 CHAPTER ONE OF THE DUTCHES' CHILDREN No one probably ever felt himself to be more alone in the world than our old friend the Duke of Omnium, when the Duchess died. When this sad event happened he had ceased to be Prime Minister. During the first nine months after he had left office he and the Duchess remained in England. Then they had gone abroad, taking with them their three children. The eldest, Lord Silverbridge, had been at Oxford, but had had his career there cut short by some more than ordinary youthful folly, which had induced his father to agree with the college authorities that his name had better be taken off the college books, all of which had been cause of very great sorrow to the Duke. The other boy was to go to Cambridge, but his father had thought it well to give him a twelve-month's run on the continent under his own inspection. Lady Mary, the only daughter, was the youngest of the family, and she also had been with them on the continent. They remained the full year abroad, travelling with a large accompaniment of tutors, ladies-maids, couriers, and sometimes friends. I do not know that the Duchess of the Duke had enjoyed it much, but the young people had seen something of foreign courts, and much of foreign scenery, and had perhaps perfected their French. The Duke had gone to work at his travels with a full determination to create for himself occupation out of a new kind of life. He had studied Dante, and had striven to arouse himself to ecstatic joy amidst the loveliness of the Italian lakes, but through it all he had been aware that he had failed. The Duchess had made no such resolution, and hardly perhaps made any attempt, but in truth they both sighed to be back among the war-trumpets. They had both suffered much among the trumpets, and yet they longed to return. He told himself from day to day that though he had been banished from the House of Commons, still as a peer he had a seat in Parliament, and that though he was no longer a minister, still he might be useful as a legislator. She, in her career as a leader of fashion, had no doubt met with some trouble, with some trouble, but with no disgrace, and as she had been carried about among the lakes and mountains, among the pictures and statues, among the coutesses and coutesses, she had often felt that there was no happiness except in that dominion which circumstances had enabled her to achieve, and might enable her to achieve again in the realms of London society. Then, in the early spring of 1870 Blank, they came back to England, having persistently carried out their project at any rate in regard to time. Lord Gerald, the younger son, was at once sent up to Trinity, for the eldest son the seat was to be found at the House of Commons, and the fact that a dissolution of Parliament was expected, served to prevent any prolonged sojourn abroad. Lady Mary Palliser was at that time nineteen, and her entrance into the world was to be her mother's great care and great delight. In March they spent a few days in London, and then went down to matching priory. When she left town the Duchess was complaining of cold sore throat and debility, a week after their arrival at matching she was dead. Had the heavens fallen and mixed themselves with the earth, had the people of London risen in rebellion with French ideas of equality, had the Queen persistently declined to comply with the constitutional advice of her ministers, had a majority in the House of Commons lost disinfluence in the country, the utter prostration of the bereft husband could not have been more complete. It was not only that his heart was torn to pieces, but that he did not know how to look out into the world. It was as though a man should be suddenly called upon to live without hands or even arms. He was helpless and knew himself to be helpless. Hitherto he had never specially acknowledged to himself that his wife was necessary to him as a component part of his life. Though he had loved her dearly and had in all things consulted her welfare and happiness, he had at times been inclined to think that in the exuberance of her spirits she had been a trouble rather than a support to him. But now it was as though all outside appliances were taken away from him there was no one of whom he could ask a question. For it may be said of this man, that though throughout his life he had had many honourable and right honourable friends, and that though he had entertained guests by the score and though he had achieved for himself the respect of all good men and the thorough admiration of some few who knew him, he had hardly made for himself a single intimate friend except that one who had now passed away from him. To her he had been able to say what he thought even though she would occasionally ridicule him while he was declaring his feelings. But there had been no other human soul to whom he could open himself. There were one or two whom he loved and perhaps liked, but his loving and his liking had been exclusively political. He had so habituated himself to devote his mind and his heart to the service of his country that he had almost risen above or sunk below humanity. But she who had been essentially human had been a link between him and the world. There were his three children, the youngest of whom was now nearly nineteen, and they surely were links. At the first moment of his bereavement they were felt to be hardly more than burdens, a more loving father that was not in England, but nature had made him so undemonstrative that as yet they had hardly known his love. And all their joys and all their troubles and all their desires and all their disappointments they had ever gone to their mother. She had been conversant with everything about them, from the boys' bills and the girls' gloves to the innermost turn in the heart and the disposition of each. She had known with the utmost accuracy the nature of the scrapes into which Lord Silverbridge had precipitated himself, and had known also how probable it was that Lord Gerald would do the same. The results of such scrapes she, of course, deplored, and therefore she would give good counsel, pointing out how imperative it was that such evil doing should be avoided. But with the spirit that produced the scrapes she fully sympathized. The father disliked the spirit almost worse than the results, and was therefore often irritated and unhappy. And the difficulties about the girl were almost worse to bear than those about the boys. She had done nothing wrong. She had given no signs of extravagance or other juvenile to misconduct. But she was beautiful and young. How was he to bring her out into the world? How was he to decide whom she should or whom she should not marry? How was he to guide her through the shoals and rocks which lay in the path of such a girl before she can achieve matrimony? It was the fate of the family that with the world of acquaintance they had not many friends. From all close connection with relatives on the side of the Duchess they had been dissevered by old feelings at first, and afterwards by want of any similitude in the habits of life. She had, when young, been repressed by male and female guardians with an iron hand. Such repression had been needed, and had perhaps been salutary, but it had not left behind it much affection. And then her nearest relatives were not sympathetic with the Duke. He could obtain no assistance in the care of his girl from that source. Nor could he even do it from his own cousin's wives, who were his nearest connections on the side of the palaces. They were women to whom he had ever been kind, but to whom he had never opened his heart. When, in the midst of the stunning sorrow of the first week, he had tried to think of all this, it seemed to him that there was nobody. There had been one lady, a very dear ally, staying in the house with them when the Duchess died. This was Mrs. Finn, the wife of Phineas Finn, who had been one of the Duke's colleagues when in office. How it had come to pass that Mrs. Finn and the Duchess had become singularly bound together has been told elsewhere. But there had been close bonds, so close that when the Duchess on their return from the continent had passed through London on her way to matching, ill at the time and very comfortless, it had been almost a thing, of course, that Mrs. Finn should go with her. And as she had sunk and then despaired and then died, it was this woman who had always been at her side, who administered to her and had listened to the fears and wishes and hopes she had expressed respecting the children. At matching, amidst the ruins of the old Priory, there is a parish burying-ground. And there, in accordance with her own wish, almost within sight of her own bedroom window, she was buried. On the day of the funeral a dozen relatives came, palaces and McCluskies, who on such an occasion were bound to show themselves as members of the family. With them and his two sons the Duke walked across to the graveyard and then walked back. But even to those who stayed the night at the house he hardly spoke. By noon on the following day they had all left him and the only stranger in the house was Mrs. Finn. On the afternoon of the day after the funeral the Duke and his guests met, almost for the first time since the sad event. There had been just a pressure of the hand, just a glance of compassion, just some murmur of deep sorrow, but there had been no real speech between them. Now he had sent for her and she went down to him in the room in which he commonly sat at work. He was seated at his table when she entered, but there was no book open before him, no pen ready in his hand. He was dressed, of course, in black. That, indeed, was usual with him. But now the tailor by his funereal art had added some deeper dye of blackness to his appearance. When he rose and turned to her she thought that he had at once become an old man. His hair was gray in parts and he had never accustomed himself to use that skill in managing his outside person, by which many men are able to preserve for themselves a look, if not of youth at any rate of freshness. He was thin, of an adust complexion, and had acquired a habit of stooping, which, when he was not excited, gave him an appearance of age. All that was common to him, but now it was so much exaggerated that he, who was not yet fifty, might have been taken to be over sixty. He put out his hand to greet her as she came up to him. Silver bridge, he said, tells me that you go back to London to-morrow. I thought it would be best, Duke. My presence here can be of no comfort to you. I will not say that anything can be of comfort, but, of course, it is right that you should go. I can have no excuse for asking you to remain, while there was yet a hope for her. And he stopped unable to say a word further in that direction, and yet there was no sign of a tear and no sound of a sob. Of course I would stay, Duke, if I could be of any service. Mr. Finn will expect you to return to him. Perhaps it would be better that I should say that I would stay were it not that I know I can be of no real service. What do you mean by that, Mrs. Finn? Lady Mary should have wither at such a time some other friend. There was none other whom her mother loved as she loved you. None, none. This, he said, almost with energy. There was no one lately, Duke, with whom circumstances caused her mother to be so closely intimate. But even that, perhaps, was unfortunate. I never thought so. That is a great compliment. But as to Lady Mary, will it not be as well that she should have wither, as soon as possible, someone, perhaps someone of her own kindred, if it be possible, or if not that, at least one of her own kind? Who is there? Whom do you mean? I mean no one. It is hard, Duke, to say what I do mean, but perhaps I had better try. There will be, probably there have been, some among your friends who have regretted the great intimacy which Chance produced between me and my lost friend. While she was with us, no such feeling would have sufficed to drive me from her. She had chosen for herself, and if others disapproved her choice, that was nothing to me. But as regards Lady Mary, it will be better, I think, that from the beginning she should be taught to