 CHAPTER 31 Mr. Brown has made up his mind. And now I have something to say to you, Mr. Brown, as he thus spoke to Lady Carberry, rose up to his feet and then sat down again. There was an air of perturbation about him which was very manifest to the lady, and the cause and coming result of which she thought that she understood. The susceptible old goose is going to do something highly ridiculous and very disagreeable. It was thus that she spoke to herself of the scene that she saw was prepared for her, but she did not foresee accurately the shape in which the susceptibility of the old goose would declare itself. Lady Carberry, said Mr. Brown, standing up a second time, we are neither of us so young as we used to be. No, indeed, and therefore it is that we can afford to ourselves the luxury of being friends. Nothing but age enables men and women to know each other intimately. This speech was a great impediment to Mr. Brown's progress. It was evidently intended to imply that he, at least, had reached a time of life at which any illusion to love would be absurd, and yet, as a fact, he was nearer fifty than sixty, was young of his age, could walk his four or five miles pleasantly, could ride his cob in the park with as free an air as any man of forty, and could afterwards work through four or five hours of the night with an easy steadiness which nothing but sound health could produce. Mr. Brown, thinking of himself and his own circumstances, could see no reason why he should not be in love. I hope we know each other intimately at any rate, he said, somewhat lamely. Oh, yes, and it is for that reason that I have come to you for advice. Had I been a young woman I should not have dared to ask you. I don't see that. I don't quite understand that, but it has nothing to do with my present purpose. When I said that we were neither of us so young as we once were, I uttered what was a stupid platitude, a foolish truism. I did not think so, said Lady Carberry, smiling, or would have been only that I intended something further. Mr. Brown had got himself into a difficulty and hardly knew how to get out of it. I was going on to say that I hoped we were not too old to love. Foolish old darling, what did he mean by making such an ass of himself? This was worse even than the kiss as being more troublesome and less easily pushed on one side and forgotten. It may serve to explain the condition of Lady Carberry's mind at the time if it be stated that she did not even at this moment suppose that the editor of the morning breakfast table intended to make her an offer of marriage. She knew, or thought she knew, that middle-aged men are fond of prading about love and getting up sensational scenes. The falseness of the thing and the injury which may come of it did not shack her at all. Had she known that the editor professed to be in love with some lady in the next street, she would have been quite ready to enlist the lady in the next street among her friends that she might thus strengthen her own influence with Mr. Brown. For herself such make-believe of an improper passion would be inconvenient and therefore to be avoided. But that any man, placed as Mr. Brown was in the world, blessed with power, with a large income, with influence throughout all the world around him, courted, fated, feared, and almost worshiped, that he should desire to share her fortunes, her misfortunes, her struggles, her poverty and her obscurity, was not within the scope of her imagination. There was an homage in it of which she did not believe any man to be capable and which to her would be the more wonderful as being paid to herself. She thought so badly of men and women generally, and of Mr. Brown and herself as a man and a woman individually, that she was unable to conceive the possibility of such a sacrifice. Mr. Brown, she said, I did not think that you would take advantage of the confidence I have placed in you to annoy me in this way. To annoy you, Lady Carberry, the phrase at any rate is singular. After much thought I have determined to ask you to be my wife, that I should be annoyed and more than annoyed by your refusal is a matter of course, that I ought to expect such annoyance as perhaps too true, but you can extricate yourself from the dilemma only too easily. The word wife came upon her like a thunderclap, yet at once changed all her feelings towards him. She did not dream of loving him, she felt sure that she never could love him. Had it been on the cards with her to love any man as a lover, it would have been some handsome spendthrift who would have hung from her neck like a nether millstone. This man was a friend to be used, to be used because he knew the world, and now he gave her this clear testimony that he knew as little of the world as any other man, Mr. Brown of the daily breakfast table asking her to be his wife. But mixed with her other feelings there was a tenderness which brought back some memory of her distant youth, and almost made her weep, that a man, such a man, should offer to take half her burdens and to confer upon her half his blessings. Not an idiot, but what a God! She had looked upon the man as all-intellect, alloyed perhaps by some passionless remnants of the vices of his youth, and now she found that he not only had a human heart in his bosom, but a heart that she could touch, how wonderfully sweet, how infinitely small. It was necessary that she should answer him, and to her it was only natural that she should think what answer would best assist her own views without reference to his. It did not occur to her that she could love him, but it did occur to her that he might lift her out of her difficulties. What a benefit it would be to her to have a father and such a father for Felix! How easy would be a literary career to the wife of the editor of the morning breakfast table! And then it passed through her mind that somebody had told her that the man was paid three thousand pounds a year for his work, did not the world, or any part of it that was desirable, come to her drawing-room if she were the wife of Mr. Brown? It all passed through her brain at once during that minute of silence which she allowed herself after the declaration was made to her. But other ideas and other feelings were present to her also. Perhaps the truest aspiration of her heart had been the love of freedom which the tyranny of her late husband had engendered. Once she had fled from that tyranny and had been almost crushed by the censure to which she had been subjected, then her husband's protection and his tyranny had been restored to her. After that the freedom had come. It had been accompanied by many hopes never as yet fulfilled and embittered by many sorrows which had been always present to her. But still the hopes were alive and the remembrance of the tyranny was very clear to her. At last the minute was over and she was bound to speak. Mr. Brown, she said, you have quite taken away my breath. I never expected anything of this kind. And now Mr. Brown's mouth was opened and his voice was free. Lady Carberry, he said, I have lived a long time without marrying, and I have sometimes thought that it would be better for me to go on the same way to the end. I have worked so hard all my life that when I was young I had no time to think of love, and as I have gone on my mind has been so fully employed that I have hardly realized the want which nevertheless I had felt. And so it has been with me till I fancied not that I was too old for love but that others would think me so. Then I met you. As I said at first, perhaps with scant gallantry, you also are not as young as you once were, but you keep the beauty of your youth and the energy and something of the freshness of a young heart, and I have come to love you. I speak with absolute frankness, risking your anger. I have doubted much before I resolved upon this. It is so hard to know the nature of another person, but I think I understand yours, and if you can confide your happiness with me I am prepared to entrust mine to your keeping. Poor Mr. Brown. Though endowed with gifts peculiarly adapted for the editing of a daily newspaper, he could have had but little capacity for reading a woman's character when he talked of the freshness of Lady Carberry's young mind, and he must have surely been much blinded by love before convincing himself that he could trust his happiness to such keeping. You do me infinite honor. You pay me a great compliment, ejaculated Lady Carberry. Well, how am I to answer you at a moment? I expected nothing of this. As God is to be my judge, it has come upon me like a dream. I look upon your position as almost the highest in England, on your prosperity as the uttermost that can be achieved. That prosperity, such as it is, I desire most anxiously to share with you. You tell me so, but I can hardly yet believe it. And then how am I to know my own feelings so suddenly? Marriage, as I have found it, Mr. Brown, has not been happy. I have suffered much. I have been wounded in every joint, hurt in every nerve, tortured till I could hardly endure my punishment. At last I got my liberty. And to that I have looked for happiness. Has it made you happy? It has made me less wretched. And there is so much to be considered. I have a son and a daughter, Mr. Brown. Your daughter I can love as my own. I think I prove my devotion to you when I say that I am willing for your sake to encounter the troubles which may attend your son's future career. Mr. Brown, I love him better. Always shall love him better than anything in the world. This was calculated to damp the lover's ardor. But he probably reflected. But should he now be successful, time might probably change the feeling which had just been expressed. Mr. Brown, she said, I am now so agitated that you had better leave me. And it is very late. The servant is sitting up and will wonder that you should remain. It is near two o'clock. When may I hope for an answer? You shall not be kept waiting. I will write to you almost at once. I will write to you tomorrow, say the day after tomorrow, on Thursday. I feel that I ought to have been prepared with an answer, but I am so surprised that I have none ready. He took her hand in his, and, kissing it, left her without another word. As he was about to open the front door to let himself out, a key from the other side raised the latch, and Sir Felix, returning from his club, entered his mother's house. The young man looked up into Mr. Brown's face with mingled impudence and surprise. A little old fellow, he said, you've been keeping it up late here, haven't you? He was nearly drunk, and Mr. Brown, perceiving his condition, passed him without a word. Lady Carberry was still standing in the drawing-room, struck with amazement at the scene which had just passed, full of doubt as to her future conduct, when she heard her son tumbling up the stairs. It was impossible for her not to go out to him. Felix, she said, why do you make so much noise as you come in? Noise? I am not making any noise. I think I'm very early. Your people's only just gone. I shall say that editor fellow at the door that won't call himself Brown, he's great as that fellow. All right, mother. Oh yes, I'm all right. And so he tumbled up to bed, and his mother followed him to see that the candle was at any rate placed squarely on the table beyond the reach of the bed curtains. Mr. Brown, as he walked to his newspaper office, experienced all those pangs of doubt which a man feels when he has just done that, which for days and weeks passed he has almost resolved that he had better leave undone. That last apparition which he had encountered at his lady-loves door certainly had not tended to reassure him. That curse can be much greater than that inflicted by a drunken, reprobate son. The evil, when in the course of things it comes upon a man, has to be born. But why should a man in middle life unnecessarily afflict himself with so terrible a misfortune? The woman, too, was devoted to the cub. Then thousands of other thoughts crowded upon him. How would this new life suit him? He must have a new house, and new ways, must live under a new dominion, and fit himself to new pleasures. And what was he to gain by it? Lady Carberry was a handsome woman, and he liked her beauty. He regarded her, too, as a clever woman, and because she had flattered him he had liked her conversation. He had been long enough about town to have known better, and as he now walked along the streets he almost felt that he ought to have known better. Every now and again he warmed himself a little with the remembrance of her beauty, and told himself that his new home would be pleasanter, though it might perhaps be less free than the old one. He tried to make the best of it. But as he did so was always repressed by the memory of the appearance of that drunken young baronette. Whether for good or for evil, the step had been taken and the thing was done. It did not occur to him that the lady would refuse him. All his experience of the world was against such refusal. Towns which consider always render themselves. Ladies who doubt always solve their doubts in the one direction. Of course she would accept