest the master declined to draw again. They were then about
+sixteen miles from Mistletoe, and about ten from Stamford where
+Lord Rufford's horses were standing. The distance from Stamford to
+Mistletoe was eight. Lord Rufford proposed that they should ride to
+Stamford and then go home in a hired carriage. There seemed indeed
+to be no other way of getting home without taking three tired
+horses fourteen miles out of their way. Arabella made no objection
+whatever to the arrangement. Lord Rufford did in truth make a
+slight effort,--the slightest possible,--to induce a third person
+to join their party. There was still something pulling at his
+coat-tail, so that there might yet be a chance of saving him from
+the precipice. But he failed. The tired horseman before whom the
+suggestion was casually thrown out, would have been delighted to
+accept it, instead of riding all the way to Mistletoe; but he did
+not look upon it as made in earnest. Two, he knew, were company and
+three none.
+
+The hunting field is by no means a place suited for real
+love-making. Very much of preliminary conversation may be done there
+in a pleasant way, and intimacies may be formed. But when lovers
+have already walked with arms round each other in a wood, riding
+together may be very pleasant but can hardly be ecstatic. Lord
+Rufford might indeed have asked her to be Lady R. while they were
+breaking up the first fox, or as they loitered about in the big
+wood;--but she did not expect that. There was no moment during the
+day's sport in which she had a right to tell herself that he was
+misbehaving because he did not so ask her. But in a post chaise it
+would be different.
+
+At the inn at Stamford the horses were given up, and Arabella
+condescended to take a glass of cherry brandy. She had gone through
+a long day; it was then half-past four, and she was not used to be
+many hours on horseback. The fatigue seemed to her to be very much
+greater than it had been when she got back to Rufford immediately
+after the fatal accident. The ten miles along the road, which had
+been done in little more than an hour, had almost overcome her. She
+had determined not to cry for mercy. as the hard trot went on. She
+had passed herself off as an accustomed horsewoman, and having done
+so well across the country, would not break down coming home. But,
+as she got into the carriage, she was very tired. She could almost
+have cried with fatigue;--and yet she told herself that now,--
+now,--must the work be done. She would perhaps tell him that she
+was tired. She might even assist her cause by her languor; but,
+though she should die for it, she would not waste her precious
+moments by absolute rest. "May I light a cigar?" he said as he
+got in.
+
+"You know you may. Wherever I may be with you do you think that I
+would interfere with your gratifications?"
+
+"You are the best girl in all the world," he said as he took out
+his case and threw himself back in the corner."
+
+"Do you call that a long day?" she asked when he had lit his cigar.
+
+"Not very long."
+
+"Because I am so tired."
+
+"We came home pretty sharp. I thought it best not to shock her
+Grace by too great a stretch into the night. As it is you will have
+time to go to bed for an hour or two before you dress. That's what
+I do when I am in time. You'll be right as a trivet then."
+
+"Oh; I'm right now,--only tired. It was very nice."
+
+"Pretty well. We ought to have killed that last fox. And why on
+earth we made nothing of that fellow in Gooseberry Grove I couldn't
+understand. Old Tony would never have left that fox alive above
+ground. Would you like to go to sleep?"
+
+"O dear no."
+
+"Afraid of gloves?" said he, drawing nearer to her. They might pull
+him as they liked by his coat-tails but as he was in a post chaise
+with her he must make himself agreeable. She shook her head and
+laughed as she looked at him through the gloom. Then of course he
+kissed her.
+
+"Lord Rufford, what does this mean?"
+
+"Don't you know what it means?"
+
+"Hardly."
+
+"It means that I think you the jolliest girl out. I never liked
+anybody so well as I do you."
+
+"Perhaps you never liked anybody," said she.
+
+"Well;--yes, I have; but I am not going to boast of what fortune
+has done for me in that way. I wonder whether you care for me?"
+
+"Do you want to know?"
+
+"I should like to know that you did."
+
+"Because you have never asked me."
+
+"Am I not asking you now, Bella?"
+
+"There are different ways of asking,--but there is only one way
+that will get an answer from me. No;--no. I will not have it. I
+have allowed too much to you already. Oh, I am so tired." Then she
+sank back almost into his arms,--but recovered herself very
+quickly. "Lord Rufford," she said, "if you are a man of honour let
+there be an end of this. I am sure you do not wish to make me
+wretched."
+
+"I would do anything to make you happy."
+
+"Then tell me that you love me honestly, sincerely, with all your
+heart,--and I shall be happy."
+
+"You know I do."
+
+"Do you? Do you?" she said, and then she flung herself on to his
+shoulder, and for a while she seemed to faint. For a few minutes
+she lay there and as she was lying she calculated whether it would
+be better to try at this moment to drive him to some clearer
+declaration, or to make use of what he had already said without
+giving him an opportunity of protesting that he had not meant to
+make her an offer of marriage. He had declared that he loved her
+honestly and with his whole heart. Would not that justify her in
+setting her uncle at him? And might it not be that the Duke would
+carry great weight with him;--that the Duke might induce him to
+utter the fatal word though she, were she to demand it now, might
+fail? As she thought of it all she affected to swoon, and almost
+herself believed that she was swooning. She was conscious but
+hardly more than conscious that he was kissing her;--and yet her
+brain was at work. She felt that he would be startled, repelled,
+perhaps disgusted were she absolutely to demand more from him now.
+"Oh, Rufford;--oh, my dearest," she said as she woke up, and with
+her face close to his, so that he could look into her eyes and see
+their brightness even through the gloom. Then she extricated
+herself from his embrace with a shudder and a laugh. "You would
+hardly believe how tired I am," she said putting out her ungloved
+hand. He took it and drew her to him and there she sat in his arms
+for the short remainder of the journey.
+
+They were now in the park, and as the lights of the house came in
+sight he gave her some counsel. "Go up to your room at once,
+dearest, and lay down."
+
+"I will. I don't think I could go in among them. I should fall."
+
+"I will see the Duchess and tell her that you are all right, but
+very tired. If she goes up to you had better see her."
+
+"Oh, yes. But I had rather not."
+
+"She'll be sure to come. And, Bella, Jack must be yours now."
+
+"You are joking."
+
+"Never more serious in my life. Of course he must remain with me
+just at present, but he is your horse." Then, as the carriage was
+stopping, she took his hand and kissed it.
+
+She got to her room as quickly as possible; and then, before she
+had even taken off her hat, she sat down to think of it all,--
+sending her maid away meanwhile to fetch her a cup of tea. He must
+have meant it for an offer. There had at any rate been enough to
+justify her in so taking it. The present he had made to her of the
+horse could mean nothing else. Under no other circumstances would
+it be possible that she should either take the horse or use him.
+Certainly it was an offer, and as such she would instruct her uncle
+to use it. Then she allowed her imagination to revel in thoughts of
+Rufford Hall, of the Rufford house in town, and a final end to all
+those weary labours which she would thus have brought to so
+glorious a termination.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+Lord Rufford wants to see a Horse
+
+
+Lord Rufford had been quite right about the Duchess. Arabella had
+only taken off her hat and was drinking her tea when the Duchess
+came up to her. "Lord Rufford says that you were too tired to come
+in," said the Duchess.
+
+"I am tired, aunt;--very tired. But there is nothing the matter
+with me. We had to ride ever so far coming home and it was that
+knocked up.
+
+"It was very bad, your in a post chaise, Arabella."
+
+"Why was it bad, aunt? I thought it very nice."
+
+"My dear, it shouldn't have been done. You ought to have known
+that. I certainly wouldn't have had you here had I thought that
+there would be anything of the kind."
+
+"It is going to be all right," said Arabella laughing.
+
+According to her Grace's view of things it was not and could not be
+made "all right." It would not have been all right were the girl to
+become Lady Rufford to-morrow. The scandal, or loud reproach due to
+evil doings, may be silenced by subsequent conduct. The merited
+punishment may not come visibly. But nothing happening after could
+make it right that a young lady should come home from hunting in a
+post chaise alone with a young unmarried man. When the Duchess
+first heard it she thought what would have been her feelings if
+such a thing had been suggested in reference to one of her own
+daughters! Lord Rufford had come to her in the drawing-room and had
+told her the story in a quiet pleasant manner,--merely saying that
+Miss Trefoil was too much fatigued to show herself at the present
+moment. She had thought from his manner that her niece's story had
+been true. There was a cordiality and apparent earnestness as to
+the girl's comfort which seemed to be compatible with the story.
+But still she could hardly understand that Lord Rufford should wish
+to have it known that he travelled about the country in such a
+fashion with the girl he intended to marry. But if it were true,
+then she must look after her niece. And even if it were not true,--
+in which case she would never have the girl at Mistletoe again,--
+yet she could not ignore her presence in the house. It was now the
+18th of January. Lord Rufford was to go on the following day, and
+Arabella on the 20th. The invitation had not been given so as to
+stretch beyond that. If it could be at once decided,--declared by
+Lord Rufford to the Duke,--that the match was to be a match, then
+the invitation should be renewed, Arabella should be advised to put
+off her other friends, and Lord Rufford should be invited to come
+back early in the next month and spend a week or two in the proper
+fashion with his future bride. All that had been settled between
+the Duke and the Duchess. So much should be done for the sake of
+the family. But the Duke had not seen his way to asking Lord
+Rufford any question.
+
+The Duchess must now find out the truth if she could,--so that if
+the story were false she might get rid of the girl and altogether
+shake her off from the Mistletoe roof tree. Arabella's manner was
+certainly free from any appearance of hesitation or fear. "I don't
+know about being all right," said the Duchess. "It cannot be right
+that you should have come home with him alone in a hired carriage."
+
+"Is a hired carriage wickeder than a private one?"
+
+"If a carriage had been sent from here for you, it would have been
+different;--but even then he should not have come with you."
+
+"But he would I'm sure;--and I should have asked him. What;--the
+man I'm engaged to marry! Mayn't he sit in a carriage with me?"
+
+The Duchess could not explain herself, and thought that she had
+better drop that topic. "What does he mean to do now, Arabella?"
+
+"What does who mean, aunt?"
+
+"Lord Rufford."
+
+"He means to marry me. And he means to go from here to Mr.
+Surbiton's to-morrow. I don't quite understand the question."
+
+"And what do you mean to do?"
+
+"I mean to marry him. And I mean to join mamma in London on
+Wednesday. I believe we are to go to the Connop Green's the next
+day. Mr. Connop Green is a sort of cousin of mamma;--but they are
+odious people."
+
+"Who is to see Lord Rufford? However, my dear, if you are very
+tired, I will leave you now."
+
+"No, aunt. Stay a moment if you will be so very kind. I am tired;
+but if I were twice as tired I would find strength to talk about
+this. If my uncle would speak to Lord Rufford at once I should take
+it as the very kindest thing he could do. I could not send him to
+my uncle; for, after all, one's uncle and one's father are not the
+same. I could only refer him to papa. But if the Duke would speak
+to him!"
+
+"Did he renew his offer to-day?"
+
+"He has done nothing else but renew it ever since he has been in
+the carriage with me. That's the plain truth. He made his offer at
+Rufford. He renewed it in the wood yesterday;--and he repeated it
+over and over again as we came home to-day. It may have been very
+wrong, but so it was." Miss Trefoil must have thought that kissing
+and proposing were the same thing. Other young ladies have,
+perhaps, before now made such a mistake. But this young lady had
+had much experience and should have known better.
+
+"Lord Rufford had better perhaps speak to your uncle."
+
+"Will you tell him so, aunt?"
+
+The Duchess thought about it for a moment. She certainly could not
+tell Lord Rufford to speak to the Duke without getting the Duke's
+leave to tell him so. And then, if all this were done, and Lord
+Rufford were to assure the Duke that the young lady had made a
+mistake, how derogatory would all that be to the exalted quiescence
+of the house of Mayfair! She thoroughly wished that her niece were
+out of the house; for though she did believe the story, her belief
+was not thorough. "I will speak to your uncle," she said. "And now
+you had better go to sleep."
+
+"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 glass of sherry, and you shall find me in the drawing-room
+when you come out" Then the Duchess went, and Arabella was left
+alone to take another view of the circumstances 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
+glasses 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 Duchess 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 fashion! 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 duchesses 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 post chaise 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
+post chaise. But as long as her aunt countenanced her it was not
+likely that any one at Mistletoe would be unkind to her. The
+Duchess 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 Duchess had now been married a
+great many years this was unkind,--but it was known that when the
+Duchess 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 Duchess,--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, Duchess."
+
+"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 Duchess 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 Duchess 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 Duchess of Omnium declared him to be the
+silliest man of the day I think she used a wrong epithet. The
+Duchess 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 tomorrow."
+
+"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 Duchess. 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 Duchess 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 Duchess 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
+
+
+When 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
+pounds, 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 assistance. 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
+passed 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 friendship 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 passed 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."
+
+"He ain't 'a taken no money as I've seed, sir. I wish he had, for
+money's sore wanted here, and if the gen'leman has a mind to be
+kind-hearted--" Then she intimated her own readiness to take any
+contribution to the good cause which the Senator might be willing
+to make at that moment. But the Senator buttoned up his breeches
+pockets with stern resolution. Though he still believed Lord
+Rufford to be altogether wrong, he was beginning to think that the
+Goarlys were not worthy his benevolence. As she came to the door
+with them and accompanied them a few yards across the field she
+again told the tragic tale of her goose;--but the Senator had not
+another word to say to her.
+
+On that same day Morton drove Mr. Gotobed into Dillsborough and
+consented to go with him to Mr. Bearside's office. They found the
+attorney at home, and before anything was said as to payment they
+heard his account of the action. If Goarly had consented to take
+any money from Lord Rufford he knew nothing about it. As far as he
+was aware the action was going on. Ever so many witnesses must be
+brought from a distance who had seen the crop standing and who
+would have no bias against the owner,--as would be the case with
+neighbours, such as Lawrence Twentyman. Of course it was not easy
+to oppose such a man as Lord Rufford and a little money must be
+spent. Indeed such, he said, was his interest in the case that he
+had already gone further than he ought to have done out of his own
+pocket. Of course they would be successful,--that is if the matter
+were carried on with spirit, and then the money would all come back
+again. But just at present a little money must be spent. "I don't
+mean to spend it," said the Senator.
+
+"I hope you won't stick to that, Mr. Gotobed."
+
+"But I shall, sir. I understand from your letter that you look to
+me for funds."
+
+"Certainly I do, Mr. Gotobed; because you told me to do so."
+
+"I told you nothing of the kind, Mr. Bearside."
+
+"You paid me 15 pounds on account, Mr. Gotobed."
+
+"I paid you 15 pounds certainly."
+
+"And told me that more should be coming as it was wanted. Do you
+think I should have gone on for such a man as Goarly,--a fellow
+without a shilling,--unless he had some one like you to back him?
+It isn't likely. Now, Mr. Morton, I appeal to you."
+
+"I don't suppose that my friend has made himself liable for your
+bill because he paid you 15 pounds with the view of assisting
+Goarly," said Morton.
+
+"But he said that he meant to go on, Mr. Morton, He said that
+plain, and I can swear it. Now, Mr, Gotobed, you just say out like
+an honest man whether you didn't give me to understand that you
+meant to go on."
+
+"I never employed you or made myself responsible for your bill."
+
+"You authorized me, distinctly,--most distinctly, and I shall stick
+to it. When a gentleman comes to a lawyer's office and pays his
+money and tells that lawyer as how he means to see the case out,--
+explaining his reasons as you did when you said all that against
+the landlords and squires and nobility of this here country,--why
+then that lawyer has a right to think that that gentleman is his
+mark."
+
+"I thought you were employed by Mr. Scrobby," said Morton, who had
+heard much of the story by this time.
+
+"Then, Mr. Morton, I must make bold to say that you have heard
+wrong. I know nothing of Mr. Scrobby and don't want. There ain't
+nothing about the poisoning of that fox in this case of ours.
+Scrobby and Goarly may have done that, or Scrobby and Goarly may be
+as innocent as two babes unborn for aught I know or care. Excuse
+me, Mr. Morton, but I have to be on my p's and q's I see. This is a
+case for trespass and damage against Lord Rufford in which we ask
+for 40s. an acre. Of course there is expenses. There's my own time.
+I ain't to be kept here talking to you two gentlemen for nothing, I
+suppose. Well; this gentleman comes to me and pays me 15 pounds to
+go on. I couldn't have gone on without something. The gentleman saw
+that plain enough. And he told me he'd see me through the rest of
+it"
+
+"I said nothing of the kind, sir."
+
+"Very well. Then we must put it to a jury. May I make bold to ask
+whether you are going out of the country all at once?"
+
+"I shall be here for the next two months, at least"
+
+"Happy to hear it, Sir, and have no doubt it will all be settled
+before that time--amiable or otherwise. But as I am money out of
+pocket I did hope you would have paid me something on account
+to-day."
+
+Then Mr. Gotobed made his offer, informing Mr. Bearside that he had
+brought his friend, Mr. Morton, with him in order that there might
+be a witness. "I could see that, sir, with half an eye," said the
+attorney unabashed. He was willing to pay Mr. Bearside a further
+sum of ten pounds immediately to be quit of the affair, not because
+he thought that any such sum was due, but because he wished to free
+himself from further trouble in the matter. Mr. Bearside hinted in
+a very cavalier way that 20 pounds might be thought of. A further
+payment of 20 pounds would cover the money he was out of pocket.
+But this proposition Mr. Gotobed indignantly refused, and then left
+the office with his friend. "Wherever there are lawyers there will
+be rogues," said the Senator, as soon as he found himself in the
+street. "It is a noble profession, that of the law; the finest
+perhaps that the work of the world affords; but it gives scope and
+temptation for roguery. I do not think, however, that you would
+find anything in America so bad as that"
+
+"Why did you go to him without asking any questions?"
+
+"Of whom was I to ask questions? When I took up Goarly's case he
+had already put it into this man's hands."
+
+"I am sorry you should be troubled, Mr. Gotobed; but, upon my word,
+I cannot say but what it serves you right."
+
+"That is because you are offended with me. I endeavoured to protect
+a poor man against a rich man, and that in this country is cause of
+offence."
+
+After leaving the attorney's office they called on Mr. Mainwaring
+the rector, and found that he knew, or professed to know, a great
+deal more about Goarly, than they had learned from Bearside.
+According to his story Nickem, who was clerk to Mr. Masters, had
+Goarly in safe keeping somewhere. The rector indeed was acquainted
+with all the details. Scrobby had purchased the red herrings and
+strychnine, and had employed Goarly to walk over by night to
+Rufford and fetch them. The poison at that time had been duly
+packed in the herrings. Goarly had done this and had, at Scrobby's
+instigation, laid the bait down in Dillsborough Wood. Nickem was
+now at work trying to learn where Scrobby had purchased the poison,
+as it was feared that Goarly's evidence alone would not suffice to
+convict the man. But if the strychnine could be traced and the
+herrings, then there would be almost a certainty of punishing
+Scrobby.
+
+"And what about Goarly?" asked the Senator.
+
+"He would escape of course," said the rector. "He would get a
+little money and after such an experience would probably become a
+good friend to fox-hunting."
+
+"And quite a respectable man!" The rector did not guarantee this
+but seemed to think that there would at any rate be promise of
+improved conduct. "The place ought to be too hot to hold him!"
+exclaimed the Senator indignantly. The rector seemed to think it
+possible that he might find it uncomfortable at first, in which
+case he would sell the land at a good price to Lord Rufford and
+every one concerned would have been benefited by the transaction,--
+except Scrobby for whom no one would feel any pity.
+
+The two gentlemen then promised to come and dine with the rector on
+the following day. He feared he said that he could not make up a
+party as there was, he declared,--nobody in Dillsborough. "I never
+knew such a place," said the rector. "Except old Nupper, who is
+there? Masters is a very decent fellow himself, but he has got out
+of that kind of thing;--and you can't ask a man without asking his
+wife. As for clergymen, I'm sick of dining with my own cloth and
+discussing the troubles of sermons. There never was such a place as
+Dillsborough." Then he whispered a word to the Squire. Was the
+Squire unwilling to meet his cousin Reginald Morton? Things were
+said and people never knew what was true and what was false. Then
+John Morton declared that he would be very happy to meet his
+cousin.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Mr. Mainwaring's little Dinner
+
+
+The company at the rector's house consisted of the Senator, the two
+Mortons, Mr. Surtees the curate, and old Doctor Nupper. Mrs.
+Mainwaring was not well enough to appear, and the rector therefore
+was able to indulge himself in what he called a bachelor party. As
+a rule he disliked clergymen, but at the last had been driven to
+invite his curate because he thought six a better number than five
+for joviality. He began by asking questions as to the Trefoils
+which were not very fortunate. Of course he had heard that Morton
+was to marry Arabella Trefoil, and though he made no direct
+allusion to the fact, as Reginald had done, he spoke in that bland
+eulogistic tone which clearly showed his purpose. "They went with
+you to Lord Rufford's, I was told."
+
+"Yes;--they did."
+
+"And now they have left the neighbourhood. A very clever young
+lady, Miss Trefoil;--and so is her mother, a very clever woman."
+The Senator, to whom a sort of appeal was made, nodded his assent.
+"Lord Augustus, I believe, is a brother of the Duke of Mayfair?"
+
+"Yes, he is," said Morton. "I am afraid we are going to have frost
+again." Then Reginald Morton was sure that the marriage would never
+take place.
+
+"The Trefoils are a very distinguished family," continued the
+rector. "I remember the present Duke's father when he was in the
+cabinet, and knew this man almost intimately when we were at
+Christchurch together. I don't think this Duke ever took a
+prominent part in politics."
+
+"I don't know that he ever did," said Morton.
+
+"Dear, dear, how tipsy he was once driving back to Oxford with me
+in a gig. But he has the reputation of being one of the best
+landlords in the country now."
+
+"I wonder what it is that gives a man the reputation of being a
+good landlord. Is it foxes?" asked the Senator. The rector
+acknowledged with a smile that foxes helped. "Or does it mean that
+he lets his land below the value? If so, he certainly does more
+harm than good, though he may like the popularity which he is rich
+enough to buy."
+
+"It means that he does not exact more than his due," said the
+rector indiscreetly.
+
+"When I hear a man so highly praised for common honesty I am of
+course led to suppose that dishonesty in his particular trade is
+the common rule. The body of English landlords must be exorbitant
+tyrants when one among them is so highly eulogised for taking no
+more than his own." Luckily at that moment dinner was announced,
+and the exceptional character of the Duke of Mayfair was allowed to
+drop.
+
+Mr. Mainwaring's dinner was very good and his wines were
+excellent,--a fact of which Mr. Mainwaring himself was much better
+aware than any of his guests. There is a difficulty in the giving
+of dinners of which Mr. Mainwaring and some other hosts have become
+painfully aware. What service do you do to any one in pouring your
+best claret down his throat, when he knows no difference between
+that and a much more humble vintage, your best claret which you
+feel so sure you cannot replace? Why import canvas-back ducks for
+appetites which would be quite as well satisfied with those out of
+the next farm-yard? Your soup, which has been a care since
+yesterday, your fish, got down with so great trouble from Bond
+Street on that very day, your saddle of mutton, in selecting which
+you have affronted every butcher in the neighbourhood, are all
+plainly thrown away! And yet the hospitable hero who would fain
+treat his friends as he would be treated himself can hardly arrange
+his dinners according to the palates of his different guests; nor
+will he like, when strangers sit at his board, to put nothing
+better on his table than that cheaper wine with which needful
+economy induces him to solace himself when alone. I,--I who write
+this,--have myself seen an honoured guest deluge with the pump my,
+ah! so hardly earned, most scarce and most peculiar vintage! There
+is a pang in such usage which some will not understand, but which
+cut Mr. Mainwaring to the very soul. There was not one among them
+there who appreciated the fact that the claret on his dinner table
+was almost the best that its year had produced. It was impossible
+not to say a word on such a subject at such a moment;--though our
+rector was not a man who usually lauded his own viands. "I think
+you will find that claret what you like, Mr. Gotobed," he said.
+"It's a '57 Mouton, and judges say that it is good."
+
+"Very good indeed," said the Senator. "In the States we haven't got
+into the way yet of using dinner clarets." It was as good as a play
+to see the rector wince under the ignominious word. "Your great
+statesman added much to your national comfort when he took the duty
+off the lighter kinds of French wines."
+
+The rector could not stand it. He hated light wines. He hated cheap
+things in general. And he hated Gladstone in particular. "Nothing,"
+said he, "that the statesman you speak of ever did could make such
+wine as that any cheaper. I am sorry, Sir, that you don't perceive
+the difference."
+
+"In the matter of wine," said the Senator, "I don't think that I
+have happened to come across anything so good in this country as
+our old Madeiras. But then, sir, we have been fortunate in our
+climate. The English atmosphere is not one in which wine seems to
+reach its full perfection." The rector heaved a deep sigh as he
+looked up to the ceiling with his hands in his trowsers-pockets. He
+knew, or thought that he knew, that no one could ever get a glass
+of good wine in the United States. He knew, or thought that he
+knew, that the best wine in the world was brought to England. He
+knew, or thought he knew, that in no other country was wine so well
+understood, so diligently sought for, and so truly enjoyed as in
+England. And he imagined that it was less understood and less
+sought for and less enjoyed in the States than in any other
+country. He did not as yet know the Senator well enough to fight
+with him at his own table, and could only groan and moan and look
+up at the ceiling. Doctor Nupper endeavoured to take away the sting
+by smacking his lips, and Reginald Morton, who did not in truth
+care a straw what he drank, was moved to pity and declared the
+claret to be very fine. "I have nothing to say against it," said
+the Senator, who was not in the least abashed.
+
+But when the cloth was drawn, for the rector clung so lovingly to
+old habits that he delighted to see his mahogany beneath the wine
+glasses,--a more serious subject of dispute arose suddenly, though
+perhaps hardly more disagreeable. "The thing in England," said the
+Senator, "which I find most difficult to understand, is the matter
+of what you call Church patronage."
+
+"If you'll pass half an hour with Mr. Surtees to-morrow morning,
+he'll explain it all to you," said the rector, who did not like
+that any subject connected with his profession should be mooted
+after dinner.
+
+"I should be delighted," said Mr. Surtees.
+
+"Nothing would give me more pleasure," said the Senator; "but what
+I mean is this;--the question is, of course, one of paramount
+importance."
+
+"No doubt it is," said the deluded rector.
+
+"It is very necessary to get good doctors."
+
+"Well, yes, rather;--considering that all men wish to live." That
+observation, of course, came from Doctor Nupper.
+
+"And care is taken in employing a lawyer,--though, after my
+experience of yesterday, not always, I should say, so much care as
+is needful. The man who wants such aid looks about him and gets the
+best doctor he can for his money, or the best lawyer. But here in
+England he must take the clergyman provided for him."
+
+"It would be very much better for him if he did," said the rector.
+
+"A clergyman at any rate is supposed to be appointed; and that
+clergyman he must pay."
+
+"Not at all," said the rector. "The clergy are paid by the wise
+provision of former ages."
+
+"We will let that pass for the present," said the Senator. "There
+he is, however he may be paid. How does he get there?" Now it was
+the fact that Mr. Mainwaring's living had been bought for him with
+his wife's money,--a fact of which Mr. Gotobed was not aware, but
+which he would hardly have regarded had he known it. "How does he
+get there?"
+
+"In the majority of cases the bishop puts him there," said Mr.
+Surtees.
+
+"And how is the bishop governed in his choice? As far as I can
+learn the stipends are absurdly various, one man getting 100
+pounds a year for working like a horse in a big town, and another
+1000 pounds for living an idle life in a luxurious country house.
+But the bishop of course gives the bigger plums to the best men.
+How is it then that the big plums find their way so often to the
+sons and sons-in-law and nephews of the bishops?"
+
+"Because the bishop has looked after their education and
+principles," said the rector.
+
+"And taught them how to choose their wives," said the Senator with
+imperturbable gravity.
+
+"I am not the son of a bishop, sir," exclaimed the rector.
+
+"I wish you had been, sir, if it would have done you any good. A
+general can't make his son a colonel at the age of twenty-five, or
+an admiral his son a first lieutenant, or a judge his a Queen's
+Counsellor,--nor can the head of an office promote his to be a
+chief secretary. It is only a bishop can do this;--I suppose
+because a cure of souls is so much less important than the charge
+of a ship or the discipline of twenty or thirty clerks."
+
+"The bishops don't do it," said the rector fiercely.
+
+"Then the statistics which have been put into my hands belie them.
+But how is it with those the bishops don't appoint? There seems to
+me to be such a complication of absurdities as to defy
+explanation."
+
+"I think I could explain them all," said Mr. Surtees mildly.
+
+"If you can do so satisfactorily, I shall be very glad to hear it,"
+continued the Senator, who seemed in truth to be glad to hear no
+one but himself. "A lad of one-and-twenty learns his lessons so
+well that he has to be rewarded at his college, and a part of his
+reward consists in his having a parish entrusted to him when he is
+forty years old, to which he can maintain his right whether he be
+in any way trained for such work or no. Is that true?"
+
+"His collegiate education is the best training he can have," said
+the rector.
+
+"I came across a young fellow the other day," continued the
+Senator, "in a very nice house, with 700 pounds a year, and learned
+that he had inherited the living because he was his father's second
+son. Some poor clergyman had been keeping it ready for him for the
+last fifteen years and had to turn out as soon as this young spark
+could be made a clergyman."
+
+"It was his father's property," said the rector, "and the poor man
+had had great kindness shown him for those fifteen years"
+
+"Exactly;--his father's property! And this is what you call a cure
+of souls! And another man had absolutely had his living bought for
+him by his uncle, just as he might have bought him a farm. He
+couldn't have bought him the command of a regiment or a small
+judgeship. In those matters you require capacity. It is only when
+you deal with the Church that you throw to the winds all ideas of
+fitness. `Sir,' or `Madam,' or perhaps, `my little dear, you are
+bound to come to your places in Church and hear me expound the Word
+of God because I have paid a heavy sum of money for the privilege
+of teaching you, at the moderate salary of 600 pounds a year!'"
+
+Mr. Surtees sat aghast, with his mouth open, and knew not how to
+say a word. Doctor Nupper rubbed his red nose. Reginald Morton
+attempted some suggestion about the wine which fell wretchedly
+flat. John Morton ventured to tell his friend that he did not
+understand the subject. "I shall be most happy to be instructed,"
+said the Senator.
+
+"Understand it!" said the rector, almost rising in his chair to
+rebuke the insolence of his guest--"He understands nothing about
+it, and yet he ventures to fall foul with unmeasured terms on an
+establishment which has been brought to its present condition by
+the fostering care of perhaps the most pious set of divines that
+ever lived, and which has produced results with which those of no
+other Church can compare!"
+
+"Have I represented anything untruly?" asked the Senator.
+
+"A great deal, sir."
+
+"Only put me right, and no man will recall his words more readily.
+Is it not the case that livings in the Church of England can be
+bought and sold?"
+
+"The matter is one, Sir," said the rector, "which cannot be
+discussed in this manner. There are two clergymen present to whom
+such language is distasteful; as it is also I hope to the others
+who are all members of the Church of England. Perhaps you will
+allow me to request that the subject may be changed." After that
+conversation flagged and the evening was by no means joyous. The
+rector certainly regretted that his '57 claret should have been
+expended on such a man. "I don't think," said he when John Morton
+had taken the Senator away, "that in my whole life before I ever
+met such a brute as that American Senator."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Persecution
+
+
+There was great consternation in the attorney's house after the
+writing of the letter to Lawrence Twentyman. For twenty-four hours
+Mrs. Masters did not speak to Mary, not at all intending to let her
+sin pass with such moderate punishment as that, but thinking during
+that period that as she might perhaps induce Larry to ignore the
+letter and look upon it as though it were not written, it would be
+best to say nothing till the time should come in which the lover
+might again urge his suit. But when she found on the evening of the
+second day that Larry did not come near the place she could control
+herself no longer, and accused her step-daughter of ruining
+herself, her father, and the whole family. "That is very unfair,
+mamma," Mary said. "I have done nothing. I have only not done that
+which nobody had a right to ask me to do."
+
+"Right indeed! And who are you with your rights? A decent
+well-behaved young man with five or six hundred a year has no right
+to ask you to be his wife! All this comes of you staying with an
+old woman with a handle to her name."
+
+It was in vain that Mary endeavoured to explain that she had not
+alluded to Larry when she declared that no one had a right to ask
+her to do it. She had, she said, always thanked him for his good
+opinion of her, and had spoken well of him whenever his name was
+mentioned. But it was a matter on which a young woman was entitled
+to judge for herself, and no one had a right to scold her because
+she could not love him. Mrs. Masters hated such arguments, despised
+this rodomontade about love, and would have crushed the girl into
+obedience could it have been possible. "You are an idiot," she
+said, "an ungrateful idiot; and unless you think better of it
+you'll repent your folly to your dying day. Who do you think is to
+come running after a moping slut like you?" Then Mary gathered
+herself up and left the room, feeling that she could not live in
+the house if she were to be called a slut.
+
+Soon after this Larry came to the attorney and got him to come out
+into the street and to walk with him round the churchyard. It was
+the spot in Dillsborough in which they would most certainly be left
+undisturbed. This took place on the day before his proposition for
+the sale of Chowton Farm. When he got the attorney into the
+churchyard he took out Mary's letter and in speechless agony handed
+it to the attorney. "I saw it before it went," said Masters putting
+it back with his hand:
+
+"I suppose she means it?" asked Larry.
+
+"I can't say to you but what she does, Twentyman. As far as I know
+her she isn't a girl that would ever say anything that she didn't
+mean."
+
+"I was sure of that. When I got it and read it, it was just as
+though some one had come behind me and hit me over the head with a
+wheel-spoke. I couldn't have ate a morsel of breakfast if I knew I
+wasn't to see another bit of food for four-and-twenty hours."
+
+"I knew you would feel it, Larry."
+
+"Feel it! Till it came to this I didn't think of myself but what I
+had more strength. It has knocked me about till I feel all over
+like drinking."
+
+"Don't do that, Larry."
+
+"I won't answer for myself what I'll do. A man sets his heart on a
+thing,--just on one thing,--and has grit enough in him to be sure
+of himself that if he can get that nothing shall knock him over.
+When that thoroughbred mare of mine slipped her foal who can say I
+ever whimpered. When I got pleuro among the cattle I killed a'most
+the lot of 'em out of hand, and never laid awake a night about it.
+But I've got it so heavy this time I can't stand it. You don't
+think I have any chance, Mr. Masters?"
+
+"You can try of course. You're welcome to the house."
+
+"But what do you think? You must know her."
+
+"Girls do change their minds."
+
+"But she isn't like other girls. Is she now? I come to you because
+I sometimes think Mrs. Masters is a little hard on her. Mrs.
+Masters is about the best friend I have. There isn't anybody more
+on my side than she is. But I feel sure of this;--Mary will never
+be drove."
+
+"I don't think she will, Larry."
+
+"She's got a will of her own as well as another."
+
+"No man alive ever had a better daughter."
+
+"I'm sure of that, Mr. Masters; and no man alive 'll ever have a
+better wife. But she won't be drove. I might ask her again, you
+think?"
+
+"You certainly have my leave."
+
+"But would it be any good? I'd rather cut my throat and have done
+with it than go about teasing her because her parents let me come
+to her." Then there was a pause during which they walked on, the
+attorney feeling that he had nothing more to say. "What I want to
+know," said Larry, "is this. Is there anybody else?"
+
+That was just the point on which the attorney himself was
+perplexed. He had asked Mary that question, and her silence had
+assured him that it was so. Then he had suggested to her the name
+of the only probable suitor that occurred to him; and she had
+repelled the idea in a manner that had convinced him at once. There
+was some one, but Mr. Surtees was not the man. There was some one,
+he was sure, but he had not been able to cross-examine her on the
+subject. He had, since that, cudgelled his brain to think who that
+some one might be, but had not succeeded in suggesting a name even
+to himself. That of Reginald Morton, who hardly ever came to the
+house and whom he regarded as a silent, severe, unapproachable man,
+did not come into his mind. Among the young ladies of Dillsborough
+Reginald Morton was never regarded as even a possible lover. And
+yet there was assuredly some one. "If there is any one else I think
+you ought to tell me," continued Larry.
+
+"It is quite possible."
+
+"Young Surtees, I suppose."
+
+"I do not say there is anybody; but if there be anybody I do not
+think it is Surtees."
+
+"Who else then?"
+
+"I cannot say, Larry. I know nothing about it."
+
+"But there is some one?"
+
+"I do not say so. You ask me and I tell you all I know."
+
+Again they walked round the churchyard in silence and the attorney
+began to be anxious that the interview might be over. He hardly
+liked to be interrogated about the state of his daughter's heart,
+and yet he had felt himself bound to tell what he knew to the man
+who had in all respects behaved well to him. When they had returned
+for the third or fourth time to the gate by which they had entered
+Larry spoke again. "I suppose I may as well give it up."
+
+"What can I say?"
+
+"You have been fair enough, Mr. Masters. And so has she. And so has
+everybody. I shall just get away as quick as I can, and go and hang
+myself. I feel above bothering her any more. When she sat down to
+write a letter like that she must have been in earnest"
+
+"She certainly was in earnest, Larry."
+
+"What's the use of going on after that? Only it is so hard for a
+fellow to feel that everything is gone. It is just as though the
+house was burnt down, or I was to wake in the morning and find that
+the land didn't belong to me."
+
+"Not so bad as that, Larry."
+
+"Not so bad, Mr. Masters! Then you don't know what it is I'm
+feeling. I'd let his lordship or Squire Morton have it all, and go
+in upon it as a tenant at 30s. an acre, so that I could take her
+along with me. I would, and sell the horses and set to and work in
+my shirt-sleeves. A man could stand that. Nobody wouldn't laugh at
+me then. But there's an emptiness now here that makes me sick all
+through, as though I hadn't got stomach left for anything." Then
+poor Larry put his hand upon his heart and hid his face upon the
+churchyard wall. The attorney made some attempt to say a kind word
+to him, and then, leaving him there, slowly made his way back to
+his office.
+
+We already know what first step Larry took with the intention of
+running away from his cares. In the house at Dillsborough things
+were almost as bad as they were with him. Over and over again Mrs.
+Masters told her husband that it was all his fault, and that if he
+had torn the letter when it was showed to him, everything would
+have been right by the end of the two months. This he bore with
+what equanimity he could, shutting himself up very much in his
+office, occasionally escaping for a quarter of an hour of ease to
+his friends at the Bush, and eating his meals in silence. But when
+he became aware that his girl was being treated with cruelty,--that
+she was never spoken to by her stepmother without harsh words, and
+that her sisters were encouraged to be disdainful to her, then his
+heart rose within him and he rebelled. He declared aloud that Mary
+should not be persecuted, and if this kind of thing were continued
+he would defend his girl let the consequences be what they might.
+
+"What are you going to defend her against?" asked his wife.
+
+"I won't have her ill-used because she refuses to marry at your
+bidding."
+
+"Bah! You know as much how to manage a girl as though you were an
+old maid yourself. Cocker her up and make her think that nothing is
+good enough for her! Break her spirit, and make her come round, and
+teach her to know what it is to have an honest man's house offered
+to her. If she don't take Larry Twentyman's she's like to have none
+of her own before long." But Mr. Masters would not assent to this
+plan of breaking his girl's spirit, and so there was continual war
+in the place and every one there was miserable.
+
+Mary herself was so unhappy that she convinced herself that it was
+necessary that some change should be made. Then she remembered Lady
+Ushant's offer of a home, and not only the offer, but the old
+lady's assurance that to herself such an arrangement, if possible,
+would be very comfortable. She did not suggest to herself that she
+would leave her father's home for ever and always; but it might be
+that an absence of some months might relieve the absolute misery of
+their present mode of living. The effect on her father was so sad
+that she was almost driven to regret that he should have taken her
+own part. Her stepmother was not a bad woman; nor did Mary even now
+think her to be had. She was a hardworking, painstaking wife, with
+a good general idea of justice. In the division of puddings and
+pies and other material comforts of the household she would deal
+evenly between her own children and her step-daughter. She had not
+desired to send Mary away to an inadequate home, or with a
+worthless husband. But when the proper home and the proper man were
+there she was prepared to use any amount of hardship to secure
+these good things to the family generally. This hardship Mary could
+not endure, nor could Mary's father on her behalf, and therefore
+Mary prepared a letter to Lady Ushant in which, at great length,
+she told her old friend the whole story. She spoke as tenderly as
+was possible of all concerned, but declared that her stepmother's
+feelings on the subject were so strong that every one in the house
+was made wretched. Under these circumstances,--for her father's
+sake if only for that,--she thought herself bound to leave the
+house. "It is quite impossible," she said, "that I should do as
+they wish me. That is a matter on which a young woman must judge
+for herself. If you could have me for a few months it would perhaps
+all pass by. I should not dare to ask this but for what you said
+yourself; and, dear Lady Ushant, pray remember that I do not want
+to be idle. There are a great many things I can do; and though I
+know that nothing can pay for kindness, I might perhaps be able not
+to be a burden." Then she added in a postscript--"Papa is
+everything that is kind;--but then all this makes him so
+miserable!"
+
+When she had kept the letter by her for a day she showed it to her
+father, and by his consent it was sent. After much consultation it
+was agreed between them that nothing should be said about it to
+Mrs. Masters till the answer should come; and that, should the
+answer be favourable, the plan should be carved out in spite of any
+domestic opposition. In this letter Mary told as accurately as she
+could the whole story of Larry's courtship, and was very clear in
+declaring that under no possible circumstances could she encourage
+any hope. But of course she said not a word as to any other man or
+as to any love on her side. "Have you told her everything?" said
+her father as he closed the letter.
+
+"Yes, papa;--everything that there is to be told." Then there arose
+within his own bosom an immense desire to know that secret, so that
+if possible he might do something to relieve her pain;--but he
+could not bring himself to ask further questions.
+
+Lady Ushant on receiving the letter much doubted what she ought to
+do. She acknowledged at once Mary's right to appeal to her; and
+assured herself that the girl's presence would be a comfort and a
+happiness to herself. If Mary were quite alone in the world Lady
+Ushant would have been at once prepared to give her a home. But she
+doubted as to the propriety of taking the girl from her own family.
+She doubted even whether it would not be better that Mary should be
+left within the influence of Larry Twentyman's charms. A
+settlement, an income, and assured comforts for life are very
+serious things to all people who have reached Lady Ushant's age.
+And then she had a doubt within her own mind whether Mary might not
+be debarred from accepting this young man by some unfortunate
+preference for Reginald Morton. She had seen them together and had
+suspected something of the truth before it had glimmered before the
+eyes of any one in Dillsborough. Had Reginald been so inclined Lady
+Morton would have been very glad to see him marry Mary Masters. For
+both their sakes she would have preferred such a match to one with
+the owner of Chowton Farm. But she did not think that Reginald
+himself was that way minded, and she fancied that poor Mary might
+be throwing away her prosperity in life were she to wait for
+Reginald's love. Larry Twentyman was at any rate sure;--and perhaps
+it might be unwise to separate the girl from her lover.
+
+In her doubt she determined to refer the case to Reginald himself,
+and instead of writing to Mary she wrote to him. She did not send
+him Mary's letter,--which would, she felt, have been a breach of
+faith; nor did she mention the name of Larry Twentyman. But she
+told him that Mary had proposed to come to Cheltenham for a long
+visit because there were disturbances at home,--which disturbances
+had arisen from her rejection of a certain suitor. Lady Ushant said
+a great deal as to the inexpediency of fostering family quarrels,
+and suggested that Mary might perhaps have been a little impetuous.
+The presence of this lover could hardly do her much injury. These
+were not days in which young women were forced to marry men. What
+did he, Reginald Morton, think about it? He was to remember that as
+far as she herself was concerned, she dearly loved Mary Masters and
+would be delighted to have her at Cheltenham; and, so remembering,
+he was to see the attorney, and Mary herself, and if necessary Mrs.
+Masters;--and then to report his opinion to Cheltenham.
+
+Then, fearing that her nephew might be away for a day or two, or
+that he might not be able to perform his commission instantly, and
+thinking that Mary might be unhappy if she received no immediate
+reply to such a request as hers had been, Lady Ushant by the same
+post wrote to her young friend as follows;--
+
+Dear Mary,
+
+Reginald will go over and see your father about your proposition.
+As far as I myself am concerned nothing would give me so much
+pleasure. This is quite sincere. But the matter is in other
+respects very important. Of course I have kept your letter all to
+myself, and in writing to Reginald I have mentioned no names.
+
+                        Your affectionate friend,
+                             Margaret Ushant.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+"Particularly proud of you"
+
+
+Arabella Trefoil left her uncle's mansion on the day after her
+lover's departure, certainly not in triumph, but with somewhat
+recovered spirits. When she first heard that Lord Rufford was
+gone,--that he had fled away as it were in the middle of the night
+without saying a word to her, without a syllable to make good the
+slight assurances of his love that had been given to her in the
+post carriage, she felt that she was deserted and betrayed. And
+when she found herself altogether neglected on the following day,
+and that the slightly valuable impression which she had made on her
+aunt was apparently gone, she did for half an hour think in earnest
+of the Paragon and Patagonia. But after a while she called to mind
+all that she knew of great efforts successfully made in opposition
+to almost overwhelming difficulties. She had heard of forlorn
+hopes, and perhaps in her young days had read something of Caesar
+still clinging to his Commentaries as he struggled in the waves.
+This was her forlorn hope, and she would be as brave as any soldier
+of them all. Lord Rufford's embraces were her Commentaries, and let
+the winds blow and the waves roll as they might she would still
+cling to them. After lunch she spoke to her aunt with great
+courage,--as the Duchess thought with great effrontery. "My uncle
+wouldn't speak to Lord Rufford before he went?"
+
+"How could he speak to a man who ran away from his house in that
+way?"
+
+"The running away, as you call it, aunt, did not take place till
+two days after I had told you all about it. I thought he would have
+done as much as that for his brother's daughter."
+
+"I don't believe in it at all," said the Duchess sternly.
+
+"Don't believe in what, aunt? You don't mean to say that you don't
+believe that Lord Rufford has asked me to be his wife!" Then she
+paused, but the Duchess absolutely lacked the courage to express
+her conviction again. "I don't suppose it signifies much,"
+continued Arabella, "but of course it would have been something to
+me that Lord Rufford should have known that the Duke was anxious
+for my welfare. He was quite prepared to have assured my uncle of
+his intentions."
+
+"Then why didn't he speak himself?"
+
+"Because the Duke is not my father. Really, aunt, when I hear you
+talk of his running away I do feel it to be unkind. As if we didn't
+all know that a man like that goes and comes as he pleases. It was
+just before dinner that he got the message, and was he to run round
+and wish everybody good-bye like a schoolgirl going to bed?"
+
+The Duchess was almost certain that no message had come, and from
+various little things which she had observed and from tidings which
+had reached her, very much doubted whether Arabella had known
+anything of his intended going. She too had a maid of her own who
+on occasions could bring information. But she had nothing further
+to say on the subject. If Arabella should ever become Lady Rufford
+she would of course among other visitors be occasionally received
+at Mistletoe. She could never be a favourite, but things would to a
+certain degree have rectified themselves. But if, as the Duchess
+expected, no such marriage took place, then this ill-conducted
+niece should never be admitted within the house again.
+
+Later on in the afternoon, some hours after it became dusk,
+Arabella contrived to meet her aunt in the hall with a letter in
+her hand, and asked where the letter-box was. She knew where to
+deposit her letters as well as did the Duchess herself; but she
+desired an opportunity of proclaiming what she had done. "I am
+writing to Lord Rufford. Perhaps as I am in your house I ought to
+tell you what I have done."
+
+"The letter-box is in the billiard-room, close to the door," said
+the Duchess passing on. Then she added as she went, "The post for
+to-day has gone already."
+
+"His Lordship will have to wait a day for his letter. I dare say it
+won't break his heart," said Arabella, as she turned away to the
+billiard-room.
+
+All this had been planned; and, moreover, she had so written her
+letter that if her magnificent aunt should condescend to tamper
+with it all that was in it should seem to corroborate her own
+story. The Duchess would have considered herself disgraced if ever
+she had done such a thing;--but the niece of the Duchess did not
+quite understand that this would be so. The letter was as follows:
+
+Mistletoe, 19th Jany. 1875.
+
+Dearest R.,
+
+Your going off like that was, after all, very horrid. My aunt thinks
+that you were running away from me. I think that you were running away
+from her. Which was true? In real earnest I don't for a moment think
+that either I or the Duchess had anything to do with it, and that you
+did go because some horrid man wrote and asked you. I know you don't
+like being bound by any of the conventionalities. I hope there is such
+a word, and that if not, you'll understand it just the same.
+
+Oh, Peltry,--and oh, Jack,--and oh, that road back to Stamford! I
+am so stiff that I can't sit upright, and everybody is cross to me,
+and everything is uncomfortable. What horrible things women are!
+There isn't one here, not even old Lady Rumpus, who hasn't an
+unmarried daughter left in the world, who isn't jealous of me,
+because--because--. I must leave you to guess why they all hate me
+so! And I'm sure if you had given Jack to any other woman I should
+hate her, though you may give every horse you have to any man that
+you please. I wonder whether I shall have another day's hunting
+before it is all over. I suppose not. It was almost by a miracle
+that we managed yesterday--only fancy--yesterday! It seems to be an
+age ago!
+
+Pray, pray, pray write to me at once,--to the Connop Greens, so
+that I may get a nice, soft, pleasant word directly I get among
+those nasty, hard, unpleasant people. They have lots of money, and
+plenty of furniture, and I dare say the best things to eat and
+drink in the world,--but nothing else. There will be no Jack; and
+if there were, alas, alas, no one to show me the way to ride him.
+
+I start to-morrow, and as far as I understand, shall have to make
+my way into Hampshire all by myself, with only such security as my
+maid can give me. I shall make her go in the same carriage and
+shall have the gratification of looking at her all the way. I
+suppose I ought not to say that I will shut my eyes and try to
+think that somebody else is there.
+
+Good-bye dear, dear, dear R. I shall be dying for a letter from
+you. Yours ever with all my heart.  A.
+
+P.S. I shall write you such a serious epistle when I get to the
+Greens.
+
+This was not such a letter as she thought that her aunt would
+approve; but it was, she fancied, such as the Duchess would believe
+that she would write to her lover. And if it were allowed to go on
+its way it would make Lord Rufford feel that she was neither
+alarmed nor displeased by the suddenness of his departure. But it
+was not expected to do much good. It might produce some short,
+joking, half-affectionate reply, but would not draw from him that
+serious word which was so necessary for the success of her scheme.
+Therefore she had told him that she intended to prepare a serious
+missile. Should this pleasant little message of love miscarry, the
+serious missile would still be sent, and the miscarriage would
+occasion no harm.
+
+But then further plans were necessary. It might be that Lord
+Rufford would take no notice of the serious missile,--which she
+thought very probable. Or it might be that he would send back a
+serious reply, in which he would calmly explain to her that she had
+unfortunately mistaken his sentiments;--which she believed would be
+a stretch of manhood beyond his reach. But in either case she would
+be prepared with the course which she would follow. In the first
+she would begin by forcing her father to write to him a letter
+which she herself would dictate. In the second she would set the
+whole family at him as far as the family were within her reach.
+With her cousin Lord Mistletoe, who was only two years older than
+herself, she had always held pleasant relations. They had been
+children together, and as they had grown up the young Lord had
+liked his pretty cousin. Latterly they had seen each other but
+rarely, and therefore the feeling still remained. She would tell
+Lord Mistletoe her whole story,--that is the story as she would
+please to tell it,--and implore his aid. Her father should be
+driven to demand from Lord Rufford an execution of his alleged
+promises. She herself would write such a letter to the Duke as an
+uncle should be unable not to notice. She would move heaven and
+earth as to her wrongs. She thought that if her friends would stick
+to her, Lord Rufford would be weak as water in their hands. But it
+must be all done immediately,--so that if everything failed she
+might be ready to start to Patagonia some time in April. When she
+looked back and remembered that it was hardly more than two months
+since she had been taken to Rufford Hall by Mr. Morton she could
+not accuse herself of having lost any time.
+
+In London she met her mother,--as to which meeting there had been
+some doubt,--and underwent the tortures of a close examination. She
+had thought it prudent on this occasion to tell her mother
+something, but not to tell anything quite truly. "He has proposed
+to me," she said.
+
+"He has!" said Lady Augustus, holding up her hands almost in awe.
+
+"Is there anything so wonderful in that?"
+
+"Then it is all arranged. Does the Duke know it?"
+
+"It is not all arranged by any means, and the Duke does know it.
+Now, mamma, after that I must decline to answer any more questions.
+I have done this all myself, and I mean to continue it in the same
+way."
+
+"Did he speak to the Duke? You will tell me that."
+
+"I will tell you nothing."
+
+"You will drive me mad, Arabella."
+
+"That will be better than your driving me mad just at present. You
+ought to feel that I have a great deal to think of."
+
+"And have not I?"
+
+"You can't help me;--not at present."
+
+"But he did propose,--in absolute words?"
+
+"Mamma, what a goose you are! Do you suppose that men do it all now
+just as it is done in books? 'Miss Arabella Trefoil, will you do
+me the honour to become my wife?' Do you think that Lord Rufford
+would ask the question in that way?"
+
+"It is a very good way."
+
+"Any way is a good way that answers the purpose. He has proposed,
+and I mean to make him stick to it"
+
+"You doubt then?"
+
+"Mamma, you are so silly! Do you not know what such a man is well
+enough to be sure that he'll change his mind half-a-dozen times if
+he can? I don't mean to let him; and now, after that, I won't say
+another word."
+
+"I have got a letter here from Mr. Short saying that something must
+be fixed about Mr. Morton." Mr. Short was the lawyer who had been
+instructed to prepare the settlements.
+
+"Mr. Short may do whatever he likes," said Arabella. There were
+very hot words between them that night in London, but the mother
+could obtain no further information from her daughter.
+
+That serious epistle had been commenced even before Arabella had
+left Mistletoe; but the composition was one which required great
+care, and it was not completed and copied and recopied till she had
+been two days in Hampshire. Not even when it was finished did she
+say a word to her mother about it. She had doubted much as to the
+phrases which in such an emergency she ought to use, but she
+thought it safer to trust to herself than to her mother. In writing
+such a letter as that posted at Mistletoe she believed herself to
+be happy. She could write it quickly, and understood that she could
+convey to her correspondent some sense of her assumed mood. But her
+serious letter would, she feared, be stiff and repulsive. Whether
+her fears were right the reader shall judge,--for the letter when
+written was as follows:
+
+Marygold Place, Basingstoke,
+Saturday.
+
+My Dear Lord Rufford,
+
+You will I suppose have got the letter that I wrote before I left
+Mistletoe, and which I directed to Mr. Surbiton's. There was not
+much in it,--except a word or two as to your going and as to my
+desolation, and just a reminiscence of the hunting. There was no
+reproach that you should have left me without any farewell, or that
+you should have gone so suddenly, after saying so much, without
+saying more. I wanted you to feel that you had made me very happy,
+and not to feel that your departure in such a way had robbed me of
+part of the happiness.
+
+It was a little bad of you, because it did of course leave me to
+the hardness of my aunt; and because all the other women there
+would of course follow her. She had inquired about our journey
+home, that dear journey home, and I had of course told her,--well I
+had better say it out at once; I told her that we were engaged.
+You, I am sure, will think that the truth was best. She wanted to
+know why you did not go to the Duke. I told her that the Duke was
+not my father; but that as far as I was concerned the Duke might
+speak to you or not as he pleased. I had nothing to conceal. I am
+very glad he did not, because he is pompous, and you would have
+been bored. If there is one thing I desire more than another it is
+that nothing belonging to me shall ever be a bore to you. I hope I
+may never stand in the way of anything that will gratify you,--as I
+said when you lit that cigar. You will have forgotten, I dare say.
+But, dear Rufford,--dearest; I may say that, mayn't I?--say
+something, or do something to make me satisfied. You know what I
+mean;--don't you? It isn't that I am a bit afraid myself. I don't
+think so little of myself, or so badly of you. But I don't like
+other women to look at me as though I ought not to be proud of
+anything. I am proud of everything; particularly proud of you,--and
+of Jack.
+
+Now there is my serious epistle, and I am sure that you will answer
+it like a dear, good, kind-hearted, loving-lover. I won't be afraid
+of writing the word, nor of saying that I love you with all my
+heart, and that I am always your own
+                             Arabella.
+
+She kept the letter till the Sunday, thinking that she might have
+an answer to that written from Mistletoe, and that his reply might
+alter its tone, or induce her to put it aside altogether; but when
+on Sunday morning none came, her own was sent. The word in it which
+frightened herself was the word "engaged." She tried various other
+phrases, but declared to herself at last that it was useless to
+"beat about the bush." He must know the light in which she was
+pleased to regard those passages of love which she had permitted so
+that there might be no mistake. Whether the letter would be to his
+liking or not, it must be of such a nature that it would certainly
+draw from him an answer on which she could act. She herself did not
+like the letter; but, considering her difficulties, we may own that
+it was not much amiss.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+Lord Rufford makes up his Mind
+
+
+As it happened, Lord Rufford got the two letters together, the
+cause of which was as follows.
+
+When he ran away from Mistletoe, as he certainly did, he had
+thought much about that journey home in the carriage, and was quite
+aware that he had made an ass of himself. As he sat at dinner on
+that day at Mistletoe his neighbour had said some word to him in
+joke as to his attachment to Miss Trefoil, and after the ladies had
+left the room another neighbour of the other sex had hoped that he
+had had a pleasant time on the road. Again, in the drawing-room it
+had seemed to him that he was observed. He could not refrain from
+saying a few words to Arabella as she lay on the sofa. Not to do so
+after what had occurred would have been in itself peculiar. But
+when he did so, some other man who was near her made way for him,
+as though she were acknowledged to be altogether his property. And
+then the Duchess had striven to catch him, and lead him into
+special conversation. When this attempt was made he decided that he
+must at once retreat,--or else make up his mind to marry the young
+lady. And therefore he retreated.
+
+He breakfasted that morning at the inn at Stamford, and as he
+smoked his cigar afterwards, he positively resolved that he would
+under no circumstances marry Arabella Trefoil. He was being hunted
+and run down, and, with the instinct of all animals that are
+hunted, he prepared himself for escape. It might be said, no doubt
+would be said, that he behaved badly. That would be said because it
+would not be open to him to tell the truth. The lady in such a case
+can always tell her story, with what exaggeration she may please to
+give, and can complain. The man never can do so. When inquired
+into, he cannot say that he has been pursued. He cannot tell her
+friends that she began it, and in point of fact did it all. "She
+would fall into my arms; she would embrace me; she persisted in
+asking me whether I loved her!" Though a man have to be shot for
+it, or kicked for it, or even though he have to endure perpetual
+scorn for it, he cannot say that, let it be ever so true. And yet
+is a man to be forced into a marriage which he despises? He would
+not be forced into the marriage,--and the sooner he retreated the
+less would be the metaphorical shooting and kicking and the real
+scorn. He must get out of it as best he could;--but that he would
+get out of it he was quite determined.
+
+That afternoon he reached Mr. Surbiton's house, as did also Captain
+Battersby, and his horses, grooms, and other belongings. When there
+he received a lot of letters, and among others one from Mr.
+Runciman, of the Bush, inquiring as to a certain hiring of rooms
+and preparation for a dinner or dinners which had been spoken of in
+reference to a final shooting decreed to take place in the
+neighbourhood of Dillsborough in the last week of January. Such
+things were often planned by Lord Rufford, and afterwards forgotten
+or neglected. When he declared his purpose to Runciman, he had not
+intended to go to Mistletoe, nor to stay so long with his friend
+Surbiton. But now he almost thought that it would be better for him
+to be back at Rufford Hall, where at present his sister was staying
+with her husband, Sir George Penwether.
+
+In the evening of the second or third day his old friend Tom
+Surbiton said a few words to him which had the effect of sending
+him back to Rufford. They had sat out the rest of the men who
+formed the party and were alone in the smoking-room. "So you're
+going to marry Miss Trefoil," said Tom Surbiton, who perhaps of all
+his friends was the most intimate.
+
+"Who says so?"
+
+"I am saying so at present"
+
+"You are not saying it on your own authority. You have never seen
+me and Miss Trefoil in a room together."
+
+"Everybody says so. of course such a thing cannot be arranged
+without being talked about"
+
+"It has not been arranged."
+
+"If you don't mean to have it arranged, you had better look to it.
+I am speaking in earnest, Rufford. I am not going to give up
+authorities. Indeed if I did I might give up everybody. The very
+servants suppose that they know it, and there isn't a groom or
+horseboy about who isn't in his heart congratulating the young lady
+on her promotion."
+
+"I'll tell you what it is, Tom."
+
+"Well;--what is it?"
+
+"If this had come from any other man than yourself I should quarrel
+with him. I am not engaged to the young lady, nor have I done
+anything to warrant anybody in saying so."
+
+"Then I may contradict it."
+
+"I don't want you either to contradict it or affirm it. It would be
+an impertinence to the young lady if I were to instruct any one to
+contradict such a report. But as a fact I am not engaged to marry
+Miss Trefoil, nor is there the slightest chance that I ever shall
+be so engaged." So saying he took up his candlestick and walked
+off.
