Marion Fay: A Novel

"Of course we all wish he would."

"Fanny is as bad as he is. She has caught some of Hampstead's levelling ideas and encourages the young man. It was all Kingsbury's fault from the first. He began the world wrong, and now he cannot get himself right again. A radical aristocrat is a contradiction in terms. It is very well that there should be Radicals. It would be a stupid do-nothing world without them. But a man can't be oil and vinegar at the same time." This was the expression made by Lord Persiflage of his general ideas on politics in reference to George Roden and his connection with the Trafford family; but not the less was George Roden asked down to Castle Hautboy. Lady Frances was not to be thrown over because she had made a fool of herself, – nor was George Roden to be left out in the cold, belonging as he did now to Lady Frances. Lord Persiflage never approved very much of anybody, – but he never threw anybody over.

It was soon after the funeral of Marion Fay that Roden went down to Cumberland. During the last two months of Marion's illness Hampstead and Roden had been very often together. Not that they had lived together, as Hampstead had declared himself unable to bear continued society. His hours had been passed alone. But there had not been many days in which the friends had not seen each other for a few minutes. It had become a habit with Hampstead to ride over to Paradise Row when Roden had returned from the office. At first Mrs. Roden also had been there; – but latterly she had spent her time altogether at Pegwell Bay. Nevertheless Lord Hampstead would come, and would say a few words, and would then ride home again. When all was over at Pegwell Bay, when the funeral was at hand, and during the few days of absolutely prostrating grief which followed it, nothing was seen of him; – but on the evening before his friend's journey down to Castle Hautboy he again appeared in the Row. On this occasion he walked over, and his friend returned with him a part of the way. "You must do something with yourself," Roden said to him.

"I see no need of doing anything special. How many men do nothing with themselves!"

"Men either work or play."

"I do not think I shall play much."

"Not for a time certainly. You used to play; but I can imagine that the power of doing so will have deserted you."

"I shan't hunt, if you mean that."

"I do not mean that at all," said Roden; – "but that you should do something. There must be some occupation, or life will be insupportable."

"It is insupportable," said the young man looking away, so that his countenance should not be seen.

"But it must be supported. Let the load be ever so heavy, it must be carried. You would not destroy yourself?"

"No;" – said the other slowly; "no. I would not do that. If any one would do it for me!"

"No one will do it for you. Not to have some plan of active life, some defined labour by which the weariness of the time may be conquered, would be a weakness and a cowardice next door to that of suicide."

"Roden," said the lord, "your severity is brutal."

"The question is whether it be true. You shall call it what you like, – or call me what you like; but can you contradict what I say? Do you not feel that it is your duty as a man to apply what intellect you have, and what strength, to some purpose?"

Then, by degrees, Lord Hampstead did explain the purpose he had before him. He intended to have a yacht built, and start alone, and cruise about the face of the world. He would take books with him, and study the peoples and the countries which he visited.

"Alone?" asked Roden.

"Yes, alone; – as far as a man may be alone with a crew and a captain around him. I shall make acquaintances as I go, and shall be able to bear them as such. They will know nothing of my secret wound. Had I you with me, – you and my sister let us suppose, – or Vivian, or any one from here who had known me, I could not even struggle to raise my head."

"It would wear off."

"I will go alone; and if occasion offers I will make fresh acquaintances. I will begin another life which shall have no connection with the old one, – except that which will be continued by the thread of my own memory. No one shall be near me who may even think of her name when my own ways and manners are called in question." He went on to explain that he would set himself to work at once. The ship must be built, and the crew collected, and the stores prepared. He thought that in this way he might find employment for himself till the spring. In the spring, if all was ready, he would start. Till that time came he would live at Hendon Hall, – still alone. He so far relented, however, as to say that if his sister was married before he began his wanderings he would be present at her marriage.

Early in the course of the evening he had explained to Roden that his father and he had conjointly arranged to give Lady Frances £40,000 on her wedding. "Can that be necessary?" asked Roden.

"You must live; and as you have gone into a nest with the drones, you must live in some sort as the drones do."

"I hope I shall never be a drone."

"You cannot touch pitch and not be defiled. You'll be expected to wear gloves and drink fine wine, – or, at any rate, to give it to your friends. Your wife will have to ride in a coach. If she don't people will point at her, and think she's a pauper, because she has a handle to her name. They talk of the upper ten thousand. It is as hard to get out from among them as it is to get in among them. Though you have been wonderfully stout about the Italian title, you'll find that it will stick to you." Then it was explained that the money, which was to be given, would in no wise interfere with the "darlings." Whatever was to be added to the fortune which would naturally have belonged to Lady Frances, would come not from her father but from her brother.

