The Way We Live Now - 32

I see my way to do any good in America my duties here would not be
compatible with the undertaking."

"I don't see that at all. What duties have you got here? What
good are you doing the Company? If you do stay, I hope you'll be
unanimous; that's all;--or perhaps you intend to go out. If that's
it, I'll look to your money. I think I told you that before."

"That, Mr. Melmotte, is what I should prefer."

"Very well,--very well. I'll arrange it. Sorry to lose you,--that's
all. Miles, isn't Mr. Goldsheiner waiting to see me?"

"You're a little too quick, Mr. Melmotte," said Paul.

"A man with my business on his hands is bound to be quick, sir."

"But I must be precise. I cannot tell you as a fact that I shall
withdraw from the Board till I receive the advice of a friend with
whom I am consulting. I hardly yet know what my duty may be."

"I'll tell you, sir, what can not be your duty. It cannot be your
duty to make known out of that Board-room any of the affairs of the
Company which you have learned in that Board-room. It cannot be your
duty to divulge the circumstances of the Company or any differences
which may exist between Directors of the Company, to any gentleman
who is a stranger to the Company. It cannot be your duty--."

"Thank you, Mr. Melmotte. On matters such as that I think that I
can see my own way. I have been in fault in coming in to the Board
without understanding what duties I should have to perform--."

"Very much in fault, I should say," replied Melmotte, whose arrogance
in the midst of his inflated glory was overcoming him.

"But in reference to what I may or may not say to any friend, or how
far I should be restricted by the scruples of a gentleman, I do not
want advice from you."

"Very well;--very well. I can't ask you to stay, because a partner
from the house of Todd, Brehgert, and Goldsheiner is waiting to
see me, about matters which are rather more important than this of
yours." Montague had said what he had to say, and departed.

On the following day, three-quarters of an hour before the meeting of
the Board of Directors, old Mr. Longestaffe called in Abchurch Lane.
He was received very civilly by Miles Grendall, and asked to sit
down. Mr. Melmotte quite expected him, and would walk with him over
to the offices of the railway, and introduce him to the Board. Mr.
Longestaffe, with some shyness, intimated his desire to have a few
moments conversation with the chairman before the Board met. Fearing
his son, especially fearing Squercum, he had made up his mind to
suggest that the little matter about Pickering Park should be
settled. Miles assured him that the opportunity should be given him,
but that at the present moment the chief secretary of the Russian
Legation was with Mr. Melmotte. Either the chief secretary was very
tedious with his business, or else other big men must have come in,
for Mr. Longestaffe was not relieved till he was summoned to walk off
to the Board five minutes after the hour at which the Board should
have met. He thought that he could explain his views in the street;
but on the stairs they were joined by Mr. Cohenlupe, and in three
minutes they were in the Board-room. Mr. Longestaffe was then
presented, and took the chair opposite to Miles Grendall. Montague
was not there, but had sent a letter to the secretary explaining that
for reasons with which the chairman was acquainted he should absent
himself from the present meeting. "All right," said Melmotte. "I know
all about it. Go on. I'm not sure but that Mr. Montague's retirement
from among us may be an advantage. He could not be made to understand
that unanimity in such an enterprise as this is essential. I am
confident that the new director whom I have had the pleasure of
introducing to you to-day will not sin in the same direction." Then
Mr. Melmotte bowed and smiled very sweetly on Mr. Longestaffe.

Mr. Longestaffe was astonished to find how soon the business was
done, and how very little he had been called on to do. Miles Grendall
had read something out of a book which he had been unable to follow.
Then the chairman had read some figures. Mr. Cohenlupe had declared
that their prosperity was unprecedented;--and the Board was over.
When Mr. Longestaffe explained to Miles Grendall that he still wished
to speak to Mr. Melmotte, Miles explained to him that the chairman
had been obliged to run off to a meeting of gentlemen connected with
the interior of Africa, which was now being held at the Cannon Street
Hotel.




CHAPTER XLVI.

ROGER CARBURY AND HIS TWO FRIENDS.