+
+Early on the next morning he saw his friend and made some sort of
+laughing apology for his heat on the previous evening. "It is so
+d-- hard when these kind of things are said because a man has lent
+a young lady a horse. However, Tom, between you and me the thing is
+a lie."
+
+"I am very glad to hear it," said Tom.
+
+"And now I want you to come over to Rufford on the twenty-eighth."
+Then he explained the details of his proposed party, and got his
+friend to promise that he would come. He also made it understood
+that he was going home at once. There were a hundred things, he
+said, which made it necessary. So the horses and grooms and servant
+and portmanteaus were again made to move, and Lord Rufford left his
+friend on that day and went up to London on his road to Rufford.
+
+He was certainly disturbed in his mind, foreseeing that there might
+be much difficulty in his way. He remembered with fair accuracy all
+that had occurred during the journey from Stamford to Mistletoe. He
+felt assured that up to that time he had said nothing which could
+be taken to mean a real declaration of love. All that at Rufford
+had been nothing. He had never said a word which could justify the
+girl in a hope. In the carriage she had asked him whether he loved
+her, and he had said that he did. He had also declared that he
+would do anything in his power to make her happy. Was a man to be
+bound to marry a girl because of such a scene as that? There was,
+however, nothing for him to do except to keep out of the girl's
+way. If she took any steps, then he must act. But as he thought of
+it, he swore to himself that nothing should induce him to marry
+her.
+
+He remained a couple of days in town and reached Rufford Hall on
+the Monday, just a week from the day of that fatal meet at Peltry.
+There he found Sir George and his sister and Miss Penge, and spent
+his first evening in quiet. On the Tuesday he hunted with the
+U.R.U., and made his arrangements with Runciman. He invited Hampton
+to shoot with him. Surbiton and Battersby were coming, and his
+brother-in-law. Not wishing to have less than six guns he asked
+Hampton how he could make up his party. "Morton doesn't shoot," he
+said, "and is as stiff as a post." Then he was told that John
+Morton was supposed to be very ill at Bragton. "I'm sick of both
+the Botseys," continued the lord, thinking more of his party than
+of Mr. Morton's health. "Purefoy is still sulky with me because he
+killed poor old Caneback." Then Hampton suggested that if he would
+ask Lawrence Twentyman it might be the means of saving that
+unfortunate young man's life. The story of his unrequited love was
+known to every one at Dillsborough and it was now told to Lord
+Rufford. "He is not half a bad fellow," said Hampton, "and quite as
+much like a gentleman as either of the Botseys."
+
+"I shall be delighted to save the life of so good a man on such
+easy terms," said the lord. Then and there, with a pencil, on the
+back of an old letter, he wrote a line to Larry asking him to shoot
+on next Saturday and to dine with him afterwards at the Bush.
+
+That evening on his return home he found both the letters from
+Arabella. As it happened he read them in the order in which they
+had been written, first the laughing letter, and then the one that
+was declared to be serious. The earlier of the two did not annoy
+him much. It contained hardly more than those former letters which
+had induced him to go to Mistletoe. But the second letter opened up
+her entire strategy. She had told the Duchess that she was engaged
+to him, and the Duchess of course would have told the Duke. And now
+she wrote to him asking him to acknowledge the engagement in black
+and white. The first letter he might have ignored. He might have
+left it unanswered without gross misconduct. But the second letter,
+which she herself had declared to be a serious epistle, was one
+which he could not neglect. Now had come his difficulty. What must
+he do? How should he answer it? Was it imperative on him to write
+the words with his own hand? Would it be possible that he should
+get his sister to undertake the commission? He said nothing about
+it to any one for four and twenty hours; but he passed those hours
+in much discomfort. It did seem so hard to him that because he had
+been forced to carry a lady home from hunting in a post chaise,
+that he should be driven to such straits as this? The girl was
+evidently prepared to make a fight of it. There would be the Duke
+and the Duchess and that prig Mistletoe, and that idle ass Lord
+Augustus, and that venomous old woman her mother, all at him. He
+almost doubted whether a shooting excursion in Central Africa or a
+visit to the Pampas would not be the best thing for him. But still,
+though he should resolve to pass five years among the Andes, he
+must answer the lady's letter before he went.
+
+Then he made up his mind that he would tell everything to his
+brother-in-law, as far as everything can be told in such a matter.
+Sir George was near fifty, full fifteen years older than his wife,
+who was again older than her brother. He was a man of moderate
+wealth, very much respected, and supposed to be possessed of almost
+infinite wisdom. He was one of those few human beings who seem
+never to make a mistake. Whatever he put his hand to came out
+well;--and yet everybody liked him. His brother-in-law was a little
+afraid of him, but yet was always glad to see him. He kept an
+excellent house in London, but having no country house of his own
+passed much of his time at Rufford Hall when the owner was not
+there. In spite of the young peer's numerous faults Sir George was
+much attached to him, and always ready to help him in his
+difficulties. "Penwether," said the Lord, "I have got myself into
+an awful scrape."
+
+"I am sorry to hear it. A woman, I suppose,"
+
+"Oh, yes. I never gamble, and therefore no other scrape can be
+awful. A young lady wants to marry me"
+
+"That is not unnatural."
+
+"But I am quite determined, let the result be what it may, that I
+won't marry the young lady."
+
+"That will be unfortunate for her, and the more so if she has a
+right to expect it. Is the young lady Miss Trefoil?"
+
+"I did not mean to mention any name, till I was sure it might be
+necessary. But it is Miss Trefoil."
+
+"Eleanor had told me something of it"
+
+"Eleanor knows nothing about this, and I do not ask you to tell
+her. The young lady was here with her mother,--and for the matter
+of that with a gentleman to whom she was certainly engaged; but
+nothing particular occurred here. That unfortunate ball was going
+on when poor Caneback was dying. But I met her since that at
+Mistletoe."
+
+"I can hardly advise, you know, unless you tell me everything."
+
+Then Lord Rufford began. "These kind of things are sometimes deuced
+hard upon a man. Of course if a man were a saint or a philosopher
+or a Joseph he wouldn't get into such scrapes,--and perhaps every
+man ought to be something of that sort. But I don't know how a man
+is to do it, unless it's born with him."
+
+"A little prudence I should say."
+
+"You might as well tell a fellow that it is his duty to be six feet
+high"
+
+"But what have you said to the young lady,--or what has she said to
+you?"
+
+"There has been a great deal more of the latter than the former. I
+say so to you, but of course it is not to be said that I have said
+so. I cannot go forth to the world complaining of a young lady's
+conduct to me. It is a matter in which a man must not tell the
+truth."
+
+"But what is the truth?"
+
+"She writes me word to say that she has told all her friends that I
+am engaged to her, and kindly presses me to make good her
+assurances by becoming so."
+
+"And what has passed between you?"
+
+"A fainting fit in a carriage and half-a-dozen kisses."
+
+"Nothing more?"
+
+"Nothing more that is material. Of course one cannot tell it all
+down to each mawkish word of humbugging sentiment. There are her
+letters, and what I want you to remember is that I never asked her
+to be my wife, and that no consideration on earth shall induce me
+to become her husband. Though all the duchesses in England were to
+persecute me to the death I mean to stick to that."
+
+Then Sir George read the letters and handed them back. "She seems
+to me," said he, "to have more wit about her than any of the family
+that I have had the honour of meeting."
+
+"She has wit enough,--and pluck too."
+
+"You have never said a word to her to encourage these hopes"
+
+"My dear Penwether, don't you know that if a man with a large
+income says to a girl like that that the sun shines he encourages
+hope. I understand that well enough. I am a rich man with a title,
+and a big house, and a great command of luxuries. There are so many
+young ladies who would also like to be rich, and to have a title,
+and a big house, and a command of luxuries! One sometimes feels
+oneself like a carcase in the midst of vultures."
+
+"Marry after a proper fashion, and you'll get rid of all that."
+
+"I'll think about it, but in the meantime what can I say to this
+young woman? When I acknowledge that I kissed ham, of course I
+encouraged hopes."
+
+"No doubt"
+
+"But St. Anthony would have had to kiss this young woman if she had
+made her attack upon him as she did on me; and after all a kiss
+doesn't go for everything. These are things, Penwether, that must
+not be inquired into too curiously. But I won't marry her though it
+were a score of kisses. And now what must I do?" Sir George said
+that he would take till the next morning to think about it,--
+meaning to make a draft of the reply which he thought his
+brother-in-law might best send to the lady.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+It cannot be Arranged
+
+
+When Reginald Morton received his aunt's letter he understood from
+it more than she had intended. Of course the man to whom allusion
+was made was Mr. Twentyman; and of course the discomfort at. home
+had come from Mrs. Masters' approval of that suitor's claim.
+Reginald, though he had seen but little of the inside of the
+attorney's household, thought it very probable that the stepmother
+would make the girl's home very uncomfortable for her. Though he
+knew well all the young farmer's qualifications as a husband,--
+namely that he was well to do in the world and bore a good
+character for honesty and general conduct,--still he thoroughly,
+nay heartily approved of Mary's rejection of the man's hand. It
+seemed to him to be sacrilege that such a one should have given to
+him such a woman. There was, to his thinking, something about Mary
+Masters that made it altogether unfit that she should pass her life
+as the mistress of Chowton Farm, and he honoured her for the
+persistence of her refusal. He took his pipe and went out into the
+garden in order that he might think of it all as he strolled round
+his little domain.
+
+But why should he think so much about it? Why should he take so
+deep an interest in the matter? What was it to him whether Mary
+Masters married after her kind, or descended into what he felt to
+be an inferior manner of life? Then he tried to tell himself what
+were the gifts in the girl's possession which made her what she
+was, and he pictured her to himself, running over all her
+attributes. It was not that she specially excelled in beauty. He
+had seen Miss Trefoil as she was being driven about the
+neighbourhood, and having heard much of the young lady as the
+future wife of his own cousin, had acknowledged to himself that she
+was very handsome. But he had thought at the same time that under
+no possible circumstances could he have fallen in love with Miss
+Trefoil. He believed that he did not care much for female beauty,
+and yet he felt that he could sit and look at Mary Masters by the
+hour together. There was a quiet even composure about her, always
+lightened by the brightness of her modest eyes, which seemed to
+tell him of some mysterious world within, which was like the unseen
+loveliness that one fancies to be hidden within the bosom of
+distant mountains. There was a poem to be read there of surpassing
+beauty, rhythmical and eloquent as the music of the spheres, if it
+might only be given to a man to read it. There was an absence, too,
+of all attempt at feminine self-glorification which he did not
+analyse but thoroughly appreciated. There was no fussy
+amplification of hair, no made-up smiles, no affectation either in
+her good humour or her anger, no attempt at effect in her gait, in
+her speech, or her looks. She seemed to him to be one who had
+something within her on which she could feed independently of the
+grosser details of the world to which it was her duty to lend her
+hand. And then her colour charmed his eyes. Miss Trefoil was white
+and red; white as pearl powder and red as paint. Mary Masters, to
+tell the truth, was brown. No doubt that was the prevailing colour,
+if one colour must be named. But there was so rich a tint of young
+life beneath the surface, so soft but yet so visible an assurance
+of blood and health and spirit, that no one could describe her
+complexion by so ugly a word without falsifying her gifts. In all
+her movements she was tranquil, as a noble woman should be. Even
+when she had turned from him with some anger at the bridge, she had
+walked like a princess. There was a certainty of modesty about her
+which was like a granite wall or a strong fortress. As he thought
+of it all he did not understand how such a one as Lawrence
+Twentyman should have dared to ask her to be his wife,--or should
+even have wished it.
+
+We know what were her feelings in regard to himself, how she had
+come to look almost with worship on the walls within which he
+lived; but he had guessed nothing of this. Even now, when he knew
+that she had applied to his aunt in order that she might escape
+from her lover, it did not occur to him that she could care for
+himself. He was older than she, nearly twenty years older, and even
+in his younger years, in the hard struggles of his early life, had
+never regarded himself as a man likely to find favour with women.
+There was in his character much of that modesty for which he gave
+her such infinite credit. Though he thought but little of most of
+those around him, he thought also but little of himself. It would
+break his heart to ask and be refused; but he could, he fancied,
+live very well without Mary Masters. Such, at any rate, had been
+his own idea of himself hitherto; and now, though he was driven to
+think much of her, though on the present occasion he was forced to
+act on her behalf, he would not tell himself that he wanted to take
+her for his wife. He constantly assured himself that he wanted no
+wife, that for him a solitary life would be the best. But yet it
+made him wretched when he reflected that some man would assuredly
+marry Mary Masters. He had heard of that excellent but empty-head
+young man Mr. Surtees. When the idea occurred to him he found
+himself reviling Mr. Surtees as being of all men the most puny, the
+most unmanly, and the least worthy of marrying Mary Masters. Now
+that Mr. Twentyman was certainly disposed of, he almost became
+jealous of Mr. Surtees.
+
+It was not till three or four o'clock in the afternoon that he went
+out on his commission to the attorney's house, having made up his
+mind that he would do everything in his power to facilitate Mary's
+proposed return to Cheltenham. He asked first for Mr. Masters and
+then for Miss Masters, and learned that they were both out
+together. But he had been desired also to see Mrs. Masters, and on
+inquiring for her was again shown into the grand drawing-room. Here
+he remained a quarter of an hour while the lady of the house was
+changing her cap and apron, which he spent in convincing himself
+that this house was altogether an unfit residence for Mary. In the
+chamber in which he was standing it was clear enough that no human
+being ever lived. Mary's drawing-room ought to be a bower in which
+she at least might pass her time with books and music and pretty
+things around her. The squalor of the real living room might be
+conjectured from the untouched cleanliness of this useless sanctum.
+At last the lady came to him and welcomed him with very grim
+courtesy. As a client of her husband he was very well;--but as a
+nephew of Lady Ushant he was injurious. It was he who had carried
+Mary away to Cheltenham where she had been instigated to throw her
+bread-and-butter into the fire,--as Mrs. Masters expressed it,--by
+that pernicious old woman Lady Ushant. "Mr. Masters is out
+walking," she said. Reginald clearly understood by the contempt
+which she threw almost unconsciously into her words that she did
+not approve of her husband going out walking at such an hour.
+
+"I had a message for him--and also for you. My aunt, Lady Ushant,
+is very anxious that your daughter Mary should return to her at
+Cheltenham for a while." The proposition to Mrs. Masters' thinking
+was so monstrous, and was at the same time so unexpected, that it
+almost took away her breath. At any rate she stood for a moment
+speechless. "My aunt is very fond of your daughter," he continued,
+"and if she can be spared would be delighted to have her. Perhaps
+she has written to Miss Masters, but she has asked me to come over
+and see if it can be arranged."
+
+"It cannot be arranged," said Mrs. Masters. "Nothing of the kind
+can be arranged."
+
+"I am sorry for that"
+
+"It is only disturbing the girl, and upsetting her, and filling her
+head full of nonsense. What is she to do at Cheltenham? This is her
+home and here she had better be." Though things had hitherto gone
+very badly, though Larry Twentyman had not shown himself since the
+receipt of the letter, still Mrs. Masters had not abandoned all
+hope. She was fixed in opinion that if her husband were joined with
+her they could still, between them, so break the girl's spirit as
+to force her into a marriage. "As for letters," she continued, "I
+don't know anything about them. There may have been letters but if
+so they have been kept from me. "She was so angry that she could
+not even attempt to conceal her wrath.
+
+"Lady Ushant thinks--" began the messenger.
+
+"Oh yes, Lady Ushant is very well of course. Lady Ushant is your
+aunt, Mr. Morton, and I haven't anything to say against her. But
+Lady Ushant can't do any good to that girl. She has got her bread
+to earn, and if she won't do it one way then she must do it
+another. She's obstinate and pigheaded, that's the truth of it. And
+her father's just as bad. He has taken her out now merely because
+she likes to be idle, and to go about thinking herself a fine lady.
+Lady Ushant doesn't do her any good at all by cockering her up."
+
+"My aunt, you know, saw very much of her when she was young."
+
+"I know she did, Mr. Morton; and all that has to be undone,--and I
+have got the undoing of it. Lady Ushant is one thing and her papa's
+business is quite another. At any rate if I have my say she'll not
+go to Cheltenham any more. I don't mean to be uncivil to you, Mr.
+Morton, or to say anything as oughtn't to be said of your aunt. But
+when you can't make people anything but what they are, it's my
+opinion that it's best to leave them alone. Good day to you, sir,
+and I hope you understand what it is that I mean."
+
+Then Morton retreated and went down the stairs, leaving the lady in
+possession of her own grandeur. He had not quite understood what
+she had meant, and was still wondering at the energy of her
+opposition. when he met Mary herself at the front door. Her father
+was not with her, but his retreating form was to be seen entering
+the portal of the Bush. "Oh, Mr. Morton!" exclaimed Mary surprised
+to have the house-door opened for her by him.
+
+"I have come with a message from my aunt"
+
+"She told me that you would do so."
+
+"Lady Ushant would of course be delighted to have you if it could
+be arranged."
+
+"Then Lady Ushant will be disappointed," said Mrs. Masters who had
+descended the stairs. "There has been something going on behind my
+back."
+
+"I wrote to Lady Ushant," said Mary.
+
+"I call that sly and deceitful;--very sly and very deceitful. If I
+know it you won't stir out of this house to go to Cheltenham. I
+wonder Lady Ushant would go to put you up in that way against those
+you're bound to obey."
+
+"I thought Mrs. Masters had been told," said Reginald.
+
+"Papa did know that I wrote," said Mary.
+
+"Yes;--and in this way a conspiracy is to be made up in the House!
+If she goes to Cheltenham I won't stay here. You may tell Lady
+Ushant that I say that. I'm not going to be one thing one day and
+another, and to be made a tool of all round." By this time Dolly
+and Kate had cone down from the upper regions and were standing
+behind their mother. "What do you two do there, standing gaping
+like fools," said the angry mother. "I suppose your father has gone
+over to the public-house again. That, miss, is what comes from your
+pig headiness. Didn't I tell you that you were ruining everybody
+belonging to you?" Before all this was over Reginald Morton had
+escaped, feeling that he could do no good to either side by
+remaining a witness to such a scene. He must take some other
+opportunity of finding the attorney and of learning from him
+whether he intended that his daughter should be allowed to accept
+Lady Ushant's invitation.
+
+Poor Mary as she shrunk into the house was nearly heartbroken. That
+such things should be at all was very dreadful, but that the scene
+should have taken place in the presence of Reginald Morton was an
+aggravation of the misery which nearly overwhelmed her. How could
+she make him understand whence had arisen her stepmother's anger
+and that she herself had been neither sly nor deceitful nor
+pigheaded?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+"But there is some one"
+
+
+When Mr. Masters had gone across to the Bush his purpose had
+certainly been ignoble, but it had had no reference to brandy and
+water. And the allusion made by Mrs. Masters to the probable ruin
+which was to come from his tendencies in that direction had been
+calumnious, for she knew that the man was not given to excess in
+liquor. But as he approached his own house he bethought himself
+that it would not lead to domestic comfort if he were seen
+returning from his walk with Mary, and he had therefore made some
+excuse as to the expediency of saying a word to Runciman whom he
+espied at his own door. He said his word to Runciman, and so
+loitered away perhaps a quarter of an hour, and then went back to
+his office. But his wife had kept her anger at burning heat and
+pounced upon him before he had taken his seat. Sundown was there
+copying, sitting with his eyes intent on the board before him as
+though he were quite unaware of the sudden entrance of his master's
+wife. She in her fury did not regard Sundown in the least, but at
+once commenced her attack. "What is all this, Mr. Masters," she
+said, "about Lady Ushant and going to Cheltenham? I won't have any
+going to Cheltenham and that's flat" Now the attorney had
+altogether made up his mind that his daughter should go to
+Cheltenham if her friend would receive her. Whatever might be the
+consequences, they must be borne. But he thought it best to say
+nothing at the first moment of the attack, and simply turned his
+sorrowful round face in silence up to the partner of all his cares
+and the source of so many of them. "There have been letters,"
+continued the lady;--"letters which nobody has told me nothing
+about. That proud peacock from Hoppet Hall has been here, as though
+he had nothing to do but carry Mary away about the country just as
+he pleased. Mary won't go to Cheltenham with him nor yet without
+him;--not if I am to remain here."
+
+"Where else should you remain, my dear?" asked the attorney.
+
+"I'd sooner go into the workhouse than have all this turmoil.
+That's where we are all likely to go if you pass your time between
+walking about with that minx and the public-house opposite." Then
+the attorney was aware that he had been watched, and his spirit
+began to rise within him. He looked at Sundown, but the man went on
+copying quicker than ever.
+
+"My dear," said Mr. Masters, "you shouldn't talk in that way before
+the clerk. I wanted to speak to Mr. Runciman, and, as to the
+workhouse, I don't know that there is any more danger now than
+there has been for the last twenty years."
+
+"It's alway's off and on as far as I can see. Do you mean to send
+that girl to Cheltenham?"
+
+"I rather think she had better go--for a time."
+
+"Then I shall leave this house and go with my girls to Norrington."
+Now this threat, which had been made before, was quite without
+meaning. Mrs. Masters' parents were both dead, and her brother, who
+had a large family, certainly would not receive her. "I won't
+remain here, Mr. Masters, if I ain't to be mistress of my own
+house. What is she to go to Cheltenham for, I should like to know?"
+
+Then Sundown was desired by his wretched employer to go into the
+back settlement and the poor man prepared himself for the battle as
+well as he could. "She is not happy here," he said.
+
+"Whose fault is that? Why shouldn't she be happy? Of course you
+know what it means. She has got round you because she wants to be a
+fine lady. What means have you to make her a fine lady? If you was
+to die to-morrow what would there be for any of 'em? My little bit
+of money is all gone. Let her stay here and be made to marry
+Lawrence Twentyman. That's what I say."
+
+"She will never marry Mr. Twentyman."
+
+"Not if you go on like this she won't. If you'd done your duty by
+her like a real father instead of being afraid of her when she puts
+on her tantrums; she'd have been at Chowton Farm by this time."
+
+It was clear to him that now was the time not to be afraid of his
+wife when she put on her tantrums,--or at any rate, to appear not
+to be afraid. "She has been very unhappy of late."
+
+"Oh, unhappy! She's been made more of than anybody else in this
+house."
+
+"And a change will do her good. She has my permission to go;--and
+go she shall!" Then the word had been spoken.
+
+"She shall!"
+
+"It is very much for the best. While she is here the house is made
+wretched for us all."
+
+"It'll be wretcheder yet; unless it would make you happy to see me
+dead on the threshold,--which I believe it would. As for her, she's
+an ungrateful, sly, wicked slut"
+
+"She has done nothing wicked that I know of."
+
+"Not writing to that old woman behind my back?"
+
+"She told me what she was doing and showed me the letter."
+
+"Yes; of course. The two of you were in it. Does that make it any
+better? I say it was sly and wicked; and you were sly and wicked as
+well as she. She has got the better of you, and now you are going
+to send her away from the only chance she'll ever get of having a
+decent home of her own over her head."
+
+"There's nothing more to be said about it, my dear. She'll go to
+Lady Ushant" Having thus pronounced his dictum with all the marital
+authority he was able to assume he took his hat and sallied forth.
+Mrs. Masters, when she was left alone, stamped her foot and hit the
+desk with a ruler that was lying there. Then she went up-stairs and
+threw herself on her bed in a paroxysm of weeping and wailing.
+
+Mr. Masters, when he closed his door, looked up the street and down
+the street and then again went across to the Bush. Mr. Runciman was
+still there, and was standing with a letter in his hand, while one
+of the grooms from Rufford Hall was holding a horse beside him.
+"Any answer, Mr. Runciman?" said the groom.
+
+"Only to tell his lordship that everything will be ready for him.
+You'd better go through and give the horse a feed of corn, and get
+a bit of something to eat and a glass of beer yourself." The man
+wasn't slow to do as he was bid;--and in this way the Bush had
+become very popular with the servants of the gentry around the
+place. "His lordship is to be here from Friday to Sunday with a
+party, Mr. Masters."
+
+"Oh, indeed."
+
+"For the end of the shooting. And who do you think he has asked to
+be one of the party?"
+
+"Not Mr. Reginald?"
+
+"I don't think they ever spoke in their lives. Who but Larry
+Twentyman!"
+
+"No!"
+
+"It'll be the making of Larry. I only hope he won't cock his beaver
+too high."
+
+"Is he coming?"
+
+"I suppose so. He'll be sure to come. His Lordship only tells me
+that there are to be six of 'em on Saturday and five on Friday
+night. But the lad there knew who they all were. There's Mr.
+Surbiton and Captain Battersby and Sir George are to come over with
+his lordship from Rufford. And young Mr. Hampton is to join them
+here, and Larry Twentyman is to shoot with them on Saturday and
+dine afterwards. Won't those two Botseys be jealous; that's all?"
+
+"It only shows what they think of Larry," said the attorney.
+
+"Larry Twentyman is a very good fellow," said the landlord. "I
+don't know a better fellow round Dillsborough, or one who is more
+always on the square. But he's weak. You know him as well as I, Mr.
+Masters."
+
+"He's not so weak but what he can keep what he's got."
+
+"This'll be the way to try him. He'd melt away like water into sand
+if he were to live for a few weeks with such men as his Lordship's
+friends. I suppose there's no chance of his taking a wife home to
+Chowton with him?" The attorney shook his head. "That'd be the
+making of him, Mr. Masters; a good girl like that who'd keep him at
+home. If he takes it to heart he'll burst out somewhere and spend a
+lot of money."
+
+The attorney declined Mr. Runciman's offer of a glass of beer and
+slowly made his way round the corner of the inn by Hobb's gate to
+the front door of Hoppet Hall. Then he passed on to the churchyard,
+still thinking of the misery of his position. When he reached the
+church he turned back, still going very slowly, and knocked at the
+door of Hoppet Hall. He was shown at once by Reginald's old
+housekeeper up to the library, and there in a few minutes he was
+joined by the master of the house. "I was over looking for you an
+hour or two ago," said Reginald.
+
+"I heard you were there, Mr. Morton, and so I thought I would come
+to you. You didn't see Mary?"
+
+"I just saw her,--but could hardly say much. She had written to my
+aunt about going to Cheltenham."
+
+"I saw the letter before she sent it, Mr. Morton."
+
+"So she told me. My aunt would be delighted to have her, but it
+seems that Mrs. Masters does not wish her to go."
+
+"There is some trouble about it, Mr. Morton;--but I may as well
+tell you at once that I wish her to go. She would be better for
+awhile at Cheltenham with such a lady as your aunt than she can be
+at home. Her stepmother and she cannot agree on a certain point. I
+dare say you know what it is, Mr. Morton?"
+
+"In regard, I suppose, to Mr. Twentyman?"
+
+"Just that. Mrs. Masters thinks that Mr. Twentyman would make an
+excellent husband. And so do I. There's nothing in the world
+against him, and as compared with me he's a rich man. I couldn't
+give the poor girl any fortune, and he wouldn't want any. But money
+isn't everything."
+
+"No indeed."
+
+"He's an industrious steady young man too, and he has had my word
+with him all through. But I can't compel my girl to marry him if
+she don't like him. I can't even try to compel her. She's as good a
+girl as ever stirred about a house."
+
+"I can well believe that"
+
+"And nothing would take such a load off me as to know that she was
+going to be well married. But as she don't like the young man well
+enough, I won't have her hardly used."
+
+"Mrs. Masters perhaps is hard to her."
+
+"God forbid I should say anything against my wife. I never did, and
+I won't now. But Mary will be better away; and if Lady Ushant will
+be good enough to take her, she shall go."
+
+"When will she be ready, Mr. Masters?"
+
+"I must ask her about that;--in a week perhaps, or ten days."
+
+"She is quite decided against the young man?"
+
+"Quite. At the bidding of all of us she said she'd take two months
+to think of it. But before the time was up she wrote to him to say
+it could never be. It quite upset my wife; because it would have
+been such an excellent arrangement"
+
+Reginald wished to learn more but hardly knew how to ask the father
+questions. Yet, as he had been trusted so far, he thought that he
+might be trusted altogether. "I must own," he said, "that I think
+that Mr. Twentyman would hardly be a fit husband for your
+daughter."
+
+"He is a very good young man."
+
+"Very likely;--but she is something more than a very good young
+woman. A young lady with her gifts will be sure to settle well in
+life some day." The attorney shook his head. He had lived long
+enough to see many young ladies with good gifts find it difficult
+to settle in life; and perhaps that mysterious poem which Reginald
+found in Mary's eyes was neither visible nor audible to Mary's
+father. "I did hear," said Reginald, "that Mr. Surtees--"
+
+"There's nothing in that."
+
+"Oh, indeed. I thought that perhaps as she is so determined not to
+do as her friends would wish, that there might be something else."
+He said this almost as a question, looking close into the
+attorney's eyes as he spoke.
+
+"It is always possible," said Mr. Masters.
+
+"But you don't think there is anybody?"
+
+"It is very hard to say, Mr. Morton."
+
+"You don't expect anything of that sort?"
+
+Then the attorney broke forth into sudden confidence. "To tell the
+truth then, Mr. Morton, I think there is somebody, though who it is
+I know as little as the baby unborn. She sees nobody here at
+Dillsborough to be intimate with. She isn't one of those who would
+write letters or do anything on the sly."
+
+"But there is some one?"
+
+"She told me as much herself. That is, when I asked her she would
+not deny it. Then I thought that perhaps it might be somebody at
+Cheltenham."
+
+"I think not. She was there so short a time, Mr. Morton; and Lady
+Ushant would be the last person in the world to let such a thing as
+that go on without telling her parents. I don't think there was any
+one at Cheltenham. She was only there a month."
+
+"I did fancy that perhaps that was one reason why she should want
+to go back."
+
+"I don't believe it. I don't in the least believe it," said
+Reginald enthusiastically. "My aunt would have been sure to have
+seen it. It would have been impossible without her knowledge. But
+there is somebody?"
+
+"I think so, Mr. Masters;--and if she does go to Cheltenham perhaps
+Lady Ushant had better know." To this Reginald agreed, or half
+agreed. It did not seem to him to be of much consequence what might
+be done at Cheltenham. He felt certain that the lover was not
+there. And yet who was there at Dillsborough? He had seen those
+young Botseys about. Could it possibly be one of them? And during
+the Christmas vacation the rector's scamp of a son had been home
+from Oxford; to whom Mary Masters had barely spoken. Was it young
+Mainwaring? Or could it be possible that she had turned an eye of
+favour on Dr. Nupper's elegantly-dressed assistant. There was
+nothing too monstrous for him to suggest to himself as soon as the
+attorney had left him.
+
+But there was a young man in Dillsborough,--one man at any rate
+young enough to be a lover,--of whom Reginald did not think; as to
+whom, had his name been suggested as that of the young man to whom
+Mary's heart had been given, he would have repudiated such a
+suggestion with astonishment and anger. But now, having heard this
+from the girl's father, he was again vexed, and almost as much
+disgusted as when he had first become aware that Larry Twentyman
+was a suitor for her hand. Why should he trouble himself about a
+girl who was ready to fall in love with the first man that she saw
+about the place? He tried to pacify himself by some such question
+as this, but tried in vain.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+The Dinner at the Bush
+
+
+Here is the letter which at his brother-in-law's advice Lord
+Rufford wrote to Arabella:
+
+Rufford, 3 February, 1875.
+
+My Dear Miss Trefoil,
+
+It is a great grief to me that I should have to answer your letter
+in a manner that will I fear not be satisfactory to you. I can only
+say that you have altogether mistaken me if you think that I have
+said anything which was intended as an offer of marriage. I cannot
+but be much flattered by your good opinion. I have had much
+pleasure from our acquaintance, and I should have been glad if it
+could have been continued. But I have had no thoughts of marriage.
+If I have said a word which has, unintentionally on my part, given
+rise to such an idea I can only beg your pardon heartily. If I were
+to add more after what I have now said perhaps you would take it as
+impertinence.
+
+                         Yours most sincerely,
+                                Rufford.
+
+He had desired to make various additions and suggestions which
+however had all been disallowed by Sir George Penwether. He had
+proposed among other things to ask her whether he should keep Jack
+for her for the remainder of the season or whether he should send
+the horse elsewhere, but Sir George would not allow a word in the
+letter about Jack. "You did give her the horse then?" he asked.
+
+"I had hardly any alternative as the things went. She would have
+been quite welcome to the horse if she would have let me alone
+afterwards."
+
+"No doubt; but when young gentlemen give young ladies horses--"
+
+"I know all about it, my dear fellow. Pray don't preach more than
+you can help. Of course I have been an infernal ass. I know all
+that. But as the horse is hers--"
+
+"Say nothing about the horse. Were she to ask for it of course she
+could have it; but that is not likely."
+
+"And you think I had better say nothing else."
+
+"Not a word. Of course it will be shown to all her friends and may
+possibly find its way into print. I don't know what steps such a
+young lady may be advised to take. Her uncle is a man of honour.
+Her father is an ass and careless about everything. Mistletoe will
+not improbably feel himself bound to act as though he were her
+brother. They will, of course, all think you to be a rascal,--and
+will say so."
+
+"If Mistletoe says so I'll horsewhip him."
+
+"No you won't, Rufford. You will remember that this woman is a
+woman, and that a woman's friends are bound to stand up for her.
+After all your hands are not quite clean in the matter."
+
+"I am heavy enough on myself Penwether. I have been a fool and I
+own it. But I have done nothing unbecoming a gentleman." He was
+almost tempted to quarrel with his brother-in-law, but at last he
+allowed the letter to be sent just as Sir George had written it,
+and then tried to banish the affair from his mind for the present
+so that he might enjoy his life till the next hostile step should
+be taken by the Trefoil clan.
+
+When Larry Twentyman received the lord's note, which was left at
+Chowton Farm by Hampton's groom, he was in the lowest depth of
+desolation. He had intended to hunt that day in compliance with
+John Morton's advice, but had felt himself quite unable to make the
+effort. It was not only that he had been thrown over by Mary
+Masters, but that everybody knew that he had been thrown over. If
+he had kept the matter secret, perhaps he might have borne it; but
+it is so hard to bear a sorrow of which all one's neighbours are
+conscious. When a man is reduced by poverty to the drinking of beer
+instead of wine, it is not the loss of the wine that is so heavy on
+him as the consciousness that those around him are aware of the
+reason. And he is apt to extend his idea of this consciousness to a
+circle that is altogether indifferent of the fact. That a man
+should fail in his love seems to him to be of all failures the most
+contemptible, and Larry thought that there would not be one in the
+field unaware of his miserable rejection. In spite of his mother's
+prayers he had refused to go, and had hung about the farm all day.
+
+Then there came to him Lord Rufford's note. It had been quite
+unexpected, and a month or two before, when his hopes had still
+been high in regard to Mary Masters, would have filled him with
+delight. It was the foible of his life to be esteemed a gentleman,
+and his poor ambition to be allowed to live among men of higher
+social standing than himself. Those dinners of Lord Rufford's at
+the Bush had been a special grief to him. The young lord had been
+always courteous to him in the field, and he had been able, as he
+thought, to requite such courtesy by little attentions in the way
+of game preserving. If pheasants from Dillsborough Wood ate
+Goarly's wheat, so did they eat Larry Twentyman's barley. He had a
+sportsman's heart, above complaint as to such matters, and had
+always been neighbourly to the lord. No doubt pheasants and hares
+were left at his house whenever there was shooting in the
+neighbourhood, which to his mother afforded great consolation. But
+Larry did not care for the pheasants and hares. Had he so pleased
+he could have shot them on his own land; but he did not preserve,
+and, as a good neighbour, he regarded the pheasants and hares as
+Lord Rufford's property. He felt that he was behaving as a
+gentleman as well as a neighbour, and that he should be treated as
+such. Fred Botsey had dined at the Bush with Lord Rufford, and
+Larry looked on Fred as in no way better than himself.
+
+Now at last the invitation had come. He was asked to a day's
+shooting and to dine with the lord and his party at the inn. How
+pleasant would it be to give a friendly nod to Runciman as he went
+into the room, and to assert afterwards in Botsey's hearing
+something of the joviality of the evening. Of course Hampton would
+be there as Hampton's servant had brought the note, and he was very
+anxious to be on friendly terms with Mr. Hampton. Next to the lord
+himself there was no one in the hunt who carried his head so high
+as young Hampton.
+
+But there arose to him the question whether all this had not
+arrived too late! Of what good is it to open up the true delights
+of life to a man when you have so scotched and wounded him that he
+has no capability left of enjoying anything? As he sat lonely with
+his pipe in his mouth he thought for a while that he would decline
+the invitation. The idea of selling Chowton Farm and of
+establishing himself at some Antipodes in which the name of Mary
+Masters should never have been heard, was growing upon him. Of what
+use would the friendship of Lord Rufford be to him at the other
+side of the globe?
+
+At last, however, the hope of giving that friendly nod to Runciman
+overcame him, and he determined to go. He wrote a note, which
+caused him no little thought, presenting his compliments to Lord
+Rufford and promising to meet his lordship's party at Dillsborough
+Wood.
+
+The shooting went off very well and Larry behaved himself with
+propriety. He wanted the party to come in and lunch, and had given
+sundry instructions to his mother on that head. But they did not
+remain near to his place throughout the day, and his efforts in
+that direction were not successful. Between five and six he went
+home, and at half-past seven appeared at the Bush attired in his
+best. He never yet had sat down with a lord, and his mind misgave
+him a little; but he had spirit enough to look about for
+Runciman,--who, however, was not to be seen.
+
+Sir George was not there, but the party had been made up, as
+regarded the dinner, by the addition of Captain Glomax, who had
+returned from hunting. Captain Glomax was in high glee, having
+had,--as he declared,--the run of the season. When a Master has
+been deserted on any day by the choice spirits of his hunt he is
+always apt to boast to them that he had on that occasion the run of
+the season. He had taken a fox from Impington right across to
+Hogsborough, which, as every one knows, is just on the borders of
+the U.R.U., had then run him for five miles into Lord Chiltern's
+country, and had killed him in the centre of the Brake Hunt, after
+an hour and a half, almost without a check. "It was one of those
+straight things that one doesn't often see now-a-days," said
+Glomax.
+
+"Any pace?" asked Lord Rufford.
+
+"Very good, indeed, for the first forty minutes. I wish you had all
+been there. It was better fun I take it than shooting rabbits."
+
+Then Hampton put the Captain through his facings as to time and
+distance and exact places that had been passed, and ended by
+expressing an opinion that he could have kicked his hat as fast on
+foot. Whereupon the Captain begged him to try, and hinted that he
+did not know the country. In answer to which Hampton offered to bet
+a five-pound note that young Jack Runce would say that the pace had
+been slow. Jack was the son of the old farmer whom the Senator had
+so disgusted, and was supposed to know what he was about on a
+horse. But Glomax declined the bet saying that he did not care a --
+for Jack Runce. He knew as much about pace as any farmer, or for
+the matter of that any gentleman, in Ufford or Rufford, and the
+pace for forty minutes had been very good. Nevertheless all the
+party were convinced that the "thing" had been so slow that it had
+not been worth riding to;--a conviction which is not uncommon with
+gentlemen when they have missed a run. In all this discussion poor
+Larry took no great part though he knew the country as well as any
+one. Larry had not as yet got over the awe inspired by the lord in
+his black coat.
+
+Perhaps Larry's happiest moment in the evening was when Runciman
+himself brought in the soup, for at that moment Lord Rufford put
+his hand on his shoulder and desired him to sit down,--and Runciman
+both heard and saw it. And at dinner, when the champagne had been
+twice round, he became more comfortable. The conversation got upon
+Goarly, and in reference to that matter he was quite at home. "It's
+not my doing," said Lord Rufford. "I have instructed no one to keep
+him locked up."
+
+"It's a very good job from all that I can hear," said Tom Surbiton.
+
+"All I did was to get Mr. Masters here to take up the case for me,
+and I learned from him to-day that the rascal had already agreed to
+take the money I offered. He only bargains that it shall be paid
+into his own hands,--no doubt desiring to sell the attorney he has
+employed."
+
+"Bearside has got his money from the American Senator, my Lord,"
+said Larry.
+
+"They may fight it out among them. I don't care who gets the money
+or who pays it as long as I'm not imposed upon."
+
+"We must proceed against that man Scrobby," said Glomax with all
+the authority of a Master.
+
+"You'll never convict him on Goarly's evidence," said the Lord.
+
+Then Larry could give them further information. Nickem had positively
+traced the purchase of the red herrings. An old woman in Rufford was
+ready to swear that she herself had sold them to Mrs. Scrobby. Tom
+Surbiton suggested that the possession of red herrings was not of itself
+a crime. Hampton thought that it was corroborative. Captain Batsby
+wanted to know whether any of the herrings were still in existence, so
+that they could be sworn to. Glomax was of opinion that villainy of so
+deep a dye could not have taken place in any other hunting country in
+England.
+
+"There's been strychnine put down in the Brake too," said Hampton.
+
+"But not in cartloads," said the Master.
+
+"I rather think," said Larry, "that Nickem knows where the
+strychnine was bought. That'll make a clear case of it. Hanging
+would be too good for such a scoundrel" This was said after the
+third glass of champagne, but the opinion was one which was well
+received by the whole company. After that the Senator's conduct was
+discussed, and they all agreed that in the whole affair that was
+the most marvellous circumstance. "They must be queer people over
+there," said Larry.
+
+"Brutes!" said Glomax. "They once tried a pack of hounds somewhere
+in one of the States, but they never could run a yard."
+
+There was a good deal of wine drank, which was not unusual at Lord
+Rufford's dinners. Most of the company were seasoned vessels, and
+none of them were much the worse for what they drank. But the
+generous wine got to Larry's heart, and perhaps made his brain a
+little soft. Lord Rufford remembering what had been said about the
+young man's misery tried to console him by attention; and as the
+evening wore on, and when the second cigars had been lit all round,
+the two were seated together in confidential conversation at a
+corner of the table: "Yes, my lord; I think I shall hook it," said
+Larry. "Something has occurred that has made the place not quite so
+comfortable to me; and as it is all my own I think I shall sell
+it."
+
+"We should miss you immensely in the hunt," said Lord Rufford, who
+of course knew what the something was.
+
+"It's very kind of you to say so, my lord. But there are things
+which may make a man go."
+
+"Nothing serious, I hope."
+
+"Just a young woman, my lord. I don't want it talked about, but I
+don't mind mentioning it to you."
+
+"You should never let those troubles touch you so closely," said
+his lordship, whose own withers at this moment were by no means
+unwrung.
+
+"I dare say not. But if you feel it, how are you to help it? I
+shall do very well when I get away. Chowton Farm is not the only
+spot in the world."
+
+"But a man so fond of hunting as you are!"
+
+"Well;--yes. I shall miss the hunting, my lord,--shan't I? If Mr.
+Morton don't buy the place I should like it to go to your lordship.
+I offered it to him first because it came from them."
+
+"Quite right. By-the-bye, I hear that Mr. Morton is very ill."
+
+"So I heard," said Larry. "Nupper has been with him, I know, and I
+fancy they have sent for somebody from London. I don't know that he
+cares much about the land. He thinks more of the foreign parts he's
+always in. I don't believe we should fall out about the price, my
+lord." Then Lord Rufford explained that he would not go into that
+matter just at present, but that if the place were in the market he
+would certainly like to buy it. He, however, did as John Morton had
+done before, and endeavoured to persuade the poor fellow that he
+should not alter the whole tenor of his life because a young lady
+would not look at him.
+
+"Good night, Mr. Runciman," said Larry as he made his way
+down-stairs to the yard. "We've had an uncommon pleasant evening."
+
+"I'm glad you've enjoyed yourself, Larry." Larry thought that his
+Christian name from the hotel keeper's lips had never sounded so
+offensively as on the present occasion.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+Miss Trefoil's Decision
+
+
+Lord Rufford's letter reached Arabella at her cousin's house, in
+due course, and was handed to her in the morning as she came down
+to breakfast. The envelope bore his crest and coronet, and she was
+sure that more than one pair of eyes had already seen it. Her
+mother had been in the room some time before her, and would of
+course know that the letter was from Lord Rufford. An indiscreet
+word or two had been said in the hearing of Mrs. Connop Green,--as
+to which Arabella had already scolded her mother most vehemently,
+and Mrs. Connop Green too would probably have seen the letter, and
+would know that it had come from the lover of whom boasts had been
+made. The Connop Greens would be ready to worship Arabella down to
+the very soles of her feet if she were certainly,--without a
+vestige of doubt,--engaged to be the wife of Lord Rufford. But
+there had been so many previous mistakes! And they, too, had heard
+of Mr. John Morton. They too were a little afraid of Arabella
+though she was undoubtedly the niece of a Duke.
+
+She was aware now,--as always,--how much depended on her personal
+bearing; but this was a moment of moments! She would fain have kept
+the letter, and have opened it in the retirement of her own room.
+She knew its terrible importance, and was afraid of her own
+countenance when she should read it. All the hopes of her life were
+contained in that letter. But were she to put it in her pocket she
+would betray her anxiety by doing so. She found herself bound to
+open it and read it at once,--and she did open it and read it.
+
+After all it was what she had expected. It was very decided, very
+short, very cold, and carrying with it no sign of weakness. But it
+was of such a letter that she had thought when she resolved that
+she would apply to Lord Mistletoe, and endeavour to put the whole
+family of Trefoil in arms. She had been,--so she had assured
+herself,--quite sure that that kind, loving response which she had
+solicited, would not be given to her. But yet the stern fact, now
+that it was absolutely in her hands, almost overwhelmed her. She
+could not restrain the dull dead look of heart-breaking sorrow
+which for a few moments clouded her face,--a look which took away
+all her beauty, lengthening her cheeks, and robbing her eyes of
+that vivacity which it was the task of her life to assume. "Is
+anything the matter, my dear?" asked Mrs. Connop Green.
+
+Then she made a final effort,--an heroic effort. "What do you
+think, mamma?" she said, paying no attention to her cousin's
+inquiry.
+
+"What is it, Arabella?"
+
+"Jack got some injury that day at Peltry, and is so lame that they
+don't know whether he'll ever put his foot to the ground again"
+
+"Poor fellow," said Mr. Green. "Who is Jack?"
+
+"Jack is a horse, Mr. Green; and such a horse that one cannot but
+be sorry for him. Poor Jack! I don't know any Christian whose
+lameness would be such a nuisance."
+
+"Does Lord Rufford write about his horses?" asked Mrs. Connop
+Green, thus betraying that knowledge as to the letter which she had
+obtained from the envelope.
+
+"If you must know all the truth about it," said Arabella, "the
+horse is my horse, and not Lord Rufford's. And as he is the only
+horse I have got, and as he's the dearest horse in all the world,
+you must excuse my being a little sorry about him. Poor Jack!"
+After that the breakfast was eaten and everybody in the room
+believed the story of the horse's lameness--except Lady Augustus.
+
+When breakfast and the loitering after breakfast were well over, so
+that she could escape without exciting any notice, she made her way
+up to her bedroom. In a few minutes,--so that again there should be
+nothing noticeable,--her mother followed her. But her door was
+locked. "It is I, Arabella," said her mother.
+
+"You can't come in at present, I am busy."
+
+"But Arabella."
+
+"You can't come in at present, mamma." Then Lady Augustus slowly
+glided away to her own room and there waited for tidings.
+
+The whole form of the girl's face was altered when she was alone.
+Her features in themselves were not lovely. Her cheeks and chin
+were heavy. Her brow was too low, and her upper lip too long. Her
+nose and teeth were good, and would have been very handsome had
+they belonged to a man. Her complexion had always been good till it
+had been injured by being improved,--and so was the carriage of her
+head and the outside lines of her bust and figure, and her large
+eyes, though never soft, could be bright and sparkle. Skill had
+done much for her and continued effort almost more. But now the
+effort was dropped and that which skill had done turned against
+her. She was haggard, lumpy, and almost hideous in her bewildered
+grief.
+
+Had there been a word of weakness in the short letter she might
+have founded upon it some hope. It did not occur to her that he had
+had the letter written for him, and she was astonished at its curt
+strength. How could he dare to say that she had mistaken him? Had
+she not lain in his arms while he embraced her? How could he have
+found the courage to say that he had had no thought of marriage
+when he had declared to her that he loved her? She must have known
+that she had hunted him as a fox is hunted;--and yet she believed
+that she was being cruelly ill-used. For a time all that dependence
+on Lord Mistletoe and her uncle deserted her. What effect could
+they have on a man who would write such a letter as that? Had she
+known that the words were the words of his brother-in-law, even
+that would have given her some hope.
+
+But what should she do? Whatever steps she took she must take at
+once. And she must tell her mother. Her mother's help would be
+necessary to her now in whatever direction she might turn her mind.
+She almost thought that she would abandon him without another word.
+She had been strong in her reliance on family aid till the time for
+invoking it had come; but now she believed that it would be
+useless. Could it be that such a man as this would be driven into
+marriage by the interference of Lord Mistletoe! She would much like
+to bring down some punishment on his head; but in doing so she
+would cut all other ground from under her own feet. There were
+still open to her Patagonia and the Paragon.
+
+She hated the Paragon, and she recoiled with shuddering from the
+idea of Patagonia. But as for hating,--she hated Lord Rufford most.
+And what was there that she loved? She tried to ask herself some
+question even as to that. There certainly was no man for whom she
+cared a straw; nor had there been for the last six or eight years.
+Even when he was kissing her she was thinking of her built-up hair,
+of her pearl powder, her paint, and of possible accidents and
+untoward revelations. The loan of her lips had been for use only,
+and not for any pleasure which she had even in pleasing him. In her
+very swoon she had felt the need of being careful at all points. It
+was all labour, and all care,--and, alas, alas, all disappointment!
+
+But there was a future through which she must live. How might she
+best avoid the misfortune of poverty for the twenty, thirty, or
+forty years which might be accorded to her? What did it matter whom
+or what she hated? The housemaid probably did not like cleaning
+grates; nor the butcher killing sheep; nor the sempstress stitching
+silks. She must live. And if she could only get away from her
+mother that in itself would be something. Most people were
+distasteful to her, but no one so much as her mother. Here in
+England she knew that she was despised among the people with whom
+she lived. And now she would be more despised than ever. Her uncle
+and aunt, though she disliked them, had been much to her. It was
+something,--that annual visit to Mistletoe, though she never
+enjoyed it when she was there. But she could well understand that
+after such a failure as this, after such a game, played before
+their own eyes in their own house, her uncle and her aunt would
+drop her altogether. She had played this game so boldly that there
+was no retreat. Would it not therefore be better that she should
+fly altogether?
+
+There were a time on that morning in which she had made up her mind
+that she would write a most affectionate letter to Morton, telling
+him that her people had now agreed to his propositions as to
+settlement, and assuring him that from henceforward she would be
+all his own. She did think that were she to do so she might still
+go with him to Patagonia. But, if so, she must do it at once. The
+delay had already been almost too long. In that case she would not
+say a word in reply to Lord Rufford, and would allow all that to be
+as though it had never been. Then again there arose to her mind the
+remembrance of Rufford Hall, of all the glories, of the triumph
+over everybody. Then again there was the idea of a "forlorn hope."
+She thought that she could have brought herself to do it, if only
+death would have been the alternative of success when she had
+resolved to make the rush.
+
+It was nearly one when she went to her mother and even then she was
+undecided. But the joint agony of the solitude and the doubts had
+been too much for her and she found herself constrained to seek a
+counsellor. "He has thrown you over," said Lady Augustus as soon as
+the door was closed.
+
+"Of course he has," said Arabella walking up the room, and again
+playing her part even before her mother.
+
+"I knew it would be so."
+
+"You knew nothing of the kind, mamma, your saying so is simply an
+untruth. It was you who put me up to it."
+
+"Arabella, that is false."
+
+"It wasn't you, I suppose, who made me throw over Mr. Morton and
+Bragton."
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+"That is so like you, mamma. There isn't a single thing that you do
+or say that you don't deny afterwards." These little compliments
+were so usual among them that at the present moment they excited no
+great danger. "There's his letter. I suppose you had better read
+it." And she chucked the document to her mother.
+
+"It is very decided," said Lady Augustus.
+
+"It is the falsest, the most impudent, and the most scandalous
+letter that a man ever wrote to a woman. I could horsewhip him for
+it myself if I could get near him."
+
+"Is it all over, Arabella?"
+
+"All over! What questions you do ask, mamma! No. It is not all
+over. I'll stick to him like a leech. He proposed to me as plainly
+as any man ever did to any woman. I don't care what people may say
+or think. He hasn't heard the last of me; and so he'll find." And
+thus in her passion she made up her mind that she would not yet
+abandon the hunt.
+
+"What will you do, my dear?"
+
+"What will I do? How am I to say what I will do? If I were standing
+near him with a knife in my hand I would stick it into his heart. I
+would! Mistaken him! Liar! They talk of girls lying; but what girl
+would lie like that?"
+
+"But something must be done"
+
+"If papa were not such a fool as he is, he could manage it all for
+me," said Arabella dutifully. "I must see my father and I must
+dictate a letter for him. Where is papa?"
+
+"In London, I suppose."
+
+"You must come up to London with me tomorrow. We shall have to go
+to his club and get him out. It must be done immediately; and then
+I must see Lord Mistletoe, and I will write to the Duke."
+
+"Would it not be better to write to your papa?" said Lady Augustus,
+not liking the idea of being dragged away so quickly from
+comfortable quarters.
+
+"No; it wouldn't. If you won't go I shall, and you must give me
+some money. I shall write to Lord Rufford too."
+
+And so it was at last decided, the wretched old woman being dragged
+away up to London on some excuse which the Connop Greens were not
+sorry to accept. But on that same afternoon Arabella wrote to Lord
+Rufford:
+
+Your letter has amazed me. I cannot understand it. It seems to be
+almost impossible that it should really have come from you. How can
+you say that I have mistaken you? There has been no mistake. Surely
+that letter cannot have been written by you.
+
+Of course I have been obliged to tell my father everything.
+                               Arabella.
+
+On the following day at about four in the afternoon the mother and
+daughter drove up to the door of Graham's Club in Bond Street, and
+there they found Lord Augustus. With considerable difficulty he was
+induced to come down from the whist room, and was forced into the
+brougham. He was a handsome fat man, with a long grey beard, who
+passed his whole life in eating, drinking, and playing whist, and
+was troubled by no scruples and no principles. He would not cheat
+at cards because it was dangerous and ungentlemanlike, and if
+discovered would lead to his social annihilation; but as to paying
+money that he owed to tradesmen, it never occurred to him as being
+a desirable thing as long as he could get what he wanted without
+doing so. He had expended his own patrimony and his wife's fortune,
+and now lived on an allowance made to him by his brother. Whatever
+funds his wife might have not a shilling of them ever came from
+him. When he began to understand something of the nature of the
+business on hand, he suggested that his brother, the Duke, could do
+what was desirable infinitely better than he could. "He won't think
+anything of me," said Lord Augustus.
+
+"We'll make him think something," said Arabella sternly. "You must
+do it, papa. They'd turn you out of the club if they knew that you
+had refused." Then he looked up in the brougham and snarled at her.
+"Papa, you must copy the letter and sign it."
+
+"How am I to know the truth of it all?" he asked.
+
+"It is quite true," said Lady Augustus. There was very much more of
+it, but at last he was carried away bodily, and in his daughter's
+presence he did write and sign the following letter;--
+
+My Lord,
+
+I have heard from my daughter a story which has surprised me very
+much. It appears that she has been staying with you at Rufford
+Hall, and again at Mistletoe, and that while at the latter place
+you proposed marriage to her. She tells me with heart-breaking
+concern that you have now repudiated your own proposition,--not
+only once made but repeated. Her condition is most distressing. She
+is in all respects your Lordship's equal. As her father I am driven
+to ask you what excuse you have to make, or whether she has
+interpreted you aright.
+
+                    I have the honour to be,
+                      Your very humble servant,
+                        Augustus Trefoil.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+"In these Days one can't make a Man marry"
+
+
+This was going on while Lord Rufford was shooting in the
+neighbourhood of Dillsborough; and when the letter was being put
+into its envelope at the lodgings in Orchard Street, his Lordship
+was just sitting down to dinner with his guests at the Bush. At the
+same time John Morton was lying ill at Bragton;--a fact of which
+Arabella was not aware.
+
+The letter from Lord Augustus was put into the post on Saturday
+evening; but when that line of action was decided upon by Arabella
+she was aware that she must not trust solely to her father. Various
+plans were fermenting in her brain; all, or any of which, if
+carried out at all, must be carried out at the same time and at
+once. There must be no delay, or that final chance of Patagonia
+would be gone. The leader of a forlorn hope, though he be ever so
+resolved to die in the breach, still makes some preparation for his
+escape. Among her plans the first in order was a resolution to see
+Lord Mistletoe whom she knew to be in town. Parliament was to meet
+in the course of the next week and he was to move the address.
+There had been much said about all this at Mistletoe from which she
+knew that he was in London preparing himself among the gentlemen at
+the Treasury. Then she herself would write to the Duke. She thought
+that she could concoct a letter that would move even his heart. She
+would tell him that she was a daughter of the house of Trefoil, and
+"all that kind of thing." She had it distinctly laid down in her
+mind. And then there was another move which she would make before
+she altogether threw up the game. She would force herself into Lord
+Rufford's presence and throw herself into his arms,--at his feet if
+need be,--and force him into compliance. Should she fail, then she,
+too, had an idea what a raging woman could do. But her first step
+now must be with her cousin Mistletoe. She would not write to the
+Duke till she had seen her cousin.
+
+Lord Mistletoe when in London lived at the family house in
+Piccadilly, and thither early on the Sunday morning she sent a note
+to say that she especially wished to see her cousin and would call
+at three o'clock on that day. The messenger brought back word that
+Lord Mistletoe would be at home, and exactly at that hour the hired
+brougham stopped at the door. Her mother had wished to accompany
+her but she had declared that if she could not go alone she would
+not go at all. In that she was right; for whatever favour the young
+heir to the family honours might retain for his fair cousin, who
+was at any rate a Trefoil, he had none for his uncle's wife. She
+was shown into his own sitting-room on the ground floor, and then
+he immediately joined her. "I wouldn't have you shown upstairs," he
+said, "because I understand from your note that you want to see me
+in particular."
+
+"That is so kind of you."
+
+Lord Mistletoe was a young man about thirty, less in stature than
+his father or uncle, but with the same handsome inexpressive face.
+Almost all men take to some line in life. His father was known as a
+manager of estates; his uncle as a whist-player; he was minded to
+follow the steps of his grandfather and be a statesman. He was
+eaten up by no high ambition but lived in the hope that by
+perseverance he might live to become a useful Under Secretary, and
+perhaps, ultimately, a Privy Seal. As he was well educated and
+laborious, and had no objection to sitting for five hours together
+in the House of Commons with nothing to do and sometimes with very
+little to hear, it was thought by his friends that he would
+succeed. "And what is it I can do?" he said with that affable smile
+to which he had already become accustomed as a government
+politician.
+
+"I am in great trouble," said Arabella, leaving her hand for a
+moment in his as she spoke.
+
+"I am sorry for that. What sort of trouble?" He knew that his uncle
+and his aunt's family were always short of money, and was already
+considering to what extent he would go in granting her petition.
+
+"Do you know Lord Rufford?"
+
+"Lord Rufford! Yes;--I know him; but very slightly. My father knows
+him very much better than I do."
+
+"I have just been at Mistletoe, and he was there. My story is so
+hard to tell. I had better out with it at once. Lord Rufford has
+asked me to be his wife."
+
+"The deuce he has! It's a very fine property and quite
+unembarrassed."
+
+"And now he repudiates his engagement" Upon hearing this the young
+lord's face became very long. He also had heard something of the
+past life of his handsome cousin, though he had always felt kindly
+to her. "It was not once only."
+
+"Dear me! I should have thought your father would be the proper
+person."
+
+"Papa has written;--but you know what papa is."
+
+"Does the Duke know of it,--or my mother?"
+
+"It partly went on at Mistletoe. I would tell you the whole story
+if I knew how." Then she did tell him her story, during the
+telling of which he sat profoundly silent. She had gone to stay
+with Lady Penwether at Lord Rufford's house, and then he had first
+told her of his love. Then they had agreed to meet at Mistletoe,
+and she had begged her aunt to receive her. She had not told her
+aunt at once, and her aunt had been angry with her because they had
+walked together. Then she had told everything to the Duchess and
+had begged the Duchess to ask the Duke to speak to Lord Rufford. At
+Mistletoe Lord Rufford had twice renewed his offer,--and she had
+then accepted him. But the Duke had not spoken to him before he
+left the place. She owned that she thought the Duchess had been a
+little hard to her. Of course she did not mean to complain, but the
+Duchess had been angry with her because she had hunted. And now, in
+answer to the note from herself, had come a letter from Lord
+Rufford in which he repudiated the engagement. "I only got it
+yesterday and I came at once to you. I do not think you will see
+your cousin treated in that way without raising your hand. You will
+remember that I have no brother?"
+
+"But what can I do?" asked Lord Mistletoe. She had taken great
+trouble with her face, so that she was able to burst out into
+tears. She had on a veil which partly concealed her. She did not
+believe in the effect of a pocket handkerchief, but sat with her
+face half averted. "Tell him what you think about it," she said.
