Marion Fay. Anthony Trollope

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ 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.

       Table of Contents

      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 СКАЧАТЬ