him, and of course he would stand to his guns. As he went to his work he endeavored to bathe himself in self-complacency, but at the bottom of it there was a substratum of melancholy which leavened his prospects. Lady Carbury went from the door of her son's room to her own chamber, and there sat thinking through the greater part of the night. During these hours she perhaps became a better woman as being more oblivious of herself than she had been for many a year. It could not be for the good of this man that he should marry her, and she did in the midst of her many troubles try to think of the man's condition. Although in the moments of her triumph, and such moments were many, she would boy herself up with assurances that her Felix would become a rich man, brilliant with wealth and rank, and honor to her, a personage whose society would be desired by many. Still, in her heart of hearts she knew how great was the peril, and in her imagination she could foresee the nature of the catastrophe which might come. He would go utterly to the dogs and would take her with him, and with her soever he might go, to what lowest canine regions he might descend, she knew herself well enough to be sure that whether married or single she would go with him. Though her reason might be ever so strong in bidding her to desert him, her heart she knew would be stronger than her reason. He was the one thing in the world that overpowered her. In all other matters she could scheme and contrive and pretend, could get the better of her feelings and fight the world with a double face, laughing at illusions and telling herself that passions and preferences were simply weapons to be used. But her love for her son mastered her, and she knew it. As it was so, could it be fit that she should marry another man? And then her liberty, even though Felix should bring her to utter ruin, nevertheless she would be and might remain a free woman. Should the worst come to the worst, she thought that she could endure Bohemian life in which, should all her means have been taken from her, she could live on what she earned. Though Felix was a tyrant after a kind, he was not a tyrant who could bid her do this or that. A repetition of marriage vows did not of itself recommend itself to her. As to loving the man, liking his caresses, and being especially happy because he was near her, no romance of that kind ever presented itself to her imagination. How would it affect Felix and her together, and Mr. Brown is connected with her and Felix? If Felix should go to the dogs, then would Mr. Brown not want her? Should Felix go to the stars instead of the dogs and become one of the gilded ornaments of the metropolis, then would not he and she want Mr. Brown? It was thus that she regarded the matter. She thought very little of her daughter as she considered all this. There was a home for Hedda with every comfort if Hedda would only condescend to accept it. Why did not Hedda marry her cousin Roger Carberry and let there be an end of that trouble? Of course Hedda must live wherever her mother lived till she should marry, but Hedda's life was so much at her own disposal that her mother did not feel herself bound to be guided in the great matter by Hedda's predispositions. But she must tell Hedda should she ultimately make up her mind to marry the man, and in that case the sooner this was done the better. On that night she did not make up her mind. Ever and again as she declared to herself that she would not marry him, the picture of a comfortable assured home over her head and the conviction that the editor of the morning breakfast table would be powerful for all things brought new doubts to her mind. But she could not convince herself. But when at last she went to her bed her mind was still vacillating. The next morning she met Hedda at breakfast and with assumed nonchalance asked a question about the man who was perhaps about to be her husband. Do you like Mr. Brown, Hedda? Yes. Pretty well. I do not care very much about him and what makes you ask, Mama, because among my acquaintances in London there is no one so truly kind to me as he is. He always seems to me to like to have his own way. Why shouldn't he like it? He has, to me, that air of selfishness which is so very common with people in London as though what he said were all set out of surface politeness. I wonder what you expect, Hedda, when you talk of London people. Why should not London people be as kind as other people? I think Mr. Brown is as obliging a man as anyone I know. But if I like anybody you always make little of him. The only person you seem to think well of is Mr. Montague. Mama, that is unfair and unkind. I never mentioned Mr. Montague's name if I can help it and I should not have spoken of Mr. Brown had you not asked me. End of Chapter 31 Chapter 32 of the way we live now. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. The way we live now by Anthony Trollop. Chapter 32 Lady Montagran Georgiana Longstaff had now been staying with the Melmots for a fortnight and her prospects in regard to the London season had not much improved. Her brother had troubled her no further and her family at Cavisham had not, as far as she was aware, taken any notice of Dolly's interference. Twice a week she received a cold, dull letter from her mother, such letters as she had been accustomed to receive when away from home, and these she had answered, always endeavoring to fill her sheet with some customary description of fashionable doings with some bit of scandal such as she would have repeated for her mother's amusement, and her own delectation in the telling of it. Had there been nothing painful in the nature of her sojourn in London? Of the Melmots she hardly spoke. She did not say that she was taken to the houses in which it was her ambition to be seen. She would have lied directly in saying so, but she did not announce her own disappointment. She had chosen to come up to the Melmots in preference to remaining at Cavisham, and she would not declare her own failure. I hope they are kind to you, Lady Pomona always said, but Georgiana did not tell her mother whether the Melmots were kind or unkind. In truth, her season was a very unpleasant season. Her mode of living was altogether different to anything she had already known. The house in Bruton Street had never been very bright, but the appendages of life there had been of a sort which was not known in the gorgeous mansion in Grovner Square. It had been full of books and little toys in those thousand trifling household gods which are accumulated in years and which in their accumulation suit themselves to the taste of their owners. In Grovner Square there were no lairs, no toys, no books, nothing but gold and grandeur, pomadom, powder and pride. The long-staff life had not been an easy, natural or intellectual life, but the Melmot life was hardly indurable even by a long staff. She had, however, come prepared to suffer much and was endowed with considerable power of endurance in pursuit of her own objects. Having willed to come, even to the Melmots, in preference to remaining at Caversham, she fortified herself to suffer much. Could she have ridden in the park at midday in desirable company and found herself in proper houses at midnight, she would have borne the rest, bad as it might have been. But it was not so. She had her horse, but could, with difficulty, get any proper companion. She had been in the habit of riding with one of the Primero girls, and old Primero would accompany them, or perhaps a brother Primero, or occasionally her own father. And then, when once out, she would be surrounded by a cloud of young men, and though there was but little in it a walking round and round the same bit of ground with the same companions and with the smallest attempted conversation. Well it had been the proper thing, and had satisfied her. Now it was with difficulty that she could get any cavalier, such as the laws of society demand. Even Penelope Primero snubbed her, whom she, Georgiana Longstaff, had hitherto endured and snubbed. She was just allowed to join them when old Primero rode, and was obliged even to ask for that assistance. But the nights were still worse. She could only go where Madame Melmont went, and Madame Melmont was more prone to receive people at home than to go out, and the people she did receive were antipathetic to Miss Longstaff. She did not even know who they were, whence they came, or what was their nature. They seemed to be as little akin to her as would have been the shopkeepers in the small town near Cavisham. She would sit through long evenings, almost speechless, trying to fathom the depth of the vulgarity of her associates. Occasionally she was taken out, and was then probably taken to very grand houses. The two Duchesses and the Marchionesses of Arbrique received Madame Melmont, and the garden parties of royalty were open to her, and some of the most elaborate fates of the season, which indeed were very elaborate on behalf of this and that traveling potentate, were attained. On these occasions Miss Longstaff was fully aware of the struggle that was always made for invitations, often unsuccessfully, but sometimes with triumph. Even the bargains, conducted by the hands of Lord Alfred and his mighty sister, were not altogether hidden from her. The Emperor of China was to be in London, and it was thought proper that some private person, some untitled individual, should give the Emperor a dinner, so that the Emperor might see how an English merchant lives. Mr. Melmont was chosen on condition that he would spend ten thousand pounds on the banquet, and, as a part of his payment for this expenditure, was to be admitted with his family to a grand entertainment given to the Emperor at Windsor Park. Of these good things Georgiana Longstaff would receive her share, but she went to them as a Melmont, and not as a Longstaff, and when amidst these gayities, though she could see her old friends, she was not with them. She was ever behind Madame Melmont till she hated the make of that lady's garments and the shape of that lady's back. She had told both her father and mother, very plainly, that it behoved her to be in London at this time of the year that she might look for a husband. She had not hesitated in declaring her purpose, and that purpose, together with the means of carrying it out, had not appeared to them to be unreasonable. She wanted to be settled in life. She had meant, when she first started on her career, to have a Lord, but Lords are scarce. She was herself not very highly born, not very highly gifted, not very lovely, not very pleasant, and she had no fortune. She had long made up her mind that she could do without a Lord, but that she must get a commoner of the proper sort. He must be a man with a place in the country and sufficient means to bring him annually to London. He must be a gentleman, and probably, in Parliament, and above all things he must be in the right set. She would rather go on forever struggling than take some country witstable as her sister was about to do. But now the men of the right sort never came near her. The one object for which she had subjected herself to all this ignominy seemed to have vanished altogether in the distance. Then by chance she danced, or exchanged a few words with the knitterdales and grassloughs whom she used to know, they spoke to her with a want of respect which she felt and tasted but could hardly analyze. Even Miles Grendel, who had hitherto been below her notice, attempted to patronize her in a manner that bewildered her. All this nearly broke her heart. And then, from time to time, little rumours reached her ears which made her aware that, in the teeth of all Mr. Melmot's social successes, a general opinion that he was a gigantic swindler was rather gaining ground than otherwise. Your host is a wonderful fellow by George, said Lord Knitterdale. No one seems to know which way he'll turn up at last. There's nothing like being a robber if you can only rob enough, said Lord Graslau, not exactly naming Melmot, but very clearly alluding to him. There was a vacancy for a Member of Parliament at Westminster, and Melmot was about to come forward as a candidate. If he can manage that, I think he'll pull through, she heard one man say. If money'll do it, it will be done, said another. She could understand it all. Mr. Melmot was admitted into society because of some enormous power which was supposed to lie in his hands. But even by those who thus admitted him, he was regarded as a thief and a scoundrel. This was the man whose house had been selected by her father in order that she might make her search for a husband from beneath his wing. In her agony she wrote to her old friend Julia Triplex, now the wife of Sir Damasque Monogram. She had been really intimate with Julia Triplex and had been sympathetic when a brilliant marriage had been achieved. Julia had been without fortune but very pretty. Sir Damasque was a man of great wealth whose father had been a contractor. But Sir Damasque himself was a sportsman, keeping many horses on which other men often rode, a yacht in which other men sunned themselves, a deer forest, a