CHAPTER x.x.x.

PERSECUTION.

In the mean time Florence Mountjoy was not pa.s.sing her time pleasantly at Brussels. Various troubles there attended her. All her friends around her were opposed to her marriage with Harry Annesley. Harry Annesley had become a very unsavory word in the mouths of Sir Magnus and the British Emba.s.sy generally. Mrs. Mountjoy told her grief to her brother-in-law, who thoroughly took her part, as did also, very strongly, Lady Mountjoy.

It got to be generally understood that Harry was a _mauvais sujet_. Such was the name that was attached to him, and the belief so conveyed was thoroughly entertained by them all. Sir Magnus had written to friends in London, and the friends in London bore out the reports that were so conveyed. The story of the midnight quarrel was told in a manner very prejudicial to poor Harry, and both Sir Magnus and his wife saw the necessity of preserving their niece from anything so evil as such a marriage. But Florence was very firm, and was considered to be very obstinate. To her mother she was obstinate but affectionate To Sir Magnus she was obstinate and in some degree respectful. But to Lady Mountjoy she was neither affectionate nor respectful. She took a great dislike to Lady Mountjoy, who endeavored to domineer; and who, by the a.s.sistance of the two others, was in fact tyrannical. It was her opinion that the girl should be compelled to abandon the man, and Mrs. Mountjoy found herself constrained to follow this advice. She did love her daughter, who was her only child. The main interest of her life was centred in her daughter. Her only remaining ambition rested on her daughter's marriage. She had long revelled in the antic.i.p.ation of being the mother-in-law of the owner of Tretton Park. She had been very proud of her daughter's beauty.

Then had come the first blow, when Harry Annesley had come to Montpelier Place and had been welcomed by Florence. Mrs. Mountjoy had seen it all long before Florence had been aware of it. And the first coming of Harry had been long before the absolute disgrace of Captain Scarborough,--at any rate, before the tidings of that disgrace had reached Cheltenham.

Mrs. Mountjoy had been still able to dream of Tretton Park, after the Jews had got their fingers on it,--even after the Jews had been forced to relinquish their hold. It can hardly be said that up to this very time Mrs. Mountjoy had lost all hope in her nephew, thinking that as the property had been entailed some portion of it must ultimately belong to him. She had heard that Augustus was to have it, and her desires had vacillated between the two. Then Harry had positively declared himself, and Augustus had given her to understand how wretched, how mean, how wicked had been Harry's conduct. And he fully explained to her that Harry would be penniless. She had indeed been aware that Buston,--quite a trifling thing compared to Tretton,--was to belong to him. But entails were nothing nowadays. It was part of the radical abomination to which England was being subjected. Not even Buston was now to belong to Harry Annesley. The small income which he had received from his uncle was stopped. He was reduced to live upon his fellowship,--which would be stopped also if he married. She even despised him because he was the fellow of a college;--she had looked for a husband for her daughter so much higher than any college could produce. It was not from any lack of motherly love that she was opposed to Florence, or from any innate cruelty that she handed her daughter over to the tender mercies of Lady Mountjoy.

And since she had been at Brussels there had come up farther hopes.

Another mode had shown itself of escaping Harry Annesley, who was of all catastrophes the most dreaded and hated. Mr. Anderson, the second secretary of legation,--he whose business it was to ride about the boulevard with Sir Magnus,--had now declared himself in form. "Never saw a fellow so bowled over," Sir Magnus had declared, by which he had intended to signify that Mr. Anderson was now truly in love. "I've seen him spooney a dozen times," Sir Magnus had said, confidentially, to his sister-in-law, "but he has never gone to this length. He has asked a lot of girls to have him, but he has always been off it again before the week was over. He has written to his mother now."

And Mr. Anderson showed his love by very unmistakable signs. Sir Magnus too, and Lady Mountjoy, were evidently on the same side as Mr. Anderson.

Sir Magnus thought there was no longer any good in waiting for his nephew, the captain, and of that other nephew, Augustus, he did not entertain any very high idea. Sir Magnus had corresponded lately with Augustus, and was certainly not on his side. But he so painted Mr.

Anderson's prospects in life, as did also Lady Mountjoy, as to make it appear that if Florence could put up with young Anderson she would do very well with herself.

"He's sure to be a baronet some of these days, you know," said Sir Magnus.

