Lord Hampstead did not reach his house till nearly six on the following morning, and, having been travelling two nights out of three, allowed himself the indulgence of having his breakfast in bed. While he was so engaged his sister came to him, very penitent for her fault, but ready to defend herself should he be too severe to her. "Of course I am very sorry because of what you had said. But I don't know how I am to help myself. It would have looked so very strange."
"It was unfortunate—that's all."
"Was it so very unfortunate, John?"
"Of course I had to tell them down there."
"Was papa angry?"
"He only said that if you chose to make such a fool of yourself, he would do nothing for you—in the way of money."
"George does not think of that in the least."
"People must eat, you know."
"Ah; that would make no difference either to him or to me. We must wait, that's all. I do not think it would make me unhappy to wait till I died, if he only were content to wait also. But was papa so very angry?"
"He wasn't so very angry,—only angry. I was obliged to tell him; but I said as little to him as possible because he is ill. Somebody else made herself disagreeable."
"Did you tell her?"
"I was determined to tell her;—so that she should not turn round upon me afterwards and say that I had deceived her. I had made a promise to my father."
"Oh, John, I am so sorry."
"There is no use in crying after spilt milk. A promise to my father she would of course take as a promise to her, and it would have been flung in my face."
"She will do so now."
"Oh, yes;—but I can fight the battle better, having told her everything."
"Was she disagreeable?"
"Abominable! She mixed you up with Marion Fay, and really showed more readiness than I gave her credit for in what she said. Of course she got the better of me. She could call me a liar and a fool to my face, and I could not retaliate. But there's a row in the house which makes everything wretched there."
"Another row?"
"You are forgotten in this new row,—and so am I. George Roden and Marion Fay are nothing in comparison with poor Mr. Greenwood. He has been committing horrible offences, and is to be turned out. He swears he won't go, and my father is determined he shall. Mr. Roberts has been called in, and there is a question whether Harris shall not put him on gradually diminished rations till he be starved into surrender. He's to have ￡200 a year if he goes, but he says that it is not enough for him."
"Would it be much?"
"Considering that he likes to have everything of the very best I do not think it would. He would probably have to go to prison or else hang himself."
"Won't it be rather hard upon him?"
"I think it will. I don't know what it is that makes the governor so hard to him. I begged and prayed for another hundred a year as though he were the dearest friend I had in the world; but I couldn't turn the governor an inch. I don't think I ever disliked any one so much in the world as I do Mr. Greenwood."
"Not Mr. Crocker?" she asked.
"Poor Crocker! I love Crocker, in comparison. There is a delightful pachydermatousness about Crocker which is almost heroic. But I hate Mr. Greenwood, if it be in my nature to hate any one. It is not only that he insults me, but he looks at me as though he would take me by the throat and strangle me if he could. But still I will add the other hundred a year out of my own pocket, because I think he is being treated hardly. Only I must do it on the sly."
"But Lady Kingsbury is still fond of him?"
"I rather think not. I fancy he has made himself too free with her, and has offended her. However, there he is shut up all alone, and swearing that he won't stir out of the house till something better is done for him."
There were two matters now on Lord Hampstead's mind to which he gave his attention, the latter of which, however, was much the more prominent in his thoughts. He was anxious to take his sister down to Gorse Hall, and there remain for the rest of the hunting season, making such short runs up to Holloway as he might from time to time find to be necessary. No man can have a string of hunters idle through the winter without feeling himself to be guilty of an unpardonable waste of property. A customer at an eating-house will sometimes be seen to devour the last fragments of what has been brought to him, because he does not like to abandon that for which he must pay. So it is with the man who hunts. It is not perhaps that he wants to hunt. There are other employments in life which would at the moment be more to his taste. It is his conscience which prompts him,—the feeling that he cannot forgive himself for intolerable extravagance if he does not use the articles with which he has provided himself. You can neglect your billiard-table, your books, or even your wine-cellar,—because they eat nothing. But your horses soon eat their heads off their own shoulders if you pass weeks without getting on their backs. Hampstead had endeavoured to mitigate for himself this feeling of improvidence by running up and down to Aylesbury; but the saving in this respect was not sufficient for his conscience, and he was therefore determined to balance the expenditure of the year by a regular performance of his duties at Gorse Hall. But the other matter was still more important to him. He must see Marion Fay before he went into Northamptonshire, and then he would learn how soon he might run up with the prospect of seeing her again. The distance of Gorse Hall and the duty of hunting would admit of certain visits to Holloway. "I think I shall go to Gorse Hall to-morrow," he said to his sister as soon as he had come down from his room.
