The Way We Live Now (101 page)

‘I have taken no proceedings as yet,' said Bideawhile.

‘It's Squercum,' says Dolly.

‘Well, sir,' continued Melmotte addressing Dolly, ‘let me assure you that if these proceedings are stayed the money will be forthcoming; – but if not, I cannot produce the money. I little thought two months ago that I should ever have to make such a statement in reference to such a sum as fifty thousand pounds. But so it is. To raise that money by Friday, I shall have to cripple my resources frightfully. It will be done at a terrible cost. But what Mr Bideawhile says is true. I have no right to suppose that the purchase of this property should be looked upon as an ordinary commercial transaction. The money should have been paid – and, if you will now take my word, the money shall be paid. But this cannot be done if I am made to appear before the Lord Mayor to-morrow. The accusations brought against me are damnably false. I do not know with whom they have originated. Whoever did originate them, they are damnably false. But unfortunately, false as they are, in the present crisis, they may be ruinous to me. Now, gentlemen, perhaps you will give me an answer.'

Both the father and the lawyer looked at Dolly. Dolly was in truth the accuser through the mouthpiece of his attorney Squercum. It was at Dolly's instance that these proceedings were being taken. ‘I, on behalf of my client,' said Mr Bideawhile, ‘will consent to wait till Friday at noon.'

‘I presume, Adolphus, that you will say as much,' said the elder Longestaffe.

Dolly Longestaffe was certainly not an impressionable person, but Melmotte's eloquence had moved even him. It was not that he was sorry for the man, but that at the present moment he believed him. Though he had been absolutely sure that Melmotte had forged his name or caused it to be forged – and did not now go so far into the matter as to abandon that conviction – he had been talked into crediting the reasons given for Melmotte's temporary distress, and also into a belief that the money would be paid on Friday. Something of the effect which
Melmotte's false confessions had had upon Lord Nidderdale, they now also had on Dolly Longestaffe. ‘I'll ask Squercum, you know,' he said.

‘Of course Mr Squercum will act as you instruct him,' said Bide-awhile.

‘I'll ask Squercum. I'll go to him at once. I can't do any more than that. And upon my word, Mr Melmotte, you've given me a great deal of trouble.'

Melmotte with a smile apologized. Then it was settled that they three should meet in that very room on Friday at noon, and that the payment should then be made – Dolly stipulating that as his father would be attended by Bideawhile, so would he be attended by Squercum. To this Mr Longestaffe senior yielded with a very bad grace.

Lady Carbury was at this time so miserable in regard to her son that she found herself unable to be active as she would otherwise have been in her endeavours to separate Paul Montague and her daughter. Roger had come up to town and given his opinion, very freely at any rate with regard to Sir Felix. But Roger had immediately returned to Suffolk, and the poor mother in want of assistance and consolation turned naturally to Mr Broune, who came to see her for a few minutes almost every evening. It had now become almost a part of Mr Broune's life to see Lady Carbury once in the day. She told him of the two propositions which Roger had made: first, that she should fix her residence in some second-rate French or German town, and that Sir Felix should be made to go with her; and, secondly, that she should take possession of Carbury Manor for six months. ‘And where would Mr Carbury go?' asked Mr Broune.

‘He's so good that he doesn't care what he does with himself. There's a cottage on the place, he says, that he would move to.' Mr Broune shook his head. Mr Broune did not think that an offer so quixotically generous as this should be accepted. As to the German or French town, Mr Broune said that the plan was no doubt feasible, but he doubted whether the thing to be achieved was worth the terrible sacrifice
demanded. He was inclined to think that Sir Felix should go to the colonies.‘That he might drink himself to death,' said Lady Carbury, who now had no secrets from Mr Broune. Sir Felix in the meantime was still in the doctor's hands up-stairs. He had no doubt been very severely thrashed, but there was not in truth very much ailing him beyond the cuts on his face. He was, however, at the present moment better satisfied to be an invalid than to have to come out of his room and to meet the world. ‘As to Melmotte,' said Mr Broune, ‘they say now that he is in some terrible mess which will ruin him and all who have trusted him.'

‘And the girl?'

