The Chronicles of Barsetshire (165 page)

And now the effort was to be made with the object of which all this intimacy had been effected. As she came thither in her carriage, Mrs. Harold Smith herself was not altogether devoid of that sinking of the heart which is so frequently the forerunner of any difficult and hazardous undertaking. She had declared that she would feel no fear in making the little proposition. But she did feel something very like it: and when she made her entrance into the little room she certainly wished that the work was done and over.

“How is poor Mr. Smith to-day?” asked Miss Dunstable, with an air of mock condolence, as her friend seated herself in her accustomed easy-chair. The downfall of the gods was as yet a history hardly three days old, and it might well be supposed that the late lord of the Petty Bag had hardly recovered from his misfortune.

“Well, he is better, I think, this morning; at least I should judge so from the manner in which he confronted his eggs. But still I don’t like the way he handles the carving-knife. I am sure he is always thinking of Mr. Supplehouse at those moments.”

“Poor man! I mean Supplehouse. After all, why shouldn’t he follow his trade as well as another? Live and let live, that’s what I say.”

“Ay, but it’s kill and let kill with him. That is what Harold says. However, I am tired of all that now, and I came here to-day to talk about something else.”

“I rather like Mr. Supplehouse myself,” exclaimed Miss Dunstable. “He never makes any bones about the matter. He has a certain work to do, and a certain cause to serve—namely, his own; and in order to do that work, and serve that cause, he uses such weapons as God has placed in his hands.”

“That’s what the wild beasts do.”

“And where will you find men honester than they? The tiger tears you up because he is hungry and wants to eat you. That’s what Supplehouse does. But there are so many among us tearing up one another without any excuse of hunger. The mere pleasure of destroying is reason enough.”

“Well, my dear, my mission to you to-day is certainly not one of destruction, as you will admit when you hear it. It is one, rather, very absolutely of salvation. I have come to make love to you.”

“Then the salvation, I suppose, is not for myself,” said Miss Dunstable.

It was quite clear to Mrs. Harold Smith that Miss Dunstable had immediately understood the whole purport of this visit, and that she was not in any great measure surprised. It did not seem from the tone of the heiress’s voice, or from the serious look which at once settled on her face, that she would be prepared to give a very ready compliance. But then great objects can only be won with great efforts.

“That’s as may be,” said Mrs. Harold Smith. “For you and another also, I hope. But I trust, at any rate, that I may not offend you?”

“Oh, laws, no; nothing of that kind ever offends me now.”

“Well, I suppose you’re used to it.”

“Like the eels, my dear. I don’t mind it the least in the world—only sometimes, you know, it is a little tedious.”

“I’ll endeavour to avoid that, so I may as well break the ice at once. You know enough of Nathaniel’s affairs to be aware that he is not a very rich man.”

“Since you do ask me about it, I suppose there’s no harm in saying that I believe him to be a very poor man.”

“Not the least harm in the world, but just the reverse. Whatever may come of this, my wish is that the truth should be told scrupulously on all sides; the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

“
Magna est veritas
,” said Miss Dunstable. “The Bishop of Barchester taught me as much Latin as that at Chaldicotes; and he did add some more, but there was a long word, and I forgot it.”

“The bishop was quite right, my dear, I’m sure. But if you go to your Latin, I’m lost. As we were just now saying, my brother’s pecuniary affairs are in a very bad state. He has a beautiful property of his own, which has been in the family for I can’t say how many centuries—long before the Conquest, I know.”

“I wonder what my ancestors were then?”

“It does not much signify to any of us,” said Mrs. Harold Smith, with a moral shake of her head, “what our ancestors were; but it’s a sad thing to see an old property go to ruin.”

“Yes, indeed; we none of us like to see our property going to ruin, whether it be old or new. I have some of that sort of feeling already, although mine was only made the other day out of an apothecary’s shop.”

“God forbid that I should ever help you to ruin it,” said Mrs. Harold Smith. “I should be sorry to be the means of your losing a ten-pound note.”

“
Magna est veritas
, as the dear bishop said,” exclaimed Miss Dunstable. “Let us have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, as we agreed just now.”

