'If she really loves me, she will be true,' I said. And yet who was I that I should think that you would suffer so much for me? But I will repay you,--if the truth and service of a life may repay such a debt as that. At any rate hear this from me;--I will never doubt again."

And as he spoke he was moving towards her, thinking to take her in his arms, when the door was opened and Countess Lovel was within the room. The tailor was the first to speak. "Lady Lovel, I have asked your daughter, and I find that it is her wish to adhere to the engagement which she made with me in c.u.mberland. I need hardly say that it is my wish also."

"Anna! Is this true?"

"Mamma; mamma! Oh, mamma!"

"If it be so I will never speak word to you more."

"You will; you will! Do not look at me like that. You will speak to me!"

"You shall never again be child of mine." But in saying this she had forgotten herself, and now she remembered her proper cue. "I do not believe a word of it. The man has come here and has insulted and frightened you. He knows,--he must know,--that such a marriage is impossible. It can never take place. It shall never take place. Mr.

Thwaite, as you are a living man, you shall never live to marry my daughter."

"My lady, in this matter of marriage your daughter must no doubt decide for herself. Even now, by all the laws of G.o.d,--and I believe of man too,--she is beyond your control either to give her in marriage or to withhold her. In a few months she will be as much her own mistress as you now are yours."

"Sir, I am not asking you about my child. You are insolent."

"I came here, Lady Lovel, because I was sent for."

"And now you had better leave us. You made a promise which you have broken."

"By heavens, no. I made a promise and I have kept it. I said that I would offer her freedom, and I have done so. I told her, and I tell her again now, that if she will say that she prefers her cousin to me, I will retire." The Countess looked at him and also recognised the strength of his face, almost feeling that the man had grown in personal dignity since he had received the money that was due to him.

"She does not prefer the Earl. She has given her heart to me; and I hold it,--and will hold it. Look up, dear, and tell your mother whether what I say be true."

"It is true," said Lady Anna.

"Then may the blight of h.e.l.l rest upon you both!" said the Countess, rushing to the door. But she returned. "Mr. Thwaite," she said, "I will trouble you at once to leave the house, and never more to return to it."

"I will leave it certainly. Good bye, my own love." He attempted again to take the girl by the hand, but the Countess, with violence, rushed at them and separated them. "If you but touch him, I will strike you," she said to her daughter. "As for you, it is her money that you want. If it be necessary, you shall have, not hers, but mine. Now go."

"That is a slander, Lady Lovel. I want no one's money. I want the girl I love,--whose heart I have won; and I will have her. Good morning, Lady Lovel. Dear, dear Anna, for this time good bye. Do not let any one make you think that I can ever be untrue to you." The girl only looked at him. Then he left the room; and the mother and the daughter were alone together. The Countess stood erect, looking at her child, while Lady Anna, standing also, kept her eyes fixed upon the ground. "Am I to believe it all,--as that man says?" asked the Countess.

"Yes, mamma."

"Do you mean to say that you have renewed your engagement to that low-born wretch?"

"Mamma,--he is not a wretch."

"Do you contradict me? After all, is it come to this?"

"Mamma,--you, you--cursed me."

"And you will be cursed. Do you think that you will do such wickedness as this, that you can destroy all that I have done for you, that you make yourself the cause of ruin to a whole family, and that you will not be punished for it? You say that you love me."

"You know that I love you, mamma."

"And yet you do not scruple to drive me mad."

"Mamma, it was you who brought us together."

"Ungrateful child! Where else could I take you then?"

"But I was there,--and of course I loved him. I could not cease to love him because,--because they say that I am a grand lady."

"Listen to me, Anna. You shall never marry him; never. With my own hands I will kill him first;--or you." The girl stood looking into her mother's face, and trembling. "Do you understand that?"

"You do not mean it, mamma."