‘It is impossible to understand it all. Melmotte was to have been summoned before the Lord Mayor to-day on some charge of fraud – but it was postponed. And I was told this morning that Nidderdale still means to marry the girl. I don't think anybody knows the truth about it. We shall hold our tongue about him till we really do know something.' The ‘we' of whom Mr Broune spoke was, of course, the
Morning Breakfast Table.

But in all this there was nothing about Hetta. Hetta, however, thought very much of her own condition, and found herself driven to take some special step by the receipt of two letters from her lover, written to her from Liverpool. They had never met since she had confessed her love to him. The first letter she did not at once answer, as she was at that moment waiting to hear what Roger Carbury would say about Mrs Hurtle. Roger Carbury had spoken, leaving a conviction on her mind that Mrs Hurtle was by no means a fiction – but indeed a fact very injurious to her happiness. Then Paul's second love-letter had come, full of joy, and love, and contentment – with not a word in it which seemed to have been in the slightest degree influenced by the existence of a Mrs Hurtle. Had there been no Mrs Hurtle, the letter would have been all that Hetta could have desired; and she could have answered it, unless forbidden by her mother, with all a girl's usual enthusiastic affection for her chosen lord. But it was impossible that she should now answer it in that strain– and it was equally impossible that she should leave such letters unanswered. Roger had told her to ‘ask himself,; and she now found herself constrained to bid him either come to her and answer the question, or, if he thought it better, to give her some written account of Mrs Hurtle – so that she might know who the lady was, and whether the lady's condition did in any way interfere with her own happiness. So she wrote to Paul, as follows: –

‘
Welbeck Street, 16th July, 18—.

‘
MY DEAR PAUL.
' She found that after that which had passed between them she could not call him ‘My dear Sir', or ‘My dear Mr Montague', and that it must either be ‘Sir' or ‘My dear Paul'. He was dear to her – very dear; and she thought that he had not been as yet convicted of any conduct bad enough to force her to treat him as an outcast. Had there been no Mrs Hurtle he would have been her ‘Dearest Paul' – but she made her choice, and so commenced.

‘
MY DEAR PAUL,

‘A strange report has come round to me about a lady called Mrs Hurtle. I have been told that she is an American lady living in London, and that she is engaged to be your wife. I cannot believe this. It is too horrid to be true. But I fear – I fear there is something true that will be very very sad for me to hear. It was from my brother I first heard it – who was of course bound to tell me anything he knew. I have talked to mamma about it, and to my cousin Roger. I am sure Roger knows it all – but he will not tell me. He said – ‘Ask himself.' And so I ask you. Of course I can write about nothing else till I have heard about this. I am sure I need not tell you that it has made me very unhappy. If you cannot come and see me at once, you had better write. I have told mamma about this letter.' Then came the difficulty of the signature, with the declaration which must naturally be attached to it. After some hesitation she subscribed herself,

‘Your affectionate friend,

‘HENRIETTA CARBURY.'

‘Most affectionately your own Hetta' would have been the form in which she would have wished to finish the first letter she had ever written to him.

Paul received it at Liverpool on the Wednesday morning, and on the Wednesday evening he was in Welbeck Street. He had been quite aware that it had been incumbent on him to tell her the whole history of Mrs Hurtle. He had meant to keep back – almost nothing. But it had been impossible for him to do so on that one occasion on which he had pleaded his love to her successfully. Let any reader who is intelligent in such matters say whether it would have been possible for him then to have commenced the story of Mrs Hurtle and to have told it to the bitter end. Such a story must be postponed for a second or a third interview. Or it may, indeed, be communicated by letter. When Paul
was called away to Liverpool he did consider whether he should write the story. But there are many reasons strong against such written communications. A man may desire that the woman he loves should hear the record of his folly – so that, in after days, there may be nothing to be detected; so that, should the Mrs Hurtle of his life at any time intrude upon his happiness, he may with a clear brow and undaunted heart say to his beloved one – ‘Ah, this is the trouble of which I spoke to you.' And then he and his beloved one will be in one cause together. But he hardly wishes to supply his beloved one with a written record of his folly. And then who does not know how much tenderness a man may show to his own faults by the tone of his voice, by half-spoken sentences, and by an admixture of words of love for the lady who has filled up the vacant space once occupied by the Mrs Hurtle of his romance? But the written record must go through from beginning to end, self-accusing, thoroughly perspicuous, with no sweet, soft falsehoods hidden under the half-expressed truth. The soft falsehoods which would be sweet as the scent of violets in a personal interview, would stand in danger of being denounced as deceit added to deceit, if sent in a letter. I think therefore that Paul Montague did quite right in hurrying up to London.

