The Way We Live Now (83 page)

Perhaps never in his life had he studied his own character and his own conduct more accurately, or made sterner resolves, than he did as he stood there smiling, bowing, and acting without impropriety the part of host to an emperor. No; – he could not run away. He soon made himself sure of that. He had risen too high to be a successful fugitive, even should he succeed in getting off before hands were laid upon him. He must bide his ground, if only that he might not at once confess his own guilt by flight; and he would do so with courage. Looking back at the hour or two that had just passed he was aware that he had allowed himself not only to be frightened in the dinner-room – but also to seem to be frightened. The thing had come upon him unawares and he had been untrue to himself. He acknowledged that. He should not have asked those questions of Mr Todd and Mr Beauclerk, and should have been more good-humoured than usual with Lord Alfred in discussing those empty seats. But for spilt milk there is no remedy. The blow had come upon him too suddenly, and he had faltered. But he would not falter again. Nothing should cow him – no touch from a policeman, no warrant from a magistrate, no defalcation of friends, no scorn in the City, no solitude in the West End. He would go down among the electors to-morrow and would stand his ground, as though all with him
were right. Men should know at any rate that he had a heart within his bosom. And he confessed also to himself that he had sinned in that matter of arrogance. He could see it now – as so many of us do see the faults which we have committed, which we strive, but in vain, to discontinue, and which we never confess except to our own bosoms. The task which he had imposed on himself, and to which circumstances had added weight, had been very hard to bear. He should have been good-humoured to these great ones whose society he had gained. He should have bound these people to him by a feeling of kindness as well as by his money. He could see it all now. And he could see too that there was no help for spilt milk. I think he took some pride in his own confidence as to his own courage, as he stood there turning it all over in his mind. Very much might be suspected. Something might be found out. But the task of unravelling it all would not be easy. It is the small vermin and the little birds that are trapped at once. But wolves and vultures can fight hard before they are caught. With the means which would still be at his command, let the worst come to the worst, he could make a strong fight. When a man's frauds have been enormous there is a certain safety in their very diversity and proportions. Might it not be that the fact that these great ones of the earth had been his guests should speak in his favour? A man who had in very truth had the real Brother of the Sun dining at his table could hardly be sent into the dock and then sent out of it like a common felon.

Madame Melmotte during the evening stood at the top of her own stairs with a chair behind her on which she could rest herself for a moment when any pause took place in the arrivals. She had of course dined at the table – or rather sat there – but had been so placed that no duty had devolved upon her. She had heard no word of the rumours, and would probably be the last person in that house to hear them. It never occurred to her to see whether the places down the table were full or empty. She sat with her large eyes fixed on the Majesty of China and must have wondered at her own destiny at finding herself with an emperor and princes to look at. From the dining-room she had gone when she was told to go, up to the drawing-room, and had there performed her task, longing only for the comfort of her bedroom. She, I think, had but small sympathy with her husband in all his work, and but little understanding of the position in which she had been placed. Money she liked, and comfort, and perhaps diamonds and fine dresses, but she can hardly have taken pleasure in duchesses or have enjoyed the company of the emperor. From the beginning of the Melmotte era it had been an understood thing that no one spoke to Madame Melmotte.

Marie Melmotte had declined a seat at the dinner-table. This at first had been cause of quarrel between her and her father, as he desired to have seen her next to young Lord Nidderdale as being acknowledged to be betrothed to him. But since the journey to Liverpool he had said nothing on the subject. He still pressed the engagement, but thought now that less publicity might be expedient. She was, however, in the drawing-room standing at first by Madame Melmotte, and afterwards retreating among the crowd. To some ladies she was a person of interest as the young woman who had lately run away under such strange circumstances; but no one spoke to her till she saw a girl whom she herself knew, and whom she addressed, plucking up all her courage for the occasion. This was Hetta Carbury who had been brought hither by her mother.

