The Way We Live Now (30 page)

After dinner he hardly spoke to her; indeed, the room itself – the same big room in which they had been assembled before the feast – seemed to be ill-adapted for conversation. Again nobody talked to anybody, and the minutes went very heavily till at last the carriages were there to take them all home. ‘They arranged that you should sit next to her,' said Lady Carbury to her son, as they were in the carriage.

‘Oh, I suppose that came naturally – one young man and one young woman, you know.'

‘Those things are always arranged, and they would not have done it unless they had thought that it would please Mr Melmotte. Oh, Felix! if you can bring it about.'

‘I shall if I can, mother; you needn't make a fuss about it.'

‘No, I won't. You cannot wonder that I should be anxious. You behaved beautifully to her at dinner; I was so happy to see you together. Good night, Felix, and God bless you!' she said again, as they were parting for the night. ‘I shall be the happiest and the proudest mother in England if this comes about.'

When the Melmottes went from Caversham the house was very desolate. The task of entertaining these people was indeed over, and had the return to London been fixed for a certain near day, there would have been comfort at any rate among the ladies of the family. But this was so far from being the case that the Thursday and Friday passed without anything being settled, and dreadful fears began to fill the minds of Lady Pomona and Sophia Longestaffe. Georgiana was also impatient, but she asserted boldly that treachery, such as that which her mother
and sister contemplated, was impossible. Their father, she thought, would not dare to propose it On each of these days – three or four times daily – hints were given and questions were asked, but without avail. Mr Longestaffe would not consent to have a day fixed till he had received some particular letter, and would not even listen to the suggestion of a day. ‘I suppose we can go at any rate on Tuesday,' Georgiana said on the Friday evening. ‘I don't know why you should suppose anything of the kind,' the father replied. Poor Lady Pomona was urged by her daughters to compel him to name a day; but Lady Pomona was less audacious in urging the request than her younger child, and at the same time less anxious for its completion. On the Sunday morning before they went to church there was a great discussion upstairs. The Bishop of Elmham was going to preach at Caversham church, and the three ladies were dressed in their best London bonnets. They were in their mother's room, having just completed the arrangements of their church-going toilet. It was supposed that the expected letter had arrived. Mr Longestaffe had certainly received a dispatch from his lawyer, but had not as yet vouchsafed any reference to its contents. He had been more than ordinarily silent at breakfast, and – so Sophia asserted – more disagreeable than ever. The question had now arisen especially in reference to their bonnets. ‘You might as well wear them,' said Lady Pomona, ‘for I am sure you will not be in London again this year.'

‘You don't mean it, mamma,' said Sophia.

‘I do, my dear. He looked like it when he put those papers back into his pocket. I know what his face means so well.'

‘It is not possible,' said Sophia. ‘He promised, and he got us to have those horrid people because he promised.'

‘Well, my dear, if your father says that we can't go back, I suppose we must take his word for it. It is he must decide, of course. What he meant, I suppose, was, that he would take us back if he could.'

‘Mamma!' shouted Georgiana. Was there to be treachery not only on the part of their natural adversary, who, adversary though he was, had bound himself to terms by a treaty, but treachery also in their own camp!

‘My dear, what can we do?' said Lady Pomona.

‘Do!' Georgiana was now going to speak out plainly. ‘Make him understand that we are not going to be sat upon like that. I'll do something, if that's going to be the way of it. If he treats me like that I'll run off with the first man that will take me, let him be who it may.'

‘Don't talk like that, Georgiana, unless you wish to kill me.'

‘I'll break his heart for him. He does not care about us – not the least – whether we are happy or miserable; but he cares very much about the family name. I'll tell him that I'm not going to be a slave. I'll marry a London tradesman before I'll stay down here.' The younger Miss Longestaffe was lost in passion at the prospect before her.

‘Oh, Georgey, don't say such horrid things as that,' pleaded her sister.

‘It's all very well for you, Sophy. You've got George Whitstable.'

‘I haven't got George Whitstable.'

‘Yes, you have, and your fish is fried. Dolly does just what he pleases, and spends money as fast as he likes. Of course it makes no difference to you, mamma, where you are.'

