"Not I; I mean what I said!"

"Can you really imagine she will still accept your hand?"

"With your aid, I do imagine it! Hear me. You must take Evelyn with you to Paris. I have no doubt but that she will be delighted to accompany you; nay, I have paved the way so far. For, of course, as a friend of the family, and guardian to Evelyn, I have maintained a correspondence with Lady Vargrave. She informs me that Evelyn has been unwell and low-spirited; that she fears Brook-Green is dull for her, etc. I wrote, in reply, to say that the more my ward saw of the world, prior to her accession, when of age, to the position she would occupy in it, the more she would fulfil my late uncle's wishes with respect to her education and so forth. I added that as you were going to Paris, and as you loved her so much, there could not be a better opportunity for her entrance into life under the most favourable auspices. Lady Vargrave's answer to this letter arrived this morning: she will consent to such an arrangement should you propose it."

"But what good will result to yourself in this project? At Paris you will be sure of rivals, and--"

"Caroline," interrupted Lord Vargrave, "I know very well what you would say: I also know all the danger I must incur. But it is a choice of evils, and I choose the least. You see that while she is at Brook-Green, and under the eye of that sly old curate, I can effect nothing with her.

There, she is entirely removed from my influence: not so abroad; not so under your roof. Listen to me still further. In this country, and especially in the seclusion and shelter of Brook-Green, I have no scope for any of those means which I shall be compelled to resort to, in failure of all else."

"What can you intend?" said Caroline, with a slight shudder.

"I don't know what I intend yet. But this, at least, I can tell you,--that Miss Cameron's fortune I must and will have. I am a desperate man; and I can play a desperate game, if need be."

"And do you think that _I_ will aid, will abet?"

"Hush, not so loud! Yes, Caroline, you will, and you must aid and abet me in any project I may form."

"Must! Lord Vargrave?"

"Ay," said Lumley, with a smile, and sinking his voice into a whisper,--"ay! _you are in my power_!"

"Traitor!--you cannot dare! you cannot mean--"

"I mean nothing more than to remind you of the ties that exist between us,--ties which ought to render us the firmest and most confidential of friends. Come, Caroline, recollect all the benefit must not lie on one side. I have obtained for you rank and wealth; I have procured you a husband,--you must help me to a wife!"

Caroline sank back, and covered her face with her hands.

"I allow," continued Vargrave, coldly,--"I allow that your beauty and talent were sufficient of themselves to charm a wiser man than Doltimore; but had I not suppressed jealousy, sacrificed love, had I dropped a hint to your liege lord,--nay, had I not fed his lap-dog vanity by all the cream and sugar of flattering falsehoods,--you would be Caroline Merton still!"

"Oh, would that I were! Oh that I were anything but your tool, your victim! Fool that I was! wretch that I am! I am rightly punished!"

"Forgive me, forgive me, dearest," said Vargrave, soothingly; "I was to blame, forgive me: but you irritated, you maddened me, by your seeming indifference to my prosperity, my fate. I tell you again and again, pride of my soul, I tell you, that you are the only being I love! and if you will allow me, if you will rise superior, as I once fondly hoped, to all the cant and prejudice of convention and education, the only woman I could ever respect, as well as love. Oh, hereafter, when you see me at that height to which I feel that I am born to climb, let me think that to your generosity, your affection, your zeal, I owed the ascent. At present I am on the precipice; without your hand I fall forever. My own fortune is gone; the miserable forfeit due to me, if Evelyn continues to reject my suit, when she has arrived at the age of eighteen, is deeply mortgaged. I am engaged in vast and daring schemes, in which I may either rise to the highest station or lose that which I now hold. In either case, how necessary to me is wealth: in the one instance, to maintain my advancement; in the other, to redeem my fall."

"But did you not tell me," said Caroline, "that Evelyn proposed and promised to place her fortune at your disposal, even while rejecting your hand?"

"Absurd mockery!" exclaimed Vargrave; "the foolish boast of a girl,--an impulse liable to every caprice. Can you suppose that when she launches into the extravagance natural to her age and necessary to her position, she will not find a thousand demands upon her rent-roll not dreamed of now; a thousand vanities and baubles that will soon erase my poor and hollow claim from her recollection? Can you suppose that, if she marry another, her husband will ever consent to a child's romance? And even were all this possible, were it possible that girls were not extravagant, and that husbands had no common-sense, is it for me, Lord Vargrave, to be a mendicant upon reluctant bounty,--a poor cousin, a pensioned led-captain? Heaven knows I have as little false pride as any man, but still this is a degradation I cannot stoop to. Besides, Caroline, I am no miser, no Harpagon: I do not want wealth for wealth's sake, but for the advantages it bestows,--respect, honour, position; and these I get as the husband of the great heiress. Should I get them as her dependant? No: for more than six years I have built my schemes and shaped my conduct according to one a.s.sured and definite object; and that object I shall not now, at the eleventh hour, let slip from my hands.

