“If he be all that you say, ought you not to trust your papa? If he approve of it, he could give you money.”
“Of course he must be told; but not now. He is nearly brokenhearted about dear mamma. He could not bring himself to care about anything of that kind at present. And then it is Mr. Tregear that should speak to him first.”
“Not now, Mary.”
“How do you mean not now?”
“If you had a mother you would talk to her about it.”
“Mamma knew.”
“If she were still living she would tell your father.”
“But she didn’t tell him though she did know. She didn’t mean to tell him quite yet. She wanted to see Mr. Tregear here in England first. Of course I shall do nothing till papa does know.”
“You will not see him?”
“How can I see him here? He will not come here, if you mean that.”
“You do not correspond with him?” Here for the first time the girl blushed. “Oh, Mary, if you are writing to him your father ought to know it.”
“I have not written to him; but when he heard how ill poor mamma was, then he wrote to me—twice. You may see his letters. It is all about her. No one worshipped mamma as he did.”
Gradually the whole story was told. These two young persons considered themselves to be engaged, but had agreed that their engagement should not be made known to the Duke till something had occurred, or some time had arrived, as to which Mr. Tregear was to be the judge. In Mrs. Finn’s opinion nothing could be more unwise, and she said much to induce the girl to confess everything to her father at once. But in all her arguments she was opposed by the girl’s reference to her mother. “Mamma knew it.” And it did certainly seem to Mrs. Finn as though the mother had assented to this imprudent concealment. When she endeavoured, in her own mind, to make excuse for her friend, she felt almost sure that the Duchess, with all her courage, had been afraid to propose to her husband that their daughter should marry a commoner without an income. But in thinking of all that, there could now be nothing gained. What ought she to do—at once? The girl, in telling her, had exacted no promise of secrecy, nor would she have given any such promise; but yet she did not like the idea of telling the tale behind the girl’s back. It was evident that Lady Mary had considered herself to be safe in confiding her story to her mother’s old friend. Lady Mary no doubt had had her confidences with her mother—confidences from which it had been intended by both that the father should be excluded; and now she seemed naturally to expect that this new ally should look at this great question as her mother had looked at it. The father had been regarded as a great outside power, which could hardly be overcome, but which might be evaded, or made inoperative by stratagem. It was not that the daughter did not love him. She loved him and venerated him highly—the veneration perhaps being stronger than the love. The Duchess, too, had loved him dearly—more dearly in late years than in her early life. But her husband to her had always been an outside power which had in many cases to be evaded. Lady Mary, though she did not express all this, evidently thought that in this new friend she had found a woman whose wishes and aspirations for her would be those which her mother had entertained.
But Mrs. Finn was much troubled in her mind, thinking that it was her duty to tell the story to the Duke. It was not only the daughter who had trusted her, but the father also; and the father’s confidence had been not only the first but by far the holier of the two. And the question was one so important to the girl’s future happiness! There could be no doubt that the peril of her present position was very great.
“Mary,” she said one morning, when the fortnight was nearly at an end, “your father ought to know all this. I should feel that I had betrayed him were I to go away leaving him in ignorance.”
“You do not mean to say that you will tell?” said the girl, horrified at the idea of such treachery.
“I wish that I could induce you to do so. Every day that he is kept in the dark is an injury to you.”
“I am doing nothing. What harm can come? It is not as though I were seeing him every day.”
“This harm will come; your father of course will know that you became engaged to Mr. Tregear in Italy, and that a fact so important to him has been kept back from him.”
“If there is anything in that, the evil has been done already. Of course poor mamma did mean to tell him.”
“She cannot tell him now, and therefore you ought to do what she would have done.”
“I cannot break my promise to him.” “Him” always meant Mr. Tregear. “I have told him that I would not do so till I had his consent, and I will not.”
This was very dreadful to Mrs. Finn, and yet she was most unwilling to take upon herself the part of a stern elder, and declare that under the circumstances she must tell the tale. The story had been told to her under the supposition that she was not a stern elder, that