‘You are very unjust,' said Lady Pomona, wailing, ‘and you say horrid things.'

‘I ain't unjust at all. It doesn't matter to you. And Sophy is the same as settled. But I'm to be sacrificed! How am I to see anybody down here in this horrid hole? Papa promised, and he must keep his word.'

Then there came to them a loud voice calling to them from the hall. ‘Are any of you coming to church, or are you going to keep the carriage waiting all day?' Of course they were all going to church. They always did go to church when they were at Caversham; and would more especially do so to-day, because of the bishop and because of the bonnets. They trooped down into the hall and into the carriage, Lady Pomona leading the way. Georgiana stalked along, passing her father at the front door without condescending to look at him. Not a word was spoken on the way to church, or on the way home. During the service Mr Longestaffe stood up in the corner of his pew, and repeated the responses in a loud voice. In performing this duty he had been an example to the parish all his life. The three ladies knelt on their hassocks in the most becoming fashion, and sat during the sermon without the slightest sign either of weariness or of attention. They did not collect the meaning of any one combination of sentences. It was nothing to them whether the bishop had or had not a meaning. Endurance of that kind was their strength. Had the bishop preached for forty-five minutes instead of half an hour they would not have complained. It was the same kind of endurance which enabled Georgiana to go on from year to year waiting for a husband of the proper sort. She could put up with any amount of tedium if only the fair chance of obtaining ultimate relief were not denied to her. But to be kept at Caversham all the summer would be as bad as hearing a bishop preach for ever! After the
service they came back to lunch, and that meal also was eaten in silence. When it was over the head of the family put himself into the dining-room arm-chair, evidently meaning to be left alone there. In that case he would have meditated upon his troubles till he went to sleep, and would have thus got through the afternoon with comfort. But this was denied to him. The two daughters remained steadfast while the things were being removed; and Lady Pomona, though she made one attempt to leave the room, returned when she found that her daughters would not follow her. Georgiana had told her sister that she meant to ‘have it out' with her father, and Sophia had of course remained in the room in obedience to her sister's behest. When the last tray had been taken out, Georgiana began. ‘Papa, don't you think you could settle now when we are to go back to town? Of course we want to know about engagements and all that. There is Lady Monogram's party on Wednesday. We promised to be there ever so long ago.'

‘You had better write to Lady Monogram and say you can't keep your engagement.'

‘But why not, papa? We could go up on Wednesday morning.'

‘You can't do anything of the kind.'

‘But, my dear, we should all like to have a day fixed,' said Lady Pomona. Then there was a pause. Even Georgiana, in her present state of mind, would have accepted some distant, even some undefined time, as a compromise.

‘Then you can't have a day fixed,' said Mr Longestaffe.

‘How long do you suppose that we shall be kept here?' said Sophia, in a low constrained voice.

‘I do not know what you mean by being kept here. This is your home, and this is where you may make up your minds to live.'

‘But we are to go back?' demanded Sophia. Georgiana stood by in silence, listening, resolving, and biding her time.

‘You'll not return to London this season,' said Mr Longestaffe, turning himself abruptly to a newspaper which he held in his hands.

‘Do you mean that that is settled?' said Lady Pomona.

‘I mean to say that that is settled,' said Mr Longestaffe.

Was there ever treachery like this! The indignation in Georgiana's mind approached almost to virtue as she thought of her father's falseness. She would not have left town at all but for that promise. She would not have contaminated herself with the Melmottes but for that promise. And now she was told that the promise was to be absolutely broken, when it was no longer possible that she could get back to London – even to the
house of the hated Primeros – without absolutely running away from her father's residence! ‘Then, papa,' she said, with affected calmness, ‘you have simply and with premeditation broken your word to us.'

‘How dare you speak to me in that way, you wicked child!'

‘I am not a child, papa, as you know very well. I am my own mistress – by law.'

‘Then go and be your own mistress. You dare to tell me, your father, that I have premeditated a falsehood! If you tell me that again, you shall eat your meals in your own room or not eat them in this house.'

‘Did you not promise that we should go back if we would come down and entertain these people?'

