Winton stayed in London until September, with a certain sense of satisfaction in this self-martyrdom. It was totally unnecessary and could advantage nobody—but the thought of going into the country and pretending to enjoy himself while everything was so doubtful as to his future prospects, was disagreeable to him. He neglected his friends, he declined his invitations, he took pleasure in making himself miserable, and in pouring out his loneliness and wretchedness on sheet after sheet of note-paper, and addressing the budget to Billings Court; from whence, very soon indeed after this practice began, the Duchess, alarmed, sent him an energetic protestation. “Such a hot correspondence will soon awaken suspicions,” she wrote; “for Jane’s sake I implore you to be a little more patient.” “Patient! much she knows about it!” Winton said, when, pouncing upon this letter with the hope of finding, perhaps—who could tell?—the Duke’s consent in it and final sanction, he encountered this disappointing check. What could she know about it indeed, with Jane by her side, and all that she cared for? Perhaps in other circumstances the young man might have had a glimmering perception that the Duchess was well acquainted with the exercise of patience, even though Jane was her daughter; but at present his own affairs entirely occupied his mind. He spent a good deal of his time in Wardour Street and other cognate regions, and attended a great many sales, in which there was some degree of soothing to be obtained; for to “pick up” something which might hereafter grace her sitting-room, gave a glory to bric-a-brac, and thus he seemed to be doing something for her, even when most entirely separated from her. Jane herself wrote to him the most soothing of letters. “So long as we know each other as we do, and trust each other, what does a little delay matter?” she said. Poor Winton cried out, “Much she knows about it!” again, as he kissed yet almost tore, in loving fury, her tender little epistle. This was very unreasonable, for of course she knew quite as much about it as he did. When a pair of lovers are parted, it is not the lady that is supposed to feel it the least.
And yet he was more or less justified in that despairing exclamation, for Jane’s perfect faith was such as is rarely possible to a man who has been in the world. He did not feel at all sure that she might not be capable out of pure sweetness and self-sacrifice—that pernicious doctrine in which, he said to himself angrily, women are nourished—of giving him up. Even the Duchess sometimes thought so, deceived by the serene aspect of her child, who did not pine or sigh, but pursued her gentle career with a more than ordinary sweetness and pleasure in it. Lady Jane had the advantage over both these doubting souls. Doubt was not in her; and she was aware, as they were not, of the persistency of her own steadfast nature, which, in the absence of all experience to the contrary, she held to be a universal characteristic. It did not occur to her as possible that having made up his mind on an important subject—far less given his heart, to use the sentimental language which she blushed yet was pleased in the depths of her seclusion to employ—any man—or woman either—could be persuaded or forced to change it. Many things were possible—but not that. She had no excitement on the subject, because it was outside of all her consciousness, a thing impossible. Change! give up! The only result of such a suggestion upon Lady Jane was a faintly humorous and perfectly serene smile. But Winton had not this admirable serenity. Perhaps he was not himself so absolutely true as the stainless creature whom he loved. He worked himself up into little fits of passion sometimes, asking himself how could he tell what agencies might be brought to bear upon her, what necessities might be urged upon her? It was very well known that the Duke was poor; and if it so happened that in the depths of his embarrassment somebody stepped forward with one of those fabulous fortunes which are occasionally to be met with, ready to free the father at the cost of the daughter, as occurs sometimes even out of novels, would Jane be able to resist all the inducements that would be brought to bear upon her? Winton sprang from his feet more than once with a wild intention of rushing to his lawyers and instructing them to stop his Grace’s mouth with a bundle of bank-notes, lest he might lend an ear to that imaginary millionaire. And on coming to his senses, it must be said that the Duke’s overweening pride, which was working his own harm, was the point of consolation to which the lover clung, and not any conviction of the firmness of Lady Jane in such circumstances. It was a comfort that his Grace was far too haughty in his dukedom to suffer the approach of mere millionaires.
In September, Lady Germaine returning from that six weeks at Homburg with which it was the fashion in those days for worn-out fine ladies to recruit themselves after the labours of the season, and pausing in London two days in a furious accÈs of shopping before she went to the country, saw Winton pass the door at which her carriage was standing, and pounced upon him with all the eagerness of an explorer in a savage country. “You here!” she said; “for goodness’ sake come and help me with my shopping. I have not spoken two words together for a week—not even on the journey! There was nobody: I can’t think where the people have gone to: one used to be sure of picking up some one on the way, but there was nobody. Well! and how are things going?” she added, making a distinct pause after her first little personal outburst was over.
“Very badly,” Winton said, with a sigh.
