Then gradually there came confidences, – and at last absolute confidence. The whole story about Mr Tregear was told. Yes; she loved Mr Tregear. She had given him her heart, and had told him so.
‘Then, my dear, your father ought to know it,’ said Mrs Finn.
‘No; not yet. Mamma knew it.’
‘Did she know all that you have told me?’
‘Yes; all. And Mr Tregear spoke to her, and she said that papa ought not to be told quite yet.’ Mrs Finn could not but remember that the friend she had lost was not, among women, the one best able to give a girl good counsel in such a crisis.
‘Why not yet, dear?’
‘Well, because –. It is very hard to explain. In the first place, because Mr Tregear himself does not wish it.’
‘That is a very bad reason; the worst in the world.’
‘Of course you will say so. Of course everybody would say so. But when there is one person whom one loves better than all the rest, for whom one would be ready to die, to whom one is determined that everything shall be devoted, surely the wishes of a person so dear as that ought to have weight.’
‘Not in persuading you to do that which is acknowledged to be wrong.’
‘What wrong? I am going to do nothing wrong.’
‘The very concealment of your love is wrong, after that love has been not only given but declared. A girl's position in such matters is so delicate, especially that of such a girl as you!’
‘I know all about that,’ said Lady Mary, with something almost approaching to scorn in her tone. ‘Of course I have to be – delicate. I don't quite know what the word means. I am not a bit ashamed of being in love with Mr Tregear. He is a gentleman, highly educated, very clever, of an old family, – older, I believe, than papa's. And he is manly and handsome; just what a young man ought to be. Only he is not rich.’
‘If he be all that you say, ought you not to trust your papa? If he approve of it, he could give you money.’
‘Of course he must be told; but not now. He is nearly broken-hearted about dear mamma. He could not bring himself to care about anything of that kind at present. And then it is Mr Tregear that should speak to him first.’
‘Not now, Mary.’
‘How do you mean not now?’
‘If you had a mother you would talk to her about it.’
‘Mamma knew.’
‘If she were still living she would tell your father.’
‘But she didn't tell him though she did know. She didn't mean to tell him quite yet. She wanted to see Mr Tregear here in England first. Of course I shall do nothing till papa does know.’
‘You will not see him?’
‘How can I see him here? He will not come here, if you mean that.’
‘You do not correspond with him?’ Here for the first time the girl blushed. ‘Oh Mary, if you are writing to him your father ought to know it.’
‘I have not written to him; but when he heard how ill poor mamma was, then he wrote to me – twice. You may see his letters. It is all about her. No one worshipped mamma as he did.’
Gradually the whole story was told. These two young persons considered themselves to be engaged, but had agreed that their engagement should not be made known to the Duke till something had occurred, or some time had arrived, as to which Mr Tregear was to be the judge. In Mrs Finn's opinion nothing could be more unwise, and she said much to induce the girl to confess everything to her father at once. But in all her arguments she was opposed by the girl's reference to her mother. ‘Mamma knew it.’ And it did certainly seem to Mrs Finn as though the mother had assented to this imprudent concealment. When she endeavoured, in her own mind, to make excuse for her friend, she felt almost sure that the Duchess, with all her courage, had been afraid to propose to her husband that their daughter should marry a commoner3 without an income. But in thinking of all that, there could now be nothing gained. What ought she to do – at once? The girl, in telling her, had exacted no promise of secrecy, nor would she have given any such promise; but yet she did not like the idea of telling the tale behind the girl's back. It was evident that Lady Mary had considered herself to be safe in confiding her story to her mother's old friend. Lady Mary no doubt had had her confidences with her mother, – confidences from which it had been intended by both that the father should be excluded; and now she seemed naturally to expect that this new ally should look at this great question as her mother had looked at it. The father had been regarded as a great outside power, which could hardly be overcome, but which might be evaded, or made inoperative by stratagem. It was not that the daughter did not love him. She loved him and venerated him highly, – the veneration perhaps being stronger than the love. The Duchess, too, had loved him dearly, – more dearly in late years than in her early life. But her husband to her had always been an outside power which had in many cases to be evaded. Lady Mary, though she did not express all this, evidently thought that in this new friend she had found a woman whose wishes and aspirations for her would be those which her mother had entertained.
But Mrs Finn was much troubled in her mind, thinking that it was her duty to tell the story to the Duke. It was not only the daughter who had trusted her, but the father also; and the father's confidence had been not only the first but by far the holier of the two. And the question was one so important to the girl's future happiness! There could be no doubt that the peril of her present position was very great.
‘Mary,’ she said one morning, when the fortnight was nearly at an end, ‘your father ought to know all this. I should feel that I had betrayed him were I to go away leaving him in ignorance.’
‘You do not mean to say that you will tell?’ said the girl, horrified at the idea of such treachery.
‘I wish that I could induce you to do so. Every day that he is kept in the dark is an injury to you.’
‘I am doing nothing. What harm can come? It is not as though I was seeing him every day.’
‘This harm will come; your father of course will know that you became engaged to Mr Tregear in Italy, and that a fact so important to him has been kept back from him.’
