Then, Lady Cashel, reflecting on what her daughter had told her, and yet anxious that the marriage should, if possible, take place at some time or other, sent Griffiths down to her lord, with a message—“Would his lordship be kind enough to step up-stairs to her ladyship?” Lord Cashel went up, and again had all the difficulties of the case opened out before him.
“But you see,” said her ladyship, “poor Fanny—she’s become so unreasonable—I don’t know what’s come to her—I’m sure I do everything I can to make her happy: but I suppose if she don’t like to marry, nobody can make her.”
“Make her?—who’s talking of making her?” said the earl.
“No, of course not,” continued the countess; “that’s just what Selina says; no one can make her do anything, she’s got so obstinate, of late: but it’s all that horrid Lord Ballindine, and those odious horses. I’m sure I don’t know what business gentlemen have to have horses at all; there’s never any good comes of it. There’s Adolphus—he’s had the good sense to get rid of his, and yet Fanny’s so foolish, she’d sooner have that other horrid man—and I’m sure he’s not half so good-looking, nor a quarter so agreeable as Adolphus.”
All these encomiums on his son, and animadversions on Lord Ballindine, were not calculated to put the earl into a good humour; he was heartily sick of the subject; thoroughly repented that he had not allowed his son to ruin himself in his own way; detested the very name of Lord Ballindine, and felt no very strong affection for his poor innocent ward. He accordingly made his wife nearly the same answer he had made his daughter, and left her anything but comforted by the visit.
It was about eleven o’clock on the same evening, that Lord Kilcullen, after parting with Fanny, opened the book-room door. He had been quite sincere in what he had told her. He had made up his mind entirely to give over all hopes of marrying her himself, and to tell his father that the field was again open for Lord Ballindine, as far as he was concerned.
There is no doubt that he would not have been noble enough to do this, had he thought he had himself any chance of being successful; but still there was something chivalrous in his resolve, something magnanimous in his determination to do all he could for the happiness of her he really loved, when everything in his own prospects was gloomy, dark, and desperate. As he entered his father’s room, feeling that it would probably be very long before he should be closeted with him again, he determined that he would not quietly bear reproaches, and even felt a source of satisfaction in the prospect of telling his father that their joint plans were overturned—their schemes completely at an end.
“I’m disturbing you, my lord, I’m afraid,” said the son, walking into the room, not at all with the manner of one who had any hesitation at causing the disturbance.
“Who’s that?” said the earl—“Adolphus?—no—yes. That is, I’m just going to bed; what is it you want?” The earl had been dozing after all the vexations of the day.
“To tell the truth, my lord, I’ve a good deal that I wish to say: will it trouble you to listen to me?”