CHAPTER XXXVI.
_LADY ANN MEDITATES_.
It would have been difficult for Arthur himself to say whether in his
heart rage or contempt was the stronger, when he saw the lady he loved
walking in a field, turning and returning, in close talk with the
bookbinder-fellow. Never had she so walked and talked with _him_! She
preferred the bookbinder's society to his--and made it no secret that she
did, for, although evidently desirous of having their interview
uninterrupted, they walked in full view of the high road!
What did Barbara mean by it? He could not treat her as a child and lay
the matter before Richard! If a lady showed favour to a man, the less
worthy he was, the less could he be expected to see the unfitness of the
thing. Besides, to acknowledge thus any human relation between Richard
and either of them, would be degrading. It was scorn alone that kept
Arthur from hating Richard. For Barbara, he attributed her disregard of
propriety, and the very possibility of her being interested in such a
person, to the modes of life in the half savage country where she had
been born and reared--_educated_, he remarked to himself, he could not
say. But what did she mean by it? The worst of his torment was that the
thought, unreasonable as it was, would yet come--that Richard was a
good-looking fellow, and admiration, which in any English girl would have
been rendered impossible by his vulgarity, might have a share in her
enjoyment of his shop-talk about books. The idea was simply disgusting!
What was he to do? What could any one do? The girl was absolutely
uncontrolled: was it likely she would prove controllable? Would she
mind him, when she cared no more for his stately mother than for the
dairy-woman! How could such a bewitching creature so lack refinement! The
more he thought, the more inexplicable and self-contradictory her conduct
appeared. Such a jewelled-humming-bird to make friends with a grubbing
rook! The smell of the leather, not to mention the paste and glue, would
be enough for any properly sensitive girl! Universally fascinating, why
did she not correspond all through? Brought out in London, she would be
the belle of the season! If he did not secure her, some poor duke would
pounce on her!
But again what was he to do? Must he bring scorn on himself by appearing
jealous of a tradesman, or must he let the fellow go on casting his
greasy shadow about the place? As to her being in love with him, that was
preposterous! The notion was an insult! Yet half the attention she gave
the bookbinder would be paradise to _him_! He _must_ put a stop to it! he
must send the man away! It would be a pity for the library! It was
beginning to look beautiful, and would soon have been the most
distinguished in the county: lord Chough's was nothing to it! But there
were other book-binders as good as he! And what did the library matter!
What did anything matter in such a difficulty!
She might take offence! She would be sure to suspect why the fellow was
sent packing! She would know she had the blame of ruining the library,
and the bookbinder as well, and would never enter the house again! He
must leave the thing alone--for the present! But he would be on his
guard! Against what, he did not plainly tell himself.
While the son was thus desiring a good riddance of the man he had brought
into the house, and to whom Barbara was so much indebted, the mother was
pondering the same thing. Should the man remain in the house or leave it?
was the question with her also;--and if leave it, on what pretext? She
was growing more and more uncomfortable at the possibilities. The
possession of the estate by one born of another woman, and she of low
origin; the subjection in which they would all be placed to him as the
head of the family--a man used to the low ways of a trade, a man dirty
and greasy, hardly in his right place at work in the library, the
grandson of a blacksmith with brawny arms and smutty face--the ideas
might well be painful to her!
Then first the thought struck her, that it must be his grandfather's
doing that he was in the house! and there he was, at their very door,
eager to bear testimony to the bookbinder as his grandson and heir to
Mortgrange! Alas, the thing must be a fact, a horrible fact! All was
over!--But she would do battle for her rights! She would not allow that
the child was found! The thing was a conspiracy to supplant the true
heir! How ruinous were the low tastes of gentlemen! If sir Wilton had but
kept to his own rank, and made a suitable match, nothing of all this
misery would have befallen them! If her predecessor had been a lady, her
son would have been a gentleman, and there would have been nothing to
complain of! To lady Ann, her feeling had the force of a conviction, that
the son of Robina Armour could not, in the nature of things divinely
ordained, have the same rights as her son. Lady Ann's God was the head of
the English aristocracy. There was nothing selfish that lady Ann was not
capable of wishing; there was nothing selfish she might not by degrees
become capable of doing. She could not at that moment commit murder;
neither could lady Macbeth have done so when she was a girl. The absurd
falsity of her notions as to her rights, came from lack of love to her
neighbour, and consequent insensibility to his claims. At the same time
she had not keen, she had only absorbing feelings of her rights; there
was nothing _keen_ in lady Ann; neither sense nor desire, neither hope
nor fear, neither joy nor sorrow, neither love nor hate. Beyond her own
order, beyond indeed her own circle in that order, the universe hardly
existed. An age-long process of degeneration had been going on in her
race, and she was the result: she was well born and well bred for feeling
nothing. There is something fearful in the thought that through the
generations the body may go on perfecting, while the heart goes on
degenerating; that, while the animal beauty is growing complete in the
magic of proportion, the indescribable marvel that can even give charm to
ugliness, is as steadily vanishing. Such a woman, like Branca d'Oria in
the Inferno, is already damned, and only seems to live. Lady Ann was
indeed born capable of less than most; but had she attempted to do the
little she could, one would not have been where she was; she would have
beep toiling up the hill of truth, with a success to be measured, like
the widow's mite, by what she had not.
