The Way We Live Now (102 page)

‘But Felix says you took her to Lowestoft
¹
– quite the other day.'

Montague had intended to tell all – almost all. There was a something about the journey to Lowestoft which it would be impossible to make Hetta understand, and he thought that that might be omitted. ‘It was on account of her health.'

‘Oh – on account of her health. And did you go to the play with her?'

‘I did.'

‘Was that for her – health?'

‘Oh, Hetta, do not speak to me like that! Cannot you understand that when she came here, following me, I could not desert her?'

‘I cannot understand why you deserted her at all,' said Hetta. ‘You say you loved her, and you promised to marry her. It seems horrid to me to marry a divorced woman – a woman who just says that she was divorced. But that is because I don't understand American ways. And I am sure you must have loved her when you took her to the theatre, and down to Lowestoft – for her health. That was only a week ago.'

‘It was nearly three weeks,' said Paul in despair.

‘Oh – nearly three weeks! That is not such a very long time for a gentleman to change his mind on such a matter. You were engaged to her, not three weeks ago.'

‘No, Hetta, I was not engaged to her then.'

‘I suppose she thought you were when she went to Lowestoft with you.'

‘She wanted then to force me to – to – to –. Oh, Hetta, it is so hard to explain, but I am sure that you understand. I do know that you do not, cannot think that I have, even for one moment, been false to you.'

‘But why should you be false to her? Why should I step in and crush all her hopes? I can understand that Roger should think badly of her because she was – divorced. Of course he would. But an engagement is an engagement. You had better go back to Mrs Hurtle and tell her that you are quite ready to keep your promise.'

‘She knows now that it is all over.'

‘I dare say you will be able to persuade her to reconsider it. When she
came all the way here from San Francisco after you, and when she asked you to take her to the theatre, and to Lowestoft – because of her health – she must be very much attached to you. And she is waiting here – no doubt on purpose for you. She is a very old friend – very old – and you ought not to treat her unkindly. Good-bye, Mr Montague. I think you had better lose no time in going – back to Mrs Hurtle.' All this she said with sundry little impedimentary gurgles in her throat, but without a tear and without any sign of tenderness.

‘You don't mean to tell me, Hetta, that you are going to quarrel with me!'

‘I don't know about quarrelling. I don't wish to quarrel with any one. But of course we can't be friends when you have married – Mrs Hurtle.'

‘Nothing on earth would induce me to marry her.'

‘Of course I cannot say anything about that. When they told me this story I did not believe them. No; I hardly believed Roger when – he would not tell it for he was too kind – but when he would not contradict it. It seemed to be almost impossible that you should have come to me just at the very same moment For, after all, Mr Montague, nearly three weeks is a very short time. That trip to Lowestoft couldn't have been much above a week before you came to me.'

‘What does it matter?'

‘Oh no; of course not – nothing to you. I think I will go away now, Mr Montague. It was very good of you to come and tell me all. It makes it so much easier.'

‘Do you mean to say that – you are going to – throw me over?'

‘I don't want you to throw Mrs Hurtle over. Good-bye.'

‘Hetta!'

‘No; I will not have you lay your hand upon me. Good night, Mr Montague.' And so she left him.

Paul Montague was beside himself with dismay as he left the house. He had never allowed himself for a moment to believe that this affair of Mrs Hurtle would really separate him from Hetta Carbury. If she could only really know it all, there could be no such result. He had been true to her from the first moment in which he had seen her, never swerving from his love. It was to be supposed that he had loved some woman before; but, as the world goes, that would not, could not, affect her. But her anger was founded on the presence of Mrs Hurtle in London –which he would have given half his possessions to have prevented. But when she did come, was he to have refused to see her? Would Hetta have wished him to be cold and cruel like that? No doubt he had
behaved badly to Mrs Hurtle – but that trouble he had overcome. And now Hetta was quarrelling with him, though he certainly had never behaved badly to her.

He was almost angry with Hetta as he walked home. Everything that he could do he had done for her. For her sake he had quarrelled with Roger Carbury. For her sake – in order that he might be effectually free from Mrs Hurtle – he had determined the endure the spring of the wild cat. For her sake – so he told himself – he had been content to abide by that odious railway company, in order that he might if possible preserve an income on which to support her. And now she told him that they must part – and that only because he had not been cruelly indifferent to the unfortunate woman who had followed him from America. There was no logic in it, no reason – and, as he thought, very little heart. ‘I don't want you to throw Mrs Hurtle over,' she had said. Why should Mrs Hurtle be anything to her? Surely she might have left Mrs Hurtle to fight her own battles. But they were all against him. Roger Carbury, Lady Carbury, and Sir Felix; and the end of it would be that she would be forced into marriage with a man almost old enough to be her father! She could not ever really have loved him. That was the truth. She must be incapable of such love as was his own for her. True love always forgives. And here there was really so very little to forgive! Such were his thoughts as he went to bed that night. But he probably omitted to ask himself whether he would have forgiven her very readily had he found that she had been living ‘nearly three weeks ago' in close intercourse with another lover of whom he had hitherto never even heard the name. But then – as all the world knows – there is a wide difference between young men and young women!

Hetta, as soon as she had dismissed her lover, went up at once to her own room. Thither she was soon followed by her mother, whose anxious ear had heard the closing of the front door. ‘Well; what has he said?' asked Lady Carbury. Hetta was in tears – or very nigh to tears –struggling to repress them, and struggling almost successfully. ‘You have found that what we told you about that woman was all true.'

‘Enough of it was true,' said Hetta, who, angry as she was with her lover, was not on that account less angry with her mother for disturbing her bliss.

‘What do you mean by that, Hetta? Had you not better speak to me openly?'

