Ethel took up the whole heap of Clive’s drawings, lighted a taper, carried the drawings to the fireplace, and set them in a blaze. “A very pretty piece of work,” says Lady Kew, “and which proves satisfactorily that you don’t care for the young Clive at all. Have we arranged a correspondence? We are cousins, you know; we may write pretty cousinly letters to one another.” A month before the old lady would have attacked her with other arms than sarcasm, but she was scared now, and dared to use no coarser weapons. “Oh!” cried Ethel in a transport, “what a life ours is, and how you buy and sell, and haggle over your children! It is not Clive I care about, poor boy. Our ways of life are separate. I cannot break from my own family, and I know very well how you would receive him in it. Had he money, it would be different. You would receive him, and welcome him, and hold out your hands to him; but he is only a poor painter, and we forsooth are bankers in the City; and he comes among us on sufferance, like those concert-singers whom mamma treats with so much politeness, and who go down and have supper by themselves. Why should they not be as good as we are?”
“M. de C——, my dear, is of a noble family,” interposed Lady Kew; “when he has given up singing and made his fortune, no doubt he can go back into the world again.”
“Made his fortune, yes,” Ethel continued, “that is the cry. There never were, since the world began, people so unblushingly sordid! We own it, and are proud of it. We barter rank against money, and money against rank, day after day. Why did you marry my father to my mother? Was it for his wit? You know he might have been an angel and you would have scorned him. Your daughter was bought with papa’s money as surely as ever Newcome was. Will there be no day when this mammon-worship will cease among us?”
“Not in my time or yours, Ethel,” the elder said, not unkindly; perhaps she thought of a day long ago before she was old herself.
“We are sold,” the young girl went on, “we are as much sold as Turkish women; the only difference being that our masters may have but one Circassian at a time. No, there is no freedom for us. I wear my green ticket, and wait till my master comes. But every day as I think of our slavery, I revolt against it more. That poor wretch, that poor girl whom my brother is to marry, why did she not revolt and fly? I would, if I loved a man sufficiently, loved him better than the world, than wealth, than rank, than fine houses and titles,—and I feel I love these best,—I would give up all to follow him. But what can I be with my name and my parents? I belong to the world like all the rest of my family. It is you who have bred us up; you who are answerable for us. Why are there no convents to which we can fly? You make a fine marriage for me; you provide me with a good husband, a kind soul, not very wise, but very kind; you make me what you call happy, and I would rather be at the plough like the women here.”
“No, you wouldn’t, Ethel,” replies the grandmother, drily. “These are the fine speeches of schoolgirls. The showers of rain would spoil your complexion—you would be perfectly tired in an hour, and come back to luncheon—you belong to your belongings, my dear, and are not better than the rest of the world:—very good-looking, as you know perfectly well, and not very good-tempered. It is lucky that Kew is. Calm your temper, at least before marriage; such a prize does not fall to a pretty girl’s lot every day. Why, you sent him away quite seared by your cruelty; and if he is not playing at roulette, or at billiards, I dare say he is thinking what a little termagant you are, and that he had best pause while it is yet time. Before I was married, your poor grandfather never knew I had a temper; of after-days I say nothing; but trials are good for all of us, and he bore his like an angel.”
Lady Kew, too, on this occasion at least, was admirably good-humoured. She also when it was necessary could put a restraint on her temper, and, having this match very much at heart, chose to coax and to soothe her granddaughter rather than to endeavour to scold and frighten her.
“Why do you desire this marriage so much, grandmamma,” the girl asked. “My cousin is not very much in love,—at least I should fancy not,” she added, blushing. “I am bound to own Lord Kew is not in the least eager, and I think if you were to tell him to wait for five years he would be quite willing. Why should you be so very anxious?”
“Why, my dear? Because I think young ladies who want to go and work in the fields, should make hay while the sun shines; because I think it is high time that Kew should ranger himself; because I am sure he will make the best husband, and Ethel the prettiest Countess in England.” And the old lady, seldom exhibiting any signs of affection, looked at her granddaughter very fondly. From her Ethel looked up into the glass, which very likely repeated on its shining face the truth her elder had just uttered. Shall we quarrel with the girl for that dazzling reflection; for owning that charming truth, and submitting to the conscious triumph? Give her her part of vanity, of youth, of desire to rule and be admired. Meanwhile Mr. Clive’s drawings have been crackling in the fireplace at her feet, and the last spark of that combustion is twinkling out unheeded.