"All right; I shall be ready. Hendon Hall or Gorse Hall,—or any other Hall, will be the same to me now." Whereby she probably intended to signify that as George Roden was on his way to Italy all parts of England were indifferent to her.
"But I am not quite certain," said he.
"What makes the doubt?"
"Holloway, you know, has not been altogether deserted. The sun no doubt has set in Paradise Row, but the moon remains." At this she could only laugh, while he prepared himself for his excursion to Holloway.
He had received the Quaker's permission to push his suit with Marion, but he did not flatter himself that this would avail him much. He felt that there was a strength in Marion which, as it would have made her strong against her father had she given away her heart without his sanction, so would it be but little moved by any permission coming from him. And there was present to the lover's mind a feeling of fear which had been generated by the Quaker's words as to Marion's health. Till he had heard something of that story of the mother and her little ones, it had not occurred to him that the girl herself was wanting in any gift of physical well-being. She was beautiful in his eyes, and he had thought of nothing further. Now an idea had been put into his head which, though he could hardly realize it, was most painful to him. He had puzzled himself before. Her manner to him had been so soft, so tender, so almost loving, that he could not but hope, could hardly not think, that she loved him. That, loving him, she should persist in refusing him because of her condition of life, seemed to him to be unnatural. He had, at any rate, been confident that, were there nothing else, he could overcome that objection. Her heart, if it were really given to him, would not be able to support itself in its opposition to him upon such a ground of severance as that. He thought that he could talk her out of so absurd an argument. But in that other argument there might be something that she would cling to with persistency.
But the Quaker himself had declared that there was nothing in it. "As far as I know," the Quaker had said, "she is as fit to become a man's wife as any other girl." He surely must have known had there been any real cause. Girls are so apt to take fancies into their heads, and then will sometimes become so obstinate in their fancies! In this way Hampstead discussed the matter with himself, and had been discussing it ever since he had walked up and down Broad Street with the Quaker. But if she pleaded her health, he had what her own father had said to use as an argument with which to convince her. If she spoke again of his rank, he thought that on that matter his love might be strong enough as an argument against her,—or perhaps her own.
He found no trouble in making his way into her presence. She had heard of his visit to King's Court, and knew that he would come. She had three things which she had to tell him, and she would tell them all very plainly if all should be necessary. The first was that love must have nothing to do in this matter,—but only duty. The second, which she feared to be somewhat weak,—which she almost thought would not of itself have been strong enough,—was that objection as to her condition in life which she had urged to him before. She declared to herself that it would be strong enough both for him, and for her, if they would only guide themselves by prudence. But the third,—that should be a rock to her if it were necessary; a cruel rock on which she must be shipwrecked, but against which his bark should surely not be dashed to atoms. If he would not leave her in peace without it she would tell him that she was fit to be no man's wife.
If it came to that, then she must confess her own love. She acknowledged to herself that it must be so. There could not be between them the tenderness necessary for the telling of such a tale without love, without acknowledged love. It would be better that it should not be so. If he would go and leave her to dream of him,—there might be a satisfaction even in that to sustain her during what was left to her of life. She would struggle that it should be so. But if his love were too strong, then must he know it all. She had learned from her father something of what had passed at that interview in the City, and was therefore ready to receive her lover when he came. "Marion," he said, "you expected me to come to you again?"
"Certainly I did."
"Of course I have come. I have had to go to my father, or I should have been here sooner. You know that I shall come again and again till you will say a word to me that shall comfort me."
"I knew that you would come again, because you were with father in the City."
"I went to ask his leave,—and I got it."
"It was hardly necessary for you, my lord, to take that trouble."
"But I thought it was. When a man wishes to take a girl away from her own home, and make her the mistress of his, it is customary that he shall ask for her father's permission."
"It would have been so, had you looked higher,—as you should have done."
"It was so in regard to any girl that I should wish to make my wife. Whatever respect a man can pay to any woman, that is due to my Marion." She looked at him, and with the glance of her eye went all the love of her heart. How could she say those words to him, full of reason and prudence and wisdom, if he spoke to her like this? "Answer me honestly. Do you not know that if you were the daughter of the proudest lord living in England you would not be held by me as deserving other usage than that which I think to be your privilege now?"
