The Duchess got up from her seat. She was too much agitated to be able to keep still. “I knew, if that is what you mean, that she was to marry—the man she loved—to-day. What have you done? Have you parted your own child from her happiness and her life?”
He rose too. He had kept up his calm demeanour as long as he could. Now his rage got the better of him. “So you were in the plot!” he cried, “you! I felt it, and yet I could not believe it. You who ought to have been the first to carry out my will and respect my decision.”
“Augustus,” said his wife, very pale, standing up before him, her hand upon the back of a tall chair, her head erect, “this must not go too far. Jane has not one but two parents, and she has always had her mother’s sanction. You are aware of that.”
“Her mother’s sanction!” cried the Duke, with a tremendous laugh of passion. “That is a mighty advantage, truly. Her mother! what has her mother to do with it? Nothing! These are pretty heroics, and do very nicely to say to the ignorant; but you know very well that, save as my agent, you have no more to do with Jane or her marriage—no more——”
“It may be so in law,” said the Duchess, recovering her composure, “but it is certainly not so in nature; nor have I ever considered myself your agent, in respect to my child. I have yielded to you in a hundred ways—and so much the worse for you that I have done so; but, as regards Jane, I have never thought it my duty to yield—and never will; such a suggestion is intolerable,” she said, with a touch of feminine passion. “My right and my authority are the same as yours—neither of them absolute—for she is old enough to judge for herself.”
“Ah, poor girl!” he said, with a knowledge that it was the most irritating thing he could say, and at the same time a coarse sort of pleasure in insulting the women, though they were so near to him; “that is at the bottom of everything. You made her believe it was her last chance. She was determined anyhow to have a husband.”
The Duchess grew scarlet, but she was sufficiently enlightened by experience to restrain the angry reply that almost forced its way from her lips. She looked at him with a silent indignation not unmingled with pity, then turned her head away. Poor Mrs Brown! Her chops, that had been so good, so hot, stood neglected on the table. Her opportunity was over. It was no fault of hers that she had not distinguished herself. So many another disappointed genius has done its best, and some accident has stepped in and balked its highest effort. Had the Duchess delayed but half an hour, his Grace, after so much French cookery, would have experienced the wholesome pleasure of at least one British chop, and probably in consequence would have promoted Mrs Brown to a post near his person. But it was not to be. There was no luncheon eaten that day in Grosvenor Square. The discussion was prolonged for some time, and then the Duchess was heard to go hastily up-stairs. She went to her daughter’s room with tears of hot passion in her eyes and an intolerable pang in her heart, and knocking softly, called to Jane with a voice which she could scarcely keep from breaking. “My darling!” she cried, “my sweet, my own girl!” with something heartrending in her accents. All had been still before; but now there was a stir in reply.
“Oh, mother dear, come in, come in! How I have longed for you!” Lady Jane cried; and then there was a little pause of expectation, breathless with a strange suspicion on one side, and such miserable humiliation and anguish on the other, as can scarcely be put into words.
“I cannot come in, my dear love. Oh, my darling, you must be patient. I must go back directly to all those people in the house. You know it would never do——” Here the Duchess, unable to keep up the farce, began all at once to cry and sob piteously outside the door.
Lady Jane, fully roused, hurried to it and turned the handle vainly, and shook the heavy door. “I cannot open it,” she cried wildly. “Mother, mother! what does this mean? Cannot you come in? What can take you away from me when I want you—the people in the house? Oh, mother, I want you, I want you!” she cried as she had never done in her life before. And then there was such a scene as might be put into a comedy and made very ridiculous, and which yet was very heartrending as it happened, and overpowered these two women with a consternation, a sense of helplessness, a bitter perception of the small account they were of, which paralysed their very souls—not only that he had the power to do it, but also the heart: he with whom they had lived in the closest ties, whom they had loved and served, for whom they had been ready to do all that he pleased, one for the greater part of her life, the other since ever she had been born. What did it matter, any one would have said, the power such a man had over his wife and his daughter? He would never use it to make them unhappy. But there are capabilities of human misery in families which no one can fathom, which may seem to make it doubtful by moments how far the family relation is so blessed as it is thought to be. The Duke felt that now, for the first time, he had these women under his thumb, so to speak. He had them so bound that they could not resist, could not move, could not even call for help from any one without betraying the secrets of the family. He kept possession of his library, and, with the key in his pocket, had a moment of triumph. They had united against him; but now they should feel his power.