+
+"Such engagements, Arabella," he said, "should always be
+authenticated by a third party. It is for that reason that a girl
+generally refers her lover to her father before she allows herself
+to be considered as engaged."
+
+"Think what my position has been! I wanted to refer him to my uncle
+and asked the Duchess."
+
+"My mother must have had some reason. I'm sure she must. There
+isn't a woman in London knows how such things should be done better
+than my mother. I can write to Lord Rufford and ask him for an
+explanation; but I do not see what good it would do."
+
+"If you were in earnest about it he would be--afraid of you."
+
+"I don't think he would in the least. If I were to make a noise
+about it, it would only do you harm. You wouldn't wish all the
+world to know that he had--jilted me! I don't care what the world
+knows. Am I to put up with such treatment as that and do nothing?
+Do you like to see your cousin treated in that way?"
+
+"I don't like it at all. Lord Rufford is a good sort of man in his
+way, and has a large property. I wish with all my heart that it had
+come off all right; but in these days one can't make a man marry.
+There used to be the alternative of going out and being shot at;
+but that is over now."
+
+"And a man is to do just as he pleases?"
+
+"I am afraid so. If a man is known to have behaved badly to a girl,
+public opinion will condemn him."
+
+"Can anything be worse than this treatment of me?" Lord Mistletoe
+could not tell her that he had alluded to absolute knowledge and
+that at present he had no more than her version of the story;--or
+that the world would require more than that before the general
+condemnation of which he had spoken would come. So he sat in
+silence and shook his head. "And you think that I should put up
+with it quietly!"
+
+"I think that your father should see the man." Arabella shook her
+head contemptuously. "If you wish it I will write to my mother."
+
+"I would rather trust to my uncle."
+
+"I don't know what he could do;--but I will write to him if you
+please."
+
+"And you won't see Lord Rufford?"
+
+He sat silent for a minute or two during which she pressed him over
+and over again to have an interview with her recreant lover,
+bringing up all the arguments that she knew, reminding him of their
+former affection for each other, telling him that she had no
+brother of her own, and that her own father was worse than useless
+in such a matter. A word or two she said of the nature of the prize
+to be gained, and many words as to her absolute right to regard
+that prize as her own. But at last he refused. "I am not the person
+to do it," he said. "Even if I were your brother I should not be
+so,--unless with the view of punishing him for his conduct;--in
+which place the punishment to you would be worse than any I could
+inflict on him. It cannot be good that any young lady should have
+her name in the mouths of all the lovers of gossip in the country."
+
+She was going to burst out at him in her anger, but before the
+words were out of her mouth she remembered herself. She could not
+afford to make enemies and certainly not an enemy of him. "Perhaps,
+then," she said, "you had better tell your mother all that I have
+told you. I will write to the Duke myself."
+
+And so she left him, and as she returned to Orchard Street in the
+brougham, she applied to him every term of reproach she could bring
+to mind. He was selfish, and a coward, and utterly devoid of all
+feeling of family honour. He was a prig, and unmanly, and false. A
+real cousin would have burst out into a passion and have declared
+himself ready to seize Lord Rufford by the throat and shake him
+into instant matrimony. But this man, through whose veins water was
+running instead of blood, had no feeling, no heart, no capability
+for anger! Oh, what a vile world it was! A little help,--so very
+little,--would have made everything straight for her! If her aunt
+had only behaved at Mistletoe as aunts should behave, there would
+have been no difficulty. In her misery she thought that the world
+was more cruel to her than to any other person in it.
+
+On her arrival at home she was astounded by a letter that she found
+there,--a letter of such a nature that it altogether drove out of
+her head the purpose which she had of writing to the Duke on that
+evening. The letter was from John Morton and now reached her
+through the lawyer to whom it had been sent by private hand for
+immediate delivery. It ran as follows:
+
+Dearest Arabella,
+
+I am very ill,--so ill that Dr. Fanning who has come down from
+London, has, I think, but a poor opinion of my case. He does not
+say that it is hopeless,--and that is all. I think it right to tell
+you this, as my affection for you is what it always has been. If
+you wish to see me, you and your mother had better come to Bragton
+at once. You can telegraph. I am too weak to write more.
+
+                         Yours most affectionately,
+                                 John Morton.
+
+P.S. There is nothing infectious.
+
+"John Morton is dying," she almost screamed out to her mother.
+
+"Dying!"
+
+"So he says. Oh, what an unfortunate wretch I am! Everything that
+touches me comes to grief. Then she burst out into a flood of true
+unfeigned tears.
+
+"It won't matter so much," said Lady Augustus, "if you mean to
+write to the Duke and go on with this other--affair."
+
+"Oh, mamma, how can you talk in that way?"
+
+"Well; my dear; you know--"
+
+"I am heartless. I know that. But you are ten times worse. Think
+how I have treated him!"
+
+"I don't want him to die, my dear; but what can I say? I can't do
+him any good. It is all in God's hands, and if he must die--why, it
+won't make so much difference to you. I have looked upon all that
+as over for a long time."
+
+"It is not over. After all he has liked me better than any of them.
+He wants me to go to Bragton."
+
+"That of course is out of the question."
+
+"It is not out of the question at all. I shall go."
+
+"Arabella!"
+
+"And you must go with me, mamma."
+
+"I will do no such thing," said Lady Augustus, to whom the idea of
+Bragton was terrible.
+
+"Indeed you must. He has asked me to go, and I shall do it. You can
+hardly let me go alone."
+
+"And what will you say to Lord Rufford?"
+
+"I don't care for Lord Rufford. Is he to prevent my going where I
+please?"
+
+"And your father,--and the Duke,--and the Duchess! How can you go
+there after all that you have been doing since you left?"
+
+"What do I care for the Duke and the Duchess. It has come to that,
+that I care for no one. They are all throwing me over. That little
+wretch Mistletoe will do nothing. This man really loved me. He has
+never treated me badly. Whether he live or whether he die, he has
+been true to me." Then she sat and thought of it all. What would
+Lord Rufford care for her father's letter? If her cousin Mistletoe
+would not stir in her behalf what chance had she with her uncle?
+And, though she had thoroughly despised her cousin, she had
+understood and had unconsciously believed much that he had said to
+her. "In these days one can't make a man marry!" What horrid days
+they were! But John Morton would marry her to-morrow if he were
+well,--in spite of all her ill usage! Of course he would die and so
+she would again be overwhelmed; but yet she would go and see him.
+As she determined to do so there was something even in her hard
+callous heart softer than the love of money and more human than the
+dream of an advantageous settlement in life.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+The Senator's second Letter
+
+
+In the mean time our friend the Senator, up in London, was much
+distracted in his mind, finding no one to sympathise with him in
+his efforts, conscious of his own rectitude of purpose, always
+brave against others, and yet with a sad doubt in his own mind
+whether it could be possible that he should always be right and
+everybody around him wrong.
+
+Coming away from Mr. Mainwaring's dinner he had almost quarrelled
+with John Morton, or rather John Morton had altogether quarrelled
+with him. On their way back from Dillsborough to Bragton the
+minister elect to Patagonia had told him, in so many words, that he
+had misbehaved himself at the clergyman's house. "Did I say
+anything that was untrue?" asked the Senator--"Was I inaccurate in
+my statements? If so no man alive will be more ready to recall what
+he has said and to ask for pardon." Mr. Morton endeavoured to
+explain to him that it was not his statements which were at fault
+so much as the opinions based on them and the language in which
+those opinions were given. But the Senator could not be made to
+understand that a man had not a right to his opinions, and a right
+also to the use of forcible language as long as he abstained from
+personalities. "It was extremely personal,--all that you said about
+the purchase of livings," said Morton. "How was I to know that?"
+rejoined the Senator. "When in private society I inveigh against
+pickpockets I cannot imagine, sir, that there should be a
+pickpocket in the company." As the Senator said this he was
+grieving in his heart at the trouble he had occasioned, and was
+almost repenting the duties he had imposed on himself; but, yet,
+his voice was bellicose and antagonistic. The conversation was
+carried on till Morton found himself constrained to say that though
+he entertained great personal respect for his guest he could not go
+with him again into society. He was ill at the time,--though
+neither he himself knew it nor the Senator. On the next morning Mr.
+Gotobed returned to London without seeing his host, and before the
+day was over Mr. Nupper was at Morton's bedside. He was already
+suffering from gastric fever.
+
+The Senator was in truth unhappy as he returned to town. The
+intimacy between him and the late Secretary of Legation at his
+capital had arisen from a mutual understanding between them that
+each was to be allowed to see the faults and to admire the virtues
+of their two countries, and that conversation between them was to
+be based on the mutual system. But nobody can, in truth, endure to
+be told of shortcomings,--either on his own part or on that of his
+country. He himself can abuse himself, or his country; but he
+cannot endure it from alien lips. Mr. Gotobed had hardly said a
+word about England which Morton himself might not have said,--but
+such words coming from an American had been too much even for the
+guarded temper of an unprejudiced and phlegmatic Englishman. The
+Senator as he returned alone to London understood something of
+this,--and when a few days later he heard that the friend who had
+quarrelled with him was ill, he was discontented with himself and
+sore at heart.
+
+But he had his task to perform, and he meant to perform it to the
+best of his ability. In his own country he had heard vehement abuse
+of the old land from the lips of politicians, and had found at the
+same time almost on all sides great social admiration for the
+people so abused. He had observed that every Englishman of
+distinction was received in the States as a demigod, and that some
+who were not very great in their own land had been converted into
+heroes in his. English books were read there; English laws were
+obeyed there; English habits were cultivated, often at the expense
+of American comfort. And yet it was the fashion among orators to
+speak of the English as a worn-out, stupid and enslaved people. He
+was a thoughtful man and all this had perplexed him;--so that he
+had obtained leave from his State and from Congress to be absent
+during a part of a short Session, and had come over determined to
+learn as much as he could. Everything he heard and almost
+everything he saw offended him at some point. And, yet in the midst
+of it all, he was conscious that he was surrounded by people who
+claimed and made good their claims to superiority. What was a lord,
+let him be ever so rich and have ever so many titles? And yet, even
+with such a popinjay as Lord Rufford, he himself felt the lordship.
+When that old farmer at the hunt breakfast had removed himself and
+his belongings to the other side of the table the Senator, though
+aware of the justice of his cause, had been keenly alive to the
+rebuke. He had expressed himself very boldly at the rector's house
+at Dillsborough, and had been certain that not a word of real
+argument had been possible in answer to him. But yet he left the
+house with a feeling almost of shame, which had grown into real
+penitence before he reached Bragton. He knew that he had already
+been condemned by Englishmen as ill-mannered, ill-conditioned and
+absurd. He was as much alive as any man to the inward distress of
+heart which such a conviction brings with it to all sensitive
+minds. And yet he had his purpose and would follow it out. He was
+already hard at work on the lecture which he meant to deliver
+somewhere in London before he went back to his home duties, and had
+made it known to the world at large that he meant to say some sharp
+things of the country he was visiting.
+
+Soon after his return to town he was present at the opening of
+Parliament, Mr. Mounser Green of the Foreign Office having seen
+that he was properly accommodated with a seat. Then he went down to
+the election of a member of Parliament in the little borough of
+Quinborough. It was unfortunate for Great Britain, which was on its
+trial, and unpleasant also for the poor Senator who had appointed
+himself judge, that such a seat should have fallen vacant at that
+moment. Quinborough was a little town of 3,000 inhabitants
+clustering round the gates of a great Whig Marquis, which had been
+spared,--who can say why?--at the first Reform Bill, and having but
+one member had come out scatheless from the second. Quinborough
+still returned its one member with something less than 500
+constituents, and in spite of household suffrage and the ballot had
+always returned the member favoured by the Marquis. This nobleman,
+driven no doubt by his conscience to make some return to the
+country for the favour shown to his family, had always sent to
+Parliament some useful and distinguished man who without such
+patronage might have been unable to serve his country. On the
+present occasion a friend of the people,--so called,--an unlettered
+demagogue such as is in England in truth distasteful to all
+classes, had taken himself down to Quinborough as a candidate in
+opposition to the nobleman's nominee. He had been backed by all the
+sympathies of the American Senator who knew nothing of him or his
+unfitness, and nothing whatever of the patriotism of the Marquis.
+But he did know what was the population and what the constituency
+of Liverpool, and also what were those of Quinborough. He supposed
+that he knew what was the theory of representation in England, and
+he understood correctly that hitherto the member for Quinborough
+had been the nominee of that great lord. These things were horrid
+to him. There was to his thinking a fiction,--more than fiction, a
+falseness,--about all this which not only would but ought to bring
+the country prostrate to the dust. When the working-man's
+candidate, whose political programme consisted of a general
+disbelief in all religions, received--by ballot!--only nine votes
+from those 500 voters, the Senator declared to himself that the
+country must be rotten to the core. It was not only that Britons
+were slaves,--but that they "hugged their chains." To the gentleman
+who assured him that the Right Honble. -- -- would make a much
+better member of Parliament than Tom Bobster the plasterer from
+Shoreditch he in vain tried to prove that the respective merits of
+the two men had nothing to do with the question. It had been the
+duty of those 500 voters to show to the world that in the exercise
+of a privilege entrusted to them for the public service they had
+not been under the dictation of their rich neighbour. Instead of
+doing so they had, almost unanimously, grovelled in the dust at
+their rich neighbour's feet. "There are but one or two such places
+left in all England," said the gentleman. "But those one or two,"
+answered the Senator, "were wilfully left there by the Parliament
+which represented the whole nation."
+
+Then, quite early in the Session, immediately after the voting of
+the address, a motion had been made by the Government of the day
+for introducing household suffrage into the counties. No one knew
+the labour to which the Senator subjected himself in order that he
+might master all these peculiarities,--that he might learn how men
+became members of Parliament and how they ceased to be so, in what
+degree the House of Commons was made up of different elements, how
+it came to pass, that though there was a House of Lords, so many
+lords sat in the lower chamber. All those matters which to ordinary
+educated Englishmen are almost as common as the breath of their
+nostrils, had been to him matter of long and serious study. And as
+the intent student, who has zealously buried himself for a week
+among commentaries and notes, feels himself qualified to question
+Porson and to Be-Bentley Bentley, so did our Senator believe, while
+still he was groping among the rudiments, that he had all our
+political intricacies at his fingers' ends. When he heard the
+arguments used for a difference of suffrage in the towns and
+counties, and found that even they who were proposing the change
+were not ready absolutely to assimilate the two and still held that
+rural ascendency,--feudalism as he called it,--should maintain
+itself by barring a fraction of the House of Commons from the votes
+of the majority, he pronounced the whole thing to be a sham. The
+intention was, he said, to delude the people. "It is all coming,"
+said the gentleman who was accustomed to argue with him in those
+days. He spoke in a sad vein, which was in itself distressing to
+the Senator. "Why should you be in such a hurry?" The Senator
+suggested that if the country delayed much longer this imperative
+task of putting its house in order, the roof would have fallen in
+before the repairs were done. Then he found that this gentleman
+too, avoided his company, and declined to sit with him any more in
+the Gallery of the House of Commons.
+
+Added to all this was a private rankling, sore in regard to Goarly
+and Bearside. He had now learned nearly all the truth about Goarly,
+and had learned also that Bearside had known the whole when he had
+last visited that eminent lawyer's office. Goarly had deserted his
+supporters and had turned evidence against Scrobby, his partner in
+iniquity. That Goarly was a rascal the Senator had acknowledged. So
+far the general opinion down in Rufford had been correct. But he
+could get nobody to see,--or at any rate could get nobody to
+acknowledge,--that the rascality of Goarly had had nothing to do
+with the question as he had taken it up. The man's right to his own
+land,--his right to be protected from pheasants and foxes, from
+horses and hounds,--was not lessened by the fact that he was a poor
+ignorant squalid dishonest wretch. Mr. Gotobed had now received a
+bill from Bearside for 42l. 7s. 9d. for costs in the case, leaving
+after the deduction of 15l. already paid a sum of 27l. 7s. 9d.
+stated to be still due. And this was accompanied by an intimation
+that as he, Mr. Gotobed, was a foreigner soon about to leave the
+country, Mr. Bearside must request that his claim might be settled
+quite at once. No one could be less likely than our Senator to
+leave a foreign country without paying his bills. He had quarrelled
+with Morton,--who also at this time was too ill to have given him
+much assistance. Though he had become acquainted with half
+Dillsborough, there was nobody there to whom he could apply. Thus
+he was driven to employ a London attorney, and the London attorney
+told him that he had better pay Bearside;--the Senator remembering
+at the time that he would also have to pay the London attorney for
+his advice. He gave this second lawyer authority to conclude the
+matter, and at last Bearside accepted 20 pounds. When the London
+attorney refused to take anything for his trouble, the Senator felt
+such conduct almost as an additional grievance. In his existing
+frame of mind he would sooner have expended a few more dollars than
+be driven to think well of anything connected with English law.
+
+It was immediately after he had handed over the money in
+liquidation of Bearside's claim that he sat down to write a further
+letter to his friend and correspondent Josiah Scroome. His letter
+was not written in the best of tempers; but still, through it all,
+there was a desire to be just, and an anxiety to abstain from the
+use of hard phrases. The letter was as follows;--
+
+Fenton's Hotel, St. James' Street, London,
+Feb. 12, 187-.
+
+My Dear Sir,
+
+Since I last wrote I have had much to trouble me and little perhaps
+to compensate me for my trouble. I told you, I think, in one of my
+former letters that wherever I went I found myself able to say what
+I pleased as to the peculiarities of this very peculiar people. I
+am not now going to contradict what I said then. Wherever I go I do
+speak out, and my eyes are still in my head and my head is on my
+shoulders. But I have to acknowledge to myself that I give offence.
+Mr. Morton, whom you knew at the British Embassy in Washington,--
+and who I fear is now very ill,--parted from me, when last I saw
+him, in anger because of certain opinions I had expressed in a
+clergyman's house, not as being ill-founded but as being
+antagonistic to the clergyman himself. This I feel to be
+unreasonable. And in the neighbourhood of Mr. Morton's house, I
+have encountered the ill will of a great many, not for having
+spoken untruth, for that I have never heard alleged, but because I
+have not been reticent in describing the things which I have seen.
+
+I told you, I think, that I had returned to Mr. Morton's
+neighbourhood with the view of defending an oppressed man against
+the power of the lord who was oppressing him. Unfortunately for me
+the lord, though a scapegrace, spends his money freely and is a
+hospitable kindly-hearted honest fellow; whereas the injured victim
+has turned out to be a wretched scoundrel. Scoundrel though he is,
+he has still been ill used; and the lord, though good-natured, has
+been a tyrant. But the poor wretch has thrown me over and sold
+himself to the other side and I have been held up to ignominy by
+all the provincial newspapers. I have also had to pay through the
+nose 175 dollars for my quixotism--a sum which I cannot very well
+afford. This money I have lost solely with the view of defending
+the weak, but nobody with whom I have discussed the matter seems to
+recognise the purity of my object. I am only reminded that I have
+put myself into the same boat with a rascal.
+
+I feel from day to day how thoroughly I could have enjoyed a
+sojourn in this country if I had come here without any line of duty
+laid down for myself. Could I have swum with the stream and have
+said yes or no as yes or no were expected, I might have revelled in
+generous hospitality. Nothing can be pleasanter than the houses
+here if you will only be as idle as the owners of them. But when
+once you show them that you have an object, they become afraid of
+you. And industry,--in such houses as I now speak of, is a crime.
+You are there to glide through the day luxuriously in the house,--
+or to rush through it impetuously on horseback or with a gun if you
+be a sportsman. Sometimes, when I have asked questions about the
+most material institutions of the country, I have felt that I was
+looked upon with absolute loathing. This is disagreeable.
+
+And yet I find it more easy in this country to sympathise with the
+rich than with the poor. I do not here describe my own actual
+sympathies, but only the easiness with which they might be evoked.
+The rich are at any rate pleasant. The poor are very much the
+reverse. There is no backbone of mutiny in them against the
+oppression to which they are subjected; but only the whining of a
+dog that knows itself to be a slave and pleads with his soft paw
+for tenderness from his master; or the futile growlings of the
+caged tiger who paces up and down before his bars and has long ago
+forgotten to attempt to break them. They are a long-suffering race,
+who only now and then feel themselves stirred up to contest a point
+against their masters on the basis of starvation. 'We. won't work
+but on such and such terms, and, if we cannot get them, we will lie
+down and die.' That I take it is the real argument of a strike. But
+they never do lie down and die. If one in every parish, one in
+every county, would do so, then the agricultural labourers of the
+country might live almost as well as the farmers' pigs.
+
+I was present the other day at the opening of Parliament. It was a
+very grand ceremony, though the Queen did not find herself well
+enough to do her duty in person. But the grandeur was everything. A
+royal programme was read from the foot of the throne, of which even
+I knew all the details beforehand, having read them in the
+newspapers. Two opening speeches were then made by two young
+lords,--not after all so very young,--which sounded like lessons
+recited by schoolboys. There was no touch of eloquence,--no
+approach to it. It was clear that either of them would have been
+afraid to attempt the idiosyncrasy of passionate expression. But
+they were exquisitely dressed and had learned their lessons to a
+marvel. The flutter of the ladies' dresses, and the presence of the
+peers, and the historic ornamentation of the house were all very
+pleasant; but they reminded me of a last year's nut, of which the
+outside appearance has been mellowed and improved by time,--but the
+fruit inside has withered away and become tasteless.
+
+Since that I have been much interested with an attempt,--a further
+morsel of cobbling, which is being done to improve the representation
+of the people. Though it be but cobbling, if it be in the right
+direction one is glad of it. I do not know how far you may have studied
+the theories and system of the British House of Commons, but, for
+myself, I must own that it was not till the other day that I was aware
+that, though it acts together as one whole, it is formed of two
+distinct parts. The one part is sent thither from the towns by
+household suffrage; and, this, which may be said to be the healthier of
+the two as coming more directly from the people, is nevertheless
+disfigured by a multitude of anomalies. Population hardly bears upon
+the question. A town with 15,000 inhabitants has two members,--whereas
+another with 400,000 has only three, and another with 50,000 has one.
+But there is worse disorder than this. In the happy little village of
+Portarlington 200 constituents choose a member among them, or have one
+chosen for them by their careful lord; whereas in the great city of
+London something like 25,000 registered electors only send four to
+Parliament. With this the country is presumed to be satisfied. But in
+the counties, which by a different system send up the other part of the
+House, there exists still a heavy property qualification for voting.
+There is, apparent to all, a necessity for change here;--but the change
+proposed is simply a reduction of the qualification, so that the rural
+labourer, whose class is probably the largest, as it is the poorest, in
+the country,--is still disfranchised, and will remain so, unless it be
+his chance to live within the arbitrary line of some so-called borough.
+For these boroughs, you must know, are sometimes strictly confined to
+the aggregations of houses which constitute the town, but sometimes
+stretch out their arms so as to include rural districts. The divisions
+I am assured were made to suit the aspirations of political magnates
+when the first Reform Bill was passed! What is to be expected of a
+country in which such absurdities are loved and sheltered?
+
+I am still determined to express my views on these matters before I
+leave England, and am with great labour preparing a lecture on the
+subject. I am assured that I shall not be debarred from my
+utterances because that which I say is unpopular. I am told that as
+long as I do not touch Her Majesty or Her Majesty's family, or the
+Christian religion,--which is only the second Holy of Holies,--I
+may say anything. Good taste would save me from the former offence,
+and my own convictions from the latter. But my friend who so
+informs me doubts whether many will come to hear me. He tells me
+that the serious American is not popular here, whereas the joker is
+much run after. Of that I must take my chance. In all this I am
+endeavouring to do a duty,--feeling every day more strongly my own
+inadequacy. Were I to follow my own wishes I should return by the
+next steamer to my duties at home.
+
+                   Believe me to be,
+                     Dear Sir,
+                       With much sincerity,
+                         Yours truly,
+                           Elias Gotobed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+Providence interferes
+
+
+
+The battle was carried on very fiercely in Mr. Masters' house in
+Dillsborough, to the misery of all within it; but the conviction
+gained ground with every one there that Mary was to be sent to
+Cheltenham for some indefinite time. Dolly and Kate seemed to think
+that she was to go, never to return. Six months, which had been
+vaguely mentioned as the proposed period of her sojourn, was to
+them almost as indefinite as eternity. The two girls had been
+intensely anxious for the marriage, wishing to have Larry for a
+brother, looking forward with delight to their share in the
+unrestricted plenteousness of Chowton Farm, longing to be allowed
+to consider themselves at home among the ricks and barns and wide
+fields; but at this moment things had become so tragic that they
+were cowed and unhappy,--not that Mary should still refuse Larry
+Twentyman, but that she should be going away for so long a time.
+They could quarrel with their elder sister while the assurance was
+still with them that she would be there to forgive them;--but now
+that she was going away and that it had come to be believed by both
+of them that poor Lawrence had no chance, they were sad and
+downhearted. In all that misery the poor attorney had the worst of
+it. Mary was free from her stepmother's zeal and her stepmother's
+persecution at any rate at night; but the poor father was hardly
+allowed to sleep. For Mrs. Masters never gave up her game as
+altogether lost. Though she might be driven alternately into
+towering passion and prostrate hysterics, she would still come
+again to the battle. A word of encouragement would, she said, bring
+Larry Twentyman back to his courtship, and that word might be
+spoken, if Mary's visit to Cheltenham were forbidden. What did the
+letter signify, or all the girl's protestations? Did not everybody
+know how self-willed young women were; but how they could be
+brought round by proper usage? Let Mary once be made to understand
+that she would not be allowed to be a fine lady, and then she would
+marry Mr. Twentyman quick enough. But this "Ushanting," this
+journeying to Cheltenham in order that nothing might be done, was
+the very way to promote the disease! This Mrs. Masters said in
+season and out of season, night and day, till the poor husband
+longed for his daughter's departure, in order that that point might
+at any rate be settled. In all these disputes he never quite
+yielded. Though his heart sank within him he was still firm. He
+would turn his back to his wife and let her run on with her
+arguments without a word of answer,--till at last he would bounce
+out of bed and swear that if she did not leave him alone he would
+go and lock himself into the office and sleep with his head on the
+office desk.
+
+Mrs. Masters was almost driven to despair;--but at last there came
+to her a gleam of hope, most unexpectedly. It had been settled that
+Mary should make her journey on Friday the 12th February and that
+Reginald Morton was again to accompany her. This in itself was to
+Mrs. Masters an aggravation of the evil which was being done. She
+was not in the least afraid of Reginald Morton; but this attendance
+on Mary was in the eyes of her stepmother a cockering of her up, a
+making a fine lady of her, which was in itself of all things the
+most pernicious. If Mary must go to Cheltenham, why could she not
+go by herself, second class, like any other young woman? "Nobody
+would eat her,"--Mrs. Masters declared. But Reginald was firm in
+his purpose of accompanying her. He had no objection whatever to
+the second class if Mr. Masters preferred it. But as he meant to
+make the journey on the same day of course they would go together.
+Mr. Masters said that he was very much obliged. Mrs. Masters
+protested that it was all trash from beginning to the end.
+
+Then there came a sudden disruption to all these plans, and a
+sudden renewal of her hopes to Mrs. Masters which for one half day
+nearly restored her to good humour. Lady Ushant wrote to postpone
+the visit because she herself had been summoned to Bragton. Her
+letter to Mary, though affectionate, was very short. Her
+grand-nephew John, the head of the family, had expressed a desire
+to see her, and with that wish she was bound to comply. Of course,
+she said, she would see Mary at Bragton; or if that were not
+possible, she herself would come into Dillsborough. She did not
+know what might be the length of her visit, but when it was over
+she hoped that Mary would return with her to Cheltenham. The old
+lady's letter to Reginald was much longer; because in that she had
+to speak of the state of John Morton's health,--and of her surprise
+that she should be summoned to his bedside. Of course she would
+go,--though she could not look forward with satisfaction to a
+meeting with the Honble. Mrs. Morton. Then she could not refrain
+from alluding to the fact that if "anything were to happen" to John
+Morton, Reginald himself would be the Squire of Bragton. Reginald
+when he received this at once went over to the attorney's house,
+but he did not succeed in seeing Mary. He learned, however, that
+they were all aware that the journey had been postponed.
+
+To Mrs. Masters it seemed that all this had been a dispensation of
+Providence. Lady Ushant's letter had been received on the Thursday
+and Mrs. Masters at once found it expedient to communicate with
+Larry Twentyman. She was not excellent herself at the writing of
+letters, and therefore she got Dolly to be the scribe. Before the
+Thursday evening the following note was sent to Chowton Farm;
+
+Dear Larry,
+
+Pray come and go to the club with father on Saturday. We haven't
+seen you for so long! Mother has got something to tell you.
+
+                    Your affectionate friend,
+                              Dolly.
+
+When this was received the poor man was smoking his moody pipe in
+silence as he roamed about his own farmyard in the darkness of the
+night. He had not as yet known any comfort and was still firm in
+his purpose of selling the farm. He had been out hunting once or
+twice but fancied that people looked at him with peculiar eyes. He
+could not ride, though he made one or two forlorn attempts to break
+his neck. He did not care in the least whether they found or not;
+and when Captain Glomax was held to have disgraced himself
+thoroughly by wasting an hour in digging out and then killing a
+vixen, he had not a word to say about it. But, as he read Dolly's
+note, there came back something of life into his eyes. He had
+forsworn the club, but would certainly go when thus invited. He
+wrote a scrawl to Dolly, "I'll come," and, having sent it off by
+the messenger, tried to trust that there might yet be ground for
+hope. Mrs. Masters would not have allowed Dolly to send such a
+message without good reason.
+
+On the Friday Mrs. Masters could not abstain from proposing that
+Mary's visit to Cheltenham should be regarded as altogether out of
+the question. She had no new argument to offer,--except this last
+interposition of Providence in her favour. Mr. Masters said that he
+did not see why Mary should not return with Lady Ushant. Various
+things, however, might happen. John Morton might die, and then who
+could tell whether Lady Ushant would ever return to Cheltenham? In
+this way the short-lived peace soon came to an end, especially as
+Mrs. Masters endeavoured to utilize for general family purposes
+certain articles which had been purchased with a view to Mary's
+prolonged residence away from home. This was resented by the
+attorney, and the peace was short-lived.
+
+On the Saturday Larry came, to the astonishment of Mr. Masters, who
+was still in his office at half-past seven. Mrs. Masters at once
+got hold of him and conveyed him away into the sacred drawing-room.
+"Mary is not going," she said.
+
+"Not going to Cheltenham!"
+
+"It has all been put off. She shan't go at all if I can help it."
+
+"But why has it been put off, Mrs. Masters?"
+
+"Lady Ushant is coming to Bragton. I suppose that poor man is
+dying."
+
+"He is very ill certainly."
+
+"And if anything happens there who can say what may happen anywhere
+else? Lady Ushant will have something else except Mary to think of,
+if her own nephew comes into all the property."
+
+"I didn't know she was such friends with the Squire as that"
+
+"Well;--there it is. Lady Ushant is coming to Bragton and Mary is
+not going to Cheltenham." This she said as though the news must be
+of vital importance to Larry Twentyman. He stood for awhile
+scratching his head as he thought of it. At last it appeared to him
+that Mary's continual residence in Dillsborough would of itself
+hardly assist him. "I don't see, Mrs. Masters, that that will make
+her a bit kinder to me."
+
+"Larry, don't you be a coward,--nor yet soft."
+
+"As for coward, Mrs. Masters, I don't know--"
+
+"I suppose you really do love the girl."
+
+"I do;--I think I've shown that."
+
+"And you haven't changed your mind?"
+
+"Not a bit"
+
+"That's why I speak open to you. Don't you be afraid of her. What's
+the letter which a girl like that writes? When she gets tantrums
+into her head of course she'll write a letter."
+
+"But there's somebody else, Mrs. Masters.
+
+"Who says so? I say there ain't nobody;--nobody. If anybody tells
+you that it's only just to put you off. It's just poetry and books
+and rubbish. She wants to be a fine lady."
+
+"I'll make her a lady."
+
+"You make her Mrs. Twentyman, and don't you be made by any one to
+give it up. Go to the club with Mr. Masters now, and come here just
+the same as usual. Come to-morrow and have a gossip with the girls
+together and show that you can keep your pluck up. That's the way
+to win her." Larry did go to the club and did think very much of it
+as he walked home. He had promised to come on the Sunday afternoon,
+but he could not bring himself to believe in that theory of books
+and poetry put forward by Mrs. Masters. Books and poetry would not
+teach a girl like Mary to reject her suitor if she really loved
+him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+Lady Ushant at Bragton
+
+
+On the Sunday Larry came into Dillsborough and had "his gossip with
+the girls" according to order;--but it was not very successful.
+Mrs. Masters who opened the door for him instructed him in a
+special whisper "to talk away just as though he did not care a fig
+for Mary." He made the attempt manfully,--but with slight effect.
+His love was too genuine, too absorbing, to leave with him the
+power which Mrs. Masters assumed him to have when she gave him such
+advice. A man cannot walk when he has broken his ankle-bone, let
+him be ever so brave in the attempt. Larry's heart was so weighed
+that he could not hide the weight. Dolly and Kate had also received
+hints and struggled hard to be merry. In the afternoon a walk was
+suggested, and Mary complied; but when an attempt was made by the
+younger girls to leave the lover and Mary together, she resented it
+by clinging closely to Dolly;--and then all Larry's courage
+deserted him. Very little good was done on the occasion by Mrs.
+Masters' manoeuvres.
+
+On the Monday morning, in compliance with a request made by Lady
+Ushant, Mary walked over to Bragton to see her old friend. Mrs.
+Masters had declared the request to be very unreasonable. "Who is
+to walk five miles and back to see an old woman like that?" To this
+Mary had replied that the distance across the fields to Bragton was
+only four miles and that she had often walked it with her sisters
+for the very pleasure of the walk. "Not in weather like this," said
+Mrs. Masters. But the day was well enough. Roads in February are
+often a little wet, but there was no rain falling. "I say it's
+unreasonable," said Mrs. Masters. "If she can't send a carriage she
+oughtn't to expect it." This coming from Mrs. Masters, whose great
+doctrine it was that young women ought not to be afraid of work,
+was so clearly the effect of sheer opposition that Mary disdained
+to answer it. Then she was accused of treating her stepmother with
+contempt.
+
+She did walk to Bragton, taking the path by the fields and over the
+bridge, and loitering for a few minutes as she leant upon the rail.
+It was there and there only that she had seen together the two men
+who between them seemed to cloud all her life,--the man whom she
+loved and the man who loved her. She knew now,--she thought that
+she knew quite well,--that her feelings for Reginald Morton were of
+such a nature that she could not possibly become the wife of any
+one else. But had she not seen him for those few minutes on this
+spot, had he not fired her imagination by telling her of his desire
+to go back with her over the sites which they had seen together
+when she was a child, she would not, she thought, have been driven
+to make to herself so grievous a confession. In that case it might
+have been that she would have brought herself to give her hand to
+the suitor of whom all her friends approved. And then with infinite
+tenderness she thought of all Larry's virtues,--and especially of
+that great virtue in a woman's eyes, the constancy of his devotion
+to herself. She did love him,--but with a varied love,--a love
+which was most earnest in wishing his happiness, which would have
+been desirous of the closest friendship if only nothing more were
+required. She swore to herself a thousand times that she did not
+look down upon him because he was only a farmer, that she did not
+think herself in any way superior to him. But it was impossible
+that she should consent to be his wife. And then she thought of the
+other man,--with feelings much less kind. Why had he thrust himself
+upon her life and disturbed her? Why had he taught her to think
+herself unfit to mate with this lover who was her equal? Why had he
+assured her that were she to do so her old friends would be
+revolted? Why had he exacted from her a promise,--a promise which
+was sacred to her,--that she would not so give herself away? Yes;--
+the promise was certainly sacred; but he had been cold and cruel in
+forcing it from her lips. What business was it of his? Why should
+he have meddled with her? In the shallow streamlet of her lowly
+life the waters might have glided on, slow but smoothly, had he not
+taught them to be ambitious of a rapider, grander course. Now they
+were disturbed by mud, and there could be no pleasure in them.
+
+She went on over the bridge, and round by the shrubbery to the hall
+door which was opened to her by Mrs. Hopkins. Yes, Lady Ushant was
+there;--but the young Squire was very ill and his aunt was then
+with him. Mr. Reginald was in the library. Would Miss Masters be
+shown in there, or would she go up to Lady Ushant's own room? Of
+course she replied that she would go up-stairs and there wait for
+Lady Ushant.
+
+When she was found by her friend she was told at length the story
+of all the circumstances which had brought Lady Ushant to Bragton.
+When John Morton had first been taken ill,--before any fixed idea
+of danger had occurred to himself or to others,--his grandmother
+had come to him. Then, as he gradually became weaker he made
+various propositions which were all of them terribly distasteful to
+the old woman. In the first place he had insisted on sending for
+Miss Trefoil. Up to this period Mary Masters had hardly heard the
+name of Miss Trefoil, and almost shuddered as she was at once
+immersed in all these family secrets. "She is to be here
+to-morrow," said Lady Ushant.
+
+"Oh dear,--how sad!"
+
+"He insists upon it, and she is coming. She was here before, and it
+now turns out that all the world knew that they were engaged. That
+was no secret, for everybody had heard it"
+
+"And where is Mrs. Morton now?" Then Lady Ushant went on with her
+story. The sick man had insisted on making his will and had
+declared his purpose of leaving the property to his cousin
+Reginald. As Lady Ushant said, there was no one else to whom he
+could leave it with any propriety;--but this had become matter for
+bitter contention between the old woman and her grandson.
+
+"Who did she think should have it?" asked Mary.
+
+"Ah;--that I don't know. That he has never told me. But she has had
+the wickedness to say,--oh,--such things of Reginald. I knew all
+that before;---but that she should repeat them now, is terrible. I
+suppose she wanted it for some of her own people. But it was so
+horrible you know,--when he was so ill! Then he said that he should
+send for me, so that what is left of the family might be together.
+After that she went away in anger. Mrs. Hopkins says that she did
+not even see him the morning she left Bragton."
+
+"She was always high-tempered," said Mary.
+
+"And dictatorial beyond measure. She nearly broke my poor dear
+father's heart. And then she left the house because he would not
+shut his doors against Reginald's mother. And now I hardly know
+what I am to do here, or what I must say to this young lady when
+she comes to-morrow."
+
+"Is she coming alone?"
+
+"We don't know. She has a mother, Lady Augustus Trefoil, but
+whether Lady Augustus will accompany her daughter we have not
+heard. Reginald says certainly not, or they would have told us so.
+You have seen Reginald?"
+
+"No, Lady Ushant."
+
+"You must see him. He is here now. Think what a difference it will
+make to him."
+
+"But Lady Ushant,--is he so bad?"
+
+"Dr. Fanning almost says that there is no hope. This poor young
+woman that is coming;--what am I to say to her? He has made his
+will. That was done before I came. I don't know why he shouldn't
+have sent for your father, but he had a gentleman down from town. I
+suppose he will leave her something; but it is a great thing that
+Bragton should remain in the family. Oh dear, oh dear,--if any one
+but a Morton were to be here it would break my heart. Reginald is
+the only one left now of the old branch. He's getting old and he
+ought to marry. It is so serious when there's an old family
+property."
+
+"I suppose he will--only--"
+
+"Yes; exactly. One can't even think about it while this poor young
+man is lying so ill. Mrs. Morton has been almost like his mother,
+and has lived upon the Bragton property,--absolutely lived upon
+it,--and now she is away from him because he chooses to do what he
+likes with his own. Is it not awful? And she would not put her foot
+in the house if she knew that Reginald was here. She told Mrs.
+Hopkins as much, and she said that she wouldn't so much as write a
+line to me. Poor fellow; he wrote it himself. And now he thinks so
+much about it. When Dr. Fanning went back to London yesterday I
+think he took some message to her."
+
+Mary remained there till lunch was announced but refused to go down
+into the parlour, urging that she was expected home for dinner.
+"And there is no chance for Mr. Twentyman?" asked Lady Ushant. Mary
+shook her head. "Poor man! I do feel sorry for him as everybody
+speaks so well of him. Of course, my dear, I have nothing to say
+about it. I don't think girls should ever be in a hurry to marry,
+and if you can't love him--"
+
+"Dear Lady Ushant, it is quite settled."
+
+"Poor young man! But you must go and see Reginald." Then she was
+taken into the library and did see Reginald. Were she to avoid
+him,--specially,--she would tell her tale almost as plainly as
+though she were to run after him. He greeted her kindly, almost
+affectionately, expressing his extreme regret that his visit to
+Cheltenham should have been postponed and a hope that she would be
+much at Bragton. "The distance is so great, Reginald," said Lady
+Ushant.
+
+"I can drive her over. It is a long walk, and I had made up my mind
+to get Runciman's little phaeton. I shall order it for to-morrow if
+Miss Masters will come." But Miss Masters would not agree to this.
+She would walk over again some day as she liked the walk, but no
+doubt she would only be in the way if she were to come often.
+
+"I have told her about Miss Trefoil," said Lady Ushant. "You know,
+my dear, I look upon you almost as one of ourselves because you
+lived here so long. But perhaps you had better postpone coming
+again till she has gone."
+
+"Certainly, Lady Ushant"
+
+"It might be difficult to explain. I don't suppose she will stay
+long. Perhaps she will go back the same day. I am sure I shan't
+know what to say to her. But when anything is fixed I will send you
+in word by the postman."
+
+Reginald would have walked back with her across the bridge but that
+he had promised to go to his cousin immediately after lunch. As it
+was he offered to accompany her a part of the way, but was stopped
+by his aunt, greatly to Mary's comfort. He was now more beyond her
+reach than ever,--more utterly removed from her. He would probably
+become Squire of Bragton, and she, in her earliest days, had heard
+the late Squire spoken of as though he were one of the potentates
+of the earth. She had never thought it possible; but now it was
+less possible than ever. There was something in his manner to her
+almost protective, almost fatherly,--as though he had some
+authority over her. Lady Ushant had authority once, but he had
+none. In every tone of his voice she felt that she heard an
+expression of interest in her welfare, but it was the interest
+which a grown-up person takes in a child, or a superior in an
+inferior. Of course he was her superior, but yet the tone of his
+voice was distasteful to her. As she walked back to Dillsborough
+she told herself that she would not go again to Bragton without
+assuring herself that he was not there.
+
+When she reached home many questions were asked of her, but she
+told nothing of the secrets of the Morton family which had been so
+openly confided to her. She would only say that she was afraid that
+Mr. John Morton was very ill.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+Arabella again at Bragton
+
+
+Arabella Trefoil had adhered without flinching to the purpose she
+had expressed of going down to Bragton to see the sick man. And yet
+at that very time she was in the midst of her contest with Lord
+Rufford. She was aware that a correspondence was going on between
+her father and the young lord and that her father had demanded an
+interview. She was aware also that the matter had been discussed at
+the family mansion in Piccadilly, the Duke having come to London
+for the purpose, and that the Duke and his brother, who hardly ever
+spoke to each other, had absolutely had a conference. And this
+conference had had results. The Duke had not himself consented to
+interfere, but he had agreed to a compromise proposed by his son.
+Lord Augustus should be authorised to ask Lord Rufford to meet him
+in the library of the Piccadilly mansion,--so that there should be
+some savour of the dukedom in what might be done and said there.
+Lord Rufford would by the surroundings be made to feel that in
+rejecting Arabella he was rejecting the Duke and all the Mayfair
+belongings, and that in accepting her he would be entitled to
+regard himself as accepting them all. But by allowing thus much the
+Duke would not compromise himself,--nor the Duchess, nor Lord
+Mistletoe. Lord Mistletoe, with that prudence which will certainly
+in future years make him a useful assistant to some minister of the
+day, had seen all this, and so it had been arranged.
+
+But, in spite of these doings, Arabella had insisted on complying
+with John Morton's wish that she go down and visit him in his bed
+at Bragton. Her mother, who in these days was driven almost to
+desperation by her daughter's conduct, tried her best to prevent
+the useless journey, but tried in vain. "Then," she said in wrath
+to Arabella, "I will tell your father, and I will tell the Duke,
+and I will tell Lord Rufford that they need not trouble themselves
+any further." "You know, mamma, that you will do nothing of the
+kind," said Arabella. And the poor woman did do nothing of the
+kind. "What is it to them whether I see the man or not?" the girl
+said. "They are not such fools as to suppose that because Lord
+Rufford has engaged himself to me now I was never engaged to any
+one before. There isn't one of them doesn't know that you had made
+up an engagement between us and had afterwards tried to break it
+off." When she heard this the unfortunate mother raved, but she
+raved in vain. She told her daughter that she would not supply her
+with money for the expenses of her journey, but her daughter
+replied that she would have no difficulty in finding her way to a
+pawn shop. "What is to be got by it?" asked the unfortunate mother.
+In reply to this Arabella would say, "Mamma, you have no heart;--
+absolutely none. You ought to manoeuvre better, than you do, for
+your feelings never stand in your way for a moment" All this had to
+be borne, and the old woman was forced at last not only to yield
+but to promise that she would accompany her daughter to Bragton. "I
+know how all this will end," she said to Arabella. "You will have
+to go your way and I must go mine." "Just so," replied the
+daughter. "I do not often agree with you, mamma; but I do there
+altogether."
+
+Lady Augustus was absolutely at a loss to understand what were the
+motives and what the ideas which induced her daughter to take the
+journey. If the man were to die no good could come of it. If he
+were to live then surely that love which had induced him to make so
+foolish a petition would suffice to ensure the marriage, if the
+marriage should then be thought desirable. But, at the present
+moment, Arabella was still hot in pursuit of Lord Rufford; to whom
+this journey, as soon as it should be known to him, would give the
+easiest mode of escape! How would it be possible that they two
+should get out at the Dillsborough Station and be taken to Bragton
+without all Rufford knowing it. Of course there would be hymns sung
+in praise of Arabella's love and constancy, but such hymns would be
+absolutely ruinous to her. It was growing clear to Lady Augustus
+that her daughter was giving up the game and becoming frantic as
+she thought of her age, her failure, and her future. If so it would
+be well that they should separate.
+
+On the day fixed a close carriage awaited them at the Dillsborough
+Station. They arrived both dressed in black and both veiled,--and
+with but one maid between them, This arrangement had been made with
+some vague idea of escaping scrutiny rather than from economy. They
+had never hitherto been known to go anywhere without one apiece.
+There were no airs on the station now as on that former occasion,--
+no loud talking; not even a word spoken. Lady Augustus was asking
+herself why,--why she should have been put into so lamentable a
+position, and Arabella was endeavouring to think what she would say
+to the dying man.
+
+She did think that he was dying. It was not the purport of her
+present visit to strengthen her position by making certain of the
+man's hand should he live. When she said that she was not as yet
+quite so hard-hearted as her mother, she spoke the truth. Something
+of regret, something of penitence had at times crept over her in
+reference to her conduct to this man. He had been very unlike
+others on whom she had played her arts. None of her lovers, or mock
+lovers, had been serious and stern and uncomfortable as he. There
+had been no other who had ever attempted to earn his bread. To her
+the butterflies of the world had been all in all, and the working
+bees had been a tribe apart with which she was no more called upon
+to mix than is my lady's spaniel with the kennel hounds. But the
+chance had come. She had consented to exhibit her allurements
+before a man of business and the man of business had at once sat at
+her feet. She had soon repented,--as the reader has seen. The
+alliance had been distasteful to her. She had found that the man's
+ways were in no wise like her ways,--and she had found also that
+were she to become his wife, he certainly would not change. She had
+looked about for a means of escape,--but as she did so she had
+recognized the man's truth. No doubt he had been different from the
+others, less gay in his attire, less jocund in his words, less
+given to flattery and sport and gems and all the little
+wickednesses which she had loved. But they, those others had, one
+and all, struggled to escape from her. Through all the gems and
+mirth and flattery there had been the same purpose. They liked the
+softness of her hand, they liked the flutter of her silk, they
+liked to have whispered in their ears the bold words of her
+practised raillery. Each liked for a month or two to be her special
+friend. But then, after that, each had deserted her as had done the
+one before; till in each new alliance she felt that such was to be
+her destiny, and that she was rolling a stone which would never
+settle itself, straining for waters which would never come lip
+high. But John Morton, after once saying that he loved her, had
+never tired, had never wished to escape. He had been so true to his
+love, so true to his word, that he had borne from her usage which
+would have fully justified escape had escape been to his taste. But
+to the last he had really loved her, and now, on his death bed, he
+had sent for her to come to him. She would not be coward enough to
+refuse his request. "Should he say anything to you about his will
+don't refuse to hear him, because it may be of the greatest
+importance," Lady Augustus whispered to her daughter as the
+carriage was driven up to the front door.
+
+It was then four o'clock, and it was understood that the two ladies
+were to stay that one night at Bragton, a letter having been
+received by Lady Ushant that morning informing her that the mother
+as well as the daughter was coming. Poor Lady Ushant was almost
+beside herself,--not knowing what she would do with the two women,
+and having no one in the house to help her. Something she had heard
+of Lady Augustus, but chiefly from Mrs. Hopkins who certainly had
+not admired her master's future mother-in-law. Nor had Arabella
+been popular; but of her Mrs. Hopkins had only dared to say that
+she was very handsome and "a little upstartish." How she was to
+spend the evening with them Lady Ushant could not conceive,--it
+having been decided, in accordance with the doctor's orders, that
+the interview should not take place till the next morning. When
+they were shown in Lady Ushant stood just within the drawing-room
+door and muttered a few words as she gave her hand to each. "How is
+he?" asked Arabella, throwing up her veil boldly, as soon as the
+door was closed. Lady Ushant only shook her head. "I knew it would
+be so. It is always so with anything I care for."
+
+"She is so distressed, Lady Ushant," said the mother, "that she
+hardly knows what she does." Arabella shook her head. "It is so,
+Lady Ushant"
+
+"Am I to go to him now?" said Arabella. Then the old lady explained
+the doctor's orders, and offered to take them to their rooms.
+"Perhaps I might say a word to you alone? I will stay here if you
+will go with mamma." And she did stay till Lady Ushant came down to
+her. "Do you mean to say it is certain," she asked,--certain that
+he must--die?"
+
+"No;--I do not say that"
+
+"It is possible that he may recover?"
+
+"Certainly it is possible. What is not possible with God?"
+
+"Ah;--that means that he will die." Then she sat herself down and
+almost unconsciously took off her bonnet and laid it aside. Lady
+Ushant, then looking into her face for the first time, was at a
+loss to understand what she had heard of her beauty. Could it be
+the same girl of whom Mrs. Hopkins had spoken and of whose
+brilliant beauty Reginald had repeated what he had heard? She was
+haggard, almost old, with black lines round her eyes. There was
+nothing soft or gracious in the tresses of her hair. When Lady
+Ushant had been young men had liked hair such as was that of Mary
+Masters. Arabella's yellow locks,--whencesoever they might have
+come,--were rough and uncombed. But it was the look of age, and the
+almost masculine strength of the lower face which astonished Lady
+Ushant the most. "Has he spoken to you about me?" she said.
+
+"Not to me." Then Lady Ushant went on to explain that though she
+was there now as the female representative of the family she had
+never been so intimate with John Morton as to admit of such
+confidence as that suggested.
+
+"I wonder whether he can love me," said the girl.
+
+"Assuredly he does, Miss Trefoil. Why else should he send for you?"
+
+"Because he is an honest man. I hardly think that he can love me
+much. He was to have been my husband, but he will escape that. If I
+thought that he would live I would tell him that he was free."
+
+"He would not want to be free."
+
+"He ought to want it. I am not fit for him. I have come here, Lady
+Ushant, because I want to tell him the truth."
+
+"But you love him?" Arabella made no answer, but sat looking
+steadily into Lady Ushant's face. "Surely you do love him."
+
+"I do not know. I don't think I did love him,--though now I may. It
+is so horrible that he should die, and die while all this is going
+on. That softens one you know. Have you ever heard of Lord
+Rufford?"
+
+"Lord Rufford;--the young man?"
+
+"Yes;--the young man."
+
+"Never particularly. I knew his father."
+
+"But not this man? Mr. Morton never spoke you of him."
+
+"Not a word."
+
+"I have been engaged to him since I became engaged to your nephew."
+
+"Engaged to Lord Rufford,--to marry him?"
+
+"Yes;--indeed."
+
+"And will you marry him?"
+
+"I cannot say. I tell you this, Lady Ushant, because I must tell
+somebody in this house. I have behaved very badly to Mr. Morton,
+and Lord Rufford is behaving as badly to me."
+
+"Did John know of this?"
+
+"No;--but I meant to tell him. I determined that I would tell him
+had he lived. When he sent for me I swore that I would tell him. If
+he is dying,--how can I say it?" Lady Ushant sat bewildered,
+thinking over it, understanding nothing of the world in which this
+girl had lived, and not knowing now how things could have been as
+she described them. It was not as yet three months since, to her
+knowledge, this young woman had been staying at Bragton as the
+affianced bride of the owner of the house,--staying there with her
+own mother and his grandmother,--and now she declared that since
+that time she had become engaged to another man and that that other
+man had already jilted her! And yet she was here that she might
+make a deathbed parting with the man who regarded himself as her
+affianced husband. "If I were sure that he were dying, why should I
+trouble him?" she said again.
+
+Lady Ushant found herself utterly unable to give any counsel to
+such a condition of circumstances. Why should she be asked? This
+young woman had her mother with her. Did her mother know all this,
+and nevertheless bring her daughter to the house of a man who had
+been so treated! "I really do not know what to say," she replied at
+last.
+
+"But I was determined that I would tell some one. I thought that
+Mrs. Morton would have been here." Lady Ushant shook her head. "I
+am glad she is not, because she was not civil to me when I was here
+before. She would have said hard things to me,--though not perhaps
+harder than I have deserved. I suppose I may still see him
+to-morrow."
+
+"Oh yes; he expects it"
+
+"I shall not tell him now. I could not tell him if I thought he
+were dying. If he gets better you must tell him all."
+
+"I don't think I could do that, Miss Trefoil."
+
+"Pray do;--pray do. I call upon you to tell him everything."
+
+"Tell him that you will be married to Lord Rufford?"
+
+"No;--not that. If Mr. Morton were well to-morrow I would have
+him,--if he chose after what I have told you."
+
+"You do love him then?"
+
+"At any rate I like no one better."
+
+"Not the young lord?"
+
+"No! why should I like him? He does not love me. I hate him. I
+would marry Mr. Morton tomorrow, and go with him to Patagonia, or
+anywhere else,--if he would have me after hearing what I have
+done." Then she rose from her chair; but before she left the room
+she said a word further. "Do not speak a word to my mother about
+this. Mamma knows nothing of my purpose. Mamma only wants me to
+marry Lord Rufford, and to throw Mr. Morton over. Do not tell
+anyone else, Lady Ushant; but if he is ever well enough then you
+must tell him." After that she went, leaving Lady Ushant in the
+room astounded by the story she had heard.
+
+
+
+
+VOLUME III
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+"I have told him Everything."
+
+
+That evening was very long and very sad to the three ladies
+assembled in the drawing-room at Bragton Park, but it was probably
+more so to Lady Augustus than the other two. She hardly spoke to
+either of them; nor did they to her; while a certain amount of
+conversation in a low tone was carried on between Lady Ushant and
+Miss Trefoil. When Arabella came down to dinner she received a
+message from the sick man. He sent his love, and would so willingly
+have seen her instantly,--only that the doctor would not allow it.
+But he was so glad,--so very glad that she had come! This Lady
+Ushant said to her in a whisper, and seemed to say it as though she
+had heard nothing of that frightful story which had been told to
+her not much more than an hour ago. Arabella did not utter a word
+in reply, but put out her hand, secretly as it were, and grasped
+that of the old lady to whom she had told the tale of her later
+intrigues. The dinner did not keep them long, but it was very
+grievous to them all. Lady Ushant might have made some effort to be
+at least a complaisant hostess to Lady Augustus had she not heard
+this story,--had she not been told that the woman, knowing her
+daughter to be engaged to John Morton, had wanted her to marry Lord
+Rufford. The story having come from the lips of the girl herself
+had moved some pity in the old woman's breast in regard to her; but
+for Lady Augustus she could feel nothing but horror.
+
+In the evening Lady Augustus sat alone, not even pretending to open
+a book or to employ her fingers. She seated herself on one side of
+the fire with a screen in her hand, turning over such thoughts in
+her mind as were perhaps customary to her. Would there ever come a
+period to her misery, an hour of release in which she might be in
+comfort ere she died? Hitherto from one year to another, from one
+decade to the following, it had all been struggle and misery,
+contumely and contempt. She thought that she had done her duty by
+her child, and her child hated and despised her. It was but the
+other day that Arabella had openly declared that in the event of
+her marriage she would not have her mother as a guest in her own
+house. There could be no longer hope for triumph and glory;--but
+how might she find peace so that she might no longer be driven
+hither and thither by this ungrateful tyrant child? Oh, how hard
+she had worked in the world, and how little the world had given her
+in return!
+
+Lady Ushant and Arabella sat at the other side of the fire, at some
+distance from it, on a sofa, and carried on a fitful conversation
+in whispers, of which a word would now and then reach the ears of
+the wretched mother. It consisted chiefly of a description of the
+man's illness, and of the different sayings which had come from the
+doctors who had attended him. It was marvellous to Lady Augustus,
+as she sat there listening, that her daughter should condescend to
+take an interest in such details. What could it be to her now how
+the fever had taken him, or why or when? On the very next day, the
+very morning on which she would go and sit,---ah so uselessly,--by
+the dying man's bedside, her father was to meet Lord Rufford at the
+ducal mansion in Piccadilly to see if anything could be dome in
+that quarter! It was impossible that she should really care whether
+John Morton's lease of life was to be computed at a week's purchase
+or at that of a month! And yet Arabella sat there asking sick-room
+questions and listening to sickroom replies as though her very
+nature had been changed. Lady Augustus heard her daughter inquire
+what food the sick man took, and then Lady Ushant at great length
+gave the list of his nourishment. What sickening hypocrisy! thought
+Lady Augustus.
+
+Lady Augustus must have known her daughter well; and yet if was not
+hypocrisy. The girl's nature, which had become thoroughly evil from
+the treatment it had received, was not altered. Such sudden changes
+do not occur more frequently than other miracles. But zealously as
+she had practised her arts she had not as yet practised them long
+enough not to be cowed by certain outward circumstances. There were
+moments when she still heard in her imagination the sound of that
+horse's foot as it struck the skull of the unfortunate fallen
+rider;--and now the prospect of the death of this man whom she had
+known so intimately and who had behaved so well to her, to whom her
+own conduct had been so foully false,--for a time brought her back
+to humanity. But Lady Augustus had got beyond that and could not at
+all understand it.
+
+By nine they had all retired for the night. It was necessary that
+Lady Ushant should again visit her nephew, and the mother and
+daughter went to their own rooms. "I cannot in the least make out
+what you are doing," said Lady Augustus in her most severe voice.
+
+"I dare say not, mamma."
+
+"I have been brought here, at a terrible sacrifice--"
+
+"Sacrifice! What sacrifice? You are as well here as anywhere else."
+
+"I say I have been brought here at a terrible sacrifice for no
+purpose whatever. What use is it to be? And then you pretend to
+care what this poor man is eating and drinking and what physic he
+is taking when, the last time you were in his company, you wouldn't
+so much as look at him for fear you should make another man
+jealous."
+
+"He was not dying then."
+
+"Psha!"
+
+"Oh yes. I know all that. I do feel a little ashamed of myself when
+I am almost crying for him,"
+
+"As if you loved him!"
+
+"Dear mamma, I do own that it is foolish. Having listened to you on
+these subjects for a dozen years at least I ought to have got rid
+of all that. I don't suppose I do love him. Two or three weeks ago
+I almost thought I loved Lord Rufford, and now I am quite sure that
+I hate him. But if I heard tomorrow that he had broken his neck out
+hunting, I ain't sure but what I should feel something. But he
+would not send for me as this man has done."
+
+"It was very impertinent"
+
+"Perhaps it was ill-bred, as he must have suspected something as to
+Lord Rufford. However we are here now."
+
+"I will never allow you to drag me anywhere again."
+
+"It will be for yourself to judge of that. If I want to go
+anywhere, I shall go. What's the good of quarrelling? You know that
+I mean to have my way."
+
+The next morning neither Lady Augustus nor Miss Trefoil came down
+to breakfast, but at ten o'clock Arabella was ready, as appointed,
+to be taken into the sick man's bedroom. She was still dressed in
+black but had taken some trouble with her face and hair. She
+followed Lady Ushant in, and silently standing by the bedside put
+her hand upon that of John Morton which was laying outside on the
+bed. "I will leave you now, John," said Lady Ushant retiring, "and
+come again in half an hour,"
+
+"When I ring," he said.
+
+"You mustn't let him talk for more than that," said the old lady to
+Arabella as she went.
+
+It was more than an hour afterwards when Arabella crept into her
+mother's room, during which time Lady Ushant had twice knocked at
+her nephew's door and had twice been sent away. "It is all over,
+mamma!" she said.
+
+Lady Augustus looked into her daughter's eyes and saw that she had
+really been weeping. "All over!"
+
+"I mean for me,--and you. We have only got to go away."
+
+"Will he die?"