"By the G.o.d above me, I do! Do you think that I will stop at anything now;--after having done so much? Do you think that I will live to see my daughter the wife of a foul, sweltering tailor? No, by heavens! He tells you that when you are twenty-one, you will not be subject to my control. I warn you to look to it. I will not lose my control, unless when I see you married to some husband fitting your condition in life. For the present you will live in your own room, as I will live in mine. I will hold no intercourse whatever with you, till I have constrained you to obey me."

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

LET HER DIE.

After the scene which was described in the last chapter there was a very sad time indeed in Keppel Street. The Countess had been advised by the Serjeant and Mrs. Bluestone to take her daughter immediately abroad, in the event of the interview with Daniel Thwaite being unsatisfactory. It was believed by all concerned, by the Bluestones, and the Goffes, by Sir William Patterson who had been told of the coming interview, and by the Countess herself, that this would not be the case. They had all thought that Lady Anna would come out from that meeting disengaged and free to marry whom she would,--and they thought also that within a very few weeks of her emanc.i.p.ation she would accept her cousin's hand. The Solicitor-General had communicated with the Earl, who was still in town, and the Earl again believed that he might win the heiress. But should the girl prove obstinate;--"take her away at once,--very far away;--to Rome, or some such place as that." Such had been Mrs. Bluestone's advice, and in those days Rome was much more distant than it is now. "And don't let anybody know where you are going," added the Serjeant,--"except Mr.

Goffe." The Countess had a.s.sented;--but when the moment came, there were reasons against her sudden departure. Mr. Goffe told her that she must wait at any rate for another fortnight. The presence of herself and her daughter were necessary in London for the signing of deeds and for the completion of the now merely formal proofs of ident.i.ty. And money was again scarce. A great deal of money had been spent lately, and unless money was borrowed without security, and at a great cost,--to which Mr. Goffe was averse,--the sum needed could hardly be provided at once. Mr. Goffe recommended that no day earlier than the 20th December should be fixed for their departure.

It was now the end of November; and it became a question how the intermediate time should be pa.s.sed. The Countess was resolved that she would hold no pleasant intercourse at all with her daughter. She would not even tell the girl of her purpose of going abroad. From hour to hour she a.s.sured herself with still increasing obduracy that nothing but severity could avail anything. The girl must be cowed and frightened into absolute submission,--even though at the expense of her health. Even though it was to be effected by the absolute crushing of her spirits,--this must be done. Though at the cost of her life, it must be done. This woman had lived for the last twenty years with but one object before her eyes,--an object sometimes seeming to be near, more often distant, and not unfrequently altogether beyond her reach, but which had so grown upon her imagination as to become the heaven to which her very soul aspired.

To be and to be known to be among the highly born, the so-called n.o.ble, the t.i.tled from old dates,--to be of those who were purely aristocratic, had been all the world to her. As a child,--the child of well-born but poor parents, she had received the idea. In following it out she had thrown all thoughts of love to the wind and had married a reprobate earl. Then had come her punishment,--or, as she had conceived it, her most unmerited misfortunes. For many years of her life her high courage and persistent demeanour had almost atoned for the vice of her youth. The love of rank was strong in her bosom as ever, but it was fostered for her child rather than for herself. Through long, tedious, friendless, poverty-stricken years she had endured all, still a.s.suring herself that the day would come when the world should call the sweet plant that grew by her side by its proper name. The little children hooted after her daughter, calling her girl in derision The Lady Anna,--when Lady Anna had been more poorly clad and blessed with less of the comforts of home than any of them. Years would roll by, and they should live to know that the Lady Anna,--the sport of their infantine cruelty,--was Lady Anna indeed. And as the girl became a woman the dream was becoming a reality. The rank, the t.i.tle, the general acknowledgment and the wealth would all be there. Then came the first great decisive triumph. Overtures of love and friendship were made from the other side. Would Lady Anna consent to become the Countess Lovel, all animosities might be buried, and everything be made pleasant, prosperous, n.o.ble, and triumphant!

