Anthony Trollope

“ It was five years after that night in Eaton Square when George Bertram again asked her—her who had once been Caroline Waddington—to be his wife. But, sweet ladies, sweetest, fairest maidens, there were no soft, honey words of love then spoken; no happy, eager vows, which a novelist may repeat, hoping to move the soft sympathy of your bosoms. It was a cold, sad, dreary matter that offer of his; her melancholy, silent acquiescence, and that marriage in Hadley church, at which none were present but Adela and Arthur, and Miss Baker. ”

“ Are there two sorts on which a man may run the changes, as he may from one room to another? I must wipe her out of my mind—out of my heart—or burn her out. I would not wish to love anything that he possesses."
"No!" said she, "not his wife."
"Wife! she will never be his wife. She will never be bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh, as I would have made her. It will be but a partnership between them, to be dissolved when they have made the most of their world's trading."
"If you love her, Mr. Bertram, do not be so bitter in speaking of her." ”

“ Adela could make no answer to this at the moment, so she went on hemming at her collar. Then, after a pause, she said, "I hope it will have no evil influence on me."
"I hope not—I hope not. But you are beyond such influences. It seems to me, if I may say so, that you are beyond all influences."
"Yes; as a fool is," she said, laughing.
"No; but as a rock is. I will not say as ice, for ice will always melt."
"And do I never melt, Mr. Bertram? Has that which has made you so unhappy not moved me? Do you think that I can love Caroline as I do, and not grieve, and weep, and groan in the spirit? ”

“ On thorough review of all the circumstances, much balancing them in his high mind, Sir Lionel at last thus resolved. He would throw himself, his heart, and his fortune at the feet of Miss Todd. If there accepted, he would struggle with every muscle of the manhood which was yet within him for that supremacy in purse and power which of law and of right belongs to the man. He thought he knew himself, and that it would not be easy for a woman to get the better of him. But if there rejected—and he could not confess but what there was a doubt—he would immediately fall back upon Miss Baker. ”

“ For Wilkinson clearly conceived it to be impossible that Bertram should really intend to marry this widow.
"And why should I not marry her?" said George.
"She would not suit you, nor make you happy."
"What right have I to think that any woman will suit me? or what chance is there that any woman will make me happy? Is it not all leather and prunella? She is pretty and clever, soft and feminine. Where shall I find a nicer toy to play with? You forget, Arthur, that I have had my day-dreams, and been roused from them somewhat roughly. With you, the pleasure is still to come." ”

“ And Lady Harcourt looked stern enough in her resolution to bear all that fate could bring on her.
"Caroline, God will temper the wind to the shorn lamb, now as always if you will ask him."
"I hope so; I hope so, Adela."
"Say that you trust so."
"I do trust. I trust in this—that He will do what is best. Oh, Adela! if you could know what the last month has been; since he came to the house!"
"Ah! why did he ever come?"
"Why, indeed! Did a man ever behave so madly?"
The man she here alluded was Sir Henry Harcourt, not Mr. Bertram. ”

“ The world will forget that I am your cousin, but will remember that I was once to have been your husband."
"The world! I am past caring for the world. It is nothing to me now if all London knows how it is with me. I have loved, and thrown away my love, and tied myself to a brute. I have loved, and do love; but my love can only be a sorrow to me. I do not fear the world; but God and my conscience I do fear. Once, for one moment, George, I thought that I would fear nothing. ”

“ Her mouth had all the richness of youth, and the full enticing curves and ruby colour of Anglo-Saxon beauty. Caroline Waddington was no pale, passionless goddess; her graces and perfections were human, and in being so were the more dangerous to humanity. Her forehead we have said, or should have said, was perfect; we dare not affirm quite so much in praise of her mouth: there was sometimes a hardness there, not in the lines of the feature itself, but in the expression which it conveyed, a want of tenderness, perhaps of trust, and too much self-confidence, it may be, for a woman's character. ”

“ Oh, Adela, Adela!
"I begin to know that a man should not be sanguine. I have always hoped for more than I have had a right to expect, and, therefore, I have always been disappointed. It was so at school, and at Oxford, and it is so now: it shows how true it is that a man should not look for his happiness here. Well; good-bye, Adela. I see that you think I am wrong to have any regrets."
"Useless regrets are always foolish: we laugh at children who cry for what is quite out of their reach."
"Yes; and you laugh at me. I dare say you are right."
"No; do not say that, Mr. Wilkinson. ”

