Anthony Trollope

“ She then rose quickly from her seat, wiped her eyes, and, pushing back her hair, continued, “I will no longer continue to live such a life as I have done—miserable to myself, and the cause of misery to others. Adolphus,—I love Lord Ballindine. I love him with, I believe, as true and devoted a love as woman ever felt for a man. I valued, appreciated, gloried in your friendship; but I can never return your, love. My heart is wholly, utterly, given away; and I would not for worlds receive it back, till I learn from his own mouth that he has ceased to love me.”
“Oh, Fanny! my poor Fanny!” ”

“ What, Fanny, what are your hopes? what is it you wish or intend? Supposing me, as I wish I were, fathoms deep below the earth, what would you do? You cannot marry Lord Ballindine.”
“Then I will marry no one,” said Fanny, striving hard to suppress her tears, and barely succeeding.
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Kilcullen; “what an infatuation is this!”—and then again he walked on silent a little way. “Have you told any one of this, Fanny?—do they know of it at Grey Abbey? ”

“ No one could have been more humble and meek than was Anty herself, in the midst of her happiness. She had no idea of taking on herself the airs of a fine lady, or the importance of an heiress; she had no wish to be thought a lady; she had no wish for other friends than those of her husband, and his family. She had never heard of her brother’s last horrible proposal to Doctor Colligan, and of the manner in which his consent to her marriage had been obtained; nor did Martin intend that she should hear it. ”

“ Didn’t you imagine, now, that I habitually sat up all night, gambling, and drinking buckets of champagne and brandy-and-water? And that I lay in bed all day, devising iniquity in my dreams? Come now, tell the truth, and shame the devil; if I am the devil, I know people have made me out to be.”
“Why, really, Adolphus, I never calculated how your days and nights were spent. But if I am to tell the truth, I fear some of them might have been passed to better advantage.”
“Which of us, Fanny, mightn’t, with truth, say the same of ourselves?” ”

“ Barry shook like a child in the clutches of its master—“Yes, Barry; misery and death, and all the tortures of the damned. It’s to save you from this, my own brother, to try and turn your heart from that foul love of money, that your sister is now speaking to you from her grave.—Oh, Barry! try and cure it. Learn to give to others, and you’ll enjoy what you have yourself.—Learn to love others, and then you’ll know what it is to be loved yourself. Try, try to soften that hard heart. Marry at once, Barry, at once, before you’re older and worse to cure; and you’ll have children, and love them ”

“ But Lord Kilcullen was not accustomed to make such sacrifices: he had never learned to disregard himself; and again and again he turned it over in his mind—“how could he get her fortune?—was there any way left in which he might be successful?”
“This is child’s play, Fanny,” he said. “You may reject me: to that I have nothing further to say, for I am but an indifferent wooer; but you can never marry Lord Ballindine.”
“Oh, Adolphus, for mercy’s sake don’t say so!”
“But I do say so, Fanny. God knows, not to wound you, or for any unworthy purpose, but because it is so. ”

“ As to myself, Heaven knows with what perfect truth, with what true love, I offered you, this morning, all that a man can offer: how ardently I hoped for an answer different from that you have now given me. You cannot give me your heart now; love cannot, at a moment, be transferred. But think, Fanny, think whether it is not better for you to accept an offer which your friends will all approve, and which I trust will never make you unhappy, than to give yourself up to a lasting regret,—to tears, misery, and grief. ”

“ Every month, every day, should have its purpose. My father has got into a dull, heartless, apathetic mode of life, which suits my mother and Selina, but which will never suit you. Grey Abbey is like the Dead Sea, of which the waters are always bitter as well as stagnant. It makes me miserable, dearest Fanny, to see you stifled in such a pool. Your beauty, talents, and energies—your disposition to enjoy life, and power of making it enjoyable for others, are all thrown away. ”

“ Stupid as you may think me, I’m quite as well contented to stay here as I should be to go to London.”
“Do you mean me to believe,” said Kilcullen, with a gentle laugh, “that you are contented to live and die in single blessedness at Grey Abbey?—that your ambition does not soar higher than the interchange of worsted-work patterns with Miss O’Joscelyn?”
“I did not say so, Adolphus.”
“What is your ambition then? what kind and style of life would you choose to live? Come, Fanny, I wish I could get you to talk with me about yourself. ”

“ You will not object, my lord, to my seeing Miss Wyndham?”
“Mr Armstrong—really—you must be aware such a request is rather unusual.”
“So are the circumstances,” replied the parson. “They also are unusual. I do not doubt Miss Wyndham’s wisdom in rejecting Lord Ballindine, when, as you say, he appeared to be wedded to a life of extravagance. I have no doubt she put a violent restraint on her own feelings; exercised, in fact, a self-denial which shows a very high tone of character, and should elicit nothing but admiration; but circumstances are much altered.” ”

“ If this be true, your condition is nearly as unhappy as my own.”
“I am unhappy, very unhappy in your love,” said Fanny, drawing herself up proudly; “but not unhappy in my own. My misery is that I should be the cause of trouble and unhappiness to others. I have nothing to regret in my own choice.”
“You are harsh, Fanny. It may be well that you should be decided, but it cannot become you also to be unfeeling. I have offered to you all that a man can offer; my name, my fortune, my life, my heart; though you may refuse me, you have no right to be offended with me.”
“Oh, Adolphus!” ”