moor, a large machinery for making pheasants. He shot pigeons at Hurlingham, drove forehand in the park, had a box at every race course, and was the most good-natured fellow known. He had really conquered the world, had got over the difficulty of being the grandson of a butcher, and was now as good as though the monograms had gone to the crusades. Julia Triplex was equal to her position and made the very most of it. She dispensed champagne and smiles and made everybody, including herself, believe that she was in love with her husband. Lady Monogram had climbed to the top of the tree, and in that position had been, of course, invaluable to her old friend. We must give her her due, and say that she had been fairly true to friendship while Georgiana behaved herself. She thought that Georgiana, in going to the Melmots, had not behaved herself, and therefore she had determined to drop Georgiana. Heartless, false, purse-proud creature, Georgiana said to herself, as she wrote the following letter in humiliating agony, Dear Lady Monogram, I think you hardly understand my position. Of course you have caught me, haven't you? And of course I must feel it very much. You did not used to be all-natured, and I hardly think you can have become so now when you have everything pleasant around you. I do not think that I have done anything that should make an old friend treat me in this way, and therefore I write to ask you to let me see you. Of course it is because I am staying here. You know me well enough to be sure that it can't be my own choice. Papa arranged it all. If there is anything against these people, I suppose Papa does not know it. Of course they are not nice. Of course they are not like anything that I have been used to. But when Papa told me that the house in Bruton Street was to be shut up and that I was to come here, of course I did as I was bid. I don't think an old friend like you, whom I have always liked more than anybody else, ought to cut me for it. It's not about the parties, but about yourself that I mind. I don't ask you to come here, but if you will see me, I can have the carriage and will go to you, yours as ever, Georgiana Longstaff. It was a troublesome letter to get written. Lady Monogram was her junior in age and had once been lower than herself in social position. In the early days of their friendship she had sometimes domineered over Julia Triplex and had been entreated by Julia in reference to balls here and routes there. The great Monogram marriage had been accomplished very suddenly and had taken place, exalting Julia very high, just as Georgiana was beginning to allow her aspirations to descend. It was in that very season that she moved her castle in the air from the upper to the lower house, and now she was absolutely begging for notice and praying that she might not be cut. She sent her letter by post, and on the following day received a reply, which was left by a footman. Dear Georgiana, of course I shall be delighted to see you. I don't know what you mean by cutting. I never cut anybody. We happen to have got into different sets, but that is not my fault. Sir Damasque won't let me call on the Melmots. I can't help that. You wouldn't have me go where he tells me not. I don't know anything about them myself except that I did go to their ball, but everybody knows that's different. I shall be at home all to-morrow till three—that is, today, I mean, for I'm riding after coming home from Lady Kalarney's ball. But if you wish to see me alone you had better come before lunch. Yours affectionately, J. Monogram. Georgiana condescended to borrow the carriage and reached her friend's house a little afternoon. The two ladies kissed each other when they met, of course, and then Miss Longstaff at once began. Miss Julia, I did think that you would at any rate have asked me to your second ball. Of course you would have been asked if you had been up in Bruton Street. You know that as well as I do. It would have been a matter of course. What difference does a house make? But the people in the house make a great deal of difference, my dear. I don't want to quarrel with you, my dear, but I can't know the Melmots. Who asks you? You are with them. Do you mean to say that you can't ask anybody to your house without asking everybody that lives with that person? It's done every day. Somebody must have brought you. I would have come with the Primeros, Julia. I couldn't do it. I asked him, asking he wouldn't have it. When that great affair was going on in February we didn't know much about the people. I was told that everybody was going and therefore I got Sir Damask to let me go. He says now that he won't let me know them, and after having been at their house I can't ask you out of it without asking them to. I don't see it at all, Julia. I'm very sorry, my dear, but I can't go against my husband. Everybody goes to their house, said Georgiana, pleading her cause to the best of her ability. The Duchess of Stevanage has dined in Groverner Square since I have been there. We all know what that means, replied Lady Monogram. And people are giving their eyes to be asked to the dinner party, which he is to give to the Emperor in July, and even to the reception afterwards. To hear you talk, Georgiana, one would think that you didn't understand anything, said Lady Monogram. People are going to see the Emperor, not to see the Melmots. I daresay we might have gone only I suppose we shan't now, because of this row. I don't know what you mean by a row, Julia. Well, it is a row, and I hate rows. Going there, when the Emperor of China is there, or anything of that kind, is no more than going to the play. Somebody chooses to get all London into his house, and all London chooses to go. But it isn't understood that that means acquaintance. I should meet Madame Melmot in the park afterwards and not think of bowing to her. I should call that rude. Very well, then we differ. But really, it does seem to me that you ought to understand these things as well as anybody. I don't find any fault with you for going to the Melmots, though I was very sorry to hear it. But when you have done it, I don't think you should complain of people, because they won't have the Melmots crammed down their throats. Nobody has wanted it, said Georgiana, sobbing. At this moment the door was opened, and certain asks came in. Talking to your wife about the Melmots, she continued, determined to take the bull by the horns. I'm staying there, and I think it's unkind that Julia hasn't been to see me. That's all. How do you do, Miss Longstaff? She doesn't know them. And certain asks, folding his hands together, raising his eyebrows, and standing on the rug, looked as though he had solved the whole difficulty. She knows me, certain ask. Oh, yes, she knows you. That's a matter of course. We're delighted to see you, Miss Longstaff. I am always. Wish we could have had you at Ascot, but then he looked as though he had again explained everything. I've told her that you don't want me to go to the Melmots, said Lady Monogram. Well, no, not just to go there. Stay and have lunch, Miss Longstaff. No, thank you. Now you're here, you'd better, said Lady Monogram. No, thank you. I'm sorry that I have not been able to make you understand me. I could not allow our very long friendship to be dropped without a word. Don't say dropped, exclaimed the Baronette. I do say dropped, Sir Damasque. I thought we should have understood each other, your wife and I, but we haven't. Wherever she might have gone, I should have made it my business to see her, but she feels differently. Goodbye. Goodbye, my dear. If you will quarrel, it isn't my doing. Then Sir Damasque led Miss Longstaff out and put her into Madame Melmots' carriage. It's the most absurd thing I ever knew in my life, said the wife as soon as her husband had returned to her. She hasn't been able to bear to remain down in the country for one season when all the world knows that her father can't afford to have a house for them in town. Then she condescends to come and stay with these abominations and pretends to feel surprised that her old friends don't run after her. She is old enough to have known better. I suppose she likes parties, said Sir Damasque. Likes parties? She'd like to get somebody to take her. It's twelve years now since Georgiana Longstaff came out. I remember being told of the time when I was first entered myself. Yes, my dear, you know all about it, I dare say, and there she is still. I can feel for her and do feel for her, but if she will let herself down in that way, she can't expect not to be dropped. You remember the woman, don't you? What woman? Madame Melmots. Never saw her in my life. Oh, yes, you did. You took me there that night when Prince danced with the girl. Don't you remember the blousy, fat woman at the top of the stairs? A regular horror. Did a look at her. She was only thinking what a lot of money it all cost. I remember her, and if Georgiana Longstaff thinks I'm going there to make an acquaintance with Madame Melmots, she is very much mistaken. And if she thinks that that is the way to get married, I think she is mistaken again. Nothing perhaps is so efficacious in preventing men from marrying as the tone in which married women speak of the struggles made in that direction by their unmarried friends. End of Chapter 32 Chapter 33 of the way we live now. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The way we live now by Anthony Trollop. Chapter 33, John Crumb Sir Felix Carberry made an appointment for meeting Ruby Ruggles a second time at the bottom of the kitchen garden belonging to Sheep's Acre Farm, which appointment he neglected and had indeed made without any intention of keeping it. But Ruby was there, and remained hanging about among the cabbages till her grandfather returned from Harleston Market. An early hour had been named, but hours may be mistaken, and Ruby had thought that a fine gentleman, such as was her lover, used to live among fine people up in London, might well mistake the afternoon for the morning. If he would come at all, she could easily forgive such a mistake. But he did not come, and late in the afternoon she was obliged to obey her grandfather's summons as he called her into the house. After that, for three weeks she heard nothing of her London lover, but she was always thinking of him, and though she could not altogether avoid her country lover, she was in his company as little as possible. One afternoon her grandfather returned from Banquet and told her that her country lover was coming to see her. John Crumb be a coming over by and by, said the old man, see and have a bit of supper ready for him. John Crumb coming here, grandfather, he is welcome to stay away then, for me. That be dawned. The old man thrust his old hat onto his head and seated himself in a wooden armchair that stood by the kitchen fire. Whenever he was angry he put on his hat, and the custom was well understood by Ruby. Why not welcome, and he all one is your husband. Look ye here, Ruby. I am going to have an end of this. John Crumb is to marry you next month, and the band is to be said. The parson may say what he pleases, grandfather. I can't stop his saying of him. It isn't likely I shall try neither, but no parson among them all can marry me without I am willing. And why should you know be willing, you contrary young jade you? You've been a drinking, grandfather. He turned round at her sharp and threw his old hat at her head, nothing to Ruby's consternation, as it was a practice to which she was well accustomed. She picked it up and returned it to him with a cool indifference which was intended to exasperate him. Look ye here, Ruby, he said, out of this place you go. If you go as John Crumb's wife you'll go with five hundred pound, and we'll have a dinner here and a dance in all Bungay. Who cares for all Bungay? A set of beery chapses knows nothing but swilling and smoking, and John Crumb the main of them all. There never was a chap for beer like John Crumb. Never saw him the worse a liquor in all my life, and the old farmer, as he gave this grand assurance, rattled his fist down upon the table. It only just makes him stupider and stupider the more he swills. You can't tell me, Grandfather, about John Crumb. I knows him. Didn't ye say as how ye'd have him? Didn't ye give him a promise? If I did, I ain't the first girl as has gone back of her word, and I shan't be the last. You means you won't have him? That's about it, Grandfather. Then you'll have to have somebody to fend for ye in that pretty sharp, for you won't have me. There ain't no difficulty about that, Grandfather. Very well. He's a coming here tonight, and you may settle it along with him. Out of this, he shall go. I know of your doings. What doings? You don't know of no doings. There ain't no doings. You don't know nothing again, me. He's a coming here tonight. And if you can make it up with him well and good, there's 500 pound, and ye shall have the dinner, and dance, and all bongay. He ain't a going to be put off no longer. He ain't. Whoever wanted him to be put on. Let him go his own gate. If you can't make it up with him, well, Grandfather, I