“But not cold,” the Duchess said.
“I don’t know what you mean by cold; yes, cold, certainly, in my sense of the word, as every woman ought to be. I believe that unless I put it before her—or you as my representative—she is far too pure-minded and elevated ever to think of marriage at all.”
“If she were shut up in a tower,” said the Duchess; “but unfortunately there are so many things in this world to force the idea upon her, and if you really wish her to marry——”
“Of course I wish her to marry,” said the Duke, almost angrily; and then he added, “in her own rank in life.”
The Duchess asked herself afterwards whether this had been a wise way of directing her husband’s attention to the subject. She had meant it to be very wise, but conversation is one of those strange things that will manage itself. However closely we may have laid down the lines of what we shall say, it is pretty certain to balk us and direct us in other ways. This had been the case on the present occasion. Instead of directing the Duke’s mind to the possibility of receiving a suitor who should be indispensable to Jane’s happiness, though not of her rank, she had only elicited from him a repetition of his determination that nobody out of her own rank should marry Lady Jane. She thought with a shiver of Winton coming down full of hope with the intention of unfolding his rent-roll, and his statement of the settlements he was able to make, for the Duke’s satisfaction. The Duke was one of the few men remaining in the nineteenth century who was invulnerable to money. Susan Hungerford was enough to give any one a disgust at that manner of filling the household coffers. Perhaps it would have been better to say nothing, to let Winton work upon the Duke by that respectful admiration for his opinions which he had already shown. She walked back to the castle with a sense of failure in her mind. For her part, she would not have been at all disinclined towards a clergyman (had he been nice) who would have established her child in the beautiful rectory not a quarter of a mile from the lodge-gates, and kept her constantly, as it were, at home. But there was no clergyman available, and no question of that. Lady Jane gave her a half-timid glance when she went into the drawing-room with the fresh air of the evening about her. She would not inquire whether there had been any talk of herself between her parents; but she could not keep that question out of her eyes. All the Duchess’s reply was to give her a kiss, and ask whether she had not been out this delicious evening. “This is better than town,” her Grace said. Was it better than town? For the first time, with a soft sigh Lady Jane remained silent and did not echo the sentiment. The country is sweet, and the woods, and fields, and one’s native air, and the silence of nature—but there are other things which perhaps even in smoky London, among the bricks and mortar which his Grace made so little of, were still more sweet. Of all people in the world, Lady Jane was the last to prefer a ball-room, or the jaded and heated crowds at the end of the season. But for the first time in her life she thought of these assemblies with a sigh.
CHAPTER VII.
SUSPENSE.
Winton stayed in London until September, with a certain sense of satisfaction in this self-martyrdom. It was totally unnecessary and could advantage nobody—but the thought of going into the country and pretending to enjoy himself while everything was so doubtful as to his future prospects, was disagreeable to him. He neglected his friends, he declined his invitations, he took pleasure in making himself miserable, and in pouring out his loneliness and wretchedness on sheet after sheet of note-paper, and addressing the budget to Billings Court; from whence, very soon indeed after this practice began, the Duchess, alarmed, sent him an energetic protestation. “Such a hot correspondence will soon awaken suspicions,” she wrote; “for Jane’s sake I implore you to be a little more patient.” “Patient! much she knows about it!” Winton said, when, pouncing upon this letter with the hope of finding, perhaps—who could tell?—the Duke’s consent in it and final sanction, he encountered this disappointing check. What could she know about it indeed, with Jane by her side, and all that she cared for? Perhaps in other circumstances the young man might have had a glimmering perception that the Duchess was well acquainted with the exercise of patience, even though Jane was her daughter; but at present his own affairs entirely occupied his mind. He spent a good deal of his time in Wardour Street and other cognate regions, and attended a great many sales, in which there was some degree of soothing to be obtained; for to “pick up” something which might hereafter grace her sitting-room, gave a glory to bric-a-brac, and thus he seemed to be doing something for her, even when most entirely separated from her. Jane herself wrote to him the most soothing of letters. “So long as we know each other as we do, and trust each other, what does a little delay matter?” she said. Poor Winton cried out, “Much she knows about it!” again, as he kissed yet almost tore, in loving fury, her tender little epistle. This was very unreasonable, for of course she knew quite as much about it as he did. When a pair of lovers are parted, it is not the lady that is supposed to feel it the least.
And yet he was more or less justified in that despairing exclamation, for Jane’s perfect faith was such as is rarely possible to a man who has been in the world. He did not feel at all sure that she might not be capable out of pure sweetness and self-sacrifice—that pernicious doctrine in which, he said to himself angrily, women are nourished—of giving him up. Even the Duchess sometimes thought so, deceived by the serene aspect of her child, who did not pine or sigh, but pursued her gentle career with a more than ordinary sweetness and pleasure in it. Lady Jane had the advantage over both these doubting souls. Doubt was not in her; and she was aware, as they were not, of the persistency of her own steadfast nature, which, in the absence of all experience to the contrary, she held to be a universal characteristic. It did not occur to her as possible that having made up his mind on an important subject—far less given his heart, to use the sentimental language which she blushed yet was pleased in the depths of her seclusion to employ—any man—or woman either—could be persuaded or forced to change it. Many things were possible—but not that. She had no excitement on the subject, because it was outside of all her consciousness, a thing impossible. Change! give up! The only result of such a suggestion upon Lady Jane was a faintly humorous and perfectly serene smile. But Winton had not this admirable serenity. Perhaps he was not himself so absolutely true as the stainless creature whom he loved. He worked himself up into little fits of passion sometimes, asking himself how could he tell what agencies might be brought to bear upon her, what necessities might be urged upon her? It was very well known that the Duke was poor; and if it so happened that in the depths of his embarrassment somebody stepped forward with one of those fabulous fortunes which are occasionally to be met with, ready to free the father at the cost of the daughter, as occurs sometimes even out of novels, would Jane be able to resist all the inducements that would be brought to bear upon her? Winton sprang from his feet more than once with a wild intention of rushing to his lawyers and instructing them to stop his Grace’s mouth with a bundle of bank-notes, lest he might lend an ear to that imaginary millionaire. And on coming to his senses, it must be said that the Duke’s overweening pride, which was working his own harm, was the point of consolation to which the lover clung, and not any conviction of the firmness of Lady Jane in such circumstances. It was a comfort that his Grace was far too haughty in his dukedom to suffer the approach of mere millionaires.
In September, Lady Germaine returning from that six weeks at Homburg with which it was the fashion in those days for worn-out fine ladies to recruit themselves after the labours of the season, and pausing in London two days in a furious accès of shopping before she went to the country, saw Winton pass the door at which her carriage was standing, and pounced upon him with all the eagerness of an explorer in a savage country. “You here!” she said; “for goodness’ sake come and help me with my shopping. I have not spoken two words together for a week—not even on the journey! There was nobody: I can’t think where the people have gone to: one used to be sure of picking up some one on the way, but there was nobody. Well! and how are things going?” she added, making a distinct pause after her first little personal outburst was over.
“Very badly,” Winton said, with a sigh.