The Palliser Novels (571 page)

“Not Lord!”

“Then I shall call you Plantagenet; — only it sounds so horribly historical. Why are you not Thomas or Abraham? But if it will please you to hear me say so, I am ready to acknowledge that nothing in all my life ever came near to the delight I have in your love.” Hereupon he almost succeeded in getting his arm round her waist. But she was strong, and seized his hand and held it. “And I speak no rhapsodies. I tell you a truth which I want you to know and to keep in your heart, — so that you may be always, always sure of it.”

“I never will doubt it.”

“But that marrying will ye nill ye, will not suit me. There is so much wanted for happiness in life.”

“I will do all that I can.”

“Yes. Even though it be hazardous, I am willing to trust you. If you were as other men are, if you could do as you please as lower men may do, I would leave father and mother and my own country, — that I might be your wife. I would do that because I love you. But what will my life be here, if they who are your friends turn their backs upon me? What will your life be, if, through all that, you continue to love me?”

“That will all come right.”

“And what will your life be, or mine,” she said, going on with her own thoughts without seeming to have heard his last words, “if in such a condition as that you did not continue to love me?”

“I should always love you.”

“It might be very hard: — and if once felt to be hard, then impossible. You have not looked at it as I have done. Why should you? Even with a wife that was a trouble to
you — “

“Oh, Isabel!”

His arm was now round her waist, but she continued speaking as though she were not aware of the embrace. “Yes, a trouble! I shall not be always just what I am now. Now I can be bright and pretty and hold my own with others because I am so. But are you sure, — I am not, — that I am such stuff as an English lady should be made of? If in ten years’ time you found that others did not think so, — that, worse again, you did not think so yourself, would you be true to me then?”

“I will always be true to you.”

She gently extricated herself, as though she had done so that she might better turn round and look into his face. “Oh, my own one, who can say of himself that it would be so? How could it be so, when you would have all the world against you? You would still be what you are, — with a clog round your leg while at home. In Parliament, among your friends, at your clubs, you would be just what you are. You would be that Lord Silverbridge who had all good things at his disposal, — except that he had been unfortunate in his marriage! But what should I be?” Though she paused he could not answer her, — not yet. There was a solemnity in her speech which made it necessary that he should hear her to the end. “I, too, have my friends in my own country. It is no disgrace to me there that my grandfather worked on the quays. No one holds her head higher than I do, or is more sure of being able to hold it. I have there that assurance of esteem and honour which you have here. I would lose it all to do you a good. But I will not lose it to do you an injury.”

“I don’t know about injuries,” he said, getting up and walking about the room. “But I am sure of this. You will have to be my wife.”

“If your father will take me by the hand and say that I shall be his daughter, I will risk all the rest. Even then it might not be wise; but we love each other too well not to run some peril. Do you think that I want anything better than to preside in your home, to soften your cares, to welcome your joys, to be the mother perhaps of your children, and to know that you are proud that I should be so? No, my darling. I can see a Paradise; — only, only, I may not be fit to enter it. I must use some judgment better than my own, sounder, dear, than yours. Tell the Duke what I say; — tell him with what language a son may use to his father. And remember that all you ask for yourself you will ask doubly for me.”

“I will ask him so that he cannot refuse me.”

“If you do I shall be contented. And now go. I have said ever so much, and I am tired.”

“Isabel! Oh, my love!”

“Yes; Isabel; — your love! I am that at any rate for the present, — and proud to be so as a queen. Well, if it must be, this once, — as I have been so hard to you.” Then she gave him her cheek to kiss, but of course he took more than she gave.