“ What are you to do? You surely will not willingly continue to indulge a hopeless passion?”
“Selina, you’ll drive me mad, if you go on! Let me have my own way.”
“But, Fanny, if your own way’s a bad way? Surely you won’t refuse to listen to reason? You must know that what I say is only from my affection. I want you to look before you; I want you to summon courage to look forward; and then I’m sure your common sense will tell you that Lord Ballindine can never be anything to you.” ”

“ Her manner of life was completely changed: indeed, life itself was an altered thing to her. It was so new to her to have friends; to be loved; to be one of a family who regarded and looked up to her. She hardly knew herself in her new happiness.
They returned to Dunmore in the early autumn, and took up their residence at Sim Lynch’s big house, as had been arranged. Martin was very shy about it: it was long before he talked about it as his house, or his ground, or his farm; and it was long before he could find himself quite at home in his own parlour. ”

“ You don’t wish to be severe, only you say that I am likely to forget myself. Forget myself!” and Fanny threw back her beautiful head, and clenched her little fists by her side: “The other day you said ‘disgrace myself’, and I bore it calmly then; but I will not any longer bear such imputations. I tell you plainly, Selina, I will not forget myself, nor will I be forgotten. Nor will I submit to whatever fate cold, unfeeling people may doom me, merely because I am a woman and alone. I will not give up Lord Ballindine, if I have to walk to his door and tell him so. ”

“ I’ve told him he’d have it all—nearly all; and I’ve begged him, prayed to him, from my dying bed, to mend his ways; to try and be something betther in the world than what I fear he’s like to be. I think he minded what I said when he was here, for death-bed words have a solemn sound to the most worldly; but when I’m gone he’ll be all alone, there’ll be no one to look afther him. Nobody loves him—no one even likes him; no one will live with him but those who mane to rob him; and he will be robbed, and plundered, and desaved, when he thinks he’s robbing and desaving others. ”

“ He closely questioned Lady Selina, with regard to all that had passed between her and her brother.
“Did he say anything?” at last he said—“did he say anything about—about Fanny?”
“Not much, papa; but what he did say, he said with kindness and affection,” replied her ladyship, glad to repeat anything in favour of her brother.
“Affection—pooh!” said the earl. “He has no affection; no affection for any one; he has no affection even for me.—What did he say about her, Selina?”
“He seemed to wish she should marry Lord Ballindine.” ”

“ As far as concerned herself, she had no particular wish for one kind of guest more than another: it was not for herself that she wanted young men; she knew that at any rate there were none within reach whom she could condescend to notice save as her father’s guests; there could be no one there whose presence could be to her of any interest: the gouty colonel, and the worthy bishop, would be as agreeable to her as any other men that would now be likely to visit Grey Abbey. But Lady Selina felt a real desire that others in the house might be happy while there. ”

“ And how often are you so, Barry?—isn’t it so with you every night? That’s another thing; for my sake, for your own sake—for God’s sake, give up the dhrink. It’s killing you from day to day, and hour to hour. I see it in your eyes, and smell it in your breath, and hear it in your voice; it’s that that makes your heart so black:—it’s that that gives you over, body and soul, to the devil. ”

“ There was more true feeling in what Kilcullen had now said to her, than in all that had fallen from the whole family for the four years she had lived at Grey Abbey, and she could not therefore but close on the offer of his affection.
“Shall we be such friends, then?” said he; “or, after all, am I too bad? Have I too much of the taint of the wicked world to be the friend of so pure a creature as you?” ”

“ I knows what we can do, and I knows what they can do:—breed a hoss in Ireland, train him in the North of England, and run him in the South; and he’ll do your work for you, and win your money, steady and shure.”
“And why not run in the North, too?”
“They’re too ’cute, my lord: they like to pick up the crumbs themselves—small blame to thim in that matther. No; a bright Irish nag, with lots of heart, like Brien Boru, is the hoss to stand on for the Derby; where all run fair and fair alike, the best wins;—but I won’t say but he’ll be the betther for a little polishing at Johnny Scott’s.” ”

“ As he came near the house gate, there was sitting, as usual, Jacky, the fool.
“Well, yer honer, Masther Barry,” said Jacky, “don’t forget your poor fool this blessed morning!”
“Away with you! If I see you there again, I’ll have you in Bridewell, you blackguard.”
“Ah, you’re joking, Masther Barry. You wouldn’t like to be afther doing that. So yer honer’s been down to the widdy’s? That’s well; it’s a fine thing to see you on good terms, since you’re soon like to be so sib. Well, there an’t no betther fellow, from this to Galway, than Martin Kelly, that’s one comfort, Masther Barry.” ”

“ It was in vain that her mother argued the point with her in her own way. “But why shouldn’t she marry him, my dear,” said the countess, “when they love each other—and now there’s plenty of money and all that; and your papa thinks it’s all right? I declare I can’t see the harm of it.”
“I don’t say there’s harm, mother,” said Lady Selina; “not absolute harm; but there’s weakness. She had ceased to esteem Lord Ballindine.” ”