Lady Anna

"Offer it to her unasked. You have already said that you would not accept her hand if you did not believe that you had her heart also, – and the sentiment did you honour. Think of her condition, and be generous to her."

"Generous to her! You mean generous to Lady Lovel, – generous to Lord Lovel, – generous to all the Lovels except her. It seems to me that all the generosity is to be on one side."

"By no means. We can be generous too."

"If that be generosity, I will be generous. I will offer her that permission. I will not wait till she asks for it. I will beg her to tell me if it be true that she loves this cousin, and if she can say that it is true, she shall want no permission from me to be free. She shall be free."

"It is not a question, you see, between yourself and Lord Lovel. It is quite out of the question that she should in any event become your wife. Even had she power to do it – "

"She has the power."

"Practically she has no such power, Mr. Thwaite. A young person such as Lady Anna Lovel is and must be under the control of her natural guardian. She is so altogether. Her mother could not, – and would not, – constrain her to any marriage; but has quite sufficient power over her to prevent any marriage. Lady Anna has never for a moment supposed that she could become your wife since she learned what were the feelings of her mother and her family." The Serjeant certainly did not keep his promise of being "on the square." "But your generosity is necessary to enable Lady Lovel to bring to a happy termination all those sufferings with which her life has been afflicted."

"I do not owe much to the Countess; but if it be generous to do as I have said I would do, – I will be generous. I will tell her daughter, without any question asked from her, that she is free to marry her cousin if she wishes."

So far the Serjeant, though he had not been altogether as truthful as he had promised, had been discreet. He had said nothing to set the tailor vehemently against the Lovel interest, and had succeeded in obtaining a useful pledge. But, in his next attempt, he was less wise. "I think, you know, Mr. Thwaite, that the Countess also has been generous."

"As how?"

"You have received £9,000 already, I believe."

"I have received what I presume to be my own. If I have had more it shall be refunded."

"No; – no; by no means. Taking a liberal view of the matter, as the Countess was bound to do in honour, she was, I think, right in paying you what she has paid."

"I want nothing from her in what you call honour. I want nothing liberal. If the money be not mine in common honesty she shall have it back again. I want nothing but my own."

"I think you are a little high flown, Mr. Thwaite."

"I dare say I may be, – to the thinking of a lawyer."

"The Countess, who is in truth your friend, – and will always be your friend if you will only be amenable to reason, – has been delighted to think that you are now in possession of a sum of money which will place you above want."

"The Countess is very kind."

"And I can say more than that. She and all her friends are aware how much is due to your father's son. If you will only aid us in our present project, if you will enable Lady Anna to become the wife of her cousin the Earl, much more shall be done than the mere payment of the debt which was due to you. It has been proposed to settle on you for life an annuity of four hundred pounds a year. To this the Countess, Earl Lovel, and Lady Anna will all agree."

"Has the consent of Lady Anna been asked?" demanded the tailor, in a voice which was low, but which the Serjeant felt at the moment to be dangerous.

"You may take my word that it shall be forthcoming," said the Serjeant.

"I will take your word for nothing, Serjeant Bluestone. I do not think that among you all, you would dare to make such a proposition to Lady Anna Lovel, and I wonder that you should dare to make it to me. What have you seen in me to lead you to suppose that I would sell myself for a bribe? And how can you have been so unwise as to offer it after I have told you that she shall be free, – if she chooses to be free? But it is all one. You deal in subterfuges till you think it impossible that a man should be honest. You mine underground, till your eyes see nothing in the open daylight. You walk crookedly, till a straight path is an abomination to you. Four hundred a year is nothing to me for such a purpose as this, – would have been nothing to me even though no penny had been paid to me of the money which is my own. I can easily understand what it is that makes the Earl so devoted a lover. His devotion began when he had been told that the money was hers and not his, – and that in no other way could he get it. Mine began when no one believed that she would ever have a shilling for her fortune, – when all who bore her name and her mother's ridiculed their claim. Mine was growing when my father first asked me whether I grudged that he should spend all that he had in their behalf. Mine came from giving. His springs from the desire to get. Make the four hundred, four thousand; – make it eight thousand, Serjeant Bluestone, and offer it to him. I also will agree. With him you may succeed. Good morning, Serjeant Bluestone. On Monday next I will not be worse than my word, – even though you have offered me a bribe."

