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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bab4621 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #63901 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/63901) diff --git a/old/63901-0.txt b/old/63901-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ecbee33..0000000 --- a/old/63901-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3988 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Duke's Daughter (aka Lady Jane) and The -Fugitives; vol. 1/3, by Mrs. Margaret Oliphant - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this ebook. - -Title: The Duke's Daughter (aka Lady Jane) and The Fugitives; vol. 1/3 - -Author: Mrs. Margaret Oliphant - -Release Date: November 28, 2020 [EBook #63901] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at - http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images - available at The Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUKE'S DAUGHTER (AKA LADY -JANE) AND THE FUGITIVES; VOL. 1/3 *** - - - - - THE DUKE’S DAUGHTER - - AND - - THE FUGITIVES - - - “Lady, you come hither to be married to this count?” - “I do.” - --_Much Ado about Nothing._ - - - - - THE DUKE’S DAUGHTER - - AND - - THE FUGITIVES - - - BY - - MRS OLIPHANT - - - IN THREE VOLUMES - - VOL. I. - - - WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS - EDINBURGH AND LONDON - MDCCCXC - - - TO - - A. W. KINGLAKE, ESQ., - - THE GRACIOUS, KIND, AND - - GENTLE READER, - - WHOM IT IS THE PRIDE OF A HUMBLE NOVELIST - - TO PLEASE, - - This Little Book - - IS INSCRIBED. - - - - - NOTE. - - -It is perhaps necessary to explain that the following story was -published in serial form under the title of ‘Lady Jane,’ but the -subsequent use of a similar title for another work has suggested the -expediency of a change of name. - - - - - CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. - - -THE DUKE’S DAUGHTER-- - - -CHAP. PAGE - - I. HER PARENTS, 3 - - II. HERSELF, 23 - - III. HER LOVER, 45 - - IV. A DISAPPOINTMENT, 74 - - V. THE ANTICIPATIONS OF LADY JANE, 101 - - VI. THE ART OF STRATEGY, 128 - - VII. SUSPENSE, 155 - -VIII. THE DECISIVE MOMENT, 178 - - IX. ACTING FOR HERSELF, 218 - - X. A MOMENTOUS INTERVIEW, 234 - - - - -THE DUKE’S DAUGHTER. - - - - -CHAPTER I. - -HER PARENTS. - - -The Duchess was a very sensible woman. - -This was her character, universally acknowledged. She might not perhaps -be so splendid a person as a duchess ought to be. She had never been -beautiful, nor was she clever in the ordinary sense of the word; but she -was in the full sense of the word a sensible woman. She had, there is no -doubt, abundant need for this faculty in her progress through the -world. Hers had not been a holiday existence, notwithstanding her high -position at the head of one of the proudest houses and noblest families -in England. It is a sort of compensation to us for the grandeur of the -great to believe that, after all, their wealth and their high position -do them very little good. - - “The village maidens of the plain - Salute me lowly as they go, - Envious they mark my silken train, - Nor think a countess can have woe. - - The simple nymphs! they little know - How far more happy’s their estate, - To smile for joy than sigh for woe, - To be content than to be great.” - -So we all like to believe. But after all, it is highly doubtful whether -there is more content, as the moralists of the eighteenth century -imagined, in a cottage than in a palace; and the palace has the best of -it in so many other ways. The Duchess had met with many vexations in her -life, but no more than we all meet with, nor of a severer kind; and she -had her coronet, and her finery, and her beautiful ducal houses, and the -devotion of all that surrounded her, to the good. So while we have no -occasion to be envious, we have none, on the other hand, to plume -ourselves upon the advantages of humble position. Duchess or no duchess, -however, this lady had sense, a precious gift. And she had need to have -it, as the following narrative will show. - -For the Duke, on his side, did not possess that most valuable quality. -He was far more proud than a duke has any occasion to be. On that -pinnacle of rank, if on any height imaginable, a man may permit himself -to think simply of his position, and to form no over-estimate of his own -grandeur. But the Duke of Billingsgate was very proud, and believed -devoutly that he himself and his family tree, and the strawberry-leaves -which grew on the top of it, overshadowed the world. He thought it made -an appreciable difference to the very sunshine; and as for the county -under his shadow, he felt towards it as the old gods might have felt -towards the special lands of which they were the patrons tutelary. He -expected incense upon all the altars, and a sort of perpetual adoration. -It would have pleased him to have men swear by him and dedicate churches -in his honour, had such things been in accordance with modern manners: -he would have felt it to be only natural. He liked people to come into -his presence with diffidence and awe; and though he was frank of accost, -and of elaborate affability, as an English gentleman is obliged to be in -these days, talking to the commonalty almost as if he forgot they were -his inferiors, he never did forget the fact, and it offended him deeply -if they appeared to forget it in word or deed. He was very gracious to -the little county ladies who would come to dine at the Castle when he -was in the country, but he half wondered how they could have the courage -to place a little trembling hand upon his ducal arm, and he liked those -all the better who did tremble and were overcome by the honour. He had -spent enormously in his youth, keeping up the state and splendour which -he thought were necessary to his rank, and which he still thought -necessary though his means were now straitened. And it cannot be denied -that he was angry with the world because his means were straitened, and -felt it a disgrace to the country that one of its earliest dukedoms -should be humiliated to the necessity of discharging superfluous footmen -and lessening the number of horses in the stables. He thought this came, -like so many other evils, of the radicalism of the times. Dukes did not -need to retrench when things were as they ought to be, and a strong -paramount Government held the reins of State. The Duke, however, -retrenched as little as was possible. He did it always under protest. -When strong representations on the part of his agents and lawyers -induced him against his will to cut off one source of expense, he had a -great tendency to burst out into another on an unforeseen occasion and a -different side--a tendency which made him very difficult to manage and a -great trouble to all connected with him. - -This was indeed the chief cross in the life of the Duchess; but even -that she took with great sense, not dwelling upon it more than she could -help, and comforting herself with the thought that Hungerford, who was -her eldest son, had great capabilities in the opposite direction, and -was exactly the sort of man to rebuild the substantial fortunes of the -family. He had already done a great deal in that way by resolutely -marrying a great heiress in spite of his father’s absurd opposition. The -Duke had thought his heir good enough for a princess, and had something -as near hysterics as it would be becoming for a duke to indulge in when -he ascertained that obstinate young man’s determination to marry a lady -whose money had been made in the City; but Hungerford was thirty, and -his father had no control over him. There was, however, something left -which he had entirely in his own hands, his daughter--Lady Jane. She had -all the qualities which the Duke most esteemed in his race. She -resembled in features that famous duchess who had the good fortune to -please Charles II., but with a proud, and reserved, and stately air, -which had not distinguished that famous beauty. The repose of her -manners was such as can be seen only on the highest levels of society. -Her face would wear an unchanged expression for days together, and for -almost as long a period the echoes around her would be undisturbed by -anything like the vulgarity of speech. She was a child after her -father’s own heart. Though it is a derogation to a family to descend -through the female line, his Grace could almost have put up with this, -had it been possible to transfer the succession from Hungerford and his -plebeian wife to that still, and fair, and stately maiden. Jane, Duchess -of Billingsgate (in her own right). He liked the thought. He felt that -there would be a certain propriety even in permitting the race to die -out in such a last crowning flower of dignity and honour. But no -day-dream, as he knew, could have been more futile; for the City lady -had brought three boys already to perpetuate the race, and there was no -telling how many more were coming. Hungerford declared loudly that he -meant to put them into trade when they grew up, and that his -grandfather’s business was to be Bobby’s inheritance. Bobby! He had been -called after that grandfather. Such a name had never been heard before -among the Altamonts. The Duke took very little notice of any of the -children, and none whatever of that City brat. But, alas! what could he -do? There was no shutting them out from a single honour. Bobby would be -Lord Robert in spite of him, even at the head of his City grandfather’s -firm. - -But the marriage of Lady Jane was a matter still to be concluded, and in -that her father was determined to have his own way. There had not been -the violent competition for her beautiful hand which might have been -expected. Dukes are scant at all times, and there did not happen at -that time to be one marriageable duke with a hand to offer; and smaller -people were alarmed by the grandeur of her surroundings, by the -character of her papa, and by her own stateliness of manner. There were -a few who moved about the outskirts of the magnificent circle in which -alone Lady Jane was permitted to appear, and cast wistful glances at -her, but did not venture further. The Marquis of Wodensville made her a -proposal, but he was sixty, and the Duke did not think the inducement -sufficient to interpose his parental authority; and Mr Roundel, of -Bishop’s Roundel, made serious overtures. If family alone could have -carried the day, the claim of this gentleman would have been supreme, -and his Grace did not lightly reject that great commoner, a man who -would not have accepted a title had the Queen herself gone on her knees -to him. But he showed signs of a desire to play this big fish, to -procrastinate and keep him in suspense, and that was a treatment which a -Roundel was not likely to submit to. Other proposals of less importance -never even reached Lady Jane’s ears; and the subject gave him no -concern. It is true that once or twice Lady Hungerford had made a -laughing remark on the subject of Jane’s marriage, which was like her -underbred impertinence. But the Duke never did more than turn his large -light-grey eyes solemnly upon her when she was guilty of any such -assault upon the superior race. He never condescended to reply. He did -very much the same thing when the Duchess with a sigh once made a -similar observation. He turned his head and fixed his eyes upon her; but -the Duchess was used to him and was not overawed. “I cannot conceive -what you can mean,” he said. - -“It is not hard to understand. I don’t expect to be immortal, and I -confess I should like to see Jane settled.” - -“Settled!” his Grace said--the very word was derogatory to his daughter. - -“Well, the term does not matter. She is very affectionate and clinging, -though people do not think so. I should like to make sure that she has -some one to take care of her when I die.” - -“You may be assured,” said the Duke, “that Jane will want no one to take -care of her as you say. I object to hear such a word as clinging applied -to my daughter. I am quite capable, I hope, of taking care of her.” - -“But, dear Gus, you are no more immortal than I am,” said his wife. He -disliked to be called by his Christian name in any circumstances, but -Gus had always driven him frantic, as, indeed, it is to be feared the -Duchess was aware. She was annoyed too, or she would not have addressed -him so. - -The Duke looked at her once more, but made no reply. He could not say -anything against this assertion: had there been anything better than -immortality he would have put in a claim for that, but as it is -certainly an article of belief that all men are mortal, he was wise -enough to say nothing. Such incidents as these, however, disturbed him -slightly. The sole effect of his wife’s interference was to make him -look at Lady Jane with more critical eyes. The first time he did so -there seemed to him no cause whatever for concern. She had come in from -a walk, and was recounting to her mother what she had seen and heard. -She had a soft flush on her cheek, and was if anything too animated and -youthful in her appearance. She had met the great Lady Germaine, who had -brought a party to see the Dell in the neighbourhood of Billings Castle. -The Duke did not care for intruders upon his property, but it had been -impossible to refuse permission to such a leader of fashion as Lady -Germaine. “There were all the Germaines, of course, and May Plantagenet, -and--Mr Winton,” said Lady Jane. She made a scarcely perceptible pause -before the last name. The Duke took no notice of this, nor did he even -remark what she said. “No longer young!” he said to himself, “she is too -young,” and dismissed Lady Hungerford’s gibes and the Duchess’s sigh -with indignation. He did not even think of it again until next season, -when Jane came to breakfast late one morning after a great ball, and -made a languid remark in answer to her mother’s question. “There was -scarcely any one there,” she said with something between a yawn and a -sigh: half London had been there; but still it was not what his daughter -said that attracted his attention. He saw as he looked at her a slight, -the very slightest, indentation in the delicate oval of Lady Jane’s -cheek. The perfection of the curve was just broken. It might only have -been a dimple, but she was not in the mood which reveals dimples. There -went a little chill to the Duke’s heart at the sight. _Passée?_ -Impossible; years and years must go before that word could be applied to -his daughter; but still he felt sure Lady Hungerford must have remarked -it: no, it was not a hollow; but no doubt with her vulgar long sight she -must have remarked it, and would say everywhere that dear Jane was -certainly going off. The Duke never took any notice apparently of these -sallies of his daughter-in-law, but in reality there was nothing of -which he stood in so much dread. - -The Duchess on her side was well acquainted with that hollow. It _was_ a -hollow, very slight, sometimes disappearing altogether; but there it -was. She had awakened to a consciousness of its existence one day -suddenly, though it had evidently taken some time to come to that point. -And since then it had seldom been out of the Duchess’s mind. She had no -doubt that other people had discovered it before now, and made malicious -remarks upon it: for if she observed it who was so anxious to make the -best of her child, what would they do whose object was the reverse? But -what did it matter what any one said? There it was, which was the great -thing. It spoke with a voice which nobody could silence, of Jane’s -youth passing away, of her freshness wearing out, of her bloom fading. -Was she to sit there and grow old while her father wove his fictions -about her? It had given the Duchess many a thought. She knew very well -what all this princely expenditure would lead to. Hungerford would not -be much the worse; he had his wife’s fortune to fall back upon, and -perhaps he would not feel himself called upon to take on himself the -burden of his father’s debts after he was gone. But for the Duke -himself, if he lived, and his family, the Duchess, looking calmly on -ahead, knew what must happen. Things would come to a crash sooner or -later, and everything that could be sacrificed would have to be -sacrificed. Rank would not save them. It might put off bankruptcy to the -last possible moment, but it would not avert it altogether; and the -moment would come when everything must change, and a sort of noble -exile, or at least seclusion in the country, if nothing worse, would be -their fate. And Jane? If she were to be left to her father’s disposal, -what would be the end of Jane? She would have to descend from her -pedestal, and learn what it was to be poor--that is, as dukes’ daughters -can be poor. The grandeur and largeness of her life would fall away from -her, and no new chapter in existence would come in to modify the old, -and make its changes an advantage rather than a drawback. The Duchess -said to herself that to go against her husband was a thing she never had -done; but there was a limit to a wife’s duty. She could not let Jane be -sacrificed while she stood aside and looked on. This was the question -which the Duchess had to solve. She was brought to it gradually, her -eyes being opened by degrees to other things not quite so evident as -that change in the oval of Jane’s perfect cheek. She found out why it -was that her daughter had yawned or sighed, and said, “There was nobody -there,” of the ball to which half London struggled to get admittance. On -the very next evening Lady Jane paid a humdrum visit to an old lady who -was nobody in particular, and came home with a pretty glow, and no -hollow visible, declaring that there had been a delightful little party, -and that she had never enjoyed herself so much. The Duchess felt that -here was a mystery. It was partly the ‘Morning Post’ that helped her to -find it out, and partly the unconscious revelations of Jane herself in -her exhilaration. The ‘Morning Post’ made it evident that a certain name -was not in the list of the fine people who had figured at my Lady -Germaine’s ball, and Lady Jane betrayed by a hundred unconscious little -references that the bearer of that name had been present at the other -little reunion. The Duchess put this and that together. She, too, no -doubt would have liked to see her daughter a duchess like herself; but, -failing that, she preferred that Jane should be happy in her own way. -But the question was, had Jane courage enough to take her own way? She -had been supposed to have everything she wanted all her life, and had -been surrounded by every observance; but, as a matter of fact, Jane had -got chiefly what other people wanted, and had been secretly satisfied -that it should be so. Would she once in her life, against her father and -the world, be moved to stand up for herself? But this was what the -Duchess did not know. - - - - -CHAPTER II. - -HERSELF. - - -A princess royal is always an interesting personage. The very title is -charming--there is about it a supreme heiress-ship, if not of practical -dominion, at least of the more delicate part of the inheritance. She has -the feminine rule, the kingdom of hearts, the homage of sentiment and -imagination. Even when she grows old the title retains a sweet and -penetrating influence, and in youth it is the very crown of visionary -greatness, an elevation without any vulgar elements. Lady Jane was the -Princess Royal of her father’s house. There had been just so much -poetry in his pride as to make him feel this beautifying characteristic -of feminine rank to be an addition (if any addition were possible) to -his dukedom. And she had been brought up in the belief that she was not -as other girls were, nor even as the little Lady Marys and Lady Augustas -who in the eyes of the world stood upon a similar eminence. She stood -alone--the blood of the Altamonts had reached its cream of sweetness, -its fine quintessence in her veins. Hungerford was very well in his way. -He would be Duke when his time came. The property, and lands, and titles -would be vested in him; but he had no such visionary altitude as his -sister. He himself was quite aware of the fact: he laughed, and was very -well content to be rid of this visionary representativeship, but he -fully recognised that Jane was not to be considered as an ordinary -mortal, that she was the flower and crown of so many generations, the -last perfection to which the race could attain. And with infinite -modesty and humility of mind Lady Jane too perceived her mission. She -became aware of it very early, when other girls were still busy with -their skipping-ropes. It was a great honour to fall upon so young a -head. When she walked about the noble woods at Billings and dreamed as -girls do of the world before her, this sense of rank was never absent -from her mind: impossible to foresee what were the scenes through which -it might lead her. She heard a great deal of the evil state of public -affairs--the decadence of England, the advance of democracy, the -approaching ruin in which everything that was great and noble must soon -be engulfed; and Lady Jane took it all seriously, and felt it very -possible that her fate might be that of a virgin martyr to the cruel -forces of revolution. For one time of her life her favourite literature -was the memoirs of those great and noble ladies, full of charity and -romance, who cast a pathetic glory upon the end of the old _régime_ in -France, and died for crimes of which they were no way guilty, paying the -long arrears of oppression which they had done all they could to modify. -Jane took, as was natural, the political jeremiads of her father and his -friends with the matter-of-fact faith of youth, and she did not think -that even the guillotine was impossible. If it came to her lot--as, -according to all she heard, seemed likely--to maintain the cause of -nobility to the last, she was ready to walk to the scaffold like Marie -Antoinette, holding her head high, and smiling upon her assassins; or if -it were possible to save the country by another kind of self-devotion, -she was prepared, though with trembling, to inspire a nation or lead an -army. These were the kind of dreams she entertained at fifteen, which is -the time when a girl is most alive to the claims of patriotism, and can -feel it possible that she too may be a heroine. Older, she began to be -less certain. Facts came in and confused fancy. She saw no indications -such as those which her books said had been seen in France; everything -was very peaceable, everybody very respectful wherever she went. The -common people looked at her admiringly when by chance she drove with her -mamma through the crowded streets. They seemed all quite willing to -acknowledge her position. She was greeted with smiles instead of groans, -and heroism seemed unnecessary. - -Then there came a time when Lady Jane felt that it would probably be -her mission to be, if not a martyr, a benefactress to the world. It -would be right for her to move half royally, half angelically, through -all the haunts of wretchedness, and leave comfort and abundance behind. -She imagined to herself scenes like the great plague, times of famine -and fever, in which her sudden appearance, with succour of every kind -about her, would bring an immediate change of affairs and turn darkness -into light. She did not know--how should she?--what squalor and -wretchedness were like, and this great and successful mission never in -her thoughts so much as soiled her dress, and had nothing disgusting or -repulsive in it. But by-and-by, gradually there came a change also upon -this phase of mind. A princess royal has always the confidence that in -her own ministrations there must be a secret charm; but still she could -not shut her eyes to the fact that in her mother’s charities all was -not plain sailing. And it became apparent to her also, with a -considerable shock, that there were many things which the Duchess wished -but had not means to do; which had a painful effect upon Lady Jane’s -dreams, and cut them short, confusing her whole horizon, and arresting -her imagination. She then paused, with considerable bewilderment, not -quite perceiving where the mission of her rank would lead her. It must -give her distinct duties, and a sphere above the common quiescence of -life--but what? Lady Jane was perplexed, and no longer saw her way. -Vulgar contact with the world was impossible to her; she shrank from the -public organisation of charity. Something else surely, something of a -more magnanimous kind, was to be hers to do. But in the meantime she did -not know what, and stood as it were upon the battlements of the castle -wall looking out, somewhat confused, but full of noble sentiment and -desire to perform the finest functions for the advantage of the world. - -This was the aspect which pride of birth took in the pure and high-toned -spirit of the Duke’s daughter. She accepted undoubtingly the creed of -her race, and never questioned the fact that she was something entirely -removed from the crowd, elevated above the ordinary level of humanity. -The Duchess had little of this inborn conviction, but yet a duchess is a -duchess, and unless she is of a quite remarkable order of intelligence, -it is very unlikely that she should be able to separate herself from the -prejudices of her rank. As a matter of fact, the members of a duke’s -household are not ordinary mortals. Limits which are natural to us have -nothing to do with them. It must require a distinct independence and -great force of mind to realise that they are just of the same flesh and -blood as the scullery-maid and the shoe-boy; nay--for these are -extravagant instances out of their range of vision--even as the groom of -the chambers and the housekeeper, who are entirely devoted to their -service. To doubt this, accordingly, never entered the mind of Lady -Jane; but anything resembling personal pride had no existence in her. -She did not know what it meant. There is no such beautiful scope for -pure humility of spirit as in the mind of a creature thus fancifully -elevated. It never occurred to her that it was her own excellence which -gave her this place. She was unfeignedly modest in every estimate of -herself, docile, ready to be guided, deferring to everybody. Never had -there been so obedient a child to nurses and governesses, nor one who -accepted reproof more sweetly, nor sought with more anxious grace to -gain approbation. It was difficult to rouse her to the exercise of her -own judgment at all. “Do you think so?” she would say to the humblest -person about her, with a sincere desire to please that person by -accepting his or her view rather than her own. Some people thought she -had no opinion of her own at all, but that was a mistake--though the -pain it gave her to cross, or vex, or contradict (in fact: in words she -never was guilty of such a breach of charity) any one, made her act upon -her own opinion only in the very direst necessity. But when her gentle -foot struck against the limits of the sphere which she thought -boundless, Lady Jane remained for a long time perplexed, confused, not -knowing what the object might be which was to fill her life. It was -during this period that her cheek, though still so young, began to own -the slightest possible departure from the oval. It might have been only -the touch of a finger--but there it was. A slight line over Lady Jane’s -eyes appeared about the same time. She had become anxious, almost -wistful, wondering and perplexed. What was she to do with her life? -England (though, as they all said, going to destruction) showed no signs -of immediate ruin. In all likelihood the guillotine would not be set up -in Lady Jane’s time, and there would be no occasion for any sacrifice on -her part. She looked abroad into the world, and saw no need of her. She -shrank, indeed, from any actual step, notwithstanding her dreams and her -conviction that something great ought to come of her; and if she had -attempted to take any step whatever, she knew that the Duke and the -Duchess, and Hungerford and Susan, and all the connections and -retainers to the hundredth degree, would have rushed with dismay to -prevent her. Was it possible that by sitting calmly upon her elevated -seat, and smiling sweetly or frowning (as best she could) as the -occasion required, she was doing all she was called upon to do? In that -case Lady Jane acknowledged to herself with a sigh, that it was scarcely -worth while being a princess royal at all. - -The reader will think it strange that all this time no idea of marriage, -or of the great preliminary of marriage, had entered her head. Perhaps -it would be rash to say that this was the case. But she had known from -an early period that there were very few people in the world who could -pretend to Lady Jane Altamont’s hand. She laughed when it was proposed -to her to marry the Marquis of Wodensville. “Oh no, papa, thank you,” -she said. - -“We have made alliances with his family before now. He has some of the -best blood in England in his veins,” said the Duke. - -“Oh no, papa, thank you,” said Lady Jane. She did not ask any one’s -advice on this point. When there was that negotiation with Mr Roundel, -of Bishop’s Roundel, she was more interested, but not enough to disturb -her equilibrium when it was found he had gone off in disgust, and -married his sister’s governess. “I thought he could not be pure blood,” -the Duke said. Lady Jane smiled, and, it is to be feared, thought so -too. The worst of high rank is that it destroys perspective. She could -not see the gradations below her in the least. She knew the difference -between her father’s rank and that of a prince of the blood; and she -knew exactly how countesses and marchionesses ought to go in to dinner; -but of the difference between governesses and housekeepers and other -attendants she knew little. The one and the other were entirely out of -her sphere. Her own old governess, whose name was Strangford, she had -always called Stranghy and been extremely fond of--but then she was fond -of all her old attendants, and thought of them much in the same way. -Then Lord Rushbrook, who was a Cabinet Minister, had presented himself -to her. She did not wish to marry him, but she felt that here was -something which was not rank (for he was only a baron), and yet was -equal to rank. It was almost the first gleam of such enlightenment that -came into her mind. - -About this time, however, it certainly began to enter into Lady Jane’s -head that it is a general thing to marry, and that this is the way in -which most women solve the problem of their life. Perhaps because of -the “offers” she had received: perhaps because she had met at Lady -Germaine’s, quite promiscuously, on one of the many occasions on which -she went there, a--gentleman. She had met a great many gentlemen there -and elsewhere before; but on the particular occasion in question, she -had gone by accident, without design, and with no expectation of meeting -any one. Fate thus lies in wait for us, round a corner, when we think of -it least. The gentleman was nobody in particular. He had never been -meant to meet the Duke’s daughter. Indeed, had Lady Germaine had but the -slightest prevision of what was coming, she would have locked him into a -closet, or tripped him over into the river, rather than permitted such a -thing to happen in her house. But she did not know any more than other -mortals, and the train was laid by the Fates without any sort of -connivance on the part of any human creature. They all fell blindly, -stupidly, accidentally into the net. - -It was perhaps then, we say, when Lady Jane declined, either by her own -will or her father’s, her other matrimonial prospects, or perhaps when -she met the aforesaid gentleman, that it first really occurred to this -high and visionary maiden to take into consideration that which is the -leading incident in the lives of most women, the event which decides the -question whether their lives shall be lonely and in great measure -objectless, or busy and full of interest and occupation. Generally it is -at a very early age that girls first approach this question. But Lady -Jane had been a stately little person even in her cradle. She had not -chosen to be kissed and caressed as most children are. She had been -gently proud and reticent through all her girlhood. She had no youthful -intimates to breathe into her mind this suggestion--no girl-friend about -to be married to initiate her into the joyous fuss, the importance, the -applauses and presents, the general commotion which every wedding -produces. She had, indeed, been present at a marriage, but never at one -which touched her at all in her immediate circle. So that Lady Jane was -nearly eight-and-twenty when it occurred to her as possible that she too -might marry and carry out in her own person the universal lot. At first -she had been shocked at herself, and had driven the thought out of her -mind with a delicacy which cannot but be called false, though she was -not conscious of its fictitious character. But the idea came back: it -caught her at unawares, it came over her sometimes with soft, delicious -suggestions. When she met a young mother with her children, a sigh that -was as soft as the west wind in spring would come out of Lady Jane’s -heart. How happy was that woman! how delightful all the cares that beset -her, the calls from this one and that, the constant demand upon her! -_She_ had no time to ask what her life was worth, no leisure to -speculate how she could best fulfil its duties: all that and many -another question was solved for her. Lady Jane watched the happy mother -with an interest which was almost envy. And there were other thoughts -which crossed her fancy too, and awakened much that was dormant in her. -Once when she was sitting by her mother it suddenly came into her mind -to contrast the Duchess’s life with her own. She looked at her Grace’s -fair and genial presence, and watched her going over her accounts, and -settling the affairs of her great house. There were many lines on the -Duchess’s brow. She was an excellent economist on a great scale, as -became her rank, but she had the disadvantage of being thwarted on every -side by the prodigalities of her husband. It was not a happy moment at -which to regard her; yet Lady Jane, looking at her mother, was suddenly -moved to ask herself whether the Duchess would have been better, -balancing all her outcomings and incomings serenely without any one to -disturb her, had she never married. The question seemed a ludicrous one, -but Lady Jane was prone to imaginations. She conjured up before herself -a picture of this lady in a house where no one thwarted her; where there -was no family to provide for, no Susan to keep a watchful eye upon what -she was doing, no Jane to reflect upon her as an example of fate. She -laughed to herself softly at the impossibility of this imagination. - -“What are you laughing at?” the Duchess asked, pausing with her pen in -her hand and a look which was indicative of anything but an easy mind. - -“I was thinking--what if you had never married, mamma?” - -The Duchess turned round upon her, opening her eyes wide with wonder. -“What if I had never married? Are you taking leave of your senses?” she -said. And indeed the idea was entirely ludicrous, for if she had never -married where would Jane herself have been? Jane laughed again very -softly, and a sudden wave of colour came over her face. She thought, -though her mother was not very happy, that it was better to be less -happy so, than more happy alone. It seemed to her that the absence of -care would have made her Grace much less interesting. Her comely figure -seemed to shrink and fall away as Jane thought, looking at it--and then -her mind slid imperceptibly from that fancy to a sudden realisation of -herself. After all, she had been thinking of herself all her life, what -she should do, how she should occupy herself, which theory of life was -the best. But the young woman whom she had met among her children had -got that problem solved for her; she had no time to think of herself at -all: there were so many claims upon her, soft little arms, voices like -the birds, as well as bigger appeals, more articulate; the chances were -that from morning to night she had no leisure in which to speculate on -what was best for herself. The Duchess, though a great lady, was in the -same position. Even the least self-regarding whose hands are free, think -more about themselves than the selfish, whose time and thoughts are -taken up with other matters, can be able to do. This thought made a -great impression upon Lady Jane. Perhaps even these ideas would have -moved her little had it not been for that encounter at Lady -Germaine’s--but it was long before she brought herself so far as to -acknowledge that. She considered the question in the abstract form long -before she approached it in the concrete. And thus she came candidly to -conclude and acknowledge that the woman who is married has a career -before her which the unmarried woman can scarcely command. It was a new -idea to Lady Jane, but her mind was very candid, and she received this -as she received every other conclusion justified by reason. It would be -good that she should marry; and then she had met at Lady Germaine’s--a -gentleman. But who this gentleman was must be left for another chapter. - - - - -CHAPTER III. - -HER LOVER. - - -It has never been fully explained how it was that a person so thoroughly -experienced in the world as Lady Germaine should have permitted an -acquaintance between Lady Jane and Mr Winton to ripen under her roof. -That she should have introduced them to each other was nothing, of -course; for in society every gentleman is supposed the equal of every -other gentleman, though he has not a penny and his next neighbour may be -a millionaire; and Lady Jane was gracious in her high-minded, maidenly -way, as a princess should be, to everybody, to the clergyman, and even -to the clergyman’s sons, dangerous and detrimental young persons who -have to be asked to country houses, a perpetual alarm to anxious parents -who have daughters. No _hauteur_, no exclusiveness was in Lady Jane. She -was as much withdrawn above the young squire as the young curate, and -there was no reason why Mr Winton, who was very personable, very well -thought of, and in no sense of the word detrimental, should not pay his -homage to the Duke’s daughter. But there it should have stopped. When -she saw that there was even the remotest chance that it might go -further, Lady Germaine’s duty was plain. She should have said firmly, -“Not in my house.” It was not to be supposed, indeed, that she could -stop the course of mutual inclination, prevent Mr Winton from making -love to Lady Jane, or Lady Jane from listening. But what she could, and -indeed ought to, have done, was to say plainly, “Meet where they will, -it must not be in my house.” Her duty to the Duke demanded this course -of action. But it must be confessed that Lady Germaine was very -independent--too independent for a woman--and that what she would not -recognise was, that she had any duty at all to the Duke. He might be the -head of society in the county, but what did Lady Germaine care? She -laughed openly at the county society, and declared that she would as -soon throw in her lot among the farmers of the district as among the -squires, and that the Duke was an old--the pen of the historian almost -refuses to record the language this daring lady used--an old humbug. She -ventured to say this and lived. The Duke never knew how far she went, -but he disapproved of her, and considered her an irreverent person. He -would have checked his daughter’s intimacy with her had he been able. -But the Duchess did not see any harm in it. Her Grace’s opinion was that -a little enlivenment was what Jane wanted, and that even a slight -exaggeration of gaiety would do her no harm. Lady Germaine’s set was -unimpeachable though it loved diversion, and diversion was above -everything the thing necessary for Lady Jane. And there was this to be -said for Lady Germaine, that the Duchess herself had the opportunity of -stopping the Winton affair had she chosen. She must have seen what was -going on. Poor Mr Winton could not conceal the state of mind in which he -was; and as for Lady Jane, there was a certain tremor in her retired and -gentle demeanour, a little outburst of happiness now and then, a liquid -expression about the eyes, a softening of manner and countenance, which -no mother’s eyes could have overlooked. It was she who ought to have -interfered. She could have controlled her own child no doubt, or she -could have made it apparent to Mr Winton that his assiduities were -disagreeable; but she did nothing of the sort. She had every appearance -of liking the man herself. She talked to him apparently with pleasure, -asked him his opinion, declared that he had excellent taste. After this -why should Lady Germaine have been blamed? All she did was to form her -society of the best materials she could collect. She was fond of nice -people, and loved conversation. If men could talk pleasantly, and add to -the entertainment of her household, when the time came for encountering -the tedium of the country, she asked nothing about their grandfathers, -nor even demanded whether they had a rent-roll, or money in the funds, -or how they lived. Lively young barristers, literary men, artists, -people who it was to be feared lived on their wits, not to speak of -those younger sons who are the plague of society, came and went about -her house; which made it a house alarming to mothers, it must be -allowed, but extremely lively, cheerful, and full of “go,” which was -what Lady Germaine liked. And as she openly professed that this was the -principle upon which she went, the risks were at least patent and -above-board which princesses royal were likely to meet with at her -house. - -It is now time to speak of the lover himself, who has hitherto been but -hinted at. We must say, in the first place, that there was nothing -objectionable about Mr Winton. He was not poor, nor was he _roturier_. -He was a well-bred English gentleman, of perfectly good though not -exalted family. On the Continent he would have been said to belong to -the _petite noblesse_. But after all it only wants an accession of -fortune to make _la petite_ into _la grande noblesse_. He was as far -descended as any prince (which, indeed, may be said for the most of us), -and had ancestors reaching up into the darkness of the ages. At least he -had the portraits of these ancestors hanging up in the hall at Winton -House; and unless they had existed, how could they have had their -portraits taken? which is an unanswerable argument. Winton House itself -was but a small place, it is true; but when his Indian uncle died and -left him all that money, it was immediately placed in Mr Winton’s power -to make his house into a great one had he chosen; and for so rich a man -to keep the old place intact was loyalty, or family pride, or at the -worst eccentricity, and did by no means imply any shabbiness either of -mind or means. To make up for this he had a very handsome house in town, -and there was no doubt at all on the question that he was a rich man, -and able to indulge his fancy as he pleased. He would have been a -perfectly good match for Lady Germaine’s own daughter had she been old -enough, or for Earl Binny’s young ladies, or for almost any girl in the -county, excepting always Lady Jane. She was the one who was out of his -sphere. It was perfectly well known that the Duke would not hear of any -son-in-law whose rank, or at least whose family, was not equal to his -own, and it had long been a foregone conclusion with society that it was -very unlikely Lady Jane would ever marry at all. Perhaps had Mr Winton -fully foreseen the position, he would have retired too, before, as -people say, his feelings were too much interested. But it is to be -feared that the idea did not occur to him until, unfortunately, it was -too late. - -Reginald Winton had been brought up in the most approved way at a public -school, and at Oxford, and shaped into what was considered the best -fashion of his time. It had been intended, as the old estate was -insufficient to support two people, and his mother was then living, that -he should go to the bar. But before he attained this end, the uncle’s -fortune, of which he had not the least expectation, fell down upon him -suddenly, as from the skies. Then, of course, it was not thought -necessary that he should continue his studies. He was not only rich, but -very rich, and at the same time had all the advantages of once having -been poor. He had no expensive habits. He did not bet, nor race, nor -gamble; nor did he on the other hand buy pictures or curiosities, or -sumptuous furniture (at least no more than reason). He was full of -intelligence, but he was not literary, nor over-learned, nor too clever. -He was five feet ten, and quite sufficiently good-looking for a man of -his fortune. He would have been favourably received in most families of -gentry, nay, even of nobility, in England; but only not in the house of -the Altamonts. Here was the perversity of fate. But he did not do it on -purpose, nor fly at such high game solely because it was forbidden, as -some people might have done. It is certain that he did not know who Lady -Jane was when his heart was caught unawares. He took Lady Germaine aside -and begged to be introduced to the young lady in white, without a -suspicion of her greatness. It was at a moment when ladies wore a great -deal of colour: when they had wreaths of flowers scrambling over their -dresses and their heads, like a hedgerow in summer. Lady Jane’s dress -was white silk, soft and even dull in tone. She had not a bow or a -flower, but some pearls twisted in her smooth brown hair, which was not -frizzy as nowadays, but shining like satin. She was seated a little -apart with the children of the house, and to a man incapable of -perceiving that this simple garment was of much superior value to many -of the gayer fabrics round, she had the air of being economically as -well as gracefully clothed. “How much better taste is that simple dress -than all those furbelows!” he said. His opinion was, that she would turn -out to be the rector’s daughter. Lady Germaine gazed at him for a moment -with the contempt which a woman naturally entertains for a man’s mistake -in this kind. “I like your simplicity,” she said with fine satire which -he did not understand;--and presented him on the spot to Lady Jane -Altamont. - -How Winton opened his eyes! But there was no reason why he should -withdraw, and acknowledge the Duke’s daughter to be out of his sphere. -On the contrary, he did his best to make himself agreeable. And from -that time to this, when everybody could see things were coming to a -crisis, he had never ceased in the effort. It was the first time--except -by Lord Rushbrook, who had done it politically--that this noble maiden -had been personally wooed. The sense that she was as other women, had -come into her heart with a soft transport of sweetness, emancipating her -all at once from those golden bonds of high sacrifice and duty in which -she had believed herself to be bound. She had not rebelled against them; -but when it appeared now that life might be happiness as well as duty, -and that all its delights and hopes were possible to her as to others, -the melting of all those icicles that had been formed around her, -flooded her gentle soul with tenderness. She was not easily wooed; for -nothing could be less like the freedom of manners which makes it natural -nowadays for a girl to advance a little on her side, and help on her -lover, than the almost timid though always sweet stateliness with which -Lady Jane received his devotion. It was a wonder to her, as it cannot be -to young ladies who flirt from their cradles. Love! She regarded it with -awe, mingled with a touched and surprised gratitude. She was older than -a girl usually is when that revelation is first made to her, a fact -which deepened every sentiment. Winton did not, could not, divine what -was passing in that delicate spirit. But he felt the novelty, the -exquisite, modest grace of his reception. He had not been without -experience in his own person, and had known what it was to be -“encouraged.” But here he was not encouraged. It was romance put into -action for the first time, a love-making that was as new, and fresh, and -miraculous, and incomprehensible, as if no one had ever made love -before. And thus the flood of their own emotions carried the pair on; -and if Winton had never paused to think how the Duke would receive his -addresses, it may with still greater certainty be assumed that Lady Jane -had never considered that momentous question. They went on, unawakened -to anything outside their own elysium, which, like most other elysiums -of the kind, was a fool’s paradise. - -It was Lady Germaine at last, as she had been the means of setting the -whole affair in motion, who brought it to a climax. He had not confided -in her in so many words--for, indeed, he was too much elevated and -carried away by this growing passion to bring it to the common eye; but -he had so far betrayed himself on a certain occasion when reference had -been made to Lady Jane, that his hostess and friend burst through all -pretences and herself dashed into the subject. “Reginald Winton,” she -said almost solemnly, “do you know what is before you? How are you going -to ask the Duke of Billingsgate, that high and mighty personage, to give -you his daughter? I wonder you are not ready to sink into the earth with -terror.” - -“The Duke of Billingsgate?” cried the young man, with a gasp of dismay. - -“To be sure; but I suppose you never thought of that,” she said. - -He grew paler and paler as he looked at her. “Do you know,” he said, “it -never occurred to me till this moment. But what do I care for the Duke -of Billingsgate? I think of nothing, since you will have it, but _her_, -Lady Germaine.” - -“Innocent! do you think I have not known that for the last two months? -When you want to hide anything, you should not put flags up at all your -windows.” - -“Have I put flags up?” He looked at her with colours flying and an -illumination in his eyes. He was pleased to think that he had exposed -himself and proclaimed his lady’s charms in this way, like a -knight-errant. “I hope I have not done anything to annoy her,” he added, -in a panic. “Lady Germaine, you will keep my secret till I know my -fate.” - -“Oh, as for keeping your secret--but from whom are you to know your -fate, if I may ask?” Lady Germaine said. - -Reginald blushed like a girl all over his face--or rather he reddened -like a man, duskily, half angrily, while his eyes grew more like -illuminations than ever. He drew a long breath, making a distinct -pause, as a devout Catholic would do to cross himself, before he -replied, “From whom? from _her_; who else?” with a glow of excitement -and hope. - -Lady Germaine shook her head. “Oh, you innocent!” she cried; “oh, you -baby! If there is any other word that expresses utter simplicity and -foolishness, let me call you that. _Her!_ that is all very well, that is -easy enough. But what are you to say to her father?--oh, you -simpleton!--her father,--that is the question.” - -“I presume, Lady Germaine,” said the lover, assuming an air of superior -knowledge and lofty sentiment--“I presume that if I am so fortunate as -to persuade _her_ to listen to me--which, heaven knows, I am doubtful -enough of!