The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (page 16)

face, but with nothing of a threat in his attitude or manner.

‘Eh!’ repeated Melmotte. Even though he might have saved himself from all coming evils by a bold demeanour at that moment, he could not assume it. But it all flashed upon him at a moment. Brehgert had seen Croll after he, Melmotte, had left the City, had then discovered the forgery, and had taken this way of sending back all the forged documents. He had known Brehgert to be of all men who ever lived the most good-natured, but he could hardly believe in pure good-nature such as this. It seemed that the thunderbolt was not yet to fall.

‘Mr Brehgert came to me,’ continued Croll, ‘because one signature was wanting. It was very late, so I took them home with me. I said I’d bring them to you in the morning.’

They both knew that he had forged the documents, Brehgert and Croll; but how would that concern him, Melmotte, if these two friends had resolved together that they would not expose him? He had desired to get the documents back into his own hands, and here they were! Melmotte’s immediate trouble arose from the difficulty of speaking in a proper manner to his own servant who had just detected him in forgery. He couldn’t speak. There were no words appropriate to such an occasion. ‘It vas a strong order, Mr Melmotte,’ said Croll. Melmotte tried to smile but only grinned. ‘I vill not be back in the Lane, Mr Melmotte.’

‘Not back at the office, Croll?’

‘I tink not;–no. De leetle money coming to me, you will send it. Adieu.’ And so Mr Croll took his final leave of his old master after an intercourse which had lasted twenty years. We may imagine that Herr Croll found his spirits to be oppressed and his capacity for business to be obliterated by his patron’s misfortunes rather than by his patron’s guilt. But he had not behaved unkindly. He had merely remarked that the forgery of his own name half-a-dozen times over was a ‘strong order.’

Melmotte opened the bag, and examined the documents one by one. It had been necessary that Marie should sign her name some half-dozen times, and Marie’s father had made all the necessary forgeries. It had been of course necessary that each name should be witnessed;–but here the forger had scamped his work. Croll’s name he had written five times; but one forged signature he had left unattested! Again he had himself been at fault. Again he had aided his own ruin by his own carelessness. One seems inclined to think sometimes that any fool might do an honest business. But fraud requires a man to be alive and wide awake at every turn!

Melmotte had desired to have the documents back in his own hands, and now he had them. Did it matter much that Brehgert and Croll both knew the crime which he had committed? Had they meant to take legal steps against him they would not have returned the forgeries to his own hands. Brehgert, he thought, would never tell the tale;–unless there should arise some most improbable emergency in which he might make money by telling it; but he was by no means so sure of Croll. Croll had signified his intention of leaving Melmotte’s service, and would therefore probably enter some rival service, and thus become an enemy to his late master. There could be no reason why Croll should keep the secret. Even if he got no direct profit by telling it, he would curry favour by making it known. Of course Croll would tell it.

But what harm could the telling of such a secret do him? The girl was his own daughter! The money had been his own money! The man had been his own servant! There had been no fraud; no robbery; no purpose of peculation. Melmotte, as he thought of this, became almost proud of what he had done, thinking that if the evidence were suppressed the knowledge of the facts could do him no harm. But the evidence must be suppressed, and with the view of suppressing it he took the little bag and all the papers down with him to the study. Then he ate his breakfast,–and suppressed the evidence by the aid of his gas lamp.

When this was accomplished he hesitated as to the manner in which he would pass his day. He had now given up all idea of raising the money for Longestaffe. He had even considered the language in which he would explain to the assembled gentlemen on the morrow the fact that a little difficulty still presented itself, and that as he could not exactly name a day, he must leave the matter in their hands. For he had resolved that he would not evade the meeting. Cohenlupe had gone since he had made his promise, and he would throw all the blame on Cohenlupe. Everybody knows that when panics arise the breaking of one merchant causes the downfall of another. Cohenlupe should bear the burden. But as that must be so, he could do no good by going into the City. His pecuniary downfall had now become too much a matter of certainty to be staved off by his presence; and his personal security could hardly be assisted by it. There would be nothing for him to do. Cohenlupe had gone. Miles Grendall had gone. Croll had gone. He could hardly go to Cuthbert’s Court and face Mr Brehgert! He would stay at home till it was time for him to go down to the House, and then he would face the world there. He would dine down at the House, and stand about in the smoking-room with his hat on, and be visible in the lobbies, and take his seat among his brother legislators,–and, if it were possible, rise on his legs and make a speech to them. He was about to have a crushing fall,–but the world should say that he had fallen like a man.

About eleven his daughter came to him as he sat in the study. It can hardly be said that he had ever been kind to Marie, but perhaps she was the only person who in the whole course of his career had received indulgence at his hands. He had often beaten her; but he had also often made her presents and smiled on her, and in the periods of his opulence, had allowed her pocket-money almost without limit. Now she had not only disobeyed him, but by most perverse obstinacy on her part had driven him to acts of forgery which had already been detected. He had cause to be angry now with Marie if he had ever had cause for anger. But he had almost forgotten the transaction. He had at any rate forgotten the violence of his own feelings at the time of its occurrence. He was no longer anxious that the release should be made, and therefore no longer angry with her for her refusal.

‘Papa,’ she said, coming very gently into the room, ‘I think that perhaps I was wrong yesterday.’

‘Of course you were wrong;–but it doesn’t matter now.’

‘If you wish it I’ll sign those papers. I don’t suppose Lord Nidderdale means to come any more;–and I’m sure I don’t care whether he does or not.’

‘What makes you think that, Marie?’

‘I was out last night at Lady Julia Goldsheiner’s, and he was there. I’m sure he doesn’t mean to come here any more.’

‘Was he uncivil to you?’

‘Oh dear no. He’s never uncivil. But I’m sure of it. Never mind how. I never told him that I cared for him and I never did care for him. Papa, is there something going to happen?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Some misfortune! Oh, papa, why didn’t you let me marry that other man?’

‘He is a penniless adventurer.’

‘But he would have had this money that I call my money, and then there would have been enough for us all. Papa, he would marry me still if you would let him.’

‘Have you seen him since you went to Liverpool?’

‘Never, papa.’

‘Or heard from him?’

‘Not a line.’

‘Then what makes you think he would marry you?’

‘He would if I got hold of him and told him. And he is a baronet. And there would be plenty of money for us all. And we could go and live in Germany.’

‘We could do that just as well without your marrying.’

‘But I suppose, papa, I am to be considered as somebody. I don’t want after all to run away from London, just as if everybody had turned up their noses at me. I like him, and I don’t like anybody else.’

‘He wouldn’t take the trouble to go to Liverpool with you.’

‘He got tipsy. I know all about that. I don’t mean to say that he’s anything particularly grand. I don’t know that anybody is very grand. He’s as good as anybody else.’

‘It can’t be done, Marie.’

‘Why can’t it be done?’

‘There are a dozen reasons. Why should my money be given up to him? And it is too late. There are other things to be thought of now than marriage.’

‘You don’t want me to sign the papers?’

‘No;–I haven’t got the papers. But I want you to remember that the money is mine and not yours. It may be that much may depend on you, and that I shall have to trust to you for nearly everything. Do not let me find myself deceived by my daughter.’

‘I won’t,–if you’ll let me see Sir Felix Carbury once more.’

Then the father’s pride again reasserted itself and he became angry. ‘I tell you, you little fool, that it is out of the question. Why cannot you believe me? Has your mother spoken to you about your jewels? Get them packed up, so that you can carry them away in your hand if we have to leave this suddenly. You are an idiot to think of that young man. As you say, I don’t know that any of them are very good, but among them all he is about the worst. Go away and do as I bid you.’

That afternoon the page in Welbeck Street came up to Lady Carbury and told her that there was a young lady downstairs who wanted to see Sir Felix. At this time the dominion of Sir Felix in his mother’s house had been much curtailed. His latch-key had been surreptitiously taken away from him, and all messages brought for him reached his hands through those of his mother. The plasters were not removed from his face, so that he was still subject to that loss of self-assertion with which we are told that hitherto dominant cocks become afflicted when they have been daubed with mud. Lady Carbury asked sundry questions about the lady, suspecting that Ruby Ruggles, of whom she had heard, had come to seek her lover. The page could give no special description, merely saying that the young lady wore a black veil. Lady Carbury directed that the young lady should be shown into her own presence,–and Marie Melmotte was ushered into the room. ‘I dare say you don’t remember me, Lady Carbury,’ Marie said. ‘I am Marie Melmotte.’

At first Lady Carbury had not recognized her visitor;–but she did so before she replied. ‘Yes, Miss Melmotte, I remember you.’

‘Yes;–I am Mr Melmotte’s daughter. How is your son? I hope he is better. They told me he had been horribly used by a dreadful man in the street.’

‘Sit down, Miss Melmotte. He is getting better.’ Now Lady Carbury had heard within the last two days from Mr Broune that ‘it was all over’ with Melmotte. Broune had declared his very strong belief, his thorough conviction, that Melmotte had committed various forgeries, that his speculations had gone so much against him as to leave him a ruined man, and, in short, that the great Melmotte bubble was on the very point of bursting. ‘Everybody says that he’ll be in gaol before a week is over.’ That was the information which had reached Lady Carbury about the Melmottes only on the previous evening.

‘I want to see him,’ said Marie. Lady Carbury, hardly knowing what answer to make, was silent for a while. ‘I suppose he told you everything;–didn’t he? You know that we were to have been married? I loved him very much, and so I do still. I am not ashamed of coming and telling you.’

‘I thought it was all off,’ said Lady Carbury.

‘I never said so. Does he say so? Your daughter came to me and was very good to me. I do so love her. She said that it was all over; but perhaps she was wrong. It shan’t be all over if he will be true.’

Lady Carbury was taken greatly by surprise. It seemed to her at the moment that this young lady, knowing that her own father was ruined, was looking out for another home, and was doing so with a considerable amount of audacity. She gave Marie little credit either for affection or for generosity; but yet she was unwilling to answer her roughly. ‘I am afraid,’ she said, ‘that it would not be suitable.’

‘Why should it not be suitable? They can’t take my money away. There is enough for all of us even if papa wanted to live with us;–but it is mine. It is ever so much;–I don’t know how much, but a great deal. We should be quite rich enough. I ain’t a bit ashamed to come and tell you, because we were engaged. I know he isn’t rich, and I should have thought it would be suitable.’

It then occurred to Lady Carbury that if this were true the marriage after all might be suitable. But how was she to find out whether it was true? ‘I understand that your papa is opposed to it,’ she said.

‘Yes, he is;–but papa can’t prevent me, and papa can’t make me give up the money. It’s ever so many thousands a year, I know. If I can dare to do it, why can’t he?’