Roger Carbury having found Ruby Ruggles, and having ascertained that
she was at any rate living in a respectable house with her aunt,
returned to Carbury. He had given the girl his advice, and had done
so in a manner that was not altogether ineffectual. He had frightened
her, and had also frightened Mrs. Pipkin. He had taught Mrs. Pipkin
to believe that the new dispensation was not yet so completely
established as to clear her from all responsibility as to her niece's
conduct. Having done so much, and feeling that there was no more to
be done, he returned home. It was out of the question that he should
take Ruby with him. In the first place she would not have gone. And
then,--had she gone,--he would not have known where to bestow her.
For it was now understood throughout Bungay,--and the news had spread
to Beccles,--that old Farmer Ruggles had sworn that his granddaughter
should never again be received at Sheep's Acre Farm. The squire on
his return home heard all the news from his own housekeeper. John
Crumb had been at the farm and there had been a fierce quarrel
between him and the old man. The old man had called Ruby by every
name that is most distasteful to a woman, and John had stormed and
had sworn that he would have punched the old man's head but for his
age. He wouldn't believe any harm of Ruby,--or if he did he was
ready to forgive that harm. But as for the Baro-nite;--the Baro-nite
had better look to himself! Old Ruggles had declared that Ruby
should never have a shilling of his money;--whereupon Crumb had
anathematised old Ruggles and his money too, telling him that he was
an old hunx, and that he had driven the girl away by his cruelty.
Roger at once sent over to Bungay for the dealer in meal, who was
with him early on the following morning.

"Did ye find her, squoire?"

"Oh, yes, Mr. Crumb, I found her. She's living with her aunt, Mrs.
Pipkin, at Islington."

"Eh, now;--look at that."

"You knew she had an aunt of that name up in London."

"Ye-es; I knew'd it, squoire. I a' heard tell of Mrs. Pipkin, but I
never see'd her."

"I wonder it did not occur to you that Ruby would go there." John
Crumb scratched his head, as though acknowledging the shortcoming of
his own intellect. "Of course if she was to go to London it was the
proper thing for her to do."

"I knew she'd do the thing as was right. I said that all along.
Darned if I didn't. You ask Mixet, squoire,--him as is baker down
Bardsey Lane. I allays guv' it her that she'd do the thing as was
right. But how about she and the Baro-nite?"

Roger did not wish to speak of the Baronet just at present. "I
suppose the old man down here did ill use her?"

"Oh, dreadful;--there ain't no manner of doubt o' that. Dragged her
about awful;--as he ought to be took up, only for the rumpus like.
D'ye think she's see'd the Baro-nite since she's been in Lon'on,
Muster Carbury?"

"I think she's a good girl, if you mean that."

"I'm sure she be. I don't want none to tell me that, squoire. Tho',
squoire, it's better to me nor a ten pun' note to hear you say so. I
allays had a leaning to you, squoire; but I'll more nor lean to you,
now. I've said all through she was good, and if e'er a man in Bungay
said she warn't--; well, I was there, and ready."

"I hope nobody has said so."

"You can't stop them women, squoire. There ain't no dropping into
them. But, Lord love 'ee, she shall come and be missus of my house
to-morrow, and what 'll it matter her then what they say? But,
squoire,--did ye hear if the Baro-nite had been a' hanging about that
place?"

"About Islington, you mean."

"He goes a hanging about; he do. He don't come out straight forrard,
and tell a girl as he loves her afore all the parish. There ain't
one in Bungay, nor yet in Mettingham, nor yet in all the Ilketsals
and all the Elmhams, as don't know as I'm set on Ruby Ruggles.
Huggery-Muggery is pi'son to me, squoire."

"We all know that when you've made up your mind, you have made up
your mind."

"I hove. It's made up ever so as to Ruby. What sort of a one is her
aunt now, squoire?"

"She keeps lodgings;--a very decent sort of a woman I should say."

"She won't let the Baro-nite come there?"

