Marion Fay: A Novel

As to fishing, he was almost equally violent, grounding his objection on the tedium and cruelty incident to the pursuit. The first was only a matter of taste, he would allow. If a man could content himself and be happy with an average of one fish to every three days' fishing, that was the man's affair. He could only think that in such case the man himself must be as cold-blooded as the fish which he so seldom succeeded in catching. As to the cruelty, he thought there could be no doubt. When he heard that bishops and ladies delighted themselves in hauling an unfortunate animal about by the gills for more than an hour at a stretch, he was inclined to regret the past piety of the Church and the past tenderness of the sex. When he spoke in this way the cruelty of fox-hunting was of course thrown in his teeth. Did not the poor hunted quadrupeds, when followed hither and thither by a pack of fox-hounds, endure torments as sharp and as prolonged as those inflicted on the fish? In answer to this Lord Hampstead was eloquent and argumentative. As far as we could judge from Nature the condition of the two animals during the process was very different. The salmon with the hook in its throat was in a position certainly not intended by Nature. The fox, using all its gifts to avoid an enemy, was employed exactly as Nature had enjoined. It would be as just to compare a human being impaled alive on a stake with another overburdened with his world's task. The overburdened man might stumble and fall, and so perish. Things would have been hard to him. But not, therefore, could you compare his sufferings with the excruciating agonies of the poor wretch who had been left to linger and starve with an iron rod through his vitals. This argument was thought to be crafty rather than cunning by those who were fond of fishing. But he had another on which, when he had blown off the steam of his eloquence by his sensational description of a salmon impaled by a bishop, he could depend with greater confidence. He would grant, – for the moment, though he was by no means sure of the fact, – but for the moment he would grant that the fox did not enjoy the hunt. Let it be acknowledged – for the sake of the argument – that he was tortured by the hounds rather than elated by the triumphant success of his own manœuvres. Lord Hampstead "ventured to say," – this he would put forward in the rationalistic tone with which he was wont to prove the absurdity of hereditary honours, – "that in the infliction of all pain the question as to cruelty or no cruelty was one of relative value." Was it "tanti?" Who can doubt that for a certain maximum of good a certain minimum of suffering may be inflicted without slur to humanity? In hunting, one fox was made to finish his triumphant career, perhaps prematurely, for the advantage of two hundred sportsmen. "Ah, but only for their amusement!" would interpose some humanitarian averse equally to fishing and to hunting. Then his lordship would arise indignantly and would ask his opponent, whether what he called amusement was not as beneficial, as essential, as necessary to the world as even such material good things as bread and meat. Was poetry less valuable than the multiplication table? Man could exist no doubt without fox-hunting. So he could without butter, without wine, or other so-called necessaries; – without ermine tippets, for instance, the original God-invested wearer of which had been doomed to lingering starvation and death when trapped amidst the snow, in order that one lady might be made fine by the agonies of a dozen little furry sufferers. It was all a case of "tanti," he said, and he said that the fox who had saved himself half-a-dozen times and then died nobly on behalf of those who had been instrumental in preserving an existence for him, ought not to complain of the lot which Fate had provided for him among the animals of the earth. It was said, however, in reference to this comparison between fishing and fox-hunting, that Lord Hampstead was altogether deficient in that skill and patience which is necessary for the landing of a salmon.

But men, though they laughed at him, still they liked him. He was good-humoured and kindly-hearted. He was liberal in more than his politics. He had, too, a knack of laughing at himself, and his own peculiarities, which went far to redeem them. That a young Earl, an embryo Marquis, the heir of such a house as that of Trafford, should preach a political doctrine which those who heard ignorantly called Communistic, was very dreadful; but the horror of it was mitigated when he declared that no doubt as he got old he should turn Tory like any other Radical. In this there seemed to be a covert allusion to his father. And then they could perceive that his "Communistic" principles did not prevent him from having a good eye to the value of land. He knew what he was about, as an owner of property should do, and certainly rode to hounds as well as any one of the boys of the period.