Lady Carbury was so beside herself with doubts, that she found it impossible to form any decision. It would be necessary that she should see Mr Broune. What to do with her son, how to bestow him, in what way to get rid of him so that in ridding herself of him she might not aid in destroying him,–this was the great trouble of her life, the burden that was breaking her back. Now this girl was not only willing but persistently anxious to take her black sheep and to endow him,–as she declared,–with ever so many thousands a year. If the thousands were there,–or even an income of a single thousand a year,–then what a blessing would such a marriage be! Sir Felix had already fallen so low that his mother on his behalf would not be justified in declining a connection with the Melmottes because the Melmottes had fallen. To get any niche in the world for him in which he might live with comparative safety would now be to her a heaven-sent comfort. ‘My son is upstairs,’ she said. ‘I will go up and speak to him.’

‘Tell him I am here and that I have said that I will forgive him everything, and that I love him still, and that if he will be true to me, I will be true to him.’

‘I couldn’t go down to her,’ said Sir Felix, ‘with my face all in this way.’

‘I don’t think she would mind that.’

‘I couldn’t do it. Besides, I don’t believe about her money. I never did believe it. That was the real reason why I didn’t go to Liverpool.’

‘I think I would see her if I were you, Felix. We could find out to a certainty about her fortune. It is evident at any rate that she is very fond of you.’

‘What’s the use of that, if he is ruined?’ He would not go down to see the girl,–because he could not endure to expose his face, and was ashamed of the wounds which he had received in the street. As regarded the money he half-believed and half-disbelieved Marie’s story. But the fruition of the money, if it were within his reach, would be far off and to be attained with much trouble; whereas the nuisance of a scene with Marie would be immediate. How could he kiss his future bride, with his nose bound up with a bandage?

‘What shall I say to her?’ asked his mother.

‘She oughtn’t to have come. I should tell her just that. You might send the maid to her to tell her that you couldn’t see her again.’

But Lady Carbury could not treat the girl after that fashion. She returned to the drawing-room, descending the stairs very slowly, and thinking what answer she would make. ‘Miss Melmotte,’ she said, ‘my son feels that everything has been so changed since he and you last met, that nothing can be gained by a renewal of your acquaintance.’

‘That is his message;–is it?’ Lady Carbury remained silent. ‘Then he is indeed all that they have told me; and I am ashamed that I should have loved him. I am ashamed;–not of coming here, although you will think that I have run after him. I don’t see why a girl should not run after a man if they have been engaged together. But I’m ashamed of thinking so much of so mean a person. Goodbye, Lady Carbury.’

‘Good-bye, Miss Melmotte. I don’t think you should be angry with me.’

‘No;–no. I am not angry with you. You can forget me now as soon as you please, and I will try to forget him.’

Then with a rapid step she walked back to Bruton Street, going round by Grosvenor Square and in front of her old house on the way. What should she now do with herself? What sort of life should she endeavour to prepare for herself? The life that she had led for the last year had been thoroughly wretched. The poverty and hardship which she remembered in her early days had been more endurable. The servitude to which she had been subjected before she had learned by intercourse with the world to assert herself, had been preferable. In these days of her grandeur, in which she had danced with princes, and seen an emperor in her father’s house, and been affianced to lords, she had encountered degradation which had been abominable to her. She had really loved;–but had found out that her golden idol was made of the basest clay. She had then declared to herself that bad as the clay was she would still love it;–but even the clay had turned away from her and had refused her love!

She was well aware that some catastrophe was about to happen to her father. Catastrophes had happened before, and she had been conscious of their coming. But now the blow would be a very heavy blow. They would again be driven to pack up and move and seek some other city,– probably in some very distant part. But go where she might, she would now be her own mistress. That was the one resolution she succeeded in forming before she re-entered the house in Bruton Street.

CHAPTER LXXXIII – MELMOTTE AGAIN AT THE HOUSE

On that Thursday afternoon it was known everywhere that there was to be a general ruin of all the Melmotte affairs. As soon as Cohenlupe had gone, no man doubted. The City men who had not gone to the dinner prided themselves on their foresight, as did also the politicians who had declined to meet the Emperor of China at the table of the suspected Financier. They who had got up the dinner and had been instrumental in taking the Emperor to the house in Grosvenor Square, and they also who had brought him forward at Westminster and had fought his battle for him, were aware that they would have to defend themselves against heavy attacks. No one now had a word to say in his favour, or a doubt as to his guilt. The Grendalls had retired altogether out of town, and were no longer even heard of. Lord Alfred had not been seen since the day of the dinner. The Duchess of Albury, too, went into the country some weeks earlier than usual, quelled, as the world said, by the general Melmotte failure. But this departure had not as yet taken place at the time at which we have now arrived.

When the Speaker took his seat in the House, soon after four o’clock, there were a great many members present, and a general feeling prevailed that the world was more than ordinarily alive because of Melmotte and his failures. It had been confidently asserted throughout the morning that he would be put upon his trial for forgery in reference to the purchase of the Pickering property from Mr Longestaffe, and it was known that he had not as yet shown himself anywhere on this day. People had gone to look at the house in Grosvenor Square,–not knowing that he was still living in Mr Longestaffe’s house in Bruton Street, and had come away with the impression that the desolation of ruin and crime was already plainly to be seen upon it. ‘I wonder where he is,’ said Mr Lupton to Mr Beauchamp Beauclerk in one of the lobbies of the House.

‘They say he hasn’t been in the City all day. I suppose he’s in Longestaffe’s house. That poor fellow has got it heavy all round. The man has got his place in the country and his house in town. There’s Nidderdale. I wonder what he thinks about it all.’

‘This is awful;–ain’t it?’ said Nidderdale.

‘It might have been worse, I should say, as far as you are concerned,’ replied Mr Lupton.

‘Well, yes. But I’ll tell you what, Lupton. I don’t quite understand it all yet. Our lawyer said three days ago that the money was certainly there.’

‘And Cohenlupe was certainly here three days ago,’ said Lupton,–‘but he isn’t here now. It seems to me that it has just happened in time for you.’ Lord Nidderdale shook his head and tried to look very grave.

‘There’s Brown,’ said Sir Orlando Drought, hurrying up to the commercial gentleman whose mistakes about finance Mr Melmotte on a previous occasion had been anxious to correct. ‘He’ll be able to tell us where he is. It was rumoured, you know, an hour ago, that he was off to the continent after Cohenlupe.’ But Mr Brown shook his head. Mr Brown didn’t know anything. But Mr Brown was very strongly of opinion that the police would know all that there was to be known about Mr Melmotte before this time on the following day. Mr Brown had been very bitter against Melmotte since that memorable attack made upon him in the House.

Even ministers as they sat to be badgered by the ordinary question-mongers of the day were more intent upon Melmotte than upon their own defence. ‘Do you know anything about it?’ asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the Secretary of State for the Home Department.

‘I understand that no order has been given for his arrest. There is a general opinion that he has committed forgery; but I doubt whether they’ve got their evidence together.’

‘He’s a ruined man, I suppose,’ said the Chancellor. ‘I doubt whether he ever was a rich man. But I’ll tell you what;–he has been about the grandest rogue we’ve seen yet. He must have spent over a hundred thousand pounds during the last twelve months on his personal expenses. I wonder how the Emperor will like it when he learns the truth.’ Another minister sitting close to the Secretary of State was of opinion that the Emperor of China would not care half so much about it as our own First Lord of the Treasury.

At this moment there came a silence over the House which was almost audible. They who know the sensation which arises from the continued hum of many suppressed voices will know also how plain to the ear is the feeling caused by the discontinuance of the sound. Everybody looked up, but everybody looked up in perfect silence. An Under-Secretary of State had just got upon his legs to answer a most indignant question as to an alteration of the colour of the facings of a certain regiment, his prepared answer to which, however, was so happy as to allow him to anticipate quite a little triumph. It is not often that such a Godsend comes in the way of an under-secretary; and he was intent upon his performance. But even he was startled into momentary oblivion of his well-arranged point. Augustus Melmotte, the member for Westminster, was walking up the centre of the House.

He had succeeded by this time in learning so much of the forms of the House as to know what to do with his hat,–when to wear it, and when to take it off,–and how to sit down. As he entered by the door facing the Speaker, he wore his hat on the side of his head, as was his custom. Much of the arrogance of his appearance had come from this habit, which had been adopted probably from a conviction that it added something to his powers of self-assertion. At this moment he was more determined than ever that no one should trace in his outer gait or in any feature of his face any sign of that ruin which, as he well knew, all men were anticipating. Therefore, perhaps, his hat was a little more cocked than usual, and the lapels of his coat were thrown back a little wider, displaying the large jewelled studs which he wore in his shirt; and the arrogance conveyed by his mouth and chin was specially conspicuous. He had come down in his brougham, and as he had walked up Westminster Hall and entered the House by the private door of the members, and then made his way in across the great lobby and between the doorkeepers,–no one had spoken a word to him. He had of course seen many whom he had known. He had indeed known nearly all whom he had seen;–but he had been aware, from the beginning of this enterprise of the day, that men would shun him, and that he must bear their cold looks and colder silence without seeming to notice them. He had schooled himself to the task, and he was now performing it. It was not only that he would have to move among men without being noticed, but that he must endure to pass the whole evening in the same plight. But he was resolved, and he was now doing it. He bowed to the Speaker with more than usual courtesy, raising his hat with more than usual care, and seated himself, as usual, on the third opposition-bench, but with more than his usual fling. He was a big man, who always endeavoured to make an effect by deportment, and was therefore customarily conspicuous in his movements. He was desirous now of being as he was always, neither more nor less demonstrative;–but, as a matter of course, he exceeded; and it seemed to those who looked at him that there was a special impudence in the manner in which he walked up the House and took his seat. The Under-Secretary of State, who was on his legs, was struck almost dumb, and his morsel of wit about the facings was lost to Parliament for ever.

That unfortunate young man, Lord Nidderdale, occupied the seat next to that on which Melmotte had placed himself. It had so happened three or four times since Melmotte had been in the House, as the young lord, fully intending to marry the Financier’s daughter, had resolved that he would not be ashamed of his father-in-law. He understood that countenance of the sort which he as a young aristocrat could give to the man of millions who had risen no one knew whence, was part of the bargain in reference to the marriage, and he was gifted with a mingled honesty and courage which together made him willing and able to carry out his idea. He had given Melmotte little lessons as to ordinary forms of the House, and had done what in him lay to earn the money which was to be forthcoming. But it had become manifest both to him and to his father during the last two days,–very painfully manifest to his father,–that the thing must be abandoned. And if so,–then why should he be any longer gracious to Melmotte? And, moreover, though he had been ready to be courteous to a very vulgar and a very disagreeable man, he was not anxious to extend his civilities to one who, as he was now assured, had been certainly guilty of forgery. But to get up at once and leave his seat because Melmotte had placed himself by his side, did not suit the turn of his mind. He looked round to his neighbour on the right with a half-comic look of misery, and then prepared himself to bear his punishment, whatever it might be.