‘If there is anything in that, the evil has been done already. Of course poor mamma did mean to tell him.’
‘She cannot tell him now, and therefore you ought to do what she would have done.’
‘I cannot break my promise to him.’ ‘Him’ always meant Mr Tregear. ‘I have told him that I would not do so till I had his consent, and I will not.’
This was very dreadful to Mrs Finn, and yet she was most unwilling to take upon herself the part of a stern elder, and declare that under the circumstances she must tell the tale. The story had been told to her under the supposition that she was not a stern elder, that she was regarded as the special friend of the dear mother who was gone, that she might be trusted to assist against the terrible weight of parental authority. She could not endure to be regarded at once as a traitor by this young friend who had sweetly inherited the affection with which the Duchess had regarded her. And yet if she were to be silent how could she forgive herself? ‘The Duke certainly ought to know at once,’ said she, repeating her words merely that she might gain some time for thinking, and pluck up courage to declare her purpose, should she resolve on betraying the secret.
‘If you tell him now, I will never forgive you,’ said Lady Mary.
‘I am bound in honour to see that your father knows a thing which is of such vital importance to him and to you. Having heard all this I have no right to keep it from him. If Mr Tregear really loves you’ – Lady Mary smiled at the doubt implied by this suggestion – ‘he ought to feel that for your sake there should be no secret from your father.’ Then she paused a moment to think. ‘Will you let me see Mr Tregear myself, and talk to him about it?’
To this Lady Mary at first demurred, but when she found that in no other way could she prevent Mrs Finn from going at once to the Duke and telling him everything, she consented. Under Mrs Finn's directions she wrote a no
te to her lover, which Mrs Finn saw, and then undertook to send it, with a letter from herself, to Mr Tregear's address in London. The note was very short, and was indeed dictated by the elder lady, with some dispute, however, as to certain terms, in which the younger lady had her way. It was as follows:
‘DEAREST FRANK,
‘I wish you to see Mrs Finn, who, as you know, was dear mamma's most particular friend. Please go to her, as she will ask you to do. When you hear what she says I think you ought to do what she advises.
‘Yours for ever and always,
‘M. P.’
This Mrs Finn sent enclosed in an envelope, with a few words from herself, asking the gentleman to call upon her in Park Lane, on a day and at an hour fixed.
CHAPTER 3
Francis Oliphant Tregear
Mr Francis Oliphant Tregear was a young man who might not improbably make a figure in the world, should circumstances be kind to him, but as to whom it might be doubted whether circumstances would be sufficiently kind to enable him to use serviceably his unquestionable talents and great personal gifts. He had taught himself to regard himself as a young English gentleman of the first water, qualified by his birth and position to live with all that was most noble and most elegant; and he could have lived in that sphere naturally and gracefully were it not that the part of the ‘sphere’ which he specially affected requires wealth as well as birth and intellect. Wealth he had not, and yet he did not abandon the sphere. As a consequence of all this, it was possible that the predictions of his friends as to that figure which he was to make in the world might be disappointed.
He had been educated at Eton, from whence he had been sent to Christ Church; and both at school and at college had been the most intimate friend of the son and heir of a great and wealthy duke. He and Lord Silverbridge had been always together, and they who were interested in the career of the young nobleman had generally thought he had chosen his friend well. Tregear had gone out in honours,1 having been a second-class man. His friend Silverbridge, we know, had been allowed to take no degree at all; but the terrible practical joke by which the whole front of the Dean's house had been coloured scarlet in the middle of the night, had been carried on without any assistance from Tregear. The two young men had then been separated for a year; but immediately after taking his degree, Tregear, at the invitation of Lord Silverbridge, had gone to Italy, and had there completely made good his footing with the Duchess, – with what effect on another member of the Palliser family the reader already knows.
The young man was certainly clever. When the Duchess found that he could talk without any shyness, that he could speak French fluently, and that after a month in Italy he could chatter Italian, at any rate without reticence or shame; when she perceived that all the women liked the lad's society and impudence, and that all the young men were anxious to know him, she was glad to find that Silverbridge had chosen so valuable a friend. And then he was beautiful to look at, - putting her almost in mind of another man2 on whom her eyes had once loved to dwell. He was dark, with hair that was almost black, but yet was not black; with clear brown eyes, a nose as regular as Apollo's, and a mouth in which was ever to be found that expression of manliness, which of all characteristics is the one which women love the best. He was five feet ten in height. He was always well dressed, and yet always so dressed as to seem to show that his outside garniture had not been matter of trouble to him. Before the Duchess had dreamed what might take place between this young man and her daughter she had been urgent in her congratulations to her son as to the possession of such a friend.