When Roden arrived at Castle Hautboy Lord Persiflage was there, though he remained but for a day. He was due to be with the Queen for a month, – a duty which was evidently much to his taste, though he affected to frown over it as a hardship. "I am sorry, Roden," he said, "that I should be obliged to leave you and everybody else; – but a Government hack, you know, has to be a Government hack." This was rather strong from a Secretary of State to a Clerk in the Post Office; but Roden had to let it pass lest he should give an opening to some remark on his own repudiated rank. "I shall be back before you are gone, I hope, and then perhaps we may arrange something." The only thing that Roden wished to arrange was a day for his own wedding, as to which, as far as he knew, Lord Persiflage could have nothing to say.

"I don't think you ought to be sorry," Lady Frances said to her lover as they were wandering about on the mountains. He had endeavoured to explain to her that this large income which was now promised to him rather impeded than assisted the scheme of life which he had suggested to himself.

"Not sorry, – but disappointed, if you know the difference."

"Not exactly."

"I had wanted to feel that I should earn my wife's bread."

"So you shall. If a man works honestly for his living, I don't think he need inquire too curiously what proportion of it may come from his own labour or from some other source. If I had had nothing we should have done very well without the coach, – as poor Hampstead calls it. But if the coach is there I don't see why we shouldn't ride in it."

"I should like to earn the coach too," said Roden.

"This, sir, will be a lesson serviceable in teaching you that you are not to be allowed to have your own way in everything."

An additional leave of absence for a month had been accorded to Roden. He had already been absent during a considerable time in the spring of the year, and in the ordinary course of events would not have been entitled to this prolonged indulgence. But there were reasons deemed to be sufficient. He was going to meet a Cabinet Minister. He was engaged to marry the daughter of a Marquis. And it was known that he was not simply George Roden, but in truth the Duca di Crinola. He had suffered some qualms of conscience as to the favour to be thus shown him, but had quieted them by the idea that when a man is in love something special ought to be done for him. He remained, therefore, till the Foreign Secretary returned from his royal service, and had by that time fixed the period of his marriage. It was to take place in the cold comfortless month of March. It would be a great thing, he had said, to have Hampstead present at it, and it was Hampstead's intention to start on his long travels early in April. "I don't see why people shouldn't be married in cold weather as well as in hot," said Vivian. "Brides need not go about always in muslin."

When Lord Persiflage returned to Castle Hautboy, he had his plan ready arranged for relieving his future half-nephew-in-law, – if there be such a relationship, – from the ignominy of the Post Office. "I have Her Majesty's permission," he said to Roden, "to offer you the position of Registrar of State Records to the Foreign Office."

"Registrar of State Records to the Foreign Office!"

"Fifteen hundred a year," said his lordship, going off at once to this one point of true vital importance. "I am bound to say that I think I could have done better for you had you consented to bear the title, which is as completely your own, as is that mine by which I am called."

"Don't let us go back to that, my lord."

"Oh no; – certainly not. Only this; if you could be brought to think better of it, – if Fanny could be induced to make you think better of it, – the office now offered to you would, I think, be more comfortable to you."

"How so?"

"I can hardly explain, but it would. There is no reason on earth why it should not be held by an Italian. We had an Italian for many years librarian at the Museum. And as an Italian you would of course be entitled to call yourself by your hereditary title."

"I shall never be other than an Englishman."

"Very well. One man may lead a horse to water, but a thousand cannot make him drink. I only tell you what would be the case. The title would no doubt give a prestige to the new office. It is exactly that kind of work which would fall readily into the hands of a foreigner of high rank. One cannot explain these things, but it is so. The £1500 a year would more probably become £2000 if you submitted to be called by your own proper name." Everybody knew that Lord Persiflage understood the Civil Service of his country perfectly. He was a man who never worked very hard himself, or expected those under him to do so; but he liked common sense, and hated scruples, and he considered it to be a man's duty to take care of himself, – of himself first of all, and then, perhaps, afterwards, of the Service.

Neither did Roden nor did Lady Frances give way a bit the more for this. They were persistent in clinging to their old comparatively humble English name. Lady Frances would be Lady Frances to the end, but she would be no more than Lady Frances Roden. And George Roden would be George Roden, whether a clerk in the Post Office or Registrar of State Records to the Foreign Office. So much the next new bride declared with great energy to the last new bride who had just returned from her short wedding tour, having been hurried home so that her husband might be able to lay the first stone of the new bridge to be built over the Menai Straits. Lady Llwddythlw, with all the composed manners of a steady matron, was at Castle Hautboy, and used all her powers of persuasion. "Never mind, my dear, what he says," Lady Llwddythlw urged. "What you should think of is what will be good for him. He would be somebody, – almost as good as an Under Secretary of State, – with a title. He would get to be considered among the big official swells. There is so much in a name! Of course, you've got your rank. But you ought to insist on it for his sake."

