Framley Parsonage, Anthony Trollope [popular e readers txt] 📗

reached him, through Mr. Fothergill, that the duke would be glad to have matters arranged; and Mr. Sowerby well knew the meaning of that message.

Mr. Sowerby was not fighting this campaign alone, without the aid of any ally. Indeed, no man ever had a more trusty ally in any campaign than he had in this. And it was this ally, the only faithful comrade that clung to him through good and ill during his whole life, who first put it into his head that Miss Dunstable was a woman and might be married.

“A hundred needy adventurers have attempted it, and failed already,” Mr. Sowerby had said, when the plan was first proposed to him.

“But, nevertheless, she will some day marry someone; and why not you as well as another?” his sister had answered. For Mrs. Harold Smith was the ally of whom I have spoken.

Mrs. Harold Smith, whatever may have been her faults, could boast of this virtue⁠—that she loved her brother. He was probably the only human being that she did love. Children she had none; and as for her husband, it had never occurred to her to love him. She had married him for a position; and being a clever woman, with a good digestion and command of her temper, had managed to get through the world without much of that unhappiness which usually follows ill-assorted marriages. At home she managed to keep the upper hand, but she did so in an easy, good-humoured way that made her rule bearable; and away from home she assisted her lord’s political standing, though she laughed more keenly than anyone else at his foibles. But the lord of her heart was her brother; and in all his scrapes, all his extravagances, and all his recklessness, she had ever been willing to assist him. With the view of doing this she had sought the intimacy of Miss Dunstable, and for the last year past had indulged every caprice of that lady. Or rather, she had had the wit to learn that Miss Dunstable was to be won, not by the indulgence of caprices, but by free and easy intercourse, with a dash of fun, and, at any rate, a semblance of honesty. Mrs. Harold Smith was not, perhaps, herself very honest by disposition; but in these latter days she had taken up a theory of honesty for the sake of Miss Dunstable⁠—not altogether in vain, for Miss Dunstable and Mrs. Harold Smith were certainly very intimate.

“If I am to do it at all, I must not wait any longer,” said Mr. Sowerby to his sister a day or two after the final breakdown of the gods. The affection of the sister for the brother may be imagined from the fact that at such a time she could give up her mind to such a subject. But, in truth, her husband’s position as a cabinet minister was as nothing to her compared with her brother’s position as a county gentleman.

“One time is as good as another,” said Mrs. Harold Smith.

“You mean that you would advise me to ask her at once.”

“Certainly. But you must remember, Nat, that you will have no easy task. It will not do for you to kneel down and swear that you love her.”

“If I do it at all, I shall certainly do it without kneeling⁠—you may be sure of that, Harriet.”

“Yes, and without swearing that you love her. There is only one way in which you can be successful with Miss Dunstable⁠—you must tell her the truth.”

“What!⁠—tell her that I am ruined, horse, foot, and dragoons, and then bid her help me out of the mire?”

“Exactly: that will be your only chance, strange as it may appear.”

“This is very different from what you used to say, down at Chaldicotes.”

“So it is; but I know her much better than I did when we were there. Since then I have done but little else than study the freaks of her character. If she really likes you⁠—and I think she does⁠—she could forgive you any other crime but that of swearing that you loved her.”

“I should hardly know how to propose without saying something about it.”

“But you must say nothing⁠—not a word; you must tell her that you are a gentleman of good blood and high station, but sadly out at elbows.”

“She knows that already.”

“Of course she does; but she must know it as coming directly from your own mouth. And then tell her that you propose to set yourself right by marrying her⁠—by marrying her for the sake of her money.”

“That will hardly win her, I should say.”

“If it does not, no other way, that I know of, will do so. As I told you before, it will be no easy task. Of course you must make her understand that her happiness shall be cared for; but that must not be put prominently forward as your object. Your first object is her money, and your only chance for success is in telling the truth.”

“It is very seldom that a man finds himself in such a position as that,” said Sowerby, walking up and down his sister’s room; “and, upon my word, I don’t think I am up to the task. I should certainly break down. I don’t believe there’s a man in London could go to a woman with such a story as that, and then ask her to marry him.”

“If you cannot, you may as well give it up,” said Mrs. Harold Smith. “But if you can do it⁠—if you can go through with it in that manner⁠—my own opinion is that your chance of success would not be bad. The fact is,” added the sister after awhile, during which her brother was continuing his walk and meditating on the difficulties of his position⁠—“the fact is, you men never understand a woman; you give her credit neither for her strength, nor for her weakness. You are too bold, and too timid: you think she is a fool and tell her so, and yet never can trust her to do a