When the idea first presented itself to him that his sister was on the way to fall in love with George Roden, it has to be acknowledged that he was displeased. It had not occurred to him that this peculiar breach would be made on the protected sanctity of his own family. When Roden had spoken to him of this sanctity as one of the "social idolatries," he had not quite been able to contradict him. He had wished to do so both in defence of his own consistency, and also, if it were possible, so as to maintain the sanctity. The "divinity" which "does hedge a king," had been to him no more than a social idolatry. The special respect in which dukes and such like were held was the same. The judge's ermine and the bishop's apron were idolatries. Any outward honour, not earned by the deeds or words of him so honoured, but coming from birth, wealth, or from the doings of another, was an idolatry. Carrying on his arguments, he could not admit the same thing in reference to his sister; – or rather, he would have to admit it if he could not make another plea in defence of the sanctity. His sister was very holy to him; – but that should be because of her nearness to him, because of her sweetness, because of her own gifts, because as her brother he was bound to be her especial knight till she should have chosen some other special knight for herself. But it should not be because she was the daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter of dukes and marquises. It should not be because she was Lady Frances Trafford. Had he himself been a Post Office clerk, then would not this chosen friend have been fit to love her? There were unfitnesses, no doubt, very common in this world, which should make the very idea of love impossible to a woman, – unfitness of character, of habits, of feelings, of education, unfitnesses as to inward personal nobility. He could not say that there were any such which ought to separate his sister and his friend. If it was to be that this sweet sister should some day give her heart to a lover, why not to George Roden as well as to another? There were no such unfitnesses as those of which he would have thought in dealing with the lives of some other girl and some other young man.

And yet he was, if not displeased, at any rate dissatisfied. There was something which grated against either his taste, or his judgment, – or perhaps his prejudices. He endeavoured to inquire into himself fairly on this matter, and feared that he was yet the victim of the prejudices of his order. He was wounded in his pride to think that his sister should make herself equal to a clerk in the Post Office. Though he had often endeavoured, only too successfully, to make her understand how little she had in truth received from her high birth, yet he felt that she had received something which should have made the proposal of such a marriage distasteful to her. A man cannot rid himself of a prejudice because he knows or believes it to be a prejudice. That the two, if they continued to wish it, must become man and wife he acknowledged to himself; – but he could not bring himself not to be sorry that it should be so.

There were some words on the subject between himself and his father before the Marquis went abroad with his family, which, though they did not reconcile him to the match, lessened the dissatisfaction. His father was angry with him, throwing the blame of this untoward affair on his head, and he was always prone to resent censure thrown by any of his family on his own peculiar tenets. Thus it came to pass that in defending himself he was driven to defend his sister also. The Marquis had not been at Hendon when the revelation was first made, but had heard it in the course of the day from his wife. His Radical tendencies had done very little towards reconciling him to such a proposal. He had never brought his theories home into his own personalities. To be a Radical peer in the House of Lords, and to have sent a Radical tailor to the House of Commons, had been enough, if not too much, to satisfy his own political ideas. To himself and to his valet, to all those immediately touching himself, he had always been the Marquis of Kingsbury. And so also, in his inner heart, the Marchioness was the Marchioness, and Lady Frances Lady Frances. He had never gone through any process of realizing his convictions as his son had done. "Hampstead," he said, "can this possibly be true what your mother has told me?" This took place at the house in Park Lane, to which the Marquis had summoned his son.

"Do you mean about Frances and George Roden?"

"Of course I mean that."

"I supposed you did, sir. I imagined that when you sent for me it was in regard to them. No doubt it is true."

"What is true? You speak as though you absolutely approved it."

"Then my voice has belied me, for I disapprove of it."

"You feel, I hope, how utterly impossible it is."

"Not that."

"Not that?"

"I cannot say that I think it to be impossible, – or even improbable. Knowing the two, as I do, I feel the probability to be on their side."

