The Way We Live Now (89 page)

‘Where should I have been?'

‘Oh, you! Somebody else would have made you happy. But do you know, Paul, I think he will never love any one else. I ought not to say so, because it seems to be making so much of myself. But I feel it. He is not so young a man, and yet I think that he never was in love before. He almost told me so once, and what he says is true. There is an unchanging way with him that is awful to think of. He said that he never could be happy unless I would do as he would have me – and he made me almost believe even that. He speaks as though every word he says must come true in the end. Oh, Paul, I love you so dearly – but I almost think that I ought to have obeyed him.' Paul Montague of course had very much to say in answer to this. Among the holy things which did exist to gild this every-day unholy world, love was the holiest. It should be soiled by no falsehood, should know nothing of compromises, should admit no excuses, should make itself subject to no external circumstances. If Fortune had been so kind to him as to give him her heart, poor as his claim might be, she could have no right to refuse him the assurance of her love. And though his rival were an angel, he could have no shadow of a claim upon her – seeing that he had failed to win her heart. It was very well said – at least so Hetta thought – and she made no attempt at argument against him. But what was to be done in reference to poor Roger? She had spoken the word now, and, whether for good or bad, she had given herself to Paul Montague. Even though Roger should have to walk disconsolate to the grave, it could not now be helped. But would it not be right that it should be told? ‘Do you know I almost feel that he is like a father to me,' said Hetta, leaning on her lover's shoulder.

Paul thought it over for a few minutes, and then said that he would himself write to Roger. ‘Hetta, do you know, I doubt whether he will ever speak to me again.'

‘I cannot believe that'.

‘There is a sternness about him which it is very hard to understand. He has taught himself to think that as I met you in his house, and as he then wished you to be his wife, I should not have ventured to love you. How could I have known?'

‘That would be unreasonable.'

‘He is unreasonable – about that It is not reason with him. He always goes by his feelings. Had you been engaged to him –'

‘Oh, then, you never could have spoken to me like this.'

‘But he will never look at it in that way – and he will tell me that I have been untrue to him and ungrateful.'

‘If you think, Paul –'

‘Nay; listen to me. If it be so I must bear it. It will be a great sorrow, but it will be as nothing to that other sorrow, had that come upon me. I will write to him, and his answer will be all scorn and wrath. Then you must write to him afterwards. I think he will forgive you, but he will never forgive me.' Then they parted, she having promised that she would tell her mother directly Lady Carbury came home, and Paul undertaking to write to Roger that evening.

And he did, with infinite difficulty, and much trembling of the spirit. Here is his letter: –

‘MY DEAR ROGER –

‘I think it right to tell you at once what has occurred to-day. I have proposed to Miss Carbury and she has accepted me. You have long known what my feelings were, and I have also known yours. I have known, too, that Miss Carbury has more than once declined to take your offer. Under these circumstances I cannot think that I have been untrue to friendship in what I have done, or that I have proved myself ungrateful for the affectionate kindness which you have always shown me. I am authorized by Hetta to say that, had I never spoken to her, it must have been the same to you.' This was hardly a fair representation of what had been said, but the writer, looking back upon his interview with the lady, thought that it had been implied.

‘I should not say so much by way of excusing myself, but that you once said, that should such a thing occur there must be a division between us ever after. If I thought that you would adhere to that threat, I should be very unhappy and Hetta would be miserable. Surely, if a man loves he is bound to tell his love, and to take the chance. You would hardly have thought it manly in me if I had abstained. Dear friend, take a day or two before you answer this, and do not banish us from your heart if you can help it.

‘Your affectionate friend,

‘PAUL MONTAGUE.'

Roger Carbury did not take a single day, or a single hour to answer the letter. He received it at breakfast, and after rushing out on the terrace and walking there for a few minutes, he hurried to his desk and wrote
his reply. As he did so, his whole face was red with wrath, and his eyes were glowing with indignation.