"Certainly not," said Roger, who felt that he was hardly dealing
sincerely with this most sincere of mealmen. Hitherto he had shuffled
off every question that had been asked him about Felix, though he
knew that Ruby had spent many hours with her fashionable lover. "Mrs.
Pipkin won't let him come there."

"If I was to give her a ge'own now,--or a blue cloak;--them
lodging-house women is mostly hard put to it;--or a chest of drawers
like, for her best bedroom, wouldn't that make her more o' my side,
squoire?"

"I think she'll try to do her duty without that."

"They do like things the like o' that; any ways I'll go up, squoire,
arter Sax'nam market, and see how things is lying."

"I wouldn't go just yet, Mr. Crumb, if I were you. She hasn't
forgotten the scene at the farm yet."

"I said nothing as warn't as kind as kind."

"But her own perversity runs in her own head. If you had been unkind
she could have forgiven that; but as you were good-natured and she
was cross, she can't forgive that." John Crumb again scratched his
head, and felt that the depths of a woman's character required more
gauging than he had yet given to it. "And to tell you the truth, my
friend, I think that a little hardship up at Mrs. Pipkin's will do
her good."

"Don't she have a bellyful o' vittels?" asked John Crumb, with
intense anxiety.

"I don't quite mean that. I dare say she has enough to eat. But of
course she has to work for it with her aunt. She has three or four
children to look after."

"That moight come in handy by-and-by;--moightn't it, squoire?" said
John Crumb grinning.

"As you say, she'll be learning something that may be useful to her
in another sphere. Of course there is a good deal to do, and I should
not be surprised if she were to think after a bit that your house in
Bungay was more comfortable than Mrs. Pipkin's kitchen in London."

"My little back parlour;--eh, squoire! And I've got a four-poster,
most as big as any in Bungay."

"I am sure you have everything comfortable for her, and she knows it
herself. Let her think about all that,--and do you go and tell her
again in a month's time. She'll be more willing to settle matters
then than she is now."

"But,--the Baro-nite!"

"Mrs. Pipkin will allow nothing of that."

"Girls is so 'cute. Ruby is awful 'cute. It makes me feel as though
I had two hun'erd weight o' meal on my stomach, lying awake o' nights
and thinking as how he is, may be,--pulling of her about! If I
thought that she'd let him--; oh! I'd swing for it, Muster Carbury.
They'd have to make an eend o' me at Bury, if it was that way. They
would then."

Roger assured him again and again that he believed Ruby to be a good
girl, and promised that further steps should be taken to induce
Mrs. Pipkin to keep a close watch upon her niece. John Crumb made
no promise that he would abstain from his journey to London after
Saxmundham fair; but left the squire with a conviction that his
purpose of doing so was shaken. He was still however resolved to send
Mrs. Pipkin the price of a new blue cloak, and declared his purpose
of getting Mixet to write the letter and enclose the money order.
John Crumb had no delicacy as to declaring his own deficiency in
literary acquirements. He was able to make out a bill for meal or
pollards, but did little beyond that in the way of writing letters.

This happened on a Saturday morning, and on that afternoon Roger
Carbury rode over to Lowestoft, to a meeting there on church matters
at which his friend the bishop presided. After the meeting was over
he dined at the inn with half a dozen clergymen and two or three
neighbouring gentlemen, and then walked down by himself on to the
long strand which has made Lowestoft what it is. It was now just the
end of June, and the weather was delightful;--but people were not
as yet flocking to the sea-shore. Every shopkeeper in every little
town through the country now follows the fashion set by Parliament
and abstains from his annual holiday till August or September. The
place therefore was by no means full. Here and there a few of the
townspeople, who at a bathing place are generally indifferent to the
sea, were strolling about; and another few, indifferent to fashion,
had come out from the lodging-houses and from the hotel, which had
been described as being small and insignificant,--and making up only
a hundred beds. Roger Carbury, whose house was not many miles distant
from Lowestoft, was fond of the sea-shore, and always came to loiter
there for a while when any cause brought him into the town. Now he
was walking close down upon the marge of the tide,--so that the last
little roll of the rising water should touch his feet,--with his
hands joined behind his back, and his face turned down towards the
shore, when he came upon a couple who were standing with their backs
to the land, looking forth together upon the waves. He was close
to them before he saw them, and before they had seen him. Then he
perceived that the man was his friend Paul Montague. Leaning on
Paul's arm a lady stood, dressed very simply in black, with a dark
straw hat on her head;--very simple in her attire, but yet a woman
whom it would be impossible to pass without notice. The lady of
course was Mrs. Hurtle.

