"I ought to have done so; but it is hardly for you to blame me with severity. Had you, when we were last together in London—had you been less—"
"Less what?"
"Less defiant," said Crosbie, "all this might perhaps have been avoided."
Lady Alexandrina could not remember that she had been defiant; but, however, she let that pass. "Oh, yes; of course it was my fault."
"I went down there to Allington with my heart ill at ease, and now I have fallen into this trouble. I tell you all as it has happened. It is impossible that I should marry Miss Dale. It would be wicked in me to do so, seeing that my heart belongs altogether to another. I have told you who is that other; and now may I hope for an answer?"
"An answer to what?"
"Alexandrina, will you be my wife?"
If it had been her object to bring him to a point-blank declaration and proposition of marriage, she had certainly achieved her object now. And she had that trust in her own power of management and in her mother's, that she did not fear that in accepting him she would incur the risk of being served as he was serving Lily Dale. She knew her own position and his too well for that. If she accepted him she would in due course of time become his wife,—let Miss Dale and all her friends say what they might to the contrary. As to that head she had no fear. But nevertheless she did not accept him at once. Though she wished for the prize, her woman's nature hindered her from taking it when it was offered to her.
"How long is it, Mr Crosbie," she said, "since you put the same question to Miss Dale?"
"I have told you everything, Alexandrina,—as I promised that I would do. If you intend to punish me for doing so—"
"And I might ask another question. How long will it be before you put the same question to some other girl?"
He turned round as though to walk away from her in anger; but when he had gone half the distance to the door he returned.
"By heaven!" he said, and he spoke somewhat roughly, too, "I'll have an answer. You at any rate have nothing with which to reproach me. All that I have done wrong, I have done through you, or on your behalf. You have heard my proposal. Do you intend to accept it?"
"I declare you startle me. If you demanded my money or my life, you could not be more imperious."
"Certainly not more resolute in my determination."
"And if I decline the honour?"
"I shall think you the most fickle of your sex."
"And if I were to accept it?"
"I would swear that you were the best, the dearest, and the sweetest of women."
"I would rather have your good opinion than your bad, certainly," said Lady Alexandrina. And then it was understood by both of them that that affair was settled. Whenever she was called on in future to speak of Lily, she always called her, "that poor Miss Dale;" but she never again spoke a word of reproach to her future lord about that little adventure. "I shall tell mamma, to-night," she said to him, as she bade him good-night in some sequestered nook to which they had betaken themselves. Lady Julia's eye was again on them as they came out from the sequestered nook, but Alexandrina no longer cared for Lady Julia.
"George, I cannot quite understand about that Mr Palliser. Isn't he to be a duke, and oughtn't he to be a lord now?" This question was asked by Mrs George de Courcy of her husband, when they found themselves together in the seclusion of the nuptial chamber.
"Yes; he'll be Duke of Omnium when the old fellow dies. I think he's one of the slowest fellows I ever came across. He'll take deuced good care of the property, though."
"But, George, do explain it to me. It is so stupid not to understand, and I am afraid of opening my mouth for fear of blundering."
"Then keep your mouth shut, my dear. You'll learn all those sort of things in time, and nobody notices it if you don't say anything."
"Yes, but, George;—I don't like to sit silent all the night. I'd sooner be up here with a novel if I can't speak about anything."
"Look at Lady Dumbello. She doesn't want to be always talking."
"Lady Dumbello is very different from me. But do tell me, who is Mr Palliser?"
"He's the duke's nephew. If he were the duke's son, he would be the Marquis of Silverbridge."
"And will he be plain Mister till his uncle dies?"
"Yes, a very plain Mister."
"What a pity for him. But, George,—if I have a baby, and if he should be a boy, and if—"
"Oh, nonsense; it will be time enough to talk of that when he comes. I'm going to sleep."