"That they – should be married?"

"That is what they intend. I never knew either of them to mean anything which did not sooner or later get itself accomplished."

"You'll have to learn it on this occasion. How on earth can it have been brought about?" Lord Hampstead shrugged his shoulders. "Somebody has been very much to blame."

"You mean me, sir?"

"Somebody has been very much to blame."

"Of course, you mean me. I cannot take any blame in the matter. In introducing George Roden to you, and to my mother, and to Frances, I brought you to the knowledge of a highly-educated and extremely well-mannered young man."

"Good God!"

"I did to my friend what every young man, I suppose, does to his. I should be ashamed of myself to associate with any one who was not a proper guest for my father's table. One does not calculate before that a young man and a young woman shall fall in love with each other."

"You see what has happened."

"It was extremely natural, no doubt, – though I had not anticipated it. As I told you, I am very sorry. It will cause many heartburns, and some unhappiness."

"Unhappiness! I should think so. I must go away, – in the middle of the Session."

"It will be worse for her, poor girl."

"It will be very bad for her," said the Marquis, speaking as though his mind were quite made up on that matter.

"But nobody, as far as I can see, has done anything wrong," continued Lord Hampstead. "When two young people get together whose tastes are similar, and opinions, – whose educations and habits of thought have been the same – "

"Habits the same!"

"Habits of thought, I said, sir."

"You would talk the hind legs off a dog," said the Marquis, bouncing out of the room. It was not unusual with him, in the absolute privacy of his own circle, to revert to language which he would have felt to be unbecoming to him as Marquis of Kingsbury among ordinary people.

CHAPTER III

THE MARCHIONESS

Though the departure of the Marquis was much hurried, there were other meetings between Hampstead and the family before the flitting was actually made.

"No doubt I will. I am quite with you there," the son said to the father, who had desired him to explain to the young man the impossibility of such a marriage. "I think it would be a misfortune to them both, which should be avoided, – if they can get over their present feelings."

"Feelings!"

"I suppose there are such feelings, sir?"

"Of course he is looking for position – and money."

"Not in the least. That might probably be the idea with some young nobleman who would wish to marry into his own class, and to improve his fortune at the same time. With such a one that would be fair enough. He would give and take. With George that would not be honest; – nor would such accusation be true. The position, as you call it, he would feel to be burdensome. As to money, he does not know whether Frances has a shilling or not."

"Not a shilling, – unless I give it to her."

"He would not think of such a matter."

"Then he must be a very imprudent young man, and unfit to have a wife at all."

"I cannot admit that, – but suppose he is?"

"And yet you think – ?"

"I think, sir, that it is unfortunate. I have said so ever since I first heard it. I shall tell him exactly what I think. You will have Frances with you, and will of course express your own opinion."

The Marquis was far from satisfied with his son, but did not dare to go on further with the argument. In all such discussions he was wont to feel that his son was "talking the hind legs off a dog." His own ideas on concrete points were clear enough to him, – as this present idea that his daughter, Lady Frances Trafford, would outrage all propriety, all fitness, all decency, if she were to give herself in marriage to George Roden, the Post Office clerk. But words were not plenty with him, – or, when plenty, not efficacious, – and he was prone to feel, when beaten in argument, that his opponent was taking an unfair advantage. Thus it was that he often thought, and sometimes said, that those who oppressed him with words would "talk the hind legs off a dog."