look for friendship and guidance to those who were more naturally connected with her. I was not thinking of guidance, said the Duke. Of course not, but with one so young, where there is intimacy there will be guidance. There should be somebody with her. It was almost the last thought that occupied her mother's mind. I could not tell her, Duke, but I can tell you, that I cannot, with advantage to your girl, be that somebody. Cora wished it. Her wishes, probably, were sudden and hardly fixed. Who should it be, then, said the father, after a pause? Who am I, Duke, that I should answer such a question? After that there was another pause, and then the conference was ended by a request from the Duke that Mrs. Finn would stay at Matching for yet two days longer. At dinner they all met—the father, the three children, and Mrs. Finn. How far the young people among themselves had been able to throw off something of the gloom of death need not here be asked. But in the presence of their father they were sad and somber almost as he was. On the next day early in the morning the younger lad returned to his college, and Lord Silverbridge went up to London where he was supposed to have his home. Perhaps you would not mind reading these letters, that Duke said to Mrs. Finn, when she again went to him in compliance with the message from him asking for her presence. When she sat down and read two letters, one from Lady Cantrip, the other from a Mrs. Geoffrey Palliser, each of which contained an invitation for his daughter, and expressed the hope that Lady Mary would not be unwilling to spend some time with the writer. Lady Cantrip's letter was long and went minutely into circumstances. If Lady Mary would come to her she would abstain from having other company in the house till her young friend's spirit should have somewhat recovered themselves. Nothing could be more kind or proposed in a sweeter fashion. There had, however, been present to the Duke's mind as he read it, a feeling that a proposition to a bereaved husband to relieve him of the society of an only daughter was not one which would usually be made to a father. In such a position a child's company would probably be his best solace. But he knew, at this moment he painfully remembered, that he was not as our other men. He acknowledged the truth of this, but he was not the less grieved and irritated by the reminder. The letter from Mrs. Geoffrey Palliser was to the same effect, but was much shorter. If it would suit Mary to come to them for a month or six weeks at their place in Gloucestershire they would both be delighted. I should not choose her to go there, said the Duke, as Mrs. Finn refolded the latter letter. My cousin's wife is a very good woman, but Mary would not be happy with her. Lady Cantrip is an excellent friend for her. Excellent! I know no one whom I esteem more than Lady Cantrip. Would you wish her to go there, Duke? There came a wistful piteous look over the father's face. Why should he be treated as no other father would be treated? Why should it be supposed that he would desire to send his girl away from him? But yet he felt that it would be better that she should go. It was his present purpose to remain at matching through a portion of the summer. What could he do to make a girl happy? What comfort would there be in his companionship? I suppose she ought to go somewhere, he said. I had not thought of it, said Mrs. Finn. I understood you to say, replied the Duke almost angrily, that she ought to go to someone who would take care of her. I was thinking of some friend coming to her. Who would come? Who is there that I could possibly ask? You will not stay. I certainly would stay if it were for her good. I was thinking, Duke, that perhaps you might ask the Grey's to come to you. They would not come, he said, after a pause. When she was told that it was for her sake she would come, I think. Then there was another pause. I could not ask them, he said, for his sake I could not have put it to her that way. Perhaps Mary had better go to Lady Cantrip. Perhaps I had better be alone here for a time. I do not think that I am fit to have any human being here with me in my sorrow. End of chapter one. Chapter two of The Duke's Children. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Nicholas Clifford. The Duke's Children by Anthony Trollop. Chapter two, Lady Mary Palliser. It may as well be said at once that Mrs. Finn knew something of Lady Mary which was not known to the father and which she was not yet prepared to make known to him. The last winter abroad had been passed at Rome and there Lady Mary Palliser had become acquainted with a certain Mr. Tragear, Francis Oliphant Tragear. The Duchess, who had been in constant correspondence with her friend, had asked questions by letter as to Mr. Tragear, of whom she had only known that he was the younger son of a Cornish gentleman who had become Lord Silverbridge's friend at Oxford. In this there had certainly been but little to recommend him to the intimacy of such a girl as Lady Mary Palliser. Nor had the Duchess, when writing, ever spoken of him as a probable suitor for her daughter's hand. She had never connected the two names together. But Mrs. Finn had been clever enough to perceive that the Duchess had become fond of Mr. Tragear and would willingly have heard something to his advantage. And she did hear something to his advantage, something also to his disadvantage. At his mother's death this young man would inherit a property amounting to about 1500 a year. And I am told, said Mrs. Finn, that he is quite likely to spend his money before it comes to him. There had been nothing more written specially about Mr. Tragear, but Mrs. Finn had feared not only that the young man loved the girl, but that the young man's love had in some imprudent way been fostered by the mother. Then there had been some fitful confidence during those few days of acute illness. Why should not the girl have the man if he were lovable? And the Duchess referred to her own early days when she had loved and to the great ruin which had come upon her heart when she had been severed from the man she had loved. Not but that it was all for the best, she had said. Not but that Plantagenet has been to me all that a husband should be. Only if she can be spared what I suffered, let her be spared. Even when these things had been said to her, Mrs. Finn had found herself unable to ask questions. She could not bring herself to inquire whether the girl had in truth given her heart to this young Tragear. The one was 19 and the other is yet but two and 20. But though she asked no question, she almost knew that it must be so. And she knew also that the father is yet was quite in the dark on the matter. How is it possible that in such circumstances she should assume the part of the girl's confidential friend and monetress? Were she to do so, she must immediately tell the father everything. In such a position, no one could be a better friend than Lady Cantrip. And Mrs. Finn had already almost made up her mind that should Lady Cantrip occupy the place, she would tell her ladyship all that had passed between herself and the Duchess on the subject. Of what hope she might have or what fears about her girl, the Duchess had said no word to her husband. But when she had believed that the things of the world were fading away from her, when he was sitting by her bedside, dumb because at such a moment he knew not how to express the tenderness of his heart, holding her hand and trying so to listen to her words that he might collect and remember every wish, she had murmured something about the ultimate division of the great wealth with which she herself had been endowed. She had never, she said, even tried to remember what arrangements had been made by lawyers, but she hoped that Mary might be so circumstanced that if her happiness depended upon marrying a poor man, want of money need not prevented. The Duke, suspecting nothing, believing this to be a not unnatural expression of maternal interest, had assured her that Mary's fortune would be ample. Mrs. Finn made the proposition to Lady Mary in respect to Lady Cantrip's invitation. Lady Mary was very like her mother, especially in having exactly her mother's tone of voice, her quick manner of speech and her sharp intelligence. She had also her mother's eyes, large and round and almost blue, full of life and full of courage, eyes which never seemed to quail, and her mother's dark brown hair, never long but very copious in its thickness. She was, however, taller than her mother and very much more graceful in her movement, and she could already assume a personal dignity of manner which had never been within her mother's reach. She had become aware of a certain brusqueness of speech in her mother, a certain aptitude to say sharp things without thinking whether the sharpness was becoming to the position which she held, and taking advantage of the example the girl had already learned that she might gain more than she would lose by controlling her words. Papa wants me to go to Lady Cantrip, she said. I think he would like it just for the present, Lady Mary. Though there had been the closest possible intimacy between the Duchess and Mrs. Finn, this had hardly been so as to the intercourse between Mrs. Finn and the children. Of Mrs. Finn it must be acknowledged that she was, perhaps fastidiously, afraid of appearing to take advantage of her friendship with the Duke's family. She would tell herself that those circumstances that compelled her to be the closest and nearest friend of a Duchess, still her natural place was not among Duke's and their children, and therefore in her intercourse with the girl, she did not at first assume the manner and bearing which her position in the house would have seemed to warrant, hence the Lady Mary. Why does he want to send me away, Mrs. Finn? It is not that he wants to send you away, but that he thinks it will be better for you to be with some friend. Here you must be so much alone. Why don't you stay, but I suppose Mr. Finn wants you to be back in London? It is not that only, or to speak the truth, not that at all. Mr. Finn could come here if it were suitable, or for a week or two he might do very well without me, but there are other reasons. There is no one whom your mother respected more highly than Lady Cantrip. I never heard her speak a word of Lady Cantrip. Both he and she are your father's intimate friends. Does papa want to be alone here? It is you, not himself, of whom he is thinking. Therefore I must think of him, Mrs. Finn. I do not wish him to be alone. I am sure it would be better that I should stay with him. He feels that it would not be well that you should live without the companionship of some lady. Then let him find some lady. You would be the best because he knows you so well. I, however, am not afraid of being alone. I am sure he ought not to be here quite by himself. If he bids me go I must go, and then of course I shall go where he sends me, but I won't say that I think at best that I should go, and certainly I do not want to go to Lady Cantrip. This, she said, with great decision, as though the matter was one on which she had altogether made up her mind. Then she added in a lower voice. Why doesn't papa speak to me about it? He is thinking only of what may be best for you. It would be best for me to stay near him. Whom else has he got? All this, Mrs. Finn repeated to the Duke as closely as she could, and then of course the father was obliged to speak to his daughter. Don't send me away, papa, she said at once. Your life here, Mary, will be inexpressibly sad. It must be sad anywhere. I cannot go to college like Gerald or live anywhere just as I please like Silverbridge. Do you envy them that? Sometimes, papa, only I shall think more of poor mama by being alone and I should like to be thinking of her always. He shook his head mournfully. I do not mean that I shall always be unhappy as I am now. No, my dear, you are too young for that. It is only the old who suffer in that way. You will suffer less if I am with you, won't you, papa? I do not want to go to Lady Cantrip. I hardly remember her at all. She is very good. Oh yes, that's what they used to say