‘Have you been up with Marie to-day?’ said Melmotte.

‘No;–I’ve not,’ replied the lord.

‘Why don’t you go? She’s always asking about you now. I hope we shall be in our own house again next week, and then we shall be able to make you comfortable.’

Could it be possible that the man did not know that all the world was united in accusing him of forgery? ‘I’ll tell you what it is,’ said Nidderdale. ‘I think you had better see my governor again, Mr Melmotte.’

‘There’s nothing wrong, I hope.’

‘Well;–I don’t know. You’d better see him. I’m going now. I only just came down to enter an appearance.’ He had to cross Melmotte on his way out, and as he did so Melmotte grasped him by the hand. ‘Good night, my boy,’ said Melmotte quite aloud,–in a voice much louder than that which members generally allow themselves for conversation. Nidderdale was confused and unhappy; but there was probably not a man in the House who did not understand the whole thing. He rushed down through the gangway and out through the doors with a hurried step, and as he escaped into the lobby he met Lionel Lupton, who, since his little conversation with Mr Beauclerk, had heard further news.

‘You know what has happened, Nidderdale?’

‘About Melmotte, you mean?’

‘Yes, about Melmotte,’ continued Lupton. ‘He has been arrested in his own house within the last half-hour on a charge of forgery.’

‘I wish he had,’ said Nidderdale, ‘with all my heart. If you go in you’ll find him sitting there as large as life. He has been talking to me as though everything were all right.’

‘Compton was here not a moment ago, and said that he had been taken under a warrant from the Lord Mayor.’

‘The Lord Mayor is a member and had better come and fetch his prisoner himself. At any rate he’s there. I shouldn’t wonder if he wasn’t on his legs before long.’

Melmotte kept his seat steadily till seven, at which hour the House adjourned till nine. He was one of the last to leave, and then with a slow step,–with almost majestic steps,–he descended to the dining-room and ordered his dinner. There were many men there, and some little difficulty about a seat. No one was very willing to make room for him. But at last he secured a place, almost jostling some unfortunate who was there before him. It was impossible to expel him,–almost as impossible to sit next him. Even the waiters were unwilling to serve him;–but with patience and endurance he did at last get his dinner. He was there in his right, as a member of the House of Commons, and there was no ground on which such service as he required could be refused to him. It was not long before he had the table all to himself. But of this he took no apparent notice. He spoke loudly to the waiters and drank his bottle of champagne with much apparent enjoyment. Since his friendly intercourse with Nidderdale no one had spoken to him, nor had he spoken to any man. They who watched him declared among themselves that he was happy in his own audacity;–but in truth he was probably at that moment the most utterly wretched man in London. He would have better studied his personal comfort had he gone to his bed, and spent his evening in groans and wailings. But even he, with all the world now gone from him, with nothing before him but the extremest misery which the indignation of offended laws could inflict, was able to spend the last moments of his freedom in making a reputation at any rate for audacity. It was thus that Augustus Melmotte wrapped his toga around him before his death!

He went from the dining-room to the smoking-room, and there, taking from his pocket a huge case which he always carried, proceeded to light a cigar about eight inches long. Mr Brown, from the City, was in the room, and Melmotte, with a smile and a bow, offered Mr Brown one of the same. Mr Brown was a short, fat, round little man, over sixty, who was always endeavouring to give to a somewhat commonplace set of features an air of importance by the contraction of his lips and the knitting of his brows. It was as good as a play to see Mr Brown jumping back from any contact with the wicked one, and putting on a double frown as he looked at the impudent sinner. ‘You needn’t think so much, you know, of what I said the other night. I didn’t mean any offence.’ So spoke Melmotte, and then laughed with a loud, hoarse laugh, looking round upon the assembled crowd as though he were enjoying his triumph.

He sat after that and smoked in silence. Once again he burst out into a laugh, as though peculiarly amused with his own thoughts;–as though he were declaring to himself with much inward humour that all these men around him were fools for believing the stories which they had heard; but he made no further attempt to speak to any one. Soon after nine he went back again into the House, and again took his old place. At this time he had swallowed three glasses of brandy and water, as well as the champagne, and was brave enough almost for anything. There was some debate going on in reference to the game laws,–a subject on which Melmotte was as ignorant as one of his housemaids,–but, as some speaker sat down, he jumped up to his legs. Another gentleman had also risen, and when the House called to that other gentleman Melmotte gave way. The other gentleman had not much to say, and in a few minutes Melmotte was again on his legs. Who shall dare to describe the thoughts which would cross the august mind of a Speaker of the House of Commons at such a moment? Of Melmotte’s villainy he had no official knowledge. And even could he have had such knowledge it was not for him to act upon it. The man was a member of the House, and as much entitled to speak as another. But it seemed on that occasion that the Speaker was anxious to save the House from disgrace;–for twice and thrice he refused to have his ‘eye caught’ by the member for Westminster. As long as any other member would rise he would not have his eye caught. But Melmotte was persistent, and determined not to be put down. At last no one else would speak, and the House was about to negative the motion without a division,–when Melmotte was again on his legs, still persisting. The Speaker scowled at him and leaned back in his chair. Melmotte standing erect, turning his head round from one side of the House to another, as though determined that all should see his audacity, propping himself with his knees against the seat before him, remained for half a minute perfectly silent. He was drunk,–but better able than most drunken men to steady himself, and showing in his face none of those outward signs of intoxication by which drunkenness is generally made apparent. But he had forgotten in his audacity that words are needed for the making of a speech, and now he had not a word at his command. He stumbled forward, recovered himself, then looked once more round the House with a glance of anger, and after that toppled headlong over the shoulders of Mr Beauchamp Beauclerk, who was sitting in front of him.

He might have wrapped his toga around him better perhaps had he remained at home, but if to have himself talked about was his only object, he could hardly have taken a surer course. The scene, as it occurred, was one very likely to be remembered when the performer should have been carried away into enforced obscurity. There was much commotion in the House. Mr Beauclerk, a man of natural good nature, though at the moment put to considerable personal inconvenience, hastened, when he recovered his own equilibrium, to assist the drunken man. But Melmotte had by no means lost the power of helping himself. He quickly recovered his legs, and then reseating himself, put his hat on, and endeavoured to look as though nothing special had occurred. The House resumed its business, taking no further notice of Melmotte, and having no special rule of its own as to the treatment to be adopted with drunken members. But the member for Westminster caused no further inconvenience. He remained in his seat for perhaps ten minutes, and then, not with a very steady step, but still with capacity sufficient for his own guidance, he made his way down to the doors. His exit was watched in silence, and the moment was an anxious one for the Speaker, the clerks, and all who were near him. Had he fallen some one,–or rather some two or three,–must have picked him up and carried him out. But he did not fall either there or in the lobbies, or on his way down to Palace Yard. Many were looking at him, but none touched him. When he had got through the gates, leaning against the wall he hallooed for his brougham, and the servant who was waiting for him soon took him home to Bruton Street. That was the last which the British Parliament saw of its new member for Westminster.

Melmotte as soon as he reached home got into his own sitting-room without difficulty, and called for more brandy and water. Between eleven and twelve he was left there by his servant with a bottle of brandy, three or four bottles of soda-water, and his cigar-case. Neither of the ladies of the family came to him, nor did he speak of them. Nor was he so drunk then as to give rise to any suspicion in the mind of the servant. He was habitually left there at night, and the servant as usual went to his bed. But at nine o’clock on the following morning the maid-servant found him dead upon the floor. Drunk as he had been,–more drunk as he probably became during the night,–still he was able to deliver himself from the indignities and penalties to which the law might have subjected him by a dose of prussic acid.

CHAPTER LXXXIV – PAUL MONTAGUE’S VINDICATION

It is hoped that the reader need hardly be informed that Hetta Carbury was a very miserable young woman as soon as she decided that duty compelled her to divide herself altogether from Paul Montague. I think that she was irrational; but to her it seemed that the offence against herself,–the offence against her own dignity as a woman,–was too great to be forgiven. There can be no doubt that it would all have been forgiven with the greatest ease had Paul told the story before it had reached her ears from any other source. Had he said to her,–when her heart was softest towards him,–I once loved another woman, and that woman is here now in London, a trouble to me, persecuting me, and her history is so and so, and the history of my love for her was after this fashion, and the history of my declining love is after that fashion, and of this at any rate you may be sure, that this woman has never been near my heart from the first moment in which I saw you;–had he told it to her thus, there would not have been an opening for anger. And he doubtless would have so told it, had not Hetta’s brother interfered too quickly. He was then forced to exculpate himself, to confess rather than to tell his own story,–and to admit facts which wore the air of having been concealed, and which had already been conceived to be altogether damning if true. It was that journey to Lowestoft, not yet a month old, which did the mischief,–a journey as to which Hetta was not slow in understanding all that Roger Carbury had thought about it, though Roger would say nothing of it to herself. Paul had been staying at the seaside with this woman in amicable intimacy,–this horrid woman,–in intimacy worse than amicable, and had been visiting her daily at Islington! Hetta felt quite sure that he had never passed a day without going there since the arrival of the woman; and everybody would know what that meant. And during this very hour he had been,–well, perhaps not exactly making love to herself, but looking at her and talking to her, and behaving to her in a manner such as could not but make her understand that he intended to make love to her. Of course they had really understood it, since they had met at Madame Melmotte’s first ball, when she had made a plea that she could not allow herself to dance with him more than,–say half-a-dozen times. Of course she had not intended him then to know that she would receive his love with favour, but equally of course she had known that he must so feel it. She had not only told herself, but had told her mother, that her heart was given away to this man; and yet the man during this very time was spending his hours with a–woman, with a strange American woman, to whom he acknowledged that he had been once engaged. How could she not quarrel with him? How could she refrain from telling him that everything must be over between them? Everybody was against him,–her mother, her brother, and her cousin: and she felt that she had not a word to say in his defence. A horrid woman! A wretched, bad, bold American intriguing woman! It was terrible to her that a friend of hers should ever have attached himself to such a creature;–but that he should have come to her with a second tale of love long, long before he had cleared himself from the first;–perhaps with no intention of clearing himself from the first! Of course she could not forgive him! No;–she would never forgive him. She would break her heart for him. That was a matter of course; but she would never forgive him. She knew well what it was that her mother wanted. Her mother thought that by forcing her into a quarrel with Montague she would force her also into a marriage with Roger Carbury. But her mother would find out that in that she was mistaken. She would never marry her cousin, though she would be always ready to acknowledge his worth. She was sure now that she would never marry any man. As she made this resolve she had a wicked satisfaction in feeling that it would be a trouble to her mother;–for though she was altogether in accord with Lady Carbury as to the iniquities of Paul Montague she was not the less angry with her mother for being so ready to expose those iniquities.

