“I think he is attached to Nora,” said Mrs. Trevelyan.
“My dear,” said Lady Rowley, “perhaps we had better not speak about it just now.”
“I suppose he has not a penny in the world,” said Sir Marmaduke.
“He has what he earns,” said Mrs. Trevelyan.
“If Nora understands her duty she will never let me hear his name again,” said Sir Marmaduke. Then there was nothing more said, and as soon as they could escape, both Lady Rowley and Mrs. Trevelyan left the room.
“I should have told you everything,” said Nora to her mother that night. “I had no intention to keep anything a secret from you. But we have all been so unhappy about Louey, that we have had no heart to talk of anything else.”
“I understand all that, my darling.”
“And I had meant that you should tell papa, for I supposed that he would come. And I meant that he should go to papa himself. He intended that himself—only, today—as things turned out—”
“Just so, dearest;—but it does not seem that he has got any income. It would be very rash—wouldn’t it?”
“People must be rash sometimes. Everybody can’t have an income without earning it. I suppose people in professions do marry without having fortunes.”
“When they have settled professions, Nora.”
“And why is not his a settled profession? I believe he receives quite as much at seven and twenty as Uncle Oliphant does at sixty.”
“But your Uncle Oliphant’s income is permanent.”
“Lawyers don’t have permanent incomes, or doctors—or merchants.”
“But those professions are regular and sure. They don’t marry, without fortunes, till they have made their incomes sure.”
“Mr. Stanbury’s income is sure. I don’t know why it shouldn’t be sure. He goes on writing and writing every day, and it seems to me that of all professions in the world it is the finest. I’d much sooner write for a newspaper than be one of those old musty, fusty lawyers, who’ll say anything that they’re paid to say.”
“My dearest Nora, all that is nonsense. You know as well as I do that you should not marry a man when there is a doubt whether he can keep a house over your head;—that is his position.”
“It is good enough for me, mamma.”
“And what is his income from writing?”
“It is quite enough for me, mamma. The truth is I have promised, and I cannot go back from it. Dear, dear mamma, you won’t quarrel with us, and oppose us, and make papa hard against us. You can do what you like with papa. I know that. Look at poor Emily. Plenty of money has not made her happy.”
“If Mr. Glascock had only asked you a week sooner,” said Lady Rowley, with a handkerchief to her eyes.
“But you see he didn’t, mamma.”
“When I think of it I cannot but weep”—and the poor mother burst out into a full flood of tears—“such a man, so good, so gentle, and so truly devoted to you.”
“Mamma, what’s the good of that now?”
“Going down all the way to Devonshire after you!”
“So did Hugh, mamma.”
“A position that any girl in England would have envied you. I cannot but feel it. And Emily says she is sure he would come back if he got the very slightest encouragement.”
“That is quite impossible, mamma.”
“Why should it be impossible? Emily declares that she never saw a man so much in love in her life;—and she says also that she believes he is abroad now simply because he is brokenhearted about it.”
“Mr. Glascock, mamma, was very nice and good and all that; but indeed he is not the man to suffer from a broken heart. And Emily is quite mistaken. I told him the whole truth.”
“What truth?”
“That there was somebody else that I did love. Then he said that of course that put an end to it all, and he wished me goodbye ever so calmly.”
“How could you be so infatuated? Why should you have cut the ground away from your feet in that way?”
“Because I chose that there should be an end to it. Now there has been an end to it; and it is much better, mamma, that we should not think about Mr. Glascock any more. He will never come again to me—and if he did, I could only say the same thing.”
“You mustn’t be surprised, Nora, if I’m unhappy; that is all. Of course I must feel it. Such a connection as it would have been for your sisters! Such a home for poor Emily in her trouble! And as for this other man—”
“Mamma, don’t speak ill of him.”
“If I say anything of him, I must say the truth,” said Lady Rowley.
“Don’t say anything against him, mamma, because he is to be my husband. Dear, dear mamma, you can’t change me by anything you say. Perhaps I have been foolish; but it is settled now. Don’t make me wretched by speaking against the man whom I mean to love all my life better than all the world.”
“Think of Louis Trevelyan.”
“I will think of no one but Hugh Stanbury. I tried not to love him, mamma. I tried to think that it was better to make believe that I loved Mr. Glascock. But he got the better of me, and conquered me, and I will never rebel against him. You may help me, mamma;—but you can’t change me.”
LXIV
Sir Marmaduke at His Club
Sir Marmaduke had come away from his brother-in-law the parson in much anger, for Mr. Outhouse, with that mixture of obstinacy and honesty which formed his character, had spoken hard words of Colonel Osborne, and words which by implication had been hard also against