‘I will not argue with a child, insolent and disobedient as you are. If I have anything to say about it, I will say it to your mother. It should be enough for you that I, your father, tell you that you have to live here. Now go away, and if you choose to be sullen, go and be sullen where I shan't see you.' Georgiana looked round on her mother and sister and then marched majestically out of the room. She still meditated revenge, but she was partly cowed, and did not dare in her father's presence to go on with her reproaches. She stalked off into the room in which they generally lived, and there she stood panting with anger, breathing indignation through her nostrils. ‘And you mean to put up with it, mamma?' she said.

‘What can we do, my dear?'

‘I will do something. I'm not going to be cheated and swindled and have my life thrown away into the bargain. I have always behaved well to him. I have never run up bills without saying anything about them.' This was a cut at her elder sister, who had once got into some little trouble of that kind. ‘I have never got myself talked about with anybody. If there is anything to be done I always do it I have written his letters for him till I have been sick, and when you were ill I never asked him to stay out with us after two or half-past two at the latest. And now he tells me that I am to eat my meals up in my bedroom because I remind him that he distinctly promised to take us back to London. Did he not promise, mamma?'

‘I understood so, my dear.'

‘You know he promised, mamma. If I do anything now he must bear the blame of it I am not going to keep myself straight for the sake of the family, and then be treated in that way.'

‘You do that for your own sake, I suppose,' said her sister.

‘It is more than you've been able to do for anybody's sake,' said
Georgiana, alluding to a very old affair – to an ancient flirtation, in the course of which the elder daughter had made a foolish and a futile attempt to run away with an officer of dragoons whose private fortune was very moderate. Ten years had passed since that, and the affair was never alluded to except in moments of great bitterness.

‘I've kept myself as straight as you have,' said Sophia. ‘It's easy enough to be straight, when a person never cares for anybody, and nobody cares for a person.'

‘My dears, if you quarrel, what am I to do?' said their mother.

‘It is I that have to suffer,' continued Georgiana. ‘Does he expect me to find anybody here that I could take? Poor George Whitstable is not much; but there is nobody else at all.'

‘You may have him if you like,' said Sophia, with a chuck of her head.

‘Thank you, my dear, but I shouldn't like it at all. I haven't come to that quite yet.'

‘You were talking of running away with somebody.'

‘I shan't run away with George Whitstable; you may be sure of that. I'll tell you what I shall do – I will write papa a letter. I suppose he'll condescend to read it If he won't take me up to town himself, he must send me up to the Primeros. What makes me most angry in the whole thing is that we should have condescended to be civil to the Melmottes down in the country. In London one does those things, but to have them here was terrible!'

During that entire afternoon nothing more was said. Not a word passed between them on any subject beyond those required by the necessities of life. Georgiana had been as hard to her sister as to her father, and Sophia in her quiet way resented the affront. She was now almost reconciled to the sojourn in the country, because it inflicted a fitting punishment on Georgiana, and the presence of Mr Whitstable at a distance of not more than ten miles did of course make a difference to herself. Lady Pomona complained of a headache, which was always an excuse with her for not speaking; – and Mr Longestaffe went to sleep. Georgiana during the whole afternoon remained apart, and on the next morning the head of the family found the following letter on his dressing-table: –

‘
MY DEAR PAPA
,

‘I don't think you ought to be surprised because we feel that our going up to town is so very important to us. If we are not to be in London at this time of the year we can never see anybody, and of
course you know what that must mean for me. If this goes on about Sophia, it does not signify for her, and, though mamma likes London, it is not of real importance. But it is very, very hard upon me. It isn't for pleasure that I want to go up. There isn't so very much pleasure in it. But if I'm to be buried down here at Caversham, I might just as well be dead at once. If you choose to give up both houses for a year, or for two years, and take us all abroad, I should not grumble in the least. There are very nice people to be met abroad, and perhaps things go easier that way than in town. And there would be nothing for horses, and we could dress very cheap and wear our old things. I'm sure I don't want to run up bills. But if you would only think what Caversham must be to me, without any one worth thinking about within twenty miles, you would hardly ask me to stay here.