The Palliser Novels (340 page)

In the meantime Miss Palliser was reading the following letter: —
 

Spoon Hall, 11th March, 18–ndash;.

My dear Lord Chiltern
, —

I venture to suppose that at present you are acting as the guardian of Miss Palliser, who has been staying at your house all the winter. If I am wrong in this I hope you will pardon me, and consent to act in that capacity for this occasion. I entertain feelings of the greatest admiration and warmest affection for the young lady I have named, which I ventured to express when I had the pleasure of staying at Harrington Hall in the early part of last month. I cannot boast that I was received on that occasion with much favour; but I know that I am not very good at talking, and we are told in all the books that no man has a right to expect to be taken at the first time of asking. Perhaps Miss Palliser will allow me, through you, to request her to consider my proposal with more deliberation than was allowed to me before, when I spoke to her perhaps with injudicious hurry.
 

So far the Squire adopted his cousin’s words without alteration.
 

I am the owner of my own property, — which is more than everybody can say. My income is nearly £4,000 a year. I shall be willing to make any proper settlement that may be recommended by the lawyers, — though I am strongly of opinion that an estate shouldn’t be crippled for the sake of the widow. As to refurnishing the old house, and all that, I’ll do anything that Miss Palliser may please. She knows my taste about hunting, and I know hers, so that there need not be any difference of opinion on that score.

Miss Palliser can’t suspect me of any interested motives. I come forward because I think she is the most charming girl I ever saw, and because I love her with all my heart. I haven’t got very much to say for myself, but if she’ll consent to be the mistress of Spoon Hall, she shall have all that the heart of a woman can desire.

Pray believe me,

My dear Lord Chiltern,

Yours very sincerely,

Thomas Platter Spooner
.

As I believe that Miss Palliser is fond of books, it may be well to tell her that there is an uncommon good library at Spoon Hall. I shall have no objection to go abroad for the honeymoon for three or four months in the summer.
 

The postscript was the Squire’s own, and was inserted in opposition to the cousin’s judgment. “She won’t come for the sake of the books,” said the cousin. But the Squire thought that the attractions should be piled up. “I wouldn’t talk of the honeymoon till I’d got her to come round a little,” said the cousin. The Squire thought that the cousin was falsely delicate, and pleaded that all girls like to be taken abroad when they’re married. The second half of the body of the letter was very much disfigured by the Squire’s petulance; so that the modesty with which he commenced was almost put to the blush by a touch of arrogance in the conclusion. That sentence in which the Squire declared that an estate ought not to be crippled for the sake of the widow was very much questioned by the cousin. “Such a word as ‘widow’ never ought to go into such a letter as this.” But the Squire protested that he would not be mealy-mouthed. “She can bear to think of it, I’ll go bail; and why shouldn’t she hear about what she can think about?” “Don’t talk about furniture yet, Tom,” the cousin said; but the Squire was obstinate, and the cousin became hopeless. That word about loving her with all his heart was the cousin’s own, but what followed, as to her being mistress of Spoon Hall, was altogether opposed to his judgment. “She’ll be proud enough of Spoon Hall if she comes here,” said the Squire. “I’d let her come first,” said the cousin.

We all know that the phraseology of the letter was of no importance whatever. When it was received the lady was engaged to another man; and she regarded Mr. Spooner of Spoon Hall as being guilty of unpardonable impudence in approaching her at all.

“A red-faced vulgar old man, who looks as if he did nothing but drink,” she said to Lady Chiltern.

“He does you no harm, my dear.”

“But he does do harm. He makes things very uncomfortable. He has no business to think it possible. People will suppose that I gave him encouragement.”

“I used to have lovers coming to me year after year, — the same people, — whom I don’t think I ever encouraged; but I never felt angry with them.”

“But you didn’t have Mr. Spooner.”

“Mr. Spooner didn’t know me in those days, or there is no saying what might have happened.” Then Lady Chiltern argued the matter on views directly opposite to those which she had put forward when discussing the matter with her husband. “I always think that any man who is privileged to sit down to table with you is privileged to ask. There are disparities of course which may make the privilege questionable, — disparities of age, rank, and means.”