‘There is an old French saying
¹
that he who makes excuses is his own accuser. You would not have written as you have done, had you not felt yourself to be false and ungrateful. You knew where my heart was, and there you went and undermined my treasure, and stole it away. You have destroyed my life, and I will never forgive you.

‘You tell me not to banish you both from my heart. How dare you join yourself with her in speaking of my feelings! She will never be banished from my heart. She will be there morning, noon, and night, and as is and will be my love to her, so shall be my enmity to you.

‘ROGER CARBURY.'

It was hardly a letter for a Christian to write; and, yet, in those parts Roger Carbury had the reputation of being a good Christian.

Henrietta told her mother that morning, immediately on her return. ‘Mamma, Mr Paul Montague has been here.'

‘He always comes here when I am away,' said Lady Carbury.

‘That has been an accident He could not have known that you were going to Messrs Leadham and Loiter's.'

‘I'm not so sure of that, Hetta.'

‘Then, mamma, you must have told him yourself, and I don't think you knew till just before you were going. But, mamma, what does it matter? He has been here, and I have told him –'

‘You have not accepted him?'

‘Yes, mamma.'

‘Without even asking me?'

‘Mamma, you knew. I will not marry him without asking you. How was I not to tell him when he asked me whether I – loved him?'

‘Marry him! How is it possible you should marry him? Whatever he had got was in that affair of Melmotte's and that has gone to the dogs. He is a ruined man, and for aught I know may be compromised in all Melmotte's wickedness.'

‘Oh, mamma, do not say that!'

‘But I do say it It is hard upon me. I did think that you would try to comfort me after all this trouble with Felix. But you are as bad as he is –or worse, for you have not been thrown into temptation like that poor boy! And you will break your cousin's heart Poor Roger! I feel for him – he that has been so true to us! But you think nothing of that'.

‘I think very much of my cousin Roger.'

‘And how do you show it – or your love for me? There would have been a home for us all. Now we must starve, I suppose. Hetta, you have been worse to me even than Felix.' Then Lady Carbury, in her passion, burst out of the room, and took herself to her own chamber.

Up to this period of his life Sir Felix Carbury had probably felt but little of the punishment due to his very numerous shortcomings. He had spent all his fortune; he had lost his commission in the army; he had incurred the contempt of everybody that had known him; he had forfeited the friendship of those who were his natural friends, and had attached to him none others in their place; he had pretty nearly ruined his mother and sister; but, to use his own language, he had always contrived ‘to carry on the game'. He had eaten and drunk, had gambled, hunted, and diverted himself generally after the fashion considered to be appropriate to young men about town. He had kept up till now. But now there seemed to him to have come an end to all things. When he was lying in bed in his mother's house he counted up all his wealth. He had a few pounds in ready money, he still had a little roll of Mr Miles Grendall's notes of hand, amounting perhaps to a couple of hundred pounds – and Mr Melmotte owed him £600. But where was he to turn, and what was he to do with himself? Gradually he learned the whole story of the journey to Liverpool – how Marie had gone there and had been sent back by the police, how Marie's money had been repaid to Mr Melmotte by Mr Broune, and how his failure to make the journey to Liverpool had become known. He was ashamed to go to his club. He could not go to Melmotte's house. He was ashamed even to show himself in the streets by day. He was becoming almost afraid even of his mother. Now that the brilliant marriage had broken down, and seemed to be altogether beyond hope, now that he had to depend on her household for all his comforts, he was no longer able to treat her with absolute scorn – nor was she willing to yield as she had yielded.

