LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

matter. How was it possible that in such circumstances she should assume the part of the girl's confidential friend and monitress? Were she to do so she must immediately tell the father everything. In such a position no one could be a better friend than Lady Cantrip, and Mrs. Finn had already almost made up her mind that, should Lady Cantrip occupy the place, she would tell her ladyship all that had passed between herself and the Duchess on the subject.

      Of what hopes she might have, or what fears, about her girl, the Duchess had said no word to her husband. But when she had believed that the things of the world were fading away from her, and when he was sitting by her bedside—dumb, because at such a moment he knew not how to express the tenderness of his heart—holding her hand, and trying so to listen to her words, that he might collect and remember every wish, she had murmured something about the ultimate division of the great wealth with which she herself had been endowed. "She had never," she said, "even tried to remember what arrangements had been made by lawyers, but she hoped that Mary might be so circumstanced, that if her happiness depended on marrying a poor man, want of money need not prevent it." The Duke suspecting nothing, believing this to be a not unnatural expression of maternal interest, had assured her that Mary's fortune would be ample.

      Mrs. Finn made the proposition to Lady Mary in respect to Lady Cantrip's invitation. Lady Mary was very like her mother, especially in having exactly her mother's tone of voice, her quick manner of speech, and her sharp intelligence. She had also her mother's eyes, large and round, and almost blue, full of life and full of courage, eyes which never seemed to quail, and her mother's dark brown hair, never long but very copious in its thickness. She was, however, taller than her mother, and very much more graceful in her movement. And she could already assume a personal dignity of manner which had never been within her mother's reach. She had become aware of a certain brusqueness of speech in her mother, a certain aptitude to say sharp things without thinking whether the sharpness was becoming to the position which she held, and, taking advantage of the example, the girl had already learned that she might gain more than she would lose by controlling her words.

      "Papa wants me to go to Lady Cantrip," she said.

      "I think he would like it—just for the present, Lady Mary."

      Though there had been the closest possible intimacy between the Duchess and Mrs. Finn, this had hardly been so as to the intercourse between Mrs. Finn and the children. Of Mrs. Finn it must be acknowledged that she was, perhaps fastidiously, afraid of appearing to take advantage of her friendship with the Duke's family. She would tell herself that though circumstances had compelled her to be the closest and nearest friend of a Duchess, still her natural place was not among dukes and their children, and therefore in her intercourse with the girl she did not at first assume the manner and bearing which her position in the house would have seemed to warrant. Hence the "Lady Mary."

      "Why does he want to send me away, Mrs. Finn?"

      "It is not that he wants to send you away, but that he thinks it will be better for you to be with some friend. Here you must be so much alone."

      "Why don't you stay? But I suppose Mr. Finn wants you to be back in London."

      "It is not that only, or, to speak the truth, not that at all. Mr. Finn could come here if it were suitable. Or for a week or two he might do very well without me. But there are other reasons. There is no one whom your mother respected more highly than Lady Cantrip."

      "I never heard her speak a word of Lady Cantrip."

      "Both he and she are your father's intimate friends."

      "Does papa want to be—alone here?"

      "It is you, not himself, of whom he is thinking."

      "Therefore I must think of him, Mrs. Finn. I do not wish him to be alone. I am sure it would be better that I should stay with him."

      "He feels that it would not be well that you should live without the companionship of some lady."

      "Then let him find some lady. You would be the best, because he knows you so well. I, however, am not afraid of being alone. I am sure he ought not to be here quite by himself. If he bids me go, I must go, and then of course I shall go where he sends me; but I won't say that I think it best that I should go, and certainly I do not want to go to Lady Cantrip." This she said with great decision, as though the matter was one on which she had altogether made up her mind. Then she added, in a lower voice: "Why doesn't papa speak to me about it?"

      "He is thinking only of what may be best for you."

      "It would be best for me to stay near him. Whom else has he got?"

      All this Mrs. Finn repeated to the Duke as closely as she could, and then of course the father was obliged to speak to his daughter.

      "Don't send me away, papa," she said at once.

      "Your life here, Mary, will be inexpressibly sad."

      "It must be sad anywhere. I cannot go to college, like Gerald, or live anywhere just as I please, like Silverbridge."

      "Do you envy them that?"

      "Sometimes, papa. Only I shall think more of poor mamma by being alone, and I should like to be thinking of her always." He shook his head mournfully. "I do not mean that I shall always be unhappy, as I am now."

      "No, my dear; you are too young for that. It is only the old who suffer in that way."

      "You will suffer less if I am with you; won't you, papa? I do not want to go to Lady Cantrip. I hardly remember her at all."

      "She is very good."

      "Oh yes. That is what they used to say to mamma about Lady Midlothian. Papa, pray do not send me to Lady Cantrip."

      Of course it was decided that she should not go to Lady Cantrip at once, or to Mrs. Jeffrey Palliser, and, after a short interval of doubt, it was decided also that Mrs. Finn should remain at Matching for at least a fortnight. The Duke declared that he would be glad to see Mr. Finn, but she knew that in his present mood the society of any one man to whom he would feel himself called upon to devote his time, would be a burden to him, and she plainly said that Mr. Finn had better not come to Matching at present. "There are old associations," she said, "which will enable you to bear with me as you will with your butler or your groom, but you are not as yet quite able to make yourself happy with company." This he bore with perfect equanimity, and then, as it were, handed over his daughter to Mrs. Finn's care.

      Very quickly there came to be close intimacy between Mrs. Finn and Lady Mary. For a day or two the elder woman, though the place she filled was one of absolute confidence, rather resisted than encouraged the intimacy. She always remembered that the girl was the daughter of a great duke, and that her position in the house had sprung from circumstances which would not, perhaps, in the eyes of the world at large, have recommended her for such friendship. She knew—the reader may possibly know—that nothing had ever been purer, nothing more disinterested than her friendship. But she knew also—no one knew better—that the judgment of men and women does not always run parallel with facts. She entertained, too, a conviction in regard to herself, that hard words and hard judgments were to be expected from the world—were to be accepted by her without any strong feeling of injustice—because she had been elevated by chance to the possession of more good things than she had merited. She weighed all this with a very fine balance, and even after the encouragement she had received from the Duke, was intent on confining herself to some position about the girl inferior to that which such a friend as Lady Cantrip might have occupied. But the girl's manner, and the girl's speech about her own mother, overcame her. It was the unintentional revelation of the Duchess's constant reference to her—the way in which Lady Mary would assert that "Mamma used always to say this of you; mamma always knew that you would think so and so; mamma used to say that you had told her." It was the feeling thus conveyed, that the mother who was now dead had in her daily dealings with her own child spoken of her as her nearest friend, which mainly served to conquer the deference of manner which she had assumed.

      Then gradually there came confidences—and at last absolute confidence. The whole story about Mr. Tregear was told. Yes;

Скачать книгу