--that in that case her father----” - -“Would be easy to manage, you think?” she said, with scornful toleration -of his folly. - -The young man looked at her with that ineffable air of imbecility and -vanity which no man can escape at such a crisis, and made her a little -bow of acquiescence. Her tone, her air, made him aware that she had no -doubt of his success in the first instance, and this gave him a sudden -intoxication. A father! What was a father? If she once gave him -authority to speak to her father, would not all be said? - -“Oh, you goose!” said Lady Germaine again; “oh, you ignoramus! You are -so silly that I am obliged to call you names. Do you know who the Duke -of Billingsgate is? Simply the proudest man in England. He thinks there -is nobody under the blood royal that is good enough for his child.” - -“And he is quite right! I am of the same opinion,” said Winton; then he -paused and gave her a look in which, notwithstanding his gravity and -enthusiasm, there was something comic. “But then,” he added, “the blood -royal, that is not always the symbol of perfection, and then----” - -“And then----? You think, of course, that you have something to offer -which a royal duke might not possess?” - -“Perhaps,” said Winton, looking at her again with a sort of friendly -defiance; and then his eyes softened with that in which he felt himself -superior to any royal duke or potentate; the something which was worthy -of Lady Jane, let all the noble fathers in the world do their worst -against him. He was not alarmed by all that Lady Germaine had said. Most -likely he did not realise it. His mind went away even while she was -speaking. She had heart enough to approve of this, and to perceive that -Winton felt as a true lover ought to feel, but she was half provoked all -the same, and anxious how it was all to turn out. - -“Do be a little practical,” she said; “try for a moment to leave her out -of the question. What are you going to say to the Duke? That is what I -want to know.” - -“How can I tell you?” said Winton; “how can I speak at all on such a -subject? If I am to be so happy as to have anything at all to say to the -Duke:--why, then--the occasion will inspire me,” he added, after a -pause. “I cannot even think now what in such circumstances I should -say.” - -Lady Germaine gave up with a sigh all attempt to guide him. “Then I must -just wash my hands of you,” she said, with a sort of despair; “indeed, -in any case I don’t know what I could have done for you. I shall be -blamed, of course. The Duke will turn upon me, I know; but, thank -heaven, I have nothing to fear from the Duke, and I don’t see what I can -be said to have to do with the business. You met only in the ordinary -way at my house. I never planned meetings for you, nor schemed to bring -you together. Indeed I never thought of such a thing at all. Lady Jane, -who has refused the first matches in the kingdom, what could have led me -to suppose that she would turn her eyes upon _you_?” - -Now, though Winton said truly that he thought the Duke quite right in -expecting the very best and highest of all things for his child, yet it -was not in the nature of man not to be somewhat piqued when he heard -himself spoken of in this tone of slight, and almost contempt. True, he -would have desired for her sake to have more and finer gifts to lay at -her feet, but still such as he was, was not, after all, so contemptible -as Lady Germaine seemed to imply. He could not help a little movement of -self-vindication. - -“I am not aware on what ground you can be blamed,” he said, coldly, -“since you are good enough to admit me to your society at all. Perhaps -that was a mistake; and yet I don’t know that I have done anything to -shut the doors of my friends against me.” - -“This is admirable,” said Lady Germaine; “you first, and the Duke -afterwards. Never mind; you will probably come to yourself in half an -hour or so, and beg my pardon. I give it you beforehand. But at the same -time, let me advise you for your own good, to think a little what you -are going to say to the Duke when you ask him for his daughter. It will -not be so easy a matter as you seem to think. Oh yes, of course you are -sorry for being rude to me--I was aware of that. Yes, yes, I forgive -you. But pay attention to what I say.” - -Winton thought over this conversation several times in the course of the -next twenty-four hours, but his mind was very much occupied with -another and much more important matter. He thought so much of Lady Jane -that he had little time to spare for any consideration of her father. -True, he himself was only a commoner of an undistinguished family; but -he had the sustaining consciousness of being very well off--and dukes’ -daughters had been known to marry commoners before now without any -special commotion on the subject. He was a great deal more occupied with -the first steps in the matter than with any subsequent ones. He had to -find out where Lady Jane was going, and to contrive to get invitations -to the same places, for it was the height of the season, and they were -all in London. The Duchess did not throw herself into the vortex. She -went only to the best houses; she gave only stately entertainments, -which the Duke made a point of; therefore it was more difficult to go -where Lady Jane was going than is usually the case with the ordinary -Lady Janes of society. It took her lover most of his time to arrange -these opportunities of seeing her, and at each successive one he made up -his mind to determine his fate. But it is astonishing how many accidents -intervene when such a decision has been come to. Sometimes it was an -impertinent spectator who would obtrude himself or herself upon them. -Sometimes it was the impossibility of finding a nook where any such -serious conversation could be carried on. Sometimes the frivolity of the -surrounding circumstances kept him silent; for who would, if he could -help it, associate that wonderful moment of his existence with nothing -better than the chatter of the ball-room? And once when every -circumstance favoured him, his heart failed and he did not dare to put -his fortune to the touch. How could he think of the father while in all -the agitation of uncertainty as to how his suit would be looked upon by -the daughter? During this moment of hesitation the Duchess herself once -asked him to dinner, and when he found himself set down in the centre of -the table, far from the magnates who glittered at either end, and far -from Lady Jane who was the star of the whole entertainment, Winton felt -his humility and insignificance as he had never felt them before, and -was conscious of such a chill of doubt and alarm as made his heart sink -within him. But the Duchess was markedly kind, and a glance from Lady -Jane’s soft eyes, suffused with a sort of liquid light, sent him up -again into a heaven of hope. Next morning they met by chance in the -Park, very early, before the world of fashion was out of doors. She was -taking a walk attended by her maid, and explained, with a great deal of -unnecessary embarrassment, that she missed her country exercise and had -longed for a little fresh air. The consequence was, that the maid was -sent away to do some small commissions, and, with a good deal of alarm -but some guilty happiness, Lady Jane found herself alone with her lover. -It did not require a very long time or many words to make matters clear -between them. Did she not know already all that he had wanted so long to -say? One word made them both aware of what they had been communicating -to each other for months past. But though this explanation was so soon -arrived at, the details took a long time to disentangle--and there was a -terrible amount of repetition and comparison of feelings and -circumstances. It was nearly the hour for luncheon when he accompanied -her home, with a heart so full of exultation and delight and pride, that -it had still no room for any thought of the Duke or fear of what he -might say. Even after he had parted from his love, Winton could not -withdraw his mind from its much more agreeable occupation to think of -the Duke. Jane had begged that she might tell her mother first, and that -he should wait to hear from them before taking any further step. But he -was to meet them that evening at one of the parties to which he had -schemed to be invited on her account. And with every vein thrilling with -his morning’s happy work, and the anticipation of seeing her who was now -his, in the evening, how could any young lover be expected to turn from -his happiness to the thought of anything less blessed? The day passed -like a dream; everything in it tended towards the moment in which he -should see her again. It would be like a new world to see her again. -When they met in the morning she was almost terrible to him, a queen -who could send him into everlasting banishment. When he met her now, he -would see in her his wife, wonderful thought, his own! The place of -meeting was in one of the crowds of London society, where all the world -is; but Winton saw nothing except those soft eyes which were looking for -him. How their hands met, in what seemed only the ordinary greeting to -other people, clasping each other as if they never could part again! -They did not say much, and she did not even venture, except by momentary -glance now and then, to meet his eye. There was scarcely even -opportunity for a whisper on his part to ask what he was to do; for as -he stooped for this purpose to Lady Jane’s ear, the Duchess, who was -looking very serious, but who had not refused to shake hands with him, -laid a finger upon his arm. - -“Mr Winton,” she said, “I should like to see you to-morrow about -twelve. I have something to say to you.” She had looked very grave, but -at the end brightened into a smile, yet shook her head. “I don’t know -what to say to you,” she added hurriedly; “there will be dreadful -difficulties in the way.” - -To-morrow at twelve! He seemed to tread upon difficulties and crush them -under his feet as he went home that evening; but with the morning a -little thrill of apprehension came. - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - -A DISAPPOINTMENT. - - -That morning, Winton went with his heart beating to Grosvenor Square. He -was not overawed by the stately stillness of the place, the imposing dim -vacancy of the suite of rooms through which he was led to the Duchess’s -boudoir. He had a fine house himself, and everything handsome about him, -and he did not feel that Lady Jane would make any marked descent either -in comfort or luxury should she abandon these gilded halls for his. To -tell the truth, he thought the gilding was overdone, not to say a little -tarnished and in questionable taste; but that was the fault of the time -in which it was executed. He was so little alarmed that he could notice -all this. He had seen those rooms before only in the evening, when they -were full of company, and looked very different from now, when they lay, -in the freshness of the morning, all empty and silent, the windows open, -and the sun-blinds down, and nobody visible. Naturally the lover looked, -as he passed through the apartment in which his lady lived, for some -trace of her habitual occupation. Was that hers, that little chair by -the window, the table with work on it, and some books, and a single rose -in a glass? He would have taken the rose on the chance, if that solemn -personage in front of him had not kept within arm’s length. There was a -portrait of her on the wall; but it did not, of course, do her justice, -indeed was an unworthy daub, as anybody could see. Thus he stepped -through one room after another, treading on air, his heart beating, not -with apprehension, but with soft excitement and happiness. She should -have a better lodging than this, rooms decorated expressly for her, -pictures of a very different kind; her home should be worthy of her, if -any mortal habitation could ever be worthy of such a beautiful soul. In -his progress across the ante-room and the two great drawing-rooms, all -this went through his mind. Thoughts go so quickly. He even arranged the -pictures, selected with lightning-speed what would suit her best, -decided that a Raphael--it must be a Raphael--should hang upon the walls -of the shrine in which his saint was to be specially set: while he -walked on, glancing with a half-smile of contempt at the Duke of -Billingsgate, K.G., in his peer’s robes, on one side, and a -Duchess-Dowager in a turban, on the other. Good heavens! to think of -such hideous daubs surrounding Jane! But in the new home all should be -altered. His heart had palpitated with anxiety yesterday before he knew -how she would receive his suit--but to-day! To-day he had no anxiety at -all, only an eager desire to get the preliminaries over, and to see her, -and make her decide when It was to be. There was no reason why they -should wait. He was not a young barrister (as he might have been but for -that uncle--bless him!--whose goodness he had never duly appreciated -till now) waiting for an income. He was rich, and ready to sign the -settlements to-morrow. At the end of the season, just long enough to be -clear of St George’s, and make sure of a pretty quiet country church to -be married in, time enough by turning half the best workmen in London -into it, and devoting himself to _bric-a-brac_ with all his energies, to -turn his little house at Winton into a lady’s bower. What more was -wanted? He had everything arranged in his mind before the groom of the -chambers, entering on noiseless feet, and with a voice like velvet, -informed her Grace that “Mr Winton” was about to enter. The Duchess -received him with benignity just terminated with stateliness. She had -never, he thought, been so beautiful as Jane. Perhaps in the majority of -cases it is difficult to believe that a woman of fifty has been as -beautiful as her daughter of twenty-eight. And it was true enough in -this case. But nobody could deny that she had a face full of fine sense -and feeling. It looked somewhat troubled as well as very serious to-day. -Winton, however, was ready to allow that his gain would be this lady’s -loss, and that perhaps the Duchess was not so anxious to get rid of her -only daughter as parents generally are understood to be. - -“Sit down, Mr Winton,” she said. She had not risen from her own chair, -but sat behind her writing-table, which was laden with papers, and -across this barrier held out her hand to him, and gave him a benign but -somewhat distant smile. “I ought to apologise,” she added after a -moment, “for giving you the trouble of coming to me.” - -“The trouble! but it is my business. I should have asked to see the Duke -if you had not so kindly given me this opportunity--first. I hope I may -speak to the Duke afterwards if I have the happiness to satisfy you. You -may be sure I can think of nothing else till this is all settled.” - -“All settled?” she said, with a little shake of her head. “You are young -and confident, Mr Winton; you think things settle themselves so easily -as this. But I fear the preliminaries will be more lengthened than you -suppose. Do you know, I wish very much you had consulted me before -speaking to Jane.” - -“Why?” he asked, fixing his eyes upon her with an astonished gaze. Then -he added, “I know Lady Jane is a great lady, a princess royal. She is -like that. I am a little democratic myself, but I acknowledge in her -everything that is beautiful in rank. She should be approached like a -crowned head.” - -“Not quite that perhaps,” said the Duchess, smiling. - -“With every observance, every ceremony; but then,” he added, “that is -not the English fashion, you know, to ask others first. One thinks of -her, herself as the only judge.” - -The Duchess continued to shake her head. “That is all very well with -ordinary girls, but Jane’s position is so exceptional. Mr Winton, I hope -you will not be disappointed or annoyed by what I tell you. Had you -asked me, I should have said to you, No.” - -“No!” he repeated vaguely, looking into her face. He could not even -realise what her meaning was. - -“I should have said, Don’t do it, Mr Winton, for your own sake.” - -Winton rose up in the excitement of the moment and stood before her like -a man petrified. “Don’t do it! Do you mean---- Pardon me if I am slow of -understanding.” - -“I mean, seeing it had unfortunately come about that, without being able -to help it, you had fallen in love with Jane----” - -“Unfortunately!” - -“You do nothing but repeat my words,” the Duchess cried in a plaintive -tone. “It _is_ unfortunately--but hear me out first. If you had spoken -to me I should have said, Try and get over it, Mr Winton; don’t disturb -her, poor girl, by telling her. Try if a little trip to America, or -tiger-shooting, or to be a ‘Times’ correspondent, or some other of those -exciting things which you young men do nowadays, will not cure you. I -should have said, You have not known her very long, it cannot have gone -very deep. I tell you this to show you what my advice would have been -had you asked me before speaking to Jane.” - -“But it is of no use speculating upon what we should have done in an -imaginary case,” said Winton. He had awoke from his first bewilderment, -and began to understand vaguely that everything was not going to be easy -for him as he had once thought. “You see I _have_ spoken to her,” he -said. “You frighten me horribly; but then it is of no use considering -what you would have done in a totally different case.” - -The Duchess sighed and shook her head. “That is what I should have -thought it my duty to say, in view of all the pain and confusion that -are sure to follow. Do you know, Mr Winton, that her father will never -listen to you--never!” she said, with a sudden change of tone. - -Winton dropped upon his chair again and stared at her with an anxious -countenance. “I knew--I was told--that the Duke would not be easy to -please. And quite right! I agree with his Grace. I am not half good -enough for her; but then,” he added after a pause, “nobody is. If there -is one man in the world as worthy as she is, neither the Duke nor any -one knows where to find him; and then,” he continued, in tones more -insinuating still, “it would not matter now. If that hero were found -to-morrow, she would not have him, for--she has chosen me! I allow that -it is the most wonderful thing in the world!” said the lover, in a -rapture which became him; “but you will find it is true. She has chosen -me!” - -“It may be very true,” said the Duchess, shaking her head more and more, -“but the Duke will not pay much attention to that. I am afraid it is not -moral excellence he is thinking of. It would be hard, I allow, to find -anybody as good as Jane. Probably if we did, he would turn out to be -some poor old missionary or quite impossible person. I am afraid that is -not at all what her father is thinking of.” - -“Then tell me what it is. I am not Prince Charming--but the Wintons have -been settled at Winton since the Conquest, and I am very well off. The -settlements should be--whatever you wish.” - -“Don’t promise too much,” said the Duchess, with a smile, “for no doubt -you have got a family lawyer who will be of a very different opinion; -indeed I hope you have, if that is your way of doing business. But, -alas! the Duke will not be satisfied, I fear, even with that.” - -“Then what, in the name of heaven!--I beg you a thousand pardons, -Duchess. I don’t know what I am saying. I have no title, to be sure. Is -it a title that is necessary?” - -“I can’t tell you what is necessary,” said the Duchess, with a tone of -impatience. “The Duke is--well, the Duke is her father; that is all that -is to be said. He will never listen to your proposal--never! That is why -I should have said to you, Don’t make it. Leave her in her tranquillity, -poor girl.” - -“But----” Winton cried. He did not know what more to say--a protest of -all his being, that was the only thing of which he was capable. - -“But----” the Duchess repeated. “Yes, Mr Winton, there is always a but. -To tell the truth, I am not so very sorry that you did not ask me after -all. I should have been obliged to tell you what I have now told you. -But since you have taken it into your own hands, I am rather glad. If -her father had his way, Jane would never be married at all. Oh, don’t be -so enthusiastic; don’t thank me so warmly! I have done nothing for you, -and I don’t know what I can do for you.” - -“Everything!” said Winton. “With you to back us, it is impossible that -anything can prevail against us. The Duke’s heart will melt; he will -hear reason.” - -A faintly satirical smile came upon the mouth of the Duke’s wife, who -knew better than anybody how much was practicable in the way of making -him hear reason. But she did not say anything. She let the lover talk. -He went on with the conviction natural to his generation--that all these -medieval prejudices were fictitious, and paternal tyranny a thing of the -past. - -“Cruel fathers,” said Winton, “are things of the middle ages. I am not -afraid of them any more than I am of the Castle Spectre. The Duke will -rightly think that I am a poor sort of a fellow to ask his daughter from -him. I ought to have been something very different--better, handsomer, -cleverer.” - -“You are not at all amiss, Mr Winton,” said the Duchess, with a gracious -smile. - -He made her a bow of acknowledgment, and his gratification was -great--for who does not like to be told that he is considered a fine -fellow? But he went on. “All this I feel quite as much as his Grace can -do. The thing in my favour is that Jane----” the colour flew over his -face as he called her so, and her mother, though she started slightly, -acknowledged his rights by a little bow of assent, somewhat solemnly -made,--“that Jane----” he went on repeating the sweet monosyllable, -“does not mind my inferiority--is satisfied, the darling----” Here his -happiness got into his voice as if it had been tears, and choked him. -The Duchess bent her head again, - -“To me that is everything,” she said. - -“How could it be otherwise?” cried the young man; “it _is_ everything. I -have no standing-ground, of course, of my own; but Jane--loves me! It is -far too good to be true, and yet it is true. The Duke will not like it, -let us allow; but when he sees that, and that she will not give up, but -be faithful--faithful to the end of our lives---- Dear Duchess, I have -the greatest veneration for your Grace’s judgment, but in this point -one must go by reason. Life is not a melodrama. So long as the daughter -is firm the father must yield.” - -He gave forth this dogma with a little excitement, almost with a -peremptory tone, smiling a little in spite of himself at the tradition -in which even this most sensible of duchesses believed. Perhaps a great -lady of that elevated description is more liable than others to believe -that the current of events and the progress of opinion have little or no -effect upon the race, and that dukes and fathers are still what they -were in the fifteenth century. He, this fine production of the -nineteenth, was so certain of his opinion, that he could not feel -anything but a smiling indulgence for hers. On the other side, the -Duchess was more tolerant even than Winton. His certainty gave her a -faint amusement--his gentle disdain of her a lively sense of ridicule; -but this was softened by her sympathy for him, and profound and tender -interest in the man whom Jane loved. She was a little astonished, -indeed--as what parent is not?--that Jane should have loved this man -precisely, and no other; but as the event called forth all her affection -for her woman-child, it threw also a beautifying reflection upon Jane’s -lover. On the whole, she was satisfied with his demeanour personally. It -is not every man who will show his sentiments in a way which satisfies -an anxious mother. The Duchess, however, was pleased with Winton. His -look and tone when he spoke of her daughter satisfied her. He was fond -enough, adoring enough, reverential enough to content her; and how much -this was to say! - -“Well,” she said, “we will hope you may be right, Mr Winton. You know -men and human nature, no doubt, better than I do, who am only about -twice your age,” she added, with a soft little laugh. “Anyhow, I wish -with my whole heart that you may prove to be right. The only thing is, -that it will be prudent not to speak to the Duke now. Don’t cry out--I -know I am right in this. In town he is never quite happy; there are many -things that rub him the wrong way. He sees men advanced whom he thinks -unworthy of it, and others left out. And he thinks society is out of -joint, and cannot quite divest himself of the idea that he, or rather -we, were born to set it right.” All this the Duchess said with a little -half-sigh between the sentences, and yet a faint sense of humour, which -gave a light to her countenance. “But in the country things go better. -If he is ever to be moved, as you say, by love and faithfulness, and -such beautiful things, it will be in his own kingdom, where nobody -thwarts him and he has everything his own way.” - -Winton’s countenance fell at every word. What! he who had come hither -with the intention of persuading Jane to decide when it should be, was -he to go away without a word--to be hung up indefinitely, to be no -farther advanced than yesterday? His whole heart cried out against it, -and his pride and all that was in him. He grew faint, he grew sick with -anger, and disappointment, and dismay. “That means,” he said, “complete -postponement; that means endless suspense. I think you want me to give -up altogether; you want to crush the life out of us altogether!” - -“Of course you will be unjust,” said the Duchess--“I was prepared for -that; and ungrateful. I am advising what is best for you. The Duke, I -believe, is in the library. He is the pink of politeness; he will see -you at once, I feel sure, if you ask for an interview; but in that case -you will never darken these doors again. You will be shut out from all -intercourse with Jane. The whole matter will be ended as abruptly and -conclusively as possible. I know my husband; you will not have time to -say a word for yourself. You can take what course you think best, Mr -Winton. What I say to you is for your good; and in the meantime, if you -do as I wish, everything that I can do for you I will do.” - -The young man sat and listened to these words in mingled exasperation -and dismay. As she spoke of the Duke in his library, Winton’s heart -jumped up and began to thump against his side. Oh yes, it might be -decided fast enough. Evidently he could have an answer without fail or -suspense on the spot. He sat and gazed at her blankly in such a dilemma -as he had never known before. What would Jane think of him if he -submitted? What would she say if he insisted, and got only failure and -prohibition for his pains? The Duchess, it was evident, was not speaking -lightly. She knew what she was talking about. She wished him well--too -well to let him go on to his destruction. But, on the other hand, there -was the postponement of all his hopes, a sickening pause and -uncertainty, a blank quenching of expectation. He could do nothing but -stare at the Duchess while she spoke, and for some time after. What was -he to answer her? How calmly these old people sit on their height of -experience, and look down half smiling upon the frets and agitation of -the young ones! What was it to her that he--even that Jane, who -naturally was of far more importance--should suffer all these pangs of -suspense? Probably she would smile, and say that life was long, and what -did it matter for a month or two? A month or two! It would be like a -century or two to them. Sometimes Winton resolved that he would not be -silenced; that he would go and have it out with the Duke, who, after -all, was Jane’s father, and could not wish his child to be unhappy. And -then again, as she went on laying the alternative before him, his heart -would fail him. He changed his mind a hundred times while she was -speaking, and after she had ended, still gazed on her, with his heart in -his mouth. - -“I don’t wish,” he said at last, “to do anything rash. I will submit to -anything rather than run any risks. But how are we to bear the delay? -How am I to bear it? and it will be deception as well! I don’t see how I -am to do it. Do you mean me to give her up all the time--go -tiger-shooting, as you were good enough to suggest?” - -“Well--there would be no harm in that,” said the Duchess, with a smile; -“but I did not suggest it in the present circumstances. I said, if you -had spoken to me first--I ask you to wait a month--perhaps two” (this -addition, made as it seemed in _gaieté de cœur_, with rather a pleasant -sense of the exasperation it would produce in him, called forth a -muttered exclamation, a groan from the victim)--“or perhaps two at the -most,” the Duchess repeated; “whereas tiger-shooting would take six at -least. But, Mr Winton, I repeat, I force you to nothing. There is the -bell, and the Duke is in the library. Ring it if you will, and ask him -to see you; he will not refuse.” - -Winton rose slowly and went towards the bell. But he had not the courage -to take this extreme step. “I suppose I may see her sometimes?” he said; -“but it will be a kind of treachery.” - -“Her mother does not object; the case is an extreme one,” said the -Duchess, though she blushed a little at her own sophistry. “What he does -not know will not do him any harm.” - -“It will be deception,” said Winton, shaking his head, and he made -another step towards the bell. Then he turned back again. “How often may -I see her? If we take your way, you will not be hard upon us?” he said. - -“But it will be deception,” said the Duchess, solemnly. - -“I know that; that is what revolts me. Still, as you say, what he does -not know will not do him any harm.” - -The Duchess laughed, and then she grew grave suddenly. “Mr Winton, I -feel as if I were betraying my husband; but at the present moment my -child has the first claim upon me. It is her happiness that is at -stake. I will not prevent you from meeting--you are both old enough to -know your own minds. I will do nothing to put off Jane from a woman’s -natural career. It is doing evil, perhaps, that good may come; but we -must risk it. Come here, but not too often: I will take the -responsibility; and when we go to Billings, Lady Germaine will invite -you, and you can try your fortune then. I will prepare the way as much -as I can. I don’t give you great hopes when all is done,” she said, -shaking her head. - -“And after?” said Winton, turning once more with a kind of desperation -towards the bell. - -“Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,” said the Duchess, -piously. - -But oh, the difference when he walked out crestfallen through all the -big drawing-rooms! Not a word about when It was to be. No sort of -arrangement, consultation, possible. Everything had seemed so near when -he came--so near that he could almost touch it. Now everything had been -pushed far off into the vague. He had seen Jane indeed, but in her -mother’s presence, which made her happy enough, but him only partly -happy. Was this how it was to be? The Duchess indeed was writing at her -table, taking no notice of them. But still it was very different from -what he had hoped. He did not perceive the bad pictures or the -over-gilding as he went away. The place looked like a prison to him, and -was dark and stifling. Lady Jane indeed accompanied him through the -rooms. She gave him the rose which he had thought of stealing as he -came, and told him all their engagements for a week in advance. “You -will be sure to go wherever we are going,” she said, and called him -Reginald with a blush and a tone of sweetness that went straight to his -heart. But nevertheless his disappointment, he thought, was almost more -than he could bear. - - - - -CHAPTER V. - -THE ANTICIPATIONS OF LADY JANE. - - -Lady Jane, it will easily be understood, did not look upon the matter at -all from the same point of view. A girl, however much she may be in -love, is seldom anxious for a peremptory marriage such as--when there is -no great sacrifice involved--suits the bolder sex. She loves to play -with her happiness, to prolong the sweet time when, without any violent -breach of other habits, even any change of name, she can enjoy the added -glory of this crown of life. She accompanied Winton through the great -silent rooms, with a sense of perfect, quiet happiness which was -exactly in accordance with the summer morning--the fresh soft air in -which there was no sunshine, but a flood of subdued light, and in which -every sound had a tone of enchantment, though not music. It suited her -gentle nature to dwell in such an atmosphere of delicate delight, which -had no fact to vulgarise it, but only an ecstasy of feeling. She was -disappointed to find that he was less satisfied, less happy. And he -would have been angry to see that she was so happy. Such are the -differences between those most near to each other. He kissed the rosebud -and her hands as, with a sense of daring beyond words, she put it into -his coat; but he wanted something more. Yes, he could have been angry -with her; he felt a desire to say something brutal. “How can you be -satisfied to deceive your father?” he asked. “It will be -clandestine----” He had the cruelty to say this, though next moment he -was horrified, and begged her pardon, metaphorically on his knees. - -“Clandestine!” she said, with a little surprise--she made allowance for -a man’s rough way of speaking--“oh no; my father has never entered into -all the circumstances. So long as my mother approves----” - -“But,” Winton cried, in his ferocity, “suppose he refuses his consent at -last, as the Duchess thinks, will you venture to oppose him then, or -will you send me away?” - -“Ah, never that!” said Lady Jane, looking at him with her soft eyes. -They were not brilliant eyes, but when she looked at him there came over -them a certain liquid light, a melting radiance such as no words could -describe. The light was love, and may be seen glorifying many an -unremarkable orb. It made hers so exquisite that they dazzled the -beholder, especially the happy beholder who knew this was for him. But -he was not satisfied even with that. - -“Suppose,” he went on, “that the Duke were to open that door and walk in -now--as he has a good right to do, into his own drawing-room--what would -come of it? Would you take your hand out of mine, and bid me good-bye -like a stranger?” - -Her hand indeed slid out of his at the suggestion, and a little tremor -ran through her frame; but the next moment she raised her head and put -her hand lightly within his arm. “If you think I am without courage!” -she said--then added with a smile, “when it is necessary; but at present -it is not necessary.” - -“Then you will not, whatever happens, give me up?--not even if the -foundations of the earth are shaken, not even if the Duke says ‘No’?” -he cried, partly furious, partly satirical, catching at the hand which -was on his arm. - -His violence gave her a little shock, and the savage satire of the tone -in which he named her father distressed Lady Jane. “You must not speak -so,” she said, with her soft dignity: “the Duke is my father. But you do -not know me if you think that anything will change me.” Then indeed -Winton felt a little ashamed of himself, and began to realise that he -did not yet know all of this gentle creature who was going to be his -wife. She parted with him at the door of the ante-room, and went back -through her mother’s boudoir to her own retirement. Next to being with -the _objet aimé_, being alone is the purest happiness at this stage. She -kissed her mother, who was busy at her writing-table, in passing. The -Duchess was deep in calculation, not how she should make her ends meet, -which was impossible, but how near she could draw them together, so that -the gap might be small. It is a sad and harassing business. She paused -only a moment to pat her child on her soft cheek, and reflect within -herself how beautifying was this love which in youth is full of -enchantment and illusion, and then returned to her figures. When the -ends will meet, what pleasure there is even in the pain of drawing them -together! but when no miracle will do this, when there must always -remain a horrible chasm between! Fifty remained thus at work in the -finance department, while Twenty-eight went lightly away to think over -her happiness. It must be allowed that Lady Jane was not quite young -enough--she ought to have been but twenty, by rights; but her maturity -only added to the exceeding fulness of her enjoyment. There is -something sweet in being awakened late; it prolongs the morning, it -keeps the “vision splendid” a little longer in one’s eyes. The -unfulfilled even has a glory of its own, which people who are bigoted in -belief of the ordinary canons of romance are slow to perceive. This -preserved to Lady Jane, at an age when girlhood is over, its most -perfect fragrance and charm. - -Presently, however, the sweet vagueness of her anticipations began to -open into other thoughts. She had been so preserved by her stately -upbringing and the traditions which she had felt to centre in her, from -knowledge of fact and the world, that she knew little at all about -money, or the power it has to bridge over social differences. When she -allowed her heart to go out to Reginald Winton, she did so with the most -absolute conviction that it involved a great descent in rank and -abandonment of luxury. She would have to put off the coronet from her -head, she believed, the princess royal’s myrtle crown. She would have to -learn a great many things, both to do and to do without. She had heard -of Winton House, which was a small place; and probably she had heard of -the house in town. But the latter had altogether dropped out of her -mind, and she knew very well that a squire’s little manor would be very -different from Billings, and would require from its mistress an -existence of a kind unknown to all her previous experiences. She would -have to superintend her own household; if not to make her maids spin, -according to the usage of old times, at least to direct the housemaids, -and know how things ought to be done. Though her father was in reality -much less rich than the man whom she had chosen for her husband, she -was entirely in the dark on this point, and her mind awoke to a sense of -a hundred requirements of which she knew nothing. She had been like a -star, and dwelt apart (if it is not profane to apply such words to a -young lady of the nineteenth century) as much as any poet. But now love -and duty bade her come down from these heights, and learn how people -walk along the common ways. She addressed herself to this task without a -grudge, with glad alacrity and readiness; but she was a little puzzled, -it must be admitted, to know how to begin. The first person to whom she -addressed herself (for naturally Lady Jane was shy of betraying her -motive, or letting it be known that the inquiries she made were for her -own benefit) was her maid, who was as superior a young person and as -much like a waiting gentlewoman as it was possible to find. Lady Jane -was aware, of course, that Arabella’s family (for this was the -distinguished name she bore) were not in the same position as Mr Winton. -But in that sad deficiency of perspective which we have already noted as -one of the drawbacks of rank, she felt it possible that Arabella’s -knowledge of how life was conducted at her end of the social circle -would be more useful than her own to Reginald Winton’s wife. She opened -the subject in, it must be avowed, a very uncompromising and artless way -one evening, while Arabella stood behind her, partially visible in the -large mirror before which she sat, brushing out her long and abundant -hair. It was very fine and silky, and made very little appearance when -smoothly wound round the back of her head; but when it was being brushed -out it was like a veil, soft and dreamy and illimitable, spreading out -almost as far as the operator chose in a cloud of soft darkness--“like -twilight, too, her dusky hair.” A lady’s-maid is very much wanting in -the spirit of her profession if she is indifferent to the fact that her -mistress has fine hair. Generally it is the thing of which she is most -proud. And Arabella held this sentiment in the warmest way. Her scorn of -chignons and of frizzing was indescribable. “You should just see my -lady’s hair when it is down,” she would say, almost crying over the fact -which she could not ignore, that the hair of many other ladies, when it -was up, greatly exceeded in appearance and volume the soft locks of Lady -Jane. It was while Arabella was employed in this way that her mistress, -looking at her in the glass, said suddenly, “If you were going to be -married, Arabella, what should you do to prepare for it? I want very -much to know.” - -“My lady!” cried the girl, with a violent start. She let the brush fall -from her hand with the fright it gave her, and then without any warning -she began to cry. “Indeed, indeed, I never could make up my mind to -leave your ladyship--not in a hurry like he wants me to--never! never! -at least till you were suited,” Arabella said. - -“Oh!” cried Lady Jane, turning round, “then you really were thinking! I -did not know of that, I assure you; I never thought of it. Are you -really going to be married, Arabella?” - -“It is none of my doing,” the girl said; “indeed I told him I couldn’t -make up my mind to leave; but he says--you know, my lady, men find -always a deal to say----” - -“Do they?” said Lady Jane, with a soft laugh of sympathy. Yes, it was -true--they had a deal to say: and then sometimes when they were silent, -that said still more. She paused upon this recollection, with a soft -wave of pleasure going over her; and then--perhaps not so anxious to -understand Arabella as to follow out her own thoughts--“Tell me,” she -said, “when you go away from me, Arabella--out of Billings and out of -Grosvenor Square--into a little small house, how does it feel to you? Do -you dislike it very much? Is it very wretched? I should like to know how -you feel about it. One day here in these large rooms--and the next in a -tiny little place, without servants, without any conveniences. It is -only lately that I have thought about this, but I want to know. Nobody -can tell me so well as you.” - -“Oh, my lady,” cried Arabella, “don’t you know without telling? Why, -it’s home! That makes all the difference; though it’s a little place, -yet it’s your own.” - -Lady Jane’s eyes still remained unsatisfied, though she said “To be -sure” vaguely. “To be sure,” she repeated; “but then here you have -everything done for you, and everything is nice. You cannot have the -same at home.” - -“No, my lady; but it’s so nice and fresh there: no carpets or things to -catch the dust--except in the parlour, but that is only for Sundays. The -floors all so white and fresh; the plates and the dishes shining; the -fire so cheerful. I can’t deny,” said Arabella, her tone of delight -sinking to one of candid avowal, “that the parlour is--well, my lady, it -is a dreadful little place; and poor mother is so proud of it!--it is -not so nice as the room the under-housemaids have their tea in. I feel -just as if I were one of the inferior servants when I sit there. But the -kitchen: if your ladyship took a fancy to playing at being poor--like -the French queen did, you know, my lady--it would be quite nice enough -even for you.” - -“You should not say ‘like the French queen did’; that is bad grammar,” -said Lady Jane, softly. “I shan’t play at being poor, Arabella, but -perhaps some day---- All this you have been saying is about your home, -but that was not what I asked. If you were going to be married, what -would you do? You could not keep any servants; you would have to do all -sorts of things yourself. Do you think it will be a dreadful sacrifice -to make?” - -Arabella gave her lady’s hair a few tugs, perhaps unconsciously to hide -a little emotion, perhaps with a little gentle indignation at her -mistress’s humble estimate of her prospects. “It is not so low as you -think, my lady,” she said. “He is a careful young man that has saved a -little, and can give me a nice home and keep me a servant. I’ll have no -dirty work to do nor need to soil my fingers. He thinks, like your -ladyship, that it will be a great sacrifice; but what can a girl have -better, mother says, than a good steady husband and a nice home? and I -think so too.” - -Lady Jane smiled with gentle sympathy. “And so do I, Arabella. Still -that is not the question I was asking. It will be a small house, I -suppose, and one little maid? And I suppose you will have many things to -do, and to live with----” Here she paused, blushing for her own want of -perception. “You are accustomed to things very much the same as mine,” -she continued softly, “and it must be different. How will you put up -with it--or shall you not mind? Only a few little rooms, perhaps, to -live in.” - -“Oh, my lady,” said Arabella, “a few! We shall have a little parlour, -where I can sit in the afternoons. What could any one wish for more? -Your ladyship yourself, or even the Duchess, though you have all the -castle to choose from, you can’t sit in more than one room at a time. -And it has often surprised me, my lady, to see how, with all those -beautiful drawing-rooms and all their grand furniture, your ladyship and -the Duchess will prefer quite a little bit of a place to sit in. Look at -the morning-room at the castle!--and her Grace’s boudoir here is quite -small in comparison. I can’t see that it will make much difference to -me.” - -“That is a very just observation, Arabella,” said Lady Jane; “I wonder I -never thought of it before. Nobody can sit in more than one room at a -time, it is quite true; that is all one really needs. I am very much -obliged to you for putting it so clearly.” - -“Yes, my lady,” said Arabella, with a little curtsey of acknowledgment. -She was pleased, but not so much surprised as might have been expected. -She was fond of her mistress, and had a great reverence for her in her -way, but she was aware that in practical matters she herself was far -more likely to be right than Lady Jane. And then she proceeded on her -own account to give many particulars which were very satisfactory to -herself, and inspired her mistress with great interest, but threw no -further light upon the point which occupied her mind. She smiled to -herself afterwards, with a mixture of sympathy and amusement, to think -that Arabella was going to be married _too_. But in the meantime this -new view as to the number of rooms which were indispensable, did her a -great deal of good, and threw much light upon the chief subject of her -thoughts. - -Her next inquiries were addressed to a very different kind of -counsellor. It was well for Lady Jane that she was not on womanly -confidential terms with her sister-in-law, or it would have been very -difficult to keep the secret of her love from that acute observer; as it -was, the curiosity of Susan was much awakened by some of her questions. -She asked her, “What do girls in the other classes do when they are -preparing for their marriage?” Lady Jane would not say the lower -classes, partly lest she might offend Lady Hungerford, partly because of -a delicate sense she had that deficiency of any kind should not be made -a mark for those who suffered under it. Lady Jane’s politeness was such -that among blind people she would have thought it right to assume that -blindness was the common rule of life, and to suppress in her talk any -invidious distinction of herself as a person who saw. - -“What do they do when they are preparing for their marriage? Why, dear, -they generally spend most of their time, and far too much of their -thoughts, in buying their wedding clothes.” - -“That is so in all classes,” said Lady Jane; “but still that cannot be -everything. Some must be bent upon doing their best in their new life. -Those, for instance, who have not much money.” - -“I am afraid I cannot tell you,” said Susan, “for I never was in that -predicament. My people, you know, were vulgar, and it was a great rise -in the world for me, of course, to marry Hungerford.” - -“I do not think you have ever thought it that,” said Lady Jane. - -“Haven’t I? I ought to have, then. It _was_ a great rise; but my people -were never poor. A good girl who is going to marry a clerk, or that sort -of thing, buys a cookery-book, I believe, and has her husband’s -slippers warmed for him when he comes home. She finds out all the cheap -shops, and puts down her expenses every day in a book. That is all I -know.” - -“I was not thinking of a clerk’s wife. I was thinking rather of a -gentleman--in the country, for instance--not great people, but perfectly -_nice_, and as--as good as ourselves, you know. If a girl wanted very -much to do her duty, I wonder what she would do?” - -“It would depend very much upon her husband’s requirements, I should -say. If he was a fox-hunter, she would probably ride a great deal, and -find out all about horses and dogs; if he was studious, she would pay a -little attention to books. All that wears off after a little time,” said -Lady Hungerford. “But at the beginning, when a girl is not used to it, -and is making experiments, she takes up all her husband’s fads, and -attempts to humour him. By-and-by, of course, everything finds its -level, and she lets him alone and follows her own way.” - -“You think, then, that it does not make much difference what one does,” -said Lady Jane. - -“What one does! You do not mean yourself, I suppose? Crown princesses -are above all that sort of thing; they are too magnificent for human -nature’s daily food. You will be married by proxy, no doubt, when the -time comes, in Westminster Abbey.” - -“Which means I shall never be married at all,” said Lady Jane, with -subdued pleasure and a delightful sense of her own superior knowledge. -She smiled with such a tender softness that her lively sister-in-law, -who, if not formed in a very delicate mould, was yet capable of kind -impulse, and clever enough to understand the superiority of the spotless -creature beside her, had a moment of shame and self-reproach. - -“If you are not, it will be all the worse for somebody,” she said. “When -I was married I used to watch Hungerford to find out what he wanted me -to do; but I soon tired of that, for he never wanted me to do anything. -Most men like you to strike out your own line, and never mind them. That -is why I say everything finds its level. The most dreadful thing in the -world is a woman who is always studying to do her duty, and watching her -husband to anticipate his wishes. They don’t like to have their wishes -anticipated. They like to state them honestly, and have the satisfaction -of getting what they want. They are strange creatures, men. The best -thing is to strike out your own line, and never interfere with theirs. -It is always most satisfactory in the end.” - -Lady Jane made no answer to this, except by a little sigh, in which Lady -Hungerford, to her great astonishment, noticed an impatient sound. “What -is it you want to know?” she said. “Why are you asking me such -questions?” But Lady Jane made no reply. She had got a little -enlightenment from Arabella, but none from this woman of the world. How -to manage her husband was not a question which disturbed her. The -clerk’s wife studying the cookery-book pleased her more than the lady -who first tried to humour her husband’s fads, and then struck out her -own line. In such a person the sweet and true but not too lively -intelligence of Lady Jane had little interest. She dwelt on the other -with a tender sympathy. After all, it was not entirely in the light of -the husband that she regarded this new life. She wanted to put herself -in tone with it, to understand its requirements for herself as well as -for him. She retired into her own chamber and thought it out in the -quiet which, even in London, is possible in a great house. It would not -be possible, perhaps, to have every room cushioned and every noise -stopped before it reached her, as here. Lady Jane imagined herself -stepping down into a world of noise and bustle, and duties quite unknown -to her. It would be her business to bring harmony out of that; not to -confront the guillotine, as she once thought, but perhaps to do -something even harder, to overcome the petty and small, even the sordid -perhaps, and show what her order was capable of, and what a thing it was -to be a woman. A soft enthusiasm filled her for those unknown, humble -duties. As for giving up, what was there to give up? Arabella’s -philosophy gave her a shield against every suggestion of loss. You can’t -sit in more than one room at a time, if you have a hundred to choose -from. To think that a girl like that should find the true solution of -the parable without knowing anything about it, which the wisest shook -their heads over! Lady Jane, with that enlightenment, did not feel the -least fear. Next time she was out without supervision, she drove to a -bookseller’s and bought all the books she could find upon household -economy. ‘How to Live on Three Hundred a-Year’ was one of these volumes. -With this she did not quite sympathise, feeling it too fine and -elaborate. Her instinct told her that domestic economy, to be beautiful, -must be more spontaneous and not so laboured, and that some things were -tawdry, and some sordid, in the arrangements laid down. She thought -over the problems in these books with great conscientiousness. She -thought a French cook would be much the best to start with, for they -were so economical. She thought plate would be the cheapest thing to -use, since it never breaks. But with a few mistakes of this kind, which -were inevitable, and which experience would set right in three months, -Lady Jane made herself out a beautiful programme for her behaviour as a -poor man’s wife. It gave her a sense of elation to feel that at the -least she could do something, and qualify herself for fulfilling a -heroic destiny. She was quite unconscious of either downfall or -humiliation. - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - -THE ART OF STRATEGY. - - -But the Duchess’s thoughts were of a more serious kind, and it was she -who through all had the most difficult part to play. - -Perhaps five or six years before, when Lady Jane was in the first bloom -of womanhood, her mother would have thought but little of Reginald -Winton as a husband for her child. She would have preferred, need it be -said, another set of strawberry-leaves; or even an earl with a good -estate would have seemed to her a more suitable match. But as the years -went on, and it became apparent to her that what with Lady Jane’s own -visionary stateliness, and the known folly of her father, it was quite -possible that there might be no match for her daughter at all, her ideas -were sensibly modified. It did not seem to her at all desirable that -Lady Jane should remain Lady Jane for ever. The Duchess had experienced -no absolute blessedness in life. Her husband had given her infinite -trouble, her son had by no means realised her ideal, and her daughter -had gone beyond it, and sometimes vexed her as much by very excellence -as Hungerford did by his commonplace nature. But still she thought it -better to be thwarted and disappointed at the head of a family, than to -sicken of solitude and pine out of it. She thought the same for her -daughter; though indeed Lady Jane’s character would have lent itself -much better to the maiden state than that of her more practical and -active-minded mother. She had, too, a still more stringent reason, not -of an abstract character at all. She knew that some time or other a -crash must come. The Duke had never denied himself in his life, and he -was not likely, of his own free will, to begin now. But as everything -has to be paid for sooner or later, one way or another, she knew very -well the time was coming when their fictitious fortunes would collapse, -and it would be known to all the world that their income was not enough -to support them, and that they were burdened with debts which they could -not pay. And indeed it often seemed to her that she would be glad when -the crash came--except for Jane. Notwithstanding her desire that it -should come and be done with, she was ready to fight with all her -strength to keep it off till Jane should be out of its reach. And -Winton, she felt, had stepped in in the very nick of time. She was under -no delusion such as filled the mind of her daughter about Winton’s -poverty. She knew exactly what his standing was, and that though he was -not a brilliant match, he was good enough for any girl, however exalted, -who had no fortune to speak of, of her own. He was more satisfactory in -appearance, and manners, and character, than three-fourths of the -eligible men in England, and in fact he was himself eminently eligible, -a man whom no parent (in full possession of his senses) could possibly -despise. The Duke was not in full possession of his senses on this -point, but his wife could not see the justice of allowing her daughter’s -future to be spoiled by this partial insanity on the part of her -husband. It is a fine thing for a wife to obey her husband, but the -Duchess was perhaps a little impatient of the yoke. She had never gone -against him, save for his good. She had submitted sorrowfully to the -consequences of his follies when she found herself powerless to restrain -them. But she said to herself almost sternly that she would not allow -Jane to be ruined. Let him say what he would, this excellent husband, -this good, nice, well-off man should not be repulsed. If she could -persuade the Duke to hear reason, so much the better; but if not---- But -she did not like domestic dissension and a breach of the decorums of -life more than another, and the thought that she might be compelled to -place herself in active opposition to her husband distressed her beyond -measure. - -The Duchess laid her plans with great and anxious care. She invited -Winton to the few stately gatherings which were still to be held in -Grosvenor Square, and she threw him in the Duke’s way, prompting him -beforehand with subjects such as would please that arbiter of fate. It -was no small trial of endurance for both Winton and Lady Jane, but the -success of the attempt so far seemed great. The Duke noticed the genial -commoner who was so ready to interest himself in his Grace’s favourite -subjects. He even asked, “Who is this Mr Winton?” with an interest which -made the Duchess’s heart beat. She gave a sketch of her _protégé_ -offhand, laying great stress upon the antiquity of his lineage. “Ah, -oh,” the Duke said indifferently. He was not impressed, nor did it make -any difference to him that this gentleman, whose family had been settled -for so many hundred years in their manor, had recently had a great -accession of wealth. He asked no further questions about him, and yawned -when the Duchess said that she had thought of inviting him to form one -of the usual autumn party at Billings. “Oh no, I have no objections,” -his Grace said; “there must always, I suppose, be a few nobodies to fill -up the corners.” This, after his transitory show of interest, was like a -cold douche to the Duchess. But she did not allow herself to be -dismayed. She managed, as a great lady can always manage, to get Winton -a great number of invitations to her own magnificent circle, and threw -him perpetually in her husband’s way. Some of her friends and -contemporaries more than suspected the Duchess’s game. But she kept a -brave and cheerful front to them all, and never allowed herself to be -found out; and not only had she to contrive all this and baffle all -beholders, but she had likewise a struggle to maintain even with the man -whose cause she was upholding. He wanted, forsooth, to make quicker -progress. He wanted to see more of his betrothed. He wanted to have it -announced to all the world. He was more impracticable, more unreasonable -than ever man was, although she was wearing herself out in efforts to -help him. Lady Jane did not say a word, but she looked at her mother’s -proceedings with a gentle surprise, and high, silent wonder, keeping -herself aloof from all the plottings, avoiding the subject altogether. -It was all done for Jane, but Jane disapproved, and blamed her mother in -her heart. This was the unkindest cut of all. Notwithstanding, the -Duchess held by her point; there was no other way to do it. When she -gave Winton her invitation to Billings, he received it in the most -uncomfortable way. He coloured high; he rose up and paced about the -room. “If I am to come as an impostor, I would rather not come at all,” -he said; “if I may come as Jane’s affianced----” - -“How can that be, Mr Winton, unless her father gives his consent?” - -To this Winton made no reply, except a peevish, “I cannot go on false -pretences any more.” - -“You have met the Duke six times, without rushing at him with a request -for his daughter! Is that what you call false pretences? Jacob served -for Rachel seven years.” - -“Ah! and so would I; but he had it out with her father first. He did not -hang about and profess to be there only for Laban’s agreeable -conversation; that makes all the difference.” - -“I think he could have stood that; he had a robust conscience,” said the -Duchess, with a smile. And then she added, “I am trying to do what I -can for you. If you will not agree, I cannot help it.” - -“I suppose I must agree. There does not seem anything else for me to -do,” he said; which was the most ungracious reply she ever had to that -invitation, which was rarely extended to any one of so little -importance. At Billings, Lady Germaine’s principle of asking people who -would amuse her was never resorted to. The people who were asked were -very noble and splendid people, but they were not amusing as a rule. It -was such a compliment to Winton as the uninitiated could not understand. -But there were, of course, a great many people who knew better than the -Duchess herself did the intention with which this invitation was given. -Lady Hungerford, for instance, sitting quietly with her husband after -dinner, having heard of it that morning, suddenly astonished him by -bursting out into a great fit of laughter. As nothing had been said to -account for this, and Lord Hungerford’s company of itself was not -calculated to produce hilarity, he was much surprised, and at once -requested to know what she was laughing about. - -“Oh, it is nothing,” she said. “Your mother is asking young Winton--the -man, you know, who has that pretty house in Kensington--to go to -Billings, for the shooting.” - -“Is that so very funny?” said Lord Hungerford. - -“Don’t you see, you thickhead?” said his wife, who was not, perhaps, so -exquisite in her language as became her present rank; “she has taken it -into her head that he will do for Jane, and she thinks by taking him -down to Billings that she will get your father to consent.” - -“For Jane!” said Hungerford in dismay. - -“That is your mother’s little plan. But what amuses me is to see that -she thinks she will get your father to consent.” - -But it did not appear that Hungerford found the same amusement in the -thought. He was slow of intelligence, and took some time to master it. -“For Jane!” he said at least half-a-dozen times over during the course -of the evening: and when he next met his mother he proceeded at once to -investigate the matter. - -“What is this I hear about Regy Winton?” he said. “Susan tells me you -are thinking of him for Jane.” - -“Susan is so well informed----” said the Duchess, with a little redness -of indignation. “But I think you know Jane well enough to be aware that -thinking of any one for her would not do much good.” - -“That is what I thought,” Hungerford said, falling readily into the -snare. “But it wouldn’t be at all a bad thing,” he added, “if it could -be brought about. He has plenty of money, and nothing against him; and -Jane isn’t quite so young as she was, don’t you know?” - -This was true enough; but that such a question should be discussed -between her son and his wife made the Duchess’s blood boil. “I am not so -clever as Susan and you, Hungerford,” she said, with fine satire. “You -will manage your daughter’s marriage, I don’t doubt, a thousand times -better than I shall ever manage mine.” - -“What has that to do with it?” Hungerford said, surprised, for he was -not quick in his intellects. But he added, as he went away, “I should -think Regy Winton would be a very good man for Jane.” - -The Duchess was very angry, and declined altogether to take her son into -her confidence. But yet she was sustained in her mind by this -volunteered opinion, and went on with more boldness. They were all very -glad to get out of London, as soon as the Duke thought it right to -withdraw that support which he felt himself bound to give to the empire -and the constitution by going to town every year. His countenance -expanded as they left that limited world in which a duke is almost as a -common man, and has to submit to see a simple commoner considered much -more important than himself. He preferred the country, if for nothing -else, on that score. There was space to move about in, and the whole -district bowed down before him. He smoothed out even during the journey, -though it was by railway, which is a levelling and impertinent way of -travelling. The Duke’s carriage had large labels of “engaged” plastered -upon it. But still such a thing had been as that a lawless traveller, a -being without veneration or feeling, had seized upon the door-handle and -attempted to make an entrance. Nevertheless, even with these drawbacks, -the Duke already began to show the genial influence of going out of -town. And to think that the wife of his bosom should have taken -advantage of this in the disingenuous way she did! It was not absolutely -on the journey, but on that first evening at home, when the noble pair -took, as had been their habit since before any one could remember, a -little stroll together after dinner in the cool of the evening under the -ancestral shades; and just when his Grace had looked round him with a -sigh of satisfaction, and announced that woods were better than bricks -and mortar, which was a remark he made habitually in about the same -spot, on about the same day of every year-- - -“That is very true,” the Duchess said (as she always said on similar -occasions), “and there are no trees like our own trees. I hope her -native air,” added the crafty woman, “will do something for Jane.” - -“For Jane! Is there anything the matter with Jane?” said her august -papa. - -“I felt sure you must have observed it; you are always so keen-sighted -where Jane is concerned. I have thought she looked pale; and she has a -little air of--what shall I call it?