Oh, with what slow, cautious fingers, with what heartbroken tenderness did she take out from its guardian case the brooch which Paul had given her! It had as yet been an only present, and in thanking him for it, which she had done with full, free-spoken words of love, she had begged him to send her no other, so that that might ever be to her,–to her dying day,–the one precious thing that had been given to her by her lover while she was yet a girl. Now it must be sent back;–and, no doubt, it would go to that abominable woman! But her fingers lingered over it as she touched it, and she would fain have kissed it, had she not told herself that she would have been disgraced, even in her solitude, by such a demonstration of affection. She had given her answer to Paul Montague; and, as she would have no further personal correspondence with him, she took the brooch to her mother with a request that it might be returned.

‘Of course, my dear, I will send it back to him. Is there nothing else?’

‘No, mamma;–nothing else. I have no letters, and no other present. You always knew everything that took place. If you will just send that back to him,–without a word. You won’t say anything, will you, mamma?’

‘There is nothing for me to say if you have really made him understand you.’

‘I think he understood me, mamma. You need not doubt about that.’

‘He has behaved very, very badly,–from the beginning,’ said Lady Carbury.

But Hetta did not really think that the young man had behaved very badly from the beginning, and certainly did not wish to be told of his misbehaviour. No doubt she thought that the young man had behaved very well in falling in love with her directly he saw her;–only that he had behaved so badly in taking Mrs Hurtle to Lowestoft afterwards! ‘It’s no good talking about that, mamma. I hope you will never talk of him any more.’

‘He is quite unworthy,’ said Lady Carbury.

‘I can’t bear to–have him–abused,’ said Hetta sobbing.

‘My dear Hetta, I have no doubt this has made you for the time unhappy. Such little accidents do make people unhappy–for the time. But it will be much for the best that you should endeavour not to be so sensitive about it. The world is too rough and too hard for people to allow their feelings full play. You have to look out for the future, and you can best do so by resolving that Paul Montague shall be forgotten at once.’

‘Oh, mamma, don’t. How is a person to resolve? Oh, mamma, don’t say any more.’

‘But, my dear, there is more that I must say. Your future life is before you, and I must think of it, and you must think of it. Of course you must be married.’

‘There is no of course at all.’

‘Of course you must be married,’ continued Lady Carbury, ‘and of course it is your duty to think of the way in which this may be best done. My income is becoming less and less every day. I already owe money to your cousin, and I owe money to Mr Broune.’

‘Money to Mr Broune!’

‘Yes,–to Mr Broune. I had to pay a sum for Felix which Mr Broune told me ought to be paid. And I owe money to tradesmen. I fear that I shall not be able to keep on this house. And they tell me,–your cousin and Mr Broune,–that it is my duty to take Felix out of London probably abroad.’

‘Of course I shall go with you.’

‘It may be so at first; but, perhaps, even that may not be necessary. Why should you? What pleasure could you have in it? Think what my life must be with Felix in some French or German town!’

‘Mamma, why don’t you let me be a comfort to you? Why do you speak of me always as though I were a burden?’

‘Everybody is a burden to other people. It is the way of life. But you,–if you will only yield in ever so little,–you may go where you will be no burden, where you will be accepted simply as a blessing. You have the opportunity of securing comfort for your whole life, and of making a friend, not only for yourself, but for me and your brother, of one whose friendship we cannot fail to want.’

‘Mamma, you cannot really mean to talk about that now?’

‘Why should I not mean it? What is the use of indulging in high-flown nonsense? Make up your mind to be the wife of your cousin Roger.’

‘This is horrid,’ said Hetta, bursting out in her agony. ‘Cannot you understand that I am broken-hearted about Paul, that I love him from my very soul, that parting from him is like tearing my heart in pieces? I know that I must, because he has behaved so very badly,–and because of that wicked woman! And so I have. But I did not think that in the very next hour you would bid me give myself to somebody else! I will never marry Roger Carbury. You may be quite–quite sure that I shall never marry any one. If you won’t take me with you when you go away with Felix, I must stay behind and try and earn my bread. I suppose I could go out as a nurse.’ Then, without waiting for a reply, she left the room and betook herself to her own apartment.

Lady Carbury did not even understand her daughter. She could not conceive that she had in any way acted unkindly in taking the opportunity of Montague’s rejection for pressing the suit of the other lover. She was simply anxious to get a husband for her daughter,–as she had been anxious to get a wife for her son,–in order that her child might live comfortably. But she felt that whenever she spoke common sense to Hetta, her daughter took it as an offence, and flew into tantrums, being altogether unable to accommodate herself to the hard truths of the world. Deep as was the sorrow which her son brought upon her, and great as was the disgrace, she could feel more sympathy for him than for the girl. If there was anything that she could not forgive in life it was romance. And yet she, at any rate, believed that she delighted in romantic poetry! At the present moment she was very wretched; and was certainly unselfish in her wish to see her daughter comfortably settled before she commenced those miserable roamings with her son which seemed to be her coming destiny.

In these days she thought a good deal of Mr Broune’s offer, and of her own refusal. It was odd that since that refusal she had seen more of him, and had certainly known much more of him than she had ever seen or known before. Previous to that little episode their intimacy had been very fictitious, as are many intimacies. They had played at being friends, knowing but very little of each other. But now, during the last five or six weeks,–since she had refused his offer,– they had really learned to know each other. In the exquisite misery of her troubles, she had told him the truth about herself and her son, and he had responded, not by compliments, but by real aid and true counsel. His whole tone was altered to her, as was hers to him. There was no longer any egregious flattery between them,–and he, in speaking to her, would be almost rough to her. Once he had told her that she would be a fool if she did not do so and so. The consequence was that she almost regretted that she had allowed him to escape. But she certainly made no effort to recover the lost prize, for she told him all her troubles. It was on that afternoon, after her disagreement with her daughter, that Marie Melmotte came to her. And, on the same evening, closeted with Mr Broune in her back room, she told him of both occurrences. ‘If the girl has got the money–,’ she began, regretting her son’s obstinacy.

‘I don’t believe a bit of it,’ said Broune. ‘From all that I can hear, I don’t think that there is any money. And if there is, you may be sure that Melmotte would not let it slip through his fingers in that way. I would not have anything to do with it.’

‘You think it is all over with the Melmottes?’

‘A rumour reached me just now that he had been already arrested.’ It was now between nine and ten in the evening. ‘But as I came away from my room, I heard that he was down at the House. That he will have to stand a trial for forgery, I think there cannot be a doubt, and I imagine that it will be found that not a shilling will be saved out of the property.’

‘What a wonderful career it has been!’

‘Yes;–the strangest thing that has come up in our days. I am inclined to think that the utter ruin at this moment has been brought about by his reckless personal expenditure.’

‘Why did he spend such a lot of money?’

‘Because he thought he could conquer the world by it, and obtain universal credit. He very nearly succeeded too. Only he had forgotten to calculate the force of the envy of his competitors.’

‘You think he has committed forgery?’

‘Certainly, I think so. Of course we know nothing as yet.’

‘Then I suppose it is better that Felix should not have married her.’

‘Certainly better. No redemption was to have been had on that side, and I don’t think you should regret the loss of such money as his.’ Lady Carbury shook her head, meaning probably to imply that even Melmotte’s money would have had no bad odour to one so dreadfully in want of assistance as her son. ‘At any rate do not think of it any more.’ Then she told him her grief about Hetta. ‘Ah, there,’ said he, ‘I feel myself less able to express an authoritative opinion.’

‘He doesn’t owe a shilling,’ said Lady Carbury, ‘and he is really a fine gentleman.’

‘But if she doesn’t like him?’

‘Oh, but she does. She thinks him to be the finest person in the world. She would obey him a great deal sooner than she would me. But she has her mind stuffed with nonsense about love.’

‘A great many people, Lady Carbury, have their minds stuffed with that nonsense.’

‘Yes;–and ruin themselves with it, as she will do. Love is like any other luxury. You have no right to it unless you can afford it. And those who will have it when they can’t afford it, will come to the ground like this Mr Melmotte. How odd it seems! It isn’t a fortnight since we all thought him the greatest man in London.’ Mr Broune only smiled, not thinking it worth his while to declare that he had never held that opinion about the late idol of Abchurch Lane.

On the following morning, very early, while Melmotte was still lying, as yet undiscovered, on the floor of Mr Longestaffe’s room, a letter was brought up to Hetta by the maid-servant, who told her that Mr Montague had delivered it with his own hands. She took it greedily, and then repressing herself, put it with an assumed gesture of indifference beneath her pillow. But as soon as the girl had left the room she at once seized her treasure. It never occurred to her as yet to think whether she would or would not receive a letter from her dismissed lover. She had told him that he must go, and go for ever, and had taken it for granted that he would do so,–probably willingly. No doubt he would be delighted to return to the American woman. But now that she had the letter, she allowed no doubt to come between her and the reading of it. As soon as she was alone she opened it, and she ran through its contents without allowing herself a moment for thinking, as she went on, whether the excuses made by her lover were or were not such as she ought to accept.

DEAREST HETTA,

I think you have been most unjust to me, and if you have ever loved me I cannot understand your injustice. I have never deceived you in anything, not by a word, or for a moment. Unless you mean to throw me over because I did once love another woman, I do not know what cause of anger you have. I could not tell you about Mrs Hurtle till you had accepted me, and, as you yourself must know, I had had no opportunity to tell you anything afterwards till the story had reached your ears. I hardly know what I said the other day, I was so miserable at your accusation. But I suppose I said then, and I again declare now, that I had made up my mind that circumstances would not admit of her becoming my wife before I had ever seen you, and that I have certainly never wavered in my determination since I saw you. I can with safety refer to Roger as to this, because I was with him when I so determined, and made up my mind very much at his instance. This was before I had ever even met you.

If I understand it all right you are angry because I have associated with Mrs Hurtle since I so determined. I am not going back to my first acquaintance with her now. You may blame me for that if you please,–though it cannot have been a fault against you. But, after what had occurred, was I to refuse to see her when she came to England to see me? I think that would have been cowardly. Of course I went to her. And when she was all alone here, without a single other friend and telling me that she was unwell, and asking me to take her down to the seaside, was I to refuse? I think that that would have been unkind. It was a dreadful trouble to me. But of course I did it.

She asked me to renew my engagement. I am bound to tell you that, but I know in telling you that it will go no farther. I declined, telling her that it was my purpose to ask another woman to be my wife. Of course there has been anger and sorrow,–anger on her part and sorrow on mine. But there has been no doubt. And at last she yielded. As far as she was concerned my trouble was over except in so far that her unhappiness has been a great trouble to me,–when, on a sudden, I found that the story had reached you in such a form as to make you determined to quarrel with me!