“And of tastes,” said Adelaide.

“I don’t know about that. — A poet doesn’t want to marry a poetess, nor a philosopher a philosopheress. A man may make himself a fool by putting himself in the way of certain refusal; but I take it the broad rule is that a man may fall in love with any lady who habitually sits in his company.”

“I don’t agree with you at all. What would be said if the curate at Long Royston were to propose to one of the FitzHoward girls?”

“The Duchess would probably ask the Duke to make the young man a bishop out of hand, and the Duke would have to spend a morning in explaining to her the changes which have come over the making of bishops since she was young. There is no other rule that you can lay down, and I think that girls should understand that they have to fight their battles subject to that law. It’s very easy to say, ‘No.’”

“But a man won’t take ‘No.’”

“And it’s lucky for us sometimes that they don’t,” said Lady Chiltern, remembering certain passages in her early life.

The answer was written that night by Lord Chiltern after much consultation. As to the nature of the answer, — that it should be a positive refusal, — of course there could be no doubt; but then arose a question whether a reason should be given, or whether the refusal should be simply a refusal. At last it was decided that a reason should be given, and the letter ran as follows: —
 

My dear Mr. Spooner
,

I am commissioned to inform you that Miss Palliser is engaged to be married to Mr. Gerard Maule.

Yours faithfully,

Chiltern
.
 

The young lady had consented to be thus explicit because it had been already determined that no secret should be kept as to her future prospects.

“He is one of those poverty-stricken wheedling fellows that one meets about the world every day,” said the Squire to his cousin — “a fellow that rides horses that he can’t pay for, and owes some poor devil of a tailor for the breeches that he sits in. They eat, and drink, and get along heaven only knows how. But they’re sure to come to smash at last. Girls are such fools nowadays.”

“I don’t think there has ever been much difference in that,” said the cousin.

“Because a man greases his whiskers, and colours his hair, and paints his eyebrows, and wears kid gloves, by George, they’ll go through fire and water after him. He’ll never marry her.”

“So much the better for her.”

“But I hate such d–––– impudence. What right has a man to come forward in that way who hasn’t got a house over his head, or the means of getting one? Old Maule is so hard up that he can barely get a dinner at his club in London. What I wonder at is that Lady Chiltern shouldn’t know better.”

Madame Goesler remained at Matching till after the return of Mr. Palliser — or, as we must now call him, the Duke of Omnium — from Gatherum Castle, and was therefore able to fight her own battle with him respecting the gems and the money which had been left her. He brought to her with his own hands the single ring which she had requested, and placed it on her finger. “The goldsmith will soon make that all right,” she said, when it was found to be much too large for the largest finger on which she could wear a ring. “A bit shall be taken out, but I will not have it reset.”

“You got the lawyer’s letter and the inventory, Madame Goesler?”

“Yes, indeed. What surprises me is that the dear old man should never have spoken of so magnificent a collection of gems.”

“Orders have been given that they shall be packed.”

“They may be packed or unpacked, of course, as your Grace pleases, but pray do not connect me with the packing.”

“You must be connected with it.”

“But I wish not to be connected with it, Duke. I have written to the lawyer to renounce the legacy, and, if your Grace persists, I must employ a lawyer of my own to renounce them after some legal form. Pray do not let the case be sent to me, or there will be so much trouble, and we shall have another great jewel robbery. I won’t take it in, and I won’t have the money, and I will have my own way. Lady Glen will tell you that I can be very obstinate when I please.”