to mama about Lady Midlothian. Papa, pray do not send me to Lady Cantrip. Of course it was decided that she should not go to Lady Cantrip at once or to Mrs. Geoffrey Palliser and after a short interval of doubt it was decided also that Mrs. Finn should remain at matching at least for a fortnight. The Duke declared that he would be glad to see Mr. Finn, but she knew that in his present mood the society of any one man to whom he would feel himself called upon to devote his time would be a burden to him and she plainly said that Mr. Finn had better not come to matching at present. There were old associations, she said, which will enable you to bear with me as you will with your butler or your groom, but you are not as yet quite able to make yourself happy with company. This he bore with perfect equanimity and then as it were handed over his daughter to Mrs. Finn's care. Very quickly there came to be close intimacy between Mrs. Finn and Lady Mary for a day or two the elder woman so the place she filled was one of absolute confidence rather resisted than encouraged the intimacy. She always remembered that the girl was the daughter of a great Duke and that her position in the house had sprung from circumstances which would not perhaps in the eyes of the world at large have recommended her for such friendship. She knew, the reader may possibly know, that nothing had ever been purer, nothing more disinterested than her friendship but she knew also, no one knew better that the judgment of men and women does not always run parallel with facts. She entertained too a conviction in regard to herself that hard words and hard judgments were to be expected from the world, were to be accepted by her without any strong feeling of injustice because she had been elevated by chance to the possession of more good things than she had merited. She weighed all this with a very fine balance and even after the encouragement she had received from the Duke was intent on confining herself to some position about the girl inferior to that which such a friend as Lady Cantrip might have occupied but the girl's manner and the girl's speech about her own mother overcame her. It was the unintentional revelation of the Duchess's constant reference to her, the way in which Lady Mary would assert that Mama used always to say this of you, Mama always knew that you would think so and so. Mama used to say that you would told her. It was the feeling thus conveyed that the mother who was now dead had in her daily dealings with her own child spoken of her as her nearest friend which mainly served to conquer the deference of manner which she had assumed. Then gradually there came confidences and at last absolute confidence. The whole story about Mr. Tragear was told. Yes, she loved Mr. Tragear. She had given him her heart and had told him so. Then, my dear, your father ought to know it, said Mrs. Finn. No, not yet, Mama knew it. Did she know all that you have told me? Yes, all. And Mr. Tragear spoke to her and she said that Papa ought not to be told quite yet. Mrs. Finn could not but remember that the friend she had lost was not among women the one best able to give a girl good counsel in such a crisis. Why not yet, dear? Well, it is very hard to explain in the first place because Mr. Tragear himself does not wish it. That is a very bad reason, the worst in the world. Of course you will say so. Of course everybody would say so. But when there is one person whom one loves better than all the rest for whom one would be ready to die, to whom one is determined that everything shall be devoted, surely the wishes of a person so dear as that ought to have weight? Not in persuading you to do that which is acknowledged to be wrong. What wrong? I am going to do nothing wrong. The very concealment of your love is wrong after that love has been not only given but declared. A girl's position in such matters is so delicate, especially that of a girl such as you. I know all about that, said Lady Mary, with something almost approaching to scorn in her voice. Of course I have to be delicate. I don't quite know what the word means. I am not a bit ashamed of being in love with Mr. Tragear. He is a gentleman, highly educated, very clever, of an old family, older, I believe, than Papaz. And he is manly and handsome, just what a young man ought to be. Only he is not rich. If he be all that you say ought you not to trust your papa. If he approve of it, he could give you money. Of course he must be told, but not now. He is nearly broken hearted about dear Mama. He could not bring himself to care about anything of that kind at present. And then it is Mr. Tragear that should speak to him first. Not now, Mary. How do you mean not now? If you had a mother, you would talk to her about it. Mama knew. If she was still living, she would tell your father. But she didn't tell him, though she did know. She didn't mean to tell him quite yet. She wanted to see Mr. Tragear here in England first. Of course I shall do nothing till papa does know. You will not see him. How can I see him here? He will not come here, if you mean that. You do not correspond with him? Here, for the first time, the girl blushed. Oh, Mary, if you are writing to him, your father ought to know it. I have not written to him, but when he heard how ill poor Mama was, then he wrote to me, twice. You may see his letters. It is all about her. No one worshipped Mama as he did. Gradually the whole story was told. These two young persons considered themselves to be engaged, but had agreed that their engagement should not be made known to the Duke till something had occurred or some time had arrived as to which Mr. Tragear was to be the judge. In Mrs. Finn's opinion nothing could be more unwise, and she said much to induce the girl to confess everything to her father at once, but in all her arguments she was opposed by the girl's reference to her mother. And it had certainly seemed to Mrs. Finn as though the mother had assented to this imprudent concealment, when she endeavored in her own mind to make excuse for her friend, she felt almost sure that the Duchess with all her courage had been afraid to propose to her husband that their daughter should marry a commoner without an income. But in thinking of all that, there could now be nothing gained. What ought she to do at once? The girl, in telling her, had extracted no promise of secrecy, nor would she have given any such promise, but yet she did not like the idea of telling the tale behind the girl's back. It was evident that Lady Mary had considered herself to be safe in confiding her story to her mother's old friend. Lady Mary no doubt had had her confidences with her mother, confidences from which it had been intended by both that the father should be excluded, and now she seemed naturally to expect that this new ally should look at this great question as her mother had looked at it. The father had been regarded as a great outside power, which could hardly be overcome, but which might be evaded or made inoperative by stratagem. It was not that the daughter did not love him, she loved him and venerated him highly, the veneration perhaps being stronger than the love. The Duchess, too, had loved him dearly, more dearly in late years than in her early life. But her husband to her had always been an outside power, which had in many cases to be evaded. Lady Mary, though she did not express all this, evidently thought that in this new friend she had found a woman whose wishes and aspirations for her would be those which her mother had entertained. But Mrs. Finn was much troubled in her mind, thinking that it was her duty to tell the story to the Duke. It was not only the daughter who entrusted her, but the father also, and the father's confidence had been not only the first, but by far the holier of the two, and the question was one so important to the girl's future happiness that could be no doubt that the peril of her present position was very great. Mary, she said one morning when the fortnight was nearly at an end, your father ought to know all this. I should feel that I had betrayed him where I to go away leaving him in ignorance. You do not mean to say that you will tell, said the girl, horrified at the idea of such treachery. I wish that I could induce you to do so every day that he is kept in the dark as an injury to you. I am doing nothing, what harm can come? It is not as though I was seeing him every day. This harm will come, your father, of course, will know that you became engaged to Mr. Tragear in Italy and that a fact so important to him has been kept back from him. If there is anything in that, the evil has been done already. Of course poor Mamma did mean to tell him. She cannot tell him now and therefore you ought to do what she would have done. I cannot break my promise to him. Him always meant Mr. Tragear. I have told him that I would not do so till I had his consent and I will not. This was very dreadful to Mrs. Finn, yet she was most unwilling to take upon herself the part of a stern elder and declare that under the circumstances she must tell the tale. The story had been told to her under the supposition that she was not a stern elder, that she was regarded as the special friend of the dear mother who was gone, that she might be trusted to assist against the terrible weight of parental authority. She could not endure to be regarded at once as a traitor by this young friend who had sweetly inherited the affection which the duchess had regarded her. And yet if she were to be silent now, how could she forgive herself? The duke certainly ought to know at once, said she, repeating her words merely that she might gain some time for thinking and pluck up her courage to declare her purpose should she resolve on betraying the secret. If you tell him now I will never forgive you, said Lady Mary. I am bound and honored to see that your father knows a thing which is of such vital importance to him and to you. Having heard all this I have no right to keep it from him. If Mr. Tragear really loves you, Lady Mary smiled at the doubt implied by this suggestion, he ought to feel that for your sake there should be no secret from your father. And she paused a moment to think. Will you let me see Mr. Tragear himself and talk to him about it? To this Lady Mary at first emerged, but when she found that in no other way could she prevent Mrs. Finn from going at once to the duke and telling him everything, she consented. Under Mrs. Finn's direction she wrote a note to her lover which Mrs. Finn saw and then undertook the send with a letter from herself to Mr. Tragear's Address in London. The note was very short and was indeed dictated by the elder lady, with some dispute however, as to certain terms in which the younger lady had her way. It was as follows. Dearest Frank, I wish you to see Mrs. Finn, who as you know was dear Mama's most particular friend. Please go to her, as she will ask you to do. When you hear what she says, I think you ought to do what she advises. Yours forever and always, MP. This Mrs. Finn sent enclosed in an envelope with a few words from herself asking the gentleman to call upon her in park lane on a day and at an hour fixed. Mr. Francis Olyphant Tragear was a young man who might not improbably make a figure in the world, should circumstances be kind to him, but as to whom it might be doubted whether circumstances would be sufficiently kind to enable him to use, serviceably, his unquestionable talents and great personal gifts. He had taught himself to regard himself as a young English gentleman of the First Water, qualified by his birth and positioned to live with all that was most noble and most elegant, and he could have lived in that sphere naturally and gracefully, were it not that the part of the sphere which he specially affected requires wealth as well as birth and intellect. Wealth he had not, and yet he did not abandon the sphere. As a consequence of all this, it was possible that the predictions of his friends as to that figure which he was to make in the world might be disappointed. He had been educated at Eaton from whence he had been sent to Christchurch, and both at school and at college had been the most intimate friend of