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myself to a man who had no fortune of his own. I know it now, and

I knew it then; and therefore I wouldn’t dabble in the river with you.

But it’s all over now, and we’ll go and get wet together like dear

little children, and Priscilla shall scold us when we come back.’

 

They were alone in the sitting-room for more than an hour, and Lady

Rowley was patient upstairs; as mothers will be patient in such

emergencies. Sophie and Lucy had gone out and left her; and there she

remained, telling herself, as the weary minutes went by, that as the

thing was to be, it was well that the young people should be together.

Hugh Stanbury could never be to her what Mr Glascock would have been—a

son-in-law to sit and think about, and dream of, and be proud of, whose

existence as her son-in-law would in itself have been a happiness to

her out in her banishment at the other side of the world; but

nevertheless it was natural to her, as a soft-hearted, loving mother

with many daughters, that any son-in-law should be dear to her. Now

that she had gradually brought herself round to believe in Nora’s

marriage, she was disposed to make the best of Hugh, to remember that

he was certainly a clever man, that he was an honest fellow, and that

she had heard of him as a good son and a kind brother, and that he had

behaved well in reference to her Emily and Trevelyan. She was quite

willing now that Hugh should be happy, and she sat there thinking that

the time was very long, but still waiting patiently till she should be

summoned. ‘You must let me go for mamma for a moment,’ Nora said. ‘I

want you to see her and make yourself a good boy before her. If you are

ever to be her son-in-law, you ought to be in her good graces.’ Hugh

declared that he would do his best, and Nora fetched her mother.

 

Stanbury found some difficulty in making himself a ‘good boy’ in Lady

Rowley’s presence; and Lady Rowley herself, for sometime, felt very

strongly the awkwardness of the meeting. She had never formally

recognised the young man as her daughter’s accepted suitor, and as not

yet justified in doing so by any permission from Sir Marmaduke; but, as

the young people had been for the last hour or two alone together, with

her connivance and sanction, it was indispensable that she should in

some way signify her parental adherence to the arrangement. Nora began

by talking about Emily, and Trevelyan’s condition and mode of living

were discussed. Then Lady Rowley said something about their coming

journey, and Hugh, with a lucky blunder, spoke of Nora’s intended

return to Italy. ‘We don’t know how that may be,’ said Lady Rowley.

‘Her papa still wishes her to go back with us.’

 

‘Mamma, you know that that is impossible,’ said Nora.

 

‘Not impossible, my love.’

 

‘But she will not go back,’ said Hugh. ‘Lady Rowley, you would not

propose to separate us by such a distance as that?’

 

‘It is Sir Marmaduke that you must ask.’

 

‘Mamma, mamma!’ exclaimed Nora, rushing to her mother’s side, ‘it is

not papa that we must ask not now. We want you to be our friend. Don’t

we, Hugh? And, mamma, if you will really be our friend, of course, papa

will come round.’

 

‘My dear Nora!’

 

‘You know he will, mamma; and you know that you mean to be good and

kind to us. Of course I can’t go back to the Islands with you. How

could I go so far and leave him behind? He might have half-a-dozen

wives before I could get back to him—’

 

‘If you have not more trust in him than that—’

 

‘Long engagements are awful bores,’ said Hugh, finding it to be

necessary that he also should press forward his argument.

 

‘I can trust him as far as I can see him,’ said Nora, ‘and therefore I

do not want to lose sight of him altogether.’

 

Lady Rowley of course gave way and embraced her accepted son-in-law.

After all it might have been worse. He saw his way clearly, he said, to

making six hundred a year, and did not at all doubt that before long he

would do better than that. He proposed that they should be married some

time in the autumn, but was willing to acknowledge that much must

depend on the position of Trevelyan and his wife. He would hold himself

ready at any moment, he said, to start to Italy, and would do all that

could be done by a brother. Then Lady Rowley gave him her blessing, and

kissed him again, and Nora kissed him too, and hung upon him, and did

not push him away at all when his arm crept round her waist. And that

feeling came upon him which must surely be acknowledged by all engaged

young men when they first find themselves encouraged by mammas in the

taking of liberties which they have hitherto regarded as mysteries to

be hidden, especially from maternal eyes, that feeling of being a fine

fat calf decked out with ribbons for a sacrifice.

