By the same post he wrote a letter to his father, and that shall also be shown to the reader.

MY DEAR FATHER,--

I have received a letter from Lady Kingsbury, asking me as to a report of an engagement between me and a young lady named Marion Fay. I am sorry that her writing should be evidence that you are hardly yet strong enough to write yourself. I trust that it may not long be so.

Would you wish to see me again at Trafford? I do not like to go there without the expression of a wish from you; but I hold myself in readiness to start whenever you may desire it. I had hoped from the last accounts that you were becoming stronger.

I do not know how you may have heard anything of Marion Fay. Had I engaged myself to her, or to any other young lady, I should have told you at once. I do not know whether a young man is supposed to declare his own failures in such matters, when he has failed,--even to his father. But, as I am ashamed of nothing in the matter, I will avow that I have asked the young lady to be my wife, but she has as yet declined. I shall ask her again, and still hope to succeed.

She is the daughter of a Mr. Fay who, as Lady Kingsbury says, is a Quaker, and is a clerk in a house in the City.

As he is in all respects a good man, standing high for probity and honour among those who know him, I cannot think that there is any drawback. She, I think, has all the qualities which I would wish to find in the woman whom I might hope to make my wife. They live at No. 17, Paradise Row, Holloway. Lady Kingsbury, indeed, is right in all her details.

Pray let me have a line, if not from yourself, at any rate dictated by you, to say how you are.

Your affectionate son,

HAMPSTEAD.

It was impossible to keep the letter from Lady Kingsbury. It thus became a recognized fact by the Marquis, by the Marchioness, and by Mr. Greenwood, that Hampstead was going to marry the Quaker's daughter. As to that pretence of a refusal, it went for nothing, even with the father. Was it probable that a Quaker's daughter, the daughter of a merchant's clerk out of the City, should refuse to become a Marchioness? The sick man was obliged to express anger, having been already made to treat the report as incredible because of the disgrace which would accompany it, if true. Had he been left to himself he would have endeavoured to think as little about it as possible. Not to quarrel with his two eldest children was the wish that was now strongest at his heart. But his wife recalled the matter to him at each of the two daily visits which she made. "What can I do?" he was driven to ask on the third morning.

"Mr. Greenwood suggests--," began his wife, not intending to irritate him, having really forgotten at the moment that no suggestion coming from Mr. Greenwood could be welcome to him.

"D---- Mr. Greenwood," he shouted, lifting himself up erect from the pillows on his sofa. The Marchioness was in truth so startled by the violence of his movement, and by the rage expressed on his haggard face, that she jumped from her chair with unexpected surprise. "I desire," said the Marquis, "that that man shall leave the house by the end of this month."

CHAPTER X.

KING'S COURT, OLD BROAD STREET.

Hampstead received the letter from Lady Kingsbury, and answered it on Sat.u.r.day, the 3rd of January, having at that time taken no active steps in regard to Marion Fay after the rejection of his suit on the day following Christmas. Eight days had thus elapsed, and he had done nothing. He had done nothing, though there was not an hour in the day in which he was not confirming his own resolve to do something by which he might make Marion Fay his own. He felt that he could hardly go to the girl again immediately after the expression of her resolution. At first he thought that he would write to her, and did sit down to the table for that purpose; but as he strove to produce words which might move her, he told himself that the words which he might speak would be better. Then he rode half way to Holloway, with the object of asking aid from Mrs. Roden; but he returned without completing his purpose, telling himself that any such aid, even if it could be obtained, would avail him nothing. In such a contest, if a man cannot succeed by his own doing, surely he will not do so by the a.s.sistance of any one else; and thus he was in doubt.

After having written to Lady Kingsbury and his father he reflected that, in his father's state of health, he ought to go again to Trafford Park. If it were only for a day or for an hour he ought to see his father. He knew that he was not wanted by his stepmother. He knew also that no desire to see him had reached him from the Marquis.

He was afraid that the Marquis himself did not wish to see him. It was almost impossible for him to take his sister to the house unless an especial demand for her attendance was made; and he could not very well leave her alone for any lengthened period. Nevertheless he determined to make a rapid run into Shropshire, with the intention of returning the following day, unless he found the state of his father's health so bad as to make it expedient that he should remain.

He intended to hunt on the Monday and the Tuesday, travelling from London to Leighton and back. But he would leave London by the night mail train from Paddington on Wednesday evening so as to reach Trafford Park House on the following morning between four and five.

It was a journey which he had often made before in the same manner, and to which the servants at Trafford were well accustomed. Even at that time in the morning he would walk to the Park from the station, which was four miles distant, leaving his luggage, if he had any, to be sent for on the following morning; but he would usually travel without luggage, having all things necessary for his use in his own room at Trafford.

It had hitherto been his custom to acquaint his sister with his manoeuvres on these occasions, having never been free in his correspondence with his stepmother. He had written or telegraphed to Lady Frances, and she had quite understood that his instructions, whatever they might be, were to be obeyed. But Lady Frances was no longer a resident at Trafford Park, and he therefore telegraphed to the old butler, who had been a servant in the family from a period previous to his own birth. This telegram he sent on the Monday, as follows;--"Shall be at Trafford Thursday morning, 4.30 A.M. Will walk over. Let d.i.c.k be up. Have room ready. Tell my father." He fixed Wednesday night for his journey, having made up his mind to devote a portion of the Wednesday morning to the business which he had on hand in reference to Marion Fay.

It was not the proper thing, he thought, to go to a girl's father for permission to ask the girl to be his wife, before the girl had herself a.s.sented; but the circ.u.mstances in this case were peculiar.