shan't, anyways. Let me have my say, will ye, ye jade you. There's 500 pound, and there ain't air a farmer in Suffolk or Norfolk paying rent for a bit of land like this can do as well for as darter as that, let alone only a grand darter. You never think so that you don't. If you don't like to take it, leave it. But you'll leave sheep's acre too. Father, sheep's acre, who wants to stop at sheep's acre? It's the stupidest place in all England. Then find another. Then find another. That's all about it. John Crumb's a coming up for a bit of supper. You tell him your own mind. I'm damned if I trouble about it. Only you don't stay here. Sheep's acre ain't good enough for you, and you'd best find another home. Stupid, is it? You'll have to put up a place as stupid and a sheep's acre before you've done. In regard to the hospitality promised to Mr. Crumb, Miss Ruggles went about her work with sufficient alacrity. She was quite willing that the young man should have a supper, and she did understand that so far as the preparation of the supper went, she owed her service to her grandfather. She therefore went to work herself and gave directions to the servant girl who assisted her in keeping her grandfather's house. But as she did this, she determined that she would make John Crumb understand that she would never be his wife. Upon that, she was now fully resolved. As she went about the kitchen, taking down the ham and cutting the slices that were to be broiled, and as she trusts the fowl that was to be boiled for John Crumb, she made mental comparisons between him and Sir Felix Carberry. She could see, as though present to her at the moment, the mealy, flowery head of the one with hair stiff with perennial dust from his sacks, and the sweet, glossy, dark, well-combed locks of the other, so bright, so seductive that she was ever longing to twine her fingers among them. And she remembered the heavy, flat, broad, honest face of the meal man with his mouth slow in motion and his broad nose looking like a huge white promontory and his great staring eyes from the corners of which he was always extracting meal and grit. And then also she remembered the white teeth, the beautiful soft lips, the perfect eyebrows, and the rich complexion of her London lover. Surely a lease of paradise with the one, though but for one short year, would be well purchased at the price of a life with the other. It's no good going against love, she said to herself, and I won't try. He shall have his supper and be told all about it and then go home. He cares more for his supper than he do for me. And then, with his final resolution firmly made, she popped a fowl into the pot. Her grandfather wanted her to leave Sheep's Acre very well. She had a little money of her own and would take herself off to London. She knew what people would say, but she cared nothing for old women's tales. She would know how to take care of herself and could always say in her own defense that her grandfather had turned her out of Sheep's Acre. Seven had been the hour named and punctually at that hour John Crumb knocked at the back door of Sheep's Acre farmhouse. Nor did he come alone. He was accompanied by his friend Joe Mixit, the baker of Bungay, who, as all Bungay knew, was to be his best man at his marriage. John Crumb's character was not without any fine attributes. He could earn money and having earned it could spend and keep it in fair proportion. He was afraid of no work and to give him his due was afraid of no man. He was honest and ashamed of nothing that he did and after his fashion he had chivalrous ideas about women. He was willing to thrash any man that ill used a woman and would certainly be a most dangerous antagonist to any man who would misuse a woman belonging to him. But Ruby had told the truth of him in saying that he was slow of speech and what the world calls stupid in regard to all forms of expression. He knew good meal from bad as well as any man and the price at which he could buy it so as to leave himself a fair profit at the selling. He knew the value of a clear conscience and without much argument had discovered for himself that honesty is in truth the best policy. Joe Mixit, who was dapper of person and glib of tongue had often declared that anyone buying John Crumb for a fool would lose his money. Joe Mixit was probably right, but there had been a want of prudence, a lack of worldly sagacity in the way in which Crumb had allowed his proposed marriage with Ruby Ruggles to become a source of gossip to all bongae. His love was now an old affair and though he never talked much, whenever he did talk he talked about that. He was proud of Ruby's beauty and of her fortune and of his own status as her acknowledged lover and he did not hide his light under a bushel. Perhaps the publicity so produced had some effect in prejudicing Ruby against the man whose offer she had certainly once accepted. Now when he came to settle the day, having heard more than once or twice that there was a difficulty with Ruby, he brought his friend Mixit with him as though to be present at his triumph. If here isn't Joe Mixit, said Ruby to herself, was there ever such a stupid as John Crumb there's no end to his being stupid. The old man had slept off his anger and his beer while Ruby had been preparing the feast and now roused himself to entertain his guests. What Joe Mixit is that thou? Thou art welcome, come in man. Well John how is it with you? Ruby's stewing or something for us to eat a bit. Don't he smell it? John Crumb lifted up his great nose sniffed and grinned. John didn't like going home in the dark like, said the baker with his little joke, so I just come along to drive away the bogies. The more the merrier, the more the merrier, Ruby'll have enough for the two of you, I'll go bail. So John Crumb's afraid of bogies, is he? The more need he to have someone in his house to skirt him away. The lover had seated himself without speaking a word but now he was instigated to ask a question. Where be she, muster-ruggles? There were seated in the outside or front kitchen in which the old man and his granddaughter always lived while Ruby was at work in the back kitchen. As John Crumb asked this question, she could be heard distinctly among the pots and the plates. She now came out and wiping her hands on her apron shook hands with the two young men. She had enveloped herself in a big household apron when the cooking was in hand and had not cared to take it off for the greeting of this lover. Grandfather said, is how you was coming out for your supper so I've been a-seeing to it. You'll excuse the apron, Mr. Mixit. You couldn't look nice or miss it, if you was to try ever so. My mother says it's house of furry as recommends a girl to the young men. What do you say, John? I likes to see her like of that, said John, rubbing his hands down the back of his trousers and stooping till he had brought his eyes down to a level with those of his sweetheart. It looks homely, don't it, John, said Mixit? Bother, said Ruby, turning round sharp and going back to the other kitchen. John Crumb turned round also and grinned at his friend and then grinned at the old man. You've got it all for you, said the farmer, leaving the lover to draw what lesson he might from this oracular proposition. And I don't care how soon I hate and hon, that I don't, said John. That's the chat, said Joe Mixit. There ain't nothing wanting in his house, is there, John? It's all there, cradle, caudal cup, and the rest of it. A young woman going to John knows what she'll have to eat when she gets up and what she'll lie down upon when she goes to bed. This he declared in a loud voice for the benefit of Ruby in the back kitchen. That, she do, said John, grinning again. There's a hundred and fifty pound of things in my house for by what mother left behind her. After this, there was no more conversation till Ruby reappeared with a boiled fowl and without her apron. She was followed by the girl with a dish of broiled ham and an enormous pyramid of cabbage. Then the old man got up slowly and opening some private little door of which he kept the key in his breeches pocket, drew a jug of ale and placed it on the table. And from a cupboard of which he also kept the key, he brought out a bottle of gin. Everything being thus prepared, the three men sat round the table, John Crumb looking at his chair again and again before he ventured to occupy it. If you'll sit yourself down, I'll give you a bit of something to eat, said Ruby at last. Then he sank at once into his chair. Ruby cut up the fowl standing and dispensed the other good things, not even placing a chair for herself at the table, and apparently not expected to do so for no one invited her. Is it to be spirits or ale, Mr. Crumb, she said, when the other two men had helped themselves? He turned round and gave her a look of love that might have softened the heart of an Amazon. But instead of speaking, he held up his tumbler and bobbed his head at the beer jug. Then she filled it to the brim, frothing it in the manner in which he loved to have it frothed. He raised it to his mouth slowly and poured the liquor in as though to a vat. Then she filled it again. He had been her lover, and she would be as kind to him as she knew how, short of love. There was a good deal of eating done, for more ham came in and another mountain of cabbage, but very little or nothing was said. John Crumb ate whatever was given to him of the fowl, sedulously picking the bones and almost swallowing them, and then finished the second dish of ham, and after that the second installment of cabbage. He did not ask for more beer, but took it as often as Ruby replenished his glass. When the eating was done, Ruby retired into the back kitchen and there regaled herself with some bone or merry thought of the fowl which she had with prudence reserved, sharing her spoils, however, with the other maiden. This she did standing and then went to work cleaning the dishes. The men lit their pipes and smoked in silence while Ruby went through her domestic duties. So matters went on for half an hour during which Ruby escaped by the back door, went round into the house, got into her own room, and formed the grand resolution of going to bed. She began her operations in fear and trembling, not being sure that her grandfather would bring the man upstairs to her. As she thought of this, she stayed her hand and looked to the door. She knew well that there was no bolt there. It would be terrible to her to be invaded by John Crumb after his fifth or sixth glass of beer, and she declared to herself that should he come, he would be sure to bring Joe Mixit with him to speak his mind for him. So she paused and listened. When they had smoked for some half hour, the old man called for his granddaughter, but called, of course, in vain. Where the mischief is the jade gone, he said, slowly making his way into the back kitchen. The maid, as soon as she heard her master moving, escaped into the yard and made no response while the old man stood bawling at the back door. The devil's in them, they're off some gates, he said aloud. She'll make the place hot for her if she goes on this way. Then he returned to the two young men. She's playing off her games somewhere, he said. Take a glass of spirits and water, Mr. Crumb, and I'll see you after her. I'll just take a drop of yell, said John Crumb, apparently quite unmoved by the absence of his sweetheart. It was sad work for the old man. He went down the yard and into the garden, hobbling among the cabbages, not daring to call very loud as he did not wish to have it supposed that the girl was lost, but still anxious and sore at heart as to the ingratitude shown to him. He was not bound to give the girl a home at all. She was not his own child. And he had offered her 500 pounds. Tom her, he said aloud as he made his way back to the house. After much search and considerable loss of time, he returned to the kitchen in which the two men were sitting, leading Ruby in his hand. She was not smart in her apparel, for she had half undressed herself and been then compelled by her grandfather to make herself fit to appear in public. She had acknowledged to herself that she had better go down and tell John Crumb the truth, for she was still determined that she would never be John Crumb's wife. You can answer him as well as I, grandfather, she had said. Then the farmer had cuffed her and told her that she was an idiot. Oh, if it comes to that, said Ruby, I'm not afraid of John Crumb, nor yet of nobody else. Only I didn't think you'd go to strike me, grandfather. I'll knock the life out of thee if thou goest on this gate, he had said. But she had consented to come down and they entered the room together. We're disturbing you almost too late, Miss, said Mr. Mixit. It ain't that at all, Mr. Mixit. If grandfather chooses to have a few friends, I ain't nothing against it. I wish he'd have a few friends to deal off in her than he do. I like nothing better than to do for them, only when I've done for them and they're smoking their pipes and that like, I don't see why I ain't to leave them to themselves. But we've come here on a hospicious