The tickets for Lady Carbury and Hetta had of course been sent before the elopement – and also, as a matter of course, no reference had been made to them by the Melmotte family after the elopement Lady Carbury herself was anxious that that affair should not be considered as having given cause for any personal quarrel between herself and Mr Melmotte, and in her difficulty had consulted Mr Broune. Mr Broune was the staff on which she leant at present in all her difficulties. Mr Broune was going to the dinner. All this of course took place while Melmotte's name was as yet unsullied as snow. Mr Broune saw no reason why Lady Carbury should not take advantage of her tickets. These invitations were simply tickets to see the emperor surrounded by the princes. The young lady's elopement is ‘no affair of yours', Mr Broune had said. ‘I should go, if it were only for the sake of showing that you did not consider yourself to be implicated in the matter.' Lady Carbury did as she was advised, and took her daughter with her. ‘Nonsense,' said the mother, when Hetta objected; ‘Mr Broune sees it quite in the right light. This is a grand demonstration in honour of the emperor, rather than a private party – and we have done nothing to offend the Melmottes. You know you wish to see the emperor.' A few minutes before they started from Welbeck Street a note came from Mr Broune, written in pencil and sent from Melmotte's house by a commissioner. ‘Don't mind what you hear; but come. I am here and as far as I can see it is all right. The E is beautiful, and Ps are as thick as blackberries.' Lady Carbury, who had not been in the way of hearing the reports, understood nothing of this; but of course she went. And Hetta went with her.

Hetta was standing alone in a corner, near to her mother, who was
talking to Mr Booker, with her eyes fixed on the awful tranquillity of the emperor's countenance, when Marie Melmotte timidly crept up to her and asked her how she was. Hetta, probably, was not very cordial to the poor girl being afraid of her, partly as the daughter of the great Melmotte and partly as the girl with whom her brother had failed to run away; but Marie was not rebuked by this. ‘I hope you won't be angry with me for speaking to you.' Hetta smiled more graciously. She could not be angry with the girl for speaking to her, feeling that she was there as the guest of the girl's mother. ‘I suppose you know about your brother,' said Marie, whispering with her eyes turned to the ground.

‘I have heard about it,' said Hetta. ‘He never told me himself.'

‘Oh, I do so wish that I knew the truth. I know nothing. Of course, Miss Carbury, I love him. I do love him so dearly! I hope you don't think I would have done it if I hadn't loved him better than anybody in the world. Don't you think that if a girl loves a man – really loves him – that ought to go before everything?'

This was a question that Hetta was hardly prepared to answer. She felt quite certain that under no circumstances would she run away with a man. ‘I don't quite know. It is so hard to say,' she replied.

‘I do. What's the good of anything if you're to be broken-hearted? I don't care what they say of me, or what they do to me, if he would only be true to me. Why doesn't he – let me know – something about it?' This also was a question difficult to be answered. Since that horrid morning on which Sir Felix had stumbled home drunk – which was now four days since – he had not left the house in Welbeck Street till this evening. He had gone out a few minutes before Lady Carbury had started, but up to that time he had almost kept his bed. He would not get up till dinner time, would come down after some half-dressed fashion, and then get back to his bedroom, where he would smoke and drink brandy and water and complain of headache. The theory was that he was ill – but he was in fact utterly cowed and did not dare to show himself at his usual haunts. He was aware that he had quarrelled at the club, aware that all the world knew of his intended journey to Liverpool, aware that he had tumbled about the streets intoxicated. He had not dared to show himself, and the feeling had grown upon him from day to day. Now, fairly worn out by his confinement, he had crept out intending, if possible, to find consolation with Ruby Ruggles. ‘Do tell me. Where is he?' pleaded Marie.

‘He has not been very well lately.'

‘Is he ill? Oh, Miss Carbury, do tell me. You can understand what it is to love him as I do; – can't you?'

‘He has been ill. I think he is better now.'

‘Why does he not come to me, or send to me; or let me know something? It is cruel, is it not? Tell me – you must know – does he really care for me?'