Paul Montague had been a fool to suggest Lowestoft, but his folly had
been natural. It was not the first place he had named; but when fault
had been found with others, he had fallen back upon the sea sands
which were best known to himself. Lowestoft was just the spot which
Mrs. Hurtle required. When she had been shown her room, and taken
down out of the hotel on to the strand, she had declared herself to
be charmed. She acknowledged with many smiles that of course she had
had no right to expect that Mrs. Pipkin should understand what sort
of place she needed. But Paul would understand,--and had understood.
"I think the hotel charming," she said. "I don't know what you
mean by your fun about the American hotels, but I think this quite
gorgeous, and the people so civil!" Hotel people always are civil
before the crowds come. Of course it was impossible that Paul should
return to London by the mail train which started about an hour after
his arrival. He would have reached London at four or five in the
morning, and have been very uncomfortable. The following day was
Sunday, and of course he promised to stay till Monday. Of course he
had said nothing in the train of those stern things which he had
resolved to say. Of course he was not saying them when Roger Carbury
came upon him; but was indulging in some poetical nonsense, some
probably very trite raptures as to the expanse of the ocean, and the
endless ripples which connected shore with shore. Mrs. Hurtle, too,
as she leaned with friendly weight upon his arm, indulged also in
moonshine and romance. Though at the back of the heart of each of
them there was a devouring care, still they enjoyed the hour. We
know that the man who is to be hung likes to have his breakfast well
cooked. And so did Paul like the companionship of Mrs. Hurtle because
her attire, though simple, was becoming; because the colour glowed in
her dark face; because of the brightness of her eyes, and the happy
sharpness of her words, and the dangerous smile which played upon her
lips. He liked the warmth of her close vicinity, and the softness of
her arm, and the perfume from her hair,--though he would have given
all that he possessed that she had been removed from him by some
impassable gulf. As he had to be hanged,--and this woman's continued
presence would be as bad as death to him,--he liked to have his meal
well dressed.

He certainly had been foolish to bring her to Lowestoft, and the
close neighbourhood of Carbury Manor;--and now he felt his folly. As
soon as he saw Roger Carbury he blushed up to his forehead, and then
leaving Mrs. Hurtle's arm he came forward, and shook hands with his
friend. "It is Mrs. Hurtle," he said, "I must introduce you," and the
introduction was made. Roger took off his hat and bowed, but he did
so with the coldest ceremony. Mrs. Hurtle, who was quick enough at
gathering the minds of people from their looks, was just as cold in
her acknowledgment of the courtesy. In former days she had heard much
of Roger Carbury, and surmised that he was no friend to her. "I did
not know that you were thinking of coming to Lowestoft," said Roger
in a voice that was needlessly severe. But his mind at the present
moment was severe, and he could not hide his mind.


[Illustration: The sands at Lowestoft.]


"I was not thinking of it. Mrs. Hurtle wished to get to the sea, and
as she knew no one else here in England, I brought her."

"Mr. Montague and I have travelled so many miles together before
now," she said, "that a few additional will not make much
difference."

"Do you stay long?" asked Roger in the same voice.

"I go back probably on Monday," said Montague.

"As I shall be here a whole week, and shall not speak a word to any
one after he has left me, he has consented to bestow his company
on me for two days. Will you join us at dinner, Mr. Carbury, this
evening?"

"Thank you, madam;--I have dined."