occasion, Miss Ruby. I don't know nothing about hospicious, Mr. Mixit. If you and Mr. Crumb have come out to sheep's acre farm for a bit of supper, which we ain't, said John Crumb very loudly, nor yet for beer, not by no means. We've come for the smiles of beauty, said Joe Mixit. Ruby chucked up her head. Mr. Mixit, if you'll be so good as to stow that, there ain't no beauty here as I knows of and if there was, it isn't nothing to you, except in the way of friendship, said Mixit. I'm just as sick of all this as a man can be, said Mr. Ruggles, who was sitting low in his chair with his back bent and his head forward. I won't put up with it no more. Who wants you to put up with it, said Ruby. Who wants him to come here with their trash? Who brought him tonight? I don't know what business Mr. Mixit has interfering along with me. I never interfere along with him. John Crumb, have you anything to say, asked the old man. Then John Crumb slowly arose from his chair and stood up at his full height. I have, said he, swinging his head to one side. Then say it. I will, said he. He was still standing bolt upright with his hands down by his side. Then he stretched out his left to his glass, which was half full of beer and strengthened himself as far as that would strengthen him. Having done this, he slowly deposited the pipe, which he still held in his right hand. Now speak your mind like a man, said Mixit. I intend it, said John. But he still stood dumb, looking down upon old ruggles, who from his crouched position was looking up at him. Ruby was standing with both her hands upon the table and her eyes intent upon the wall over the fireplace. You've asked Miss Ruby to be your wife a dozen times, haven't you, John, suggested Mixit? I have. And you mean to be as good as your word? I do. And she has promised to have you? She have. More than once or twice. To this proposition, Crumb found it only necessary to bob his head. You're ready and willing? I am. You're wishing to have the band set without any more delay? There ain't no delay about me, never was. Everything is ready in your own house? There is. And you will expect Miss Ruby to come to the scratch? I shall. That's about it, I think, said Joe Mixit, turning to the grandfather. I don't think there was ever anything much more straightforward than that. You know, I know, Miss Ruby knows all about John Crumb. John Crumb didn't come to Bong Gay yesterday, nor yet the day before. There's been a talk of 500 pounds, Mr. Ruggles. Mr. Ruggles made a slight gesture of assent with his head. 500 pounds is very comfortable, and added to what John has will make things that snug that things never was snugger. But John Crumb isn't after Miss Ruby along with her fortune. No house, said the lover, shaking his head and still standing upright with his hands by his side. Not he, it isn't his ways, and them as knows him will never say it of him. John has a heart in his bosom. I has, said John, raising his hand a little above his stomach. And feelings as a man. It's true love as has brought John Crumb to Sheep's acre farm this night. Love of that young lady if she'll let me make so free. He's a proposed to her, and she's a accepted him, and now it's about time as they was married. That's what John Crumb has to say. That's what I has to say, repeated John Crumb and I means it. And now Miss, continued Mixit, addressing himself to Ruby, you've heard what John has to say. I've heard you, Mr. Mixit, and I've heard quite enough. You can't have anything to say against it, Miss, can you? There's your grandfather as is willing, and the money as one may say counted out, and John Crumb is willing with his house so ready that there isn't a half-earth to do. All we want is for you to name the day. Say tomorrow Ruby and I'll not be again, it said John Crumb slapping his thigh. I won't say tomorrow, Mr. Crumb, nor yet the day after tomorrow, nor yet no day at all. I'm not going to have you, I've told you as much before. That was only in fun like. Then now I tell you in earnest, there's some folk want such a deal of telling. You don't mean never. I do mean never, Mr. Crumb. Didn't you say as you would Ruby? Didn't you say so as plain as the nose on my face? John, as he asked these questions, could hardly refrain from tears. Young women is allowed to change their minds, said Ruby. Brute, exclaimed old Ruggles, pig, jade. I'll tell you what, John, she'll go out of this into the streets, that's what she will. I won't keep her here no longer. Nasty, ungrateful lying slut. She ain't that, she ain't that, said John. She ain't that at all. She's no slut, I won't hear her called so, not by her grandfather. But oh, she has a mind to put me so about that I'll have to go home and hang myself. Dash it, Miss Ruby, you ain't going to serve a young man that way, said the baker. If you'll just keep yourself to yourself, I'll be obliged to you, Mr. Mixit, said Ruby. If you hadn't come here at all, things might have been different. Hark at that now, said John, looking at his friend, almost with indignation. Mr. Mixit, who was fully aware of his rare eloquence and of the absolute necessity there had been for its exercise, if any arrangement were to be made at all, could not trust himself to words after this. He put on his hat and walked out through the back kitchen into the yard, declaring that his friend would find him there round by the pig's thigh wall whenever he was ready to return to Bungay. As soon as Mixit was gone, John looked at his sweetheart out of the corners of his eyes and made a slow motion towards her, putting out his right hand as a feeler. He's half now, Ruby, said John. And you'd better be half after him, said the cruel girl. And when will I come back again? Never, it ain't no use. What's the good of more words, Mr. Crumb? Dumb her, dumb her, said old Ruggles. I'll even it to her. She'll have to be out on the roads this night. She shall have the best bed in my house if she'll come for it, said John, and the old woman to look out at her, and I won't come nigh her till she sends for me. I can find a place for myself, thank you, Mr. Crumb. Old Ruggles sat, grinding his teeth and swearing to himself, taking his head off and putting it on again and meditating vengeance. And now, if you please, Mr. Crumb, I'll go upstairs to my own room. You don't go up to any room here, you jade you, the old man, as he said this, got up from his chair as though to fly at her, and he would have struck her with his stick but that he was stopped by John Crumb. Don't hit the girl, no gate, Mr. Ruggles. Dumb her, John, she breaks my heart. While her lover held her grandfather, Ruby escaped and seated herself on the bedside, again afraid to undress, lest she should be disturbed by her grandfather. Ain't it mourn or a man ought to have to bear? Ain't it, Mr. Crumb? Said the grandfather, appealing to the young man. It's the ways in him, Mr. Ruggles. Ways in him, a whipping at the cart tail ought to be the ways in her. She's been in scene some young buck. Then John Crumb turned red all over through the flower and sparks of anger flashed from his eyes. You ain't a meaning of it, master. I'm told there's been the squire's cousin about him as they called the baronite. Been along with Ruby? The old man knotted at him. By the mortals I'll baronite him, I will, said John, seizing his hat and stalking off through the back kitchen after his friend. End of chapter 33. Chapter 34 of The Way We Live Now. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollop. Chapter 34. Ruby Ruggles obeys her grandfather. The next day there was a great surprise at Sheepsacre Farm which communicated itself to the towns of Bungay and Beckles and even affected the ordinary quiet life of Carberry Manor. Ruby Ruggles had gone away and at about 12 o'clock in the day the old farmer became aware of the fact. She had started early at about seven in the morning but Ruggles himself had been out long before that and had not condescended to ask for her when he returned to the house for his breakfast. There had been a bad scene up in the bedroom overnight after John Crum had left the farm. The old man in his anger had tried to expel the girl but she had hung on to the bed post and would not go and he had been frightened when the maid came up crying and screaming murder. You'll be out of this tomorrow as sure as my name's Daniel Ruggles, said the farmer panting for breath. But for the gin which he had taken he would hardly have struck her but he had struck her and pulled her by the hair and knocked her about and in the morning she took him at his word and was away. About 12 he heard from the servant girl that she had gone. She had packed a box and had started up the road carrying the box herself. Grandfather says I'm to go and I'm gone she had said to the girl. At the first cottage she had got a boy to carry her box into Beckles and to Beckles she had walked. For an hour or two Ruggles sat quiet within the house telling himself that she might do she pleased with herself that he was well rid of her and that from henceforth he would trouble himself no more about her. But by degrees there came upon him a feeling half of compassion and half of fear with perhaps some mixture of love instigating him to make search for her. She had been the same to him as a child and what would people say of him if he allowed her to depart from him after this fashion. Then he remembered his violence the night before and the fact that the servant girl had heard if she had not seen it. He could not drop his responsibility in regard to Ruby even if he would. So as a first step he sent in a message to John Crumb at Bungay to tell him that Ruby Ruggles had gone off with a box to Beckles. John Crumb went open mouth with the news to Joe Mixit and all Bungay soon knew that Ruby Ruggles had run away. After sending his message to Crumb the old man still sat thinking and at last made up his mind that he would go to his landlord. He held a part of his farm under Roger Carberry and Roger Carberry would tell him what he ought to do. A great trouble had come upon him. He would feign have been quiet but his conscience and his heart and his tears all were at work together and he found that he could not eat his dinner. So he had out his cart and horse and drove himself off to Carberry Hall. It was past four when he started and he found the squire seated on the terrace after an early dinner and with him was Father Barham the priest. The old man was shown at once round into the garden and was not long in telling his story. There had been words between him and his granddaughter about her lover. Her lover had been accepted and had come to the farm to claim his bride. Ruby had behaved very badly. The old man made the most of Ruby's bad behavior and of course as little as possible of his own violence but he did explain that there had been threats used when Ruby refused to take the man and that Ruby had this day taken herself off. I always thought it was settled that there were to be man and wife, said Roger. It was settled, squire and you are to have 500 pound down money as I'd saved myself, draught the jade. Didn't she like him, Daniel? She liked him well enough till she'd seen somebody else. Then old Daniel paused and shook his head and was evidently the owner of a secret. The squire got up and walked round the garden with him and then the secret was told. The farmer was of opinion that there was something between the girl and Sir Felix. Sir Felix some weeks since had been seen near the farm and on the same occasion Ruby had been observed at some little distance from the house with her best clothes on. He's been so little here, Daniel, said the squire. It goes as tender and a spark of fire that does, said the farmer. Girls like Ruby don't want no time to be wooed by one such as that, though they'll fall all with a man like John Crumb for years. I suppose she's gone to London. Don't know nothing of where she's gone, squire. Only she have gone somewheres. Maybe it's Laos staff. There's lots of quality at Laos staff of washing themselves in the sea. Then they return to the priest who might be supposed to be cognizant of the guiles of the world and competent to give advice on such an occasion as this. If she was one of our people, said Father Barham, we should have her back quick enough. Would you now, said Ruggles, wishing at the moment that he and all his family had been brought up as Roman Catholics. I don't see how you would have more chance of catching her than we have, said Carberry. She'd catch herself wherever she might be. She'd go to the priest and he wouldn't leave her till he'd seen her put on the way back to her friends. With a flea in her lug, suggested the farmer. Your people never go to a clergyman in their distress. It's the last thing they'd think of. Anyone might more probably be regarded as a friend than the parson, but with us the poor know where to look for sympathy. She ain't that poor, neither, said the grandfather. She had money with her? I don't know just what she had, but she ain't been brought up poor, and I don't think as our ruby'd go of herself to any clergyman, it never was her way. It never is the way with the