He went down to Brotherton to bring his wife up to London, but met her at the deanery, refusing to go to the house. When the Marchioness heard of this,—and it became impossible to keep it from her,—she declared that it was with herself that her son George must have quarrelled. Then it was necessary to tell her the whole truth, or nearly the whole. Brotherton had behaved so badly to his brother that Lord George had refused to enter even the park. The poor old woman was very wretched, feeling in some dim way that she was being robbed of both her sons. "I don't know what I've done," she said, "that everything should be like this. I'm sure I did all I could for them; but George never would behave properly to his elder brother, and I don't wonder that Brotherton feels it. Brotherton always had so much feeling. I don't know why George should be jealous because Popenjoy was born. Why shouldn't his elder brother have a son of his own like anybody else?" And yet whenever she saw Mary, which she did for two or three hours every day, she was quite alive to the coming interest. It was suggested to her that she should be driven into Brotherton, so that she might see George at the deanery; but her objection to go to the Dean's house was as strong as was that of Lord George to come to his brother's.
Mary was of course delighted when the hour of her escape came. It had seemed to her that there was especial cruelty in keeping her at Manor Cross while her husband was up in town. Her complaints on this head had of course been checked by her husband's unexpected journey to Naples, as to which she had hardly heard the full particulars till she found herself in the train with him. "After going all that way he wouldn't see you!"
"He neither would see me or send me any message."
"Then he must be a bad man."
"He has lived a life of self-indulgence till he doesn't know how to control a thought or a passion. It was something of that kind which was meant when we were told about the rich man and the eye of the needle."
"But you will be a rich man soon, George."
"Don't think of it, Mary; don't anticipate it. God knows I have never longed for it. Your father longs for it."
"Not for his own sake, George."
"He is wrong all the same. It will not make you happier,—nor me."
"But, George, when you thought that that little boy was not Popenjoy you were as anxious as papa to find it all out."