+
+"It will make no matter though he should live for ever. I have told
+him everything. I did not mean to do it because I thought that he
+would be weak; but he has been strong enough for that"
+
+"What have you told him?"
+
+"Just everything--about you and Lord Rufford and myself,--and what
+an escape he had had not to marry me. He understands it all now."
+
+"It is a great deal more than I do."
+
+"He knows that Lord Rufford has been engaged to me." She clung to
+this statement so vehemently that she had really taught herself to
+believe that it was so.
+
+"Well!"
+
+"And he knows also how his lordship is behaving to me. Of course he
+thinks that I have deserved it. Of course I have deserved it. We
+have nothing to do now but to go back to London."
+
+"You have brought me here all the way for that"
+
+"Only for that! As the man was dying I thought that I would be
+honest just for once. Now. that I have told him I don't believe
+that he will die. He does not look to be so very ill."
+
+"And you have thrown away that chance!"
+
+"Altogether. You didn't like Bragton you know, and therefore it
+can't matter to you."
+
+"Like it!"
+
+"To be sure you would have got rid of me had I gone to Patagonia.
+But he will not go to Patagonia now even if he gets well; and so
+there was nothing to be gained. The carriage is to be here at two
+to take us to the station and you may as well let Judith come and
+put the things up."
+
+Just before they took their departure Lady Ushant came to Arabella
+saying that Mr. Morton wanted to speak one other word to her before
+she went. So she returned to the room and was again left alone at
+the man's bedside. "Arabella," he said, "I thought that I would
+tell you that I have forgiven everything."
+
+"How can you have forgiven me? There are things which a man cannot
+forgive."
+
+"Give me your hand,"' he said,--and she gave him her hand. "I do
+forgive it all. Even should I live it would be impossible that we
+should be man and wife."
+
+"Oh yes."
+
+"But nevertheless I love you. Try,--try to be true to some one."
+
+"There is no truth left in me, Mr. Morton. I should not dishonour
+my husband if I had one, but still I should be a curse to him. I
+shall marry some day I suppose, and I know it will be so. I wish I
+could change with you,--and die."
+
+"You are unhappy now."
+
+"Indeed I am. I am always unhappy. I do not think you can tell what
+it is to be so wretched. But I am glad that you have forgiven me."
+Then she stooped down and kissed his hand. As she did so he touched
+her brow with his hot lips, and then she left him again. Lady
+Ushant was waiting outside the door. "He knows it all," said
+Arabella. "You need not trouble yourself with the message I gave
+you. The carriage is at the door. Good-bye. You need not come down.
+Mamma will not expect it." Lady Ushant, hardly knowing how she
+ought to behave, did not go down. Lady Augustus and her daughter
+got into Mr. Runciman's carriage without any farewells, and were
+driven back from the park to the Dillsborough Station. To poor Lady
+Ushant the whole thing had been very terrible. She sat silent and
+unoccupied the whole of that evening wondering at the horror of
+such a history. This girl had absolutely dared to tell the dying
+man all her own disgrace,--and had travelled down from London to
+Bragton with the purpose of doing so! When next she crept into the
+sick-room she almost expected that her nephew would speak to her on
+the subject; but he only asked whether that sound of wheels which
+he heard beneath his window had come from the carriage which had
+taken them away, and then did not say a further word of either Lady
+Augustus or her daughter.
+
+"And what do you mean to do now?" said Lady Augustus as the train
+approached the London terminus.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"You have given up Lord Rufford?"
+
+"Indeed I have not"
+
+"Your journey to Bragton will hardly help you much with him."
+
+"I don't want it to help me at all. What have I done that Lord
+Rufford can complain of? I have not abandoned Lord Rufford for the
+sake of Mr. Morton. Lord Rufford ought only to be too proud if he
+knew it all."
+
+"Of course he could make use of such an escapade as this?"
+
+"Let him try. I have not done with Lord Rufford yet, and so I can
+tell him. I shall be at the Duke's in Piccadilly to-morrow
+morning."
+
+"That will be impossible, Arabella."
+
+"They shall see whether it is impossible. I have got beyond caring
+very much what people say now. I know the kind of way papa would be
+thrown over if there is no one there to back him. I shall be there
+and I will ask Lord Rufford to his face whether we did not become
+engaged when we were at Mistletoe."
+
+"They won't let you in."
+
+"I'll find a way to make my way in. I shall never be his wife. I
+don't know that I want it. After all what's the good of living with
+a man if you hate each other,--or living apart like you and papa?"
+
+"He has income enough for anything!" exclaimed Lady Augustus,
+shocked at her daughter's apparent blindness.
+
+"It isn't that I'm thinking of, but I'll have my revenge on him.
+Liar! To write and say that I had made a mistake! He had not the
+courage to get out of it when we were together; but when he had run
+away in the night, like a thief, and got into his own house, then
+he could write and say that I had made a mistake! I have sometimes
+pitied men when I have seen girls hunting them down, but upon my
+word they deserve it!" This renewal of spirit did something to
+comfort Lady Augustus. She had begun to fear that her daughter, in
+her despair, would abandon altogether the one pursuit of her
+life;--but it now seemed that there was still some courage left for
+the battle.
+
+That night nothing more was said, but Arabella applied all her mind
+to the present condition of her circumstances. Should she or should
+she not go to the House in Piccadilly on the following morning? At
+last she determined that she would not do so, believing that should
+her father fail she might make a better opportunity for herself
+afterwards. At her uncle's house she would hardly have known where
+or how to wait for the proper moment of her appearance. "So you are
+not going to Piccadilly," said her mother on the following morning.
+
+"It appears not," said Arabella.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+"Now what have you got to say?"
+
+
+It may be a question whether Lord Augustus Trefoil or Lord Rufford
+looked forward to the interview which was to take place at the
+Duke's mansion with the greater dismay. The unfortunate father
+whose only principle in life had been that of avoiding trouble
+would have rather that his daughter should have been jilted a score
+of times than that he should have been called upon to interfere
+once. There was in this demand upon him a breach of a silent but
+well-understood compact. His wife and daughter had been allowed to
+do just what they pleased and to be free of his authority, upon an
+understanding that they were never to give him any trouble. She
+might have married Lord Rufford, or Mr. Morton, or any other man
+she might have succeeded in catching, and he would not have
+troubled her either before or after her marriage. But it was not
+fair that he should be called upon to interfere in her failures.
+And what was he to say to this young lord? Being fat and old and
+plethoric he could not be expected to use a stick and thrash the
+young lord. Pistols were gone,--a remembrance of which fact perhaps
+afforded some consolation. Nobody now need be afraid of anybody,
+and the young lord would not be afraid of him. Arabella declared
+that there had been an engagement. The young lord would of course
+declare that there had been none. Upon the whole he was inclined to
+believe it most probable that his daughter was lying. He did not
+think it likely that Lord Rufford should have been such a fool. As
+for taking Lord Rufford by the back of his neck and shaking him
+into matrimony, he knew that that would be altogether out of his
+power. And then the hour was so wretchedly early. It was that
+little fool Mistletoe who had named ten o'clock,--a fellow who took
+Parliamentary papers to bed with him, and had a blue book brought
+to him every morning at half-past seven with a cup of tea. By ten
+o'clock Lord Augustus would not have had time to take his first
+glass of soda and brandy preparatory to the labour of getting into
+his clothes. But he was afraid of his wife and daughter, and
+absolutely did get into a cab at the door of his lodgings in Duke
+Street, St. James', precisely at a quarter past ten. As the Duke's
+house was close to the corner of Clarges Street the journey he had
+to make was not long.
+
+Lord Rufford would not have agreed to the interview but that it was
+forced upon him by his brother-in-law. "What good can it do?" Lord
+Rufford had asked. But his brother-in-law had held that that was a
+question to be answered by the other side. In such a position Sir
+George thought that he was bound to concede as much as this,--in fact
+to concede almost anything short of marriage. "He can't do the girl any
+good by talking," Lord Rufford had said. Sir George assented to this,
+but nevertheless thought that any friend deputed by her should be
+allowed to talk, at any rate once. "I don't know what he'll say. Do you
+think he'll bring a big stick?" Sir George who knew Lord Augustus did
+not imagine that a stick would be brought. "I couldn't hit him, you
+know. He's so fat that a blow would kill him." Lord Rufford wanted his
+brother-in-law to go with him; but Sir George assured him that this was
+impossible. It was a great bore. He had to go up to London all
+alone,--in February, when the weather was quite open and hunting was
+nearly coming to an end. And for what? Was it likely that such a man as
+Lord Augustus should succeed in talking him into marrying any girl?
+Nevertheless he went, prepared to be very civil, full of sorrow at the
+misunderstanding, but strong in his determination not to yield an inch.
+He arrived at the mansion precisely at ten o'clock and was at once
+shown into a back room on the ground floor. He saw no one but a very
+demure old servant who seemed to look upon him as one who was sinning
+against the Trefoil family in general, and who shut the door upon him,
+leaving him as it were in prison. He was so accustomed to be the
+absolute master of his own minutes and hours that he chafed greatly as
+he walked up and down the room for what seemed to him the greater part
+of a day. He looked repeatedly at his watch, and at half-past ten
+declared to himself that if that fat old fool did not come within two
+minutes he would make his escape.
+
+"The fat old fool" when he reached the house asked for his nephew
+and endeavoured to persuade Lord Mistletoe to go with him to the
+interview. But Lord Mistletoe was as firm in refusing as had been
+Sir George Penwether. "You are quite wrong," said the young man
+with well-informed sententious gravity. "I could do nothing to help
+you. You are Arabella's father and no one can plead her cause but
+yourself." Lord Augustus dropped his eyebrows over his eyes as this
+was said. They who knew him well and had seen the same thing done
+when his partner would not answer his call at whist or had led up
+to his discard were aware that the motion was tantamount to a very
+strong expression of disgust. He did not, however, argue the matter
+any further, but allowed himself to be led away slowly by the same
+solemn servant. Lord Rufford had taken up his hat preparatory to
+his departure when Lord Augustus was announced just five minutes
+after the half hour.
+
+When the elder man entered the room the younger one put down his
+hat and bowed. Lord Augustus also bowed and then stood for a few
+moments silent with his fat hands extended on the round table in
+the middle of the room. "This is a very disagreeable kind of thing,
+my Lord," he said.
+
+"Very disagreeable, and one that I lament above all things,"
+answered Lord Rufford:
+
+"That's all very well;--very well indeed;--but, damme, what's the
+meaning of it all? That's what I want to ask. What's the meaning of
+it all?" Then he paused as though he had completed the first part
+of his business,--and might now wait awhile till the necessary
+explanation had been given. But Lord Rufford did not seem disposed
+to give any immediate answer. He shrugged his shoulders, and,
+taking up his hat, passed his hand once or twice round the nap.
+Lord Augustus opened his eyes very wide as he waited and looked at
+the other man; but it seemed that the other man had nothing to say
+for himself. "You don't mean to tell me, I suppose, that what my
+daughter says isn't true."
+
+"Some unfortunate mistake, Lord Augustus;--most unfortunate."
+
+"Mistake be--." He stopped himself before the sentence was
+completed, remembering that such an interview should be conducted
+on the part of him, as father, with something of dignity. "I don't
+understand anything about mistakes. Ladies don't make mistakes of
+that kind. I won't hear of mistakes." Lord Rufford again shrugged
+his shoulders. "You have engaged my daughter's affections."
+
+"I have the greatest regard for Miss Trefoil."
+
+"Regard be--." Then again he remembered himself. "Lord Rufford,
+you've got to marry her. That's the long and the short of it"
+
+"I'm sure I ought to be proud."
+
+"So you ought"
+
+"But--"
+
+"I don't know the meaning of but, my Lord. I want to know what you
+mean to do."
+
+"Marriage isn't in my line at all"
+
+"Then what the d-- business have you to go about and talk to a girl
+like that? Marriage not in your line? Who cares for your line? I
+never heard such impudence in all my life. You get yourself engaged
+to a young lady of high rank and position and then you say that--
+marriage isn't in your line." Upon that he opened his eyes still
+wider, and glared upon the offender wrathfully.
+
+"I can't admit that I was ever engaged to Miss Trefoil."
+
+"Didn't you make love to her?"
+
+The poor victim paused a moment before he answered this question,
+thereby confessing his guilt before he denied it. "No, my Lord; I
+don't think I ever did."
+
+"You don't think! You don't know whether you asked my daughter to
+marry you or not! You don't think you made love to her!"
+
+"I am sure I didn't ask her to marry me."
+
+"I am sure you did. And now what have you got to say?" Here there
+was another shrug of the shoulders. "I suppose you think because
+you are a rich man that you may do whatever you please. But you'll
+have to learn the difference. You must be exposed, Sir."
+
+"I hope for the lady's sake that as little as possible may be said
+of it."
+
+"D-- the--!" Lord Augustus in his assumed wrath was about to be
+very severe on his daughter, but he checked himself again. "I'm not
+going to stop here talking all day," he said. "I want to hear your
+explanation and then I shall know how to act." Up to this time he
+had been standing, which was unusual with him. Now he flung himself
+into an armchair.
+
+"Really, Lord Augustus, I don't know what I've got to say. I admire
+your daughter exceedingly. I was very much honoured when she and
+her mother came to my house at Rufford. I was delighted to be able
+to show her a little sport. It gave me the greatest satisfaction
+when I met her again at your brother's house. Coming home from
+hunting we happened to be thrown together. It's a kind of thing
+that will occur, you know. The Duchess seemed to think a great deal
+of it; but what can one do? We could have had two post chaises, of
+course,--only one doesn't generally send a young lady alone. She
+was very tired and fainted with the fatigue. That I think is about
+all."
+
+"But,--damme, Sir, what did you say to her?" Lord Rufford again
+rubbed the nap of his hat. "What did you say to her first of all,
+at your own house?"
+
+"A poor fellow was killed out hunting and everybody was talking
+about that. Your daughter saw it herself."
+
+"Excuse me, Lord Rufford, if I say that that's what we used to call
+shuffling, at school. Because a man broke his neck out hunting--"
+
+"It was a kick on the head, Lord Augustus."
+
+"I don't care where he was kicked. What has that to do with your
+asking my daughter to be your wife?"
+
+"But I didn't"
+
+"I say you did,--over and over again." Here Lord Augustus got out
+of his chair, and made a little attempt to reach the recreant
+lover;--but he failed and fell back again into his armchair. "It
+was first at Rufford, and then you made an appointment to meet her
+at Mistletoe. How do you explain that?"
+
+"Miss Trefoil is very fond of hunting."
+
+"I don't believe she ever went out hunting in her life before she
+saw you. You mounted her,--and gave her a horse,--and took her
+out,--and brought her home. Everybody at Mistletoe knew all about
+it. My brother and the Duchess were told of it. It was one of those
+things that are plain to everybody as the nose on your face. What
+did you say to her when you were coming home in that post chaise?"
+
+"She was fainting."
+
+"What has that to do with it? I don't care whether she fainted or
+not. I don't believe she fainted at all. When she got into that
+carriage she was engaged to you, and when she got out of it she was
+engaged ever so much more. The Duchess knew all about it. Now what
+have you got to say?" Lord Rufford felt that he had nothing to say.
+"I insist upon having an answer."
+
+"It's one of the most unfortunate mistakes that ever were made."
+
+"By G--!" exclaimed Lord Augustus, turning his eyes up against the
+wall, and appealing to some dark ancestor who hung there. "I never
+heard of such a thing in all my life; never!"
+
+"I suppose I might as well go now," said Lord Rufford after a
+pause.
+
+"You may go to the D--, Sir,--for the present" Then Lord Rufford
+took his departure leaving the injured parent panting with his
+exertions. As Lord Rufford went away he felt that that difficulty
+had been overcome with much more ease than he had expected. He
+hardly knew what it was that he had dreaded, but he had feared
+something much worse than that. Had an appeal been made to his
+affections he would hardly have known how to answer. He remembered
+well that he had assured the lady that he loved her, and had a
+direct question been asked him on that subject he would not have
+lied. He must have confessed that such a declaration had been made
+by him. But he had escaped that. He was quite sure that he had
+never uttered a hint in regard to marriage, and he came away from
+the Duke's house almost with an assurance that he had done nothing
+that was worthy of much blame.
+
+Lord Augustus looked at his watch, rang the bell, and ordered a
+cab. He must now go and see his daughter, and then he would have
+done with the matter--for ever. But as he was passing through the
+hall his nephew caught hold of him and took him back into the room.
+"What does he say for himself?" asked Lord Mistletoe.
+
+"I don't know what he says. Of course he swears that he never spoke
+a word to her."
+
+"My mother saw him paying her the closest attention."
+
+"How can I help that? What can I do? Why didn't your mother pin him
+then and there? Women can always do that kind of thing if they
+choose."
+
+"It is all over, then?"
+
+"I can't make a man marry if he won't. He ought to be thrashed
+within an inch of his life. But if one does that kind of thing the
+police are down upon one. All the same, I think the Duchess might
+have managed it if she had chosen." After that he went to the
+lodgings in Orchard Street, and there repeated his story. "I have
+done all I can," he said, "and I don't mean to interfere any
+further. Arabella should know how to manage her own affairs."
+
+"And you don't mean to punish him?" asked the mother.
+
+"Punish him! How am I to punish him? If I were to throw a decanter
+at his head, what good would that do?"
+
+"And you mean to say that she must put up with it?" Arabella was
+sitting by as these questions were asked.
+
+"He says that he never said a word to her. Whom am I to believe?"
+
+"You did believe him, papa?"
+
+"Who said so, Miss? But I don't see why his word isn't as good as
+yours. There was nobody to hear it, I suppose. Why didn't you get
+it in writing, or make your uncle fix him at once? If you mismanage
+your own affairs I can't put them right for you."
+
+"Thank you, papa. I am so much obliged to you. You come back and
+tell me that every word he says is to be taken for gospel, and that
+you don't believe a word I have spoken. That is so kind of you! I
+suppose he and you will be the best friends in the world now. But I
+don't mean to let him off in that way. As you won't help me, I must
+help myself."
+
+"What did you expect me to do?"
+
+"Never to leave him till you had forced him to keep his word. I
+should have thought that you would have taken him by the throat in
+such a cause. Any other father would have done so."
+
+"You are an impudent, wicked girl, and I don't believe he was ever
+engaged to you at all," said Lord Augustus as he took his leave.
+
+"Now you have made your father your enemy," said the mother.
+
+"Everybody is my enemy," said Arabella. "There are no such things
+as love and friendship. Papa pretends that he does not believe me,
+just because he wants to shirk the trouble. I suppose you'll say
+you don't believe me next."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Mrs. Morton returns
+
+
+A few days after that on which Lady Augustus and her daughter left
+Bragton old Mrs. Morton returned to that place. She had gone away
+in very bitterness of spirit against her grandson in the early days
+of his illness. For some period antecedent to that there had been
+causes for quarrelling. John Morton had told her that he had been
+to Reginald's house, and she, in her wrath, replied that he had
+disgraced himself by doing so. When those harsh words had been
+forgotten, or at any rate forgiven, other causes of anger had
+sprung up. She had endeavoured to drive him to repudiate Arabella
+Trefoil, and in order that she might do so effectually had
+contrived to find out something of Arabella's doings at Rufford and
+at Mistletoe. Her efforts in this direction had had an effect
+directly contrary to that which she had intended. There had been
+moments in which Morton had been willing enough to rid himself of
+that burden. He had felt the lady's conduct in his own house, and
+had seen it at Rufford. He, too, had heard something of Mistletoe.
+But the spirit within him was aroused at the idea of dictation, and
+he had been prompted to contradict the old woman's accusation
+against his intended bride, by the very fact that they were made by
+her. And then she threatened him. If he did these things,--if he
+would consort with an outcast from the family such as Reginald
+Morton, and take to himself such a bride as Arabella Trefoil, he
+could never more be to her as her child. This of course was
+tantamount to saying that she would leave her money to some one
+else,--money which, as he well knew, had all been collected from
+the Bragton property. He had ever been to her as her son, and yet
+he was aware of a propensity on her part to enrich her own noble
+relatives with her hoards,--a desire from gratifying which she had
+hitherto been restrained by conscience. Morton had been anxious
+enough for his grandmother's money, but, even in the hope of
+receiving it, would not bear indignity beyond a certain point. He
+had therefore declared it to be his purpose to marry Arabella
+Trefoil, and because he had so declared he had almost brought
+himself to forgive that young lady's sins against him. Then, as his
+illness became serious, there arose the question of disposing of
+the property in the event of his death. Mrs. Morton was herself
+very old, and was near her grave. She was apt to speak of herself
+as one who had but a few days left to her in this world. But, to
+her, property was more important than life or death;--and rank
+probably more important than either. She was a brave, fierce,
+evil-minded, but conscientious old woman,--one, we may say, with
+very bad lights indeed, but who was steadfastly minded to walk by
+those lights, such as they were. She did not scruple to tell her
+grandson that it was his duty to leave the property away from his
+cousin Reginald, nor to allege as a reason for his doing so that in
+all probability Reginald Morton was not the legitimate heir of his
+great-grandfather, Sir Reginald. For such an assertion John Morton
+knew there was not a shadow of ground. No one but this old woman
+had ever suspected that the Canadian girl whom Reginald's father
+had brought with him to Bragton had been other than his honest
+wife;--and her suspicions had only come from vague assertions, made
+by herself in blind anger till at last she had learned to believe
+them. Then, when in addition to this, he asserted his purpose of
+asking Arabella Trefoil to come to him at Bragton, the cup of her
+wrath was overflowing, and she withdrew from the house altogether.
+It might be that he was dying. She did in truth believe that he was
+dying. But there were things more serious to her than life or
+death. Should she allow him to trample upon all her feelings
+because he was on his death-bed,--when perhaps in very truth he
+might not be on his death-bed at all? She, at any rate, was near
+her death,--and she would do her duty. So she packed up her
+things--to the last black skirt of an old gown, so that every one
+at Bragton might know that it was her purpose to come back no more.
+And she went away.
+
+Then Lady Ushant came to take her place, and with Lady Ushant came
+Reginald Morton. The one lived in the house and the other visited
+it daily. And, as the reader knows, Lady Augustus came with her
+daughter. Mrs. Morton, though she had gone,--for ever,--took care
+to know of the comings and goings at Bragton. Mrs. Hopkins was
+enjoined to write to her and tell her everything; and though Mrs.
+Hopkins with all her heart took the side of Lady Ushant and
+Reginald, she had never been well inclined to Miss Trefoil.
+Presents too were given and promises were made; and Mrs. Hopkins,
+not without some little treachery, did from time to time send to
+the old lady a record of what took place at Bragton. Arabella came
+and went, and Mrs. Hopkins thought that her coming had not led to
+much. Lady Ushant was always with Mr. John,--such was the account
+given by Mrs. Hopkins;--and the general opinion was that the
+squire's days were numbered.
+
+Then the old woman's jealousy was aroused, and, perhaps, her heart
+was softened. It was still hard black winter, and she was living
+alone in lodgings in London. The noble cousin, a man nearly as old
+as herself whose children she was desirous to enrich, took but
+little notice of her, nor would she have been Nappy had she lived
+with him. Her life had been usually solitary,--with little breaks
+to its loneliness occasioned by the visits to England of him whom
+she had called her child. That this child should die before her,
+should die in his youth, did not shock her much. Her husband had
+done so, and her own son, and sundry of her noble brothers and
+sisters. She was hardened against death. Life to her had never been
+joyous, though the trappings of life were so great in her eyes. But
+it broke her heart that her child should die in the arms of another
+old woman who had always been to her as an enemy. Lady Ushant, in
+days now long gone by but still remembered as though they were
+yesterday, had counselled the reception of the Canadian female. And
+Lady Ushant, when the Canadian female and her husband were dead,
+had been a mother to the boy whom she, Mrs. Morton, would so fain
+have repudiated altogether. Lady Ushant had always been "on the
+other side;" and now Lady Ushant was paramount at Bragton.
+
+And doubtless there was some tenderness, though Mrs. Morton was
+unwilling to own even to herself that she was moved by any such
+feeling. If she had done her duty in counselling him to reject both
+Reginald Morton and Arabella Trefoil,--as to which she admitted no
+doubt in her own mind;--and if duty had required her to absent
+herself when her counsel was spurned, then would she be weak and
+unmindful of duty should she allow any softness of heart to lure
+her back again. It was so she reasoned. But still some softness was
+there; and when she heard that Miss Trefoil had gone, and that her
+visit had not, in Mrs. Hopkins's opinion, "led to much," she wrote
+to say that she would return. She made no request and clothed her
+suggestion in no words of tenderness; but simply told her grandson
+that she would come back--as the Trefoils had left him.
+
+And she did come. When the news were first told to Lady Ushant by
+the sick man himself, that Lady proposed that she should at once go
+back to Cheltenham. But when she was asked whether her animosity to
+Mrs. Morton was so great that she could not consent to remain under
+the same roof, she at once declared that she had no animosity
+whatsoever. The idea of animosity running over nearly half a
+century was horrible to her; and therefore, though she did in her
+heart of hearts dread the other old woman, she consented to stay.
+"And what shall Reginald do?" she asked. John Morton had thought
+about this too, and expressed a wish that Reginald should come
+regularly,--as he had come during the last week or two.
+
+It was just a week from the day on which the Trefoils had gone that
+Mrs. Morton was driven up to the door in Mr. Runciman's fly. This
+was at four in the afternoon, and had the old woman looked out of
+the fly window she might have seen Reginald making his way by the
+little path to the bridge which led back to Dillsborough. It was at
+this hour that he went daily, and he had not now thought it worth
+his while to remain to welcome Mrs. Morton. And she might also have
+seen, had she looked out, that with him was walking a young woman.
+She would not have known Mary Masters; but had she seen them both,
+and had she known the young woman, she would have declared in her
+pride that they were fit associates. But she saw nothing of this,
+sitting there behind her veil, thinking whether she might still do
+anything, and if so; what she might do to avert the present evil
+destination of the Bragton estate. There was an honourable nephew
+of her own,--or rather a great-nephew,--who might easily take the
+name, who would so willingly take the name! Or if this were
+impracticable, there was a distant Morton, very distant, whom she
+had never seen and certainly did not love, but who was clearly a
+Morton, and who would certainly be preferable to that enemy of
+forty years' standing. Might there not be some bargain made? Would
+not her dying grandson be alive to the evident duty of enriching
+the property and leaving behind him a wealthy heir? She could
+enrich the property and make the heir wealthy by her money.
+
+"How is he?" That of course was the first question when Mrs.
+Hopkins met her in the hall. Mrs. Hopkins only shook her head and
+said that perhaps he had taken his food that day a little better
+than on the last. Then there was a whisper, to which Mrs. Hopkins
+whispered back her answer. Yes,--Lady Ushant was in the house,--was
+at this moment in the sick man's room. Mr. Reginald was not staying
+there,--had never stayed there,--but came every day. He had only
+just left. "And is he to come still?" asked Mrs. Morton with wrath
+in her eyes. Mrs. Hopkins did not know but was disposed to think
+that Mr. Reginald would come every day. Then Mrs. Morton went up to
+her own room,--and while she prepared herself for her visit to the
+sick room Lady Ushant retired. She had a cup of tea, refusing all
+other refreshment, and then, walking erect as though she had been
+forty instead of seventy-five, she entered her grandson's chamber
+and took her old place at his bedside.
+
+Nothing was then said about Arabella, nor, indeed, at any future
+time was her name mentioned between them;--nor was anything then
+said about the future fate of the estate. She did not dare to bring
+up the subject at once, though, on the journey down from London,
+she had determined that she would do so. But she was awed by his
+appearance and by the increased appanages of his sick-bed. He
+spoke, indeed, of the property, and expressed his anxiety that
+Chowton Farm should be bought, if it came into market. He thought
+that the old acres should be redeemed, if the opportunity arose,--
+and if the money could be found. "Chowton Farm!" exclaimed the old
+woman, who remembered well the agony which had attended the
+alienation of that portion of the Morton lands.
+
+"It may be that it will be sold."
+
+"Lawrence Twentyman sell Chowton Farm! I thought he was well off."
+Little as she had been at Bragton she knew all about Chowton
+Farm,--except that its owner was so wounded by vain love as to be
+like a hurt deer. Her grandson did not tell her all the story, but
+explained to her that Lawrence Twentyman, though not poor, had
+other plans of life and thought of leaving the neighbourhood. She,
+of course, had the money; and as she believed that land was the one
+proper possession for an English gentleman of ancient family, she
+doubtless would have been willing to buy it had she approved of the
+hands into which it would fall. It seemed to him that it was her
+duty to do as much for the estate with which all her fortune had
+been concerned. "Yes," she said; "it should be bought,--if other
+things suited. We will talk of it to-morrow, John." Then he spoke
+of his mission to Patagonia and of his regret that it should be
+abandoned. Even were he ever to be well again his strength would
+return to him too late for this purpose. He had already made known
+to the Foreign Office his inability to undertake that service. But
+she could perceive that he had not in truth abandoned his hopes of
+living, for he spoke much of his ambition as to the public service.
+The more he thought of it, he said, the more certain he became that
+it would suit him better to go on with his profession than to live
+the life of a country squire in England. And yet she could see the
+change which had taken place since she was last there and was aware
+that he was fading away from day to day.
+
+It was not till they were summoned to dine together that she saw
+Lady Ushant. Very many years had passed since last they were
+together, and yet neither seemed to the other to be much changed.
+Lady Ushant was still soft, retiring, and almost timid; whereas
+Mrs. Morton showed her inclination to domineer even in the way in
+which she helped herself to salt. While the servant was with them
+very little was said on either side. There was a word or two from
+Mrs. Morton to show that she considered herself the mistress
+there,--and a word from the other lady proclaiming that she had no
+pretensions of that kind. But after dinner in the little
+drawing-room they were more communicative. Something of course was
+said as to the health of the invalid. Lady Ushant was not the woman
+to give a pronounced opinion on such a subject. She used doubtful,
+hesitating words, and would in one minute almost contradict what
+she had said in the former. But Mrs. Morton was clever enough to
+perceive that Lady Ushant was almost without hope. Then she made a
+little speech with a fixed purpose. "It must be a great trouble to
+you, Lady Ushant, to be so long away from home."
+
+"Not at all," said Lady Ushant in perfect innocence. "I have
+nothing to bind me anywhere."
+
+"I shall think it my duty to remain here now,--till the end."
+
+"I suppose so. He has always been almost the same to you as your
+own."
+
+"Quite so; quite the same. He is my own." And yet,--she left him in
+his illness! She, too, had heard something from Mrs. Hopkins of the
+temper in which Mrs. Morton had last left Bragton. "But you are not
+bound to him in that way."
+
+"Not in that way certainly."
+
+"In no way, I may say. It was very kind of you to come when
+business made it imperative on me to go to town, but I do not think
+we can call upon you for further sacrifice."
+
+"It is no sacrifice, Mrs. Morton." Lady Ushant was as meek as a
+worm, but a worm will turn. And though innocent, she was quick
+enough to perceive that at this, their first meeting, the other old
+woman was endeavouring to turn her out of the house.
+
+"I mean that it can hardly be necessary to call upon you to give up
+your time."
+
+"What has an old woman to do with her time, Mrs. Morton?"
+
+Hitherto Mrs. Morton had smiled. The smile indeed had been grim,
+but it had been intended to betoken outward civility. Now there
+came a frown upon her brow which was more grim and by no means
+civil. "The truth is that at such a time one who is almost a
+stranger--"
+
+"I am no stranger," said Lady Ushant.
+
+"You had not seen him since he was an infant"
+
+"My name was Morton as is his, and my dear father was the owner of
+this house. Your husband, Mrs. Morton, was his grandfather and my
+brother. I will allow no one to tell me that I am a stranger at
+Bragton. I have lived here many more years than you."
+
+"A stranger to him, I meant. And now that he is ill--"
+
+"I shall stay with him--till he desires me to go away. He asked me
+to stay and that is quite enough." Then she got up and left the
+room with more dignity;--as also she had spoken with more
+earnestness,--than Mrs. Morton had given her credit for possessing.
+After that the two ladies did not meet again till the next day.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+The two old Ladies
+
+
+On the next morning Mrs. Morton did not come down to breakfast, but
+sat alone upstairs nursing her wrath. During the night she had made
+up her mind to one or two things. She would never enter her
+grandson's chambers when Lady Ushant was there. She would not speak
+to Reginald Morton, and should he come into her presence while she
+was at Bragton she would leave the room. She would do her best to
+make the house, in common parlance, "too hot" to hold that other
+woman. And she would make use of those words which John had spoken
+concerning Chowton Farm as a peg on which she might hang her
+discourse in reference to his will. If in doing all this she should
+receive that dutiful assistance which she thought that he owed
+her,--then she should stand by his bed-side, and be tender to him,
+and nurse him to the last as a mother would nurse a child. But if,
+as she feared, he were headstrong in disobeying, then she would
+remember that her duty to her family, if done with a firm purpose,
+would have lasting results, while his life might probably be an
+affair of a few weeks,--or even days.
+
+At about eleven Lady Ushant was with her patient when a message was
+brought by Mrs. Hopkins. Mrs. Morton wished to see her grandson and
+desired to know whether it would suit him that she should come now.
+"Why not?" said the sick man, who was sitting up in his bed. Then
+Lady Ushant collected her knitting and was about to depart. "Must
+you go because she is coming?" Morton asked. Lady Ushant, shocked
+at the necessity of explaining to him the ill feeling that existed,
+said that perhaps it would be best. "Why should it be best?" Lady
+Ushant shook her head, and smiled, and put her hand upon the
+counterpane,--and retired. As she passed the door of her rival's
+room she could see the black silk dress moving behind the partly
+open door, and as she entered her own she heard Mrs. Morton's steps
+upon the corridor. The place was already almost "too hot" for her.
+Anything would be better than scenes like this in the house of a
+dying man.
+
+"Need my aunt have gone away?" he asked after the first greeting.
+
+"I did not say so."
+
+"She seemed to think that she was not to stay."
+
+"Can I help what she thinks, John?" Of course she feels that she
+is--"
+
+"Is what?"
+
+"An interloper--if I must say it"
+
+"But I have sent for her, and I have begged her to stay."
+
+"Of course she can stay if she wishes. But, dear John, there must
+be much to be said between you and me which,--which cannot interest
+her; or which, at least, she ought not to hear." He did not
+contradict this in words, feeling himself to be too weak, for
+contest; but within his own mind he declared that it was not so.
+The things which interested him now were as likely to interest his
+great-aunt as his grandmother, and to be as fit for the ears of the
+one as for those of the other.
+
+An hour had passed after this during which she tended him, giving
+him food and medicine, and he had slept before she ventured to
+allude to the subject which was nearest to her heart. "John," she
+said at last, "I have been thinking about Chowton Farm."
+
+"Well."
+
+"It certainly should be bought"
+
+"If the man resolves on selling it."
+
+"Of course; I mean that. How much would it be?" Then he mentioned
+the sum which Twentyman had named, saying that he had inquired and
+had been told that the price was reasonable. "It is a large sum of
+money, John."
+
+"There might be a mortgage for part of it"
+
+"I don't like mortgages. The property would not be yours at all if
+it were mortgaged, as soon as bought. You would pay 5 per cent. for
+the money and only get 3 per cent from the land." The old lady
+understood all about it.
+
+"I could pay it off in two years," said the sick man.
+
+"There need be no paying off, and no mortgage, if I did it I almost
+believe I have got enough to do it." He knew very well that she had
+much more than enough. "I think more of this property than of
+anything in the world, my dear."
+
+"Chowton Farm could be yours, you know."
+
+"What should I do with Chowton Farm? I shall probably be in my
+grave before the slow lawyer would have executed the deeds." And I
+in mine, thought he to himself, before the present owner has quite
+made up his mind to part with his land. "What would a little place
+like that do for me? But in my father-in-law's time it was part of
+the Bragton property. He sold it to pay the debts of a younger son,
+forgetting, as I thought, what he owed to the estate;--"It had in
+truth been sold on behalf of the husband of this old woman who was
+now complaining. "And if it can be recovered it is our duty to get
+it back again. A property like this should never be lessened. It is
+in that way that the country is given over to shopkeepers and
+speculators and is made to be like France or Italy. I quite think
+that Chowton Farm should be bought. And though I might die before
+it was done, I would find the money."
+
+"I knew what your feeling would be."
+
+"Yes, John. You could not but know it well. But--" Then she paused
+a moment, looking into his face. "But I should wish to know what
+would become of it--eventually."
+
+"If it were yours you could do what you pleased with it."
+
+"But it would be yours."
+
+"Then it would go with the rest of the property."
+
+"To whom would it go? We have all to die, my dear, and who can say
+whom it may please the Almighty to take first?"
+
+"In this house, ma'am, every one can give a shrewd guess. I know my
+own condition. If I die without children of my own every acre I
+possess will go to the proper heir. Thinking as you do, you ought
+to agree with me in that."
+
+"But who is the proper heir?"
+
+"My cousin Reginald. Do not let us contest it, ma'am. As certainly
+as I lie here he will have Bragton when I am gone."
+
+"Will you not listen to me, John?"
+
+"Not about that. How could I die in peace were I to rob him?"
+
+"It is all your own,--to do as you like with."
+
+"It is all my own, but not to do as I like with. With your
+feelings, with your ideas, how can you urge me to such an
+injustice?"
+
+"Do I want it for myself? I do not even want it for any one
+belonging to me. There is your cousin Peter."
+
+"If he were the heir he should have it,--though I know nothing of
+him and believe him to be but a poor creature and very unfit to
+have the custody of a family property."
+
+"But he is his father's son."
+
+"I will believe nothing of that," said the sick man raising himself
+in his bed. "It is a slander; it is based on no evidence
+whatsoever. No one even thought of it but you."
+
+"John, is that the way to speak to me?"
+
+"It is the way to speak of an assertion so injurious." Then he fell
+back again on his pillows and she sat by his bedside for a full
+half hour speechless, thinking of it all. At the end of that time
+she had resolved that she would not yet give it up. Should he
+regain his health and strength,--and she would pray fervently night
+and day that God would be so good to him,--then everything would be
+well. Then he would marry and have children, and Bragton would
+descend in the right line. But were it to be ordained otherwise,
+should it be God's will that he must die, then, as he grew weaker,
+he would become more plastic in her hands, and she might still
+prevail. At present he was stubborn with the old stubbornness, and
+would not see with her eyes. She would bide her time and be careful
+to have a lawyer ready. She turned it all over in her mind, as she
+sat there watching him in his sleep. She knew of no one but Mr.
+Masters whom she distrusted as being connected with the other side
+of the family,--whose father had made that will by which the
+property in Dillsborough had been dissevered from Bragton. But Mr.
+Masters would probably obey instructions if they were given to him
+definitely.
+
+She thought of it all and then went down to lunch. She did not dare
+to refuse altogether to meet the other woman lest such resolve on
+her part might teach those in the house to think that Lady Ushant
+was the mistress. She took her place at the head of the table and
+interchanged a few words with her grandson's guest,--which of
+course had reference to his health. Lady Ushant was very ill able
+to carry on a battle of any sort and was willing to show her
+submission in everything,--unless she were desired to leave the
+house. While they were still sitting at table, Reginald Morton
+walked into the room. It had been his habit to do so regularly for
+the last week. A daily visitor does not wait to have himself
+announced. Reginald had considered the matter and had determined
+that he would follow his practice just as though Mrs. Morton were
+not there. If she were civil to him then would he be very courteous
+to her. It had never occurred to him to expect conduct such as that
+with which she greeted him. The old woman got up and looked at him
+sternly. "My nephew, Reginald," said Lady Ushant, supposing that
+some introduction might be necessary. Mrs. Morton gathered the
+folds of her dress together and without a word stalked out of the
+room. And yet she believed,--she could not but believe,--that her
+grandson was on his deathbed in the room, above!
+
+"O Reginald, what are we to?" said Lady Ushant.
+
+"Is she like that to you?"
+
+"She told me last night that I was a stranger, and that I ought to
+leave the house."
+
+"And what did you say?"
+
+"I told her I should stay while he wished me to stay. But it is all
+so terrible, that I think I had better go."
+
+"I would not stir a step--on her account."
+
+"But why should she be so bitter? I have done nothing to offend
+her. It is more than half of even my long lifetime since I saw her.
+She is nothing; but I have to think of his comfort. I suppose she
+is good to him; and though he may bid me stay such scenes as this
+in the house must be a trouble to him." Nevertheless Reginald was
+strong in opinion that Lady Ushant ought not to allow herself to be
+driven away, and declared his own purpose of coming daily as had of
+late been his wont.
+
+Soon after this Reginald was summoned to go upstairs and he again
+met the angry woman in the passage, passing her of course without a
+word. And then Mary came to see her friend, and she also
+encountered Mrs. Morton, who was determined that no one should come
+into that house without her knowledge. "Who is that young woman?"
+said Mrs. Morton to the old housekeeper.
+
+"That is Miss Masters, my Lady."
+
+"And who is Miss Masters,--and why does she come here at such a
+time as this?"
+
+"She is the daughter of Attorney Masters, my Lady. It was she as
+was brought up here by Lady Ushant"
+
+"Oh,--that young person."
+
+"She's come here generally of a day now to see her ladyship."
+
+"And is she taken up to my grandson?"
+
+"Oh dear, no, my Lady. She sits with Lady Ushant for an hour or so
+and then goes back with Mr. Reginald."
+
+"Oh--that is it, is it? The house is made use of for such purposes
+as that!"
+
+"I don't think there is an purposes, my Lady," said Mrs. Hopkins,
+almost roused to indignation, although she was talking to the
+acknowledged mistress of the house whom she always called "my
+lady."
+
+Lady Ushant told the whole story to her young friend, bitterly
+bewailing her position. "Reginald tells me not to go, but I do not
+think that I can stand it. I should not mind the quarrel so much,--
+only that he is so ill."
+
+"She must be a very evil-minded person."
+
+"She was always arrogant and always hard. I can remember her just
+the same; but that was so many years ago. She left Bragton then
+because she could not banish his mother from the house. But to bear
+it all in her heart so long is not like a human being;--let alone a
+woman. What did he say to you going home yesterday?"
+
+"Nothing, Lady Ushant"
+
+"Does he know that it will all be his if that poor young man should
+die? He never speaks to me as if he thought of it"
+
+"He would certainly not speak to me about it. I do not think he
+thinks of it. He is not like that."
+
+"Men do consider such things. And they are only cousins; and they
+have never known each other! Oh, Mary!"
+
+"What are you thinking of, Lady Ushant?"
+
+"Men ought not to care for money or position, but they do. If he
+comes here, all that I have will be yours."
+
+"Oh, Lady Ushant!"
+
+"It is not much but it will be enough."
+
+"I do not want to hear about such things now."
+
+"But you ought to be told. Ah, dear;--if it could be as I wish!"
+The imprudent, weak-minded, loving old woman longed to hear a tale
+of mutual love,--longed to do something which should cause such a
+tale to be true on both sides. And yet she could not quite bring
+herself to express her wish either to the man or to the woman.
+
+Poor Mary almost understood it, but was not quite sure of her
+friend's meaning. She was, however, quite sure that if such were
+the wish of Lady Ushant's heart, Lady Ushant was wishing in vain.
+She had twice walked back to Dillsborough with Reginald Morton, and
+he had been more sedate, more middle-aged, less like a lover than
+ever. She knew now that she might safely walk with him, being sure
+that he was no more likely to talk of love than would have been old
+Dr. Nupper had she accepted the offer which he had made her of a
+cast in his gig. And now that Reginald would probably become Squire
+of Bragton it was more impossible than ever. As Squire of Bragton
+he would seek some highly born bride, quite out of her way, whom
+she could never know. And then she would see neither him--nor
+Bragton any more. Would it not have been better that she should
+have married Larry Twentyman and put an end to so many troubles
+beside her own?
+
+Again. she walked back with him to Dillsborough, passing as they
+always did across the little bridge. He seemed to be very silent as
+he went, more so than usual,--and as was her wont with him she only
+spoke to him when he addressed her. It was only when he got out on
+the road that he told her what was on his mind. "Mary," he said,
+"how will it be with me if that poor fellow dies?"
+
+"In what way, Mr. Morton?"
+
+"All that place will be mine. He told me so just now."
+
+"But that would be of course."
+
+"Not at all. He might give it to you if he pleased. He could not
+have an heir who would care for it less. But it is right that it
+should be so. Whether it would suit my taste or not to live as
+Squire of Bragton,--and I do not think it would suit my taste
+well,--it ought to be so. I am the next, and it will be my duty."
+
+"I am sure you do not want him to die."
+
+"No, indeed. If I could save him by my right hand,--if I could save
+him by my life, I would do it."
+
+"But of all lives it must surely be the best."
+
+"Do you think so? What is such a one likely to do? But then what do
+I do, as it is? It is the sort of life you would like,--if you were
+a man."
+
+"Yes,--if I were a man," said Mary. Then he again relapsed into
+silence and hardly spoke again till he left her at her father's
+door.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+The Last Effort
+
+
+When Mary reached her home she was at once met by her stepmother in
+the passage with tidings of importance. "He is up-stairs in the
+drawing-room," said Mrs. Masters. Mary whose mind was laden with
+thoughts of Reginald Morton asked who was the he. "Lawrence
+Twentyman," said Mrs. Masters. "And now, my dear, do, do think of
+it before you go to him." There was no anger now in her
+stepmother's face, but entreaty and almost love. She had not called
+Mary "my dear" for many weeks past,--not since that journey to
+Cheltenham. Now she grasped the girl's hand as she went on with her
+prayer. "He is so good and so true! And what better can there be
+for you? With your advantages, and Lady Ushant, and all that, you
+would be quite the lady at Chowton. Think of your father and
+sisters; what a good you could do them! And think of the respect
+they all have for him, dining with Lord Rufford the other day and
+all the other gentlemen. It isn't only that he has got plenty to
+live on, but he knows how to keep it as a man ought. He's sure to
+hold up his head and be as good a squire as any of 'em." This was a
+very different tale;--a note altogether changed! It must not be
+said that the difference of the tale and the change of the note
+affected Mary's heart; but her stepmother's manner to her did
+soften her. And then why should she regard herself or her own
+feelings? Like others she had thought much of her own happiness,
+had made herself the centre of her own circle, had, in her
+imagination, built castles in the air and filled them according to
+her fancy. But her fancies had been all shattered into fragments;
+not a stone of her castles was standing; she had told herself
+unconsciously that there was no longer a circle and no need for a
+centre. That last half-hour which she had passed with Reginald
+Morton on the road home had made quite sure that which had been
+sure enough before. He was not altogether out of her reach,
+thinking only of the new duties which were coming to him. She would
+never walk with him again; never put herself in the way of
+indulging some fragment of an illusory hope. She was nothing now,
+nothing even to herself. Why should she not give herself and her
+services to this young man if the young man chose to take her as
+she was? It would be well that she should do something in the
+world. Why should she not look after his house, and mend his
+shirts, and reign over his poultry yard? In this way she would be
+useful, and respected by all,--unless perhaps by the man she loved.
+"Mary, say that you will think of it once more," pleaded Mrs.
+Masters.
+
+"I may go up-stairs,--to my own room?"
+
+"Certainly; do;--go up and smooth your hair. I will tell him that
+you are coming to him. He will wait. But he is so much in earnest
+now,--and so sad,--that I know he will not come again."
+
+Then Mary went up-stairs, determined to think of it. She began at
+once, woman-like, to smooth her hair as her stepmother had
+recommended, and to remove the dust of the road from her face and
+dress. But not the less was she thinking of it the while. Could she
+do it, how much pain would be spared even to herself! How much that
+was now bitter as gall in her mouth would become,--not sweet,--but
+tasteless. There are times in one's life in which the absence of
+all savour seems to be sufficient for life in this world. Were she
+to do this thing she thought that she would have strength to banish
+that other man from her mind,--and at last from her heart. He would
+be there, close to her, but of a different kind and leading a
+different life. Mrs. Masters had told her that Larry would be as
+good a squire as the best of them; but it should be her care to
+keep him and herself in their proper position, to teach him the
+vanity of such aspirations. And the real squire opposite, who would
+despise her,--for had he not told her that she would be despicable
+if she married this man,--would not trouble her then. They might
+meet on the roads, and there would be a cold question or two as to
+each other's welfare, and a vain shaking of hands,--but they would
+know nothing and care for nothing as to each other's thoughts. And
+there would come some stately dame who hearing how things had been
+many years ago, would perhaps--. But no;--the stately dame should
+be received with courtesy, but there should be no patronising. Even
+in these few minutes up-stairs she thought much of the stately dame
+and was quite sure that she would endure no patronage from Bragton.
+
+She almost thought that she could do it. There were hideous ideas
+afflicting her soul dreadfully, but which she strove to banish. Of
+course she could not love him,--not at first. But all those who
+wished her to marry him, including himself, knew that;--and still
+they wished her to marry him. How could that be disgraceful which
+all her friends desired? Her father, to whom she was, as she knew
+well, the very apple of his eye, wished her to marry this man;--and
+yet her father knew that her heart was elsewhere. Had not women
+done it by hundreds, by thousands, and had afterwards performed
+their duties well as mothers and wives. In other countries, as she
+had read, girls took the husbands found for them by their parents
+as a matter of course. As she left the room, and slowly crept
+down-stairs, she almost thought she would do it. She almost
+thought;--but yet, when her hand was on the lock, she could not
+bring herself to say that it should be so.
+
+He was not dressed as usual. In the first place, there was a round hat
+on the table, such as men wear in cities. She had never before seen
+such a hat with him except on a Sunday. And he wore a black cloth coat,
+and dark brown pantaloons, and a black silk handkerchief. She observed
+it all, and thought that he had not changed for the better. As she
+looked into his face, it seemed to her more common,--meaner than
+before. No doubt he was good-looking,--but his good-looks were almost
+repulsive to her. He had altogether lost his little swagger;--but he
+had borne that little swagger well, and in her presence it had never
+been offensive. Now he seemed as though he had thrown aside all the old
+habits of his life, and was pining to death from the loss of them.
+"Mary," he said, "I have come to you,--for the last time. I thought I
+would give myself one more chance, and your father told me that I might
+have it" He paused, as though expecting an answer. But she had not yet
+quite made up her mind. Had she known her mind, she would have answered
+him frankly. She was quite resolved as to that. If she could once bring
+herself to give him her hand, she would not coy it for a moment. "I
+will be your wife, Larry." That was the form on which she had
+determined, should she find herself able to yield. But she had not
+brought herself to it as yet. "If you can take me, Mary, you
+will,--well,--save me from lifelong misery, and make the man who loves
+you the best-contented and the happiest man in England."
+
+"But, Larry, I do not love you"
+
+"I will make you love me. Good usage will make a wife love her
+husband. Don't you think you can trust me?"
+
+"I do believe that I can trust you for everything good."
+
+"Is that nothing?"
+
+"It is a great deal, Larry, but not enough;--not enough to bring
+together a man and woman as husband and wife. I would sooner marry
+a man I loved, though I knew he would ill-use me."
+
+"Would you?"
+
+"To marry either would be wrong."
+
+"I sometimes think, dearest, that if I could talk better I should
+be better able to persuade you."
+
+"I sometimes think you talk so well that I ought to be persuaded;--
+but I can't. It is not lack of talking."
+
+"What is it, then?"
+
+"Just this;--my heart does not turn itself that way. It is the same
+chance that has made you--partial to me."
+
+"Partial! Why, I love the very air you breathe. When I am near you,
+everything smells sweet. There isn't anything that belongs to you
+but I think I should know it, though I found it a hundred miles
+away. To have you in the room with me would be like heaven,--if I
+only knew that you were thinking kindly of me."
+
+"I always think kindly of you, Larry."
+
+"Then say that you will be my wife." She paused, and became red up
+to the roots of her hair. She seated herself on a chair, and then
+rose again,--and again sat down. The struggle was going on within
+her, and he perceived something of the truth. "Say the word once,
+Mary;--say it but once." And as he prayed to her he came forward
+and went down upon his knees.
+
+"I cannot do it," she replied at last, speaking very hoarsely, not
+looking at him, not even addressing herself to him.
+
+"Mary!"
+
+"Larry, I cannot do it. I have tried, but I cannot do it. O Larry,
+dear Larry, do not ask me again. Larry, I have no heart to give.
+Another man has it all."
+
+"Is it so?" She bowed her head in token of assent. "Is it that
+young parson," exclaimed Larry, in anger.
+
+"It is not. But, Larry, you must ask no questions now. I have told
+you my secret that all this might be set at rest. But if you are
+generous, as I know you are, you will keep my secret, and will ask
+no questions. And, Larry, if you are unhappy, so am I. If your
+heart is sore, so is mine. He knows nothing of my love, and cares
+nothing for me."
+
+"Then throw him aside."
+
+She smiled and shook her head. "Do you think I would not if I
+could? Why do you not throw me aside?"
+
+"Oh, Mary!"
+
+"Cannot I love as well as you? You are a man, and have the liberty
+to speak of it. Though I cannot return it, I can be proud of your
+love and feel grateful to you. I cannot tell mine. I cannot think
+of it without blushing. But I can feel it, and know it, and be as
+sure that it has trodden me down and got the better of me as you
+can. But you can go out into the world and teach yourself to
+forget"
+
+"I must go away from here then."
+
+"You have your business and your pleasures, your horses and your
+fields and your friends. I have nothing,--but to remain here and
+know that I have disobliged all those that love me. Do you think,
+Larry, I would not go and be your wife if I could? I have told you
+all, Larry, and now do not ask me again."
+
+"Is it so?"
+
+"Yes;--it is so."
+
+"Then I shall cut it all. I shall sell Chowton and go away. You
+tell me I have my horses and my pleasures! What pleasures? I know
+nothing of my horses,--not whether they are lame or sound. I could
+not tell you of one of them whether he is fit to go to-morrow.
+Business! The place may farm itself for me, for I can't stay there.
+Everything sickens me to look at it. Pleasures indeed!"
+
+"Is that manly, Larry?"
+
+"How can a man be manly when the manliness is knocked out of him? A
+man's courage lies in his heart; but if his heart is broken where
+will his courage be then? I couldn't hold up my head up here any
+more,--and I shall go."
+
+"You must not do that," she said, getting up and laying hold of his
+arm.
+
+"But I must do it"
+
+"For my sake you must stay here, Larry;--so that I may not have to
+think that I have injured you so deeply. Larry, though I cannot be
+your wife I think I could die of sorrow if you were always unhappy.
+What is a poor girl that you should grieve for her in that way? I
+think if I were a man I would master my love better than that." He
+shook his head and faintly strove to drag his arm from out of her
+grasp. "Promise me that you will take a year to think of it before
+you go."
+
+"Will you take a year to think of me?" said he, rising again to
+sudden hope.
+
+"No, Larry, no. I should deceive you were I to say so. I deceived
+you before when I put it off for two months. But you can promise me
+without deceit. For my sake, Larry?" And she almost embraced him as
+she begged for his promise. "I know you would wish to spare me
+pain. Think what will be my sufferings if I hear that you have
+really gone from Chowton. You will promise me, Larry?"
+
+"Promise what?"
+
+"That the farm shall not be sold for twelve months"
+
+"Oh yes;--I'll promise. I don't care for the farm."
+
+"And stay there if you can. Don't leave the place to strangers. And
+go about your business,--and hunt,--and be a man. I shall always be
+thinking of what you do. I shall always watch you. I shall always
+love you,--always,--always,--always. I always have loved you;--
+because you are so good. But it is a different love. And now,
+Larry, good-bye." So saying, she raised her face to look into his
+eyes. Then he suddenly put his arm round her waist, kissed her
+forehead, and left the room without another word.
+
+Mrs. Masters saw him as he went, and must have known from his gait
+what was the nature of the answer he had received. But yet she went
+quickly upstairs to inquire. The matter was one of too much
+consequence for a mere inference. Mary had gone from the
+sitting-room, but her stepmother followed her upstairs to her
+bed-chamber. "Mamma," she said, "I couldn't do it;--I couldn't do it.
+I did try. Pray do not scold me. I did try, but I could not do it"
+Then she threw herself into the arms of the unsympathetic woman, who,
+however, was now somewhat less unsympathetic than she had hitherto
+been.
+
+Mrs. Masters did not understand it at all; but she did perceive
+that there was something which she did not understand. What did the
+girl mean by saying that she had tried and could not do it? Try to
+do it! If she tried why could she not tell the man that she would
+have him? There was surely some shamefacedness in this, some
+overstrained modesty which she, Mrs. Masters, could not comprehend.
+How could she have tried to accept a man who was so anxious to
+marry her, and have failed in the effort? "Scolding I suppose will
+be no good now," she said.
+
+"Oh no!"
+
+"But--. Well; I suppose we must put up with it. Everything on earth
+that a girl could possibly wish for! He was that in love that it's
+my belief he'd have settled it all on you if you'd only asked him."
+
+"Let it go, mamma."
+
+"Let it go! It's gone I suppose. Well--I ain't going to say any
+more about it. But as for not sorrowing, how is a woman not to
+sorrow when so much has been lost? It's your poor father I'm
+thinking of, Mary." This was so much better than she had expected
+that poor Mary almost felt that her heart was lightened.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+Again at Mistletoe
+
+
+The reader will have been aware that Arabella Trefoil was not a
+favourite at Mistletoe. She was so much disliked by the Duchess
+that there had almost been words about her between her Grace and
+the Duke since her departure. The Duchess always submitted, and it
+was the rule of her life to submit with so good a grace that her
+husband, never fearing rebellion, should never be driven to assume
+the tyrant. But on this occasion the Duke had objected to the term
+"thoroughly bad girl" which had been applied by his wife to his
+niece. He had said that "thoroughly bad girl" was strong language,
+and when the Duchess defended the phrase he had expressed his
+opinion that Arabella was only a bad girl and not a thoroughly bad
+girl. The Duchess had said that it was the same thing. "Then," said
+the Duke, "why use a redundant expletive against your own
+relative?" The Duchess, when she was accused of strong language,
+had not minded it much; but her feelings were hurt when a redundant
+expletive was attributed to her. The effect of all this had been
+that the Duke in a mild way had taken up Arabella's part, and that
+the Duchess, following her husband at last, had been brought round
+to own that Arabella, though bad, had been badly treated. She had
+disbelieved, and then believed, and had again disbelieved
+Arabella's own statement as to the offer of marriage. But the girl
+had certainly been in earnest when she had begged her aunt to ask
+her uncle to speak to Lord Rufford. Surely when she did she must
+have thought that an offer had been made to her. Such offer, if
+made, had no doubt been produced by very hard pressure; but still
+an offer of marriage is an offer, and a girl, if she can obtain it,
+has a right to use such an offer as so much property. Then came
+Lord Mistletoe's report after his meeting with Arabella up in
+London. He had been unable to give his cousin any satisfaction, but
+he was clearly of opinion that she had been ill-used. He did not
+venture to suggest any steps, but did think that Lord Rufford was
+bound as a gentleman to marry the young lady. After that Lord
+Augustus saw her mother up in town and said that it was a d--
+shame. He in truth had believed nothing and would have been
+delighted to allow the matter to drop. But as this was not
+permitted, he thought easier to take his daughter's part than to
+encounter family enmity by entering the lists against her. So it
+came to pass that down at Mistletoe there grew an opinion that Lord
+Rufford ought to marry Arabella Trefoil.
+
+But what should be done? The Duke was alive to the feeling that as
+the girl was certainly his niece and as she was not to be regarded
+as a thoroughly bad girl, some assistance was due to her from the
+family. Lord Mistletoe volunteered to write to Lord Rufford; Lord
+Augustus thought that his brother should have a personal interview
+with his young brother peer and bring his strawberry leaves to
+bear. The Duke himself suggested that the Duchess should see Lady
+Penwether,--a scheme to which her Grace objected strongly, knowing
+something of Lady Penwether and being sure that her strawberry
+leaves would have no effect whatever on the baronet's wife. At last
+it was decided that a family meeting should be held, and Lord
+Augustus was absolutely summoned to meet Lord Mistletoe at the
+paternal mansion.
+
+It was now some years since Lord Augustus had been at Mistletoe. As
+he had never been separated,--that is formally separated,--from his
+wife he and she had been always invited there together. Year after
+year she had accepted the invitation,--and it had been declined on
+his behalf, because it did not suit him and his wife to meet each
+other. But now he was obliged to go there, just at the time of the
+year when whist at his club was most attractive. To meet the
+convenience of Lord Mistletoe,--and the House of Commons--a
+Saturday afternoon was named for the conference, which made it
+worse for Lord Augustus as he was one of a little party which had
+private gatherings for whist on Sunday afternoons. But he went to
+the conference, travelling down by the same train with his nephew;
+but not in the same compartment, as he solaced with tobacco the
+time which Lord Mistletoe devoted to parliamentary erudition.
+
+The four met in her Grace's boudoir, and the Duke began by
+declaring that all this was very sad. Lord Augustus shook his head
+and put his hands in his trousers pockets,--which was as much as to
+say that his feelings as a British parent were almost too strong
+for him. "Your mother and I think, that something ought to be
+done," said the Duke turning to his son.
+
+"Something ought to be done," said Lord Mistletoe.
+
+"They won't let a fellow go out with a fellow now," said Lord
+Augustus.
+
+"Heaven forbid!" said the Duchess, raising both her hands.
