There was no reply, but my Lady knew she had a listener.
“You have heard the story of his marriage?”
“Save that he is married I have heard nothing, Madam.”
“A singular case. You may turn the story into a play and act in it one day, Mrs. Fenton, but the lady concerned does not resemble you. At the age of fourteen his Grace was contracted by his father and hers to his distant cousin the daughter of the Earl of Carberry—a young lady of nineteen. He had not so much as seen her, and was then at school. Two years later he was sent to make the Grand Tour, and at the age of eighteen was recalled to marry,—she then being twenty-three. When he saw her he entreated his father to release him— You will not wonder if ever you see and know her Grace. He threatened to shoot himself sooner than marry her. At last he flatly refused. Finally my Lord Carberry waited upon him and told him that the best years of her life were gone waiting for him, that she was homely, had no fortune, that her only recommendation was her relationship to the Poulet family (his Grace’s), that, in short ’twould be her ruin if he refused her now. Can you guess his reply?”
“Yes,—for I know the Duke,” says Diana, lifting her head, her great eyes fixed like stars on my Lady. “He would say—‘She shall not suffer for me.’ ”
“Exactly. I see you know him. He made it plain to her father that ’twould be a ceremony and no more. And so he carried the matter through but never lived with her.”
Silence. My Lady proceeded.
“Later, when his father died ’twas known that had his Grace acted then it would have been possible to carry a bill through the House of Lords to dissolve the marriage. ’Twas known also that his Majesty the last King was favourable. His Grace was warned that ’twas then or never. He replied that the poor lady had never offended him, that she was his wife and to cast her off would be a dastardly action. So the chance past never to return. He has now been married sixteen years.”
Silence still. Again my Lady Fanny spoke.
“Thus he has condemned himself to a life of misery lest another should suffer. I know not any man else who would do the like. Do you, Mrs. Fenton?”