--preoccupation.” - -“I do not see,” said the Duke, half indignantly, “what she can have to -be preoccupied about.” - -“She has always been so tenderly cared for, that is true. But we must -remember that she is no longer a girl, and there are thoughts which come -into one’s mind which it is difficult to avoid.” - -“What thoughts? A young lady in Jane’s position need have no thoughts -that can give her any trouble. I hope that even in these revolutionary -times, when everything is going to pieces, the house of Billings is -still sufficiently secure for that.” - -“Yes, yes; there is no doubt on that question. Jane has no doubt,” the -Duchess said, correcting herself. “But there are problems, you know, -which occupy the mind. It is a revolutionary age, as you say, and even -young women are not exempt. Besides, if you will let me say so, by the -time a girl has come to be eight-and-twenty, she often begins to feel, -you know--that to be only her father’s daughter is not quite enough for -her--that she wants some sort of standing of her own.” - -“Do you mean to tell me that such thoughts as these have ever entered -the mind of Jane?” said the Duke, severely. “My love, I put great faith -in you in matters quite within your sphere---- But Jane, my -daughter!----” - -“I hope you will allow that she is my daughter as well,” the Duchess -said, with the half laugh, half rage natural to a woman long accustomed -to deal with an impracticable man. She was obliged to laugh at his -serious contempt of her, lest she should do worse. - -The Duke waved his hand. “Yes, yes,” he said, in the tone of a man -yielding to an unreasonable child. “To be sure, in a way, we do not -dispute that. But I am certain,” he added, “that you know better than to -resist the claims of race. Jane is not so much your daughter, or even -mine, as she is the daughter of the race of Altamonts; and in that -capacity you may allow, my love, great as are your claims to respect as -her mother, that I may be supposed to understand her best.” - -The exasperation with which the Duchess listened to this speech may be -understood; but it was not the first by a great many, and she made no -revelation of her feelings. On the contrary, she made use of his solemn -vanity with a craft which the exigencies of her position had developed -in her. - -“You must give me the benefit of your superior insight,” she said quite -calmly, without any indication of satire in her tone. “Now that you have -leisure to give your consideration to family matters, as you could not -be expected to do in town:--tell me what you think. My impression is, -that she has begun to think of the future. I was her mother when I was -her age. She has been very much admired and sought after.” - -“Naturally,” the Duke said, with a wave of his hand. - -“And I have a feeling that there is a--preference, if I may call it -so--an inclination, perhaps--dawning in her mind. To lose her would be a -terrible deprivation: still,” the Duchess said, “I do not suppose it is -in your mind to prevent her from marrying.” - -“To prevent her from---- You surely have the most curious way of putting -things. There is nothing I desire more truly--when a suitable match can -be found.” - -“But don’t you think,” cried the Duchess, “that we are, perhaps, letting -the time slip a little? Of course, I would naturally keep my child by me -as long as possible, but in her own interests---- Women on the whole are -happier to marry, I think,” she said doubtfully. - -“Marry! of course they are happier to marry. Can there be any doubt upon -that subject? A woman unmarried cannot be said to have any life at -all!” - -“Yes, I should say there was a doubt,” said his wife, with again that -half laugh; “and as I am one of them, I may be allowed an opinion on the -subject. But still, in respect to Jane, I could wish my daughter to -marry. In her position, to remain unmarried would really be to remain -apart from life.” - -“It is not to be thought of for a moment; an old maid!” the Duke said, -with a quaver of pain in his voice; and he thought of that slight -indentation--not a hollow, scarcely more than a dimple, which, however, -was not a dimple, on Jane’s cheek. “The truth is,” he said, “that in -respect to one’s children one deceives one’s self. I have no feeling -that I am myself any older than I was twenty years ago, and therefore I -do not notice the difference in her.” - -“Hungerford is very old,” said the Duchess. “He is older in many things -than either you or I.” - -“Ah, Hungerford; what can you expect with that wife?” the Duke said, -with a little shudder; and then he added, with inward alarm but outward -jauntiness (so far as dukes can be jaunty), as if her opinion was an -excellent joke, “By the way, I suppose that she will have something to -say on the subject. She generally has something to say.” - -“Susan does not conceal her opinion that Jane’s chances are all over,” -said the Duchess. “She thinks her _passée_. She believes, I understand, -that a clergyman--to whom we could give the living of Billings--would be -the likely thing for Jane now.” - -“A clergyman!” said the Duke, with rage and horror. His wife laughed a -little, but there was anger below her laugh. How it was that Susan’s -impertinent speeches always came to the ears of her parents-in-law it -was difficult to know, but they did so, and they generally had the -effect of warming most wholesomely the Duke’s too noble blood. - -“It is very well known how difficult you are,” said the Duchess. “I -don’t think myself that the clergyman is likely to present himself; but -if Jane had a preference, as I suppose, I should, for my part, be very -unwilling to thwart her.” - -“Jane will have no preference that is not justified by the merit of the -object,” cried Jane’s father. “She is too much my child for that. She -will never permit her mind to stray out of her own rank. Indeed, it is -with difficulty I realise,” he added, with dignity, “the possibility -that she can have conceived what you call a preference at all. To me she -has always been so completely superior, so serene, so----” - -“But not cold,” the Duchess said. - -“I don’t know what you mean by cold; yes, cold, certainly, in my sense -of the word, as every woman ought to be. I believe that unless I put it -before her--or you as my representative--she is far too pure-minded and -elevated ever to think of marriage at all.” - -“If she were shut up in a tower,” said the Duchess; “but unfortunately -there are so many things in this world to force the idea upon her, and -if you really wish her to marry----” - -“Of course I wish her to marry,” said the Duke, almost angrily; and then -he added, “in her own rank in life.” - -The Duchess asked herself afterwards whether this had been a wise way of -directing her husband’s attention to the subject. She had meant it to be -very wise, but conversation is one of those strange things that will -manage itself. However closely we may have laid down the lines of what -we shall say, it is pretty certain to balk us and direct us in other -ways. This had been the case on the present occasion. Instead of -directing the Duke’s mind to the possibility of receiving a suitor who -should be indispensable to Jane’s happiness, though not of her rank, she -had only elicited from him a repetition of his determination that nobody -out of her own rank should marry Lady Jane. She thought with a shiver of -Winton coming down full of hope with the intention of unfolding his -rent-roll, and his statement of the settlements he was able to make, for -the Duke’s satisfaction. The Duke was one of the few men remaining in -the nineteenth century who was invulnerable to money. Susan Hungerford -was enough to give any one a disgust at that manner of filling the -household coffers. Perhaps it would have been better to say nothing, to -let Winton work upon the Duke by that respectful admiration for his -opinions which he had already shown. She walked back to the castle with -a sense of failure in her mind. For her part, she would not have been at -all disinclined towards a clergyman (had he been _nice_) who would have -established her child in the beautiful rectory not a quarter of a mile -from the lodge-gates, and kept her constantly, as it were, at home. But -there was no clergyman available, and no question of that. Lady Jane -gave her a half-timid glance when she went into the drawing-room with -the fresh air of the evening about her. She would not inquire whether -there had been any talk of herself between her parents; but she could -not keep that question out of her eyes. All the Duchess’s reply was to -give her a kiss, and ask whether she had not been out this delicious -evening. “This is better than town,” her Grace said. Was it better than -town? For the first time, with a soft sigh Lady Jane remained silent and -did not echo the sentiment. The country is sweet, and the woods, and -fields, and one’s native air, and the silence of nature--but there are -other things which perhaps even in smoky London, among the bricks and -mortar which his Grace made so little of, were still more sweet. Of all -people in the world, Lady Jane was the last to prefer a ball-room, or -the jaded and heated crowds at the end of the season. But for the first -time in her life she thought of these assemblies with a sigh. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - -SUSPENSE. - - -Winton stayed in London until September, with a certain sense of -satisfaction in this self-martyrdom. It was totally unnecessary and -could advantage nobody--but the thought of going into the country and -pretending to enjoy himself while everything was so doubtful as to his -future prospects, was disagreeable to him. He neglected his friends, he -declined his invitations, he took pleasure in making himself miserable, -and in pouring out his loneliness and wretchedness on sheet after sheet -of note-paper, and addressing the budget to Billings Court; from -whence, very soon indeed after this practice began, the Duchess, -alarmed, sent him an energetic protestation. “Such a hot correspondence -will soon awaken suspicions,” she wrote; “for Jane’s sake I implore you -to be a little more patient.” “Patient! much she knows about it!” Winton -said, when, pouncing upon this letter with the hope of finding, -perhaps--who could tell?--the Duke’s consent in it and final sanction, -he encountered this disappointing check. What could she know about it -indeed, with Jane by her side, and all that she cared for? Perhaps in -other circumstances the young man might have had a glimmering perception -that the Duchess was well acquainted with the exercise of patience, even -though Jane was her daughter; but at present his own affairs entirely -occupied his mind. He spent a good deal of his time in Wardour Street -and other cognate regions, and attended a great many sales, in which -there was some degree of soothing to be obtained; for to “pick up” -something which might hereafter grace her sitting-room, gave a glory to -_bric-a-brac_, and thus he seemed to be doing something for her, even -when most entirely separated from her. Jane herself wrote to him the -most soothing of letters. “So long as we know each other as we do, and -trust each other, what does a little delay matter?” she said. Poor -Winton cried out, “Much she knows about it!” again, as he kissed yet -almost tore, in loving fury, her tender little epistle. This was very -unreasonable, for of course she knew quite as much about it as he did. -When a pair of lovers are parted, it is not the lady that is supposed to -feel it the least. - -And yet he was more or less justified in that despairing exclamation, -for Jane’s perfect faith was such as is rarely possible to a man who has -been in the world. He did not feel at all sure that she might not be -capable out of pure sweetness and self-sacrifice--that pernicious -doctrine in which, he said to himself angrily, women are nourished--of -giving him up. Even the Duchess sometimes thought so, deceived by the -serene aspect of her child, who did not pine or sigh, but pursued her -gentle career with a more than ordinary sweetness and pleasure in it. -Lady Jane had the advantage over both these doubting souls. Doubt was -not in her; and she was aware, as they were not, of the persistency of -her own steadfast nature, which, in the absence of all experience to the -contrary, she held to be a universal characteristic. It did not occur to -her as possible that having made up his mind on an important -subject--far less given his heart, to use the sentimental language -which she blushed yet was pleased in the depths of her seclusion to -employ--any man--or woman either--could be persuaded or forced to change -it. Many things were possible--but not that. She had no excitement on -the subject, because it was outside of all her consciousness, a thing -impossible. Change! give up! The only result of such a suggestion upon -Lady Jane was a faintly humorous and perfectly serene smile. But Winton -had not this admirable serenity. Perhaps he was not himself so -absolutely true as the stainless creature whom he loved. He worked -himself up into little fits of passion sometimes, asking himself how -could he tell what agencies might be brought to bear upon her, what -necessities might be urged upon her? It was very well known that the -Duke was poor; and if it so happened that in the depths of his -embarrassment somebody stepped forward with one of those fabulous -fortunes which are occasionally to be met with, ready to free the father -at the cost of the daughter, as occurs sometimes even out of novels, -would Jane be able to resist all the inducements that would be brought -to bear upon her? Winton sprang from his feet more than once with a wild -intention of rushing to his lawyers and instructing them to stop his -Grace’s mouth with a bundle of bank-notes, lest he might lend an ear to -that imaginary millionaire. And on coming to his senses, it must be said -that the Duke’s overweening pride, which was working his own harm, was -the point of consolation to which the lover clung, and not any -conviction of the firmness of Lady Jane in such circumstances. It _was_ -a comfort that his Grace was far too haughty in his dukedom to suffer -the approach of mere millionaires. - -In September, Lady Germaine returning from that six weeks at Homburg -with which it was the fashion in those days for worn-out fine ladies to -recruit themselves after the labours of the season, and pausing in -London two days in a furious _accès_ of shopping before she went to the -country, saw Winton pass the door at which her carriage was standing, -and pounced upon him with all the eagerness of an explorer in a savage -country. “You here!” she said; “for goodness’ sake come and help me with -my shopping. I have not spoken two words together for a week--not even -on the journey! There was nobody: I can’t think where the people have -gone to: one used to be sure of picking up some one on the way, but -there was nobody. Well! and how are things going?” she added, making a -distinct pause after her first little personal outburst was over. - -“Very badly,” Winton said, with a sigh. - -“Papa will not pay any attention?” said Lady Germaine. “I warned you of -that: don’t say you were taken unawares. I told you he was the most -impracticable of men, and you, in your holy innocence----” - -“Don’t,” said Winton. “I remember all you said; you called me names: you -confessed that you felt guilty----” - -“Be just. I did not say I felt guilty, but only that his Grace would -think me so, which are very different things. And so he will not have -you? poor boy! but I knew that from the beginning. There is one fine -thing in him, that he has no eye to his own advantage. Most people would -think you a very good match for Jane.” - -“Don’t speak blasphemy,” said Winton. “I agree with the Duke, he is as -right as a man can be. There is nobody good enough for her----” - -“Except----” - -“Except no one that I am acquainted with. I don’t deserve that she -should let me tie her shoes. Oh, don’t suppose I have changed my opinion -about that.” - -“I am glad to find you are in such a proper frame of mind--then there -will be no trouble at all, none of the expedients adopted in such cases? -Poor Lady Jane! but since that is the case, there is nothing more to be -said. And what, may I ask, you good humble-minded young man, are you -doing in town in September? You ought to be shooting somewhere, or -making yourself agreeable.” - -“I am knocking about at all the sales,” said Winton, “trying to pick up -a little thing here and there for her rooms at Winton. What are the -expedients you were thinking of, dear Lady Germaine? It is always good -to know.” - -Lady Germaine laughed. “Then you have not given in?” she said. “I did -not suppose you were the sort of person to give in. What did he say? was -it final? did he show you to the door? You will think it hard-hearted of -me to laugh, but I should like to have been in hiding somewhere to have -seen his Grace’s face when you ventured to tell him.” - -“He has not received that shock yet,” said Winton, not very well -pleased. - -“He has not----! Do you mean you have never asked the Duke? Are things -just as they were, then, and no advance made?” said Lady Germaine, in a -tone of wonder that was not quite free of contempt. - -“They will not let me speak,” said Winton, in a voice from which he -could not keep a certain querulous accent. “It is not my way of managing -affairs; but what can I do? Her mother says----” - -“Then you have got the Duchess on your side?” - -“I suppose so,” said the young man. “I sometimes doubt whether it is for -good or evil. She will not let me speak. She says she will let me know -the right moment. In the meantime life is insupportable, you know. I -shall take my courage _à deux mains_, and when I go down there----” - -“You are going down there--to Billings?” cried Lady Germaine with a gasp -of astonishment. - -“On the 10th,” said Winton with a sigh, “but whether anything will come -of it or not----” - -“When the Duchess is taking the business into her own hands! Reginald -Winton, I have told you before you were a goose,” said Lady Germaine, -solemnly. “And what is the use of mooning about here and asking me what -are the expedients? Of course she has thought of all the expedients. -Whatever _he_ may be, the Duchess is a woman of sense. Are you -furnishing Winton? Have you all your arrangements made? I should have -everything ready--down to the footstools and door-mats--and servants -engaged, and your carriages seen to. You can’t marry a duke’s daughter -without taking a little trouble about the place you are going to put her -in.” - -“Trouble--there shall be no sparing of trouble!” he cried; but then -shook his head. “We are a long way off that,” he added, in a dolorous -tone. - -“This is the confident lover,” said Lady Germaine, “who scoffed at -dukes and thought himself good enough for anybody’s daughter. Don’t you -see that if it comes to nothing, something must come of it directly? -Things of this sort can’t hang on--they go quicker than the legitimate -drama. If I were you, I would have the steeds saddled in their stalls, -and the knights in their armour, like Walter Scott, you know.” - -“Do you think so?” said Winton, his eyes lighting up. “If I could -imagine that anything so good as this was on the cards----” - -“On the cards! Oh, the obtuseness of man! Do you think the Duchess will -let herself be beaten? Oh yes, her husband has been too many for her -again and again. I know she has had to give in and let him take his own -way: but now that Jane is concerned, and she has pledged herself to -you----” - -“She has been very kind. I had not the least right to expect such -kindness as she has shown me: but she has given no pledge,” said Winton -with a recurrence of his despondency. - -Lady Germaine, who had stopped herself in the full career of her -shopping to hold this conversation with him in a luxurious corner of the -great shop, where all was still at this dead moment of the year, and -only velvet-footed assistants passed now and then noiselessly--gave him -at this moment a look of disdain, and rose up from her chair. “I did not -think you had been such a noodle,” she said, and, before he could answer -a word, went forward to the nearest counter, where an elegant youth had -been waiting all the time with bales of silks and stuffs half unfolded -for her ladyship’s inspection--and plunged into business. That elegant -youth had not in any way betrayed his weariness. He had stood by his -wares as if it were the most natural thing in the world to wait for half -an hour, so to speak, between the cup and the lip: but he had not been -without his thoughts, and these thoughts were not very favourable to -Lady Germaine. Most likely this was the origin of a paragraph which -crept into one of the Society papers in the deadness of the season and -puzzled all the tantalised circles in country houses, and even -bewildered the clubs. Who could the “Lady G.” be who had awakened the -echoes of the back shop at Allen and Lewisby’s? Here is the advantage of -an immaculate reputation. Neither the clubs nor the country houses ever -associated Lady Germaine with such a possibility; but this, of course -was what that elegant young person did not know. - -“Why am I a noodle?” said Winton, going after her, and too much -absorbed in the subject to think of the attendant at all. - -“If you can think of a stronger word put that instead,” said Lady -Germaine. “I can’t call names here, don’t you see, though I should _so_ -like to. No pledge! Oh, you---- What should you like in that way? -Something on parchment, with seals hanging to it like a Pope’s bull? as -if every word she said and every suggestion she made was not a pledge, -and the strongest of pledges? Go away, and let me choose the children’s -new frocks in peace. It is easier to do that than to make people -understand.” - -But Winton did not go away. He leaned over her chair, making certainty -more certain to the spectator behind the counter. “Look here,” he said; -“do you really mean what you say--that I ought to have everything -ready?” - -“Don’t you think these two shades go nicely together?” said Lady -Germaine, putting the silk and the merino side by side with skilful -hands, and with an air of the profoundest deliberation. “The girls have -not a thing to wear. I should have the steeds in the stables and the -knights in the hall, if I were you, and William of Deloraine ready to -ride by night or by day.” - -Perhaps this advice was not the clearest in the world, but, such as it -was, it was all the lady would give; and it sent Winton along the -half-lighted half-empty streets, in the twilight of the soft September -evening, with an alert pace and a heart beating as it had not beat since -London had suddenly become empty to him by the departure of one family -from it. He went over every room of his house that evening, calculating -and considering. It was a charming house, and he had regarded it with -no small satisfaction when, only a year or two before, its decorations -had been completed. But now, with the idea in his mind that at any -moment (was not that what she said?) he might have to be ready for the -princess, the wife--that his happiness might come upon him suddenly, and -his life be transformed, and his house turned into _her_ house--in this -view it was astonishing how many things he found that were incomplete. -Nay, everything was incomplete. It was dingy--it was small; it was -commonplace. The drawing-rooms had become old-fashioned, though -yesterday he had been under the impression that there was an antique -grace about them--a flavour of the old world which gave them character. -The dining-room was heavy and elaborate; the library too dark; the -morning-room--good heavens! there was no morning-room in which a lady -could establish herself, but only a half-furnished place uninhabited, -cold, with no character at all. It brought a cold dew all over him when -he opened the door of that empty chamber. He could scarcely sleep for -thinking of it. What if she might be ready before her house was! The -idea was intolerable: and everything was petty, mean, without beauty, -unworthy of her. He had not thought so when he walked through those -over-gilded drawing-rooms in Grosvenor Square, and said to himself that -not amid such tawdry fineries as these should his wife be housed. -Everything had changed since that brief moment of confidence. He was -dissatisfied with everything. Next morning he had no sooner awoke from a -sleep troubled by dreams of chaotic upholstery, than he went to work. -Perhaps, after all, things were not so bad. With the aid of a few -experts, and a great deal of money, much, if not everything, can be done -in a very short space of time. He ran down into the country as soon as -he had set things going in Kensington, and arrived at his old -manor-house without warning, to the great consternation of the -housekeeper. Winton had still more need of the experts and the -_bric-a-brac_. It wanted many things besides, which were not to be had -in a moment, and his life for the next week was as laborious as that of -the busiest workman. The excitement among the servants and hangers-on at -both places was indescribable. He said nothing of his approaching -marriage, and yet nothing but an approaching marriage could account for -it; or else that he was going clean out of his senses, which was another -hypothesis produced. - -This fit of active and hopeful exertion got over these remaining days -with the speed of a dream. The hours galloped along with him as lightly -at least, if not as merrily, as though they were indeed carrying him to -his wedding-day. But when all was done that he could do, and the moment -approached for his visit to Billings, a cold shade fell over him. Lady -Germaine’s clever little speeches began to look like nonsense as he -thought them over; “quicker than the legitimate drama;” what did she -mean by that? Could he imagine for a moment to himself that Jane, the -princess of her own race as well as of his affections, the serene and -perfect lady of his thoughts, would be the heroine of any vulgar -romance? That he could have entertained such a thought for a moment -horrified him when he paused in his feverish exertion and began to think -what it all meant. But this was only on the way to Billings, when every -pulse in his body began to throb high with the thought of being once -more in her presence, under the same roof with her, and about to put his -fortune to the test to gain everything or--no, not to lose her. He said -to himself with a sudden passion that he would not lose Jane. Such a -calamity was not possible. Father and mother and all the powers might do -what they would or could, but she was his, and give her up he would not. -Thus the anxious lover went round the compass and came back to the point -from which he started. He found Lady Germaine as wise and clever as he -had always thought her, when he came thus far. There were -expedients--and the Duchess was pledged to the employment of them as -certainly as if he had her word for it engrossed on parchments sealed -and signed and delivered. One way or another, his visit to Billings -would be decisive. He went like a soldier to the field of battle, with -a thrill of excitement over him, as well as with all the softening -enthusiasm of a lover. Happen how it might, he could not leave that -unknown fortress, that Castle Dangerous, as he came. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. - -THE DECISIVE MOMENT. - - -It was not, however, at all like a conquering hero that Winton made his -appearance at Billings. A number of other people arrived by the same -train, and were conveyed in various carriages both before and after him -to the great house. It was a long drive, and he had time to think about -it and to go over the approaching meeting, rehearsing it again and -again. Winton knew as well as any one what it is to arrive at a country -house,--the confusion of the arrival, the little pause when no one knows -what to do, the hesitation of the people who have never been there -before, the well-bred attempts of the people who have, not to seem too -much at home, the anxiety of the hosts to distribute their attentions -equally and leave no one out--were all familiar to him. But somehow his -special position now gave him much of the feeling of surprise and -disappointment and involuntary half-offence which a new-comer, unused to -society, and expecting perhaps to be received with all the warm -individual welcome of more intimate hospitality, feels when he finds -himself only one of the least considerable of a large party. All the -other members of the group were of greater consequence than Winton, and -almost all were _habitués_ of the place, accustomed to come year after -year--persons whom the Duke could receive as sufficiently near his own -level to be worthy the honour of his friendship. Such a party is always -diversified by some one or two people who are altogether nobodies, and -afford either a sort of background like supernumeraries in a play, or -are elevated to the most important position by dint of dexterity and -adulation. Winton felt himself to belong to the background as he stood -about in the hall when all the greetings were going on, waiting for his. -It had been like a sudden downfall from heaven to earth to perceive, as -he cast his first rapid glance round on entering, that Jane was not -there. Afterwards he said to himself that he could not have endured her -to be there, but for the moment her absence struck him like a blow. And -what could the Duchess do more than shake hands with him as she did with -all her other guests? He thought she gave him a glance of warning, a -little smile--but no doubt every man there supposed that for himself -individually her Grace had a kind regard. He stood talking for a short -time after the ladies had been swept away to their rooms. He knew -several of the more important of the guests, and he knew one of the -nobodies who was a very prominent figure. But it was with an indignant -sense that his reception ought to have been a very different one that he -found himself following a servant up the grand staircase into those -distant regions allotted to bachelors, where his non-importance was to -be still more forcibly brought home to him. He who ought to have been -received as the son of the house--he to whom its brightest member had -linked her fate--that he should come in on the same footing as Mr -Rosencrantz the German librarian, or that stale hanger-on of the clubs -who made a sort of trade of country houses, was very bitter to Winton. -He was not accustomed to be a _super_, and he did not like the post. To -tell the truth, in the first half-hour in Billings Castle Winton felt -his own hopes and dreams come back upon him with a bitterness and sense -of ridicule which drove him almost out of himself. Had he not been a -fool to entertain any hopes at all? Was not Lady Germaine ludicrously -mistaken when she talked of the Duchess’s pledge? The Duchess, was she -not far too great a lady to care what happened to a simple gentleman? He -began to think he had been a fool to come, a fool ever to permit himself -to shipwreck his heart and life in this way, and doubly a fool, a -ridiculous idiot, to go drivelling into decorations and pieces of -furniture, as if his little manor-house could ever vie with--All these -thoughts were put to flight in a moment by the sudden opening of a -closed door which flooded a dark passage to his right with the glory of -the sunset sweeping through it. Some one came out and stood for a moment -in the midst of that glory: then Winton heard himself called. The -servant disappeared by magic, and he suddenly found himself in a small -sitting-room with a broad window flooded by the evening light. The -Duchess held out both her hands to him, but he scarcely saw them, for -behind her, coming in through another door, a little flush upon her soft -cheeks, and that liquid golden illumination in her eyes---- it was as if -some one had said to him out of the glowing west, “O thou of little -faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” - -This meeting, however, was of the briefest--for the house was very full -and the dinner-hour approaching. “You must go away directly,” the -Duchess said; “but I could not trust you to meet for the first time -down-stairs before so many eyes.” - -“So it was policy?” Winton cried. - -“Entirely policy--is not every step I take more or less of that -description?--but Jane could not have borne it,” she said, “and neither -could you, I think. I did not bring you here to ruin you. We must all be -on our p’s and q’s.” - -“P’s and q’s!” cried Winton, “become insupportable. Dear Duchess, you -will not be too hard upon me. Now at least I must have it out, and know -my fate. How can I bear to hang on--to have everything pushed off in -indefinite space?” - -Lady Jane touched his arm lightly with her hand, stroking it, with a -pretty movement of mingled soothing and sympathy. “_Pazienza!_” she said -softly; but she liked the impatience. It pleased her delicate sense of -what was best. - -“Would you prefer, Mr Winton, to know the worst?--would you rather have -a definite No than an indefinite suspense?” - -“Don’t call him Mr Winton,” said Lady Jane in her under tone. - -Winton looked from one lady to another keenly, with an inquiry which the -Duchess met without flinching, and Lady Jane without being at all aware -what it meant. Her Grace gave him an almost imperceptible nod, always -looking him full in the face. Her eyes seemed to promise everything. “In -that case,” he said--“in that case--better the refusal: then we shall -see what there remains to do.” - -The Duchess sighed. “I believe it is the wisest way,” she said, “after -all: but you cannot suppose it is very pleasant to me. Now, go; you -must go, and leave us to dress. You may come here to-morrow after -breakfast, or when we come in, in the afternoon--but you must not be -always coming. And in the meantime prudence, prudence! you cannot be too -prudent. If you betray yourself I cannot answer for the consequences. -You must remember that for Jane’s sake.” - -Then they put him out of the room, out of the shining of the sunset in -which he thought she stood transfigured, the soft glory caressing her, -the level golden radiance getting into her eyes and flooding them--and -closed the door upon him, leaving him in the darkness of the passage, -which looked all black to his dazzled eyes. Fortunately his guide -appeared a moment afterwards and he was led up to his chamber, in the -wilds so to speak of the great house, where he came back to himself as -well as he could. Winton was only a man like the rest of his kind. He -wondered if the women enjoyed, with a native feminine malice such as -everybody has commented upon from the beginning of time, the position in -which they had placed him. Ah, not _they_; not Jane, who was a world -above all jesting--but perhaps the Duchess, who, he could imagine, did -not mind making him pay a little in his dignity, in his self-regard, for -the promotion he had got through her daughter’s love. She would do -anything for him because Jane loved him, but perhaps she had a -mischievous satisfaction in the little drama which she was arranging -round him--the external slights, the sudden bliss, the dismissal back -again to humility and the second floor. Was this so? He concluded it -was, with a half-amused irritation, a sense of being played with. She -was kind: but was it in mortal to suffer without a pang, without an -attempt at reprisals, the loss of Jane? And then, perhaps the Duchess -too had a little feeling that he was not one of her own caste, her -daughter’s equal--not enough to make her resist that daughter’s choice, -but yet enough to prompt in passing a little prick as with a needle at -the too fortunate. As a matter of fact, had Winton been cool enough to -notice it, the Duchess had meant him no prick at all. He had been -received in the usual way, lodged according to the general rule. She had -thought it wisest not to do anything to distinguish him beyond his -neighbours, but that was all. - -The evening was full of tantalised and suppressed expectation, yet of a -moment’s pleasure now and then. Except the German librarian and the man -from the clubs, and a young author who had been the fashion and was the -_protégé_ of one of the great families visiting at Billings, the company -was all much more splendid than Winton. Names that were known to history -buzzed about him as he sat down to dinner, with Lady Adela Grandmaison -beside him, who was exceedingly relieved to fall to his lot and not to -one of the elderly noblemen who illustrated the table. Lady Adela wore a -_sacque_ like a dainty lady of the eighteenth century, but was apt to -throw herself into attitudes which were suggestive of the fourteenth. -She did not feel at all disposed to be disdainful of Winton. Instead of -this she took him into her confidence. “Did you ever see such a party of -swells?” she said, notwithstanding her medieval attitudes. “Don’t they -frighten you to death, Mr Winton? I am so glad to have somebody I dare -talk to. The Duke is too funny for anything, don’t you think so? like -an old monarch in the pantomime. It is all exactly like the theatre. He -says ‘My lord’--listen! exactly as they do on the stage.” - -“I suppose they did that sort of thing when his Grace was young,” said -Winton, looking up the great table to where that majestic presence -showed beyond the ranks of his guests. A little tremor ran over him when -he realised the splendour of the personage to whom he was going so soon -to carry his suit. “Perhaps we are a little too free-and-easy nowadays,” -he said. - -“Don’t desert your generation,” cried Lady Adela; and then she added -significantly, “there is Jane looking our way. Jane is so sweet--don’t -you think so, Mr Winton?” - -Winton met the soft eyes of his love and the keen ones of this young -observer at the same moment; and this, though he was a man of the -world, brought a sudden flush to his face. All the fine company, and the -gorgeous table, heavy with plate and brilliant with flowers, grew like a -mist to him, and nothing seemed real except that softly tinted, -tender-shining countenance, turning upon him the light of her eyes. They -were so placed that though they never spoke they could see each other -across the table, through a little thicket of feathery ferns and -flowers. Lady Jane was too courteous, too self-forgetting to neglect her -special companion or to abandon the duty of entertaining her parent’s -guests. But now and then she would lift her eyes and empty out her heart -in one look across the table through that flowery veil. He was not -nearly so entertaining in consequence as Lady Adela had hoped. - -Next morning there were some moments that were full of excitement and -happiness in the midst of a day which was just like other days. Lady -Jane agreed fully with Winton, that to be there under her father’s roof -without informing him of the object of his visit was a thing unworthy of -her lover; and she was, like him, entirely convinced that, whatever -might come of it, the explanation must be made. The Duchess did not -contest this high decision of principle--but she shook her head. “I have -nothing to say against you. I suppose you are right. It must be done -sooner or later,” she said. “There is only one thing--put it off till -the last day of your visit; for this I am sure of, that you will not be -able to spend another night at Billings.” - -“Mamma!” Lady Jane cried, with a fervour which brought the tears to her -eyes, “my father will say nothing that one gentleman may not say to -another.” - -The Duchess once more shook her head. “When one gentleman asks another -for his daughter and is refused--though the one should be the most -courteous in the world, and the other the most patient, yet it is -generally considered most convenient that they should not continue in -the same house.” - -“I will take your mother’s advice, my dearest,” said Winton; but it was -hardly possible for mortal man to have it put before him so plainly -without a little feeling of offence. It had been settled that he was to -stay a week, and notwithstanding the happiness which the Duchess had -secured to him by giving him the entry to this sacred little -sitting-room into which no stranger ever intruded, and by affording him -as many opportunities as were possible of seeing Lady Jane, he spent the -rest of the time with a certain feeling of hostility in his mind -towards her, which was thoroughly unreasonable. He began to doubt -whether she wished him to succeed, whether she was indeed so truly his -friend as she represented herself to be. A man must be magnanimous -indeed who can entirely free his mind from the prevalent notions about -the love of women for “managing,” and their inclination towards intrigue -and mystery. A conviction that his own manly statement of his case would -tell more effectually with the Duke, who was a gentleman though he might -be pompous and haughty, than any semi-deceitful feminine process, began -to grow in his mind. And this conviction, in which there was a partially -indignant revulsion of feeling--rank ingratitude and unkindness, but of -that he was not conscious--from his allegiance to the Duchess, gave him -a natural inclination to propitiate the head of the house and see him in -his best light, which was not without a certain influence even on the -Duke himself, who more and more felt this modest young commoner, though -he was nobody in particular, to be a person of discrimination, and one -who was capable of appreciating himself and understanding his views. - -Thus with new hopefulness on one side, and mistrust on the other, Winton -counted the days as they went by towards the moment which was to decide -his fate. He impressed his own hopefulness upon Lady Jane, who was -indeed very willing to believe that nothing but what was noble and -honourable could come from her father. They discussed the subject -anxiously, yet with less and less alarm. To her it seemed, as she heard -all the wise and modest speeches her lover intended to make as to his -own lesser importance, but great love--it seemed to her that no heart -could hold out against him. That tenderest humility, which was the -natural characteristic of her mind underneath the instincts of rank -which were so strong in her, and the sense of lofty position which was -part of her religion--was touched with the most exquisite wonder and -happiness at the thought that all this noble and pure passion was hers, -and hers only. “It is impossible,” she said, “if you speak to him as you -do to me, Reginald--oh, it is impossible that he can resist.” “It is -impossible, my darling,” said the young man, “when he hears that you -love me.” Thus they encouraged each other, and on the eve of the great -day wrought themselves to an enthusiasm of faith and certainty. The -Duchess’s limitation of his visits had of course come to very little -purpose, and every moment that Winton could manage to escape from the -bonds of society below stairs he spent with Lady Jane above, -discoursing upon their hopes, and the manner in which best to get them -wrought into fulfilment. They talked of everything, in those stolen -hours of sweetness: of what was to happen in the future, of all they -were to be to each other, coming back again and again to the moment -which was to decide all, always with a stronger and stronger sense that -the Duke’s consent must come, and that to be balked by this initial -difficulty was impossible. But it cannot be denied that Winton had -certain difficulties even about that future in his communings with his -bride. He could not get her to understand that very little -self-sacrifice would be necessary on her part, and that the house to -which he proposed to transplant her was little less luxurious than her -own. Lady Jane smiled upon him when he said this with one of those -little heavenly stupidities which belong to such women. She did not -wish it be so, and so far as this went put no faith in him. It was a -settled question in her own mind. Arabella’s famous elucidation had -fortified her on that point beyond all assault. It pleased her to look -forward to the little manor-house, and the changed world which would -surround the Squire’s wife. If he had carried her direct to a palace -more splendid than Billings, she would have felt a visionary but active -disappointment. She drew him gently to other subjects when he entered -upon this, especially to the one unfailing subject, the Duke, and what -he might say. They both grew very confident as they talked it over: and -yet when Winton came to tell her, on the evening preceding that -momentous day, that he had asked for an interview and it had been -granted to him, Lady Jane lost her pretty colour, which was always so -evanescent, and her breath, and almost her self-possession. “No,” she -said, “oh, not afraid! if you say _that_ to him, Reginald, he cannot -resist--but only a little nervous; one is always nervous when there is -any doubt. And then to think that this is the last evening!” - -“If things go right it will not be the last evening,” he cried. “The -Duchess said a man could not stay who had been refused; but even she -would allow that a man who has _not_ been refused may remain and be -happy. Ah, Jane! imagine the happiness of being allowed to belong to -each other! no more secret meetings, no further alarms or discovery.” - -She gave a sigh of happiness and relief, yet blushed almost painfully. -The idea of doing anything which she did not wish to be found out hurt -her still, notwithstanding that in the stress of the crisis she had -yielded to do it. Winton’s conscience was not so delicate, and his -excitement made him wildly confident. It is a woman’s part to fear in -such a case as it is her part to encourage in the midst of doubt. -“Provided,” she said, with a little sigh of suspense, “provided it all -goes as we wish.” - -He took her hands in his and held them fast and stood bending over her -looking into her eyes. “Supposing,” he said slowly, “supposing,”--he was -so excited and sure of what was going to happen that he could afford to -be theatrical,--“supposing all should not go as we wish, Jane--what -then?” - -Lady Jane did not make any reply. She returned his look, with her hands -clasping his, standing steadfast without a shadow of wavering. She felt -as she had done in her youth when she had imagined herself facing the -guillotine. She was ready to suffer whatever might be inflicted upon -her, but to yield, she would not. It would have been easier by far to -die. - -All this time the Duchess let them have their way. They were ungrateful, -they were even unkind, but she endured it with a patience and toleration -to which long experience had trained her. If it was with a little pang -that she kissed her daughter, wondering at that universal law which -makes a woman, still more than a man, forsake father and mother, and -cleave to her husband, she said nothing about it: she left them to -themselves and their hopes. She said to herself that they would find out -too soon what a broken reed they were trusting to, and her heart ached -for the failure of those anticipations which gave Lady Jane so beautiful -a colour, and an air of such serene happiness. Better that she should -have a happy evening, that she should sleep softly and wake hopefully -once more. - -The morning of the great day dawned in a weeping mist, the heavens -leaden, the earth sodden, and streams of blinding rain falling by -intervals. Lady Jane, as she opened her eyes upon the misty daylight, -and thought, as soon as her faculties were awake, of what was going to -be done, clasped her soft hands, and said a prayer for _him_, and for -herself, and still more warmly for her father, who was, so to speak, on -his trial. He had never been less than a noble father in Lady Jane’s -eyes. She had not found him out, being scarcely of her generation in -this respect, and accepting unaffectedly what was presented to her as -the real state of things; but she could not help feeling that the Duke -was on his trial. He might deny her lover’s suit and break her own -heart, and yet keep his child’s respect. But a vague fear lest he -should not do this had got into her soul she did not know how. She -waited with a tremor which she could not subdue for the moment. How -fortunate it was that it rained, and that it was impossible to go out! -For once in her life Lady Jane failed in her duty. She escaped from -little Lady Adela, who was so anxious to be taken into her confidence, -and from the other guests, who, seeing the hopelessness of the weather, -were yawning together in the great bow-window of the morning-room, -gazing out upon the sodden grass and dreary avenue, dripping from every -tree, and wondering how they were to kill the time till luncheon. Lady -Jane, instead of helping to solve that problem, as she ought to have -done, fled from them and escaped to the seclusion of her mother’s -drawing-room, where she sat with the door ajar, listening for every -footstep. The Duchess, though she had felt her desertion, and knew that -the foolish pair of lovers were in a sort of secession from her, -following their own way, yet was very magnanimous to their -wrong-headedness. She said no word and looked no look of reproach, but -gave up her writing and her business, and went down herself among the -unoccupied ladies, and did her best to amuse them. This was perhaps of -all the sacrifices she made for them the one that cost her most. - -It was about eleven o’clock when Winton presented himself at the door of -the Duke’s room; which was a handsome room, full of books, with a large -window looking out upon the park, and some of the finest of the family -pictures upon the walls. Over the mantelpiece hung a full-length -portrait, looking gigantic, of the Duchess, with Lady Jane, a little -girl of eight or nine, holding her hand. It seemed to Winton, as his -eye caught this on entering, that there was a reproachful look in the -eyes, and that Jane’s little face, serene and sweet as it had always -been, had a startled air of curiosity, and watched him from behind her -mother. The large window was full of blank and colourless daylight, and -an atmosphere of damp and rain. The Duke rose as he came in with much -graciousness, and pointed to a chair. He came from his writing-table, -which was at some distance, and placed himself in front of the -fireplace, as an Englishman loves to do, even when there is no fire. “I -hope,” the Duke said, “that you are going to tell me of something in -which I can serve you, Mr Winton.” There arose in Winton’s mind a -momentary thrill of indignation and derision. Serve him! as if he were -not better off and more fit to serve himself than half-a-dozen bankrupt -dukes! But Winton remembered that this was Jane’s father, and -restrained himself: and indeed the excitement and suspense in his breast -left him at no leisure for more than a momentary rebellion. He -replied--“It is true, I do appear before your Grace as a suitor----” but -here his voice failed him and his courage. - -“You must not hesitate to speak plainly,” said the Duke, always more and -more graciously. “Alas! I am in opposition, and my influence does not -tell for much. Still, if there is any way in which I can be of use to -you--there is no one for whom I should more willingly stretch a point.” - -“You are very kind,” said Winton. “It is not in that way that I should -trouble you. I am not in want of patronage--in that way. I may say that -I am rich--not,” he hastened to add, “as you are, but, for my position -in life, very well off--almost more than well off.” - -“I am delighted to hear it, Mr Winton; but that is all the more reason -why you should serve your country. We want men who are indifferent to -pecuniary advantage. I shall be most happy to mention your name to Lord -Coningsby or to----” - -“If you will permit me,” said Winton, “it is your Grace only whose -favour I desire to gain.” - -Here the Duke began to laugh in a somewhat imbecile way, shaking his -head with an air of complacency which would have been too ludicrous for -mortal powers of gravity, had not Winton’s mind been so much otherwise -occupied. “Ah,” he said, “I see! you are thinking of that old story -about the Foreign Office. You must know that was mere talk. I do not -expect that anything could come of it. But if,” his Grace added with -another little run of laughter, “when we return to power--be assured, -Mr Winton, that nothing could give me greater pleasure----” - -What was he to say? Winton knew very well that he himself was as likely, -if not more so--for he was a young man, with the world before him--to be -Foreign Minister than the Duke: and what with the confusion of the -mistake and the ludicrous character of the patronage offered, he was -more embarrassed than tongue could tell. “You are very kind,” he -faltered, scarcely knowing what he said; then, taking his courage with -both hands, “Duke,” he said, boldly, “it was on a much more presumptuous -errand I ventured to intrude upon you. What you will say to me I dare -not venture to think. I come not to ask for patronage or place, but for -something a great deal more precious. I come----” Here he paused, so -bewildered by the dignified unconsciousness and serene superiority of -the potentate in whose presence he stood that words failed him, and he -stood and gazed at that immovable countenance with a sort of appalled -wonder to think that anything should be so great yet so small, so -capable of making himself ridiculous, and yet with power to spoil two -lives at his pleasure. The Duke shifted his position a little, put his -right hand within his waistcoat in an attitude in which he had once -stood for his portrait, and regarded his suppliant with benignity. “Go -on,” he said, waving his other hand, “go on.” - -Ah, how right the Duchess was! Oh, what a miserable mistake the lover -had made! But there was no drawing back now. “I am not worthy, no one is -worthy of her,” he said with agitation. “I am only a commoner, which I -know is a disadvantage in your eyes. The only thing, and that is -nothing, is, that at least I could make ample provision and secure -every comfort for my wife.” - -“Your wife!” said the Duke, with a surprise which was ineffable. If any -gleam of suspicion came over him he quenched it in the sublime patronage -of a superior. “This is very interesting,” he said, “and shows a great -faith in my friendship to take me into your confidence on such a -delicate subject. I am happy to hear you are in such favourable -circumstances; but really,” he added with a laugh, “when you think how -very unlikely it is that I can have any knowledge of the future Mrs -Winton----” - -The young man grew red and hot with a mixture of embarrassment and -resentful excitement, stung by the look and the tone. “It is your -daughter,” he said, “who has given me permission to come to you. It is -of Lady Jane I want to speak. You cannot think me less worthy of her -than I think myself.” - -“Lady Jane!” The Duke grew pale; he took his hand out of his waistcoat, -and stared at the audacious suitor with dismay. Then he recovered -himself with an effort, and snatched at a smile as if it had been -something that hung on the wall, and put it on tremulously. “Ah! ah! I -see,” he added. “You think she might render you assistance. Speak a good -word for you?