CHAPTER XCI

FOUR O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

 

Another week went by and Sir Marmaduke had even yet not surrendered. He

quite understood that Nora was not to go back to the Islands and had

visited Mr and Mrs Outhouse at St. Diddulph’s in order to secure a home

for her there, if it might be possible. Mr Outhouse did not refuse, but

gave the permission in such a fashion as to make it almost equal to a

refusal. ‘He was,’ he said, ‘much attached to his niece Nora, but he

had heard that there was a love affair.’ Sir Marmaduke, of course,

could not deny the love affair. There was certainly a love affair of

which he did not personally approve, as the gentleman had no fixed

income and as far as he could understand no fixed profession. ‘Such a

love affair,’ thought Mr Outhouse, ‘was a sort of thing that he didn’t

know how to manage at all. If Nora came to him, was the young man to

visit at the house, or was he not?’ Then Mrs Outhouse said something as

to the necessity of an anti-Stanbury pledge on Nora’s part, and Sir

Marmaduke found that that scheme must be abandoned. Mrs Trevelyan had

written from Florence more than once or twice, and in her last letter

had said that she would prefer not to have Nora with her. She was at

that time living in lodgings at Siena and had her boy there also. She

saw her husband every other day; but nevertheless, according to her

statements, her visits to Casalunga were made in opposition to his

wishes. He had even expressed a desire that she should leave Siena and

return to England. He had once gone so far as to say that if she would

do so, he would follow her. But she clearly did not believe him, and in

all her letters spoke of him as one whom she could not regard as being

under the guidance of reason. She had taken her child with her once or

twice to the house, and on the first occasion Trevelyan had made much

of his son, had wept over him, and professed that in losing him he had

lost his only treasure; but after that he had not noticed the boy, and

latterly she had gone alone. She thought that perhaps her visits

cheered him, breaking the intensity of his solitude; but he never

expressed himself gratified by them, never asked her to remain at the

house, never returned with her into Siena, and continually spoke of her

return to England as a step which must be taken soon, and the sooner the

better. He intended to follow her, he said; and she explained very

fully how manifest was his wish that she should go, by the temptation

to do so which he thought that he held out by this promise. He had

spoken, on every occasion of her presence with him, of Sir Marmaduke’s

attempt to prove him to be a madman; but declared that he was afraid of

no one in England, and would face all the lawyers in Chancery Lane and

all the doctors in Savile Row. Nevertheless, so said Mrs Trevelyan, he

would undoubtedly remain at Casalunga till after Sir Marmaduke should

have sailed. He was not so mad but that he knew that no one else would

be so keen to take steps against him as would Sir Marmaduke. As for his

health, her account of him was very sad. ‘He seemed,’ she said, ‘to be

withering away.’ His hand was mere skin and bone. His hair and beard so

covered his thin long cheeks, that there was nothing left of his face

but his bright, large, melancholy eyes. His legs had become so frail

and weak that they would hardly bear his weight as he walked; and his

clothes, though he had taken a fancy to throw aside all that he had

brought with him from England, hung so loose about him that they seemed

as though they would fall from him. Once she had ventured to send out

to him from Siena a doctor to whom she had been recommended in

Florence; but he had taken the visit in very bad part, had told the

gentleman that he had no need for any medical services, and had been

furious with her, because of her offence in having sent such a visitor.

He had told her that if ever she ventured to take such a liberty again,

he would demand the child back, and refuse her permission inside the

gates of Casalunga. ‘Don’t come, at any rate, till I send for you,’ Mrs

Trevelyan said in her last letter to her sister. ‘Your being here would

do no good, and would, I think, make him feel that he was being

watched. My hope is, at last, to get him to return with me. If you were

here, I think this would be less likely. And then why should you be

mixed up with such unutterable sadness and distress more than is

essentially necessary? My health stands wonderfully well, though the

heat here is very great. It is cooler at Casalunga than in the town, of

which I am glad for his sake. He perspires so profusely that it seems

to me he cannot stand the waste much longer. I know he will not go to

England as long as papa is there, but I hope that he may be induced to

do so by slow stages as soon as he knows that papa has gone. Mind you

send me a newspaper, so that he may see it stated in print that papa

has sailed.’

 

It followed as one consequence of these letters from Florence that Nora

was debarred from the Italian scheme as a mode of passing her time till

some house should be open for her reception. She had suggested to Hugh

that she might go for a few weeks to Nuncombe Putney, but he had

explained to her the nature of his mother’s cottage, and had told her

that there was no hole there in which she could lay her head. ‘There

never was such a forlorn young woman,’ she said. ‘When papa goes I

shall literally be without shelter.’ There had come a letter from Mrs

Glascock, at least it was signed Caroline Glascock, though another name

might have been used, dated from Milan, saying that they were hurrying

back to Naples even at that season of the year, because Lord

Peterborough was dead. ‘And she is Lady Peterborough!’ said

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