When he got out into the street it was dark and there was still standing the faithful cab. But he felt that at the present moment it would be impossible to sit still, and he dismissed the equipage. He walked rapidly along Brook Street into Park Lane, and from thence to the park, hardly knowing whither he went in the enthusiasm of the moment. He walked back to the Marble Arch, and thence round by the drive to the Guard House and the bridge over the Serpentine, by the Knightsbridge Barracks to Hyde Park Corner. Though he should give up everything and go and live in her own country with her, he would marry her. His politics, his hunting, his address to the Queen, his horses, his guns, his father’s wealth, and his own rank, — what were they all to Isabel Boncassen? In meeting her he had met the one human being in all the world who could really be anything to him either in friendship or in love. When she had told him what she would do for him to make his home happy, it had seemed to him that all other delights must fade away from him for ever. How odious were Tifto and his racehorses, how unmeaning the noise of his club, how terrible the tedium of those parliamentary benches! He could not tell his love as she had told hers! He acknowledged to himself that his words could not be as her words, — nor his intellect as hers. But his heart could be as true. She had spoken to him of his name, his rank, and all his outside world around him. He would make her understand at last that they were nothing to him in comparison with her. When he had got round to Hyde Park Corner, he felt that he was almost compelled to go back again to Brook Street. In no other place could there be anything to interest him; — nowhere else could there be light, or warmth, or joy! But what would she think of him? To go back hot, and soiled with mud, in order that he might say one more adieu, — that possibly he might ravish one more kiss, — would hardly be manly. He must postpone all that for the morrow. On the morrow of course he would be there.

But his work was all before him! That prayer had to be made to his father; or rather some wonderful effort of eloquence must be made by which his father might be convinced that this girl was so infinitely superior to anything of feminine creation that had ever hitherto been seen or heard of, that all ideas as to birth, country, rank, or name ought in this instance to count for nothing. He did believe himself that he had found such a pearl, that no question of setting need be taken into consideration. If the Duke would not see it the fault would be in the Duke’s eyes, or perhaps in his own words, — but certainly not in the pearl.

Then he compared her to poor Lady Mabel, and in doing so did arrive at something near the truth in his inward delineation of the two characters. Lady Mabel with all her grace, with all her beauty, with all her talent, was a creature of efforts, or, as it might be called, a manufactured article. She strove to be graceful, to be lovely, to be agreeable and clever. Isabel was all this and infinitely more without any struggle. When he was most fond of Mabel, most anxious to make her his wife, there had always been present to him a feeling that she was old. Though he knew her age to a day, — and knew her to be younger than himself, yet she was old. Something had gone of her native bloom, something had been scratched and chipped from the first fair surface, and this had been repaired by varnish and veneering. Though he had loved her he had never been altogether satisfied with her. But Isabel was as young as Hebe. He knew nothing of her actual years, but he did know that to have seemed younger, or to have seemed older, — to have seemed in any way different from what she was, — would have been to be less perfect.

On a Sunday morning, — while Lord Silverbridge was alone in a certain apartment in the house in Carlton Terrace which was called his own sitting-room, the name was brought him of a gentleman who was anxious to see him. He had seen his father and had used all the eloquence of which he was master, — but not quite with the effect which he had desired. His father had been very kind, but he, too, had been eloquent; — and had, as is often the case with orators, been apparently more moved by his own words than by those of his adversary. If he had not absolutely declared himself as irrevocably hostile to Miss Boncassen he had not said a word that might be supposed to give token of assent.

Silverbridge, therefore, was moody, contemplative, and desirous of solitude. Nothing that the Duke had said had shaken him. He was still sure of his pearl, and quite determined that he would wear it. Various thoughts were running through his brain. What if he were to abdicate the title and become a republican? He was inclined to think that he could not abdicate, but he was quite sure that no one could prevent him from going to America and calling himself Mr. Palliser. That his father would forgive him and accept the daughter-in-law brought to him, were he in the first place to marry without sanction, he felt quite sure. What was there that his father would not forgive? But then Isabel would not assent to this. He was turning it all in his head and ever and anon trying to relieve his mind by “Clarissa,” which he was reading in conformity with his father’s advice, when the gentleman’s card was put into his hand. “Whatever does he want here?” he said to himself; and then he ordered that the gentleman might be shown up. The gentleman in question was our old friend Dolly Longstaff. Dolly Longstaff and Silverbridge had been intimate as young men are. But they were not friends, nor, as far as Silverbridge knew, had Dolly ever set his foot in that house before. “Well, Dolly,” said he, “what’s the matter now?”

