J. C. Snaith

“ The Duke’s smile was so sour that it became a grimace. “In other words a self-made man.”
“Oh, yes—entirely!” The sudden generous warmth of admiration in Harriet’s tone surprised the Duke. “When one considers the enormous odds against him and what he has been able to do at the age of forty-two, it seems only right to think of him as wonderful.”
“Personally,” said his Grace, “I prefer to regard him as an unscrupulous scoundrel.”
Harriet dissented with a smile. “A great man,” she said softly.
“Let us leave it at a very dangerous man. He is a real menace, not only to us, but to the country. ”

“ Mary was quaking in her shoes, yet the joy of battle came upon her in the queerest, most unexpected way. It was as if a magician had waved his wand and all the paltry emotions of the past hour were dispelled. Perhaps it was that deep down in her slept an Amazon. Or a clear conscience [Pg 299] may have inspired her; at any rate she had no need to reproach herself just then. She could look the whole world in the face. Her attitude had been sensitively correct; if other people did not appreciate that simple fact, so much the worse for other people! ”

“ The Duke spoke slowly and pointedly, and then he turned to Harriet with an air of such delicate politeness that it added fuel to the flame which was withering her traducers. “If it is not asking too much, Mrs. Sanderson,” he said, with a smile of grave kindness, “I should personally be very grateful if you would be wicked enough to defend yourself. Let me say at once that I am far from accepting the construction Lady Wargrave has placed on the matter. But her zeal for a time-honored institution is so great that if her judgment is outrun, it seems only kind to forgive her.” ”

“ Mary remained nearly three years at Park Street. In that time she came on amazingly. Awake from the first to a knowledge of her gifts, she was secretly determined to use them in the carving out of a career. Broadwood House had sown the seed of ambition; under the able tutelage of Madame Lemaire it was to bear fruit. Stimulated by the outlook of her new friends, soon she began to feel the lure of a larger life. She craved for self-expression through the emotions, and all her energies were bent upon the satisfaction of a vital need. ”

“ Crossing to Broad Place she could not check a laugh. Wounded, angry, humiliated by the pressure of a recent event, there still lurked in her a true appreciation of the human comedy. What a pill for Bridport House to have to swallow! It was poetic justice that the pride which strained at a gnat so harmless as herself should have to gulp a real live camel in the person of the Right Honorable Gentleman.
But the laugh, after all, was hollow. Tears of vexation leaped to her eyes. And they owed more to the perception of her own inadequacy in this smarting hour than to the act of Fate. ”

“ No wonder niece Eliza cowered in spirit when she superbly entered that modest dwelling and sat in its most capacious chair. Tea was offered her, without sugar and with only a very little milk according to her stoical custom.
“Thankee, my dear.”
The great lady removed a black kid glove, and coquetted with a delicate slice of bread and butter. If you have lived in palaces most of your days you know that simplicity in all things is the true art of life. Right at the back, as Eliza well knew, Aunt Annie was by no means so simple as she made a point of seeming. ”

“ Lady Wargrave had gone but a few minutes when Jack arrived at Bridport House. He had to inform his kinsman that Mary Lawrence would appear at twelve o’clock.
The Duke was in a vile temper. Charlotte had fretted it already; moreover, the disease from which he suffered had undermined it long ago; and at the best of times the mere sight of this young Colonial, with his wild ideas, was about as much as he could bear. However, he was too astute a man and far too well found in the ways of his world not to be able to mask his feelings on an occasion of this magnitude. ”

“ But whatever the cause, Mary suddenly felt a surge of resentment in her very bones.
In the meantime, the People’s Candidate was playing his part to perfection. The flight of time had wrought wonders in this champion of Demos. He was no longer tongue-tied and awkward; even the roll of his “r’s” was so diminished that Ardnaleuchan would hardly have known its child. Everything was in perfect harmony. After a few brief passages with Harriet, audaciously humorous, in which homage was paid to old times, he turned with a sportsman’s eye to exchange a ready quip with Joe and Eliza. ”