He asked for Miss Carbury, and when told that Miss Henrietta was with her mother, he sent his name up and said that he would wait in the dining-room. He had thoroughly made up his mind to this course. They should know that he had come at once; but he would not, if it could be helped, make his statement in the presence of Lady Carbury. Then, upstairs, there was a little discussion. Hetta pleaded her right to see him alone. She had done what Roger had advised, and had done it with her mother's consent. Her mother might be sure that she would not again accept her lover till this story of Mrs Hurtle had been sifted to the very bottom. But she must herself hear what her lover had to say for himself. Felix was at the time in the drawing-room and suggested that he should go down and see Paul Montague on his sister's behalf – but his mother looked at him with scorn, and his sister quietly said that she would rather see Mr Montague herself. Felix had been so cowed by circumstances that he did not say another word, and Hetta left the room alone.

When she entered the parlour Paul stept forward to take her in his arms. That was a matter of course. She knew it would be so, and she had prepared herself for it. ‘Paul,' she said, ‘let me hear about all this – first.' She sat down at some distance from him – and he found himself compelled to seat himself at some little distance from her.

‘And so you have heard of Mrs Hurtle,' he said, with a faint attempt at a smile.

‘Yes; – Felix told me, and Roger evidently had heard about her.'

‘Oh yes; Roger Carbury has heard about her from the beginning – knows the whole history almost as well as I know it myself. I don't think your brother is as well informed.'

‘Perhaps not But – isn't it a story that – concerns me?'

‘Certainly it so far concerns you, Hetta, that you ought to know it. And I trust you will believe that it was my intention to tell it you.'

‘I will believe anything that you will tell me.'

‘If so, I don't think that you will quarrel with me when you know all. I was engaged to marry Mrs Hurtle.'

‘Is she a widow?' – He did not answer this at once. ‘I suppose she must be a widow if you were going to marry her.'

‘Yes; – she is a widow. She was divorced.'

‘Oh, Paul! And she is an American?'

‘Yes.'

‘And you loved her?'

Montague was desirous of telling his own story, and did not wish to be interrogated. ‘If you will allow me I will tell it you all from beginning to end.'

‘Oh, certainly. But I suppose you loved her. If you meant to marry her you must have loved her.' There was a frown upon Hetta's brow and a tone of anger in her voice which made Paul uneasy.

‘Yes; – I loved her once; but I will tell you all.' Then he did tell his story, with a repetition of which the reader need not be detained. Hetta listened with fair attention – not interrupting very often, though when she did interrupt, the little words which she spoke were bitter enough. But she heard the story of the long journey across the American continent, of the ocean journey before the end of which Paul had promised to make this woman his wife. ‘Had she been divorced then?' asked Hetta – ‘because I believe they get themselves divorced just when they like.' Simple as the question was he could not answer it. ‘I could only know what she told me,' he said, as he went on with his story. Then Mrs Hurtle had gone on to Paris, and he, as soon as he reached Carbury, had revealed everything to Roger. ‘Did you give her up then?' demanded Hetta with stern severity. No – not then. He had gone back to San Francisco, and – he had not intended to say that the engagement had been renewed, but he was forced to acknowledge that it had not been broken off. Then he had written to her on his second return to
England – and then she had appeared in London at Mrs Pipkin's lodgings in Islington. ‘I can hardly tell you how terrible that was to me,' he said, ‘for I had by that time become quite aware that my happiness must depend upon you.' He tried the gentle, soft falsehoods that should have been as sweet as violets. Perhaps they were sweet. It is odd how stern a girl can be, while her heart is almost breaking with love. Hetta was very stern.