XXIV. A Mother-in-Law and a Father-in-Law
On the following morning Mr Plantagenet Palliser was off upon his political mission before breakfast;—either that, or else some private comfort was afforded to him in guise of solitary rolls and coffee. The public breakfast at Courcy Castle was going on at eleven o'clock, and at that hour Mr Palliser was already closeted with the Mayor of Silverbridge.
"I must get off by the 3.45 train," said Mr Palliser. "Who is there to speak after me?"
"Well, I shall say a few words; and Growdy,—he'll expect them to listen to him. Growdy has always stood very firm by his grace, Mr Palliser."
"Mind we are in the room sharp at one. And you can have a fly, for me to get away to the station, ready in the yard. I won't go a moment before I can help. I shall be just an hour and a half myself. No, thank you, I never take any wine in the morning." And I may here state that Mr Palliser did get away by the 3.45 train, leaving Mr Growdy still talking on the platform. Constituents must be treated with respect; but time has become so scarce nowadays that that respect has to be meted out by the quarter of an hour with parsimonious care.
In the meantime there was more leisure at Courcy Caste. Neither the countess nor Lady Alexandrina came down to breakfast, but their absence gave rise to no special remark. Breakfast at the castle was a morning meal at which people showed themselves, or did not show themselves, as it pleased them. Lady Julia was there looking very glum, and Crosbie was sitting next to his future sister-in-law Margaretta, who already had placed herself on terms of close affection with him. As he finished his tea she whispered into his ear, "Mr Crosbie, if you could spare half an hour, mamma would so like to see you in her own room." Crosbie declared that he would be delighted to wait upon her, and did in truth feel some gratitude in being welcomed as a son-in-law into the house. And yet he felt also that he was being caught, and that in ascending into the private domains of the countess he would be setting the seal upon his own captivity.
Nevertheless, he went with a smiling face and a light step, Lady Margaretta ushering him the way. "Mamma," said she, "I have brought Mr Crosbie up to you. I did not know that you were here, Alexandrina, or I should have warned him."
The countess and her youngest daughter had been breakfasting together in the elder lady's sitting-room, and were now seated in a very graceful and well-arranged deshabille. The tea-cups out of which they had been drinking were made of some elegant porcelain, the teapot and cream-jug were of chased silver and as delicate in their sway. The remnant of food consisted of morsels of French roll which had not even been allowed to crumble themselves in a disorderly fashion, and of infinitesimal pats of butter. If the morning meal of the two ladies had been as unsubstantial as the appearance of the fragments indicated, it must be presumed that they intended to lunch early. The countess herself was arrayed in an elaborate morning wrapper of figured silk, but the simple Alexandrina wore a plain white muslin peignoir, fastened with pink ribbon. Her hair, which she usually carried in long rolls, now hung loose over her shoulders, and certainly added something to her stock of female charms. The countess got up as Crosbie entered and greeted him with an open hand; but Alexandrina kept her seat, and merely nodded at him a little welcome. "I must run down again," said Margaretta, "or I shall have left Amelia with all the cares of the house upon her."
"Alexandrina has told me all about it," said the countess, with her sweetest smile, "and I have given her my approval. I really do think you will suit each
other very well."
"I am very much obliged to you," said Crosbie. "I'm sure at any rate of this,—that she will suit me very well."
"Yes; I think she will. She is a good sensible girl."
"Psha, mamma; pray don't go on in that Goody Twoshoes sort of way."
"So you are, my dear. If you were not it would not be well for you to do as you are going to do. If you were giddy and harum-scarum, and devoted to rank and wealth and that sort of thing, it would not be well for you to marry a commoner without fortune. I'm sure Mr Crosbie will excuse me for saying so much as that."
"Of course I know," said Crosbie, "that I had no right to look so high."
"Well; we'll say nothing more about it," said the countess.
"Pray don't," said Alexandrina. "It sounds so like a sermon."
"Sit down, Mr Crosbie," said the countess, "and let us have a little conversation. She shall sit by you, if you like it. Nonsense, Alexandrina,—if he asks it!"