One thing only was clear to him. He must realize his possessions.
With this view he wrote both to Miles Grendall and to Melmotte. To the former he said he was going out of town – probably for some time, and he must really ask for a cheque for the amount due. He went on to remark that he could hardly suppose that a nephew of the Duke of Albury was unable to pay debts of honour to the amount of £200 – but that if such was the case he would have no alternative but to apply to the duke himself. The reader need hardly be told that to this letter Mr Grendall vouchsafed no answer whatever. In his letter to Mr Melmotte he confined himself to one matter of business in hand. He made no allusion whatever to Marie, or to the great man's anger, or to his seat at the board. He simply reminded Mr Melmotte that there was a sum of £600 still due to him, and requested that a cheque might be sent to him for that amount. Melmotte's answer to this was not altogether unsatisfactory, though it was not exactly what Sir Felix had wished. A clerk from Mr Melmotte's office called at the house in Welbeck Street, and handed to Felix railway scrip in the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway to the amount of the sum claimed – insisting on a full receipt for the money before he parted with the scrip. The clerk went on to explain, on behalf of his employer, that the money had been left in Mr Melmotte's hands for the purpose of buying these shares. Sir Felix, who was glad to get anything, signed the receipt and took the scrip. This took place on the day after the balloting at Westminster, when the result was not yet known – and when the shares in the railway were very low indeed. Sir Felix had asked as to the value of the shares at the time. The clerk professed himself unable to quote the price – but there were the shares if Sir Felix liked to take them. Of course he took them – and hurrying off into the City found that they might perhaps be worth about half the money due to him. The broker to whom he showed them could not quite answer for anything. Yes; – the scrip had been very high; but there was a panic. They might recover – or, more probably, they might go to nothing. Sir Felix cursed the Great Financier aloud, and left the scrip for sale. That was the first time that he had been out of the house before dark since his little accident.

But he was chiefly tormented in these days by the want of amusement He had so spent his life hitherto that he did not know how to get through a day in which no excitement was provided for him. He never read. Thinking was altogether beyond him. And he had never done a day's work in his life. He could lie in bed. He could eat and drink. He could smoke and sit idle. He could play cards; and could amuse himself with women – the lower the culture of the women, the better the
amusement. Beyond these things the world had nothing for him. Therefore he again took himself to the pursuit of Ruby Ruggles.

Poor Ruby had endured a very painful incarceration at her aunt's house. She had been wrathful and had stormed, swearing that she would be free to come and go as she pleased. Free to go, Mrs Pipkin told her that she was – but not free to return if she went out otherwise than as she, Mrs Pipkin, chose. ‘Am I to be a slave?' Ruby asked, and almost upset the perambulator which she had just dragged in at the hall door. Then Mrs Hurtle had taken upon herself to talk to her, and poor Ruby had been quelled by the superior strength of the American lady. But she was very unhappy, finding that it did not suit her to be nursemaid to her aunt. After all John Crumb couldn't have cared for her a bit, or he would have come to look after her. While she was in this condition Sir Felix came to Mrs Pipkin's house, and asked for her at the door. It happened that Mrs Pipkin herself had opened the door – and, in her fright and dismay at the presence of so pernicious a young man in her own passage, had denied that Ruby was in the house. But Ruby had heard her lover's voice, and had rushed up and thrown herself into his arms. Then there had been a great scene. Ruby had sworn that she didn't care for her aunt, didn't care for her grandfather, or for Mrs Hurtle, or for John Crumb – or for any person or anything. She cared only for her lover. Then Mrs Hurtle had asked the young man his intentions. Did he mean to marry Ruby? Sir Felix had said that he ‘supposed he might as well some day'. ‘There,' said Ruby, ‘there!' –shouting in triumph as though an offer had been made to her with the completest ceremony of which such an event admits. Mrs Pipkin had been very weak. Instead of calling in the assistance of her strong-minded lodger, she had allowed the lovers to remain together for half an hour in the dining-room. I do not know that Sir Felix in any way repeated his promise during that time, but Ruby was probably too blessed with the word that had been spoken to ask for such renewal. ‘There must be an end of this,' said Mrs Pipkin, coming in when the half-hour was over. Then Sir Felix had gone, promising to come again on the following evening. ‘You must not come here, Sir Felix,' said Mrs Pipkin, ‘unless you puts it in writing.' To this, of course, Sir Felix made no answer. As he went home he congratulated himself on the success of his adventure. Perhaps the best thing he could do when he had realized the money for the shares would be to take Ruby for a tour abroad. The money would last for three or four months – and three or four months ahead was almost an eternity.