The Marchioness also expressed her opinion to Hampstead. She was a lady stronger than her husband; – stronger in this, that she never allowed herself to be worsted in any encounter. If words would not serve her occasion at the moment, her countenance would do so, – and if not that, her absence. She could be very eloquent with silence, and strike an adversary dumb by the way in which she would leave a room. She was a tall, handsome woman, with a sublime gait. – "Vera incessu patuit Dea." She had heard, if not the words, then some translation of the words, and had taken them to heart, and borne them with her as her secret motto. To be every inch an aristocrat, in look as in thought, was the object of her life. That such was her highest duty was quite fixed in her mind. It had pleased God to make her a Marchioness, – and should she derogate from God's wish? It had been her one misfortune that God should not also have made her the mother of a future Marquis. Her face, though handsome, was quite impassive, showing nothing of her sorrows or her joys; and her voice was equally under control. No one had ever imagined, not even her husband, that she felt acutely that one blow of fortune. Though Hampstead's politics had been to her abominable, treasonable, blasphemous, she treated him with an extreme courtesy. If there were anything that he wished about the house she would have it done for him. She would endeavour to interest herself about his hunting. And she would pay him a great respect, – to him most onerous, – as being second in all things to the Marquis. Though a Republican blasphemous rebel, – so she thought of him, – he was second to the Marquis. She would fain have taught her little boys to respect him, – as the future head of the family, – had he not been so accustomed to romp with them, to pull them out of their little beds, and toss them about in their night-shirts, that they loved him much too well for respect. It was in vain that their mother strove to teach them to call him Hampstead.

Lady Frances had never been specially in her way, but to Lady Frances the stepmother had been perhaps harder than to the stepson, of whose presence as an absolute block to her ambition she was well aware. Lady Frances had no claim to a respect higher than that which was due to her own children. Primogeniture had done nothing for her. She was a Marquis's daughter, but her mother had been only the offspring of a commoner. There was perhaps something of conscience in her feelings towards the two. As Lord Hampstead was undoubtedly in her way, it occurred to her to think that she should not on that account be inimical to him. Lady Frances was not in her way, – and therefore was open to depreciation and dislike without wounds to her conscience; and then, though Hampstead was abominable because of his Republicanism, his implied treason, and blasphemy, yet he was entitled to some excuse as being a man. These things were abominable no doubt in him, but more pardonably abominable than they would be in a woman. Lady Frances had never declared herself to be a Republican or a disbeliever, much less a rebel, – as, indeed, had neither Lord Hampstead. In the presence of her stepmother she was generally silent on matters of political or religious interest. But she was supposed to sympathise with her brother, and was known to be far from properly alive to aristocratic interests. There was never quarrelling between the two, but there was a lack of that friendship which may subsist between a stepmother of thirty-eight and a stepdaughter of twenty-one. Lady Frances was tall and slender, with quiet speaking features, dark in colour, with blue eyes, and hair nearly black. In appearance she was the very opposite of her stepmother, moving quickly and achieving grace as she did so, without a thought, by the natural beauty of her motions. The dignity was there, but without a thought given to it. Not even did the little lords, her brothers, chuck their books and toys about with less idea of demeanour. But the Marchioness never arranged a scarf or buttoned a glove without feeling that it was her duty to button her glove and arrange her scarf as became the Marchioness of Kingsbury.

The stepmother wished no evil to Lady Frances, – only that she should be married properly and taken out of the way. Any stupid Earl or mercurial Viscount would have done, so long as the blood and the money had been there. Lady Frances had been felt to be dangerous, and the hope was that the danger might be got rid of by a proper marriage. But not by such a marriage as this!

When that accidental calling of the name was first heard and the following avowal made, the Marchioness declared her immediate feelings by a look. It was so that Arthur may have looked when he first heard that his Queen was sinful, – so that Cæsar must have felt when even Brutus struck him. For though Lady Frances had been known to be blind to her own greatness, still this, – this at any rate was not suspected. "You cannot mean it!" the Marchioness had at last said.

"I certainly mean it, mamma." Then the Marchioness, with one hand guarding her raiment, and with the other raised high above her shoulder, in an agony of supplication to those deities who arrange the fates of ducal houses, passed slowly out of the room. It was necessary that she should bethink herself before another word was spoken.