"Then, Mr. Montague, I will leave you with your friend. My toilet,
though it will be very slight, will take longer than yours. We dine
you know in twenty minutes. I wish you could get your friend to join
us." So saying, Mrs. Hurtle tripped back across the sand towards the
hotel.

"Is this wise?" demanded Roger in a voice that was almost sepulchral,
as soon as the lady was out of hearing.

"You may well ask that, Carbury. Nobody knows the folly of it so
thoroughly as I do."

"Then why do you do it? Do you mean to marry her?"

"No; certainly not."

"Is it honest then, or like a gentleman, that you should be with her
in this way? Does she think that you intend to marry her?"

"I have told her that I would not. I have told her--." Then he
stopped. He was going on to declare that he had told her that he
loved another woman, but he felt that he could hardly touch that
matter in speaking to Roger Carbury.

"What does she mean then? Has she no regard for her own character?"

"I would explain it to you all, Carbury, if I could. But you would
never have the patience to hear me."

"I am not naturally impatient."

"But this would drive you mad. I wrote to her assuring her that it
must be all over. Then she came here and sent for me. Was I not bound
to go to her?"

"Yes;--to go to her and repeat what you had said in your letter."

"I did do so. I went with that very purpose, and did repeat it."

"Then you should have left her."

"Ah; but you do not understand. She begged that I would not desert
her in her loneliness. We have been so much together that I could not
desert her."

"I certainly do not understand that, Paul. You have allowed yourself
to be entrapped into a promise of marriage; and then, for reasons
which we will not go into now but which we both thought to be
adequate, you resolved to break your promise, thinking that you would
be justified in doing so. But nothing can justify you in living with
the lady afterwards on such terms as to induce her to suppose that
your old promise holds good."

"She does not think so. She cannot think so."

"Then what must she be, to be here with you? And what must you be,
to be here, in public, with such a one as she is? I don't know why I
should trouble you or myself about it. People live now in a way that
I don't comprehend. If this be your way of living, I have no right to
complain."

"For God's sake, Carbury, do not speak in that way. It sounds as
though you meant to throw me over."

"I should have said that you had thrown me over. You come down here
to this hotel, where we are both known, with this lady whom you are
not going to marry;--and I meet you, just by chance. Had I known it,
of course I could have turned the other way. But coming on you by
accident, as I did, how am I not to speak to you? And if I speak,
what am I to say? Of course I think that the lady will succeed in
marrying you."

"Never."

"And that such a marriage will be your destruction. Doubtless she is
good-looking."

"Yes, and clever. And you must remember that the manners of her
country are not as the manners of this country."

"Then if I marry at all," said Roger, with all his prejudice
expressed strongly in his voice, "I trust I may not marry a lady of
her country. She does not think that she is to marry you, and yet
she comes down here and stays with you. Paul, I don't believe it.
I believe you, but I don't believe her. She is here with you in
order that she may marry you. She is cunning and strong. You are
foolish and weak. Believing as I do that marriage with her would
be destruction, I should tell her my mind,--and leave her." Paul
at the moment thought of the gentleman in Oregon, and of certain
difficulties in leaving. "That's what I should do. You must go in
now, I suppose, and eat your dinner."

"I may come to the hall as I go back home?"

"Certainly you may come if you please," said Roger. Then he bethought
himself that his welcome had not been cordial. "I mean that I shall
be delighted to see you," he added, marching away along the strand.
Paul did go into the hotel, and did eat his dinner. In the meantime
Roger Carbury marched far away along the strand. In all that he had
said to Montague he had spoken the truth, or that which appeared to
him to be the truth. He had not been influenced for a moment by any
reference to his own affairs. And yet he feared, he almost knew, that
this man,--who had promised to marry a strange American woman and who
was at this very moment living in close intercourse with the woman
after he had told her that he would not keep his promise,--was the
chief barrier between himself and the girl that he loved. As he
had listened to John Crumb while John spoke of Ruby Ruggles, he
had told himself that he and John Crumb were alike. With an honest,
true, heart-felt desire they both panted for the companionship of a
fellow-creature whom each had chosen. And each was to be thwarted
by the make-believe regard of unworthy youth and fatuous good looks!
Crumb, by dogged perseverance and indifference to many things, would
probably be successful at last. But what chance was there of success
for him? Ruby, as soon as want or hardship told upon her, would
return to the strong arm that could be trusted to provide her with
plenty and comparative ease. But Hetta Carbury, if once her heart
had passed from her own dominion into the possession of another,
would never change her love. It was possible, no doubt,--nay, how
probable,--that her heart was still vacillating. Roger thought that
he knew that at any rate she had not as yet declared her love. If she
were now to know,--if she could now learn,--of what nature was the
love of this other man; if she could be instructed that he was living
alone with a lady whom not long since he had promised to marry,--if
she could be made to understand this whole story of Mrs. Hurtle,
would not that open her eyes? Would she not then see where she
could trust her happiness, and where, by so trusting it, she would
certainly be shipwrecked!