“ But dear to him as his dear Caroline might be, his softest whispers, his most sugared words, were always for her aunt.
He had ever some little proposition to make, some kind family suggestion to put forward. He was a man of the world; they were ladies, delicate, unfit for coping with the world, necessarily ignorant of its naughtier, darker ways; he would do everything for them: and by degrees he did almost everything for Miss Baker.
And so that lady was charmed without knowing it. Let us do her full justice. She had not the remotest idea of opening a flirtation with Sir Lionel Bertram. ”

“ There was more about him now that was lovable by such a woman as Caroline Waddington than when he had first spoken of his love on the side of Mount Olivet. Then he had been little more than a boy; a boy indeed with a high feeling, with a poetic nature, and much humour. But these gifts had hardly sufficed to win her heart. Now he had added to these a strong will, a power of command, a capability of speaking out to the world with some sort of voice. After all, power and will are the gifts which a woman most loves in a man. ”

“ What she did desire was, that her husband should be an earnest, rising, successful man;—one whose name, as she had herself said to Bertram, might be frequent in men's mouths, and daily to be read in the columns of newspapers. She would not marry a fool, even though he were also a Crœsus; she would not marry a fool, even though he were also an earl. In choosing a master, her first necessity was that she should respect him, then that the world should do so also. She could respect talent—talent if needs be alone—but nothing without talent. The world's respect could not be had without wealth. ”

“ No one could be more affectionate than aunt Mary, no one more trustworthy, no one more thoroughly devoted to another than she was to her niece. But then she was not only old, but old-fashioned. She was prudent, and Caroline also was prudent; but their prudence was a different kind. There was no dash, no ambition about aunt Mary's prudence. She was rather humdrum, Caroline thought; and, which was worse, though she liked George Bertram, she did not seem to understand his character at all in the same light as that in which Caroline regarded it. ”

“ How fearfully afraid we are of poverty! Is there nothing worse than poverty, what you call poverty—poverty that cannot have its gowns starched above once a week?" Caroline stared at her, but Adela went on. "Broken hearts are not half so bad as that; nor daily tears and disappointed hopes, nor dry, dull, dead, listless despondency without one drop of water to refresh it! All that is as nothing to a well-grounded apprehension as to one's larder! Never marry till you are sure that will be full, let the heart be ever so empty." ”

“ It would not be easy even for Sir Henry Harcourt, even for a young solicitor-general, to find a face more beautiful with which to adorn his drawing-room.
And then she had that air of fashion, that look of being able to look down the unfashionable, which was so much in the eyes of Sir Henry; though in those of George Bertram it had been almost a demerit. With Caroline, as with many women, this was an appearance rather than a reality. She had not moved much among high people; she had not taught herself to despise those of her own class, the women of Littlebath, the Todds and the Adela Gauntlets ”

“ O'Callaghan!" said Sir Lionel into Miss Todd's ear, in a tone of well-bred wonder and triumphant admiration. "Mr. O'Callaghan among the sinners! My dear Miss Todd, how will he like the whist-tables?"
"If he does not like them, he must just do the other thing. If I know anything of Miss Ruff, a whole college of O'Callaghans would not keep her from the devil's books for five minutes longer. Oh, here is Lady Ruth Revoke, my dear Lady Ruth, I am charmed to see you. When, I wonder, shall we meet again at Baden Baden? Dear Baden Baden! Flounce, green tea for Lady Ruth Revoke." ”

“ In the evening, Miss Baker and Lady Harcourt came back to their own house. It was Miss Baker's own house now. When she heard what her old friend had done for her, she was bewildered by his generosity. She, at any rate, had received more than she had expected.
"And what does he mean to do?" said Caroline.
"He says that he will dispute the will. But that, I take it, is nonsense."
"But about—you know what I mean, George?"
"He means to insist on your return. That, at least, is what he threatens."
"He shall insist in vain. No law that man ever made shall force me to live with him again." ”

“ I am not now speaking of happiness. But of what use could I have been to any one?
"You will say that I do not love Sir Henry. I have told him that in the usual acceptation of the word, I do not love him. But I esteem his high qualities; and I shall marry him with the full intention of doing my duty, of sacrificing myself to him if needs be, of being useful in the position in which he will place me. What better can I do than this? You can do better, Adela. I know you will do better. To have loved, and married for love the poorest gentleman on God's earth would be to have done better. ”

“ With people that are indifferent to him, no man is less exacting; but with those near to him in life he never bends, not an inch. It is this that has estranged his uncle from him. But yet how noble, how grand a man he is! To all pecuniary considerations he is absolutely indifferent. A falsehood, even a concealment, is impossible with him. Who that either of us knows is equal to or approaches him in talent? He is brave, generous, simple-hearted beyond all that I have ever known. Who is like him? And yet—. To you, once for all, I say all this. But, Adela, do not take advantage of me. ”