--eh?” The attempt to be jocular, which was entirely out of -his habits, convulsed his countenance. “Yes, yes, I see! that is what -you mean,” he said. - -There was a pause, and the two men looked each other in the face. A -monarch confronted by the whole embodied force of revolution--scorning -it, hating it--yet with an insidious suggestion of alarm underneath -all--on one hand; and on the other the revolution embodied--pale with -lofty anger and a sense of its own rights, yet not without a regret, a -sympathetic pang for the old king about to be discrowned. The mutual -contemplation lasted not more than a few moments, though it seemed so -long. Then the Duke turned on his heel with a grimace which in his -agitation he intended for a laugh. “I prefer,” he said, “on the whole, -that Lady Jane should not be appealed to. My disposition to serve you -was personal. The ladies of my family are not less amicably inclined, I -am sure; but I do not wish them to be mixed up--in short you will -understand that, wishing you well in every way, I must advise you to -trust to your own attractions in a matrimonial point of view. I cannot -permit my daughter to interfere.” - -He had moved about while he was speaking, but at the end returned to -his place and fixed Winton with the commanding look, straight in the -eyes, of a man determined to intimidate an applicant. It was the least -successful way in which he could have attempted to influence the present -suitor. Winton’s excitement rose to such a pitch that he recovered his -calm and self-possession as if by magic. - -“I feel that I have explained myself badly,” he said, “and this is not a -matter on which there can be any misunderstanding between us. I must ask -you to listen to me calmly for a moment.” - -“Calmly, my good sir! your matrimonial affairs, however important to -you, can scarcely be expected to excite me,” cried his Grace sharply, -with irritation in every tone. - -“There can be nothing in the world so exciting--to both of us,” said -Winton. “My Lord Duke, I come from your daughter, from Jane.” - -“Sir!” cried the Duke. But no capitals are capable of expressing the -force, the fury, of this outburst, which struck Winton like a -projectile, full in the face so to speak. He made a step backward in -momentary dismay. - -“I must finish,” he said, somewhat wildly. “Jane sends me to your Grace. -I love her and she me. She has promised to be my wife. It is no -intercession, it is herself I ask. Jane--Duke! on her account I have a -right to be heard--a right--to have an answer at least.” - -The Duke was beyond the power of speech. He was purple with rage and -astonishment, and at the same time moved by a kind of furious panic. He -caught at his shirt-collar like a man stifled. He had no voice to reply, -but waved his hand imperiously towards the door. And Winton, too, was -in a degree panic-struck. He had never seen such a blind and helpless -fit of passion before. Such things had been heard of as that a man -should die of rage. That indeed would be a separation from Jane beyond -any power to amend. He drew back a little with an anxiety he could not -conceal. - -“I have taken you by surprise,” he said. “I ask your pardon. Whatever I -can do to soften the shock--to meet your wishes--I will do.” - -“Go, sir!--go, sir!” the Duke stormed in his fury. “That is all you can -do--go! there is the door.” He waved his hand towards it with a -threatening gesture. He was transported out of himself. He followed -Winton step by step with a sort of moral compulsion, forcing him to -retire. The young man’s blood, it is needless to say, was in an uproar; -his heart thumping against his breast, every pulse going like a hammer. -But he made a stand again midway to that door which seemed the only -reply he was to have. “You will remember,” he said, “that I have no -answer--you give me no answer; I will leave the room and the house as -your Grace bids, but that is not a reply----” - -“Go, sir!” the Duke cried. He stamped his foot like an enraged fishwife. -He had the sense to hold himself in, not to allow the torrent of abuse -which was on his lips to pour forth; but how long he would have been -able to endure, to keep in this vigorous and fiery tide, could not have -been predicted. He flung open the door with a force which made the walls -quiver, and the action seemed more or less to bring him to himself. He -recovered his voice at last. “I ought,” he panted, with a snarl, “to -thank you for the honour you have done my poor house;” and thus with an -explosion of labouring breath drove the astonished suitor out, as if by -a blast of wind. Winton found himself in the corridor, while the crash -of the great door swung behind him echoed through the house, with an -amazement which words cannot describe. It had all passed like a scene in -a dream. He paused a moment to recover himself. He, too, was breathless, -his whole physical being agitated, his head hot and throbbing, his heart -choking him. He could not speak to the Duchess, whom he met a moment -after coming along the corridor with a packet of papers in her hand. “It -is all over,” he said incoherently, waving his hand as he passed her. -The only idea in his mind for the moment was of indignity and wrong. - - - - -CHAPTER IX. - -ACTING FOR HERSELF. - - -The Duchess’s little sitting-room had not for years enclosed so -melancholy a group. She herself, in old days when she first began to -realise all the circumstances of the life which she had come into, had -wept many an unnoticed tear in it; but in after-years she had acquired -the philosophy of maturity, and had too much to do holding her own amid -all the adverse circumstances about her, to be able to indulge in -personal lamentations. But Lady Jane had never known any of those -burdens which had made her mother’s career so full of care. When Winton -rushed in, in all the excitement of the scene which he had just gone -through in the Duke’s library, too much disturbed even to tell her what -had passed, it was almost her first experience of the darker side of -existence. For the first moment he had not been able to keep some -resentment and sense of the indignity to which he had been exposed from -getting to light. He told her with a pale smile and fiery eyes that he -had scarcely time to speak to her, that he must go instantly, that her -father had turned him out. But as Winton came to himself, and began to -perceive the pain which he was inflicting upon her, he did his best to -smooth away the first unguarded outburst. Lady Jane’s pallor, the tears -which she could not restrain, the serenity of her countenance turned -into anguish, all made apparent to him the fact which he had forgotten, -that there were to her two sides to the question. He tried to draw in -his words, to smooth away what he had said in the first outburst of his -resentment. “After all, we must remember it was a great shock to him. I -am nobody, only a simple gentleman, not fit to place myself on a level -with the Duke’s daughter,” he said, though still with that smile of -wounded pride and bitterness about his lips. Lady Jane was too -heart-broken to say much; she listened like a martyr at the stake, -standing silent while spears and arrows were thrust into her. Her -father! he had been tried and he had not borne the trial. What she -understood by rank was the highest courtesy, the noblest humbleness. A -man who would turn another to the door, who would suffer his guest to -perceive, under any circumstances, that he was not as a prince in his -host’s eyes--Lady Jane did not understand such a being. It hurt her so -deeply that she did not even at first realise the fact that it was her -lover who was turned away. She tried to ask a few faltering questions, -to make out the circumstances to be less terrible; but failing in this, -fell into silence, into such shame and consternation and deep humiliated -pain as even Winton scarcely comprehended. No other hand, no other -proceeding could have struck such a blow at all the traditions of her -life. She sat with her hand indeed in her lover’s, but in a kind of -miserable separation even from him, feeling her life fall away from her, -unable to think or realise what was to happen now; until Winton, -recovering from his excitement only to fall into a deeper panic, took -renewed fright from her silence. “Jane,” he said, “Jane! you don’t mean -to give me up because your father has turned me away?” Lady Jane turned -her head towards him, gave him a miserable smile, and pressed his hand -faintly, then fell, as perhaps had never happened in her life before, -into a passion of tears. He drew her into his arms, as was natural, and -she wept on his shoulder, as one refusing to be comforted. It was but -vaguely that Winton could even guess the entire upheaval of all her -foundations, the ruin into which her earth had fallen. He thought it was -the tragedy of his own love that was the cause, and that with this -heart-breaking convulsion she was making up her mind to see it come to -an end. - -This was the attitude in which the Duchess found them. She, too, was -pale, her eyes bright, her nostrils dilated, as if she had been in the -wars. She found her daughter in this speechless passion of weeping, with -Winton’s pale countenance very despairing and tragical, yet touched -with a livelier alarm, a frightened incomprehension, bending over her. -He gave her a look of appeal as she came in; was it true that all was -over, as he had said? The Duchess went to her child’s side and took the -hand that lay on her lap and caressed it. “My darling,” she said, “this -is not a moment to give in: and you are not one to fail in a great -crisis, Jane. We have only a very little time to decide what we are to -do before Reginald goes away.” - -She had not called him Reginald before, and there was a faint smile in -her eyes as they met his--a smile of forgiveness and motherly kindness, -though he had asked no pardon. The sound of her mother’s voice broke the -spell of Lady Jane’s self-abandonment, and it went to Winton’s heart -with a forlorn sense of happiness in the midst of all the misery, that -even her mother exercised a constraint upon her which when alone with -him she did not feel. Was it not that she was herself, and that with him -nature had free course unabashed? But the scene grew brighter and more -hopeful when the Duchess came into it. She was not surprised nor -overthrown by what had happened. She put back the soft hair from her -child’s forehead, and gave her a kiss of consolation. “My dearest,” she -said, “the crisis has come which I knew would come. Reginald must go as -soon as it is possible for him to go. It is for you now to say what is -to be done. You are of age; you have a right to judge for yourself. When -you told me first, I warned you what was before you. You have never -taken the burden of your life upon you hitherto. Now the moment has -come. I will not interfere. I will say nothing; neither will Reginald, -if I understand him rightly. You must judge for yourself what you will -do.” - -Winton obeyed her Grace’s lead, though with reluctance and a troubled -mind. He only partially comprehended what she meant. He would have liked -for his own part, to hold his love fast--to cry out to her once more, -“You will not give me up because your father sends me away?” But he -yielded to the Duchess’s look, though with a grudge, feeling that this -was moral compulsion almost as absolute as that with which her husband -had turned him out. He rose from the sofa on which he had been sitting -with Jane, and stood before her, feeling in his hand still the mould of -hers which had lain there so long, and which left his, he thought, with -reluctance. This proceeding brought her altogether to herself. She -looked around her with an almost pitiful surprise. “Am I to be left -alone,” she said, with a quiver in her lip, “when I need support most?” -and then there was a pause. To Jane and to Winton it seemed as if the -very wheels of existence were arrested and the world stood still. No one -spoke. He was not capable of it; the Duchess would not. Lady Jane -between, with wet eyelashes, and cheeks still pale with tears, and mouth -quivering, her hands clasped in her lap as if clinging to each other -since there was nothing else to hold by, sat perfectly still for a -moment which seemed an hour. When she spoke at last there was a catch in -her voice, and the words came with difficulty, and with little pauses -between. - -“What is it I am to decide?” she said. “All was decided--when we found -out--in town---- We cannot separate, he and I---- That--can never come -into question now. Is it not so?---- I may read it wrong---- It -appears--I have already read something wrong----” And then a spasm came -over her face once more: but she got it under control. “What you mean -is--about details?” said Lady Jane. - -Winton, who had been in so extreme a state of excitement and suspense -that he could bear no more, dropped down upon his knees at the side of -the sofa on which she sat, and, clasping them, put down his face upon -her hands. Lady Jane freed one to put it lightly upon his bowed head, -with something of that soft maternal smile of indulgence of which love -has the privilege. “Did he think I was a child?” she said to her mother, -with a gentle wonder in her eyes. “Or not honest?” She herself was calm -again; steadfast, while the others still trembled, seeing the -complications so much less clearly than the fair and open way. She was -a little surprised by Winton’s broken ecstasies, by her mother’s -tremulous kiss of approval. “Is there anything left for me to decide?” -she said. - -Nobody knew very well what was said or done in the agitated half-hour -that remained. It was agreed between them that “the details,” of which -Lady Jane had spoken with a blush, should be arranged afterwards, when -all were more cool and masters of themselves--a state to which no one of -the little group attained until Winton was hurrying along the country -roads towards the station, and Lady Jane and her mother were seated in -forlorn quiet alone in that little room which for the last week had been -the scene of so many excitements. The Duchess rose with a start when the -little French clock on the mantelpiece chimed one. “My dearest,” she -said, “we have many things to do which look like falsehood, we women. -You and I must appear at luncheon as if nothing had happened. There must -be no red eyes, my love, no abstraction. It will be all over the world -in no time, if we do not take care. For myself, alas! I am used to it; -but you, Jane----” - -Lady Jane did not immediately reply. She said, “There is one thing, -mamma, to which I have made up my mind----” - -The Duchess was examining herself in the glass to see if she was pale or -red, or anything different from her ordinary aspect. She turned round to -hear what this new determination was. - -“I will speak to my father myself,” Lady Jane said. - -If a cannon had been discharged into the peaceful little boudoir the -effect could scarcely have been greater. “You will speak to your -father, Jane? There are some things I know better than you. It will -wound you, my darling--for no good.” - -“But I think it is right. There should be no means neglected to make him -give his consent. With his consent all would be better. I think I ought -to do it. It will be no shock to him now--he knows. To think of him like -_that_ is the thing that gave me most pain.” - -“But if you should see him like _that_”--the Duchess said; then added -hastily, “I know you are right. But you must set your face like a flint; -you must not allow yourself to be made unhappy. Jane, your father does -not think as I think in many ways. I have tried to keep you from all -opposition; but he is old and you are young; you judge differently. You -must not think because his point of view is different that he is wrong, -even in this case--altogether.” - -Lady Jane lifted her mild eyes, which were almost stern in their -unwavering sense of right. “I sometimes feel that you think nothing is -wrong--altogether,” she said. - -“Perhaps not,” the Duchess replied, with a smile and a sigh. - -“It seems noble to me that you should think so, but I cannot. My father -will not be like _that_ to me,” she added, with a little sadness. “Do -not be afraid, and I will take a little time--not to-day, unless he -speaks to me.” - -“He will not speak to you,” said the Duchess, eagerly. She thought that -she had at least secured that. - -And then they went to luncheon. A little look of exhaustion about Lady -Jane’s face, a clear shining in her eyes like the sky after rain, -betrayed to some keen-sighted spectators that there had been agitation -in the atmosphere. But for a novice unaccustomed to trouble, she bore -herself very well. And as for the Duchess, she was perfect. Her -unruffled mind, her easy grace of greatness, were visible in every -movement. What could so great a lady have to trouble her? She was -gracious to everybody, and full of suggestions as to what should be -done, as the afternoon promised to clear up, proposing expeditions to -one place and another. “Mr Winton would have been an addition to your -riding-party, but unfortunately he left us this morning,” she said in a -voice of the most perfect composure. “So that there was nothing in it, -after all,” little Lady Adela whispered to her mother. But Lady -Grandmaison, who was a woman of experience, shook her head. - -And next morning Lady Jane, pale, but courageous, with a heart that -fluttered, but a purpose as steadfast as her nature, went softly -down-stairs in her turn and knocked at the Duke’s door. - - - - -CHAPTER X. - -A MOMENTOUS INTERVIEW. - - -The Duke, like his wife, was too highbred to allow any sign of -disturbance to be seen in him; but nevertheless he was very greatly -disturbed. Such a thing had never happened to him in all his life -before. He had come in contact indeed with many men of lower social -pretensions than Winton. But a person who is absolutely nobody is always -easier to deal with than one who, without reaching at all to the level -on which you can regard him as an equal, is still, by the unfortunate -and levelling privileges of English society, supposed to be as good -even as a duke; whereas nobody but a duke can be, in reality, as good as -a duke, though a peer of old creation may approach him near enough for -most social purposes. But a Mr Winton! His was precisely the kind of -position which is most perplexing and disagreeable to the great man who -is nevertheless obliged to allow, in deference to the folly of society, -that there can be nothing higher than an English gentleman, and that -princes themselves must consider their right to that title as their -highest qualification. There are commoners, indeed, with whom even a -duke might make an alliance and find himself no loser. We have already -pointed out that Mr Roundell, of Bishop’s Roundell, had been seriously -thought of as a suitor for Lady Jane. But a little squire with a little -manor-house somewhere in the Midland counties--a man whom only a chance -inheritance had raised above the necessity of working for his living, -whose ancestors had been no better than little squires before him, who -was nobody, of a race unheard of out of their parish, that he should -take it upon him to walk quietly up to the Duke on his own hearth and -ask from him the hand of Lady Jane! He did not venture to permit himself -to dwell upon the thought. When it came back to his mind it set his -blood boiling as at first--his head grew hot, his veins too full, his -respiration difficult. To allow himself to be driven into a fit by such -_canaille_ would be unworthy of him; and therefore the Duke put force -upon himself, and when the recollection came back took the wise step of -flying from it. He would not risk himself on such an ignoble occasion. -To allow a Mr Winton to bring on an illness would be almost as bad as -accepting him for Lady Jane. Therefore he sent for his steward, or had -an interview with his head groom, or seized upon some other external aid -to save himself from the thought. He was unusually stately during the -evening and snubbed the man of the clubs, who had gained some favour -before by his adroitness and the interest he took in the house of -Billings. The Duke turned his back upon this candidate for favour in the -midst of an account he was giving of some discoveries he had -made--discoveries for which the entire race of the Altamonts ought, he -believed, to have been his debtors--as if the House of Altamont could -have been advantaged by any discovery made by a man who was nobody, or -indeed wanted any new glorification. The Duke turned round in the very -midst of the tale, turned his shoulder to the discoverer and began to -talk to the next of his noble visitors. This snub direct made everybody -stare, and quenched the victim for the evening. It gave his Grace a -little satisfaction to mortify somebody; but after all it did not do -much for his own wounds. And after a disturbed night, when malicious -recollection presented him with the souvenir of Winton almost before he -was free of his disturbed dreams, it may be supposed that the Duke’s -uprising was not a pleasant one. Heaven and earth! a little squire! a -nobody! He got up precipitately--if the Duke could be supposed to do -anything precipitately--and hurried his dressing, and plunged himself -into business. To allow himself to be drawn even into a bilious attack -by an assailant so contemptible would have been beneath him. His Grace -was very busy checking the steward’s accounts, and just had started what -he thought was an error in the balance-sheet, and was about with much -enjoyment to hunt it back to its origin--for he loved to think that he -was cheated, and to find out the managers of the estate in an inaccurate -sixpence was a great gratification to him--when there suddenly came a -low and somewhat tremulous knock at his door. He knew in a moment that -it was some new annoyance and connected with the Winton affair, though -it did not occur to him who the applicant could be who made this gentle -demand for admittance. His first thought was so little wise that it -prompted him to make as though he had not heard. But he heard very well, -and through every fibre of him. Then as he waited, keeping very quiet, -with perhaps a hope that the interruption might thus be diverted, the -knock was repeated a little louder. The Duke rose in great impatience. -He knew as well as if he had been in all their counsels what it was, -but he did not know who it was. When it was repeated for the third time -he made a stride across the room, and with his own hand flung the door -open. “WELL!” he said in a voice of thunder, then fell back appalled. -For there, in her white morning dress, and whiter than her dress, save -when she was crimson, her soft countenance inspired with something which -her father had never seen there before, her eyes meeting his -steadfastly, a slight tremor in her, which rather added to than -detracted from her firmness--stood Lady Jane. - -The Duke was so much excited that for one moment he failed in politeness -towards the princess royal. “YOU!” he cried, with something of that -intonation of supreme surprise and horror, with which he had said SIR to -her lover. But he paused, and a better inspiration returned to him. A -spasmodic sort of smile came over his face. “Ah, Jane!” he said, and -put out his hand. “You want to speak to me? This is an unusual -visit--and perhaps it is rather an unfortunate moment, if you have much -to say.” - -“Not very much, papa,” Jane answered, with an agitated smile. She took -his hand, though he had not meant this, and held it, as she closed the -door behind her. He would not have allowed her to do as much as this -herself, had he noted what she meant, but he was agitated too in spite -of himself. He recovered, however, and shut the door, then led his -daughter to a chair and placed her in it. It was--but he noticed that -only after it was beyond mending--the very chair in which her -presumptuous suitor had placed himself yesterday. The Duke stood up -before her in front of the fireplace exactly as he had done with -Winton. The coincidence alarmed him, but now he could not help it. -“Well, my love?” he said. He put on an air which was jaunty and -light-hearted, the false gaiety with which a frightened man faces -unknown danger. “Well, my love! I have just found Whitaker out in some -serious miscalculations. I am robbed on all hands by my servants. It is -one of the penalties of our position. But I warn you I have my head full -of this and will be a poor listener. Whitaker, you see----” - -“What I have to say will not take much time, papa. But it is very -important to me.” - -“Ah, ah!” said the Duke, with a laugh. “_Chiffons_, eh? Money wanted? -You must talk that over with your mother. I am not rich, but whatever my -Jane may require, were it to the half of my kingdom----” - -He made her a bow full of that deference and almost reverential respect -with which it was one of the Duke’s best points to have surrounded his -only daughter--with a smile in which there was more tenderness than his -Grace was capable of showing to any other creature. He loved his -daughter, and he venerated her as a sort of flower of humanity and of -the Altamonts, who were the best that humanity could produce. - -“I will not ask so much as that,” said Lady Jane, tremulous, yet firm; -“and yet I have come to ask you for something, father. I am older than -girls are usually when they--marry.” - -“Older, nonsense! Who has told you that?” cried the Duke, his veins -beginning to swell, and his heart to thump with rising excitement. “You -are in the bloom of your youth. I have never seen a girl look sweeter, -or fairer, or younger, for that matter, than my child has been looking. -Who has put such folly into your head?” - -“It is not folly, it is true; and no matter--that is nothing; but only -to show you that I am serious. I am no longer a girl, papa. Ah! do not -interrupt; I shall always be a girl to you. I am a woman. I have had a -great many thoughts before I came to speak--for myself. That is the last -thing one wishes to do. To have others do it is so much the easier. But -one must at last. I have come to speak to you for myself.” - -“Jane, you had better pause and think,” said the Duke, with threatening -looks. - -“What can you have to say about yourself? Don’t bring down my respect -for my daughter. We are driven out of our respect for women in most -cases early in our career; but most men have a prejudice in favour of -their daughters. Don’t force me to think that you are just like all the -rest.” - -She looked at him wondering, but with eyes that did not falter. “My -mother, I am sure, can have forfeited no one’s respect,” she said -softly; “neither shall I, I hope; but perhaps more than she. I must -speak to you, father, about my own life. Oh!” she cried, clasping her -hands, with a vivid colour coming to her pale cheeks, “speak you for me! -do not let me have to do it. There are things that can only be said when -the case is desperate, and surely--surely it cannot be desperate between -you and me. Speak for me, father, to your own heart.” - -“So far as I can see, this is melodrama,” said the Duke, with a feeble -smile of agitation that looked like a sneer, for his lips were dry. -“What am I to say? Come, must we be brutal? That Lady Jane Altamont, -like any poor milliner, is beginning to be afraid----” - -Her eyes opened a little wider with a scared look, but she said nothing, -only gazed more fixedly on her father, her whole soul bent on what he -was next to say. - -“Afraid,” he said, with a little forced giggle of a laugh, “because she -is twenty-eight, and her cheek is hollow--afraid that she is growing an -old maid, and will never get a husband? There is nothing more natural -than that,” he cried, bursting out into a mocking laugh. - -Lady Jane rose from her chair. She coloured high, then became white as a -ghost. Astonishment, consternation, pain--pain indescribable, a kind of -horror and dismay were in her eyes. She opened her lips, but only to -give forth a gasp of sound which was inarticulate. She did not take her -eyes from him; but gradually there grew in them, besides the pitiful -suffering of a creature outraged and insulted, a gleam of indignation, a -flash of contempt. When a man, even a duke, has taken that fatal step -between resentment and fury, between what is permissible and what is -unpermissible, the other steps are easy enough. Her father forgot that -she was Lady Jane, and the first of womankind. He let his passion go. -The more he had loved and elevated her, the more did he trample all her -superiority under his feet. - -“Ah! you thought I should say something prettier, something more -pleasant,” he cried. “Poetical! but I am not poetical, and that is the -short and long of it. Afraid to lose your chance altogether, and -determined to have a husband, that is the meaning of it! I know now why -the man was brought here. I never could make out what we wanted with him -at Billings. A last chance for Jane! Ah, I see it all now!” - -Lady Jane stood and received all this as if the words had been stones. -She put her hands upon her breast to ward them off. She shrank backwards -now and then with a faint moan, as one after another was discharged at -her. Her eyes grew larger, and more and more pitiful, wet, appealing as -if to earth and heaven; but she never withdrew them from her father’s -face. And now that he had let himself loose, he raved on, expending upon -her all his wrath, putting himself more and more fatally in the wrong -with every word, showing, alas! that nothing, not a coal-heaver, could -be more vulgar than a duke when he is put to it. Lady Jane stood still -before him and never said a word. This was worse than the guillotine. -She had dreamt of facing the insults of the mob, but never the insults -of her father. As she stood there, to all appearance so full and -painfully occupied in sustaining the storm of words thus poured upon -her, a hundred reflections were passing through her mind. She almost -smiled to herself to think how small had been the terrible scenes -presented to her by her imagination, in face of the reality. The -Constitution might have gone to pieces, the guillotine might have been -raised without shaking her confidence in her class, or disturbing her -lofty unconscious superiority to all the rabble could do,--but her -father--this was what she had not thought of. Ah! it is not any rabble -that can shake the foundations of the earth: but when your father, when -those who are most dear to you, lay hands upon the pillars of the -house--she stood so still, and looked at him with such a steadfast gaze, -that the Duke was driven out of himself. He said--who can doubt?--a -thousand things he never meant to say. He turned himself outside in -before her, displaying weaknesses which even his wife did not know. But -at last his wrath exhausted itself. He began to stammer and hesitate, -then stopped short suddenly, with all the consciousness of his -self-betrayal on him. There was a moment’s silence, during which they -looked at each other without a word said--and then he made a step -forward closer to her, and asked, “What have you got to say?” - -“Nothing,” said Lady Jane. Her eyes were wet, and shining all the more -for the moisture in them, but she had not cried nor felt any impulse to -cry. “Oh, nothing--nothing now.” - -“You are convinced then?” he said hurriedly, trying to assume his usual -aspect. “Come, come, that is well. And perhaps I have been hasty. But -you know what is the point upon which I feel most strongly. There must -be no descent out of your rank. I have trained you in the sentiment of -your rank, above all things. What have we else?” cried the Duke, -“everything fails us--the masses pour in everywhere--they have ruined -the kingdom, they are ruining the Church: but,” he said slowly, “they -shall never ruin the House of Altamont: that shall be kept sacred -whatever goes. Pardon me, my love, if I have failed in respect to the -last daughter of the house. I know my Jane will not fail.” - -But still Lady Jane did not make any reply. She stood as if she had been -struck dumb, regarding him with a kind of serious wonder which confused -him more than he could say. The desire to explain herself, to ask him -for his consent, to get his sympathy, seemed to have died in her. Was -she stunned only, or convinced, or what was it he had done? The Duke -grew alarmed at last. He waited a moment longer, and then he added, “I -have been hasty. After all, my dear, whatever it is, it would be better -that you should say what you meant to say.” - -She shook her head, still looking at him. “No--no--there would be no -advantage in it now.” - -“What do you mean by _now_?--perhaps I might have been mistaken. Come, -let me hear what it was,” the Duke cried, with an air of sudden -amiability, ignoring all that had gone before. - -“Father,” said Lady Jane with a certain solemnity, “there was a great -deal to say--but not now. Certain things were uppermost in my mind. I -thought my father would listen, and perhaps feel for me, though he might -not approve. But I do not wish it now. There is nothing--it is -over----” - -She put her hand upon her heart, pressing it as if to keep down a sigh. -Her eyes so wet, but not weeping, were strangely pathetic, with a -resignation in them which it was not wonderful perhaps that he should -interpret in his own way. He put out his hand and laid it caressingly -upon her arm. - -“My good child! if that is so, you may be sure it is for the best. I -knew there was that in my Jane that would respond to what I said. And I -thank you, my love, not only for myself, but in the name of the race.” - -She looked at him again with a penetrating gaze. “The race is everything -to you then,” she said. - -“Everything, my love! everything. I have no other thought.” - -“To keep it honourable and true--above all unworthy thoughts, above -dishonesty and untruth,” she said slowly, telling over the words like -beads. - -“That is what I desire,” said the Duke. Then he added his gloss. “To -retain our old nobility unbroken, to sully the name with no -_mésalliances_. Your brother has disregarded my wishes; but though I -would never have sanctioned it, he has secured another kind of -advantage, and perhaps I have no right to complain. But you, my Jane, -nothing must touch you: you must remain the pride of your family. And,” -he added soothingly, “do not lose heart, my love. Lady Jane Altamont -will not want for opportunities. Do not think from what I said that you -are considered _passée_ by any one, or that a good marriage is less -likely than before. We are not come the length of putting up with an -inferior, trust me, my dear.” - -Lady Jane’s pallor changed into an overwhelming blush. She turned away -from him, almost shaking his hand from her shoulder. “In that case,” she -said, with a muffled voice full of some emotion which he did not quite -understand, nor yet feel comfortable about--“in that case there is -certainly no more to say.” - -And without any little civility, such as, though not indispensable, it -is pretty to keep up between the nearest relations, no little bow or -smile, or glance of pleasant understanding, she turned from him and went -out of the room, suddenly and noiselessly. The Duke did not like it: he -felt there was something in it which he had not fathomed. He stood in -the place where she had left him, his hand still stretched out where she -had shaken it off, his mouth and his eyes open, a bewildered alarm in -his mind. What did she mean? Was there more meaning than one in those -simple-seeming words? Was this real submission as he hoped, or a -something else? He could not tell. But a cold chill got into his veins; -he did not know what to make of it. After a while, however, he reasoned -with himself, and recovered his comfort. Jane, who had always been so -docile, so ready to accept his views, why should she turn against him -and all his traditions now? - - -END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. - - -PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUKE'S DAUGHTER (AKA LADY JANE) -AND THE FUGITIVES; VOL. 1/3 *** - -***** This file should be named 63901-0.txt or 63901-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/9/0/63901/ - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this ebook. - -Title: The Duke's Daughter (aka Lady Jane) and The Fugitives; vol. 1/3 - -Author: Mrs. Margaret Oliphant - -Release Date: November 28, 2020 [EBook #63901] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team - at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images - available at The Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUKE'S DAUGHTER (AKA LADY -JANE) AND THE FUGITIVES; VOL. 1/3 *** -</pre><hr class="full" /> - -<div class="c"> -<a href="images/cover.jpg"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" height="550" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p class="c"><span class="ltspc">THE DUKE’S DAUGHTER</span><br /><br /> -<small>AND</small><br /><br /> -<span class="ltspc">THE FUGITIVES</span></p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Lady, you come hither to be married to this count?”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“I do.”<br /></span> -<span class="i10">—<i>Much Ado about Nothing.</i><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<h1><span class="smcap"><span class="ltspc">The Duke’s Daughter</span></span><br /> -<br /> -<small>AND</small><br /> -<br /> -<span class="smcap"><span class="ltspc">The Fugitives</span></span></h1> - -<p class="c">BY<br /> -<br /> -MRS OLIPHANT<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -IN THREE VOLUMES<br /> -<br /> -VOL. I.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS<br /> -EDINBURGH AND LONDON<br /> -MDCCCXC<br /> -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="c">TO<br /> -<br /><big><span class="ltspc"> -A. W. KINGLAKE, <span class="smcap">Esq.</span>,</span><br /></big> -<br /><span class="wdspc"> -THE GRACIOUS, KIND, AND<br /> -<br /> -GENTLE READER,<br /> -<br /> -WHOM IT IS THE PRIDE OF A HUMBLE NOVELIST<br /> -<br /> -TO PLEASE,<br /> -<br /><span class="eng"> -This Little Book</span><br /> -<br /> -IS INSCRIBED.<br /></span> -</p> - -<hr /> - -<h2>NOTE.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">It</span> is perhaps necessary to explain that the following story was -published in serial form under the title of ‘Lady Jane,’ but the -subsequent use of a similar title for another work has suggested the -expediency of a change of name.</p> - -<hr /> - -<h2>CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.</h2> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> -<tr><td colspan="2">THE DUKE’S DAUGHTER—</td></tr> - -<tr><td><small>CHAP.</small></td><td> </td> -<td><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">HER PARENTS,</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_3">3</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">HERSELF,</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_23">23</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">HER LOVER,</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_45">45</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">A DISAPPOINTMENT,</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_74">74</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">THE ANTICIPATIONS OF LADY JANE,</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_101">101</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">THE ART OF STRATEGY,</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_128">128</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">SUSPENSE,</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_155">155</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">THE DECISIVE MOMENT,</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_178">178</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">ACTING FOR HERSELF,</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_218">218</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X.</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">A MOMENTOUS INTERVIEW,</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_234">234</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_1" id="page_1">{1}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_2" id="page_2">{2}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_3" id="page_3">{3}</a></span> </p> - -<h1>THE DUKE’S DAUGHTER.</h1> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a><span class="ltspc">CHAPTER</span> I.<br /><br /> -<small>HER PARENTS.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">The</span> Duchess was a very sensible woman.</p> - -<p>This was her character, universally acknowledged. She might not perhaps -be so splendid a person as a duchess ought to be. She had never been -beautiful, nor was she clever in the ordinary sense of the word; but she -was in the full sense of the word a sensible woman. She had, there is no -doubt, abundant need for this faculty in her progress through the -world.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_4" id="page_4">{4}</a></span> Hers had not been a holiday existence, notwithstanding her high -position at the head of one of the proudest houses and noblest families -in England. It is a sort of compensation to us for the grandeur of the -great to believe that, after all, their wealth and their high position -do them very little good.</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“The village maidens of the plain<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Salute me lowly as they go,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Envious they mark my silken train,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Nor think a countess can have woe.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i1">The simple nymphs! they little know<br /></span> -<span class="i3">How far more happy’s their estate,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">To smile for joy than sigh for woe,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">To be content than to be great.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">So we all like to believe. But after all, it is highly doubtful whether -there is more content, as the moralists of the eighteenth century -imagined, in a cottage than in a palace; and the palace has the best of -it in so many other ways. The Duchess had met with many vexations in her -life,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_5" id="page_5">{5}</a></span> but no more than we all meet with, nor of a severer kind; and she -had her coronet, and her finery, and her beautiful ducal houses, and the -devotion of all that surrounded her, to the good. So while we have no -occasion to be envious, we have none, on the other hand, to plume -ourselves upon the advantages of humble position. Duchess or no duchess, -however, this lady had sense, a precious gift. And she had need to have -it, as the following narrative will show.</p> - -<p>For the Duke, on his side, did not possess that most valuable quality. -He was far more proud than a duke has any occasion to be. On that -pinnacle of rank, if on any height imaginable, a man may permit himself -to think simply of his position, and to form no over-estimate of his own -grandeur. But the Duke of Billingsgate was very proud, and believed -devoutly that he himself and his family tree, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_6" id="page_6">{6}</a></span> strawberry-leaves -which grew on the top of it, overshadowed the world. He thought it made -an appreciable difference to the very sunshine; and as for the county -under his shadow, he felt towards it as the old gods might have felt -towards the special lands of which they were the patrons tutelary. He -expected incense upon all the altars, and a sort of perpetual adoration. -It would have pleased him to have men swear by him and dedicate churches -in his honour, had such things been in accordance with modern manners: -he would have felt it to be only natural. He liked people to come into -his presence with diffidence and awe; and though he was frank of accost, -and of elaborate affability, as an English gentleman is obliged to be in -these days, talking to the commonalty almost as if he forgot they were -his inferiors, he never did forget the fact, and it offended him deeply -if they appeared to forget it in word or<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_7" id="page_7">{7}</a></span> deed. He was very gracious to -the little county ladies who would come to dine at the Castle when he -was in the country, but he half wondered how they could have the courage -to place a little trembling hand upon his ducal arm, and he liked those -all the better who did tremble and were overcome by the honour. He had -spent enormously in his youth, keeping up the state and splendour which -he thought were necessary to his rank, and which he still thought -necessary though his means were now straitened. And it cannot be denied -that he was angry with the world because his means were straitened, and -felt it a disgrace to the country that one of its earliest dukedoms -should be humiliated to the necessity of discharging superfluous footmen -and lessening the number of horses in the stables. He thought this came, -like so many other evils, of the radicalism of the times. Dukes did not -need to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_8" id="page_8">{8}</a></span> retrench when things were as they ought to be, and a strong -paramount Government held the reins of State. The Duke, however, -retrenched as little as was possible. He did it always under protest. -When strong representations on the part of his agents and lawyers -induced him against his will to cut off one source of expense, he had a -great tendency to burst out into another on an unforeseen occasion and a -different side—a tendency which made him very difficult to manage and a -great trouble to all connected with him.</p> - -<p>This was indeed the chief cross in the life of the Duchess; but even -that she took with great sense, not dwelling upon it more than she could -help, and comforting herself with the thought that Hungerford, who was -her eldest son, had great capabilities in the opposite direction, and -was exactly the sort of man to rebuild the substantial fortunes of the -family. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_9" id="page_9">{9}</a></span> had already done a great deal in that way by resolutely -marrying a great heiress in spite of his father’s absurd opposition. The -Duke had thought his heir good enough for a princess, and had something -as near hysterics as it would be becoming for a duke to indulge in when -he ascertained that obstinate young man’s determination to marry a lady -whose money had been made in the City; but Hungerford was thirty, and -his father had no control over him. There was, however, something left -which he had entirely in his own hands, his daughter—Lady Jane. She had -all the qualities which the Duke most esteemed in his race. She -resembled in features that famous duchess who had the good fortune to -please Charles II., but with a proud, and reserved, and stately air, -which had not distinguished that famous beauty. The repose of her -manners was such as can be seen only on<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_10" id="page_10">{10}</a></span> the highest levels of society. -Her face would wear an unchanged expression for days together, and for -almost as long a period the echoes around her would be undisturbed by -anything like the vulgarity of speech. She was a child after her -father’s own heart. Though it is a derogation to a family to descend -through the female line, his Grace could almost have put up with this, -had it been possible to transfer the succession from Hungerford and his -plebeian wife to that still, and fair, and stately maiden. Jane, Duchess -of Billingsgate (in her own right). He liked the thought. He felt that -there would be a certain propriety even in permitting the race to die -out in such a last crowning flower of dignity and honour. But no -day-dream, as he knew, could have been more futile; for the City lady -had brought three boys already to perpetuate the race, and there was no<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_11" id="page_11">{11}</a></span> -telling how many more were coming. Hungerford declared loudly that he -meant to put them into trade when they grew up, and that his -grandfather’s business was to be Bobby’s inheritance. Bobby! He had been -called after that grandfather. Such a name had never been heard before -among the Altamonts. The Duke took very little notice of any of the -children, and none whatever of that City brat. But, alas! what could he -do? There was no shutting them out from a single honour. Bobby would be -Lord Robert in spite of him, even at the head of his City grandfather’s -firm.</p> - -<p>But the marriage of Lady Jane was a matter still to be concluded, and in -that her father was determined to have his own way. There had not been -the violent competition for her beautiful hand which might have been -expected. Dukes are scant at all times, and there did not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_12" id="page_12">{12}</a></span> happen at -that time to be one marriageable duke with a hand to offer; and smaller -people were alarmed by the grandeur of her surroundings, by the -character of her papa, and by her own stateliness of manner. There were -a few who moved about the outskirts of the magnificent circle in which -alone Lady Jane was permitted to appear, and cast wistful glances at -her, but did not venture further. The Marquis of Wodensville made her a -proposal, but he was sixty, and the Duke did not think the inducement -sufficient to interpose his parental authority; and Mr Roundel, of -Bishop’s Roundel, made serious overtures. If family alone could have -carried the day, the claim of this gentleman would have been supreme, -and his Grace did not lightly reject that great commoner, a man who -would not have accepted a title had the Queen<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_13" id="page_13">{13}</a></span> herself gone on her knees -to him. But he showed signs of a desire to play this big fish, to -procrastinate and keep him in suspense, and that was a treatment which a -Roundel was not likely to submit to. Other proposals of less importance -never even reached Lady Jane’s ears; and the subject gave him no -concern. It is true that once or twice Lady Hungerford had made a -laughing remark on the subject of Jane’s marriage, which was like her -underbred impertinence. But the Duke never did more than turn his large -light-grey eyes solemnly upon her when she was guilty of any such -assault upon the superior race. He never condescended to reply. He did -very much the same thing when the Duchess with a sigh once made a -similar observation. He turned his head and fixed his eyes upon her; but -the Duchess was used to him and was not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_14" id="page_14">{14}</a></span> overawed. “I cannot conceive -what you can mean,” he said.