The Way We Live Now (133 page)

‘I think you hardly understand just what I feel,' said Roger, ‘and I know very well that I am unable to explain it. But I wish to act exactly as I would do if she were my daughter, and as if her son, if she had a son, would be my natural heir.'

‘But, if she were your daughter, her son wouldn't be your natural heir as long as there was a probability or even a chance that you might have a son of your own. A man should never put the power, which properly belongs to him, out of his own hands. If it does properly belong to you it must be better with you than elsewhere. I think very highly of your cousin, and I have no reason to think otherwise than well of the gentleman whom she intends to marry. But it is only human nature to suppose that the fact that your property is still at your own disposal should have some effect in producing a more complete observance of your wishes.'

‘I do not believe it in the least, my lord,' said Roger somewhat angrily.

‘That is because you are so carried away by enthusiasm at the present moment as to ignore the ordinary rules of life. There are not, perhaps, many fathers who have Regans and Gonerils for their daughters; but there are very many who may take a lesson from the folly of the old king. “Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown,” the fool said to him, “when thou gav'st thy golden one away.”
¹
The world, I take it, thinks that the fool was right'.

The bishop did so far succeed that Roger abandoned the idea of settling his property on Paul Montague's children. But he was not on that account the less resolute in his determination to make himself and his own interests subordinate to those of his cousin. When he came over, two days afterwards, to see her he found her in the garden, and walked there with her for a couple of hours. ‘I hope all our troubles are over now,' he said smiling.

‘You mean about Felix,' said Hetta – ‘and mamma.'

‘No, indeed. As to Felix, I think that Lady Carbury has done the best thing in her power. No doubt she has been advised by Mr Broune, and Mr Broune seems to be a prudent man. And about your mother herself, I hope that she may now be comfortable. But I was not alluding to Felix and your mother. I was thinking of you – and of myself.'

‘I hope that you will never have any troubles.'
‘I have had troubles. I mean to speak very freely to you now, dear. I was nearly upset – what I suppose people call broken-hearted – when I was assured that you certainly would never become my wife. I ought not to have allowed myself to get into such a frame of mind. I should have known that I was too old to have a chance.'

‘Oh, Roger – it was not that.'

‘Well – that and other things. I should have known it sooner, and have got over my misery quicker. I should have been more manly and stronger. After all, though love is a wonderful incident in a man's life, it is not that only that he is here for. I have duties plainly marked out for me; and as I should never allow myself to be withdrawn from them by pleasure, so neither should I by sorrow. But it is done now. I have conquered my regrets, and I can say with safety that I look forward to your presence and Paul's presence at Carbury as the source of all my future happiness. I will make him welcome as though he were my brother, and you as though you were my daughter. All I ask of you is that you will not be chary of your presence there.' She only answered him by a close pressure on his arm. ‘That is what I wanted to say to you. You will teach yourself to regard me as your best and closest friend – as he on whom you have the strongest right to depend, of all – except your husband?'

‘There is no teaching necessary for that,' she said.

‘As a daughter leans on a father I would have you lean on me, Hetta. You will soon come to find that I am very old. I grow old quickly, and already feel myself to be removed from everything that is young and foolish.'

‘You never were foolish.'

‘Nor young either, I sometimes think. But now you must promise me this. You will do all that you can to induce him to make Carbury his residence.'

‘We have no plans as yet at all, Roger.'

‘Then it will be certainly so much the easier for you to fall into my plan. Of course you will be married at Carbury?'

‘What will mamma say?'

‘She will come here, and I am sure will enjoy it. That I regard as settled. Then, after that, let this be your home – so that you should learn really to care about and to love the place. It will be your home really, you know, some of these days. You will have to be Squire of Carbury yourself when I am gone, till you have a son old enough to fill that exalted position.' With all his love to her and his good-will to them
both, he could not bring himself to say that Paul Montague should be Squire of Carbury.

‘Oh, Roger, please do not talk like that.'

‘But it is necessary, my dear. I want you to know what my wishes are, and, if it be possible, I would learn what are yours. My mind is quite made up as to my future life. Of course I do not wish to dictate to you – and if I did, I could not dictate to Mr Montague.'

‘Pray – pray do not call him Mr Montague.'

‘Well, I will not – to Paul, then. There goes the last of my anger.' He threw his hands up as though he were scattering his indignation to the air. ‘I would not dictate either to you or to him, but it is right that you should know that I hold my property as steward for those who are to come after me, and that the satisfaction of my stewardship will be infinitely increased if I find that those for whom I act share the interest which I shall take in the matter. It is the only payment which you and he can make me for my trouble.'

‘But Felix, Roger!'

His brow became a little black as he answered her. ‘To a sister,' he said very solemnly, ‘I will not say a word against her brother; but on that subject I claim a right to come to a decision on my own judgement. It is a matter in which I have thought much, and, I may say, suffered much. I have ideas, old-fashioned ideas, on the matter, which I need not pause to explain to you now. If we are as much together as I hope we shall be, you will, no doubt, come to understand them. The disposition of a family property, even though it be one so small as mine, is, to my thinking, a matter which a man should not make in accordance with his own caprices – or even with his own affections. He owes a duty to those who live on his land, and he owes a duty to his country. And, though it may seem fantastic to say so, I think he owes a duty to those who have been before him, and who have manifestly wished that the property should be continued in the hands of their descendants. These things are to me very holy. In what I am doing I am in some respects departing from the theory of my life – but I do so under a perfect conviction that by the course I am taking I shall best perform the duties to which I have alluded. I do not think, Hetta, that we need say any more about that' He had spoken so seriously, that, though she did not quite understand all that he had said, she did not venture to dispute his will any further. He did not endeavour to exact from her any promise, but having explained his purposes, kissed her as he would have kissed a daughter, and then left her and rode home without going into the house.