Protestant, said the priest. We'll say no more about that for the present, said Roger, who was waxing Roth with the priest. That a man should be fond of his own religion is right, but Roger Carberry was beginning to think that Father Barham was too fond of his religion. What had we better do? I suppose we shall hear something of her at the railway. There are not so many people leaving beckles, but that she may be remembered. So the wagonet was ordered, and they all prepared to go off to the station together. But before they started, John Crum rode up to the door. He had gone at once to the farm on hearing of Ruby's departure, and had followed the farmer from Thence to Carberry. Now he found the squire and the priest and the old man standing around as the horses were being put to the carriage. He ain't a found her, Mr. Ruggles, have you? He asked as he wiped the sweat from his brow. No, we ain't a found no one yet. If it was as she was to come to harm, Mr. Carberry, I'd never forgive myself, never, said Crum. As far as I can understand, it is no doing of yours, my friend, said the squire. In one way it ain't, and in one way it is. I was over there last night a bothering of her. She'd have come round, maybe, if she'd have been left alone, but she wouldn't have been off now, only for our going over to Sheep's Acre. But, oh, what is it, Mr. Crum? He's a cousin of yours, squire, and as long as I've known Suffolk, I've never known nothing but good of you and Yorn. But if your baronite has been and done this, oh, Mr. Carberry, if I was to ring his neck round, you wouldn't say as how I was wrong, would you now? Roger could hardly answer the question. On general grounds, the ringing of Sir Felix's neck let the immediate cause for such a performance have been what it might, would have seemed to him to be a good deed. The world would be better, according to his thinking, with Sir Felix out of it than in it. But still, the young man was his cousin and to Carberry, and to such a one as John Crum, he was bound to defend any member of his family as far as he might be defensible. They says as how he was groping about sheep's acre when he was last here, a-hiding himself and skulking behind hedges, dragged them all. They've gales enough of their own, them fellows. Why can't they let a fellow alone? I'll do him a mischief, Master Roger I. Wool, if he's had a hand in this. Poor John Crum, when he had his mistress to win, he could find no words for himself, but was obliged to take an eloquent baker with him to talk for him. Now, in his anger, he could talk freely enough. But you must first learn that Sir Felix has had anything to do with this, Mr. Crum. In course, in course, that's right, that's right. Must learn as he did it before I does it. But when I have learned, and John Crum clenched his fist as though a very short lesson would suffice for him upon this occasion. They all went to the beckles station, and from thence to the beckles post office, so that beckles soon knew as much about it as Bongay. At the railway station, Ruby was distinctly remembered. She had taken a second-class ticket by the morning train for London and had gone off without any appearance of secrecy. She had been decently dressed with a hat and cloak, and her luggage had been such as she might have been expected to carry, had all her friends known that she was going. So much was made clear at the railway station, but nothing more could be learned there. Then a message was sent by Telegraph to the station in London, and they all waited, loitering about the post office for a reply. One of the porters in London remembered seeing such a girl as was described, but the man who was supposed to have carried her box for her to a cab had gone away for the day. It was believed that she had left the station in a four-wheel cab. I'll be out of her, I'll be out of her at once, said John Crum. But there was no train till night, and Roger Carberry was doubtful whether his going would do any good. It was evidently fixed on Crum's mind that the first step towards finding Ruby would be the breaking of every bone in the body of Sir Felix Carberry. Now it was not at all apparent to the squire that his cousin had had anything to do with this affair. It had been made quite clear to him that the old man had quarreled with his granddaughter and had threatened to turn her out of his house, not because she had misbehaved with Sir Felix, but on account of her refusing to marry John Crum. John Crum had gone over to the farm expecting to arrange it all, and up to that time there had been no fear about Felix Carberry, nor was it possible that there should have been communication between Ruby and Felix since the quarrel at the farm. Even if the old man were right in supposing that Ruby and the Baronette had been acquainted and such acquaintance could not but be prejudicial to the girl, not on that account would the Baronette be responsible for her abduction. John Crum was thirsting for blood and was not very capable in his present mood of arguing the matter out coolly. And Roger, little as he toyed his cousin, was not desirous that all Suffolk should know that Sir Felix Carberry had been thrashed within an inch of his life by John Crum of Bungay. I'll tell you what I'll do, said he, putting his hand kindly on the old man's shoulder. I'll go up myself by the first train tomorrow. I can trace her better than Mr. Crum can do, and you will both trust me. There's not one in the two counties I'd trust so soon, said the old man. But you'll let us know the very truth, said John Crum. Roger Carberry made him an indiscreet promise that he would let him know the truth. So the matter was settled and the grandfather and lover returned together to Bungay. End of Chapter 34 Chapter 35 of The Way We Live Now This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollop. Chapter 35. Melmot's Glory Augustus Melmot was becoming greater and greater in every direction, mightier and mightier every day. He was learning to despise mere lords and to feel that he might almost domineer over a duke. In truth, he did recognize it as a fact that he must either domineer over dukes or else go to the wall. It can hardly be said of him that he had intended to play so high a game, but the game that he had intended to play had become thus high of its own accord. A man cannot always restrain his own doings and keep them within the limits which he had himself planned for them. They will very often fall short of the magnitude to which his ambition has aspired. They will sometimes soar higher than his own imagination. So it had now been with Mr. Melmot. He had contemplated great things but the things which he was achieving were beyond his contemplation. The reader will not have thought much of Fisker on his arrival in England. Fisker was, perhaps, not a man worthy of much thought. He had never read a book. He had never written a line worth reading. He had never said a prayer. He cared nothing for humanity. He had sprung out of some Californian gully, was perhaps ignorant of his own father and mother, and had tumbled up in the world on the strength of his own audacity. But such as he was, he had suffice to give the necessary impetus for rolling Augustus Melmot onwards into almost unprecedented commercial greatness. When Mr. Melmot took his offices in Abchurch Lane, he was undoubtedly a great man. But nothing so great as when the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway had become not only an established fact but a fact established in Abchurch Lane. The great company indeed had an office of its own where the board was held, but everything was really managed in Mr. Melmot's own commercial sanctum. Obeying no doubt some inscrutable law of commerce, the grand enterprise, perhaps the grandest when you consider the amount of territory manipulated which has ever opened itself before the eyes of a great commercial people as Mr. Fisker with his peculiar eloquence observed through his nose about this time to a meeting of shareholders at San Francisco, had swung itself across from California to London, turning itself to the center of the commercial world as the needle turns to the pole, till Mr. Fisker almost regretted the deed which himself had done. And Melmot was not only the head, but the body also and the feet of it all. The shares seemed to be all in Melmot's pocket so that he could distribute them as he would. And it seemed also that when distributed and sold, and when bought again and sold again, they came back to Melmot's pocket. Men were contented to buy their shares and to pay their money simply on Melmot's word. Sir Felix had realized a large portion of his winnings at cards with commendable prudence for one so young and extravagant and had brought his savings to the great man. The great man had swept the earnings of the bear garden into his till and had told Sir Felix that the shares were his. Sir Felix had been not only contented but supremely happy. He could now do as Paul Montague was doing and Lord Alfred Grendel. He could realize a perennial income buying and selling. It was only after the reflection of a day or two that he found that he had us yet got nothing to sell. It was not only Sir Felix that was admitted into these good things after this fashion. Sir Felix was but one among hundreds. In the meantime, the bills in Grovner Square were no doubt paid with punctuality and these bills must have been stupendous. The very servants were as tall, as gorgeous, almost as numerous as the servants of royalty and remunerated by much higher wages. There were four coachmen with egregious wigs and eight footmen not one with a circumference of calf less than 18 inches. And now there appeared a paragraph in the morning breakfast table and another appeared in the evening pulpit telling the world that Mr. Melmont had bought Pickering Park, the magnificent Sussex property of a Dolphus Longstaff Esquire of Cavisham. And it was so. The father and son who never had agreed before and who now had come to no agreement in the presence of each other had each considered that their affairs would be safe in the hands of so great a man as Mr. Melmont and had been brought to terms. The purchase money, which was large, was to be divided between them. The thing was done with the greatest ease. There being no longer any delay as is the case when small people are at work. The magnificence of Mr. Melmont affected even the Longstaff lawyers. Were I to buy a little property, some humble cottage with a garden, or you, oh reader, unless you be magnificent, the money to the last farthing would be wanted or security for the money more than sufficient before we should be able to enter in upon our new home. But money was the very breath of Melmont's nostrils and therefore his breath was taken for money. Pickering was his and before a week was over, a London builder had collected masons and carpenters by the dozens down at Chichester and was at work upon the house to make it fit to be a residence for Madame Melmont. There were rumors that it was to be made ready for the Goodwood Week and that the Melmont Entertainment during that festival would rival the Dukes. But there was still much to be done in London before the Goodwood Week should come round, in all of which Mr. Melmont was concerned and of much of which Mr. Melmont was the very center. A member for Westminster had succeeded to a peerage and thus a seat was vacated. It was considered to be indispensable to the country that Mr. Melmont should go into Parliament and what constituency could such a man as Melmont so fitly represent as one combining as Westminster does all the essences of the metropolis. There was the popular element, the fashionable element, the legislative element, the legal element and the commercial element. Melmont undoubtedly was the man for Westminster. His thorough popularity was evinced by testimony which perhaps was never before given in favor of any candidate for any county or borough. In Westminster there must of course be a contest. A seat for Westminster is a thing not to be abandoned by either political party without a struggle. But at the beginning of the affair when each party had to seek the most suitable candidate which the country could supply, each party put its hand upon Melmont. And when the seat and the battle for the seat were suggested to Melmont, then for the first time was that great man forced to descend from the altitudes on which his mind generally dwelt and to decide whether he would enter Parliament as a Conservative or a Liberal. He was not long in convincing himself that the Conservative element in British society stood the most in need of that fiscal assistance which would be in his province to give. And on the next day every hoarding in London declared to the world that Melmont was the Conservative candidate for Westminster. It is needless to say that his committee was made up of peers, bankers and publicans, with all that absence of class prejudice for which the party has become famous since the ballot was introduced among us. Some unfortunate Liberal was to be made to run against him for the sake of the party, but the odds were ten to one on Melmont. This no