“ She had had no youthful adorers, this poor, good Miss Baker; never, at least, since she had been merry as other children are, "when her little lovers came." She had advanced to her present nearly mature age without perhaps feeling the want of them. But, nevertheless, even in her bosom was living the usual feminine passion for admiration. She was no "lusus naturæ," but a woman with a heart, and blood in her veins; and not as yet a very old woman either. And therefore, though she had no idea that Sir Lionel was her lover, she had learned to be fond of him. ”

“ There is nothing so easy as bravado. The wretch who is to be hung can step lightly while multitudes are looking at him. The woman who is about to give up all that her heart most values can declare out loud that the matter is very indifferent to her. But when the victim of the law is lying in his solitary cell, thinking on his doom, the morning before the executioner comes to him; when the poor girl is sitting alone on her bedside, with her heart all empty,—or rather not empty, only hopeless; it is very difficult then to maintain a spirit of bravado!
Caroline Waddington did try it. ”

“ Worthy or unworthy, he was all that she expected, all that she desired, bone of her bone, flesh of her flesh, the father of her bairns, the lord of her bosom, the staff of her maintenance, the prop of her house.
And what man was ever worthy, perfectly worthy, of a pure, true, and honest girl? Man's life admits not of such purity and honesty; rarely of such truth. But one would not choose that such flowers should remain unplucked because no hands are fit to touch them.
As to the future life of the vicar of Hurst Staple and his wife, it is surely unnecessary to say much—or perhaps anything. ”

“ The statement made by her aunt that George would doubtless be his uncle's heir certainly had its weight with her. It would be wrong in her to engage herself to a man who was without the means of maintaining her in that rank of life in which she had resolved to live; wrong both on his account and on her own. She felt that she could not be a good poor man's wife. It was not the walk of life for which she had destined herself. She had made up her mind on that point too, and having made it up was not weak enough to be driven from her resolve by any little gust of feeling. ”

“ Adela was rather frightened when she found herself left at Miss Todd's lodgings; though that lady's manner to her was not such as need have inspired much awe.
"Now, my dear," she said, "don't mind me in the least. Do just whatever you like. If I only knew what you did like, you should have it if I could get it. What are you fond of now? Shall I ask some young people here to-night?"
"Oh, no, Miss Todd; not for me. I have never been much in society, and certainly do not wish for it at present."
"Well, society is not a bad thing. You don't play cards, I suppose?" ”

“ Do not kill yourself by work. For my sake, if I may still plead my own sake, do not do so. You say you have given up that sort of life to which your disposition would have led you. I do not believe your disposition to be bad, and I should be grieved to think that you debar yourself from pleasures that are not bad because you are engaged to me." There was that in the eagerness of Bertram's protestations on this point which could not but be flattering to any girl; but Caroline, when she thought of it, did not wish to be so flattered. She required less passion in her lover and more judgment. ”

“ I must abandon all hope of living as other women live. I shall have no shoulder on which to lean, hear no words of love when I am sick, have no child to comfort me. I shall be alone, and yet not master of myself. This I must bear because I was false to my own heart. But yet he is not my husband. Listen to me, Adela; sooner than return to him again, I would put an end to all this world's misery at once. ”

“ He had opened his heart to that which should never find admittance to the heart of man. The iron of his wealth had entered into his very soul. He had made half a million of money, and that half-million had been his god—his only god—and, indeed, men have but one god. The true worship of the one loved shrine prevents all other worship. The records of his money had been his deity. There, in his solitude at Hadley, he had sat and counted them as they grew, mortgages and bonds, deeds and scrip, shares in this and shares in that, thousands in these funds and tens of thousands in those. ”

“ He and Harcourt were together for three or four days, and he listened not unmoved to his friend's eloquence in favour of public life in London. Not unmoved, indeed, but always with a spirit of antagonism. When Harcourt told of forensic triumphs, Bertram spoke of the joy of some rustic soul saved to heaven in the quiet nook of a distant parish. When his friend promised to him Parliament, and the later glories of the ermine, he sighed after literary fame, to be enjoyed among the beauties of nature. But Harcourt understood all this: he did not wish to convince his friend, but only to lead him. ”

“ You will think what will be your sufferings if he does not notice your letter; should he not be softened by your humility. But you have no right to think of that. You have done him wrong, and you owe him reparation. You cannot expect that you should do wrong and not suffer.
I fear I have written savagely. Dear, dear Caroline, come to me here, and I will not talk savagely. I too am not happy. I have not my happiness so much in my own hands as you have. Do come to me. Papa will be delighted to see you. I am sure Miss Baker could spare you for a fortnight. Do, do come to
Your true friend,
Adela. ”