“I suppose you are surprised to see me?”

“I didn’t think that you were ever up so early.” It was at this time almost noon.

“Oh, come now, that’s nonsense. I can get up as early as anybody else. I have changed all that for the last four months. I was at breakfast this morning very soon after ten.”

“What a miracle! Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Well yes, — there is. Of course you are surprised to see me?”

“You never were here before; and therefore it is odd.”

“It is odd; I felt that myself. And when I tell you what I have come about you will think it more odd. I know I can trust you with a secret.”

“That depends, Dolly.”

“What I mean is, I know you are good-natured. There are ever so many fellows that are one’s most intimate friends, that would say anything on earth they could that was ill-natured.”

“I hope they are not my friends.”

“Oh yes, they are. Think of Glasslough, or Popplecourt, or Hindes! If they knew anything about you that you didn’t want to have known, — about a young lady or anything of that kind, — don’t you think they’d tell everybody?”

“A man can’t tell anything he doesn’t know.”

“That’s true. I had thought of that myself. But then there’s a particular reason for my telling you this. It is about a young lady! You won’t tell; will you?”

“No, I won’t. But I can’t see why on earth you should come to me. You are ever so many years older than I am.”

“I had thought of that too. But you are just the person I must tell. I want you to help me.”

These last words were said in a whisper, and Dolly as he said them had drawn nearer to his friend. Silverbridge remained in suspense, saying nothing by way of encouragement. Dolly, either in love with his own mystery or doubtful of his own purpose, sat still, looking eagerly at his companion. “What the mischief is it?” asked Silverbridge impatiently.

“I have quite made up my own mind.”

“That’s a good thing at any rate.”

“I am not what you would have called a marrying sort of man.”

“I should have said, — no. But I suppose most men do marry sooner or later.”

“That’s just what I said to myself. It has to be done, you know. There are three different properties coming to me. At least one has come already.”

“You’re a lucky fellow.”

“I’ve made up my mind; and when I say a thing I mean to do it.”

“But what can I do?”

“That’s just what I’m coming to. If a man does marry I think he ought to be attached to her.” To this, as a broad proposition, Silverbridge was ready to accede. But, regarding Dolly as a middle-aged sort of fellow, one of those men who marry because it is convenient to have a house kept for them, he simply nodded his head. “I am awfully attached to her,” Dolly went on to say.

“That’s all right.”

“Of course there are fellows who marry girls for their money. I’ve known men who have married their grandmothers.”

“Not really!”

“That kind of thing. When a woman is old it does not much matter who she is. But my one! She’s not old!”

“Nor rich?”

“Well; I don’t know about that. But I’m not after her money. Pray understand that. It’s because I’m downright fond of her. She’s an American.”

“A what!” said Silverbridge, startled.

“You know her. That’s the reason I’ve come to you. It’s Miss Boncassen.” A dark frown came across the young man’s face. That all this should be said to him was disgusting. That an owl like that should dare to talk of loving Miss Boncassen was offensive to him.

“It’s because you know her that I’ve come to you. She thinks that you’re after her.” Dolly as he said this lifted himself quickly up in his seat, and nodded his head mysteriously as he looked into his companion’s face. It was as much as though he should say, “I see you are surprised, but so it is.” Then he went on. “She does, the pert poppet!” This was almost too much for Silverbridge; but still he contained himself. “She won’t look at me because she has got it into her head that perhaps some day she may be Duchess of Omnium! That of course is out of the question.”

“Upon my word all this seems to me to be so very — very, — distasteful that I think you had better say nothing more about it.”