“Papa will not pay any attention?” said Lady Germaine. “I warned you of that: don’t say you were taken unawares. I told you he was the most impracticable of men, and you, in your holy innocence——”
“Don’t,” said Winton. “I remember all you said; you called me names: you confessed that you felt guilty——”
“Be just. I did not say I felt guilty, but only that his Grace would think me so, which are very different things. And so he will not have you? poor boy! but I knew that from the beginning. There is one fine thing in him, that he has no eye to his own advantage. Most people would think you a very good match for Jane.”
“Don’t speak blasphemy,” said Winton. “I agree with the Duke, he is as right as a man can be. There is nobody good enough for her——”
“Except——”
“Except no one that I am acquainted with. I don’t deserve that she should let me tie her shoes. Oh, don’t suppose I have changed my opinion about that.”
“I am glad to find you are in such a proper frame of mind—then there will be no trouble at all, none of the expedients adopted in such cases? Poor Lady Jane! but since that is the case, there is nothing more to be said. And what, may I ask, you good humble-minded young man, are you doing in town in September? You ought to be shooting somewhere, or making yourself agreeable.”
“I am knocking about at all the sales,” said Winton, “trying to pick up a little thing here and there for her rooms at Winton. What are the expedients you were thinking of, dear Lady Germaine? It is always good to know.”
Lady Germaine laughed. “Then you have not given in?” she said. “I did not suppose you were the sort of person to give in. What did he say? was it final? did he show you to the door? You will think it hard-hearted of me to laugh, but I should like to have been in hiding somewhere to have seen his Grace’s face when you ventured to tell him.”
“He has not received that shock yet,” said Winton, not very well pleased.
“He has not——! Do you mean you have never asked the Duke? Are things just as they were, then, and no advance made?” said Lady Germaine, in a tone of wonder that was not quite free of contempt.
“They will not let me speak,” said Winton, in a voice from which he could not keep a certain querulous accent. “It is not my way of managing affairs; but what can I do? Her mother says——”
“Then you have got the Duchess on your side?”
“I suppose so,” said the young man. “I sometimes doubt whether it is for good or evil. She will not let me speak. She says she will let me know the right moment. In the meantime life is insupportable, you know. I shall take my courage À deux mains, and when I go down there——”
“You are going down there—to Billings?” cried Lady Germaine with a gasp of astonishment.
“On the 10th,” said Winton with a sigh, “but whether anything will come of it or not——”
“When the Duchess is taking the business into her own hands! Reginald Winton, I have told you before you were a goose,” said Lady Germaine, solemnly. “And what is the use of mooning about here and asking me what are the expedients? Of course she has thought of all the expedients. Whatever he may be, the Duchess is a woman of sense. Are you furnishing Winton? Have you all your arrangements made? I should have everything ready—down to the footstools and door-mats—and servants engaged, and your carriages seen to. You can’t marry a duke’s daughter without taking a little trouble about the place you are going to put her in.”
“Trouble—there shall be no sparing of trouble!” he cried; but then shook his head. “We are a long way off that,” he added, in a dolorous tone.
“This is the confident lover,” said Lady Germaine, “who scoffed at dukes and thought himself good enough for anybody’s daughter. Don’t you see that if it comes to nothing, something must come of it directly? Things of this sort can’t hang on—they go quicker than the legitimate drama. If I were you, I would have the steeds saddled in their stalls, and the knights in their armour, like Walter Scott, you know.”
“Do you think so?” said Winton, his eyes lighting up. “If I could imagine that anything so good as this was on the cards——”
“On the cards! Oh, the obtuseness of man! Do you think the Duchess will let herself be beaten? Oh yes, her husband has been too many for her again and again. I know she has had to give in and let him take his own way: but now that Jane is concerned, and she has pledged herself to you——”
“She has been very kind. I had not the least right to expect such kindness as she has shown me: but she has given no pledge,” said Winton with a recurrence of his despondency.
Lady Germaine, who had stopped herself in the full career of her shopping to hold this conversation with him in a luxurious corner of the great shop, where all was still at this dead moment of the year, and only velvet-footed assistants passed now and then noiselessly—gave him at this moment a look of disdain, and rose up from her chair. “I did not think you had been such a noodle,” she said, and, before he could answer a word, went forward to the nearest counter, where an elegant youth had been waiting all the time with bales of silks and stuffs half unfolded for her ladyship’s inspection—and plunged into business. That elegant youth had not in any way betrayed his weariness. He had stood by his wares as if it were the most natural thing in the world to wait for half an hour, so to speak, between the cup and the lip: but he had not been without his thoughts, and these thoughts were not very favourable to Lady Germaine. Most likely this was the origin of a paragraph which crept into one of the Society papers in the deadness of the season and puzzled all the tantalised circles in country houses, and even bewildered the clubs. Who could the “Lady G.” be who had awakened the echoes of the back shop at Allen and Lewisby’s? Here is the advantage of an immaculate reputation. Neither the clubs nor the country houses ever associated Lady Germaine with such a possibility; but this, of course was what that elegant young person did not know.