For though she now and then would catch a glimpse of the outer man, which would remind her of that other beautiful one whom she had known in her youth, and though, as these glimpses came, she would remember how poor in spirit and how unmanly that other one had been, though she would confess to herself how terrible had been the heart-shipwreck which that other one had brought upon herself; still she was able completely to assure herself that this man, though not superior in external grace, was altogether different in mind and character. She was old enough now to see all this and to appreciate it. Young Tregear had his own ideas about the politics of the day, and they were ideas with which she sympathised, though they were antagonistic to the politics of her life. He had his ideas about books too, as to manners of life, as to art, and even ethics. Whether or no in all this there was not much that was superficial only, she was not herself deep enough to discover. Nor would she have been deterred from admiring him had she been told that it was tinsel. Such were the acquirements, such the charms, that she loved. Here was a young man who dared to speak, and had always something ready to be spoken; who was not afraid of beauty, nor daunted by superiority of rank; who, if he had not money, could carry himself on equal terms among those who had. In this way he won the Duchess's heart, and having done that, was it odd that he should win the heart of the daughter also?
His father was a Cornwall squire of comfortable means, having joined the property of his wife to his own for the period of his own life. She had possessed land also in Cornwall, supposed to be worth fifteen hundred a year, and his own paternal estate at Polwenning was said to be double that value. Being a prudent man, he lived at home as a country gentleman, and thus was able in his county to hold his head as high as richer men. But Frank Tregear was only his second son; and though Frank would hereafter inherit his mother's fortune, he was by no means now in a position to assume the right of living as an idle man. Yet he was idle. The elder brother, who was considerably older than Frank, was an odd man, much addicted to quarrelling with his family, and who spent his time chiefly in travelling about the world. Frank's mother, who was not the mother of the heir also, would sometimes surmise in Frank's hearing, that the entire property must ultimately come to him. That other Tregear, who was now supposed to be investigating the mountains of Crim Tartary, would surely never marry. And Frank was the favourite also with his father, who paid his debts at Oxford with not much grumbling, who was proud of his friendship with a future duke; who did not urge, as he ought to have urged, that vital question of a profession; and who, when he allowed his son four hundred pounds a year, was almost content with that son's protestations that he knew how to live as a poor man among rich men, without chagrin and without trouble.
Such was the young man who now, in lieu of a profession, had taken upon himself the responsibility of an engagement with Lady Mary Palliser. He was tolerably certain that, should he be able to overcome the parental obstacles which he would no doubt find in his path, money would be forthcoming sufficient for the purposes of matrimonial life. The Duke's wealth was fabulous, and as a great part of it, if not the greater, had come from his wife, there would probably be ample provision for the younger children. And when the Duchess had found out how things were going, and had yielded to her daughter, after an opposition which never had the appearance even of being in earnest, she had taken upon herself to say that she would use her influence to prevent any great weight of trouble from pecuniary matters. Frank Tregear, young and bright, and full of hearty ambitions, was certainly not the man to pursue a girl simply because of her fortune; nor was he weak enough to be attracted simply by the glitter of rank; but he was wise enough with worldly wisdom to understand thoroughly the comforts of a good income, and he was sufficiently attached to high position to feel the advantage of marrying a daughter of the Duke of Omnium.
When the Duchess was leaving Italy, it had been her declared purpose to tell her husband the story as soon as they were at home in England. And it was on this understanding that Frank Tregear had explained to the girl that he would not as yet ask her father for his permission to be received into the family as a suitor. Everyone concerned had felt that the Duke would not easily be reconciled to such a son-in-law, and that the Duchess should be the one to bell the cat.3
There was one member of the family who had hitherto been halfhearted in the matter. Lord Silverbridge had vacillated between loyalty to his friend and a
certain feeling as to the impropriety of such a match for his sister. He was aware that something very much better should be expected for her, and still was unable to explain his objections to Tregear. He had not at first been admitted into confidence, either by his sister or by Tregear, but had questioned his friend when he saw what was going on. ‘Certainly I love your sister,’ Tregear had said; ‘do you object?’ Lord Silverbridge was the weaker of the two, and much subject to the influence of his friend; but he could on occasion be firm, and he did at first object. But he did not object strongly, and allowed himself at last to be content with declaring that the Duke would never give his consent.
While Tregear was with his love, or near her, his hopes and fears were sufficient to occupy his mind; and immediately on his return, all the world was nothing to him, except as far as the world was concerned with Lady Mary Palliser. He had come back to England somewhat before the ducal party, and the pleasures and occupations of London life had not abated his love, but enabled him to feel that there was something in life over and beyond his love; whereas to Lady Mary, down at Matching, there had been nothing over and beyond her love – except the infinite grief and desolation produced by her mother's death.
Tregear, when he received the note from Mrs Finn, was staying at the Duke's house in Carlton Terrace. Silverbridge was there, and, on leaving Matching, had asked the Duke's permission to have his friend with him. The Duke at that time was not well pleased with his son as to a matter of politics, and gave his son's friend credit for the evil counsel which had produced this displeasure. But still he had not refused his assent to this proposition. Had he done so, Silverbridge would probably have gone elsewhere: and though there was a matter in respect to Tregear of which the Duke disapproved, it was not a matter, as he thought, which would have justified him in expelling the young man from his house. The young man was a strong Conservative; and now Silverbridge had declared his purpose of entering the House of Commons, if he did enter it, as one of the Conservative party.4
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