Of course you do not know it all, for I cannot tell you all without telling her history. But you know everything that in the least concerns yourself, and I do say that you have no cause whatever for anger. I am writing at night. This evening your brooch was brought to me with three or four cutting words from your mother. But I cannot understand that if you really love me, you should wish to separate yourself from me,–or that, if you ever loved me, you should cease to love me now because of Mrs Hurtle.

I am so absolutely confused by the blow that I hardly know what I am writing, and take first one outrageous idea into my head and then another. My love for you is so thorough and so intense that I cannot bring myself to look forward to living without you, now that you have once owned that you have loved me. I cannot think it possible that love, such as I suppose yours must have been, could be made to cease all at a moment. Mine can’t. I don’t think it is natural that we should be parted.

If you want corroboration of my story go yourself to Mrs Hurtle. Anything is better than that we both should be broken-hearted.

Yours most affectionately,

PAUL MONTAGUE.

CHAPTER LXXXV – BREAKFAST IN BERKELEY SQUARE

Lord Nidderdale was greatly disgusted with his own part of the performance when he left the House of Commons, and was, we may say, disgusted with his own position generally, when he considered all its circumstances. That had been at the commencement of the evening, and Melmotte had not then been tipsy; but he had behaved with unsurpassable arrogance and vulgarity, and had made the young lord drink the cup of his own disgrace to the very dregs. Everybody now knew it as a positive fact that the charges made against the man were to become matter of investigation before the chief magistrate for the City, everybody knew that he had committed forgery upon forgery, everybody knew that he could not pay for the property which he had pretended to buy, and that actually he was a ruined man;–and yet he had seized Nidderdale by the hand, and called the young lord ‘his dear boy’ before the whole House.

And then he had made himself conspicuous as this man’s advocate. If he had not himself spoken openly of his coming marriage with the girl, he had allowed other men to speak to him about it. He had quarrelled with one man for saying that Melmotte was a rogue, and had confidentially told his most intimate friends that in spite of a little vulgarity of manner, Melmotte at bottom was a very good fellow. How was he now to back out of his intimacy with the Melmottes generally? He was engaged to marry the girl, and there was nothing of which he could accuse her. He acknowledged to himself that she deserved well at his hands. Though at this moment he hated the father most bitterly, as those odious words, and the tone in which they had been pronounced, rang in his ears, nevertheless he had some kindly feeling for the girl. Of course he could not marry her now. That was manifestly out of the question. She herself, as well as all others, had known that she was to be married for her money, and now that bubble had been burst. But he felt that he owed it to her, as to a comrade who had on the whole been loyal to him, to have some personal explanation with herself. He arranged in his own mind the sort of speech that he would make to her. ‘Of course you know it can’t be. It was all arranged because you were to have a lot of money, and now it turns out that you haven’t got any. And I haven’t got any, and we should have nothing to live upon. It’s out of the question. But, upon my word, I’m very sorry, for I like you very much, and I really think we should have got on uncommon well together.’ That was the kind of speech that he suggested to himself, but he did not know how to find for himself the opportunity of making it. He thought that he must put it all into a letter. But then that would be tantamount to a written confession that he had made her an offer of marriage, and he feared that Melmotte,–or Madame Melmotte on his behalf, if the great man himself were absent, in prison,–might make an ungenerous use of such an admission.

Between seven and eight he went into the Beargarden, and there he saw Dolly Longestaffe and others. Everybody was talking about Melmotte, the prevailing belief being that he was at this moment in custody. Dolly was full of his own griefs; but consoled amidst them by a sense of his own importance. ‘I wonder whether it’s true,’ he was saying to Lord Grasslough. ‘He has an appointment to meet me and my governor at twelve o’clock to-morrow, and to pay us what he owes us. He swore yesterday that he would have the money to-morrow. But he can’t keep his appointment, you know, if he’s in prison.’

‘You won’t see the money, Dolly, you may swear to that,’ said Grasslough.

‘I don’t suppose I shall. By George, what an ass my governor has been. He had no more right than you have to give up the property. Here’s Nidderdale. He could tell us where he is; but I’m afraid to speak to him since he cut up so rough the other night.’

In a moment the conversation was stopped; but when Lord Grasslough asked Nidderdale in a whisper whether he knew anything about Melmotte, the latter answered out loud, ‘Yes I left him in the House half an hour ago.’

‘People are saying that he has been arrested.’

‘I heard that also; but he certainly had not been arrested when I left the House.’ Then he went up and put his hand on Dolly Longestaffe’s shoulder, and spoke to him. ‘I suppose you were about right the other night and I was about wrong; but you could understand what it was that I meant. I’m afraid this is a bad look out for both of us.’

‘Yes;–I understand. It’s deuced bad for me,’ said Dolly. ‘I think you’re very well out of it. But I’m glad there’s not to be a quarrel. Suppose we have a rubber of whist.’

Later on in the night news was brought to the club that Melmotte had tried to make a speech in the House, that he had been very drunk, and that he had tumbled over, upsetting Beauchamp Beauclerk in his fall. ‘By George, I should like to have seen that!’ said Dolly.

‘I am very glad I was not there,’ said Nidderdale. It was three o’clock before they left the card table, at which time Melmotte was lying dead upon the floor in Mr Longestaffe’s house.

On the following morning, at ten o’clock, Lord Nidderdale sat at breakfast with his father in the old lord’s house in Berkeley Square. From thence the house which Melmotte had hired was not above a few hundred yards distant. At this time the young lord was living with his father, and the two had now met by appointment in order that something might be settled between them as to the proposed marriage. The Marquis was not a very pleasant companion when the affairs in which he was interested did not go exactly as he would have them. He could be very cross and say most disagreeable words,–so that the ladies of the family, and others connected with him, for the most part, found it impossible to live with him. But his eldest son had endured him;– partly perhaps because, being the eldest, he had been treated with a nearer approach to courtesy, but chiefly by means of his own extreme good humour. What did a few hard words matter? If his father was ungracious to him, of course he knew what all that meant. As long as his father would make fair allowance for his own peccadilloes,–he also would make allowances for his father’s roughness. All this was based on his grand theory of live and let live. He expected his father to be a little cross on this occasion, and he acknowledged to himself that there was cause for it.

He was a little late himself, and he found his father already buttering his toast. ‘I don’t believe you’d get out of bed a moment sooner than you liked if you could save the whole property by it.’

‘You show me how I can make a guinea by it, sir, and see if I don’t earn the money.’ Then he sat down and poured himself out a cup of tea, and looked at the kidneys and looked at the fish.

‘I suppose you were drinking last night,’ said the old lord.

‘Not particular.’ The old man turned round and gnashed his teeth at him. ‘The fact is, sir, I don’t drink. Everybody knows that.’

‘I know when you’re in the country you can’t live without champagne. Well;–what have you got to say about all this?’

‘What have you got to say?’

‘You’ve made a pretty kettle of fish of it.’

‘I’ve been guided by you in everything. Come, now; you ought to own that. I suppose the whole thing is over?’

‘I don’t see why it should be over. I’m told she has got her own money.’ Then Nidderdale described to his father Melmotte’s behaviour in the House on the preceding evening. ‘What the devil does that matter?’ said the old man. ‘You’re not going to marry the man himself.’

‘I shouldn’t wonder if he’s in gaol now.’

‘And what does that matter? She’s not in gaol. And if the money is hers, she can’t lose it because he goes to prison. Beggars mustn’t be choosers. How do you mean to live if you don’t marry this girl?’

‘I shall scrape on, I suppose. I must look for somebody else.’ The Marquis showed very plainly by his demeanour that he did not give his son much credit either for diligence or for ingenuity in making such a search. ‘At any rate, sir, I can’t marry the daughter of a man who is to be put upon his trial for forgery.’

‘I can’t see what that has to do with you.’

‘I couldn’t do it, sir. I’d do anything else to oblige you, but I couldn’t do that. And, moreover, I don’t believe in the money.’

‘Then you may just go to the devil,’ said the old Marquis turning himself round in his chair, and lighting a cigar as he took up the newspaper. Nidderdale went on with his breakfast with perfect equanimity, and when he had finished lighted his cigar. ‘They tell me,’ said the old man, ‘that one of those Goldsheiner girls will have a lot of money.’

‘A Jewess,’ suggested Nidderdale.

‘What difference does that make?’

‘Oh no;–not in the least if the money’s really there. Have you heard any sum named, sir?’

The old man only grunted. ‘There are two sisters and two brothers. I don’t suppose the girls would have a hundred thousand each.’

‘They say the widow of that brewer who died the other day has about twenty thousand a year.’

‘It’s only for her life, sir.’

‘She could insure her life. D— me, sir, we must do something. If you turn up your nose at one woman after another how do you mean to live?’

‘I don’t think that a woman of forty with only a life interest would be a good speculation. Of course I’ll think of it if you press it.’ The old man growled again. ‘You see, sir, I’ve been so much in earnest about this girl that I haven’t thought of inquiring about any one else. There always is some one up with a lot of money. It’s a pity there shouldn’t be a regular statement published with the amount of money, and what is expected in return. It’d save a deal of trouble.’

‘If you can’t talk more seriously than that you’d better go away,’ said the old Marquis.

At that moment a footman came into the room and told Lord Nidderdale that a man particularly wished to see him in the hall. He was not always anxious to see those who called on him, and he asked the servant whether he knew who the man was. ‘I believe, my lord, he’s one of the domestics from Mr Melmotte’s in Bruton Street,’ said the footman, who was no doubt fully acquainted with all the circumstances of Lord Nidderdale’s engagement. The son, who was still smoking, looked at his father as though in doubt. ‘You’d better go and see,’ said the Marquis. But Nidderdale before he went asked a question as to what he had better do if Melmotte had sent for him. ‘Go and see Melmotte. Why should you be afraid to see him? Tell him you are ready to marry the girl if you can see the money down, but that you won’t stir a step till it has been actually paid over.’

‘He knows that already,’ said Nidderdale as he left the room.

In the hall he found a man whom he recognized as Melmotte’s butler, a ponderous, elderly, heavy man who now had a letter in his hand. But the lord could tell by the man’s face and manner that he himself had some story to tell. ‘Is there anything the matter?’

‘Yes, my lord,–yes. Oh, dear,–oh, dear! I think you’ll be sorry to hear it. There was none who came there he seemed to take to so much as your lordship.’