"I only meant that father could not but feel that you were honouring him."
"I will not speak of honour as between him and me or between me and you. With me and your father honesty was concerned. He has believed me, and has accepted me as his son-in-law. With us, Marion, with us two, all alone as we are here together, all in all to each other as I hope we are to be, only love can be brought in question. Marion, Marion!" Then he threw himself on his knees before her, and embraced her as she was sitting.
"No, my lord; no; it must not be." But now he had both her hands in his, and was looking into her face. Now was the time to speak of duty,—and to speak with some strength, if what she might say was to have any avail.
"It shall not be so, my lord." Then she did regain her hands, and struggled up from the sofa on to her feet. "I, too, believe in your honesty. I am sure of it, as I am of my own. But you do not understand me. Think of me as though I were your sister."
"As my sister?"
"What would you have your sister do if a man came to her then, whom she knew that she could never marry? Would you have her submit to his embrace because she knew him to be honest?"
"Not unless she loved him."
"It would have nothing to do with it, Lord Hampstead."
"Nothing, Marion!"
"Nothing, my lord. You will think that I am giving myself airs if I speak of my duty."
"Your father has allowed me to come."
"I owe him duty, no doubt. Had he bade me never to see you, I hope that that would have sufficed. But there are other duties than that,—a duty even higher than that."
"What duty, Marion?"
"That which I owe to you. If I had promised to be your wife—"
"Do promise it."
"Had I so promised, should I not then have been bound to think first of your happiness?"
"You would have accomplished it, at any rate."
"Though I cannot be your wife I do not owe it you the less to think of it,—seeing all that you are willing to do for me,—and I will think of it. I am grateful to you."
"Do you love me?"
"Let me speak, Lord Hampstead. It is not civil in you to interrupt me in that way. I am thoroughly grateful, and I will not show my gratitude by doing that which I know would ruin you."
"Do you love me?"
"Not if I loved you with all my heart,—" and she spread out her arms as though to assure herself how she did love him with all her very soul,—"would I for that be brought even to think of doing the thing that you ask me."
"Marion!"
"No,—no. We are utterly unfit for each other." She had made her first declaration as to duty, and now she was going on as to that second profession which she intended should be, if possible, the last. "You are as high as blood and wealth and great friends can make you. I am nothing. You have called me a lady."
"If God ever made one, you are she."
"He has made me better. He has made me a woman. But others would not call me a lady. I cannot talk as they do, sit as they do, act as they do,—even think as they do. I know myself, and I will not presume to make myself the wife of such a man as you." As she said this there came a flush across her face, and a fire in her eye, and, as though conquered by her own emotion, she sank again upon the sofa.
"Do you love me, Marion?"
"I do," she said, standing once more erect upon her feet. "There shall be no shadow of a lie between us. I do love you, Lord Hampstead. I will have nothing to make me blush in my own esteem when I think of you. How should it be other than that a girl such as I should love such a one as you when you ask me with words so sweet!"
"Then, Marion, you shall be my own."
"Oh, yes, I must now be yours,—while I am alive. You have so far conquered me." As he attempted to take her in his arms she retreated from him; but so gently that her very gentleness repressed him. "If never loving another is to be yours,—if to pray for you night and day as the dearest one of all, is to be yours,—if to remind myself every hour that all my thoughts are due to you, if to think of you so that I may console myself with knowing that one so high and so good has condescended to regard me,—if that is to be yours,—then I am yours; then shall I surely be yours while I live. But it must be only with my thoughts, only with my prayers, only with all my heart."
"Marion, Marion!" Now again he was on his knees before her, but hardly touching her.
"It is your fault, Lord Hampstead," she said, trying to smile. "All this is your doing, because you would not let a poor girl say simply what she had to say."
"Nothing of it shall be true,—except that you love me. That is all that I can remember. That I will repeat to you daily till you have put your hand in mine, and call yourself my wife."
"That I will never do," she exclaimed, once again standing. "As God hears me now I will never say it. It would be wrong,—and I will never say it." In thus protesting she put forth her little hands clenched fast, and then came again the flush across her brow, and her eyes for a moment seemed to wander, and then, failing in strength to carry her through it all, she fell back senseless on the sofa.
Lord Hampstead, finding that he alone could do nothing to aid her, was forced to ring the bell, and to give her over to the care of the woman, who did not cease to pray him to depart. "I can't do nothing, my lord, while you stand over her that way."