+
+"I was thinking, Mistletoe, that your mother might have met Lady
+Penwether."
+
+"What could I do with Lady Penwether, Duke? Or what could she do
+with him? A man won't care for what his sister says to him. And I
+don't suppose she'd undertake to speak to Lord Rufford on the
+subject"
+
+"Lady Penwether is an honourable and an accomplished woman."
+
+"I dare say;--though she gives herself abominable airs."
+
+"Of course, if you don't like it, my dear, it shan't be pressed."
+
+"I thought, perhaps, you'd see him yourself," said Lord Augustus,
+turning to his brother. "You'd carry more weight than anybody."
+
+"Of course I will if it be necessary; but it would be
+disagreeable,--very disagreeable. The appeal should be made to his
+feelings, and that I think would better come through female
+influence. As far as I know the world a man is always more prone to
+be led in such matters by a woman than by another man."
+
+"If you mean me," said the Duchess, "I don't think I could see him.
+Of course, Augustus, I don't wish to say anything hard of Arabella.
+The fact that we have all met here to take her part will prove
+that, I think. But I didn't quite approve of all that was done
+here."
+
+Lord Augustus stroked his beard and looked out of the window. "I
+don't think, my dear, we need go into that just now," said the
+Duke.
+
+"Not at all," said the Duchess, "and I don't intend to say a word.
+Only if I were to meet Lord Rufford he might refer to things
+which,--which,--which--. In point of fact I had rather not"
+
+"I might see him," suggested Lord Mistletoe.
+
+"No doubt that might be done with advantage," said the Duke.
+
+"Only that, as he is my senior in age, what I might say to him
+would lack that weight which any observations which might be made
+on such a matter should carry with them."
+
+"He didn't care a straw for me," said Lord Augustus.
+
+"And then," continued Lord Mistletoe, "I so completely agree with
+what my father says as to the advantage of female influence! With a
+man of Lord Rufford's temperament female influence is everything.
+If my aunt were to try it?" Lord Augustus blew the breath out of
+his mouth and raised his eyebrows.
+
+Knowing what he did of his wife, or thinking that he knew what he
+did, he did not conceive it possible that a worse messenger should
+be chosen. He had known himself to be a very bad one, but he did
+honestly believe her to be even less fitted for the task than he
+himself. But he said nothing,--simply wishing that he had not left
+his whist for such a purpose as this.
+
+"Perhaps Lady Augustus had better see him," said the Duke. The
+Duchess, who did not love hypocrisy, would not actually assent to
+this, but she said nothing. "I suppose my sister-in-law would not
+object, Augustus?"
+
+"G-- Almighty only knows," said the younger brother. The Duchess,
+grievously offended by the impropriety of this language, drew
+herself up haughtily.
+
+"Perhaps you would not mind suggesting it to her, sir," said Lord
+Mistletoe.
+
+"I could do that by letter," said the Duke.
+
+"And when she has assented, as of course she will, then perhaps you
+wouldn't mind writing a line to him to make an appointment. If you
+were to do so he could not refuse." To this proposition the Duke
+returned no immediate answer; but looked at it round and round
+carefully. At last, however, he acceded to this also, and so the
+matter was arranged. All these influential members of the ducal
+family met together at the ducal mansion on Arabella's behalf, and
+settled their difficulty by deputing the work of bearding the lion,
+of tying the bell on the cat, to an absent lady whom they all
+despised and disliked.
+
+That afternoon the Duke, with the assistance of his son, who was a
+great writer of letters, prepared an epistle to his sister-in-law
+and another to Lord Rufford, which was to be sent as soon as Lady
+Augusta had agreed to the arrangement. In the former letter a good
+deal was said as to a mother's solicitude for her daughter. It had
+been felt, the letter said, that no one could speak for a daughter
+so well as a mother;--that no other's words would so surely reach
+the heart of a man who was not all evil but who was tempted by the
+surroundings of the world to do evil in this particular case. The
+letter began "My dear sister-in-law," and ended "Your affectionate
+brother-in-law, Mayfair," and was in fact the first letter that the
+Duke had ever written to his brother's wife. The other letter was
+more difficult, but it was accomplished at last, and confined
+itself to a request that Lord Rufford would meet Lady Augustus
+Trefoil at a place and at a time, both of which were for the
+present left blank.
+
+On the Monday Lord Augustus and Lord Mistletoe were driven to the
+station in the same carriage, and on this occasion the uncle said a
+few strong words to his nephew on the subject. Lord Augustus,
+though perhaps a coward in the presence of his brother, was not so
+with other members of the family. "It may be very well you know,
+but it's all d-- nonsense."
+
+"I'm sorry that you should think so, uncle."
+
+"What do you suppose her mother can do?--a thoroughly vulgar woman.
+I never could live with her. As far as I can see wherever she goes
+everybody hates her."
+
+"My dear uncle!"
+
+"Rufford will only laugh at her. If Mayfair would have gone
+himself, it is just possible that he might have done something."
+
+"My father is so unwilling to mix himself up in these things."
+
+"Of course he is. Everybody knows that. What the deuce was the good
+then of our going down here? I couldn't do anything, and I knew he
+wouldn't. The truth is, Mistletoe, a man now-a-days may do just
+what he pleases. You ain't in that line and it won't do you any
+good knowing it, but since we did away with pistols everybody may
+do just what he likes."
+
+"I don't like brute force," said Lord Mistletoe. "You may call it
+what you please:--but I don't know that it was so brutal after
+all." At the station they separated again, as Lord Augustus was
+panting for tobacco and Lord Mistletoe for parliamentary erudition.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+The Success of Lady Augustus
+
+
+Lady Augustus was still staying with the Connop Greens in Hampshire
+when she received the Duke's letter and Arabella was with her. The
+story of Lord Rufford's infidelity had been told to Mrs. Connop
+Green,--and of course through her to Mr. Connop Green. Both the
+mother and daughter affected to despise the Connop Greens;--but it
+is so hard to restrain oneself from confidences when difficulties
+arise! Arabella had by this time quite persuaded herself that there
+had been an absolute engagement, and did in truth believe that she
+had been most cruelly ill-used. She was headstrong, fickle, and
+beyond measure insolent to her mother. She had, as we know, at one
+time gone down to the house of her former lover, thereby indicating
+that she had abandoned all hope of catching Lord Rufford. But still
+the Connop Greens either felt or pretended to feel great sympathy
+with her, and she would still declare from time to time that Lord
+Rufford had not heard the last of her. It was now more than a month
+since she had seen that perjured lord at Mistletoe, and more than a
+week since her father had brought him so uselessly up to London.
+Though determined that Lord Rufford should hear more of her, she
+hardly knew how to go to work, and on these days spent most of her
+time in idle denunciations of her false lover. Then came her
+uncle's letter, which was of course shown to her.
+
+She was quite of opinion that they must do as the Duke directed. It
+was so great a thing to have the Duke interesting himself in the
+matter, that she would have assented to anything proposed by him.
+The suggestion even inspired some temporary respect, or at any rate
+observance, towards her mother. Hitherto her mother had been nobody
+to her in the matter, a person belonging to her whom she had to
+regard simply as a burden. She could not at all understand how the
+Duke had been guided in making such a choice of a new emissary;--
+but there it was under his own hand, and she must now in some
+measure submit herself to her mother unless she were prepared to
+repudiate altogether the Duke's assistance. As to Lady Augustus
+herself, the suggestion gave to her quite a new life. She had no
+clear conception what she should say to Lord Rufford if the meeting
+were arranged, but it was gratifying to her to find herself brought
+back into authority over her daughter. She read the Duke's letter
+to Mrs. Connop Green, with certain very slight additions,--or
+innuendos as to additions,--and was pleased to find that the letter
+was taken by Mrs. Connop Green as positive proof of the existence
+of the engagement. She wrote begging the Duke to allow her to have
+the meeting at the family house in Piccadilly, and to this prayer
+the Duke was obliged to assent. "It would," she said, "give her so
+much assistance in speaking to Lord Rufford!" She named a day also,
+and then spent her time in preparing herself for the interview by
+counsel with Mrs. Green and by exacting explanations from her
+daughter.
+
+This was a very bad time for Arabella,--so bad, that had she known
+to what she would be driven, she would probably have repudiated the
+Duke and her mother altogether. "Now, my dear," she began, "you
+must tell me everything that occurred first at Rufford and then at
+Mistletoe."
+
+"You know very well what occurred, mamma."
+
+"I know nothing about it, and unless everything is told me I will
+not undertake this mission. Your uncle evidently thinks that by my
+interference the thing may be arranged. I have had the same idea
+all through myself, but as you have been so obstinate I have not
+liked to say so. Now, Arabella, begin from the beginning. When was
+it that he first suggested to you the idea of marriage?"
+
+"Good heavens, mamma!"
+
+"I must have it from the beginning to the end. Did he speak of
+marriage at Rufford? I suppose he did because you told me that you
+were engaged to him when you went to Mistletoe."
+
+"So I was."
+
+"What had he said?"
+
+"What nonsense! How am I to remember what he said? As if a girl
+ever knows what a man says to her."
+
+"Did he kiss you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"At Rufford?"
+
+"I cannot stand this, mamma. If you like to go you may go. My uncle
+seems to think it is the best thing, and so I suppose it ought to
+be done. But I won't answer such questions as you are asking for
+Lord Rufford and all that he possesses."
+
+"What am I to say then? How am I to call back to his recollection
+the fact that he committed himself, unless you will tell me how and
+when he did so?"
+
+"Ask him if he did not assure me of his love when we were in the
+carriage together."
+
+"What carriage?"
+
+"Coming home from hunting."
+
+"Was that at Mistletoe or Rufford?"
+
+"At Mistletoe, mamma," replied Arabella, stamping her foot.
+
+"But you must let me know how it was that you became engaged to him
+at Rufford."
+
+"Mamma, you mean to drive me mad," exclaimed Arabella as she
+bounced out of the room.
+
+There was very much more of this, till at last Arabella found
+herself compelled to invent facts. Lord Rufford, she said, had
+assured her of his ever lasting affection in the little room at
+Rufford, and had absolutely asked her to be his wife coming home in
+the carriage with her to Stamford. She told herself that though
+this was not strictly true, it was as good as true,--as that which
+was actually done and said by Lord Rufford on those occasions could
+have had no other meaning. But before her mother had completed her
+investigation, Arabella had become so sick of the matter that she
+shut herself up in her room and declared that nothing on earth
+should induce her to open her mouth on the subject again.
+
+When Lord Rufford received the letter he was aghast with new
+disgust. He had begun to flatter himself that his interview with
+Lord Augustus would be the end of the affair. Looking at it by
+degrees with coolness he had allowed himself to think that nothing
+very terrible could be done to him. Some few people, particularly
+interested in the Mistletoe family, might give him a cold shoulder,
+or perhaps cut him directly; but such people would not belong to
+his own peculiar circle, and the annoyance would not be great. But
+if all the family, one after another, were to demand interviews
+with him up in London, he did not see when the end of it would be.
+There would be the Duke himself, and the Duchess, and Mistletoe.
+And the affair would in this way become gossip for the whole town.
+He was almost minded to write to the Duke saying that such an
+interview could do no good; but at last he thought it best to
+submit the matter to his mentor, Sir George Penwether. Sir George
+was clearly of opinion that it was Lord Rufford's duty to see Lady
+Augustus. "Yes, you must have interviews with all of them, if they
+ask it," said Sir George. "You must show that you are not afraid to
+hear what her friends have got to say. When a man gets wrong he
+can't put himself right without some little annoyance."
+
+"Since the world began," said Lord Rufford, "I don't think that
+there was ever a man born so well adapted for preaching sermons as
+you are." Nevertheless he did as he was bid, and consented to meet
+Lady Augustus in Piccadilly on the day named by her. On that very
+day the hounds met at Impington and Lord Rufford began to feel his
+punishment. He assented to the proposal made and went up to London,
+leaving the members of the U.R.U. to have the run of the season
+from the Impington coverts.
+
+When Lady Augustus was sitting in the back room of the mansion
+waiting for Lord Rufford she was very much puzzled to think what
+she would say to him when he came. With all her investigation she
+had received no clear idea of the circumstances as they occurred.
+That her daughter had told her a fib in saying that she was engaged
+when she went to Mistletoe, she was all but certain. That something
+had occurred in the carriage which might be taken for an offer she
+thought possible. She therefore determined to harp upon the
+carriage as much as possible and to say as little as might be as to
+the doings at Rufford. Then as she was trying to arrange her
+countenance and her dress and her voice, so that they might tell on
+his feelings, Lord Rufford was announced. "Lady Augustus," said he
+at once, beginning the lesson which he had taught himself, "I hope
+I see you quite well. I have come here because you have asked me,
+but I really don't know that I have anything to say."
+
+"Lord Rufford, you must hear me."
+
+"Oh yes; I will hear you certainly, only this kind of thing is so
+painful to all parties, and I don't see the use of it."
+
+"Are you aware that you have plunged me and my daughter into a
+state of misery too deep to be fathomed?"
+
+"I should be sorry to think that"
+
+"How can it be otherwise? When you assure a girl in her position in
+life that you love her--a lady whose rank is quite as high as your
+own--"
+
+"Quite so,--quite so."
+
+"And when in return for that assurance you have received vows of
+love from her,--what is she to think, and what are her friends to
+think?" Lord Rufford had always kept in his mind a clear
+remembrance of the transaction in the carriage, and was well aware
+that the young lady's mother had inverted the circumstances, or, as
+he expressed it to himself, had put the cart before the horse. He
+had assured the young lady that he loved her, and he had also been
+assured of her love; but her assurance had come first. He felt that
+this made all the difference in the world; so much difference that
+no one cognisant in such matters would hold that his assurance,
+obtained after such a fashion, meant anything at all. But how was
+he to explain this to the lady's mother? "You will admit that such
+assurances were given?" continued Lady Augustus.
+
+"Upon my word I don't know. There was a little foolish talk, but it
+meant nothing."
+
+"My lord!"
+
+"What am I to say? I don't want to give offence, and I am heartily
+sorry that you and your daughter should be under any misapprehension.
+But as I sit here there was no engagement between us;--nor, if I must
+speak out, Lady Augustus, could your daughter have thought that there
+was an engagement."
+
+"Did you not--embrace her?"
+
+"I did. That's the truth."
+
+"And after that you mean to say--"
+
+"After that I mean to say that nothing more was intended." There
+was a certain meanness of appearance about the mother which
+emboldened him.
+
+"What a declaration to make to the mother of a young lady, and that
+young lady the niece of the Duke of Mayfair!"
+
+"It's not the first time such a thing has been done, Lady
+Augustus."
+
+"I know nothing about that,--nothing. I don't know whom you may
+have lived with. It never was done to her before."
+
+"If I understand right she was engaged to marry Mr. Morton when she
+came to Rufford."
+
+"It was all at an end before that."
+
+"At any rate you both came from his house."
+
+"Where he had been staying with Mrs. Morton."
+
+"And where she has been since,--without Mrs. Morton."
+
+"Lady Ushant was there, Lord Rufford."
+
+"But she has been staying at the house of this gentleman to whom
+you admit that she was engaged a short time before she came to us."
+
+"He is on his death-bed, and he thought that he had behaved badly
+to her. She did go to Bragton the other day, at his request,--
+merely that she might say that she forgave him."
+
+"I only hope that she will forgive me too. There is really nothing
+else to be said. If there were anything I could do to atone to her
+for this--trouble."
+
+"If you only could know the brightness of the hopes you have
+shattered,--and the purity of that girl's affection for yourself!"
+
+It was then that an idea--a low-minded idea occurred to Lord
+Rufford. While all this was going on he had of course made various
+inquiries about this branch of the Trefoil family and had learned
+that Arabella was altogether portionless. He was told too that Lady
+Augustus was much harassed by impecuniosity. Might it be possible
+to offer a recompense? "If I could do anything else, Lady Augustus;
+but really I am not a marrying man." Then Lady Augustus wept
+bitterly; but while she was weeping, a low-minded idea occurred to
+her also. It was clear to her that there could be no marriage. She
+had never expected that there would be a marriage. But if this man
+who was rolling in wealth should offer some sum of money to her
+daughter,--something so considerable as to divest the transaction
+of the meanness which would be attached to a small bribe,--
+something which might be really useful throughout life, would it
+not be her duty, on behalf of her dear child, to accept such an
+offer? But the beginnings of such dealings are always difficult.
+"Couldn't my lawyer see yours, Lady Augustus?" said Lord Rufford.
+
+
+"I don't want the family lawyer to know anything about it," said
+Lady Augustus. Then there was silence between them for a few
+moments. "You don't know what we have to bear, Lord Rufford. My
+husband has spent all my fortune,--which was considerable; and the
+Duke does nothing for us." Then he took a bit of paper and, writing
+on it the figures "6,000l." pushed it across the table. She gazed
+at the scrap for a minute, and then, borrowing his pencil without a
+word, scratched out his Lordship's figures and wrote "8,000l."
+beneath them; and then added, "No one to know it." After that he
+held the scrap for two or three minutes in his hands, and then
+wrote beneath the figures, "Very well. To be settled on your
+daughter. No one shall know it." She bowed her head, but kept the
+scrap of paper in her possession. "Shall I ring for your carriage?"
+he asked. The bell was rung, and Lady Augustus was taken back to
+the lodgings in Orchard Street in the hired brougham. As she went
+she told herself that if everything else failed, 400 pounds a year
+would support her daughter, or that in the event of any further
+matrimonial attempt such a fortune would be a great assistance. She
+had been sure that there could be no marriage, and was disposed to
+think that she had done a good morning's work on behalf of her
+unnatural child.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+"We shall kill each other"
+
+
+Lady Augustus as she was driven back to Orchard Street and as she
+remained alone during the rest of that day and the next in London,
+became a little afraid of what she had done. She began to think how
+she should communicate her tidings to her daughter, and thinking of
+it grew to be nervous and ill at ease. How would it be with her
+should Arabella still cling to the hope of marrying the lord? That
+any such hope would be altogether illusory Lady Augustus was now
+sure. She had been quite certain that there was no ground for such
+hope when she had spoken to the man of her own poverty. She was
+almost certain that there had never been an offer of marriage made.
+In the first place Lord Rufford's word went further with her than
+Arabella's,--and then his story had been consistent and probable,
+whereas hers had been inconsistent and improbable. At any rate
+ropes and horses would not bring Lord Rufford to the hymeneal
+altar. That being so was it not natural that she should then have
+considered what result would be next best to a marriage? She was
+very poor, having saved only some few hundreds a year from the
+wreck of her own fortune. Independently of her daughter had
+nothing. And in spite of this poverty Arabella was very
+extravagant, running up bills for finery without remorse wherever
+credit could be found, and excusing herself by saying that on this
+or that occasion such expenditure was justified by the matrimonial
+prospects which it opened out to her. And now, of late, Arabella
+had been talking of living separately from her mother. Lady
+Augustus, who was thoroughly tired of her daughter's company, was
+not at all averse to such a scheme; but any such scheme was
+impracticable without money. By a happy accident the money would
+now be forthcoming. There would be 400 pounds a year for ever and
+nobody would know whence it came. She was confident that they might
+trust to the lord's honour for secrecy. As far as her own opinion
+went the result of the transaction would be most happy. But still
+she feared Arabella. She felt that she would not know how to tell
+her story when she got back to Marygold Place. "My dear, he won't
+marry you; but he is to give you 8,000 pounds." That was what she
+would have to say, but she doubted her own courage to put her story
+into words so curt and explanatory. Even at thirty 400 pounds a
+year has not the charms which accompany it to eyes which have seen
+sixty years. She remained in town that night and the next day, and
+went down by train to Basingstoke on the following morning with her
+heart not altogether free from trepidation.
+
+Lord Rufford, the very moment that the interview was over, started
+off to his lawyer. Considering how very little had been given to
+him the sum he was to pay was prodigious. In his desire to get rid
+of the bore of these appeals, he had allowed himself to be
+foolishly generous. He certainly never would kiss a young lady in a
+carriage again,--nor even lend a horse to a young lady till he was
+better acquainted with her ambition and character. But the word had
+gone from him and he must be as good as his word. The girl must
+have her 8,000 pounds and must have it instantly. He would put the
+matter into such a position that if any more interviews were
+suggested, he might with perfect safety refer the suggester back to
+Miss Trefoil. There was to be secrecy, and he would be secret as
+the grave. But in such matters one's lawyer is the grave. He had
+proposed that two lawyers should arrange it. Objection had been
+made to this, because Lady Augustus had no lawyer ready;--but on
+his side some one must be employed. So he went to his own solicitor
+and begged that the thing might be done quite at once. He was very
+definite in his instructions, and would listen to no doubts. Would
+the lawyer write to Miss Trefoil on that very day;---or rather not
+on that very day but the next. As he suggested this he thought it
+well that Lady Augustus should have an opportunity of explaining
+the transaction to her daughter before the lawyer's letter should
+be received. He had, he said, his own reason for such haste.
+Consequently the lawyer did prepare the letter to Miss Trefoil at
+once, drafting it in his noble client's presence. In what way
+should the money be disposed so as best to suit her convenience?
+The letter was very short with an intimation that Lady Augustus
+would no doubt have explained the details of the arrangement.
+
+When Lady Augustus reached Marygold the family were at lunch, and
+as strangers were present nothing was said as to the great mission.
+The mother had already bethought herself how she must tell this and
+that lie to the Connop Greens, explaining that Lord Rufford had
+confessed his iniquity but had disclosed that, for certain
+mysterious reasons, he could not marry Arabella,--though he loved
+her better than all the world. Arabella asked some questions about
+her mother's shopping and general business in town, and did not
+leave the room till she could do so without the slightest
+appearance of anxiety. Mrs. Connop Green marvelled at her coolness
+knowing how much must depend on the answer which her mother had
+brought back from London, and knowing nothing of the contents of
+the letter which Arabella had received that morning from the
+lawyer. In a moment or two Lady Augustus followed her daughter
+upstairs, and on going into her own room found the damsel standing
+in the middle of it with an open paper in her hand. "Mamma," she
+said, "shut the door." Then the door was closed. "What is the
+meaning of this?" and she held out the lawyer's letter.
+
+"The meaning of what?" said Lady Augustus, trembling.
+
+"I have no doubt you know, but you had better read it"
+
+Lady Augustus read the letter and attempted to smile. "He has been
+very quick," she said. "I thought I should have been the first to
+tell you."
+
+"What is the meaning of it? Why is the man to give me all that
+money?"
+
+"Is it not a good escape from so great a trouble? Think what 8,000
+pounds will do. It will enable you to live in comfort wherever you
+may please to go."
+
+"I am to understand then you have sold me,--sold all my hopes and
+my very name and character, for 8,000 pounds!"
+
+"Your name and character will not be touched, my dear. As for his
+marrying you I soon found that that was absolutely out of the
+question."
+
+"This is what has come of sending you to see him! Of course I shall
+tell my uncle everything."
+
+"You will do no such thing. Arabella, do not make a fool of
+yourself. Do you know what 8,000 pounds will do for you? It is to
+be your own,--absolutely beyond my reach or your father's."
+
+"I would sooner go into the Thames off Waterloo Bridge than touch a
+farthing of his money," said Arabella with a spirit which the other
+woman did not at all understand. Hitherto in all these little dirty
+ways they had run with equal steps. The pretences, the subterfuges,
+the lies of the one had always been open to the other. Arabella,
+earnest in supplying herself with gloves from the pockets of her
+male acquaintances, had endured her mother's tricks with
+complacency. She had condescended when living in humble lodgings to
+date her letters from a well-known hotel, and had not feared to
+declare that she had done so in their family conversations.
+Together they had fished in turbid waters for marital nibbles and
+had told mutual falsehoods to unbelieving tradesmen. And yet the
+younger woman, when tempted with a bribe worth lies and tricks as
+deep and as black as Acheron, now stood on her dignity and her
+purity and stamped her foot with honest indignation!
+
+"I don't think you can understand it," said Lady Augustus.
+
+"I can understand this,--that you have betrayed me; and that I
+shall tell him so in the plainest words that I can use. To get his
+lawyer to write and offer me money!"
+
+"He should not have gone to his lawyer. I do think he was wrong
+there."
+
+"But you settled it with him; you, my mother;--a price at which he
+should buy himself off! Would he have offered me money if he did
+not know that he had bound himself to me?"
+
+"Nothing on earth would make him marry you. I would not for a
+moment have allowed him to allude to money if that had not been
+quite certain."
+
+"Who proposed the money first?"
+
+Lady Augustus considered a moment before she answered. "Upon my
+word, my dear, I can't say. He wrote the figures on a bit of paper;
+that was the way." Then she produced the scrap. "He wrote the
+figures first,--and then I altered them, just as you see. The
+proposition came first from him, of course."
+
+"And you did not spit at him!" She tore the scrap into fragments.
+
+"Arabella," said the mother, "it is clear that you do not look into
+the future. How do you mean to live? You are getting old."
+
+"Old!"
+
+"Yes, my love,--old. Of course I am willing to do everything for
+you, as I always have done,--for so many years, but there isn't a
+man in London who does not know how long you have been about it."
+
+"Hold your tongue, mamma" said Arabella jumping up.
+
+"That is all very well, but the truth has to be spoken. You and I
+cannot go on as we have been doing."
+
+"Certainly not. I would sooner be in a work-house."
+
+"And here there is provided for you an income on which you can
+live. Not a soul will know anything about it. Even your own father
+need not be told. As for the lawyer, that is nothing. They never
+talk of things. It would make a man comparatively poor quite a fit
+match. Or, if you do not marry, it would enable you to live where
+you pleased independently of me. You had better think twice of it
+before you refuse it."
+
+"I will not think of it at all. As sure as I am living here I will
+write to Rufford this very evening and tell him in what light I
+regard both him and you."
+
+"And what will you do then?"
+
+"Hang myself."
+
+"That is all very well, Arabella, but hanging yourself and jumping
+off Waterloo Bridge do not mean anything. You must live, and you
+must pay your debts" I can't pay them for you. You go into your own
+room, and think of it all, and be thankful for what Providence has
+sent you."
+
+"You may as well understand that I am in earnest," the daughter
+said as she left the room. "I shall write to Lord Rufford to-day
+and tell him what I think of him and his money. You need not
+trouble yourself as to what shall be done with it; for I certainly
+shall not take it."
+
+And she did write to Lord Rufford as follows:
+
+My Lord,
+
+I have been much astonished by a letter I have received from a
+gentleman in London, Mr. Shaw, who I presume is your lawyer. When I
+received it I had not as yet seen mamma. I now understand that you
+and she between you have determined that I should be compensated by
+a sum of money for the injury you have done me! I scorn your money.
+I cannot think where you found the audacity to make such a
+proposal, or how you have taught yourself to imagine that I should
+listen to it. As to mamma, she was not commissioned to act for me,
+and I have nothing to do with anything she may have said. I can
+hardly believe that she should have agreed to such a proposal. It
+was very little like a gentleman in you to offer it.
+
+Why did you offer it? You would not have proposed to give me a
+large sum of money like that without some reason. I have been
+shocked to hear that you have denied that you ever engaged yourself
+to me. You know that you were engaged to me. It would have been
+more honest and more manly if you had declared at once that you
+repented of your engagement. But the truth is that till I see you
+myself and hear what you have to say out of your own mouth I cannot
+believe what other people tell me. I must ask you to name some
+place where we can meet. As for this offer of money, it goes for
+nothing. You must have known that I would not take it.
+                                   Arabella.
+
+It was now just the end of February, and the visit of the Trefoil
+ladies to the Connop Greens had to come to an end. They had already
+overstaid the time at first arranged, and Lady Augustus, when she
+hinted that another week at Marygold,--"just till this painful
+affair was finally settled,"--would be beneficial to her, was
+informed that the Connop Greens themselves were about to leave
+home. Lady Augustus had reported to Mrs. Connop Green that Lord
+Rufford was behaving very badly, but that the matter was still in a
+"transition state." Mrs. Connop Green was very sorry, but--. So
+Lady Augustus and Arabella betook themselves to Orchard Street,
+being at that moment unable to enter in upon better quarters.
+
+What a home it was,--and what a journey up to town! Arabella had
+told her mother that the letter to Lord Rufford had been written
+and posted, and since that hardly a word had passed between them.
+When they left Marygold in the Connop Green carriage they smiled,
+and shook hands, and kissed their friends in unison, and then sank
+back into silence. At the station they walked up and down the
+platform together for the sake of appearance, but did not speak. In
+the train there were others with them and they both feigned to be
+asleep. Then they were driven to their lodgings in a cab, still
+speechless. It was the mother who first saw that the horror of this
+if continued would be too great to be endured. "Arabella," she said
+in a hoarse voice, "why don't you speak?"
+
+"Because I've got nothing to say."
+
+"That's nonsense. There is always something to say."
+
+"You have ruined me, mamma; just ruined me."
+
+"I did for you the very best I could. If you would have been
+advised by me, instead of being ruined, you would have had a
+handsome fortune. I have slaved for you for the last twelve years.
+No mother ever sacrificed herself for her child more than I have
+done for you, and now see the return I get. I sometimes think that
+it will kill me."
+
+"That's nonsense."
+
+"Everything I say is nonsense,--while you tell me one day that you
+are going to hang yourself, and another day that you will drown
+yourself."
+
+"So I would if I dared. What is it that you have brought me to? Who
+will have me in their houses when they hear that you consented to
+take Lord Rufford's money?"
+
+"Nobody will hear it unless you tell them."
+
+"I shall tell my uncle and my aunt and Mistletoe, in order that
+they may know how it is that Lord Rufford has been allowed to
+escape. I say that you have ruined me. If it had not been for your
+vulgar bargain with him, he must have been brought to keep his word
+at last. Oh, that he should have ever thought it was possible that
+I was to be bought off for a sum of money!"
+
+Later on in the evening the mother again implored her daughter to
+speak to her. "What's the use, mamma, when you know what we think
+of each other. What's the good of pretending? There is nobody here
+to hear us." Later on still she herself began. "I don't know how
+much you've got, mamma; but whatever it is, we'd better divide it.
+After what you did in Piccadilly we shall never get on together
+again."
+
+"There is not enough to divide," said Lady Augustus.
+
+"If I had not you to go about with me I could get taken in pretty
+nearly all the year round."
+
+"Who'd take you?"
+
+"Leave that to me. I would manage it, and you could join with some
+other old person."
+
+"We shall kill each other if we stay like this," said Arabella as
+she took up her candle.
+
+"You have pretty nearly killed me as it is," said the old woman as
+the other shut the door.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Changes at Bragton
+
+
+Day after day old Mrs. Morton urged her purpose with her grandson
+at Bragton, not quite directly as she had done at first, but by
+gradual approaches and little soft attempts made in the midst of
+all the tenderness which, as a nurse, she was able to display. It
+soon came to pass that the intruders were banished from the house,
+or almost banished. Mary's daily visits were discontinued
+immediately after that last walk home with Reginald Morton which
+has been described. Twice in the course of the next week she went
+over, but on both occasions she did so early in the day, and
+returned alone just as he was reaching the house. And then, before
+a week was over, early in March, Lady Ushant told the invalid that
+she would be better away. "Mrs. Morton doesn't like me," she said,
+"and I had better go. But I shall stay for a while at Hoppet Hall;
+and come in and see you from time to time till you get better."
+John Morton replied that he should never get better; but though he
+said so then, there was at times evidence that he did not yet quite
+despond as to himself. He could still talk to Mrs. Morton of buying
+Chowton Farm, and was very anxious that he should not be forgotten
+at the Foreign Office.
+
+Lady Ushant had herself driven to Hoppet Hall, and there took up
+her residence with her nephew. Every other day Mr. Runciman's fly
+came for her and carried her backwards and forwards to Bragton. On
+those occasions she would remain an hour with the invalid, and then
+would go back again, never even seeing Mrs. Morton, though always
+seen by her. And twice after this banishment Reginald walked over.
+But on the second occasion there was a scene. Mrs. Morton to whom
+he had never spoken since he was a boy, met him in the hall and
+told him that his visits only disturbed his sick cousin. "I
+certainly will not disturb him," Reginald had said. "In the
+condition in which he is now he should not see many people,"
+rejoined the lady. "If you will ask Dr. Fanning he will tell you
+the same." Dr. Fanning was the London doctor who came down once a
+week, whom it was improbable that Reginald should have an
+opportunity of consulting. But he remembered or thought that he
+remembered, that his cousin had been fretful and ill-pleased during
+his last visit, and so turned himself round and went home without
+another word.
+
+"I am afraid there may be--I don't know what," said Lady Ushant to
+him in a whisper the next morning.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I don't know what I mean. Perhaps I ought not to say a word. Only
+so much does depend on it!"
+
+"If you are thinking about the property, aunt, wipe it out of your
+mind. Let him do what he pleases and don't think about it. No one
+should trouble their minds about such things. It is his, to do what
+he pleases with it."
+
+"It is not him that I fear, Reginald."
+
+"If he chooses to be guided by her, who shall say that he is wrong?
+Get it out of your mind. The very thinking about such things is
+dirtiness!" The poor old lady submitted to the rebuke and did not
+dare to say another word.
+
+Daily Lady Ushant would send over for Mary Masters, thinking it
+cruel that her young friend should leave her alone and yet
+understanding in part the reason why Mary did not come to her
+constantly at Hoppet Hall. Poor Mary was troubled much by these
+messages. Of course she went now and again. She had no alternative
+but to go, and yet, feeling that the house was his house, she was
+most unwilling to enter it. Then grew within her a feeling, which
+she could not analyse, that he had ill-used her. Of course she was
+not entitled to his love. She would acknowledge to herself over and
+over again that he had never spoken a word to her which could
+justify her in expecting his love. But why had he not let her
+alone? Why had he striven by his words and his society to make her
+other than she would have been had she been left to the atmosphere
+of her stepmother's home? Why had he spoken so strongly to her as
+to that young man's love? And then she was almost angry with him
+because, by a turn in the wheel of fortune, he was about to become,
+as she thought, Squire of Bragton. Had he remained simply Mr.
+Morton of Hoppet Hall it would still have been impossible. But this
+exaltation of her idol altogether out of her reach was an added
+injustice. She could remember, not the person, but all the recent
+memories of the old Squire, the veneration with which he was named,
+the masterdom which was attributed to him, the unequalled nobility
+of his position in regard to Dillsborough. His successor would be
+to her as some one crowned, and removed by his crown altogether
+from her world. Then she pictured to herself the stately dame who
+would certainly come, and she made fresh resolutions with a sore
+heart.
+
+"I don't know why you should be so very little with me," said Lady
+Ushant, almost whining. "When I was at Cheltenham you wanted to
+come to me."
+
+"There are so many things to be done at home."
+
+"And yet you would have come to Cheltenham."
+
+"We were in great trouble then, Lady Ushant. Of course I would like
+to be with you. You ought not to scold me, because you know how I
+love you"
+
+"Has the young man gone away altogether now, Mary?"
+
+"Altogether."
+
+"And Mrs. Masters is satisfied?"
+
+"She knows it can never be, and therefore she is quiet about it."
+
+"I was sorry for that young man, because he was so true."
+
+"You couldn't be more sorry than I was, Lady Ushant. I love him as
+though he was a brother. But--"
+
+"Mary, dear Mary, I fear you are in trouble."
+
+"I think it is all trouble," said Mary, rushing forward and hiding
+her face in her old friend's lap as she knelt on the ground before
+her. Lady Ushant longed to ask a question, but she did not dare.
+And Mary Masters longed to have one friend to whom she could
+confide her secret,--but neither did she dare.
+
+On the next day, very early in the morning, there came a note from
+Mrs. Morton to Mr. Masters, the attorney. Could Mr. Masters come
+out on that day to Bragton and see Mrs. Morton. The note was very
+particular in saying that Mrs. Morton was to be the person seen.
+The messenger who waited for an answer, brought back word that Mr.
+Masters would be there at noon. The circumstance was one which
+agitated him considerably, as he had not been inside the house at
+Bragton since the days immediately following the death of the old
+Squire. As it happened, Lady Ushant was going to Bragton on the
+same day, and at the suggestion of Mr. Runciman, whose horses in
+the hunting season barely sufficed for his trade, the old lady and
+the lawyer went together. Not a word was said between them as to
+the cause which took either of them on their journey, but they
+spoke much of the days in which they had known each other, when the
+old Squire was alive, and Mr. Masters thanked Lady Ushant for her
+kindness to his daughter. "I love her almost as though she were my
+own," said Lady Ushant. "When I am dead she will have half of what
+I have got."
+
+"She will have no right to expect that," said the gratified father.
+
+"She will have half or the whole, just as Reginald may be situated
+then. I don't know why I shouldn't tell her father what it is I
+mean to do." The attorney knew to a shilling the amount of Lady
+Ushant's income and thought that this was the best news he had
+heard for many a day.
+
+While Lady Ushant was in the sick man's room, Mrs. Morton was
+closeted with the attorney. She had thought much of this step
+before she had dared to take it and even now doubted whether it
+would avail her anything. As she entered the book-room in which Mr.
+Masters was seated she almost repented. But the man was there and
+she was compelled to go on with her scheme. "Mr. Masters," she
+said, "it is I think a long time since you have been employed by
+this family."
+
+"A very long time, Madam."
+
+"And I have now sent for you under circumstances of great
+difficulty," she answered; but as he said nothing she was forced to
+go on. "My grandson made his will the other day up in London, when
+he thought that he was going out to Patagonia." Mr. Masters bowed.
+"It was done when he was in sound health, and he is now not
+satisfied with it" Then there was another bow, but not a word was
+spoken. "Of course you know that he is very ill."
+
+"We have all been very much grieved to hear it"
+
+"I am sure you would be, for the sake of old days. When Dr. Fanning
+was last here he thought that my grandson was something better. He
+held out stronger hopes than before. But still he is very ill. His
+mind has never wavered for a moment, Mr. Masters." Again Mr.
+Masters bowed. "And now he thinks that some changes should be
+made;--indeed that there should be a new will."
+
+"Does he wish me to see him, Mrs. Morton?"
+
+"Not to-day, I think. He is not quite prepared to-day. But I wanted
+to ask whether you could come at a moment's notice,--quite at a
+moment's notice. I thought it better, so that you should know why
+we sent for you if we did send,--so that you might be prepared. It
+could be done here, I suppose?"
+
+"It would be possible, Mrs. Morton."
+
+"And you could do it?"
+
+Then there was a long pause. "Altering a will is a very serious
+thing, Mrs. Morton. And when it is done on what perhaps may be a
+death-bed, it is a very serious thing indeed. Mr. Morton, I
+believe, employs a London solicitor. I know the firm and more
+respectable gentlemen do not exist. A telegram would bring down one
+of the firm from London by the next train."
+
+A frown, a very heavy frown, came across the old woman's brow. She
+would have repressed it had it been possible;--but she could not
+command herself, and the frown was there. "If that had been
+practicable, Mr. Masters," she said, "we should not have sent for
+you."
+
+"I was only suggesting, madame, what might be the best course."
+
+"Exactly. And of course I am much obliged. But if we are driven to
+call upon you for your assistance, we shall find it?"
+
+"Madame," said the attorney very slowly, "it is of course part of
+my business to make wills, and when called upon to do so, I perform
+my business to the best of my ability. But in altering a will
+during illness great care is necessary. A codicil might be added--"
+
+"A new will would be necessary."
+
+A new will, thought the attorney, could only be necessary for
+altering the disposition of the whole estate. He knew enough of the
+family circumstances to be aware that the property should go to
+Reginald Morton whether with or without a will,--and also enough to
+be aware that this old lady was Reginald's bitter enemy. He did not
+think that he could bring himself to take instructions from a dying
+man,--from the Squire of Bragton on his death-bed,--for an
+instrument which should alienate the property from the proper heir.
+He too had his strong feelings, perhaps his prejudices, about
+Bragton. "I would wish that the task were in other hands, Mrs.
+Morton."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"It is hard to measure the capacity of an invalid."
+
+"His mind is as clear as yours"
+
+"It might be so,--and yet I might not be able to satisfy myself
+that it was so. I should have to ask long and tedious questions,
+which would be offensive. And I should find myself giving advice,--
+which would not be called for. For instance, were your grandson to
+wish to leave this estate away from the heir--"
+
+"I am not discussing his wishes, Mr. Masters."
+
+"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Morton, for making the suggestion;--but as
+I said before, I should prefer that he should employ some one
+else."
+
+"You refuse then?"
+
+"If Mr. Morton were to send for me, I should go to him instantly.
+But I fear I might be slow in taking his instructions;--and it is
+possible that I might refuse to act on them." Then she got up from
+her chair and bowing to him with stately displeasure left the room.
+
+All this she had done without any authority from her grandson,
+simply encouraged in her object by his saying in his weakness, that
+he would think of her proposition. So intent was she on her
+business that she was resolved to have everything ready if only he
+could once be brought to say that Peter Morton should be his heir.
+Having abandoned all hopes for her noble cousin she could tell her
+conscience that she was instigated simply by an idea of justice.
+Peter Morton was at any rate the legitimate son of a well-born
+father and a wellborn mother. What had she or any one belonging to
+her to gain by it? But forty years since a brat had been born at
+Bragton in opposition to her wishes,--by whose means she had been
+expelled from the place; and now it seemed to her to be simple
+justice that he should on this account be robbed of that which
+would otherwise be naturally his own. As Mr. Masters would not
+serve her turn she must write to the London lawyers. The thing
+would be more difficult; but, nevertheless, if the sick man could
+once be got to say that Peter should be his heir she thought that
+she could keep him to his word. Lady Ushant and Mr. Masters went
+back to Dillsborough in Runciman's fly, and it need hardly be said
+that the attorney said nothing of the business which had taken him
+to Bragton.
+
+This happened on a Wednesday,--Wednesday the 3rd of March. On
+Friday morning, at 4 o'clock, during the darkness of the night,
+John Morton was lying dead on his bed, and the old woman was at his
+bedside. She had done her duty by him as far as she knew how in
+tending him, had been assiduous with the diligence of much younger
+years; but now as she sat there, having had the fact absolutely
+announced to her by Dr. Nupper, her greatest agony arose from the
+feeling that the roof which covered her, probably the chair in
+which she sat, were the property of Reginald Morton--"Bastard!" she
+said to herself between her teeth; but she so said it that neither
+Dr. Nupper, who was in the room, nor the woman who was with her
+should hear it.
+
+Dr. Nupper took the news into Dillsborough, and as the folk sat
+down to breakfast they all heard that the Squire of Bragton was
+dead. The man had been too little known, had been too short a time
+in the neighbourhood, to give occasion for tears. There was
+certainly more of interest than of grief in the matter. Mr. Masters
+said to himself that the time had been too short for any change in
+the will, and therefore felt tolerably certain that Reginald would
+be the heir. But for some days this opinion was not general in
+Dillsborough. Mr. Mainwaring had heard that Reginald had been sent
+away from Bragton with a flea in his ear, and was pretty certain
+that when the will was read it would be found that the property was
+to go to Mrs. Morton's friends. Dr. Nupper was of the same opinion.
+There were many in Dillsborough with whom Reginald was not
+popular;--and who thought that some man of a different kind would
+do better as Squire of Bragton. "He don't know a fox when he sees
+'un," said Tony Tuppett to Larry Twentyman, whom he had come across
+the county to call upon and to console.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+The Will
+
+
+On that Saturday the club met at Dillsborough,--even though the
+Squire of Bragton had died on Friday morning. Through the whole of
+that Saturday the town had been much exercised in its belief and
+expressions, as to the disposition of the property. The town knew
+very well that Mr. Masters, the attorney, had been sent for to
+Bragton on the previous Wednesday,--whence the deduction as to a
+new will, made of course under the auspices of Mrs. Morton, would
+have been quite plain to the town, had not a portion of the town
+heard that the attorney had not been for a moment with the dying
+man during his visit. This latter piece of information had come
+through Lady Ushant, who had been in her nephew's bedroom the whole
+time;--but Lady Ushant had not much personal communication with the
+town generally, and would probably have said nothing on this
+subject had not Mr. Runciman walked up to Hoppet Hall behind the
+fly, after Mr. Masters had left it; and, while helping her ladyship
+out, made inquiry as to the condition of things at Bragton
+generally. "I was sorry to hear of their sending for any lawyer,"
+said Mr. Runciman. Then Lady Ushant protested that the lawyer had
+not been sent for by her nephew, and that her nephew had not even
+seen him. "Oh, indeed," said Mr. Runciman, who immediately took a
+walk round his own paddock with the object of putting two and two
+together. Mr. Runciman was a discreet man, and did not allow this
+piece of information to spread itself generally. He told Dr.
+Nupper, and Mr. Hampton, and Lord Rufford,--for the hounds went out
+on Friday, though the Squire of Bragton was lying dead;--but he did
+not tell Mr. Mainwaring, whom he encountered in the street of the
+town as he was coming home early, and who was very keen to learn
+whatever news there was.
+
+Reginald Morton on Friday did not go near Bragton. That of course
+was palpable to all, and was a great sign that he himself did not
+regard himself as the heir. He had for awhile been very intimate at
+the house, visiting it daily--and during a part of that time the
+grandmother had been altogether absent. Then she had come back, and
+he had discontinued his visits. And now he did not even go over to
+seal up the drawers and to make arrangements as to the funeral. He
+did not at any rate go on the Friday,--nor on the Saturday. And on
+the Saturday Mr. Wobytrade, the undertaker, had received orders
+from Mrs. Morton to go at once to Bragton. All this was felt to be
+strong against Reginald. But when it was discovered that on the
+Saturday afternoon Mrs. Morton herself had gone up to London, not
+waiting even for the coming of any one else to take possession of
+the house,--and that she had again carried all her own personal
+luggage with her, then opinion in Dillsborough again veered. Upon
+the whole the betting was a point or two in favour of Reginald,
+when the club met.
+
+Mrs. Masters, who had been much quelled of late, had been urgent
+with her husband to go over to the Bush; but he was unwilling, he
+said, to be making jolly while the Squire of Bragton was lying
+unburied. "He was nothing to you, Gregory," said his wife, who had
+in vain endeavoured to learn from him why he had been summoned to
+Bragton--"You will hear something over there, and it will relieve
+your spirits." So instigated he did go across, and found all the
+accustomed members of the club congregated in the room. Even Larry
+Twentyman was present, who of late had kept himself aloof from all
+such meetings. Both the Botseys were there, and Nupper and Harry
+Stubbings, and Ribbs the butcher. Runciman himself of course was in
+the room, and he had introduced on this occasion Captain Glomax,
+the master of the hunt, who was staying at his house that night,--
+perhaps with a view to hunting duties on the Monday, perhaps in
+order that he might hear something as to the Bragton property. It
+had already been suggested to him that he might possibly hire the
+house for a year or two at little more than a nominal rent, that
+the old kennels might be resuscitated, and that such arrangements
+would be in all respects convenient. He was the master of the hunt,
+and of course there was no difficulty as to introducing him to the
+club.
+
+Captain Glomax was speaking in a somewhat dictatorial voice,--as
+becomes a Master of Hounds when in the field, though perhaps it
+should be dropped afterwards--when the Attorney entered. There was
+a sudden rise of voices striving to interrupt the Captain, as it
+was felt by them all that Mr. Masters must be in possession of
+information; but the Captain himself went on. "Of course it is the
+place for the hounds. Nobody can doubt that who knows the country
+and understands the working of it. The hunt ought to have
+subscribed and hired the kennels and stables permanently."
+
+"There would have wanted two to that bargain, Captain," said Mr.
+Runciman.
+
+"Of course there would, but what would you think of a man who would
+refuse such a proposition when he didn't want the place himself? Do
+you think if I'd been there foxes would have been poisoned in
+Dillsborough wood? I'd have had that fellow Goarly under my thumb."
+
+"Then you'd have had an awful blackguard under your thumb, Captain
+Glomax," said Larry, who could not restrain his wrath when Goarly's
+name was mentioned.
+
+"What does that matter, if you get foxes?" continued the Master.
+"But the fact is, gentlemen in a county like this always want to
+have everything done for them, and never to do anything for
+themselves. I'm sick of it, I know. Nobody is fonder of hunting a
+country than I am, and I think I know what I'm about."
+
+"That you do," said Fred Botsey, who, like most men, was always
+ready to flatter the Master.
+
+"And I don't care how hard I work. From the first of August till
+the end of May I never have a day to myself, what with cubbing and
+then the season, and entering the young hounds, and buying and
+selling horses, by George I'm at it the whole year."
+
+"A Master of Hounds looks for that, Captain," said the innkeeper.
+
+"Looks for it! Yes; he must look for it. But I wouldn't mind that,
+if I could get gentlemen to pull a little with me. I can't stand
+being out of pocket as I have been, and so I must let them know. If
+the country would get the kennels and the stables, and lay out a
+few pounds so that horses and hounds and men could go into them, I
+wouldn't mind having a shot for the house. It's killing work where
+I am now, the other side of Rufford, you may say." Then he
+stopped;--but no one would undertake to answer him. The meaning of
+it was that Captain Glomax wanted 500 pounds a year more than he
+received, and every one there knew that there was not 500 pounds a
+year more to be got out of the country,--unless Lord Rufford would
+put his hand into his pocket. Now the present stables and the
+present kennels had been "made comfortable" by Lord Rufford, and it
+was not thought probable that he would pay for the move to Bragton.
+
+"When's the funeral to be, Mr. Masters?" asked Runciman,--who knew
+very well the day fixed, but who thought it well to get back to the
+subject of real interest in the town.
+
+"Next Thursday, I'm told."
+
+"There's no hurry with weather like this," said Nupper
+professionally.
+
+"They can't open the will till the late squire is buried,"
+continued the innkeeper, "and there will be one or two very anxious
+to know what is in it"
+
+"I suppose it will all go to the man who lives up here at Hoppet
+Hall," said the Captain,--"a man that was never outside a horse in
+his life!"
+
+"He's not a bad fellow," said Runciman.
+
+"He is a very good fellow," said the Attorney, "and I trust he may
+have the property. If it be left away from him, I for one shall
+think that a great injustice has been done." This was listened to
+with attention, as every one there thought that Mr. Masters must
+know.
+
+"I can't understand," said Glomax, "how any man can be considered a
+good fellow as a country gentleman who does not care for sport.
+Just look at it all round. Suppose others were like him what would
+become of us all?"
+
+"Yes indeed, what would become of us?" asked the two Botseys in a
+breath.
+
+"Ho'd 'ire our 'orses, Runciman?" suggested Harry Stubbings with a
+laugh.
+
+"Think what England would be!" said the Captain. "When I hear of a
+country gentleman sticking to books and all that, I feel that the
+glory is departing from the land. Where are the sinews of war to
+come from? That's what I want to know."
+
+"Who will it be, Mr. Masters, if the gent don't get it?" asked
+Ribbs from his corner on the sofa. This was felt to be a pushing
+question. "How am I to know, Mr. Ribbs?" said the Attorney. "I
+didn't make the late squire's will; and if I did you don't suppose
+I should tell you."
+
+"I'm told that the next is Peter Morton," said Fred Botsey. "He's
+something in a public office up in London."
+
+"It won't go to him," said Fred's brother. "That old lady has
+relations of her own who have had their mouths open for the last
+forty years"
+
+"Away from the Mortons altogether!" said Harry. "That would be an
+awful shame!"
+
+"I don't see what good the Mortons have done this last half
+century," said the Captain.
+
+"You don't remember the old squire, Captain," said the innkeeper,
+"and I don't remember him well. Indeed I was only a little chap
+when they buried him. But there's that feeling left behind him to
+this day, that not a poor man in the country wouldn't be sorry to
+think that there wasn't a Morton left among 'em. Of course a
+hunting gentleman is a good thing."
+
+"About the best thing out," said the Captain.
+
+"But a hunting gentleman isn't everything. I know nothing of the
+old lady's people,--only this that none of their money ever came
+into Dillsborough. I'm all for Reginald Morton. He's my landlord as
+it is, and he's a gentleman."
+
+"I hate foreigners coming," said Ribbs.
+
+"'E ain't too old to take it yet," said Harry. Fred Botsey declared
+that he didn't believe in men hunting unless they began young.
+Whereupon Dr. Nupper declared that he had never ridden over a fence
+till he was forty-five, and that he was ready now to ride Fred
+across country for a new hat. Larry suggested that a man might be a
+good friend to sport though he didn't ride much himself; and
+Runciman again asserted that hunting wasn't everything. Upon the
+whole Reginald was the favourite. But the occasion was so special
+that a little supper was ordered, and I fear the attorney did not
+get home till after twelve.
+
+Till the news reached Hoppet Hall that Mrs. Morton had taken
+herself off to London, there was great doubt there as to what ought
+to be done, and even then the difficulty was not altogether over.
+Till she was gone neither Lady Ushant nor her nephew would go
+there, and he could only declare his purpose of attending the
+funeral whether he were asked or not. When his aunt again spoke of
+the will he desired her with much emphasis not to allude to the
+subject. "If the property is to come to me," he said, "anything of
+good that may be in it cannot be much sweeter by anticipation. And
+if it is not I shall only encourage disappointment by thinking of
+it."
+
+"But it would be such a shame."
+
+"That I deny altogether. It was his own to do as he liked with it.
+Had he married I should not have expected it because I am the heir.
+But, if you please, aunt, do not say a word more about it."
+
+THE AMERICAN SENATOR.
+
+On the Sunday morning he heard that Mrs. Morton was gone to London,
+and then he walked over to Bragton. He found that she had locked
+and sealed up everything with so much precision that she must have
+worked hard at the task from the hour of his death almost to that
+of her departure. "She never rested herself all day," said Mrs.
+Hopkins, "till I thought she would sink from very weariness." She
+had gone into every room and opened every drawer, and had had every
+piece of plate through her fingers, and then Mrs. Hopkins told him
+that just as she was departing she had said that the keys would be
+given to the lawyer. After that he wandered about the place,
+thinking what his life would be should he find himself the owner of
+Bragton. At this moment he almost felt that he disliked the place,
+though there had been times in which he had thought that he loved
+it too well. Of one thing he was conscious,--that if Bragton should
+become his, it would be his duty to live there. He must move his
+books, and pipes, and other household gods from Hoppet Hall and
+become an English Squire. Would it be too late for him to learn to
+ride to hounds? Would it be possible that he should ever succeed in
+shooting a pheasant, if he were to study the art patiently? Could
+he interest himself as to the prevalence or decadence of ground
+game? And what must he do with his neighbours? Of course he would
+have to entertain Mr. Mainwaring and the other parsons, and perhaps
+once in the year to ask Lord Rufford to dine with him. If Lord
+Rufford came, what on earth would he say to him?
+
+And then there arose another question. Would it not be his duty to
+marry,---and, if so, whom? He had been distinctly told that Mary
+Morton had given her heart to some one, and he certainly was not
+the man to ask for the hand of a girl who had not a heart to give.
+And yet thought that it would be impossible that he should marry
+any other person. He spent hours in walking about the grounds,
+looking at the garden and belongings which would so probably be his
+own within a week, and thinking whether it would be possible that
+he should bring a mistress to preside over them. Before he reached
+home he had made up his mind that only one mistress would be
+possible, and that she was beyond his reach.
+
+On the Tuesday he received a scrawl from Mrs. Hopkins with a letter
+from the lawyer--addressed to her. The lawyer wrote to say that he
+would be down on Wednesday evening, would attend the funeral, and
+read his client's will after they had performed the ceremony. He
+went on to add that in obedience to Mrs. Morton's directions he had
+invited Mr. Peter Morton to be present on the occasion. On the
+Wednesday Reginald again went over, but left before the arrival of
+the two gentlemen. On the Thursday he was there early, and of
+course took upon himself the duty of chief mourner. Peter Morton
+was there and showed, in a bewildered way, that he had been
+summoned rather to the opening of the will than to the funeral of a
+man he had never seen.
+
+Then the will was read. There were only two names mentioned in it.
+John Morton left 5,000 pounds and his watch and chain and rings to
+Arabella Trefoil, and everything else of which he was possessed to
+his cousin Reginald Morton.
+
+"Upon my word I don't know why they sent for me," said the other
+cousin, Peter.
+
+"Mrs. Morton seemed to think that you would like to pay a tribute
+of respect," said the lawyer. Peter looked at him and went upstairs
+and packed his portmanteau. The lawyer handed over the keys to the
+new squire, and then everything was done.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+The New Minister
+
+
+"Poor old Paragon!" exclaimed Archibald Currie, as he stood with
+his back to the fire among his colleagues at the Foreign Office on
+the day after John Morton's death.
+
+"Poor young Paragon! that's the pity of it," said Mounser Green. "I
+don't suppose he was turned thirty, and he was a useful man,--a
+very useful man. That's the worst of it. He was just one of those
+men that the country can't afford to lose, and whom it is so very
+hard to replace." Mounser Green was always eloquent as to the needs
+of the public service, and did really in his heart of hearts care
+about his office. "Who is to go to Patagonia, I'm sure I don't
+know. Platitude was asking me about it, and I told him that I
+couldn't name a man."
+
+"Old Platitude always thinks that the world is coming to an end,"
+said Currie. "There are as good fish in the sea as ever were
+caught"
+
+"Who is there? Monsoon won't go, even if they ask him. The Paragon
+was just the fellow for it. He had his heart in the work. An
+immense deal depends on what sort of man we have in Patagonia at
+the present moment. If Paraguay gets the better of the Patagonese
+all Brazil will be in a ferment, and you know how that kind of
+thing spreads among half-caste Spaniards and Portuguese. Nobody can
+interfere but the British Minister. When I suggested Morton I knew
+I had the right man if he'd only take it"
+
+"And now he has gone and died!" said Hoffmann.
+
+"And now he has gone and died," continued Mounser Green. "'I never
+nursed a dear gazelle,' and all the rest of it. Poor Paragon! I
+fear he was a little cut about Miss Trefoil."
+
+"She was down with him the day before he died," said young Glossop.
+"I happen to know that"
+
+"It was before he thought of going to Patagonia that she was at
+Bragton," said Currie.
+
+"That's all you know about it, old fellow," said the indignant
+young one. "She was there a second time, just before his death. I
+had it from Lady Penwether who was in the neighbourhood."
+
+"My dear little boy," said Mounser Green, "that was exactly what
+was likely to happen, and he yet may have broken his heart. I have
+seen a good deal of the lady lately, and under no circumstances
+would she have married him. When he accepted the mission that at
+any rate was all over."
+
+"The Rufford affair had begun before that," said Hoffmann.
+
+"The Rufford affair as you call it," said Glossop, "was no affair
+at all."
+
+"What do you mean by that?" asked Currie.
+
+"I mean. that Rufford was never engaged to her,--not for an
+instant," said the lad, urgent in spreading the lesson which he had
+received from his cousin. "It was all a dead take-in."
+
+"Who was taken in?" asked Mounser Green.
+
+"Well;--nobody was taken in as it happened. But I suppose there
+can't be a doubt that she tried her best to catch him, and that the
+Duke and Duchess and Mistletoe, and old Trefoil, all backed her up.
+It was a regular plant. The only thing is, it didn't come off."
+
+"Look here, young shaver;"--this was Mounser Green again; "when you
+speak of a young lady do you be a little more discreet"
+
+"But didn't she do it, Green?"
+
+"That's more than you or I can tell. If you want to know what I
+think, I believe he paid her a great deal of attention and then
+behaved very badly to her."
+
+"He didn't behave badly at all," said young Glossop.
+
+"My dear boy, when you are as old as I am, you will have learned
+how very hard it is to know everything. I only say what I believe,
+and perhaps I may have better ground for believing than you. He
+certainly paid her a great deal of attention, and then her
+friends,--especially the Duchess,--went to work."
+
+"They've wanted to get her off their hands these six or eight
+years," said Currie.
+
+"That's nonsense again," continued the new advocate, "for there is
+no doubt she might have married Morton all the time had she
+pleased."
+
+"Yes;--but Rufford!--a fellow with sixty thousand a year!" said
+Glossop.
+
+"About a third of that would be nearer the mark, Glossy. Take my
+word for it, you don't know everything yet, though you have so many
+advantages." After that Mounser Green retreated to his own room
+with a look and tone as though he were angry.
+
+"What makes him so ferocious about it?" asked Glossop when the door
+was shut.
+
+"You are always putting your foot in it," said Currie. "I kept on
+winking to you but it was no good. He sees her almost every day
+now. She's staying with old Mrs. Green in Portugal Street. There
+has been some break up between her and her mother, and old Mrs.
+Green has taken her in. There's some sort of relationship. Mounser
+is the old woman's nephew, and she is aunt by marriage to the
+Connop Greens down in Hampshire, and Mrs. Connop Green is first
+cousin to Lady Augustus."
+
+"If Dick's sister married Tom's brother what relation would Dick be
+to Tom's mother? That's the kind of thing, isn't it?" suggested
+Hoffmann.
+
+"At any rate there she is, and Mounser sees her every day."
+
+"It don't make any difference about Rufford," said young Glossop
+stoutly.