It had seemed to him that Marion's only reason for rejecting him was based on disparity in their social condition,--which to his thinking was the worst reason that could be given. It might be that the reason had sprung from some absurd idea originating with the Quaker father; or it might be that the Quaker father would altogether disapprove of any such reason. At any rate he would be glad to know whether the old man was for him or against him. And with the object of ascertaining this, he determined that he would pay a visit to the office in King's Court on the Wednesday morning. He could not endure the thought of leaving London,--it might be for much more than the one day intended,--without making some effort in regard to the object which was nearest his heart.

Early in the day he walked into Messrs. Pogson and Littlebird's office, and saw Mr. Tribbledale seated on a high stool behind a huge desk, which nearly filled up the whole place. He was rather struck by the smallness and meanness of Messrs. Pogson and Littlebird's premises, which, from a certain n.o.bility belonging to the Quaker's appearance, he would have thought to be s.p.a.cious and important.

It is impossible not to connect ideas after this fashion. Pogson and Littlebird themselves carried in their own names no flavour of commercial grandeur. Had they been only known to Hampstead by their name, any small mercantile retreat at the top of the meanest alley in the City might have sufficed for them. But there was something in the demeanour of Zachary Fay which seemed to give promise of one of those palaces of trade which are now being erected in every street and lane devoted in the City to business. Nothing could be less palatial than Pogson and Littlebird's counting-house. Hampstead had entered it from a little court, which it seemed to share with one other equally unimportant tenement opposite to it, by a narrow low pa.s.sage. Here he saw two doors only, through one of which he pa.s.sed, as it was open, having noticed that the word "Private" was written on the other. Here he found himself face to face with Tribbledale and with a little boy who sat at Tribbledale's right hand on a stool equally high. Of these two, as far as he could see, consisted the establishment of Messrs.

Pogson and Littlebird. "Could I see Mr. Fay?" asked Hampstead.

"Business?" suggested Tribbledale.

"Not exactly. That is to say, my business is private."

Then there appeared a face looking at him over a screen about five feet and a-half high, which divided off from the small apartment a much smaller apartment, having, as Hampstead now regarded it, the appearance of a cage. In this cage, small as it was, there was a desk, and there were two chairs; and here Zachary Fay carried on the business of his life, and transacted most of those affairs appertaining to Messrs. Pogson and Littlebird which could be performed in an office. Messrs. Pogson and Littlebird themselves, though they had a room of their own, to which that door marked "Private" belonged, were generally supposed to be walking on 'Change as British merchants should do, or making purchases of whole ships'

cargos in the Docks, or discounting bills, the least of which would probably represent 10,000. The face which looked over the barrier of the cage at Lord Hampstead was of course that of Zachary Fay. "Lord Hampstead!" he said, with surprise.

"Oh, Mr. Fay, how do you do? I have something I want to say to you.

Could you spare me five minutes?"

The Quaker opened the door of the cage and asked Lord Hampstead to walk in. Tribbledale, who had heard and recognized the name, stared hard at the young n.o.bleman,--at his friend Crocker's n.o.ble friend, at the lord of whom it had been a.s.serted positively that he was engaged to marry Mr. Fay's daughter. The boy, too, having heard that the visitor was a lord, stared also. Hampstead did as he was bid, but remembering that the inhabitant of the cage had at once heard what had been said in the office, felt that it would be impossible for him to carry on his conversation about Marion without other protection from the ears of the world. "It is a little private what I have to say," remarked Hampstead.

The Quaker looked towards the private room. "Old Mr. Pogson is there," whispered Tribbledale. "I heard him come in a quarter of an hour ago."

"Perhaps thou wouldst not mind walking up and down the yard," said the Quaker. Hampstead of course walked out, but on looking about him found that the court was very small for the communication which he had to make. s.p.a.ce would be required, so that he might not be troubled by turning when he was in the midst of his eloquence.

Half-a-dozen steps would carry him the whole length of King's Court; and who could tell his love-story in a walk limited to six steps?

"Perhaps we might go out into the street?" he suggested.

"Certainly, my lord," said the Quaker. "Tribbledale, should any one call before I return, and be unable to wait for five minutes, I shall be found outside the court, not above fifty yards either to the right or to the left." Hampstead, thus limited to a course not exceeding a hundred yards in one of the most crowded thoroughfares of the City, began the execution of his difficult task.

"Mr. Fay," he said, "are you aware of what has pa.s.sed between me and your daughter Marion?"

"Hardly, my lord."

"Has she told you nothing of it?"

"Yea, my lord; she has in truth told me much. She has told me no doubt all that it behoves a father to hear from a daughter in such circ.u.mstances. I live on such terms with my Marion that there are not many secrets kept by either of us from the other."

"Then you do know?"

"I know that your lordship tendered to her your hand,--honestly, n.o.bly, and truly, as I take it."

"With perfect honesty and perfect truth most certainly."

"And I know also that she declined the honour thus offered her."

"She did."

"Is this you, Zachary? How are you this morning?" This came from a stout, short, red-faced man, who stopped them, standing in the middle of the pavement.

"Well, I thank thee, Mr. Gruby. At this moment I am particularly engaged. That is Jonathan Gruby," said the Quaker to his companion as soon as the stout man had walked on; "one of the busiest men in the City. You have heard probably of Gruby and Inderwald."

Hampstead had never heard of Gruby and Inderwald, and wished that the stout man had been minding his business at that moment. "But as to Miss Fay," he said, endeavouring to continue to tell his love-story.

"Yes, as to Marion. I hardly do know what pa.s.sed between you two, not having heard the reasons she gave thee."

"No reasons at all;--nothing worth speaking of between persons who know anything of the world."