“And so you became intimate with the whole family?”
“So I became intimate with the whole family.”
“And especially so with Lady Mary?” This she said in her sweetest possible tone, and with a most gracious smile.
“Especially so with Lady Mary,” he replied.
“It will be very good of you, Mr. Tregear, if you endure and forgive all this cross-questioning from me, who am a perfect stranger to you.”
“But you are not a perfect stranger to her.”
“That is it, of course. Now, if you will allow me, I will explain to you exactly what my footing with her is. When the Duchess returned, and when I found her to be so ill as she passed through London, I went down with her into the country—quite as a matter of course.”
“So I understand.”
“And there she died—in my arms. I will not try to harass you by telling you what those few days were; how absolutely he was struck to the ground, how terrible was the grief of the daughter, how the boys were astonished by the feeling of their loss. After a few days they went away. It was, I think, their father’s wish that they should go. And I too was going away—and had felt, indeed, directly her spirit had parted from her, that I was only in the way in his house. But I stayed at his request, because he did not wish his daughter to be alone.”
“I can easily understand that, Mrs. Finn.”
“I wanted her to go to Lady Cantrip who had invited her, but she would not. In that way we were thrown together in the closest intercourse, for two or three weeks. Then she told me the story of your engagement.”
“That was natural, I suppose.”
“Surely so. Think of her position, left as she is without a mother! It was incumbent on her to tell someone. There was, however, one other person in whom it would have been much better that she should have confided.”
“What person?”
“Her father.”
“I rather fancy that it is I who ought to tell him.”
“As far as I understand these things, Mr. Tregear—which, indeed, is very imperfectly—I think it is natural that a girl should at once tell her mother when a gentleman has made her understand that he loves her.”
“She did so, Mrs. Finn.”
“And I suppose that generally the mother would tell the father.”
“She did not.”
“No; and therefore the position of the young lady is now one of great embarrassment. The Duchess has gone from us, and we must now make up our minds as to what had better be done. It is out of the question that Lady Mary should be allowed to consider herself to be engaged, and that the father should be kept in ignorance of her position.” She paused for his reply, but as he said nothing, she continued: “Either you must tell the Duke, or she must do so, or I must do so.”
“I suppose she told you in confidence.”
“No doubt. She told it me presuming that I would not betray her; but I shall—if that be a betrayal. The Duke must know it. It will be infinitely better that he should know it through you, or through her, than through me. But he must be told.”
“I can’t quite see why,” said Tregear.
“For her sake—whom I suppose you love.”
“Certainly I love her.”
“In order that she may not suffer. I wonder you do not see it, Mr. Tregear. Perhaps you have a sister.”
“I have no sister as it happens.”
“But you can imagine what your feelings would be. Should you like to think of a sister as being engaged to a man without the knowledge of any of her family?”
“It was not so. The Duchess knew it. The present condition of things is altogether an accident.”
“It is an accident that must be brought to an end.”
“Of course it must be brought to an end. I am not such a fool as to suppose that I can make her my wife without telling her father.”
“I mean at once, Mr. Tregear.”
“It seems to me that you are rather dictating to me, Mrs. Finn.”
“I owe you an apology, of course, for meddling in your affairs at all. But as it will be more conducive to your success that the Duke should hear this from you than from me, and as I feel that I am bound by my duty to him and to Lady Mary to see that he be not left in ignorance, I think that I am doing you a service.”
“I do not like to have a constraint put upon me.”
“That, Mr. Tregear, is what gentlemen, I fancy, very often feel in regard to ladies. But the constraint of which you speak is necessary for their protection. Are you unwilling to see the Duke?”
He was very unwilling, but he would not confess so much. He gave various reasons for delay, urging repeatedly that the question of his marriage was one which he could not press upon the Duke so soon after the death of the Duchess. And when she assured him that this was a matter of importance so great, that even the death of the man’s wife should not be held by him to justify delay, he became angry, and for awhile insisted that he must be allowed to follow his own judgment. But he gave her a promise that he would see the Duke before a week was over. Nevertheless he left the house in dudgeon, having told Mrs. Finn more than once that she was taking advantage of Lady Mary’s confidence. They hardly parted as friends, and her feeling was, on the whole, hostile to him and to his love. It could not, she thought, be for the happiness of such a one as Lady Mary that she should give herself to one who seemed to have so little to recommend him.
He, when he had left her, was angry with his own weakness. He had not only promised that he
