He was bending solicitously over her, one shapely hand lifting one of hers, and holding it in a sustaining clasp. She said disjointedly: ‘Yes—no! It is nothing, my lord! I beg you will not—! Indeed, it is nothing!’
She drew her hand away as she spoke. He said: ‘Shall I leave you? I have come, I believe, at an unfortunate time. Tell me what you wish! I would not for the world add to your distress!’
‘Oh no! Do not go! This interview ought not to be—must not be—postponed!’
He looked intently at her, as much anxiety in his eyes as there was in hers. ‘I came—I believe you must know for what purpose.’
She bowed her head. ‘I do know. I wish—oh, how deeply I wish that you had not come!’
‘You wish that I had not come!’
‘Because it is useless!’ said the widow tragically. ‘I can give you no hope, my lord!’
There was a moment’s silence. He was looking at once astonished and chagrined, but, after a pause, he said quietly: ‘Forgive me! But when I spoke to you last night I was encouraged to think that you would not be averse from hearing me! You have said that you guessed the object of my visit—am I a coxcomb to imagine that my suit was not then disagreeable to you?’
‘Oh no, no, no!’ she uttered, raising her swimming eyes to his face. ‘I should have been most happy—I may say that I most sincerely desired it! But all is now changed! I can only beg of you to say no more!’
‘You desired it! In heaven’s name, what can possibly have occurred to alter this?’ he exclaimed. Trying for a lighter note, he said: ‘Has someone traduced my character to you? Or is it that—’
‘Oh no, how could anyone—? My lord, I must tell you that there is Another Man! When I agreed last night to receive you today, I did not know—that is, I thought—’ Her voice became suspended; she was obliged to wipe teardrops from her face.
He had stiffened. Another silence fell, broken only by the widow’s unhappy sniffs into her handkerchief. At last he said, in a constrained tone: ‘I collect—a prior attachment, ma’am?’
She nodded; a sob shook her. He said gently: ‘I will say no more. Pray do not cry, ma’am! You have been very frank, and I thank you for it. Will you accept my best wishes for your future happiness, and believe that—’
‘Happiness!’ she interrupted. ‘I am sure I am the wretchedest creature alive! You are all kindness, my lord: no one could be more sensible than I am of the exquisite forbearance you have shown me! You have every right to blame me for having encouraged you to suppose that your suit might be successful.’ Again her voice failed.
‘I have no blame for you at all, ma’am. Let us say no more! I will take my leave of you, but before I go will you permit me to discharge an obligation? I may not have the opportunity of speaking to you alone again. It concerns Fanny.’
‘Fanny?’ she repeated. ‘An obligation’?’’
He smiled with a slight effort. ‘Why, yes, ma’am! I had hoped to have won the right to speak to you on this subject. Well—I have not won that right, and you may deem it an impertinence that I should still venture, but since Fanny has honoured me with her confidence, and I promised her that I would do what I might, perhaps you will forgive me, and hear me with patience?’
She looked wonderingly at him. ‘Of course! That is—What can you possibly mean, my lord?’
‘She is, I collect, deeply attached to a young man whom she has known since her childhood. She has told me that you are opposed to the match, ma’am. Perhaps there exists some reason beyond his want of fortune to render his suit ineligible, but if it is not so—if your dislike of it arises only from a very natural desire that Fanny should contract some more brilliant alliance—may I beg of you, with all the earnestness at my command, not to stand between her and what may be her future happiness? Believe me, I do not speak without experience! In my youth I was the victim of such an ambition. I shall not say that one does not recover from an early disappointment—indeed, you know that I at least have done so!—but I am most sincerely fond of Fanny, and I would do much to save her from what I suffered. I have some little influence: I should be glad to exert it in this young man’s favour.’
The damp handkerchief had dropped from the widow’s clutch to the floor; she sat gazing up at his lordship with so odd an expression in her face that he added quickly: ‘You find it strange that Fanny should have confided in me. Do not be hurt by it! I believe it is often the case that a girl will more easily give her confidence to her father than to a most beloved mother. When she spoke, it was in the belief that I might become—But I will say no more on that head!’
The widow found her voice at last. ‘My lord,’ she said, ‘do I—do I understand that you are desirous of becoming Fanny’s father?’
‘That is not quite as I should phrase it, perhaps,’ he said, with a wry smile.
‘Not,’ asked the widow anxiously, ‘not—you are quite sure?—Fanny’s husband?’
He looked thunderstruck. ‘Fanny’s husband?’ he echoed. ‘I? Good God, no! Why—is it possible that you can have supposed—?’
‘I have never fainted in all my life,’ stated Mrs Wing-ham, in an uncertain voice. ‘I very much fear, however—’
‘No, no, this is no time for swoons!’ he said, seizing her hands. ‘You cannot have thought that it was Fanny I loved! Yes, yes, I know what Fanny has been to you, but you cannot have been so absurd!’
‘Yes, I was,’ averred the widow. ‘I could even be so absurd as not to have the remotest guess why I have felt so low ever since I met you, and thought you wished to marry her!’
He knelt beside her chair, still clasping her hands. ‘What a fool I was! But I thought my only hope of being in any way acceptable to you was to praise Fanny to you! And, indeed, she is a delightful girl! But all you have said to me today—you were not speaking of yourself?
‘Oh no, no! Of Fanny! You see, she and Richard—’
‘Never mind Fanny and Richard!’ he interrupted. ‘Is it still useless for me to persist in my errand to you?’
‘Quite ridiculous!’ she said, clinging to his hands. ‘You have not the least need to persist in it! That is, if you do indeed wish to marry such a blind goose as I have been!’
His lordship disengaged his hands, but only that he might take her in his arms. ‘I wish it more than for anything else on this earth!’ he assured her.
To Have the Honour
1
Young Lord Allerton, a little pale under his tan, glanced from his mother to his man of business. ‘But—good God, why was I never told in what case I stood?’
Mr Thimbleby did not attempt to answer this home question. He perceived that young Lord Allerton’s facial resemblance to his deceased father was misleading. There was nothing the late Viscount had desired less than to be told in what case he stood. Three years of campaigning in the Peninsula had apparently engendered in the Fifth Viscount a sense of responsibility which, however welcome it might be in the future to his man of business, seemed at the moment likely to lead to unpleasantness. Mr Thimbleby directed an appealing look towards the widow.