the son and heir of a great and wealthy duke. He and Lord Silverbridge had been always together, and they who were interested in the career of the young nobleman had generally thought he had chosen his friend well. Tragear had gone out in honors, having been a second-class man. His friend, Silverbridge, we know, had been allowed to take no degree at all, but the terrible practical joke by which the whole front of the Dean's house had been colored scarlet in the middle of the night had been carried on without any assistance from Tragear. The two young men had then been separated for a year, but immediately after taking his degree, Tragear, at the invitation of Lord Silverbridge, had gone to Italy and had there completely made good footing with the Duchess, with what effect on another member of the Palliser family the reader already knows. The young man was certainly clever when the Duchess found that he could talk without any shyness, that he could speak French fluently, and that after a month in Italy he could chatter Italian at any rate without reticence or shame. When she perceived that all the women liked the lad's society and impudence and that all the young men were anxious to know him, he was glad to find that Silverbridge had chosen so valuable a friend. And then he was beautiful to look at, putting her almost in mind of another man on whom her eyes had once loved to dwell. He was dark with hair that was almost black, but yet was not black, with clear brown eyes, a nose as regular as Apollo's, and a mouth in which was ever to be found that expression of manliness, all characteristics is the one which women love the best. He was five feet ten in height, he was always well dressed, and yet always so dressed as to seem to show that his outside garniture had not been a matter of trouble to him. Before the Duchess had dreamed what might take place between this young man and her daughter, she had been urgent in her congratulations to her son as to the possession of such a friend. For though she now would then have such a glimpse of the outer man, which would remind her of that other beautiful one whom she had known in her youth, and though as these glimpses came she would remember how poor in spirit and how unmanly that other one had been, though she would confess to herself how terrible had been the heart shipwreck which that other one had brought upon herself, still she was able completely to assure herself that this man, though not superior in external grace, was altogether different in mind and character. She was old enough now to see all this and to appreciate it. Young Tragear had his own ideas about the politics of the day, and they were ideas with which she sympathized, though they were antagonistic to the politics of her life. He had his ideas about books too, as to manners of life, as to art, and even ethics, whether or no in all this there was not much that was superficial only, she was not herself deep enough to discover, nor would she have been deterred from admiring him had she been told that it was tinsel, such were the requirements, such the charms that she loved. Here was a young man who dared to speak and had always something ready to be spoken, who was not afraid of beauty, nor daunted by superiority of rank, who, if he had not money, could carry himself on equal terms among those who had. In this way he won the Duchess's heart, and having done that, was it odd that he should win the heart of the daughter also? His father was a Cornwall squire of comfortable means, having joined the property of his wife to his own for the period of his own life. She had possessed land also in Cornwall, supposed to be worth fifteen hundred a year, and his own paternal estate at Paul Wenning was said to be double that value. Being a prudent man, he lived at home as a country gentleman, and thus was able in his county to hold his head as high as richer men. But Frank Tragear was only his second son, and though Frank would hereafter inherit his mother's fortune, he was by no means now in a position to assume the right of living as an idle man. Yet he was idle. The elder brother, who was considerably older than Frank, was an odd man, much addicted to quarrelling with his family, and who spent his time chiefly in travelling about the world. Frank's mother, who was not the mother of the heir also, would sometimes surmise, in Frank's hearing, that the entire property must ultimately come to him. That other Tragear, who was now supposed to be investigating the mountains of crim tartary, would surely never marry. And Frank was the favourite also with his father, who paid his debts at Oxford with not much grumbling, who was proud of his friendship with the future duke, who did not urge, as he ought to have urged, that vital question of a profession, and who, when he allowed his son four hundred pounds a year, was almost content with that son's protestations that he knew how to live as a poor man among rich men without chagrin and without trouble. Such was the young man who now, in lieu of a profession, had taken upon himself the responsibility of an engagement with Lady Mary Palliser. He was tolerably certain that should he be able to overcome the parental obstacles, which he would no doubt find in his path, money would be forthcoming sufficient for the purposes of matrimonial life, the duke's wealth was fabulous, and as the greater part of it, if not the greater, had come from his wife, there would probably be ample provision for the younger children. And when the duchess had found out how things were going, and had yielded to her daughter after an opposition which never had the appearance even of being an earnest, she had taken upon herself to say that she would use her influence to prevent any great weight of trouble from pecuniary matters. Frank Tragear, young and bright, full of hearty ambitions, was certainly not the man to pursue a girl simply because of her fortune, nor was he weak enough to be attracted simply by the glitter of rank, but he was wise enough with worldly wisdom to understand thoroughly the comforts of a good income, and he was sufficiently attached to high position to feel the advantage of marrying a daughter of the duke of Omnium. When the duchess was leaving Italy, it had been her declared purpose to tell her husband the story as soon as they were at home in England, and it was on this understanding that Frank Tragear had explained to the girl that he would not as yet ask her father for his permission to be received into the family as a suitor. Everyone concerned had felt that the duke would not easily be reconciled to such a son-in-law and that the duchess should be the one to bell the cat. There was one member of the family who had hitherto been half-hearted in the matter. Lord Silverbridge had vacillated between loyalty to his friend and a certain feeling as to the impropriety of such a match for his sister. He was aware that something very much better should be expected for her and still was unable to explain his objections to Tragear. He had not at first been admitted into confidence either by his sister or by Tragear, but had questioned his friend as to all what was going on. Certainly I love your sister, Tragear had said. Do you object?" Lord Silverbridge was the weaker of the two and much subject to the influence of his friend, but he could on occasion be firm and he did at first object. But he did not object strongly and allowed himself at last to be content with declaring that the duke would never give his consent. While Tragear was with his love or near her, his hopes and fears were sufficient to occupy his mind and immediately on his return all the world was nothing to him except as far as the world was concerned with Lady Mary Palliser. He had come back to England somewhat before the Ducal Party and the pleasures and occupations of London life had not abated his love but enabled him to feel that there was something in life over and beyond his love. Whereas to Lady Mary down at matching nothing over and beyond her love except the infinite grief and desolation produced by her mother's death. Tragear, when he received the note from Mrs. Finn, was staying at the duke's house in Carleton Terrace. Silverbridge was there and on leaving matching had asked the duke's permission to have his friend with him. The duke at that time was not well pleased with his son as to a matter of politics and gave his son's friend credit for the evil council which had produced this displeasure. But still he had not refused his assent to this proposition. Had he done so Silverbridge would probably have gone elsewhere and though there was a matter in respect to Tragear of which the duke disapproved it was not a matter as he thought which would have justified him in expelling the young man from his house. The young man was a strong conservative and now Silverbridge had declared his purpose of entering the House of Commons if he did enter it as one of the conservative party. This had been a terrible blow to the duke and he believed that it all came from this young Tragear. Still he must do his duty and not more than his duty. He knew nothing against Tragear that Tragear should be a conservative was perhaps natural enough at any rate was not disgraceful that he should have his political creed sufficiently at heart to be able to persuade another man was to his credit. He was a gentleman, well educated, superior in many things to Silverbridge himself. There were those who said that Silverbridge had redeemed himself from contempt, from that sort of contempt which might be supposed to await a young nobleman who had painted Scarlet the residence of the head of his college by the fact of his having chosen such a friend. The duke was essentially a just man and though at the very moment in which a request was made his heart was half crushed by his son's apostasy he gave the permission asked. You know Mrs. Finn, Tragear said to his friend one morning at breakfast, I remember her all my life she used to be a great deal with my grandfather I believe he left her a lot of diamonds and money and that she wouldn't have them I don't know whether the diamonds are not locked up somewhere now even when she pleases. What a singular woman! It was odd but she had some fat about it what makes you ask about Mrs. Finn? She wants me to go and see her. What about? I think I've heard your mother speak of her as though she loved her dearly said Tragear. I don't know about loving her dearly they were intimate and Mrs. Finn used to be with her very much when she was in the country she was at matching just now when my poor mother died why does she want to see you? she has written to me for matching she wants to see me well to tell you the truth I do not know what she has to say to me though I can guess what you guess it is something about your sister you will have to give that up Tragear I think not yes you will my father will never stand it I don't know what there is to stand I am not noble nor am I rich but I am as good a gentleman as he is my dear fellow said the young lord you know very well what I think about all that a fellow is not any better to me because he has got a title nor yet because he owns half a county but men have their ideas and feelings about it my father is a rich man and of course he'll want his daughter to marry a rich man my father is noble and he'll want his daughter to marry a nobleman you can't very well marry Mary without his permission and therefore you had better let it alone I haven't even asked his permission as yet even my mother was afraid to speak to him about it and I never knew her to be afraid to say anything else to him I shall not be afraid said Tragear looking grimly I should that's the difference between us he can't very well eat me nor even bite you nor will he abuse you but he can look at you and he can say a word or two which you will find it very hard to bear my governor is the quietest man I know but he has a way of making himself disagreeable when he wishes that I never saw equaled at any rate I had better go and see your Mrs. Finn then Tragear wrote a line to Mrs. Finn and made his appointment from the beginning of the affair Tragear had found the necessity of bolstering