It is easy to fill with air a half-inflated bladder. It is already so buoyant with its own lightness, that it yields itself with ease to receive the generous air. The imagination of the woman flew higher than ever it had flown when the proposition came home to her in all its bearings. Of course it had been in her mind that her daughter should marry well;--but there had been natural fears. Her child had not been educated, had not lived, had not been surrounded in her young days, as are those girls from whom the curled darlings are wont to choose their wives. She would too probably be rough in manner, ungentle in speech, ungifted in accomplishments, as compared with those who from their very cradles are encompa.s.sed by the blessings of wealth and high social standing. But when she looked at her child's beauty, she would hope. And then her child was soft, sweet-humoured, winning in all her little ways, pretty even in the poor duds which were supplied to her mainly by the generosity of the tailor. And so she would hope, and sometimes despair;--and then hope again. But she had never hoped for anything so good as this. Such a marriage would not only put her daughter as high as a Lovel ought to be, but would make it known in a remarkable manner to all coming ages that she, she herself, she the despised and slandered one,--who had been treated almost as woman had never been treated before,--was in very truth the Countess Lovel by whose income the family had been restored to its old splendour.

And so the longing grew upon her. Then, almost for the first time, did she begin to feel that it was necessary for the purposes of her life that the girl whom she loved so thoroughly, should be a creature in her hands, to be dealt with as she pleased. She would have had her daughter accede to the proposed marriage even before she had seen Lord Lovel, and was petulant when her daughter would not be as clay in the sculptor's hand. But still the girl's refusal had been but as the refusal of a girl. She should not have been as are other girls.

She should have known better. She should have understood what the peculiarity of her position demanded. But it had not been so with her. She had not soared as she should have done, above the love-laden dreams of common maidens. And so the visit to Yoxham was permitted.

Then came the great blow,--struck as it were by a third hand, and that the hand of an attorney. The Countess Lovel learned through Mr.

Goffe,--who had heard the tale from other lawyers,--that her daughter Lady Anna Lovel had, with her own mouth, told her n.o.ble lover that she was betrothed to a tailor! She felt at the moment that she could have died,--cursing her child for this black ingrat.i.tude.

But there might still be hope. The trial was going on,--or the work which was progressing towards the trial, and she was surrounded by those who could advise her. Doubtless what had happened was a great misfortune. But there was room for hope;--room for most a.s.sured hope.

The Earl was not disposed to abandon the match, though he had, of course, been greatly annoyed,--nay, disgusted and degraded by the girl's communication. But he had consented to see the matter in the proper light. The young tailor had got an influence over the girl when she was a child, was doubtless in pursuit of money, and must be paid. The folly of a child might be forgiven, and the Earl would persevere. No one would know what had occurred, and the thing would be forgotten as a freak of childhood. The Countess had succ.u.mbed to the policy of all this;--but she was not deceived by the benevolent falsehood. Lady Anna had been over twenty when she had been receiving lover's vows from this man, reeking from his tailor's board. And her girl, her daughter, had deceived her. That the girl had deceived her, saying there was no other lover, was much; but it was much more and worse and more d.a.m.nable that there had been thorough deception as to the girl's own appreciation of her rank. The sympathy tendered through so many years must have been always pretended sympathy. With these feelings hot within her bosom, she could not bring herself to speak one kindly word to Lady Anna after the return from Yoxham. The girl was asked to abandon her odious lover with stern severity. It was demanded of her that she should do so with cruel threats. She would never quite yield, though she had then no strength of purpose sufficient to enable her to declare that she would not yield. We know how she was banished to Bedford Square, and transferred from the ruthless persistency of her mother, to the less stern but not less fixed manoeuvres of Mrs. Bluestone. At that moment of her existence she was herself in doubt. In Wyndham Street and at Yoxham she had almost more than doubted. The softness of the new Elysium had well nigh unnerved her. When that young man had caught her from stone to stone as she pa.s.sed over the ford at Bolton, she was almost ready to give herself to him. But then had come upon her the sense of sickness, that faint, overdone flavour of sugared sweetness, which arises when sweet things become too luscious to the eater. She had struggled to be honest and strong, and had just not fallen into the pot of treacle.