Mrs. Harold Smith did begin to find that the task before her was difficult. There was a hardness about Miss Dunstable when matters of business were concerned on which it seemed almost impossible to make any impression. It was not that she had evinced any determination to refuse the tender of Mr. Sowerby’s hand; but she was so painfully resolute not to have dust thrown in her eyes! Mrs. Harold Smith had commenced with a mind fixed upon avoiding what she called humbug; but this sort of humbug had become so prominent a part of her usual rhetoric, that she found it very hard to abandon it. “And that’s what I wish,” said she.

“Of course my chief object is to secure my brother’s happiness.”

“That’s very unkind to poor Mr. Harold Smith.”

“Well, well, well—you know what I mean.”

“Yes, I think I do know what you mean. Your brother is a gentleman of good family, but of no means.”

“Not quite so bad as that.”

“Of embarrassed means, then, or anything that you will; whereas I am a lady of no family, but of sufficient wealth. You think that if you brought us together and made a match of it, it would be a very good thing for—for whom?” said Miss Dunstable.

“Yes, exactly,” said Mrs. Harold Smith.

“For which of us? Remember the bishop now and his nice little bit of Latin.”

“For Nathaniel then,” said Mrs. Harold Smith, boldly. “It would be a very good thing for him.” And a slight smile came across her face as she said it. “Now that’s honest, or the mischief is in it.”

“Yes, that’s honest enough. And did he send you here to tell me this?”

“Well, he did that, and something else.”

“And now let’s have the something else. The really important part, I have no doubt, has been spoken.”

“No, by no means, by no means all of it. But you are so hard on one, my dear, with your running after honesty, that one is not able to tell the real facts as they are. You make one speak in such a bald, naked way.”

“Ah, you think that anything naked must be indecent; even truth.”

“I think it is more proper-looking, and better suited, too, for the world’s work, when it goes about with some sort of a garment on it. We are so used to a leaven of falsehood in all we hear and say, nowadays, that nothing is more likely to deceive us than the absolute truth. If a shopkeeper told me that his wares were simply middling, of course, I should think that they were not worth a farthing. But all that has nothing to do with my poor brother. Well, what was I saying?”

“You were going to tell me how well he would use me, no doubt.”

“Something of that kind.”

“That he wouldn’t beat me; or spend all my money if I managed to have it tied up out of his power; or look down on me with contempt because my father was an apothecary! Was not that what you were going to say?”

“I was going to tell you that you might be more happy as Mrs. Sowerby of Chaldicotes than you can be as Miss Dunstable—”

“Of Mount Lebanon. And had Mr. Sowerby no other message to send?—nothing about love, or anything of that sort? I should like, you know, to understand what his feelings are before I take such a leap.”

“I do believe he has as true a regard for you as any man of his age ever does have—”

“For any woman of mine. That is not putting it in a very devoted way certainly; but I am glad to see that you remember the bishop’s maxim.”

“What would you have me say? If I told you that he was dying for love, you would say, I was trying to cheat you; and now because I don’t tell you so, you say that he is wanting in devotion. I must say you are hard to please.”

“Perhaps I am, and very unreasonable into the bargain. I ought to ask no questions of the kind when your brother proposes to do me so much honour. As for my expecting the love of a man who condescends to wish to be my husband, that, of course, would be monstrous. What right can I have to think that any man should love me? It ought to be enough for me to know that as I am rich, I can get a husband. What business can such as I have to inquire whether the gentleman who would so honour me really would like my company, or would only deign to put up with my presence in his household?”

“Now, my dear Miss Dunstable—”

“Of course I am not such an ass as to expect that any gentleman should love me; and I feel that I ought to be obliged to your brother for sparing me the string of complimentary declarations which are usual on such occasions. He, at any rate, is not tedious—or rather you on his behalf; for no doubt his own time is so occupied with his parliamentary duties that he cannot attend to this little matter himself. I do feel grateful to him; and perhaps nothing more will be necessary than to give him a schedule of the property, and name an early day for putting him in possession.”

