T. Potts, Esq., of the Newcome Independent, used to say afterwards that the Baronet was in the direst terror of another meeting with Lord Highgate, and kept a policeman at the lodge-gate, and a second in the kitchen, to interpose in event of a collision. But Mr. Potts made this statement in after days, when the quarrel between his party and paper and Sir Barnes Newcome was flagrant. Five or six days after the meeting of the two rivals in Newcome market-place, Sir Barnes received a letter from the friend of Lord Highgate, informing him that his lordship, having waited for him according to promise, had now left England, and presumed that the differences between them were to be settled by their respective lawyers—infamous behaviour on a par with the rest of Lord Highgate’s villainy, the Baronet said. “When the scoundrel knew I could lift my pistol arm,” Barnes said, “Lord Highgate fled the country;”—thus hinting that death, and not damages, were what he intended to seek from his enemy.
After that interview in which Ethel communicated to Laura her farewell letter to Lord Farintosh, my wife returned to Rosebury with an extraordinary brightness and gaiety in her face and her demeanour. She pressed Madame de Moncontour’s hands with such warmth, she blushed and looked so handsome, she sang and talked so gaily, that our host was struck by her behaviour, and paid her husband more compliments regarding her beauty, amiability, and other good qualities, than need be set down here. It may be that I like Paul de Florac so much, in spite of certain undeniable faults of character, because of his admiration for my wife. She was in such a hurry to talk to me, that night, that Paul’s game and Nicotian amusements were cut short by her visit to the billiard-room; and when we were alone by the cosy dressing-room fire, she told me what had happened during the day. Why should Ethel’s refusal of Lord Farintosh have so much elated my wife?
“Ah!” cries Mrs. Pendennis, “she has a generous nature, and the world has not had time to spoil it. Do you know there are many points that she never has thought of—I would say problems that she has to work out for herself, only you, Pen, do not like us poor ignorant women to use such a learned word as problems? Life and experience force things upon her mind which others learn from their parents or those who educate them, but, for which she has never had any teachers. Nobody has ever told her, Arthur, that it was wrong to marry without love, or pronounce lightly those awful vows which we utter before God at the altar. I believe, if she knew that her life was futile, it is but of late she has thought it could be otherwise, and that she might mend it. I have read (besides that poem of Goethe of which you are so fond) in books of Indian travels of Bayaderes, dancing-girls brought up by troops round about the temples, whose calling is to dance, and wear jewels, and look beautiful; I believe they are quite respected in—in Pagoda-land. They perform before the priests in the pagodas; and the Brahmins and the Indian princes marry them. Can we cry out against these poor creatures, or against the custom of their country? It seems to me that young women in our world are bred up in a way not very different. What they do they scarcely know to be wrong. They are educated for the world, and taught to display: their mothers will give them to the richest suitor, as they themselves were given before. How can these think seriously, Arthur, of souls to be saved, weak hearts to be kept out of temptation, prayers to be uttered, and a better world to be held always in view, when the vanities of this one are all their thought and scheme? Ethel’s simple talk made me smile sometimes, do you know, and her strenuous way of imparting her discoveries. I thought of the shepherd boy who made a watch, and found on taking it into the town how very many watches there were, and how much better than his. But the poor child has had to make hers for herself, such as it is; and, indeed, is employed now in working on it. She told me very artlessly her little history, Arthur; it affected me to hear her simple talk, and—and I blessed God for our mother, my dear, and that my early days had had a better guide.
“You know that for a long time it was settled that she was to marry her cousin, Lord Kew. She was bred to that notion from her earliest youth; about which she spoke as we all can about our early days. They were spent, she said, in the nursery and schoolroom for the most part. She was allowed to come to her mother’s dressing-room, and sometimes to see more of her during the winter at Newcome. She describes her mother as always the kindest of the kind: but from very early times the daughter must have felt her own superiority, I think, though she does not speak of it. You should see her at home now in their dreadful calamity. She seems the only person of the house who keeps her head.
“She told very nicely and modestly how it was Lord Kew who parted from her, not she who had dismissed him, as you know the Newcomes used to say. I have heard that—oh—that man Sir Barnes say so myself. She says humbly that her cousin Kew was a great deal too good for her; and so is every one almost, she adds, poor thing!”
“Poor every one! Did you ask about him, Laura?” said Mr. Pendennis.
“No; I did not venture. She looked at me out of her downright eyes, and went on with her little tale. ‘I was scarcely more than a child then,’ she continued, ‘and though I liked Kew very much—who would not like such a generous honest creature? I felt somehow that I was taller than my cousin, and as if I ought not to marry him, or should make him unhappy if I did. When poor papa used to talk, we children remarked that mamma hardly listened to him; and so we did not respect him as we should, and Barnes was especially scoffing and odious with him. Why, when he was a boy, he used to sneer at papa openly before us younger ones. Now Harriet admires everything that Kew says, and that makes her a great deal happier at being with him.’ And then,” added Mrs. Pendennis, “Ethel said, ‘I hope you respect your husband, Laura: depend on it, you will be happier if you do.’ Was not that a fine discovery of Ethel’s, Mr. Pen?
“‘Clara’s terror of Barnes frightened me when I stayed in the house,’ Ethel went on. ‘I am sure I would not tremble before any man in the world as she did. I saw early that she used to deceive him, and tell him lies, Laura. I do not mean lies of words alone, but lies of looks and actions. Oh! I do not wonder at her flying from him. He was dreadful to be with: cruel, and selfish, and cold. He was made worse by marrying a woman he did not love; as she was, by that unfortunate union with him. Suppose he had found a clever woman who could have controlled him, and amused him, and whom he and his friends could have admired, instead of poor Clara, who made his home wearisome, and trembled when he entered it? Suppose she could have married that unhappy man to whom she was attached early? I was frightened, Laura, to think how ill this worldly marriage had prospered.
“‘My poor grandmother, whenever I spoke upon such a subject, would break out into a thousand gibes and sarcasms, and point to many of our friends who had made love-matches, and were quarrelling now as fiercely as though they had never loved each other. You remember that dreadful case in France Duc de ——, who murdered his duchess? That was a love-match, and I can remember the sort of screech with which Lady Kew used to speak about it; and of the journal which the poor duchess kept, and in which she noted down all her husband’s ill-behaviour.’”
“Hush, Laura! Do you remember where we are? If the Princess were to put down all Florac’s culpabilities in an album, what a ledger it would be—as big as Dr. Portman’s Chrysostom!” But this was parenthetical: and after a smile, and a little respite, the young woman proceeded in her narration of her friend’s history.