Marion Fay: A Novel

by Anthony Trollope

"I do not think she will say that."

"How can you tell?"

"It is the nature of a girl, I think," said Lady Frances, "to doubt a little when she thinks that she can love, but not to doubt at all when she feels that she cannot. She may be persuaded afterwards to change her mind, but at first she is certain enough."

"I call that shilly-shally."

"Not at all. The girl I'm speaking of is honest throughout. And Miss Fay will have been honest should she accept you now. It is not often that such a one as you, John, can ask a girl in vain."

"That is mean," he said, angrily. "That is imputing falseness, and greed, and dishonour to the girl I love. If she has liked some fellow clerk in her father's office better than she likes me, shall she accept me merely because I am my father's son?"

"It was not that of which I was thinking. A man may have personal gifts which will certainly prevail with a girl young and unsullied by the world, as I suppose is your Marion Fay."

"Bosh," he said, laughing. "As far as personal gifts are concerned, one fellow is pretty nearly the same as another. A girl has to be good-looking. A man has got to have something to buy bread and cheese with. After that it is all a mere matter of liking and disliking—unless, indeed, people are dishonest, which they very often are."

Up to this period of his life Lord Hampstead had never met any girl whom he had thought it desirable to make his wife. It was now two years since the present Marchioness had endeavoured to arrange an alliance between him and her own niece, Lady Amaldina Hauteville. This, though but two years had passed since, seemed to him to have occurred at a distant period of his life. Very much had occurred to him during those two years. His political creed had been strengthened by the convictions of others, especially by those of George Roden, till it had included those advanced opinions which have been described. He had annoyed, and then dismayed, his father by his continued refusal to go into Parliament. He had taken to himself ways of living of his own, which gave to him the manners and appearance of more advanced age. At that period, two years since, his stepmother still conceived high hopes of him, even though he would occasionally utter in her presence opinions which seemed to be terrible. He was then not of age, and there would be time enough for a woman of her tact and intellect to cure all those follies. The best way of curing them, she thought, would be by arranging a marriage between the heir to the Marquisate and the daughter of so distinguished a conservative Peer as her brother-in-law, Lord Persiflage. Having this high object in view, she opened the matter with diplomatic caution to her sister. Lady Persiflage had at that moment begun to regard Lord Llwddythlw as a possible son-in-law, but was alive to the fact that Lord Hampstead possessed some superior advantages. It was possible that her girl should really love such a one as Lord Hampstead,—hardly possible that there should be anything romantic in a marriage with the heir of the Duke of Merioneth. As far as wealth and rank went there was enough in both competitors. She whispered therefore to her girl the name of the younger aspirant,—aspirant as he might be hoped to be,—and the girl was not opposed to the idea. Only let there be no falling to the ground between two stools; no starving for want of fodder between two bundles of hay! Lord Llwddythlw had already begun to give symptoms. No doubt he was bald; no doubt he was pre-occupied with Parliament and the county. There was no doubt that his wife would have to encounter that touch of ridicule which a young girl incurs when she marries a man altogether removed beyond the world of romance. But dukes are scarce, and the man of business was known to be a man of high honour. There would be no gambling, no difficulties, no possible question of a want of money. And then his politics were the grandest known in England,—those of an old Tory willing always to work for his party without desiring any of those rewards which the "party" wishes to divide among as select a number as possible. What Lord Hampstead might turn out to be, there was as yet no knowing. He had already declared himself to be a Radical. He was fond of hunting, and it was quite on the cards that he should take to Newmarket. Then, too, his father might live for five-and-twenty years, whereas the Duke of Merioneth was already nearly eighty. But Hampstead was as beautiful as a young Phœbus, and the pair would instantly become famous if only from their good looks alone. The chance was given to Lady Amaldina, but only given on the understanding that she must make very quick work of her time.

Hampstead was coaxed down to Castle Hautboy for a month in September, with an idea that the young lovers might be as romantic as they pleased among the Lakes. Some little romance there was; but at the end of the first week Amaldina wisely told her mother that the thing wouldn't do. She would always be glad to regard Lord Hampstead as a cousin, but as to anything else, there must be an end of it. "I shall some day give up my title and abandon the property to Freddy. I shall then go to the United States, and do the best I can there to earn my own bread." This little speech, made by the proposed lover to the girl he was expected to marry, opened Lady Amaldina's eyes to the danger of her situation. Lord Llwddythlw was induced to spend two days in the following month at Castle Hautboy, and then the arrangements for the Welsh alliance were completed.