Mrs. Smith did feel that she was rather badly used. This Miss Dunstable, in their mutual confidences, had so often ridiculed the love-making grimaces of her mercenary suitors, had spoken so fiercely against those who had persecuted her, not because they had desired her money, but on account of their ill-judgement in thinking her to be a fool, that Mrs. Smith had a right to expect that the method she had adopted for opening the negotiation would be taken in a better spirit. Could it be possible, after all, thought Mrs. Smith to herself, that Miss Dunstable was like other women, and that she did like to have men kneeling at her feet? Could it be the case that she had advised her brother badly, and that it would have been better for him to have gone about his work in the old-fashioned way? “They are very hard to manage,” said Mrs. Harold Smith to herself, thinking of her own sex.

“He was coming here himself,” said she, “but I advised him not to do so.”

“That was so kind of you.”

“I thought that I could explain to you more openly and more freely, what his intentions really are.”

“Oh! I have no doubt that they are honourable,” said Miss Dunstable. “He does not want to deceive me in that way, I am quite sure.”

It was impossible to help laughing, and Mrs. Harold Smith did laugh. “Upon my word you would provoke a saint,” said she.

“I am not likely to get into any such company by the alliance that you are now suggesting to me. There are not many saints usually at Chaldicotes, I believe—always excepting my dear bishop and his wife.”

“But, my dear, what am I to say to Nathaniel?”

“Tell him, of course, how much obliged to him I am.”

“Do listen to me one moment. I dare say that I have done wrong to speak to you in such a bold, unromantic way.”

“Not at all. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. That’s what we agreed upon. But one’s first efforts in any line are always apt to be a little uncouth.”

“I will send Nathaniel to you himself.”

“No, do not do so. Why torment either him or me? I do like your brother; in a certain way I like him much. But no earthly consideration would induce me to marry him. Is it not so glaringly plain that he would marry me for my money only, that you have not even dared to suggest any other reason?”

“Of course it would have been nonsense to say that he had no regard whatever towards your money.”

“Of course it would—absolute nonsense. He is a poor man with a good position, and he wants to marry me because I have got that which he wants. But, my dear, I do not want that which he has got, and therefore the bargain would not be a fair one.”

“But he would do his very best to make you happy.”

“I am so much obliged to him; but you see, I am very happy as I am. What should I gain?”

“A companion whom you confess that you like.”

“Ah! but I don’t know that I should like too much even of such a companion as your brother. No, my dear—it won’t do. Believe me when I tell you, once for all, that it won’t do.”

“Do you mean, then, Miss Dunstable, that you’ll never marry?”

“To-morrow—if I met any one that I fancied, and he would have me. But I rather think that any that I may fancy won’t have me. In the first place, if I marry any one, the man must be quite indifferent to money.”

“Then you’ll not find him in this world, my dear.”

“Very possibly not,” said Miss Dunstable.

All that was further said upon the subject need not be here repeated. Mrs. Harold Smith did not give up her cause quite at once, although Miss Dunstable had spoken so plainly. She tried to explain how eligible would be her friend’s situation as mistress of Chaldicotes, when Chaldicotes should owe no penny to any man; and went so far as to hint that the master of Chaldicotes, if relieved of his embarrassments and known as a rich man, might in all probability be found worthy of a peerage when the gods should return to Olympus. Mr. Harold Smith, as a Cabinet minister, would, of course, do his best. But it was all of no use. “It’s not my destiny,” said Miss Dunstable, “and therefore do not press it any longer.”

“But we shall not quarrel,” said Mrs. Harold Smith, almost tenderly.

“Oh, no—why should we quarrel?”

“And you won’t look glum at my brother?”

“Why should I look glum at him? But, Mrs. Smith, I’ll do more than not looking glum at him. I do like you, and I do like your brother, and if I can in any moderate way assist him in his difficulties, let him tell me so.”

Soon after this, Mrs. Harold Smith went her way. Of course, she declared in a very strong manner that her brother could not think of accepting from Miss Dunstable any such pecuniary assistance as that offered—and, to give her her due, such was the feeling of her mind at the moment; but as she went to meet her brother and gave him an account of this interview, it did occur to her that possibly Miss Dunstable might be a better creditor than the Duke of Omnium for the Chaldicotes property.