All her thoughts were now occupied with the _rights_ of her son, and
through him of the family. Sir Wilton had been for some time ailing, and
when he went, they would be at the mercy of any other heir than Arthur,
just as miserably whether he were the true heir or an impostor; the one
was as bad as the other from her point of view! For the right, lady Ann
cared nothing, except to have it or to avoid it. The law of the land was
to be respected no doubt, but your own family--most of all when land was
concerned--was worthier still!
It were better to rid the place of the bookbinder--but how? As to whether
he was the legal heir or not, she would rather remain ignorant, only
that, assured on the point, she would better understand how to deal with
his pretension! But she could not consult sir Wilton, because she
suspected him of a lingering regard for the dead wife which would
naturally influence his feeling for the live son--if live he were: no
doubt he had enjoyed the company of the low-born woman more than hers,
for she, a woman of society, knew what was right! She had reason
therefore to fear him prejudiced for any pretender! Arthur and he got on
quite as well as could be expected of father and son--their differences
never came to much; but on the other hand sir Wilton had a demoniacal
pleasure in frustrating! To make a man he disliked furious, was honey and
nuts to sir Wilton; and she knew a woman whose disappointment would be
dearer to him than that of all his enemies together! It was better
therefore that he should have no hint, and especially from her, of what
was in the air!
Lady Ann thought herself a good woman because she never felt interest
enough to be spiteful like sir Wilton; yet, very strangely, not knowing
in herself what repentance meant, she judged him capable of doing her the
wrong of atoning to his first wife for his neglect of her, by being good
to her child! Thinking over her talk with Barbara, she could not, after
all, feel certain that Richard knew, or that he had incited Barbara to
take his part. But in any case it was better to get rid of him! It was
dangerous to have him in the house! He might be spending his nights in
trumping up evidence! At any moment he might appeal to sir Wilton as his
father! But at the worst, he would be unable to prove the thing right
off, and if her husband would but act like a man, they might impede the
attempt beyond the possibility of its success!
One comfort was, that, she was all but confident, the child was not
already baptized when stolen from Mortgrange; neither were such as would
steal children likely to have them baptized; therefore the God who would
not allow the unbaptized to lie in his part of the cemetery, would never
favour his succession to the title and estate of Mortgrange! The fact
must have its weight with Providence!--whom lady Ann always regarded us a
good churchman: he would never take the part of one that had not been
baptized! Besides, the fellow was sure to turn out a socialist, or
anarchist, or positivist, or radical, or something worse! She would
dispute his identity to the last, and assert his imposture beyond it! Her
duty to society demanded that she should not give in!
Suddenly she remembered the description her husband had given her of the
ugliness of the infant: this man was decidedly handsome! Then she
remembered that sir Wilton had told her of a membrane between certain of
his fingers--horrible creature: she must examine the impostor!
Arthur was very moody at dinner: his mother feared some echo of the same
report as caused her own anxiety had reached him, and took the first
opportunity of questioning him. But neither of lady Ann's sons had
learned such faith in their mother as to tell her their troubles. Arthur
would confess to none. She in her turn was far too prudent to disclose
what was in her mind: the folly of his youth might take the turn of an
unthinking generosity! the notion of an elder brother might even be
welcome to him!
In another generation no questions would be asked! Many estates were in
illegal possession! There was a claim superior to the legal! Theirs was a
_moral_ claim!