Lady Frances did not give way in the least, nor did any one venture to call the Duca by his title, formally or openly. But, as Lord Hampstead had said, "it stuck to him." The women when they were alone with him would call him Duca, joking with him; and it was out of the question that he should be angry with them for their jokes. He became aware that behind his back he was always spoken of as The Duke, and that this was not done with any idea of laughing at him. The people around him believed that he was a Duke and ought to be called a Duke. Of course it was in joke that Lady Llwddythlw always called Lady Frances Duchessina when they were together, because Lady Frances had certainly not as yet acquired her right to the name; but it all tended to the same point. He became aware that the very servants around him understood it. They did not call him "your grace" or "my Lord," or make spoken allusion to his rank; but they looked it. All that obsequiousness due to an hereditary nobleman, which is dear to the domestic heart, was paid to him. He found himself called upon by Lady Persiflage to go into the dining-room out of his proper place. There was a fair excuse for this while the party was small, and confined to few beyond the family, as it was expected that the two declared lovers should sit together. But when this had been done with a larger party he expostulated with his hostess. "My dear Mr. Roden," she said, – "I suppose I must call you so."

"It's my name at any rate."

"There are certain points on which, as far as I can see, a man may be allowed to have his way, – and certain points on which he may not."

"As to his own name – "

"Yes; on the matter of your name. I do not see my way how to get the better of you just at present, though on account of my near connection with Fanny I am very anxious to do so. But as to the fact of your rank, there it is. Whenever I see you, – and I hope I shall see you very often, – I shall always suppose that I see an Italian nobleman of the first class, and shall treat you so." He shrugged his shoulders, feeling that he had nothing else to do. "If I were to find myself in the society of some man calling himself by a title to which I knew that he had no right, – I should probably call him by no name; but I should be very careful not to treat him as a nobleman, knowing that he had no right to be so treated. What can I do in your case but just reverse the position?"

He never went back to the Post Office, – of course. What should a Registrar of State Records to the Foreign Office do in so humble an establishment? He never went back for the purposes of work. He called to bid farewell to Sir Boreas, Mr. Jerningham, Crocker, and others with whom he had served. "I did not think we should see much more of you," said Sir Boreas, laughing.

"I intended to live and die with you," said Roden.

"We don't have dukes; or at any rate we don't keep them. Like to like is a motto which I always find true. When I heard that you were living with a young lord, and were going to marry the daughter of a marquis, and had a title of your own which you could use as soon as you pleased, I knew that I should lose you." Then he added in a little whisper, "You couldn't get Crocker made a duke, could you, – or a Registrar of Records?"

Mr. Jerningham was full of smiles and bows, pervaded thoroughly by a feeling that he was bidding farewell to an august nobleman, though, for negative reasons, he was not to be allowed to gratify his tongue by naming the august name. Crocker was a little shy; – but he plucked up his courage at last. "I shall always know what I know, you know," he said, as he shook hands with the friend to whom he had been so much attached. Bobbin and Geraghty made no allusions to the title, but they, too, as they were severally greeted, were evidently under the influence of the nobility of their late brother clerk.

The marriage was duly solemnized when March came in the parish church of Trafford. There was nothing grand, – no even distant imitation of Lady Amaldina's glorious cavalcade. Hampstead did come down, and endeavoured for the occasion to fit himself for the joy of the day. His ship was ready for him, and he intended to start now in a week or two. As it happened that the House was not sitting, Lord Llwddythlw, at the instigation of his wife, was present. "One good turn deserves another," Lady Llwddythlw had said to him. And the darlings were there in all their glory, loud, beautiful, and unruly. Lady Kingsbury was of course present; but was too much in abeyance to be able to arouse even a sign of displeasure. Since that reference to the "stumbling blocks" had reached her husband, and since those fears with which Mr. Greenwood had filled her, she had been awed into quiescence.

The bridegroom was of course married under the simple name of George Roden, – and we must part with him under that name; but it is the belief of the present chronicler that the aristocratic element will prevail, and that the time will come soon in which the Registrar of State Records to the Foreign Office will be known in the purlieus of Downing Street as the Duca di Crinola.