“ As soon as Eliza, hatted and cloaked, had gone to see Mrs. Norris’s latest, a change came over Constable Maclean. He was a young man of big ideas. But all that they had done for him so far was to turn life into a tragedy. By nature fiercely sensitive, the shyness which made his life a burden had a trick of crystallizing at the most inconvenient moments into a kind of dumb madness. ”

“ Cousin Marjorie and Cousin Blanche had surprisingly little to say for themselves. They were modest, unassuming girls, without views or ideas, very proper, very dull, absurdly conventional; in the eyes of some people as plain as the proverbial pikestaff, passably good-looking in the sight of others; in fact, a more commonplace pair of young women would have been hard to find anywhere, yet deep in the hearts of the Ladies Dinneford was the sure faith that the world at large did not subscribe to any such opinion. ”

“ But as she spoke there came a slight flush to the proud face.
“Because they won’t,” said Aunt Annie with stern finality. “All schools of the better sort are very particular.”
Aunty Harriet bit her lip sharply. She retorted, perhaps unwisely, that if they were not very particular they would cease to be schools of the better sort.
“Quite so,” said Aunt Annie.
For the moment it looked as if daggers were going to be drawn. These two were always at the verge of conflict. Both were impatient of any kind of opposition, and in the matter of young Mistress Mary they seldom saw eye to eye. ”

“ She had carried off the whole scene with almost an air of comedy, for she was determined that “those people” should not realize what wounds it was in their power to deal. But Dame Nature, now that she had the high-mettled creature to herself, was having something to say to her on the matter. A price was being exacted for these heroics and for this stoicism.
The Duke had left an impression of fine chivalry on a perceptive mind, but in spite of that, now they were no longer face to face, her deepest feeling was an angry resentment. Life was not playing fair. ”

“ Jehu, like the equipage itself, jobbed for the occasion, was the mirror of true courtliness. He had an uncle in the Royal stables, therefore he knew the deference due to the august Miss Sanderson. In promoting her descent from the chariot he did not actually take off his hat, but he stood with it off in spirit; a fact sufficiently clear to the three youthful onlookers, one of whom remarked in a voice of awe, “It’s the mayoress.”
Eliza, quaking over her best tea service on its elegant tray, knew without so much as a glance through the window that Aunt Annie had come. ”

“ He shook his head somberly. “All life is a madness, if you will a divine madness. It is a madness that damns the consequences. By taking too much thought for the morrow we entomb ourselves. When Rachel died life meant for me the woman of my choice. And, Charlotte, let me say this”—he raised himself in his chair and looked at his sister fixedly—“she is the best woman I have ever known.”
For a moment she sat a picture of bewilderment, and then in a voice torn with emotion she said, “Out of regard for the others things had better go on as they are. ”

“ It greatly annoyed Ethel Cliffe, who lived in The Park, and was a daughter of Sir Joseph, three times Mayor of Laxton, that in looks and popularity she had to yield to the offspring of very much humbler parents, who lived in quite an obscure part of the borough. But it had to be. Year by year the cuckoo that had entered the nest grew in beauty and favor, while the legitimate denizens of Broadwood House could only bite their lips and marvel. In the opinion of Ethel Cliffe and her peers, old Dame Nature must be a perfect idiot not to know her business a bit better. ”

“ She was out and away the most wonderful creature ever seen in that part of Laxton. It was hard to forgive her for carrying her head in the way she did, yet it somehow added still greater piquancy to a personality that simply haunted the manly bosoms of the neighborhood. But her aloofness was felt to be such a reflection upon Michael himself, that at last that warrior was moved to a desperate course.
He took the extreme measure of offering Miss Kelly his best blood alley. But it was in vain; Miss Kelly would have none of his best blood alley, or of its owner. ”