</p> - -<p>“It is not hard to understand. I don’t expect to be immortal, and I -confess I should like to see Jane settled.”</p> - -<p>“Settled!” his Grace said—the very word was derogatory to his daughter.</p> - -<p>“Well, the term does not matter. She is very affectionate and clinging, -though people do not think so. I should like to make sure that she has -some one to take care of her when I die.”</p> - -<p>“You may be assured,” said the Duke, “that Jane will want no one to take -care of her as you say. I object to hear such a word as clinging applied -to my daughter. I am quite capable, I hope, of taking care of her.”</p> - -<p>“But, dear Gus, you are no more immortal than I am,” said his wife. He -disliked to be called by his Christian name in any circumstances, but -Gus had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_15" id="page_15">{15}</a></span> always driven him frantic, as, indeed, it is to be feared the -Duchess was aware. She was annoyed too, or she would not have addressed -him so.</p> - -<p>The Duke looked at her once more, but made no reply. He could not say -anything against this assertion: had there been anything better than -immortality he would have put in a claim for that, but as it is -certainly an article of belief that all men are mortal, he was wise -enough to say nothing. Such incidents as these, however, disturbed him -slightly. The sole effect of his wife’s interference was to make him -look at Lady Jane with more critical eyes. The first time he did so -there seemed to him no cause whatever for concern. She had come in from -a walk, and was recounting to her mother what she had seen and heard. -She had a soft flush on her cheek, and was if anything too animated<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_16" id="page_16">{16}</a></span> and -youthful in her appearance. She had met the great Lady Germaine, who had -brought a party to see the Dell in the neighbourhood of Billings Castle. -The Duke did not care for intruders upon his property, but it had been -impossible to refuse permission to such a leader of fashion as Lady -Germaine. “There were all the Germaines, of course, and May Plantagenet, -and—Mr Winton,” said Lady Jane. She made a scarcely perceptible pause -before the last name. The Duke took no notice of this, nor did he even -remark what she said. “No longer young!” he said to himself, “she is too -young,” and dismissed Lady Hungerford’s gibes and the Duchess’s sigh -with indignation. He did not even think of it again until next season, -when Jane came to breakfast late one morning after a great ball, and -made a languid remark in answer to her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_17" id="page_17">{17}</a></span> mother’s question. “There was -scarcely any one there,” she said with something between a yawn and a -sigh: half London had been there; but still it was not what his daughter -said that attracted his attention. He saw as he looked at her a slight, -the very slightest, indentation in the delicate oval of Lady Jane’s -cheek. The perfection of the curve was just broken. It might only have -been a dimple, but she was not in the mood which reveals dimples. There -went a little chill to the Duke’s heart at the sight. <i>Passée?</i> -Impossible; years and years must go before that word could be applied to -his daughter; but still he felt sure Lady Hungerford must have remarked -it: no, it was not a hollow; but no doubt with her vulgar long sight she -must have remarked it, and would say everywhere that dear Jane was -certainly going off. The Duke never took<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_18" id="page_18">{18}</a></span> any notice apparently of these -sallies of his daughter-in-law, but in reality there was nothing of -which he stood in so much dread.</p> - -<p>The Duchess on her side was well acquainted with that hollow. It <i>was</i> a -hollow, very slight, sometimes disappearing altogether; but there it -was. She had awakened to a consciousness of its existence one day -suddenly, though it had evidently taken some time to come to that point. -And since then it had seldom been out of the Duchess’s mind. She had no -doubt that other people had discovered it before now, and made malicious -remarks upon it: for if she observed it who was so anxious to make the -best of her child, what would they do whose object was the reverse? But -what did it matter what any one said? There it was, which was the great -thing. It spoke with a voice which nobody could<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_19" id="page_19">{19}</a></span> silence, of Jane’s -youth passing away, of her freshness wearing out, of her bloom fading. -Was she to sit there and grow old while her father wove his fictions -about her? It had given the Duchess many a thought. She knew very well -what all this princely expenditure would lead to. Hungerford would not -be much the worse; he had his wife’s fortune to fall back upon, and -perhaps he would not feel himself called upon to take on himself the -burden of his father’s debts after he was gone. But for the Duke -himself, if he lived, and his family, the Duchess, looking calmly on -ahead, knew what must happen. Things would come to a crash sooner or -later, and everything that could be sacrificed would have to be -sacrificed. Rank would not save them. It might put off bankruptcy to the -last possible moment, but it would not avert it altogether; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_20" id="page_20">{20}</a></span> the -moment would come when everything must change, and a sort of noble -exile, or at least seclusion in the country, if nothing worse, would be -their fate. And Jane? If she were to be left to her father’s disposal, -what would be the end of Jane? She would have to descend from her -pedestal, and learn what it was to be poor—that is, as dukes’ daughters -can be poor. The grandeur and largeness of her life would fall away from -her, and no new chapter in existence would come in to modify the old, -and make its changes an advantage rather than a drawback. The Duchess -said to herself that to go against her husband was a thing she never had -done; but there was a limit to a wife’s duty. She could not let Jane be -sacrificed while she stood aside and looked on. This was the question -which the Duchess had to solve. She was brought to it gradu<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_21" id="page_21">{21}</a></span>ally, her -eyes being opened by degrees to other things not quite so evident as -that change in the oval of Jane’s perfect cheek. She found out why it -was that her daughter had yawned or sighed, and said, “There was nobody -there,” of the ball to which half London struggled to get admittance. On -the very next evening Lady Jane paid a humdrum visit to an old lady who -was nobody in particular, and came home with a pretty glow, and no -hollow visible, declaring that there had been a delightful little party, -and that she had never enjoyed herself so much. The Duchess felt that -here was a mystery. It was partly the ‘Morning Post’ that helped her to -find it out, and partly the unconscious revelations of Jane herself in -her exhilaration. The ‘Morning Post’ made it evident that a certain name -was not in the list of the fine people who had figured at my Lady -Germain<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_22" id="page_22">{22}</a></span>e’s ball, and Lady Jane betrayed by a hundred unconscious little -references that the bearer of that name had been present at the other -little reunion. The Duchess put this and that together. She, too, no -doubt would have liked to see her daughter a duchess like herself; but, -failing that, she preferred that Jane should be happy in her own way. -But the question was, had Jane courage enough to take her own way? She -had been supposed to have everything she wanted all her life, and had -been surrounded by every observance; but, as a matter of fact, Jane had -got chiefly what other people wanted, and had been secretly satisfied -that it should be so. Would she once in her life, against her father and -the world, be moved to stand up for herself? But this was what the -Duchess did not know.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_23" id="page_23">{23}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a><span class="ltspc">CHAPTER</span> II.<br /><br /> -<small>HERSELF.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">A princess</span> royal is always an interesting personage. The very title is -charming—there is about it a supreme heiress-ship, if not of practical -dominion, at least of the more delicate part of the inheritance. She has -the feminine rule, the kingdom of hearts, the homage of sentiment and -imagination. Even when she grows old the title retains a sweet and -penetrating influence, and in youth it is the very crown of visionary -greatness, an elevation without any vulgar elements. Lady Jane was the -Princess Royal of her fathe<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_24" id="page_24">{24}</a></span>r’s house. There had been just so much -poetry in his pride as to make him feel this beautifying characteristic -of feminine rank to be an addition (if any addition were possible) to -his dukedom. And she had been brought up in the belief that she was not -as other girls were, nor even as the little Lady Marys and Lady Augustas -who in the eyes of the world stood upon a similar eminence. She stood -alone—the blood of the Altamonts had reached its cream of sweetness, -its fine quintessence in her veins. Hungerford was very well in his way. -He would be Duke when his time came. The property, and lands, and titles -would be vested in him; but he had no such visionary altitude as his -sister. He himself was quite aware of the fact: he laughed, and was very -well content to be rid of this visionary representativeship, but he -fully recognised that Jane<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_25" id="page_25">{25}</a></span> was not to be considered as an ordinary -mortal, that she was the flower and crown of so many generations, the -last perfection to which the race could attain. And with infinite -modesty and humility of mind Lady Jane too perceived her mission. She -became aware of it very early, when other girls were still busy with -their skipping-ropes. It was a great honour to fall upon so young a -head. When she walked about the noble woods at Billings and dreamed as -girls do of the world before her, this sense of rank was never absent -from her mind: impossible to foresee what were the scenes through which -it might lead her. She heard a great deal of the evil state of public -affairs—the decadence of England, the advance of democracy, the -approaching ruin in which everything that was great and noble must soon -be engulfed; and Lady Jane took it all seriously, and felt it very<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_26" id="page_26">{26}</a></span> -possible that her fate might be that of a virgin martyr to the cruel -forces of revolution. For one time of her life her favourite literature -was the memoirs of those great and noble ladies, full of charity and -romance, who cast a pathetic glory upon the end of the old <i>régime</i> in -France, and died for crimes of which they were no way guilty, paying the -long arrears of oppression which they had done all they could to modify. -Jane took, as was natural, the political jeremiads of her father and his -friends with the matter-of-fact faith of youth, and she did not think -that even the guillotine was impossible. If it came to her lot—as, -according to all she heard, seemed likely—to maintain the cause of -nobility to the last, she was ready to walk to the scaffold like Marie -Antoinette, holding her head high, and smiling upon her assassins; or if -it were possible to save the country by<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_27" id="page_27">{27}</a></span> another kind of self-devotion, -she was prepared, though with trembling, to inspire a nation or lead an -army. These were the kind of dreams she entertained at fifteen, which is -the time when a girl is most alive to the claims of patriotism, and can -feel it possible that she too may be a heroine. Older, she began to be -less certain. Facts came in and confused fancy. She saw no indications -such as those which her books said had been seen in France; everything -was very peaceable, everybody very respectful wherever she went. The -common people looked at her admiringly when by chance she drove with her -mamma through the crowded streets. They seemed all quite willing to -acknowledge her position. She was greeted with smiles instead of groans, -and heroism seemed unnecessary.</p> - -<p>Then there came a time when Lady Jane felt that it would probably be -her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_28" id="page_28">{28}</a></span> mission to be, if not a martyr, a benefactress to the world. It -would be right for her to move half royally, half angelically, through -all the haunts of wretchedness, and leave comfort and abundance behind. -She imagined to herself scenes like the great plague, times of famine -and fever, in which her sudden appearance, with succour of every kind -about her, would bring an immediate change of affairs and turn darkness -into light. She did not know—how should she?—what squalor and -wretchedness were like, and this great and successful mission never in -her thoughts so much as soiled her dress, and had nothing disgusting or -repulsive in it. But by-and-by, gradually there came a change also upon -this phase of mind. A princess royal has always the confidence that in -her own ministrations there must be a secret charm; but still she could -not shut her eyes to the fact that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_29" id="page_29">{29}</a></span> in her mother’s charities all was -not plain sailing. And it became apparent to her also, with a -considerable shock, that there were many things which the Duchess wished -but had not means to do; which had a painful effect upon Lady Jane’s -dreams, and cut them short, confusing her whole horizon, and arresting -her imagination. She then paused, with considerable bewilderment, not -quite perceiving where the mission of her rank would lead her. It must -give her distinct duties, and a sphere above the common quiescence of -life—but what? Lady Jane was perplexed, and no longer saw her way. -Vulgar contact with the world was impossible to her; she shrank from the -public organisation of charity. Something else surely, something of a -more magnanimous kind, was to be hers to do. But in the meantime she did -not know what, and stood as it were upon the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_30" id="page_30">{30}</a></span> battlements of the castle -wall looking out, somewhat confused, but full of noble sentiment and -desire to perform the finest functions for the advantage of the world.</p> - -<p>This was the aspect which pride of birth took in the pure and high-toned -spirit of the Duke’s daughter. She accepted undoubtingly the creed of -her race, and never questioned the fact that she was something entirely -removed from the crowd, elevated above the ordinary level of humanity. -The Duchess had little of this inborn conviction, but yet a duchess is a -duchess, and unless she is of a quite remarkable order of intelligence, -it is very unlikely that she should be able to separate herself from the -prejudices of her rank. As a matter of fact, the members of a duke’s -household are not ordinary mortals. Limits which are natural to us have -nothing to do with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_31" id="page_31">{31}</a></span> them. It must require a distinct independence and -great force of mind to realise that they are just of the same flesh and -blood as the scullery-maid and the shoe-boy; nay—for these are -extravagant instances out of their range of vision—even as the groom of -the chambers and the housekeeper, who are entirely devoted to their -service. To doubt this, accordingly, never entered the mind of Lady -Jane; but anything resembling personal pride had no existence in her. -She did not know what it meant. There is no such beautiful scope for -pure humility of spirit as in the mind of a creature thus fancifully -elevated. It never occurred to her that it was her own excellence which -gave her this place. She was unfeignedly modest in every estimate of -herself, docile, ready to be guided, deferring to everybody. Never had -there been so obedient a child to nurses and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_32" id="page_32">{32}</a></span> governesses, nor one who -accepted reproof more sweetly, nor sought with more anxious grace to -gain approbation. It was difficult to rouse her to the exercise of her -own judgment at all. “Do you think so?” she would say to the humblest -person about her, with a sincere desire to please that person by -accepting his or her view rather than her own. Some people thought she -had no opinion of her own at all, but that was a mistake—though the -pain it gave her to cross, or vex, or contradict (in fact: in words she -never was guilty of such a breach of charity) any one, made her act upon -her own opinion only in the very direst necessity. But when her gentle -foot struck against the limits of the sphere which she thought -boundless, Lady Jane remained for a long time perplexed, confused, not -knowing what the object might be which was to fill her life. It was -during this period<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_33" id="page_33">{33}</a></span> that her cheek, though still so young, began to own -the slightest possible departure from the oval. It might have been only -the touch of a finger—but there it was. A slight line over Lady Jane’s -eyes appeared about the same time. She had become anxious, almost -wistful, wondering and perplexed. What was she to do with her life? -England (though, as they all said, going to destruction) showed no signs -of immediate ruin. In all likelihood the guillotine would not be set up -in Lady Jane’s time, and there would be no occasion for any sacrifice on -her part. She looked abroad into the world, and saw no need of her. She -shrank, indeed, from any actual step, notwithstanding her dreams and her -conviction that something great ought to come of her; and if she had -attempted to take any step whatever, she knew that the Duke and the -Duchess, and Hungerford and Susan,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_34" id="page_34">{34}</a></span> and all the connections and -retainers to the hundredth degree, would have rushed with dismay to -prevent her. Was it possible that by sitting calmly upon her elevated -seat, and smiling sweetly or frowning (as best she could) as the -occasion required, she was doing all she was called upon to do? In that -case Lady Jane acknowledged to herself with a sigh, that it was scarcely -worth while being a princess royal at all.</p> - -<p>The reader will think it strange that all this time no idea of marriage, -or of the great preliminary of marriage, had entered her head. Perhaps -it would be rash to say that this was the case. But she had known from -an early period that there were very few people in the world who could -pretend to Lady Jane Altamont’s hand. She laughed when it was proposed -to her to marry the Marquis of Wodensville. “Oh no, papa, thank you,” -she said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_35" id="page_35">{35}</a></span></p> - -<p>“We have made alliances with his family before now. He has some of the -best blood in England in his veins,” said the Duke.</p> - -<p>“Oh no, papa, thank you,” said Lady Jane. She did not ask any one’s -advice on this point. When there was that negotiation with Mr Roundel, -of Bishop’s Roundel, she was more interested, but not enough to disturb -her equilibrium when it was found he had gone off in disgust, and -married his sister’s governess. “I thought he could not be pure blood,” -the Duke said. Lady Jane smiled, and, it is to be feared, thought so -too. The worst of high rank is that it destroys perspective. She could -not see the gradations below her in the least. She knew the difference -between her father’s rank and that of a prince of the blood; and she -knew exactly how countesses and marchionesses ought to go in to dinner;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_36" id="page_36">{36}</a></span> -but of the difference between governesses and housekeepers and other -attendants she knew little. The one and the other were entirely out of -her sphere. Her own old governess, whose name was Strangford, she had -always called Stranghy and been extremely fond of—but then she was fond -of all her old attendants, and thought of them much in the same way. -Then Lord Rushbrook, who was a Cabinet Minister, had presented himself -to her. She did not wish to marry him, but she felt that here was -something which was not rank (for he was only a baron), and yet was -equal to rank. It was almost the first gleam of such enlightenment that -came into her mind.</p> - -<p>About this time, however, it certainly began to enter into Lady Jane’s -head that it is a general thing to marry, and that this is the way in -which most women solve the problem of their life. Perhaps<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_37" id="page_37">{37}</a></span> because of -the “offers” she had received: perhaps because she had met at Lady -Germaine’s, quite promiscuously, on one of the many occasions on which -she went there, a—gentleman. She had met a great many gentlemen there -and elsewhere before; but on the particular occasion in question, she -had gone by accident, without design, and with no expectation of meeting -any one. Fate thus lies in wait for us, round a corner, when we think of -it least. The gentleman was nobody in particular. He had never been -meant to meet the Duke’s daughter. Indeed, had Lady Germaine had but the -slightest prevision of what was coming, she would have locked him into a -closet, or tripped him over into the river, rather than permitted such a -thing to happen in her house. But she did not know any more than other -mortals, and the train was laid by the Fates without any<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_38" id="page_38">{38}</a></span> sort of -connivance on the part of any human creature. They all fell blindly, -stupidly, accidentally into the net.</p> - -<p>It was perhaps then, we say, when Lady Jane declined, either by her own -will or her father’s, her other matrimonial prospects, or perhaps when -she met the aforesaid gentleman, that it first really occurred to this -high and visionary maiden to take into consideration that which is the -leading incident in the lives of most women, the event which decides the -question whether their lives shall be lonely and in great measure -objectless, or busy and full of interest and occupation. Generally it is -at a very early age that girls first approach this question. But Lady -Jane had been a stately little person even in her cradle. She had not -chosen to be kissed and caressed as most children are. She had been -gently proud and reticent through all her girlhood. She had no<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_39" id="page_39">{39}</a></span> youthful -intimates to breathe into her mind this suggestion—no girl-friend about -to be married to initiate her into the joyous fuss, the importance, the -applauses and presents, the general commotion which every wedding -produces. She had, indeed, been present at a marriage, but never at one -which touched her at all in her immediate circle. So that Lady Jane was -nearly eight-and-twenty when it occurred to her as possible that she too -might marry and carry out in her own person the universal lot. At first -she had been shocked at herself, and had driven the thought out of her -mind with a delicacy which cannot but be called false, though she was -not conscious of its fictitious character. But the idea came back: it -caught her at unawares, it came over her sometimes with soft, delicious -suggestions. When she met a young mother with her children, a sigh<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_40" id="page_40">{40}</a></span> that -was as soft as the west wind in spring would come out of Lady Jane’s -heart. How happy was that woman! how delightful all the cares that beset -her, the calls from this one and that, the constant demand upon her! -<i>She</i> had no time to ask what her life was worth, no leisure to -speculate how she could best fulfil its duties: all that and many -another question was solved for her. Lady Jane watched the happy mother -with an interest which was almost envy. And there were other thoughts -which crossed her fancy too, and awakened much that was dormant in her. -Once when she was sitting by her mother it suddenly came into her mind -to contrast the Duchess’s life with her own. She looked at her Grace’s -fair and genial presence, and watched her going over her accounts, and -settling the affairs of her great house. There were many lines on the -Duches<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_41" id="page_41">{41}</a></span>s’s brow. She was an excellent economist on a great scale, as -became her rank, but she had the disadvantage of being thwarted on every -side by the prodigalities of her husband. It was not a happy moment at -which to regard her; yet Lady Jane, looking at her mother, was suddenly -moved to ask herself whether the Duchess would have been better, -balancing all her outcomings and incomings serenely without any one to -disturb her, had she never married. The question seemed a ludicrous one, -but Lady Jane was prone to imaginations. She conjured up before herself -a picture of this lady in a house where no one thwarted her; where there -was no family to provide for, no Susan to keep a watchful eye upon what -she was doing, no Jane to reflect upon her as an example of fate. She -laughed to herself softly at the impossibility of this imagination.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_42" id="page_42">{42}</a></span></p> - -<p>“What are you laughing at?” the Duchess asked, pausing with her pen in -her hand and a look which was indicative of anything but an easy mind.</p> - -<p>“I was thinking—what if you had never married, mamma?”</p> - -<p>The Duchess turned round upon her, opening her eyes wide with wonder. -“What if I had never married? Are you taking leave of your senses?” she -said. And indeed the idea was entirely ludicrous, for if she had never -married where would Jane herself have been? Jane laughed again very -softly, and a sudden wave of colour came over her face. She thought, -though her mother was not very happy, that it was better to be less -happy so, than more happy alone. It seemed to her that the absence of -care would have made her Grace much less interesting. Her comely figure -seemed to shrink and fall away as Jane<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_43" id="page_43">{43}</a></span> thought, looking at it—and then -her mind slid imperceptibly from that fancy to a sudden realisation of -herself. After all, she had been thinking of herself all her life, what -she should do, how she should occupy herself, which theory of life was -the best. But the young woman whom she had met among her children had -got that problem solved for her; she had no time to think of herself at -all: there were so many claims upon her, soft little arms, voices like -the birds, as well as bigger appeals, more articulate; the chances were -that from morning to night she had no leisure in which to speculate on -what was best for herself. The Duchess, though a great lady, was in the -same position. Even the least self-regarding whose hands are free, think -more about themselves than the selfish, whose time and thoughts are -taken up with other matters, can be able to do. This thought made a -great impression<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_44" id="page_44">{44}</a></span> upon Lady Jane. Perhaps even these ideas would have -moved her little had it not been for that encounter at Lady -Germaine’s—but it was long before she brought herself so far as to -acknowledge that. She considered the question in the abstract form long -before she approached it in the concrete. And thus she came candidly to -conclude and acknowledge that the woman who is married has a career -before her which the unmarried woman can scarcely command. It was a new -idea to Lady Jane, but her mind was very candid, and she received this -as she received every other conclusion justified by reason. It would be -good that she should marry; and then she had met at Lady Germaine’s—a -gentleman. But who this gentleman was must be left for another chapter.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_45" id="page_45">{45}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a><span class="ltspc">CHAPTER</span> III.<br /><br /> -<small>HER LOVER.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">It</span> has never been fully explained how it was that a person so thoroughly -experienced in the world as Lady Germaine should have permitted an -acquaintance between Lady Jane and Mr Winton to ripen under her roof. -That she should have introduced them to each other was nothing, of -course; for in society every gentleman is supposed the equal of every -other gentleman, though he has not a penny and his next neighbour may be -a millionaire; and Lady Jane was gracious in her high-minded, maidenly -way, as a princess<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_46" id="page_46">{46}</a></span> should be, to everybody, to the clergyman, and even -to the clergyman’s sons, dangerous and detrimental young persons who -have to be asked to country houses, a perpetual alarm to anxious parents -who have daughters. No <i>hauteur</i>, no exclusiveness was in Lady Jane. She -was as much withdrawn above the young squire as the young curate, and -there was no reason why Mr Winton, who was very personable, very well -thought of, and in no sense of the word detrimental, should not pay his -homage to the Duke’s daughter. But there it should have stopped. When -she saw that there was even the remotest chance that it might go -further, Lady Germaine’s duty was plain. She should have said firmly, -“Not in my house.” It was not to be supposed, indeed, that she could -stop the course of mutual inclination, prevent Mr Winton from making -love to Lady Jane,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_47" id="page_47">{47}</a></span> or Lady Jane from listening. But what she could, and -indeed ought to, have done, was to say plainly, “Meet where they will, -it must not be in my house.” Her duty to the Duke demanded this course -of action. But it must be confessed that Lady Germaine was very -independent—too independent for a woman—and that what she would not -recognise was, that she had any duty at all to the Duke. He might be the -head of society in the county, but what did Lady Germaine care? She -laughed openly at the county society, and declared that she would as -soon throw in her lot among the farmers of the district as among the -squires, and that the Duke was an old—the pen of the historian almost -refuses to record the language this daring lady used—an old humbug. She -ventured to say this and lived. The Duke never knew how far she went, -but he disapproved of her, and consid<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_48" id="page_48">{48}</a></span>ered her an irreverent person. He -would have checked his daughter’s intimacy with her had he been able. -But the Duchess did not see any harm in it. Her Grace’s opinion was that -a little enlivenment was what Jane wanted, and that even a slight -exaggeration of gaiety would do her no harm. Lady Germaine’s set was -unimpeachable though it loved diversion, and diversion was above -everything the thing necessary for Lady Jane. And there was this to be -said for Lady Germaine, that the Duchess herself had the opportunity of -stopping the Winton affair had she chosen. She must have seen what was -going on. Poor Mr Winton could not conceal the state of mind in which he -was; and as for Lady Jane, there was a certain tremor in her retired and -gentle demeanour, a little outburst of happiness now and then, a liquid -expression about the eyes, a softening of manner and coun<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_49" id="page_49">{49}</a></span>tenance, which -no mother’s eyes could have overlooked. It was she who ought to have -interfered. She could have controlled her own child no doubt, or she -could have made it apparent to Mr Winton that his assiduities were -disagreeable; but she did nothing of the sort. She had every appearance -of liking the man herself. She talked to him apparently with pleasure, -asked him his opinion, declared that he had excellent taste. After this -why should Lady Germaine have been blamed? All she did was to form her -society of the best materials she could collect. She was fond of nice -people, and loved conversation. If men could talk pleasantly, and add to -the entertainment of her household, when the time came for encountering -the tedium of the country, she asked nothing about their grandfathers, -nor even demanded whether they had a rent-roll, or money in the funds, -or how they lived. Lively<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_50" id="page_50">{50}</a></span> young barristers, literary men, artists, -people who it was to be feared lived on their wits, not to speak of -those younger sons who are the plague of society, came and went about -her house; which made it a house alarming to mothers, it must be -allowed, but extremely lively, cheerful, and full of “go,” which was -what Lady Germaine liked. And as she openly professed that this was the -principle upon which she went, the risks were at least patent and -above-board which princesses royal were likely to meet with at her -house.</p> - -<p>It is now time to speak of the lover himself, who has hitherto been but -hinted at. We must say, in the first place, that there was nothing -objectionable about Mr Winton. He was not poor, nor was he <i>roturier</i>. -He was a well-bred English gentleman, of perfectly good though not -exalted family. On the Continent he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_51" id="page_51">{51}</a></span> would have been said to belong to -the <i>petite noblesse</i>. But after all it only wants an accession of -fortune to make <i>la petite</i> into <i>la grande noblesse</i>. He was as far -descended as any prince (which, indeed, may be said for the most of us), -and had ancestors reaching up into the darkness of the ages. At least he -had the portraits of these ancestors hanging up in the hall at Winton -House; and unless they had existed, how could they have had their -portraits taken? which is an unanswerable argument. Winton House itself -was but a small place, it is true; but when his Indian uncle died and -left him all that money, it was immediately placed in Mr Winton’s power -to make his house into a great one had he chosen; and for so rich a man -to keep the old place intact was loyalty, or family pride, or at the -worst eccentricity, and did by no means imply any shabbiness either<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_52" id="page_52">{52}</a></span> of -mind or means. To make up for this he had a very handsome house in town, -and there was no doubt at all on the question that he was a rich man, -and able to indulge his fancy as he pleased. He would have been a -perfectly good match for Lady Germaine’s own daughter had she been old -enough, or for Earl Binny’s young ladies, or for almost any girl in the -county, excepting always Lady Jane. She was the one who was out of his -sphere. It was perfectly well known that the Duke would not hear of any -son-in-law whose rank, or at least whose family, was not equal to his -own, and it had long been a foregone conclusion with society that it was -very unlikely Lady Jane would ever marry at all. Perhaps had Mr Winton -fully foreseen the position, he would have retired too, before, as -people say, his feelings were too much interested. But it is to be -feared that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_53" id="page_53">{53}</a></span> idea did not occur to him until, unfortunately, it was -too late.</p> - -<p>Reginald Winton had been brought up in the most approved way at a public -school, and at Oxford, and shaped into what was considered the best -fashion of his time. It had been intended, as the old estate was -insufficient to support two people, and his mother was then living, that -he should go to the bar. But before he attained this end, the uncle’s -fortune, of which he had not the least expectation, fell down upon him -suddenly, as from the skies. Then, of course, it was not thought -necessary that he should continue his studies. He was not only rich, but -very rich, and at the same time had all the advantages of once having -been poor. He had no expensive habits. He did not bet, nor race, nor -gamble; nor did he on the other hand buy pictures or curiosities, or -sumptuous furniture (at least no more<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_54" id="page_54">{54}</a></span> than reason). He was full of -intelligence, but he was not literary, nor over-learned, nor too clever. -He was five feet ten, and quite sufficiently good-looking for a man of -his fortune. He would have been favourably received in most families of -gentry, nay, even of nobility, in England; but only not in the house of -the Altamonts. Here was the perversity of fate. But he did not do it on -purpose, nor fly at such high game solely because it was forbidden, as -some people might have done. It is certain that he did not know who Lady -Jane was when his heart was caught unawares. He took Lady Germaine aside -and begged to be introduced to the young lady in white, without a -suspicion of her greatness. It was at a moment when ladies wore a great -deal of colour: when they had wreaths of flowers scrambling over their -dresses and their heads, like a hedgerow in summer. Lady Jane’s dress -was white<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_55" id="page_55">{55}</a></span> silk, soft and even dull in tone. She had not a bow or a -flower, but some pearls twisted in her smooth brown hair, which was not -frizzy as nowadays, but shining like satin. She was seated a little -apart with the children of the house, and to a man incapable of -perceiving that this simple garment was of much superior value to many -of the gayer fabrics round, she had the air of being economically as -well as gracefully clothed. “How much better taste is that simple dress -than all those furbelows!” he said. His opinion was, that she would turn -out to be the rector’s daughter. Lady Germaine gazed at him for a moment -with the contempt which a woman naturally entertains for a man’s mistake -in this kind. “I like your simplicity,” she said with fine satire which -he did not understand;—and presented him on the spot to Lady Jane -Altamont.</p> - -<p>How Winton opened his eyes! But<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_56" id="page_56">{56}</a></span> there was no reason why he should -withdraw, and acknowledge the Duke’s daughter to be out of his sphere. -On the contrary, he did his best to make himself agreeable. And from -that time to this, when everybody could see things were coming to a -crisis, he had never ceased in the effort. It was the first time—except -by Lord Rushbrook, who had done it politically—that this noble maiden -had been personally wooed. The sense that she was as other women, had -come into her heart with a soft transport of sweetness, emancipating her -all at once from those golden bonds of high sacrifice and duty in which -she had believed herself to be bound. She had not rebelled against them; -but when it appeared now that life might be happiness as well as duty, -and that all its delights and hopes were possible to her as to others, -the melting of all those icicles that had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_57" id="page_57">{57}</a></span> formed around her, -flooded her gentle soul with tenderness. She was not easily wooed; for -nothing could be less like the freedom of manners which makes it natural -nowadays for a girl to advance a little on her side, and help on her -lover, than the almost timid though always sweet stateliness with which -Lady Jane received his devotion. It was a wonder to her, as it cannot be -to young ladies who flirt from their cradles. Love! She regarded it with -awe, mingled with a touched and surprised gratitude. She was older than -a girl usually is when that revelation is first made to her, a fact -which deepened every sentiment. Winton did not, could not, divine what -was passing in that delicate spirit. But he felt the novelty, the -exquisite, modest grace of his reception. He had not been without -experience in his own person, and had known what it was to be -“encouraged.” But here he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_58" id="page_58">{58}</a></span> was not encouraged. It was romance put into -action for the first time, a love-making that was as new, and fresh, and -miraculous, and incomprehensible, as if no one had ever made love -before. And thus the flood of their own emotions carried the pair on; -and if Winton had never paused to think how the Duke would receive his -addresses, it may with still greater certainty be assumed that Lady Jane -had never considered that momentous question. They went on, unawakened -to anything outside their own elysium, which, like most other elysiums -of the kind, was a fool’s paradise.</p> - -<p>It was Lady Germaine at last, as she had been the means of setting the -whole affair in motion, who brought it to a climax. He had not confided -in her in so many words—for, indeed, he was too much elevated and -carried away by this growing passion to bring it to the com<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_59" id="page_59">{59}</a></span>mon eye; but -he had so far betrayed himself on a certain occasion when reference had -been made to Lady Jane, that his hostess and friend burst through all -pretences and herself dashed into the subject. “Reginald Winton,” she -said almost solemnly, “do you know what is before you? How are you going -to ask the Duke of Billingsgate, that high and mighty personage, to give -you his daughter? I wonder you are not ready to sink into the earth with -terror.”</p> - -<p>“The Duke of Billingsgate?” cried the young man, with a gasp of dismay.</p> - -<p>“To be sure; but I suppose you never thought of that,” she said.</p> - -<p>He grew paler and paler as he looked at her. “Do you know,” he said, “it -never occurred to me till this moment. But what do I care for the Duke -of Billingsgate? I think of nothing, since you will have it, but <i>her</i>, -Lady Germaine.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_60" id="page_60">{60}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Innocent! do you think I have not known that for the last two months? -When you want to hide anything, you should not put flags up at all your -windows.”</p> - -<p>“Have I put flags up?” He looked at her with colours flying and an -illumination in his eyes. He was pleased to think that he had exposed -himself and proclaimed his lady’s charms in this way, like a -knight-errant. “I hope I have not done anything to annoy her,” he added, -in a panic. “Lady Germaine, you will keep my secret till I know my -fate.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, as for keeping your secret—but from whom are you to know your -fate, if I may ask?” Lady Germaine said.</p> - -<p>Reginald blushed like a girl all over his face—or rather he reddened -like a man, duskily, half angrily, while his eyes grew more like -illuminations than ever. He drew a long breath, making a dis<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_61" id="page_61">{61}</a></span>tinct -pause, as a devout Catholic would do to cross himself, before he -replied, “From whom? from <i>her</i>; who else?” with a glow of excitement -and hope.</p> - -<p>Lady Germaine shook her head. “Oh, you innocent!” she cried; “oh, you -baby! If there is any other word that expresses utter simplicity and -foolishness, let me call you that. <i>Her!</i> that is all very well, that is -easy enough. But what are you to say to her father?—oh, you -simpleton!—her father,—that is the question.”</p> - -<p>“I presume, Lady Germaine,” said the lover, assuming an air of superior -knowledge and lofty sentiment—“I presume that if I am so fortunate as -to persuade <i>her</i> to listen to me—which, heaven knows, I am doubtful -enough of!—that in that case her father——”</p> - -<p>“Would be easy to manage, you think?” she said, with scornful toleration -of his folly.</p> - -<p>The young man looked at her with that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_62" id="page_62">{62}</a></span> ineffable air of imbecility and -vanity which no man can escape at such a crisis, and made her a little -bow of acquiescence. Her tone, her air, made him aware that she had no -doubt of his success in the first instance, and this gave him a sudden -intoxication. A father! What was a father? If she once gave him -authority to speak to her father, would not all be said?</p> - -<p>“Oh, you goose!” said Lady Germaine again; “oh, you ignoramus! You are -so silly that I am obliged to call you names. Do you know who the Duke -of Billingsgate is? Simply the proudest man in England. He thinks there -is nobody under the blood royal that is good enough for his child.”</p> - -<p>“And he is quite right! I am of the same opinion,” said Winton; then he -paused and gave her a look in which, notwithstanding his gravity and -enthusiasm,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_63" id="page_63">{63}</a></span> there was something comic. “But then,” he added, “the blood -royal, that is not always the symbol of perfection, and then——”</p> - -<p>“And then——? You think, of course, that you have something to offer -which a royal duke might not possess?”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps,” said Winton, looking at her again with a sort of friendly -defiance; and then his eyes softened with that in which he felt himself -superior to any royal duke or potentate; the something which was worthy -of Lady Jane, let all the noble fathers in the world do their worst -against him. He was not alarmed by all that Lady Germaine had said. Most -likely he did not realise it. His mind went away even while she was -speaking. She had heart enough to approve of this, and to perceive that -Winton felt as a true lover ought to feel, but she was half provoked all -the same, and anxious how it was all to turn out.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_64" id="page_64">{64}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Do be a little practical,” she said; “try for a moment to leave her out -of the question. What are you going to say to the Duke? That is what I -want to know.”</p> - -<p>“How can I tell you?” said Winton; “how can I speak at all on such a -subject? If I am to be so happy as to have anything at all to say to the -Duke:—why, then—the occasion will inspire me,” he added, after a -pause. “I cannot even think now what in such circumstances I should -say.”</p> - -<p>Lady Germaine gave up with a sigh all attempt to guide him. “Then I must -just wash my hands of you,” she said, with a sort of despair; “indeed, -in any case I don’t know what I could have done for you. I shall be -blamed, of course. The Duke will turn upon me, I know; but, thank -heaven, I have nothing to fear from the Duke, and I don’t see what I can -be said to have to do with the busi<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_65" id="page_65">{65}</a></span>ness. You met only in the ordinary -way at my house. I never planned meetings for you, nor schemed to bring -you together. Indeed I never thought of such a thing at all. Lady Jane, -who has refused the first matches in the kingdom, what could have led me -to suppose that she would turn her eyes upon <i>you</i>?”</p> - -<p>Now, though Winton said truly that he thought the Duke quite right in -expecting the very best and highest of all things for his child, yet it -was not in the nature of man not to be somewhat piqued when he heard -himself spoken of in this tone of slight, and almost contempt. True, he -would have desired for her sake to have more and finer gifts to lay at -her feet, but still such as he was, was not, after all, so contemptible -as Lady Germaine seemed to imply. He could not help a little movement of -self-vindication.</p> - -<p>“I am not aware on what ground you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_66" id="page_66">{66}</a></span> can be blamed,” he said, coldly, -“since you are good enough to admit me to your society at all. Perhaps -that was a mistake; and yet I don’t know that I have done anything to -shut the doors of my friends against me.”</p> - -<p>“This is admirable,” said Lady Germaine; “you first, and the Duke -afterwards. Never mind; you will probably come to yourself in half an -hour or so, and beg my pardon. I give it you beforehand. But at the same -time, let me advise you for your own good, to think a little what you -are going to say to the Duke when you ask him for his daughter. It will -not be so easy a matter as you seem to think. Oh yes, of course you are -sorry for being rude to me—I was aware of that. Yes, yes, I forgive -you. But pay attention to what I say.”</p> - -<p>Winton thought over this conversation several times in the course of the -next<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_67" id="page_67">{67}</a></span> twenty-four hours, but his mind was very much occupied with -another and much more important matter. He thought so much of Lady Jane -that he had little time to spare for any consideration of her father. -True, he himself was only a commoner of an undistinguished family; but -he had the sustaining consciousness of being very well off—and dukes’ -daughters had been known to marry commoners before now without any -special commotion on the subject. He was a great deal more occupied with -the first steps in the matter than with any subsequent ones. He had to -find out where Lady Jane was going, and to contrive to get invitations -to the same places, for it was the height of the season, and they were -all in London. The Duchess did not throw herself into the vortex. She -went only to the best houses; she gave only stately entertainments, -which the Duke made a point of;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_68" id="page_68">{68}</a></span> therefore it was more difficult to go -where Lady Jane was going than is usually the case with the ordinary -Lady Janes of society. It took her lover most of his time to arrange -these opportunities of seeing her, and at each successive one he made up -his mind to determine his fate. But it is astonishing how many accidents -intervene when such a decision has been come to. Sometimes it was an -impertinent spectator who would obtrude himself or herself upon them. -Sometimes it was the impossibility of finding a nook where any such -serious conversation could be carried on. Sometimes the frivolity of the -surrounding circumstances kept him silent; for who would, if he could -help it, associate that wonderful moment of his existence with nothing -better than the chatter of the ball-room? And once when every -circumstance favoured him, his heart failed and he did not dare to put -his fortune to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_69" id="page_69">{69}</a></span> touch. How could he think of the father while in all -the agitation of uncertainty as to how his suit would be looked upon by -the daughter? During this moment of hesitation the Duchess herself once -asked him to dinner, and when he found himself set down in the centre of -the table, far from the magnates who glittered at either end, and far -from Lady Jane who was the star of the whole entertainment, Winton felt -his humility and insignificance as he had never felt them before, and -was conscious of such a chill of doubt and alarm as made his heart sink -within him. But the Duchess was markedly kind, and a glance from Lady -Jane’s soft eyes, suffused with a sort of liquid light, sent him up -again into a heaven of hope. Next morning they met by chance in the -Park, very early, before the world of fashion was out of doors. She was -taking a walk attended by her maid, and explained, with a great<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_70" id="page_70">{70}</a></span> deal of -unnecessary embarrassment, that she missed her country exercise and had -longed for a little fresh air. The consequence was, that the maid was -sent away to do some small commissions, and, with a good deal of alarm -but some guilty happiness, Lady Jane found herself alone with her lover. -It did not require a very long time or many words to make matters clear -between them. Did she not know already all that he had wanted so long to -say? One word made them both aware of what they had been communicating -to each other for months past. But though this explanation was so soon -arrived at, the details took a long time to disentangle—and there was a -terrible amount of repetition and comparison of feelings and -circumstances. It was nearly the hour for luncheon when he accompanied -her home, with a heart so full of exultation and delight and pride, that -it had still no room for any thought of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_71" id="page_71">{71}</a></span> Duke or fear of what he -might say. Even after he had parted from his love, Winton could not -withdraw his mind from its much more agreeable occupation to think of -the Duke. Jane had begged that she might tell her mother first, and that -he should wait to hear from them before taking any further step. But he -was to meet them that evening at one of the parties to which he had -schemed to be invited on her account. And with every vein thrilling with -his morning’s happy work, and the anticipation of seeing her who was now -his, in the evening, how could any young lover be expected to turn from -his happiness to the thought of anything less blessed? The day passed -like a dream; everything in it tended towards the moment in which he -should see her again. It would be like a new world to see her again. -When they met in the morning she was almost terrible to him, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_72" id="page_72">{72}</a></span> queen -who could send him into everlasting banishment. When he met her now, he -would see in her his wife, wonderful thought, his own! The place of -meeting was in one of the crowds of London society, where all the world -is; but Winton saw nothing except those soft eyes which were looking for -him. How their hands met, in what seemed only the ordinary greeting to -other people, clasping each other as if they never could part again! -They did not say much, and she did not even venture, except by momentary -glance now and then, to meet his eye. There was scarcely even -opportunity for a whisper on his part to ask what he was to do; for as -he stooped for this purpose to Lady Jane’s ear, the Duchess, who was -looking very serious, but who had not refused to shake hands with him, -laid a finger upon his arm.</p> - -<p>“Mr Winton,” she said, “I should like<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_73" id="page_73">{73}</a></span> to see you to-morrow about -twelve. I have something to say to you.” She had looked very grave, but -at the end brightened into a smile, yet shook her head. “I don’t know -what to say to you,” she added hurriedly; “there will be dreadful -difficulties in the way.”