‘I say, mamma, that enough was true. I do not know how to speak more openly. I need not go into all the miserable story of the woman.
He is like other men, I suppose. He has entangled himself with some abominable creature and then when he is tired of her thinks that he has nothing to do but to say so – and to begin with somebody else.'

‘Roger Carbury is very different.'

‘Oh, mamma, you will make me ill if you go on like that. It seems to me that you do not understand in the least.'

‘I say he is not like that.'

‘Not in the least Of course I know that he is not in the least like that.'

‘I say that he can be trusted.'

‘Of course he can be trusted. Who doubts it?'

‘And that if you would give yourself to him, there would be no cause for any alarm.'

‘Mamma,' said Hetta jumping up, ‘how can you talk to me in that way? As soon as one man doesn't suit, I am to give myself to another! Oh, mamma, how can you propose it? Nothing on earth will ever induce me to be more to Roger Carbury than I am now.'

‘You have told Mr Montague that he is not to come here again?'

‘I don't know what I told him, but he knows very well what I mean.'

‘That it is all over?' Hetta made no reply. ‘Hetta, I have a right to ask that, and I have a right to expect a reply. I do not say that you have hitherto behaved badly about Mr Montague.'

‘I have not behaved badly. I have told you everything. I have done nothing that I am ashamed of.'

‘But we have now found out that he has behaved very badly. He has come here to you – with unexampled treachery to your cousin Roger –'

‘I deny that,' exclaimed Hetta.

‘And at the very time was almost living with this woman who says that she is divorced from her husband in America! Have you told him that you will see him no more?'

‘He understood that.'

‘If you have not told him so plainly, I must tell him.'

‘Mamma, you need not trouble yourself I have told him very plainly.' Then Lady Carbury expressed herself satisfied for the moment, and left her daughter to her solitude.

When Mr Melmotte made his promise to Mr Longestaffe and to Dolly, in the presence of Mr Bideawhile, that he would, on the next day but one, pay to them a sum of fifty thousand pounds, thereby completing, satisfactorily as far as they were concerned, the purchase of the Pickering property, he intended to be as good as his word. The reader knows that he had resolved to face the Longestaffe difficulty – that he had resolved that at any rate he would not get out of it by sacrificing the property to which he had looked forward as a safe haven when storms should come. But, day by day, every resolution that he made was forced to undergo some change. Latterly he had been intent on purchasing a noble son-in-law with this money – still trusting to the chapter of chances for his future escape from the Longestaffe and other difficulties. But Squercum had been very hard upon him; and in connection with this accusation as to the Pickering property, there was another, which he would be forced to face also, respecting certain property in the East of London, with which the reader need not much trouble himself specially, but in reference to which it was stated that he had induced a foolish old gentleman to consent to accept railway shares in lieu of money. The old gentleman had died during the transaction, and it was asserted that the old gentleman's letter was hardly genuine. Melmotte had certainly raised between twenty and thirty thousand pounds on the property, and had made payments for it in stock which was now worth – almost nothing at all. Melmotte thought that he might face this matter successfully if the matter came upon him single-handed – but in regard to the Longestaffes he considered that now, at this last moment, he had better pay for Pickering.

The property from which he intended to raise the necessary funds was really his own. There could be no doubt about that. It had never been his intention to make it over to his daughter. When he had placed it in her name, he had done so simply for security – feeling that his control over his only daughter would be perfect and free from danger. No girl apparently less likely to take it into her head to defraud her father could have crept quietly about a father's house. Nor did he now think that she would disobey him when the matter was explained to her.
Heavens and earth! That he should be robbed by his own child – robbed openly, shamefully, with brazen audacity! It was impossible. But still he had felt the necessity of going about this business with some little care. It might be that she would disobey him if he simply sent for her and bade her to affix her signature here and there. He thought much about it and considered that it would be wise that his wife should be present on the occasion, and that a full explanation should be given to Marie, by which she might be made to understand that the money had in no sense become her own. So he gave instructions to his wife when he started into the City that morning; and when he returned, for the sake of making his offer to the Longestaffes, he brought with him the deeds which it would be necessary that Marie should sign, and he brought also Mr Croll, his clerk, that Mr Croll might witness the signature.

When he left the Longestaffes and Mr Bideawhile he went at once to his wife's room. ‘Is she here?' he asked.

‘I will send for her. I have told her.'

‘You haven't frightened her?'

‘Why should I frighten her? It is not very easy to frighten her, Melmotte. She is changed since these young men have been so much about her.'

‘I shall frighten her if she does not do as I bid her. Bid her come now.' This was said in French. Then Madame Melmotte left the room, and Melmotte arranged a lot of papers in order upon a table. Having done so, he called to Croll, who was standing on the landing-place, and told him to seat himself in the back drawing-room till he should be called. Melmotte then stood with his back to the fireplace in his wife's sitting-room, with his hands in his pockets, contemplating what might be the incidents of the coming interview. He would be very gracious – affectionate if it were possible – and, above all things, explanatory. But, by heavens, if there were continued opposition to his demand – to his just demand – if this girl should dare to insist upon exercising her power to rob him, he would not then be affectionate – nor gracious! There was some little delay in the coming of the two women, and he was already beginning to lose his temper when Marie followed Madame Melmotte into the room. He at once swallowed his rising anger – with an effort He would put a constraint upon himself. The affection and the graciousness should all be there – as long as they might secure the purpose in hand.

‘Marie,' he began, ‘I spoke to you the other day about some property which for certain purposes was placed in your name just as we were leaving Paris.'

‘Yes, papa.'

‘You were such a child then – I mean when we left Paris – that I could hardly explain to you the purpose of what I did.'

‘I understood it, papa.'