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

again into his beautiful face. “You will speak to papa; won’t you?”

“Will that be the best way?”

“I suppose so. How else?”

“I don’t know whether Madame Melmotte ought not⁠—”

“Oh dear no. Nothing would induce her. She is more afraid of him than anybody;⁠—more afraid of him than I am. I thought the gentleman always did that.”

“Of course I’ll do it,” said Sir Felix. “I’m not afraid of him. Why should I? He and I are very good friends, you know.”

“I’m glad of that.”

“He made me a Director of one of his companies the other day.”

“Did he? Perhaps he’ll like you for a son-in-law.”

“There’s no knowing;⁠—is there?”

“I hope he will. I shall like you for papa’s son-in-law. I hope it isn’t wrong to say that. Oh, Felix, say that you love me.” Then she put her face up towards his again.

“Of course I love you,” he said, not thinking it worth his while to kiss her. “It’s no good speaking to him here. I suppose I had better go and see him in the city.”

“He is in a good humour now,” said Marie.

“But I couldn’t get him alone. It wouldn’t be the thing to do down here.”

“Wouldn’t it?”

“Not in the country⁠—in another person’s house. Shall you tell Madame Melmotte?”

“Yes, I shall tell mamma; but she won’t say anything to him. Mamma does not care much about me. But I’ll tell you all that another time. Of course I shall tell you everything now. I never yet had anybody to tell anything to, but I shall never be tired of telling you.” Then he left her as soon as he could, and escaped to the other ladies. Mr. Melmotte was still sitting in the summerhouse, and Lord Alfred was still with him, smoking and drinking brandy and seltzer. As Sir Felix passed in front of the great man he told himself that it was much better that the interview should be postponed till they were all in London. Mr. Melmotte did not look as though he were in a good humour. Sir Felix said a few words to Lady Pomona and Madame Melmotte. Yes; he hoped to have the pleasure of seeing them with his mother and sister on the following day. He was aware that his cousin was not coming. He believed that his cousin Roger never did go anywhere like anyone else. No; he had not seen Mr. Longestaffe. He hoped to have the pleasure of seeing him tomorrow. Then he escaped, and got on his horse, and rode away.

“That’s going to be the lucky man,” said Georgiana to her mother, that evening.

“In what way lucky?”

“He is going to get the heiress and all the money. What a fool Dolly has been!”

“I don’t think it would have suited Dolly,” said Lady Pomona. “After all, why should not Dolly marry a lady?”

XVIII Ruby Ruggles Hears a Love Tale

Miss Ruby Ruggles, the granddaughter of old Daniel Ruggles, of Sheep’s Acre, in the parish of Sheepstone, close to Bungay, received the following letter from the hands of the rural post letter-carrier on that Sunday morning;⁠—“A friend will be somewhere near Sheepstone Birches between four and five o’clock on Sunday afternoon.” There was not another word in the letter, but Miss Ruby Ruggles knew well from whom it came.

Daniel Ruggles was a farmer, who had the reputation of considerable wealth, but who was not very well looked on in the neighbourhood as being somewhat of a curmudgeon and a miser. His wife was dead;⁠—he had quarrelled with his only son, whose wife was also dead, and had banished him from his home;⁠—his daughters were married and away; and the only member of his family who lived with him was his granddaughter Ruby. And this granddaughter was a great trouble to the old man. She was twenty-three years old, and had been engaged to a prosperous young man at Bungay in the meal and pollard line, to whom old Ruggles had promised to give £500 on their marriage. But Ruby had taken it into her foolish young head that she did not like meal and pollard, and now she had received the above very dangerous letter. Though the writer had not dared to sign his name she knew well that it came from Sir Felix Carbury⁠—the most beautiful gentleman she had ever set her eyes upon. Poor Ruby Ruggles! Living down at Sheep’s Acre, on the Waveney, she had heard both too much and too little of the great world beyond her ken. There were, she thought, many glorious things to be seen which she would never see were she in these her early years to become the wife of John Crumb, the dealer in meal and pollard at Bungay. Therefore she was full of a wild joy, half joy half fear, when she got her letter; and, therefore, punctually at four o’clock on that Sunday she was ensconced among the Sheepstone Birches, so that she might see without much danger of being seen. Poor Ruby Ruggles, who was left to be so much mistress of herself at the time of her life in which she most required the kindness of a controlling hand!

Mr. Ruggles held his land, or the greater part of it, on what is called a bishop’s lease, Sheep’s Acre Farm being a part of the property which did belong to the bishopric of Elmham, and which was still set apart for its sustentation;⁠—but he also held a small extent of outlying meadow which belonged to the Carbury estate, so that he was one of the tenants of Roger Carbury. Those Sheepstone Birches, at which Felix made his appointment, belonged to Roger. On a former occasion, when the feeling between the two cousins was kinder than that which now existed, Felix had ridden over with the landlord to call on the old man, and had then first seen Ruby;⁠—and had heard from Roger something of Ruby’s history up to that date. It had then been just made known that she was