+
+All this happened before the will had been declared,--when Arabella
+did not dream that she was an heiress. A day or two afterwards she
+received a letter from the lawyer, telling her of her good fortune,
+and informing her that the trinkets would be given up to her and
+the money paid,--short of legacy duty,--whenever she would fix a
+time and place. The news almost stunned her. There was a moment in
+which she thought that she was bound to reject this money, as she
+had rejected that tendered to her by the other man. Poor as she
+was, greedy as she was, alive as she was to the necessity of doing
+something for herself,--still this legacy was to her at first
+bitter rather than sweet. She had never treated any man so ill as
+she had treated this man; and it was thus that he punished her! She
+was alive to the feeling that he had always been true to her. In
+her intercourse with other men there had been generally a battle
+carried on with some fairness. Diamond had striven to cut diamond.
+But here the dishonesty had all been on one side, and she was aware
+that it had been so. In her later affair with Lord Rufford, she
+really did think that she had been ill used; but she was quite
+alive to the fact that her treatment of John Morton had been
+abominable. The one man, in order that he might escape without
+further trouble, had in the grossest manner, sent to her the offer
+of a bribe. The other,--in regard to whose end her hard heart was
+touched, even her conscience seared, had named her in his will as
+though his affection was unimpaired. Of course she took the money,
+but she took it with inward groans. She took the money and the
+trinkets, and the matter was all arranged for her by Mounser Green.
+
+"So after all the Paragon left her whatever he could leave," said
+Currie in the same room at the Foreign Office. A week had passed
+since the last conversation, and at this moment Mounser Green was
+not in the room.
+
+"Oh, dear no," said young Glossy. "She doesn't have Bragton. That
+goes to his cousin."
+
+"That was entailed, Glossy, my boy."
+
+"Not a bit of it. Everybody thought he would leave the place to
+another Morton, a fellow he'd never seen, in one of those Somerset
+House Offices. He and this fellow who is to have it, were
+enemies,--but he wouldn't put it out of the right line. It's all
+very well for Mounser to be down on me, but I do happen to know
+what goes on in that country. She gets a pot of money, and no end
+of family jewels; but he didn't leave her the estate as he might
+have done."
+
+At that moment Mounser Green came into the room. It was rather
+later than usual, being past one o'clock; and he looked as though
+he were flurried. He didn't speak for a few minutes, but stood
+before the fire smoking a cigar. And there was a general silence,
+there being now a feeling among them that Arabella Trefoil was not
+to be talked about in the old way before Mounser Green. At last he
+spoke himself. "I suppose you haven't heard who is to go to
+Patagonia after all?"
+
+"Is it settled?" asked Currie.
+
+"Anybody we know?" asked Hoffmann.
+
+"I hope it's no d-- outsider," said the too energetic Glossop.
+
+"It is settled; and it is somebody you know; and it is not a d--
+outsider; unless, indeed, he may be considered to be an outsider in
+reference to that branch of the service."
+
+"It's some consul," said Currie. "Backstairs from Panama, I'll bet
+a crown."
+
+"It isn't Backstairs, it isn't a consul. Gentlemen, get out your
+pocket-handkerchiefs. Mounser Green has consented to be expatriated
+for the good of his country."
+
+"You going to Patagonia!" said Currie. "You're chaffing," said
+Glossop. "I never was so shot in my life," said Hoffmann.
+
+"It's true, my dear boys."
+
+"I never was so sorry for anything in all my born days," said
+Glossop, almost crying. "Why on earth should you go to Patagonia?"
+
+"Patagonia!" ejaculated Currie. "What will you do in Patagonia?"
+
+"It's an opening, my dear fellow," said Mounser Green leaning
+affectionately on Glossop's shoulder. "What should I do by
+remaining here? When Drummond asked me I saw he wanted me to go.
+They don't forget that kind of thing." At that moment a messenger
+opened the door, and the Senator Gotobed, almost without being
+announced, entered the room. He had become so intimate of late at
+the Foreign Office, and his visits were so frequent, that he was
+almost able to dispense with the assistance of any messenger.
+Perhaps Mounser Green and his colleagues were a little tired of
+him; but yet, after their fashion, they were always civil to him,
+and remembered, as they were bound to do, that he was one of the
+leading politicians of a great nation. "I have secured the hall,"
+he said at once, as though aware that no news could be so important
+as the news he thus conveyed.
+
+"Have you indeed?" said Currie.
+
+"Secured it for the fifteenth. Now the question is-"
+
+"What do you think," said Glossop, interrupting him without the
+slightest hesitation. "Mounser Green is going to Patagonia, in
+place of the poor Paragon."
+
+"I beg to congratulate Mr. Green with all my heart."
+
+"By George I don't," said the juvenile clerk. "Fancy congratulating
+a fellow on going to Patagonia! It's what I call an awful sell for
+everybody."
+
+"But as I was saying I have the hall for the fifteenth."
+
+"You mean to lecture then after all," said Green.
+
+"Certainly I do, I am not going to be deterred from doing my duty
+because I am told there is a little danger. What I want to know is
+whether I can depend on having a staff of policemen."
+
+"Of course there will be police," said Green.
+
+"But I mean some extra strength. I don't mind for myself, but I
+should be so unhappy if there were anything of a commotion." Then
+he was assured that the officers of the police force would look to
+that, and was assured also that Mounser Green and the other
+gentlemen in the room would certainly attend the lecture. "I don't
+suppose I shall be gone by that time," said Mounser Green in a
+melancholy tone of voice.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+"I must go"
+
+
+Rufford, March 5th.
+
+My Dear Miss Trefoil,
+
+I am indeed sorry that I should have offended you by acceding to a
+suggestion which, I think I may say, originated with your mother.
+When she told me that her circumstances and yours were not in a
+pecuniary point of view so comfortable as they might be, I did feel
+that it was in my power to alleviate that trouble. The sum of money
+mentioned by my lawyer was certainly named by your mother. At any
+rate pray believe that I meant to be of service.
+
+As to naming a place where we might meet, it really could be of no
+service. It would be painful to both of us and could have no good
+result. Again apologizing for having inadvertently offended you by
+adopting the views which Lady Augustus entertained, I beg to assure
+you that I am,
+
+                    Yours faithfully,
+                         Rufford.
+
+This letter came from the peer himself, without assistance. After
+his interview with Lady Augustus he simply told his Mentor, Sir
+George, that he had steadfastly denied the existence of any
+engagement, not daring to acquaint him with the offer he had made.
+Neither, therefore, could he tell Sir George of the manner in which
+the young lady had repudiated the offer. That she should have
+repudiated it was no doubt to her credit. As he thought of it
+afterwards he felt that had she accepted it she would have been
+base indeed. And. yet, as he thought of what had taken place at the
+house in Piccadilly, he was confident that the proposition had in
+some way come from her mother. No doubt he had first written a sum
+of money on the fragment of paper which she had preserved;--and the
+evidence would so far go against him. But Lady Augustus had spoken
+piteously of their joint poverty,--and had done so in lieu of
+insisting with a mother's indignation on her daughter's rights. Of
+course she had intended to ask for money. What other purpose could
+she have had? It was so he had argued at the moment, and so he had
+argued since. If it were so he would not admit that he had behaved
+unlike a gentleman in offering the money. Yet he did not dare to
+tell Sir George, and therefore was obliged to answer Arabella's
+letter without assistance.
+
+He was not altogether sorry to have his 8,000 pounds, being fully
+as much alive to the value of money as any brother peer in the
+kingdom, but he would sooner have paid the money than be subject to
+an additional interview. He had been forced up to London to see
+first the father and then the mother, and thought that he had paid
+penalty enough for any offence that he might have committed. An
+additional interview with the young lady herself would distress him
+beyond anything,--would be worse than any other interview. He would
+sooner leave Rufford and go abroad than encounter it. He promised
+himself that nothing should induce him to encounter it. Therefore
+he wrote the above letter.
+
+Arabella, when she received it, had ceased to care very much about
+the insult of the offer. She had then quarrelled with her mother,
+and had insisted on some separation even without any arrangement as
+to funds. Requiring some confidant, she had told a great deal,
+though not quite all, to Mrs. Connop Green, and that lady had
+passed her on for a while to her husband's aunt in London. At this
+time she had heard nothing of John Morton's will, and had perhaps
+thought with some tender regret of the munificence of her other
+lover, which she had scorned. But she was still intent on doing
+something. The fury of her despair was still on her, so that she
+could not weigh the injury she might do herself against some
+possible gratification to her wounded spirit. Up to this moment she
+had formed no future hope. At this epoch she had no string to her
+bow. John Morton was dead; and she had absolutely wept for him in
+solitude, though she had certainly never loved him. Nor did she
+love Lord Rufford. As far as she knew how to define her feelings,
+she thought that she hated him. But she told herself hourly that
+she had not done with him. She was instigated by the true feminine
+Medea feeling that she would find some way to wring his heart,--
+even though in the process she might suffer twice as much as he
+did. She had convinced herself that in this instance he was the
+offender. "Painful to both of us!" No doubt! But because it would
+be painful to him, it should be exacted. Though he was a coward and
+would fain shirk such pain, she could be brave enough. Even though
+she should be driven to catch him by the arm in the open street,
+she would have it out with him. He was a liar and a coward, and she
+would, at any rate, have the satisfaction of telling him so.
+
+She thought much about it before she could resolve on what she
+would do. She could not ask old Mrs. Green to help her. Mrs. Green
+was a kind old woman, who had lived much in the world, and would
+wish to see much of it still, had age allowed her. Arabella Trefoil
+was at any rate the niece of a Duke, and the Duke, in this affair
+with Lord Rufford, had taken his niece's part. She opened her house
+and as much of her heart as was left to Arabella, and was ready to
+mourn with her over the wicked lord. She could sympathise with her
+too, as to the iniquities of her mother, whom none of the Greens
+loved. But she would have been frightened by any proposition as to
+Medean vengeance.
+
+In these days,--still winter days, and not open to much feminine
+gaiety in London, even if, in the present constitution of her
+circumstances, gaiety would have come in her way,--in these days
+the hours in her life which interested her most, were those in
+which Mr. Mounser Green was dutifully respectful to his aunt.
+Patagonia had not yet presented itself to him. Some four or five
+hundred a year, which the old lady had at her own disposal, had for
+years past contributed to Mounser's ideas of duty. And now
+Arabella's presence at the small house in Portugal Street certainly
+added a new zest to those ideas. The niece of the Duke of Mayfair,
+and the rejected of Lord Rufford, was at the present moment an
+interesting young woman in Mounser Green's world. There were many
+who thought that she had been ill-used. Had she succeeded, all the
+world would have pitied Lord Rufford; but as he had escaped, there
+was a strong party for the lady. And gradually Mounser Green, who
+some weeks ago had not thought very much of her, became one of the
+party. She had brought her maid with her; and when she found that
+Mounser Green came to the house every evening, either before or
+after dinner, she had recourse to her accustomed lures. She would
+sit quiet, dejected, almost broken-hearted in the corner of a sofa;
+but when he spoke to her she would come to life and raise her
+eyes,--not ignoring the recognised dejection of her jilted
+position, not pretending to this minor stag of six tines that she
+was a sprightly unwooed young fawn, fresh out of the forest,--
+almost asking him to weep with her, and playing her accustomed
+lures, though in a part which she had not hitherto filled.
+
+But still she was resolved that her Jason should not as yet be quit
+of his Medea. So she made her plot. She would herself go down to
+Rufford and force her way into her late lover's presence in spite
+of all obstacles. It was possible that she should do this and get
+back to London the same day,--but, to do so, she must leave London
+by an early train at 7 A.M., stay seven or eight hours at Rufford,
+and reach the London station at 10 P.M. For such a journey there
+must be some valid excuse made to Mrs. Green. There must be some
+necessity shown for such a journey. She would declare that a
+meeting was necessary with her mother, and that her mother was at
+any town she chose to name at the requisite distance from London.
+In this way she might start with her maid before daylight, and get
+back after dark, and have the meeting with her mother--or with Lord
+Rufford as the case might be. But Mounser Green knew very well that
+Lady Augustus was in Orchard Street, and knew also that Arabella
+was determined not to see her mother. And if she declared her
+purpose, without a caution to Mounser Green, the old woman would
+tell her nephew, and the nephew would unwittingly expose the
+deceit. It was necessary therefore that she should admit Mounser
+Green to, at any rate, half a confidence. This she did. "Don't ask
+me any questions," she said. "I know I can trust you. I must be out
+of town the whole day, and perhaps the next. And your aunt must not
+know why I am going or where. You will help me?" Of course he said
+that he would help her; and the lie, with a vast accompaniment of
+little lies, was told. There must be a meeting on business matters
+between her and her mother, and her mother was now in the
+neighbourhood of Birmingham. This was the lie told to Mrs. Green.
+She would go down, and, if possible, be back on the same day. She
+would take her maid with her. She thought that in such a matter as
+that she could trust her maid, and was in truth afraid to travel
+alone.
+
+"I will come in the morning and take Miss Trefoil to the station,"
+said Mounser, "and will meet her in the evening."` And so the
+matter was arranged.
+
+The journey was not without its drawbacks and almost its perils.
+Summer or winter Arabella Trefoil was seldom out of bed before
+nine. It was incumbent on her now to get up on a cold March
+morning,--when the lion had not as yet made way for the lamb,--at
+half-past five. That itself seemed to be all but impossible to her.
+Nevertheless she was ready and had tried to swallow half a cup of
+tea, when Mounser Green came to the door with a cab a little after
+six. She had endeavoured to dispense with this new friend's
+attendance, but he had insisted, assuring her that without some
+such aid no cab would be forthcoming. She had not told him and did
+not intend that he should know to what station she was going. "You
+begged me to ask no questions," he said when he was in the cab with
+her, the maid having been induced most unwillingly to seat herself
+with the cabman on the box,--"and I have obeyed you. But I wish I
+knew how I could help you."
+
+"You have helped me, and you are helping me. But do not ask
+anything more."
+
+"Will you be angry with me if I say that I fear you are intending
+something rash?"
+
+"Of course I am. How could it be otherwise with me? Don't you think
+there are turns in a person's life when she must do something rash.
+Think of yourself. If everybody crushed you; if you were
+ill-treated beyond all belief; if the very people who ought to trust
+you doubted you, wouldn't you turn upon somebody and rend him?"
+
+"Are you going to rend anybody?"
+
+"I do not know as yet."
+
+"I wish you would let me go down with you."
+
+"No; that you certainly cannot. You must not come even into the
+station with me. You have been very good to me. You will not now
+turn against me."
+
+"I certainly will do nothing--but what you tell me."
+
+"Then here we are,--and now you must go. Jane can carry my hand-bag
+and cloak. If you choose to come in the evening at ten it will be
+an additional favour."
+
+"I certainly will do so. But Miss Trefoil, one word." They were now
+standing under cover of the portico in front of the railway
+station, into which he was not to be allowed to enter. "What I fear
+is this; that in your first anger you may be tempted to do
+something which may be injurious to your prospects in life"
+
+"I have no prospects in life, Mr. Green."
+
+"Ah;--that is just it. There are for most of us moments of
+unhappiness in which we are tempted by our misery to think that we
+are relieved at any rate from the burden of caution, because
+nothing that can occur to us can make us worse than we are."
+
+"Nothing can make me worse than I am."
+
+"But in a few months or weeks," continued Mounser Green, bringing
+up in his benevolence all the wisdom of his experience, "we have
+got a new footing amidst our troubles, and then we may find how
+terrible is the injury which our own indiscretion has brought on
+us. I do not want to ask any questions, but--it might be so much
+better that you should abandon your intention, and go back with
+me."
+
+She seemed to be almost undecided for a moment as she thought over
+his words. But she remembered her pledge to herself that Lord
+Rufford should find that she had not done with him yet. "I must
+go," she said in a hoarse voice.
+
+"If you must-"
+
+"I must go. I have no way out of it. Good-bye, Mr. Green; I cannot
+tell you how much obliged to you I am." Then he turned back and she
+went into the station and took two first-class tickets for Rufford.
+At that moment Lord Rufford was turning himself comfortably in his
+bed. How would he have sprung up, and how would he have fled, had
+he known the evil that was coming upon him! This happened on a
+Thursday, a day on which, as Arabella knew, the U.R.U. did not go
+out;--the very Thursday on which John Morton was buried and the
+will was read at Bragton.
+
+She was fully determined to speak her mind to the man and to be
+checked by no feminine squeamishness. She would speak her mind to
+him if she could force her way into his presence. And in doing this
+she would be debarred by no etiquette. It might be that she would
+fail, that he would lack the courage to see her, and would run
+away, even before all his servants, when he should hear who was
+standing in his hall. But if he did so she would try again, even
+though she should have to ride out into the hunting-field after
+him. Face to face she would tell him that he was a liar and a
+slanderer and no gentleman, though she should have to run round the
+world to catch him. When she reached Rufford she went to the town
+and ordered breakfast and a carriage. As soon as she had eaten the
+meal she desired the driver in a clear voice to take her to Rufford
+Hall. Was her maid to go with her? No. She would be back soon, and
+her maid would wait there till she had returned.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+In the Park
+
+
+This thing that she was doing required an infinite amount of
+pluck,--of that sort of hardihood which we may not quite call
+courage, but which in a world well provided with policemen is
+infinitely more useful than courage. Lord Rufford himself was
+endowed with all the ordinary bravery of an Englishman, but he
+could have flown as soon as run into a lion's den as Arabella was
+doing. She had learned that Lady Penwether and Miss Penge were both
+at Rufford Hall, and understood well the difficulty there would be
+in explaining her conduct should she find herself in their
+presence. And there were all the servants there to stare at her,
+and the probability that she might be shown to the door and told
+that no one there would speak to her. She saw it all before her,
+and knew how bitter it might be; but her heart was big enough to
+carry her through it. She was dressed very simply, but still by no
+means dowdily, in a black silk dress, and though she wore a thick
+veil when she got out of the fly and rang the door bell, she had
+been at some pains with her hair before she left the inn. Her
+purpose was revenge; but still she had an eye to the possible
+chance,--the chance barely possible of bringing the man to submit.
+
+When the door was opened she raised her veil and asked for Lord
+Rufford; but as she did so she walked on through the broad passage
+which led from the front door into a wide central space which they
+called the billiard-room but which really was the hall of the
+house. This she did as a manifesto that she did not mean to leave
+the house because she might be told that he was out or could not be
+seen, or that he was engaged. It was then nearly one o'clock, and
+no doubt he would be there for luncheon. Of course he might be in
+truth away from home, but she must do her best to judge of that by
+the servant's manner. The man knew her well, and not improbably had
+heard something of his master's danger. He was, however, very
+respectful and told her that his lordship was out in the grounds;--
+but that Lady Penwether was in the drawing-room. Then a sudden
+thought struck her, and she asked the man whether he would show her
+in what part of the grounds she might find Lord Rufford. Upon that
+he took her to the front door and pointing across the park to a
+belt of trees, showed her three or four men standing round some
+piece of work. He believed, he said, that one of those men was his
+lordship.
+
+She bowed her thanks and was descending the steps on her way to
+join the group, when whom should she see but Lady Penwether coming
+into the house with her garden-hat and gloves. It was unfortunate;
+but she would not allow herself to be stopped by Lady Penwether.
+She bowed stiffly and would have passed on without a word, but that
+was impossible. "Miss Trefoil!" said Lady Penwether with
+astonishment.
+
+"Your brother is just across the park. I think I see him and will
+go to him."
+
+"I had better send and tell him that you are here," said her
+ladyship.
+
+"I need not trouble you so far. I can be my own messenger. Perhaps
+you will allow the fly to be sent round to the yard for
+half-an-hour." As she said this she was still passing down the steps.
+
+But Lady Penwether knew that it behoved her to prevent this if it
+might be possible. Of late she had had little or no conversation
+with her brother about Miss Trefoil, but she had heard much from
+her husband. She would be justified, she thought, in saying or in
+doing almost anything which would save him from such an encounter.
+"I really think," she said, "that he had better be told that you
+are here," and as she spoke she strove to put herself in the
+visitor's way. "You had better come in, Miss Trefoil, and he shall
+be informed at once."
+
+"By no means, Lady Penwether. I would not for worlds give him or
+you so much trouble. I see him and I will go to him." Then Lady
+Penwether absolutely put out her hand to detain her; but Arabella
+shook it off angrily and looked into the other woman's face with
+fierce eyes. "Allow me," she said, "to conduct myself at this
+moment as I may think best. I shall do so at any rate." Then she
+stalked on and Lady Penwether saw that any contest was hopeless.
+Had she sent the servant on with all his speed, so as to gain three
+or four moments, her brother could hardly have fled through the
+trees in face of the enemy.
+
+Lord Rufford, who was busy planning the prolongation of a ha-ha
+fence, saw nothing of all this; but, after a while he was aware
+that a woman was coming to him, and then gradually he saw who that
+woman was. Arabella when she had found herself advancing closer
+went slowly enough. She was sure of her prey now, and was wisely
+mindful that it might be well that she should husband her breath.
+The nearer she drew to him the slower became her pace, and more
+majestic. Her veil was well thrown back, and her head was raised in
+the air. She knew these little tricks of deportment and could carry
+herself like a queen. He had taken a moment or two to consider.
+Should he fly? It was possible. He might vault over a railed fence
+in among the trees, at a spot not ten yards from her, and then it
+would be impossible that she should run him down. He might have
+done it had not the men been there to see it. As it was he left
+them in the other direction and came forward to meet her. He tried
+to smile pleasantly as he spoke to her. "So I see that you would
+not take my advice," he said.
+
+"Neither your advice nor your money, my lord."
+
+"Ah,--I was so sorry about that! But, indeed, indeed,--the fault
+was not mine."
+
+"They were your figures that I saw upon the paper, and by your
+orders, no doubt, that the lawyer acted. But I have not come to say
+much of that. You meant I suppose to be gracious."
+
+"I meant to be--good-natured."
+
+"I daresay. You were willing enough to give away what you did not
+want. But there must be more between us than any question of money.
+Lord Rufford you have treated me most shamefully."
+
+"I hope not. I think not."
+
+"And you yourself must be well aware of it,--quite as well aware of
+it as I am. You have thrown me over and absolutely destroyed me;--
+and why?" He shrugged his shoulders. "Because you have been afraid
+of others; because your sister has told you that you were mistaken
+in your choice. The women around you have been too many for you,
+and have not allowed you to dispose of your hand, and your name,
+and your property as you pleased. I defy you to say that this was
+not your sister's doing." He was too much astounded to contradict
+her rapidly, and then she passed on, not choosing to give him time
+for contradiction. "Will you have the hardihood to say that you did
+not love me?" Then she paused thinking that he would not dare to
+contradict her then, feeling that in that she was on strong ground.
+"Were you lying when you told me that you did? What did you mean
+when I was in your arms up in the house there? What did you intend
+me to think that you meant?" Then she stopped, standing well in
+front of him, and looking fixedly into his face.
+
+This was the very thing that he had feared. Lord Augustus had been
+a trouble. The Duke's letter had been a trouble. Lady Augustus had
+been a trouble; and Sir George's sermons had been troublesome. But
+what were they all when compared to this? How is it possible that a
+man should tell a girl that he has not loved her, when he has
+embraced her again and again? He may know it, and she may know
+it;--and each may know that the other knows it;--but to say that he
+does not and did not then love her is beyond the scope of his
+audacity,--unless he be a heartless Nero. "No one can grieve about
+this so much as I do," he said weakly.
+
+"Cannot I grieve more, do you think,--I who told all my relatives
+that I was to become your wife, and was justified in so telling
+them? Was I not justified?"
+
+"I think not."
+
+"You think not! What did you mean then? What were you thinking of
+when we were coming back in the carriage from Stamford,--when with
+your arms round me you swore that you loved me better than all the
+world? Is that true? Did you so swear?" What a question for a man
+to have to answer! It was becoming clear to him that there was
+nothing for him but to endure and be silent. Even to this interview
+the gods would at last give an end. The hour would pass, though,
+alas, so slowly, and she could not expect that he should stand
+there to be rated much after the accustomed time for feeding. "You
+acknowledge that, and do you dare to say that I had no right to
+tell my friends?"
+
+There was a moment in which he thought it was almost a pity that he
+had not married her. She was very beautiful in her present form,--
+more beautiful he thought than ever. She was the niece of a Duke,
+and certainly a very clever woman. He had not wanted money and why
+shouldn't he have married her? As for hunting him,--that was a
+matter of course. He was as much born and bred to be hunted as a
+fox. He could not do it now as he had put too much power into the
+hands of the Penwethers, but he almost wished that he had. "I never
+intended it," he said.
+
+"What did you intend? After what has occurred I suppose I have a
+right to ask such a question. I have made a somewhat unpleasant
+journey to-day, all alone, on purpose to ask that question. What
+did you intend?" In his great annoyance he struck his shovel
+angrily against the ground. "And I will not leave you till I get an
+answer to the question. What did you intend, Lord Rufford?" There
+was nothing for him but silence and a gradual progress back towards
+the house.
+
+But from the latter resource she cut him off for a time. "You will
+do me the favour to remain with me here till this conversation is
+ended. You cannot refuse me so slight a request as that, seeing the
+trouble to which you have put me. I never saw a man so forgetful of
+words. You cannot speak. Have you no excuse to offer, not a word to
+say in explanation--of conduct so black that I don't think here in
+England I ever heard a case to equal it? If your sister had been
+treated so!"
+
+"It would have been impossible"
+
+"I believe it. Her cautious nature would have trusted no man as I
+trusted you. Her lips, doubtless, were never unfrozen till the
+settlements had been signed. With her it was a matter of bargain,
+not of love. I can well believe that."
+
+"I will not talk about my sister."
+
+"It seems to me, Lord Rufford, that you object to talk about
+anything. You certainly have been very uncommunicative with
+reference to yourself. Were you lying when you told me that you
+loved me?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Did I lie when I told the Duchess that you had promised me your
+love? Did I lie when I told my mother that in these days a man does
+not always mention marriage when he asks a girl to be his wife? You
+said you loved me, and I believed you, and the rest was a thing of
+course. And you meant it. You know you meant it. When you held me
+in your arms in the carriage you know you meant me to suppose that
+it would always be so. Then the fear of your sister came upon you,
+and of your sister's husband,--and you ran away! I wonder whether
+you think yourself a man!" And yet she felt that she had not hit
+him yet. He was wretched enough; and she could see that he was
+wretched; but the wretchedness would pass away as soon as she was
+gone. How could she stab him so that the wound would remain? With
+what virus could she poison her arrow, so that the agony might be
+prolonged. "And such a coward too! I began to suspect it when you
+started that night from Mistletoe,--though I did not think then
+that you could be all mean, all cowardly. From that day to this,
+you have not dared to speak a word of truth. Every word has been a
+falsehood."
+
+"By heavens, no."
+
+"Every word a falsehood! and I, a lady,--a lady whom you have so
+deeply injured, whose cruel injury even you have not the face to
+deny,--am forced by your cowardice to come to you here, because you
+have not dared to come out to meet me. Is that true!"
+
+"What good can it do?"
+
+"None to me, God knows. You are such a thing that I would not have
+you now I know you, though you were twice Lord Rufford. But I have
+chosen to speak my mind to you and to tell you what I think. Did
+you suppose that when I said I would meet you face to face I was to
+be deterred by such girl's excuses as you made? I chose to tell you
+to your face that you are false, a coward, and no gentleman, and
+though you had hidden yourself under the very earth I would have
+found you." Then she turned round and saw Sir George Penwether
+standing close to them.
+
+Lord Rufford had seen him approaching for some time, and had made
+one or two futile attempts to meet him. Arabella's back had been
+turned to the house, and she had not heard the steps or observed
+the direction of her companion's eyes. He came so near before he
+was seen that he heard her concluding words. Then Lord Rufford with
+a ghastly attempt at pleasantry introduced them. "George," he said,
+"I do not think you know Miss Trefoil. Sir George Penwether; Miss
+Trefoil."
+
+The interview had been watched from the house and the husband had
+been sent down by his wife to mitigate the purgatory which she knew
+that her brother must be enduring. "My wife," said Sir George, "has
+sent me to ask Miss Trefoil whether she will not come into lunch."
+
+"I believe it is Lord Rufford's house," said Arabella.
+
+"If Miss Trefoil's frame of mind will allow her to sit at table
+with me I shall be proud to see her," said Lord Rufford.
+
+"Miss Trefoil's frame of mind will not allow her to eat or to drink
+with such a dastard," said she turning away in the direction of the
+park gates. "Perhaps, Sir George, you will be kind enough to direct
+the man who brought me here to pick me up at the lodge." And so she
+walked away--a mile across the park,--neither of them caring to
+follow her.
+
+It seemed to her as she stood at the lodge gate, having obstinately
+refused to enter the house, to be an eternity before the fly came
+to her. When it did come she felt as though her strength would
+barely enable her to climb into it. And when she was there she
+wept, with bitter throbbing woe, all the way to Rufford. It was
+over now at any rate. Now there was not a possible chance on which
+a gleam of hope might be made to settle. And how handsome he was,
+and how beautiful the place, and how perfect would have been the
+triumph could she have achieved it! One more word,--one other
+pressure of the hand in the post-chaise might have done it! Had he
+really promised her marriage she did not even now think that he
+would have gone back from his word. If that heavy stupid duke would
+have spoken to him that night at Mistletoe, all would have been
+well! But now,--now there was nothing for her but weeping and
+gnashing of teeth. He was gone, and poor Morton was gone; and all
+those others, whose memories rose like ghosts before her;--they
+were all gone. And she wept as she thought that she might perhaps
+have made a better use of the gifts which Providence had put in her
+way.
+
+When Mounser Green met her at the station she was beyond measure
+weary. Through the whole journey she had been struggling to
+restrain her sobs so that her maid should neither hear nor see
+them. "Don't mind me, Mr. Green; I am only tired,--so tired," she
+said as she got into the carriage which he had brought.
+
+He had with him a long, formal-looking letter addressed to herself.
+But she was too weary to open it that night. It was the letter
+conveying the tidings of the legacy which Morton had made in her
+favour.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+Lord Rufford's Model Farm
+
+
+At this time Senator Gotobed was paying a second visit to Rufford
+Hall. In the matter of Goarly and Scrobby he had never given way an
+inch. He was still strongly of opinion that a gentleman's pheasants
+had no right to eat his neighbour's corn, and that if damage were
+admitted, the person committing the injury should not take upon
+himself to assess the damage. He also thought,--and very often
+declared his thoughts,--that Goarly was justified in shooting not
+only foxes but hounds also when they came upon his property, and in
+moments of excitement had gone so far as to say that not even
+horses should be held sacred. He had, however, lately been driven
+to admit that Goarly himself was not all that a man should be, and
+that Mrs. Goarly's goose was an impostor. It was the theory,--the
+principle for which he combated, declaring that the evil condition
+of the man himself was due to the evil institutions among which he
+had been reared. By degrees evidence had been obtained of Scrobby's
+guilt in the matter of the red herrings, and he was to be tried for
+the offence of putting down poison. Goarly was to be the principal
+witness against his brother conspirator. Lord Rufford, instigated
+by his brother-in-law, and liking the spirit of the man, had
+invited the Senator to stay at the Hall while the case was being
+tried at the Rufford Quarter Sessions. I am afraid the invitation
+was given in a spirit of triumph over the Senator rather than with
+genuine hospitality. It was thought well that the American should
+be made to see in public the degradation of the abject creature
+with whom he had sympathised. Perhaps there were some who thought
+that in this way they would get the Senator's neck under their
+heels. If there were such they were likely to be mistaken, as the
+Senator was not a man prone to submit himself to such treatment.
+
+He was seated at table with Lady Penwether and Miss Penge when Lord
+Rufford and his brother-in-law came into the room, after parting
+with Miss Trefoil in the manner described in the last chapter. Lady
+Penwether had watched their unwelcome visitor as she took her way
+across the park and had whispered something to Miss Penge. Miss
+Penge understood the matter thoroughly, and would not herself have
+made the slightest allusion to the other young lady. Had the
+Senator not been there the two gentlemen would have been allowed to
+take their places without a word on the subject. But the Senator
+had a marvellous gift of saying awkward things and would never be
+reticent. He stood for a while at the window in the drawing-room
+before he went across the hall, and even took up a pair of
+field-glasses to scrutinise the lady; and when they were all present
+he asked whether that was not Miss Trefoil whom he had seen down by
+the new fence. Lady Penwether, without seeming to look about her,
+did look about her for a few seconds to see whether the question
+might be allowed to die away unanswered. She perceived, from the
+Senator's face, that he intended to have an answer.
+
+"Yes," she said, "that was Miss Trefoil. I am very glad that she is
+not coming in to disturb us."
+
+"A great blessing," said Miss Penge.
+
+"Where is she staying?" asked the Senator.
+
+"I think she drove over from Rufford," said the elder lady.
+
+"Poor young lady! She was engaged to marry my friend, Mr. John
+Morton. She must have felt his death very bitterly. He was an
+excellent young man; rather opinionated and perhaps too much wedded
+to the traditions of his own country; but, nevertheless, a
+painstaking, excellent young man. I had hoped to welcome her as
+Mrs. Morton in America."
+
+"He was to have gone to Patagonia," said Lord Rufford, endeavouring
+to come to himself after the sufferings of the morning.
+
+"We should have seen him back in Washington, Sir. Whenever you have
+anything good in diplomacy you generally send him to us. Poor young
+lady! Was she talking about him?"
+
+"Not particularly," said his lordship.
+
+"She must have remembered that when she was last here he was of the
+party, and it was but a few weeks ago,--only a little before
+Christmas. He struck me as being cold in his manner as an affianced
+lover. Was not that your idea, Lady Penwether?"
+
+"I don't think I observed him especially."
+
+"I have reason to believe that he was much attached to her. She
+could be sprightly enough; but at times there seemed to come a cold
+melancholy upon her too. It is I fancy so with most of your English
+ladies. Miss Trefoil always gave me the idea of being a good type
+of the English aristocracy." Lady Penwether and Miss Penge drew
+themselves up very stiffly. "You admired her, I think, my Lord."
+
+"Very much indeed," said Lord Rufford, filling his mouth with
+pigeon-pie as he spoke, and not lifting his eyes from his plate.
+
+"Will she be back to dinner?"
+
+"Oh dear no," said Lady Penwether. There was something in her tone
+which at last startled the Senator into perceiving that Miss
+Trefoil was not popular at Rufford Hall.
+
+"She only came for a morning call," said Lord Rufford.
+
+"Poor young woman. She has lost her husband, and, I am afraid, now
+has lost her friends also. I am told that she is not well off;--and
+from what I see and hear, I fancy that here in England a young lady
+without a dowry cannot easily replace a lover. I suppose, too, Miss
+Trefoil is not quite in her first youth."
+
+"If you have done, Caroline," said Lady Penwether to Miss Penge, "I
+think we'll go into the other room."
+
+That afternoon Sir George asked the Senator to accompany him for a
+walk. Sir George was held to be responsible for the Senator's
+presence, and was told by the ladies that he must do something with
+him. The next day, which was Friday, would be occupied by the
+affairs of Scrobby and Goarly, and on the Saturday he was to return
+to town. The two started about three with the object of walking
+round the park and the home farm--the Senator intent on his duty of
+examining the ways of English life to the very bottom. "I hope I
+did not say anything amiss about Miss Trefoil," he remarked, as
+they passed through a shrubbery gate into the park.
+
+"No; I think not"
+
+"I thought your good lady looked as though she did not like the
+subject"
+
+"I am not sure that Miss Trefoil is very popular with the ladies up
+there."
+
+"She's a handsome young woman and clever, though, as I said before,
+given to melancholy, and sometimes fastidious. When we were all
+here I thought that Lord Rufford admired her, and that poor Mr.
+Morton was a little jealous."
+
+"I wasn't at Rufford then. Here we get out of the park on to the
+home farm. Rufford does it very well,--very well indeed."
+
+"Looks after it altogether himself?"
+
+"I cannot quite say that. He has a land-bailiff who lives in the
+house there."
+
+"With a salary?"
+
+"Oh yes; 120 pounds a year I think the man has:"
+
+"And that house?" asked the Senator. "Why, the house and garden are
+worth 50 pounds a year."
+
+"I dare say they are. Of course it costs money. It's near the park
+and had to be made ornamental."
+
+"And does it pay?"
+
+"Well, no; I should think not. In point of fact I know it does not.
+He loses about the value of the ground."
+
+The Senator asked a great many more questions and then began his
+lecture. "A man who goes into trade and loses by it, cannot be
+doing good to himself or to others. You say, Sir George, that it is
+a model farm;--but it's a model of ruin. If you want to teach a man
+any other business, you don't specially select an example in which
+the proprietors are spending all their capital without any return.
+And if you would not do this in shoemaking, why in farming?"
+
+"The neighbours are able to see how work should be done."
+
+"Excuse me, Sir George, but it seems to me that they are enabled to
+see how work should not be done. If his lordship would stick up
+over his gate a notice to the effect that everything seen there was
+to be avoided, he might do some service. If he would publish his
+accounts half-yearly in the village newspaper--"
+
+"There isn't a village newspaper."
+
+"In the Rufford Gazette. There is a Rufford Gazette, and Rufford
+isn't much more than a village. If he would publish his accounts
+half-yearly in the Rufford Gazette, honestly showing how much he
+had lost by his system, how much capital had been misapplied, and
+how much labour wasted, he might serve as an example, like the
+pictures of 'The Idle Apprentice.' I don't see that he can do any
+other good,--unless it be to the estimable gentleman who is allowed
+to occupy the pretty house. I don't think you'd see anything like
+that model farm in our country, Sir."
+
+"Your views, Mr. Gotobed, are utilitarian rather than picturesque."
+
+"Oh!--if you say that it is done for the picturesque, that is
+another thing. Lord Rufford is a wealthy lord, and can afford to be
+picturesque. A green sward I should have thought handsomer, as well
+as less expensive, than a ploughed field, but that is a matter of
+taste. Only why call a pretty toy a model farm? You might mislead
+the British rustics."
+
+They had by this time passed through a couple of fields which
+formed part of the model farm, and had come to a stile leading into
+a large meadow. "This I take it," said the Senator looking about
+him, "is beyond the limits of my Lord's plaything."
+
+"This is Shugborough," said Sir George, "and there is John Runce,
+the occupier, on his pony. He at any rate is a model farmer." As he
+spoke Mr. Runce slowly trotted up to them touching his hat, and Mr.
+Gotobed recognized the man who had declined to sit next to him at
+the hunting breakfast. Runce also thought that he knew the
+gentleman. "Do you hunt to-morrow, Mr. Runce?" asked Sir George.
+
+"Well, Sir George, no; I think not. I b'lieve I must go to Rufford
+and hear that fellow Scrobby get it hot and heavy."
+
+"We seem all to be going that way. You think he'll be convicted,
+Sir."
+
+"If there's a juryman left in the country worth his salt, he'll be
+convicted," said Mr. Runce, almost enraged at the doubt. "But that
+other fellow; he's to get off. That's what kills me, Sir George."
+
+"You're alluding to Mr. Goarly, Sir," said the Senator.
+
+"That's about it, certainly," said Runce, still looking very
+suspiciously at his companion.
+
+"I almost think he is the bigger rogue of the two," said the
+Senator.
+
+"Well," said Runce; "well! I don't know as he ain't. Six of one and
+half a dozen of the other! That's about it" But he was evidently
+pacified by the opinion.
+
+"Goarly is certainly a rascal all round," continued the Senator.
+Runce looked at him to make sure whether he was the man who had
+uttered such fearful blasphemies at the breakfast-table. "I think
+we had a little discussion about this before, Mr. Runce."
+
+"I am very glad to see you have changed your principles, Sir."
+
+"Not a bit of it. I am too old to change my principles, Mr. Runce.
+And much as I admire this country I don't think it's the place in
+which I should be induced to do so." Runce looked at him again with
+a scowl on his face and with a falling mouth. "Mr. Goarly is
+certainly a blackguard."
+
+"Well;--I rather think he is."
+
+"But a blackguard may have a good cause. Put it in your own case,
+Mr. Runce. If his Lordship's pheasants ate up your wheat--"
+
+"They're welcome;--they're welcome! The more the merrier. But they
+don't. Pheasants know when they're well off."
+
+"Or if a crowd of horsemen rode over your fences, don't you
+think--"
+
+"My fences! They'd be welcome in my wife's bedroom if the fox took
+that way. My fences! It's what I has fences for,--to be ridden
+over."
+
+"You didn't exactly hear what I have to say, Mr. Runce."
+
+"And I don't want. No offence, sir, if you be a friend of my
+Lord's; but if his Lordship was to say himself that Goarly was
+right, I wouldn't listen to him. A good cause,--and he going about
+at dead o' night with his pockets full of p'ison! Hounds and foxes
+all one!--or little childer either for the matter o' that, if they
+happened on the herrings!"
+
+"I have not said his cause was good, Mr. Runce."
+
+"I'll wish you good evening, Sir George," said the farmer, reining
+his pony round. "Good evening to you, sir." And Mr. Runce trotted
+or rather ambled off, unable to endure another word.
+
+"An honest man, I dare say," said the Senator.
+
+"Certainly; and not a bad specimen of a British farmer."
+
+"Not a bad specimen of a Briton generally;--but still, perhaps, a
+little unreasonable." After that Sir George said as little as he
+could, till he had brought the Senator back to the hall.
+
+"I think it's all over now," said Lady Penwether to Miss Penge,
+when the gentlemen had left them alone in the afternoon.
+
+"I'm sure I hope so,--for his sake. What a woman to come here by
+herself, in that way!"
+
+"I don't think he ever cared for her in the least."
+
+"I can't say that I have troubled myself much about that," replied
+Miss Penge. "For the sake of the family generally, and the
+property, and all that, I should be very very sorry to think that
+he was going to make her Lady Rufford. I dare say he has amused
+himself with her."
+
+"There was very little of that, as far as I can learn;--very little
+encouragement indeed! What we saw here was the worst of it. He was
+hardly with her at all at Mistletoe."
+
+"I hope it will make him more cautious;--that's all," said Miss
+Penge. Miss Penge was now a great heiress, having had her lawsuit
+respecting certain shares in a Welsh coal-mine settled since we
+last saw her. As all the world knows she came from one of the
+oldest Commoner's families in the West of England, and is,
+moreover, a handsome young woman, only twenty-seven years of age.
+Lady Penwether thinks that she is the very woman to be mistress of
+Rufford, and I do not know that Miss Penge herself is averse to the
+idea. Lord Rufford has been too lately wounded to rise at the bait
+quite immediately; but his sister knows that her brother is
+impressionable and that a little patience will go a long way. They
+have, however, all agreed at the hall that Arabella's name shall
+not again be mentioned.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Scrobby's Trial
+
+
+Rufford was a good deal moved as to the trial of Mr Scrobby. Mr.
+Scrobby was a man who not long since had held his head up in
+Rufford and had the reputation of a well-to-do tradesman. Enemies
+had perhaps doubted his probity; but he had gone on and prospered,
+and, two or three years before the events which are now chronicled,
+had retired on a competence. He had then taken a house with a few
+acres of land, lying between Rufford and Rufford Hall, the property
+of Lord Rufford, and had commenced genteel life. Many in the
+neighbourhood had been astonished that such a man should have been
+accepted as a tenant in such a house; and it was generally
+understood that Lord Rufford himself had been very angry with his
+agent. Mr. Scrobby did not prosper greatly in his new career. He
+became a guardian of the poor and quarrelled with all the Board. He
+tried to become a municipal counsellor in the borough, but failed.
+Then he quarrelled with his landlord, insisted on making changes in
+the grounds which were not authorised by the terms of his holding,
+would not pay his rent, and was at last ejected,--having caused
+some considerable amount of trouble. Then he occupied a portion of
+his leisure with spreading calumnies as to his Lordship and was
+generally understood to have made up his mind to be disagreeable.
+As Lord Rufford was a sportsman rather than anything else Scrobby
+studied how he might best give annoyance in that direction, and
+some time before the Goarly affair had succeeded in creating
+considerable disturbance. When a man will do this pertinaciously,
+and when his selected enemy is wealthy and of high standing, he
+will generally succeed in getting a party round him. In Rufford
+there were not a few who thought that Lord Rufford's pheasants and
+foxes were a nuisance,--though probably these persons had never
+suffered in any way themselves. It was a grand thing to fight a
+lord,--and so Scrobby had a party.
+
+When the action against his Lordship was first threatened by
+Goarly, and when it was understood that Scrobby had backed him with
+money there was a feeling that Scrobby was doing rather a fine
+thing. He had not, indeed, used his money openly, as the Senator
+had afterwards done; but that was not Scrobby's way. If Goarly had
+been ill-used any help was legitimate, and the party as a party was
+proud of their man. But when it came to pass that poison had been
+laid down, "wholesale" as the hunting men said, in Dillsborough
+Wood, in the close vicinity of Goarly's house, then the party
+hesitated. Such strategy as that was disgusting;--but was there
+reason to think that Scrobby had been concerned in the matter?
+Scrobby still had an income, and ate roast meat or boiled every day
+for his dinner. Was it likely that such a man should deal in
+herrings and strychnine?
+
+Nickem had been at work for the last three months, backed up by
+funds which had latterly been provided by the Lord's agent, and had
+in truth run the matter down. Nickem had found out all about it,
+and in his pride had resigned his stool in Mr. Master's office. But
+the Scrobby party in Rufford could not bring itself to believe that
+Nickem was correct. That Goarly's hand had actually placed the
+herrings no man either at Rufford or Dillsborough had doubted. Such
+was now Nickem's story. But of what avail would be the evidence of
+such a man as Goarly against such a man as Scrobby? It would be
+utterly worthless unless corroborated, and the Scrobby party was
+not yet aware how clever Nickem had been. Thus all Rufford was
+interested in the case.
+
+Lord Rufford, Sir George Penwether, his Lordship's agent, and Mr.
+Gotobed, had been summoned as witnesses,--the expenditure of money
+by the Senator having by this time become notorious; and on the
+morning of the trial they all went into the town in his Lordship's
+drag. The Senator, as the guest, was on the box-seat with his
+Lordship, and as they passed old Runce trotting into Rufford on his
+nag, Mr. Gotobed began to tell the story of yesterday's meeting,
+complaining of the absurdity of the old farmer's anger.
+
+"Penwether told me about it," said the Lord.
+
+"I suppose your tenant is a little crazy."
+
+"By no means. I thought he was right in what he said, if I
+understood Penwether."
+
+"He couldn't have been right. He turned from me in disgust simply
+because I tried to explain to him that a rogue has as much right to
+be defended by the law as an honest man."
+
+"Runce looks upon these men as vermin which ought to be hunted
+down."
+
+"But they are not vermin. They are men; and till they have been
+found guilty they are innocent men."
+
+"If a man had murdered your child, would he be innocent in your
+eyes till he was convicted?"
+
+"I hope so;--but I should be very anxious to bring home the crime
+against him. And should he be found guilty even then he should not
+be made subject to other punishment than that the law awards. Mr.
+Runce is angry with me because I do not think that Goarly should be
+crushed under the heels of all his neighbours. Take care, my Lord.
+Didn't we come round that corner rather sharp?"
+
+Then Lord Rufford emphatically declared that such men as Scrobby
+and Goarly should be crushed, and the Senator, with an inward sigh
+declared that between landlord and tenant, between peer and farmer,
+between legislator and rustic, there was, in capacity for logical
+inference, no difference whatever. The British heart might be all
+right; but the British head was,--ah, hopelessly wooden! It would
+be his duty to say so in his lecture, and perhaps some good might
+be done to so gracious but so stolid a people, if only they could
+be got to listen.
+
+Scrobby had got down a barrister from London, and therefore the
+case was allowed to drag itself out through the whole day. Lord
+Rufford, as a magistrate, went on to the bench himself, though he
+explained that he only took his seat there as a spectator. Sir
+George and Mr. Gotobed were also allowed to sit in the high
+place,--though the Senator complained even of this. Goarly and
+Scrobby were not allowed to be there, and Lord Rufford, in his
+opinion, should also have been debarred from such a privilege. A
+long time was occupied before even a jury could be sworn, the
+barrister earning his money by browbeating the provincial bench and
+putting various obstacles in the way of the trial. As he was used
+to practice at the assizes of course he was able to domineer. This
+juror would not do, nor that. The chairman was all wrong in his
+law. The officers of the Court knew nothing about it. At first
+there was quite a triumph for the Scrobbyites, and even Nickem
+himself was frightened. But at last the real case was allowed to
+begin, and Goarly was soon in the witness-box. Goarly did not seem
+to enjoy the day, and was with difficulty got to tell his own story
+even on his own side. But the story when it was told was simple
+enough. He had met Mr. Scrobby accidentally in Rufford and they two
+had together discussed the affairs of the young Lord. They came to
+an agreement that the young Lord was a tyrant and ought to be put
+down, and Scrobby showed how it was to be done. Scrobby instigated
+the action about the pheasants, and undertook to pay the expenses
+if Goarly would act in the other little matter. But, when he found
+that the Senator's money was forthcoming, he had been anything but
+as good as his word. Goarly swore that in hard cash he had never
+seen more than four shillings of Scrobby's money. As to the poison,
+Goarly declared that he knew nothing about it; but he certainly had
+received a parcel of herrings from Scrobby's own hands, and in
+obedience to Scrobby's directions, had laid them down in
+Dillsborough Wood the very morning on which the hounds had come
+there. He owned that he supposed that there might be something in
+the herrings, something that would probably be deleterious to
+hounds as well as foxes,--or to children should the herrings happen
+to fall into children's hands; but he assured the Court that he had
+no knowledge of poison,--none whatever. Then he was made by the
+other side to give a complete and a somewhat prolonged account of
+his own life up to the present time, this information being of
+course required by the learned barrister on the other side; in
+listening to which the Senator did become thoroughly ashamed of the
+Briton whom he had assisted with his generosity.
+
+But all this would have been nothing had not Nickem secured the old
+woman who had sold the herrings,--and also the chemist, from whom
+the strychnine had been purchased as much as three years
+previously. This latter feat was Nickem's great triumph, the
+feeling of the glory of which induced him to throw up his
+employment in Mr. Masters' office, and thus brought him and his
+family to absolute ruin within a few months in spite of the liberal
+answers which were made by Lord Rufford to many of his numerous
+appeals. Away in Norrington the poison had been purchased as much
+as three years ago, and yet Nickem had had the luck to find it out.
+When the Scrobbyites heard that Scrobby had gone all the way to
+Norrington to buy strychnine to kill rats they were Scrobbyites no
+longer. "I hope they'll hang 'un. I do hope they'll hang 'un," said
+Mr. Runce quite out loud from his crowded seat just behind the
+attorney's bench.
+
+The barrister of course struggled hard to earn his money. Though he
+could not save his client he might annoy the other side. He
+insisted therefore on bringing the whole affair of the pheasants
+before the Court, and examined the Senator at great length. He
+asked the Senator whether he had not found himself compelled to
+sympathise with the wrongs he had witnessed. The Senator declared
+that he had witnessed no wrongs. Why then had he interfered?
+Because he had thought that there might be wrong, and because he
+wished to see what power a poor man in this country would have
+against a rich one. He was induced still to think that Goarly had
+been ill-treated about the pheasants;--but he could not take upon
+himself to say that he had witnessed any wrong done. But he was
+quite sure that the system on which such things were managed in
+England was at variance with that even justice which prevailed in
+his own country! Yes;--by his own country he did mean Mickewa. He
+could tell that learned gentleman in spite of his sneers, and in
+spite of his evident ignorance of geography, that nowhere on the
+earth's surface was justice more purely administered than in the
+great Western State of Mickewa. It was felt by everybody that the
+Senator had the best of it. Mr. Scrobby was sent into durance for
+twelve months with hard labour, and Goarly was conveyed away in the
+custody of the police lest he should be torn to pieces by the rough
+lovers of hunting who were congregated outside. When the sentence
+had reached Mr. Runce's ears, and had been twice explained to him,
+first by one neighbour and then by another, his face assumed the
+very look which it had worn when he carried away his victuals from
+the Senator's side at Rufford Hall, and when he had turned his pony
+round on his own land on the previous evening. The man had killed a
+fox and might have killed a dozen hounds, and was to be locked up
+only for twelve months! He indignantly asked his neighbour what had
+come of Van Diemen's land, and what was the use of Botany Bay.
+
+On their way back to Rufford Hall, Lord Rufford would have been
+triumphant, had not the Senator checked him. "It's a bad state of
+things altogether," he said. "Of course the promiscuous use of
+strychnine is objectionable."
+
+"Rather," said his Lordship.
+
+"But is it odd that an utterly uneducated man, one whom his country
+has left to grow up in the ignorance of a brute, should have
+recourse to any measure, however objectionable, when the law will
+absolutely give him no redress against the trespass made by a
+couple of hundred horsemen?" Lord Rufford gave it up, feeling the
+Senator to be a man with whom he could not argue.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+At Last
+
+
+When once Mrs. Morton had taken her departure for London, on the
+day after her grandson's death, nothing further was heard of her at
+Bragton. She locked up everything and took all the keys away, as
+though still hoping,--against hope,--that the will might turn out
+to be other than she expected. But when the lawyer came down to
+read the document he brought the keys back with him, and no further
+tidings reached Dillsborough respecting the old woman. She still
+drew her income as she had done for half a century, but never even
+came to look at the stone which Reginald put up on the walls of
+Bragton church to perpetuate the memory of his cousin. What moans
+she made she made in silent obscurity, and devoted the remainder of
+her years to putting together money for members of her own family
+who took no notice of her.
+
+After the funeral, Lady Ushant returned to the house at the request
+of her nephew, who declared his purpose of remaining at Hoppet Hall
+for the present. She expostulated with him and received from him an
+assurance that he would take up his residence as squire at Bragton
+as soon as he married a wife,--should he ever do so. In the
+meantime he could, he thought, perform his duties from Hoppet Hall
+as well as on the spot. As a residence for a bachelor he preferred,
+he said, Hoppet Hall to the park. Lady Ushant yielded and returned
+once again to her old home, the house in which she had been born,--
+and gave up her lodgings at Cheltenham. The word that he said about
+his possible marriage set her mind at work, and induced her to put
+sundry questions to him. "Of course you will marry?" she said.
+
+"Men who have property to leave behind them usually do marry, and
+as I am not wiser than others, I probably may do so. But I will not
+admit that it is a matter of course. I may escape yet"
+
+"I do hope you will marry. I hope it may be before I die, so that I
+may see her."
+
+"And disapprove of her, ten to one."
+
+"Certainly I shall not if you tell me that you love her."
+
+"Then I will tell you so, to prevent disagreeable results."
+
+"I am quite sure there must be somebody that you like, Reginald,"
+she said after a pause.
+
+"Are you? I don't know that I have shown any very strong
+preference. I am not disposed to praise myself for many things, but
+I really do think that I have been as undemonstrative as most men
+of my age."
+
+"Still I did hope--"
+
+"What did you hope?"
+
+"I won't mention any name. I don't think it is right. I have
+observed that more harm than good comes of such talking, and I have
+determined always to avoid it. But--" Then there was another pause.
+"Remember how old I am, Reginald, and when it is to be done give me
+at any rate the pleasure of knowing it" Of course he knew to whom
+she alluded, and of course he laughed at her feeble caution. But he
+would not say a word to encourage her to mention the name of Mary
+Masters. He thought that he was sure that were the girl free he
+would now ask her to be his wife. If he loved any one it was her.
+If he had ever known a woman with whom he thought it would be
+pleasant to share the joy and labours of life, it was Mary Masters.
+If he could imagine that any one constant companion would be a joy
+to him, she would be that person. But he had been distinctly
+informed that she was in love with some one, and not for worlds
+would he ask for that which had been given to another. And not for
+worlds would he hazard the chance of a refusal. He thought that he
+could understand the delight, that he could thoroughly enjoy the
+rapture, of hearing her whisper with downcast eyes, that she could
+love him. He had imagination enough to build castles in the air in
+which she reigned as princess, in which she would lie with her head
+upon his bosom and tell him that he was her chosen prince. But he
+would, hardly know how to bear himself should he ask in vain. He
+believed he could love as well as Lawrence Twentyman, but he was
+sure that he could not continue his quest as that young man had
+done.
+
+When Lady Ushant had been a day or two at the house she asked him
+whether she might invite Mary there as her guest;--as her perpetual
+guest. "I have no objection in life," he said; "but take care that
+you don't interfere with her happiness."
+
+"Because of her father and sisters?" suggested the innocent old
+lady.
+
+   "'Has she a father, has she a mother;
+     Or has she a dearer one still than all other?'"
+
+said Reginald laughing.
+
+"Perhaps she has."
+
+"Then don't interfere with her happiness in that direction. How is
+she to have a lover come to see her out here?"
+
+"Why not? I don't see why she shouldn't have a lover here as well
+as in Dillsborough. I don't object to lovers, if they are of the
+proper sort; and I am sure Mary wouldn't have anything else."
+Reginald told her she might do as she pleased and made no further
+inquiry as to Mary's lovers.
+
+A few days afterwards Mary went with her boxes to Bragton,--Mrs.
+Masters repeating her objections, but repeating them with but
+little energy. Just at this time a stroke of good fortune befell
+the Masters family generally which greatly reduced her power over
+her husband. Reginald Morton had spent an hour in the attorney's
+office, and had declared his purpose of restoring Mr. Masters to
+his old family position in regard to the Bragton estate. When she
+heard it she felt at once that her dominion was gone. She had based
+everything on the growing inferiority of her husband's position,
+and now he was about to have all his glory back again! She had
+inveighed against gentlemen from the day of her marriage,--and here
+he was, again to be immersed up to his eyes in the affairs of a
+gentleman. And then she had been so wrong about Goarly, and Lord
+Rufford had been so much better a client! And ready money had been
+so much more plentiful of late, owing to poor John Morton's
+ready-handed honesty! She had very little to say about it when Mary
+packed her boxes and was taken in Mr. Runciman's fly to Bragton.
+
+Since the old days, the old days of all, since the days to which
+Reginald had referred when he asked her to pass over the bridge with
+him, she had never yet walked about the Bragton grounds. She had often
+been to the house, visiting Lady Ushant; but she had simply gone
+thither and returned. And indeed, when the house had been empty, the
+walk from Dillsborough to the bridge and back had been sufficient
+exercise for herself and her sisters. But now she could go whither she
+listed and bring her memory to all the old spots. With the tenacity as
+to household matters which characterised the ladies of the country some
+years since, Lady Ushant employed all her mornings and those of her
+young friend in making inventories of everything that was found in the
+house; but her afternoons were her own, and she wandered about with a
+freedom she had never known before. At this time Reginald Morton was up
+in London and had been away nearly a week. He had gone intending to be
+absent for some undefined time, so that Lady Ushant and Mrs. Hopkins
+were free from all interruption. It was as yet only the middle of March
+and the lion had not altogether disappeared; but still Mary could get
+out. She did not care much for the wind; and she roamed about among the
+leafless shrubberies, thinking,-- probably not of many things,--meaning
+always to think of the past, but unable to keep her mind from the
+future, the future which would so soon be the present. How long would
+it be before the coming of that stately dame? Was he in quest of her
+now? Had he perhaps postponed his demand upon her till fortune had made
+him rich? Of course she had no right to be sorry that he had inherited
+the property which had been his almost of right; but yet, had it been
+otherwise, might she not have had some chance? But, oh, if he had said
+a word to her, only a word more than he had spoken already,--a word
+that might have sounded like encouragement to others beside herself,
+and then have been obliged to draw back because of the duty which he
+owed to the property, how much worse would that have been! She did own
+to herself that the squire of Bragton should not look for his wife in
+the house of a Dillsborough attorney. As she thought of this a tear ran
+down her cheek and trickled down on to the wooden rail of the little
+bridge.
+
+"There's no one to give you an excuse now, and you must come and
+walk round with me," said a voice, close to her ear.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Morton, how you have startled me!"
+
+"Is there anything the matter, Mary?" said he, looking up into her
+face.
+
+"Only you have startled me so."
+
+"Has that brought tears into your eyes."
+
+"Well,--I suppose so," she said trying to smile. "You were so very
+quiet and I thought you were in London."
+
+"So I was this morning, and now I am here. But something else has
+made you unhappy."
+
+"No; nothing."
+
+"I wish we could be friends, Mary. I wish I could know your secret.
+You have a secret."
+
+"No," she said boldly.
+
+"Is there nothing?"
+
+"What should there be, Mr. Morton!"
+
+"Tell me why you were crying."
+
+"I was not crying. Just a tear is not crying. Sometimes one does
+get melancholy. One can't cry when there is any one to look, and so
+one does it alone. I'd have been laughing if I knew that you were
+coming."
+
+"Come round by the kennels. You can get over the wall;--can't you?"
+
+"Oh yes."
+
+"And we'll go down the old orchard, and get out by the corner of
+the park fence." Then he walked and she followed him, hardly
+keeping close by his side, and thinking as she went how foolish she
+had been not to have avoided the perils and fresh troubles of such
+a walk. When he was helping her over the wall he held her hands for
+a moment and she was aware of unusual pressure. It was the pressure
+of love,--or of that pretence of love which young men, and perhaps
+old men, sometimes permit themselves to affect. In an ordinary way
+Mary would have thought as little of it as another girl. She might
+feel dislike to the man, but the affair would be too light for
+resentment. With this man it was different. He certainly was not
+justified in making the slightest expression of factitious
+affection. He at any rate should have felt himself bound to abstain
+from any touch of peculiar tenderness. She would not say a word.