doubt was a great matter, this affair of the seat, but the dinner to be given to the Emperor of China was much greater. It was the middle of June and the dinner was to be given on Monday, 8th July, now three weeks hence. But all London was already talking of it. The great purport proposed was to show to the Emperor by this banquet what an English merchant citizen of London could do. Of course there was a great amount of scolding and a loud clamour on the occasion. Some men said that Melmont was not a citizen of London, others that he was not a merchant, others again that he was not an Englishman, but no man could deny that he was both able and willing to spend the necessary money. And as this combination of ability and will was the chief thing necessary, they who opposed the arrangement could only storm and scold. On the 20th of June the tradesmen were at work throwing up a building behind, knocking down walls, and generally transmuting the house in Grosvenor Square in such a fashion the two hundred guests might be able to sit down to dinner in the dining room of a British merchant. But who were to be the two hundred? It used to be the case that when a gentleman gave a dinner he asked his own guests, but when affairs become great society can hardly be carried on after that simple fashion. The Emperor of China could not be made to sit at table without English royalty, and English royalty must know whom it has to meet, must select at any rate some of its comrades. The Minister of the Day also had his candidates for the dinner, in which arrangement there was, however, no private patronage, as the list was confined to the Cabinet and their wives. The Prime Minister took some credit to himself in that he would not ask for a single ticket for a private friend. But the opposition, as a body, desired their share of seats. Not had elected to stand for Westminster on the Conservative interest, and was advised that he must insist on having, as it were, a Conservative Cabinet present, with its Conservative wives. He was told that he owed it to his party, and that his party exacted payment of the debt. But the great difficulty lay with the city merchants. This was to be a city merchant's private feast, and it was essential that the Emperor should meet this great merchant's brother merchants at the merchant's board. No doubt the Emperor would see all the merchants at the Guildhall, but that would be a semi-public affair paid for out of the funds of a corporation. This was to be a private dinner. Now the Lord Mayor had set his face against it, and what was to be done? Meetings were held, a committee was appointed, merchant guests were selected to the number of fifteen with their fifteen wives, and subsequently the Lord Mayor was made a baronet on the occasion of receiving the Emperor in the city. The Emperor with his suite was twenty. Royalty had twenty tickets, each ticket for guest and wife. The existing Cabinet was fourteen, but the coming was numbered at about eleven only, each one for self and wife. Five ambassadors and five ambassadors were to be asked. There were to be fifteen real merchants out of the city. Ten great peers with their pierces were selected by the General Committee of Management. There were to be three wise men, two poets, three independent members of the House of Commons, two Royal Academicians, three editors of papers, an African traveler who had just come home and a novelist. But all these latter gentlemen were expected to come as bachelors. Three tickets were to be kept over for presentation to bores endowed with the power of making themselves absolutely unendurable if not admitted at the last moment. And ten were left for the giver of the feast and his own family and friends. It is often difficult to make things go smooth, but almost all roughnesses may be smoothed at last with patience and care and money and patronage. But the dinner was not to be all. Eight hundred additional tickets were to be issued for Madame Melmont's evening entertainment, and the fight for these was more internecine than for seats at the dinner. The dinner seats, indeed, were handled in so statesmen like a fashion that there was not much visible fighting about them. Royalty manages its affairs quietly. The existing cabinet was existing, and though there were two or three members of it who could not have got themselves elected at a single unpolitical club in London, they had a right to their seats at Melmont's table. What disappointed ambition there might be among conservative candidates was never known to the public. Those gentlemen did not wash their dirty linen in public. The ambassadors, of course, were quiet, but we may be sure that the minister from the United States was among the favored five. The city bankers and bigwigs, as has been already said, were at first unwilling to be present, and therefore they who were not chosen could not afterwards express their displeasure. No grumbling was heard among the peers, and that which came from the puruses floated down into the current of the great fight about the evening entertainment. The poet Laureate was, of course, asked, and the second poet was as much a matter, of course. Only two academicians had in this year painted Royalty, so that there was no ground for jealousy there. There were three and only three especially insolent and especially disagreeable independent members of parliament at that time in the House, and there was no difficulty in selecting them. The wise men were chosen by their age. Among editors of newspapers there was some ill blood. That Mr. Alph and Mr. Brown should be selected was almost a matter, of course. They were hated accordingly, but still this was expected. But why was Mr. Booker there? Was it because he had praised the Prime Minister's translation of Catalyst? The African traveller chose himself by living through all his perils and coming home. A novelist was selected, but as Royalty wanted another ticket at the last moment, the gentleman was only asked to come in after dinner. His proud heart, however, resented the treatment, and he joined amicably with his literary brethren in decrying the festival altogether. We should be advancing too rapidly into this portion of our story were we to concern ourselves deeply at the present moment with the feud as it raged before the evening came round. But it may be right to indicate that the desire for tickets at last became a burning passion, and a passion which, in the great majority of cases, could not be indulged. The value of the privilege was so great that Madame Melmont thought that she was doing almost more than friendship called for when she informed her guest, Miss Longstaff, that unfortunately there would be no seat for her at the dinner table, but that as payment for her loss she should receive an evening ticket for herself and a joint ticket for a gentleman and his wife. Georgiana was at first indignant, but she accepted the compromise. What she did with her tickets shall be hereafter told. From all this I trust it will be understood that the Mr. Melmont of the present hour was a very different man from that Mr. Melmont who was introduced to the reader in the early chapters of this Chronicle. Royalty was not to be smuggled in and out of his house now without his being allowed to see it. No maneuvers now were necessary to catch a simple Duchess. Duchesses were willing enough to come. Lord Alfred, when he was called by his Christian name, felt no aristocratic twinges. She was only too anxious to make himself more and more necessary to the great man. It is true that all this came as it were by jumps, so that very often a part of the world did not know on what ledge in the world the great man was perched at that moment. Miss Longstaff, who was staying in the house, did not at all know how great a man her host was. Lady Monogram, when she refused to go to Grovner Square, or even to allow anyone to come out of the house in Grovner Square to her parties, was groping in outer darkness. Madame Melmont did not know. Marie Melmont did not know. The great man did not quite know himself, where, from time to time, he was standing. But the world at large knew. The world knew that Mr. Melmont was to be a member for Westminster, that Mr. Melmont was to entertain the Emperor of China, that Mr. Melmont carried the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway in his pocket, and the world worshipped Mr. Melmont. In the meantime, Mr. Melmont was much troubled about his private affairs. He had promised his daughter to Lord Nitterdell, and as he rose in the world had lowered the price which he offered for this marriage. Not so much in the absolute amount of fortune to be ultimately given, as in the manner of giving it. Fifteen thousand a year was to be settled on Marie and on her eldest son, and twenty thousand pounds were to be paid into Nitterdell's hands six months after the marriage. Melmont gave his reasons for not paying this sum at once. Nitterdell would be more likely to be quiet if he were kept waiting for that short time. Melmont was to purchase and furnish for them a house in town. It was, too, almost understood that the young people were to have Pickering Park for themselves, except for a week or so at the end of July. It was absolutely given out in the papers that Pickering was to be theirs. It was said on all sides that Nitterdell was doing very well for himself. The absolute money was not perhaps so great as had been at first asked, but then at that time Melmont was not the strong rock, the impregnable tower of commerce, the very navel of the commercial enterprise of the world, as all men now regarded him. Melmont's father and Nitterdell himself were, in the present condition of things, content with a very much less stringent bargain than that which they had endeavored at first to exact. But in the midst of all this, Marie, who had at one time consented at her father's instance to accept the young lord, and who, in some speechless fashion, had accepted him, told both the young lord and her father very roundly that she had changed her mind. Her father scowled at her and told her that her mind in the matter was of no concern. He intended that she should marry Lord Nitterdell, and himself fixed some day in August for the wedding. It is no use, father, for I will never have him, said Marie. Is it about that other scamp? He asked angrily. If you mean Sir Felix Carberry, it is about him. He has been to you and told you, and therefore I don't know why I need hold my tongue. You both starved, my lady, that's all. Marie, however, was not so wedded to the grandeur which she encountered in Grovener Square as to be afraid of the starvation which she thought she might have to suffer if married to Sir Felix Carberry. Melmont had not time for any long discussion. As he laughed her, he took hold of her and shook her. Bye. He said, if you run rusty after all I've done for you, I'll make you suffer. You little fool, that man's a beggar. He hasn't the price of a petticoat or a pair of stockings. He's looking only for what you haven't got and can't have if you marry him. He wants money, not you, you little fool. But after that she was quite settled in her purpose when Nitterdell spoke to her. They had been engaged, and then it had been off. And now the young nobleman, having settled everything with the father, expected no great difficulty in resettling everything with the girl. He was not very skillful at making love, but he was thoroughly good-humored, from his nature anxious to please and averse to give pain. There was hardly any injury which he could not forgive and hardly any kindness which he would not do so that the labor upon himself was not too great. Well, Miss Melmont, he said, Governors are stern beings, are they not? Is yours stern, my lord? What I mean is that sons and daughters have to obey them. I think you understand what I mean. I was awfully spoony on you that time before. I was indeed. I hope it didn't hurt you much, Lord Nitterdell. That so like a woman, that is, you know well enough that you and I can't marry without leave from the Governors. Nor with it, said Marie, holding her head. I don't know how that may be. There was some hitch somewhere. I don't quite know where. The hitch had been with himself as he demanded ready money. But it's all right now. The old fellows are agreed. Can't we make a match of it, Miss Melmont? No, Lord Nitterdell. I don't think we can. Do you mean that? I do mean it. When that was going on before, I knew nothing about it. I have seen more of things since then. And you've seen somebody you like better than me? I say nothing about that, Lord Nitterdell. I don't think you ought to blame me, my Lord. Oh, dear, no. There was something before, but it was you that was off first. Wasn't it now? The Governors were off, I think. The Governors have a right to be off, I suppose, but I don't think any Governor has a right to make anybody marry anyone. I agree with you there. I do indeed, said Lord Nitterdell. And no Governor shall make me marry. I've thought a great deal about it since that other time, and that's what I've come to determine. But I don't know why you shouldn't just marry