Castle Richmond by Anthony Trollope (good story books to read .txt) 📖

from their positions in life, are obliged to abstain from early marriage, or to look for dowries with their wives. But he, luckily, was not fettered in this way. He could marry as he pleased, so long as she whom he might choose brought with her gentle blood, a good heart, a sweet temper, and such attraction of person and manners as might make the establishment at Castle Richmond proud of his young bride. And of whom could that establishment be more proud than of Lady Clara Desmond? So he rode home without any doubt to clog his happiness.

But he had a source of joy which Clara wanted. She was almost indifferent to her mother's satisfaction; but Herbert looked forward with the liveliest, keenest anticipation to his mother's gratified caresses and unqualified approval—to his father's kind smile and warm assurance of consent. Clara had made herself known at Castle Richmond; and he had no doubt but that all this would be added to his cup of happiness. There was therefore no alloy to debase his virgin gold as he trotted quickly into the stable-yard.

But he resolved that he would say nothing about the matter that night. He could not well tell them all in full conclave together. Early after breakfast he would go to his father's room; and after that, he would find his mother. There would then be no doubt that the news would duly leak out among his sisters and Aunt Letty.

"Again only just barely in time, Herbert," said Mary, as they clustered round the fire before dinner.

"You can't say I ever keep you waiting; and I really think that's some praise for a man who has got a good many things on his hand."

"So it is, Herbert," said Emmeline. "But we have done something too. We have been over to Berryhill; and the people have already begun there: they were at work with their pickaxes among the rocks by the river-side."

"So much the better. Was Mr. Somers there?"

"We did not see him; but he had been there," said Aunt Letty. "But Mrs. Townsend found us. And who do you think came up to us in the most courteous, affable, condescending way?"

"Who? I don't know. Brady, the builder, I suppose."

"No, indeed: Brady was not half so civil, for he kept himself to his own work. It was the Rev. Mr. M'Carthy, if you please."

"I only hope you were civil to him," said Herbert, with some slight suffusion of colour over his face; for he rather doubted the conduct of his aunt to the priest, especially as her great Protestant ally, Mrs. Townsend, was of the party.

"Civil! I don't know what you would have, unless you wanted me to embrace him. He shook hands with us all round. I really thought Mrs. Townsend would have looked him into the river when he came to her."

"She always was the quintessence of absurdity and prejudice," said he.

"Oh, Herbert!" exclaimed Aunt Letty.

"Well; and what of 'Oh, Herbert?' I say she is so. If you and Mary and Emmeline did not look him into the river when he shook hands with you, why should she do so? He is an ordained priest even according to her own tenets,—only she knows nothing of what her own tenets are."

"I'll tell you what they are. They are the substantial, true, and holy doctrines of the Protestant religion, founded on the gospel. Mrs. Townsend is a thoroughly Protestant woman; one who cannot abide the sorceries of popery."

"Hates them as a mad dog hates water; and with the same amount of judgment. We none of us wish to be drowned; but nevertheless there are some good qualities in water."

"But there are no good qualities in popery," said Aunt Letty, with her most extreme energy.

"Are there not?" said Herbert. "I should have thought that belief in Christ, belief in the Bible, belief in the doctrine of a Saviour's atonement, were good qualities. Even the Mahommedan's religion has some qualities that are good."

"I would sooner be a Mahommedan than a Papist," said Aunt Letty, somewhat thoughtlessly, but very stoutly.

"You would alter your opinion after the first week in a harem," said Herbert. And then there was a burst of laughter, in which Aunt Letty herself joined. "I would sooner go there than go to confession," she whispered to Mary, as they all walked off to dinner.

"And how is the Lady Clara's arm?" asked Mary, as soon as they were again once more round the fire.

"The Lady Clara's arm is still very blue," said Herbert.

"And I suppose it took you half an hour to weep over it?" continued his sister.

"Exactly, by Shrewsbury clock."

"And while you were weeping over the arm, what happened to the hand? She did not surrender it, did she, in return for so much tenderness on your part?"

Emmeline thought that Mary was very pertinacious in her badinage, and was going to bid her hold her tongue; but she observed that Herbert blushed, and walked away without further answer. He went to the further end of the long room, and there threw himself on to a sofa. "Could it be that it was all settled?" thought Emmeline to herself.

She followed him to the sofa, and sitting beside him, took hold of his arm. "Oh, Herbert! if there is anything to tell, do tell me."

"Anything to tell!" said he. "What do you mean?"

"Oh! you know. I do love her so dearly. I shall never be contented to love any one else as your wife—not to love her really, really with all my heart."

"What geese you girls are!—you are always thinking of love, and weddings, and orange-blossoms."

"It is only for you I think about them," said Emmeline. "I know there is something to tell. Dear Herbert, do tell me."

"There is a young bachelor duke coming here to-morrow. He has a million a year, and three counties all his own; he has blue eyes, and is the handsomest man that ever was seen. Is that news enough?"

"Very well, Herbert. I would tell you anything."

"Well; tell me anything."