‘They’ve taken him to prison!’ exclaimed Nidderdale. But the man shook his head. ‘What is it then? He can’t be dead.’ Then the man nodded his head, and, putting his hand up to his face, burst into tears. ‘Mr Melmotte dead! He was in the House of Commons last night. I saw him myself. How did he die?’ But the fat, ponderous man was so affected by the tragedy he had witnessed, that he could not as yet give any account of the scene of his master’s death, but simply handed the note which he had in his hand to Lord Nidderdale. It was from Marie, and had been written within half an hour of the time at which news had been brought to her of what had occurred. The note was as follows:

DEAR LORD NIDDERDALE,

The man will tell you what has happened. I feel as though I was mad. I do not know who to send to. Will you come to me, only for a few minutes?

MARIE.

He read it standing up in the hall, and then again asked the man as to the manner of his master’s death. And now the Marquis, gathering from a word or two that he heard and from his son’s delay that something special had occurred, hobbled out into the hall. ‘Mr Melmotte is– dead,’ said his son. The old man dropped his stick, and fell back against the wall. ‘This man says that he is dead, and here is a letter from Marie asking me to go there. How was it that he–died?’

‘It was–poison,’ said the butler solemnly. ‘There has been a doctor already, and there isn’t no doubt of that. He took it all by himself last night. He came home, perhaps a little fresh, and he had in brandy and soda and cigars;–and sat himself down all to himself. Then in the morning, when the young woman went in,–there he was,–poisoned! I see him lay on the ground, and I helped to lift him up, and there was that smell of prussic acid that I knew what he had been and done just the same as when the doctor came and told us.’

Before the man could be allowed to go back, there was a consultation between the father and son as to a compliance with the request which Marie had made in her first misery. The Marquis thought that his son had better not go to Bruton Street. ‘What’s the use? What good can you do? She’ll only be falling into your arms, and that’s what you’ve got to avoid,–at any rate, till you know how things are.’

But Nidderdale’s better feelings would not allow him to submit to this advice. He had been engaged to marry the girl, and she in her abject misery had turned to him as the friend she knew best. At any rate for the time the heartlessness of his usual life deserted him, and he felt willing to devote himself to the girl not for what he could get,–but because she had so nearly been so near to him. ‘I couldn’t refuse her,’ he said over and over again. ‘I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Oh, no;–I shall certainly go.’

‘You’ll get into a mess if you do.’

‘Then I must get into a mess. I shall certainly go. I will go at once. It is very disagreeable, but I cannot possibly refuse. It would be abominable.’ Then going back to the hall, he sent a message by the butler to Marie, saying that he would be with her in less than half an hour.

‘Don’t you go and make a fool of yourself,’ his father said to him when he was alone. ‘This is just one of those times when a man may ruin himself by being softhearted.’ Nidderdale simply shook his head as he took his hat and gloves to go across to Bruton Street.

CHAPTER LXXXVI – THE MEETING IN BRUTON STREET

When the news of her husband’s death was in some very rough way conveyed to Madame Melmotte, it crushed her for the time altogether. Marie first heard that she no longer had a living parent as she stood by the poor woman’s bedside, and she was enabled, as much perhaps by the necessity incumbent upon her of attending to the wretched woman as by her own superior strength of character, to save herself from that prostration and collapse of power which a great and sudden blow is apt to produce. She stared at the woman who first conveyed to her tidings of the tragedy, and then for a moment seated herself at the bedside. But the violent sobbings and hysterical screams of Madame Melmotte soon brought her again to her feet, and from that moment she was not only active but efficacious. No;–she would not go down to the room; she could do no good by going thither. But they must send for a doctor. They should send for a doctor immediately. She was then told that a doctor and an inspector of police were already in the rooms below. The necessity of throwing whatever responsibility there might be on to other shoulders had been at once apparent to the servants, and they had sent out right and left, so that the house might be filled with persons fit to give directions in such an emergency. The officers from the police station were already there when the woman who now filled Didon’s place in the house communicated to Madame Melmotte the fact that she was a widow.

It was afterwards said by some of those who had seen her at the time, that Marie Melmotte had shown a hard heart on the occasion. But the condemnation was wrong. Her feeling for her father was certainly not that which we are accustomed to see among our daughters and sisters. He had never been to her the petted divinity of the household, whose slightest wish had been law, whose little comforts had become matters of serious care, whose frowns were horrid clouds, whose smiles were glorious sunshine, whose kisses were daily looked for, and if missed would be missed with mourning. How should it have been so with her? In all the intercourses of her family, since the first rough usage which she remembered, there had never been anything sweet or gracious. Though she had recognized a certain duty, as due from herself to her father, she had found herself bound to measure it, so that more should not be exacted from her than duty required. She had long known that her father would fain make her a slave for his own purposes, and that if she put no limits to her own obedience he certainly would put none. She had drawn no comparison between him and other fathers, or between herself and other daughters, because she had never become conversant with the ways of other families. After a fashion she had loved him, because nature creates love in a daughter’s heart; but she had never respected him, and had spent the best energies of her character on a resolve that she would never fear him. ‘He may cut me into pieces, but he shall not make me do for his advantage that which I do not think he has a right to exact from me.’ That had been the state of her mind towards her father; and now that he had taken himself away with terrible suddenness, leaving her to face the difficulties of the world with no protector and no assistance, the feeling which dominated her was no doubt one of awe rather than of broken-hearted sorrow. Those who depart must have earned such sorrow before it can be really felt. They who are left may be overwhelmed by the death–even of their most cruel tormentors. Madame Melmotte was altogether overwhelmed; but it could not probably be said of her with truth that she was crushed by pure grief. There was fear of all things, fear of solitude, fear of sudden change, fear of terrible revelations, fear of some necessary movement she knew not whither, fear that she might be discovered to be a poor wretched impostor who never could have been justified in standing in the same presence with emperors and princes, with duchesses and cabinet ministers. This and the fact that the dead body of the man who had so lately been her tyrant was lying near her, so that she might hardly dare to leave her room lest she should encounter him dead, and thus more dreadful even than when alive, utterly conquered her. Feelings of the same kind, the same fears, and the same awe were powerful also with Marie;–but they did not conquer her. She was strong and conquered them; and she did not care to affect a weakness to which she was in truth superior. In such a household the death of such a father after such a fashion will hardly produce that tender sorrow which comes from real love.

She soon knew it all. Her father had destroyed himself, and had doubtless done so because his troubles in regard to money had been greater than he could bear. When he had told her that she was to sign those deeds because ruin was impending, he must indeed have told her the truth. He had so often lied to her that she had had no means of knowing whether he was lying then or telling her a true story. But she had offered to sign the deeds since that, and he had told her that it would be of no avail,–and at that time had not been angry with her as he would have been had her refusal been the cause of his ruin. She took some comfort in thinking of that.

But what was she to do? What was to be done generally by that over-cumbered household? She and her pseudo-mother had been instructed to pack up their jewellery, and they had both obeyed the order. But she herself at this moment cared but little for any property. How ought she to behave herself? Where should she go? On whose arm could she lean for some support at this terrible time? As for love, and engagements, and marriage,–that was all over. In her difficulty she never for a moment thought of Sir Felix Carbury. Though she had been silly enough to love the man because he was pleasant to look at, she had never been so far gone in silliness as to suppose that he was a staff upon which any one might lean. Had that marriage taken place, she would have been the staff. But it might be possible that Lord Nidderdale would help her. He was good-natured and manly, and would be efficacious,–if only he would come to her. He was near, and she thought that at any rate she would try. So she had written her note and sent it by the butler,–thinking as she did so of the words she would use to make the young man understand that all the nonsense they had talked as to marrying each other was, of course, to mean nothing now.

It was past eleven when he reached the house, and he was shown upstairs into one of the sitting-rooms on the first-floor. As he passed the door of the study, which was at the moment partly open, he saw the dress of a policeman within, and knew that the body of the dead man was still lying there. But he went by rapidly without a glance within, remembering the look of the man as he had last seen his burly figure, and that grasp of his hand, and those odious words. And now the man was dead,–having destroyed his own life. Surely the man must have known when he uttered those words what it was that he intended to do! When he had made that last appeal about Marie, conscious as he was that every one was deserting him, he must even then have looked his fate in the face and have told himself that it was better that he should die! His misfortunes, whatever might be their nature, must have been heavy on him then with all their weight; and he himself and all the world had known that he was ruined. And yet he had pretended to be anxious about the girl’s marriage, and had spoken of it as though he still believed that it would be accomplished!

Nidderdale had hardly put his hat down on the table before Marie was with him. He walked up to her, took her by both hands, and looked into her face. There was no trace of a tear, but her whole countenance seemed to him to be altered. She was the first to speak.

‘I thought you would come when I sent for you.’

‘Of course I came.’

‘I knew you would be a friend, and I knew no one else who would. You won’t be afraid, Lord Nidderdale, that I shall ever think any more of all those things which he was planning?’ She paused a moment, but he was not ready enough to have a word to say in answer to this. ‘You know what has happened?’

‘Your servant told us.’

‘What are we to do? Oh, Lord Nidderdale, it is so dreadful! Poor papa! Poor papa! When I think of all that he must have suffered I wish that I could be dead too.’

‘Has your mother been told?’

‘Oh yes. She knows. No one tried to conceal anything for a moment. It was better that it should be so;–better at last. But we have no friends who would be considerate enough to try to save us from sorrow. But I think it was better. Mamma is very bad. She is always nervous and timid. Of course this has nearly killed her. What ought we to do? It is Mr Longestaffe’s house, and we were to have left it to-morrow.’

‘He will not mind that now.’

‘Where must we go? We can’t go back to that big place in Grosvenor Square. Who will manage for us? Who will see the doctor and the policemen?’

‘I will do that.’

‘But there will be things that I cannot ask you to do. Why should I ask you to do anything?’

‘Because we are friends.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘no. You cannot really regard me as a friend. I have been an impostor. I know that. I had no business to know a person like you at all. Oh, if the next six months could be over! Poor papa,–poor papa!’ And then for the first time she burst into tears.

‘I wish I knew what might comfort you,’ he said.

‘How can there be any comfort? There never can be comfort again! As for comfort, when were we ever comfortable? It has been one trouble after another,–one fear after another! And now we are friendless and homeless. I suppose they will take everything that we have.’

‘Your papa had a lawyer, I suppose?’

‘I think he had ever so many,–but I do not know who they were. His own clerk, who had lived with him for over twenty years, left him yesterday. I suppose they will know something in Abchurch Lane; but now that Herr Croll has gone I am not acquainted even with the name of one of them. Mr Miles Grendall used to be with him.’

‘I do not think that he could be of much service.’