+She would not even look at him with angry eyes. But she twitched
+both her hands away from him as she sprang to the ground. Then
+there was a passage across the orchard,--not more than a hundred
+yards, and after that a stile. At the stile she insisted on using
+her own hand for the custody of her dress. She would not even touch
+his outstretched arm. "You are very independent," he said.
+
+"I have to be so."
+
+"I cannot make you out, Mary. I wonder whether there is still
+anything rankling in your bosom against me."
+
+"Oh dear no. What should rankle with me?"
+
+"What indeed;--unless you resent my--regard."
+
+"I am not so rich in friends as to do that, Mr. Morton."
+
+"I don't suppose there can be many people who have the same sort of
+feeling for you that I have."
+
+"There are not many who have known me so long, certainly."
+
+"You have some friend, I know," he said.
+
+"More than one I hope."
+
+"Some special friend. Who is he, Mary?"
+
+"I don't know what you mean, Mr. Morton" She then thought that he
+was still alluding to Lawrence Twentyman.
+
+"Tell me, Mary."
+
+"What am I to tell you?"
+
+"Your father says that there is some one."
+
+"Papa!"
+
+"Yes;--your father."
+
+Then she remembered it all;--how she had been driven into a half
+confession to her father. She could not say there was nobody. She
+certainly could not say who that some one was. She could not be
+silent, for by silence she would be confessing a passion for some
+other man,--a passion which certainly had no existence. "I don't
+know why papa should talk about me," she said, "and I certainly
+don't know why you should repeat what he said."
+
+"But there is some one?" She clenched her fist, and hit out at the
+air with her parasol, and knit her brows as she looked up at him
+with a glance of fire in her eye which he had never seen there
+before. "Believe me, Mary," he said; "if ever a girl had a sincere
+friend, you have one in me. I would not tease you by impertinence
+in such a matter. I will be as faithful to you as the sun. Do you
+love any one?"
+
+"Yes," she said turning round at him with ferocity and shouting out
+her answer as she pressed on.
+
+"Who is he, Mary?"
+
+"What right have you to ask me? What right can any one have? Even
+your aunt would not press me as you are doing."
+
+"My aunt could not have the same interest. Who is he, Mary?"
+
+"I will not tell you."
+
+He paused a few moments and walked on a step or two before he spoke
+again. "I would it were I," he said.
+
+"What!" she ejaculated.
+
+"I would it were I," he repeated.
+
+One glance of her eye stole itself round into his face, and then
+her face was turned quickly to the ground. Her parasol which had
+been raised drooped listless from her hand. All unconsciously she
+hastened her steps and became aware that the tears were streaming
+from her eyes. For a moment or two it seemed to her that all was
+still hopeless. If he had no more to say than that, certainly she
+had not a word. He had made her no tender of his love. He had not
+told her that in very truth she was his chosen one. After all she
+was not sure that she understood the meaning of those words "I
+would it were I" But the tears were coming so quick that she could
+see nothing of the things around her, and she did not dare even to
+put her hand up to her eyes. If he wanted her love,--if it was
+possible that he really wished for it,--why did he not ask for it?
+She felt his footsteps close to hers, and she was tempted to walk
+on quicker even than before. Then there came the fingers of a hand
+round her waist, stealing gradually on till she felt the pressure
+of his body on her shoulders. She put her hand up weakly, to push
+back the intruding fingers,--only to leave it tight in his grasp.
+Then,--then was the first moment in which she realized the truth.
+After all he did love her. Surely he would not hold her there
+unless he meant her to know that he loved her. "Mary," he said. To
+speak was impossible, but she turned round and looked at him with
+imploring eyes. "Mary,--say that you will be my wife."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+"My own, own Husband"
+
+
+Yes;--it had come at last. As one may imagine to be the certainty
+of paradise to the doubting, fearful, all but despairing soul when
+it has passed through the gates of death and found in new worlds a
+reality of assured bliss, so was the assurance to her, conveyed by
+that simple request, "Mary, say that you will be my wife." It did
+not seem to her that any answer was necessary. Will it be required
+that the spirit shall assent to its entrance into Elysium? Was
+there room for doubt? He would never go back from his word now. He
+would not have spoken the word had he not been quite, quite
+certain. And he had loved her all that time, when she was so hard
+to him! It must have been so. He had loved her, this bright one,
+even when he thought that she was to be given to that clay-bound
+rustic lover! Perhaps that was the sweetest of it all, though in
+draining the sweet draught she had to accuse herself of hardness,
+blindness and injustice. Could it be real? Was it true that she had
+her foot firmly placed in Paradise? He was there, close to her,
+with his arm still round her, and her fingers grasped within his.
+The word wife was still in her ears,--surely the sweetest word in
+all the language! What protestation of love could have been so
+eloquent as that question? "Will you be my wife?" No true man, she
+thought, ever ought to ask the question in any other form. But her
+eyes were still full of tears, and as she went she knew not where
+she was going. She had forgotten all her surroundings, being only
+aware that he was with her, and that no other eyes were on them.
+
+Then there was another stile on reaching which he withdrew his arm
+and stood facing her with his back leaning against it. "Why do you
+weep?" he said;--"and, Mary, why do you not answer my question? If
+there be anybody else you must tell me now."
+
+"There is nobody else," she said almost angrily. "There never was.
+There never could be."
+
+"And yet there was somebody!" She pouted her lips at him, glancing
+up into his face for half a second, and then again hung her head
+down. "Mary, do not grudge me my delight"
+
+"No;--no;--no!"
+
+"But you do."
+
+"No. If there can be delight to you in so poor a thing, have it
+all."
+
+"Then you must kiss me, dear." She gently came to him,--oh so
+gently,--and with her head still hanging, creeping towards his
+shoulder, thinking perhaps that the motion should have been his,
+but still obeying him, and then, leaning against him, seemed as
+though she would stoop with her lips to his hand. But this he did
+not endure. Seizing her quickly in his arms he drew her up, till
+her not unwilling face was close to his, and there he kept her till
+she was almost frightened by his violence. "And now, Mary, what do
+you say to my question? It has to be answered."
+
+"You know."
+
+"But that will not do, I will have it in words. I will not be shorn
+of my delight"
+
+That it should be a delight to him, was the very essence of her
+heaven. "Tell me what to say," she answered. "How may I say it
+best?"
+
+"Reginald Morton," he began.
+
+"Reginald," she repeated it after him, but went no farther in
+naming him.
+
+"Because I love you better than in the world--"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Ah, but say it"
+
+"Because I love you, oh, so much better than all the world
+besides."
+
+"Therefore, my own, own husband--"
+
+"Therefore, my own, own--," Then she paused.
+
+"Say the word"
+
+"My own, own husband."
+
+"I will be your true wife"
+
+"I will be your own true loving wife." Then he kissed her again.
+
+"That," he said, "is our little marriage ceremony under God's sky,
+and no other can be more binding. As soon as you, in the plentitude
+of your maiden power, will fix a day for the other one, and when we
+can get that over, then we will begin our little journey together."
+
+"But Reginald!"
+
+"Well, dear!"
+
+"You haven't said anything."
+
+"Haven't I? I thought I had said it all."
+
+"But you haven't said it for yourself!"
+
+"You say what you want,--and I'll repeat it quite as well as you
+did."
+
+"I can't do that. Say it yourself."
+
+"I will be your true husband for the rest of the journey;--by which
+I mean it to be understood that I take you into partnership on
+equal terms, but that I am to be allowed to manage the business
+just as I please."
+
+"Yes;--that you shall," she said, quite in earnest.
+
+"Only as you are practical and I am vague, I don't doubt that
+everything will fall into your hands before five years are over,
+and that I shall have to be told whether I can afford to buy a new
+book, and when I am to ask all the gentry to dinner."
+
+"Now you are laughing at me because I shall know so little about
+anything."
+
+"Come, dear; let us get over the stile and go on for another field,
+or we shall never get round the park." Then she jumped over after
+him, just touching his hand. "I was not laughing at you at all. I
+don't in the least doubt that in a very little time you will know
+everything about everything."
+
+"I am so much afraid."
+
+"You needn't be. I know you well enough for that. But suppose I had
+taken such a one as that young woman who was here with my poor
+cousin. Oh, heavens!"
+
+"Perhaps you ought to have done so."
+
+"I thank the Lord that hath delivered me."
+
+"You ought,--you ought to have chosen some lady of high standing,"
+said Mary, thinking with ineffable joy of the stately dame who was
+not to come to Bragton. "Do you know what I was thinking only the
+other day about it?--that you had gone up to London to look for
+some proper sort of person."
+
+"And how did you mean to receive her?"
+
+"I shouldn't have received her at all. I should have gone away. You
+can't do it now."
+
+"Can't I?"
+
+"What were you thanking the Lord for so heartily?"
+
+"For you."
+
+"Were you? That is the sweetest thing you have said yet. My own;--
+my darling;--my dearest! If only I can so live that you may be able
+to thank the Lord for me in years to come!"
+
+I will not trouble the reader with all that was said at every
+stile. No doubt very much of what has been told was repeated again
+and again so that the walk round the park was abnormally long. At
+last, however, they reached the house, and as they entered the
+hall, Mary whispered to him, "Who is to tell your aunt?" she said.
+
+"Come along," he replied striding upstairs to his aunt's bedroom,
+where he knew she would be at this time. He opened the door without
+any notice and, having waited till Mary had joined him, led her
+forcibly into the middle of the room. "Here she is," he said; "my
+wife elect"
+
+"Oh, Reginald!"
+
+"We have managed it all, and there needn't be any more said about
+it except to settle the day. Mary has been looking about the house
+and learning her duty already. She'll be able to have every
+bedstead and every chair by heart, which is an advantage ladies
+seldom possess. Then Mary rushed forward and was received into the
+old woman's arms.
+
+When Reginald left them, which he did very soon after the
+announcement was made, Lady Ushant had a great deal to say. "I have
+been thinking of it, my dear,--oh,--for years;--ever since he came
+to Hoppet Hall. But I am sure the best way is never to say
+anything. If I had interfered there is no knowing how it might have
+been."
+
+"Then, dear Lady Ushant, I am so glad you didn't," said Mary,--
+being tolerably sure at the same time within her own bosom that her
+loving old friend could have done no harm in that direction. "I
+wouldn't say a word though I was always thinking of it. But then he
+is so odd, and no one can know what he means sometimes. That's what
+made me think when Mr. Twentyman was so very pressing--"
+
+"That couldn't--couldn't have been possible."
+
+"Poor young man!"
+
+"But I always told him it was impossible."
+
+"I wonder whether you cared about Reginald all that time." In
+answer to this Mary only hid her face in the old woman's lap. "Dear
+me! I suppose you did all along. But I am sure it was better not to
+say anything, and now what will your papa and mamma say?"
+
+"They'll hardly believe it at first"
+
+"I hope they'll be glad."
+
+"Glad! Why what do you suppose they would want me to do? Dear papa!
+And dear mamma too, because she has really been good to me. I
+wonder when it must be?" Then that question was discussed at great
+length, and Lady Ushant had a great deal of very good advice to
+bestow. She didn't like long engagements, and it was very essential
+for Reginald's welfare that he should settle himself at Bragton as
+soon as possible. Mary's pleas for a long day were not very urgent.
+
+That evening at Bragton was rather long and rather dull. It was
+almost the first that she had ever passed in company with Reginald,
+and there now seemed to be a necessity of doing something peculiar,
+whereas there was nothing peculiar to be done. It was his custom to
+betake himself to his books after dinner; but he could hardly do so
+with ease in company with the girl who had just promised him to be
+his wife. Lady Ushant too wished to show her extreme joy, and made
+flattering but vain attempts to be ecstatic. Mary, to tell the
+truth, was longing for solitude, feeling that she could not yet
+realise her happiness.
+
+Not even when she was in bed could she reduce her mind to order. It
+would have been all but impossible even had he remained the
+comparative humble lord of Hoppet Hall;--but that the squire of
+Bragton should be her promised husband was a marvel so great that
+from every short slumber, she waked with fear of treacherous
+dreams. A minute's sleep might rob her of her joy and declare to
+her in the moment of waking that it was all an hallucination. It
+was not that he was dearer to her, or that her condition was the
+happier, because of his position and wealth; but that the chance of
+his inheritance had lifted him so infinitely above her! She thought
+of the little room at home which she generally shared with one of
+her sisters, of her all too scanty wardrobe, of her daily tasks
+about the house, of her stepmother's late severity, and of her
+father's cares. Surely he would not hinder her from being good to
+them; surely he would let the young girls come to her from time to
+time! What an added happiness it would be if he would allow her to
+pass on to them some sparks of the prosperity which he was
+bestowing on her. And then her thoughts travelled on to poor Larry.
+Would he not be more contented now;--now, when he would be certain
+that no further frantic efforts could avail him anything. Poor
+Larry! Would Reginald permit her to regard him as a friend? And
+would he submit to friendly treatment? She could look forward and
+see him happy with his wife, the best loved of their neighbours;--
+for who was there in the world better than Larry? But she did not
+know how two men who had both been her lovers, would allow
+themselves to be brought together. But, oh, what peril had been
+there! It was but the other day she had striven so hard to give the
+lie to her love and to become Larry's wife. She shuddered beneath
+the bedclothes as she thought of the danger she had run. One word
+would have changed all her Paradise into a perpetual wail of tears
+and waste of desolation. When she woke in the morning from her long
+sleep an effort was wanting to tell her that it was all true. Oh,
+if it had slipped from her then;--if she had waked after such a
+dream to find herself loving in despair with a sore bosom and angry
+heart!
+
+She met him downstairs, early, in the study, having her first
+request to make to him. Might she go in at once after breakfast and
+tell them all? "I suppose I ought to go to your father," he said.
+"Let me go first," she pleaded, hanging on his arm. "I would not
+think that I was not mindful of them from the very beginning." So
+she was driven into Dillsborough in the pony carriage which had
+been provided for old Mrs. Morton's use, and told her own story.
+"Papa," she said, going to the office door. "Come into the house;--
+come at once." And then, within her father's arms, while her
+stepmother listened, she told them of her triumph. "Mr. Reginald
+Morton wants me to be his wife, and he is coming here to ask you."
+
+"The Lord in heaven be good to us," said Mrs. Masters, holding up
+both her hands. "Is it true, child?"
+
+"The squire!"
+
+"It is true, papa,--and,--and-"
+
+"And what, my love?"
+
+"When he comes to you, you must say I will be."
+
+There was not much danger on that score. "Was it he that you told
+me of?" said the attorney. To this she only nodded her assent. "It
+was Reginald Morton all the time? Well!"
+
+"Why shouldn't it be he?"
+
+"Oh no, my dear! You are a most fortunate girl,--most fortunate!
+But somehow I never thought of it, that a child of mine should come
+to live at Bragton and have it, one may say, partly as her own! It
+is odd after all that has come and gone. God bless you, my dear,
+and make you happy. You are a very fortunate child."
+
+Mrs. Masters was quite overpowered. She had thrown herself on to
+the old family sofa, and was fanning herself with her handkerchief.
+She had been wrong throughout, and was now completely humiliated by
+the family success; and yet she was delighted, though she did not
+dare to be triumphant. She had so often asked both father and
+daughter what good gentlemen would do to either of them; and now
+the girl was engaged to marry the richest gentleman in the
+neighbourhood! In any expression of joy she would be driven to
+confess how wrong she had always been. How often had she asked what
+would come of Ushanting. This it was that had come of Ushanting.
+The girl had been made fit to be the companion of such a one as
+Reginald Morton, and had now fallen into the position which was
+suited to her. "Of course we shall see nothing of you now," she
+said in a whimpering voice. It was not a gracious speech, but it
+was almost justified by disappointments.
+
+"Mamma, you know that I shall never separate myself from you and
+the girls."
+
+"Poor Larry!" said the woman sobbing. "Of course it is all for the
+best; but I don't know what he'll do now."
+
+"You must tell him, papa," said Mary; "and give him my love and bid
+him be a man."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+"Bid him be a Man"
+
+
+"The little phaeton remained in Dillsborough to take Mary back to
+Bragton. As soon as she was gone the attorney went over to the Bush
+with the purpose of borrowing Runciman's pony, so that he might
+ride over to Chowton Farm and at once execute his daughter's last
+request. In the yard of the inn he saw Runciman himself, and was
+quite unable to keep his good news to himself. "My girl has just
+been with me," he said, "and what do you think she tells me?"
+
+"That she is going to take poor Larry after all. She might do
+worse, Mr. Masters."
+
+"Poor Larry! I am sorry for him. I have always liked Larry
+Twentyman. But that is all over now."
+
+"She's not going to have that tweedledum young parson, surely?"
+
+"Reginald Morton has made her a set offer."
+
+"The squire!" Mr. Masters nodded his head three times. "You don't
+say so. Well, Mr. Masters, I don't begrudge it you. He might do
+worse. She has taken her pigs well to market at last!"
+
+"He is to come to me at four this afternoon."
+
+"Well done, Miss Mary! I suppose it's been going on ever so long?"
+
+"We fathers and mothers," said the attorney, "never really know
+what the young ones are after. Don't mention it just at present,
+Runciman. You are such an old friend that I couldn't help telling
+you."
+
+"Poor Larry!"
+
+"I can have the pony, Runciman?"
+
+"Certainly you can, Mr. Masters. Tell him to come in and talk it
+all over with me. If we don't look to it he'll be taking to drink
+regular." At that last meeting at the club, when the late squire's
+will was discussed, at which, as the reader may perhaps remember, a
+little supper was also discussed in honour of the occasion, poor
+Larry had not only been present, but had drunk so pottle-deep that
+the landlord had been obliged to put him to bed at the inn, and he
+had not been at all as he ought to have been after Lord Rufford's
+dinner. Such delinquencies were quite outside the young man's
+accustomed way of his life. It had been one of his recognised
+virtues that, living as he did a good deal among sporting men and
+with a full command of means, he had never drank. But now he had
+twice sinned before the eyes of all Dillsborough, and Runciman
+thought that he knew how it would be with a young man in his own
+house who got drunk in public to drown his sorrow. "I wouldn't see
+Larry go astray and spoil himself with liquor," said the
+good-natured publican; "for more than I should like to name." Mr.
+Masters promised to take the hint, and rode off on his mission.
+
+The entrance to Chowton Farm and Bragton gate were nearly opposite,
+the latter being perhaps a furlong nearer to Dillsborough. The
+attorney when he got to the gate stopped a moment and looked up the
+avenue with pardonable pride. The great calamity of his life, the
+stunning blow which had almost unmanned him when he was young, and
+from which he had never quite been able to rouse himself, had been
+the loss of the management of the Bragton property. His grandfather
+and his father had been powerful at Bragton, and he had been
+brought up in the hope of walking in their paths. Then strangers
+had come in, and he had been dispossessed. But how was it with him
+now? It had almost made a young man of him again when Reginald
+Morton, stepping into his office, asked him as a favour to resume
+his old task. But what was that in comparison with this later
+triumph? His own child was to be made queen of the place! His
+grandson, should she be fortunate enough to be the mother of a son,
+would be the squire himself! His visits to the place for the last
+twenty years had been very rare indeed. He had been sent for lately
+by old Mrs. Morton,--for a purpose which if carried out would have
+robbed him of all his good fortune,--but he could not remember
+when, before that, he had even passed through the gateway. Now it
+would all become familiar to him again. That pony of Runciman's was
+pleasant in his paces, and he began to calculate whether the
+innkeeper would part with the animal. He stood thus gazing at the
+place for some minutes till he saw Reginald Morton in the distance
+turning a corner of the road with Mary at his side. He had taken
+her from the phaeton and had then insisted on her coming out with
+him before she took off her hat. Mr. Masters as soon as he saw them
+trotted off to Chowton Farm.
+
+Finding Larry lounging at the little garden gate Mr. Masters got
+off the pony and taking the young man's arm, walked off with him
+towards Dillsborough Wood. He told all his news at once, almost
+annihilating poor Larry by the suddenness of the blow. "Larry, Mr.
+Reginald Morton has asked my girl to marry him, and she has
+accepted him."
+
+"The new squire!" said Larry, stopping himself on the path, and
+looking as though a gentle wind would suffice to blow him over.
+
+"I suppose it has been that way all along, Larry, though we have
+not known it."
+
+"It was Mr. Morton then that she told me of?"
+
+"She did tell you?"
+
+"Of course there was no chance for me if he wanted her. But why
+didn't they speak out, so that I could have gone away? Oh, Mr.
+Masters!"
+
+"It was only yesterday she knew it herself."
+
+"She must have guessed it"
+
+"No;--she knew nothing till he declared himself. And to-day, this
+very morning, she has bade me come to you and let you know it. And
+she sent you her love."
+
+"Her love!" said Larry, chucking the stick which he held in his
+hands down to the ground and then stooping to pick it up again.
+
+"Yes;--her love. Those were her words, and I am to tell you from
+her--to be a man."
+
+"Did she say that?"
+
+"Yes;--I was to come out to you at once, and bring you that as a
+message from her."
+
+"Be a man! I could have been a man right enough if she would have
+made me one; as good a man as Reginald Morton, though he is squire
+of Bragton. But of course I couldn't have given her a house like
+that, nor a carriage, nor made her one of the county people. If it
+was to go in that way, what could I hope for?"
+
+"Don't be unjust to her, Larry."
+
+"Unjust to her! If giving her every blessed thing I had in the
+world at a moment's notice was unjust, I was ready to be unjust any
+day of the week or any hour of the day."
+
+"What I mean is that her heart was fixed that way before Reginald
+Morton was squire of Bragton. What shall I say in answer to her
+message? You will wish her happiness;--will you not?"
+
+"Wish her happiness! Oh, heavens!" He could not explain what was in
+his mind. Wish her happiness! yes;--the happiness of the angels.
+But not him, nor yet with him! And as there could be no arranging
+of this, he must leave his wishes unsettled. And yet there was a
+certain relief to him in the tidings he had heard. There was now no
+more doubt. He need not now remain at Chowton thinking it possible
+that the girl might even yet change her mind.
+
+"And you will bear in that she wishes you to be a man."
+
+"Why did she not make me one? But that is all, all over. You tell
+her from me that I am not the man to whimper because I am hurt.
+What ought a man to do that I can't do?"
+
+"Let her know that you are going about your old pursuits. And,
+Larry, would you wish her to know how it was with you at the club
+last Saturday?"
+
+"Did she hear of that?"
+
+"I am sure she has not heard of it. But if that kind of thing
+becomes a habit, of course she will hear of it. All Dillsborough
+would hear of it, if that became common. At any rate it is not
+manly to drown it in drink."
+
+"Who says I do that? Nothing will drown it."
+
+"I wouldn't speak if I had not known you so long, and loved you so
+well. What she means is that you should work."
+
+"I do work."
+
+"And hunt. Go out to-morrow and show yourself to everybody."
+
+"If I could break my neck I would."
+
+"Don't let every farmer's son in the county say that Lawrence
+Twentyman was so mastered by a girl that he couldn't ride on
+horseback when she said him nay."
+
+"Everybody knows it, Mr. Masters."
+
+"Go among them as if nobody knew it. I'll warrant that nobody will
+speak of it"
+
+"I don't think any one of 'em would dare to do that," said Larry
+brandishing his stick.
+
+"Where is it that the hounds are Larry?"
+
+"Here; at the old kennel."
+
+"Go out and let her see that you have taken her advice. She is
+there at the house, and she will recognise you in the park.
+Remember that she sends her love to you, and bids you be a man.
+And, Larry, come in and see us sometimes. The time will come, I
+don't doubt, when you and the squire will be fast friends."
+
+"Never!"
+
+"You do not know what time can do. I'll just go back now because he
+is to come to me this afternoon. Try and bear up and remember that
+it is she who bids you be a man." The attorney got upon his pony
+and rode back to Dillsborough.
+
+Larry who had come back to the yard to see his friend off, returned
+by the road into the fields, and went wandering about for a while
+in Dillsborough Wood. "Bid him be a man!" Wasn't he a man? Was it
+disgraceful to him as a man to be broken-hearted, because a woman
+would not love him? If he were provoked he would fight,--perhaps
+better than ever, because he would be reckless. Would he not be
+ready to fight Reginald Morton with any weapon which could be
+thought of for the possession of Mary Masters? If she were in
+danger would he not go down into the deep, or through fire to save
+her? Were not his old instincts of honesty and truth as strong in
+him as ever? Did manliness require that his heart should be
+invulnerable? If so he doubted whether he could ever be a man.
+
+But what if she meant that manliness required him to hide the
+wound? Then there did come upon him a feeling of shame as he
+remembered how often he had spoken of his love to those who were
+little better than strangers to him, and thought that perhaps such
+loquacity was opposed to the manliness which she recommended. And
+his conscience smote him as it brought to his recollection the
+condition of his mind as he woke in Runciman's bed at the Bush on
+last Sunday morning. That at any rate had not been manly. How would
+it be with him if he made up his mind never to speak again to her,
+and certainly not to him, and to take care that that should be the
+only sign left of his suffering? He would hunt, and be keener than
+ever;--he would work upon the land with increased diligence; he
+would give himself not a moment to think of anything. She should
+see and hear what he could do;--but he would never speak to her
+again. The hounds would be at the old kennels to-morrow. He would
+be there. The place no doubt was Morton's property, but on hunting
+mornings all the lands of the county,--and of the next counties if
+they can be reached,--are the property of the hunt. Yes; he would
+be there; and she would see him in his scarlet coat, and smartest
+cravat, with his boots and breeches neat as those of Lord Rufford;
+and she should know that he was doing as she bade him. But he would
+never speak to her again!
+
+As he was returning round the wood, whom should he see skulking
+round the corner of it but Goarly?
+
+"What business have you in here?" he said, feeling half-inclined to
+take the man by the neck and drag him out of the copse.
+
+"I saw you, Mr. Twentyman, and I wanted just to have a word with
+you."
+
+"You are the biggest rascal in all Rufford," said Larry. "I wonder
+the lads have left you with a whole bone in your skin."
+
+"What have I done worse than any other poor man, Mr. Twentyman?
+When I took them herrings I didn't know there was p'ison; and if I
+hadn't took 'em, another would. I am going to cut it out of this,
+Mr. Twentyman."
+
+"May the -- go along with you!" said Larry, wishing his neighbour a
+very unpleasant companion.
+
+"And of course I must sell the place. Think what it would be to
+you! I shouldn't like it to go into his Lordship's hands. It's all
+through Bean I know, but his Lordship has had a down on me ever
+since he came to the property. It's as true as true about my old
+woman's geese. There's forty acres of it. What would you say to 40
+pounds an acre?"
+
+The idea of having the two extra fields made Larry's mouth water,
+in spite of all his misfortunes. The desire for land among such as
+Larry Twentyman is almost a disease in England. With these two
+fields he would be able to walk almost round Dillsborough Wood
+without quitting his own property. He had been talking of selling
+Chowton within the last week or two. He had been thinking of
+selling it at the moment when Mr. Masters rode up to him. And yet
+now he was almost tempted to a new purchase by this man. But the
+man was too utterly a blackguard,--was too odious to him.
+
+"If it comes into the market, I may bid for it as well as another,"
+he said, "but I wouldn't let myself down to have any dealings with
+you."
+
+"Then, Mr. Larry, you shall never have a sod of it," said Goarly,
+dropping himself over the fence on to his own field.
+
+A few minutes afterwards Larry met Bean, and told him that Goarly
+had been in the wood. "If I catch him, Mr. Twentyman, I'll give him
+sore bones," said Bean. "I wonder how he ever got back to his own
+place alive that day." Then Bean asked Larry whether he meant to be
+at the meet to-morrow, and Larry said that he thought he should.
+"Tony's almost afraid to bring them in even yet," said Bean; "but
+if there's a herring left in this wood, I'll eat it myself--
+strychnine and all."
+
+After that Larry went and looked at his horses, and absolutely gave
+his mare "Bicycle" a gallop round the big grass field himself. Then
+those who were about the place knew that something had happened,
+and that he was in a way to be cured. "You'll hunt to-morrow, won't
+you, Larry?" said his mother affectionately.
+
+"Who told you?"
+
+"Nobody told me;--but you will, Larry; won't you?"
+
+"May be I will." Then, as he was leaving the room, when he was in
+the door-way, so that she should not see his face, he told her the
+news. "She's going to marry the squire, yonder."
+
+"Mary Masters!"
+
+"I always hated him from the first moment I saw him. What do you
+expect from a fellow who never gets a-top of a horse?" Then he
+turned away, and was not seen again till long after teatime.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+"Is it tanti?"
+
+
+Reginald Morton entertained serious thoughts of cleansing himself
+from the reproach which Larry cast upon him when describing his
+character to his mother. "I think I shall take to hunting," he said
+to Mary.
+
+"But you'll tumble off, dear."
+
+"No doubt I shall, and I must try to begin in soft places. I don't
+see why I shouldn't do it gradually in a small way. I shouldn't
+ever become a Nimrod, like Lord Rufford or your particular friend
+Mr. Twentyman."
+
+"He is my particular friend."
+
+"So I perceive. I couldn't shine as he shines, but I might
+gradually learn to ride after him at a respectful distance. A man
+at Rome ought to do as the Romans do."
+
+"Why wasn't Hoppet Hall Rome as much as Bragton?"
+
+"Well;--it wasn't. While fortune enabled me to be happy at Hoppet
+Hall--"
+
+"That is unkind, Reg."
+
+"While fortune oppressed me with celibate misery at Hoppet Hall,
+nobody hated me for not hunting;--and as I could not very well
+afford it, I was not considered to be entering a protest against
+the amusement. As it is now I find that unless I consent to risk my
+neck at any rate five or six times every winter, I shall be
+regarded in that light"
+
+"I wouldn't be frightened into doing anything I didn't like," said
+Mary.
+
+"How do you know that I shan't like it? The truth is I have had a
+letter this morning from a benevolent philosopher which has almost
+settled the question for me. He wants me to join a society for the
+suppression of British sports as being barbarous and antipathetic
+to the intellectual pursuits of an educated man. I would
+immediately shoot, fish, hunt and go out ratting, if I could hope
+for the least success. I know I should never shoot anything but the
+dog and the gamekeepers, and that I should catch every weed in the
+river; but I think that in the process of seasons I might jump over
+a hedge."
+
+"Kate will show you the way to do that"
+
+"With Kate and Mr. Twentyman to help me, and a judicious system of
+liberal tips to Tony Tuppett, I could make my way about on a quiet
+old nag, and live respected by my neighbours. The fact is I hate
+with my whole heart the trash of the philanimalist."
+
+"What is a-a--I didn't quite catch the thing you hate?"
+
+"The thing is a small knot of self-anxious people who think that
+they possess among them all the bowels of the world."
+
+"Possess all the what, Reginald?"
+
+"I said bowels,--using an ordinary but very ill-expressed metaphor.
+The ladies and gentlemen to whom I allude, not looking very clearly
+into the systems of pains and pleasures in accordance with which we
+have to live, put their splay feet down now upon this ordinary
+operation and now upon that, and call upon the world to curse the
+cruelty of those who will not agree with them. A lady whose tippet
+is made from the skins of twenty animals who have been wired in the
+snow and then left to die of starvation--"
+
+"Oh, Reginald!"
+
+"That is the way of it. I am not now saying whether it is right or
+wrong. The lady with the tippet will justify the wires and the
+starvation because, as she will say, she uses the fur. An honest
+blanket would keep her just as warm. But the fox who suffers
+perhaps ten minutes of agony should he not succeed as he usually
+does in getting away,--is hunted only for amusement! It is true
+that the one fox gives amusement for hours to perhaps some hundred;
+but it is only for amusement. What riles me most is that these
+would-be philosophers do not or will not see that recreation is as
+necessary to the world as clothes or food, and the providing of the
+one is as legitimate a business as the purveying of the other."
+
+"People must eat and wear clothes."
+
+"And practically they must be amused. They ignore the great
+doctrine of 'tanti.'"
+
+"I never heard of it"
+
+"You shall, dear, some day. It is the doctrine by which you should
+regulate everything you do and every word you utter. Now do you and
+Kate put on your hats and we'll walk to the bridge."
+
+This preaching of a sermon took place after breakfast at Bragton on
+the morning of Saturday, and the last order had reference to a
+scheme they had on foot to see the meet at the old kennels. On the
+previous afternoon Reginald Morton had come into Dillsborough and
+had very quietly settled everything with the attorney. Having made
+up his mind to do the thing he was very quick in the doing of it.
+He hated the idea of secrecy in such an affair, and when Mrs.
+Masters asked him whether he had any objection to have the marriage
+talked about, expressed his willingness that she should employ the
+town crier to make it public if she thought it expedient. "Oh, Mr.
+Morton, how very funny you are," said the lady. "Quite in earnest,
+Mrs. Masters," he replied. Then he kissed the two girls who were to
+be his sisters, and finished the visit by carrying off the younger
+to spend a day or two with her sister at Bragton. "I know," he
+said, whispering to Mary as he left the front door, "that I ought
+not to go out hunting so soon after my poor cousin's death; but as
+he was a cousin once removed, I believe I may walk as far as the
+bridge without giving offence."
+
+When they were there they saw all the arrivals just as they were
+seen on the same spot a few months earlier by a very different
+party. Mary and Kate stood on the bridge together, while he
+remained a little behind leaning on the style. She, poor girl, had
+felt some shame in showing herself, knowing that some who were
+present would have heard of her engagement, and that others would
+be told of it as soon as she was seen. "Are you ashamed of what you
+are going to do?" he asked.
+
+"Ashamed! I don't suppose that there is a girl in England so proud
+as I am at this minute."
+
+"I don't know that there is anything to be proud of, but if you are
+not ashamed, why shouldn't you show yourself? Marriage is an
+honourable state!" She could only pinch his arm, and do as he bade
+her.
+
+Glomax in his tandem, and Lord Rufford in his drag, were rather
+late. First there came one or two hunting men out of the town,
+Runciman, Dr. Nupper, and the hunting saddler. Then there arrived
+Henry Stubbings with a string of horses, mounted by little boys,
+ready for his customers, and full of wailing to his friend
+Runciman. Here was nearly the end of March and the money he had
+seen since Christmas was little more, as he declared, than what he
+could put into his eye and see none the worse. "Charge 'em ten per
+cent interest," said Runciman. "Then they thinks they can carry on
+for another year," said Stubbings despondingly. While this was
+going on, Larry walked his favourite mare "Bicycle" on to the
+ground, dressed with the utmost care, but looking very moody,
+almost fierce, as though he did not wish anybody to speak to him.
+Tony Tuppett, who had known him since a boy, nodded at him
+affectionately, and said how glad he was to see him;--but even this
+was displeasing to Larry. He did not see the girls on the bridge,
+but took up his place near them. He was thinking so much of his own
+unhappiness and of what he believed others would say of him, that
+he saw almost nothing. There he sat on his mare, carrying out the
+purpose to which he had been led by Mary's message, but wishing
+with all his heart that he was back again, hidden within his own
+house at the other side of the wood.
+
+Mary, as soon as she saw him, blushed up to her eyes, then turning
+round looked with wistful eyes into the face of the man she was
+engaged to marry, and with rapid step walked across the bridge up
+to the side of Larry's horse, and spoke to him with her sweet low
+voice. "Larry," she said. He turned round to her very quickly,
+showing how much he was startled. Then she put up her hand to him,
+and of course he took it. "Larry, I am so glad to see you. Did papa
+give you a message?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Masters. He told me, I know it all."
+
+"Say a kind word to me, Larry."
+
+"I--I--I--You know very well what's in my mind. Though it were to
+kill me, I should wish you well"
+
+"I hope you'll have a good hunt, Larry." Then she retired back to
+the bridge and again looked to her lover to know whether he would
+approve. There were so few there, and Larry had been so far apart
+from the others, that she was sure no one had heard the few words
+which had passed between them; nor could anyone have observed what
+she had done, unless it were old Nupper, or Mr. Runciman, or Tony
+Tuppett. But yet she thought that it perhaps was bold, and that he
+would be angry. But he came up to her, and placing himself between
+her and Kate, whispered into her ear, "Bravely done, my girl. After
+a little I will try to be as brave, but I could never do it as
+well." Larry in the meantime had moved his mare away, and before
+the Master had arrived, was walking slowly up his own road to
+Chowton Farm.
+
+The Captain was soon there, and Lord Rufford with his friends, and
+Harry Stubbings' string, and Tony were set in motion. But before
+they stirred there was a consultation, to which Bean the gamekeeper
+was called,--as to the safety of Dillsborough Wood. Dillsborough
+Wood had not been drawn yet since Scrobby's poison had taken effect
+on the old fox, and there were some few who affected to think that
+there still might be danger. Among these was the Master himself,
+who asked Fred Botsey with a sneer whether he thought that such
+hounds as those were to be picked up at every corner. But Bean
+again offered to eat any herring that might be there, poison
+included, and Lord Rufford laughed at the danger. "It's no use my
+having foxes, Glomax, if you won't draw the cover." This the Lord
+said with a touch of anger, and the Lord's anger, if really roused,
+might be injurious. It was therefore decided that the hounds should
+again be put through the Bragton shrubberies,--just for compliment
+to the new squire; and that then they should go off to Dillsborough
+Wood as rapidly as might be.
+
+Larry walked his beast all the way up home very slowly, and getting
+off her, put her into the stable and went into the house.
+
+"Is anything wrong?" asked the mother.
+
+"Everything is wrong." Then he stood with his back to the kitchen
+fire for nearly half an hour without speaking a word. He was trying
+to force himself to follow out her idea of manliness, and telling
+himself that it was impossible. The first tone of her voice, the
+first glance at her face, had driven him home. Why had she called
+him Larry again and again, so tenderly, in that short moment, and
+looked at him with those loving eyes? Then he declared to himself,
+without uttering a word, that she did not understand anything about
+it; she did not comprehend the fashion of his love when she
+thought, as she did think, that a soft word would be compensation.
+He looked round to see if his mother or the servant were there, and
+when he found that the coast was clear, he dashed his hands to his
+eyes and knocked away the tears. He threw up both his arms and
+groaned, and then he remembered her message, "Bid him be a man."
+
+At that moment he heard the sound of horses, and going near the
+window, so as to be hidden from curious eyes as they passed, he saw
+the first whip trot on, with the hounds after him, and Tony Tuppett
+among them. Then there was a long string of horsemen, all moving up
+to the wood, and a carriage or two, and after them the stragglers
+of the field. He let them all go by, and then he repeated the words
+again, "Bid him be a man."
+
+He took up his hat, jammed it on his head, and went out into the
+yard. As he crossed to the stables Runciman came up alone. "Why,
+Larry, you'll be late," he said.
+
+"Go on, Mr. Runciman, I'll follow."
+
+"I'll wait till you are mounted. You'll be better for somebody with
+you. You've got the mare, have you? You'll show some of them your
+heels if they get away from here. Is she as fast as she was last
+year, do you think?"
+
+"Upon my word I don't know," said Larry, as he dragged himself into
+the saddle.
+
+"Shake yourself, old fellow, and don't carry on like that. What is
+she after all but a girl?" The poor fellow looked at his intending
+comforter, but couldn't speak a word. "A man shouldn't let himself
+be put upon by circumstances so as to be only half himself. Hang
+it, man, cheer up, and don't let 'em see you going about like that.
+It ain't what a fellow of your kidney ought to be. If they haven't
+found I'm a nigger,--and by the holy he's away. Come along Larry
+and forget the petticoats for half an hour." So saying, Runciman
+broke into a gallop, and Larry's mare doing the same, he soon
+passed the innkeeper and was up at the covert side just as Tony
+Tuppett with half a score of hounds round him, was forcing his way
+through the bushes, out of the coverts into the open field. "There
+ain't no poison this time, Mr. Twentyman," said the huntsman, as,
+setting his eye on a gap in the further fence, he made his way
+across the field.
+
+The fox headed away for a couple of miles towards Impington, as was
+the custom with the Dillsborough foxes, and then turning to the
+left was soon over the country borders into Ufford. The pace from
+the first starting was very good. Larry, under such provocation as
+that of course would ride, and he did ride. Up as far as the
+country brook, many were well up. The land was no longer deep; and
+as the field had not been scattered at the starting, all the men
+who usually rode were fairly well placed as they came to the brook;
+but it was acknowledged afterwards that Larry was over it the
+first. Glomax got into it,--as he always does into brooks, and
+young Runce hurt his horse's shoulder at the opposite bank. Lord
+Rufford's horse balked it, to the Lord's disgust; but took it
+afterwards, not losing very much ground. Tony went in and out, the
+crafty old dog knowing the one bit of hard ground. Then they
+crossed Purbeck field, as it is still called--which twenty years
+since was a wide waste of land, but is now divided by new fences,
+very grievous to half-blown horses. Sir John Purefoy got a nasty
+fall over some stiff timber, and here many a half-hearted rider
+turned to the right into the lane. Hampton and his Lordship, and
+Battersby, with Fred Botsey and Larry, took it all as it came, but
+through it all not one of them could give Larry a lead. Then there
+was manoeuvring into a wood and out of it again, and that saddest
+of all sights to the riding man, a cloud of horsemen on the road as
+well placed as though they had ridden the line throughout. In
+getting out of the road Hampton's horse slipped up with him, and,
+though he saw it all, he was never able again to compete for a
+place. The fox went through the Hampton Wick coverts without
+hanging a moment, just throwing the hounds for two minutes off
+their scent at the gravel pits. The check was very useful to Tony,
+who had got his second horse and came up sputtering, begging the
+field for G--'s sake to be,--in short to be anywhere but where they
+were. Then they were off again down the hill to the left, through
+Mappy springs and along the top of Ilveston copse, every yard of
+which is grass, till the number began to be select. At last in a
+turnip field, three yards from the fence, they turned him over, and
+Tony, as he jumped off his horse among the hounds, acknowledged to
+himself that Larry might have had his hand first upon the animal
+had he cared to do so.
+
+"Twentyman, I'll give you two hundred for your mare," said Lord
+Rufford.
+
+"Ah, my Lord, there are two things that would about kill me."
+
+"What are they, Larry?" asked Harry Stubbings.
+
+"To offend his Lordship, or to part with the mare."
+
+"You shall do neither," said Lord Rufford; "but upon my word I
+think she's the fastest thing in this county." All of which did not
+cure poor Larry, but it helped to enable him to be a man.
+
+The fox had been killed close to Norrington, and the run was
+remembered with intense gratification for many a long day after.
+"It's that kind of thing that makes hunting beat everything else,"
+said Lord Rufford, as he went home. That day's sport certainly had
+been "tanti," and Glomax and the two counties boasted of it for the
+next three years.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+Benedict
+
+
+Lady Penwether declared to her husband that she had never seen her
+brother so much cowed as he had been by Miss Trefoil's visit to
+Rufford. It was not only that he was unable to assert his usual
+powers immediately after the attack made upon him, but that on the
+following day, at Scrobby's trial, on the Saturday when he started
+to the meet, and on the Sunday following when he allowed himself to
+be easily persuaded to go to church, he was silent, sheepish, and
+evidently afraid of himself. "It is a great pity that we shouldn't
+take the ball at the hop," she said to Sir George.
+
+"What ball;--and what hop?"
+
+"Get him to settle himself. There ought to be an end to this kind
+of thing now. He has got out of this mess, but every time it
+becomes worse and worse, and he'll be taken in horribly by some
+harpy if we don't get him to marry decently. I fancy he was very
+nearly going in this last affair." Sir George, in this matter, did
+not quite agree with his wife. It was in his opinion right to avoid
+Miss Trefoil, but he did not see why his brother-in-law should be
+precipitated into matrimony with Miss Penge. According to his ideas
+in such matters a man should be left alone. Therefore, as was
+customary with him when he opposed his wife, he held his tongue.
+"You have been called in three or four times when he has been just
+on the edge of the cliff."
+
+"I don't know that that is any reason why he should be pushed
+over."
+
+"There is not a word to be said against Caroline. She has a fine
+fortune of her own, and some of the best blood in the kingdom."
+
+"But if your brother does not care for her,--"
+
+"That's nonsense, George. As for liking, it's all the same to him.
+Rufford is good-natured, and easily pleased, and can like any
+woman. Caroline is very good-looking,--a great deal handsomer than
+that horrid creature ever was,--and with manners fit for any
+position. I've no reason to wish to force a wife on him; but of
+course he'll marry, and unless he's guided, he'll certainly marry
+badly."
+
+"Is Miss Penge in love with him?" asked Sir George in a tone of voice
+that was intended to be provoking. His wife looked at him, asking him
+plainly by her countenance whether he was such a fool as that? Was it
+likely that any untitled young lady of eight-and-twenty should be
+wanting in the capacity of being in love with a young lord, handsome
+and possessed of forty thousand a year without encumbrances? Sir
+George, though he did not approve, was not eager enough in his
+disapproval to lay any serious embargo on his wife's proceedings.
+
+The first steps taken were in the direction of the hero's personal
+comfort. He was flattered and petted, as his sister knew how to
+flatter and pet him; and Miss Penge in a quiet way assisted Lady
+Penwether in the operation. For a day or two he had not much to say
+for himself; but every word he did say was an oracle. His horses
+were spoken of as demigods, and his projected fishing operations
+for June and July became matters of most intense interest. Evil
+things were said of Arabella Trefoil, but in all the evil things
+said no hint was given that Lord Rufford had behaved badly or had
+been in danger. Lady Penwether, not quite knowing the state of his
+mind, thought that there might still be some lurking affection for
+the young lady. "Did you ever see anybody look so vulgar and
+hideous as she did when she marched across the park?" asked Lady
+Penwether.
+
+"Thank goodness I did not see her," said Miss Penge.
+
+"I never saw her look so handsome as when she came up to me," said
+Lord Rufford.
+
+"But such a thing to do!"
+
+"Awful!" said Miss Penge.
+
+"She is the pluckiest girl I ever came across in my life," said
+Lord Rufford. He knew very well what they were at, and was already
+almost inclined to think that they might as well be allowed to have
+their way. Miss Penge was ladylike, quiet, and good, and was like a
+cool salad in a man's mouth after spiced meat. And the money would
+enable him to buy the Purefoy property which would probably be soon
+in the market. But he felt that he might as well give them a little
+trouble before he allowed himself to be hooked. It certainly was
+not by any arrangement of his own that he found himself walking
+alone with Miss Penge that Sunday afternoon in the park; nor did it
+seem to be by hers. He thought of that other Sunday at Mistletoe,
+when he had been compelled to wander with Arabella, when he met the
+Duchess, and when, as he often told himself, a little more
+good-nature or a little more courage on her grace's part would have
+completed the work entirely. Certainly had the Duke come to him
+that night, after the journey from Stamford, he would have
+capitulated. As he walked along and allowed himself to be talked to
+by Miss Penge, he did tell himself that she would be the better
+angel of the two. She could not hunt with him, as Arabella would
+have done; but then a man does not want his wife to gallop across
+the country after him. She might perhaps object to cigars and soda
+water after eleven o'clock, but then what assurance had he that
+Arabella would not have objected still more loudly. She had sworn
+that she would never be opposed to his little pleasures; but he
+knew what such oaths were worth. Marriage altogether was a bore;
+but having a name and a large fortune, it was incumbent on him to
+transmit them to an immediate descendant. And perhaps it was a
+worse bore to grow old without having specially bound any other
+human being to his interests. "How well I recollect that spot,"
+said Miss Penge. "It was there that Major Caneback took the fence."
+
+"That was not where he fell"
+
+"Oh no;--I did not see that. It would have haunted me for ever had
+I done so.--But it was there that I thought he must kill himself.
+That was a terrible time, Lord Rufford."
+
+"Terrible to poor Caneback certainly."
+
+"Yes, and to all of us. Do you remember that fearful ball? We were
+all so unhappy,--because you suffered so much."
+
+"It was bad."
+
+"And that woman who persecuted you! We all knew that you felt it"
+
+"I felt that poor man's death."
+
+"Yes;--and you felt the other nuisance too."
+
+"I remember that you told me that you would cling on to my legs."
+
+"Eleanor said so;--and when it was explained to me, what clinging
+on to your legs meant, I remember saying that I wished to be
+understood as being one to help. I love your sister so well that
+anything which would break her heart would make me unhappy."
+
+"You did not care for my own welfare in the matter?"
+
+"What ought I say, Lord Rufford, in answer to that? Of course I did
+care. But I knew that it was impossible that you should really set
+your affections on such a person as Miss Trefoil. I told Eleanor
+that it would come to nothing. I was sure of it."
+
+"Why should it have to come to nothing,--as you call it?"
+
+"Because you are a gentleman and because she--is not a lady. I
+don't know that we women can quite understand how it is that you
+men amuse yourselves with such persons."
+
+"I didn't amuse myself."
+
+"I never thought you did very much. There was something I suppose
+in her riding, something in her audacity, something perhaps in her
+vivacity;--but through it all I did not think that you were
+enjoying yourself. You may be sure of this, Lord Rufford, that when
+a woman is not specially liked by any other woman, she ought not to
+be specially liked by any man. I have never heard that Miss Trefoil
+had a female friend."
+
+From day to day there were little meetings and conversations of
+this kind till Lord Rufford found himself accustomed to Miss
+Penge's solicitude for his welfare. In all that passed between them
+the lady affected a status that was altogether removed from that of
+making or receiving love. There had come to be a peculiar
+friendship,--because of Eleanor. A week of this kind of thing had
+not gone by before Miss Penge found herself able to talk of and
+absolutely to describe this peculiar feeling, and could almost say
+how pleasant was such friendship, divested of the burden of all
+amatory possibilities. But through it all Lord Rufford knew that he
+would have to marry Miss Penge.
+
+It was not long before he yielded in pure weariness. Who has not
+felt, as he stood by a stream into which he knew that it was his
+fate to plunge, the folly of delaying the shock? In his present
+condition he had no ease. His sister threatened him with a return
+of Arabella. Miss Penge required from him sensational conversation.
+His brother-in-law was laughing at him in his sleeve. His very
+hunting friends treated him as though the time were come. In all
+that he did the young lady took an interest which bored him
+excessively,--to put an end to which he only saw one certain way.
+He therefore asked her to be Lady Rufford before he got on his drag
+to go out hunting on the last Saturday in March. "Rufford," she
+said, looking up into his face with her lustrous eyes, and speaking
+with a sweet, low, silvery voice,--"are you sure of your self?"
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"Quite sure of yourself?"
+
+"Never so sure in my life."
+
+"Then dearest, dearest Rufford, I will not scruple to say that I
+also am sure." And so the thing was settled very much to his
+comfort. He could hardly have done better had he sought through all
+England for a bride. She will be true to him, and never give him
+cause for a moment's jealousy. She will like his title, his house,
+and his property. She will never spend a shilling more than she
+ought to do. She will look very sharply after him, but will not
+altogether debar him from his accustomed pleasures. She will grace
+his table, nurse his children, and never for a moment give him
+cause to be ashamed of her. He will think that he loves her, and
+after a lapse of ten or fifteen years will probably really be fond
+of her. From the moment that she is Lady Rufford, she will love
+him,--as she loves everything that is her own.
+
+In spite of all his antecedents no one doubted his faith in this
+engagement;--no one wished to hurry him very much. When the
+proposition had been made and accepted, and when the hero of it had
+gone off on his drag, Miss Penge communicated the tidings to her
+friend. "I think he has behaved very wisely," said Lady Penwether.
+
+"Well;--feeling as I do of course I think he has. I hope he thinks
+the same of me. I had many doubts about it, but I do believe that I
+can make him a good wife." Lady Penwether thought that her friend
+was hardly sufficiently thankful, and strove to tell her so in her
+own gentle, friendly way. But Miss Penge held her head up and was
+very stout, and would not acknowledge any cause for gratitude. Lady
+Penwether, when she saw how it was to be gave way a little. Close
+friendship with her future sister-in-law would be very necessary to
+her comfort, and Miss Penge, since the law-suit was settled, had
+never been given to yielding.
+
+"My dear Rufford," said the sister affectionately, "I congratulate
+you with all my heart; I do indeed. I am quite sure that you could
+not have done better."
+
+"I don't know that I could."
+
+"She is a gem of inestimable price, and most warmly attached to
+you. And if this property is to be bought, of course the money will
+be a great thing."
+
+"Money is always comfortable."
+
+"Of course it is, and then there is nothing to be desired. If I had
+named the girl that I would have wished you to love, it would been
+Caroline Penge." She need hardly have said this as she had in fact
+been naming the girl for the last three or four months. The news
+was soon spread about the country and the fashionable world; and
+everybody was pleased,--except the Trefoil family.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+Arabella's Success
+
+
+When Arabella Trefoil got back to Portugal Street after her visit
+to Rufford, she was ill. The effort she had made, the unaccustomed
+labour, and the necessity of holding herself aloft before the man
+who had rejected her, were together more than her strength could
+bear, and she was taken up to bed in a fainting condition. It was
+not till the next morning that she was able even to open the letter
+which contained the news of John Morton's legacy. When she had read
+the letter and realized the contents, she took to weeping in a
+fashion very unlike her usual habits. She was still in bed, and
+there she remained for two or three days, during which she had time
+to think of her past life,--and to think also a little of the
+future. Old Mrs. Green came to her once or twice a day, but she was
+necessarily left to the nursing of her own maid. Every evening
+Mounser Green called and sent up tender enquiries; but in all this
+there was very little to comfort her. There she lay with the letter
+in her hand, thinking that the only man who had endeavoured to be
+of service to her was he whom she had treated with unexampled
+perfidy. Other men had petted her, had amused themselves with her,
+and then thrown her over, had lied to her and laughed at her, till
+she had been taught to think that a man was a heartless, cruel,
+slippery animal, made indeed to be caught occasionally, but in the
+catching of which infinite skill was wanted, and in which infinite
+skill might be thrown away. But this man had been true to her to
+the last in spite of her treachery!
+
+She knew that she was heartless herself, and that she belonged to a
+heartless world;--but she knew also that there was a world of women
+who were not heartless. Such women had looked down upon her as from
+a great height, but she in return had been able to ridicule them.
+They had chosen their part, and she had chosen hers,--and had
+thought that she might climb to the glory of wealth and rank, while
+they would have to marry hard-working clergymen and briefless
+barristers. She had often been called upon to vindicate to herself
+the part she had chosen, and had always done so by magnifying in
+her own mind the sin of the men with whom she had to deal. At this
+moment she thought that Lord Rufford had treated her villainously,
+whereas her conduct to him had been only that which the necessity
+of the case required. To Lord Rufford she had simply behaved after
+the manner of her class, heartless of course, but only in the way
+which the "custom of the trade" justified. Each had tried to
+circumvent the other, and she as the weaker had gone to the wall.
+But John Morton had believed in her and loved her. Oh, how she
+wished that she had deserted her class, and clung to him,--even
+though she should now have been his widow. The legacy was a burden
+to her. Even she had conscience enough to be sorry for a day or two
+that he had named her in his will.
+
+And what would she do with herself for the future? Her quarrel with
+her mother had been very serious, each swearing that under no
+circumstances would she again consent to live with the other. The
+daughter of course knew that the mother would receive her again
+should she ask to be received. But in such case she must go back
+with shortened pinions and blunted beak. Her sojourn with Mrs.
+Green was to last for one month, and at the end of that time she
+must seek for a home. If she put John Morton's legacy out to
+interest, she would now be mistress of a small income;--but she
+understood money well enough to know to what obduracy of poverty
+she would thus be subjected. As she looked the matter closer in the
+face the horrors became more startling and more manifest. Who would
+have her in their houses? Where should she find society,--where the
+possibility of lovers? What would be her life, and what her
+prospects? Must she give up for ever the game for which she had
+lived, and own that she had been conquered in the fight and beaten
+even to death? Then she thought over the long list of her past
+lovers, trying to see whether there might be one of the least
+desirable at whom she might again cast her javelins. But there was
+not one.
+
+The tender messages from Mounser Green came to her day by day. Mounser
+Green, as the nephew of her hostess, had been very kind to her; but
+hitherto he had never appeared to her in the light of a possible lover.
+He was a clerk in the Foreign Office, waiting for his aunt's money;--a
+man whom she had met in society and whom she knew to be well thought of
+by those above him in wealth and rank; but she had never regarded him
+as prey,--or as a man whom any girl would want to marry. He was one of
+those of the other sex who would most probably look out for prey, who,
+if he married at all, would marry an heiress. She, in her time, had
+been on good terms with many such a one,--had counted them among her
+intimate friends, had made use of them and been useful to them,--but
+she had never dreamed of marrying any one of them. They were there in
+society for altogether a different purpose. She had not hesitated to
+talk to Mounser Green about Lord Rufford,--and though she had pretended
+to make a secret of the place to which she was going when he had taken
+her to the railway, she had not at all objected to his understanding
+her purpose. Up to that moment there had certainly been no thought on
+her part of transferring what she was wont to call her affections to
+Mounser Green as a suitor.
+
+But as she lay in bed, thinking of her future life, tidings were
+brought to her by Mrs. Green that Mounser had accepted the mission
+to Patagonia. Could it be that her destiny intended her to go out
+to Patagonia as the wife, if not of one minister, then of another?
+There would be a career,--a way of living, if not exactly that
+which she would have chosen. Of Patagonia, as a place of residence,
+she had already formed ideas. In some of those moments in which she
+had foreseen that Lord Rufford would be lost to her, she had told
+herself that it would be better to reign in Hell than serve in
+Heaven. Among Patagonian women she would probably be the first.
+Among English ladies it did not seem that at present she had
+prospect of a high place. It would be long before Lord Rufford
+would be for= gotten,--and she had not space enough before her for
+forgettings which would require time for their accomplishment.
+Mounser Green had declared with energy that Lord Rufford had
+behaved very badly. There are men who feel it to be their mission
+to come in for the relief of ladies who have been badly treated. If
+Mounser Green wished to be one of them on her behalf, and to take
+her out with him to his very far-away employment, might not this be
+the best possible solution of her present difficulties?
+
+On the evening of the third day after her return she was able to
+come down-stairs and the line of thought which has been suggested
+for her induced her to undertake some trouble with the white and
+pink robe, or dressing-gown in which she had appeared. "Well, my
+dear, you are smart," the old lady said.
+
+   "'Odious in woollen;--'twould a saint provoke,
+     Were the last words which poor Narcissa spoke.'"
+
+said Arabella, who had long since provided herself with this
+quotation for such occasions. "I hope I am not exactly dying, Mrs.
+Green; but I don't see why I should not object to be 'frightful,'--
+as well as the young lady who was."
+
+"I suppose it's all done for Mounser's benefit?"
+
+"Partly for you, partly for Mounser, and a good deal for myself.
+What a very odd name. Why did they call him Mounser? I used to
+think it was because he was in the Foreign Office,--a kind of
+chaff, as being half a Frenchman."
+
+"My mother's maiden name was Mounser, and it isn't French at all. I
+don't see why it should not be as good a Christian name as
+Willoughby or Howard."
+
+"Quite as good, and much more distinctive. There can't be another
+Mounser Green in the world."
+
+"And very few other young men like him. At my time of life I find
+it very hard his going away. And what will he do in such a place as
+that,--all alone and without a wife?"
+
+"Why don't you make him take a wife?"
+
+"There isn't time now. He'll have to start in May."
+
+"Plenty of time. Trousseaus are now got up by steam, and girls are
+kept ready to marry at the shortest notice. If I were you I should
+certainly advise him to take out some healthy young woman, capable
+of bearing the inclemencies of the Patagonian climate."
+
+"As for that the climate is delicious," said Mrs. Green, who
+certainly was not led by her guest's manner to suspect the nature
+of her guest's more recent intentions.
+
+Mounser Green on this afternoon came to Portugal Street before he
+himself went out to dinner, choosing the hour at which his aunt was
+wont to adorn herself. "And so you are to be the hero of
+Patagonia?" said Arabella as she put out her hand to congratulate
+him on his appointment.
+
+"I don't know about heroism, but it seems that I am to go there,"
+said Mounser with much melancholy in his voice.
+
+"I should have thought you were the last man to leave London
+willingly."
+
+"Well, yes; I should have said so myself. And I do flatter myself I
+shall be missed. But what had I before me here? This may lead to
+something."
+
+"Indeed you will be missed, Mr. Green."
+
+"It's very kind of you to say so."
+
+"Patagonia! It is such a long way off!" Then she began to consider
+whether he had ever heard of her engagement with the last
+Minister-elect to that country. That he should know all about Lord
+Rufford was a matter of course; but what chance could there be for
+her if he also knew that other affair?
+
+"We were intimately acquainted with Mr. Morton in Washington and
+were surprised that he should have accepted it. Poor Morton. He was
+a friend of mine. We used to call him the Paragon because he never
+made mistakes. I had heard that you and Lady Augusta were a good
+deal with him in Washington."
+
+"We were, indeed. You do not know my good news as yet, I suppose.
+Your Paragon, as you call him, has left me five thousand pounds."
+Of course it would be necessary that he should know it some day if
+this new plan of hers were to be carried out;--and if the plan
+should fail, his knowing it could do no harm.
+
+"How very nice for you. Poor Morton!"
