The American Senator

I had to undergo an agonizing revulsion of feeling, during which Mr. Green’s behaviour to me was at first so considerate and then so kind that it has gone far to cure the wound from which I have been suffering. He is so well known in reference to foreign affairs, that I think my uncle cannot but have heard of him; my cousin Mistletoe is certainly acquainted with him; and I think that you cannot but approve of the match. You know what is the position of my father and my mother, and how little able they are to give us any assistance. If you would be kind enough to let us be married from Mistletoe, you will confer on both of us a very, very great favour.” There was more of it, but that was the first of the prayer, and most of the words given above came from the dictation of Mounser himself. She had pleaded against making the direct request, but he had assured her that in the world, as at present arranged, the best way to get a thing is to ask for it. “You make yourself at any rate understood,” he said, “and you may be sure that people who receive petitions do not feel the hardihood of them so much as they who make them.” Arabella, comforting herself by declaring that the Duchess at any rate could not eat her, wrote the letter and sent it.

The Duchess at first was most serious in her intention to refuse. She was indeed made very angry by the request. Though it had been agreed at Mistletoe that Lord Rufford had behaved badly, the Duchess was thoroughly well aware that Arabella’s conduct had been abominable. Lord Rufford probably had made an offer, but it had been extracted from him by the vilest of manoeuvres. The girl had been personally insolent to herself. And this rapid change, this third engagement within a few weeks⁠—was disgusting to her as a woman. But, unluckily for herself, she would not answer the letter till she had consulted her husband. As it happened the Duke was in town, and while he was there Lord Drummond got hold of him. Lord Drummond had spoken very highly of Mounser Green, and the Duke, who was never dead to the feeling that as the head of the family he should always do what he could for the junior branches, had almost made a promise. “I never take such things upon myself,” he said, “but if the Duchess has no objection, we will have them down to Mistletoe.”

“Of course if you wish it,” said the Duchess⁠—with more acerbity in her tone than the Duke had often heard there.

“Wish it? What do you mean by wishing it? It will be a great bore.”

“Terrible!”

“But she is the only one there is, and then we shall have done with it.”

“Done with it! They will be back from Patagonia before you can turn yourself, and then of course we must have them here.”

“Drummond tells me that Mr. Green is one of the most useful men they have at the Foreign Office;⁠—just the man that one ought to give a lift to.” Of course the Duke had his way. The Duchess could not bring herself to write the letter, but the Duke wrote to his dear niece saying that “they” would be very glad to see her, and that if she would name the day proposed for the wedding, one should be fixed for her visit to Mistletoe.

“You had better tell your mother and your father,” Mounser said to her.

“What’s the use? The Duchess hates my mother, and my father never goes near the place.”

“Nevertheless tell them. People care a great deal for appearances.” She did as she was bid, and the result was that Lord Augustus and his wife, on the occasion of their daughter’s marriage, met each other at Mistletoe⁠—for the first time for the last dozen years.

Before the day came round Arabella was quite astonished to find how popular and fashionable her wedding was likely to be, and how the world at large approved of what she was doing. The newspapers had paragraphs about alliances and noble families, and all the relatives sent tribute. There was a gold candlestick from the Duke, a gilt dish from the Duchess⁠—which came however without a word of personal congratulation⁠—and a gorgeous set of scent-bottles from cousin Mistletoe. The Connop Greens were lavish with sapphires, the De Brownes with pearls, and the Smijths with opal. Mrs. Gore sent a huge carbuncle which Arabella strongly suspected to be glass. From her paternal parent there came a pair of silver nutcrackers, and from the maternal a secondhand dressing-case newly done up. Old Mrs. Green gave her a couple of ornamental butter-boats, and saltcellars innumerable came from distant Greens. But there was a diamond ring⁠—with a single stone⁠—from a friend, without a name, which she believed to be worth all the rest in money value. Should she send it back to Lord Rufford, or make a gulp and swallow it? How invincible must be the good-nature of the man when he could send her such a present after such a rating as she had given him in the park at Rufford! “Do as you like,” Mounser Green said when she consulted him.

She very much wished to keep it. “But what am I to say, and to whom?”

“Write a note to the jewellers saying that you have got it.” She did write to the jeweller saying that she had got the ring⁠—“from a friend;” and the ring with the other tribute went to Patagonia. He had certainly behaved very badly to her, but she was quite sure that he would never tell the story of the ring to anyone. Perhaps she thought that as she had spared him in the great matter of eight thousand pounds, she was entitled to take this smaller contribution.

It was late in April when she went down to Mistletoe, the marriage having been