</p> - -<p>To-morrow at twelve! He seemed to tread upon difficulties and crush them -under his feet as he went home that evening; but with the morning a -little thrill of apprehension came.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_74" id="page_74">{74}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a><span class="ltspc">CHAPTER</span> IV.<br /><br /> -<small>A DISAPPOINTMENT.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">That</span> morning, Winton went with his heart beating to Grosvenor Square. He -was not overawed by the stately stillness of the place, the imposing dim -vacancy of the suite of rooms through which he was led to the Duchess’s -boudoir. He had a fine house himself, and everything handsome about him, -and he did not feel that Lady Jane would make any marked descent either -in comfort or luxury should she abandon these gilded halls for his. To -tell the truth, he thought the gilding was overdone, not to say a little -tarnished and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_75" id="page_75">{75}</a></span> in questionable taste; but that was the fault of the time -in which it was executed. He was so little alarmed that he could notice -all this. He had seen those rooms before only in the evening, when they -were full of company, and looked very different from now, when they lay, -in the freshness of the morning, all empty and silent, the windows open, -and the sun-blinds down, and nobody visible. Naturally the lover looked, -as he passed through the apartment in which his lady lived, for some -trace of her habitual occupation. Was that hers, that little chair by -the window, the table with work on it, and some books, and a single rose -in a glass? He would have taken the rose on the chance, if that solemn -personage in front of him had not kept within arm’s length. There was a -portrait of her on the wall; but it did not, of course, do her justice, -indeed was an unworthy daub, as anybody could see. Thus he stepped<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_76" id="page_76">{76}</a></span> -through one room after another, treading on air, his heart beating, not -with apprehension, but with soft excitement and happiness. She should -have a better lodging than this, rooms decorated expressly for her, -pictures of a very different kind; her home should be worthy of her, if -any mortal habitation could ever be worthy of such a beautiful soul. In -his progress across the ante-room and the two great drawing-rooms, all -this went through his mind. Thoughts go so quickly. He even arranged the -pictures, selected with lightning-speed what would suit her best, -decided that a Raphael—it must be a Raphael—should hang upon the walls -of the shrine in which his saint was to be specially set: while he -walked on, glancing with a half-smile of contempt at the Duke of -Billingsgate, K.G., in his peer’s robes, on one side, and a -Duchess-Dowager in a turban, on the other. Good heavens! to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_77" id="page_77">{77}</a></span> think of -such hideous daubs surrounding Jane! But in the new home all should be -altered. His heart had palpitated with anxiety yesterday before he knew -how she would receive his suit—but to-day! To-day he had no anxiety at -all, only an eager desire to get the preliminaries over, and to see her, -and make her decide when It was to be. There was no reason why they -should wait. He was not a young barrister (as he might have been but for -that uncle—bless him!—whose goodness he had never duly appreciated -till now) waiting for an income. He was rich, and ready to sign the -settlements to-morrow. At the end of the season, just long enough to be -clear of St George’s, and make sure of a pretty quiet country church to -be married in, time enough by turning half the best workmen in London -into it, and devoting himself to <i>bric-a-brac</i> with all his energies, to -turn his little house at Winton<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_78" id="page_78">{78}</a></span> into a lady’s bower. What more was -wanted? He had everything arranged in his mind before the groom of the -chambers, entering on noiseless feet, and with a voice like velvet, -informed her Grace that “Mr Winton” was about to enter. The Duchess -received him with benignity just terminated with stateliness. She had -never, he thought, been so beautiful as Jane. Perhaps in the majority of -cases it is difficult to believe that a woman of fifty has been as -beautiful as her daughter of twenty-eight. And it was true enough in -this case. But nobody could deny that she had a face full of fine sense -and feeling. It looked somewhat troubled as well as very serious to-day. -Winton, however, was ready to allow that his gain would be this lady’s -loss, and that perhaps the Duchess was not so anxious to get rid of her -only daughter as parents generally are understood to be.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_79" id="page_79">{79}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Sit down, Mr Winton,” she said. She had not risen from her own chair, -but sat behind her writing-table, which was laden with papers, and -across this barrier held out her hand to him, and gave him a benign but -somewhat distant smile. “I ought to apologise,” she added after a -moment, “for giving you the trouble of coming to me.”</p> - -<p>“The trouble! but it is my business. I should have asked to see the Duke -if you had not so kindly given me this opportunity—first. I hope I may -speak to the Duke afterwards if I have the happiness to satisfy you. You -may be sure I can think of nothing else till this is all settled.”</p> - -<p>“All settled?” she said, with a little shake of her head. “You are young -and confident, Mr Winton; you think things settle themselves so easily -as this. But I fear the preliminaries will be more lengthened than you -suppose. Do you know, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_80" id="page_80">{80}</a></span> wish very much you had consulted me before -speaking to Jane.”</p> - -<p>“Why?” he asked, fixing his eyes upon her with an astonished gaze. Then -he added, “I know Lady Jane is a great lady, a princess royal. She is -like that. I am a little democratic myself, but I acknowledge in her -everything that is beautiful in rank. She should be approached like a -crowned head.”</p> - -<p>“Not quite that perhaps,” said the Duchess, smiling.</p> - -<p>“With every observance, every ceremony; but then,” he added, “that is -not the English fashion, you know, to ask others first. One thinks of -her, herself as the only judge.”</p> - -<p>The Duchess continued to shake her head. “That is all very well with -ordinary girls, but Jane’s position is so exceptional. Mr Winton, I hope -you will not be disappointed or annoyed by what I tell you.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_81" id="page_81">{81}</a></span> Had you -asked me, I should have said to you, No.”</p> - -<p>“No!” he repeated vaguely, looking into her face. He could not even -realise what her meaning was.</p> - -<p>“I should have said, Don’t do it, Mr Winton, for your own sake.”</p> - -<p>Winton rose up in the excitement of the moment and stood before her like -a man petrified. “Don’t do it! Do you mean—— Pardon me if I am slow of -understanding.”</p> - -<p>“I mean, seeing it had unfortunately come about that, without being able -to help it, you had fallen in love with Jane——”</p> - -<p>“Unfortunately!”</p> - -<p>“You do nothing but repeat my words,” the Duchess cried in a plaintive -tone. “It <i>is</i> unfortunately—but hear me out first. If you had spoken -to me I should have said, Try and get over it, Mr<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_82" id="page_82">{82}</a></span> Winton; don’t disturb -her, poor girl, by telling her. Try if a little trip to America, or -tiger-shooting, or to be a ‘Times’ correspondent, or some other of those -exciting things which you young men do nowadays, will not cure you. I -should have said, You have not known her very long, it cannot have gone -very deep. I tell you this to show you what my advice would have been -had you asked me before speaking to Jane.”</p> - -<p>“But it is of no use speculating upon what we should have done in an -imaginary case,” said Winton. He had awoke from his first bewilderment, -and began to understand vaguely that everything was not going to be easy -for him as he had once thought. “You see I <i>have</i> spoken to her,” he -said. “You frighten me horribly; but then it is of no use considering -what you would have done in a totally different case.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_83" id="page_83">{83}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>The Duchess sighed and shook her head. “That is what I should have -thought it my duty to say, in view of all the pain and confusion that -are sure to follow. Do you know, Mr Winton, that her father will never -listen to you—never!” she said, with a sudden change of tone.</p> - -<p>Winton dropped upon his chair again and stared at her with an anxious -countenance. “I knew—I was told—that the Duke would not be easy to -please. And quite right! I agree with his Grace. I am not half good -enough for her; but then,” he added after a pause, “nobody is. If there -is one man in the world as worthy as she is, neither the Duke nor any -one knows where to find him; and then,” he continued, in tones more -insinuating still, “it would not matter now. If that hero were found -to-morrow, she would not have him, for—she has chosen me! I allow<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_84" id="page_84">{84}</a></span> that -it is the most wonderful thing in the world!” said the lover, in a -rapture which became him; “but you will find it is true. She has chosen -me!”</p> - -<p>“It may be very true,” said the Duchess, shaking her head more and more, -“but the Duke will not pay much attention to that. I am afraid it is not -moral excellence he is thinking of. It would be hard, I allow, to find -anybody as good as Jane. Probably if we did, he would turn out to be -some poor old missionary or quite impossible person. I am afraid that is -not at all what her father is thinking of.”</p> - -<p>“Then tell me what it is. I am not Prince Charming—but the Wintons have -been settled at Winton since the Conquest, and I am very well off. The -settlements should be—whatever you wish.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t promise too much,” said the Duchess, with a smile, “for no doubt -you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_85" id="page_85">{85}</a></span> have got a family lawyer who will be of a very different opinion; -indeed I hope you have, if that is your way of doing business. But, -alas! the Duke will not be satisfied, I fear, even with that.”</p> - -<p>“Then what, in the name of heaven!—I beg you a thousand pardons, -Duchess. I don’t know what I am saying. I have no title, to be sure. Is -it a title that is necessary?”</p> - -<p>“I can’t tell you what is necessary,” said the Duchess, with a tone of -impatience. “The Duke is—well, the Duke is her father; that is all that -is to be said. He will never listen to your proposal—never! That is why -I should have said to you, Don’t make it. Leave her in her tranquillity, -poor girl.”</p> - -<p>“But——” Winton cried. He did not know what more to say—a protest of -all his being, that was the only thing of which he was capable.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_86" id="page_86">{86}</a></span></p> - -<p>“But——” the Duchess repeated. “Yes, Mr Winton, there is always a but. -To tell the truth, I am not so very sorry that you did not ask me after -all. I should have been obliged to tell you what I have now told you. -But since you have taken it into your own hands, I am rather glad. If -her father had his way, Jane would never be married at all. Oh, don’t be -so enthusiastic; don’t thank me so warmly! I have done nothing for you, -and I don’t know what I can do for you.”</p> - -<p>“Everything!” said Winton. “With you to back us, it is impossible that -anything can prevail against us. The Duke’s heart will melt; he will -hear reason.”</p> - -<p>A faintly satirical smile came upon the mouth of the Duke’s wife, who -knew better than anybody how much was practicable in the way of making -him hear reason. But she did not say anything.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_87" id="page_87">{87}</a></span> She let the lover talk. -He went on with the conviction natural to his generation—that all these -medieval prejudices were fictitious, and paternal tyranny a thing of the -past.</p> - -<p>“Cruel fathers,” said Winton, “are things of the middle ages. I am not -afraid of them any more than I am of the Castle Spectre. The Duke will -rightly think that I am a poor sort of a fellow to ask his daughter from -him. I ought to have been something very different—better, handsomer, -cleverer.”</p> - -<p>“You are not at all amiss, Mr Winton,” said the Duchess, with a gracious -smile.</p> - -<p>He made her a bow of acknowledgment, and his gratification was -great—for who does not like to be told that he is considered a fine -fellow? But he went on. “All this I feel quite as much as his Grace can -do. The thing in my favour is that Jane——” the colour flew over his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_88" id="page_88">{88}</a></span> -face as he called her so, and her mother, though she started slightly, -acknowledged his rights by a little bow of assent, somewhat solemnly -made,—“that Jane——” he went on repeating the sweet monosyllable, -“does not mind my inferiority—is satisfied, the darling——” Here his -happiness got into his voice as if it had been tears, and choked him. -The Duchess bent her head again,</p> - -<p>“To me that is everything,” she said.</p> - -<p>“How could it be otherwise?” cried the young man; “it <i>is</i> everything. I -have no standing-ground, of course, of my own; but Jane—loves me! It is -far too good to be true, and yet it is true. The Duke will not like it, -let us allow; but when he sees that, and that she will not give up, but -be faithful—faithful to the end of our lives—— Dear Duchess, I have -the greatest veneration for your Grace’s judgment, but in this point -one<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_89" id="page_89">{89}</a></span> must go by reason. Life is not a melodrama. So long as the daughter -is firm the father must yield.”</p> - -<p>He gave forth this dogma with a little excitement, almost with a -peremptory tone, smiling a little in spite of himself at the tradition -in which even this most sensible of duchesses believed. Perhaps a great -lady of that elevated description is more liable than others to believe -that the current of events and the progress of opinion have little or no -effect upon the race, and that dukes and fathers are still what they -were in the fifteenth century. He, this fine production of the -nineteenth, was so certain of his opinion, that he could not feel -anything but a smiling indulgence for hers. On the other side, the -Duchess was more tolerant even than Winton. His certainty gave her a -faint amusement—his gentle disdain of her a lively sense of ridicule; -but this was softened by her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_90" id="page_90">{90}</a></span> sympathy for him, and profound and tender -interest in the man whom Jane loved. She was a little astonished, -indeed—as what parent is not?—that Jane should have loved this man -precisely, and no other; but as the event called forth all her affection -for her woman-child, it threw also a beautifying reflection upon Jane’s -lover. On the whole, she was satisfied with his demeanour personally. It -is not every man who will show his sentiments in a way which satisfies -an anxious mother. The Duchess, however, was pleased with Winton. His -look and tone when he spoke of her daughter satisfied her. He was fond -enough, adoring enough, reverential enough to content her; and how much -this was to say!</p> - -<p>“Well,” she said, “we will hope you may be right, Mr Winton. You know -men and human nature, no doubt, better<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_91" id="page_91">{91}</a></span> than I do, who am only about -twice your age,” she added, with a soft little laugh. “Anyhow, I wish -with my whole heart that you may prove to be right. The only thing is, -that it will be prudent not to speak to the Duke now. Don’t cry out—I -know I am right in this. In town he is never quite happy; there are many -things that rub him the wrong way. He sees men advanced whom he thinks -unworthy of it, and others left out. And he thinks society is out of -joint, and cannot quite divest himself of the idea that he, or rather -we, were born to set it right.” All this the Duchess said with a little -half-sigh between the sentences, and yet a faint sense of humour, which -gave a light to her countenance. “But in the country things go better. -If he is ever to be moved, as you say, by love and faithfulness, and -such beautiful things, it will be in his own kingdom, where<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_92" id="page_92">{92}</a></span> nobody -thwarts him and he has everything his own way.”</p> - -<p>Winton’s countenance fell at every word. What! he who had come hither -with the intention of persuading Jane to decide when it should be, was -he to go away without a word—to be hung up indefinitely, to be no -farther advanced than yesterday? His whole heart cried out against it, -and his pride and all that was in him. He grew faint, he grew sick with -anger, and disappointment, and dismay. “That means,” he said, “complete -postponement; that means endless suspense. I think you want me to give -up altogether; you want to crush the life out of us altogether!”</p> - -<p>“Of course you will be unjust,” said the Duchess—“I was prepared for -that; and ungrateful. I am advising what is best for you. The Duke, I -believe, is in the library. He is the pink of polite<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_93" id="page_93">{93}</a></span>ness; he will see -you at once, I feel sure, if you ask for an interview; but in that case -you will never darken these doors again. You will be shut out from all -intercourse with Jane. The whole matter will be ended as abruptly and -conclusively as possible. I know my husband; you will not have time to -say a word for yourself. You can take what course you think best, Mr -Winton. What I say to you is for your good; and in the meantime, if you -do as I wish, everything that I can do for you I will do.”</p> - -<p>The young man sat and listened to these words in mingled exasperation -and dismay. As she spoke of the Duke in his library, Winton’s heart -jumped up and began to thump against his side. Oh yes, it might be -decided fast enough. Evidently he could have an answer without fail or -suspense on the spot. He sat and gazed at her blankly in such a dilemma -as he had never known before. What<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_94" id="page_94">{94}</a></span> would Jane think of him if he -submitted? What would she say if he insisted, and got only failure and -prohibition for his pains? The Duchess, it was evident, was not speaking -lightly. She knew what she was talking about. She wished him well—too -well to let him go on to his destruction. But, on the other hand, there -was the postponement of all his hopes, a sickening pause and -uncertainty, a blank quenching of expectation. He could do nothing but -stare at the Duchess while she spoke, and for some time after. What was -he to answer her? How calmly these old people sit on their height of -experience, and look down half smiling upon the frets and agitation of -the young ones! What was it to her that he—even that Jane, who -naturally was of far more importance—should suffer all these pangs of -suspense? Probably she would smile, and say that life was long, and what -did it<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_95" id="page_95">{95}</a></span> matter for a month or two? A month or two! It would be like a -century or two to them. Sometimes Winton resolved that he would not be -silenced; that he would go and have it out with the Duke, who, after -all, was Jane’s father, and could not wish his child to be unhappy. And -then again, as she went on laying the alternative before him, his heart -would fail him. He changed his mind a hundred times while she was -speaking, and after she had ended, still gazed on her, with his heart in -his mouth.</p> - -<p>“I don’t wish,” he said at last, “to do anything rash. I will submit to -anything rather than run any risks. But how are we to bear the delay? -How am I to bear it? and it will be deception as well! I don’t see how I -am to do it. Do you mean me to give her up all the time—go -tiger-shooting, as you were good enough to suggest?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_96" id="page_96">{96}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Well—there would be no harm in that,” said the Duchess, with a smile; -“but I did not suggest it in the present circumstances. I said, if you -had spoken to me first—I ask you to wait a month—perhaps two” (this -addition, made as it seemed in <i>gaieté de cœur</i>, with rather a pleasant -sense of the exasperation it would produce in him, called forth a -muttered exclamation, a groan from the victim)—“or perhaps two at the -most,” the Duchess repeated; “whereas tiger-shooting would take six at -least. But, Mr Winton, I repeat, I force you to nothing. There is the -bell, and the Duke is in the library. Ring it if you will, and ask him -to see you; he will not refuse.”</p> - -<p>Winton rose slowly and went towards the bell. But he had not the courage -to take this extreme step. “I suppose I may see her sometimes?” he said; -“but it will be a kind of treachery.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_97" id="page_97">{97}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Her mother does not object; the case is an extreme one,” said the -Duchess, though she blushed a little at her own sophistry. “What he does -not know will not do him any harm.”</p> - -<p>“It will be deception,” said Winton, shaking his head, and he made -another step towards the bell. Then he turned back again. “How often may -I see her? If we take your way, you will not be hard upon us?” he said.</p> - -<p>“But it will be deception,” said the Duchess, solemnly.</p> - -<p>“I know that; that is what revolts me. Still, as you say, what he does -not know will not do him any harm.”</p> - -<p>The Duchess laughed, and then she grew grave suddenly. “Mr Winton, I -feel as if I were betraying my husband; but at the present moment my -child has the first claim upon me. It is her hap<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_98" id="page_98">{98}</a></span>piness that is at -stake. I will not prevent you from meeting—you are both old enough to -know your own minds. I will do nothing to put off Jane from a woman’s -natural career. It is doing evil, perhaps, that good may come; but we -must risk it. Come here, but not too often: I will take the -responsibility; and when we go to Billings, Lady Germaine will invite -you, and you can try your fortune then. I will prepare the way as much -as I can. I don’t give you great hopes when all is done,” she said, -shaking her head.</p> - -<p>“And after?” said Winton, turning once more with a kind of desperation -towards the bell.</p> - -<p>“Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,” said the Duchess, -piously.</p> - -<p>But oh, the difference when he walked out crestfallen through all the -big drawing-<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_99" id="page_99">{99}</a></span>rooms! Not a word about when It was to be. No sort of -arrangement, consultation, possible. Everything had seemed so near when -he came—so near that he could almost touch it. Now everything had been -pushed far off into the vague. He had seen Jane indeed, but in her -mother’s presence, which made her happy enough, but him only partly -happy. Was this how it was to be? The Duchess indeed was writing at her -table, taking no notice of them. But still it was very different from -what he had hoped. He did not perceive the bad pictures or the -over-gilding as he went away. The place looked like a prison to him, and -was dark and stifling. Lady Jane indeed accompanied him through the -rooms. She gave him the rose which he had thought of stealing as he -came, and told him all their engagements for a week in advance.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_100" id="page_100">{100}</a></span> “You -will be sure to go wherever we are going,” she said, and called him -Reginald with a blush and a tone of sweetness that went straight to his -heart. But nevertheless his disappointment, he thought, was almost more -than he could bear.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_101" id="page_101">{101}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a><span class="ltspc">CHAPTER</span> V.<br /><br /> -<small>THE ANTICIPATIONS OF LADY JANE.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Lady Jane</span>, it will easily be understood, did not look upon the matter at -all from the same point of view. A girl, however much she may be in -love, is seldom anxious for a peremptory marriage such as—when there is -no great sacrifice involved—suits the bolder sex. She loves to play -with her happiness, to prolong the sweet time when, without any violent -breach of other habits, even any change of name, she can enjoy the added -glory of this crown of life. She accompanied Winton through the great -silent rooms,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_102" id="page_102">{102}</a></span> with a sense of perfect, quiet happiness which was -exactly in accordance with the summer morning—the fresh soft air in -which there was no sunshine, but a flood of subdued light, and in which -every sound had a tone of enchantment, though not music. It suited her -gentle nature to dwell in such an atmosphere of delicate delight, which -had no fact to vulgarise it, but only an ecstasy of feeling. She was -disappointed to find that he was less satisfied, less happy. And he -would have been angry to see that she was so happy. Such are the -differences between those most near to each other. He kissed the rosebud -and her hands as, with a sense of daring beyond words, she put it into -his coat; but he wanted something more. Yes, he could have been angry -with her; he felt a desire to say something brutal. “How can you be -satisfied to deceive your father?” he asked. “It will be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_103" id="page_103">{103}</a></span> -clandestine——” He had the cruelty to say this, though next moment he -was horrified, and begged her pardon, metaphorically on his knees.</p> - -<p>“Clandestine!” she said, with a little surprise—she made allowance for -a man’s rough way of speaking—“oh no; my father has never entered into -all the circumstances. So long as my mother approves——”</p> - -<p>“But,” Winton cried, in his ferocity, “suppose he refuses his consent at -last, as the Duchess thinks, will you venture to oppose him then, or -will you send me away?”</p> - -<p>“Ah, never that!” said Lady Jane, looking at him with her soft eyes. -They were not brilliant eyes, but when she looked at him there came over -them a certain liquid light, a melting radiance such as no words could -describe. The light was love, and may be seen glorify<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_104" id="page_104">{104}</a></span>ing many an -unremarkable orb. It made hers so exquisite that they dazzled the -beholder, especially the happy beholder who knew this was for him. But -he was not satisfied even with that.</p> - -<p>“Suppose,” he went on, “that the Duke were to open that door and walk in -now—as he has a good right to do, into his own drawing-room—what would -come of it? Would you take your hand out of mine, and bid me good-bye -like a stranger?”</p> - -<p>Her hand indeed slid out of his at the suggestion, and a little tremor -ran through her frame; but the next moment she raised her head and put -her hand lightly within his arm. “If you think I am without courage!” -she said—then added with a smile, “when it is necessary; but at present -it is not necessary.”</p> - -<p>“Then you will not, whatever happens, give me up?—not even if the -founda<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_105" id="page_105">{105}</a></span>tions of the earth are shaken, not even if the Duke says ‘No’?” -he cried, partly furious, partly satirical, catching at the hand which -was on his arm.</p> - -<p>His violence gave her a little shock, and the savage satire of the tone -in which he named her father distressed Lady Jane. “You must not speak -so,” she said, with her soft dignity: “the Duke is my father. But you do -not know me if you think that anything will change me.” Then indeed -Winton felt a little ashamed of himself, and began to realise that he -did not yet know all of this gentle creature who was going to be his -wife. She parted with him at the door of the ante-room, and went back -through her mother’s boudoir to her own retirement. Next to being with -the <i>objet aimé</i>, being alone is the purest happiness at this stage. She -kissed her mother, who was busy at her writing-table, in passing. The -Duchess was deep in cal<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_106" id="page_106">{106}</a></span>culation, not how she should make her ends meet, -which was impossible, but how near she could draw them together, so that -the gap might be small. It is a sad and harassing business. She paused -only a moment to pat her child on her soft cheek, and reflect within -herself how beautifying was this love which in youth is full of -enchantment and illusion, and then returned to her figures. When the -ends will meet, what pleasure there is even in the pain of drawing them -together! but when no miracle will do this, when there must always -remain a horrible chasm between! Fifty remained thus at work in the -finance department, while Twenty-eight went lightly away to think over -her happiness. It must be allowed that Lady Jane was not quite young -enough—she ought to have been but twenty, by rights; but her maturity -only added to the exceeding fulness of her enjoyment. There<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_107" id="page_107">{107}</a></span> is -something sweet in being awakened late; it prolongs the morning, it -keeps the “vision splendid” a little longer in one’s eyes. The -unfulfilled even has a glory of its own, which people who are bigoted in -belief of the ordinary canons of romance are slow to perceive. This -preserved to Lady Jane, at an age when girlhood is over, its most -perfect fragrance and charm.</p> - -<p>Presently, however, the sweet vagueness of her anticipations began to -open into other thoughts. She had been so preserved by her stately -upbringing and the traditions which she had felt to centre in her, from -knowledge of fact and the world, that she knew little at all about -money, or the power it has to bridge over social differences. When she -allowed her heart to go out to Reginald Winton, she did so with the most -absolute conviction that it involved a great descent<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_108" id="page_108">{108}</a></span> in rank and -abandonment of luxury. She would have to put off the coronet from her -head, she believed, the princess royal’s myrtle crown. She would have to -learn a great many things, both to do and to do without. She had heard -of Winton House, which was a small place; and probably she had heard of -the house in town. But the latter had altogether dropped out of her -mind, and she knew very well that a squire’s little manor would be very -different from Billings, and would require from its mistress an -existence of a kind unknown to all her previous experiences. She would -have to superintend her own household; if not to make her maids spin, -according to the usage of old times, at least to direct the housemaids, -and know how things ought to be done. Though her father was in reality -much less rich than the man whom she had chosen for her hus<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_109" id="page_109">{109}</a></span>band, she -was entirely in the dark on this point, and her mind awoke to a sense of -a hundred requirements of which she knew nothing. She had been like a -star, and dwelt apart (if it is not profane to apply such words to a -young lady of the nineteenth century) as much as any poet. But now love -and duty bade her come down from these heights, and learn how people -walk along the common ways. She addressed herself to this task without a -grudge, with glad alacrity and readiness; but she was a little puzzled, -it must be admitted, to know how to begin. The first person to whom she -addressed herself (for naturally Lady Jane was shy of betraying her -motive, or letting it be known that the inquiries she made were for her -own benefit) was her maid, who was as superior a young person and as -much like a waiting gentlewoman as it was possible<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_110" id="page_110">{110}</a></span> to find. Lady Jane -was aware, of course, that Arabella’s family (for this was the -distinguished name she bore) were not in the same position as Mr Winton. -But in that sad deficiency of perspective which we have already noted as -one of the drawbacks of rank, she felt it possible that Arabella’s -knowledge of how life was conducted at her end of the social circle -would be more useful than her own to Reginald Winton’s wife. She opened -the subject in, it must be avowed, a very uncompromising and artless way -one evening, while Arabella stood behind her, partially visible in the -large mirror before which she sat, brushing out her long and abundant -hair. It was very fine and silky, and made very little appearance when -smoothly wound round the back of her head; but when it was being brushed -out it was like a veil, soft and dreamy and illimitable, spreading out<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_111" id="page_111">{111}</a></span> -almost as far as the operator chose in a cloud of soft darkness—“like -twilight, too, her dusky hair.” A lady’s-maid is very much wanting in -the spirit of her profession if she is indifferent to the fact that her -mistress has fine hair. Generally it is the thing of which she is most -proud. And Arabella held this sentiment in the warmest way. Her scorn of -chignons and of frizzing was indescribable. “You should just see my -lady’s hair when it is down,” she would say, almost crying over the fact -which she could not ignore, that the hair of many other ladies, when it -was up, greatly exceeded in appearance and volume the soft locks of Lady -Jane. It was while Arabella was employed in this way that her mistress, -looking at her in the glass, said suddenly, “If you were going to be -married, Arabella, what should you do to prepare for it? I want very -much to know.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_112" id="page_112">{112}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“My lady!” cried the girl, with a violent start. She let the brush fall -from her hand with the fright it gave her, and then without any warning -she began to cry. “Indeed, indeed, I never could make up my mind to -leave your ladyship—not in a hurry like he wants me to—never! never! -at least till you were suited,” Arabella said.</p> - -<p>“Oh!” cried Lady Jane, turning round, “then you really were thinking! I -did not know of that, I assure you; I never thought of it. Are you -really going to be married, Arabella?”</p> - -<p>“It is none of my doing,” the girl said; “indeed I told him I couldn’t -make up my mind to leave; but he says—you know, my lady, men find -always a deal to say——”</p> - -<p>“Do they?” said Lady Jane, with a soft laugh of sympathy. Yes, it was -true—they had a deal to say: and then sometimes<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_113" id="page_113">{113}</a></span> when they were silent, -that said still more. She paused upon this recollection, with a soft -wave of pleasure going over her; and then—perhaps not so anxious to -understand Arabella as to follow out her own thoughts—“Tell me,” she -said, “when you go away from me, Arabella—out of Billings and out of -Grosvenor Square—into a little small house, how does it feel to you? Do -you dislike it very much? Is it very wretched? I should like to know how -you feel about it. One day here in these large rooms—and the next in a -tiny little place, without servants, without any conveniences. It is -only lately that I have thought about this, but I want to know. Nobody -can tell me so well as you.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, my lady,” cried Arabella, “don’t you know without telling? Why, -it’s home! That makes all the difference; though it’s a little place, -yet it’s your own.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_114" id="page_114">{114}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Lady Jane’s eyes still remained unsatisfied, though she said “To be -sure” vaguely. “To be sure,” she repeated; “but then here you have -everything done for you, and everything is nice. You cannot have the -same at home.”</p> - -<p>“No, my lady; but it’s so nice and fresh there: no carpets or things to -catch the dust—except in the parlour, but that is only for Sundays. The -floors all so white and fresh; the plates and the dishes shining; the -fire so cheerful. I can’t deny,” said Arabella, her tone of delight -sinking to one of candid avowal, “that the parlour is—well, my lady, it -is a dreadful little place; and poor mother is so proud of it!—it is -not so nice as the room the under-housemaids have their tea in. I feel -just as if I were one of the inferior servants when I sit there. But the -kitchen: if your ladyship took a fancy to playing at being poor—like -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_115" id="page_115">{115}</a></span> French queen did, you know, my lady—it would be quite nice enough -even for you.”</p> - -<p>“You should not say ‘like the French queen did’; that is bad grammar,” -said Lady Jane, softly. “I shan’t play at being poor, Arabella, but -perhaps some day—— All this you have been saying is about your home, -but that was not what I asked. If you were going to be married, what -would you do? You could not keep any servants; you would have to do all -sorts of things yourself. Do you think it will be a dreadful sacrifice -to make?”</p> - -<p>Arabella gave her lady’s hair a few tugs, perhaps unconsciously to hide -a little emotion, perhaps with a little gentle indignation at her -mistress’s humble estimate of her prospects. “It is not so low as you -think, my lady,” she said. “He is a careful young man that has saved a -little, and can give me a nice home and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_116" id="page_116">{116}</a></span> keep me a servant. I’ll have no -dirty work to do nor need to soil my fingers. He thinks, like your -ladyship, that it will be a great sacrifice; but what can a girl have -better, mother says, than a good steady husband and a nice home? and I -think so too.”</p> - -<p>Lady Jane smiled with gentle sympathy. “And so do I, Arabella. Still -that is not the question I was asking. It will be a small house, I -suppose, and one little maid? And I suppose you will have many things to -do, and to live with——” Here she paused, blushing for her own want of -perception. “You are accustomed to things very much the same as mine,” -she continued softly, “and it must be different. How will you put up -with it—or shall you not mind? Only a few little rooms, perhaps, to -live in.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, my lady,” said Arabella, “a few! We shall have a little parlour, -where I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_117" id="page_117">{117}</a></span> can sit in the afternoons. What could any one wish for more? -Your ladyship yourself, or even the Duchess, though you have all the -castle to choose from, you can’t sit in more than one room at a time. -And it has often surprised me, my lady, to see how, with all those -beautiful drawing-rooms and all their grand furniture, your ladyship and -the Duchess will prefer quite a little bit of a place to sit in. Look at -the morning-room at the castle!—and her Grace’s boudoir here is quite -small in comparison. I can’t see that it will make much difference to -me.”</p> - -<p>“That is a very just observation, Arabella,” said Lady Jane; “I wonder I -never thought of it before. Nobody can sit in more than one room at a -time, it is quite true; that is all one really needs. I am very much -obliged to you for putting it so clearly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_118" id="page_118">{118}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Yes, my lady,” said Arabella, with a little curtsey of acknowledgment. -She was pleased, but not so much surprised as might have been expected. -She was fond of her mistress, and had a great reverence for her in her -way, but she was aware that in practical matters she herself was far -more likely to be right than Lady Jane. And then she proceeded on her -own account to give many particulars which were very satisfactory to -herself, and inspired her mistress with great interest, but threw no -further light upon the point which occupied her mind. She smiled to -herself afterwards, with a mixture of sympathy and amusement, to think -that Arabella was going to be married <i>too</i>. But in the meantime this -new view as to the number of rooms which were indispensable, did her a -great deal of good, and threw much light upon the chief subject of her -thoughts.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_119" id="page_119">{119}</a></span></p> - -<p>Her next inquiries were addressed to a very different kind of -counsellor. It was well for Lady Jane that she was not on womanly -confidential terms with her sister-in-law, or it would have been very -difficult to keep the secret of her love from that acute observer; as it -was, the curiosity of Susan was much awakened by some of her questions. -She asked her, “What do girls in the other classes do when they are -preparing for their marriage?” Lady Jane would not say the lower -classes, partly lest she might offend Lady Hungerford, partly because of -a delicate sense she had that deficiency of any kind should not be made -a mark for those who suffered under it. Lady Jane’s politeness was such -that among blind people she would have thought it right to assume that -blindness was the common rule of life, and to suppress in her talk any -invidious distinction of herself as a person who saw.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_120" id="page_120">{120}</a></span></p> - -<p>“What do they do when they are preparing for their marriage? Why, dear, -they generally spend most of their time, and far too much of their -thoughts, in buying their wedding clothes.”</p> - -<p>“That is so in all classes,” said Lady Jane; “but still that cannot be -everything. Some must be bent upon doing their best in their new life. -Those, for instance, who have not much money.”</p> - -<p>“I am afraid I cannot tell you,” said Susan, “for I never was in that -predicament. My people, you know, were vulgar, and it was a great rise -in the world for me, of course, to marry Hungerford.”</p> - -<p>“I do not think you have ever thought it that,” said Lady Jane.</p> - -<p>“Haven’t I? I ought to have, then. It <i>was</i> a great rise; but my people -were never poor. A good girl who is going to marry a clerk, or that sort -of thing, buys a cookery-book, I believe, and has<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_121" id="page_121">{121}</a></span> her husband’s -slippers warmed for him when he comes home. She finds out all the cheap -shops, and puts down her expenses every day in a book. That is all I -know.”</p> - -<p>“I was not thinking of a clerk’s wife. I was thinking rather of a -gentleman—in the country, for instance—not great people, but perfectly -<i>nice</i>, and as—as good as ourselves, you know. If a girl wanted very -much to do her duty, I wonder what she would do?”</p> - -<p>“It would depend very much upon her husband’s requirements, I should -say. If he was a fox-hunter, she would probably ride a great deal, and -find out all about horses and dogs; if he was studious, she would pay a -little attention to books. All that wears off after a little time,” said -Lady Hungerford. “But at the beginning, when a girl is not used to it, -and is making experi<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_122" id="page_122">{122}</a></span>ments, she takes up all her husband’s fads, and -attempts to humour him. By-and-by, of course, everything finds its -level, and she lets him alone and follows her own way.”</p> - -<p>“You think, then, that it does not make much difference what one does,” -said Lady Jane.</p> - -<p>“What one does! You do not mean yourself, I suppose? Crown princesses -are above all that sort of thing; they are too magnificent for human -nature’s daily food. You will be married by proxy, no doubt, when the -time comes, in Westminster Abbey.”</p> - -<p>“Which means I shall never be married at all,” said Lady Jane, with -subdued pleasure and a delightful sense of her own superior knowledge. -She smiled with such a tender softness that her lively sister-in-law, -who, if not formed in a very delicate mould, was yet capable of kind<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_123" id="page_123">{123}</a></span> -impulse, and clever enough to understand the superiority of the spotless -creature beside her, had a moment of shame and self-reproach.</p> - -<p>“If you are not, it will be all the worse for somebody,” she said. “When -I was married I used to watch Hungerford to find out what he wanted me -to do; but I soon tired of that, for he never wanted me to do anything. -Most men like you to strike out your own line, and never mind them. That -is why I say everything finds its level. The most dreadful thing in the -world is a woman who is always studying to do her duty, and watching her -husband to anticipate his wishes. They don’t like to have their wishes -anticipated. They like to state them honestly, and have the satisfaction -of getting what they want. They are strange creatures, men. The best -thing is to strike out your own line, and never interfere with theirs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_124" id="page_124">{124}</a></span> -It is always most satisfactory in the end.”</p> - -<p>Lady Jane made no answer to this, except by a little sigh, in which Lady -Hungerford, to her great astonishment, noticed an impatient sound. “What -is it you want to know?” she said. “Why are you asking me such -questions?” But Lady Jane made no reply. She had got a little -enlightenment from Arabella, but none from this woman of the world. How -to manage her husband was not a question which disturbed her. The -clerk’s wife studying the cookery-book pleased her more than the lady -who first tried to humour her husband’s fads, and then struck out her -own line. In such a person the sweet and true but not too lively -intelligence of Lady Jane had little interest. She dwelt on the other -with a tender sympathy. After all, it was not entirely in the light of -the husband that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_125" id="page_125">{125}</a></span> she regarded this new life. She wanted to put herself -in tone with it, to understand its requirements for herself as well as -for him. She retired into her own chamber and thought it out in the -quiet which, even in London, is possible in a great house. It would not -be possible, perhaps, to have every room cushioned and every noise -stopped before it reached her, as here. Lady Jane imagined herself -stepping down into a world of noise and bustle, and duties quite unknown -to her. It would be her business to bring harmony out of that; not to -confront the guillotine, as she once thought, but perhaps to do -something even harder, to overcome the petty and small, even the sordid -perhaps, and show what her order was capable of, and what a thing it was -to be a woman. A soft enthusiasm filled her for those unknown, humble -duties. As for giving up, what was there to give<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_126" id="page_126">{126}</a></span> up? Arabella’s -philosophy gave her a shield against every suggestion of loss. You can’t -sit in more than one room at a time, if you have a hundred to choose -from. To think that a girl like that should find the true solution of -the parable without knowing anything about it, which the wisest shook -their heads over! Lady Jane, with that enlightenment, did not feel the -least fear. Next time she was out without supervision, she drove to a -bookseller’s and bought all the books she could find upon household -economy. ‘How to Live on Three Hundred a-Year’ was one of these volumes. -With this she did not quite sympathise, feeling it too fine and -elaborate. Her instinct told her that domestic economy, to be beautiful, -must be more spontaneous and not so laboured, and that some things were -tawdry, and some sordid, in the arrangements laid down. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_127" id="page_127">{127}</a></span> thought -over the problems in these books with great conscientiousness. She -thought a French cook would be much the best to start with, for they -were so economical. She thought plate would be the cheapest thing to -use, since it never breaks. But with a few mistakes of this kind, which -were inevitable, and which experience would set right in three months, -Lady Jane made herself out a beautiful programme for her behaviour as a -poor man’s wife. It gave her a sense of elation to feel that at the -least she could do something, and qualify herself for fulfilling a -heroic destiny. She was quite unconscious of either downfall or -humiliation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_128" id="page_128">{128}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a><span class="ltspc">CHAPTER</span> VI.<br /><br /> -<small>THE ART OF STRATEGY.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">But</span> the Duchess’s thoughts were of a more serious kind, and it was she -who through all had the most difficult part to play.</p> - -<p>Perhaps five or six years before, when Lady Jane was in the first bloom -of womanhood, her mother would have thought but little of Reginald -Winton as a husband for her child. She would have preferred, need it be -said, another set of strawberry-leaves; or even an earl with a good -estate would have seemed to her a more suitable match. But as the years<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_129" id="page_129">{129}</a></span> -went on, and it became apparent to her that what with Lady Jane’s own -visionary stateliness, and the known folly of her father, it was quite -possible that there might be no match for her daughter at all, her ideas -were sensibly modified. It did not seem to her at all desirable that -Lady Jane should remain Lady Jane for ever. The Duchess had experienced -no absolute blessedness in life. Her husband had given her infinite -trouble, her son had by no means realised her ideal, and her daughter -had gone beyond it, and sometimes vexed her as much by very excellence -as Hungerford did by his commonplace nature. But still she thought it -better to be thwarted and disappointed at the head of a family, than to -sicken of solitude and pine out of it. She thought the same for her -daughter; though indeed Lady Jane’s character would have lent itself -much better to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_130" id="page_130">{130}</a></span> maiden state than that of her more practical and -active-minded mother. She had, too, a still more stringent reason, not -of an abstract character at all. She knew that some time or other a -crash must come. The Duke had never denied himself in his life, and he -was not likely, of his own free will, to begin now. But as everything -has to be paid for sooner or later, one way or another, she knew very -well the time was coming when their fictitious fortunes would collapse, -and it would be known to all the world that their income was not enough -to support them, and that they were burdened with debts which they could -not pay. And indeed it often seemed to her that she would be glad when -the crash came—except for Jane. Notwithstanding her desire that it -should come and be done with, she was ready to fight with all her -strength to keep it off till Jane should<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_131" id="page_131">{131}</a></span> be out of its reach. And -Winton, she felt, had stepped in in the very nick of time. She was under -no delusion such as filled the mind of her daughter about Winton’s -poverty. She knew exactly what his standing was, and that though he was -not a brilliant match, he was good enough for any girl, however exalted, -who had no fortune to speak of, of her own. He was more satisfactory in -appearance, and manners, and character, than three-fourths of the -eligible men in England, and in fact he was himself eminently eligible, -a man whom no parent (in full possession of his senses) could possibly -despise. The Duke was not in full possession of his senses on this -point, but his wife could not see the justice of allowing her daughter’s -future to be spoiled by this partial insanity on the part of her -husband. It is a fine thing for a wife to obey her husband, but the -Duchess<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_132" id="page_132">{132}</a></span> was perhaps a little impatient of the yoke. She had never gone -against him, save for his good. She had submitted sorrowfully to the -consequences of his follies when she found herself powerless to restrain -them. But she said to herself almost sternly that she would not allow -Jane to be ruined. Let him say what he would, this excellent husband, -this good, nice, well-off man should not be repulsed. If she could -persuade the Duke to hear reason, so much the better; but if not—— But -she did not like domestic dissension and a breach of the decorums of -life more than another, and the thought that she might be compelled to -place herself in active opposition to her husband distressed her beyond -measure.</p> - -<p>The Duchess laid her plans with great and anxious care. She invited -Winton to the few stately gatherings which were still to be held in -Grosvenor Square, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_133" id="page_133">{133}</a></span> she threw him in the Duke’s way, prompting him -beforehand with subjects such as would please that arbiter of fate. It -was no small trial of endurance for both Winton and Lady Jane, but the -success of the attempt so far seemed great. The Duke noticed the genial -commoner who was so ready to interest himself in his Grace’s favourite -subjects. He even asked, “Who is this Mr Winton?” with an interest which -made the Duchess’s heart beat. She gave a sketch of her <i>protégé</i> -offhand, laying great stress upon the antiquity of his lineage. “Ah, -oh,” the Duke said indifferently. He was not impressed, nor did it make -any difference to him that this gentleman, whose family had been settled -for so many hundred years in their manor, had recently had a great -accession of wealth. He asked no further questions about him, and yawned -when the Duchess said<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_134" id="page_134">{134}</a></span> that she had thought of inviting him to form one -of the usual autumn party at Billings. “Oh no, I have no objections,” -his Grace said; “there must always, I suppose, be a few nobodies to fill -up the corners.” This, after his transitory show of interest, was like a -cold douche to the Duchess. But she did not allow herself to be -dismayed. She managed, as a great lady can always manage, to get Winton -a great number of invitations to her own magnificent circle, and threw -him perpetually in her husband’s way. Some of her friends and -contemporaries more than suspected the Duchess’s game. But she kept a -brave and cheerful front to them all, and never allowed herself to be -found out; and not only had she to contrive all this and baffle all -beholders, but she had likewise a struggle to maintain even with the man -whose cause she was up<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_135" id="page_135">{135}</a></span>holding. He wanted, forsooth, to make quicker -progress. He wanted to see more of his betrothed. He wanted to have it -announced to all the world. He was more impracticable, more unreasonable -than ever man was, although she was wearing herself out in efforts to -help him. Lady Jane did not say a word, but she looked at her mother’s -proceedings with a gentle surprise, and high, silent wonder, keeping -herself aloof from all the plottings, avoiding the subject altogether. -It was all done for Jane, but Jane disapproved, and blamed her mother in -her heart. This was the unkindest cut of all. Notwithstanding, the -Duchess held by her point; there was no other way to do it. When she -gave Winton her invitation to Billings, he received it in the most -uncomfortable way. He coloured high; he rose up and paced about the -room. “If I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_136" id="page_136">{136}</a></span> am to come as an impostor, I would rather not come at all,” -he said; “if I may come as Jane’s affianced——”</p> - -<p>“How can that be, Mr Winton, unless her father gives his consent?”