But, notwithstanding all this, they who saw her and knew the story, were still sure that the lord must at last win the day. There was not one who believed that such a girl could be true to such a troth as she had made. Even the Solicitor-General, when he told the tale which the amorous steward had remembered to his own encouragement, did not think but what the girl and the girl's fortune would fall into the hands of his client. Human nature demanded that it should be so.

That it should be as he wished it was so absolutely consonant with all nature as he had known it, that he had preferred trusting to this result, in his client's behalf, to leaving the case in a jury's hands. At this moment he was sure he was right in his judgment. And indeed he was right;--for no jury could have done anything for his client.

It went on till at last the wise men decided that the girl only wanted to be relieved by her old lover, that she might take a new lover with his permission. The girl was no doubt peculiar; but, as far as the wise ones could learn from her manner,--for with words she would say nothing,--that was her state of mind. So the interview was planned,--to the infinite disgust of the Countess, who, however, believed that it might avail; and we know what was the result. Lady Anna, who long had doubted,--who had at last almost begun to doubt whether Daniel Thwaite was true to her,--had renewed her pledges, strengthened her former promises, and was now more firmly betrothed than ever to him whom the Countess hated as a very fiend upon earth.

But there certainly should be no marriage! Though she pistolled the man at the altar, there should be no marriage.

And then there came upon her the infinite disgust arising from the necessity of having to tell her sorrows to others,--who could not sympathize with her, though their wishes were as hers. It was hard upon her that no step could be taken by her in reference to her daughter without the knowledge of Mr. Goffe and Serjeant Bluestone,--and the consequent knowledge of Mr. Flick and the Solicitor-General. It was necessary, too, that Lord Lovel should know all. His conduct in many things must depend on the reception which might probably be accorded to a renewal of his suit. Of course he must be told. He had already been told that the tailor was to be admitted to see his love, in order that she might be absolved by the tailor from her first vow. It had not been pleasant,--but he had acceded. Mr. Flick had taken upon himself to say that he was sure that everything would be made pleasant. The Earl had frowned, and had been very short with Mr. Flick. These confidences with lawyers about his lovesuit, and his love's tone with her low-born lover, had not been pleasant to Lord Lovel. But he had endured it,--and now he must be told of the result. Oh, heavens;--what a h.e.l.l of misery was this girl making for her high-born relatives! But the story of the tailor's visit to Keppel Street did not reach the unhappy ones at Yoxham till months had pa.s.sed away.

Mr. Goffe was very injudicious in postponing the departure of the two ladies--as the Solicitor-General told Mr. Flick afterwards very plainly, when he heard of what had been done. "Money; she might have had any money. I would have advanced it. You would have advanced it!"

"Oh certainly," said Mr. Flick, not, however, at all relishing the idea of advancing money to his client's adversary. "I never heard of such folly," continued Sir William. "That comes of trusting people who should not be trusted." But it was too late then. Lady Anna was lying ill in bed, in fever; and three doctors doubted whether she would ever get up again. "Would it not be better that she should die?" said her mother to herself, standing over her and looking at her. It would,--so thought the mother then,--be better that she should die than get up to become the wife of Daniel Thwaite. But how much better that she should live and become the Countess Lovel! She still loved her child, as only a mother can love her only child,--as only a mother can love who has no hope of joy in the world, but what is founded on her child. But the other pa.s.sion had become so strong in her bosom that it almost conquered her mother's yearnings. Was she to fight for long years that she might be beaten at last when the prize was so near her,--when the cup was almost at her lips? Were the girl now to be taken to her grave, there would be an end at any rate of the fear which now most heavily oppressed her. But the three doctors were called in, one after another; and Lady Anna was tended as though her life was as precious as that of any other daughter.

These new tidings caused new perturbation among the lawyers. "They say that Clerke and Holland have given her over," said Mr. Flick to Sir William.

"I am sorry to hear it," said Mr. Solicitor; "but girls do live sometimes in spite of the doctors."