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

instance that these proceedings were being taken. “I, on behalf of my client,” said Mr. Bideawhile, “will consent to wait till Friday at noon.”

“I presume, Adolphus, that you will say as much,” said the elder Longestaffe.

Dolly Longestaffe was certainly not an impressionable person, but Melmotte’s eloquence had moved even him. It was not that he was sorry for the man, but that at the present moment he believed him. Though he had been absolutely sure that Melmotte had forged his name or caused it to be forged⁠—and did not now go so far into the matter as to abandon that conviction⁠—he had been talked into crediting the reasons given for Melmotte’s temporary distress, and also into a belief that the money would be paid on Friday. Something of the effect which Melmotte’s false confessions had had upon Lord Nidderdale, they now also had on Dolly Longestaffe. “I’ll ask Squercum, you know,” he said.

“Of course Mr. Squercum will act as you instruct him,” said Bideawhile.

“I’ll ask Squercum. I’ll go to him at once. I can’t do any more than that. And upon my word, Mr. Melmotte, you’ve given me a great deal of trouble.”

Melmotte with a smile apologized. Then it was settled that they three should meet in that very room on Friday at noon, and that the payment should then be made⁠—Dolly stipulating that as his father would be attended by Bideawhile, so would he be attended by Squercum. To this Mr. Longestaffe senior yielded with a very bad grace.

LXXVI Hetta and Her Lover

Lady Carbury was at this time so miserable in regard to her son that she found herself unable to be active as she would otherwise have been in her endeavours to separate Paul Montague and her daughter. Roger had come up to town and given his opinion, very freely at any rate with regard to Sir Felix. But Roger had immediately returned to Suffolk, and the poor mother in want of assistance and consolation turned naturally to Mr. Broune, who came to see her for a few minutes almost every evening. It had now become almost a part of Mr. Broune’s life to see Lady Carbury once in the day. She told him of the two propositions which Roger had made: first, that she should fix her residence in some second-rate French or German town, and that Sir Felix should be made to go with her; and, secondly, that she should take possession of Carbury manor for six months. “And where would Mr. Carbury go?” asked Mr. Broune.

“He’s so good that he doesn’t care what he does with himself. There’s a cottage on the place, he says, that he would move to.” Mr. Broune shook his head. Mr. Broune did not think that an offer so quixotically generous as this should be accepted. As to the German or French town, Mr. Broune said that the plan was no doubt feasible, but he doubted whether the thing to be achieved was worth the terrible sacrifice demanded. He was inclined to think that Sir Felix should go to the colonies. “That he might drink himself to death,” said Lady Carbury, who now had no secrets from Mr. Broune. Sir Felix in the meantime was still in the doctor’s hands upstairs. He had no doubt been very severely thrashed, but there was not in truth very much ailing him beyond the cuts on his face. He was, however, at the present moment better satisfied to be an invalid than to have to come out of his room and to meet the world. “As to Melmotte,” said Mr. Broune, “they say now that he is in some terrible mess which will ruin him and all who have trusted him.”

“And the girl?”

“It is impossible to understand it all. Melmotte was to have been summoned before the Lord Mayor today on some charge of fraud;⁠—but it was postponed. And I was told this morning that Nidderdale still means to marry the girl. I don’t think anybody knows the truth about it. We shall hold our tongue about him till we really do know something.” The “we” of whom Mr. Broune spoke was, of course, the Morning Breakfast Table.

But in all this there was nothing about Hetta. Hetta, however, thought very much of her own condition, and found herself driven to take some special step by the receipt of two letters from her lover, written to her from Liverpool. They had never met since she had confessed her love to him. The first letter she did not at once answer, as she was at that moment waiting to hear what Roger Carbury would say about Mrs. Hurtle. Roger Carbury had spoken, leaving a conviction on her mind that Mrs. Hurtle was by no means a fiction⁠—but indeed a fact very injurious to her happiness. Then Paul’s second love-letter had come, full of joy, and love, and contentment⁠—with not a word in it which seemed to have been in the slightest degree influenced by the existence of a Mrs. Hurtle. Had there been no Mrs. Hurtle, the letter would have been all that Hetta could have desired; and she could have answered it, unless forbidden by her mother, with all a girl’s usual enthusiastic affection for her chosen lord. But it was impossible that she should now answer it in that strain;⁠—and it was equally impossible that she should leave such letters unanswered. Roger had told her to “ask himself;” and she now found herself constrained to bid him either come to her and answer the question, or, if he thought it better, to give her some written account of Mrs. Hurtle⁠—so that she might know who the lady was, and whether the lady’s condition did in any way interfere with her own happiness. So she wrote to Paul, as follows:⁠—

Welbeck Street, 16 July, 18⁠—.

My dear Paul.

She found that after that which had passed between them she could not call him “My dear Sir,” or “My dear Mr. Montague,” and that it must either be “Sir” or “My dear Paul.” He was dear to her⁠—very