</p> - -<p>To this Winton made no reply, except a peevish, “I cannot go on false -pretences any more.”</p> - -<p>“You have met the Duke six times, without rushing at him with a request -for his daughter! Is that what you call false pretences? Jacob served -for Rachel seven years.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! and so would I; but he had it out with her father first. He did not -hang about and profess to be there only for Laban’s agreeable -conversation; that makes all the difference.”</p> - -<p>“I think he could have stood that; he had a robust conscience,” said the -Duchess, with a smile. And then she added, “I am trying to do what I -can<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_137" id="page_137">{137}</a></span> for you. If you will not agree, I cannot help it.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose I must agree. There does not seem anything else for me to -do,” he said; which was the most ungracious reply she ever had to that -invitation, which was rarely extended to any one of so little -importance. At Billings, Lady Germaine’s principle of asking people who -would amuse her was never resorted to. The people who were asked were -very noble and splendid people, but they were not amusing as a rule. It -was such a compliment to Winton as the uninitiated could not understand. -But there were, of course, a great many people who knew better than the -Duchess herself did the intention with which this invitation was given. -Lady Hungerford, for instance, sitting quietly with her husband after -dinner, having heard of it that morning, suddenly astonished him<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_138" id="page_138">{138}</a></span> by -bursting out into a great fit of laughter. As nothing had been said to -account for this, and Lord Hungerford’s company of itself was not -calculated to produce hilarity, he was much surprised, and at once -requested to know what she was laughing about.</p> - -<p>“Oh, it is nothing,” she said. “Your mother is asking young Winton—the -man, you know, who has that pretty house in Kensington—to go to -Billings, for the shooting.”</p> - -<p>“Is that so very funny?” said Lord Hungerford.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you see, you thickhead?” said his wife, who was not, perhaps, so -exquisite in her language as became her present rank; “she has taken it -into her head that he will do for Jane, and she thinks by taking him -down to Billings that she will get your father to consent.”</p> - -<p>“For Jane!” said Hungerford in dismay.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_139" id="page_139">{139}</a></span></p> - -<p>“That is your mother’s little plan. But what amuses me is to see that -she thinks she will get your father to consent.”</p> - -<p>But it did not appear that Hungerford found the same amusement in the -thought. He was slow of intelligence, and took some time to master it. -“For Jane!” he said at least half-a-dozen times over during the course -of the evening: and when he next met his mother he proceeded at once to -investigate the matter.</p> - -<p>“What is this I hear about Regy Winton?” he said. “Susan tells me you -are thinking of him for Jane.”</p> - -<p>“Susan is so well informed——” said the Duchess, with a little redness -of indignation. “But I think you know Jane well enough to be aware that -thinking of any one for her would not do much good.”</p> - -<p>“That is what I thought,” Hungerford said, falling readily into the -snare. “But<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_140" id="page_140">{140}</a></span> it wouldn’t be at all a bad thing,” he added, “if it could -be brought about. He has plenty of money, and nothing against him; and -Jane isn’t quite so young as she was, don’t you know?”</p> - -<p>This was true enough; but that such a question should be discussed -between her son and his wife made the Duchess’s blood boil. “I am not so -clever as Susan and you, Hungerford,” she said, with fine satire. “You -will manage your daughter’s marriage, I don’t doubt, a thousand times -better than I shall ever manage mine.”</p> - -<p>“What has that to do with it?” Hungerford said, surprised, for he was -not quick in his intellects. But he added, as he went away, “I should -think Regy Winton would be a very good man for Jane.”</p> - -<p>The Duchess was very angry, and declined altogether to take her son into -her confidence. But yet she was sustained<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_141" id="page_141">{141}</a></span> in her mind by this -volunteered opinion, and went on with more boldness. They were all very -glad to get out of London, as soon as the Duke thought it right to -withdraw that support which he felt himself bound to give to the empire -and the constitution by going to town every year. His countenance -expanded as they left that limited world in which a duke is almost as a -common man, and has to submit to see a simple commoner considered much -more important than himself. He preferred the country, if for nothing -else, on that score. There was space to move about in, and the whole -district bowed down before him. He smoothed out even during the journey, -though it was by railway, which is a levelling and impertinent way of -travelling. The Duke’s carriage had large labels of “engaged” plastered -upon it. But still such a thing had been as that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_142" id="page_142">{142}</a></span> a lawless traveller, a -being without veneration or feeling, had seized upon the door-handle and -attempted to make an entrance. Nevertheless, even with these drawbacks, -the Duke already began to show the genial influence of going out of -town. And to think that the wife of his bosom should have taken -advantage of this in the disingenuous way she did! It was not absolutely -on the journey, but on that first evening at home, when the noble pair -took, as had been their habit since before any one could remember, a -little stroll together after dinner in the cool of the evening under the -ancestral shades; and just when his Grace had looked round him with a -sigh of satisfaction, and announced that woods were better than bricks -and mortar, which was a remark he made habitually in about the same -spot, on about the same day of every year<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_143" id="page_143">{143}</a></span>—</p> - -<p>“That is very true,” the Duchess said (as she always said on similar -occasions), “and there are no trees like our own trees. I hope her -native air,” added the crafty woman, “will do something for Jane.”</p> - -<p>“For Jane! Is there anything the matter with Jane?” said her august -papa.</p> - -<p>“I felt sure you must have observed it; you are always so keen-sighted -where Jane is concerned. I have thought she looked pale; and she has a -little air of—what shall I call it?—preoccupation.”</p> - -<p>“I do not see,” said the Duke, half indignantly, “what she can have to -be preoccupied about.”</p> - -<p>“She has always been so tenderly cared for, that is true. But we must -remember that she is no longer a girl, and there are thoughts which come -into one’s mind which it is difficult to avoid.”</p> - -<p>“What thoughts? A young lady in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_144" id="page_144">{144}</a></span> Jane’s position need have no thoughts -that can give her any trouble. I hope that even in these revolutionary -times, when everything is going to pieces, the house of Billings is -still sufficiently secure for that.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes; there is no doubt on that question. Jane has no doubt,” the -Duchess said, correcting herself. “But there are problems, you know, -which occupy the mind. It is a revolutionary age, as you say, and even -young women are not exempt. Besides, if you will let me say so, by the -time a girl has come to be eight-and-twenty, she often begins to feel, -you know—that to be only her father’s daughter is not quite enough for -her—that she wants some sort of standing of her own.”</p> - -<p>“Do you mean to tell me that such thoughts as these have ever entered -the mind of Jane?” said the Duke, severely.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_145" id="page_145">{145}</a></span> “My love, I put great faith -in you in matters quite within your sphere—— But Jane, my -daughter!—--”</p> - -<p>“I hope you will allow that she is my daughter as well,” the Duchess -said, with the half laugh, half rage natural to a woman long accustomed -to deal with an impracticable man. She was obliged to laugh at his -serious contempt of her, lest she should do worse.</p> - -<p>The Duke waved his hand. “Yes, yes,” he said, in the tone of a man -yielding to an unreasonable child. “To be sure, in a way, we do not -dispute that. But I am certain,” he added, “that you know better than to -resist the claims of race. Jane is not so much your daughter, or even -mine, as she is the daughter of the race of Altamonts; and in that -capacity you may allow, my love, great as are your claims to respect as -her mother, that I may be supposed to understand her best.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_146" id="page_146">{146}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>The exasperation with which the Duchess listened to this speech may be -understood; but it was not the first by a great many, and she made no -revelation of her feelings. On the contrary, she made use of his solemn -vanity with a craft which the exigencies of her position had developed -in her.</p> - -<p>“You must give me the benefit of your superior insight,” she said quite -calmly, without any indication of satire in her tone. “Now that you have -leisure to give your consideration to family matters, as you could not -be expected to do in town:—tell me what you think. My impression is, -that she has begun to think of the future. I was her mother when I was -her age. She has been very much admired and sought after.”</p> - -<p>“Naturally,” the Duke said, with a wave of his hand.</p> - -<p>“And I have a feeling that there is a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_147" id="page_147">{147}</a></span>—preference, if I may call it -so—an inclination, perhaps—dawning in her mind. To lose her would be a -terrible deprivation: still,” the Duchess said, “I do not suppose it is -in your mind to prevent her from marrying.”</p> - -<p>“To prevent her from—— You surely have the most curious way of putting -things. There is nothing I desire more truly—when a suitable match can -be found.”</p> - -<p>“But don’t you think,” cried the Duchess, “that we are, perhaps, letting -the time slip a little? Of course, I would naturally keep my child by me -as long as possible, but in her own interests—— Women on the whole are -happier to marry, I think,” she said doubtfully.</p> - -<p>“Marry! of course they are happier to marry. Can there be any doubt upon -that subject? A woman unmarried cannot be said to have any life at -all!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_148" id="page_148">{148}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I should say there was a doubt,” said his wife, with again that -half laugh; “and as I am one of them, I may be allowed an opinion on the -subject. But still, in respect to Jane, I could wish my daughter to -marry. In her position, to remain unmarried would really be to remain -apart from life.”</p> - -<p>“It is not to be thought of for a moment; an old maid!” the Duke said, -with a quaver of pain in his voice; and he thought of that slight -indentation—not a hollow, scarcely more than a dimple, which, however, -was not a dimple, on Jane’s cheek. “The truth is,” he said, “that in -respect to one’s children one deceives one’s self. I have no feeling -that I am myself any older than I was twenty years ago, and therefore I -do not notice the difference in her.”</p> - -<p>“Hungerford is very old,” said the Duchess. “He is older in many things -than either you or I.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_149" id="page_149">{149}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Ah, Hungerford; what can you expect with that wife?” the Duke said, -with a little shudder; and then he added, with inward alarm but outward -jauntiness (so far as dukes can be jaunty), as if her opinion was an -excellent joke, “By the way, I suppose that she will have something to -say on the subject. She generally has something to say.”</p> - -<p>“Susan does not conceal her opinion that Jane’s chances are all over,” -said the Duchess. “She thinks her <i>passée</i>. She believes, I understand, -that a clergyman—to whom we could give the living of Billings—would be -the likely thing for Jane now.”</p> - -<p>“A clergyman!” said the Duke, with rage and horror. His wife laughed a -little, but there was anger below her laugh. How it was that Susan’s -impertinent speeches always came to the ears of her parents-in-law it -was difficult<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_150" id="page_150">{150}</a></span> to know, but they did so, and they generally had the -effect of warming most wholesomely the Duke’s too noble blood.</p> - -<p>“It is very well known how difficult you are,” said the Duchess. “I -don’t think myself that the clergyman is likely to present himself; but -if Jane had a preference, as I suppose, I should, for my part, be very -unwilling to thwart her.”</p> - -<p>“Jane will have no preference that is not justified by the merit of the -object,” cried Jane’s father. “She is too much my child for that. She -will never permit her mind to stray out of her own rank. Indeed, it is -with difficulty I realise,” he added, with dignity, “the possibility -that she can have conceived what you call a preference at all. To me she -has always been so completely superior, so serene, so<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_151" id="page_151">{151}</a></span>——”</p> - -<p>“But not cold,” the Duchess said.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know what you mean by cold; yes, cold, certainly, in my sense -of the word, as every woman ought to be. I believe that unless I put it -before her—or you as my representative—she is far too pure-minded and -elevated ever to think of marriage at all.”</p> - -<p>“If she were shut up in a tower,” said the Duchess; “but unfortunately -there are so many things in this world to force the idea upon her, and -if you really wish her to marry——”</p> - -<p>“Of course I wish her to marry,” said the Duke, almost angrily; and then -he added, “in her own rank in life.”</p> - -<p>The Duchess asked herself afterwards whether this had been a wise way of -directing her husband’s attention to the subject. She had meant it to be -very wise, but conversation is one of those strange things that will -manage itself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_152" id="page_152">{152}</a></span> However closely we may have laid down the lines of what -we shall say, it is pretty certain to balk us and direct us in other -ways. This had been the case on the present occasion. Instead of -directing the Duke’s mind to the possibility of receiving a suitor who -should be indispensable to Jane’s happiness, though not of her rank, she -had only elicited from him a repetition of his determination that nobody -out of her own rank should marry Lady Jane. She thought with a shiver of -Winton coming down full of hope with the intention of unfolding his -rent-roll, and his statement of the settlements he was able to make, for -the Duke’s satisfaction. The Duke was one of the few men remaining in -the nineteenth century who was invulnerable to money. Susan Hungerford -was enough to give any one a disgust at that manner of filling the -household coffers. Perhaps it would have<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_153" id="page_153">{153}</a></span> been better to say nothing, to -let Winton work upon the Duke by that respectful admiration for his -opinions which he had already shown. She walked back to the castle with -a sense of failure in her mind. For her part, she would not have been at -all disinclined towards a clergyman (had he been <i>nice</i>) who would have -established her child in the beautiful rectory not a quarter of a mile -from the lodge-gates, and kept her constantly, as it were, at home. But -there was no clergyman available, and no question of that. Lady Jane -gave her a half-timid glance when she went into the drawing-room with -the fresh air of the evening about her. She would not inquire whether -there had been any talk of herself between her parents; but she could -not keep that question out of her eyes. All the Duchess’s reply was to -give her a kiss, and ask whether she<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_154" id="page_154">{154}</a></span> had not been out this delicious -evening. “This is better than town,” her Grace said. Was it better than -town? For the first time, with a soft sigh Lady Jane remained silent and -did not echo the sentiment. The country is sweet, and the woods, and -fields, and one’s native air, and the silence of nature—but there are -other things which perhaps even in smoky London, among the bricks and -mortar which his Grace made so little of, were still more sweet. Of all -people in the world, Lady Jane was the last to prefer a ball-room, or -the jaded and heated crowds at the end of the season. But for the first -time in her life she thought of these assemblies with a sigh.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_155" id="page_155">{155}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a><span class="ltspc">CHAPTER</span> VII.<br /><br /> -<small>SUSPENSE.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Winton</span> stayed in London until September, with a certain sense of -satisfaction in this self-martyrdom. It was totally unnecessary and -could advantage nobody—but the thought of going into the country and -pretending to enjoy himself while everything was so doubtful as to his -future prospects, was disagreeable to him. He neglected his friends, he -declined his invitations, he took pleasure in making himself miserable, -and in pouring out his loneliness and wretchedness on sheet after sheet -of note-paper, and addressing the budget to Billings Court;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_156" id="page_156">{156}</a></span> from -whence, very soon indeed after this practice began, the Duchess, -alarmed, sent him an energetic protestation. “Such a hot correspondence -will soon awaken suspicions,” she wrote; “for Jane’s sake I implore you -to be a little more patient.” “Patient! much she knows about it!” Winton -said, when, pouncing upon this letter with the hope of finding, -perhaps—who could tell?—the Duke’s consent in it and final sanction, -he encountered this disappointing check. What could she know about it -indeed, with Jane by her side, and all that she cared for? Perhaps in -other circumstances the young man might have had a glimmering perception -that the Duchess was well acquainted with the exercise of patience, even -though Jane was her daughter; but at present his own affairs entirely -occupied his mind. He spent a good deal of his time in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_157" id="page_157">{157}</a></span> Wardour Street -and other cognate regions, and attended a great many sales, in which -there was some degree of soothing to be obtained; for to “pick up” -something which might hereafter grace her sitting-room, gave a glory to -<i>bric-a-brac</i>, and thus he seemed to be doing something for her, even -when most entirely separated from her. Jane herself wrote to him the -most soothing of letters. “So long as we know each other as we do, and -trust each other, what does a little delay matter?” she said. Poor -Winton cried out, “Much she knows about it!” again, as he kissed yet -almost tore, in loving fury, her tender little epistle. This was very -unreasonable, for of course she knew quite as much about it as he did. -When a pair of lovers are parted, it is not the lady that is supposed to -feel it the least.</p> - -<p>And yet he was more or less justified<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_158" id="page_158">{158}</a></span> in that despairing exclamation, -for Jane’s perfect faith was such as is rarely possible to a man who has -been in the world. He did not feel at all sure that she might not be -capable out of pure sweetness and self-sacrifice—that pernicious -doctrine in which, he said to himself angrily, women are nourished—of -giving him up. Even the Duchess sometimes thought so, deceived by the -serene aspect of her child, who did not pine or sigh, but pursued her -gentle career with a more than ordinary sweetness and pleasure in it. -Lady Jane had the advantage over both these doubting souls. Doubt was -not in her; and she was aware, as they were not, of the persistency of -her own steadfast nature, which, in the absence of all experience to the -contrary, she held to be a universal characteristic. It did not occur to -her as possible that having made up his mind on an important -subject<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_159" id="page_159">{159}</a></span>—far less given his heart, to use the sentimental language -which she blushed yet was pleased in the depths of her seclusion to -employ—any man—or woman either—could be persuaded or forced to change -it. Many things were possible—but not that. She had no excitement on -the subject, because it was outside of all her consciousness, a thing -impossible. Change! give up! The only result of such a suggestion upon -Lady Jane was a faintly humorous and perfectly serene smile. But Winton -had not this admirable serenity. Perhaps he was not himself so -absolutely true as the stainless creature whom he loved. He worked -himself up into little fits of passion sometimes, asking himself how -could he tell what agencies might be brought to bear upon her, what -necessities might be urged upon her? It was very well known that the -Duke was poor; and if it so<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_160" id="page_160">{160}</a></span> happened that in the depths of his -embarrassment somebody stepped forward with one of those fabulous -fortunes which are occasionally to be met with, ready to free the father -at the cost of the daughter, as occurs sometimes even out of novels, -would Jane be able to resist all the inducements that would be brought -to bear upon her? Winton sprang from his feet more than once with a wild -intention of rushing to his lawyers and instructing them to stop his -Grace’s mouth with a bundle of bank-notes, lest he might lend an ear to -that imaginary millionaire. And on coming to his senses, it must be said -that the Duke’s overweening pride, which was working his own harm, was -the point of consolation to which the lover clung, and not any -conviction of the firmness of Lady Jane in such circumstances. It <i>was</i> -a comfort that his Grace was far too haughty in his duke<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_161" id="page_161">{161}</a></span>dom to suffer -the approach of mere millionaires.</p> - -<p>In September, Lady Germaine returning from that six weeks at Homburg -with which it was the fashion in those days for worn-out fine ladies to -recruit themselves after the labours of the season, and pausing in -London two days in a furious <i>accès</i> of shopping before she went to the -country, saw Winton pass the door at which her carriage was standing, -and pounced upon him with all the eagerness of an explorer in a savage -country. “You here!” she said; “for goodness’ sake come and help me with -my shopping. I have not spoken two words together for a week—not even -on the journey! There was nobody: I can’t think where the people have -gone to: one used to be sure of picking up some one on the way, but -there was nobody. Well! and how are<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_162" id="page_162">{162}</a></span> things going?” she added, making a -distinct pause after her first little personal outburst was over.</p> - -<p>“Very badly,” Winton said, with a sigh.</p> - -<p>“Papa will not pay any attention?” said Lady Germaine. “I warned you of -that: don’t say you were taken unawares. I told you he was the most -impracticable of men, and you, in your holy innocence——”</p> - -<p>“Don’t,” said Winton. “I remember all you said; you called me names: you -confessed that you felt guilty——”</p> - -<p>“Be just. I did not say I felt guilty, but only that his Grace would -think me so, which are very different things. And so he will not have -you? poor boy! but I knew that from the beginning. There is one fine -thing in him, that he has no eye to his own advantage. Most people would -think you a very good match for Jane.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_163" id="page_163">{163}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Don’t speak blasphemy,” said Winton. “I agree with the Duke, he is as -right as a man can be. There is nobody good enough for her——”</p> - -<p>“Except——”</p> - -<p>“Except no one that I am acquainted with. I don’t deserve that she -should let me tie her shoes. Oh, don’t suppose I have changed my opinion -about that.”</p> - -<p>“I am glad to find you are in such a proper frame of mind—then there -will be no trouble at all, none of the expedients adopted in such cases? -Poor Lady Jane! but since that is the case, there is nothing more to be -said. And what, may I ask, you good humble-minded young man, are you -doing in town in September? You ought to be shooting somewhere, or -making yourself agreeable.”</p> - -<p>“I am knocking about at all the sales,” said Winton, “trying to pick up -a little<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_164" id="page_164">{164}</a></span> thing here and there for her rooms at Winton. What are the -expedients you were thinking of, dear Lady Germaine? It is always good -to know.”</p> - -<p>Lady Germaine laughed. “Then you have not given in?” she said. “I did -not suppose you were the sort of person to give in. What did he say? was -it final? did he show you to the door? You will think it hard-hearted of -me to laugh, but I should like to have been in hiding somewhere to have -seen his Grace’s face when you ventured to tell him.”</p> - -<p>“He has not received that shock yet,” said Winton, not very well -pleased.</p> - -<p>“He has not——! Do you mean you have never asked the Duke? Are things -just as they were, then, and no advance made?” said Lady Germaine, in a -tone of wonder that was not quite free of contempt.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_165" id="page_165">{165}</a></span></p> - -<p>“They will not let me speak,” said Winton, in a voice from which he -could not keep a certain querulous accent. “It is not my way of managing -affairs; but what can I do? Her mother says——”</p> - -<p>“Then you have got the Duchess on your side?”</p> - -<p>“I suppose so,” said the young man. “I sometimes doubt whether it is for -good or evil. She will not let me speak. She says she will let me know -the right moment. In the meantime life is insupportable, you know. I -shall take my courage <i>à deux mains</i>, and when I go down there——”</p> - -<p>“You are going down there—to Billings?” cried Lady Germaine with a gasp -of astonishment.</p> - -<p>“On the 10th,” said Winton with a sigh, “but whether anything will come -of it or not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_166" id="page_166">{166}</a></span>——”</p> - -<p>“When the Duchess is taking the business into her own hands! Reginald -Winton, I have told you before you were a goose,” said Lady Germaine, -solemnly. “And what is the use of mooning about here and asking me what -are the expedients? Of course she has thought of all the expedients. -Whatever <i>he</i> may be, the Duchess is a woman of sense. Are you -furnishing Winton? Have you all your arrangements made? I should have -everything ready—down to the footstools and door-mats—and servants -engaged, and your carriages seen to. You can’t marry a duke’s daughter -without taking a little trouble about the place you are going to put her -in.”</p> - -<p>“Trouble—there shall be no sparing of trouble!” he cried; but then -shook his head. “We are a long way off that,” he added, in a dolorous -tone.</p> - -<p>“This is the confident lover,” said Lady<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_167" id="page_167">{167}</a></span> Germaine, “who scoffed at -dukes and thought himself good enough for anybody’s daughter. Don’t you -see that if it comes to nothing, something must come of it directly? -Things of this sort can’t hang on—they go quicker than the legitimate -drama. If I were you, I would have the steeds saddled in their stalls, -and the knights in their armour, like Walter Scott, you know.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think so?” said Winton, his eyes lighting up. “If I could -imagine that anything so good as this was on the cards——”</p> - -<p>“On the cards! Oh, the obtuseness of man! Do you think the Duchess will -let herself be beaten? Oh yes, her husband has been too many for her -again and again. I know she has had to give in and let him take his own -way: but now that Jane is concerned, and she has pledged herself to -you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_168" id="page_168">{168}</a></span>——”</p> - -<p>“She has been very kind. I had not the least right to expect such -kindness as she has shown me: but she has given no pledge,” said Winton -with a recurrence of his despondency.</p> - -<p>Lady Germaine, who had stopped herself in the full career of her -shopping to hold this conversation with him in a luxurious corner of the -great shop, where all was still at this dead moment of the year, and -only velvet-footed assistants passed now and then noiselessly—gave him -at this moment a look of disdain, and rose up from her chair. “I did not -think you had been such a noodle,” she said, and, before he could answer -a word, went forward to the nearest counter, where an elegant youth had -been waiting all the time with bales of silks and stuffs half unfolded -for her ladyship’s inspection—and plunged into business. That elegant -youth had not in any way betrayed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_169" id="page_169">{169}</a></span> his weariness. He had stood by his -wares as if it were the most natural thing in the world to wait for half -an hour, so to speak, between the cup and the lip: but he had not been -without his thoughts, and these thoughts were not very favourable to -Lady Germaine. Most likely this was the origin of a paragraph which -crept into one of the Society papers in the deadness of the season and -puzzled all the tantalised circles in country houses, and even -bewildered the clubs. Who could the “Lady G.” be who had awakened the -echoes of the back shop at Allen and Lewisby’s? Here is the advantage of -an immaculate reputation. Neither the clubs nor the country houses ever -associated Lady Germaine with such a possibility; but this, of course -was what that elegant young person did not know.</p> - -<p>“Why am I a noodle?” said Winton, going after her, and too much -absorbed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_170" id="page_170">{170}</a></span> in the subject to think of the attendant at all.</p> - -<p>“If you can think of a stronger word put that instead,” said Lady -Germaine. “I can’t call names here, don’t you see, though I should <i>so</i> -like to. No pledge! Oh, you—— What should you like in that way? -Something on parchment, with seals hanging to it like a Pope’s bull? as -if every word she said and every suggestion she made was not a pledge, -and the strongest of pledges? Go away, and let me choose the children’s -new frocks in peace. It is easier to do that than to make people -understand.”</p> - -<p>But Winton did not go away. He leaned over her chair, making certainty -more certain to the spectator behind the counter. “Look here,” he said; -“do you really mean what you say—that I ought to have everything -ready?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_171" id="page_171">{171}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you think these two shades go nicely together?” said Lady -Germaine, putting the silk and the merino side by side with skilful -hands, and with an air of the profoundest deliberation. “The girls have -not a thing to wear. I should have the steeds in the stables and the -knights in the hall, if I were you, and William of Deloraine ready to -ride by night or by day.”</p> - -<p>Perhaps this advice was not the clearest in the world, but, such as it -was, it was all the lady would give; and it sent Winton along the -half-lighted half-empty streets, in the twilight of the soft September -evening, with an alert pace and a heart beating as it had not beat since -London had suddenly become empty to him by the departure of one family -from it. He went over every room of his house that evening, calculating -and considering. It was a charming house, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_172" id="page_172">{172}</a></span> he had regarded it with -no small satisfaction when, only a year or two before, its decorations -had been completed. But now, with the idea in his mind that at any -moment (was not that what she said?) he might have to be ready for the -princess, the wife—that his happiness might come upon him suddenly, and -his life be transformed, and his house turned into <i>her</i> house—in this -view it was astonishing how many things he found that were incomplete. -Nay, everything was incomplete. It was dingy—it was small; it was -commonplace. The drawing-rooms had become old-fashioned, though -yesterday he had been under the impression that there was an antique -grace about them—a flavour of the old world which gave them character. -The dining-room was heavy and elaborate; the library too dark; the -morning-room—good heavens! there was no morning-room in which a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_173" id="page_173">{173}</a></span> lady -could establish herself, but only a half-furnished place uninhabited, -cold, with no character at all. It brought a cold dew all over him when -he opened the door of that empty chamber. He could scarcely sleep for -thinking of it. What if she might be ready before her house was! The -idea was intolerable: and everything was petty, mean, without beauty, -unworthy of her. He had not thought so when he walked through those -over-gilded drawing-rooms in Grosvenor Square, and said to himself that -not amid such tawdry fineries as these should his wife be housed. -Everything had changed since that brief moment of confidence. He was -dissatisfied with everything. Next morning he had no sooner awoke from a -sleep troubled by dreams of chaotic upholstery, than he went to work. -Perhaps, after all, things were not so bad. With the aid of a few<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_174" id="page_174">{174}</a></span> -experts, and a great deal of money, much, if not everything, can be done -in a very short space of time. He ran down into the country as soon as -he had set things going in Kensington, and arrived at his old -manor-house without warning, to the great consternation of the -housekeeper. Winton had still more need of the experts and the -<i>bric-a-brac</i>. It wanted many things besides, which were not to be had -in a moment, and his life for the next week was as laborious as that of -the busiest workman. The excitement among the servants and hangers-on at -both places was indescribable. He said nothing of his approaching -marriage, and yet nothing but an approaching marriage could account for -it; or else that he was going clean out of his senses, which was another -hypothesis produced.</p> - -<p>This fit of active and hopeful exertion got over these remaining days -with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_175" id="page_175">{175}</a></span> speed of a dream. The hours galloped along with him as lightly -at least, if not as merrily, as though they were indeed carrying him to -his wedding-day. But when all was done that he could do, and the moment -approached for his visit to Billings, a cold shade fell over him. Lady -Germaine’s clever little speeches began to look like nonsense as he -thought them over; “quicker than the legitimate drama;” what did she -mean by that? Could he imagine for a moment to himself that Jane, the -princess of her own race as well as of his affections, the serene and -perfect lady of his thoughts, would be the heroine of any vulgar -romance? That he could have entertained such a thought for a moment -horrified him when he paused in his feverish exertion and began to think -what it all meant. But this was only on the way to Billings, when every -pulse in his body began to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_176" id="page_176">{176}</a></span> throb high with the thought of being once -more in her presence, under the same roof with her, and about to put his -fortune to the test to gain everything or—no, not to lose her. He said -to himself with a sudden passion that he would not lose Jane. Such a -calamity was not possible. Father and mother and all the powers might do -what they would or could, but she was his, and give her up he would not. -Thus the anxious lover went round the compass and came back to the point -from which he started. He found Lady Germaine as wise and clever as he -had always thought her, when he came thus far. There were -expedients—and the Duchess was pledged to the employment of them as -certainly as if he had her word for it engrossed on parchments sealed -and signed and delivered. One way or another, his visit to Billings -would be decisive. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_177" id="page_177">{177}</a></span> went like a soldier to the field of battle, with -a thrill of excitement over him, as well as with all the softening -enthusiasm of a lover. Happen how it might, he could not leave that -unknown fortress, that Castle Dangerous, as he came.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_178" id="page_178">{178}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a><span class="ltspc">CHAPTER</span> VIII.<br /><br /> -<small>THE DECISIVE MOMENT.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">It</span> was not, however, at all like a conquering hero that Winton made his -appearance at Billings. A number of other people arrived by the same -train, and were conveyed in various carriages both before and after him -to the great house. It was a long drive, and he had time to think about -it and to go over the approaching meeting, rehearsing it again and -again. Winton knew as well as any one what it is to arrive at a country -house,—the confusion of the arrival, the little pause when no one knows -what to do, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_179" id="page_179">{179}</a></span> hesitation of the people who have never been there -before, the well-bred attempts of the people who have, not to seem too -much at home, the anxiety of the hosts to distribute their attentions -equally and leave no one out—were all familiar to him. But somehow his -special position now gave him much of the feeling of surprise and -disappointment and involuntary half-offence which a new-comer, unused to -society, and expecting perhaps to be received with all the warm -individual welcome of more intimate hospitality, feels when he finds -himself only one of the least considerable of a large party. All the -other members of the group were of greater consequence than Winton, and -almost all were <i>habitués</i> of the place, accustomed to come year after -year—persons whom the Duke could receive as sufficiently near his own -level to be worthy the honour of his friendship.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_180" id="page_180">{180}</a></span> Such a party is always -diversified by some one or two people who are altogether nobodies, and -afford either a sort of background like supernumeraries in a play, or -are elevated to the most important position by dint of dexterity and -adulation. Winton felt himself to belong to the background as he stood -about in the hall when all the greetings were going on, waiting for his. -It had been like a sudden downfall from heaven to earth to perceive, as -he cast his first rapid glance round on entering, that Jane was not -there. Afterwards he said to himself that he could not have endured her -to be there, but for the moment her absence struck him like a blow. And -what could the Duchess do more than shake hands with him as she did with -all her other guests? He thought she gave him a glance of warning, a -little smile—but no doubt every man there supposed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_181" id="page_181">{181}</a></span> that for himself -individually her Grace had a kind regard. He stood talking for a short -time after the ladies had been swept away to their rooms. He knew -several of the more important of the guests, and he knew one of the -nobodies who was a very prominent figure. But it was with an indignant -sense that his reception ought to have been a very different one that he -found himself following a servant up the grand staircase into those -distant regions allotted to bachelors, where his non-importance was to -be still more forcibly brought home to him. He who ought to have been -received as the son of the house—he to whom its brightest member had -linked her fate—that he should come in on the same footing as Mr -Rosencrantz the German librarian, or that stale hanger-on of the clubs -who made a sort of trade of country houses, was very<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_182" id="page_182">{182}</a></span> bitter to Winton. -He was not accustomed to be a <i>super</i>, and he did not like the post. To -tell the truth, in the first half-hour in Billings Castle Winton felt -his own hopes and dreams come back upon him with a bitterness and sense -of ridicule which drove him almost out of himself. Had he not been a -fool to entertain any hopes at all? Was not Lady Germaine ludicrously -mistaken when she talked of the Duchess’s pledge? The Duchess, was she -not far too great a lady to care what happened to a simple gentleman? He -began to think he had been a fool to come, a fool ever to permit himself -to shipwreck his heart and life in this way, and doubly a fool, a -ridiculous idiot, to go drivelling into decorations and pieces of -furniture, as if his little manor-house could ever vie with—All these -thoughts were put to flight in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_183" id="page_183">{183}</a></span> a moment by the sudden opening of a -closed door which flooded a dark passage to his right with the glory of -the sunset sweeping through it. Some one came out and stood for a moment -in the midst of that glory: then Winton heard himself called. The -servant disappeared by magic, and he suddenly found himself in a small -sitting-room with a broad window flooded by the evening light. The -Duchess held out both her hands to him, but he scarcely saw them, for -behind her, coming in through another door, a little flush upon her soft -cheeks, and that liquid golden illumination in her eyes—— it was as if -some one had said to him out of the glowing west, “O thou of little -faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?”</p> - -<p>This meeting, however, was of the briefest—for the house was very full -and the dinner-hour approaching. “You<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_184" id="page_184">{184}</a></span> must go away directly,” the -Duchess said; “but I could not trust you to meet for the first time -down-stairs before so many eyes.”</p> - -<p>“So it was policy?” Winton cried.</p> - -<p>“Entirely policy—is not every step I take more or less of that -description?—but Jane could not have borne it,” she said, “and neither -could you, I think. I did not bring you here to ruin you. We must all be -on our p’s and q’s.”</p> - -<p>“P’s and q’s!” cried Winton, “become insupportable. Dear Duchess, you -will not be too hard upon me. Now at least I must have it out, and know -my fate. How can I bear to hang on—to have everything pushed off in -indefinite space?”</p> - -<p>Lady Jane touched his arm lightly with her hand, stroking it, with a -pretty movement of mingled soothing and sympathy. “<i>Pazienza!</i>” she said -softly; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_185" id="page_185">{185}</a></span> she liked the impatience. It pleased her delicate sense of -what was best.</p> - -<p>“Would you prefer, Mr Winton, to know the worst?—would you rather have -a definite No than an indefinite suspense?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t call him Mr Winton,” said Lady Jane in her under tone.</p> - -<p>Winton looked from one lady to another keenly, with an inquiry which the -Duchess met without flinching, and Lady Jane without being at all aware -what it meant. Her Grace gave him an almost imperceptible nod, always -looking him full in the face. Her eyes seemed to promise everything. “In -that case,” he said—“in that case—better the refusal: then we shall -see what there remains to do.”</p> - -<p>The Duchess sighed. “I believe it is the wisest way,” she said, “after -all: but you cannot suppose it is very pleasant<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_186" id="page_186">{186}</a></span> to me. Now, go; you -must go, and leave us to dress. You may come here to-morrow after -breakfast, or when we come in, in the afternoon—but you must not be -always coming. And in the meantime prudence, prudence! you cannot be too -prudent. If you betray yourself I cannot answer for the consequences. -You must remember that for Jane’s sake.”</p> - -<p>Then they put him out of the room, out of the shining of the sunset in -which he thought she stood transfigured, the soft glory caressing her, -the level golden radiance getting into her eyes and flooding them—and -closed the door upon him, leaving him in the darkness of the passage, -which looked all black to his dazzled eyes. Fortunately his guide -appeared a moment afterwards and he was led up to his chamber, in the -wilds so to speak of the great house, where he came back to himself as -well<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_187" id="page_187">{187}</a></span> as he could. Winton was only a man like the rest of his kind. He -wondered if the women enjoyed, with a native feminine malice such as -everybody has commented upon from the beginning of time, the position in -which they had placed him. Ah, not <i>they</i>; not Jane, who was a world -above all jesting—but perhaps the Duchess, who, he could imagine, did -not mind making him pay a little in his dignity, in his self-regard, for -the promotion he had got through her daughter’s love. She would do -anything for him because Jane loved him, but perhaps she had a -mischievous satisfaction in the little drama which she was arranging -round him—the external slights, the sudden bliss, the dismissal back -again to humility and the second floor. Was this so? He concluded it -was, with a half-amused irritation, a sense of being played with.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_188" id="page_188">{188}</a></span> She -was kind: but was it in mortal to suffer without a pang, without an -attempt at reprisals, the loss of Jane? And then, perhaps the Duchess -too had a little feeling that he was not one of her own caste, her -daughter’s equal—not enough to make her resist that daughter’s choice, -but yet enough to prompt in passing a little prick as with a needle at -the too fortunate. As a matter of fact, had Winton been cool enough to -notice it, the Duchess had meant him no prick at all. He had been -received in the usual way, lodged according to the general rule. She had -thought it wisest not to do anything to distinguish him beyond his -neighbours, but that was all.</p> - -<p>The evening was full of tantalised and suppressed expectation, yet of a -moment’s pleasure now and then. Except the German librarian and the man -from the clubs, and a young author who had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_189" id="page_189">{189}</a></span> the fashion and was the -<i>protégé</i> of one of the great families visiting at Billings, the company -was all much more splendid than Winton. Names that were known to history -buzzed about him as he sat down to dinner, with Lady Adela Grandmaison -beside him, who was exceedingly relieved to fall to his lot and not to -one of the elderly noblemen who illustrated the table. Lady Adela wore a -<i>sacque</i> like a dainty lady of the eighteenth century, but was apt to -throw herself into attitudes which were suggestive of the fourteenth. -She did not feel at all disposed to be disdainful of Winton. Instead of -this she took him into her confidence. “Did you ever see such a party of -swells?” she said, notwithstanding her medieval attitudes. “Don’t they -frighten you to death, Mr Winton? I am so glad to have somebody I dare -talk to. The Duke is too<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_190" id="page_190">{190}</a></span> funny for anything, don’t you think so? like -an old monarch in the pantomime. It is all exactly like the theatre. He -says ‘My lord’—listen! exactly as they do on the stage.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose they did that sort of thing when his Grace was young,” said -Winton, looking up the great table to where that majestic presence -showed beyond the ranks of his guests. A little tremor ran over him when -he realised the splendour of the personage to whom he was going so soon -to carry his suit. “Perhaps we are a little too free-and-easy nowadays,” -he said.</p> - -<p>“Don’t desert your generation,” cried Lady Adela; and then she added -significantly, “there is Jane looking our way. Jane is so sweet—don’t -you think so, Mr Winton?”</p> - -<p>Winton met the soft eyes of his love and the keen ones of this young -observer<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_191" id="page_191">{191}</a></span> at the same moment; and this, though he was a man of the -world, brought a sudden flush to his face. All the fine company, and the -gorgeous table, heavy with plate and brilliant with flowers, grew like a -mist to him, and nothing seemed real except that softly tinted, -tender-shining countenance, turning upon him the light of her eyes. They -were so placed that though they never spoke they could see each other -across the table, through a little thicket of feathery ferns and -flowers. Lady Jane was too courteous, too self-forgetting to neglect her -special companion or to abandon the duty of entertaining her parent’s -guests. But now and then she would lift her eyes and empty out her heart -in one look across the table through that flowery veil. He was not -nearly so entertaining in consequence as Lady Adela had hoped.</p> - -<p>Next morning there were some moments<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_192" id="page_192">{192}</a></span> that were full of excitement and -happiness in the midst of a day which was just like other days. Lady -Jane agreed fully with Winton, that to be there under her father’s roof -without informing him of the object of his visit was a thing unworthy of -her lover; and she was, like him, entirely convinced that, whatever -might come of it, the explanation must be made. The Duchess did not -contest this high decision of principle—but she shook her head. “I have -nothing to say against you. I suppose you are right. It must be done -sooner or later,” she said. “There is only one thing—put it off till -the last day of your visit; for this I am sure of, that you will not be -able to spend another night at Billings.”</p> - -<p>“Mamma!” Lady Jane cried, with a fervour which brought the tears to her -eyes, “my father will say nothing that one gentleman may not say to -another.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_193" id="page_193">{193}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>The Duchess once more shook her head. “When one gentleman asks another -for his daughter and is refused—though the one should be the most -courteous in the world, and the other the most patient, yet it is -generally considered most convenient that they should not continue in -the same house.”</p> - -<p>“I will take your mother’s advice, my dearest,” said Winton; but it was -hardly possible for mortal man to have it put before him so plainly -without a little feeling of offence. It had been settled that he was to -stay a week, and notwithstanding the happiness which the Duchess had -secured to him by giving him the entry to this sacred little -sitting-room into which no stranger ever intruded, and by affording him -as many opportunities as were possible of seeing Lady Jane, he spent the -rest of the time with a certain feeling of hostility in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_194" id="page_194">{194}</a></span> his mind -towards her, which was thoroughly unreasonable. He began to doubt -whether she wished him to succeed, whether she was indeed so truly his -friend as she represented herself to be. A man must be magnanimous -indeed who can entirely free his mind from the prevalent notions about -the love of women for “managing,” and their inclination towards intrigue -and mystery. A conviction that his own manly statement of his case would -tell more effectually with the Duke, who was a gentleman though he might -be pompous and haughty, than any semi-deceitful feminine process, began -to grow in his mind. And this conviction, in which there was a partially -indignant revulsion of feeling—rank ingratitude and unkindness, but of -that he was not conscious—from his allegiance to the Duchess, gave him -a natural inclination to propitiate the head of the house and see him in -his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_195" id="page_195">{195}</a></span> best light, which was not without a certain influence even on the -Duke himself, who more and more felt this modest young commoner, though -he was nobody in particular, to be a person of discrimination, and one -who was capable of appreciating himself and understanding his views.