Lady Glencora had told him so already. She had been quite sure that her friend would persist in her determination as to the legacy, and had thought that her husband should simply accept Madame Goesler’s assurances to that effect. But a man who had been Chancellor of the Exchequer could not deal with money, or even with jewels, so lightly. He assured his wife that such an arrangement was quite out of the question. He remarked that property was property, by which he meant to intimate that the real owner of substantial wealth could not be allowed to disembarrass himself of his responsibilities or strip himself of his privileges by a few generous but idle words. The late Duke’s will was a very serious thing, and it seemed to the heir that this abandoning of a legacy bequeathed by the Duke was a making light of the Duke’s last act and deed. To refuse money in such circumstances was almost like refusing rain from heaven, or warmth from the sun. It could not be done. The things were her property, and though she might, of course, chuck them into the street, they would no less be hers. “But I won’t have them, Duke,” said Madame Goesler; and the late Chancellor of the Exchequer found that no proposition made by him in the House had ever been received with a firmer opposition. His wife told him that nothing he could say would be of any avail, and rather ridiculed his idea of the solemnity of wills. “You can’t make a person take a thing because you write it down on a thick bit of paper, any more than if you gave it her across a table. I understand it all, of course. She means to show that she didn’t want anything from the Duke. As she refused the name and title, she won’t have the money and jewels. You can’t make her take them, and I’m quite sure you can’t talk her over.” The young Duke was not persuaded, but had to give the battle up, — at any rate, for the present.

On the 19th of March Madame Goesler returned to London, having been at Matching Priory for more than three weeks. On her journey back to Park Lane many thoughts crowded on her mind. Had she, upon the whole, done well in reference to the Duke of Omnium? The last three years of her life had been sacrificed to an old man with whom she had not in truth possessed aught in common. She had persuaded herself that there had existed a warm friendship between them; — but of what nature could have been a friendship with one whom she had not known till he had been in his dotage? What words of the Duke’s speaking had she ever heard with pleasure, except certain terms of affection which had been half mawkish and half senile? She had told Phineas Finn, while riding home with him from Broughton Spinnies, that she had clung to the Duke because she loved him, but what had there been to produce such love? The Duke had begun his acquaintance with her by insulting her, — and had then offered to make her his wife. This, — which would have conferred upon her some tangible advantages, such as rank, and wealth, and a great name, — she had refused, thinking that the price to be paid for them was too high, and that life might even yet have something better in store for her. After that she had permitted herself to become, after a fashion, head nurse to the old man, and in that pursuit had wasted three years of what remained to her of her youth. People, at any rate, should not say of her that she had accepted payment for the three years’ service by taking a casket of jewels. She would take nothing that should justify any man in saying that she had been enriched by her acquaintance with the Duke of Omnium. It might be that she had been foolish, but she would be more foolish still were she to accept a reward for her folly. As it was there had been something of romance in it, — though the romance of friendship at the bedside of a sick and selfish old man had hardly been satisfactory.

Even in her close connection with the present Duchess there was something which was almost hollow. Had there not been a compact between them, never expressed, but not the less understood? Had not her dear friend, Lady Glen, agreed to bestow upon her support, fashion, and all kinds of worldly good things, — on condition that she never married the old Duke? She had liked Lady Glencora, — had enjoyed her friend’s society, and been happy in her friend’s company, — but she had always felt that Lady Glencora’s attraction to herself had been simply on the score of the Duke. It was necessary that the Duke should be pampered and kept in good humour. An old man, let him be ever so old, can do what he likes with himself and his belongings. To keep the Duke out of harm’s way Lady Glencora had opened her arms to Madame Goesler. Such, at least, was the interpretation which Madame Goesler chose to give to the history of the last three years. They had not, she thought, quite understood her. When once she had made up her mind not to marry the Duke, the Duke had been safe from her; — as his jewels and money should be safe now that he was dead.

Three years had passed by, and nothing had been done of that which she had intended to do. Three years had passed, which to her, with her desires, were so important. And yet she hardly knew what were her desires, and had never quite defined her intentions. She told herself on this very journey that the time had now gone by, and that in losing these three years she had lost everything. As yet, — so she declared to herself now, — the world had done but little for her. Two old men had loved her; one had become her husband, and the other had asked to become so; — and to both she had done her duty. To both she had been grateful, tender, and self-sacrificing. From the former she had, as his widow, taken wealth which she valued greatly; but the wealth alone had given her no happiness. From the latter, and from his family, she had accepted a certain position. Some persons, high in repute and fashion, had known her before, but everybody knew her now. And yet what had all this done for her? Dukes and duchesses, dinner-parties and drawing-rooms, — what did they all amount to? What was it that she wanted?