me, because you like me, only just because I don't. Well, I do like you, Lord Nitterdell. Thanks so much. I like you ever so. Only marrying a person is different. There's something in that, to be sure. And I don't mind telling you, said Marie, with an almost solemn expression on her countenance, because you are good-natured and won't get me into a scrape if you can help it. But I do like somebody else, oh, so much. I supposed that was it. That is it. It's a deuce pity. The Governors had settled everything, and we should have been awfully jolly. I'd have gone in for all the things you go in for, and though your Governor was screwing us up a bit, there would have been plenty of tin to go on with. You couldn't think of it again. I tell you, my Lord, I'm in love. Oh, ah, yes. So you were saying, it's an awful bore, that's all. I shall come to the party all the same if you send me a ticket. And so Nitterdell took his dismissal and went away. Not, however, without an idea that the marriage would still come off. There was always, so he thought, such a bother about things before they could get themselves fixed. This happened some days after Mr. Brown's proposal to Lady Carberry. More than a week since Marie had seen Sir Felix. As soon as Lord Nitterdell was gone, she wrote again to Sir Felix, begging that she might hear from him, and entrusted her letter to Didon. CHAPTER 36 Mr. Brown's Perils Lady Carberry had allowed herself two days for answering Mr. Brown's proposition. It was made on Tuesday night, and she was bound by her promise to send a reply sometime on Thursday. But early on the Wednesday morning, she had made up her mind, and at noon on that day her letter was written. She had spoken to Heta about the man, and she had seen that Heta had disliked him. She was not disposed to be much guided by Heta's opinion. In regard to her daughter, she was always influenced by a vague idea that Heta was an unnecessary trouble. There was an excellent match ready for her, if she would only accept it. There was no reason why Heta should continue to add herself to the family burden. She never said this, even to herself, but she felt it, and was not, therefore, inclined to consult Heta's comfort on this occasion. But nevertheless, what her daughter said had its effect. She had encountered the troubles of one marriage, and they had been very bad. She did not look upon that marriage as a mistake, having, even up to this day, a consciousness that it had been the business of her life as a portionless girl to obtain maintenance and position at the expense of suffering and civility. But that had been done. The maintenance was, indeed, again doubtful because of her son's vices. But it might so probably be again secured by means of her son's beauty. Heta had said that Mr. Brown liked his own way, had not she herself found that all men liked their own way, and she liked her own way. She liked the comfort of a home to herself. Personally, she did not want the companionship of a husband. And what scenes would there be between Felix and the man? And added to all this, there was something within her almost amounting to conscience, which told her that it was not right that she should burden anyone with the responsibility and inevitable troubles such as son as her son Felix. What would she do were her husband to command her to separate herself from her son? In such circumstances, she would certainly separate herself from her husband. Having considered these things deeply, she wrote as follows to Mr. Brown. Dearest friend, I need not tell you that I have thought much of your generous and affectionate offer. How could I refuse such a prospect as you offer me without much thought? I regard your career as the most noble which a man's ambition can achieve, and in that career no one is your superior. I cannot but be proud that such a one as you should have asked me to be his wife. But my friend, life is subject to wounds which are incurable, and my life has been so wounded. I have not strength left me to make my heart whole enough to be worthy of your acceptance. I have been so cut and scotched and lopped by the sufferings which I have endured that I am best alone. It cannot all be described, and yet with you I would have no reticence. I would put the whole history before you to read with all my troubles past and still present, all my hopes and all my fears, with every circumstance as it has passed by and every expectation that remains, were it not that the poor tale would be too long for your patience? The result of it would be to make you feel that I am no longer fit to enter in upon a new home. I should bring showers instead of sunshine, melancholy and lieu of mirth. I will, however, be bold enough to assure you that could I bring myself to be the wife of any man I would now become your wife, but I shall never marry again. Nevertheless, I am your most affectionate friend, Matilda Carberry. About six o'clock in the afternoon she sent this letter to Mr. Brown's rooms in Palmall East and then sat for a while alone, full of regrets. She had thrown away from her a firm footing which would certainly have served her for her whole life. Even at this moment she was in debt and did not know how to pay her debts without mortgaging her life income. She longed for some staff on which she could lean. She was afraid of the future. When she would sit with her paper before her, preparing her future work for the press, copying a bit here and a bit there, inventing historical details, dovetailing her chronicle, her head would sometimes seem to be going round as she remembered the unpaid baker and her son's horses and his unmeaning dissipation and all her doubts about the marriage. As regarded herself, Mr. Brown would have made her secure, but that now was all over, poor woman. This at any rate may be said for her that had she accepted the man her regrets would have been as deep. Mr. Brown's feelings were more decided in their tone than those of the lady. He had not made his offer without consideration and yet from the very moment in which it had been made he repented it. That gently sarcastic appellation by which Lady Carberry had described him to herself when he had kissed her, best explained that side of Mr. Brown's character which showed itself in this matter. He was a susceptible old goose. Had she allowed him to kiss her without objection, the kissing might probably have gone on and whatever might have come of it there would have been no offer of marriage. He had believed that her little maneuvers had indicated love on her part and he had felt himself constrained to reciprocate the passion. She was beautiful in his eyes. She was bright. She wore her clothes like a lady and if it was written in the Book of the Fates that some lady was to sit at the top of his table, Lady Carberry would look as well there as any other. She had repudiated the kiss and therefore he had felt himself bound to obtain for himself the right to kiss her. The offer had no sooner been made than he met her son reeling in drunk at the front door. As he made his escape, the lad had insulted him. This perhaps helped to open his eyes. When he woke the next morning or rather late in the next day after his night's work, he was no longer able to tell himself that the world was all right with him. Who does not know that sudden thoughtfulness at waking, that first metutinal retrospection and prospection into things as they have been and are to be and the loneness of heart, the blankness of hope which follows the first remembrance of some folly lately done, some word ill-spoken, some money misspent, or perhaps a cigar too much, or a glass of brandy and soda water which he should have left untasted. And when things have gone well, how the waker comforts himself among the bed clothes as he claims for himself to be whole all over. Terrace aqua rotundus, so to have managed his little affairs that he has to fear no harm and to blush inwardly at no error. Mr. Brown, the way of whose life took him among many perils who in the course of his work had to steer his bark among many rocks, was in the habit of thus auditing his daily account as he shook off sleep about noon, for such was his lot that he seldom was in bed before four or five in the morning. On this Wednesday he found that he could not balance his sheet comfortably. He had taken a very great step, and he feared that he had not taken it with wisdom. As he drank the cup of tea with which his servant supplied him while he was yet in bed, he could not say of himself, Terrace aqua rotundus, as he was want to do when things were well with him. Everything was to be changed. As he lit a cigarette, he thought himself that Lady Carberry would not like him to smoke in her bedroom. Then he remembered other things. I'll be damned if he shall live in my house, he said to himself. And there was no way out of it. It did not occur to the man that his offer could be refused. During the whole of that day, he went about among his friends in a melancholy fashion, saying little snappish, uncivil things at the club, and at last dining by himself with about 15 newspapers around him. After dinner he did not speak a word to any man, but went early to the office of the newspaper and to Fogger Square, at which he did his nightly work. Here he was lapped in comforts. If the best of chairs, of sofas, of writing tables and of reading lamps can make a man comfortable who has to read nightly 30 columns of a newspaper or at any rate to make himself responsible for their contents. He seated himself to his work like a man, but immediately saw Lady Carberry's letter on the table before him. It was his custom when he did not dine at home to have such documents brought to him at his office as had reached his home during his absence. And here was Lady Carberry's letter. He knew her writing well and was aware that here was the confirmation of his fate. It had not been expected as she had given herself another day for her answer, but here it was beneath his hand. Surely this was almost unfeminine haste. He chucked the letter unopened a little from him and endeavored to fix his attention on some printed slip that was ready for him. For some 10 minutes his eyes went rapidly down the lines, but he found that his mind did not follow what he was reading. He struggled again, but still his thoughts were on the letter. He did not wish to open it, having some vague idea that till the letter should have been read there was a chance of escape. The letter would not become due to be read till the next day. It should not have been there now to tempt his thoughts on this night. But he could do nothing while it lay there. It shall be a part of the bargain that I shall never have to see him, he said to himself as he opened it. The second line told him that the danger was over. When he had read so far, he stood up with his back to the fireplace, leaving the letter on the table. Then after all the woman wasn't in love with him. But that was a reading of the affair which he could hardly bring himself to look upon as correct. The woman had shown her love by a thousand signs. There was no doubt however that she now had her triumph. A woman always has a triumph when she rejects a man and more especially when she does so at a certain time of life. Would she publish her triumph? Mr. Brown would not like to have it known about among brother editors or by the world at large that he had offered to marry Lady Carberry and that Lady Carberry had refused him. He had escaped, but the sweetness of his present safety was not in proportion to the bitterness of his late fears. He could not understand why Lady Carberry should have refused him. As he reflected upon it, all memory of her son for the moment passed away from him. Full ten minutes had passed during which he had still stood upon the rug before he read the entire letter. Cut and scotched and locked. I suppose she has been, he said to himself. He had heard much of Sir Patrick and knew well that the old general had been no lamb. I shouldn't have cut her or scotched her or lopped her. When he had read the whole letter patiently there crept upon him gradually a feeling of admiration for her greater than he had ever yet felt. And for a while he almost thought that he would renew his offer to her. Showers instead of sunshine, melancholy instead of mirth, he repeated to himself. I should have done the best for her taking the showers and the melancholy if they were necessary. He went to his work in a mixed frame of mind but certainly without that dragging weight which had oppressed him when he entered the room. Gradually through the night he realized the conviction that he had escaped and threw from him altogether the idea of repeating his offer. Before he left he wrote her a line. Be it so it need not break our friendship and be. This he sent by a special messenger who returned with a note to his lodgings long before he was up on the following morning. No, no, certainly not. No word of this will ever pass my mouth, MC. Mr. Brown thought that he was very well out of the danger and resolved that Lady Carberry should never want anything that his friendship could do for her. End of chapter 36.