The Serjeant let the tailor go without a word further, – not, indeed, having a word to say. He had been insulted in his own chambers, – told that his word was worthless, and his honesty questionable. But he had been so told, that at the moment he had been unable to stop the speaker. He had sat, and smiled, and stroked his chin, and looked at the tailor as though he had been endeavouring to comfort himself with the idea that the man addressing him was merely an ignorant, half-mad, enthusiastic tailor, from whom decent conduct could not be expected. He was still smiling when Daniel Thwaite closed the door, and he almost laughed as he asked his clerk whether that energetic gentleman had taken himself down-stairs. "Oh, yes, sir; he glared at me when I opened the door, and rushed down four steps at a time." But, on the whole, the Serjeant was contented with the interview. It would, no doubt, have been better had he said nothing of the four hundred a year. But in the offering of bribes there is always that danger. One can never be sure who will swallow his douceur at an easy gulp, so as hardly to betray an effort, and who will refuse even to open his lips. And then the latter man has the briber so much at advantage. When the luscious morsel has been refused, it is so easy to be indignant, so pleasant to be enthusiastically virtuous! The bribe had been refused, and so far the Serjeant had failed; – but the desired promise had been made, and the Serjeant felt certain that it would be kept. He did not doubt but that Daniel Thwaite would himself offer the girl her freedom. But there was something in the man, though he was a tailor. He had an eye and a voice, and it might be that freedom offered, as he could offer it, would not be accepted.

Daniel, as he went out into the court from the lawyer's presence, was less satisfied than the lawyer. He had told the lawyer that his word was worth nothing, and yet he had believed much that the lawyer had said to him. The lawyer had told him that the girl loved her cousin, and only wanted his permission to be free that she might give her hand and her heart together to the young lord. Was it not natural that she should wish to do so? Within each hour, almost within each minute, he regarded the matter in lights that were perfectly antagonistic to each other. It was natural that she should wish to be a Countess, and that she should love a young lord who was gentle and beautiful; – and she should have his permission accorded freely. But then, again, it was most unnatural, bestial, and almost monstrous, that a girl should change her love for a man, going from one man to another, simply because the latter man was gilt with gold, and decked with jewels, and sweet with perfume from a hairdresser's. The poet must have been wrong there. If love be anything but a dream, surely it must adhere to the person, and not be liable to change at every offered vantage of name or birth, of rank or wealth.

But she should have the offer. She should certainly have the offer.

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE SERJEANT AND MRS. BLUESTONE AT HOME

Lady Anna was not told till the Saturday that she was to meet her lover, the tailor, on the following Monday. She was living at this time, as it were, in chains, though the chains were gilded. It was possible that she might be off at any moment with Daniel Thwaite, – and now the more possible because he had money at his command. If this should occur, then would the game which the Countess and her friends were playing, be altogether lost. Then would the checkmate have been absolute. The reader will have known that such a step had never been contemplated by the man, and will also have perceived that it would have been altogether opposed to the girl's character; but it is hoped that the reader has looked more closely into the man's motives and the girl's character than even her mother was able to do. The Countess had thought that she had known her daughter. She had been mistaken, and now there was hardly anything of which she could not suspect her girl to be capable. Lady Anna was watched, therefore, during every minute of the four and twenty hours. A policeman was told off to protect the house at night from rope ladders or any other less cumbrous ingenuity. The servants were set on guard. Sarah, the lady's-maid, followed her mistress almost like a ghost when the poor young lady went to her bedroom. Mrs. Bluestone, or one of the girls, was always with her, either indoors or out of doors. Out of doors, indeed, she never went without more guards than one. A carriage had been hired, – a luxury with which Mrs. Bluestone had hitherto dispensed, – and the carriage was always there when Lady Anna suggested that she should like to leave the house. She was warmly invited to go shopping, and made to understand that in the way of ordinary shopping she could buy what she pleased. But her life was inexpressibly miserable. "What does mamma mean to do?" she said to Mrs. Bluestone on the Saturday morning.

"In what way, my dear?"

"Where does she mean to go? She won't live always in Keppel Street?"

"No, – I do not think that she will live always in Keppel Street. It depends a good deal upon you, I think."

"I will go wherever she pleases to take me. The lawsuit is over now, and I don't know why we should stay here. I am sure you can't like it."

To tell the truth, Mrs. Bluestone did not like it at all. Circumstances had made her a gaoler, but by nature she was very ill constituted for that office. The harshness of it was detestable to her, and then there was no reason whatever why she should sacrifice her domestic comfort for the Lovels. The thing had grown upon them, till the Lovels had become an incubus to her. Personally, she liked Lady Anna, but she was unable to treat Lady Anna as she would treat any other girl that she liked. She had told the Serjeant more than once that she could not endure it much longer. And the Serjeant did not like it better than did his wife. It was all a labour of love, and a most unpleasant labour. "The Countess must take her away," the Serjeant had said. And now the Serjeant had been told by the tailor, in his own chambers, that his word was worth nothing!