+
+"It is well that somebody should behave well, when others treat one
+so badly, Mr. Green. Yes; he has left me five thousand pounds" Then
+she showed him the lawyer's letter. "Perhaps as I am so separated
+at present from all my own people by this affair with Lord Rufford,
+you would not mind seeing the man for me." Of course he promised to
+see the lawyer and to do everything that was necessary. "The truth
+is, Mr. Green, Mr. Morton was very warmly attached to me. I was a
+foolish girl, and could not return it. I thought of it long and was
+then obliged to tell him that I could not entertain just that sort
+of feeling for him. You cannot think now how bitter is my regret;--
+that I should have allowed myself to trust a man so false and
+treacherous as Lord Rufford, and that I should have perhaps added a
+pang to the deathbed of one so good as Mr. Morton." And so she told
+her little story;--not caring very much whether it were believed or
+not, but finding it to be absolutely essential that some story
+should be told.
+
+During the next day or two Mounser Green thought a great deal about
+it. That the story was not exactly true, he knew very well. But it
+is not to be expected that a girl before her marriage should be
+exactly true about her old loves. That she had been engaged to Lord
+Rufford and had been cruelly jilted by him he did believe. That she
+had at one time been engaged to the Paragon he was almost sure. The
+fact that the Paragon had left her money was a strong argument that
+she had not behaved badly to him. But there was much that was quite
+certain. The five thousand pounds were quite certain; and the
+money, though it could not be called a large fortune for a young
+lady, would pay his debts and send him out a free man to Patagonia.
+And the family honours were certainly true. She was the undoubted
+niece of the Duke of Mayfair, and such a connection might in his
+career be of service to him. Lord Mistletoe was a prig, but would
+probably be a member of the Government. Mounser Green liked Dukes,
+and loved a Duchess in his heart of hearts. If he could only be
+assured that this niece would not be repudiated he thought that the
+speculation might answer in spite of any ambiguity in the lady's
+antecedents.
+
+"Have you heard about Arabella's good fortune?" young Glossop asked
+the next morning at the office.
+
+"You forget, my boy," said Mounser Green, "that the young lady of
+whom you speak is a friend of mine:'
+
+"Oh lord! So I did. I beg your pardon, old fellow." There was no
+one else in the room at the moment, and Glossop in asking the
+question had in truth forgotten what he had heard of this new
+intimacy.
+
+"Don't you learn to be ill-natured, Glossop. And remember that
+there is no form so bad as that of calling young ladies by their
+Christian names. I do know that poor Morton has left Miss Trefoil a
+sum of money which is at any rate evidence that he thought well of
+her to the last."
+
+"Of course it is. I didn't mean to offend you. I wouldn't do it for
+worlds,--as you are going away." That afternoon, when Green's back
+was turned, Glossop gave it as his opinion that something
+particular would turn up between Mounser and Miss Trefoil, an
+opinion which brought down much ridicule upon him from both
+Hoffmann and Archibald Currie. But before that week was over,--in
+the early days of April,--they were forced to retract their opinion
+and to do honour to young Glossop's sagacity. Mounser Green was
+engaged to Miss Trefoil, and for a day or two the Foreign Office
+could talk of nothing else.
+
+"A very handsome girl," said Lord Drummond to one of his
+subordinates. "I met her at Mistletoe. As to that affair with Lord
+Rufford, he treated her abominably." And when Mounser showed
+himself at the office, which he did boldly, immediately after the
+engagement was made known, they all received him with open arms and
+congratulated him sincerely on his happy fortune. He himself was
+quite contented with what he had done and thought that he was
+taking out for himself the very wife for Patagonia.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+The Wedding
+
+
+No sooner did the new two lovers, Mounser Green and Arabella
+Trefoil, understand each other, than they set their wits to work to
+make the best of their natural advantages. The latter communicated
+the fact in a very dry manner to her father and mother. Nothing was
+to be got from them, and it was only just necessary that they
+should know what she intended to do with herself. "My dear mamma. I
+am to be married some time early in May to Mr. Mounser Green of the
+Foreign Office. I don't think you know him, but I daresay you have
+heard of him. He goes to Patagonia immediately after the wedding,
+and I shall go with him. Your affectionate daughter, Arabella
+Trefoil." That was all she said, and the letter to her father was
+word for word the same. But how to make use of those friends who
+were more happily circumstanced was matter for frequent counsel
+between her and Mr. Green. In these days I do not think that she
+concealed very much from him. To tell him all the little details of
+her adventures with Lord Rufford would have been neither useful nor
+pleasant; but, as to the chief facts, reticence would have been
+foolish. To the statement that Lord Rufford had absolutely proposed
+to her she clung fast, and really did believe it herself. That she
+had been engaged to John Morton she did not deny; but she threw the
+blame of that matter on her mother, and explained to him that she
+had broken off the engagement down at Bragton, because she could
+not bring herself to regard the man with sufficient personal
+favour. Mounser was satisfied, but was very strong in urging her to
+seek, yet once again, the favour of her magnificent uncle and her
+magnificent aunt.
+
+"What good can they do us?" said Arabella, who was almost afraid to
+make the appeal.
+
+"It would be everything for you to be married from Mistletoe," he
+said. "People would know then that you were not blamed about Lord
+Rufford. And it might serve me very much in my profession. These
+things do help very much. It would cost us nothing, and the proper
+kind of notice would then get into the newspapers. If you will
+write direct to the Duchess I will get at the Duke through Lord
+Drummond. They know where we are going, and that we are not likely
+to want anything else for a long time."
+
+"I don't think the Duchess would have mamma if it were ever so."
+
+"Then we must drop your mother for the time;--that's all. When my
+aunt hears that you are to be married from the Duke's, she will be
+quite willing that you should remain with her till you go down to
+Mistletoe."
+
+Arabella, who perhaps knew a little more than her lover, could not
+bring herself to believe that the appeal would be successful, but
+she made it. It was a very difficult letter to write, as she could
+not but allude to the rapid transference of her affections. "I will
+not conceal from you," she said, "that I have suffered very much
+from Lord Rufford's heartless conduct. My misery has been
+aggravated by the feeling that you and my uncle will hardly believe
+him to be so false, and will attribute part of the blame to me. I
+had to undergo an agonizing revulsion of feeling, during which Mr.
+Green's behaviour to me was at first so considerate and then so
+kind that it has gone far to cure the wound from which I have been
+suffering. He is so well known in reference to foreign affairs,
+that I think my uncle cannot but have heard of him; my cousin
+Mistletoe is certainly acquainted with him; and I think that you
+cannot but approve of the match. You know what is the position of
+my father and my mother, and how little able they are to give us
+any assistance. If you would be kind enough to let us be married
+from Mistletoe, you will confer on both of us a very, very great
+favour." There was more of it, but that was the first of the
+prayer, and most of the words given above came from the dictation
+of Mounser himself. She had pleaded against making the direct
+request, but he had assured her that in the world, as at present
+arranged, the best way to get a thing is to ask for it. "You make
+yourself at any rate understood," he said, "and you may be sure
+that people who receive petitions do not feel the hardihood of them
+so much as they who make them." Arabella, comforting herself by
+declaring that the Duchess at any rate could not eat her, wrote the
+letter and sent it.
+
+The Duchess at first was most serious in her intention to refuse.
+She was indeed made very angry by the request. Though it had been
+agreed at Mistletoe that Lord Rufford had behaved badly, the
+Duchess was thoroughly well aware that Arabella's conduct had been
+abominable. Lord Rufford probably had made an offer, but it had
+been extracted from him by the vilest of manoeuvres. The girl had
+been personally insolent to herself. And this rapid change, this
+third engagement within a few weeks, was disgusting to her as a
+woman. But, unluckily for herself, she would not answer the letter
+till she had consulted her husband. As it happened the Duke was in
+town, and while he was there Lord Drummond got hold of him. Lord
+Drummond had spoken very highly of Mounser Green, and the Duke, who
+was never dead to the feeling that as the head of the family he
+should always do what he could for the junior branches, had almost
+made a promise. "I never take such things upon myself," he said,
+"but if the Duchess has no objection, we will have them down to
+Mistletoe."
+
+"Of course if you wish it," said the Duchess,--with more acerbity
+in her tone than the Duke had often heard there.
+
+"Wish it? What do you mean by wishing it? It will be a great bore."
+
+"Terrible!"
+
+"But she is the only one there is and then we shall have done with
+it."
+
+"Done with it! They will be back from Patagonia before you can turn
+yourself, and then of course we must have them here."
+
+"Drummond tells me that Mr. Green is one of the most useful men
+they have at the Foreign Office;--just the man that one ought to
+give a lift to." Of course the Duke had his way. The Duchess could
+not bring herself to write the letter, but the Duke wrote to his
+dear niece saying that "they" would be very glad to see her, and
+that if she would name the day proposed for the wedding, one should
+be fixed for her visit to Mistletoe.
+
+"You had better tell your mother and your father," Mounser said to
+her.
+
+"What's the use? The Duchess hates my mother, and my father never
+goes near the place."
+
+"Nevertheless tell them. People care a great deal for appearances."
+She did as she was bid, and the result was that Lord Augustus and
+his wife, on the occasion of their daughter's marriage, met each
+other at Mistletoe,--for the first time for the last dozen years.
+
+Before the day came round Arabella was quite astonished to find how
+popular and fashionable her wedding was likely to be, and how the
+world at large approved of what she was doing. The newspapers had
+paragraphs about alliances and noble families, and all the
+relatives sent tribute. There was a gold candlestick from the Duke,
+a gilt dish from the Duchess,--which came however without a word of
+personal congratulation,--and a gorgeous set of scent-bottles from
+cousin Mistletoe. The Connop Greens were lavish with sapphires, the
+De Brownes with pearls, and the Smijths with opal. Mrs. Gore sent a
+huge carbuncle which Arabella strongly suspected to be glass. From
+her paternal parent there came a pair of silver nut-crackers, and
+from the maternal a second-hand dressing-case newly done up. Old
+Mrs. Green gave her a couple of ornamental butter-boats, and
+salt-cellars innumerable came from distant Greens. But there was a
+diamond ring--with a single stone,--from a friend, without a name,
+which she believed to be worth all the rest in money value. Should
+she send it back to Lord Rufford, or make a gulp and swallow it?
+How invincible must be the good-nature of the man when he could
+send her such a present after such a rating as she had given him in
+the park at Rufford! "Do as you like," Mounser Green said when she
+consulted him.
+
+She very much wished to keep it. "But what am I to say, and to
+whom?"
+
+"Write a note to the jewellers saying that you have got it." She
+did write to the jeweller saying that she had got the ring,--"from
+a friend;" and the ring with the other tribute went to Patagonia.
+He had certainly behaved very badly to her, but she was quite sure
+that he would never tell the story of the ring to any one. Perhaps
+she thought that as she had spared him in the great matter of eight
+thousand pounds, she was entitled to take this smaller contribution.
+
+It was late in April when she went down to Mistletoe, the marriage
+having been fixed for the 3rd of May. After that they were to spend
+a fortnight in Paris, and leave England for Patagonia at the end of
+the month. The only thing which Arabella dreaded was the meeting
+with the Duchess. When that was once over she thought that she
+could bear with equanimity all that could come after. The week
+before her marriage could not be a pleasant week, but then she had
+been accustomed to endure evil hours. Her uncle would be blandly
+good-natured. Mistletoe, should he be there, would make civil
+speeches to compensate for his indifference when called upon to
+attack Lord Rufford. Other guests would tender to her the caressing
+observance always shown to a bride. But as she got out of the ducal
+carriage at the front door, her heart was uneasy at the coming
+meeting.
+
+The Duchess herself almost went to bed when the time came, so much
+did she dread the same thing. She was quite alone, having felt that
+she could not bring herself to give the affectionate embrace which
+the presence of others would require. She stood in the middle of
+the room and then came forward three steps to meet the bride.
+"Arabella," she said, "I am very glad that everything has been
+settled so comfortably for you."
+
+"That is so kind of you, aunt," said Arabella, who was watching the
+Duchess closely,--ready to jump into her aunt's arms if required to
+do so, or to stand quite aloof.
+
+Then the Duchess signified her pleasure that her cheek should be
+touched,--and it was touched. "Mrs. Pepper will show you your room.
+It is the same you had when you were here before. Perhaps you know
+that Mr. Green comes down to Stamford on the first, and that he
+will dine here on that day and on Sunday."
+
+"That will be very nice. He had told me how it was arranged."
+
+"It seems that he knows one of the clergymen in Stamford, and will
+stay at his house. Perhaps you will like to go upstairs now."
+
+That was all there was, and that had not been very bad. During the
+entire week the Duchess hardly spoke to her another word, and
+certainly did not speak to her a word in private. Arabella now
+could go where she pleased without any danger of meeting her aunt
+on her walks. When Sunday came nobody asked her to go to church.
+She did go twice, Mounser Green accompanying her to the morning
+service;--but there was no restraint. The Duchess only thought of
+her as a disagreeable ill-conducted incubus, who luckily was about
+to be taken away to Patagonia.
+
+It had been settled on all sides that the marriage was to be very
+quiet. The bride was of course consulted about her bridesmaids, as
+to whom there was a little difficulty. But a distant Trefoil was
+found willing to act, in payment for the unaccustomed invitation to
+Mistletoe, and one Connop Green young lady, with one De Browne
+young lady, and one Smijth young lady came on the same terms.
+Arabella herself was surprised at the ease with which it was all
+done. On the Saturday Lady Augustus came, and on the Sunday Lord
+Augustus. The parents of course kissed their child, but there was
+very little said in the way either of congratulation or farewell.
+Lord Augustus did have some conversation with Mounser Green, but it
+all turned on the probability of there being whist in Patagonia. On
+the Monday morning they were married, and then Arabella was taken
+off by the happy bridegroom.
+
+When the ceremony was over it was expected that Lady Augustus
+should take herself away as quickly as possible, not perhaps on
+that very afternoon, but at any rate, on the next morning. As soon
+as the carriage was gone, she went to her own room and wept
+bitterly. It was all done now. Everything was over. Though she had
+quarrelled daily with her daughter for the last twelve years,--to
+such an extent lately that no decently civil word ever passed
+between them,--still there had been something to interest her.
+There had been something to fear and something to hope. The girl
+had always had some prospect before her, more or less brilliant.
+Her life had had its occupation, and future triumph was possible.
+Now it was all over. The link by which she had been bound to the
+world was broken. The Connop Greens and the Smijths would no longer
+have her, unless it might be on short and special occasions, as a
+great favour. She knew that she was an old woman, without money,
+without blood, and without attraction, whom nobody would ever again
+desire to see. She had her things packed up, and herself taken off
+to London, almost without a word of farewell to the Duchess,
+telling herself as she went that the world had produced no other
+people so heartless as the family of the Trefoils.
+
+"I wonder what you will think of Patagonia," said Mounser Green as
+he took his bride away.
+
+"I don't suppose I shall think much. As far as I can see one place
+is always like another."
+
+"But then you will have duties."
+
+"Not very heavy I hope."
+
+Then he preached her a sermon, expressing a hope as he went on,
+that as she was leaving the pleasures of life behind her, she would
+learn to like the work of life. "I have found the pleasures very
+hard," she said. He spoke to her of the companion he hoped to find,
+of the possible children who might be dependent on their mother, of
+the position which she would hold, and of the manner in which she
+should fill it. She, as she listened to him, was almost stunned by
+the change in the world around her. She need never again seem to be
+gay in order that men might be attracted. She made her promises and
+made them with an intention of keeping them; but it may, we fear,
+be doubted whether he was justified in expecting that he could get
+a wife fit for his purpose out of the school in which Arabella
+Trefoil had been educated. The two, however, will pass out of our
+sight, and we can only hope that he may not be disappointed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+The Senator's Lecture.--No. I
+
+
+Wednesday, April 14th, was the day at last fixed for the Senator's
+lecture. His little proposal to set England right on all those
+matters in which she had hitherto gone astray had created a
+considerable amount of attention. The Goarly affair with the
+subsequent trial of Scrobby had been much talked about, and the
+Senator's doings in reference to it had been made matter of comment
+in the newspapers. Some had praised him for courage, benevolence,
+and a steadfast purpose. Others had ridiculed his inability to
+understand manners different from those of his own country. He had
+seen a good deal of society both in London and in the country, and
+had never hesitated to express his opinions with an audacity which
+some had called insolence. When he had trodden with his whole
+weight hard down on individual corns, of course he had given
+offence,--as on the memorable occasion of the dinner at the
+parson's house in Dillsborough. But, on the whole, he had produced
+for himself a general respect among educated men which was not
+diminished by the fact that he seemed to count quite as little on
+that as on the ill-will and abuse of others. For some days previous
+to the delivery of the lecture the hoardings in London were crowded
+with sesquipedalian notices of the entertainment, so that Senator
+Gotobed's great oration on "The irrationality of Englishmen" was
+looked to with considerable interest.
+
+When an intelligent Japanese travels in Great Britain or an
+intelligent Briton in Japan, he is struck with no wonder at
+national differences. He is on the other hand rather startled to
+find how like his strange brother is to him in many things. Crime
+is persecuted, wickedness is condoned, and goodness treated with
+indifference in both countries. Men care more for what they eat
+than anything else, and combine a closely defined idea of meum with
+a lax perception as to tuum. Barring a little difference of
+complexion and feature the Englishman would make a good Japanese,
+or the Japanese a first-class Englishman. But when an American
+comes to us or a Briton goes to the States, each speaking the same
+language, using the same cookery, governed by the same laws, and
+wearing the same costume, the differences which present themselves
+are so striking that neither can live six months in the country of
+the other without a holding up of the hands and a torrent of
+exclamations. And in nineteen cases out of twenty the surprise and
+the ejaculations take the place of censure. The intelligence of the
+American, displayed through the nose, worries the Englishman. The
+unconscious self-assurance of the Englishman, not always
+unaccompanied by a sneer, irritates the American. They meet as
+might a lad from Harrow and another from Mr. Brumby's successful
+mechanical cramming establishment. The Harrow boy cannot answer a
+question, but is sure that he is the proper thing, and is ready to
+face the world on that assurance. Mr. Brumby's paragon is shocked
+at the other's inaptitude for examination, but is at the same time
+tortured by envy of he knows not what. In this spirit we Americans
+and Englishmen go on writing books about each other, sometimes with
+bitterness enough, but generally with good final results. But in
+the meantime there has sprung up a jealousy which makes each
+inclined to hate the other at first sight. Hate is difficult and
+expensive, and between individuals soon gives place to love. "I
+cannot bear Americans as a rule, though I have been very lucky
+myself with a few friends." Who in England has not heard that form
+of speech, over and over again? And what Englishman has travelled
+in the States without hearing abuse of all English institutions
+uttered amidst the pauses of a free-handed hospitality which has
+left him nothing to desire?
+
+Mr. Senator Gotobed had expressed his mind openly wheresoever he
+went, but, being a man of immense energy, was not content with such
+private utterances. He could not liberate his soul without doing
+something in public to convince his cousins that in their general
+practices of life they were not guided by reason. He had no object
+of making money. To give him his due we must own that he had no
+object of making fame. He was impelled by that intense desire to
+express himself which often amounts to passion with us, and
+sometimes to fury with Americans, and he hardly considered much
+what reception his words might receive. It was only when he was
+told by others that his lecture might give offence which possibly
+would turn to violence, that he made inquiry as to the attendance
+of the police. But though they should tear him to pieces he would
+say what he had to say. It should not be his fault if the
+absurdities of a people whom he really loved were not exposed to
+light, so that they might be acknowledged and abandoned.
+
+He had found time to travel to Birmingham, to Manchester, to
+Liverpool, to Glasgow, and to other places, and really thought that
+he had mastered his great subject. He had worked very hard, but was
+probably premature in thinking that he knew England thoroughly. He
+had, however, undoubtedly dipped into a great many matters, and
+could probably have told many Englishmen much that they didn't know
+about their own affairs. He had poked his nose everywhere, and had
+scrupled to ask no question. He had seen the miseries of a casual
+ward, the despair of an expiring strike, the amenities of a city
+slum, and the stolid apathy of a rural labourer's home. He had
+measured the animal food consumed by the working classes, and knew
+the exact amount of alcohol swallowed by the average Briton. He had
+seen also the luxury of baronial halls, the pearl-drinking
+extravagances of commercial palaces, the unending labours of our
+pleasure-seekers--as with Lord Rufford, and the dullness of
+ordinary country life--as experienced by himself at Bragton. And
+now he was going to tell the English people at large what he
+thought about it all.
+
+The great room at St. James's Hall had been secured for the
+occasion, and Lord Drummond, the Minister of State in foreign
+affairs, had been induced to take the chair. In these days our
+governments are very anxious to be civil to foreigners, and there
+is nothing that a robust Secretary of State will not do for them.
+On the platform there were many members of both Houses of
+Parliament, and almost everybody connected with the Foreign Office.
+Every ticket had been taken for weeks since. The front benches were
+filled with the wives and daughters of those on the platform, and
+back behind, into the distant spaces in which seeing was difficult
+and hearing impossible, the crowd was gathered at 2s. 6d. a head,
+all of which was going to some great British charity. From
+half-past seven to eight Piccadilly and Regent Street were crammed,
+and when the Senator came himself with his chairman he could hardly
+make his way in at the doors. A great treat was expected, but there
+was among the officers of police some who thought that a portion of
+the audience would not bear quietly the hard things that would be
+said, and that there was an uncanny gathering of roughs about the
+street, who were not prepared to be on their best behaviour when
+they should be told that old England was being abused.
+
+Lord Drummond opened the proceedings by telling the audience, in a
+voice clearly audible to the reporters and the first half-dozen
+benches, that they had come there to hear what a well-informed and
+distinguished foreigner thought of their country. They would not,
+he was sure, expect to be flattered. Than flattery nothing was more
+useless or ignoble. This gentleman, coming from a new country, in
+which tradition was of no avail, and on which the customs of former
+centuries had had no opportunities to engraft themselves, had seen
+many things here which, in his eyes, could not justify themselves
+by reason. Lord Drummond was a little too prolix for a chairman,
+and at last concluded by expressing "his conviction that his
+countrymen would listen to the distinguished Senator with that
+courtesy which was due to a foreigner and due also to the great and
+brotherly nation from which he had come."
+
+Then the Senator rose, and the clapping of hands and kicking of
+heels was most satisfactory. There was at any rate no prejudice at
+the onset. "English Ladies and Gentlemen," he said, "I am in the
+unenviable position of having to say hard things to you for about
+an hour and a half together, if I do not drive you from your seats
+before my lecture is done. And this is the more the pity because I
+could talk to you for three hours about your country and not say an
+unpleasant word. His Lordship has told you that flattery is not my
+purpose. Neither is praise, which would not be flattery. Why should
+I collect three or four thousand people here to tell them of
+virtues the consciousness of which is the inheritance of each of
+them? You are brave and generous,--and you are lovely to look at,
+with sweetly polished manners; but you know all that quite well
+enough without my telling you. But it strikes me that you do not
+know how little prone you are to admit the light of reason into
+either your public or private life, and how generally you allow
+yourselves to be guided by traditions, prejudices, and customs
+which should be obsolete. If you will consent to listen to what one
+foreigner thinks,--though he himself be a man of no account,--you
+may perchance gather from his words something of the opinion of
+bystanders in general, and so be able, perhaps a little, to rectify
+your gait and your costume and the tones of your voice, as we are
+all apt to do when we come from our private homes, out among the
+eyes of the public."
+
+This was received very well. The Senator spoke with a clear,
+sonorous voice, no doubt with a twang, but so audibly as to satisfy
+the room in general. "I shall not," he said, "dwell much on your
+form of government. Were I to praise a republic I might seem to
+belittle your throne and the lady who sits on it,--an offence which
+would not be endured for a moment by English ears. I will take the
+monarchy as it is, simply remarking that its recondite forms are
+very hard to be understood by foreigners, and that they seem to me
+to be for the most part equally dark to natives. I have hardly as
+yet met two Englishmen who were agreed as to the political power of
+the sovereign; and most of those of whom I have enquired have
+assured me that the matter is one as to which they have not found
+it worth their while to make inquiry." Here a voice from the end of
+the hall made some protestation, but the nature of the protest did
+not reach the platform.
+
+"But," continued the Senator, now rising into energy, "tho' I will
+not meddle with your form of government, I may, I hope, be allowed
+to allude to the political agents by which it is conducted. You are
+proud of your Parliament."
+
+"We are," said a voice.
+
+"I wonder of which house. I do not ask the question that it may be
+answered, because it is advisable at the present moment that there
+should be only one speaker. That labour is, unfortunately for me,
+at present in my hands, and I am sure you will agree with me that
+it should not be divided. You mean probably that you are proud of
+your House of Commons,--and that you are so because it speaks with
+the voice of the people. The voice of the people, in order that it
+may be heard without unjust preponderance on this side or on that,
+requires much manipulation. That manipulation has in latter years
+been effected by your Reform bills of which during the last half
+century there have in fact been four or five,--the latter in favour
+of the ballot having been perhaps the greatest. There have been
+bills for purity of elections, very necessary; bills for creating
+constituencies, bills for abolishing them, bills for dividing them,
+bills for extending the suffrage, and bills, if I am not mistaken,
+for curtailing it. And what has been the result? How many men are
+there in this room who know the respective nature of their votes?
+And is there a single woman who knows the political worth of her
+husband's vote? Passing the other day from the Bank of this great
+metropolis to its suburb called Brentford, journeying as I did the
+whole way through continuous rows of houses, I found myself at
+first in a very ancient borough returning four members,--double the
+usual number,--not because of its population but because it has
+always been so. Here I was informed that the residents had little
+or nothing to do with it. I was told, though I did not quite
+believe what I heard, that there were no residents. The voters
+however, at any rate the influential voters, never pass a night
+there, and combine their city franchise with franchises elsewhere.
+I then went through two enormous boroughs, one so old as to have a
+great political history of its own, and the other so new as to have
+none. It did strike me as odd that there should be a new borough,
+with new voters, and new franchises, not yet ten years old, in the
+midst of this city of London. But when I came to Brentford,
+everything was changed. I was not in a town at all though I was
+surrounded on all sides by houses. Everything around me was grim
+and dirty enough, but I am supposed to have reached, politically,
+the rustic beauties of the country. Those around me, who had votes,
+voted for the County of Middlesex. On the other side of the
+invisible border I had just past the poor wretch with 3s. a day who
+lived in a grimy lodging or a half-built hut, but who at any rate
+possessed the political privilege. Now I had suddenly emerged among
+the aristocrats, and quite another state of things prevailed. Is
+that a reasonable manipulation of the votes of the people? Does
+that arrangement give to any man an equal share in his country? And
+yet I fancy that the thing is so little thought of that few among
+you are aware that in this way the largest class of British labour
+is excluded from the franchise in a country which boasts of equal
+representation."
+
+"The chief object of your first Reform Bill was that of realising
+the very fact of representation. Up to that time your members of
+the House of Commons were in truth deputies of the Lords or of
+other rich men. Lord A, or Mr. B, or perhaps Lady C, sent whom she
+pleased to Parliament to represent this or that town, or
+occasionally this or that county. That absurdity is supposed to be
+past, and on evils that have been cured no one should dwell. But
+how is it now? I have a list, in my memory, for I would not care to
+make out so black a catalogue in legible letters,--of forty members
+who have been returned to the present House of Commons by the
+single voices of influential persons. What will not forty voices do
+even in your Parliament? And if I can count forty, how many more
+must there be of which I have not heard?" Then there was a voice
+calling upon the Senator to name those men, and other voices
+denying the fact. "I will name no one," said the Senator. "How
+could I tell what noble friend I might put on a stool of repentance
+by doing so." And he looked round on the gentlemen on the platform
+behind him. "But I defy any member of Parliament here present to
+get up and say that it is not so." Then he paused a moment. "And if
+it be so, is that rational? Is that in accordance with the theory
+of representation as to which you have all been so ardent, and
+which you profess to be so dear to you? Is the country not
+over-ridden by the aristocracy when Lord Lambswool not only
+possesses his own hereditary seat in the House of Lords, but also
+has a seat for his eldest son in the House of Commons?"
+
+Then a voice from the back called out, "What the deuce is all that
+to you?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+The Senator's Lecture.--No. II
+
+
+"If I see a man hungry in the street," said the Senator, instigated
+by the question asked him at the end of the last chapter, "and give
+him a bit of bread, I don't do it for my own sake but for his." Up
+to this time the Britishers around him on the platform and those in
+the benches near to him, had received what he said with a good
+grace. The allusion to Lord Lambswool had not been pleasant to
+them, but it had not been worse than they had expected. But now
+they were displeased. They did not like being told that they were
+taking a bit of bread from him in their own political destitution.
+They did not like that he, an individual, should presume that he
+had prayer to offer to them as a nation. And yet, had they argued
+it out in their own minds, they would have seen that the Senator's
+metaphor was appropriate. His purpose in being there was to give
+advice, and theirs in coming to listen to it. But it was
+unfortunate. "When I ventured to come before you here, I made all
+this my business," continued the Senator. Then he paused and
+glanced round the hall with a defiant look. "And now about your
+House of Lords," he went on. "I have not much to say about the
+House of Lords, because if I understand rightly the feeling of this
+country it is already condemned." "No such thing." "Who told you
+that?" "You know nothing about it" These and other words of curt
+denial came from the distant corners, and a slight murmur of
+disapprobation was heard even from the seats on the platform. Then
+Lord Drummond got up and begged that there might be silence. Mr.
+Gotobed had come there to tell them his views,--and as they had
+come there expressly to listen to him, they could not without
+impropriety interrupt him. "That such will be the feeling of the
+country before long," continued the Senator, "I think no one can
+doubt who has learned how to look to the signs of the times in such
+matters. Is it possible that the theory of an hereditary
+legislature can be defended with reason? For a legislature you want
+the best and wisest of your people." "You don't get them in
+America," said a voice which was beginning to be recognised. "We
+try at any rate," said the Senator. "Now is it possible that an
+accident of birth should give you excellence and wisdom? What is
+the result? Not a tenth of your hereditary legislators assemble in
+the beautiful hall that you have built for them. And of that tenth
+the greater half consists of counsellors of state who have been
+placed there in order that the business of the country may not be
+brought to a standstill. Your hereditary chamber is a fiction
+supplemented by the element of election, the election resting
+generally in the very bosom of the House of Commons." On this
+subject, although he had promised to be short, he said much more,
+which was received for the most part in silence. But when he ended
+by telling them that they could have no right to call themselves a
+free people till every legislator in the country was elected by the
+votes of the people, another murmur was heard through the hall.
+
+"I told you," said he waxing more and more energetic, as he felt
+the opposition which he was bound to overcome, "that what I had to
+say to you would not be pleasant. If you cannot endure to hear me,
+let us break up and go away. In that case I must tell my friends at
+home that the tender ears of a British audience cannot bear rough
+words from American lips. And yet if you think of it we have borne
+rough words from you and have borne them with good-humour." Again
+he paused, but as none rose from their seats he went on,
+"Proceeding from hereditary legislature I come to hereditary
+property. It is natural that a man should wish to give to his
+children after his death the property which he has enjoyed during
+their life. But let me ask any man here who has not been born an
+eldest son himself, whether it is natural that he should wish to
+give it all to one son. Would any man think of doing so, by the
+light of his own reason,--out of his own head as we say? Would any
+man be so unjust to those who are equal in his love, where he not
+constrained by law, and by custom more iron-handed even than the
+law?" The Senator had here made a mistake very common with
+Americans, and a great many voices were on him at once. "What law?"
+"There is no law." "You know nothing about it" "Go back and learn."
+
+"What!" cried the Senator coming forward to the extreme verge of
+the platform and putting down his foot as though there were
+strength enough in his leg to crush them all; "Will any one have
+the hardihood to tell me that property in this country is not
+affected by primogeniture?" "Go back and learn the law." "I know
+the law perhaps better than most of you. Do you mean to assert that
+my Lord Lambswool can leave his land to whom he pleases? I tell you
+that he has no more than a life-interest in it, and that his son
+will only have the same." Then an eager Briton on the platform got
+up and whispered to the Senator for a few minutes, during which the
+murmuring was continued. "My friend reminds me," said the Senator,
+"that the matter is one of custom rather than law; and I am obliged
+to him. But the custom which is damnable and cruel, is backed by
+law which is equally so. If I have land I can not only give it all
+to my eldest son, but I can assure the right of primogeniture to
+his son, though he be not yet born. No one I think will deny that
+there must be a special law to enable me to commit an injustice so
+unnatural as that."
+
+"Hence it comes that you still suffer under an aristocracy almost
+as dominant, and in its essence as irrational, as that which
+created feudalism." The gentlemen collected on the platform looked
+at each other and smiled, perhaps failing to catch the exact
+meaning of the Senator's words. "A lord here has a power, as a
+lord, which he cannot himself fathom and of which he daily makes an
+unconscious but most deleterious use. He is brought up to think it
+natural that he should be a tyrant. The proclivities of his order
+are generous, and as a rule he gives more than he takes. But he is
+as injurious in the one process as in the other. Your ordinary
+Briton in his dealing with a lord expects payment in some shape for
+every repetition of the absurd title;--and payment is made. The
+titled aristocrat pays dearer for his horse, dearer for his coat,
+dearer for his servant than other people. But in return he exacts
+much which no other person can get. Knowing his own magnanimity he
+expects that his word shall not be questioned. If I may be allowed
+I will tell a little story as to one of the most generous men I
+have had the happiness of meeting in this country, which will
+explain my meaning."
+
+Then, without mentioning names he told the story of Lord Rufford,
+Goarly, and Scrobby, in such a way as partly to redeem himself with
+his audience. He acknowledged how absolutely he had been himself
+befooled, and how he had been done out of his money by misplaced
+sympathy. He made Mrs. Goarly's goose immortal, and in imitating
+the indignation of Runce the farmer and Bean the gamekeeper showed
+that he was master of considerable humour. But he brought it all
+round at last to his own purpose, and ended this episode of his
+lecture by his view of the absurdity and illegality of British
+hunting. "I can talk about it to you," he said, "and you will know
+whether I am speaking the truth. But when I get home among my own
+people, and repeat my lecture there, as I shall do,--with some
+little additions as to the good things I have found here from which
+your ears may be spared,--I shall omit this story as I know it will
+be impossible to make my countrymen believe that a hundred
+harum-scarum tomboys may ride at their pleasure over every man's
+land, destroying crops and trampling down fences, going, if their
+vermin leads them there, with reckless violence into the sweet
+domestic garden of your country residences; and that no one can
+either stop them or punish them! An American will believe much about
+the wonderful ways of his British cousin, but no American will be
+got to believe that till he sees it."
+
+"I find," said he, "that this irrationality, as I have ventured to
+call it, runs through all your professions. We will take the Church
+as being the highest at any rate in its objects." Then he
+recapitulated all those arguments against our mode of dispensing
+church patronage with which the reader is already familiar if he
+has attended to the Senator's earlier words as given in this
+chronicle. "In other lines of business there is, even here in
+England, some attempt made to get the man best suited for the work
+he has to do. If any one wants a domestic servant he sets about the
+work of getting a proper person in a very determined manner indeed.
+But for the care,--or, as you call it, the cure,--of his soul, he
+has to put up with the man who has bought the right to minister to
+his wants; or with him whose father wants a means of living for his
+younger son,--the elder being destined to swallow all the family
+property; or with him who has become sick of drinking his wine in
+an Oxford college;--or with him, again, who has pleaded his cause
+successfully with a bishop's daughter." It is not often that the
+British public is angered by abuse of the Church, and this part of
+the lecture was allowed to pass without strong marks of
+disapprobation.
+
+"I have been at some trouble," he continued, "to learn the very
+complex rules by which your army is now regulated, and those by
+which it was regulated a very short time since. Unhappily for me I
+have found it in a state of transition, and nothing is so difficult
+to a stranger's comprehension as a transition state of affairs. But
+this I can see plainly; that every improvement which is made is
+received by those whom it most concerns with a horror which amounts
+almost to madness. So lovely to the ancient British, well-born,
+feudal instinct is a state of unreason, that the very absence of
+any principle endears to it institutions which no one can attempt
+to support by argument. Had such a thing not existed as the right
+to purchase military promotion, would any satirist have been
+listened to who had suggested it as a possible outcome of British
+irrationality? Think what it carries with it! The man who has
+proved himself fit to serve his country by serving it in twenty
+foreign fields, who has bled for his country and perhaps preserved
+his country, shall rot in obscurity because he has no money to buy
+promotion, whereas the young dandy who has done no more than
+glitter along the pavements with his sword and spurs shall have the
+command of men;--because he has so many thousand dollars in his
+pocket"
+
+"Buncombe," shouted the inimical voice.
+
+"But is it Buncombe?" asked the intrepid Senator. "Will any one who
+knows what he is talking about say that I am describing a state of
+things which did not exist yesterday? I will acknowledge that this
+has been rectified,--tho' I see symptoms of relapse. A fault that
+has been mended is a fault no longer. But what I speak of now is
+the disruption of all concord in your army caused by the reform
+which has forced itself upon you. All loyalty has gone; all that
+love of his profession which should be the breath of a soldier's
+nostrils. A fine body of fighting heroes is broken-hearted, not
+because injury has been done to them or to any of them, but because
+the system had become peculiarly British by reason of its special
+absurdity, and therefore peculiarly dear."
+
+"Buncombe," again said the voice, and the word was now repeated by
+a dozen voices.
+
+"Let any one show me that it is Buncombe. If I say what is untrue,
+do with me what you please. If I am ignorant, set me right and
+laugh at me. But if what I say is true, then your interruption is
+surely a sign of imbecility. I say that the change was forced upon
+you by the feeling of the people, but that its very expediency has
+demoralized the army, because the army was irrational. And how is
+it with the navy? What am I to believe when I hear so many
+conflicting statements among yourselves?" During this last appeal,
+however, the noise at the back of the hall had become so violent,
+that the Senator was hardly able to make his voice heard by those
+immediately around him. He himself did not quail for a moment,
+going on with his gestures, and setting down his foot as though he
+were still confident in his purpose of overcoming all opposition.
+He had not much above half done yet. There were the lawyers before
+him, and the Civil Service, and the railways, and the commerce of
+the country, and the labouring classes. But Lord Drummond and
+others near him were becoming terrified, thinking that something
+worse might occur unless an end was put to the proceedings. Then a
+superintendent of police came in and whispered to his Lordship. A
+crowd was collecting itself in Piccadilly and St. James Street, and
+perhaps the Senator had better be withdrawn. The officer did not
+think that he could safely answer for the consequences if this were
+carried on for a quarter of an hour longer. Then Lord Drummond
+having meditated for a moment, touched the Senator's arm and
+suggested a withdrawal into a side room for a minute. "Mr.
+Gotobed," he said, "a little feeling has been excited and we had
+better put an end to this for the present."
+
+"Put an end to it?"
+
+"I am afraid we must. The police are becoming alarmed."
+
+"Oh, of course; you know best. In our country a man is allowed to
+express himself unless he utters either blasphemy or calumny. But I
+am in your hands and of course you must do as you please." Then he
+sat down in a corner, and wiped his brows. Lord Drummond returned
+to the hall, and there endeavoured to explain that the lecture was
+over for that night. The row was so great that it did not matter
+much what he said, but the people soon understood that the American
+Senator was not to appear before them again.
+
+It was not much after nine o'clock when the Senator reached his
+hotel, Lord Drummond having accompanied him thither in a cab. "Good
+night, Mr. Gotobed," said his Lordship. "I cannot tell you how much
+I respect both your purpose and your courage;--but I don't know how
+far it is wise for a man to tell any other man, much less a nation,
+of all his faults."
+
+"You English tell us of ours pretty often," said the Senator.
+
+When he found himself alone he thought of it all, giving himself no
+special credit for what he had done, acknowledging to himself that
+he had often chosen his words badly and expressed himself
+imperfectly, but declaring to himself through it all that the want
+of reason among Britishers was so great, that no one ought to treat
+them as wholly responsible beings.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+The Last Days of Mary Masters
+
+
+The triumph of Mary Masters was something more than a nine days'
+wonder to the people of Dillsborough. They had all known Larry
+Twentyman's intentions and aspirations, and had generally condemned
+the young lady's obduracy, thinking, and not being slow to say,
+that she would live to repent her perversity. Runciman who had a
+thoroughly warm-hearted friendship for both the attorney and Larry
+had sometimes been very severe on Mary. "She wants a touch of
+hardship," he would say, "to bring her to. If Larry would just give
+her a cold shoulder for six months, she'd be ready to jump into his
+arms." And Dr. Nupper had been heard to remark that she might go
+farther and fare worse. "If it were my girl I'd let her know all
+about it," Ribbs the butcher had said in the bosom of his own
+family. When it was found that Mr. Surtees the curate was not to be
+the fortunate man, the matter was more inexplicable than ever. Had
+it then been declared that the owner of Hoppet Hall had proposed to
+her, all these tongues would have been silenced, and the refusal
+even of Larry Twentyman would have been justified. But what was to
+be said and what was to be thought when it was known that she was
+to be the mistress of Bragton? For a day or two the prosperity of
+the attorney was hardly to be endured by his neighbours. When it
+was first known that the stewardship of the property was to go back
+into his hands, his rise in the world was for a time slightly
+prejudicial to his popularity; but this greater stroke of luck,
+this latter promotion which would place him so much higher in
+Dillsborough than even his father or his grandfather had ever been,
+was a great trial of friendship.
+
+Mrs. Masters felt it all very keenly. All possibility for reproach
+against either her husband or her step-daughter was of course at an
+end. Even she did not pretend to say that Mary ought to refuse the
+squire. Nor, as far as Mary was concerned, could she have further
+recourse to the evils of Ushanting, and the peril of social
+intercourse with ladies and gentlemen. It was manifest that Mary
+was to be a lady with a big house, and many servants, and, no
+doubt, a carriage and horses. But still Mrs. Masters was not quite
+silenced. She had daughters of her own, and would solace herself by
+declaring to them, to her husband, and to her specially intimate
+friends, that of course they would see no more of Mary. It wasn't
+for them to expect to be asked to Bragton, and as for herself she
+would much rather not. She knew her own place and what she was born
+to, and wasn't going to let her own children spoil themselves and
+ruin their chances by dining at seven o'clock and being waited upon
+by servants at every turn. Thank God her girls could make their own
+beds, and she hoped they might continue to do so at any rate till
+they had houses of their own.
+
+And there seemed to Dillsborough to be some justification for all
+this in the fact that Mary was now living at Bragton, and that she
+did not apparently intend to return to her father's house. At this
+time Reginald Morton himself was still at Hoppet Hall, and had
+declared that he would remain there till after his marriage. Lady
+Ushant was living at the big house, which was henceforth to be her
+home. Mary was her visitor, and was to be married from Bragton as
+though Bragton were her residence rather than the squire's. The
+plan had originated with Reginald, and when it had been hinted to
+him that Mary would in this way seem to slight her father's home,
+he had proposed that all the Masters should come and stay at
+Bragton previous to the ceremony. Mrs. Masters yielded as to Mary's
+residence, saying with mock humility that of course she had no room
+fit to give a marriage feast to the Squire of Bragton; but she was
+steadfast in saying to her husband, who made the proposition to
+her, that she would stay at home. Of course she would be present at
+the wedding; but she would not trouble the like of Lady Ushant by
+any prolonged visiting.
+
+The wedding was to take place about the beginning of May, and all
+these things were being considered early in April. At this time one
+of the girls was always at Bragton, and Mary had done her best, but
+hitherto in vain, to induce her step-mother to come to her. When
+she heard that there was a doubt as to the accomplishment of the
+plan for the coming of the whole family, she drove herself into
+Dillsborough in the old phaeton and then pleaded her cause for
+herself. "Mamma," she said, "won't you come with the girls and papa
+on the 29th?"
+
+"I think not, my dear. The girls can go,--if they like it. But it
+will be more fitting for papa and me to come to the church on the
+morning."
+
+"Why more fitting, mamma?"
+
+"Well, my dear; it will."
+
+"Dear mamma;--why,--why?"
+
+"Of course, my dear, I am very glad that you are going to get such
+a lift."
+
+"My lift is marrying the man I love."
+
+"That of course is all right. I have nothing on earth to say
+against it. And I will say that through it all you have behaved as
+a young woman should. I don't think you meant to throw yourself at
+him."
+
+"Mamma!"
+
+"But as it has turned up, you have to go one way and me another."
+
+"No!"
+
+"But it must be so. The Squire of Bragton is the Squire, and his
+wife must act accordingly. Of course you'll be visiting at Rufford
+and Hampton Wick, and all the places. I know very well who I am,
+and what I came from. I'm not a bit ashamed of myself, but I'm not
+going to stick myself up with my betters."
+
+"Then mamma, I shall come and be married from here."
+
+"It's too late for that now, my dear."
+
+"No;--it is not" And then a couple of tears began to roll down from
+her eyes. "I won't be married without your coming in to see me the
+night before, and being with me in the morning when I dress.
+Haven't I been a good child to you, mamma?" Then the step-mother
+began to cry also. "Haven't I, mamma?"
+
+"Yes, my dear," whimpered the poor woman.
+
+"And won't you be my mamma to the last;--won't you?" And she threw
+her arms round her step-mother's neck and kissed her. "I won't go
+one way, and you another. He doesn't wish it. It is quite different
+from that. I don't care a straw for Hampton Wick and Rufford; but I
+will never be separated from you and the girls and papa. Say you
+will come, mamma. I will not let you go till you say you will
+come." Of course she had her own way, and Mrs. Masters had to feel
+with a sore heart that she also must go out Ushanting. She knew,
+that in spite of her domestic powers, she would be stricken dumb in
+the drawing-room at Bragton and was unhappy.
+
+Mary had another scheme in which she was less fortunate. She took
+it into her head that Larry Twentyman might possibly be induced to
+come to her wedding. She had heard how he had ridden and gained
+honour for himself on the day that the hounds killed their fox at
+Norrington, and thought that perhaps her own message to him had
+induced him so far to return to his old habits. And now she longed
+to ask him, for her sake, to be happy once again. If any girl ever
+loved the man she was going to marry with all her heart, this girl
+loved Reginald Morton. He had been to her, when her love was
+hopeless, so completely the master of her heart that she could not
+realise the possibility of affection for another. But yet she was
+pervaded by a tenderness of feeling in regard to Larry which was
+love also, though love altogether of another kind. She thought of
+him daily. His future well-being was one of the cares of her life.
+That her husband might be able to call him a friend was among her
+prayers. Had anybody spoken ill of him in her presence she would
+have resented it hotly. Had she been told that another girl had
+consented to be his wife, she would have thought that girl to be
+happy in her destiny. When she heard that he was leading a
+wretched, moping, aimless life for her sake, her heart was sad
+within her. It was necessary to the completion of her happiness
+that Larry should recover his tone of mind and be her friend.
+"Reg," she said, leaning on his arm out in the park, "I want you to
+do me a favour."
+
+"Watch and chain?"
+
+"Don't be an idiot. You know I've got a watch and chain."
+
+"Some girls like two. To have the wooden bridge pulled down and a
+stone one built."
+
+"If any one touched a morsel of that sacred timber he should be
+banished from Bragton for ever. I want you to ask Mr. Twentyman to
+come to our wedding."
+
+"Who's to do it? Who's to bell the cat?"
+
+"You."
+
+"I would sooner fight a Saracen, or ride such a horse as killed
+that poor major. Joking apart, I don't see how it is to be done.
+Why do you wish it?"
+
+"Because I am so fond of him."
+
+"Oh;--indeed!"
+
+"If you're a goose, I'll hit you. I am fond of him. Next to you and
+my own people, and Lady Ushant, I like him best in all the world."
+
+"What a pity you couldn't have put him up a little higher."
+
+"I used to think so too;--only I couldn't. If anybody loved you as
+he did me,--offered you everything he had in the world,--thought
+that you were the best in the world, would have given his life for
+you, would not you be grateful?"
+
+"I don't know that I need wish to ask such a person to my wedding."
+
+"Yes, you would, if in that way you could build a bridge to bring
+him back to happiness. And, Reg, though you used to despise him--"
+
+"I never despised him."
+
+"A little I think--before you knew him. But he is not despicable."
+
+"Not at all, my dear."
+
+"He is honest and good, and has a real heart of his own."
+
+"I am afraid he has parted with that"
+
+"You know what I mean, and if you won't be serious I shall think
+there is no seriousness in you. I want you to tell me how it can be
+done."
+
+Then he was serious, and tried to explain to her that he could not
+very well do what she wanted. "He is your friend you know rather
+than mine;--but if you like to write to him you can do so."
+
+This seemed to her to be very difficult, and, as she thought more
+of it, almost impossible. A written letter remains, and may be
+taken as evidence of so much more than it means. But a word
+sometimes may be spoken which, if it be well spoken,--if assurance
+of its truth be given by the tone and by the eye of the speaker,--
+shall do so much more than any letter, and shall yet only remain
+with the hearer as the remembrance of the scent of a flower
+remains! Nevertheless she did at last write the letter, and brought
+it to her husband. "Is it necessary that I should see it?" he
+asked.
+
+"Not absolutely necessary."
+
+"Then send it without"
+
+"But I should like you to see what I have said. You know about
+things, and if it is too much or too little, you can tell me." Then
+he read her letter, which ran as follows:
+
+Dear Mr. Twentyman,
+
+Perhaps you have heard that we are to be married on Thursday, May
+6th. I do so wish that you would come. It would make me so much
+happier on that day. We shall be very quiet; and if you would come
+to the house at eleven you could go across the park with them all
+to the church. I am to be taken in a carriage because of my finery.
+Then there will be a little breakfast. Papa and mamma and Dolly and
+Kate would be so glad;--and so would Mr. Morton. But none of them
+will be half so glad as your old, old, affectionate friend
+                         Mary Masters.
+
+"If that don't fetch him," said Reginald, "he is a poorer creature
+than I take him to be."
+
+"But I may send it?"
+
+"Certainly you may send it" And so the letter was sent across to
+Chowton Farm.
+
+But the letter did not "fetch" him; nor am I prepared to agree with
+Mr. Morton that he was a poor creature for not being "fetched."
+There are things which the heart of a man should bear without
+whimpering, but which it cannot bear in public with that appearance
+of stoical indifference which the manliness of a man is supposed to
+require. Were he to go, should he be jovial before the wedding
+party or should he be sober and saturnine? Should he appear to have
+forgotten his love, or should he go about lovelorn among the
+wedding guests? It was impossible,--at any rate impossible as
+yet,--that he should fall into that state of almost brotherly regard
+which it was so natural that she should desire. But as he had
+determined to forgive her, he went across that afternoon to the
+house and was the bearer of his own answer. He asked Mrs. Hopkins
+who came to the door whether she were alone, and was then shown
+into an empty room where he waited for her. She came to him as
+quickly as she could, leaving Lady Ushant in the middle of the page
+she was reading, and feeling as she tripped downstairs that the
+colour was rushing to her face. "You will come, Larry," she said.
+
+"No, Miss Masters."
+
+"Let me be Mary till I am Mrs. Morton," she said, trying to smile.
+"I was always Mary." And then she burst into tears. "Why,--why
+won't you come?"
+
+"I should only stalk about like a ghost. I couldn't be merry as a
+man should be at a wedding. I don't see how a man is to do such a
+thing." She looked up into his face imploring him,--not to come,
+for that she felt now to be impossible, but imploring him to
+express in some way forgiveness of the sin she had committed
+against him. "But I shall think of you and shall wish you well."
+
+"And after that we shall be friends?"
+
+"By and bye,--if he pleases."
+
+"He will please;--he does please. Of course he saw what I wrote to
+you. And now, Larry, if I have ever treated you badly, say that you
+pardon me."
+
+"If I had known it--" he said.
+
+"How could I tell you,--till he had spoken? And yet I knew it
+myself! It has been so,--oh,--ever so long! What could I do? You
+will say that you will forgive me."
+
+"Yes; I will say that."
+
+"And you will not go away from Chowton?"
+
+"Oh, no! They tell me I ought to stay here, and I suppose I shall
+stay. I thought I'd just come over and say a word. I'm going away
+to-morrow for a month. There is a fellow has got some fishing in
+Ireland. Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye, Larry."
+
+"And I thought perhaps you'd take this now." Then he brought out
+from his pocket at little ruby ring which he had carried often in
+his pocket to the attorney's house, thinking that perhaps then
+might come the happy hour in which he could get her to accept it.
+But the hour had never come as yet, and the ring had remained in
+the little drawer beneath his looking-glass. It need hardly be said
+that she now accepted the gift.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+Conclusion
+
+
+The Senator for Mickewa, whose name we have taken for a book which
+might perhaps have been better called "The Chronicle of a Winter at
+Dillsborough"--did not stay long in London after the unfortunate
+close of his lecture. He was a man not very pervious to criticism,
+nor afraid of it, but he did not like the treatment he had received
+at St. James's Hall, nor the remarks which his lecture produced in
+the newspapers. He was angry because people were unreasonable with
+him, which was surely unreasonable in him who accused Englishmen
+generally of want of reason. One ought to take it as a matter of
+course that a bull should use his horns, and a wolf his teeth. The
+Senator read everything that was said of him, and then wrote
+numerous letters to the different journals which had condemned him.
+Had any one accused him of an untruth? Or had his inaccuracies been
+glaring? Had he not always expressed his readiness to acknowledge
+his own mistake if convicted of ignorance? But when he was told
+that he had persistently trodden upon all the corns of his English
+cousins, he declared that corns were evil things which should be
+abolished, and that with corns such as these there was no mode of
+abolition so efficacious as treading on them.
+
+"I am sorry that you should have encountered anything so
+unpleasant," Lord Drummond said to him when he went to bid adieu to
+his friend at the Foreign Office.
+
+"And I am sorry too, my Lord;--for your sake rather than my own. A
+man is in a bad case who cannot endure to hear of his faults."
+
+"Perhaps you take our national sins a little too much for granted."
+
+"I don't think so, my Lord. If you knew me to be wrong you would
+not be so sore with me. Nevertheless I am under deep obligation for
+kind-hearted hospitality. If an American can make up his mind to
+crack up everything he sees here, there is no part of the world in
+which he can get along better." He had already written a long
+letter home to his friend Mr. Josiah Scroome, and had impartially
+sent to that gentleman not only his own lecture, but also a large
+collection of the criticisms made on it. A few weeks afterwards he
+took his departure, and when we last heard of him was thundering in
+the Senate against certain practices on the part of his own country
+which he thought to be unjust to other nations. Don Quixote was not
+more just than the Senator, or more philanthropic,--nor perhaps
+more apt to wage war against the windmills.
+
+Having in this our last chapter given the place of honour to the
+Senator, we must now say a parting word as to those countrymen of
+our own who have figured in our pages. Lord Rufford married Miss
+Penge of course, and used the lady's fortune in buying the property
+of Sir John Purefoy. We may probably be safe in saying that the
+acquisition added very little to his happiness. What difference can
+it make to a man whether he has forty or fifty thousand pounds a
+year,--or at any rate to such a man? Perhaps Miss Penge herself was
+an acquisition. He did not hunt so often or shoot so much, and was
+seen in church once at least on every Sunday. In a very short time
+his friends perceived that a very great change had come over him.
+He was growing fat, and soon disliked the trouble of getting up
+early to go to a distant meet; and, before a year or two had passed
+away, it had become an understood thing that in country houses he
+was not one of the men who went down at night into the smoking-room
+in a short dressing-coat and a picturesque cap. Miss Penge had done
+all this. He had had his period of pleasure, and no doubt the
+change was desirable;--but he sometimes thought with regret of the
+promise Arabella Trefoil had made him, that she would never
+interfere with his gratification.
+
+At Dillsborough everything during the summer after the Squire's
+marriage fell back into its usual routine. The greatest change made
+there was in the residence of the attorney, who with his family
+went over to live at Hoppet Hall, giving up his old house to a
+young man from Norrington, who had become his partner, but keeping
+the old office for his business. Mrs. Masters did, I think, like
+the honour and glory of the big house, but she would never admit
+that she did. And when she was constrained once or twice in the
+year to give a dinner to her step-daughter's husband and Lady
+Ushant, that, I think, was really a period of discomfort to her.
+When at Bragton she could at any rate be quiet, and Mary's
+caressing care almost made the place pleasant to her.
+
+Mr. Runciman prospers at the Bush, though he has entirely lost his
+best customer, Lord Rufford. But the U.R.U. is still strong, in
+spite of the philosophers, and in the hunting season the boxes of
+the Bush Inn are full of horses. The club goes on without much
+change, Mr. Masters being very regular in his attendance,
+undeterred by the grandeur of his new household. And Larry is
+always there,--with increased spirit, for he has dined two or three
+times lately at Hampton Wick, having met young Hampton at the
+Squire's house at Bragton. On this point Fred Botsey was for a time
+very jealous;--but he found that Larry's popularity was not to be
+shaken, and now is very keen in pushing an intimacy with the owner
+of Chowton Farm. Perhaps the most stirring event in the
+neighbourhood has been the retirement of Captain Glomax from the
+post of Master. When the season was over he made an application to
+Lord Rufford respecting certain stable and kennel expenses, which
+that nobleman snubbed very bluntly. Thereupon the Captain intimated
+to the Committee that unless some advances were made he should go.
+The Committee refused, and thereupon the Captain went;--not
+altogether to the dissatisfaction of the farmers, with whom an
+itinerant Master is seldom altogether popular. Then for a time
+there was great gloom in the U.R.U. What hunting man or woman does
+not know the gloom which comes over a hunting county when one
+Master goes before another is ready to step in his shoes? There had
+been a hope, a still growing hope, that Lord Rufford would come
+forward at any such pinch; but since Miss Penge had come to the
+front that hope had altogether vanished. There was a word said at
+Rufford on the subject, but Miss Penge,--or Lady Rufford as she was
+then,--at once put her foot on the project and extinguished it.
+Then, when despair was imminent, old Mr. Hampton gave way, and
+young Hampton came forward, acknowledged on all sides as the man
+for the place. A Master always does appear at last; though for a
+time it appears that the kingdom must come to an end because no one
+will consent to sit on the throne.
+
+Perhaps the most loudly triumphant man in Dillsborough was Mr.
+Mainwaring, the parson, when he heard of the discomfiture of
+Senator Gotobed. He could hardly restrain his joy, and confided
+first to Dr. Nupper and then to Mr. Runciman his opinion, that of
+all the blackguards that had ever put their foot in Dillsborough,
+that vile Yankee was the worst. Mr. Gotobed was no more a Yankee
+than was the parson himself;--but of any distinction among the
+citizens of the United States, Mr. Mainwaring knew very little.
+
+A word or two more must be said of our dear friend Larry
+Twentyman;--for in finishing this little story we must own that he
+has in truth been our hero. He went away on his fishing expedition,
+and when he came back the girl of his heart had become Mrs. Morton.
+Hunting had long been over then, but the great hunting difficulty
+was in course of solution, and Larry took his part in the matter.
+When there was a suggestion as to a committee of three,--than which
+nothing for hunting purposes can be much worse, there was a
+question whether he should not be one of them. This nearly killed
+both the Botseys. The evil thing was prevented by the timely
+pressure put on old Mr. Hampton; but the excitement did our friend
+Larry much good. "Bicycle" and the other mare were at once summered
+with the greatest care, and it is generally understood that young
+Hampton means to depend upon Larry very much in regard to the
+Rufford side of the country. Larry has bought Goarly's two fields,
+Goarly having altogether vanished from those parts, and is supposed
+to have Dillsborough Wood altogether in his charge. He is
+frequently to be seen at Hoppet Hall, calling there every Saturday
+to take down the attorney to the Dillsborough club,--as was his
+habit of old; but it would perhaps be premature to say that there
+are very valid grounds for the hopes which Mrs. Masters already
+entertains in reference to Kate. Kate is still too young and
+childish to justify any prediction in that quarter.
+
+What further need be said as to Reginald and his happy bride? Very
+little;--except that in the course of her bridal tour she did
+gradually find words to give him a true and accurate account of all
+her own feelings from the time at which he first asked her to walk
+with him across the bridge over the Dill and look at the old place.
+They had both passed their childish years there, but could have but
+little thought that they were destined then to love and grow old
+together. "I was longing, longing, longing to come," she said.
+
+"And why didn't you come?"
+
+"How little you know about girls? Of course I had to go with the
+one I--I--I--; well with the one I did not love down to the very
+soles of his feet" And then there was the journey with the parrot.
+"I rather liked the bird. I don't know that you said very much, but
+I think you would have said less if there had been no bird."
+
+"In fact I have been a fool all along."
+
+"You weren't a fool when you took me out through the orchard and
+caught me when I jumped over the wall. Do you remember when you
+asked me, all of a sudden, whether I should like to be your wife?
+You weren't a fool then."
+
+"But you knew what was coming."
+
+"Not a bit of it. I knew it wasn't coming. I had quite made up my
+mind about that. I was as sure of it;--oh, as sure of it as I am
+that I've got you now. And then it came;--like a great thunderclap."
+
+"A thunderclap, Mary!"
+
+"Well;--yes. I wasn't quite sure at first. You might have been
+laughing at me;--mightn't you?"
+
+"Just the kind of joke for me!"
+
+"How was I to understand it all in a moment? And you made me repeat
+all those words. I believed it then, or I shouldn't have said them.
+I knew that must be serious." And so she deified him, and sat at
+his feet looking up into his eyes, and fooled him for a while into
+the most perfect happiness that a man ever knows in this world. But
+she was not altogether happy herself till she had got Larry to come
+to her at the house at Bragton and swear to her that he would be
+her friend.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The American Senator, by Anthony Trollope
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AMERICAN SENATOR ***
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