himself up inwardly in his great attempt by mottos, proverbs and instigations to courage addressed to himself none but the brave deserve the fair de l'audace et encore de l'audace et toujours de l'audace he was a man naturally of good heart in such matters who was not afraid of his brother men nor yet of women, his sisters but in this affair he knew very much persistence would be required of him and that even with such persistence he might probably fail unless he should find a more than ordinary constancy in the girl that the Duke could not eat him indeed that nobody could eat him as long as he carried himself as an honest man and a gentleman was to him an inward assurance on which he leaned much and yet he was conscious almost with a feeling of shame that in Italy he had not spoken to the Duke about his daughter because he was afraid lest the Duke might eat him in such an affair he should have been careful from the first to keep his own hands thoroughly clean had it not been his duty as a gentleman to communicate with the father if not before he gained the girl's heart at any rate as soon as he knew he had done so he had left Italy thinking that he would certainly meet the Duchess and meet her daughter in London and that then he might go to the Duke as though this love of his had arisen from the sweetness of those meetings in London but all these ideas had been dissipated by the great misfortune of the death of Lady Mary's mother from all this he was driven to acknowledge to himself that his silence in Italy had been wrong that he had been weak in allowing himself to be guided by the Council of the Duchess and that he had already armed the Duke with one strong argument against him he did not doubt but that Mrs. Finn would be opposed to him of course he could not doubt but that all the world would now be opposed to him except the girl herself he would find no other friend so generous so romantic so unworldly as the Duchess had been it was clear to him that Lady Mary had told the story of her engagement to Mrs. Finn and that Mrs. Finn had not as yet told it to the Duke from this he was justified in regarding Mrs. Finn as the girl's friend the request made was that he should at once do something which Mrs. Finn was to suggest he could hardly have been so requested and that in terms of such warm affection had it been Mrs. Finn's intention to ask him to desist altogether from his courtship this woman was regarded by Lady Mary as her mother's dearest friend it was therefore incumbent on him now to induce her to believe in him as the Duchess had believed he knocked at the door of Mrs. Finn's little house in Park Lane a few minutes before the time appointed and found himself alone when he was shown into the drawing-room he had heard much of this lady though he had never seen her and had heard much also of her husband there had been a kind of mystery about her people did not quite understand how it was that she had been so intimate with the Duchess nor why the late Duke had left to her an enormous legacy which has yet had never been claimed there was supposed to to have been something especially romantic in her marriage with her present husband it was believed also that she was very rich the rumours of all these things together had made her a person of note and Tragear when he found himself alone in the drawing-room looked round about him as though a special interest was to be attached to the belongings of such a woman it was a pretty room, somewhat dark because the curtains were almost closed across the windows but furnished with a pretty taste and now in these early April days filled with flowers I have to apologise Mr. Tragear for keeping you waiting she said as she entered the room I fear I was before my time I know that I am after mine a few minutes said the lady told himself that though she was not a young woman yet she was attractive she was dark and still wore her black hair and curls such as are now seldom seen with ladies perhaps the reduced light of the chamber had been regulated with some regard to her complexion and to her age the effect however was good and Frank Tragear felt at once interested in her you have just come up from matching he said yes, only the day before yesterday it is very good of you to come to see me so soon of course I came when you sent for me I am afraid the Duke felt his loss severely how should he not, such a loss as it was few people knew how much he trusted her and how dearly he loved her Silverbridge has told me that he is awfully cut up you have seen Lord Silverbridge then just at present I am living with him at Carlton Terrace in the Duke's house in the Duke's house she asked with some surprise yes in the Duke's house Silverbridge and I have been very intimate of course the Duke knows that I am there is there any chance of his coming to town not yet I fear he is determined to be alone I wish it were otherwise as I am sure he would better bear his sorrow if he would go about among other men no doubt he would suffer less, said Tragear then there was a pause each wished that the other should introduce the matter which both knew was to be the subject of their conversation but Tragear would not begin when I left them all at Florence he said, I little thought that I should never see her again you had been intimate with them, Mr. Tragear? yes, I think I may say I have been intimate with them I had been at Eaton and at Christ Church with Silverbridge and we have always been much together yes, I think I may say we have always been much together I have understood that have you and the Duke been good friends? we have never been enemies I suppose not that the Duke I think does not much care about young people I hardly know what he used to do with himself when I dined with him I saw him but I did not often do that I think he used to read a good deal and walk about alone we were always riding Lady Mary used to ride oh yes, and Lord Silverbridge and Lord Gerald and the Duchess used to drive one of us would always be with her and so you became intimate with the whole family so I became intimate with the whole family and especially so with Lady Mary this she said in her sweetest possible tone and with the most gracious smile especially so with Lady Mary he replied it will be very good of you Mr. Tregear if you will endure and forgive all this cross questioning from me who am a perfect stranger to you but you are not a perfect stranger to her that is it of course now if you will allow me I will explain to you exactly what my footing with her is when the Duchess returned and when I found her to be so ill as she passed through London and the country quite as a matter of course so I understand and there she died in my arms I will not try to harass you by telling you what those few days were how absolutely he was struck to the ground how terrible was the grief of the daughter how the boys were astonished by the feeling of their loss after a few days they went away it was I think their father's wish that they should go and I too was going away and had felt indeed directly her spirit had parted from her that I was only in the way in his house but I stayed at his request because he did not wish his daughter to be alone I can easily understand that Mrs. Finn I wanted her to go to Lady Cantrip who had invited her but she would not in that way we were thrown together in the closest intercourse then she told me the story of your engagement that was natural I suppose surely so think of her position lest she is without a mother it was incumbent upon her to tell someone there was however one other person in whom it would have been much better that she should have confided what person her father I rather fancy that it is I not to tell him as far as I understand these things Mr. Tragear which indeed is very imperfectly I think it is natural that a girl should at once tell her mother when a gentleman has made her understand that he loves her she did so Mrs. Finn and I suppose that generally the mother would tell the father she did not no and therefore the position of the young lady is now one of great embarrassment the Duchess has gone from us and we must now make up our minds as to what had better be done it is out of the question that Lady Mary should be allowed to consider herself to be engaged and that the father should be kept in ignorance of her position she paused for his reply but as he said nothing she continued either you must tell the Duke or she must do so or I must do so I suppose she told you in confidence no doubt she told it to me presuming that I would not betray her but I shall if that be a betrayal the Duke must know it it will be infinitely better that he should know it through you or through her than through me but he must be told I can't quite see why said Tragear for her sake whom I suppose you love certainly I love her in order that she may not suffer I wonder you do not see it Mr. Tragear perhaps you have a sister I have no sister as it happens but you can imagine what your feelings would be should you like to think of a sister as being engaged to a man without the knowledge of any of her family it was not so the Duchess knew it the present condition of things is all together an accident it is an accident that must be brought to an end of course it must be brought to an end I am not such a fool as to suppose that I can make her my wife without telling her father I mean at once Mr. Tragear it seems to me that you are rather dictating to me Mrs. Finn I owe you an apology of course for meddling in your affairs at all but as it will be more conducive to your success that the Duke should hear this from you than from me and as I feel that I am bound by my duty to him and to Lady Mary to see that he be not left in ignorance I think that I am doing you a service I do not like to have a constraint put upon me that Mr. Tragear is what gentlemen I fancy very often feel in regard to ladies but the constraint of which you speak is necessary for their protection are you unwilling to see the Duke he was very unwilling but he would not confess so much he gave various reasons for the delay urging repeatedly that the question of his marriage was one which he could not press upon the Duke so soon after the death of the Duchess and when she assured him that this was a matter of importance so great that even the death of the man's wife should not be held by him to justify delay he became angry and for a while suggested that he must be allowed to follow his own judgment but he gave her a promise that he would see the Duke before a week was over nevertheless he left the house in Dudgeon having told Mrs. Finn more than once that she was taking advantage of Lady Mary's confidence they hardly parted as friends and her feeling was on the whole hostile to him and to his love it could not she thought be for the happiness of such a one Lady Mary that she should give herself to one who seemed to have so little to recommend him he when he had left her was angry with his own weakness he had not only promised that he would make his application to the Duke but that he would do so within the period of a week who was she that she should exact terms from him after this fashion and prescribed days and hours and now because this strange woman had spoken to him he could journey down to the Duke's country house and seek an interview in which he would surely be snubbed this occurred on a Wednesday and he resolved that he would go down to matching on the next Monday he said nothing of his plan to anyone and not a word passed between him and Lord Silverbridge about Lady Mary during the first two or three days but on the Saturday Silverbridge appeared at breakfast with a letter in his hand the governor was coming up to town he said immediately in the course of next week he says he thinks he shall be here on Wednesday it immediately struck trigger that this sudden journey must have some reference to Lady Mary and her engagement do you know why he is coming because of these vacancies in Parliament why should that bring him up I suppose he hopes to be able to talk me into obedience he wants me to stand for the county as a liberal of course I intend to stand for the borough as a conservative and I have told him