"To tell you the truth, Lady Anna, we none of us like it, – not because we do not like you, but because the whole thing is disagreeable. You are creating very great misery, my dear, because you are obstinate."

"Because I won't marry my cousin?"

"No, my dear; not because you won't marry your cousin. I have never advised you to marry your cousin, unless you could love him. I don't think girls should ever be told to marry this man or that. But it is very proper that they should be told not to marry this man or that. You are making everybody about you miserable, because you will not give up a most improper engagement, made with a man who is in every respect beneath you."

"I wish I were dead," said Lady Anna.

"It is very easy to say that, my dear; but what you ought to wish is, to do your duty."

"I do wish to do my duty, Mrs. Bluestone."

"It can't be dutiful to stand out against your mother in this way. You are breaking your mother's heart. And if you were to do this thing, you would soon find that you had broken your own. It is downright obstinacy. I don't like to be harsh, but as you are here, in my charge, I am bound to tell you the truth."

"I wish mamma would let me go away," said Lady Anna, bursting into tears.

"She will let you go at once, if you will only make the promise that she asks of you." In saying this, Mrs. Bluestone was hardly more upon the square than her husband had been, for she knew very well, at that moment, that Lady Anna was to go to Keppel Street early on the Monday morning, and she had quite made up her mind that her guest should not come back to Bedford Square. She had now been moved to the special severity which she had shown by certain annoyances of her own to which she had been subjected by the presence of Lady Anna in her house. She could neither entertain her friends nor go out to be entertained by them, and had told the Serjeant more than once that a great mistake had been made in having the girl there at all. But judgment had operated with her as well as feeling. It was necessary that Lady Anna should be made to understand before she saw the tailor that she could not be happy, could not be comfortable, could not be other than very wretched, – till she had altogether dismissed her low-born lover.

"I did not think you would be so unkind to me," sobbed Lady Anna through her tears.

"I do not mean to be unkind, but you must be told the truth. Every minute that you spend in thinking of that man is a disgrace to you."

"Then I shall be disgraced all my life," said Lady Anna, bursting out of the room.

On that day the Serjeant dined at his club, but came home about nine o'clock. It had all been planned so that the information might be given in the most solemn manner possible. The two girls were sitting up in the drawing-room with the guest who, since the conversation in the morning, had only seen Mrs. Bluestone during dinner. First there was the knock at the door, and then, after a quarter of an hour, which was spent up-stairs in perfect silence, there came a message. Would Lady Anna have the kindness to go to the Serjeant in the dining-room. In silence she left the room, and in silence descended the broad staircase. The Serjeant and Mrs. Bluestone were sitting on one side of the fireplace, the Serjeant in his own peculiar arm-chair, and the lady close to the fender, while a seat opposite to them had been placed for Lady Anna. The room was gloomy with dark red curtains and dark flock paper. On the table there burned two candles, and no more. The Serjeant got up and motioned Lady Anna to a chair. As soon as she had seated herself, he began his speech. "My dear young lady, you must be no doubt aware that you are at present causing a great deal of trouble to your best friends."

"I don't want to cause anybody trouble," said Lady Anna, thinking that the Serjeant in speaking of her best friends alluded to himself and his wife. "I only want to go away."

"I am coming to that directly, my dear. I cannot suppose that you do not understand the extent of the sorrow that you have inflicted on your parent by, – by the declaration which you made to Lord Lovel in regard to Mr. Daniel Thwaite." There is nothing, perhaps, in the way of exhortation and scolding which the ordinary daughter, – or son, – dislikes so much as to be told of her, or his, "parent." "My dear fellow, your father will be annoyed," is taken in good part. "What will mamma say?" is seldom received amiss. But when young people have their "parents" thrown at them, they feel themselves to be aggrieved, and become at once antagonistic. Lady Anna became strongly antagonistic. If her mother, who had always been to her her "own, own mamma," was going to be her parent, there must be an end of all hope of happiness. She said nothing, but compressed her lips together. She would not allow herself to be led an inch any way by a man who talked to her of her parent. "The very idea of such a marriage as this man had suggested to you under the guise of friendship was dreadful to her. It could be no more than an idea; – but that you should have entertained it was dreadful. She has since asked you again and again to repudiate the idea, and hitherto you have refused to obey."

"I can never know what mamma really wants till I go and live with her again."

"I am coming to that, Lady Anna. The Countess has informed Mrs. Bluestone that you had refused to give the desired promise unless you should be allowed to see Mr. Daniel Thwaite, intimating, I presume, that his permission would be necessary to free you from your imaginary bond to him."