‘Nor Lord Alfred? Lord Alfred was always with him till very lately.’ Nidderdale shook his head. ‘I suppose not. They only came because papa had a big house.’ The young lord could not but feel that he was included in the same rebuke. ‘Oh, what a life it has been! And now,– now it’s over.’ As she said this it seemed that for the moment her strength failed her, for she fell backwards on the corner of the sofa. He tried to raise her, but she shook him away, burying her face in her hands. He was standing close to her, still holding her arm, when he heard a knock at the front door, which was immediately opened, as the servants were hanging about in the hall. ‘Who are they?’ said Marie, whose sharp ears caught the sound of various steps. Lord Nidderdale went out on to the head of the stairs, and immediately heard the voice of Dolly Longestaffe.

Dolly Longestaffe had on that morning put himself early into the care of Mr Squercum, and it had happened that he with his lawyer had met his father with Mr Bideawhile at the corner of the square. They were all coming according to appointment to receive the money which Mr Melmotte had promised to pay them at this very hour. Of course they had none of them as yet heard of the way in which the Financier had made his last grand payment, and as they walked together to the door had been intent only in reference to their own money. Squercum, who had heard a good deal on the previous day, was very certain that the money would not be forthcoming, whereas Bideawhile was sanguine of success. ‘Don’t we wish we may get it?’ Dolly had said, and by saying so had very much offended his father, who had resented the want of reverence implied in the use of that word ‘we’. They had all been admitted together, and Dolly had at once loudly claimed an old acquaintance with some of the articles around him. ‘I knew I’d got a coat just like that,’ said Dolly, ‘and I never could make out what my fellow had done with it.’ This was the speech which Nidderdale had heard, standing on the top of the stairs.

The two lawyers had at once seen, from the face of the man who had opened the door and from the presence of three or four servants in the hall, that things were not going on in their usual course. Before Dolly had completed his buffoonery the butler had whispered to Mr Bideawhile that Mr Melmotte–‘was no more.’

‘Dead!’ exclaimed Mr Bideawhile. Squercum put his hands into his trousers pockets and opened his mouth wide. ‘Dead!’ muttered Mr Longestaffe senior. ‘Dead!’ said Dolly. ‘Who’s dead?’ The butler shook his head. Then Squercum whispered a word into the butler’s ear, and the butler thereupon nodded his head. ‘It’s about what I expected,’ said Squercum. Then the butler whispered the word to Mr Longestaffe, and whispered it also to Mr Bideawhile, and they all knew that the millionaire had swallowed poison during the night.

It was known to the servants that Mr Longestaffe was the owner of the house, and he was therefore, as having authority there, shown into the room where the body of Melmotte was lying on a sofa. The two lawyers and Dolly of course followed, as did also Lord Nidderdale, who had now joined them from the lobby above. There was a policeman in the room who seemed to be simply watching the body, and who rose from his seat when the gentlemen entered. Two or three of the servants followed them, so that there was almost a crowd round the dead man’s bier. There was no further tale to be told. That Melmotte had been in the House on the previous night, and had there disgraced himself by intoxication, they had known already. That he had been found dead that morning had been already announced. They could only stand round and gaze on the square, sullen, livid features of the big-framed man, and each lament that he had ever heard the name of Melmotte.

‘Are you in the house here?’ said Dolly to Lord Nidderdale in a whisper.

‘She sent for me. We live quite close, you know. She wanted somebody to tell her something. I must go up to her again now.’

‘Had you seen him before?’

‘No indeed. I only came down when I heard your voices. I fear it will be rather bad for you;–won’t it?’

‘He was regularly smashed, I suppose?’ asked Dolly.

‘I know nothing myself. He talked to me about his affairs once, but he was such a liar that not a word that he said was worth anything. I believed him then. How it will go, I can’t say.’

‘That other thing is all over of course,’ suggested Dolly. Nidderdale intimated by a gesture of his head that the other thing was all over, and then returned to Marie. There was nothing further that the four gentlemen could do, and they soon departed from the house;–not, however, till Mr Bideawhile had given certain short injunctions to the butler concerning the property contained in Mr Longestaffe’s town residence.

‘They had come to see him,’ said Lord Nidderdale in a whisper. ‘There was some appointment. He had told them to be all here at this hour.’

‘They didn’t know, then?’ asked Marie.

‘Nothing;–till the man told them.’

‘And did you go in?’

‘Yes; we all went into the room.’ Marie shuddered, and again hid her face. ‘I think the best thing I can do,’ said Nidderdale, ‘is to go to Abchurch Lane, and find out from Smith who is the lawyer whom he chiefly trusted. I know Smith had to do with his own affairs, because he has told me so at the Board; and if necessary I will find out Croll. No doubt I can trace him. Then we had better employ the lawyer to arrange everything for you.’

‘And where had we better go to?’

‘Where would Madame Melmotte wish to go?’

‘Anywhere, so that we could hide ourselves. Perhaps Frankfort would be the best. But shouldn’t we stay till something has been done here? And couldn’t we have lodgings, so as to get away from Mr Longestaffe’s house?’ Nidderdale promised that he himself would look for lodgings, as soon as he had seen the lawyer. ‘And now, my lord, I suppose that I never shall see you again,’ said Marie.

‘I don’t know why you should say that.’

‘Because it will be best. Why should you? All this will be trouble enough to you when people begin to say what we are. But I don’t think it has been my fault.’

‘Nothing has ever been your fault.’

‘Good-bye, my lord. I shall always think of you as one of the kindest people I ever knew. I thought it best to send to you for different reasons, but I do not want you to come back.’

‘Good-bye, Marie. I shall always remember you.’ And so they parted.

After that he did go into the City, and succeeded in finding both Mr Smith and Herr Croll. When he reached Abchurch Lane, the news of Melmotte’s death had already been spread abroad; and more was known or said to be known, of his circumstances than Nidderdale had as yet heard. The crushing blow to him, so said Herr Croll, had been the desertion of Cohenlupe,–that and the sudden fall in the value of the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway shares, consequent on the rumours spread about the City respecting the Pickering property. It was asserted in Abchurch Lane that had he not at that moment touched the Pickering property, or entertained the Emperor, or stood for Westminster, he must, by the end of the autumn, have been able to do any or all of those things without danger, simply as the result of the money which would then have been realized by the railway. But he had allowed himself to become hampered by the want of comparatively small sums of ready money, and in seeking relief had rushed from one danger to another, till at last the waters around him had become too deep even for him, and had overwhelmed him. As to his immediate death, Herr Croll expressed not the slightest astonishment. It was just the thing, Herr Croll said, that he had been sure that Melmotte would do, should his difficulties ever become too great for him. ‘And dere vas a leetle ting he lay himself open by de oder day,’ said Croll, ‘dat vas nasty,– very nasty.’ Nidderdale shook his head, but asked no questions. Croll had alluded to the use of his own name, but did not on this occasion make any further revelation. Then Croll made a further statement to Lord Nidderdale, which I think he must have done in pure good-nature. ‘Mylor,’ he said, whispering very gravely, ‘de money of de yong lady is all her own.’ Then he nodded his head three times. ‘Nobody can toch it, not if he vas in debt millions.’ Again he nodded his head.

‘I am very glad to hear it for her sake,’ said Lord Nidderdale as he took his leave.

CHAPTER LXXXVII – DOWN AT CARBURY

When Roger Carbury returned to Suffolk, after seeing his cousins in Welbeck Street, he was by no means contented with himself. That he should be discontented generally with the circumstances of his life was a matter of course. He knew that he was farther removed than ever from the object on which his whole mind was set. Had Hetta Carbury learned all the circumstances of Paul’s engagement with Mrs Hurtle before she had confessed her love to Paul,–so that her heart might have been turned against the man before she had made her confession,– then, he thought, she might at last have listened to him. Even though she had loved the other man, she might have at last done so, as her love would have been buried in her own bosom. But the tale had been told after the fashion which was most antagonistic to his own interests. Hetta had never heard Mrs Hurtle’s name till she had given herself away, and had declared to all her friends that she had given herself away to this man, who was so unworthy of her. The more Roger thought of this, the more angry he was with Paul Montague, and the more convinced that that man had done him an injury which he could never forgive.

But his grief extended even beyond that. Though he was never tired of swearing to himself that he would not forgive Paul Montague, yet there was present to him a feeling that an injury was being done to the man, and that he was in some sort responsible for that injury. He had declined to tell Hetta any part of the story about Mrs Hurtle,–actuated by a feeling that he ought not to betray the trust put in him by a man who was at the time his friend; and he had told nothing. But no one knew so well as he did the fact that all the attention latterly given by Paul to the American woman had by no means been the effect of love, but had come from a feeling on Paul’s part that he could not desert the woman he had once loved, when she asked him for his kindness. If Hetta could know everything exactly,–if she could look back and read the state of Paul’s mind as he, Roger, could read it,–then she would probably forgive the man, or perhaps tell herself that there was nothing for her to forgive. Roger was anxious that Hetta’s anger should burn hot,–because of the injury done to himself. He thought that there were ample reasons why Paul Montague should be punished,–why Paul should be utterly expelled from among them, and allowed to go his own course. But it was not right that the man should be punished on false grounds. It seemed to Roger now that he was doing an injustice to his enemy by refraining from telling all that he knew.

As to the girl’s misery in losing her lover, much as he loved her, true as it was that he was willing to devote himself and all that he had to her happiness, I do not think that at the present moment he was disturbed in that direction. It is hardly natural, perhaps, that a man should love a woman with such devotion as to wish to make her happy by giving her to another man. Roger told himself that Paul would be an unsafe husband, a fickle husband,–one who might be carried hither and thither both in his circumstances and his feelings,–and that it would be better for Hetta that she should not marry him; but at the same time he was unhappy as he reflected that he himself was a party to a certain amount of deceit.

And yet he had said not a word. He had referred Hetta to the man himself. He thought that he knew, and he did indeed accurately know, the state of Hetta’s mind. She was wretched because she thought that while her lover was winning her love, while she herself was willingly allowing him to win her love, he was dallying with another woman, and making to that other woman promises the same as those he made to her. This was not true. Roger knew that it was not true. But when he tried to quiet his conscience by saying that they must fight it out among themselves, he felt himself to be uneasy under that assurance.

His life at Carbury, at this time, was very desolate. He had become tired of the priest, who, in spite of various repulses, had never for a moment relaxed his efforts to convert his friend. Roger had told him once that he must beg that religion might not be made the subject of further conversation between them. In answer to this, Father Barham had declared that he would never consent to remain as an intimate associate with any man on those terms. Roger had persisted in his stipulation, and the priest had then suggested that it was his host’s intention to banish him from Carbury Hall. Roger had made no reply, and the priest had of course been banished. But even this added to his misery. Father Barham was a gentleman, was a good man, and in great penury. To ill-treat such a one, to expel such a one from his house, seemed to Roger to be an abominable cruelty. He was unhappy with himself about the priest, and yet he could not bid the man come back to him. It was already being said of him among his neighbours, at Eardly, at Caversham, and at the Bishop’s palace, that he either had become or was becoming a Roman Catholic, under the priest’s influence. Mrs Yeld had even taken upon herself to write to him a most affectionate letter, in which she said very little as to any evidence that had reached her as to Roger’s defection, but dilated at very great length on the abominations of a certain lady who is supposed to indulge in gorgeous colours.