so down at Silverbridge I am very sorry to annoy him and all that kind of thing but what the deuce is a fellow to do if a man has got political convictions of his own of course he must stick to them this the young Lord said with a good deal of self-assurance as though he by the light of his own reason had ascertained on which side the truth lay in political contests of the day there is a good deal to be said on both sides of the question my boy at this particular moment Dragheer felt that the duke ought to be propitiated you wouldn't have me give up my convictions a seat in Parliament is a great thing I can probably secure that whichever side I take I thought you were so devilish hot against the radicals so I am you are as it were bound by family allegiance I'll be shot if I am one never knows how to understand you nowadays it used to be a great doctrine with you that nothing should induce a man to vote against his political opinions so it is if he really has got any however as your father is coming to London I need not go down to matching you don't mean to say that you were going to matching I had intended to beared the lion in his country den but now the lion will find me in his own town den and I must beared him here then Dragheer wrote a most chilling note to Mrs. Finn informing her with great precision that as the duke of Omnium intended to be in town one day next week he would postpone the performance of his promise for a day or two beyond the allotted time End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of The Duke's Children This is the LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Nicholas Clifford The Duke's Children by Anthony Trollop Chapter 5 It is impossible Down at matching Lady Mary's life was very dull after Mrs. Finn had left her forced to ride but no one to ride with her she had a carriage in which to be driven but no one to be driven with her and no special places with her to go her father would walk daily for two hours and she would accompany him when he encouraged her to do so but she had an idea that he preferred taking his walks alone and when they were together there was no feeling of confidence between them there could be none on her part as she knew that she was keeping back the connection which he was entitled to possess on this matter she received two letters from Mrs. Finn in the first of which she was told that Mr. Trigir intended to present himself at matching within a few days and was advised in the same letter not to endeavour to see her lover on that occasion and then at the second she was informed that this interview with her father was to be sought not at matching but in London from this latter letter there was disappointment though some feeling of relief had he come there she might possibly have seen him after the interview but she would have been subjected to the immediate sternness of her father's anger that she would now escape she would not be called on to meet him just when the first blow had fallen upon him she was quite sure that he would disapprove of the thing she was quite sure that he would be very angry she knew that he was a peculiarly honest man and yet she thought that in this he would be unjust had she been called upon to sing the praises of her father she would have insisted above all things on the absolute integrity of his mind and yet knowing as she did that he would be opposed to her marriage with Mr. Trigir she assured herself every day and every hour that he had no right to make any such objection the man she loved was a gentleman and an honest man by no means a fool and subject to no vices her father had no right to demand that she should give her heart to a rich man or to one of high rank as for rank she told herself that she had the most supreme contempt for it she thought that she had seen it near enough already to be sure that it ought to have no special allurements what was it doing for her simply restraining her choice among comparatively a few who seemed to her by no means the best endowed of God's creatures of one thing she was very sure that under no pressure whatsoever would she abandon her engagement with Mr. Trigir that to her had become a bond almost as holy as matrimony itself could be she had told the man that she loved him and after that there could be no retreat he had kissed her and she had returned his caresses sure that she was his as his arm was round her and she had acknowledged that it was so that she belonged to him and could not be taken away from him all this was to her a compact so sacred that nothing could break it but the desire on his part to have it annulled no other man had ever whispered a word of love to her of no other man had an idea entered her mind that it could be pleasant to join her lot in life with his with her it had been all new and all sacred love with her had that religion which nothing but freshness can give it that freshness that bloom may last through a long life but every change impairs it and after many changes it is perished forever there was no question with her but that she must bear her father's anger should he be angry put up with his continued opposition and resolutely oppose her bear all that the countesses of the world might say to her for it was thus that she thought of Lady Cantrip now any retrogression was beyond her power she was walking with her father when she first heard of his intended to visit London at that time she had received Mrs. Finn's first letter but not the second I suppose you'll see Silverbridge she knew then that Frank Tragear was living with her brother I am going up on purpose to see him he is causing me much annoyance is he extravagant it is not that at present he winced even as he said this for he had in truth suffered somewhat from demands made upon him for money which had hurt him not so much by their amount as by their nature Lord Silverbridge had taken upon himself to own a horse or two very much to his father's chagrin and was at this moment part proprietor of an animal supposed to stand well for the Darby the fact was not announced in the papers with his lordship's name but his father was aware of it and did not like it the better because his son held the horse in partnership with a certain major tifto who was well known in the sporting world what is it papa of course he ought to go into parliament I think he wishes it himself yes but how by a piece of extreme good fortune West Barsacher is open to him the two seats are vacant together there is hardly another agricultural county in England that will return a liberal and I fear I am not asserting too much in saying that no other liberal could carry the seat but one of our family you used to sit for Silverbridge papa yes I did in those days the county returned four years ago I did in those days the county returned four conservatives I cannot explain it all to you but it is his duty to contest the county on the liberal side but if he is conservative himself papa asked lady Mary who had had some political ideas suggested to her own mind by her lover it is all rubbish it has come from that young mantra gear with whom he has been associating but papa said lady Mary who felt that even in this matter she was bound to be firm on what was now her side of the question I suppose it is as as respectable to be a conservative as a liberal I don't know that at all said the Duke angrily I thought that the two sides were she was going to express an opinion that the two parties might be supposed to stand as equal in the respect of the country the palaces have always been liberal it will be a blow to me indeed if silverbridge deserts his colors I know that as yet he himself has had no deep thoughts on the subject that unfortunately he does not give himself much to thinking and that in this matter he is being talked over by a young man whose position in life has hardly justified the great intimacy which has existed this was very far from being comfortable to her but of course she said nothing in defense of Tragear's politics nor at present was she disposed to say anything as to his position in life, though at some future time she might not be so silent a few days later they were again walking together when he spoke to her about herself I cannot bear that you should be left here alone while I'm away he said you will not be long gone I suppose only for three or four days now I shall not mind papa but very probably I may have to go a debarsature would you not be happier if you would let me to write to Lady Cantrip and tell her that you will go to her no papa I think not there are times when one feels one ought to be almost alone don't you feel that I do not wish you to feel it nor would you do so long if you had other people around you with me it is different I am an old man and could not look for new pleasures in society it has been the fault of my life to be too much alone I do not want to see my children follow me in that it is so very short a time as yet said she thinking of her mother's death but I think that you should be with somebody with some woman with time to you I like to see you with books but books alone should not be sufficient at your age how little she thought that he know of the state either of her heart or her mind do you dislike Lady Cantrip I do not know her I can't say that I dislike a person whom I don't think I ever spoke to I never saw above once or twice but how can I say that I like her she did however I think that Lady Cantrip was a countess all over and would be shocked at the idea of a daughter of the Duke of Obnium marrying the younger son of a country squire nothing further was then said on the matter and when the Duke went to town Lady Mary was left quite alone with an understanding that if he went into Barsicher he should come back and take her with him he arrived at his own house and eventually went to his study intending to dine and spend the evening there alone his son had already pleaded an engagement for that afternoon but had consented to devote the following morning to his father's wishes of the other sojourner in the house the Duke had thought nothing but the other sojourner had thought very much of the Duke Frank Draghear was fully possessed of that courage which induces a man who knows that he must be thrown over a precipice to choose the first possible moment for his fall he had sounded silverbridge about this change in his politics and had found his friend quite determined not to go back to the family doctrine such being the case the Duke's ill will and hardness and general severity would probably be enhanced by his interview with his son Draghear therefore thinking that nothing could be got by delay sent his name into the Duke he had been an hour in the house and asked for an interview the servant brought back word that his grace was fatigued but would see Mr. Draghear if the matter in question was one of importance Frank's heart quailed for a moment but only for a moment he took up a pen and wrote a note my dear Duke of Omnium if your grace can spare a moment I think you will find that what I have to say will justify the intrusion your very faithful servant F. O. Draghear of course the Duke admitted him there was but one idea in his head as to what was coming his son had taken this way of making some communication to him respecting his political creed some overture or some demand was to be preferred through Draghear if so it was proof of a certain anxiety as to the matter on his son's part which was not displeasing to him but he was not left long in this mistake after Draghear had entered the room Sir, he said speaking quite at once as soon as the door was closed behind him but still speaking very slowly looking beautiful as Apollo as he stood upright before his wished for father-in-law Sir, I have come to you to ask you to give me the hand of your daughter a few words had all been arranged beforehand and were now spoken without any appearance of fear or shame no one hearing them would have imagined that an almost penniless young gentleman was asking in marriage the daughter of the richest and greatest nobleman in England the hand of my daughter said the Duke rising from his chair I know how very great is the prize, said Frank how unworthy I am of