“Why am I a noodle?” said Winton, going after her, and too much absorbed in the subject to think of the attendant at all.
“If you can think of a stronger word put that instead,” said Lady Germaine. “I can’t call names here, don’t you see, though I should so like to. No pledge! Oh, you—— What should you like in that way? Something on parchment, with seals hanging to it like a Pope’s bull? as if every word she said and every suggestion she made was not a pledge, and the strongest of pledges? Go away, and let me choose the children’s new frocks in peace. It is easier to do that than to make people understand.”
But Winton did not go away. He leaned over her chair, making certainty more certain to the spectator behind the counter. “Look here,” he said; “do you really mean what you say—that I ought to have everything ready?”
“Don’t you think these two shades go nicely together?” said Lady Germaine, putting the silk and the merino side by side with skilful hands, and with an air of the profoundest deliberation. “The girls have not a thing to wear. I should have the steeds in the stables and the knights in the hall, if I were you, and William of Deloraine ready to ride by night or by day.”
Perhaps this advice was not the clearest in the world, but, such as it was, it was all the lady would give; and it sent Winton along the half-lighted half-empty streets, in the twilight of the soft September evening, with an alert pace and a heart beating as it had not beat since London had suddenly become empty to him by the departure of one family from it. He went over every room of his house that evening, calculating and considering. It was a charming house, and he had regarded it with no small satisfaction when, only a year or two before, its decorations had been completed. But now, with the idea in his mind that at any moment (was not that what she said?) he might have to be ready for the princess, the wife—that his happiness might come upon him suddenly, and his life be transformed, and his house turned into her house—in this view it was astonishing how many things he found that were incomplete. Nay, everything was incomplete. It was dingy—it was small; it was commonplace. The drawing-rooms had become old-fashioned, though yesterday he had been under the impression that there was an antique grace about them—a flavour of the old world which gave them character. The dining-room was heavy and elaborate; the library too dark; the morning-room—good heavens! there was no morning-room in which a lady could establish herself, but only a half-furnished place uninhabited, cold, with no character at all. It brought a cold dew all over him when he opened the door of that empty chamber. He could scarcely sleep for thinking of it. What if she might be ready before her house was! The idea was intolerable: and everything was petty, mean, without beauty, unworthy of her. He had not thought so when he walked through those over-gilded drawing-rooms in Grosvenor Square, and said to himself that not amid such tawdry fineries as these should his wife be housed. Everything had changed since that brief moment of confidence. He was dissatisfied with everything. Next morning he had no sooner awoke from a sleep troubled by dreams of chaotic upholstery, than he went to work. Perhaps, after all, things were not so bad. With the aid of a few experts, and a great deal of money, much, if not everything, can be done in a very short space of time. He ran down into the country as soon as he had set things going in Kensington, and arrived at his old manor-house without warning, to the great consternation of the housekeeper. Winton had still more need of the experts and the bric-a-brac. It wanted many things besides, which were not to be had in a moment, and his life for the next week was as laborious as that of the busiest workman. The excitement among the servants and hangers-on at both places was indescribable. He said nothing of his approaching marriage, and yet nothing but an approaching marriage could account for it; or else that he was going clean out of his senses, which was another hypothesis produced.
This fit of active and hopeful exertion got over these remaining days with the speed of a dream. The hours galloped along with him as lightly at least, if not as merrily, as though they were indeed carrying him to his wedding-day. But when all was done that he could do, and the moment approached for his visit to Billings, a cold shade fell over him. Lady Germaine’s clever little speeches began to look like nonsense as he thought them over; “quicker than the legitimate drama;” what did she mean by that? Could he imagine for a moment to himself that Jane, the princess of her own race as well as of his affections, the serene and perfect lady of his thoughts, would be the heroine of any vulgar romance? That he could have entertained such a thought for a moment horrified him when he paused in his feverish exertion and began to think what it all meant. But this was only on the way to Billings, when every pulse in his body began to throb high with the thought of being once more in her presence, under the same roof with her, and about to put his fortune to the test to gain everything or—no, not to lose her. He said to himself with a sudden passion that he would not lose Jane. Such a calamity was not possible. Father and mother and all the powers might do what they would or could, but she was his, and give her up he would not. Thus the anxious lover went round the compass and came back to the point from which he started. He found Lady Germaine as wise and clever as he had always thought her, when he came thus far. There were expedients—and the Duchess was pledged to the employment of them as certainly as if he had her word for it engrossed on parchments sealed and signed and delivered. One way or another, his visit to Billings would be decisive. He went like a soldier to the field of battle, with a thrill of excitement over him, as well as with all the softening enthusiasm of a lover. Happen how it might, he could not leave that unknown fortress, that Castle Dangerous, as he came.
