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

said, “this is so good of you⁠—so good of you! I do so love you for coming to me! You said you would love me. You will; will you not?” and Marie, sitting down by the stranger, took her hand and encircled her waist.

“Mr. Melmotte has told you why I have come.”

“Yes;⁠—that is, I don’t know. I never believe what papa says to me.” To poor Hetta such an announcement as this was horrible. “We are at daggers drawn. He thinks I ought to do just what he tells me, as though my very soul were not my own. I won’t agree to that;⁠—would you?” Hetta had not come there to preach disobedience, but could not fail to remember at the moment that she was not disposed to obey her mother in an affair of the same kind. “What does he say, dear?”

Hetta’s message was to be conveyed in three words, and when those were told, there was nothing more to be said. “It must all be over, Miss Melmotte.”

“Is that his message, Miss Carbury?” Hetta nodded her head. “Is that all?”

“What more can I say? The other night you told me to bid him send you word. And I thought he ought to do so. I gave him your message, and I have brought back the answer. My brother, you know, has no income of his own;⁠—nothing at all.”

“But I have,” said Marie with eagerness.

“But your father⁠—”

“It does not depend upon papa. If papa treats me badly, I can give it to my husband. I know I can. If I can venture, cannot he?”

“I think it is impossible.”

“Impossible! Nothing should be impossible. All the people that one hears of that are really true to their loves never find anything impossible. Does he love me, Miss Carbury? It all depends on that. That’s what I want to know.” She paused, but Hetta could not answer the question. “You must know about your brother. Don’t you know whether he does love me? If you know I think you ought to tell me.” Hetta was still silent. “Have you nothing to say?”

“Miss Melmotte⁠—” began poor Hetta very slowly.

“Call me Marie. You said you would love me;⁠—did you not? I don’t even know what your name is.”

“My name is⁠—Hetta.”

“Hetta;⁠—that’s short for something. But it’s very pretty. I have no brother, no sister. And I’ll tell you, though you must not tell anybody again;⁠—I have no real mother. Madame Melmotte is not my mamma, though papa chooses that it should be thought so.” All this she whispered, with rapid words, almost into Hetta’s ear. “And papa is so cruel to me! He beats me sometimes.” The new friend, round whom Marie still had her arm, shuddered as she heard this. “But I never will yield a bit for that. When he boxes and thumps me I always turn and gnash my teeth at him. Can you wonder that I want to have a friend? Can you be surprised that I should be always thinking of my lover? But⁠—if he doesn’t love me, what am I to do then?”

“I don’t know what I am to say,” ejaculated Hetta amidst her sobs. Whether the girl was good or bad, to be sought or to be avoided, there was so much tragedy in her position that Hetta’s heart was melted with sympathy.

“I wonder whether you love anybody, and whether he loves you,” said Marie. Hetta certainly had not come there to talk of her own affairs, and made no reply to this. “I suppose you won’t tell me about yourself.”

“I wish I could tell you something for your own comfort.”

“He will not try again, you think?”

“I am sure he will not.”

“I wonder what he fears. I should fear nothing⁠—nothing. Why should not we walk out of the house, and be married any way? Nobody has a right to stop me. Papa could only turn me out of his house. I will venture if he will.”

It seemed to Hetta that even listening to such a proposition amounted to falsehood⁠—to that guilt of which Mr. Melmotte had dared to suppose that she could be capable. “I cannot listen to it. Indeed I cannot listen to it. My brother is sure that he cannot⁠—cannot⁠—”

“Cannot love me, Hetta! Say it out, if it is true.”

“It is true,” said Hetta. There came over the face of the other girl a stern hard look, as though she had resolved at the moment to throw away from her all soft womanly things. And she relaxed her hold on Hetta’s waist. “Oh, my dear, I do not mean to be cruel, but you ask me for the truth.”

“Yes; I did.”

“Men are not, I think, like girls.”

“I suppose not,” said Marie slowly. “What liars they are, what brutes;⁠—what wretches! Why should he tell me lies like that? Why should he break my heart? That other man never said that he loved me. Did he never love me⁠—once?”

Hetta could hardly say that her brother was incapable of such love as Marie expected, but she knew that it was so. “It is better that you should think of him no more.”

“Are you like that? If you had loved a man and told him of it, and agreed to be his wife and done as I have, could you bear to be told to think of him no more⁠—just as though you had got rid of a servant or a horse? I won’t love him. No;⁠—I’ll hate him. But I must think of him. I’ll marry that other man to spite him, and then, when he finds that we are rich, he’ll be brokenhearted.”

“You should try to forgive him, Marie.”

“Never. Do not tell him that I forgive him. I command you not to tell him that. Tell him⁠—tell him, that I hate him, and that if I ever meet him, I will look at him so that he shall never forget it. I could⁠—oh!⁠—you do not know what I could do. Tell me;⁠—did he tell you to say that he did