it but as she thinks me worthy she what she Lady Mary she think you worthy yes, your grace I do not believe it on hearing this Frank simply bowed his head I beg your pardon, Mr. Draghear I do not mean to say that I do not believe you I never yet gave the lie to a gentleman and I hope I never may be driven to do so but there must be some mistake in this I am complying with Lady Mary's wishes in asking your permission to enter your house as her suitor the Duke stood for a moment biting his lips in silence I cannot believe it he said at last I cannot bring myself to believe it there must be some mistake my daughter Lady Mary Palliser again the young man bowed his head what are your pretensions simply her regard of course it is impossible you are not so ignorant but that you must have known as much when you came to me there was so much scorn in his words and in the tone in which they were uttered the Draghear in his turn was becoming angry he had prepared himself to bow humbly before the great man before the Duke before the Cresus before the late prime minister before the man who was to be regarded as certainly one of the most exalted of the earth but he had not prepared himself to be looked at as the Duke looked at him the truth by Lord Duke is this he said that your daughter loves me and that we are engaged to each other as far as that engagement can be made without your sanction as her father cannot have been made at all said the Duke I can only hope we can both of us only hope that a little time may soften it is out of the question there must be an end of this altogether you must neither see her nor hear from her nor in any way communicate with her it is altogether impossible I believe sir that you have no means very little at present Duke how did you think you were to live but it is altogether unnecessary to speak of such a matter as that there are so many reasons to make this impossible that it would be useless to discuss one as being more important than others has any other one of my family known of this this he added wishing to ascertain whether Lord Silverbridge had disgraced himself by lending his hand to such a disposition of his sister oh yes said Traguir who has known it the Duchess sir we had all her sympathy and approval I do not believe a word of it said the Duke becoming extremely red in the face he was forced to do now that which he had just declared that he had never done in his life driven by the desire of his heart to acquit the wife he had lost of that terrible imprudence worse than imprudence of which he was now accused that is the second time my lord that you have found it necessary to tell me that you have not believed direct assertions which I made you but luckily for me the two assertions are capable of the earliest and most direct proof you will believe Lady Mary and she will confirm me in the one and the other the Duke was almost beside himself with emotion and grief he did know though now at this moment he was most loath to own to himself that it was so that his dear wife had been the most imprudent of women and he recognized in her encouragement of this most pernicious courtship if she had encouraged it a repetition of that romantic folly by which he had so nearly brought herself to shipwreck in her own early life if it had been so even whether it had been so or not he had been wrong to tell the man that he did not believe him and the man had rebuked him with dignity at any rate it is impossible he repeated I cannot allow that it is impossible that is for me to judge sir I trust that you will excuse me when I say that I also must hold myself to be in some degree a judge in the matter if you were in my place you would feel that as long as you were assured by the young lady that your affection was valued by her you would not be deterred by the opposition of her father that you should yield to me of course I do not expect that lady Mary should be persistent in her present feelings when she knows your mind perhaps I have no right to hope but should she be so persistent as to make you feel that her happiness depends as mine does on our marriage then I shall believe that you will yield at last never said the duke never I shall never believe that my daughter's happiness can be assured by a step which I should regard as disgraceful to her disgraceful is a violent word my lord it is the only word that will express my meaning the one which I must be bold enough to say you are not justified in using should she become my wife tomorrow no one in England would think that she had disgraced herself the queen would receive her on her marriage all your friends would hold out their hands to us presuming that we had your good will but you would not have it her disgrace would not depend upon that my lord should your daughter so dispose of herself as to disgrace herself which I think to be impossible your countenance could not set her right nor can the withdrawal of your countenance condemn her before the world if she does that with herself which any other lady might do and remain a lady the duke when he heard this even in the midst of his wrath which was very violent and in the midst of his anger which was very acute the man with one whom he could not put off from him into the gutter and there leave him as buried in the mud and there came to a feeling upon him which he had no time to analyze but of which he was part aware that this terrible indiscretion on the part of his daughter and of his late wife was less wonderful than it had at first appeared to be but not on that account was he the less determined to make the young man feel that his position would be invincible it is quite impossible sir I do not think that I need say anything more then while Trigir was meditating whether to make any reply the duke asked a question which had better have been left unasked the asking of it diminished somewhat from the duke grand duke quasi arch duke almost god like superiority which he had assumed was the velocity of a mere man has anybody else been aware of this he said still wishing to know whether he had cause for anger against silver bridge in the matter Mrs. Finn is aware of it answered Trigir Mrs. Finn exclaimed the duke as though he had been stung by an adder this was the woman whom he had prayed to remain a while with his daughter after his wife had been laid in her grave in order that there might be someone near her whom he could trust and this very woman whom he had so trusted whom in his early associations with her he had disliked and distrusted but had taught himself both to like and to trust because his wife had loved her this woman was the she pandaris who had managed matters between Trigir and his daughter his wife had been too much subject to her influence always known and now in this last act of her life she had allowed herself to be persuaded to give up her daughter by the baneful wiles of this most pernicious woman such were the workings of the duke's mind when the young man told him that Mrs. Finn was acquainted with the whole affair as the reader is aware nothing could have been more unjust I mentioned her name said Trigir what she had been a friend of the family that will do sir I have been greatly pained as well as surprised by what I have heard of the real state of the case I can form no opinion till I see my daughter you of course will hold no further intercourse with her he paused as though for a promise but Trigir did not feel himself called upon to say a word in one direction or in the other it will be my care that you shall not do so good morning sir Trigir who during the interview had been standing then bowed turned upon his heel and left the room the duke seated himself and crossing his arms upon his chest sat for an hour looking up at the ceiling why was it that for him such a world of misery had been prepared what wrong had he done of what imprudence had he been guilty of life something should occur so grievous as to make him think himself the most wretched of men no man had ever loved his wife more dearly than he had done and yet now in that very excess of tenderness which her death had occasioned he was driven to accuse her of a great sin against himself in that she had kept from him her knowledge of this affair for when he came to turn the matter over in his mind Trigir did believe Trigir's statement as to her encouragement then too he had been proud of his daughter he was a man so reticent and undemonstrative in his manner that he had never known how to make confidential friends of his children in his sons hitherto he had not taken pride they were gallant, well grown handsome boys with a certain dash of cleverness more like their mother than their father but not as yet done anything as he would have had them do it but the girl in the perfection of her beauty, in the quiescence of her manner, in the nature of her studies, and in the general dignity of her bearing had seemed to be all that he had desired and now she had engaged herself behind his back to the younger son of a little county squire but his anger against Mrs. Finn was hotter than his anger against anyone in his own family End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 of The Duke's Children This is the LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Nicholas Clifford The Duke's Children by Anthony Trollop Chapter 6 Major Tifto Major Tifto had lately become a member of the Beargarden Club under the auspices of his friend Lord Silverbridge It was believed by those who had made some inquiry into the matter that the major had really served a campaign as a volunteer in the Carlist Army in the north of Spain When therefore it was declared by someone that he was not a major at all his friends were able to contradict the assertion and to impute it to slander instances were brought up declared by these friends to be innumerable but which did in truth amount to three or four of English gentlemen who would come home from a former Carlist war bearing the title of Colonel without any contradiction or invidious remark Had this gallant officer appeared as Colonel Tifto perhaps less might have been said about it There was a little lack of courage in the title which he did choose but it was accepted at last and as major Tifto he was proposed, seconded and elected at the Beargarden But he had other points in his favour besides the friendship of Lord Silverbridge points which had probably led to that friendship He was without a doubt one of the best horsemen in England There were some who said that across the country he was the very best and that as a judge of a hunter few excelled him Of late years he had crept into credit as a betting man No one supposed that he had much capital to work with but still when he lost a bet he paid it Soon after his return from Spain he was chosen as master of the Runnymede Foxhounds and was thus enabled to write the letters M F H after his name The gentlemen who rode with the Runnymede were not very liberal in their terms and had lately been compelled to be their master rather more frequently than was good for that quasi-suburban hunt but now they had fitted themselves well How he was to hunt the country five days of fortnight finding servants and horses and feeding the hounds for eight hundred pounds a year no one could understand but Major Tifto not only undertook to do it but did it and he actually succeeded in obtaining for the Runnymede a degree of popularity for many years previous it had not possessed such a man even though no one did know anything of his father or mother though no one had ever heard him speak of a brother or a sister though it was believed that he had no real income was felt by many to be the very man for the bear garden and when his name was brought up at the committee Lord Silverbridge was able to say so much in his favor that only two black balls were given against him under the mild rule of the club three would have been necessary to exclude him and therefore Major Tifto was now as good a member as any one else he was a well made little man good looking for those who like such good looks he was light-haired and blue-eyed with regular and yet not inexpressive features but his eyes were small and never tranquil and rarely capable of looking