"Don't, mamma;—I mean to remain where I am."
"Very well, my dear;—then remain where you are. She is a wilful girl, Mr Crosbie; as you will say when you hear that she has told me all that you told her last night." Upon hearing this, he changed colour a little, but said nothing. "She has told me," continued the countess, "about that young lady at Allington. Upon my word, I'm afraid you have been very naughty."
"I have been foolish, Lady de Courcy."
"Of course; I did not mean anything worse than that. Yes, you have been foolish;—amusing yourself in a thoughtless way, you know, and, perhaps, a little piqued because a certain lady was not to be won so easily as your Royal Highness wished. Well, now, all that must be settled, you know, as quickly as possible. I don't want to ask any indiscreet questions; but if the young lady has really been left with any idea that you meant anything, don't you think you should undeceive her at once?"
"Of course he will, mamma."
"Of course you will; and it will be a great comfort to Alexandrina to know that the matter is arranged. You hear what Lady Julia is saying almost every hour of her life. Now, of course, Alexandrina does not care what an old maid like Lady Julia may say; but it will be better for all parties that the rumour should be put a stop to. If the earl were to hear it, he might, you know—" And the countess shook her head, thinking that she could thus best indicate what the earl might do, if he were to take it into his head to do anything.
Crosbie could not bring himself to hold any very confidential intercourse with the countess about Lily; but he gave a muttered assurance that he should, as a matter of course, make known the truth to Miss Dale with as little delay as possible. He could not say exactly when he would write, nor whether he would write to her or to her mother; but the thing should be done immediately on his return to town.
"If it will make the matter easier, I will write to Mrs Dale," said the countess. But to this scheme Mr Crosbie objected very strongly.
And then a few words were said about the earl. "I will tell him this afternoon," said the countess; "and then you can see him to-morrow morning. I don't suppose he will say very much, you know; and perhaps he may think,—you won't mind my saying it, I'm sure,—that Alexandrina might have done better. But I don't believe that he'll raise any strong objection. There will be something about settlements, and that sort of thing, of course." Then the countess went away, and Alexandrina was left with her lover for half an hour. When the half-hour was over, he felt that he would have given all that he had in the world to have back the last four-and-twenty hours of his existence. But he had no hope. To jilt Lily Dale would, no doubt, be within his power, but he knew that he could not jilt Lady Alexandrina de Courcy.
On the next morning at twelve o'clock he had his interview with the father, and a very unpleasant interview it was. He was ushered into the earl's room, and found the great peer standing on the rug, with his back to the fire, and his hands in his breeches pockets.
"So you mean to marry my daughter?" said he. "I'm not very well, as you see; I seldom am."
These last words were spoken in answer to Crosbie's greeting. Crosbie had held out his hand to the earl, and had carried his point so far that the earl had been forced to take one of his own out of his pocket, and give it to his proposed son-in-law.
"If your lordship has no objection. I have, at any rate, her permission to ask for yours."
"I believe you have not any fortune, have you? She's got none; of course you know that?"
"I have a few thousand pounds, and I believe she has as much."
"About as much as will buy bread to keep the two of you from starving. It's nothing to me. You can marry her if you like; only, look here, I'll have no nonsense. I've had an old woman in with me this morning,—one of those that are here in the house,—telling me some story about some other girl that you have made a fool of. It's nothing to me how much of that sort of thing you may have done, so that you do none of it here. But,—if you play any prank of that kind with me, you'll find that you've made a mistake."
Crosbie hardly made any answer to this, but got himself out of the room as quickly as he could.
"You'd better talk to Gazebee about the trifle of money you've got," said the earl. Then he dismissed the subject from his mind, and no doubt imagined that he had fully done his duty by his daughter.
On the day after this, Crosbie was to go. On the last afternoon, shortly before dinner, he was waylaid by Lady Julia, who had passed the day in preparing traps to catch him.