He was troubled, too, about old Daniel Ruggles, the farmer at Sheep’s Acre, who had been so angry because his niece would not marry John Crumb. Old Ruggles, when abandoned by Ruby and accused by his neighbours of personal cruelty to the girl, had taken freely to that source of consolation which he found to be most easily within his reach. Since Ruby had gone he had been drunk every day, and was making himself generally a scandal and a nuisance. His landlord had interfered with his usual kindness, and the old man had always declared that his niece and John Crumb were the cause of it all; for now, in his maudlin misery, he attributed as much blame to the lover as he did to the girl. John Crumb wasn’t in earnest. If he had been in earnest he would have gone after her to London at once. No;–he wouldn’t invite Ruby to come back. If Ruby would come back, repentant, full of sorrow,–and hadn’t been and made a fool of herself in the meantime,– then he’d think of taking her back. In the meantime, with circumstances in their present condition, he evidently thought that he could best face the difficulties of the world by an unfaltering adhesion to gin, early in the day and all day long. This, too, was a grievance to Roger Carbury.

But he did not neglect his work, the chief of which at the present moment was the care of the farm which he kept in his own hands. He was making hay at this time in certain meadows down by the river side; and was standing by while the men were loading a cart, when he saw John Crumb approaching across the field. He had not seen John since the eventful journey to London; nor had he seen him in London; but he knew well all that had occurred,–how the dealer in pollard had thrashed his cousin, Sir Felix, how he had been locked up by the police and then liberated,–and how he was now regarded in Bungay as a hero, as far as arms were concerned, but as being very ‘soft’ in the matter of love. The reader need hardly be told that Roger was not at all disposed to quarrel with Mr Crumb, because the victim of Crumb’s heroism had been his own cousin. Crumb had acted well, and had never said a word about Sir Felix since his return to the country. No doubt he had now come to talk about his love,–and in order that his confessions might not be made before all the assembled haymakers, Roger Carbury hurried to meet him. There was soon evident on Crumb’s broad face a whole sunshine of delight. As Roger approached him he began to laugh aloud, and to wave a bit of paper that he had in his hands. ‘She’s a coomin; she’s a coomin,’ were the first words he uttered. Roger knew very well that in his friend’s mind there was but one ‘she’ in the world, and that the name of that she was Ruby Ruggles.

‘I am delighted to hear it,’ said Roger. ‘She has made it up with her grandfather?’

‘Don’t know now’t about grandfeyther. She have made it up wi’ me. Know’d she would when I’d polish’d t’other un off a bit;–know’d she would.’

‘Has she written to you, then?’

‘Well, squoire,–she ain’t; not just herself. I do suppose that isn’t the way they does it. But it’s all as one.’ And then Mr Crumb thrust Mrs Hurtle’s note into Roger Carbury’s hand.

Roger certainly was not predisposed to think well or kindly of Mrs Hurtle. Since he had first known Mrs Hurtle’s name, when Paul Montague had told the story of his engagement on his return from America, Roger had regarded her as a wicked, intriguing, bad woman. It may, perhaps, be confessed that he was prejudiced against all Americans, looking upon Washington much as he did upon Jack Cade or Wat Tyler; and he pictured to himself all American women as being loud, masculine, and atheistical. But it certainly did seem that in this instance Mrs Hurtle was endeavouring to do a good turn from pure charity. ‘She is a lady,’ Crumb began to explain, ‘who do be living with Mrs Pipkin; and she is a lady as is a lady.’

Roger could not fully admit the truth of this assertion; but he explained that he, too, knew something of Mrs Hurtle, and that he thought it probable that what she said of Ruby might be true. ‘True, squoire,’ said Crumb, laughing with his whole face. ‘I ha’ nae a doubt it’s true. What’s again its being true? When I had dropped into t’other fellow, of course she made her choice. It was me as was to blame, because I didn’t do it before. I ought to ha’ dropped into him when I first heard as he was arter her. It’s that as girls like. So, squoire, I’m just going again to Lon’on right away.’

Roger suggested that old Ruggles would, of course, receive his niece; but as to this John expressed his supreme indifference. The old man was nothing to him. Of course he would like to have the old man’s money; but the old man couldn’t live for ever, and he supposed that things would come right in time. But this he knew,–that he wasn’t going to cringe to the old man about his money. When Roger observed that it would be better that Ruby should have some home to which she might at once return, John adverted with a renewed grin to all the substantial comforts of his own house. It seemed to be his idea, that on arriving in London he would at once take Ruby away to church and be married to her out of hand. He had thrashed his rival, and what cause could there now be for delay?

But before he left the field he made one other speech to the squire. ‘You ain’t a’taken it amiss, squoire, ’cause he was coosin to yourself?’

‘Not in the least, Mr Crumb.’

‘That’s koind now. I ain’t a done the yong man a ha’porth o’ harm, and I don’t feel no grudge again him, and when me and Ruby’s once spliced, I’m darned if I don’t give ‘un a bottle of wine the first day as he’ll come to Bungay.’

Roger did not feel himself justified in accepting this invitation on the part of Sir Felix; but he renewed his assurance that he, on his own part, thought that Crumb had behaved well in that matter of the street encounter, and he expressed a strong wish for the immediate and continued happiness of Mr and Mrs John Crumb.

‘Oh, ay, we’ll be ‘appy, squoire,’ said Crumb as he went exulting out of the field.

On the day after this Roger Carbury received a letter which disturbed him very much, and to which he hardly knew whether to return any answer, or what answer. It was from Paul Montague, and was written by him but a few hours after he had left his letter for Hetta with his own hands, at the door of her mother’s house. Paul’s letter to Roger was as follows:–

MY DEAR ROGER,–

Though I know that you have cast me off from you I cannot write to you in any other way, as any other way would be untrue. You can answer me, of course, as you please, but I do think that you will owe me an answer, as I appeal to you in the name of justice.

You know what has taken place between Hetta and myself. She had accepted me, and therefore I am justified in feeling sure that she must have loved me. But she has now quarrelled with me altogether, and has told me that I am never to see her again. Of course I don’t mean to put up with this. Who would? You will say that it is no business of yours. But I think that you would not wish that she should be left under a false impression, if you could put her right.

Somebody has told her the story of Mrs Hurtle. I suppose it was Felix, and that he had learned it from those people at Islington. But she has been told that which is untrue. Nobody knows and nobody can know the truth as you do. She supposes that I have willingly been passing my time with Mrs Hurtle during the last two months, although during that very time I have asked for and received the assurance of her love. Now, whether or no I have been to blame about Mrs Hurtle,–as to which nothing at present need be said,–it is certainly the truth that her coming to England was not only not desired by me, but was felt by me to be the greatest possible misfortune. But after all that had passed I certainly owed it to her not to neglect her;–and this duty was the more incumbent on me as she was a foreigner and unknown to any one. I went down to Lowestoft with her at her request, having named the place to her as one known to myself, and because I could not refuse her so small a favour. You know that it was so, and you know also, as no one else does, that whatever courtesy I have shown to Mrs Hurtle in England, I have been constrained to show her.

I appeal to you to let Hetta know that this is true. She had made me understand that not only her mother and brother, but you also, are well acquainted with the story of my acquaintance with Mrs Hurtle. Neither Lady Carbury nor Sir Felix has ever known anything about it. You, and you only, have known the truth. And now, though at the present you are angry with me, I call upon you to tell Hetta the truth as you know it. You will understand me when I say that I feel that I am being destroyed by a false representation. I think that you, who abhor a falsehood, will see the justice of setting me right, at any rate as far as the truth can do so. I do not want you to say a word for me beyond that.

Yours always,

PAUL MONTAGUE.

‘What business is all that of mine?’ This, of course, was the first feeling produced in Roger’s mind by Montague’s letter. If Hetta had received any false impression, it had not come from him. He had told no stories against his rival, whether true or false. He had been so scrupulous that he had refused to say a word at all. And if any false impression had been made on Hetta’s mind, either by circumstances or by untrue words, had not Montague deserved any evil that might fall upon him? Though every word in Montague’s letter might be true, nevertheless, in the end, no more than justice would be done him, even should he be robbed at last of his mistress under erroneous impressions. The fact that he had once disgraced himself by offering to make Mrs Hurtle his wife, rendered him unworthy of Hetta Carbury. Such, at least, was Roger Carbury’s verdict as he thought over all the circumstances. At any rate, it was no business of his to correct these wrong impressions.

And yet he was ill at ease as he thought of it all. He did believe that every word in Montague’s letter was true. Though he had been very indignant when he met Roger and Mrs Hurtle together on the sands at Lowestoft, he was perfectly convinced that the cause of their coming there had been precisely that which Montague had stated. It took him two days to think over all this, two days of great discomfort and unhappiness. After all, why should he be a dog in the manger? The girl did not care for him,–looked upon him as an old man to be regarded in a fashion altogether different from that in which she regarded Paul Montague. He had let his time for love-making go by, and now it behoved him, as a man, to take the world as he found it, and not to lose himself in regrets for a kind of happiness which he could never attain. In such an emergency as this he should do what was fair and honest, without reference to his own feelings. And yet the passion which dominated John Crumb altogether, which made the mealman so intent on the attainment of his object as to render all other things indifferent to him for the time, was equally strong with Roger Carbury. Unfortunately for Roger, strong as his passion was, it was embarrassed by other feelings. It never occurred to Crumb to think whether he was a fit husband for Ruby, or whether Ruby, having a decided preference for another man, could be a fit wife for him. But with Roger there were a thousand surrounding difficulties to hamper him. John Crumb never doubted for a moment what he should do. He had to get the girl, if possible, and he meant to get her whatever she might cost him. He was always confident though sometimes perplexed. But Roger had no confidence. He knew that he should never win the game. In his sadder moments he felt that he ought not to win it. The people around him, from old fashion, still called him the young squire! Why;–he felt himself at times to be eighty years old,–so old that he was unfitted for intercourse with such juvenile spirits as those of his neighbour the bishop, and of his friend Hepworth. Could he, by any training, bring himself to take her happiness in hand, altogether sacrificing his own?

In such a mood as this he did at last answer his enemy’s letter,–and he answered it as follows:–

I do not know that I am concerned to meddle in your affairs at all. I have told no tale against you, and I do not know that I have any that I wish to tell in your favour, or that I could so tell if I did wish. I think that you have behaved badly to me,