at the person who was speaking to him he had small well trimmed glossy whiskers with the best kept moustache and the best kept tuft on his chin which would be seen anywhere his face still bore the freshness of youth which was a marvel to many who declared from facts within their knowledge Tifto must be far on the wrong side of forty and at first glance you would hardly have called him thirty no doubt when on close inspection look into his eyes you could see the hand of time even if you believed the common assertion that he painted which it was very hard to believe of a man who passed most of his time in the hunting field or on a race course yet the paint on his cheeks would not enable him to move with the elasticity which seemed to belong to all his limbs he rode flat races and steeple chases if jump races may still be so called and with his own hounds and with the queens did incredible things on horseback he could jump over chairs too the backs of four chairs and a dining room after dinner a feat which no gentleman of forty-five could perform even though he painted himself ever so so much in praise of major Tifto honesty has compelled the present chronicler to say but there were few traits of character in which he fell off a little even in the estimation of those whose pursuits endeared him to them he could not refrain from boasting and especially from boasting about women his desire for glory in that direction knew no bounds and he would sometimes mention names and bring himself into trouble it was told of him that at one period of his life when misfortune had almost overcome him when sorrow had produced prostration and prostration some expression of truth he had owned to a friend his own conviction that could he have kept his tongue from talking of women he might have risen to prosperity in his profession from these misfortunes he had emerged and no doubt had often reflected on what he himself had then said but we know that the drunkard though he hates drunkenness cannot but drink that the gambler cannot keep from the dice major Tifto still lied about women and could not keep his tongue from the subject he would boast too about other matters much to his own disadvantage he was too very deep and some men who could put up with his other failings could not endure that whatever he wanted to do he would attempt round three corners though he could ride straight he could do nothing else straight he was full of mysteries if he wanted to draw Charter Wood he would take his hounds out of the street at Egham directly in the other direction if he had made up his mind to ride Lord Potterpot's horse for the Great Lemmington Handicap he would be sure to tell even his intimate friends that he was almost determined to take the Baronet's offer of a mount this he would do even when there was no possible turn in the betting to be affected by such a falsehood so that his companions were apt to complain that there was no knowing where to have Tifto and then they who were old enough in the world to have had some experience and men had perceived that peculiar quality of his eyes which never allowed him to look anyone in the face that Major Tifto should make money by selling horses was perhaps a necessity of his position no one grumbled at him because he did so or thought that such a pursuit was incompatible with his character as a sporting gentleman but there were some who considered that they had suffered unduly under his hands and in their bargains with him had been made to pay more than a proper amount of tax for the advantages of his general assistance when a man has perhaps made fifty pounds by using a straight tip as to a horse at Newmarket in doing which he had of course encountered some risks he feels he ought not to be made the amount back into the pockets of the tipper and at the same time to find himself saddled with the possession of a perfectly useless animal in this way there were rocks in the course through which Tifto was called on to steer his bark of course he was anxious when preying upon his acquaintances to spare those who were useful friends to him now and again he would sell a serviceable animal at a fair price and would endeavor to make such sale in favor of someone whose countenance would be a rock to him he knew his business well but yet there would be mistakes now at this very moment was the culmination of the major's life he was master of the runnymeade hounds he was partner with the eldest son of a duke in the possession of that magnificent colt, the prime minister and he was a member of the bear garden he was a man who had often been despondent about himself but was now disposed to be a little triumphant he had finished his season well with the runnymeade and were it not that let him work as he would his expenses always exceeded his means he would have been fairly comfortable at eight o'clock Lord Silverbridge and his friend met in the dining-room of the bear garden have you been here before, asked the lord not in here my lord I just looked in at the smoking-room at night glass-low and nittedale were there I thought we should have got up a rubber but they didn't seem to see it there is wist here generally you'll find out all about it before long perhaps they are a little afraid of you I'm the worst-handed cards I suppose in England a dash at Lou for about an hour and half a dozen cuts at blind hooky that's about my form I know I drop more than I pick up I was about I should never touch a card horses, eh, Tifto? horses, yes they've pretty good claret here eh, Silverbridge he could never hit off his familiarity quite right he had my lorded his young friend at first and now brought out the name with a hesitating twang which the young nobleman appreciated but then the young nobleman was quite aware that the major was a friend for club purposes sporting purposes and not for home use everything of that kind is pretty good here said the lord you were saying horses I dare say you'd do better with them than with cards if I didn't I don't know where I should be seeing what a lot passed through my hands in the year any one of our fellows who has a horse to sell thinks that I am bound to buy him and I do buy him last May I had 42 hunters in my hands how many of them have you got now three, three of that lot though a goodish many have come up since but what does it amount to when I have anything that is very good some fellow that I like gets him from me after paying for him after paying for him yes I don't mean that I make a fellow a present but the man who buys has a deal the best of it did you ever get anything better life what old sarsenet you had it for 160 pounds now if you were on your oath what is she worth she shoots me major and of course I shouldn't sell her I rather think not I knew what that mayor was well enough a dealer would have had 350 pounds for her I could have got the money easily if I had taken her down into the shires and ridden her a day or two myself I gave what you asked yes you did it isn't often that I take less than I ask but the fact is about horses I don't know whether I shouldn't do better if I never owned an animal at all but those I want for my own use when I am dealing with a man I call a friend I can't bear to make money of him I don't think fellows give me all the credit they should do for sticking to them the major as he said this leaned back in his chair put his hand up to his moustache and looked sadly away into the vacancy of the room as though he was meditating sorrowfully on the ingratitude of the world I suppose it's all right about cream cheese asked the lord well it ought to be and now the major spoke like an oracle leaning forward on the table uttering his words in a low voice but very plainly so that not a syllable might be lost when you remember how he ran at the Craven with nine stone twelve pound on him that it took Archbishop all he knew to beat him with only nine stone two pounds and what the lot at Chester are likely to be I don't think that there can be seven to one against him I should be very glad to take it off your hands only the figures are a little too heavy for me I suppose sunflower will be the best animal there not a doubt of it if he's all right and if his temper will stand think what a coarse Chester is for an ill-conditioned brute like that and then he's the most uncertain horse in training there are times he won't feed from what I hear I shouldn't wonder if he don't turn up at all Solomon says he's all right you won't get Solomon to take four to one against him nor yet four and a half I suppose you'll go down my lord well yes if there's nothing else doing just then how it may be about this electioneering business I shall go and smoke upstairs at the bear garden there were I was going to say two smoking rooms but in truth the house was a smoking room all over it was however the custom of those who habitually played cards to have their cigars and coffee upstairs into this sanctum Major Tifto had not yet been introduced but now he was taken there under Lord Silverbridge's wing there were already four or five assembled among whom was Mr. Adolphus Longstaff a young man of about 35 years of age who spent very much of his time at the bear garden do you know my friend Tifto said the lord Tifto this is Mr. Longstaff who men within the walls of this asylum sometimes called Dolly whereupon the major bowed and smiled graciously I have heard of Major Tifto said Dolly who has not said Lord Nitterdale another middle aged young man who made one of the company again the major bowed last season I was always intended to get down to your country and have a day with the Tifto's said Dolly don't they call your hounds the Tifto's they shall be called so if you like said the major and why didn't you come it always was such a grind trained down from Paddington every day at half past ten that's all very well if you happen to be up well Silverbridge how's the prime minister how is he Tifto asked the noble partner I don't think there's a man in England just at present enjoying a very much better state of health said the major pleasantly safe to run asked Dolly safe to run why shouldn't he be safe to run short a start I think we mean him to start don't we Silverbridge said the major there was something perhaps in the tone in which the last remark was made which jarred a little against the young lord's dignity at any rate he got up and declared his purpose of going to the opera he should look in he said and hear a song from Mademoiselle Stouffa Mademoiselle Stouffa was the nightingale of the season and Lord Silverbridge when he had nothing else to do would sometimes think that he was fond of music soon after he was gone Major Tifto had some whiskey and water lit his third cigar and began to feel the glory of belonging to the bear garden with Lord Silverbridge to whom it was essentially necessary that he should make himself agreeable at times he was somewhat over-weighted as it were though he attempted an easy familiarity he was a little afraid of Lord Silverbridge with dolly long staff he felt that he might be comfortable not perhaps understanding that gentleman's character with Lord Nittedale he had previously been acquainted and had found him to be good natured so as he sipped his whiskey he became confidential and comfortable I never thought so much about her good looks he said they were talking of the singer the charms of whose voice she was in a way did you ever see her off the stage asked Nittedale oh dear yes she does not go about very much I fancy said someone I dare say not Cetifto but she and I have had a day or two together for all that you must have been very much favored said dolly we've been pals ever since she's been over here Cetifto with an enormous lie how do you get on with her husband asked dolly in the simplest voice as though not in the least surprised at his companion's statement husband exclaimed the major who was not possessed of sufficient presence of mind to suppress all signs of his ignorance ah said dolly you are not probably aware that your pal has been married to Mr. Thomas Jones for the last year and a half soon after that Major Cetifto left the club with considerably enhanced respect for Mr. Longstaff End of Chapter 6