Hetta was exceedingly perplexed. The real feeling betrayed by the girl recommended her. Hetta could not but sympathize with the affection manifested for her own brother, though she could hardly understand the want of reticence displayed by Marie in thus speaking of her love to one who was almost a stranger. ‘Felix hardly ever talks about himself to me,' she said.

‘If he doesn't care for me, there shall be an end of it,' Marie said very gravely. ‘If I only knew! If I thought that he loved me, I'd go through – oh – all the world for him. Nothing that papa could say should stop me. That's my feeling about it. I have never talked to any one but you about it. Isn't that strange? I haven't a person to talk to. That's my feeling, and I'm not a bit ashamed of it. There's no disgrace in being in love. But it's very bad to get married without being in love. That's what I think.'

‘It is bad,' said Hetta, thinking of Roger Carbury.

‘But if Felix doesn't care for me!' continued Marie, sinking her voice to a low whisper, but still making her words quite audible to her companion. Now Hetta was strongly of opinion that her brother did not in the least ‘care for' Marie Melmotte, and that it would be very much for the best that Marie Melmotte should know the truth. But she had not that sort of strength which would have enabled her to tell it. ‘Tell me just what you think,' said Marie. Hetta was still silent. ‘Ah – I see. Then I must give him up? Eh?'

‘What can I say, Miss Melmotte? Felix never tells me. He is my brother – and of course I love you for loving him.' This was almost more than Hetta meant; but she felt herself constrained to say some gracious word.

‘Do you? Oh! I wish you did. I should so like to be loved by you. Nobody loves me, I think. That man there wants to marry me. Do you know him? He is Lord Nidderdale. He is very nice; but he does not love me any more than he loves you. That's the way with men. It isn't the way with me. I would go with Felix, and slave for him if he were poor. Is it all to be over then? You will give him a message from me?' Hetta, doubting as to the propriety of the promise, promised that she would. ‘Just tell him I want to know; that's all. I want to know. You'll understand. I want to know the real truth. I suppose I do know it now. Then I shall not care what happens to me. It will be all the same. I
suppose I shall marry that young man, though it will be very bad. I shall just be as if I hadn't any self of my own at all. But he ought to send me word after all that has passed. Do not you think he ought to send me word?'

‘Yes, indeed.'

‘You tell him, then,' said Marie, nodding her head as she crept away.

Nidderdale had been observing her while she had been talking to Miss Carbury. He had heard the rumour, and of course felt that it behoved him to be on his guard more specially than any one else. But he had not believed what he had heard. That men should be thoroughly immoral, that they should gamble, get drunk, run into debt, and make love to other men's wives, was to him a matter of every-day life. Nothing of that kind shocked him at all. But he was not as yet quite old enough to believe in swindling. It had been impossible to convince him that Miles Grendall had cheated at cards, and the idea that Mr Melmotte had forged was as improbable and shocking to him as that an officer should run away in battle. Common soldiers, he thought, might do that sort of thing. He had almost fallen in love with Marie when he saw her last, and was inclined to feel the more kindly to her now because of the hard things that were being said about her father. And yet he knew that he must be careful. If ‘he came a cropper' in this matter, it would be such an awful cropper! ‘How do you like the party?' he said to Marie.

‘I don't like it at all, my lord. How do you like it?'

‘Very much, indeed. I think the emperor is the greatest fun I ever saw. Prince Frederic' – one of the German princes who was staying at the time among his English cousins – ‘Prince Frederic says that he's stuffed with hay, and that he's made up fresh every morning at a shop in the Haymarket.'

‘I've seen him talk.'

‘He opens his mouth, of course. There is machinery as well as hay. I think he's the grandest old buffer out, and I'm awfully glad that I've dined with him. I couldn't make out whether he really put anything to eat into his jolly old mouth.'

‘Of course he did.'

‘Have you been thinking about what we were talking about the other day?'

‘No, my lord – I haven't thought about it since. Why should I?'

‘Well; – it's a sort of thing that people do think about, you know.'

‘You don't think about it.'