"Mr Crosbie," she said, "let me have one word with you. Is this true?"
"Lady Julia," he said, "I really do not know why you should inquire into my private affairs."
"Yes, sir, you do know; you know very well. That poor young lady who has no father and no brother, is my neighbour, and her friends are my friends. She is a friend of my own, and being an old woman, I have a right to speak for her. If this is true, Mr Crosbie, you are treating her like a villain."
"Lady Julia, I really must decline to discuss the matter with you."
"I'll tell everybody what a villain you are; I will, indeed—a villain and a poor weak silly fool. She was too good for you; that's what she was." Crosbie, as Lady Julia was addressing to him the last words, hurried upstairs away from her, but her ladyship, standing on a landing-place, spoke up loudly, so that no word should be lost on her retreating enemy.
"We positively must get rid of that woman," the countess, who heard it all, said to Margaretta. "She is disturbing the house and disgracing herself every day."
"She went to papa this morning, mamma."
"She did not get much by that move," said the countess.
On the following morning Crosbie returned to town, but just before he left the castle he received a third letter from Lily Dale. "I have been rather disappointed at not hearing this morning," said Lily, "for I thought the postman would have brought me a letter. But I know you'll be a better boy when you get back to London, and I won't scold you. Scold you, indeed! No; I'll never scold you, not though I shouldn't hear for a month."
He would have given all that he had in the world, three times told, if he could have blotted out that visit to Courcy Castle from the past facts of his existence.
XXV. Adolphus Crosbie Spends an Evening at His Club
Crosbie, as he was being driven from the castle to the nearest station, in a dog-cart hired from the hotel, could not keep himself from thinking of that other morning, not yet a fortnight past, on which he had left Allington; and as he thought of it he knew that he was a villain. On this morning Alexandrina had not come out from the house to watch his departure, and catch the last glance of his receding figure. As he had not started very early she had sat with him at the breakfast-table; but others also had sat there, and when he got up to go, she did no more than smile softly and give him her hand. It had been already settled that he was to spend his Christmas at Courcy; as it had been also settled that he was to spend it at Allington.
Lady Amelia was, of all the family, the most
affectionate to him, and perhaps of them all she was the one whose affection was worth the most. She was not a woman endowed with a very high mind or with very noble feelings. She had begun life trusting to the nobility of her blood for everything, and declaring somewhat loudly among her friends that her father's rank and her mother's birth imposed on her the duty of standing closely by her own order. Nevertheless, at the age of thirty-three she had married her father's man of business, under circumstances which were not altogether creditable to her. But she had done her duty in her new sphere of life with some constancy and a fixed purpose; and now that her sister was going to marry, as she had done, a man much below herself in social standing, she was prepared to do her duty as a sister and a sister-in-law.
"We shall be up in town in November, and of course you'll come to us at once. Albert Villa, you know, in Hamilton Terrace, St. John's Wood. We dine at seven, and on Sundays at two; and you'll always find a place. Mind you come to us, and make yourself quite at home. I do so hope you and Mortimer will get on well together."
"I'm sure we shall," said Crosbie. But he had had higher hopes in marrying into this noble family than that of becoming intimate with Mortimer Gazebee. What those hopes were he could hardly define to himself now that he had brought himself so near to the fruition of them. Lady de Courcy had certainly promised to write to her first cousin who was Under-Secretary of State for India, with reference to that secretaryship at the General Committee Office; but Crosbie, when he came to weigh in his mind what good might result to him from this, was disposed to think that his chance of obtaining the promotion would be quite as good without the interest of the Under-Secretary of State for India as with it. Now that he belonged, as we may say, to this noble family, he could hardly discern what were the advantages which he had expected from this alliance. He had said to himself that it would be much to have a countess for a mother-in-law; but now, even already, although the possession to which he had looked was not yet garnered, he was beginning to tell himself that the thing was not worth possessing.
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