Enough of this: you will pa.s.s Brook-Green in returning from Cornwall; you will take Evelyn with you to Paris,--leave the rest to me. Fear no folly, no violence, from my plans, whatever they may be: I work in the dark. Nor do I despair that Evelyn will love, that Evelyn will voluntarily accept me yet: my disposition is sanguine; I look to the bright side of things; do the same!"

Here their conference was interrupted by Lord Doltimore, who lounged carelessly into the room, with his hat on one side. "Ah, Vargrave, how are you? You will not forget the letters of introduction? Where are you going, Caroline?"

"Only to my own room, to put on my bonnet; the carriage will be here in a few minutes." And Caroline escaped.

"So you go to Cornwall to-morrow, Doltimore?"

"Yes; cursed bore! but Lady Elizabeth insists on seeing us, and I don't object to a week's good shooting. The old lady, too, has something to leave, and Caroline had no dowry,--not that I care for it; but still marriage is expensive."

"By the by, you will want the five thousand pounds you lent me?"

"Why, whenever it is convenient."

"Say no more,--it shall be seen to. Doltimore, I am very anxious that Lady Doltimore's _debut_ at Paris should be brilliant: everything depends on falling into the right set. For myself, I don't care about fashion, and never did; but if I were married, and an idle man like you, it might be different."

"Oh, you will be very useful to us when we return to London. Meanwhile, you know, you have my proxy in the Lords. I dare say there will be some sharp work the first week or two after the recess."

"Very likely; and depend on one thing, my dear Doltimore, that when I am in the Cabinet, a certain friend of mine shall be an earl. Adieu."

"Good-by, my dear Vargrave, good-by; and, I say,--I say, don't distress yourself about that trifle; a few months hence it will suit me just as well."

"Thanks. I will just look into my accounts, and use you without ceremony. Well, I dare say we shall meet at Paris. Oh, I forgot,--I observe that you have renewed your intimacy with Legard. Now, he is a very good fellow, and I gave him that place to oblige you; still, as you are no longer a _garcon_--but perhaps I shall offend you?"

"Not at all. What is there against Legard?"

"Nothing in the world,--but he is a bit of a boaster. I dare say his ancestor was a Gascon, poor fellow!--and he affects to say that you can't choose a coat, or buy a horse, without his approval and advice,--that he can turn you round his finger. Now this hurts your consequence in the world,--you don't get credit for your own excellent sense and taste. Take my advice, avoid these young hangers-on of fashion, these club-room lions. Having no importance of their own, they steal the importance of their friends. _Verb.u.m sap_."

"You are very right,--Legard _is_ a c.o.xcomb; and now I see why he talked of joining us at Paris."

"Don't let him do any such thing! He will be telling the Frenchmen that her ladyship is in love with him, ha, ha!"

"Ha, ha!--a very good joke--poor Caroline!--very good joke!"

"Well, good-by, once more." And Vargrave closed the door.

"Legard go to Paris--not if Evelyn goes there!" muttered Lumley.

"Besides, I want no partner in the little that one can screw out of this blockhead."

CHAPTER IV.

MR. b.u.mBLECASE, a word with you--I have a little business.

Farewell, the goodly Manor of Blackacre, with all its woods, underwoods, and appurtenances whatever.--WYCHERLEY: _Plain Dealer_.

IN quitting Fenton's Hotel, Lord Vargrave entered into one of the clubs in St. James's Street: this was rather unusual with him, for he was not a club man. It was not his system to spend his time for nothing. But it was a wet December day; the House was not yet a.s.sembled, and he had done his official business. Here, as he was munching a biscuit and reading an article in one of the ministerial papers--the heads of which he himself had supplied--Lord Saxingham joined and drew him to the window.

"I have reason to think," said the earl, "that your visit to Windsor did good."

"Ah, indeed; so I fancied."

"I do not think that a certain personage will ever consent to the -----question; and the premier, whom I saw to-day, seems chafed and irritated."

"Nothing can be better; I know that we are in the right boat."

"I hope it is not true, Lumley, that your marriage with Miss Cameron is broken off; such was the _on dit_ in the club, just before you entered."

"Contradict it, my dear lord,--contradict it. I hope by the spring to introduce Lady Vargrave to you. But who broached the absurd report?"

"Why, your _protege_, Legard, says he heard so from his uncle, who heard it from Sir John Merton."