For some time after that very few words passed between her and the sinner. A dead silence best befitted the occasion; – as, when a child soils her best frock, we put her in the corner with a scolding; but when she tells a fib we quell her little soul within her by a terrible quiescence. To be eloquently indignant without a word is within the compass of the thoughtfully stolid. It was thus that Lady Frances was at first treated by her stepmother. She was, however, at once taken up to London, subjected to the louder anger of her father, and made to prepare for the Saxon Alps. At first, indeed, her immediate destiny was not communicated to her. She was to be taken abroad; – and, in so taking her, it was felt to be well to treat her as the policeman does his prisoner, whom he thinks to be the last person who need be informed as to the whereabouts of the prison. It did leak out quickly, because the Marquis had a castle or château of his own in Saxony; – but that was only an accident.

The Marchioness still said little on the matter, – unless in what she might say to her husband in the secret recesses of marital discussion; but before she departed she found it expedient to express herself on one occasion to Lord Hampstead. "Hampstead," she said, "this is a terrible blow that has fallen upon us."

"I was surprised myself. I do not know that I should call it exactly a blow."

"Not a blow! But of course you mean that it will come to nothing."

"What I meant was, that though I regard the proposition as inexpedient – "

"Inexpedient!"

"Yes; – I think it inexpedient certainly; but there is nothing in it that shocks me."

"Nothing that shocks you!"

"Marriage in itself is a good thing."

"Hampstead, do not talk to me in that way."

"But I think it is. If it be good for a young man to marry it must be good for a young woman also. The one makes the other necessary."

"But not for such as your sister, – and him – together. You are speaking in that way simply to torment me."

"I can only speak as I think. I do agree that it would be inexpedient. She would to a certain extent lose the countenance of her friends – "

"Altogether!"

"Not altogether, – but to some extent. A certain class of people, – not the best worth knowing, – might be inclined to drop her. However foolish her own friends may be we owe something – even to their folly."

"Her friends are not foolish, – her proper friends."

"I quite agree with that; but then so many of them are improper."

"Hampstead!"

"I am afraid that I don't make myself quite clear. But never mind. It would be inexpedient. It would go against the grain with my father, who ought to be consulted."

"I should think so."

"I quite agree with you. A father ought to be consulted, even though a daughter be of age, so as to be enabled by law to do as she likes with herself. And then there would be money discomforts."

"She would not have a shilling."

"Not but what I should think it my duty to put that right if there were any real distress." Here spoke the heir, who was already in possession of much, and upon whom the whole property of the family was entailed. "Nevertheless if I can prevent it, – without quarrelling either with one or the other, without saying a hard word, – I shall do so."

"It will be your bounden duty."

"It is always a man's bounden duty to do what is right. The difficulty is in seeing the way." After this the Marchioness was silent. What she had gained by speaking was very little, – little or nothing. The nature of the opposition he proposed was almost as bad as a sanction, and the reasons he gave for agreeing with her were as hurtful to her feelings as though they had been advanced on the other side. Even the Marquis was not sufficiently struck with horror at the idea that a daughter of his should have condescended to listen to love from a Post Office clerk!

On the day before they started Hampstead was enabled to be alone with his sister for a few minutes. "What an absurdity it is," she said, laughing, – "this running away."

"It is what you must have expected."

"But not the less absurd. Of course I shall go. Just at the moment I have no alternative; as I should have none if they threatened to lock me up, till I got somebody to take my case in hand. But I am as free to do what I please with myself as is papa."

"He has got money."

"But he is not, therefore, to be a tyrant."

"Yes he is; – over an unmarried daughter who has got none. We cannot but obey those on whom we are dependent."

"What I mean is, that carrying me away can do no good. You don't suppose, John, that I shall give him up after having once brought myself to say the word! It was very difficult to say; – but ten times harder to be unsaid. I am quite determined, – and quite satisfied."

"But they are not."

"As regards my father, I am very sorry. As to mamma, she and I are so different in all our thinking that I know beforehand that whatever I might do would displease her. It cannot be helped. Whether it be good or bad I cannot be made such as she is. She came too late. You will not turn against me, John?"