The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope [good story books to read .txt] 📗

to her imagination. How would it affect Felix and her together⁠—and Mr. Broune as connected with her and Felix? If Felix should go to the dogs, then would Mr. Broune not want her. Should Felix go to the stars instead of the dogs, and become one of the gilded ornaments of the metropolis, then would not he and she want Mr. Broune. It was thus that she regarded the matter.

She thought very little of her daughter as she considered all this. There was a home for Hetta, with every comfort, if Hetta would only condescend to accept it. Why did not Hetta marry her cousin Roger Carbury and let there be an end of that trouble? Of course Hetta must live wherever her mother lived till she should marry; but Hetta’s life was so much at her own disposal that her mother did not feel herself bound to be guided in the great matter by Hetta’s predispositions.

But she must tell Hetta should she ultimately make up her mind to marry the man, and in that case the sooner this was done the better. On that night she did not make up her mind. Ever and again as she declared to herself that she would not marry him, the picture of a comfortable assured home over her head, and the conviction that the editor of the Morning Breakfast Table would be powerful for all things, brought new doubts to her mind. But she could not convince herself, and when at last she went to her bed her mind was still vacillating. The next morning she met Hetta at breakfast, and with assumed nonchalance asked a question about the man who was perhaps about to be her husband. “Do you like Mr. Broune, Hetta?”

“Yes;⁠—pretty well. I don’t care very much about him. What makes you ask, mamma?”

“Because among my acquaintances in London there is no one so truly kind to me as he is.”

“He always seems to me to like to have his own way.”

“Why shouldn’t he like it?”

“He has to me that air of selfishness which is so very common with people in London;⁠—as though what he said were all said out of surface politeness.”

“I wonder what you expect, Hetta, when you talk of⁠—London people? Why should not London people be as kind as other people? I think Mr. Broune is as obliging a man as anyone I know. But if I like anybody, you always make little of him. The only person you seem to think well of is Mr. Montague.”

“Mamma, that is unfair and unkind. I never mention Mr. Montague’s name if I can help it⁠—and I should not have spoken of Mr. Broune, had you not asked me.”

XXXII Lady Monogram

Georgiana Longestaffe had now been staying with the Melmottes for a fortnight, and her prospects in regard to the London season had not much improved. Her brother had troubled her no further, and her family at Caversham had not, as far as she was aware, taken any notice of Dolly’s interference. Twice a week she received a cold, dull letter from her mother⁠—such letters as she had been accustomed to receive when away from home; and these she had answered, always endeavouring to fill her sheet with some customary description of fashionable doings, with some bit of scandal such as she would have repeated for her mother’s amusement⁠—and her own delectation in the telling of it⁠—had there been nothing painful in the nature of her sojourn in London. Of the Melmottes she hardly spoke. She did not say that she was taken to the houses in which it was her ambition to be seen. She would have lied directly in saying so. But she did not announce her own disappointment. She had chosen to come up to the Melmottes in preference to remaining at Caversham, and she would not declare her own failure. “I hope they are kind to you,” Lady Pomona always said. But Georgiana did not tell her mother whether the Melmottes were kind or unkind.

In truth, her “season” was a very unpleasant season. Her mode of living was altogether different to anything she had already known. The house in Bruton Street had never been very bright, but the appendages of life there had been of a sort which was not known in the gorgeous mansion in Grosvenor Square. It had been full of books and little toys and those thousand trifling household gods which are accumulated in years, and which in their accumulation suit themselves to the taste of their owners. In Grosvenor Square there were no Lares;⁠—no toys, no books, nothing but gold and grandeur, pomatum, powder and pride. The Longestaffe life had not been an easy, natural, or intellectual life; but the Melmotte life was hardly endurable even by a Longestaffe. She had, however, come prepared to suffer much, and was endowed with considerable power of endurance in pursuit of her own objects. Having willed to come, even to the Melmottes, in preference to remaining at Caversham, she fortified herself to suffer much. Could she have ridden in the park at midday in desirable company, and found herself in proper houses at midnight, she would have borne the rest, bad as it might have been. But it was not so. She had her horse, but could with difficulty get any proper companion. She had been in the habit of riding with one of the Primero girls⁠—and old Primero would accompany them, or perhaps a brother Primero, or occasionally her own father. And then, when once out, she would be surrounded by a cloud of young men⁠—and though there was but little in it, a walking round and round the same bit of ground with the same companions and with the smallest attempt at conversation, still it had been the proper thing and had satisfied her. Now it was with difficulty that she could get any cavalier such as the laws of society demand. Even Penelope Primero snubbed her⁠—whom she, Georgiana Longestaffe, had hitherto endured and