“If things go right it will not be the last evening,” he cried. “The Duchess said a man could not stay who had been refused; but even she would allow that a man who has not been refused may remain and be happy. Ah, Jane! imagine the happiness of being allowed to belong to each other! no more secret meetings, no further alarms or discovery.”
She gave a sigh of happiness and relief, yet blushed almost painfully. The idea of doing anything which she did not wish to be found out hurt her still, notwithstanding that in the stress of the crisis she had yielded to do it. Winton’s conscience was not so delicate, and his excitement made him wildly confident. It is a woman’s part to fear in such a case as it is her part to encourage in the midst of doubt. “Provided,” she said, with a little sigh of suspense, “provided it all goes as we wish.”
He took her hands in his and held them fast and stood bending over her looking into her eyes. “Supposing,” he said slowly, “supposing,”—he was so excited and sure of what was going to happen that he could afford to be theatrical,—“supposing all should not go as we wish, Jane—what then?”
Lady Jane did not make any reply. She returned his look, with her hands clasping his, standing steadfast without a shadow of wavering. She felt as she had done in her youth when she had imagined herself facing the guillotine. She was ready to suffer whatever might be inflicted upon her, but to yield, she would not. It would have been easier by far to die.
All this time the Duchess let them have their way. They were ungrateful, they were even unkind, but she endured it with a patience and toleration to which long experience had trained her. If it was with a little pang that she kissed her daughter, wondering at that universal law which makes a woman, still more than a man, forsake father and mother, and cleave to her husband, she said nothing about it: she left them to themselves and their hopes. She said to herself that they would find out too soon what a broken reed they were trusting to, and her heart ached for the failure of those anticipations which gave Lady Jane so beautiful a colour, and an air of such serene happiness. Better that she should have a happy evening, that she should sleep softly and wake hopefully once more.
The morning of the great day dawned in a weeping mist, the heavens leaden, the earth sodden, and streams of blinding rain falling by intervals. Lady Jane, as she opened her eyes upon the misty daylight, and thought, as soon as her faculties were awake, of what was going to be done, clasped her soft hands, and said a prayer for him, and for herself, and still more warmly for her father, who was, so to speak, on his trial. He had never been less than a noble father in Lady Jane’s eyes. She had not found him out, being scarcely of her generation in this respect, and accepting unaffectedly what was presented to her as the real state of things; but she could not help feeling that the Duke was on his trial. He might deny her lover’s suit and break her own heart, and yet keep his child’s respect. But a vague fear lest he should not do this had got into her soul she did not know how. She waited with a tremor which she could not subdue for the moment. How fortunate it was that it rained, and that it was impossible to go out! For once in her life Lady Jane failed in her duty. She escaped from little Lady Adela, who was so anxious to be taken into her confidence, and from the other guests, who, seeing the hopelessness of the weather, were yawning together in the great bow-window of the morning-room, gazing out upon the sodden grass and dreary avenue, dripping from every tree, and wondering how they were to kill the time till luncheon. Lady Jane, instead of helping to solve that problem, as she ought to have done, fled from them and escaped to the seclusion of her mother’s drawing-room, where she sat with the door ajar, listening for every footstep. The Duchess, though she had felt her desertion, and knew that the foolish pair of lovers were in a sort of secession from her, following their own way, yet was very magnanimous to their wrong-headedness. She said no word and looked no look of reproach, but gave up her writing and her business, and went down herself among the unoccupied ladies, and did her best to amuse them. This was perhaps of all the sacrifices she made for them the one that cost her most.
It was about eleven o’clock when Winton presented himself at the door of the Duke’s room; which was a handsome room, full of books, with a large window looking out upon the park, and some of the finest of the family pictures upon the walls. Over the mantelpiece hung a full-length portrait, looking gigantic, of the Duchess, with Lady Jane, a little girl of eight or nine, holding her hand. It seemed to Winton, as his eye caught this on entering, that there was a reproachful look in the eyes, and that Jane’s little face, serene and sweet as it had always been, had a startled air of curiosity, and watched him from behind her mother. The large window was full of blank and colourless daylight, and an atmosphere of damp and rain. The Duke rose as he came in with much graciousness, and pointed to a chair. He came from his writing-table, which was at some distance, and placed himself in front of the fireplace, as an Englishman loves to do, even when there is no fire. “I hope,” the Duke said, “that you are going to tell me of something in which I can serve you, Mr Winton.” There arose in Winton’s mind a momentary thrill of indignation and derision. Serve him! as if he were not better off and more fit to serve himself than half-a-dozen bankrupt dukes! But Winton remembered that this was Jane’s father, and restrained himself: and indeed the excitement and suspense in his breast left him at no leisure for more than a momentary rebellion. He replied—“It is true, I do appear before your Grace as a suitor——” but here his voice failed him and his courage.
“You must not hesitate to speak plainly,” said the Duke, always more and more graciously. “Alas! I am in opposition, and my influence does not tell for much. Still, if there is any way in which I can be of use to you—there is no one for whom I should more willingly stretch a point.”
“You are very kind,” said Winton. “It is not in that way that I should trouble you. I am not in want of patronage—in that way. I may say that I am rich—not,” he hastened to add, “as you are, but, for my position in life, very well off—almost more than well off.”
“I am delighted to hear it, Mr Winton; but that is all the more reason why you should serve your country. We want men who are indifferent to pecuniary advantage. I shall be most happy to mention your name to Lord Coningsby or to——”