"I don't think that would go very far with Florence," said her mother.

"But it ought. Look about in the world and you'll see that it does go a long way. He'd be the fifth baronet."

"But his elder brother is alive."

"The queerest fellow you ever saw in your born days, and his life is not worth a year's purchase. He's got some infernal disease,--nostalgia, or what 'd'ye call it?--which never leaves him a moment's peace, and then he drinks nothing but milk. Sure to go off;--c.o.c.k sure."

"I shouldn't like Florence to count upon that."

"And then Hugh Anderson, the fellow here, is very well off as it is. He has four hundred pounds here, and another five hundred pounds of his own. Florence has, or will have, four hundred pounds of her own. I should call them deuced rich. I should, indeed, as beginners. She could have her pair of ponies here, and what more would she want?"

These arguments did go very far with Mrs. Mountjoy, the farther because in her estimation Sir Magnus was a great man. He was the greatest Englishman, at any rate, in Brussels, and where should she go for advice but to an Englishman? And she did not know that Sir Magnus had succeeded in borrowing a considerable sum of money from his second secretary of legation.

"Leave her to me for a little;--just leave her to me," said Lady Mountjoy.

"I would not say anything hard to her," said the mother, pleading for her naughty child.

"Not too hard, but she must be made to understand. You see there have been misfortunes. As to Mountjoy Scarborough, he's past hoping for."

"You think so?"

"Altogether. When a man has disappeared there's an end of him. There was Lord Baltiboy's younger son disappeared, and he turned out to be a Zouave corporal in a French regiment. They did get him out, of course, but then he went preaching in America. You may take it for granted, that when a man has absolutely vanished from the clubs, he'll never be any good again as a marrying man."

"But there's his brother, who, they say, is to have the property."

"A very cold-blooded sort of young man, who doesn't care a straw for his own family." He had received very sternly the overtures for a loan from Sir Magnus. "And he, as I understand, has never declared himself in Florence's favor. You can't count upon Augustus Scarborough."

"Not just count upon him."

"Whereas there's young Anderson, who is the most gentleman-like young man I know, all ready. It will have been such a turn of luck your coming here and catching him up."

"I don't know that it can be called a turn of luck. Florence has a very nice fortune of her own--"

"And she wants to give it to this penniless reprobate. It is just one of those cases in which you must deal roundly with a girl. She has to be frightened, and that's about the truth of it."

After this, Lady Mountjoy did succeed in getting Florence alone with herself into her morning-room. When her mother told her that her aunt wished to see her, she answered first that she had no special wish to see her aunt. Her mother declared that in her aunt's house she was bound to go when her aunt sent for her. To this Florence demurred. She was, she thought, her aunt's guest, but by no means at her aunt's disposal.

But at last she obeyed her mother. She had resolved that she would obey her mother in all things but one, and therefore she went one morning to her aunt's chamber.

But as she went she was, on the first instance, caught by her uncle, and taken by him into a little private sanctum behind his official room. "My dear," he said, "just come in here for two minutes."

"I am on my way up to my aunt."

"I know it, my dear. Lady Mountjoy has been talking it all over with me.

Upon my word you can't do anything better than take young Anderson."

"I can't do that, Uncle Magnus."

"Why not? There's poor Mountjoy Scarborough, he has gone astray."

"There is no question of my cousin."

"And Augustus is no better."

"There is no question of Augustus either."

"As to that other chap, he isn't any good;--he isn't indeed."

"You mean Mr. Annesley?"

"Yes; Harry Annesley, as you call him. He hasn't got a shilling to bless himself with, or wouldn't have if he was to marry you."

"But I have got something."

"Not enough for both of you, I'm afraid. That uncle of his has disinherited him."

"His uncle can't disinherit him."

"He's quite young enough to marry and have a family, and then Annesley will be disinherited. He has stopped his allowance, anyway, and you mustn't think of him. He did something uncommonly unhandsome the other day, though I don't quite know what."

"He did nothing unhandsome, Uncle Magnus."

"Of course a young lady will stand up for her lover, but you will really have to drop him. I'm not a hard sort of man, but this was something that the world will not stand. When he thought the man had been murdered he didn't say anything about it for fear they should tax him with it. And then he swore he had never seen him. It was something of that sort."

"He never feared that any one would suspect him."