Lady Anna

by Anthony Trollope

"That's impossible, Jane. She came down here on purpose to have him. She went out with him this morning to be made love to. They were together three times longer yesterday, and he came home as sweet as sugar to her. I wonder whether she can have wanted to make some condition about the money."

"What condition?"

"That she and her mother should have it in their own keeping."

"She doesn't seem to be that sort of a young woman," said aunt Jane.

"There's no knowing what that Mr. Goffe, Serjeant Bluestone, and her mother may have put her up to. Frederic wouldn't stand that kind of thing for a minute, and he would be quite right. Better anything than that a man shouldn't be his own master. I think you'd better go up to her, Jane. She'll be more comfortable with you than with me." Then aunt Jane, obedient as usual, went up to her young cousin's bedroom.

In the meantime the young lord was standing on the river's brink, thinking what he would do. He had, in truth, very much of which to think, and points of most vital importance as to which he must resolve what should be his action. Must this announcement which he had heard from his cousin dissolve for ever the prospect of his marriage with her; or was it open to him still, as a nobleman, a gentleman, and a man of honour, to make use of all those influences which he might command with the view of getting rid of that impediment of a previous engagement? Being very ignorant of the world at large, and altogether ignorant of this man in particular, he did not doubt that the tailor might be bought off. Then he was sure that all who would have access to Lady Anna would help him in such a cause, and that her own mother would be the most forward to do so. The girl would hardly hold to such a purpose if all the world,—all her own world, were against her. She certainly would be beaten from it if a bribe sufficient were offered to the tailor. That this must be done for the sake of the Lovel family, so that Lady Anna Lovel might not be known to have married a tailor, was beyond a doubt; but it was not so clear to him that he could take to himself as his Countess her who with her own lips had told him that she intended to be the bride of a working artisan. As he thought of this, as his imagination went to work on all the abominable circumstances of such a betrothal, he threw from his hand into the stream with all the vehemence of passion a little twig which he held. It was too, too frightful, too disgusting; and then so absolutely unexpected, so unlike her personal demeanour, so contrary to the look of her eyes, to the tone of her voice, to every motion of her body! She had been sweet, and gentle, and gracious, till he had almost come to think that her natural feminine gifts of ladyship were more even than her wealth, of better savour than her rank, were equal even to her beauty, which he had sworn to himself during the past night to be unsurpassed. And this sweet one had told him,—this one so soft and gracious,—not that she was doomed by some hard fate to undergo the degrading thraldom, but that she herself had willingly given herself to a working tailor from love, and gratitude, and free selection! It was a marvel to him that a thing so delicate should have so little sense of her own delicacy! He did not think that he could condescend to take the tailor's place.

But if not,—if he would not take it, or if, as might still be possible, the tailor's place could not be made vacant for him,—what then? He had pledged his belief in the justice of his cousin's claim; and had told her that, believing his own claim to be unjust, in no case would he prosecute it. Was he now bound by that assurance,—bound to it even to the making of the tailor's fortune; or might he absent himself from any further action in the matter, leaving it entirely in the hands of the lawyers? Might it not be best for her happiness that he should do so? He had been told that even though he should not succeed, there might arise almost interminable delay. The tailor would want his money before he married, and thus she might be rescued from her degradation till she should be old enough to understand it. And yet how could he claim that of which he had said, now a score of times, that he knew that it was not his own? Could he cease to call this girl by the name which all his people had acknowledged as her own, because she had refused to be his wife; and declare his conviction that she was base-born only because she had preferred to his own the addresses of a low-born man, reeking with the sweat of a tailor's board? No, he could not do that. Let her marry but the sweeper of a crossing, and he must still call her Lady Anna,—if he called her anything.

Something must be done, however. He had been told by the lawyers how the matter might be made to right itself, if he and the young lady could at once agree to be man and wife; but he had not been told what would follow, should she decline to accept his offer. Mr. Flick and the Solicitor-General must know how to shape their course before November came round,—and would no doubt want all the time to shape it that he could give them. What was he to say to Mr. Flick and to the Solicitor-General? Was he at liberty to tell to them the secret which the girl had told to him? That he was at liberty to say that she had rejected his offer must be a matter of course; but might he go beyond that, and tell them the whole story? It would be most expedient for many reasons that they should know it. On her behalf even it might be most salutary,—with that view of liberating her from the grasp of her humiliating lover. But she had told it him, against her own interests, at her own peril, to her own infinite sorrow,—in order that she might thus allay hopes in which he would otherwise have persevered. He knew enough of the little schemes and by-ways of love, of the generosity and self-sacrifice of lovers, to feel that he was bound to confidence. She had told him that if needs were he might repeat her tale;—but she had told him at the same time that her tale was a secret. He could not go with her secret to a lawyer's chambers, and there divulge in the course of business that which had been extracted from her by the necessity to which she had submitted of setting him free. He could write to Mr. Flick,—if that at last was his resolve,—that a marriage was altogether out of the question, but he could not tell him why it was so.

He wandered slowly on along the river, having decided only on this,—only on this as a certainty,—that he must tell her secret neither to the lawyers, nor to his own people. Then, as he walked, a little hand touched his behind, and when he turned Minnie Lovel took him by the arm. "Why are you all alone, Fred?"

"I am meditating how wicked the world is,—and girls in particular."