"Never," said Roger to himself, hitting at the stones on the beach
with his stick. "Never." Then he got his horse and rode back to
Carbury Manor.




CHAPTER XLVII.

MRS. HURTLE AT LOWESTOFT.


When Paul got down into the dining-room Mrs. Hurtle was already
there, and the waiter was standing by the side of the table ready to
take the cover off the soup. She was radiant with smiles and made
herself especially pleasant during dinner, but Paul felt sure that
everything was not well with her. Though she smiled, and talked and
laughed, there was something forced in her manner. He almost knew
that she was only waiting till the man should have left the room
to speak in a different strain. And so it was. As soon as the last
lingering dish had been removed, and when the door was finally shut
behind the retreating waiter, she asked the question which no doubt
had been on her mind since she had walked across the strand to the
hotel. "Your friend was hardly civil; was he, Paul?"

"Do you mean that he should have come in? I have no doubt it was true
that he had dined."

"I am quite indifferent about his dinner,--but there are two ways of
declining as there are of accepting. I suppose he is on very intimate
terms with you?"

"Oh, yes."

"Then his want of courtesy was the more evidently intended for me. In
point of fact he disapproves of me. Is not that it?" To this question
Montague did not feel himself called upon to make any immediate
answer. "I can well understand that it should be so. An intimate
friend may like or dislike the friend of his friend, without offence.
But unless there be strong reason he is bound to be civil to his
friend's friend, when accident brings them together. You have told me
that Mr. Carbury was your beau ideal of an English gentleman."

"So he is."

"Then why didn't he behave as such?" and Mrs. Hurtle again smiled.
"Did not you yourself feel that you were rebuked for coming here with
me, when he expressed surprise at your journey? Has he authority over
you?"

"Of course he has not. What authority could he have?"

"Nay, I do not know. He may be your guardian. In this safe-going
country young men perhaps are not their own masters till they are
past thirty. I should have said that he was your guardian, and that
he intended to rebuke you for being in bad company. I dare say he did
after I had gone."

This was so true that Montague did not know how to deny it. Nor was
he sure that it would be well that he should deny it. The time must
come, and why not now as well as at any future moment? He had to make
her understand that he could not join his lot with her,--chiefly
indeed because his heart was elsewhere, a reason on which he could
hardly insist because she could allege that she had a prior right
to his heart;--but also because her antecedents had been such as to
cause all his friends to warn him against such a marriage. So he
plucked up courage for the battle. "It was nearly that," he said.

There are many,--and probably the greater portion of my readers
will be among the number,--who will declare to themselves that Paul
Montague was a poor creature, in that he felt so great a repugnance
to face this woman with the truth. His folly in falling at first
under the battery of her charms will be forgiven him. His engagement,
unwise as it was, and his subsequent determination to break his
engagement, will be pardoned. Women, and perhaps some men also, will
feel that it was natural that he should have been charmed, natural
that he should have expressed his admiration in the form which
unmarried ladies expect from unmarried men when any such expression
is to be made at all;--natural also that he should endeavour to
escape from the dilemma when he found the manifold dangers of the
step which he had proposed to take. No woman, I think, will be hard