“Do you mean,” cried the young Marquis, “that after my conduct to you—after my loving you, so that even this—this disgrace in your family don’t prevent my going on—after my mother has been down on her knees to me to break off, and I wouldn’t—no, I wouldn’t—after all White’s sneering at me and laughing at me, and all my friends, friends of my family, who would go to—go anywhere for me, advising me, and saying, ‘Farintosh, what a fool you are! break off this match,’—and I wouldn’t back out, because I loved you so, by Heaven, and because, as a man and a gentleman, when I give my word I keep it—do you mean that you throw me over? It’s a shame—it’s a shame!” And again there were tears of rage and anguish in Farintosh’s eyes.
“What I did was a shame, my lord,” Ethel said, humbly; “and again I ask your pardon for it. What I do now is only to tell you the truth, and to grieve with all my soul for the falsehood—yes the falsehood—which I told you, and which has given your kind heart such cruel pain.”
“Yes, it was a falsehood!” the poor lad cried out. “You follow a fellow, and you make a fool of him, and you make him frantic in love with you, and then you fling him over! I wonder you can look me in the face after such an infernal treason. You’ve done it to twenty fellows before, I know you have. Everybody said so, and warned me. You draw them on, and get them to be in love, and then you fling them away. Am I to go back to London and be made the laughing-stock of the whole town—I, who might marry any woman in Europe, and who am at the head of the nobility of England?”
“Upon my word, if you will believe me after deceiving you once,” Ethel interposed, still very humbly, “I will never say that it was I who withdrew from you, and that it was not you who refused me. What has happened here fully authorises you. Let the rupture of the engagement come from you, my lord. Indeed, indeed, I would spare you all the pain I can. I have done you wrong enough already, Lord Farintosh.”
And now the Marquis burst forth with tears and imprecations, wild cries of anger, love, and disappointment, so fierce and incoherent that the lady to whom they were addressed did not repeat them to her confidante. Only she generously charged Laura to remember, if ever she heard the matter talked of in the world, that it was Lord Farintosh’s family which broke off the marriage; but that his lordship had acted most kindly and generously throughout the whole affair.
He went back to London in such a state of fury, and raved so wildly amongst his friends against the whole Newcome family, that many men knew what the case really was. But all women averred that that intriguing worldly Ethel Newcome, the apt pupil of her wicked old grandmother, had met with a deserved rebuff; that, after doing everything in her power to catch the great parti, Lord Farintosh, who had long been tired of her, flung her over, not liking the connexion; and that she was living out of the world now at Newcome, under the pretence of taking care of that unfortunate Lady Clara’s children, but really because she was pining away for Lord Farintosh, who, as we all know, married six months afterwards.
CHAPTER LX.
In which we write to the Colonel
Deeming that her brother Barnes had cares enough of his own presently at hand, Ethel did not think fit to confide to him the particulars of her interview with Lord Farintosh; nor even was poor Lady Anne informed that she had lost a noble son-in-law. The news would come to both of them soon enough, Ethel thought; and indeed, before many hours were over, it reached Sir Barnes Newcome in a very abrupt and unpleasant way. He had dismal occasion now to see his lawyers every day; and on the day after Lord Farintosh’s abrupt visit and departure, Sir Barnes, going into Newcome upon his own unfortunate affairs, was told by his attorney, Mr. Speers, how the Marquis of Farintosh had slept for a few hours at the King’s Arms, and returned to town the same evening by the train. We may add, that his lordship had occupied the very room in which Lord Highgate had previously slept; and Mr. Taplow recommends the bed accordingly, and shows pride it with to this very day.
Much disturbed by this intelligence, Sir Barnes was making his way to his cheerless home in the evening, when near his own gate he overtook another messenger. This was the railway porter, who daily brought telegraphic messages from his uncle and the London bank. The message of that day was,—“Consols, so-and-so. French Rentes, so much. Highgate’s and Farintosh’s accounts withdrawn.” The wretched keeper of the lodge owned, with trembling, in reply to the curses and queries of his employer, that a gentleman, calling himself the Marquis of Farintosh, had gone up to the house the day before, and come away an hour afterwards,—did not like to speak to Sir Barnes when he came home, Sir Barnes looked so bad like.
Now, of course, there could be no concealment from her brother, and Ethel and Barnes had a conversation, in which the latter expressed himself with that freedom of language which characterised the head of the house of Newcome. Madame de Moncontour’s pony-chaise was in waiting at the hall door, when the owner of the house entered it; and my wife was just taking leave of Ethel and her little people when Sir Barnes Newcome entered the lady’s sitting-room.