"I'll tell you this. I know you're in love with Clara Desmond, and I'm sure she's in love with you; and I believe you are both engaged, and you're not nice at all to have a secret from me. I never tease you, as Mary does, and it would make me so happy to know it."

Upon this he put his arm round her waist and whispered one word into her ear. She gave an exclamation of delight; and as the tears came into her eyes congratulated him with a kiss. "Oh dear, oh dear! I am so happy!" she exclaimed.

"Hush—sh," he whispered. "I knew how it would be if I told you."

"But they will all know to-morrow, will they not?"

"Leave that to me. You have coaxed me out of my secret, and you are bound to keep it." And then he went away well pleased. This description of delight on his sister's part was the first instalment of that joy which he had promised himself from the satisfaction of his family.

Lady Fitzgerald had watched all that had passed, and had already learned her mistake—her mistake in that she had prophesied that no immediate proposal was likely to be made by her son. She now knew well enough that he had made such a proposal, and that he had been accepted.

And this greatly grieved her. She had felt certain from the few slight words which Sir Thomas had spoken that there were valid reasons why her son should not marry a penniless girl. That conversation, joined to other things, to the man's visit, and her husband's deep dejection, had convinced her that all was not right. Some misfortune was impending over them, and there had been that in her own early history which filled her with dismay as she thought of this.

She had ardently desired to caution her son in this respect,—to guard him, if possible, against future disappointment and future sorrow. But she could not do so without obtaining in some sort her husband's assent to her doing so. She resolved that she would talk it over with Sir Thomas. But the subject was one so full of pain, and he was so ill, and therefore she had put it off.

And now she saw that the injury was done. Nevertheless, she said nothing either to Emmeline or to Herbert. If the injury were done, what good could now result from talking? She doubtless would hear it all soon enough. So she sat still, watching them.

On the following morning Sir Thomas did not come out to breakfast. Herbert went into his room quite early, as was always his custom; and as he left it for the breakfast-parlour he said, "Father, I should like to speak to you just now about something of importance."

"Something of importance, Herbert; what is it? Anything wrong?" For Sir Thomas was nervous, and easily frightened.

"Oh dear, no; nothing is wrong. It is nothing that will annoy you; at least I think not. But it will keep till after breakfast. I will come in again the moment breakfast is over." And so saying he left the room with a light step.

In the breakfast-parlour it seemed to him as though everybody was conscious of some important fact. His mother's kiss was peculiarly solemn and full of solicitude; Aunt Letty smirked as though she was aware of something—something over and above the great Protestant tenets which usually supported her; and Mary had no joke to fling at him.

"Emmeline," he whispered, "you have told."

"No, indeed," she replied. But what mattered it? Everybody would know now in a few minutes. So he ate his breakfast, and then returned to Sir Thomas.

"Father," said he, as soon as he had got into the arm-chair, in which it was his custom to sit when talking with Sir Thomas, "I hope what I am going to tell you will give you pleasure. I have proposed to a young lady, and she has—accepted me."

"You have proposed, and have been accepted!"

"Yes, father."

"And the young lady—?"

"Is Lady Clara Desmond. I hope you will say that you approve of it. She has no fortune, as we all know, but that will hardly matter to me; and I think you will allow that in every other respect she is—"

Perfect, Herbert would have said, had he dared to express his true meaning. But he paused for a moment to look for a less triumphant word; and then paused again, and left his sentence incomplete, when he saw the expression of his father's face.

"Oh, father! you do not mean to say that you do not like her?"

But it was not dislike that was expressed in his father's face, as Herbert felt the moment after he had spoken. There was pain there, and solicitude, and disappointment; a look of sorrow at the tidings thus conveyed to him; but nothing that seemed to betoken dislike of any person.

"What is it, sir? Why do you not speak to me? Can it be that you disapprove of my marrying?"

Sir Thomas certainly did disapprove of his son's marrying, but he lacked the courage to say so. Much misery that had hitherto come upon him, and that was about to come on all those whom he loved so well, arose from this lack of courage. He did not dare to tell his son that he advised him for the present to put aside all such hopes. It would have been terrible for him to do so; but he knew that in not doing so he was occasioning sorrow that would be more terrible.

And yet he did not do it. Herbert saw clearly that the project was distasteful to his father,—that project which he had hoped to have seen received with so much delight; but nothing was said to him which tended to make him alter his purpose.

"Do you not like her?" he asked his father, almost piteously.

"Yes, yes; I do like her, we all like her, very much indeed, Herbert."

"Then why—"

"You are so young, my boy, and she is so very young, and—"

"And what?"

"Why, Herbert, it is not always practicable for the son even of a man of property to marry so early in life as this. She has nothing, you know."

"No," said the young man, proudly; "I never thought of looking for money."

"But in your position it is so essential if a young man wishes to marry."

Herbert had always regarded his father as the most liberal man breathing,—as open-hearted and open-handed almost to a fault. To him, his only son, he had ever been so, refusing him nothing, and latterly allowing him to do almost as he would with the management of the estate. He could not understand that this liberality should be turned to parsimony on such an occasion as that of his son's marriage.

"You think then, sir, that I ought not to