</p> - -<p>Thus with new hopefulness on one side, and mistrust on the other, Winton -counted the days as they went by towards the moment which was to decide -his fate. He impressed his own hopefulness upon Lady Jane, who was -indeed very willing to believe that nothing but what was noble and -honourable could come from her father. They discussed the subject -anxiously, yet with less and less alarm. To her it seemed, as she heard -all the wise and modest speeches her lover intended to make as to his -own lesser importance, but great love—it seemed to her that no heart -could hold out against<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_196" id="page_196">{196}</a></span> him. That tenderest humility, which was the -natural characteristic of her mind underneath the instincts of rank -which were so strong in her, and the sense of lofty position which was -part of her religion—was touched with the most exquisite wonder and -happiness at the thought that all this noble and pure passion was hers, -and hers only. “It is impossible,” she said, “if you speak to him as you -do to me, Reginald—oh, it is impossible that he can resist.” “It is -impossible, my darling,” said the young man, “when he hears that you -love me.” Thus they encouraged each other, and on the eve of the great -day wrought themselves to an enthusiasm of faith and certainty. The -Duchess’s limitation of his visits had of course come to very little -purpose, and every moment that Winton could manage to escape from the -bonds of society below stairs he spent with Lady<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_197" id="page_197">{197}</a></span> Jane above, -discoursing upon their hopes, and the manner in which best to get them -wrought into fulfilment. They talked of everything, in those stolen -hours of sweetness: of what was to happen in the future, of all they -were to be to each other, coming back again and again to the moment -which was to decide all, always with a stronger and stronger sense that -the Duke’s consent must come, and that to be balked by this initial -difficulty was impossible. But it cannot be denied that Winton had -certain difficulties even about that future in his communings with his -bride. He could not get her to understand that very little -self-sacrifice would be necessary on her part, and that the house to -which he proposed to transplant her was little less luxurious than her -own. Lady Jane smiled upon him when he said this with one of those -little heavenly stupidities which belong to such<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_198" id="page_198">{198}</a></span> women. She did not -wish it be so, and so far as this went put no faith in him. It was a -settled question in her own mind. Arabella’s famous elucidation had -fortified her on that point beyond all assault. It pleased her to look -forward to the little manor-house, and the changed world which would -surround the Squire’s wife. If he had carried her direct to a palace -more splendid than Billings, she would have felt a visionary but active -disappointment. She drew him gently to other subjects when he entered -upon this, especially to the one unfailing subject, the Duke, and what -he might say. They both grew very confident as they talked it over: and -yet when Winton came to tell her, on the evening preceding that -momentous day, that he had asked for an interview and it had been -granted to him, Lady Jane lost her pretty colour, which was always so -evanescent, and her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_199" id="page_199">{199}</a></span> breath, and almost her self-possession. “No,” she -said, “oh, not afraid! if you say <i>that</i> to him, Reginald, he cannot -resist—but only a little nervous; one is always nervous when there is -any doubt. And then to think that this is the last evening!”</p> - -<p>“If things go right it will not be the last evening,” he cried. “The -Duchess said a man could not stay who had been refused; but even she -would allow that a man who has <i>not</i> been refused may remain and be -happy. Ah, Jane! imagine the happiness of being allowed to belong to -each other! no more secret meetings, no further alarms or discovery.”</p> - -<p>She gave a sigh of happiness and relief, yet blushed almost painfully. -The idea of doing anything which she did not wish to be found out hurt -her still, notwithstanding that in the stress of the crisis she had -yielded to do it. Winton’s con<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_200" id="page_200">{200}</a></span>science was not so delicate, and his -excitement made him wildly confident. It is a woman’s part to fear in -such a case as it is her part to encourage in the midst of doubt. -“Provided,” she said, with a little sigh of suspense, “provided it all -goes as we wish.”</p> - -<p>He took her hands in his and held them fast and stood bending over her -looking into her eyes. “Supposing,” he said slowly, “supposing,”—he was -so excited and sure of what was going to happen that he could afford to -be theatrical,—“supposing all should not go as we wish, Jane—what -then?”</p> - -<p>Lady Jane did not make any reply. She returned his look, with her hands -clasping his, standing steadfast without a shadow of wavering. She felt -as she had done in her youth when she had imagined herself facing the -guillotine. She was ready to suffer whatever might<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_201" id="page_201">{201}</a></span> be inflicted upon -her, but to yield, she would not. It would have been easier by far to -die.</p> - -<p>All this time the Duchess let them have their way. They were ungrateful, -they were even unkind, but she endured it with a patience and toleration -to which long experience had trained her. If it was with a little pang -that she kissed her daughter, wondering at that universal law which -makes a woman, still more than a man, forsake father and mother, and -cleave to her husband, she said nothing about it: she left them to -themselves and their hopes. She said to herself that they would find out -too soon what a broken reed they were trusting to, and her heart ached -for the failure of those anticipations which gave Lady Jane so beautiful -a colour, and an air of such serene happiness. Better that she should -have a happy evening, that she<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_202" id="page_202">{202}</a></span> should sleep softly and wake hopefully -once more.</p> - -<p>The morning of the great day dawned in a weeping mist, the heavens -leaden, the earth sodden, and streams of blinding rain falling by -intervals. Lady Jane, as she opened her eyes upon the misty daylight, -and thought, as soon as her faculties were awake, of what was going to -be done, clasped her soft hands, and said a prayer for <i>him</i>, and for -herself, and still more warmly for her father, who was, so to speak, on -his trial. He had never been less than a noble father in Lady Jane’s -eyes. She had not found him out, being scarcely of her generation in -this respect, and accepting unaffectedly what was presented to her as -the real state of things; but she could not help feeling that the Duke -was on his trial. He might deny her lover’s suit and break her own -heart, and yet keep his child’s respect.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_203" id="page_203">{203}</a></span> But a vague fear lest he -should not do this had got into her soul she did not know how. She -waited with a tremor which she could not subdue for the moment. How -fortunate it was that it rained, and that it was impossible to go out! -For once in her life Lady Jane failed in her duty. She escaped from -little Lady Adela, who was so anxious to be taken into her confidence, -and from the other guests, who, seeing the hopelessness of the weather, -were yawning together in the great bow-window of the morning-room, -gazing out upon the sodden grass and dreary avenue, dripping from every -tree, and wondering how they were to kill the time till luncheon. Lady -Jane, instead of helping to solve that problem, as she ought to have -done, fled from them and escaped to the seclusion of her mother’s -drawing-room, where she sat with the door ajar, listening for every -footstep. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_204" id="page_204">{204}</a></span> Duchess, though she had felt her desertion, and knew that -the foolish pair of lovers were in a sort of secession from her, -following their own way, yet was very magnanimous to their -wrong-headedness. She said no word and looked no look of reproach, but -gave up her writing and her business, and went down herself among the -unoccupied ladies, and did her best to amuse them. This was perhaps of -all the sacrifices she made for them the one that cost her most.</p> - -<p>It was about eleven o’clock when Winton presented himself at the door of -the Duke’s room; which was a handsome room, full of books, with a large -window looking out upon the park, and some of the finest of the family -pictures upon the walls. Over the mantelpiece hung a full-length -portrait, looking gigantic, of the Duchess, with Lady Jane, a little -girl of eight or nine, holding her hand. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_205" id="page_205">{205}</a></span> seemed to Winton, as his -eye caught this on entering, that there was a reproachful look in the -eyes, and that Jane’s little face, serene and sweet as it had always -been, had a startled air of curiosity, and watched him from behind her -mother. The large window was full of blank and colourless daylight, and -an atmosphere of damp and rain. The Duke rose as he came in with much -graciousness, and pointed to a chair. He came from his writing-table, -which was at some distance, and placed himself in front of the -fireplace, as an Englishman loves to do, even when there is no fire. “I -hope,” the Duke said, “that you are going to tell me of something in -which I can serve you, Mr Winton.” There arose in Winton’s mind a -momentary thrill of indignation and derision. Serve him! as if he were -not better off and more fit to serve himself than half-a-dozen bankrupt -dukes! But<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_206" id="page_206">{206}</a></span> Winton remembered that this was Jane’s father, and -restrained himself: and indeed the excitement and suspense in his breast -left him at no leisure for more than a momentary rebellion. He -replied—“It is true, I do appear before your Grace as a suitor——” but -here his voice failed him and his courage.</p> - -<p>“You must not hesitate to speak plainly,” said the Duke, always more and -more graciously. “Alas! I am in opposition, and my influence does not -tell for much. Still, if there is any way in which I can be of use to -you—there is no one for whom I should more willingly stretch a point.”</p> - -<p>“You are very kind,” said Winton. “It is not in that way that I should -trouble you. I am not in want of patronage—in that way. I may say that -I am rich—not,” he hastened to add, “as you are, but, for my position -in life, very well off—almost more than well off.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_207" id="page_207">{207}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“I am delighted to hear it, Mr Winton; but that is all the more reason -why you should serve your country. We want men who are indifferent to -pecuniary advantage. I shall be most happy to mention your name to Lord -Coningsby or to——”</p> - -<p>“If you will permit me,” said Winton, “it is your Grace only whose -favour I desire to gain.”</p> - -<p>Here the Duke began to laugh in a somewhat imbecile way, shaking his -head with an air of complacency which would have been too ludicrous for -mortal powers of gravity, had not Winton’s mind been so much otherwise -occupied. “Ah,” he said, “I see! you are thinking of that old story -about the Foreign Office. You must know that was mere talk. I do not -expect that anything could come of it. But if,” his Grace added with -another little run of laughter, “when we return to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_208" id="page_208">{208}</a></span> power—be assured, -Mr Winton, that nothing could give me greater pleasure——”</p> - -<p>What was he to say? Winton knew very well that he himself was as likely, -if not more so—for he was a young man, with the world before him—to be -Foreign Minister than the Duke: and what with the confusion of the -mistake and the ludicrous character of the patronage offered, he was -more embarrassed than tongue could tell. “You are very kind,” he -faltered, scarcely knowing what he said; then, taking his courage with -both hands, “Duke,” he said, boldly, “it was on a much more presumptuous -errand I ventured to intrude upon you. What you will say to me I dare -not venture to think. I come not to ask for patronage or place, but for -something a great deal more precious. I come——” Here he paused, so -bewildered by the dignified unconsciousness and serene superiority of -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_209" id="page_209">{209}</a></span> potentate in whose presence he stood that words failed him, and he -stood and gazed at that immovable countenance with a sort of appalled -wonder to think that anything should be so great yet so small, so -capable of making himself ridiculous, and yet with power to spoil two -lives at his pleasure. The Duke shifted his position a little, put his -right hand within his waistcoat in an attitude in which he had once -stood for his portrait, and regarded his suppliant with benignity. “Go -on,” he said, waving his other hand, “go on.”</p> - -<p>Ah, how right the Duchess was! Oh, what a miserable mistake the lover -had made! But there was no drawing back now. “I am not worthy, no one is -worthy of her,” he said with agitation. “I am only a commoner, which I -know is a disadvantage in your eyes. The only thing, and that is -nothing, is, that at least I could make ample provi<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_210" id="page_210">{210}</a></span>sion and secure -every comfort for my wife.”</p> - -<p>“Your wife!” said the Duke, with a surprise which was ineffable. If any -gleam of suspicion came over him he quenched it in the sublime patronage -of a superior. “This is very interesting,” he said, “and shows a great -faith in my friendship to take me into your confidence on such a -delicate subject. I am happy to hear you are in such favourable -circumstances; but really,” he added with a laugh, “when you think how -very unlikely it is that I can have any knowledge of the future Mrs -Winton——”</p> - -<p>The young man grew red and hot with a mixture of embarrassment and -resentful excitement, stung by the look and the tone. “It is your -daughter,” he said, “who has given me permission to come to you. It is -of Lady Jane I want to speak. You cannot think me<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_211" id="page_211">{211}</a></span> less worthy of her -than I think myself.”</p> - -<p>“Lady Jane!” The Duke grew pale; he took his hand out of his waistcoat, -and stared at the audacious suitor with dismay. Then he recovered -himself with an effort, and snatched at a smile as if it had been -something that hung on the wall, and put it on tremulously. “Ah! ah! I -see,” he added. “You think she might render you assistance. Speak a good -word for you?—eh?” The attempt to be jocular, which was entirely out of -his habits, convulsed his countenance. “Yes, yes, I see! that is what -you mean,” he said.</p> - -<p>There was a pause, and the two men looked each other in the face. A -monarch confronted by the whole embodied force of revolution—scorning -it, hating it—yet with an insidious suggestion of alarm underneath -all—on one hand; and on<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_212" id="page_212">{212}</a></span> the other the revolution embodied—pale with -lofty anger and a sense of its own rights, yet not without a regret, a -sympathetic pang for the old king about to be discrowned. The mutual -contemplation lasted not more than a few moments, though it seemed so -long. Then the Duke turned on his heel with a grimace which in his -agitation he intended for a laugh. “I prefer,” he said, “on the whole, -that Lady Jane should not be appealed to. My disposition to serve you -was personal. The ladies of my family are not less amicably inclined, I -am sure; but I do not wish them to be mixed up—in short you will -understand that, wishing you well in every way, I must advise you to -trust to your own attractions in a matrimonial point of view. I cannot -permit my daughter to interfere.”</p> - -<p>He had moved about while he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_213" id="page_213">{213}</a></span> speaking, but at the end returned to -his place and fixed Winton with the commanding look, straight in the -eyes, of a man determined to intimidate an applicant. It was the least -successful way in which he could have attempted to influence the present -suitor. Winton’s excitement rose to such a pitch that he recovered his -calm and self-possession as if by magic.</p> - -<p>“I feel that I have explained myself badly,” he said, “and this is not a -matter on which there can be any misunderstanding between us. I must ask -you to listen to me calmly for a moment.”</p> - -<p>“Calmly, my good sir! your matrimonial affairs, however important to -you, can scarcely be expected to excite me,” cried his Grace sharply, -with irritation in every tone.</p> - -<p>“There can be nothing in the world so exciting—to both of us,” said -Winton.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_214" id="page_214">{214}</a></span> “My Lord Duke, I come from your daughter, from Jane.”</p> - -<p>“Sir!” cried the Duke. But no capitals are capable of expressing the -force, the fury, of this outburst, which struck Winton like a -projectile, full in the face so to speak. He made a step backward in -momentary dismay.</p> - -<p>“I must finish,” he said, somewhat wildly. “Jane sends me to your Grace. -I love her and she me. She has promised to be my wife. It is no -intercession, it is herself I ask. Jane—Duke! on her account I have a -right to be heard—a right—to have an answer at least.”</p> - -<p>The Duke was beyond the power of speech. He was purple with rage and -astonishment, and at the same time moved by a kind of furious panic. He -caught at his shirt-collar like a man stifled. He had no voice to reply, -but waved his hand imperiously towards the door. And<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_215" id="page_215">{215}</a></span> Winton, too, was -in a degree panic-struck. He had never seen such a blind and helpless -fit of passion before. Such things had been heard of as that a man -should die of rage. That indeed would be a separation from Jane beyond -any power to amend. He drew back a little with an anxiety he could not -conceal.</p> - -<p>“I have taken you by surprise,” he said. “I ask your pardon. Whatever I -can do to soften the shock—to meet your wishes—I will do.”</p> - -<p>“Go, sir!—go, sir!” the Duke stormed in his fury. “That is all you can -do—go! there is the door.” He waved his hand towards it with a -threatening gesture. He was transported out of himself. He followed -Winton step by step with a sort of moral compulsion, forcing him to -retire. The young man’s blood, it is needless to say, was in an uproar; -his heart thumping against his breast, every<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_216" id="page_216">{216}</a></span> pulse going like a hammer. -But he made a stand again midway to that door which seemed the only -reply he was to have. “You will remember,” he said, “that I have no -answer—you give me no answer; I will leave the room and the house as -your Grace bids, but that is not a reply——”</p> - -<p>“Go, sir!” the Duke cried. He stamped his foot like an enraged fishwife. -He had the sense to hold himself in, not to allow the torrent of abuse -which was on his lips to pour forth; but how long he would have been -able to endure, to keep in this vigorous and fiery tide, could not have -been predicted. He flung open the door with a force which made the walls -quiver, and the action seemed more or less to bring him to himself. He -recovered his voice at last. “I ought,” he panted, with a snarl, “to -thank you for the honour you have done my poor house;” and thus with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_217" id="page_217">{217}</a></span> an -explosion of labouring breath drove the astonished suitor out, as if by -a blast of wind. Winton found himself in the corridor, while the crash -of the great door swung behind him echoed through the house, with an -amazement which words cannot describe. It had all passed like a scene in -a dream. He paused a moment to recover himself. He, too, was breathless, -his whole physical being agitated, his head hot and throbbing, his heart -choking him. He could not speak to the Duchess, whom he met a moment -after coming along the corridor with a packet of papers in her hand. “It -is all over,” he said incoherently, waving his hand as he passed her. -The only idea in his mind for the moment was of indignity and wrong.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_218" id="page_218">{218}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a><span class="ltspc">CHAPTER</span> IX.<br /><br /> -<small>ACTING FOR HERSELF.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">The</span> Duchess’s little sitting-room had not for years enclosed so -melancholy a group. She herself, in old days when she first began to -realise all the circumstances of the life which she had come into, had -wept many an unnoticed tear in it; but in after-years she had acquired -the philosophy of maturity, and had too much to do holding her own amid -all the adverse circumstances about her, to be able to indulge in -personal lamentations. But Lady Jane had never known any of those -burdens which had made<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_219" id="page_219">{219}</a></span> her mother’s career so full of care. When Winton -rushed in, in all the excitement of the scene which he had just gone -through in the Duke’s library, too much disturbed even to tell her what -had passed, it was almost her first experience of the darker side of -existence. For the first moment he had not been able to keep some -resentment and sense of the indignity to which he had been exposed from -getting to light. He told her with a pale smile and fiery eyes that he -had scarcely time to speak to her, that he must go instantly, that her -father had turned him out. But as Winton came to himself, and began to -perceive the pain which he was inflicting upon her, he did his best to -smooth away the first unguarded outburst. Lady Jane’s pallor, the tears -which she could not restrain, the serenity of her countenance turned -into anguish, all made apparent<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_220" id="page_220">{220}</a></span> to him the fact which he had forgotten, -that there were to her two sides to the question. He tried to draw in -his words, to smooth away what he had said in the first outburst of his -resentment. “After all, we must remember it was a great shock to him. I -am nobody, only a simple gentleman, not fit to place myself on a level -with the Duke’s daughter,” he said, though still with that smile of -wounded pride and bitterness about his lips. Lady Jane was too -heart-broken to say much; she listened like a martyr at the stake, -standing silent while spears and arrows were thrust into her. Her -father! he had been tried and he had not borne the trial. What she -understood by rank was the highest courtesy, the noblest humbleness. A -man who would turn another to the door, who would suffer his guest to -perceive, under any circumstances, that he was not as a prince<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_221" id="page_221">{221}</a></span> in his -host’s eyes—Lady Jane did not understand such a being. It hurt her so -deeply that she did not even at first realise the fact that it was her -lover who was turned away. She tried to ask a few faltering questions, -to make out the circumstances to be less terrible; but failing in this, -fell into silence, into such shame and consternation and deep humiliated -pain as even Winton scarcely comprehended. No other hand, no other -proceeding could have struck such a blow at all the traditions of her -life. She sat with her hand indeed in her lover’s, but in a kind of -miserable separation even from him, feeling her life fall away from her, -unable to think or realise what was to happen now; until Winton, -recovering from his excitement only to fall into a deeper panic, took -renewed fright from her silence. “Jane,” he said, “Jane! you don’t mean -to give me up because your<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_222" id="page_222">{222}</a></span> father has turned me away?” Lady Jane turned -her head towards him, gave him a miserable smile, and pressed his hand -faintly, then fell, as perhaps had never happened in her life before, -into a passion of tears. He drew her into his arms, as was natural, and -she wept on his shoulder, as one refusing to be comforted. It was but -vaguely that Winton could even guess the entire upheaval of all her -foundations, the ruin into which her earth had fallen. He thought it was -the tragedy of his own love that was the cause, and that with this -heart-breaking convulsion she was making up her mind to see it come to -an end.</p> - -<p>This was the attitude in which the Duchess found them. She, too, was -pale, her eyes bright, her nostrils dilated, as if she had been in the -wars. She found her daughter in this speechless passion of weeping, with -Winton’s pale coun<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_223" id="page_223">{223}</a></span>tenance very despairing and tragical, yet touched -with a livelier alarm, a frightened incomprehension, bending over her. -He gave her a look of appeal as she came in; was it true that all was -over, as he had said? The Duchess went to her child’s side and took the -hand that lay on her lap and caressed it. “My darling,” she said, “this -is not a moment to give in: and you are not one to fail in a great -crisis, Jane. We have only a very little time to decide what we are to -do before Reginald goes away.”</p> - -<p>She had not called him Reginald before, and there was a faint smile in -her eyes as they met his—a smile of forgiveness and motherly kindness, -though he had asked no pardon. The sound of her mother’s voice broke the -spell of Lady Jane’s self-abandonment, and it went to Winton’s heart -with a forlorn sense of happiness in the midst of all<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_224" id="page_224">{224}</a></span> the misery, that -even her mother exercised a constraint upon her which when alone with -him she did not feel. Was it not that she was herself, and that with him -nature had free course unabashed? But the scene grew brighter and more -hopeful when the Duchess came into it. She was not surprised nor -overthrown by what had happened. She put back the soft hair from her -child’s forehead, and gave her a kiss of consolation. “My dearest,” she -said, “the crisis has come which I knew would come. Reginald must go as -soon as it is possible for him to go. It is for you now to say what is -to be done. You are of age; you have a right to judge for yourself. When -you told me first, I warned you what was before you. You have never -taken the burden of your life upon you hitherto. Now the moment has -come. I will not interfere. I will say nothing;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_225" id="page_225">{225}</a></span> neither will Reginald, -if I understand him rightly. You must judge for yourself what you will -do.”</p> - -<p>Winton obeyed her Grace’s lead, though with reluctance and a troubled -mind. He only partially comprehended what she meant. He would have liked -for his own part, to hold his love fast—to cry out to her once more, -“You will not give me up because your father sends me away?” But he -yielded to the Duchess’s look, though with a grudge, feeling that this -was moral compulsion almost as absolute as that with which her husband -had turned him out. He rose from the sofa on which he had been sitting -with Jane, and stood before her, feeling in his hand still the mould of -hers which had lain there so long, and which left his, he thought, with -reluctance. This proceeding brought her altogether to herself. She -looked around her with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_226" id="page_226">{226}</a></span> an almost pitiful surprise. “Am I to be left -alone,” she said, with a quiver in her lip, “when I need support most?” -and then there was a pause. To Jane and to Winton it seemed as if the -very wheels of existence were arrested and the world stood still. No one -spoke. He was not capable of it; the Duchess would not. Lady Jane -between, with wet eyelashes, and cheeks still pale with tears, and mouth -quivering, her hands clasped in her lap as if clinging to each other -since there was nothing else to hold by, sat perfectly still for a -moment which seemed an hour. When she spoke at last there was a catch in -her voice, and the words came with difficulty, and with little pauses -between.</p> - -<p>“What is it I am to decide?” she said. “All was decided—when we found -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_227" id="page_227">{227}</a></span>out—in town—— We cannot separate, he and I—— That—can never come -into question now. Is it not so?—— I may read it wrong—— It -appears—I have already read something wrong——” And then a spasm came -over her face once more: but she got it under control. “What you mean -is—about details?” said Lady Jane.</p> - -<p>Winton, who had been in so extreme a state of excitement and suspense -that he could bear no more, dropped down upon his knees at the side of -the sofa on which she sat, and, clasping them, put down his face upon -her hands. Lady Jane freed one to put it lightly upon his bowed head, -with something of that soft maternal smile of indulgence of which love -has the privilege. “Did he think I was a child?” she said to her mother, -with a gentle wonder in her eyes. “Or not honest?” She herself was calm -again; steadfast, while the others still trembled, seeing the -complications so<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_228" id="page_228">{228}</a></span> much less clearly than the fair and open way. She was -a little surprised by Winton’s broken ecstasies, by her mother’s -tremulous kiss of approval. “Is there anything left for me to decide?” -she said.</p> - -<p>Nobody knew very well what was said or done in the agitated half-hour -that remained. It was agreed between them that “the details,” of which -Lady Jane had spoken with a blush, should be arranged afterwards, when -all were more cool and masters of themselves—a state to which no one of -the little group attained until Winton was hurrying along the country -roads towards the station, and Lady Jane and her mother were seated in -forlorn quiet alone in that little room which for the last week had been -the scene of so many excitements. The Duchess rose with a start when the -little French clock on the mantel<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_229" id="page_229">{229}</a></span>piece chimed one. “My dearest,” she -said, “we have many things to do which look like falsehood, we women. -You and I must appear at luncheon as if nothing had happened. There must -be no red eyes, my love, no abstraction. It will be all over the world -in no time, if we do not take care. For myself, alas! I am used to it; -but you, Jane——”</p> - -<p>Lady Jane did not immediately reply. She said, “There is one thing, -mamma, to which I have made up my mind——”</p> - -<p>The Duchess was examining herself in the glass to see if she was pale or -red, or anything different from her ordinary aspect. She turned round to -hear what this new determination was.</p> - -<p>“I will speak to my father myself,” Lady Jane said.</p> - -<p>If a cannon had been discharged into the peaceful little boudoir the -effect could<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_230" id="page_230">{230}</a></span> scarcely have been greater. “You will speak to your -father, Jane? There are some things I know better than you. It will -wound you, my darling—for no good.”</p> - -<p>“But I think it is right. There should be no means neglected to make him -give his consent. With his consent all would be better. I think I ought -to do it. It will be no shock to him now—he knows. To think of him like -<i>that</i> is the thing that gave me most pain.”</p> - -<p>“But if you should see him like <i>that</i>”—the Duchess said; then added -hastily, “I know you are right. But you must set your face like a flint; -you must not allow yourself to be made unhappy. Jane, your father does -not think as I think in many ways. I have tried to keep you from all -opposition; but he is old and you are young; you judge differently. You -must not think because his point<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_231" id="page_231">{231}</a></span> of view is different that he is wrong, -even in this case—altogether.”</p> - -<p>Lady Jane lifted her mild eyes, which were almost stern in their -unwavering sense of right. “I sometimes feel that you think nothing is -wrong—altogether,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps not,” the Duchess replied, with a smile and a sigh.</p> - -<p>“It seems noble to me that you should think so, but I cannot. My father -will not be like <i>that</i> to me,” she added, with a little sadness. “Do -not be afraid, and I will take a little time—not to-day, unless he -speaks to me.”</p> - -<p>“He will not speak to you,” said the Duchess, eagerly. She thought that -she had at least secured that.</p> - -<p>And then they went to luncheon. A little look of exhaustion about Lady -Jane’s face, a clear shining in her eyes like the sky after rain, -betrayed to some<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_232" id="page_232">{232}</a></span> keen-sighted spectators that there had been agitation -in the atmosphere. But for a novice unaccustomed to trouble, she bore -herself very well. And as for the Duchess, she was perfect. Her -unruffled mind, her easy grace of greatness, were visible in every -movement. What could so great a lady have to trouble her? She was -gracious to everybody, and full of suggestions as to what should be -done, as the afternoon promised to clear up, proposing expeditions to -one place and another. “Mr Winton would have been an addition to your -riding-party, but unfortunately he left us this morning,” she said in a -voice of the most perfect composure. “So that there was nothing in it, -after all,” little Lady Adela whispered to her mother. But Lady -Grandmaison, who was a woman of experience, shook her head.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_233" id="page_233">{233}</a></span></p> - -<p>And next morning Lady Jane, pale, but courageous, with a heart that -fluttered, but a purpose as steadfast as her nature, went softly -down-stairs in her turn and knocked at the Duke’s door.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_234" id="page_234">{234}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a><span class="ltspc">CHAPTER</span> X.<br /><br /> -<small>A MOMENTOUS INTERVIEW.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">The</span> Duke, like his wife, was too highbred to allow any sign of -disturbance to be seen in him; but nevertheless he was very greatly -disturbed. Such a thing had never happened to him in all his life -before. He had come in contact indeed with many men of lower social -pretensions than Winton. But a person who is absolutely nobody is always -easier to deal with than one who, without reaching at all to the level -on which you can regard him as an equal, is still, by the unfortunate -and levelling privileges of English<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_235" id="page_235">{235}</a></span> society, supposed to be as good -even as a duke; whereas nobody but a duke can be, in reality, as good as -a duke, though a peer of old creation may approach him near enough for -most social purposes. But a Mr Winton! His was precisely the kind of -position which is most perplexing and disagreeable to the great man who -is nevertheless obliged to allow, in deference to the folly of society, -that there can be nothing higher than an English gentleman, and that -princes themselves must consider their right to that title as their -highest qualification. There are commoners, indeed, with whom even a -duke might make an alliance and find himself no loser. We have already -pointed out that Mr Roundell, of Bishop’s Roundell, had been seriously -thought of as a suitor for Lady Jane. But a little squire with a little -manor-house somewhere in the Midland counties—a man<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_236" id="page_236">{236}</a></span> whom only a chance -inheritance had raised above the necessity of working for his living, -whose ancestors had been no better than little squires before him, who -was nobody, of a race unheard of out of their parish, that he should -take it upon him to walk quietly up to the Duke on his own hearth and -ask from him the hand of Lady Jane! He did not venture to permit himself -to dwell upon the thought. When it came back to his mind it set his -blood boiling as at first—his head grew hot, his veins too full, his -respiration difficult. To allow himself to be driven into a fit by such -<i>canaille</i> would be unworthy of him; and therefore the Duke put force -upon himself, and when the recollection came back took the wise step of -flying from it. He would not risk himself on such an ignoble occasion. -To allow a Mr Winton to bring on an illness would be almost as bad as -accepting him for<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_237" id="page_237">{237}</a></span> Lady Jane. Therefore he sent for his steward, or had -an interview with his head groom, or seized upon some other external aid -to save himself from the thought. He was unusually stately during the -evening and snubbed the man of the clubs, who had gained some favour -before by his adroitness and the interest he took in the house of -Billings. The Duke turned his back upon this candidate for favour in the -midst of an account he was giving of some discoveries he had -made—discoveries for which the entire race of the Altamonts ought, he -believed, to have been his debtors—as if the House of Altamont could -have been advantaged by any discovery made by a man who was nobody, or -indeed wanted any new glorification. The Duke turned round in the very -midst of the tale, turned his shoulder to the discoverer and began to -talk to the next of his noble visitors.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_238" id="page_238">{238}</a></span> This snub direct made everybody -stare, and quenched the victim for the evening. It gave his Grace a -little satisfaction to mortify somebody; but after all it did not do -much for his own wounds. And after a disturbed night, when malicious -recollection presented him with the souvenir of Winton almost before he -was free of his disturbed dreams, it may be supposed that the Duke’s -uprising was not a pleasant one. Heaven and earth! a little squire! a -nobody! He got up precipitately—if the Duke could be supposed to do -anything precipitately—and hurried his dressing, and plunged himself -into business. To allow himself to be drawn even into a bilious attack -by an assailant so contemptible would have been beneath him. His Grace -was very busy checking the steward’s accounts, and just had started what -he thought was an error in the balance-sheet, and was about with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_239" id="page_239">{239}</a></span> much -enjoyment to hunt it back to its origin—for he loved to think that he -was cheated, and to find out the managers of the estate in an inaccurate -sixpence was a great gratification to him—when there suddenly came a -low and somewhat tremulous knock at his door. He knew in a moment that -it was some new annoyance and connected with the Winton affair, though -it did not occur to him who the applicant could be who made this gentle -demand for admittance. His first thought was so little wise that it -prompted him to make as though he had not heard. But he heard very well, -and through every fibre of him. Then as he waited, keeping very quiet, -with perhaps a hope that the interruption might thus be diverted, the -knock was repeated a little louder. The Duke rose in great impatience. -He knew as well as if he had been in all their counsels what it was,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_240" id="page_240">{240}</a></span> -but he did not know who it was. When it was repeated for the third time -he made a stride across the room, and with his own hand flung the door -open. “<span class="smcap">Well!</span>” he said in a voice of thunder, then fell back appalled. -For there, in her white morning dress, and whiter than her dress, save -when she was crimson, her soft countenance inspired with something which -her father had never seen there before, her eyes meeting his -steadfastly, a slight tremor in her, which rather added to than -detracted from her firmness—stood Lady Jane.</p> - -<p>The Duke was so much excited that for one moment he failed in politeness -towards the princess royal. “<span class="smcap">You!</span>” he cried, with something of that -intonation of supreme surprise and horror, with which he had said <span class="smcap">Sir</span> to -her lover. But he paused, and a better inspiration returned to him. A -spasmodic sort of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_241" id="page_241">{241}</a></span> smile came over his face. “Ah, Jane!” he said, and -put out his hand. “You want to speak to me? This is an unusual -visit—and perhaps it is rather an unfortunate moment, if you have much -to say.”</p> - -<p>“Not very much, papa,” Jane answered, with an agitated smile. She took -his hand, though he had not meant this, and held it, as she closed the -door behind her. He would not have allowed her to do as much as this -herself, had he noted what she meant, but he was agitated too in spite -of himself. He recovered, however, and shut the door, then led his -daughter to a chair and placed her in it. It was—but he noticed that -only after it was beyond mending—the very chair in which her -presumptuous suitor had placed himself yesterday. The Duke stood up -before her in front of the fireplace exactly as he had done with -Win<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_242" id="page_242">{242}</a></span>ton. The coincidence alarmed him, but now he could not help it. -“Well, my love?” he said. He put on an air which was jaunty and -light-hearted, the false gaiety with which a frightened man faces -unknown danger. “Well, my love! I have just found Whitaker out in some -serious miscalculations. I am robbed on all hands by my servants. It is -one of the penalties of our position. But I warn you I have my head full -of this and will be a poor listener. Whitaker, you see——”</p> - -<p>“What I have to say will not take much time, papa. But it is very -important to me.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, ah!” said the Duke, with a laugh. “<i>Chiffons</i>, eh? Money wanted? -You must talk that over with your mother. I am not rich, but whatever my -Jane may require, were it to the half of my kingdom<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_243" id="page_243">{243}</a></span>——”</p> - -<p>He made her a bow full of that deference and almost reverential respect -with which it was one of the Duke’s best points to have surrounded his -only daughter—with a smile in which there was more tenderness than his -Grace was capable of showing to any other creature. He loved his -daughter, and he venerated her as a sort of flower of humanity and of -the Altamonts, who were the best that humanity could produce.</p> - -<p>“I will not ask so much as that,” said Lady Jane, tremulous, yet firm; -“and yet I have come to ask you for something, father. I am older than -girls are usually when they—marry.”</p> - -<p>“Older, nonsense! Who has told you that?” cried the Duke, his veins -beginning to swell, and his heart to thump with rising excitement. “You -are in the bloom of your youth. I have never seen a girl look sweeter, -or fairer, or younger, for<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_244" id="page_244">{244}</a></span> that matter, than my child has been looking. -Who has put such folly into your head?”</p> - -<p>“It is not folly, it is true; and no matter—that is nothing; but only -to show you that I am serious. I am no longer a girl, papa. Ah! do not -interrupt; I shall always be a girl to you. I am a woman. I have had a -great many thoughts before I came to speak—for myself. That is the last -thing one wishes to do. To have others do it is so much the easier. But -one must at last. I have come to speak to you for myself.”</p> - -<p>“Jane, you had better pause and think,” said the Duke, with threatening -looks.</p> - -<p>“What can you have to say about yourself? Don’t bring down my respect -for my daughter. We are driven out of our respect for women in most -cases early in our career; but most men have a prejudice in favour of -their daughters. Don’t force<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_245" id="page_245">{245}</a></span> me to think that you are just like all the -rest.”</p> - -<p>She looked at him wondering, but with eyes that did not falter. “My -mother, I am sure, can have forfeited no one’s respect,” she said -softly; “neither shall I, I hope; but perhaps more than she. I must -speak to you, father, about my own life. Oh!” she cried, clasping her -hands, with a vivid colour coming to her pale cheeks, “speak you for me! -do not let me have to do it. There are things that can only be said when -the case is desperate, and surely—surely it cannot be desperate between -you and me. Speak for me, father, to your own heart.”</p> - -<p>“So far as I can see, this is melodrama,” said the Duke, with a feeble -smile of agitation that looked like a sneer, for his lips were dry. -“What am I to say? Come, must we be brutal? That Lady<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_246" id="page_246">{246}</a></span> Jane Altamont, -like any poor milliner, is beginning to be afraid——”</p> - -<p>Her eyes opened a little wider with a scared look, but she said nothing, -only gazed more fixedly on her father, her whole soul bent on what he -was next to say.</p> - -<p>“Afraid,” he said, with a little forced giggle of a laugh, “because she -is twenty-eight, and her cheek is hollow—afraid that she is growing an -old maid, and will never get a husband? There is nothing more natural -than that,” he cried, bursting out into a mocking laugh.</p> - -<p>Lady Jane rose from her chair. She coloured high, then became white as a -ghost. Astonishment, consternation, pain—pain indescribable, a kind of -horror and dismay were in her eyes. She opened her lips, but only to -give forth a gasp of sound which was inarticulate. She did not take her -eyes from him; but gradually<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_247" id="page_247">{247}</a></span> there grew in them, besides the pitiful -suffering of a creature outraged and insulted, a gleam of indignation, a -flash of contempt. When a man, even a duke, has taken that fatal step -between resentment and fury, between what is permissible and what is -unpermissible, the other steps are easy enough. Her father forgot that -she was Lady Jane, and the first of womankind. He let his passion go. -The more he had loved and elevated her, the more did he trample all her -superiority under his feet.</p> - -<p>“Ah! you thought I should say something prettier, something more -pleasant,” he cried. “Poetical! but I am not poetical, and that is the -short and long of it. Afraid to lose your chance altogether, and -determined to have a husband, that is the meaning of it! I know now why -the man was brought here. I never could make out what we wanted with him -at Billings.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_248" id="page_248">{248}</a></span> A last chance for Jane! Ah, I see it all now!”</p> - -<p>Lady Jane stood and received all this as if the words had been stones. -She put her hands upon her breast to ward them off. She shrank backwards -now and then with a faint moan, as one after another was discharged at -her. Her eyes grew larger, and more and more pitiful, wet, appealing as -if to earth and heaven; but she never withdrew them from her father’s -face. And now that he had let himself loose, he raved on, expending upon -her all his wrath, putting himself more and more fatally in the wrong -with every word, showing, alas! that nothing, not a coal-heaver, could -be more vulgar than a duke when he is put to it. Lady Jane stood still -before him and never said a word. This was worse than the guillotine. -She had dreamt of facing the insults of the mob, but never the insults -of her fa<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_249" id="page_249">{249}</a></span>ther. As she stood there, to all appearance so full and -painfully occupied in sustaining the storm of words thus poured upon -her, a hundred reflections were passing through her mind. She almost -smiled to herself to think how small had been the terrible scenes -presented to her by her imagination, in face of the reality. The -Constitution might have gone to pieces, the guillotine might have been -raised without shaking her confidence in her class, or disturbing her -lofty unconscious superiority to all the rabble could do,—but her -father—this was what she had not thought of. Ah! it is not any rabble -that can shake the foundations of the earth: but when your father, when -those who are most dear to you, lay hands upon the pillars of the -house—she stood so still, and looked at him with such a steadfast gaze, -that the Duke was driven out of himself. He said—who can doubt?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_250" id="page_250">{250}</a></span>—a -thousand things he never meant to say. He turned himself outside in -before her, displaying weaknesses which even his wife did not know. But -at last his wrath exhausted itself. He began to stammer and hesitate, -then stopped short suddenly, with all the consciousness of his -self-betrayal on him. There was a moment’s silence, during which they -looked at each other without a word said—and then he made a step -forward closer to her, and asked, “What have you got to say?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing,” said Lady Jane. Her eyes were wet, and shining all the more -for the moisture in them, but she had not cried nor felt any impulse to -cry. “Oh, nothing—nothing now.”</p> - -<p>“You are convinced then?” he said hurriedly, trying to assume his usual -aspect. “Come, come, that is well. And perhaps I have been hasty. But -you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_251" id="page_251">{251}</a></span> know what is the point upon which I feel most strongly. There must -be no descent out of your rank. I have trained you in the sentiment of -your rank, above all things. What have we else?” cried the Duke, -“everything fails us—the masses pour in everywhere—they have ruined -the kingdom, they are ruining the Church: but,” he said slowly, “they -shall never ruin the House of Altamont: that shall be kept sacred -whatever goes. Pardon me, my love, if I have failed in respect to the -last daughter of the house. I know my Jane will not fail.”</p> - -<p>But still Lady Jane did not make any reply. She stood as if she had been -struck dumb, regarding him with a kind of serious wonder which confused -him more than he could say. The desire to explain herself, to ask him -for his consent, to get his sympathy, seemed to have died in her. Was -she stunned only, or con<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_252" id="page_252">{252}</a></span>vinced, or what was it he had done? The Duke -grew alarmed at last. He waited a moment longer, and then he added, “I -have been hasty. After all, my dear, whatever it is, it would be better -that you should say what you meant to say.”</p> - -<p>She shook her head, still looking at him. “No—no—there would be no -advantage in it now.”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean by <i>now</i>?—perhaps I might have been mistaken. Come, -let me hear what it was,” the Duke cried, with an air of sudden -amiability, ignoring all that had gone before.</p> - -<p>“Father,” said Lady Jane with a certain solemnity, “there was a great -deal to say—but not now. Certain things were uppermost in my mind. I -thought my father would listen, and perhaps feel for me, though he might -not approve. But I do not wish it now. There is nothing—it is -over<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_253" id="page_253">{253}</a></span>——”</p> - -<p>She put her hand upon her heart, pressing it as if to keep down a sigh. -Her eyes so wet, but not weeping, were strangely pathetic, with a -resignation in them which it was not wonderful perhaps that he should -interpret in his own way. He put out his hand and laid it caressingly -upon her arm.</p> - -<p>“My good child! if that is so, you may be sure it is for the best. I -knew there was that in my Jane that would respond to what I said. And I -thank you, my love, not only for myself, but in the name of the race.”</p> - -<p>She looked at him again with a penetrating gaze. “The race is everything -to you then,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Everything, my love! everything. I have no other thought.”</p> - -<p>“To keep it honourable and true—above all unworthy thoughts, above -dishonesty and untruth,” she said slowly, telling over the words like -beads.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_254" id="page_254">{254}</a></span></p> - -<p>“That is what I desire,” said the Duke. Then he added his gloss. “To -retain our old nobility unbroken, to sully the name with no -<i>mésalliances</i>. Your brother has disregarded my wishes; but though I -would never have sanctioned it, he has secured another kind of -advantage, and perhaps I have no right to complain. But you, my Jane, -nothing must touch you: you must remain the pride of your family. And,” -he added soothingly, “do not lose heart, my love. Lady Jane Altamont -will not want for opportunities. Do not think from what I said that you -are considered <i>passée</i> by any one, or that a good marriage is less -likely than before. We are not come the length of putting up with an -inferior, trust me, my dear.”</p> - -<p>Lady Jane’s pallor changed into an overwhelming blush. She turned away -from him, almost shaking his hand from her shoulder. “In that case,” she -said,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_255" id="page_255">{255}</a></span> with a muffled voice full of some emotion which he did not quite -understand, nor yet feel comfortable about—“in that case there is -certainly no more to say.”</p> - -<p>And without any little civility, such as, though not indispensable, it -is pretty to keep up between the nearest relations, no little bow or -smile, or glance of pleasant understanding, she turned from him and went -out of the room, suddenly and noiselessly. The Duke did not like it: he -felt there was something in it which he had not fathomed. He stood in -the place where she had left him, his hand still stretched out where she -had shaken it off, his mouth and his eyes open, a bewildered alarm in -his mind. What did she mean? Was there more meaning than one in those -simple-seeming words? Was this real submission as he hoped, or a -something else? He could not tell. But a cold chill got into his veins; -he did not know<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_256" id="page_256">{256}</a></span> what to make of it. After a while, however, he reasoned -with himself, and recovered his comfort. Jane, who had always been so -docile, so ready to accept his views, why should she turn against him -and all his traditions now?</p> - -<p class="fint">END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.<br /><br /><br /> -PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.</p> - -<div class="c"> -<img src="images/back.jpg" width="340" height="550" alt="" title="" /> -</div> - -<hr class="full" /> -<pre style='margin-top:6em'> -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUKE'S DAUGHTER (AKA LADY JANE) -AND THE FUGITIVES; VOL. 1/3 *** - -This file should be named 63901-h.htm or 63901-h.zip - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/9/0/63901/ - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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