“ There never was such a child. Eliza held that opinion from the first, and godmother Harriet shared it. Aunt Annie was more discreet, but her actions expressed an interest of the highest kind. From the moment she had committed herself to the memorable statement that “Whoever’s child she may be, she is not a child of common parents,” there was really no more to be said. But as the months passed and Mary became Mary yet more definitely, the old lady, to the astonishment of both her nieces, began to identify herself intimately with the fortunes of the creature. ”

“ Truth to tell, she and her mother had had a shrewd suspicion of Mary’s ignorance. They had learned from Wrexham that Jack Dinneford, owing to a series of deaths in a great family, had quite unexpectedly become the next-of-kin to the Duke of Bridport. Such a prospect was so little to the young man’s taste that as far as he could he always made a point of keeping the skeleton out of sight. Rightly or wrongly he had not said a word to Mary on the subject, and she with a pride a little overstrained, no doubt, had allowed herself no curiosity in regard to his worldly status. ”

“ In the cool, appraising eyes of Sarah, Blanche, and Marjorie, the bold Sir Dugald was set down already as a freak of nature. They were not used to that sort of person at Bridport House. Unfortunately such an attitude forbade any just perception of the man himself. His career was still in the making, and in the view of keen but unsympathetic observers who had followed it from the start, the hapless Muriel had been marked down in order that she might advance him in it. ”

“ As I say, the aristocracy’s the aristocracy, the middle-class is the middle-class, and the lower orders are the lower orders—there they are and you can’t alter ’em. You don’t suppose I’ve reggerlated the traffic at Hyde Park Corner all these years not to know that.”
In the presence of such a conviction, the best of Jack’s arguments seemed vain, futile and shallow. Fate had charged Joseph Kelly with the solemn duty of maintaining the fabric of society, and in his purview, no argument however cunning, could set that fact aside. ”

“ And yet, hopeless as the position had suddenly become for these five people, the fates had one more barb in their quiver. And it was of so odd a kind that it was as if the stars in their courses were bent upon seeing what mischief they could contrive in this particular matter. A sudden sharp rap from the knocker of the front door fell into the midst of the growing embarrassment. Joe, welcoming this diversion as relief to a tension that was almost intolerable, went at once to attend the cause of it.
“As I’m a living man,” came a lusty voice from the threshold, “if it isn’t old Joe Kelly.” ”

“ Mrs. Wren shook a worldly-wise head. “As for being an outsider, a girl can’t be more than a lady just as a man can’t be more than a gentleman. And if you are a lady and have always gone straight you needn’t fear comparison with the highest in the land.”
Mary shook a head of sadness and perplexity.
“Somehow it doesn’t seem right to mix things in that way,” she said.
“It’s the only way that keeps ’em going,” said Mrs. Wren scornfully. “And well they know it. At least nature knows it. Look at Wrexham! Do you mean to say that his inbred strain wouldn’t be improved by Milly? ”

“ It was now Charlotte’s turn to frown. And this she did as a prelude to a frankness which verged upon the brutal.
“All very well, my friend, but perhaps you’ll tell me how it’s to be done. Neither Marjorie nor Blanche has the least power of attraction. They’re hopeless. And please remember this young man has been five years in America.”
“I would to God he had stayed there!”
The futile outburst of his Grace set Charlotte glowering like a sibyl. She was constrained to own that it was all intensely annoying. He was a common young man. He had none of the Dinneford feeling about things. ”

“ Such oblique but resounding blows in the sconce of Charlotte filled her with a fury hard to hold in check.
“What defense is possible?” Her voice was like a crane. “The facts are there to look at. Mrs. Sanderson’s niece has extracted a promise of marriage.”
The Duke turned to Harriet rather anxiously.
“I sincerely hope Lady Wargrave has been misinformed,” he said.
Harriet flushed.
“I only know”—speech for her had become almost intolerably difficult—“that Mr. Dinneford has asked my brother-in-law’s consent to his marrying her.” ”