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

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 P.’s 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 brokenhearted? 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 dinnertime, 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 anyone 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