Soon after that, Paul Montague came down to Carbury, and the same thing was said to him, though in a much less solemn manner. Paul was received quite in the old way. Having declared that he would throw all anger behind him, and that Paul should be again Paul, he rigidly kept his promise, whatever might be the cost to his own feelings. As to his love for Hetta, and his old hopes, and the disappointment which had so nearly unmanned him, he said not another word to his fortunate rival. Montague knew it all, but there was now no necessity that any allusion should be made to past misfortunes. Roger indeed made a solemn resolution that to Paul he would never again speak of Hetta as the girl whom he himself had loved, though he looked forward to a time, probably many years hence, when he might perhaps remind her of his fidelity. But he spoke much of the land and of the tenants and the labourers, of his own farm, of the amount of the income, and of the necessity of so living that the income might always be more than sufficient for the wants of the household.

When the spring came round, Hetta and Paul were married by the bishop at the parish church of Carbury, and Roger Carbury gave away the bride. All those who saw the ceremony declared that the squire had not seemed to be so happy for many a long year. John Crumb, who was there with his wife – himself now one of Roger's tenants, having occupied the land which had become vacant by the death of old Daniel Ruggles – declared that the wedding was almost as good fun as his own. ‘John, what a fool you are!' Ruby said to her spouse, when this opinion was expressed with rather a loud voice. ‘Yes, I be,' said John – ‘but not such a fool as to a missed a' having o' you.' ‘No, John; it was I was the fool then,' said Ruby. ‘We'll see about that when the bairn's born,' said John – equally aloud. Then Ruby held her tongue. Mrs Broune, and Mr Broune, were also at Carbury – thus doing great honour to Mr and Mrs Paul Montague, and showing by their presence that all family feuds were at an end. Sir Felix was not there. Happily up to this time Mr Septimus Blake had continued to keep that gentleman as one of his Protestant population in the German town – no doubt not without considerable trouble to himself.

Chapter 1

1
(p.
7
).
Semirumis
: Ruled Assyria and was supposed to have built Babylon.

2
(p.
7
).
Julia
: Presumably the reputedly licentious daughter of the emperor Augustus.

3
(p.
7
).
Belisarius
: The great general who in the sixth century won many victories against the Goths and Vandals.

4
(p.
7
).
Joanna
: Pope Joan (
papissima Joanna
), legendary female pope of the ninth century, also thought lascivious. ‘Broadmore' is Broadmoor, the criminal asylum.

5
(p.
7
).
Howard
: Catherine Howard, Henry VIII's fifth wife, like Anne Boleyn, his second, was accused of unchastity and beheaded.

6
(p.
7
).
Catherine
: Perhaps Catherine de' Medici. Living in the sixteenth century, she came too late for the attentions of Dante. As the queen of Henri II of France she was a powerful Queen Mother at the time when Mary Smart was queen of France by virtue of her marriage to Francis II.

7
(p.
8
).
Marie Antoinette
: Was executed with her husband, Louis XVI, in 1793.

8
(p.
8
).
Caroline
: Separated from George IV, who, in 1806, made the government hold an inquiry into her conduct. Nothing was proved against her. He began divorce proceedings in 1820 but withdrew them when she accepted a financial settlement. In 1821 her exclusion from George's coronation service caused a scandal. Lady Carbury has chosen ‘royal and luxurious sinners' who lend themselves to mildly scandalous and salacious treatment.

9
(p.
8
).
Morning Breakfast Table
: T. probably had the
Daily Telegraph
in mind. The other papers mentioned probably refer to contemporary journals (Sutherland); this was a world with which T. was very familiar.

10
(p.
11
).
Stretched-out… page
: i.e., padding out the printing to make too brief a text into a multi-volume novel for the benefit of the circulating libraries.

11
(p.
12
.
Aristides
: An Athenian of the fifth century BC, he was traditionally, and to the point of tedium, known as ‘the Just.'

12
(p.
12
).
Nuliius… magistri
: Not obliged to swear by the words of any master (Horace,
Ep.
I.i.14).

13
(p.
13
).
black-balled
: Candidates for membership may be excluded from
clubs by the deposit of black balls in the balloting box, or by other means that went by the same name of blackballing.

Chapter 2

1
(p.
18
).
sold out
: To sell out was to dispose of one's army commission by sale. Sutherland points out that this practice was abolished in 1872.

2
(p.
19
).
cynosure
: The pole star, but metaphorically a beauty that attracts general attention, on the example of Milton, ‘L'Allegro', 1.77–8: ‘Where perhaps some beauty lies, /The cynosure of neighbouring eyes.'

3
(p.
21
).
the white feather
: To show it was a mark of cowardice; the term derives from the belief that a gamecock with a white feather was not of the true gamecock breed.

4
(p.
22
).
Croesus
: Sixth-century BC king of Lydia, famous for his wealth.

Chapter 3

1
(p.
23
).
brougham
: Usually a four-wheeled carriage holding four persons.

2
(p.
24
).
carpe diem
: Seize (enjoy) the day (Horace,
Odes
, I.xi.8).

3
(p.
24
).
‘good enough for me'
: From a revivalist hymn.

4
(p.
25
).
at first cost
: i.e., at cost price, cutting out the middleman's markup.

Chapter 4

1
(p.
34
).
quadrille
: A square-dance for four couples.

2
(p.
35
).
The Peripatetics
: Meaning, presumably, the Travellers' Club.

Chapter 5

1
(p.
43
).
blind hookey
: A gambling card game.

Chapter 6

1
(p.
50
).
rusticated
: Temporarily dismissed, usually for a term.